The Next Queen of Heaven

by Gregory Maguire

  As Jeremy began to suspect that Sister Alice was naming herself as the brain-dead driver, Babs showed up, her headlights raking the dark drive askance, braiding the surface in a nubble of gravel. “My comrades at arms,” said Jeremy.

  Sister Alice was brusque and friendly in about equal proportions. She shook their hands and bustled about the trunk of the car, hoisting a couple of bags of groceries. Sean shuffled forward to help her. “That’s a good lad. Thanks. Mind the pears, they’ll bruise.”

  “And so it starts,” mumbled Sean in a low voice.

  “And so it does. Right this way, fellows. I have a key this time, but next week you’ll have to ring the bell. I’d call ahead and remind Sister Jaundice you’re coming; she’s the most ambulatory and she mans the door in the evening.”

  “Sister Jaundice?” said Jeremy.

  “Oh, now that’s a slip. Can you tell I’m a tad overworked? Sister Jeanne d’Arc, I mean. My my.” Her face was red. “Sister Jaundice was a pet term from when Sister Jeanne d’Arc spent a couple of years as head of the infirmary at the convent in Waterbury, Connecticut. Tending the sick was not her strong suit. But don’t call her Sister Jaundice if you know what’s good for you.”

  “I have a bad feeling about all this,” said Sean. “Is this the Sisters of the Order of Frankenstein?”

  Jeremy had to concede it: the place had a Gothic aspect. Three stories of ivy-clutched gray stone, rusticated blocks with beveled edges, were capped with a roof of iron-brown slates and multiple gables and eaves. Forsythia planted on either side of the front door had gone mad and overgrown; the bare hoops of it looked like giant spider legs in the shadows. The granite steps were littered with leaves. “I ring,” said Sister Alice, “so as not to startle Sister Igor, and I enter.” It wasn’t nice to hear her join their mocking, which made them drop it; perhaps, thought Jeremy as they followed her in, that was her strategy.

  The place had clearly been built as a convent. Instead of an imposing reception hall with black-and-white marble floors and a sweeping staircase—no Mother Superior would ever allow herself to make that grand an entrance—visitors came immediately upon a second door. A screened window was inset at face height. “Another time, Sister Jeanne d’Arc will meet you here,” said Sister Alice, “but today we pass on.” She unlocked the barricade and led them through into a modest, walnut-paneled chamber. A few wooden chairs, an umbrella stand, and a painting of the Virgin looking gripped with a case of cramps. A sweet smell of a generic floor wax was fletched with tones of rising damp and stewing celery. Sister Alice groped for a light switch, but the wall sconces were fitted with electric bulbs whose wattage barely made it into the double digits. Very Eastern Europe, thought Jeremy. He didn’t look at his friends.

  The colored glass looked encrusted with bird shit. Sean said, “It all falls in place. The Addams family were lapsed Catholics. McAddams originally. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.”

  “And then Sister Jeanne d’Arc will lead you through here.” Sister Alice pushed at a swinging door, revealing a long corridor that ran the width of the building. “The chapel is straight ahead—I’d show you but I think the Sisters are waiting—the kitchens and dining areas down to the right, but we head here. Ow.” She had walked into a bicycle parked in the gloom. “Sister Clothilde and her weight problem. We can’t afford an Exercycle so she uses the real thing. She’s supposed to keep it in the laundry. Mind your way, fellows. We’re going to the sunroom at the end of the corridor.”

  At 7:30 p.m. the sunroom was, of course, devoid of daylight. The furniture seemed to be shrouded in dust cloths, but when Sister Alice pressed the push-button light switch, the dust cloths turned out to be nuns.

  “Holy Jesus,” murmured Sean. “They’re baaaaaack.”

  “You’re sitting here in the dark?” said Sister Alice.

  “Sister Felicity was saving electricity,” said a voice from behind the piano. “She was leading us in a guided meditation.” Eyes were blinking, chins were lifting. Nuns were coming around.

  “Sisters, Sisters,” said Sister Alice, “God be with you and good evening and what are you thinking of? Where’s Mother Clare du Plessix?”

  Some yellowing ferns in a pot waved and swayed, and an old face appeared behind them.

