Blue World (54 page)

“Always?”

“Always. I’m at the Cathedral of St. Francis, on Vallejo. You come by sometime, we’ll have lunch. I’ve got high connections.”

“Yeah. Sure, Father! Sure! High connections!” He grinned and dug an elbow into Chuck’s ribs with a force that made the boy wince. “High connections! He’s a funny man!”

“Good-bye, Uncle Joey,” Debbie told him, and she took his hand and squeezed it.

“‘Bye, kid. Father… I guess I’ll be seein’ you.”

“Sooner or later.”

“Yeah! Yeah, right!” He grinned again, and then he had to grasp hold of his sons’ shoulders and be supported as they left the gate.

“Now boarding United’s flight 1714 to Dallas, Memphis, and New Orleans,” the loudspeaker announced.

They walked closer to the door that led to the aircraft. Debbie had the ticket gripped hard in her hand. Passengers with carry-on luggage were passing back and forth, the airport full of noise.

“I guess it’s time,” John said, and he stared at the floor.

She took a deep breath. “Father… she wants to say good-bye.”

He looked up. “What?”

“Debra Rocks wants to say good-bye,” she repeated, and he saw it happen.

The fire came out of her, it leapt from her and engulfed him. Her eyes blazed with passion, and suddenly she was reaching for him and her arms went around his neck. Her lips, soft and burning, fastened on his, and he smelled cinnamon-scented bubblebath and thought he was going to swoon.

Her mouth opened, and her tongue pushed between his lips and entered his, sliding smoothly over wet, yielding flesh.

She locked her hands around his neck, her fingers going into his hair--and then she lifted one leg and put it around his hip. Then the other leg, and they were clamped together and kissing like the true meeting of souls.

“United’s flight 1714, now board--” The loudspeaker’s voice halted.

The airport went silent but for the noise of carry-on bags hitting the floor.

Her tongue swirled, teasing and ferocious, inside his mouth. They clung together, John oblivious of everyone and everything but this moment, a carving in time. Her tongue tickled the roof of his mouth, brushed past his tongue. Then began to ease out, and she sucked on his lower lip before she let it go.

Then she was unlocking her legs from around his hips, in the silence of the airport, and as her feet touched the floor she was Debbie Stoner again, a young girl with a plane to catch.

“That was Debra saying good-bye,” she told him, damp-eyed. “I don’t think she’ll be around much anymore. Now this is just me.” She hugged him, and put her head against his shoulder. Her raven hair floated against his face, and for the rest of his life he would remember its silk. “Thank you, Father,” she whispered. “Thank you… for loving me.”

His eyes filled up, and he had to let her go. She took a few paces and stopped, and when she looked back her face was streaked with tears. “Soul mates?” she asked.

“Believe it,” he answered.

“Pray for me,” she said, and she went out that door leading home.

A middle-aged woman with rouged cheeks and a pinched mouth sauntered up to him and looked at him with livid disgust. “And you call yourself a priest!”

He said, “Yes, ma’am. I do.”

He stayed until the plane took off. Sunlight flared silver on its wings. New Orleans wasn’t so far away, he thought. The telephone wires went there and back, and so did the mail. Not so far. Well, we’ll see…

In his apartment, he began working on a new jigsaw puzzle, of a green Southern landscape. It wasn’t too hard to imagine her in it.

Maybe someday he would get a letter, he thought. And in that letter she would say Debbie Stoner was doing just fine, and she’d met someone nice, someone who would love and respect her and wonder where Debbie Stoner had been all his life.

On that day, he thought his heart might break a little bit. Because he loved her.

But it would be a happy day.

Darryl came to the door. “John? Somebody wants to see you in the sanctuary.” He glanced, still a bit uneasily, at the crab in its sandbox over in the corner.

“Thanks.” He got up from his puzzle and hurried out.

She was waiting with Monsignor McDowell. She was a pretty blond girl, maybe nineteen or twenty, and behind her makeup her eyes were still fresh enough to be scared.

“Are you… Father Lucky?” she asked.

“You can call me that,” he said, casting a quick glance at the monsignor.

“My… name is Kathy Crenshaw.” She shivered, and John saw needle marks on her arms. “Debbie Stoner told me about you.” She reached out, a trembling hand, and her face collapsed. “Can you… help me?”

“We’ll see,” he answered, and he took her hand. They sat together, in a pew, while Father Lucky listened, and the rough diamond in his pierced ear threw a spark of light.

Monsignor McDowell stood nearby for a moment, and then he walked to the doors and opened them.