Part 6 (2/2)

The next two days pa.s.sed without event. I spent Thursday lounging on my couch while watching The Walking Dead episodes on Netflix and eating Cup of Noodles that I'd made by using hot water from my Keurig.

Sophisticated, I know.

And then Friday. I got up and prepared myself for the morning Ma.s.s as I always did, a few minutes late, reminding myself for the thousandth time to rearrange the sacristy, and then readied myself to walk into the sanctuary. Weekdays Ma.s.ses are short-no music, no second reading, no homily-sort of a like drive-thru Eucharist for the extremely faithful. Like Rowan and the two grandmothers and- Jesus help me.

Poppy Danforth.

She was sitting in the second row, in a demure dress of ice blue silk with a Peter Pan collar and flats, her hair in a loose bun. She looked prim, composed, modest...except for that f.u.c.king lipstick, fire engine red and begging to be smeared. I looked away as soon as I saw her, trying to recapture that holy sense of peace I'd been given on Tuesday, that sense that I could master any temptation as long as I had G.o.d on my side.

She needed something from this place, from me, something way more important than what we had done on Monday. I needed to honor my office and give it to her. I focused on the Ma.s.s, on the words and on the prayers, pleased to see Poppy doing her best to follow along, praying especially for her as I performed the ancient rites.

Please help her find guidance and peace.

Please help her heal from her past.

And please please please help us behave.

When it was time for Eucharist, she lined up behind the grandmas and Rowan, looking a little uncertain.

”What do I do?” she whispered when she got to the front of the line.

”Cross your hands over your chest,” I whispered back.

She did, her eyes still on mine, her long fingers resting on her shoulders. She cast her eyes back down, looking so lovely and yet so frail, and I wanted to hug her. Not even s.e.xually, just a regular hug. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and feel her breathe into my chest, and I wanted to tuck her face into my neck as I kept her safe and protected from her past, from her ambiguous future. I wanted to tell her and have her know-really know-that it would be all right, because there was love and because someone like her was meant to be out in the world sharing that love, like she had done in Haiti. All that joy she had felt there-she could feel it anywhere, if only she'd open herself to it.

I placed my hand on her head, about to murmur a standard blessing, and then her eyes lifted to mine and everything s.h.i.+fted. The floor and the ceiling and the cincture tight around my waist to encourage pure thoughts and her hair feather-soft under my fingertips and my skin on her skin. Electricity skimmed down my spine, and every sense memory of her-her taste and her feel and her sounds-shocked through me.

Her mouth parted. She felt it too.

I could barely get the blessing out, my throat was so dry. And when she turned to walk back to her pew, she also looked stunned, as if she'd been blinded.

After Ma.s.s, I practically bolted back to the sacristy, not looking at anyone or anything as I did. I took my time removing my vestments, hanging the way-too-expensive embroidered chasuble on its hanger and folding my alb into a precise, neat square. My hands were shaking. My thoughts were incomplete fragments. Things had been so good this week. And things were going so well during the Ma.s.s, even with her all adorable and devout and so f.u.c.king close, and then I touched her...

I stood for a minute in my slacks and s.h.i.+rt and stared at the processional cross, (feeling a bit betrayed, if I was being honest.) If I was forgiven, why hadn't G.o.d also removed this temptation from me? Or given me more strength to bear it? To resist it? I knew it wasn't fair to hope that Poppy would move away or become a Baptist or something, but why couldn't G.o.d eliminate my attraction to her? Deaden my senses to the way she'd felt under my blessing...deaden my eyes to those red lips and bright hazel eyes?

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Even Jesus had said those words. Not that they had worked out so well for him...why was G.o.d so willing to leave bad cups all over the place?

I left the sacristy in a strange mood, trying to summon that ethereal, distinctly nonphysical tranquility I'd felt earlier, and then I turned the corner and saw Poppy standing in the center aisle, the sole paris.h.i.+oner remaining.

