Agatha of Little Neon

by Claire Luchette

  You can’t make someone stay, the abbess said. You can’t force someone to change.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Frances asked the abbess.

  “I had to wait for the paperwork to process.”

  The four of us searched for information on the parish computer the next day. The place was called Getchell House. Women only. They offered a four-phase transition program lasting six months, including daily meetings. No one was asked to pray. Everyone had a private room.

  “But it’s not bright green,” Frances said.

  It wasn’t the first time we’d been left. In Lackawanna, women left us all the time. They chose lives outside the convent and left in the middle of the night. Every time, it hurt until it didn’t. We were never to speak of the women who gave up religious life, so I don’t know if the others prayed for them as often as I did, on my knees before bed every night. I pictured their faces one after another, until, at some point, other worries eclipsed them, and I forgot, when I folded my hands, to list their names.

  So we’d been left before. But precedent is no comfort.

  At dinner, Mary Lucille mashed the leftover baked potatoes and fried a long flap of flank steak. She gave Tim Gary milk and oatmeal. And when the food was on the table, she said, without fanfare, “Lawnmower Jill has moved out.”

  She found another place to live, Therese explained, somewhere more in line with what she needed.

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. I saw the ways everyone’s faces twisted up—some in confusion, others in hurt.

  Then Horse said, “Fuck. I knew it.”

  Pete said, “Which house is she at?”

  “We’re not at liberty to say,” Therese said.

  Horse said, “Did she say why she left?”

  Mary Lucille shook her head.

  “But she’s okay,” Tim Gary said. “Right?”

  “She’s okay,” Frances said, as much to herself as to them. “She’s okay.”

  * * *

  We didn’t want to talk about it: the sense that we had failed. There wasn’t anything good to say, so no one brought it up. But it was heavy in the air between us, in the glances and silences. When the lawn needed mowing, one of us said, “The lawn needs mowing,” and we stared at the grass from the kitchen window. Eventually Therese found an iron push mower in the garage, and she spent the better part of a Tuesday afternoon forcing it up the yard and back. She sweated through the back of her habit, her face red with the effort. “At least it makes no noise,” she said when she came inside.

  Everyone seemed to think we needed more of what we had. More art, said Mary Lucille. More exercise, said Therese. More Bible, said Frances.

  In bed I pictured Lawnmower Jill preparing to go: sorting through her things, balling up socks and underwear and corduroys and shoving them deep in her backpack. I wondered if she thought to pack toothpaste. Or a toothbrush. Or soap. But probably her new home gave her the things she needed, and none of the things she didn’t want.

  More listening, I thought. I thought we should probably listen more.

  29.

  At night, alone in the back bedroom, Horse couldn’t sleep. She’d lie awake for hours, and then if she fell asleep, she’d end up screaming herself awake. She dreamed about electrification and vaginal prolapse and polar bears eating her alive. At breakfast she’d relay every detail of her nightmares, her eyes wide, darting between our faces. She picked at her bottom lip with her fingernails, making it bleed.

  We were uneasy. We knew the trouble: Lawnmower Jill was gone. But we didn’t know what to tell Horse, or what to do.

  We pooled our money and bought a phone card so we could call Mother Roberta long-distance. She would know.

  We went to the parish office and sat around a table, and Therese punched the buttons on the speakerphone. We all stared at it. The receptionist picked up on the first ring, but after Therese asked for Mother Roberta, it was a while until she came to the phone.

  Mother Roberta would turn eighty-two soon. I tried to imagine her in her new home, but I didn’t know how to picture the place. In my head I defaulted to a place exactly like where I’d seen her last, our old convent in Lackawanna, with walls the color of mayonnaise.

  When she picked up the receiver, she didn’t need to ask who it was. “I was wondering when you’d call,” she said. Her voice was like a balm. “I’ve been thinking of the four of you. You’ll never believe what we had for dinner.”

  Mary Lucille said, “Lasagna.”

  “It wasn’t lasagna.” There was a pause, then: “Pancakes! We had pancakes—for dinner. Imagine!”

