The Divine Economy of Salvation (25 page)

“Why?” I asked. “You don't even like her.” Bella accepted her
accolades humbly, then addressed a section on the music sheets that she wanted to clarify. Sister Aline spoke to her intimately, holding the crook of her arm and pencilling in a series of notes.

“We could trick her, have some fun,” Rachel said flippantly. I don't think she had any idea what she wanted to do. And to be honest, I was intrigued by the idea of humiliating Bella, but I resisted.

“What's the point? She'd only tell on us,” I countered.

“No, she wouldn't,” Rachel replied. “She'd like to come. She'd just be too embarrassed to admit it.”

“Are you sure? She wants to join our group? I mean, she seems happy being by herself.” She did. The Sisters and teachers flocked around her like birds to a feeder. It was obvious Bella sought approval from the nuns and teachers more than she did from her peers. Bella had never shown the least interest in any of us unless there was group work to be done in class.

“Nobody likes being alone,” Rachel said. “I'll ask Francine and Caroline about it, and we'll discuss it at the next meeting.”

Sister Aline clapped her hands for our attention, and we all returned to our positions. I stood at the back, merging myself into the wall. It was stupid for me to be obligated to attend practice, I thought, if I wasn't allowed to sing, even if I was horrible. As I began to mouth the words of the Psalm, Bella's voice rose hauntingly into the air. She pleaded to the stained-glass windows of Mary and Jesus adorning the walls of the church for the mercy the Psalm claimed came with belief.

I wake with a pain in my side, forgetting for a moment I've shared my bed. Someone sleeping under the same blankets, a body beside me, the first time in twenty years. Christine's left hand, curled into a fist, pokes into my ribs. She makes mumbling noises as I sneak out of the covers to shower. By the time I return she is also awake, dressed in the same blazer, blouse, and skirt as the night before, spraying perfume in between her breasts and on her wrists.

“I'll shower later,” she says, ignoring me as I adjust my wimple. I don't want to wear my habit again, but it would be inconsistent after wearing it the day before. I am now ashamed over how I acted in front of her and the position in which I put Kim.

“Did you sleep well?” I ask Christine.

“No. But it's not your fault.”

In my single bed, Christine and I were practically on top of each other. I'd offered to get a cot, but she had refused. “Don't you think we should be forced to lie beside each other for once in our lives?” she asked. “I think you're right,” I replied. And we both smiled, because for once we had agreed on something. But what a night beside each other was supposed to accomplish hasn't come to fruition for me. Christine is too large for the small bed, and we slept spooned, my body wrapped by hers, her back right up against the wall. At several points in the night, I almost fell off the side.

“It's cold in your room.” I'm used to the cold; the tiles are freezing on bare feet, and the window lets in a draft. It snowed silently in the night, and the fresh white blanket glistens in the morning light, covering half the glass. Christine brushes dark-brown mascara onto her eyelashes over the layer from the day before.

“After tea this morning, I'll say my goodbyes and then let's go eat somewhere.”

I know Christine said she'd stay here only for the night, but I thought she might stay at a hotel in the city for at least another day. She checks herself in a portable hand-held mirror she'd given me and which I had placed on the dresser before her arrival. She pinches her cheeks and plucks a few stray hairs from the ends of her eyebrows.

“So soon?”

“Yes. Anthony is working overtime on a case and I really should get back.”

“But what about—” I pull the sleeves of my habit down over my wrists, irritated. I had decided to prove something to her this visit, and she's left me no chance. Kim had also begun to open up to her a little. I almost believed Christine might really offer her some advice on pregnancy that we childless women are not able to give. But she will leave Kim to us, just as her own parents have.

“I'm not going this year with you. I'm not going to visit Mother's grave. Anniversary or not.” She finishes brushing her hair and twists it up, holding the sides flat with bobby pins. “I hope you understand.”

“Yes. I understand.” She has only visited the gravesite on a couple of occasions. It is near the hospital where Mother stayed. My father has not been since the funeral. But I go every year on the anniversary of her death. I go without flowers. I kneel beside her stone, brush the snow from the cold rock, and recite prayers I know she would have liked.
I will sing of the Mercies of the Lord forever: Thy
Faithfulness to all Generations.
I recited this one last year; it was on a banner in the church at St. X. School for Girls. Sister Aline would sing that line to us whenever we were lax in our attendance or dedication in choir. She believed we were offering the world mercy through the beauty of song. Music is a holy activity, she told us. Art is one of God's ways of bringing part of heaven down to earth. I know my mother would have agreed.

