The Next Queen of Heaven-SA (27 page)

“Ah well, that’s a different story,” said Jeremy. “Is the rain letting up?”

“We’re gay men, you know,” said Marty. “You must know that, you’re not blind.” For an instant Jeremy thought that one of the sisters was going to chirrup a remark about happiness, but he saw them all—one by one—accept the public announcement, and Mother Clare du Plessix said, “Of course we’re not blind.”

“It hardly makes a difference—” said Sister Clothilde. “Do you think women who live in community all their lives don’t know about falling in love with persons of their own gender?”

“Well, it’s the hot talk show issue, isn’t it—lesbian nuns.”

“Friends,” said Mother Clare du Plessix, “let us accept that none of us here is either ignorant or stupid, but that all of us value our privacy. Let us keep the conversation to that which concerns all of us—”

Sisters Clothilde and Felicity looked faintly chastised; Marty looked as if he wanted to challenge Mother Clare du Plessix’s authority to lay down conversational guidelines. Jeremy said, “We’re more alike than we let on. Look at us. In our own ways. Communities of the same sex. Trying to get on in a world that makes us the butt of jokes. Trying to live together communally, sort of, in a world that prizes individual freedom above all.”

“Trying to live without children,” said Sister Clothilde.

“And some of us close to the end,” said Mother Clare du Plessix. At Jeremy’s expression she said, “Do you think I can’t see Sean’s condition, do you think that the cloistered are also clueless?”

“Why do you think we voted to welcome you back?” said Sister Felicity.

“There are never enough ways to be kind, and this was one that presented itself,” said Sister Clothilde. “Besides, we get bored with only ourselves. Don’t you?” Mother Clare stood up. She muttered a prayer nearly under her breath and the other sisters answered “Amen.” Before turning, she said, “In youth we accepted a life without children, believing that we would not die alone. But the modern times play a trick on us. God asks of us a final sacrifice. Nuns in our seventies and eighties, we find ourselves bereft of a younger generation, our sisters who would also have been our daughters. Sister Alice Coyne, alone in this neck of the province, cannot possibly fill the bill, however good she is. For gay men”—her pronunciation made it sound more French,
gaie
—“who are threatened by AIDS, who are dying young and childless too—it is not such a different situation. Perhaps, perhaps God brought us together.”

“I am not going to be a son to any nun,” said Marty. “Rosa Leftkowicz Rothbard of Flatbush would
plotz.”

“Be a brother, then,” said Mother Clare du Plessix.

“I’m a sister, Sister.” But he grinned.

“Small difference,” said Mother Clare du Plessix, shrugging. “I’ll be your brother, then, your big brother. And nag you to take care of yourselves. You hear?” She wagged a finger in Marty’s face. “Take care of each other. That’s the
regula.
That’s all it is.” As Jeremy drove home under a tormented sky, he felt Marty glance over at him. “That was bizarre,” Marty said at last. “I feel entirely too religious. Sort of slimed with it. This is fishing on a moonless night, I know, but I don’t suppose you’d like to come home with me and get out of those wet clothes? Get warmed up by getting naked?” Jeremy thought: It’s my talking of Sean’s sickness out loud that has pulled up the thought, the need, in Marty. I can feel it too. We’re all so damned proficient in reticence.

He thought of admitting—
If I only thought I could!
—but he knew that would uncork the subject of Willem. “I thought Sean was the only one crazy enough to fancy me.”

“Don’t give yourself airs.” Marty was curt. “Happens there are no other gay men in the car besides me. Sorry I mentioned it. Besides, I have to go to work in an hour. Can’t call in sick at the Craftique, not with Christmas coming.”

So much for brotherhood.

TABITHA HAD NEVER had much truck with nuns of any variety. Even during the period that her mom and Daddy Booth had suffered some sort of Catholic madness—later they called it the Roman flu—Tabitha had stayed the hell away from any of those witchy women, even the ones who had left the convent. You could always pick them out. Linda Pearl once made Tabitha choke on a Coke by standing over one of these escaped prisoners and miming giving the poor woman a Sinéad O’Connor scalping. Collaborator! There’s no possible camouflage. It shows right down to what kind of pocketbook you carry; you pick whichever one makes you look the most uncomfortable with it.

Therefore, Tabitha’s conversation with Sister Alice Coyne after mass had confused her.