  We listened as she told us how she’d been spending her days. There were six other sisters living with her, all from Buffalo parishes, all over the age of eighty. They prayed the rosary, went to Mass, went to confession. Last week they took a trip to the arboretum. She was also learning to play mahjong.

  “What’s that?” Mary Lucille said.

  “Like rummy,” Mother Roberta said. “With tiles. So tell me. Tell me everything. What’s it like in your new life.”

  Therese said, “Well, we’re a little out of sorts. One of the people living here—she left. She didn’t like us.”

  “Is she safe?” Mother Roberta said. “Is she okay?” When Therese said yes, Mother Roberta told us not to worry. She was sure we had been kind, that we’d tried to impart the glory of God. That’s all we can hope to do. Keep the woman in your prayers, she said. She was confident Lawnmower Jill would come back.

  Before we hung up, she said, “Oh, get this. There’s a wild turkey I see from the kitchen window sometimes. He comes around in the mornings. Such a weird-looking bird. Always by himself. I’ve named him Fred.”

  “How cute,” Mary Lucille said.

  I had been on the edge of the conversation, as if watching from far away. I said, “But how do you know—”

  Everyone waited.

  “How do you know it’s the same turkey every time?”

  “Agatha, you always ask the hard questions,” Mother Roberta said.

  PART II

  CHASTITY

  30.

  The morning of my new faculty orientation, Frances made oatmeal. “It’s a special day, so I put brown sugar in yours,” she said, beaming. I thanked her. I ate it all.

  “Good luck!” Mary Lucille said as I stepped into my shoes. “You’ll be great.”

  “We’ll see you tonight,” Therese said.

  It took me nine minutes to walk down Hamlet Street to the high school. I carried my textbook in a tote bag we’d bought for fifty cents at the grocery. My hair was still damp under my wimple. I was buzzing. I was alert. When I stepped in the front door, it felt as if it was the start of something, as if I could decide right then and there to become someone new. I hadn’t felt that way in years.

  * * *

  The school motto used to be “Women by and for and with Others,” but in the eighties they decided to drop the first and third prepositions and the conjunctions they required. More to the point, the principal said. “Women for Others” was emblazoned on banners and printed on pamphlets. On the walls of the gym, they had painted white over the nixed parts, so now the words were spread far apart out above the bleachers: “Women … for … Others.”

  “And that’s why we’re so thrilled to have a nun on staff again,” the principal said. I was early, and we were alone together, waiting for the other new faculty members. “You’ve made a whole life of being ‘for others.’”

  I thought about reminding him that I was a sister, not a nun. Nuns were, technically speaking, cloistered. It seemed like the kind of thing he should know. But I was nervous. I just smiled.

  “It used to be that we had a bunch of you teaching,” he said. “Chemistry, home economics, gym. There were more nuns than regular women!” He looked at me as if I was supposed to nod; I did not. “But we haven’t had a nun teach here in years. There’s so few of you these days. The numbers.” He shook his head. “It’s a shame.”
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  There didn’t seem to be anything to say about that. He asked me to complete and sign forms that stated that my salary would go to the church, if there was an accident I would not sue, and in case of emergency they should call Abbess Paracleta.

  When the other new faculty arrived—a guidance counselor, a secretary, and a biology teacher named Nadia—Mr. Ruby took us to the gymnasium, bright and big; the library; the computer lab. Then we trudged to the fifth floor to look at the chapel, which hadn’t been renovated since Vatican II, when there was an influx of money, he said, when shag carpeting was something to be admired. The room smelled like old towels. At the front there was a marble statue of the Virgin Mary. Someone had put a red pack of cigarettes in her hand.

  “What in tarnation,” Mr. Ruby said, and then hopped with his arm outstretched to snatch it. “I’ve been trying to get security cameras installed all over the school, but it’s a real administrative headache.” He pocketed the cigarettes.

  “Those’ll kill you,” Nadia said. It took a second for Mr. Ruby to laugh.

  The tour ended at the teachers’ lounge. Mr. Ruby shared the secret code in a hushed tone: 1077, the school’s street address.

