Uncross My Heart (12 page)

She didn’t speak. We stood side by side staring into the semi-darkness. I felt oddly at peace and yet about to leap out of my own skin.

“Is there something going on between us?” I managed to say, unable to stand the physical suspense any longer, my body vibrating like the sustain of a violin note.

“Like what?” She didn’t look at me and her voice was seductively calm.

“We seem to be enemies, yet it doesn’t feel like that.”

“What does it feel like?” Still she didn’t look at me.

“It feels like…I need to go. I’ve really enjoyed being here.”

She turned her beautiful profile to look at me and her eyes once again held a languid longing. The air stopped stirring, clocks stopped ticking, I no longer breathed, and the world ceased spinning, all other moments in my life having served merely to reach this one. As if a spell had been cast over me, I pushed aside the mental images of my life, my father, my career and cared only about this woman and this instant in time.She put her lips to mine, sealing out duty and honor in favor of lust and the softest sensation, the most electrifying meeting of flesh I had ever known. Her lips were warm and throbbing, her small body up against me, passionate and provocative, and then she took over, pulling me closer, letting me know I had come to the altar but she would baptize me—wetness and warmth spreading throughout me, turning my soul inside out, to merge with hers.

“Take your clothes off.” She whispered the sterile command that jolted me back to my senses.

“And make love here in front of the fire?” I pulled back, stunned by how quickly she moved forward.

“We want each other. We’re two consenting adults. Why not?”

A million reasons embedded in my DNA. A million reasons
emblazoned on my soul.

I put myself in check
.
“I’m sorry. I was completely out of line. I don’t know what came over me. Forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” She laughed softly. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned?”

“Could I have my jacket?”

She hesitated and then located it for me, holding it against her chest, forcing me to stay a moment longer. Panic overtook me. I was in danger of leaning forward again and kissing her madly. I shut my eyes to wipe away any image of her and held out my hand for the jacket.

She handed it to me without a word and I left, nearly running from the room.

Moments later, slumped over the wheel of my car, I rested my head on the steering wheel and practiced breathing rhythmically. I had ceased being an officiant at mass, surrendering the duty, honor, and privilege of a priest as self-inflicted punishment for my inability to control my thoughts about women. And now, to make matters worse, I was unable to control my actions.

But I could never remember being this attracted to anyone in my life. Had kissing Gladys Irons suddenly switched on my desire to kiss another woman? Or being kissed by Sylvia?
Why did I go without
kissing a woman for decades, then suddenly kiss every woman in sight?

I must be going mad. Maybe I need counseling…or confession…or a
vacation. Something. I have to stay away from Vivienne. My God, what
in hell will she write about Claridge now?

My Wednesday class was attentive, as they always were when the air was filled with a smattering of sex. Even the most tardy had been on time today since the lecture was billed as the sexual angst of the saints. I found myself preoccupied with sex these days and was desperately trying to channel it appropriately.

“St. Augustine was wild about his concubine.” I lost my thought for a moment when the word “wild” came out of my mouth and Vivienne’s golden locks flashed before my eyes. Two young men murmuring in the back row brought me into the present. “He had a son by his concubine and would have lived with her happily, but her societal status didn’t make that possible. In addition, his mother wanted him to settle down and marry someone respectable and cease living in sin. Bereft, he left his concubine forever but could not stop his sexual cravings and ended up having relations with other women as he waited for his young bride to come of age. His writings speak of his self-loathing and put forth the idea that sex is a horrible, disruptive, bestial thing.”

“So St. Augustine was a sex maniac?” a boy in the back asked, tongue in cheek, simultaneous with his hand shooting into the air to be recognized.

“St. Augustine was an ordinary man.” More laughter. “He was an intelligent, tortured, sexual being whom we have dubbed ‘saint.’

Saints are people. You are the stuff of which saints are made.” Laughter ensued again but then quieted. I let the silence hang in the air. “In fact, I will take that a step further. If we are made by God, in the image of God, then we are pieces of God—all of us. A Yorkshire terrier is not as large and powerful as a bullmastiff, but he is still a dog.”

