Life With Mother Superior (9 page)

“Why don’t you get Roger to carry those cases? They’re too heavy.”

“We’re late,” I shouted, “terribly late.” I raced
on. I simply couldn’t look her in the eye. She held the
door open for us and as we both flew through she called
after us. “Have a wonderful summer and keep safe.”

I turned around for just one glance. I couldn’t
keep the tears back. How could she be so casual with
us when we’d never see her again, and I couldn’t ask her without admitting what we had done.

“You too,” I wailed at her, “you too.”

Mary waved to the cab we’d called and, as we drove
away, I turned back to wave at Sister Constance who
stood on the porch and smiled that beautiful smile at us for the very last time.

Chapter Thirteen: The Death of Abraham Lincoln

Of the three faculty members who were non-nuns at
St. Marks, Miss Toumey had the most glamorous de
partment. She headed the Drama Department and
represented “The Theatre.” Even though the lay teach
ers had all the necessary degrees to handle the student
body in the definitive posts of Drama, Home Economics and Gymnasium, Mother Superior liked to think that behind every lay teacher there was a re
ligious one watching over us. In the case of the theatre,
it was Sister Blanche. She was the choice. Not that her
garb was any different from the other Sisters’, but she
had a distinct flair. She enun-ci-ated ev-er-ee word.

Miss Toumey and Sister Blanche were no Rodgers
and Hammerstein. They differed on every single
subject. A two-fisted, red-haired Irish woman, Miss
Toumey was given to nerves. Sister Blanche made Miss Toumey nervous, and that made Miss Toumey
reach into her orange leather sack every ten minutes
and take out her Frances Denney orange lipstick and apply it jerkily without a mirror. Sister Blanche de
spised lipstick, so within seconds Miss Tourney was applying and Sister Blanche was defying—the problem
with the lipstick was that we never knew if Miss
Tourney was smiling at us or if it was Frances Denney.
Their differences extended to the all important selec
tion of material.

Miss Tourney liked epic drama like
Don Quixote
,
that called for an almost all-male cast, whereas Sister
Blanche leaned more toward the romantic musicals
like
The Chocolate Soldier
or
Naughty Marietta.
But,
as long as it lasted from 8:30 to 10:30 and could ac
commodate the entire senior class in some form or other, the material was incidental. Over and above that, Miss Tourney changed the plot so many times
and the title (to avoid paying the royalty fee), that one
could only say that all our class plays were reminiscent
of George Bernard Shaw or Louisa May Alcott.

Theatre as an art, was restricted to seniors. Theatre,
as a money-producing scheme, was of course open to
all. For the first three years, you sold tickets to the show. For the fourth year, you were allowed, along
with your twenty-seven competitive chums, to be in it.
Of course, there were other dramatic incidents that Sister Blanche designed. For example, I did learn to
use a baton in
California Here We Come.
Our batons were broomsticks sawed in half, thrust into a sponge
ball and dipped in gold glitter paint. Laurentia lost
her ball in the middle of our trickiest twirl—I believe
it hit Mr. Gallagher. But, other than that, the Glee
Club did well with the showers and bowers that bloom
in the spring, and Sister Blanche, who had a melan
cholic streak, offered the services of the entire senior
class in Sunday uniforms, to attend Armistice Day services at the cemetery. But even that could not de
tract from the Big Event.

Our classic for the year 1940 was
The Death of
Abraham Lincoln.
I never for a moment thought that I would land one of the truly exciting speaking parts,
since I was not popular with Miss Tourney, and Sister
Blanche had been collecting a dossier on me since I was a freshman. I got the part of Lisha, the colored girl slave. I was the only one willing to blacken my face with shoe polish and cork. I had three lines to memorize, one that I recited in each act, and I took a rather upper-handed attitude towards Mary, Ginger
and Laurentia, none of whom had speaking roles. Mary
was a soldier who was dragged across the entire stage,
which was about fifty feet; and, as rehearsals pro
gressed, she suffered a good bit from splinters. Ginger
and Laurentia were old hags who shouted down “No”
and “Save us all” along with the other untalented seniors. Of the quartet, I had certainly come up with
the best part. Of course, we didn’t even envy Abe, who
was Roberta Pierce. I am sure that playing the role of
Abraham Lincoln left lasting scars on her libido, since
we were in character more that spring than we were
out of it. I still have the blackheads to remind me of
Lisha.

