Missing Sisters -SA (3 page)

Only it wasn’t working yet. She had to suffer some more for God to relent and be merciful as everyone insisted He was. Sister Vincent de Paul, for all she knew, was no more than a lumpy corpse in a glass coffin at some side altar somewhere. Waxy cheeks and folded fingers.

A new veil to cover the bubbled scalp, the huge shoe done up with a fine flourish of its laces.

Maybe even studded in the heel and toe with taps, as the girls had always promised themselves they’d do for her. And outside the walls of the coffin, where the world still wriggled on, beeswax candles making that stiff, hot smell in the cold, stone-squeezed air. A few wildflowers in a jelly jar. But who was there to mourn Sister Vincent de Paul?

The good sisters of Mind Your Own Sweet Business wouldn’t answer Alice’s questions directly. “She’s safely at rest,” they’d say. “She’s resting comfortably.” What a crock! For one thing Sister Vincent de Paul
never
, but never rested, comfortably or otherwise. Grimace though she might at the strain to her joints brought on by her bad foot, she was an up-and-at-’em creature. If she was really
resting
, she wouldn’t be
resting
; she’d be twisting in the bed, clanging a spoon against the metal don’t-fall-out rails, knitting with her IV tubes out of boredom, boredom, boredom. “I have no mind,” she used to say in the kitchen. “God said I could either live on the street like a tramp, or cook in a convent. Not for me the classroom or the hospital!

Wrong kind of bedside manner for a nurse, and no brain to back it up! No brain to deal with the kids! So I chose. Do I mind? Do I mind my choice? Alice?”

“Do you mind your choice?” asked Alice.

“Not mo-yound.
Mind
. Do I mind giving up the hot-cha-cha?”

“Do you miiiiind giving up the hotchy-chotchy?”

“No I do not!” A thump of fist into a tired pillow of bread dough. “Not in the least! Don’t mind the choices, Alice; mind the details! The smell of this bread! Here! Stick your nose in it!

Right into it!” She’d demonstrated, coming up gluey and smelling raw as ripped, wet brown paper. “Mind the moments, Alice, and the choices don’t make a whit of difference.” But you
like
to cook, Alice wanted to point out. With her face plunged into dough, however, the time to make that remark came and went.

And what choice might Sister Vincent de Paul have had in resting comfortably? Or was that term just nuns’ hand-lotion niceness, like the Final Slumber, the Bus Ride Home to Jesus, the Great Convent in the Sky, the Eternal Sleep of the Just? Sister Vincent de Paul’s room hadn’t been cleared out; that was some consolation. While delivering linen to the wardrobe outside the sisters’ wing, Alice had stolen for a moment into forbidden territory. Sister Vincent de Paul had a Snoopy cutout on the inside of her door that Alice had made her last Christmas. And there was the door, open, Snoopy taped on it still. Inside: a veil on a hook, a tidily made bed, a bottle of Geritol on the windowsill. Not so much as a tendril of dust. They hadn’t taken down the Snoopy; that was all the proof Alice needed that, platitudes aside, Sister Vincent de Paul was still somewhere in the land of the living.

Staring for a minute at the brown linoleum floor, waxed so thick as to look an inch deep in water, Alice stood on her upside downness. If Sister Vincent de Paul was out there languishing, she would by Christ (a prayer, not a swear) bring her home through her own good works and elevation of spirit.

“Alice, you’re dawdling,” observed Sister John Boss from across the brown lake of the front hall. Alice leaped over to the stairs, stepping adroitly on her reflection’s soles.

This was Saturday, when the daily rules were somewhat loosened. Things were meant to be fun. And often they were. Today, for instance, some of the girls were going to practice their parts for a student production of the musical comedy
My Fair Lady
.

The story was a delicious one. (The whole school had gone to see the movie, which they loved because for once it wasn’t a Bible movie.) It was about a poor, young flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who couldn’t speak well to save her life. She sang pretty well, though, and a man who taught speaking lessons met her. He sort of fell in love with her, although the student production wasn’t emphasizing that part very much. He taught her to speak like a queen, however, and then she got to wear fancy clothes and go to parties. She was beautiful, like the Ugly Duckling all grown up. The girls of Sacred Heart were doing the female roles, and the boys of Saint Mary’s across the river in Albany were learning the male roles.

Alice, to everyone’s surprise, including her own, had been chosen to play Eliza Doolittle.

