Hit and Nun (2 page)

“What is this stuff, Lucille?” Frankie said as he ladled some onto his plate.

“It’s chicken curry.”

Gabe took a mouthful. He made a face. “It tastes like soap.”

Angela poked at it with her fork before taking a small taste. She frowned and pushed her plate away.

Bernadette was eating heartily and so was Tony, the baby between them in one of them baby seats that they’d propped on one of the dining room chairs.

Louis and Millie didn’t seem to notice nothing unusual. Their heads were bent over their plates, and they were shoveling in the food at a fast clip. It made Lucille wonder if Angela fed them.

Father Brennan forked up a bite of chicken and immediately grabbed his wineglass and took a big gulp.

By the time dinner was over, Lucille had almost as much chicken curry left as when she’d started.

“Looks like nobody’s going to leave the table too full for once,” Frankie said, scratching his stomach.

Lucille shot him a dirty look as she set the box of cannoli on the table. Everybody began grabbing for them at once.

“So,” Lucille said as she resumed her seat, “we have to start planning little Lucy’s christening.” She turned to Father Brennan.

“We’re not having her baptized,” Bernadette and Tony said in unison.

“What!” Lucille said. She dropped her teaspoon and it clanged against her coffee cup, making everyone jump. She sent up a prayer to St. Oran, the patron saint of atheists. “She’s going to be baptized, and that’s that,” Lucille said, turning to Flo. “Right, Flo?”

Flo shrugged. “Whatever the kids want.”

Lucille turned on her. “How can you say that, Flo? You and me was both baptized.” She waved a hand around the table. “Everyone here has been baptized. That way we’ll all be together in heaven, right, Father?” She looked at Father Brennan.

He looked a bit as if the wine was going to his head. He nodded at Lucille.

“See? Father Brennan agrees.”

“Funny,” Bernadette said. “I didn’t hear him say anything.”

“It’s what they call a tactile agreement, Miss Smarty Pants,” Lucille shot back. Bernadette shrugged and took another bite of her cannoli. Tony just sat there. Even though he’d been in the army and overseas to one of them places where they were all fighting about something—Lucille could never figure out exactly what—he hadn’t become any more talkative. Still sat there with his mouth hanging open half the time.

“What’s wrong with having the baby baptized?” Lucille asked.

“We don’t believe in it. We don’t think babies are born with sin so what’s the point?”

“But what’s the harm? Father Brennan splashes some water on her head, says a couple of prayers, and it’s all over. It don’t mean nothing.”

“If it doesn’t mean anything, then why are we doing it?” Bernadette looked smug.

“Because I said so, that’s why. Because I’m your mother and Lucy’s grandmother, and I want to see her christened, okay?”

When Lucille woke up the next morning, the house still smelled funny. That was the last time she’d let Bernadette talk her into trying something new. Even though Bernadette had acted real impressed by the dish, which was kind of a nice change from her putting down everything Lucille did, from the way she dressed to how she styled her hair.

Although the September air was chilly enough to give her goose bumps, Lucille threw open a bunch of windows to try to clear the smell. She leaned her arms on the sill of the front bedroom window and looked out. The leaves were turning and starting to collect in corners where the wind had blown them. Frankie would have to be getting out the rake soon. Maybe Tony would give him a hand. An image of Tony sitting at the table with his mouth hanging open flashed across Lucille’s mind. She shook her head. Most likely Frankie would be tackling the job by himself.

From up here Lucille could see the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the front yard. That made her think about how Bernadette and Tony didn’t want to baptize little Lucy. She’d gone to bed thinking about it and had woken up thinking about it. She knew from her days in catechism classes that a layperson could perform a baptism in an emergency—like if the person was dying and there was no chance of getting a priest there on time. Lucille wondered if this could maybe be considered a special case? Even though little Lucy wasn’t in no danger or anything, God forbid.

Or maybe she could sneak the baby over to the church and ask Father Brennan to perform the ceremony in secret like? It’s not like Bernadette was one of those people who didn’t want their kids vaccinated, and Lucille had gone ahead and had it done anyway. A baptism couldn’t possibly do any harm.