From three o’clock on till six, if Miss Tourney felt like it, we rehearsed in the darkened auditorium. As
April approached and the trees began to bud green and
flower, Sister Blanche started calling Saturday re
hearsals and even an occasional Sunday one—although
Mother Superior frowned on this. The school took on
the same kind of nervous beat a Broadway production
suffers as the calendar silently creeps towards the New
Haven opening. Sister Blanche was all for pushing the
performance up, but the date was firm since the
sequence of exciting events that would follow were all
on schedule—the Operetta, the Band Concert, Bac
calaureate Sunday, and finally, Graduation. The entire
faculty should have been sent to Menninger’s for the
summer following a typical St. Marks year. But they
thrived on it. A nun’s work is never done, if she can just have time to schedule some more.

After rehearsals began, the first commercial step had to be taken and that was selling space in the program. I tackled the Gallagher Bottling Plant, as they provided the pop and soft drinks all year. It was my job to see if Mr. Gallagher wouldn’t up his $10
space for an eighth of a page to a $15 space for a fourth.
The scale of space was a secret with Sister Geraldine, the treasurer, who has long since left this world taking
her clues with her. It was my idea, as a parting gift to
St. Marks, to help Sister Geraldine with the program. She should have been suspicious, since I had never
offered my services to anything, but she was delighted
to put me in charge of proofreading the program. Thus we had several one-eighth pages that read “Compli
ments of a Fiend.” I was delighted at that time with
my sense of humor, which I considered just one notch
below Benchley.

After the pages were all sold to vendors who sold us,
and to parents who had some money left over, we started all over with the same people to sell them tickets. I approached Mr. Gallagher with my fist full
of first-night or second-night seats, and got a chilly
reception.

“I really don’t think I can go and I know the missus
doesn’t want to.”

“Mr. Gallagher, I think this is one of the very best shows we’ve ever done at St. Marks.”

“Well, I’m sure it is, my dear, but I don’t think I can make it.”

“I’m in it . . . I have three lines . . . ‘Massuh, save me’ . . . ‘Help, help, please don’t whip me’ . . . and ‘We will never forget you, Abe Lincoln.’”

Mr. Gallagher sat with his head cupped in his hand, his elbow propped on a Seven-Up display, and stared
at me. “Isn’t it enough that I’ve sent all my children
to St. Marks, my son is a priest, and I took an eighth
page in the program?”

“I don’t see how you can miss this,” I added.

The poor man knew if he didn’t take them, I
wouldn’t leave, or I’d go back to Sister Geraldine and
tell her the truth and he wouldn’t be delivering all that soda to the school, so he said resignedly, “Okay, two. . . .”

“Just two?” We had been trained for this chore.

“Just two.”

I had my face blackened and I was ready for the
stage at 6 p.m., even though my appearance was not until the middle of the first act, and I couldn’t go near
anyone for fear that I’d rub off. By 6:35 I was so nervous that I was dripping brown rivulets onto my
white slave costume. Sister Blanche cued everyone onto
the stage so heartily and loudly that most of everyone’s first lines were completely lost to the audience and they heard instead, “Anna Marie Flaherty on stage.” It was quite a drama. Lincoln had already made his/her appearance and had brought down the house—the makeup job was so authentic. Actually, Roberta looked a little like Lincoln, so it wasn’t so
difficult. The only problem was she didn’t sound like Lincoln and she’d practiced booming her husky voice
so much, she was pretty hoarse the first night The second night, her stand-by, a short blond girl, did the
part and she got just as much of a hand for makeup. It
has a lot to do with the audience.