  In the lounge there was nubby carpet, metal folding chairs, a microwave that had no clock. Seated at a card table were a few other teachers, dressed in khakis and button-up shirts. And then, to my horror, while we stood in front of the door, Mr. Ruby made an announcement. “Everyone, listen up,” he said. “Listen up.” My face burned as he told them our names. I remembered to smile and wave.

  I’d become a member of a different, bigger team. I ducked away to stare at the water cooler. While I was filling a paper cone, the new biology teacher, Nadia, approached me. She was wearing red lipstick and creased slacks and shoes that reflected the light.

  “When’s your lunch period?” she said, and I told her fifth. “Mine too,” she said. “Want to eat together, then, tomorrow?” and I said yes, please. Then she said, “Where’s your first class? Let’s go find the room.”

  31.

  In my classroom there was a chalkboard that stretched from one end of the wall to the other. I alone had the authority to switch on and off the overhead lights. I was given a grade book and a desk with deep drawers. I had newfound powers to punish, to praise, to have the final say. I had two classes of twenty-five sophomore girls. All in all, there were two Marys and two Kates and five Katies.

  * * *

  The first day, I stood for several minutes while the first-period girls talked to each other. I had spent the night before thinking about what I would say to these faces, and how to say it, but when the bell rang, and I looked out at them, my mind emptied itself of any plan. They looked younger than I thought they would, and more fragile. I started with “Hello.” The word sounded deranged. The girls turned in their seats and looked up at me, waiting for more. I wanted to run.

  My heart was hammering away. It occurred to me there was a list of words provided to me: the class roll. I asked them to raise their hands when I called their names. I spoke extremely slowly, counting to seven between each name. And then there were no more names.

  “Well, so, geometry.” My voice was running a little wild. “Geometry.”

  A blue-haired girl named Samantha shot her hand up. “We don’t know your name,” she said.

  A valid point: I’d forgotten to tell them who I was. Even though I’d lived almost a decade with my religious name, I still sometimes felt inclined to introduce myself as “Isabelle.” My mother’s name. The name I had, too, for the first part of my life. It was a habit I couldn’t shake. I didn’t know if this was something my sisters experienced, too, one of those little proclivities we were too ashamed to confess to each other.

  I told the girls they could call me Sister Agatha, and then I told them to get out their notebooks and write down everything they already knew about geometry. For several moments, while they moved their pencils across paper, I had some time to catch my breath.

  32.

  At lunch, in the teachers’ lounge, Nadia drank carbonated water and ate a fresh-looking salad. I’d made a sandwich for myself with canned fish, but it had been crushed in my bag and came out looking bruised, the mayonnaise gluey. I tore off a piece of crust.

  She asked how my first class had gone. Then, before I could find a way to ask her if and when and how teaching would get easier, she said, “You look like you need a donut.”

  I conceded: nothing sounded better. Each week after Sunday Mass, we waited, politely, patiently, until all the parishioners had taken the best donuts. By the time the laypeople had helped themselves, all that was left for us were the peanut and blueberry cake.

  I wanted to choose a pretty one. I wanted sprinkles, glaze, cream filling, chocolate frosting, cinnamon sugar. I wanted the cutest, fluffiest one, waiting for me behind glass, and I wanted it warm and soft and on a paper plate, next to a white Styrofoam cup of black coffee so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. I wanted the roof of my mouth to peel off in strips. And I wanted it all, right then.

  Nadia told me the lunch period was long enough we could walk to the donut place down the block.

  The boy behind the counter had the kind of pimples that looked painful. He wore a hairnet and a green apron and turned to us, arms akimbo. “What will it be?”

  We squatted to peer into the glass donut case. Those donuts! The cleavage of the crullers, the sheen of the glaze. Plump and full and gleaming, lined up like pageant queens. Nadia pressed her hands and nose into the glass, and it clouded with her breath.

