The Undoing of Saint Silvanus

by Beth Moore

  “I’m sure Jillian has better things to do than talk to two old women anyway,” Olivia commented.

  Adella had to twist her tongue into a pretzel not to say, “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Oh, one more thing.” Olivia looked at Jillian but pointed her question to Adella. “She’ll know not to make much commotion by the windows, won’t she?”

  CHAPTER 11

  JILLIAN DECIDED TO VENTURE OUT of her suite on the third evening of her week at Saint Sans and make use of the laundry facilities. She emerged to find David with a young black woman who couldn’t have weighed 105 pounds soaking wet and the palest old woman she’d ever seen. All three had their backs against the wall in the hallway and were peeking around the edges of two windows at a spot in the garden.

  “Jillian! Finally!” David blurted out in a loud whisper, motioning her to his side of the window. “The mom’s flown the coop for a minute. You’ve got to look while you can! Have you seen them yet?”

  Jillian shook her head. She followed the direction of his index finger until her gaze landed in the middle of a perfectly shaped nest only a couple of feet from the glass. The setting sun reflecting off the deep-green leaves served as a spotlight on its miniature contents.

  “Ohhhhh. Wow.”

  “Mother calls them Virginia nightingales,” the elderly woman whispered.

  “But we call them Egg A and Egg B, don’t we, David?” said the younger woman.

  “That’s a fact. And we don’t know which is which. Jillian, meet Caryn. The phantom of Saint Sans. She only comes out after dark.” Caryn grinned and shoved him. “Think of her as our resident vampire.”

  “Hey, Jillian. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Caryn started to extend her hand but Jillian kept her arms wrapped tightly around her small pile of laundry. So the elderly woman must be Mrs. Winsee.

  “When will they hatch?” Jillian asked in a whisper.

  “I looked it up,” David explained, “and they incubate for just under two weeks, so we’re figuring sometime next week.” Jillian’s seven days would be up before then.

  “David’s all into it,” Caryn said with a grin.

  “She’s right. It’s pathetic.”

  “Looks to me like you’re all pretty into it.” Jillian barely got the words out of her mouth before Mrs. Winsee grabbed her by the arm and pulled her close, spilling the pajamas Jillian had borrowed from Adella onto the floor.

  The elderly woman put her icy hand underneath Jillian’s chin and raised it several inches. “See there in that tree, Jaclyn? Right there on that branch, as red as a geranium? That’s the daddy. He’s guard over the garden till those babies die or fly.”

  Jillian broke away from her and reached down for the pajamas. “My name is Jillian. Excuse me. I need to get some things in the wash if no one else is using it.”

  “I’ve gotta get back to the books anyway, y’all.” Caryn followed Jillian down the hall and then on past her as Jillian entered the laundry room.

  When she walked back through the kitchen, David greeted her again. “Jillian, how are you doing? What brings you back to New Orleans?”

  Jillian wasn’t sure she wanted to answer, even if she’d known what to say. Instead she changed the subject. “That old woman creeps me out.”

  “Which one?” David looked perplexed.

  It wasn’t until then that Jillian noticed Olivia sitting in a white wrought-iron chair on the back lawn near the trellis. Her back was to the house and Clementine was rubbing against her right ankle while Olivia scratched the tabby’s head. She had a fan in her left hand, steadily cooling herself with it. The sight of someone using a folding hand fan that was anything more than a stiff piece of paper on a Popsicle stick was foreign to Jillian. This was a real one. A black one at that.

  “Midsixties gets younger to me all the time,” David was saying, “so Mrs. Fontaine’s not exactly what I’d call old, but to you, I’m sure she’s ancient. What are you, midtwenties?”

  Jillian gave a noncommittal half nod.

  “But I’m guessing you mean the much older of the two. Mrs. Winsee.” He chuckled. “She’s harmless. Wait till you get to know her. She’s actually pretty fascinating.”

  “She’s crazy. And scary-looking.”

  David smiled warmly. “I wouldn’t say she’s crazy. I’d just say she spends a fair amount of time in a parallel universe. You’ll like her in no time. Just see if I’m right about that. Hey, I’m starving. What are you planning to have for supper? If I order a pizza, would you eat some of it?”

