Love and Honor
Disclaimer: JOAN OF ARCADIA is the creation of Barbara Hall and I have no legal rights to the story or characters. My only motive in presenting this story is to have fun and maybe share it.
Author's Note: this is a sequel to THE REVELATION OF JOAN, but you needn't read that story first. It is set in August 2005, after the spring in which Joan and Adam broke up.
Chapter 1 Adam in the Tumult
Adam Rove walked up the stairs to the church entrance. He was not a member and seldom attended, though when he did the art and ritual had a powerful effect on him. It was not an effect that could be put into words or built into a doctrine, but then that was true of a lot of things that affected Adam.
Today he had a specific reason for going. He had heard that Helen Girardi, his art teacher, had donated a picture to the church and that it had gotten a lot of attention from local artists. Some of the attention was not flattering, but that sort of backbiting came with the territory. Adam had not seen Mrs. G since school let out. That was not surprising for a student/teacher relationship, yet Adam had the distinct impression that Mrs. G had been avoiding him all summer, and that he had to make the effort to reconnect.
It was not immediately visible, of course. He finally had to approach a group of nuns. Had they been praying he would have respected their privacy, but in fact they seemed to be gossiping about somebody named Lily. One of them was saying "I suppose it's a way to keep her vows of chastity after all, marrying a man who can't do it--" then looked apprehensive as Adam walked up.
"I'm looking for a picture "St. Joan Rising above the Tumult". Can you tell me--?"
"Down that corridor." The nun pointed.
Adam walked in the indicated direction, and soon spotted the artwork on the wall, recognizing his teacher's style even without seeing the label. It was in two highly contrasting parts: the low half dominated by flames, with vague sinister figures wandering around like damned souls in Hell. In the upper half a vividly drawn figure of the saint floated against a beautiful, serene blue sky.
One part of Adam professionally admired the design and execution of the painting, while another part zeroed on the face of the saint.
Jane's face.
Of course, he told himself. Mrs. G had needed a teenaged girl to model for Joan, and had used her own daughter. But all the same it seemed that it was Jane, not the saint, who was floating up there, disdainful of the tumult. Disdaining Adam.
Of course she had reason for disdaining him. Last spring, after more than a year of chaste but powerful love affair with Jane, he had betrayed her with Bonnie McLean, acting on impulses that he still did not quite understand. And by that betrayal he had alienated Jane herself, but also Mrs. G, and his childhood friend Grace Polk.
Entering the main body of the church, he saw the confessionals, and was tempted to unload his guilt to a priest. But it seemed futile. There was only one person whose forgiveness mattered, and she wasn't granting it.
Adam ran out of the church. On the stairs he nearly ran into a man in priest's garb. "Hey, careful, young man. A month ago a girl fell down these very steps and had to be taken to the hospital."
Adam muttered a promise to be careful and kept going. He didn't have a vehicle; his father had been reluctant to loan him his truck ever since Adam had secretly used it for an unsuccessful seduction of Jane. But Arcadia was a small city, and it was only a few blocks walk to home.
He was walking on his own street when he heard a familiar voice call "Adam?"
It was Bonnie.
He looked at her long enough to confirm her identity, then walked past. "Go away."
"Adam, we need to talk."
"You may need to talk. I don't need anything from you."
No more speech, though he could hear footsteps behind him. Suddenly:
"I made a man of you! Doesn't that count for something?"
He turned angrily. "You did NOT make a man of me. You made a jerk of me. Not even that. I made a jerk of myself." He turned back and kept walking.
Another delay, then: "Adam, please. I need your help."
Something in her tone made Adam stop. Not the personal appeal, but the tone of desperation, which with Adam had reason to be familiar. A few years ago his mother had committed suicide. None of her friends or family had understood her state of mind, though many had realized in retrospect that she had been pleading for help. And this past spring had been stranded in a national park in a storm, and a total stranger named Ryan Hunter had come to his aid. And Adam was scarcely a stranger to Bonnie.
He faced her again. "OK, I'm listening."
She looked around at the neighborhood, and although nobody was around at the moment, she looked frightened. "I can't talk in the open. Your shed?"
Adam's shed was the place he built his sculptures and made his drawings. It was his inner sanctum, and he did not want Bonnie there. But if she was genuinely in trouble, his distaste scarcely mattered. "All right."
He walked down his driveway to his backyard, where the shed was located. Once he was in, he bolted the door. "OK, now we've got privacy. What is it? Don't pretend that we've still got a bond. I know you took another boyfriend after we broke up."
"I'm not denying that. A college guy. But he dumped me."
"So? Jane dumped me. Why is your dumping such a crisis?"
She put her hand on her belly. "Because he knocked me up. Adam, I'm going to have a baby."
(to be continued)