The woman was possessed with an obsession to comfort Tabitha, and Tabitha didn’t want comforting. Nor did she want the phone number of Planned Parenthood, which she kind of thought Sister Alice might have been hinting at, but then Tabitha had always sucked at the game of Clue. “You need to find out for sure,” Sister Alice had said.

“I am sure.”

“What is the young gentleman going to do about it?”

“He didn’t say anything. I suppose he thinks I’m lying, or that it’s not his.” Sister Alice kicked a lower vestment drawer closed. “So you want to see Father Mike then. Shall I grab his calendar and make an appointment?”

“No.” Tabitha had already changed her mind. The idea of Father Mike was even more upsetting than the idea of Pastor Huyck. Mike and Huyck. What made everyone think that she wanted to talk to men? She only wanted to marry one, not talk to him.

“Look. You are in a bad way.” Sister Alice delivered herself of this pronouncement with relish. “Tabitha, I don’t know why you came to us instead of to your own pastor, but I’m not going to ask you to explain. I know how things are. The Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. An outdated notion in this era of the Uncertainty Principle and millennial disgruntledness, but never mind. You’ve come here because you’re in your life up over your head.”

Well, yes, perhaps, but wasn’t that the point about life? She didn’t say anything.

“You’ve got a possible pregnancy, you’re unmarried, and your mother is suffering some sort of confusion of the brain. I can see that your two younger brothers are not much help these days. Hogan and—is it Kurt?”

“Kirk, like in
Star Trek.”

“Yes.” Sister Alice didn’t look as if she knew much about
Star Trek.
“Tabitha, you’ve got to get to the root of your problems. You shouldn’t be going through this alone. Do I understand you have a series of Deadbeat Dads who were married to your mother? They should step up and help you with her, so you can concentrate on your own problem.”

“I already tried them.”

“Then when you get home, call me with their phone numbers. I’ll do a little advocacy work on my lunch hour today. No, don’t thank me, I feel like it,” she said, grinning like a bulldog that has cornered a chihuahua. “Nothing gives me a rush like doing works of mercy or menace.” But she was laughing at herself. “Share this burden. You needn’t carry it all alone, Tabitha.”

“If only I knew what my mother wanted,” said Tabitha.

“She wants to go back to her roots. Isn’t that what we all want?”

“I’m not sure Grandma Prelutski was a barrel of fun for Mom.”

“Your mom can’t take nourishment from her present day, she can’t help abusing her kids.

She just can’t help it. She wants
something
in her past. One of her husbands might help. They ought to. Look, I know this, Tabitha. I was an adopted child myself. I spent twelve years in an orphanage in Troy, New York, run by nuns. Then I lived with my adoptive parents for nine years. I loved them and still do, but in the end the nuns were my first home. I needed to go back.

We all do, especially in times of crisis.”

What do I go back to, thought Tabitha, but didn’t say anything. She just thanked Sister Alice and left the parish house, and did as she was told: called Sister Alice with the dads’ phone numbers. What a peculiar feeling to do as she was told. She didn’t actually mind it.

After homeroom and first period next day, she cut out. She tried to look as if she was running to vomit in the gutter, just in case Principal Jack Reeves was glancing out his window.

In fact, she felt like throwing up, just a little, and she might have been able to produce something if apprehended. But if Reeves saw her, he just let her go. She wasn’t worth the chase. She knew it herself.

She’d spent some time last night on the sofa thinking about roots, about her earliest memories. They seemed blank of mood, like stills from someone else’s childhood. Near as she could figure, her oldest memory was of Mom giving her a Cabbage Patch doll one birthday and then taking it back after Tabitha had ruined it by soaking its head in bleach trying to dye its hair.

Mom had hung the doll upside down by clothespins to the clothesline in the backyard. Bald, glassy-eyed, rained on, swarmed by little red ants, the doll endured. Tabitha had camped out beneath, too small to reach, too stupid to think of a chair. By the time Mrs. Scales had surrendered the creature, Tabitha had lost interest in it.

The curious thing is that she could see the picture in her head like a snapshot used in a Christmas card to summon up a year in the life of the family. But she couldn’t remember feeling guilty about her misbehavior, or angry at her mother, or sad for the doll. What kind of sorry oldest memory was that? Admitting the feebleness of her response made her feel kind of pukey.