Alice’s speech problems gave her a convincing advantage in the part. But because it was such a long show, Alice only played Eliza up till Eliza learned to speak clearly. Then Naomi Matthews played perfect-tongued Eliza through the end of the play.

Sister Isaac Jogues was waiting in the rec room. The wreck room. The other girls were annoyed and showing it when Alice arrived, late. She hadn’t known they’d all be there. She had hoped this would be a strictly solo rehearsal. “Sorry,” she panted.

“Not sow-oww-wee, Alice,” said Sister Ike.

“Not celery, Alice,” said Rebecca Luke.

“Can it, Rebecca, or I’ll can you,” said Sister Ike. Rebecca made a face and popped her gum defiantly. Gum was allowed in the wreck room, but it still seemed disobedient and fun to flaunt it, especially when a nun was there.

Rebecca Luke, Sarah Corinth, and Naomi the-queen-of-the-hive Matthews. Alice had looked forward to being alone with Sister Ike and maybe pumping her about Sister Vincent de Paul. But the wreck room was now a zoo for prima donnas. They made Alice sick. Only after a minute did she notice little Ruth Peters, thumb jammed in her gooey mouth as usual, lying on the battered sofa and kicking at the pillows. Alice’s self-pity lightened up. Tough it out, she told herself. Kick out like Ruth. You can learn something from a four-year-old.

“All right, this’ll be noisy but I don’t know how else to manage it.” Sister Ike took over.

“Naomi, put the record on low. Practice that ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ section, where the chorus parts come in. It’s notes you’re after, not volume. Can you do that?”

“Alice can’t hear; she won’t be bothered,” said Naomi. “We can be loud.”

“I can too hear,” said Alice.

“Oh, sow-oww-wee, forgive me.” Naomi flounced away. Her star role was definitely going to her head. “Come on, Sarah and Rebecca. Let’s do this right.” The three intergalactic comets flowed away to the other side of the room. Alice noticed she and Sister Ike were suddenly in the empty half of the room.

“Now Alice, your part is just as important. I hope you understand this,” said Sister Ike.

She thumped out a C major chord to bring Alice in. “The show won’t work unless your character works. We’re all
very
pleased you are taking part. It shows real team spirit. And this is such a nice show.”

Across the room the record revolved steadily, thirty-three revolutions per minute. Julie Andrews from the turntable and Naomi Matthews in the flesh pealed in a duet. Julie Andrews sang with notes coated in ice, like the trees two weeks ago when the snow and rain joined up.

You could see and hear through her words clear to the other side. Transparencies. Even Alice could. Naomi Matthews, in Alice’s humble opinion, sounded like slush. When the violins and flutes arabesqued up to a jittery pinnacle, Naomi’s voice declared Eliza-the-character’s love of dancing by going shrill and high, all out of pitch, loud as a police siren.

Ruth Peters reared herself up on the sofa and said loudly, “She
can too
hear.” So they piped down a bit and adjusted the volume, though Naomi continued to make broad gestures of how she would dance in her white nightgown and sing with perfect diction, throwing her arms out like this, like this, like this. If that’s what I’m going to be like when I improve my speaking, thought Alice, forget it. I’d rather mumble.

“
Alice
.” Sister Ike knocked her fist against Alice’s surprised forehead. “Hello in there.

I’m playing the intro, and you’re supposed to be listening.” Sister Ike cascaded her fingers again in a little Highland fling across the keys. Alice attended. She opened her mouth and sang when the time seemed right. The song was a listing of everything that would make Eliza happy. Alice wasn’t very strong on remembering words.

“What I’d like blah blah blah some-time. Can’t re-mem-ber the rest some-time, blah blah blah—”

“Words, Alice,” sang Sister Ike, mouthing them exaggeratedly so Alice could read her lips.

“And life would be so heavenly!” She always remembered that line. The real song said it a different way, but the nuns didn’t approve of the word
loverly
around the home. It was Alice’s favorite line and she gave it gusto. Ruth Peters applauded. Naomi had turned her back, and her shoulders were shaking. There were twisted, bitten little smiles on Rebecca’s and Sarah’s faces.

“I can’t do this!” cried Alice.

Sister Ike went plowing on with the next verse.

“And life would be so heavenly!” sang Alice grimly. “Heavenly! Heavenly! Heavenly!

Heavenly!”