“Are you saying God is a dog?” A young girl’s voice leapt two octaves.

“No.” The same boy in the back laughed. “She’s saying bullmastiffs made Yorkshire terriers in their own image.” More laughter this time, to relieve tension, and I smiled at their joking.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have ventured into canine salvation. What I do know is that saints and sinners are the same people. And perhaps, in our most basic essence, God and mankind are one and the same.”

A chapel bell sounded and chairs scraped the floor, books slid across desks, and students rumbled out of the classroom. All except for the young girl whose voice had soared above the room. She hung around waiting, apparently, for the other students to leave.

“Could I talk to you privately?” she asked, and the worried look on her face convinced me to invite her to my office as I struggled to remember her name.

“Angela, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

I remembered her now—the student who was pregnant and recently had her baby amid speculation about the father. Who he was and where he was. I unlocked my office and offered her a chair.

“You think differently than most of the other professors.”

“Don’t let that trouble you. I think differently than most people on the planet.”

She managed a light laugh. “I’m a Roman Catholic.”

“Well, as you know, I’m an Episcopalian, which is Catholic lite.”

I tried to put her at ease.

“My baby is very ill—”

“I’m so sorry—”

“And in case she doesn’t make it, I want her to be baptized.”

“I understand. We’ll see that she’s baptized, and if you need help with her care—”

“I just need her baptized Catholic.”

“I’m certain Father O’Shane will do that for you. Have you spoken to him?”

“I’m not married to the baby’s father, so the baby can’t be baptized by a Catholic priest.” She broke down in tears. “My baby could go to purgatory because she’s—”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Angela, your baby will be baptized. Father O’Shane and I are friends. I’ll talk to him.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you.” Her anguish and joy intermingled—the oil and water of man’s religion adding to her burden rather than relieving it. She had already scurried out of the room before I could say more.

* * *

“You can’t mean that,” I said as I paced around Dennis’s cramped office, so covered in papers and folders and old lunch cartons that it troubled me to linger. Dennis sat silently, looking as if he were merely waiting for my drama to subside so his rational mind might get its point across.

“She’s not married,” he whispered. “She just told you that.”

“Who cares?”

“The church cares. Have you forgotten we serve a church? At least I do.”“That was a sanctimonious remark. Interesting that ‘the church’ wants everyone married while on earth but doesn’t really give a damn in the afterlife, telling us there are no husbands and wives. Odd how schizophrenic we’ve made God out to be.” I paced and fumed as Dennis watched. “What’s wrong with you? Just do the damned baptism. Please.”

“What’s wrong with
you
? How do you get off bending and tweaking and taunting the religious beliefs we signed on to support?” Dennis rose, for the first time seeming to be in a huff, and exited. Unable to summon the courage to throw me out, he’d obviously chosen to leave.

Before I could go after him, my cell phone rang and Eleanor ordered me to appear before Hightower. This time I had no idea what I’d done, and I was too upset over Dennis’s betrayal to really care.

I strode across the open courtyard, the wind whipping around me and autumn leaves beginning to coast to the ground like golden ships coming into harbor. It seemed to “blow the stink off me,” as Eleonor would say, and I was winded, but less angry, by the time I arrived at Hightower’s office door.

“What now?” I asked Eleonor.

“I don’t know, but you’re lookin’ so good you
got
to be up to somethin’ and I wish you would share.” She grinned as she buzzed his office to tell him I had arrived. I opened his door upon hearing that I was to enter.

For once, Hightower wasn’t pacing but was planted firmly in the middle of the room, a big smile on his face. “Dr. Westbrooke, I just wanted to call you over personally and tell you ‘great job.’” My look of dismay made him chuckle. “True, doesn’t happen often.”

“What have I done to warrant this praise?”

“Vivienne Wilde contacted me. Yes.” He punctuated his surprise.

