Back in the Habit

by Alice Loweecey

  “Do you enjoy drawing attention to yourself in such a spectacular manner?” Sister Mary Stephen whispered into Giulia’s ear.

  Giulia opened her eyes onto the shining statue of the Blessed Virgin. None of the replies that came to her mind could be allowed to pass her lips.

  “You may think you have special dispensation, but you’re about to be disillusioned.” The whisper added a note of glee to its resentment. “I have an appointment with Sister Fabian tomorrow.”

  Giulia murmured, “I wish you joy of each other.”

  “What?”

  Giulia turned in the pew and glared into Mary Stephen’s malicious face. “I said, you deserve each other.”

  Sister Mary Stephen imitated a beached fish.

  Giulia coughed to cover a laugh. “Close your mouth, Stephen. I can count your fillings.” She winced at the resulting snap. “How about a truce? It’s a feast day, everyone’s worked hard to make the Sisters from other states feel welcome and have a good time. I’m more than willing to get the best of you in another word-battle, but not today.”

  “Arrogance is going to be your downfall, and I plan to be there to see it.”

  “Only you think I’m arrogant. And underhanded, a kiss-up, disobedient, and undeserving of special favors.” Giulia made a show of thinking about the list she just invented. “I take it back. I do have an issue with obedience. Feel free to discuss that in detail with Sister Fabian. Right now all I want to discuss is whether or not we’ll get real eggs in honor of Saint Francis Day.”

  She stood and left the pew, walking fast enough to thwart any reply from Mary Stephen.

  The hubbub from the refectory filled the main hall, erasing Giulia’s two a.m. impression of a decaying Motherhouse haunted by her and Bart. She eased into the line at the food station near the door, smiling at Sister Arnulf as they passed each other. Sister Arnulf gave Giulia the same brief nod as she had in the hall after the kitchen raid. She didn’t see Sister Winifred, but she was quite prepared to wake her up if she had to.

  Rows of croissants headed the choices, followed by bacon, yogurt, grapefruit sections—and imitation eggs.

  Giulia set down her plate next to Sister Cynthia’s. “Can I get anyone refills? I’m headed for the coffee.”

  “Tea, please, one sugar,” Sister Eleanor said, intent on a square of beige paper.

  She returned with two cups. “I suppose I shouldn’t expect to get everything I hope for.”

  “The eggs, right?” Sister Cynthia said. “The croissants almost make up for them.”

  “You look like death warmed over.” Sister Susan returned to the table with two glasses of grape juice. “You’ve got a curl falling out of the left side of your veil.”

  “Blast.” Giulia tucked it in. “I got dressed too fast this morning. Don’t look at my stockings, please.”

  “I have clear nail polish in my room,” Sister Elizabeth said.

  “She made me go into the gift shop at the airport to buy it, too.” Susan buttered a piece of croissant.

  “You were going in there to buy T-shirts for your nieces.”

  “You just didn’t want the appearance of frivolous adornment to tarnish your ‘perfect Sister’ image.” She looked at her traveling companion. “Hah. Made you blush.”

  “I’ve got it.” Sister Eleanor unfolded her piece of paper. “Watch, everyone.” She turned the papier-mâché Saint Francis to face the rest of the table and passed out papers to everyone. “Start by folding the paper in quarters.”

  Giulia sliced her croissant in half and turned it into a bacon sandwich. In between bites of that and sips of coffee, she folded the paper into an origami Saint Francis along with the rest of her table-mates. When everyone made the last fold, Sister Eleanor gestured for them to hold up the results.

  “Your head is wrong,” she said to Giulia. Everyone chuckled, and after a moment, so did she. “That’s not at all what I meant. You folded the top corner, but forgot the half-fold after it.”

  “Okay, let me redo it.” Giulia unfolded her creation step by step until it lost its bulbous space-alien look. She sneaked in another bite of her sandwich.