Lucille thought about it as she got dressed. She pulled on a pair of brown slacks she hadn’t worn since last winter. The elastic in the waist was a little snug. She must have put on a couple of pounds over the summer. Fortunately she had just read about this new diet. It was in one of the magazines she’d picked up at the Clip and Curl to look at while she waited for her color to develop. It was called the Paleo diet and all the celebrities were on it—even one of the actresses who was on the soap Lucille watched, along with a bunch of other people she’d never heard of.

It was supposed to be real simple and didn’t require any exotic ingredients like curry. You just basically ate what the cavemen used to eat. Stuff like meat and fruits and vegetables. And you didn’t have to count no calories. Lucille liked that since she was always losing track and that’s why none of them other diets had ever worked for her.

She was supposed to work in the office at the church today. Father Brennan wouldn’t be there—he had some luncheon to go to honoring the archbishop—and Father Morales was helping out at another parish while their priest was in the hospital having his gall bladder out. Lucille didn’t look forward to being alone with Jeannette, who seemed to think she was in charge, but there wasn’t nothing she could do about it.

The air had turned pretty chilly so Lucille got her black leather jacket out of the closet. Frankie had given it to her way back when they were in high school. It was pretty worn by now and Lucille couldn’t hardly zip it closed anymore, but she wasn’t about to give it up.

She felt the same way about her Olds, she thought as she backed it out of the garage. White with red leather interior—so what if it didn’t have all the newfangled gadgets that other cars had? What did she need with one of them GPS systems or a CD player. As long as she could plug in her tape of “Lucille” by Little Richard she was happy.

As soon as Lucille turned the corner onto South Street she realized she had forgotten to bring her lunch with her. The door to Sal’s Pizzeria was propped open, and she could smell the pizza inside her car. She quickly put on her blinker and turned into the parking lot.

She figured one slice wouldn’t hurt. The cavemen didn’t have pizza, but that was only because no one had thought to put all the ingredients together until Marco Polo came along. What was pizza anyway? Tomatoes, which were a vegetable, cheese, which came from cows, and bread. The cavemen must have had bread—one of them had invented fire so someone else had probably figured out how to make an oven. It wouldn’t have been like her GE, but she was pretty sure they could have at least baked bread in it.

She walked through the door to Sal’s and took a deep breath. She never got tired of pizza and Sal’s was some of the best. It was the sauce that made it—supposedly it was a secret recipe that had been handed down from his great-grandmother back in Naples.

Sal’s had red booths along the sides and square wooden tables in the middle. Sal didn’t believe in changing nothing, which Lucille liked. If the booths needed repairing, he had them fixed. He didn’t go hauling in new ones like so many of these places today.

Lucille made her way up front. Sal’s wife, Tiffany, was behind the counter as usual, her black hair sprayed into a bouffant twist. She went to the Clip and Curl same as Lucille. Today she was looking decidedly pissed off. Lucille knew that Sal often left her alone to deal with the place and that didn’t make her none too happy. He said it was business, but Lucille knew Tiffany didn’t believe him, and with good reason. His business was right here at Sal’s Pizzeria. What need did he have to go gallivanting all over town?

Lucille approached the counter. Her mouth was watering already. Tiffany was pulling a pie from the oven—the crust golden and blistered in places, the cheese gleaming with oil.

“Hey, Lucille,” Tiffany said when she turned around. “You want a slice?” She motioned toward the pie she’d just retrieved from the oven.

“Yeah,” Lucille said. She hesitated. “Aw, give me two. I’m real hungry today.” They said that on this Paleo diet you were supposed to eat as much as you needed to in order to feel full, and Lucille figured that today it was going to take two pieces of pizza, especially seeing as how she hadn’t had too much to eat the night before.

“So where’s Sal?” Lucille looked around but didn’t see no one except Tiffany and a handful of customers.

Tiffany’s expression soured. “You tell me,” she shot back. “He went off to some secret meeting that I didn’t know nothing about. And here the lunch trade is about to begin, and I’m all by myself.” She rubbed the scar on her face—something Lucille had seen her do when she was upset.