  She asked me what I wanted, and when I couldn’t decide, she didn’t make me. She listed donuts like the names of the saints—Chocolate sprinkles, pray for us! Boston cream, pray for us! Old-fashioned, pray for us!—and the boy bent to lift them from the case with silver tongs, arranged them on plates on a tray. I wanted to pay, but Nadia was faster with her wallet, and when I tried to hand her a dollar and fifty cents, she waved it away. I carried the tray, and then we were together at a table.

  “This morning Principal Ruby gave a girl detention for laughing too loudly in the hallway,” Nadia said. “I heard him tell her, ‘If Jesus Christ were to return to earth and walk down this hall, He’d be offended by the way you laugh.’”

  “That doesn’t seem true,” I said. “Probably He’d want to know what was so funny.”

  “The first day of school, and the man was already on a tear,” Nadia said. “Ruby, I mean. Not Jesus. But maybe Jesus, too; who knows.” She snuck a look to see if she’d offended me, but I smiled. She cut the chocolate sprinkles donut and gave me half. It was warm and sweet; I had to stop myself from moaning aloud.

  Nadia asked me if I’d looked through the handbook, and when I shook my head, she said, “There’s so many rules. And Ruby told me this year he’s updated it to also outlaw nail polish and extreme hairstyles.”

  “What’s an extreme hairstyle?” I asked.

  “Um, mohawks, I guess? And blue hair,” she said. “There’s a sophomore girl who rocks blue hair, in my third period.” Samantha, I thought. “So tell me,” Nadia said. “How was teaching? It was your first time, right?”

  I nodded, swallowed. “I almost passed out,” I said.

  Nadia gave me a sympathetic smile. “It’ll get better,” she said. “It just takes time. The first time I taught, I threw up.” Nadia was moving on to the Boston cream; soon she’d lap me. She took a bite and handed the rest to me. It was not strange for her like it was for me, the idea of sharing food with someone you’d just met.

  “Don’t be shy,” she said.

  33.

  At home I dumped the fifty-cent tote near the stairs and found my sisters in the kitchen. They were playing Operation. Therese was bent forward, easing a piece from the board with toy tweezers. No one said anything until she lifted it free, and then they all released a collective breath and turned to say hello.

  “Come sit and tell us everything,” Mary Lucille said. “How was it?”


  “Fine,” I said. “Just fine.” I sat and saw they’d already plucked most of the pieces from the man’s body. “What’s left?”

  “Funny bone, bread basket, and Charley horse,” Therese said. “I’m winning right now, but it’s close. You can play next round, if you want.”

  “Maybe,” I said. Frances claimed the tweezers and stared into the man’s cavities.

  “So were your students nice? And did you feel prepared?” Mary Lucille asked.

  “More or less,” I said. “There’s a lot of girls named Katherine.”

  I waited to see if they would ask me anything else. When nobody did, I asked, “How was your day?”

  “Kind of bananas,” Mary Lucille said. She waited. Everyone watched Frances pinch the Charley horse, then hold it aloft.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “Well,” Mary Lucille said. “So the three of us walked to the community college. It was about a mile to get there—would you say a mile, Frances?”

  “More. Maybe two. It was terribly hot,” Frances said.

  “—and when we arrived we tried to find a bulletin board to hang our flyers. We thought, college campus, plenty of foot traffic, lots of young people to recruit—”

  “It’s your turn, Mary Lucille,” Therese said.

  She took the tweezers but did nothing with them. “It’s such a pretty campus. You’d love it, Agatha. All the bulletin boards were crowded. There were ads for everything: dogs for adoption, rooms for rent, tango lessons, group hikes.”

  “A way to cure a stutter, even,” Frances said.

  “The point is, we couldn’t agree on a place to post our flyers. We considered pinning ours over someone else’s, like other people had done,” Mary Lucille said, “but that didn’t seem right.”

  “I still think we should have,” Frances said.

  “But anyway, Therese had a great idea: the parking lot. We could slip the flyers under windshield wipers—more visibility,” Mary Lucille said. “But first Frances and I had to go to the bathroom, and we hadn’t any idea where one might be, so we approached a girl. She looked nice enough. She was sitting on a bench; she had a hoagie in one hand and a flip phone in the other.”