“OK, Christine. Where do you want to go?”

“Somewhere neither of us has been before.”

“I'll have to think. I need to run some errands later.”

“We can just wander.”

I agree, although I'm not sure I can handle wandering without knowing where we are headed. I can't believe she is leaving so soon, when I haven't had the opportunity to share anything with her in the way she has with me.
Too many secrets between us,
she said. I know I must get rid of this heavy feeling in my side. I pack up the candle holder when Christine leaves to use the washroom.

WHEN KARL Z. THE THIRD
asked me outside the gymnasium turned dance hall to show me his father's World War II medal that he kept in the pocket of his dress slacks, I went, not to impress him, but to impress Rachel. She was busy disco dancing with a senior and they were both acting ridiculous, pointing their fingers in the air and gyrating their hips to the music, the boy with a small white carnation in his lapel, she with her red scarf scooting down her neck at every turn. But she was dancing with a senior, and Caroline and Francine had only managed to dance with freshmen or sophomores. Earlier we girls had taken a break to trade notes and giggles about the various boys we had met: who had the best hair, who wore cologne, where hands had roamed, how they had managed to get away or what they had allowed them to do. Francine had let a boy touch the curve of her buttocks and Caroline had let one kiss the nape of her neck. We approached the discontented teacher at the drink stand and asked for sodas. Rachel had a small flask of gin in her purse. She'd taken it from her father's suit jacket. She told us the altar boys Father McC. brought with
him for Mass stole the leftover wine from the chalice, so her theft couldn't possibly be as bad. We each had a single sip and forced the liquor down. I didn't feel much, but pretended to be slightly tipsy so I wouldn't have to drink any more. Rachel dumped the rest in the toilet. “I don't know how my mother can stand it,” she said as she flushed.

When Karl Z. the Third asked me to dance, I was thrilled but afraid. Disco was too fast for my taste, and I couldn't imagine myself tempting him with my static moves. Caroline had tried to teach me before we headed out to the dance, saying her sister, Aimée, had taught her and it wasn't difficult once you found the rhythm. I told her I couldn't hold a tune. “You don't have to sing,” she replied and I knew it was true, but I figured my deficiencies in one area would surely transfer to the next. Caroline plugged in her transistor radio, keeping it on low and adjusting the antenna when the signal faded. The four of us had spent Saturday afternoon in the washroom examining our hips and calves in the mirror, rotating our pelvises and swinging our arms, invisible hula hoops wiggling down our bodies. When a girl came in to use the toilet, Caroline would shut the radio off and we'd turn on the taps, pretending to wash our hands, though it was apparent we were up to something, our laughter giving us away.

“How do you know we'll be able to get in?” Francine asked.

“Aimée told me it's easy. She used to do it all the time,” Caroline replied, demonstrating how to bend my knees a little when I swivelled my hips. The previous weekend, a boy in the Market had approached us while we were sitting near a flower stand. He said he
recognized us from somewhere. We didn't know if he was lying or not. He said he went to J. High, which wasn't far from the Market, and they were having a dance next Saturday. We were immediately transfixed, imagining what it would be like to go. Caroline called her sister to find out if there was any way we could attend. “We'll just wait outside all together and some boys will ask us if we need tickets,” she explained. “They want girls who don't go to their school there. They're bored with the ones they already know. And they'll pay for them too. The tickets, I mean.”

“Foreigners,” Rachel joked, pushing her developing breasts together in her hands, appreciating the effects of a forced cleavage. “We'll be foreigners for the night. Exotic belly dancers and snake charmers.” She lifted her shirt, displaying her midriff, and tried to make her stomach undulate, grunting with frustration. “How do they get their skin so loose?” she said, letting her shirt fall back down.

“Ask Esperanza,” I said.

“Do you think she can?” Caroline asked.

“She's Spanish, isn't she?” Francine replied.