“Called me on the phone. Said she wanted me to know what a fine representative of the school I had in you. We talked for fifteen minutes and I think her siege on our seminary has ended. I don’t know what you said or did, but it worked.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, well done. Despite the headaches you often provide me, when you set your mind to it, you do this institution proud.” He shook my hand and I gave him a warm smile before exiting, believing that when things are moving in the right direction, I should never overstay my welcome.

“How did it go?” Eleonor asked.

“Okay. Do you know a Catholic priest who’s friendly to Claridge and might baptize an illegitimate child?”

“Are you pregnant?”

“No. But thanks for asking.”

I stormed off toward the McGuire Building, where my office was tucked away at the end of a long corridor. As I approached, I saw something low to the ground propped up against the locked door. As I got closer, golden orange roses came into view. I stopped a few yards from them as if they were explosives. A young girl swept past me.

“Pretty flowers, Dr. Westbrooke.”

Robbie Renthrow, a young seminary student, was right behind her and, emboldened by her presence, added, “Ooh, long stems, serious stuff.”

I gave him a smirk and quickly unlocked my office door, scooping up the flowers to get them out of sight. I set them on my desk and marveled at the intense hue of each perfect petal, a veritable blaze of orange—the color of roses and sunsets…and wild longing.

Uncharacteristically, I went back and clicked the dead bolt on my door, leaving me alone with the fragrant blossoms. It had been a long time since someone sent me flowers.

I tentatively reached for the card and opened it, then sighed when I saw the large
W
on the cover. Inside only one line.
Will you call me?

Viv.
The diminutive was suddenly so intimate.
Viv.
I smiled at nothing or perhaps at everything. She wasn’t one to say, “Had a great time, enjoyed the moment, loved being with you.” No, she was on to the next moment.
There can’t be a next moment,
my mind snapped nervously at me.The phone rang, nearly startling me out of my shoes. I picked up immediately and tried to modulate my voice to one of academic professionalism. “Dr. Westbrooke.”

“I’m so glad you’re there. I was trying to compose just the right voice-mail message and couldn’t quite come up with something that would be appropriate for anyone to hear and yet convey my desires,” Vivienne said.

“The flowers are really beautiful. They’re the color of your hair.”

I said the last part involuntarily. Even I could hear that my voice was dreamy.

“Not by accident.”

I chuckled at how openly she owned her actions.

“The color chosen to remind you of what you so unceremoniously deserted. Have dinner with me and, this time, don’t run away.” I made a sound to protest and she quickly cut me off. “Lunch, then.”

“Viv—” I could barely breathe but I was determined not to fall under her spell again, which meant staying away from her, at least in private settings.

“Coffee, ten o’clock at Cavendar’s, the deli near your campus, outside table in the open air, in full view of the world. You’ll be perfectly safe.” She was mocking me, but somehow she had tapped into my core. I didn’t feel safe around her. I felt I might, well, do damned near anything.

“Viv?” Silence. “I do appreciate the roses.”

“Appreciate is good. But did your heart beat faster when you saw them? That’s the effect I was striving for.” My heart was beating faster right now and I swooned back in my chair, weak all over. She told me good-bye in a sultry fashion, leaving the endorphins in my body to sort out what to do next.

A timid knock interrupted my mental confusion, and I scrambled to my feet and unlocked the dead bolt to find Angela in the doorway.

“My mother called and my baby is worse.”

“I’m so sorry, what does the doctor say?”

She held her hand up as if to say she couldn’t talk about that now.

“Please, I can’t sleep at night knowing she is not baptized. Have you talked to Father O’Shane?”

“Angela, your baby isn’t going to purgatory because you didn’t marry her father. God loves every baby—”

“I know you want me to feel better, but that isn’t the way—”

“Angela, God will not send your innocent baby to purgatory.”

“Don’t lie to me, when you know that’s not true. No one will help me.” She ran from my office as I called after her.

“Damn it.” I rang Dennis’s office and cell phone but he didn’t answer. In between counseling sessions and grading papers, I tried again.

He finally answered, speaking his own name by way of greeting.

“Get me a Catholic priest to baptize Angela Hernandez’s baby.”