The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,51
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“I didn’t think nuns could get pregnant,” Jack says, and I bonk him on the head with the soap.
“She isn’t a nun, Jack.”
“Oh, she’s a soap maker, then?” He leans out of reach in case I don’t like that idea, either.
I don’t want to talk about this anymore. But if Isabelle wants to stay another day, maybe I can at least take her ribbon to her and see if she’s okay.
“Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow is the abbey on the road that heads west out of town,” the man behind the counter says when I go back in the mercantile to ask. “But if you want their stuff, you have to buy it here. They’re cloistered. No visitors.”
“Oh, okay. I was just curious,” I say nonchalantly.
The man surveys me under bushy eyebrows. “Of course, there’s a little campsite on the river with a view of the abbey that only the locals know about. You aren’t plannin’ any vandalism or trouble for the nuns, are ya?”
“No, no, absolutely not. I was just interested in seeing what an abbey looks like.”
“Well, you can see it through the trees on this side, and I have to say, you can hear the bells and listen to ’em singin’ and it’s quite lovely.” He draws a little map on the back of a matchbook. “Don’t make me regret givin’ ya this.”
“No, I promise. Thanks a lot.”
—
We spend the night in the car right outside the auto body shop. Isabelle is a queen at sleeping while sitting straight up in the driver’s seat. She’s been sleeping like that all the way from Prince Rupert, over thirteen hundred miles. Jack and I put the backseat down and curl up together under a moth-eaten blanket, which Isabelle says could save our lives in a pinch.
A guy in greasy coveralls bangs on the window early the next morning, yelling as if he’s had way too many cups of coffee, “Rise and shine. We’re ready to fix your car.”
I can tell Jack doesn’t buy my excuse that I just want a quiet walk alone in the woods. I wouldn’t, either. He gives me a look equivalent to being put through a lie detector test, which I’m sure I fail. But all he says is, “Lots of mosquitoes out there; have fun.” He and Isabelle pull out the cribbage board that Phil gave him and prepare to spend the morning in a booth at the Gold Rush Diner.
It’s a lot farther to the secluded road than it looks on the matchbook, and by the time I get there, I’m tired and sweaty and wondering what the hell I’m even doing. I’m also covered in bug bites. It’s totally deserted, so I strip down and plunge my hot, sticky body into the river before more mosquitoes can get me, just as the abbey bells begin to chime.
The ribbon is balled up in my fist, and I swim out to the middle where I can just barely make out the outline of a brick building through the trees. The only problem is that the river gets shallower on the other side, so pretty soon I’m walking in just knee-deep water over jagged rocks, hoping to God that this is truly as secluded as the man made it sound. On the opposite shore I’m immediately greeted by a cloud of mosquitoes thrilled to find so much naked skin.
I follow the sound of the abbey bells up an incline, careful to stay hidden in the scrubby spruce trees. This has got to be the most asinine thing I’ve ever done. I told the man back at the store that I had no intention of causing trouble; I hope walking naked around the abbey doesn’t count.
Just a few yards away from where I’m hidden in the trees is a clothesline with some sheets and towels whipping in the breeze. I’ve lost my nerve and think I’ll just tie the ribbon onto the clothesline and get out of here, when the pregnant girl comes walking toward it with a white basket pressed over her stomach.
She pulls off the wooden clothespins and tries to grab the corners of a white sheet, which is flapping on the line like a giant goose. I almost don’t believe it myself when I hear my own voice say, “Uh, hey, hello there.”
She spins around and gets totally tangled in the sheet.
“Who’s there?” she yells, and then, almost as an afterthought, she says, “I have a knife. Don’t