  Sister Alice Coyne went and extended her hand. After a few moments, Mother Clare du Plessix brought her own hand forward, and Sister Alice kissed it. “Have you brought the Cinnamon Cheerios?” said Mother Clare du Plessix.

  “Yes, yes, and the Saran Wrap. It was a deal, two for one. I bought twelve.”

  “We’ll be dead and buried, the lot of us, before we use up twelve rolls of Saran Wrap.”

  “Well, what about see-through shrouds?” murmured Sean.

  The nuns were leaning forward. A half dozen of them, maybe? In the dark, their faces looked almost as if done up in mime’s greasepaint. Sister Alice said, “Sisters, may I present my young friends from Our Lady’s parish in Thebes; Jeremy Carr, and Sean, and—and—”

  “Marty,” Jeremy intoned.

  “Young friends from church?” said Sean in a shocked voice.

  “Marty,” said Sister Alice. “Right. And boys, this is Mother Clare du Plessix, the ringleader of this crew of cutthroats and brigands.”

  “Sister Alice,” said Mother Clare du Plessix in a tired voice.

  “Yes, yes, well, I’m just excited, excuse me, please. I’ve been looking forward to this, you see. And, going round the room, here’s Sister Perpetua, and Sister Felicity, and there is Sister Jeanne d’Arc. On the pew by the windows—”

  “You have pews in a sunroom?” said Marty Rothbard. “This is a stricter life than I thought.”

  “They came out of the chapel after Vatican II made us turn the altar around. The new altar takes up a lot more space,” said Mother Clare du Plessix. “The sun isn’t good for the pews, but it isn’t good for us, either, so we don’t come in here much except at night.”

  “That’s, left to right, Sisters Clothilde, Magdalene, and Maria Goretti,” said Sister Alice. “Is that it? Where’s the rest?”

  “They’ve taken a vow of deafness.” Sister Clothilde’s face looked like one of those dolls made out of old stockings, all smooth-skinned but pouchy. She was leaning forward as if with some spiritual form of scoliosis.

  “They weren’t feeling well tonight?” said Sister Alice.

  “Celery soup. It goes right through you,” said Sister Jeanne d’Arc. “They didn’t want to be up and down, up and down during the show.”

  “Show?” Sean used a raised-eyebrow tone of voice.

  “There’s not going to be a show. Actually.” Jeremy was polite but terse.

  Sister Alice was hardly listening. “But that’s only—only seven of you. Ten sisters are upstairs?”

  “All tucked in and saying their prayers,” said Mother Clare du Plessix.

  “I’ll go upstairs and see if they don’t want to come down—”

  “Sister Alice,” said Mother Clare du Plessix, “they are more eager for our report tomorrow than they are to experience the concert for themselves tonight.” She smiled at the men; at least they thought it was a smile. “But may I say that we’re all ears.” She gestured to the piano.

  “Do you take requests?” said Sister Magdalene.

  “How about a nice round of Pange Lingua?” said Sister Maria Goretti.

  “We’re not a church choir,” said Jeremy. Sister Alice Coyne was suddenly busy with the paper bags of Saran Wrap and Cheerios. “Sister Alice, I hope you haven’t misled anyone—”

  “I certainly hope so, too,” said Sister Clothilde. “We’re missing a rerun of The Sound of Music for this. How do you handle a novice like Maria? If you ask me, arsenic in her pitch pipe.”

  “Sister Clothilde,” said Mother Clare du Plessix. “Custody of the senses—”

  “All those musicals set in World War II, they all came out just when we got permission to go to films,” said Sister Clothilde. “I always get them mixed up.
Cabaret and The Sound of Music. I keep remembering Maria Von Trapp bringing those kids onto the stage in that Berlin beer cellar with the underdressed female orchestra. But I must be wrong.”

  “Please,” said Jeremy. This was becoming a nightmare. “I’m not sure how this is going to work. Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

  “Maybe?” Sean’s voice was incredulous: part David Niven, part Dana Carvey as the Church Lady.

  “We weren’t intending to sing publicly for anyone,” said Jeremy.

  “They’ll just listen,” said Sister Alice.

  “No harm to anyone,” said Sister Felicity. She had a kind of palsy that made her look like a blur in the dim light.

  “We won’t even hum along,” said Sister Perpetua.

  “We can hardly hum any more without passing out,” said Sister Clothilde, who, being sizable, was given to wheezing.