  She paused to consider. “If it was whole wheat crust maybe. Paper thin. Is their vegetable pizza organic?”

  David’s eyebrows rose. “Well, I tell you what. I’ll just call them up and ask them.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got some pepper salmon and tabouli in the freezer. I think I’ll just have that.”

  “If that’s what you’d rather do, would you eat here at the counter with me after my pizza gets delivered?” When she hesitated, he added, “Listen, middle-aged man here with no ulterior motive. I hope the women around Saint Sans could tell you that I’m not a freak. Not even desperate for friends.” He grinned. “Just offering some supper conversation.”

  Jillian shrugged. “I guess.”

  Since she refused to use the microwave, she pulled her frozen meal out of the oven piping hot within a few minutes of David’s pizza delivery. The Canadian bacon and pineapple hand-tossed pizza was deliciously aromatic. She blinked toward it with every bite of tabouli.

  “You sure you don’t want a slice, Jillian? It’s more than I can eat.”

  “I’m sure. This is great. Just what I wanted.” She’d scattered so many flakes of peppered salmon over her plate that, if a gust of wind had blown through the house, fish would have flown like feathers. By the time thirty minutes turned to ninety, Jillian had not succumbed to a single slice of pizza, but she’d eaten every bite of crust left in the cardboard box.

  Wonder of wonders, Olivia stopped by the kitchen island while the two of them were eating. All she said was “It looks like the two of you are getting along famously.” That neither one of them knew how to respond was a moot point because Olivia patted the corner of the granite counter, said, “Well, good then. Good night,” and proceeded to her room.

  Jillian emerged from her room at nine the next morning with her purse over her shoulder. David had insisted that she visit Jackson Square before her week was up. “What do you mean, you’ve never been? You can’t say you’ve landed in New Orleans if you haven’t stepped foot in the French Quarter, Jillian.”

  He’d jotted down exactly where to get off the trolley and then how far to walk. Jillian needed to get out of these four walls anyway. Maybe some fresh air would help her figure out what to do next.

  Adella was nowhere to be found, and Jillian’s stomach sank when she saw Olivia in the kitchen with her back to her. She knew there was no way to escape without being noticed, so she did what any grown-up would do. She feigned a cough.

  “Well, Jillian. Look who’s here.” Since clearly no one else was in sight, Jillian supposed Olivia was talking to Jillian about Jillian. How was she supposed to respond to that?

  “Yes, it’s me alright,” she answered with all the naturalness of a plastic knife.

  “I was just steeping some coffee. May I pour you a cup on your way out? I can see you’re in a hurry. I won’t keep you.” With the quick draw of the time boundary, Jillian wanted in the worst way to say no, but Olivia’s wide sleeve seemed to catch a waft of coffee and sweep it across the room so delectably that she caved.

  Olivia’s expression betrayed her bafflement at Jillian’s assent. “Well, now,” the older woman said, walking over to the large, open pantry. “I wonder where Adella keeps those Styrofoam cups she sends Caryn to class with?”

  “Actually, I don’t drink out of Styrofoam.” She’d be darned if she’d let Olivia cross her convictions, but still Jillian was determined to have what was in that glass pot if sh
e had to drink it out of scalded palms. “I have a moment. I’ll just take a regular mug if that’s okay.”

  Olivia looked at Jillian starkly, blinked a few times, and answered, “Yes, of course. Now, let’s see.” With this she reached up and opened a cabinet full of carefully placed cups and saucers of various delicate patterns.

  When Jillian heard the sound of the china cup clicking rapidly against the saucer, she knew Olivia’s hand was shaking and decided to soften a bit. “That smells good.”

  “A coffee drinker, are you?” Olivia’s question seemed sincere enough.

  “Oh yeah. I can’t remember when I wasn’t. Mom said she used to pour it into my baby bottles when I’d drained the milk and cried for more.”

  “Good mom, sounds like.”

  Was that sarcasm Jillian heard in her voice? She didn’t know whether to take offense or to say, “Thank you, she was.”