  Eleanor dipped her “eggs” in ketchup and balanced them on dry toast before eating a bite. “Cynthia, that’s perfect. Do you teach art? You should.”

  “I did at one school when the art teacher went out on maternity leave. An old friend taught me Chinese brush-art painting and I passed it on.” She creased Saint Francis’ robe and set him next to the centerpiece.

  Giulia held up her origami. “He doesn’t look like an extra from Close Encounters now.”

  Susan laughed. “I think mine needs some arms.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “What he needs is human DNA. How did you give him two heads?”

  “I’m not sure. I think I was eating when you described those folds.” She drank from her juice glass and shook all the folds out of the paper. “Let me start again.”

  “I’ll help you, if Eleanor will approve mine.” Elizabeth set her paper figure on the table and demonstrated the first fold for Susan.

  Susan and Elizabeth bickered and laughed over the origami folds. After another paper saint joined the row, Susan leaned toward Giulia. “You’re being watched again.”

  Giulia didn’t look. “I expected as much.”

  “Did you two have another fight?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Elizabeth laced her fingers exactly like Giulia’s grade-school principal used to. “Sister, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of proper decorum.”

  Susan said, “Elizabeth, I’m used to you, but please don’t lecture strangers. No offense, Sister Regina, I didn’t mean that you’re strange.”

  “None taken.”

  “Susan, in the spirit of Charity I’m obliged to remind Sister Regina of our duty as Franciscans to exercise love and forgiveness to all.”

  “Elizabeth, you’re curdling my yogurt.”

  “It’s not possible to curdle—” Sister Elizabeth caught herself and huffed.

  “I agree with you,” Giulia said. “My goal had been to stay out of her way, but I haven’t been too successful.”

  Cynthia plucked Susan’s origami from her fumbling fingers and re-folded the mistakes. “We’ll all be returning home by Friday. That’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” She made a face. “I apologize.”

  “You’ve been watching too many G-rated movies,” Eleanor said.

  “The principal had me screen several animated features for the day care attached to our school,” Cynthia said. “One day half of my conversation came out in rhyme. My homeroom students spread the word, and by lunchtime they were answering Periodic Table questions in rhyming couplets.”

  “Be grateful none of them captured it on their phones and posted it to Facebook,” Giulia said.

  Cynthia’s eyes narrowed. “That would be the moment they discovered I’m not the harmless science geek they think I am.”

  Eleanor winked at Giulia and mouthed, “Yes, she is.”

  Elizabeth picked up her dishes. “I promised my former Superior General I’d take photographs of the chapel.”

  “It’s seven forty-five already?” Giulia stood. “I’ll see you all at Mass.”

  Susan caught up to Giulia at the dish carts. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but Elizabeth mentioned something to me after prayers.” She set her silverware in the smaller plastic bin. “You’ve seen how Elizabeth is. She can find an Imitation of Christ quote relevant to taking out the trash.”

  “Yes?” Giulia set her coffee cup in the sectioned drainer.

  “You’ve been spending quite a bit of time with the two Novices.”

  “Yes?” She kept her voice neutral.

  “Back in our day, the spectre of
Particular Friendship got pounded into us on a regular basis.” Susan’s normally confident voice hesitated. “I realize we only met on Sunday night, but everyone’s in each other’s pocket here. Casual events and conversations are going to get noticed.”

  They walked around the emptying tables. Sister Fabian passed through the doorway, Sister Mary Stephen half a step behind. Sister Arnulf and her two friends had pushed their chairs together in the corner farthest from the doorway and were gesturing and talking as though they were planning a tour of Pittsburgh’s most exciting attractions.

  When Giulia entered the crowded main hall, her only thought was how to get away from Susan so she could find Sister Winifred.

  Susan stayed next to her like a shadow. Giulia paused with her hand on the main stairway banister. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

  Susan’s posture changed from “waffle” to “discovered her spine.”