  “No,” said Jeremy. “No, Sister Alice. I don’t want to be rude, but this is a no go. We’re pleased to meet your colleagues and all that—and glad to chat with them, as I said, but we have to do our rehearsal in privacy. That’s just a given. We’re trying to thrash out arrangements for half a dozen numbers. No way is this a concert situation.”

  “Think of it as an offering—”

  “It’s just not possible.” His friends weren’t used to hearing him be so forceful. He didn’t feel forceful. “If it’s too much to clear the room tonight, then we’ll just chat a little and begin singing next week.”

  “No, no, we know when we’re not wanted,” said Mother Clare du Plessix. “No harm done. Frankly, I would have expected the same if I were leading a chorus. Sisters, shall we repair to the lounge upstairs?”

  “We’ll make it in time for the wedding scene between Maria and the Captain,” said Sister Clothilde. “As far as I’m concerned, the convent was better off without her. And whatever happened to that jilted Baroness? You can bet she never retired to a cloister to improve her pitch.”

  A small silence as they all—nuns and men alike—considered their own lives in light of the Baroness.

  “She went on the stage at that Berlin beer hall, probably,” said Sister Clothilde decisively. “A moral decline.”

  “I always hated that movie,” said Sister Jeanne d’Arc. “Singing nuns. As if nuns have nothing better to do. Cheap sentiment, if you ask me.”

  “All sentiment is cheap to you.” Sister Clothilde’s scorn was faint but definite.

  “Sisters,” said Mother Clare du Plessix. “Sisters.”

  Sister Alice said, “I must not have been clear in my expectations of this arrangement. This is my fault and I’m very sorry. Assuming we can get our signals straight next week, Jeremy, how best should we proceed tonight?”

  “I think we should just leave,” said Sean. “We can’t practice in public, and we don’t sing religious music, and since we can get up and vacate the room faster than your sisterly sisters can, I say let’s just get out of here.”

  “I can give you a run for your money on my bike,” said Sister Clothilde. “Oh, I left it down by the front parlor. Well, next time.”

  “THERE ISN’T GOING to be a next time,” said Sean, as they convened in the parking circle. “They’re all lunatics.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Jeremy. “They might be a bit talky, but they’re not—”

  “Talky? Talky? What, are we the first men they’ve seen since they entered puberty? That’s not talky, that’s compulsive. I’m not coming back.”

  But Marty was laughing. “They’re not so bad,” he said.

  “So the lines got crossed,” said Jeremy. “Big deal. They were probably babbling because they were nervous. It looked like a good piano, did you notice? I think it was a Bechstein.”

  Sister Alice came down the front steps. “Well, it’s three to three, with Sister Clothilde sitting on the fence.”

  “Pity the fence,” murmured Sean.

  “What do you mean?” said Jeremy.

  “As to whether to have you back,” said Sister Alice. “This wasn’t really what they’d been expecting either, frankly.”

  “Ooh, the nails come out,” said Marty. “And what had you led them to expect? Pray tell?”

  “At the very least,” said Sister Alice, “courtesy, and perhaps as a bonus a little genuine interest in them. They are people, you know”—she whirled and pointed a finger at Sean Riley—‘they are real people, even if they are nuns.”

  “Well, they used to be real people,” he said.

  “Watch your tongue,” said Sister Alice.

  “We’re not in school, Sis-tah.”

  “You’re guests in my home. I expected more of you. The singing, okay; they understand that. But to come and go in fifteen minutes? You’re not high school freshmen. You ought to be able to converse with some elderly women. That was the deal.”

  Jeremy interrupted them. “Sister Alice, I’ll call you. We’ll need to talk. But it’s a cold night, and I don’t want Sean standing out getting the shivers. Do you mind?”

  “Well sure, make me out to be the baby,” muttered Sean, but he got in the car, and Marty gave a little wave to Jeremy as Babs growled to life. Having nothing to add, Jeremy got in his own car and followed them. At the end of the circular drive, looking back at Sister Alice, he noticed a few dark shapes in the windows of the sunroom watching them go.

  12

  BY FRIDAY TABITHA thought she might be going nuts. Was insanity contagious?

