Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [97]
He admitted that, yes, he ran, but that people in Sweden didn’t do this as much as they did in America.
“You look a little like that tennis star, that Swede,” she said. “By the way, I’m Lauren.” Still running, she held out her hand, and, still running, he shook it. “Which god do you believe in?”
“Excuse me?”
“Which god?” she asked. “Which god do you think is in control?”
“I had not thought about it.”
“You’d better,” she said. “Because one of them is.” She stopped suddenly and put her hands on her hips and walked in a small circle. She put her hand to her neck and took her pulse, timing it on her wristwatch. Then she placed her fingers on Anders’s neck and took his pulse. “One hundred fourteen,” she said. “Pretty good.” Again she walked away from him and again he found himself following her. In the growing darkness he noticed other men, standing in the parking lot, watching her, this American with pinned-up hair, dressed in a running outfit. He thought she was pretty, but maybe Americans had other standards so that here, in fact, she wasn’t pretty, and it was some kind of optical illusion.
When he caught up with her, she was unlocking the door of a blue Chevrolet rusting near the hubcaps. He gazed down at the rust with professional interest—it had the characteristic blister pattern of rust caused by salt. She slipped inside the car and reached across to unlock the passenger side, and when he got in—he hadn’t been invited to get in, but he thought it was all right—he sat down on several small plastic tape cassette cases. He picked them out from underneath him and tried to read their labels. She was taking off her shoes. Debussy, Bach, 10,000 Maniacs, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
“Where are we going?” he asked. He glanced down at her bare foot on the accelerator. She put the car into reverse. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Stop this car.” She put on the brake and turned off the ignition. “I just want to look at you,” he said.
“Okay, look.” She turned on the interior light and kept her face turned so that he was looking at her in profile. Something about her suggested a lovely disorder, a ragged brightness toward the back of her face.
“Are we going to do things?” he asked, touching her on the arm.
“Of course,” she said. “Strangers should always do things.”
She said that she would drop him off at his hotel, that he must change clothes. This was important. She would then pick him up. On the way over, he saw almost no one downtown. For some reason, it was quite empty of shoppers, strollers, or pedestrians of any kind. “I’m going to tell you some things you should know,” she said. He settled back. He was used to this kind of talk on dates: everyone, everywhere, liked to reveal intimate details. It was an international convention.
They were slowing for a red light. “God is love,” she said, downshifting, her bare left foot on the clutch. “At least I think so. It’s my hope. In the world we have left, only love matters. Do you understand? I’m one of the Last Ones. Maybe you’ve heard of us.”
“No, I have not. What do you do?”
“We do what everyone else does. We work and we go home and have dinner and go to bed. There is only one thing we do that is special.”
“What is that?” he asked.
“We don’t make plans,” she said. “No big plans at all.”
“That is not so unusual,” he said, trying to normalize what she was saying. “Many people don’t like to make—”
“It’s not liking,” she said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with liking or not liking. It’s a faith. Look at those buildings.” She pointed toward several abandoned multistoried buildings with broken or vacant windows. “What face is moving behind all that? Something is. I live and work here. I’m not blind. Anyone can see what’s taking place here. You’re not blind, either. Our church is over on the east side, off Van Dyke Avenue. It’s not a good part of town, but we want to be near where the face is doing its work.”
“Your church?”
“The Church