The Convent Rose (The Roses)

by Lynn Shurr

  In San Francisco, she had been cold all the time, partly because she posed in the nude for a great deal of her sojourn, but also because the evening fogs rolled in chilling her bones and the winds whipped off the cold waters of the bay. Here, in August the pool water fairly steamed, and the sun gave off brutal rays at eleven a.m. Renee took a short dip to get rid of the bar smell, then greasing herself with a found tube of lotion, she spread the thick towel over the lounger and did some full frontal sunbathing with only her face covered by a corner of the bath sheet. Must watch out for future wrinkles, but men did so love seeing her tanned all over. The thought of how she got that way turned them on, especially when she revealed no sprays or machines were involved, simply spreading herself in the great outdoors.

  About the time Renee felt she should turn over or burn, the doorbell rang. She could wrap up and get that for Bodey, but truly, she’d rather have the man to herself today. He owed her at least one favor, and she intended to collect. She rolled over onto her stomach and stretched out like a lazy cat. Indoors, she could hear Bodey blundering around, then stomping across his great room toward the door.

  “Dammit, who’s layin’ on that bell? Jesus, who opened those drapes? I haven’t done anything this damned stupid since I turned twenty-four.”

  Pausing at the door, Bodey seized a battered, black cowboy hat from a rack and pulled it low over his eyes to protect himself from the onslaught of sunshine. He tugged at the zipper of his half-closed jeans, but it remained jammed.

  “What the hell do you want!” he shouted as he flung open the heavy door and flinched from the light and the sight of Eve Burns with her finger on the bell.

  “Oh, God help me.”

  “I’m back. I tried to call you last night from the Dallas terminal. It doesn’t matter. Noreen brought my car to the airport in Lafayette. I came here as soon as I dropped her off. I need to know why you never answered my letters,” she said quietly.

  “Letters?” Bodey answered, rubbing his furry chin.

  Judging by the way it felt, he had puke caught in the hairs, and since the light hurt his eyes and made him squint, he must look awful. Yep, his breath did smell like vomit and whiskey. What a fine way to greet the woman he loved.

  Then, something even worse happened. A feminine arm snaked across his shoulder and draped over his bicep. The hand wore Eve’s engagement ring. He turned his head and looked into the predatory green eyes of Renee Hayes. She wore nothing but the ring and a bath towel casually knotted over one full breast.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “Never mind. I have my answer. You chose Renee again.” Eve backed up a step.

  “Don’t go, Eve. I want you to see the beautiful ring Bodey gave me last night.” Renee held out her hand. Eve backed up another step as if trying to escape a rattler ready to strike.

  Bodey seized Renee’s wrist and jerked the ring from her finger. “I might have been drunker than a Baptist on a binge last night, but I never gave you this ring. It’s Eve’s ring.”

  He held it out in his palm. The bright light shot off the metal and went right to the back of his brain. “The ring that wasn’t good enough for Princess Eve from the man who wasn’t good enough for her either.”

  “I don’t know where you got that idea.”

  “I think I’m gonna be sick.” Bodey turned tail and ran for the bathroom. Eve followed him. Renee strolled along after them. She’d let Eve get a good look at the bedroom first, the covers tossed on both sides of the bed, the thong draped across Eve’s picture, the used condom. Eve was an artist. She’d take in all the details.

  Renee waited until the barfing stopped, the toilet flushed, and the water stopped running. When she slunk into the bedroom, Bodey was stretched out on the covers, his head propped up with pillows and cold, wet washcloths plastered across his eyes and throat.

  “Can’t decide which is worse, this or seasickness.”

  Eve didn’t respond to the odd remark. She touched the back of his hand. “Take care, Bodey. Here’s Renee. I wish you every happiness.” She stood and left the room.

  Renee sank down in the spot vacated by Eve. Bodey peeled off the washcloth covering his eyes. “Oh, it’s you again.”

  “That’s the thanks I get for driving you home and taking care of all your wants and needs last night, Bodey Landrum,” Renee simpered. “You should beg me to take that ring.”