It wasn’t very heavenly, but that apparently was why they were practicing. They went over it six, eight, ten times, till even Ruth Peters was mouthing the words Alice couldn’t remember. Naomi meanwhile Rained in Spain. She practiced being Eliza Doolittle at the ball, flouncing out her imaginary gown as if dogs were nosing naughtily up at her and she had to shoo them away with little backhanded motions. Finally Sister John Bosco called for her over the PA and she left, her bodyguards bobbing along behind her. Little Ruth Peters quietly wet the sofa rather than get up and leave Sister Isaac Jogues and Alice. Ruth was sort of in love with Alice.

Sister Ike kept gamely on for some time. Finally she sighed, though, and closed the lid of the piano. “Look at the time. Alice, I guess you’d better go downstairs and give this sheet music to Father Laverty. He’s driving over to Saint Mary’s in Albany to say Mass for the boys this afternoon. He can deliver the music to Brother Antoine. Give him this envelope with cash in it, too. It’s the money we owe him for the record album.” Brother Antoine over there was the director of the boys’ roles. He’d be training Professor Higgins and Eliza’s father and the boyfriend, Freddy. Sacred Heart and Saint Mary’s would never be ready to put on this joint production in a month, of course. It was doomed to failure. Alice didn’t even know why she was wasting her time.

“Yes, Sister,” she said, and went downstairs.

The hall was empty. Most of the girls had gone for a Saturday matinee of some boring Walt Disney comedy with dogs and kids in it. Sister Francis de Sales was the only one around on the first floor. She was transcribing notes from a taped lecture and removed her headphones only when Alice made signs of
please
. If everyone could lip-read as well as
she
could, Alice thought smugly, the world would run very smoothly.

“What is it, Alice?”

“Father Laverty?”

“Father Laverty? Is that what you’re trying to say? He just left. You might catch him in the parking lot if you hurry.”

Alice hurried. The side door slammed behind her. Father Laverty’s little Volkswagen beetle was parked there. He must still be inside. Maybe he’d been in the men’s room on the first floor. He was the only one who ever used it. Alice often wondered who cleaned it, if anyone.

Nuns were too sensitive even to think about a men’s room, but there it was.

Music and cash envelope in hand, Alice headed back to the side door. But, with Saturday security measures, it had locked behind her. She picked her way through the snow mush in the parking lot around to the front door. No one answered the bell. Well, Sister Frank had the headphones on, of course. And the girls weren’t allowed to answer the door…. Besides, they’d probably all left for the movie theater. Where had Sister Isaac Jogues gone? Maybe she was running a bath to wash Ruth Peters.

Alice rang and rang, beginning to feel the cold. She had on an oversized blue cardigan, a nun’s reject sweater, which hung like a tunic over her hips, but even so. The air bullied her into shivering. Then she remembered the kitchen door and had gone around another corner of the building and down the unshoveled steps before she realized—yes—the steps were unshoveled because Sister Vincent de Paul was gone. Sister Vincent de Paul wasn’t there. Through the window of the locked door, the kitchen looked cold and dark, and the blue pilot lights were like squat vigil candles in their cast-iron cage. It was send-out-to-Neba’s-for-submarine-sandwiches for sure tonight.

Maybe Father Laverty had a key. She’d wait by his car for him to come out. But when she ran around again to the parking lot, the little rusty heap of Volkswagen was gone.

Gone! And without the music for the boys at Saint Mary’s!

Now Alice was in trouble for being outside the school without permission—Sister Frank’s bored directions wouldn’t stand up as approval. Alice knew this from experience. And she would get yelled at, also, for going outside without her coat in February. And for not completing the task assigned her—to deliver the music and money to Father Laverty. As if everyone wasn’t already cross at her for stalling the Harrigans, for annoying and disappointing them.

How hard it is to be good, Alice thought as she began to stride down the street away from the school. She didn’t hope for the fame of sainthood as Naomi Matthews did. She just wanted to tiptoe around the occasions of terrible sin, if she could manage it. Yet the world kept shuffling itself in ways that shoved her forward in the wrong directions. Like being spun through a revolving door and falling into the wrong company on the other side. “You’re not bad, Alice,” Sister John Bosco would say. “Not a bad girl in any instance. Not bad behavior. But unfortunate.

At times unthinking. Were you thinking?”

She
was
thinking! She was always thinking! As she caught the bus for downtown, paying with some change from the money envelope, Alice thought: I’m always at work in my brain. I just am thinking about the other side of things, not the way nuns think.