French Silk (55 page)

"Will it help?"

"More than you know." He cleared his throat. "Say, I'm hungry as a bear. Want a burger?"

Her previous dates had always come in the form of a telephone call. She'd never consented without first getting parental approval. It felt deliciously wicked to be asked out and to accept without anyone knowing, even Alice and Lisbet.

"That sounds lovely."

Grinning, he took her hand. "If we're gonna be friends, I gotta know your name."

* * *

When school was dismissed for summer vacation, it became easier for Mary Catherine to sneak off and meet Wild Jack Collins where he preached daily on the street corners of the French Quarter. They ate cheap suppers that, as often as not, Mary Catherine paid for. She didn't mind. He was the most fascinating person she'd ever met. People were naturally drawn to him, from the seediest ladies of the evening to the shrewdest con men who worked the streets.

Jack regaled her with anecdotes that had happened during his seven years in the ministry. He'd had more adventures than Mary Catherine could dream of as he'd traveled from city to city, spreading the gospel, preaching God's love and salvation to sinners.

"What I need is somebody who can sing," he told her one evening. "Do you have any musical talent, Mary Catherine?"

"No, I'm afraid not," she said woefully. How glorious it would be to join Jack's ministry and travel with him! His sermons didn't resemble the formal, ritualistic masses she was accustomed to. Although the underlying message of Christ's redemption was the same, she doubted that her parents would approve of Jack's rough street manners or the fanatical doctrine he preached. That's why her meetings with him remained secret, shared only with her diary.

As the summer heated up, so did their relationship. One night Jack suggested they pick up Chinese food and take it to his place to eat. Mary Catherine's conscience gnawed at her. Going into a young man's apartment without a chaperon led to disgrace and destruction. But when she saw the wounded look on Jack's face because of her hesitation, she accepted and paid for their Chinese food.

The squalid, roach-infested building in which he lived shocked her sensibilities. Even the colored people who did yard work for her family lived in much better housing. The wretchedness of the place demonstrated to her exactly how poor Jack was, how unselfishly dedicated he was to his mission, and how materialistic her upbringing had been. Out of shame and pity, she began to cry. When she explained to him the reason for her tears, he pulled her into his arms.

"There now, honey. Don't cry for me. Jesus was poor, too."

That only made her cry harder. He held her tighter. And soon his hands were skimming her slender back and his lips were moving in her hair, whispering how much he needed her, how sweet she was, how generous it was of her to contribute offerings to his ministry.

His lips eventually reached hers. When he kissed her, she whimpered. It wasn't the first time she'd been kissed. But it was the first time she'd been kissed with her mouth open and felt the urgent thrusting of a man's tongue against her own.

Confused and afraid, she struggled out of his arms and rushed for the door. He caught up with her there, took her into his arms again, and smoothed his hands over her hair. "That's never happened to me before, Mary Catherine," he said in a hushed, rapid voice. "When I kissed you, I felt the Holy Spirit moving between us. Didn't you?"

She had definitely felt something stirring inside her, but she wouldn't have guessed it was the Holy Spirit. "I've got to go home, Jack. My parents will start to worry."

She had reached the bottom of the dim, derelict staircase before he called down to her from his doorway. "Mary Catherine, I think Jesus wants us to be together."

Over the course of the next few days, she filled her diary with agonizing questions for which she had no answers. She certainly couldn't take her problem to her parents. Intuitively she knew they would take one look at Jack in his cheap, flashy suit, see his frayed cuffs and dingy collar, and dismiss him as white trash.

Involving her friends would force them to divide loyalties, and she couldn't risk them telling their parents, who in turn would tell hers. She considered confiding in her aunt Laurel, who had an understanding and kind heart, but she decided against it. Aunt Laurel might also feel duty-bound to inform her parents of her newfound love.

She was confronted with a grown-up problem, the first one of her life, and it must be resolved in a grown-up fashion. She was no longer a child. Jack spoke to her as one adult to another. He treated her as a woman.

But that was the most intimidating problem of all. Being made to feel like a woman was a scary prospect. From the nuns at school she had learned all about sex: Kissing led to petting. Petting led to sex. Sex was a sin.

But, she argued mentally, Jack had said he'd felt imbued by the Holy Spirit when they kissed. Since the nuns who condemned gratification of the flesh had never experienced it, how could they know what it was like? Maybe the lightheadedness, the feverishness, and the yearning one felt when kissing weren't carnal reactions at all, but spiritual ones. When Jack's tongue had grazed hers, she'd felt transported. How much more spiritual could you get?

A few days after their first kiss, she was waiting in his apartment when he returned home. She had a supper laid out on the scarred table with the uneven legs. She'd stuck a candle in a pool of wax she melted in a saucer. Along with a bud vase of daisies, the candlelight helped to hide the ugly squalor of the room.

Feeling awkward, she said, "Hi, Jack. I wanted to surprise you."

"You did."

"I brought crawfish étouffée and … and a loaf of French bread. And this." She slid a folded twenty-dollar bill across the tabletop.

He looked at it but didn't pick it up. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He bowed his head as though in prayer. Several moments passed.

"Jack?" Her voice wavered around his name. "What's the matter?"

He raised his head. Tears glistened in his eyes. "I thought you were mad at me because of the other night."

"No." She quickly rounded the table so that it wouldn't be a barrier between them. "I was startled when you kissed me, that's all."

He pulled her into a tight embrace. "O God, thank you. Sweet Jesus, thank you." He ran his hands over her hair. "I thought I'd lost you, Mary Catherine. I don't deserve somebody as sweet as you in my miserable life, but I prayed and prayed that God would send you back to me. Let's pray."