  “The bartender was supposed to drive me. I sure did pay him enough to do the job. Leave the ring alone, get dressed, and go on home, Renee. Given a choice, I’d rather die alone.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Dad, I tried work, and outside of gettin’ a lot done, I still saw Eve’s face every time I closed my eyes. So, I moved on to whiskey the other night, and evidently tried another woman, but I can’t remember much about that. I also did a crazy stunt that I’m just too embarrassed to tell you about right now.”

  Despite his misery, Bodey couldn’t help but appreciate how good it felt to have a father listening on the other end of the line.

  “How’d all that go for you, son?”

  “Poorly. Haven’t had a drunk like that in a good ten years. Forgot how bad you feel in the morning. Then, I found a nekkid woman in my swimmin’ pool. Considering all the evidence, we had a mighty good time, but I don’t remember a minute of it.”

  “Bodey, boy, I told you to be careful.”

  “I paid the bartender to drive me home, but it seems Renee took over at the club. That’s not the worst part. Eve came back.”

  “She caught you with the nekkid lady, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sorry I even suggested those other remedies. Is there any hope you and Eve will get back together?”

  “It’s not lookin’ good. She won’t answer her phone or come to the door. I fear she might have gone back to her daddy. No sign of life around her place. It’s all closed up.”

  “How about those nuns she’s so tight with? Do they know where she is? Would they talk reason with her?”

  “I don’t know, Pop. I’m going over to the convent as soon as we hang up here.”

  “Good luck, son. I’d sure like to have some pretty grandchildren. Vaya con Dios.”

  ****

  Bodey shuffled his feet in front of the reception desk while a stern-faced, middle-aged nun looked him up and down. “Sr. Helen is resting right now and unavailable. You might find Sr. Inez in the stables. I believe she is overseeing the cleaning there,” the Sister finally divulged. “You will need a pass to go there. Please don’t wander the grounds as it is not visiting day.”

  The nun wrote on a slip of paper and without a smile, handed it to Bodey. He’d gone to public school, but now figured he knew how kids who attended parochial schools felt—guilty, whether they were or not.

  “Thank you, ma’am, I mean, Sister.”

  Bodey jammed the hat he had been crushing in his hands back on to his head and headed for the stables. From a distance, he could see Sr. Nessy leaning heavily on her cane, silhouetted in the central doorway of the barn. Her voice reached him from afar.

  “Put your back into it! When I was twice your age, I could muck out the whole place myself in half a day.”

  The two novices who had volunteered for the job as an act of charity looked at each other across the wheelbarrow and continued methodically forking up manure and soiled straw in a rather dainty manner. They were racking up points in Heaven for sure.

  “Bodey Landrum! Did you come to help or to grovel?” Sr. Inez snapped as soon as she caught sight of him.

  “Both, Sister. Why, I’ve won buckles for my work with a pitchfork,” he drawled, hoping to get on her good side.

  “I don’t doubt that, but there is no need to brag. We missed you at Mass this Sunday.” Sr. Nessy didn’t smile when she said it.

  “I was, ah—indisposed.” Bodey took the pitchfork from a relieved novice. He laid in with a will despite the clean, pressed clothes and shiny new boots he had put on to vis
it the convent. Sweat dribbled down his clean-shaved face. When visiting a convent, not a good idea to resemble the Devil.

  “So we’ve heard.”

  “Already?” Bodey grimaced. “How about if you let these little ladies go back to their prayers, and I’ll finish up here.”

  The second novice gave him a grateful smile and propped her pitchfork against a wall. “Sister, with your permission,” she hopefully asked Nessy.

  “Go. Your help was most welcome.” As the novices rushed off in un-nun like haste, she muttered, “City girls.”

  Bodey got into the corners of the last two stalls, filled the wheelbarrow, and dumped the load on to the manure pile. He man-handled a bale of straw closer to the doors, cut the binding with his pocket knife, and forked up clean bedding.

  “Good job,” Sr. Inez conceded. “I don’t suppose this is an act of contrition?”

  “Shoveling sh—manure? No, ma’am. I do it every day, at least lately.”

  “So, you’re really here to discuss Eve. You made our girl cry, Bodey Landrum, when she held up dry-eyed all during her father’s disappearance and her mother’s illness. Don’t expect to get off easy.”