“Oh, I don't know,” said Rachel. “She was born here. I asked my mother once when she had an old Irish jig on the record player if she could still do any of the moves . . .” She gave Francine a silencing look. “She can barely remember the name of her grandmother's village, let alone the dance lessons she took here when she was young.”

“Takes practice,” continued Caroline, each of us imitating the other in the mirror, bouncing and jumping up and down.

“They might play older music. I don't know. Isn't it supposed to be a semi-formal?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Caroline. “But it's different at mixed schools. They don't bother with all the old stuff—waltzes and foxtrots and boring junk like that. They've got better music, let the kids pick the music, you know. Same as the clubs.” She hiked up her skirt so that a line of skin just beneath her buttocks was showing. “There's a whole other world outside of St. X. School for Girls. Here they treat us like nothing has changed at all. Sexual Re-vo-lu-tion never happened or anything.”

We had read about it in one of the
Playboy
magazines Rachel had stolen off a stand. An article entitled “Why the Sexual Revolution Was Good for Men and Women,” with photographs of women without bras, dancing in the open fields of California rock concerts, and muscular and tanned men running along the beach, playing volleyball. We practically peed our pants flipping through the pages of the magazine, hysterical with curiosity, never a picture without a woman in it, showing off a curve or staging a sexy pose. We imitated those poses for hours afterwards, asking each other “Do I look like her?” “Do I?” “Do I look like a tramp?”

“Did you grow up in a barn or something, Virgin?” Caroline jeered at my lack of knowledge about school dances.

“I guess so,” I replied, sensing my face turning red. They all knew my family had moved to Ottawa from the country. My old school had fewer than fifty students in it. “I've never been to a dance before.”

“Well, neither have I,” admitted Caroline. “Aimée took me to a club once, but she made me stay quiet so no one would ask my
age. And I wasn't allowed to dance. She told me I could just watch and tell Maman she had taken me to the movies.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and moved close to me, her hips rubbing against my waist. “Aimée dances like this,” she said. “She dances shameful, as Maman would call it. One of her boyfriends danced with me like this when she went to the store. He even kissed me, but I could hear Maman coming up the front stairs so I stepped hard on his foot.”

Caroline was so close to me I could see a tiny brown mole between her nublike breasts. I was uncomfortable and pulled slowly away. She twirled around the floor, paying little attention to my withdrawal.

“Living in a barn,” I told them confidently, “I've seen a few things.”

“Oh, have you, Virgin?” taunted Rachel, tuning the radio to reduce the static.

“What did you see?” Francine asked warily.

“Well,” I responded, turning Francine around so her back was facing me, feeling slightly dizzy at how I might shock them, “animals do it from behind,” and I jerked against Francine's backside, tripping her as she moved forward to regain her balance.

“You're gross!” cried Caroline.

“Not as gross as kissing your sister's boyfriend!” I snapped at her, helping Francine up from the floor and patting her shoulder to show I hadn't meant any harm.

“That's grown-up,” Caroline replied, her voice quivering. “He wanted me as much as he wanted Aimée. That's what I know.”

“Forget about him,” Rachel interrupted. “There are plenty of other guys out there for us to pick from. Five for each of us.”

Caroline turned up the radio and we practised for a while longer, then went to pick out our clothes. Rachel lent me a plain yellow dress and a blue scarf with a bit of silver glitter on it. I thought I looked like a pencil crayon, curveless and ordinary. Francine, with her mousy hair, had much more cleavage. I had two nipples that stuck out like purple grapes. I was sure the boys at the dance would know I was younger than them, and not in high school at all. Rachel told me to stop worrying and just think older. I pouted as Rachel applied lipstick to me, aching to kiss another as Rachel and Caroline had. Francine hadn't either, but I didn't want to be the last one. So, in spite of my initial disgust at Caroline's admission, I told myself I was grown-up and had kissed my older sister's boyfriend when she went out shopping. Since the boys at the dance would practically be men, I conjured up the only two girls I'd seen talk to men in a comfortable manner: Esperanza and Bella. But when I imagined imitating Bella, I laughed. She would never go to a dance and let a boy touch her. She would never be a woman in the way Esperanza was a woman. I felt satisfaction at the thought.