The play was building up nicely when Sister Blanche
shouted for me—my mouth was completely dry and I
tried to get a drink at the fountain before I hit the
stage. Sister Blanche went right to pieces when I didn’t
appear the instant she called; and when I did appear, she grabbed me and literally threw me onto the stage. Granted, my being a minute late had left Abe with nothing to do but pace up and down. And, instead of my ingratiating creeping approach to “Massuh, save me . . .”, I literally flew through the air and landed
practically in Abe’s arms. Roberta went to pieces. See
ing her thus, I promptly said, “We will never forget
you, Abe Lincoln.” The cast of players were so well
trained that they immediately picked up their third-act lines and killed Abe.

Before Sister Blanche could prompt us from the side
curtain, we had completed the third act and the cur
tain came down. Needless to say, there was as much chaos on the audience side of the curtain as there was on the actors’ side. Sister Blanche was beside herself.
The entire performance had taken twenty-three minutes. It was the quickest death Lincoln had ever had.

Sister Blanche and Miss Tourney held a meeting and
tried to figure out how they could start the play over
with Lincoln already getting stiff. And, a lot of parents
were pretty peeved, since anyone who was in the
second or third act exclusively simply was out of luck.

Then Mother Superior rose to the occasion, marched
up the steps of the stage and spoke to the audience.
“One of our actresses,” she said, “in the fervor of her
first major part, delivered her third act line instead of
her first. We are certain you wouldn’t want to miss
the next two acts so we will proceed from where Lisha,
the slave girl,
crept
in.”

The piano broke into “John Brown’s body lies
a’mouldering in the grave. . . .” Abe picked him
self/herself up, and as the curtain rose, I crawled
toward Roberta muttering, “Massuh, save me.”

Chapter Fourteen: Fever in the Blood

When I was twelve, Mama finally told me there was no Santa Claus. When I was fourteen, Mary told me that we did not originate in the cabbage patch. And
when I was sixteen and a senior, Mother Superior told
us about sex. It was not a subject she waxed warmly over. In fact, she handled it quite a bit like my family would have, had they had the opportunity. Mama’s
only expression when the word “sex” popped up was,
“That is kitchen talk. If you want to pursue this kind of filth, you go in the kitchen.”

Mother Superior spoke about the sanctity of mar
ried life once a week. At the same time, the young men
at St. Giles were being taught the responsibilities of
being a Catholic father. The results in both camps were
about the same. When we finally met to do battle, we stood and stared at each other, speechless. In our Sun
day uniforms, which made us look like Polish refugees,
plus our acne (a direct result of Sister Rose Marie’s insistent bake sales for the Missions), plus our liberal
sex education, we turned into the most unattractive mates the boys could possibly desire.

It was from Sister Mary William and Sister Blanche that we really got our scare. Sister Mary William gave us strict instructions on how to behave if and when we
were ever forced (God forbid) to sit on a boy’s lap.
She looked down from her platform, peering out glassy-
eyed at the lot of us.

“Never sit on a boy’s lap.”

We sat spellbound.

“And, if you do have to, if the car is crowded, if your
cousins take you riding, if there is no other way out
except sitting on the floor of a sedan, just sit on a
phone book.” Of course, even then, dumb as we were,
we knew it was not always the handiest thing to have
in your hands.

“And if you don’t have a phone book,” Sister Blanche said, “take a
Good Housekeeping
with you.”

We all agreed to never go out without a magazine to sit on.

To plan the material side of our worldly education
(as well as the spiritual side), St. Giles and St. Marks
had four reciprocal tea dances—for seniors only. These
were held at three o’clock and the torture lasted until
five o’clock. Two of these balls were held in our gym,
with pink balloons; two were held in the boys’ gym,
with red balloons. This was actually done against the
inner wishes of the Sisters and the Fathers, who, in
their hearts, hoped that we would never leave the nest.
But realistically, they knew that we had to. So, with
their catholic (in the universal sense) wisdom, they
agreed that if we had to meet someone, we might as
well meet each other.

Stephen O’Riley was the first boy I ever really talked
to. He was a Skeezix sort of boy with unruly hair, a
tiny chin, lots of teeth and wicked blue eyes. He looked
somewhat like a young, old man. His high-and-low husky, dusty cracking voice fascinated me. I would
never have had the courage to talk to Stephen if I hadn’t sat next to Oona O’Riley, his sister, for three
years. Oona had suggested that she introduce me to
Stephen when the first tea dance was scheduled.