He dropped to his knees, pulling her down with him. While they knelt on the grimy, peeling linoleum, facing each other, he offered up a prayer that praised her purity and beauty. The adjectives he used to describe her made her blush. Words of adoration poured from his lips, so that by the time he said, "Amen," she was gazing at him with wonder and love.

"I had no idea you felt that strongly about me, Jack."

He stared at her as though she were a vision. "If you don't look like an angel with that candlelight shining through your hair, I pray that God'll strike me blind before my next heartbeat."

God didn't, so he gingerly raised his hand and touched her hair. As he caressed it, he leaned forward and placed his lips on hers. Mary Catherine was disappointed that he didn't French kiss her again, but when he pressed his parted lips against her throat, she drew a catchy breath of surprise and delight.

Before she quite realized what was happening, he was nibbling her breasts through her thin cotton dress and undoing the pearl buttons.

"Jack?"

"You're right. We should move to the bed. God didn't ordain that I make love to you on the floor."

He carried her to the bed and laid her down. Leaving her no time to protest, he kissed her mouth while undoing her dress to the waist. The fabric seemed to melt as quickly as cotton candy beneath his hot, anxious hands. She was wearing a full slip and a stiff white brassiere as impregnable as armor, but he deftly got rid of them. His hands moved over her bare flesh in a manner that could only be described as carnal. The caresses felt marvelous, and awfully sinful. But Jack was a preacher, so how could it be wrong? He led people away from sin, not toward it.

While removing the rest of her clothing, he murmured about the beauty and perfection of his Eve. "God created her for Adam. To be his helpmate, his partner in love. Now he's given you to me."

The biblical references quelled Mary Catherine's moral concerns. But when Jack's pants came off and she felt the hard, urgent probing of his sex, she looked up at him with alarm and fear. "Are you going to bust my cherry?"

He laughed. "I guess I am. You're a virgin, aren't you?"

"Of course, Jack, yes." Her breathless avowal became an outcry of pain.

Lisbet had been right. It hurt like hell. But the second time wasn't so bad.

* * *

It was a rainy afternoon in September when Mary Catherine informed Wild Jack Collins that he was going to be a father. She was waiting for him under the arches of the Cabildo, one of their several meeting places. He had stopped preaching early because the drizzle had become a cloudburst.

Sharing her umbrella, they ran to his apartment house, where the smell of stale food and unwashed bodies made her queasy. Once they were in his room, stripped of their wet clothes, huddled in bed beneath the drab linens, she whispered to him, "Jack, I'm going to have a baby."

His wandering lips ceased their exploration of her neck. His head snapped up. "What?"

"Didn't you hear me?"

Nervously she pulled her lower lip through her teeth, not wanting to repeat the words. For weeks she had anguished over the possibility. After her second missed period, coupled with morning nausea and a constant shortness of breath, there could be little doubt.

She lived in fear of her parents' noticing her swelling breasts and thickening waistline. She'd told no one. Months ago she'd forsaken her friends in favor of Jack's company, and she didn't feel she could go to them now with a problem of this magnitude. Besides, girls who got into trouble were scorned and shunned by everyone, including best friends. Even if Lisbet and Alice chose to remain her friends, their parents would never have permitted it.

She had made her confession at a church outside her own parish. While whispering to the disembodied voice behind the screen, her cheeks had flamed and her words had faltered when she admitted to the lustful things she and Jack had done together. Confessing them to a real person, face to face, would be too mortifying to consider. So she'd borne the guilty burden alone.

Now, she lay in stark terror of Jack's reaction.

He got up and stood at the side of the bed, looking down at her but saying nothing. His glibness seemed to have deserted him.

"Are you angry?" she asked in a feeble voice.

"Uh, no." Then stronger, "No." He sat down and took her damp, cold hand between his. "Did you think I'd be angry?"

Her relief was so vast, she could barely speak. Hot, salty tears flowed from her eyes. "Oh, Jack. I didn't know what you'd think. I didn't know what to do."

"Have you told your folks yet?" She shook her head. "Well, that's good. This is our baby. I don't want anybody horning in on our joy until it's time."

"Oh, Jack, I love you so much." She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his face ecstatically.

He indulged her, laughing, then set her away from him. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"What?"

"We've got to get married."

She clasped her hands beneath her chin. Her eyes were radiant and glowing. "I was hoping you'd say that. Oh, Jack, Jack, no one's ever been this happy."

They made love, then spent hours entangled beneath the covers, planning their future. "I've been wanting to leave New Orleans for several months, Mary Catherine. I haven't left before now because of you." He stroked her tummy. "But with the little one coming, I've got to consider our future in doing the Lord's work."

He outlined his plans for augmenting the ministry. "Maybe I can find somebody to play an instrument and sing hymns. Some preachers have several people working for them. These helpers go into the towns first and set things up, like the disciples used to do for Jesus. By the time the preacher gets there, they've got folks hyped up about him. That's what I want. I wasn't meant to preach for pennies on street corners. Someday I might even get on the radio. And then TV. Now wouldn't that be something?"

Mary Catherine was touched by the evangelical zeal that burned in his eyes. "I'll do whatever I can to help, Jack. You know that."

"Well, the kind of help I need right now … never mind."

"What?" She sat up and shook his shoulder. "Tell me." He looked downcast. "I don't know what I'll do for money, especially now that I'll have two extra mouths to feed. I suppose my mission will have to be put on hold while I get a regular job."

"No! I won't hear of that. You must continue preaching, no matter what."

"I don't see how I can."

"Leave that to me. I've got some money."

Looking close to tears, he pulled her down onto his chest and held her tight. "I don't deserve you. You're a saint. Look at this crappy place. I've got to find better lodging in the next city." He gave the shabby room a look of rank disgust. "This place was all right for me. John the Baptist ate locusts and lived in the desert. But I can't ask my wife to make that kind of sacrifice."