  “No, ma’am. I’ll do anything you say if I can get a chance to talk to Eve again. I know things looked bad over at my place, but you see, I have no memory of havin’ fuc—ah, sinned with Renee Hayes. She just showed up. I had a lot to drink the night before, and—”

  “That is no excuse,” Sr. Inez said sternly.

  “A piss-poor one at best, I agree, but Eve is the only woman I want. She’s the woman I love. I waited nearly three months for any word or sign from her, went to the islands to track her down and that didn’t go so good. It all wore me down and I turned to the bottle just the one time, but still I don’t feel guilty like I should if I’d really done something.”

  “We told you time and prayer would take care of you and Eve. To God and the universe, three months is a snap of the fingers, fast work at that. Had you waited one more day, this mess would not have happened,” Sr. Inez scolded.

  Bodey, leaning on the pitchfork, his head bowed, answered, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What would you do now if Eve gave you another chance?”

  “Why, I’d take Eve up on my horse and ride off into the sunset with her. We’d live happily ever after, I swear to God.” He looked into the nun’s stern eyes to show he meant it. She appeared to be gauging his sincerity and overall worth.

  “Not much of a plan, Bodey Landrum, but God and I will see what we can do. Meet me here at eight this evening. Better keep that pass or Sr. Carola will have your balls on a platter for breakfast.

  Bodey’s black eyebrows shot up at her language, but he answered, “Yes, ma’am, Sister.”

  ****

  Lying on her cot in the small retreat cottage, Eve considered getting up and having her bread and water for dinner. She fasted to purge her body of three months of easy living in the islands and her love of Bodey Landrum. Perhaps, if she had been able to untangle herself from her father sooner, Renee Hayes would not have taken Bodey from her again. On the other hand, who knew when he’d started sleeping with Renee—maybe the day after she’d gone off with her dad?

  She merely tormented herself thinking about it when she should be contemplating entering the convent again. Maybe that used condom draped over the turquoise bowl had been a sign from God that Eve Burns did not belong in the real world. Could be she’d fasted too much because dreams arrived featuring a stern, gray-eyed nun she recognized as the Academy’s founder, Mother Leontine. The Lady Mother pointed a long, strong finger as large as a man’s at Eve and proclaimed, “You cannot hide from life in the convent. I will not permit this to happen. Go to the man who loves you.” The apparition appeared to float above the floor of the cabin. Reputed to be six-feet tall and large-boned according to legend, Mother Leontine retained a commanding presence even as a ghost, an incorporeal woman not to be defied.

  Had all that wild, crazy sex with Bodey taken away her option to enter the order? No, God would forgive her if she asked, and He trumped Mother Leontine, no matter how intimidating, any day. Still, had she experienced a vision, or did she merely use the dream to reinforce her true desire to return to Bodey?

  Eve turned to contemplative exercise. It did not help. Numerous walks on the long, crooked path to the statue of the Magdalene failed to aid her in reaching a decision. She kept staring at the path, waiting for Bodey to appear on his paint horse and carry her away. No, that door had closed, and the Lord would open a window as He had for the novice, Maria, in The Sound of Music. Oh right, Maria had married the man, not taken her final vows. Think of another window, Eve, think of anything but Bodey Landrum. Too depressed to get up, Eve drifted off to sleep, her dreams as impure as her prior thoughts.

  She and Bodey lay in the wisteria glade again. They were both naked, a true Adam and Eve appreciating the best free thing God had put on earth. She went on all fours and Bodey mounted her like a stallion, pulling back her head by her long, pale hair, making her look up and right into the eyes of Sr. Helen. Eve rolled to her feet so suddenly she miscalculated and hit the floor with a crash.

  “Are you in there, child?” Sr. Helen’s quavery voice called. “Did you pass out from fasting? That happens. Don’t be embarrassed. Please let me in.”

  Eve got up, straightened her wrinkled white blouse, and pulled down the beige riding pants that had bunched up between her legs during her nap. She patted her hair, and found that despite her dream, it remained tightly braided down her back and secured with the little black bow.

  “Coming, Sr. Helen. I’m fine, only a little dizzy.”