“Stephen’s funny, I think you’ll like him . . . and he says he can dance.”

I agreed, and on the scheduled afternoon, at three o’clock
(promptly
at three o’clock) the boys’ bus ar
rived with the Fathers in charge. There was one Father for every three boys. With a similar ratio at St. Marks,
you can well imagine the conviviality of the whole affair.

Boys with a sister, and vice-versa, fared better than
the lonely ones. It wasn’t a question of family or
brotherly love, it was simply a defense mechanism on
the part of the boys not to have to meet some girl-
even a sister was preferable. The family relationship
was bad enough, but to have to speak to a strange girl
was sickening.

Oona brought Stephen over to me and did the usual
introductions. I thought he was enchanting from the
first sentence he spoke. He said, “Ain’t this a drag?”

“You’ll never know,” I said staring at the floor.

“You sick or something?”

“No,” I whispered, “no.” I dragged my eyes up.

“You wanna skate?”

“Skate?” I was puzzled. “Skate?”

“Dance, you drone, dance.”

“I don’t know how, except with Mrs. Phipps.”

Stephen looked at me with wide unbelieving eyes.

“You been dating her?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, she’s our dancing teacher and
I haven’t ever danced with anyone else.”

“Well, do your or don’t your?”

“I door.”

This last bit of smashing comedy on my part seemed
to amuse Stephen and we began.

The orchestra (if it could be called an orchestra)
consisted of four young boys from the local Catholic
college, who worked their way through Music Other
than at the tea dances, I don’t believe they ever saw
each other. They played “Deep Purple,” “Hold Tight” and one of the most horrendous versions of “Harbor
Lights” I have ever heard.

When I got out on the floor and moving with Stephen, I realized that Mrs. Phipps had not done
badly by me. At least I knew which sneaker to move.
Of course, we weren’t wearing sneakers at the tea dance, which in itself took a bit of getting used to. I had the feeling, though, that Brother Simon had not
been as successful with his charges.

Whatever it was that Stephen did, made sense up to a point—it was the point that amazed me. I think he created his dashing dip, which was a combination
of a czardas and a rhumba, out of pure boredom with
the two-step.

“What
are
you doing?” I panted at him breathlessly.

“It’s not what I’m doing,” he sneered, “it’s what you’re supposed to do.”

I tried to master the dip. As we sped by Mother Superior, dipping directly in front of her, I noticed that she seemed overcome by a cough. In fact, she kept her handkerchief up in front of her face most of the afternoon.

“I never learned this step,” I said defensively.

“Well, master it now,” he shouted. I hated him for a moment, but then I rather liked the idea of someone outshouting me. I dipped.

Mary had found a tall, red-headed boy who seemed quite debonair and at ease with tea dancing. She was quite fussy about friends, and I was interested to see that her young man didn’t seem to mind the large white handkerchief she put between his hand and hers to keep her sweating palms dry.

In between dance sections, when the orchestra switched music (and instruments, I think), punch was served with tiny little cookies made of corn flakes and soap. The punch tasted like orange juice mixed with Absorbine Jr. It was served in cut-glass cups that probably belonged to some member of one of the Sister’s families. When we got our punch we all retired to our separate corners, the boys to the bays’ side and the girls to the girls’ side.

“You act like an idiot,” Mary said to me. She seemed cross because I liked Stephen O’Riley and had been laughing with him.

“He’s marvelous,” I said proudly. “He’s very bad in deportment.”

“He’s a creep and you know it.”

“He’s not a creep and he’s different from most boys.”

“How?”

“Well, he’s funny and he makes me laugh.”

“Some laughs.”

“Well, how about you and Leroy?” I bantered back.

“Leroy will go places, and I hope soon.”

But little did Mary know how persistent Leroy was. He fell in love with Mary because she didn’t care a whit about him, and I fell in love with Stephen for precisely the same reason. It was life, to be precise.