  Her mother’s unrelenting cursing, strengthened by a display of the fervor she had more commonly husbanded, seemed to be leeching into the paisley wall-to-wall. The house felt gummy. “Am right! Am straight!” over and over again. When Tabitha realized Leontina Scales was meaning “Damn right” and “Damn straight,” she hadn’t been able to resist shouting “Am mother!” when she served the supper, tater tots and American cheese. Her mother draped the cheese slices over the arms of her chair and then pitched the food projectiles at the enlarged photograph of the family that hung over the mantel, where they bounced back and landed in various paisley zones, like breaded fetuses floating in orange-and-purple wombs. Kirk fluttered about with a pair of hot-dog tongs, picking them up.

  When Linda Pearl Wasserman rang to ask if Tabitha could open up the House of Beauty the next morning, since Linda Pearl had an emergency meeting with her accountant due to an IRS audit, Tabitha had leapt to agree.

  “You’ll be all right then,” said Tabitha over breakfast. She was getting used to tooling around in her mother’s car without aggravation, since Mrs. Scales didn’t express any interest in going out.

  “Eeking in tongues, on fire for the Lord,” said Mrs. Scales. Which was about as good as it got these days, so Tabitha left in a decent mood. Between the Bible and reruns of Scooby Doo, there ought to be enough for Mom to suck on.

  Linda Pearl’s House of Beauty was midway on Niagara Street, stuck between the Dunkin’ Donuts and a storefront that became H&R Block for twelve weeks a year and was otherwise a dive where flies went to commit suicide. A supply of available parking spaces suggested there’d be no opening rush at the appointment desk.

  Tabitha pretended that it was her own salon. She dialed the thermostat up and tipped the blinds so that the sun could come shadow-striping the linoleum. She put the kettle on and turned the TV on but kept the sound low; Linda Pearl’s set was old and could only get public television, and Bert and Ernie first thing in the morning was a little much. They made her feel stupid.

  She set out the scissors and the gels. She folded the plastic capes and set them in the basket. Then she remembered to open the side door, the men’s entrance. Tabitha knew this moronic necessity was Linda Pearl’s nod to reality. When Eli Briggs had died two years ago and his barbershop over on Monument Street closed down, Linda Pearl had readied herself for an onslaught of male customers. She had someone in the high school art department make a new sign that said UNISEX and hung it from HOUSE OF BEAUTY. (One afternoon the middle school kids started chanting “Linda Pearl, Unise
x,” and that became “Linda Pearl, you need sex,” so she had had to take the sign down. Too close to the truth.)

  For a time Linda Pearl Wasserman was stumped, thinking that she’d blown her chance of cornering the shave-and-a-haircut market. The guys were going to drive all the way over to Cleary Corners rather than walk in a place that said “House of Beauty” over the door? That was guys for you. Then Linda Pearl had got Tabitha to get Caleb Briggs to come over and bust a hole in the side wall, and Turk Schaeffer had put in a door. A new sign said “Men Only: Barber Services.” It stuck out on a pole from a corner of her building. Linda Pearl had stacked up a couple of empty six-packs of Bud on the sidewalk to get their attention, and she’d subscribed to American Rifle and Sports Illustrated. The men of Thebes were appeased. They could bring themselves to get their haircuts at Linda Pearl’s salon as long as they entered through a side door that made no mention of beauty.

  So when Tabitha opened the side door, she wasn’t entirely surprised to see that governmental Jack-of-all-trades-Reeves waiting to have his sideburns trimmed. But she wasn’t pleased, either.

  “Well, well,” said Jack. “You’re looking pretty sprightly this morning, Tabitha.”

  “Morning, Mr. Reeves.”

  “What’s the news on your mom? They say she had a run-in with the Roman Catholics. She feeling more like herself?”

  “Beats me.” Tabitha was used to being evasive, but in this instance was—somewhat accidentally—telling the truth. She didn’t know how her mother felt normally, so it was hard to say whether she was feeling more or less like herself since this fit had come over her.

  “She sitting up and taking nourishment?”

  “She’s home, resting up. And she prays a lot.”

  “That’s our Leontina. But it’s not like her to miss a PTA meeting. She wasn’t there to take the minutes, and didn’t call to get a substitute.”

  “She was—I don’t know, watching something on TV, I think.”

  “Well, give her my best, and can you put me in the book for a trim at eleven?”

  “I can give you a trim right now.”