  “Rumors have been flying ever since Monday after breakfast. And now this morning you and Sister Bartholomew came late to prayers. You both look like you haven’t slept. Your habits are slightly awry.”

  Giulia’s brain went zzzt. Susan’s gaze held hers. Half a dozen Sisters passed them, throwing odd looks over their shoulders and hurrying upstairs.

  When the group had passed the landing and were clomping up the next flight, Susan said, “Elizabeth couldn’t sleep last night. She got out of bed to get a book from the fourth-floor library. When she saw headlights in the driveway that late, she indulged her curiosity.”

  Sister Gretchen not-quite-ran past them toward the chapel, violin case in her hand.

  Giulia remained silent.

  Susan lowered her voice. “She saw you and Sister Bartholomew coming up the driveway at eleven-thirty at night. If she hadn’t pulled aside the curtains at that exact moment, if she’d looked through the window half a minute later, the natural interpretation of the tableau in the driveway would have been you and Sister Bartholomew putting in extra hours to help the late arrivals come in from the cold weather.”

  Giulia stared at this woman who’d been gruff and funny and kind up till this moment.

  Susan reached out to Giulia’s hand resting on the banister, but aborted the motion before any physical contact. “You must realize what it looks like. You’ve been in the world for a year, and she’s new and vulnerable. In the old days we’d call it a ‘near occasion of sin’ and do whatever it took to avoid it.”

  Giulia’s phone vibrated and she found her voice.

  “I see that the cliché is true: self-appointed moral watchdogs really do have the filthiest minds. Tell Sister Elizabeth for me that if she thinks I’m a predator, she could use a dose of ‘the world’ herself. Apparently she’s unfamiliar with the basic Franciscan concept of helping people in need.” She returned a hard smile to Susan’s open-mouthed expression. “And both of you can keep your prying eyes out of my business. Happy Saint Francis Day.” She turned her back and took the stairs two at a time.

  “Sister!” Susan called after her in a low voice.

  Giulia pretended not to hear amidst the other voices in the hall and on the stairs. Narrow-minded, suspicious old maids! This is my earthly reward for trying to help overworked, stressed-out Novices? Veiled sexual predator accusations, of all things. Frank’ll be appalled when I tell him this one. Just wait till tomorrow when I drag Bart into Gretchen’s office and get these troubles out into the open. Too bad the visitors will be gone by the weekend. For once I’d like a moment of spotlight so Elizabeth and Susan can apologize.

  If anyone from her past happened to be on the stairs, she didn’t see them. It’s the hazard of one hundred fifty women living together. Nothing to do but pick at each other. No place to get some perspective—the kind that shows you how real people interact. If Susan ever took a close look at her rule-bound friend, she might discover a chink in her Armor of Righteousness. Just like that senator, congressman, whatever he was, who ranted against equal rights for gays right up until the day the paparazzi caught him coming out of a gay bar with his secret lover.

  Her phone vibrated again. She tripped over the frayed carpet where the stairs met the third floor. Four pairs of hands caught her.

  “Sister, are you all right?” “Oh, dear, that’s a huge run in your stockings.” “I brought some spares if you need one.” “Anyone have some clear nail polish?”

  Giulia caught her balance and smiled into four faces she didn’t know. “Thank you. I was thinking about five different things, none of which included watching where I stepped. I’m just going to change these ruined things.”

  She escaped into her room, making a mental list: Frank first, stockings next, Sister Winifred third.

  The telephone-handset voicemail icon and the tiny-envelope text icon both appeared in the upper left corner of the display. She flipped a mental coin and dialed voicemail.

  “Giulia, Pittsburgh PD owes you. They owe me, too, but getting your Novice to tell her story about smuggling illicit prescription drugs was the missing link in their investigation.”

  In the background, she heard his desk telephone ring.

  “Damn.” His voice sped up. “I’ll text you.”

  She hit the End button and scrolled to the message that had buzzed during her standoff with Susan.