She got the scar in a car accident some fifteen years ago. She had a bit of a limp too, although it wasn’t that noticeable unless she was wearing heels, which she didn’t do all that often. Sal had been in the accident as well, but although he’d had a couple of broken bones, they were all healed by now. People said he’d married Tiffany out of pity—he hadn’t been driving the car himself but still he felt responsible. Sal was that kind of guy.

But Lucille knew the rumors weren’t true—Sal really loved Tiffany. They was a couple and had been for the last fifteen years. Just like her and Frankie, although she and Frankie had been married a lot longer. After all, Bernadette was almost twenty years old and they’d been wed good and proper when she was born—none of this baby daddy stuff for them.

Tiffany was sliding Lucille’s two slices of pizza onto paper plates when some guy rushed in, tying an apron around his waist as he slipped behind the counter. He had dark hair, on the long side, and dark eyes like a couple of black olives.

Tiffany tilted her head in his direction. “This here’s Joey Barba. He’s going to be helping us out from now on.” She turned toward the fellow. “Where you been? You was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.”

The guy gave her a charming smile. He looked vaguely familiar to Lucille but she couldn’t place him—plenty of guys around with dark hair, dark eyes and a nice smile.

“Sorry, Tiff. I went to get my oil changed and they took forever.”

Tiffany sniffed, her shoulders set in a rigid line.

“What happened to Ray?” Lucille said.

“Sal fired him. He was always late.” She looked pointedly at Joey. Tiffany motioned to Lucille’s pizza. “You gonna eat that here or you want me to put it in a box for you?”

Lucille glanced at her watch. She was already late. Jeannette would have a fit, even though she wasn’t in charge no matter how superior she acted.

“I’d better take it with me.”

Tiffany pulled a box with
Sal’s Pizzeria
written on it from under the counter. She slid Lucille’s slices into it, closed the lid and handed it to Lucille. “There you go.”

“Thanks.” Lucille pulled out her wallet and tossed a few dollars on the counter.

The new guy—Joey—picked up the bills and went over to the register. He punched in some numbers and the drawer shot open. He scooped up some coins, walked back to where Lucille was standing and gave her a handful of change.

It wasn’t much, a few nickels and a couple of pennies. Lucille dropped it into the jar with the picture of the bald kid where they were collecting money for St. Jude’s Hospital. She said good-bye to Tiffany and headed out the door.

• • •

Just as Lucille had suspected, Jeannette gave her a dirty look when she walked into the church office a couple of minutes later. Father Brennan’s door was closed on account of him being away, and Jeannette was at her computer, staring at Lucille over her half-glasses. Her stare intensified when Lucille set the pizza box on her desk and opened the lid.

Lucille felt guilty for not offering Jeannette one of the slices, but she was starving. She tucked one of the paper napkins into the neck of her blouse and took a big bite of the first piece. She could feel Jeanette’s eyes on her as she chewed, so she swiveled her chair a bit to the right to get a little privacy.

Lucille had finished the first piece and had taken a bite of the second when Jeannette cleared her throat.

“Lucille?”

“Huh?” Lucille went to put the pizza down, but she hadn’t completely bitten through the layer of cheese, and it was now stretching between her mouth and the slice in her hand like a long elastic band. She finally had to reach up and pull the cheese off the piece with her fingers.

Jeannette raised an eyebrow as she watched Lucille.

Like Jeannette drank her tea with her pinkie raised,
Lucille thought as she chewed.

“Would you go over to the church and make sure the flowers look okay?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

Lucille put down her pizza. She’d discovered that with Jeannette the path of least resistance was . . . well, the path of least resistance. She’d finish her second slice when she got back. It was probably good to pace herself anyway.

Lucille got up, pulled her leather jacket back on and left without saying a word. That would show Jeannette.

The wind had picked up, and Lucille hunched her shoulders and pulled the edges of her jacket closer together. She didn’t understand why Jeannette couldn’t go check on the flowers herself. Besides, the flower committee always did a great job, so there was no real need to worry. It was just another opportunity for Jeannette to boss Lucille around and interrupt her lunch.

The church was dark and hushed with that peculiar smell all Catholic churches seemed to have—a combination of incense, dying lilies and damp.