greenery in the Paris's Le Cafe Ile St. Louis restaurant.
As I neared the teardrop-shaped lake, I spotted a single tree-thick island in its center, reached by a wooden footbridge. I felt a creeping sensation at my neck. The silver familiar was off sex patrol and changing into an innocuous chain with a long, freshly cold pendant. The familiar ran hot and cold, depending on my whereabouts, the air temperature, and my personal emotional tenor. Now it was less "Fever" and more The Waltons.
Saints preserve me from so-square John-Boy, Irma wailed.
I lifted the pendant. Maybe the ambiance was more ... Camelot. The familiar had morphed into a miniature sword with an aurora borealis crystal on its pommel.
I told you, Irma said. Cool.
The smile in her voice brought one to my lips. This had been a calm retreat after the group homes. Here, I had apparently ditched real memories of any trauma or abuse for occasional nightmares too unbelievable to bother anybody else with.
I studied the sun-dappled lake and tested a wetted finger to the light wind, as evening prepared to don her best gown and thought about dimming the sky. Soon the sun's rays would be slanting through the trees, and then, hours later, maybe moonlight. I searched the gentle ripples for signs of an immortal woman's naked arm.
Nope. Still no lady in the lake.
Smiling again, I climbed the hill to reclaim Dolly's driver's seat, and I didn't stop until we parked at the limestone administration building. Maybe even an orphan can go home again.
The Young Thing at the reception desk had matching "Edward" tattoos inside her wrists and wore her long uniform sleeves rolled up to her elbow like a workman's shirt, the better to flaunt her workout muscles.
Golly. They were allowing visible self-expression here now?
"Is the mother superior still Sister Regina Caeli?" I asked, pronouncing the Latin properly as "Chay-lee."
"She goes by Sister Ermangarde Wallace now. Yeah. You got it the first time. Ermangarde. You can kinda see the vocation coming there, from the baptismal certificate. Who wouldn't want to exchange that bummer name for something like Queen of Heaven? Not many new nuns now. Maybe the first names got better. You're a grad, right? I recognize the navy. Never lost the uniform, huh? The campus is crawling with all these, like, older women, coming back. Like this was fun."
"It's a beautiful campus."
"Try getting a date for the St. Lancelot's military ball on that one."
"St. Lancelot's boys' high school is still a going concern?"
"Do punks have pimples? We mostly date the guys from State College, unless there's a big St. Lancelot's formal 'do,' where we can put on the bustiers and the black lipstick shtick. Of course the nuns forbid cleavage, but they don't go to the dances. You don't look like a drag hag. I mean, like you haven't been gone that long."
"One piece of advice I'll give you - ?"
"Carnaby. Horrible first name, I know. My grandparents used to be counterculture. Still not worth going into the convent over."
"Okay, Carnaby. You are going to be uncool so soon. Enjoy the hip now."
"If you say so. That is a sweet pendant you're wearing. You should have called for an appointment, but what the heck. Gimme your name? Mother Superior Ermangarde is still here. She never leaves."
"Delilah Street," I said, trying out the truth.
"Ooh. Delilah. Biblical bad girl. I'd kill for that name. Major cool. You ever done any black lipstick? With your white skin that would wring the Goth boys out and throw them away for the duration."
"I've done some radical lip gloss in my day," I purred. "What are you complaining about? Carnaby is a cute name."
"I know, dammit. 'Cute' is so lame today. Hold on. I'll ring the olde dame."
Somehow, the way she said "olde dame" had a Chaucer-like, uh, ring. I bet English Literature was still a required course here. Particularly the Arthurian Cycle.
Had it only been seven years? Felt like seven centuries. I hesitated before knocking at the head nun's age-darkened wooden door. It had an opaque pebbled-glass window like a noir private detective's.
"Enter," an imperiously distracted voice commanded before my knuckles hit wood. Nuns had a ninth sense.
For a moment, I longed to be back in a stinky, darkening pasture with Ric and Quicksilver and Leonard Tall-grass.
I opened the door, overcome by a scent of lemon oil.
Through the big old-fashioned sash windows behind the desk, the sun was setting, going for the gold before it turned bloodred and sank pouting into the horizon.
Sister