  “It’s all in the precise roasting. Ground coffee should be outlawed,” Olivia declared, looking as if she might actually shiver. “Whole beans only, ground to perfection no sooner than the water is boiling. There’s never been a drip coffeemaker in this kitchen. Never will be, not as long as I have my right mind. I’ve come close a few times to getting one of those expensive machines, but then again, I’d miss the French press. I still achieve a fair enough crema and it makes coffee the perfect weight. Heavy. Just like the cream.” Olivia laughed, deep and throaty like maybe she’d been a heavy smoker at some point. “For supreme enjoyment, fine coffee should only be poured into a thin-lipped cup like this one. Mugs belong in diners. But that should go without saying.”

  Jillian’s eyes bugged. She had no idea Olivia had that many words swirling around inside her—or that much passion about anything. And never mind that the Bride of Chucky had just chuckled. Before Jillian could object to the calories, Olivia pulled a carton of whipping cream out of the refrigerator and poured what looked like a full ounce of the white gold into a cup of coffee as dark and thick as mud. Without stirring it, she presented it to Jillian on a silver tray with china handles that matched the cup and saucer. Jillian reached for a spoon.

  “Ah, no, no, mademoiselle,” Olivia said as she tapped Jillian’s hand with a mock reprimand, touching her for the first time, if only with the tips of two fingers.

  It was love at first sip. And it was everything Jillian could do not to say so. Sigmund’s boasted its own special house roast and made a small fortune selling it by the half pound. She’d consumed gallons of it as she’d waited tables there, particularly over the last six months since, for all practical purposes, she’d given up eating. But never in her life had Jillian tasted anything like the brew Olivia set before her.

  After the first good swallow, she’d had to control herself from shaking her head wildly like someone who’d just thrown back a first shocking sip of bourbon. Instead, she picked up the delicate cup in the palms of both hands and cradled it like a baby until she rocked the last sip onto her tongue. She stopped just short of patting the bottom of the cup. Then she walked to the trolley stop nearly high.

  The weekday morning left sparse crowds on the square that day. A handful of plein air artists speckled the sidewalk with easels. The gray spires of the St. Louis Cathedral pierced a spotless cerulean sky. The church was impressive from an architectural standpoint, but Jillian had no interest in going inside a dead monument to man’s ignorance. It was enough that she was having to bum a room in a house that looked like a church. She passed the entrances to the museums David had told her about, the Cabildo and the Presbytère, but she wasn’t in the mood for museum strolling.

  The Mississippi River flowed thick and muddy in the midmorning sun, lapping the bank with a faded Coke can. It was a floating parking lot to barges on the opposite shore and, on this shore, to party boats that looked like leftovers from a long-lost era. Only the bridge to the distant right bore any similarity to the San Francisco world Jillian had escaped. She did not want to be here, not on this concrete bench, not in this eccentric town.

  She was in acute withdrawal from her phone, but after she’d texted her mom and told her she was going away for a little while, she’d turned it off to avoid Vince. He paid her cell bill, so it was only a matter of time until he’d have a record of every number she’d called. Her only choice was to kill it.

  Jillian hated leaving Allie in the dark, and as soon as she could figure out how to get a new number, she knew she should call and tell her what had happened. Jillian was in no hurry for that phone call. It would be the biggest I-told-you-so in the history of friendship.

  Have fun! That’s all her mother had texted back. I’m not having fun, Mom. Why can’t you just be a normal mother for once?

  They’d always been close, but not in a typical mother-daughter kind of way. Between the hardships of single parenthood and a couple of broken marriages, Jillian’s mom had been treating her like a peer as long as she could remember. On occasion, she came close to treating her like the competition. But Jillian loved her and took up for her ferociously. “She’s a free spirit,” Jillian always said. “She doesn’t live by the rules. To her, they make you common.” Jillian’s high school friends had been wild about her. Nobody else’s mom would let them party like that. Jillian never had the guts to tell her but she wished the surcharge wasn’t her partying with them.

  Blood was thicker than water, but not always thick enough to blanket every issue. Jade made pretty decent money at an art gallery in the theater district. She lived in a great condo that she’d let one man after another trash for her. She just couldn’t stand to be alone. Jade had no idea who she was apart from a man. But Jillian figured no woman did.