  “You must eat and drink. Here, sit down and have your bread and water. I’d like you to go for a walk with me, and you will need your strength.”

  “I don’t really feel like walking, Sr. Helen. I’ve been to the shrine a half dozen times and have felt no relief, gotten no answers.”

  “Oh, but the evening is lovely, and one never knows when God or one of his saints will answer a prayer. Finish that roll and wash your face with a little cold water. Put on your boots. Then, we shall venture out in search of a miracle.

  ****

  Wearing fresh clothes and smelling of aftershave, Bodey showed up right on time. Sr. Inez handed him the reins of a horse that seemed to have a bit of a weight problem. His big belly dwarfed the already small, hornless English saddle. She introduced them.

  “This is Brownie. He’s a nice Anglo-Arab who likes his feed and won’t gallop without some urging. We put the smallest children on him because he is so sluggish. Still, he’s a good boy, and the only mount I have trained to come at a whistle. Unfortunately, he was taught to come for treats by his former owner.”

  “So, we’re takin’ an overweight horse for a walk? Where does Eve come in on this?” Bodey asked as he led the horse out of the barn and followed Sr. Inez down a path covered in pine needles.

  “If Eve gives you a second chance and you want to ride off into the sunset with her, all you have to do is whistle for Brownie.”

  ****

  Eve held Sr. Helen’s gently trembling arm as they strolled along the pine needle path. “You’re right. It is a beautiful evening, soothing to the soul—now that the sun is going down. The day was scorching earlier.”

  “Exactly. The atmosphere has cooled. It’s time to reconsider.”

  “Reconsider what?” Eve asked as they came to the clearing holding the shrine to the Magdalene.

  Her heart clenched as she let her eyes stray toward the path where Bodey had once appeared riding his paint horse to scoop her up and carry her into the tangle of wisteria, into their tangled relationship. A racket on the opposite path broke in on her romantic memories. He walked toward her, emerging from the bushes and leading an obese brown horse saddled English style. Sr. Inez thumped along by his side. Bodey dropped the reins and crossed the clearing until he stood within a foot of the woman he loved.

  “Eve.” He beseech
ed her to answer him.

  “Bodey!” she exclaimed, backing away and nearly tripping over Sr. Helen who feebly pushed her back in Bodey’s direction.

  “We think you two need to duke it out, verbally, that is,” Sr. Nessy said. “Get to it. Sr. Helen and I will be praying for you both on the other side of the shrine. We won’t hear a thing.”

  As the elderly nuns shuffled to the far side of the shrine, Bodey tried to take Eve’s hands, tried to gaze deeply into her misty gray eyes like a teenager smitten with a pretty girl. Eve slapped his hands away. The fight was on.

  “You didn’t answer my letters. Six, I wrote six. In the first, I asked you to explain whatever you were talking about just before I left. In the second and third, I told you what I was doing and asked about your cows. In the fourth, I said I was getting uncomfortable with the situation on the island. In the fifth, I wrote you about coming back home. The sixth one said I never wanted to see you again, but I never mailed it because that contained a lie. I need to understand what happened to us, Bodey.” Eve flushed with anger across her cheekbones. If she’d had a riding crop he’d be in for a hiding.

  “Whoa, hold up! First of all, everyone in Rainbow is running around with enough postcards from you to make up a deck of cards, and I don’t rate one note because none came for me. Your daddy made it pretty clear a cowboy wasn’t good enough for his daughter, and the ring I had made up special for you wasn’t worth nothin’ because it didn’t have some big honkin’ diamond in it. He wanted you to marry royalty, and you went off with him, so I guessed that’s what you wanted, too. I traveled to the islands to find you. Your father saw through my disguise and pitched me overboard before we reached his island. Good thing I wore sandals and not my boots, or I might not have made it back to shore. Your daddy tell you that? No? You ask Rusty. He came with me, dove overboard to make sure I didn’t drown.”

  Eve’s glance turned from accusatory to baffled. “You wore sandals. I’ve never seen you in anything but boots even on Sundays.”

  “I dressed up like an A-rab prince in one of those dresses and headpieces they wear to fool your father since he wanted you to marry one.”