I honestly didn't know what to do. We were urged to flee temptation, but what if my job was helping the temptress? Was it more wrong to sneak away, to leave her without help, and avoid the l.u.s.t and desire? Because of course, the l.u.s.t was my own problem, not hers, and no excuse to be cold to her.

But if I did go to her, what else was I risking?

More importantly, was I risking it because I wanted to risk it? Was I only telling myself I cared about her spiritual development, so that I could be near her?

No, I decided. That for sure wasn't true. It was just that the actual truth was so much worse. I cared about her as a person, as a soul, and I wanted to f.u.c.k her, and that was the recipe for something much worse than carnal sin.

It was a recipe for falling in love.

I would go to her. But I would put her in contact with the leader of the women's group, direct Poppy to seek guidance from her instead of me, and hopefully the occasional Ma.s.s would be the extent of our interactions.

Poppy stared at the altar as I approached.

”Aren't there bones inside there?”

”We prefer the term relic.” My voice had that unintentionally deep timbre again. I cleared my throat.

”Seems a little macabre.”

I gestured towards the crucifix, which depicted Jesus at his most b.l.o.o.d.y, broken, and tortured. ”Catholicism is a macabre religion.”

Poppy turned toward me, face thoughtful. ”I think that's what I like about it. It's gritty. It's real. It doesn't gloss over pain or sorrow or guilt-it highlights them. Where I grew up, you never dealt with anything. You took pills, drank, repressed it all until you were an expensive sh.e.l.l. I like this way better. I like confronting things.”

”It's an active religion,” I agreed. ”It's a religion of doing-rituals, prayers, motions.”

”And that's what you like about it.”

”That it's active? Yes. But I like the rituals themselves too.” I looked around the sanctuary. ”I like the incense and the wine and the chants. It feels ancient and holy. And there's something about the rituals that brings me back to G.o.d every time, no matter how foul my mood is, no matter how badly I've sinned. Once I start, it all sort of fades away, like it's not important. Which it isn't. Because while Catholicism can be macabre, it's also a religion of joy and connection, of remembering that sorrow and sin can't hold on to us any longer.”

She s.h.i.+fted, her flat b.u.mping against my shoe. ”Connection,” she said. ”Right.”

In fact, I was feeling connection right now. I liked talking religion with her; I liked that she got it, got it in a way that a lot of lifetime churchgoers didn't. I wanted to talk to her all day, listen to her all day, have her breathy words whisper me to sleep at night...

Noooooo, Tyler. Bad.

I cleared my throat. ”What can I help you with, Poppy?”

She held up the church newsletter. ”I saw that there was a pancake breakfast tomorrow and I wanted to help.”

”Of course.” The breakfast was one of the first things I'd started doing after coming to St. Margaret's, and the response had been overwhelming. There was enough rural poverty and poverty in nearby Platte City and Leavenworth to guarantee a steady need for the service, but there were never enough volunteers and we were slammed the two times a month we hosted it. ”That would be so much appreciated.”

”Good.” She smiled, the hint of a dimple appearing in her cheek. ”I'll see you tomorrow then.”

I prayed extra last night. I woke up at dawn and went on an even longer run than the ones I'd been taking, cras.h.i.+ng into my kitchen sweaty and exhausted, causing a ca.s.serole-unloading Millie to tsk at me.

”Are you training for a marathon?” she asked. ”If so, it doesn't look like you're doing a very good job.”

I was too out of breath to even sputter a protest at that. I grabbed a bottle of water and drank the entire thing in several long gulps. Then I stretched out facedown on the cold tile floor in an attempt to lower my core temperature.

”You do realize it's dangerous to run in the heat, even in the morning. You should get a treadmill.”

”Mmphm,” I said into the floor.

”Well, regardless, you need to shower before the breakfast. I ran into that delightful new girl last night in town, and she said she was going to help us today. And surely you want to look nice for the new girl, right?”

I lifted my head and looked up at her incredulously.

<script>