The long road home - By Danielle Steel Page 0,108

by that afternoon, they were even more pleased. She was polite to all their customers, took their orders carefully, and hadn't made a single mistake in what she delivered to them. What's more she was quick, and seemed comfortable handling several tables. In some ways, it reminded her very much of serving meals to the Sisters in the convent. You had to be fast and neat and organized to serve that many people, and she was all of those things. By the time Professor Thomas came in, with Mrs. Rosenstein, Gabriella was feeling very much at home there.

They ordered strudel and plum tarts, and coffee with lots of whipped cream, and they left her a big tip afterward, which embarrassed her, but she thanked them both profusely. And on the way out, she saw them stop and chat with Mr. Baum, and heard them tell him how good the strudel was, and he promised to tell his wife that. They were still talking to him when she went back to the kitchen to pick up several other orders. And when she came back, they were just leaving. They told her they'd see her at Mrs. Boslicki's, and she waved and went back to delivering her orders.

They came in every day after that, at the same time. And it became a kind of ritual, but after the first day, she always refused to take a tip from them. She said that bringing her their patronage, and seeing them there, was payment enough. They didn't have to give her any money, all they had to do was pay Mr. Baum for the apple strudel

And on Monday, on her day off, as she walked back from the Laundromat, she ran into Mrs. Rosenstein coming back from the dentist. She invited Gabriella to sit with them in the living room that night, and she commented later to Mrs. Boslicki that the girl was looking better. She seemed stronger and healthier, and not quite as pale as she had been. And Professor Thomas thought she looked a little less grief-stricken when he saw her in the living room later. They were sitting side by side, chatting amiably, while the others played cards, when he turned to her and spoke in a gentle voice no one else could hear, and Gabriella looked up at him in amazement.

“Mr. Baum tells me you were a nun,” he said quietly. It had never occurred to her that Mr. Baum would say that. She had only told him that so that she would get the job waiting on tables, and she knew it was the only experience she had that might convince him. But the professor wondered now if that accounted for her sadness, or if there was another, deeper story. He suspected the latter.

“Not really,” she explained, looking away from him pensively, and then up at him again. “I was a postulant. That's not quite the same thing.”

“Yes, it is,” he smiled. “It's just a tadpole instead of a frog.” He grinned and she laughed out loud at the description.

“I'm not sure the Sisters would be happy to hear you say that.”

“I always had a priest or two in my classes at Harvard. Mostly Jesuits. I always liked them, they were well educated, intelligent, and surprisingly open-minded.” And then without pausing for breath, he turned the conversation back to Gabriella. “How long were you in the convent?”

She hesitated before answering him, there was a lot to explain, and she didn't really want to do that. Even thinking about all she had lost so recently was still far too painful, and he could see sorrow in her eyes again as she answered. But she liked him enough to be honest with him.

“Twelve years,” she said quietly. “I grew up there.”

“Were you an orphan?” he asked gently, and she had the feeling that he was asking her because he cared, not because he wanted to announce it to the others. He was a sensitive, kind man, and she was surprised by how much she liked him.

“I was left there by my parents. It's really the only home I've ever known.” Yet she had left there, and he was compassionate enough not to ask her the reason. And he could sense easily that she didn't want to tell him.

“It must be a difficult life, being a nun. I can't imagine it. Celibacy has never appealed to me much,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “until lately.” He glanced at Mrs.

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