  2 much 2 txt. Call me as soon as u get this.

  She crawled under the still-mussed bedcovers. The weight of the blanket knocked her veil askew, and she pulled it off before dialing Frank’s number.

  “It’s about time. Have you seen that priest today?”

  “Hello, Frank. No, I haven’t seen Father Ray. Why would I?”

  “Perfect. Did you get my voicemail?” His voice had a smushed quality, like he was holding the phone between his shoulder and ear. The sound of fingers pounding a keyboard punctuated his sentences.

  “Yes. Are you seriously going to tell me that Father Ray and the Novices comprise a big enough network to register on the Pittsburgh radar?”

  He snorted. “That sounds like an R&B band from the Sixties.”

  “Stop it. They’re scared young women. Need I remind you that one of them killed herself over this situation?”

  “When you get out of there, I’m going to give you a crash course in modern conversation. You’re talking like my grandmother again.”

  She stifled a growl. “Whose fault is it that I’ve regressed to my convent days?”

  “Guilty. We’ll discuss it later. Now listen. What’s happening there right now?”

  “Several presentations on the new, improved Community at eight. Controlled chaos on the Novices’ floor. A convention of Swedish Chef impersonators across the hall. Mass at ten. And if I figure out how to change this alarm, a twenty-minute nap before that for your long-suffering partner.”

  The keyboard noise stopped. “Are you kidding? You can’t sleep now. You’ve got work to do. What time does that priest arrive?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Use logic then. Does he show up just in time for Mass or does he hang around chatting people up beforehand? You must have seen him.”

  Giulia thought back to the last two mornings. “He arrives maybe five minutes early. We’re all in the chapel saying the Office—morning prayers—right up till Mass time.” The keyboard started up again as she talked. “He may arrive a few minutes early today because Mass is late and fancier.”

  “Okay, we’ll work from that assumption. Here’s the bones of it. Blake’s employee—remember I told you more about him last night in the coffee shop—had a hell of an income dealing MS Contin.”

  “Dealing what? Do you mean OxyContin?”

  “No I mean MS Contin. The version he’s been spreading on the streets is a timed-release cousin to the well-known drug. Even though Blake’s guy was one of the middlemen—and we think there are at least thi
rty of ’em—the priest was smart enough to give his dealers a slightly larger cut than is usual with these street networks.”

  “Stop. What about Sister Fabian?”

  “Beats me. I don’t know how he got her involved. Wait.” More tapping. “When did this Community merger happen exactly?”

  “Sometime during the summer of last year, when I was clawing through the last of the paperwork required to be dispensed from vows.”

  “Just a sec … Damn, I wish I had Sidney here. My Google-fu is not awake this morning.”

  “Where are you and what are you looking up?”

  “I’m at the central Pittsburgh police station, of course. I told you that earlier. Been here all night. I’m looking up why those Communities merged … Not this spreadsheet … I had it last night … nonprofit reports for … Aha. Got it.” A pause. “The other three Communities were either in the red or teetering on the edge of it, but the one in Pittsburgh started to pay off its arrears six months before the merger. Guess that’s why it won the location lottery.”

  Giulia’s fingers drummed the mattress. “I told you that last Friday, remember? The Communities had to merge or declare bankruptcy.”

  “Did you? I forgot. One to you, then. See the connection?”

  “I don’t …” Barely four hours of sleep had done nothing for her brain. “Wait … Sister Fabian’s using illegal drug money from Father Ray to pay off the Community’s debts?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Good Heavens.”

  “Yeah. Boggles the good Catholic mind.”

  “Good Heavens.”

  “Pull it together. The Pittsburgh guys are letting me tag along to the priest’s house when they search it. We’re just waiting for a judge to issue the warrant. I’ll bet my brother’s collection of Playboys that he’s got a pile of the stuff ready to distribute, and then wham. We’ve got him. I’ll call you when we’ve tossed his holy ass in jail.”