Bijou Motor Supply. She stood in front of the door-sized glass case that had once displayed movie posters. Now there was a hand-lettered sign that said: DID YOU KNOW?

We Stock:

V B ELTS

S HEAVES P ULLEYS

R OLLER C HAIN

S PROCKETS D RILL B ITS

B AC-A-L ARMS

S-K T OOLS D UPONT P AINT

E MERGENCY B EACONS

We Make:

H YDRAULIC H OSES

We Press:

50 T ON H YDRAULIC P RESS

We Turn:

D RUMS AND R OTORS

What the sign didn’t say was:

We Supply:

IMPLEMENTS FOR W HACKING Y OUR M OM

But Tabitha supposed that they did, and so she went in and found something suitable, a heavy-duty staple gun with convenient handle. Tape a couple of Pampers around it and wrap that up in a towel. You got maximum grip, considerable weight, padding for safety. And, Tabitha thought a bit uneasily, if there was bleeding you could just dispose of the Pampers in the traditional manner. Jack Reeves wouldn’t dig up the septic system looking for a couple of bloody Pampers, would he?

She spent the rest of the day hanging out at the Crosswinds Shopping Center, shoplifting a little lunch and thinking of other unpleasant moments of childhood in which she might have wept, or cursed, or snuggled, or run away. Why had she been so passive? She felt increasingly disgusted at herself. When she got home that afternoon, Kirk wasn’t there. “Where is he, I thought it was his turn to babysit?” she said irritably to Hogan.

“He came home at lunch and was practicing scales. I think he’s converting so he can sing in the Catholic choir. I think he’s fallen in love with that faggot music director.” From her bedroom, Mrs. Leontina Scales began a wail, like the noon siren. “What, she’s going to join the choir too?” said Tabitha darkly.

“You know, it’s all these Catholics’ fault.”

It was so rare for Hog actually to converse that Tabitha stopped in her tracks. “Mom, cut it out,” she yelled, and turned and looked at her brother. Scarfing down a plate of cold beans, he stood against a metal folding chair he’d stolen from some community function or other. His butt bunched up over the back of it. He hadn’t shaved in a week and he looked like a high school graduation portrait of Fred Flintstone.

The bag with the staple gun was heavy but if she set it down it might clunk, and she didn’t want Hogan to guess what she was up to. “What do you mean, it’s the Catholics’ fault?”

“If the stupid bitch hadn’t gone over there, that Catholic statue wouldn’t have clobbered her.”

“Yeah but, I mean, statues aren’t like responsible parties.”

“Duhh. But she’s obsessed, she’s going there all the time. She’s possessed.” The Radical Radiant Pentecostals believed more in being possessed by the Holy Spirit than by anyone else; they were sort of snooty about Satan, as if Satan needed to be discussed only in lower-class churches.

“Daddy Booth called today,” said Hogan.

“You talked to him?” Hogan wasn’t much on the phone. Daddy Booth’s fluctuating delight and disgust in his son Kirk usually made Hogan indifferent to him. But Hogan was indifferent to everyone.

He shrugged. “Said some stormtrooper nun called him up and told him he had to come see Mom and take care of her.”

Tabitha put the shopping bag with the staple gun down on the floor gently. If she didn’t use it, could she bring it back for a refund? (Come to that, could she clonk Mom over the head with it and then bring it back for a refund?) “Yeah?”

“He said he wasn’t answerable to any stupid nun and he hadn’t been a Catholic in ten years or more and she should mind her own fucking business, in those exact words.” And Daddy Booth was the educated one among them. “So I take it he’s not coming?”

“He said he’d call Daddy Wally and Daddy Casey himself, and to tell you to tell the nun to get off his case or he’d get a court order restraining her.”

“I don’t think you can restrain a nun.”

Hogan shrugged. “Daddy Wally seems to have escaped.” He began to shove beans in his mouth forkful after forkful, even before he could swallow what he already had in there. It was as if he was trying to choke his own words. Well, Daddy Wally was his father. “His phone is out and his landlady said he moved without paying the last four months, and no forwarding address, and we’re supposed to pay it.”

“Daddy Booth called to tell you that?” Tabitha was irate. “Mom, shut up!” The siren again. “You know, it makes him look good to make Daddy Wally look bad.”

“I don’t care, don’t give a fuck how anyone looks. No stupid nun should be riling up the Daddies, however lousy they are. It’s those Catholics, they think they own the universe.”