  If only she had a brother or a sister or even an aunt she could move in with for a few weeks. Or a dad. How was it possible to have so little family? Were they all inbred or what? Her mother was an only child and both of Jade’s parents were dead. To her knowledge, Jillian’s entire extended family consisted of one lone grandmother who put the strange in estranged.

  The bronze statue of Andrew Jackson, the centerpiece of the square, caught more of Jillian’s attention than anything framing the park. The appeal wasn’t in the hero of the Battle of New Orleans and the War of 1812. She had her own battles to fight and no hero in sight. It was the sculpture of his horse, reared back on its hind legs, that caused her to stare upward, blocking her eyes from the sun. Horses had fascinated her as a young girl, but as a woman dwarfed below the monument, all she could think about was being caught underneath that horse when its front hooves hit the ground.

  Jillian had been too lost in her thoughts to see the bum wander up to the concrete bench where she was sitting. “Dat ol’ man river.”

  “What?” she asked, startled.

  “He mus’ know sumpin’, but don’t say nuthin’. He jes’ keeps rollin’, he keeps on rollin’ along.” The man stood close enough to touch her, but his gaze was unfocused. She could see the dirt under the fingernails on his huge hands.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister.” Her heart was pounding.

  “Spare a few bucks fo’ a man down on his luck?”

  “Oh, Crawley, get on out of here. You are scaring that girl to death.” The middle-aged woman seemed also to come out of nowhere, but Jillian was so relieved to see her, she could have hugged her.

  “Here,” the woman said, pulling a couple of wadded dollars out of her shoulder bag. “Go get your breakfast.” She stuffed the money in the man’s hand, looking at him like he was more of a nuisance than a threat.

  He grunted and limped off, saying, “Ah gits weary an’ sick of tryin’. Ah’m tired of livin’ and skeered of dyin’.”

  “Don’t mind him.” The welcome stranger smiled at Jillian. “He’s harmless.”

  “You know him?” Jillian asked.

  “Oh, he’s been around here for years. The cops occasionally shoo these guys off, but eventually they all make their way back to their corners.”

  “Is he homeless?”<
br />
  “Well, if you asked him, he’d probably tell you that you were sitting in his home and on his couch right this minute.”

  When Jillian jumped up from the bench, the stranger laughed and asked, “Where on earth are you from, girl?”

  “California. Actually San Francisco.” Jillian was still clutching her purse and glancing over her shoulder.

  “Huh. You look like you’re from here. Look like you could have been raised here.”

  “Well, I wasn’t. I’m Californian. I still live there. I’m just here for—”

  “You sure you couldn’t lay a little Creole on me?”

  The woman’s forwardness began to make Jillian antsy.

  “Oh, now, don’t go getting offended. That would be a compliment to a lot of people around these parts.” She stuck her hand out. “My name is Stella. And who might you be, Miss San Francisco?”

  Jillian didn’t want to tell her, but she couldn’t think quickly enough to avoid it. “I’m Jillian.” She wished she hadn’t seen the woman’s hand touching the homeless man before she shook it.

  “Come on. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  Perhaps Jillian had been alone so much she was desperate for company. On the other hand, maybe this woman Stella was so forceful that she couldn’t say no. Whatever the reason, in less than three minutes they were sitting in a large, open-air café right on the corner of the square.

  “Two café au laits,” Stella said to the waitress. For a flashing moment, the woman’s brashness reminded Jillian of Vince. He almost never asked her what she wanted. He just ordered for her and it annoyed her. “You hungry, Jillian? Want an order of beignets?”

  “Maybe I’ll glance at the menu.” Jillian might have let Stella get away with ordering her coffee, but she intended to decide on her own food.

  Stella laughed. “Jillian, beignets are the menu. That’s all they’ve got. See the name? Café Beignet. Do you want some or not?”

  Jillian glanced around the restaurant and saw small mounds of powdered sugar on several tables that hadn’t been cleared and shoe prints caked in dusts of it on the concrete floor. “No thanks. I’m not hungry.”