During the alternate tea-dancing bouts with each other, we were being prepared for the big event—a championship tournament: the Senior Prom.

This was to be held in May, and not in the school. For the first time in our young lives we were to be exposed to a hotel ballroom, a decent orchestra, and long dresses. We were to pick the dresses out during the Easter holidays and bring them back to the school, or have them fitted, or made, or what have you, but they had to be approved by the twenty-fifth of May.

It was a trial and tribulation for the student, the parents, and the faculty. We worried about what color it was, the parent worried about how expensive it was, and the faculty worried about how bare it was. We had been duly warned about modesty and carried a letter home describing the ideal dress.

The ideal dress would have had a turtle neck, long sleeves, be made of mail, and would undoubtedly be pale pink, pale blue, or white. The fact that Marshall Field did not carry this posed many problems.

My mother, in a distinct rut created by other nuns in another generation, found just the perfect dress. There would be no need for any of the nuns to tuck handkerchiefs in my bosom to cover up a décolletage. My dress was white net over white taffeta. It had puffed sleeves, a boat neckline, a cinched waist line and no style.

My father took one look and said, “She looks like something out of
The Moonstone.”

“Do you think it needs some color?” Mama asked plaintively.

“Either the dress does or she does,” Papa answered. He had a nice sense of taste, and this all-white child of his did not please his aesthetic sense.

“Do you think she looks well, Dave?” Mama queried, a sense of lets-share-the-responsibility in her voice.

“She looks fine—it’s that shroud that makes her look like she’s been doused in flour.”

Ann Landers would be hard put to take care of the broken psyches caused by that generation of outspoken parents.

I was puzzled by this parental outburst and I finally got enough courage to ask my mother the most pertinent question.

“Mama, am I pretty?”

My mother studied me, much as a producer does an actress or an agency a model.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “you have nice clear eyes.”

It was the most tactful and evasive answer I have ever heard, but it did for me precisely what I wanted it to. I thought I had the most beautiful clear eyes in the whole world.

Mama remedied the dress by pinning a series of fuchsia bows on it. It wasn’t Chanel but it took the curse off it.

I asked Stephen to my dance and after a good bit of pressure on my part, he finally asked me to his.

Mary didn’t want to ask Leroy to the dance at all, and she was deluged with notes and flowers and a five-dollar size of Whitman’s Sampler until she did.

I was furious and I was determined to do one thing.

“I’m going to kiss Stephen,” I said boldly one afternoon to Mary and Oona and Kathryn. “I’m going to kiss him hard.”

“You are disgusting,” Mary said.

“I’m going to tell Mother Superior,” Oona said, worried over the morals of her brother.

“I don’t care what you do, I want to kiss him.”

Somehow the word got out that I was madly and passionately in love with Mr. O’Riley. Everyone knew but Stephen.

Before the night of the big dance, Mother Superior gave us a final plea.

“Just take my word for it, you’ll feel cleaner and nicer and prouder of yourself if you act like a St. Marks girl. No matter what ‘he’ says, stick to your honor, your godliness. Just tell him St. Marks girls don’t kiss.” She said “kiss” with a disgusted accent.

The more she lectured us on purity, the more determined I became to grasp Stephen to my bosom and kiss him.

Mother Superior gave me a long and lasting look before we left.

“Do be good,” she said, “and make St. Marks proud of you.”

She really had nothing to worry about. None of us knew anything about kissing. We all waited impatiently for the school bus to pick us up. For the first time in our lives, we looked at the dirty thing and became fussy. The seats that ordinarily were leathery and comfortable suddenly looked dirty and ill-kempt.

I had my first pair of pumps on. They were fuchsia-colored and a special present from my father, who seemed intent on brightening up the family ghost.

I kept thinking of those few moments when the Sisters, Brothers, and all the keepers of our world would be gone from our life, and I thought of how nice it would be to be close to Stephen.

The Hotel Madison Ballroom, which was usually occupied by the Kiwanis and Rotary, had been cleared. Potted palms had been shoved into appropriate corners. The soft-drink stand had been set up at one end of the room and the orchestra at the other. When we arrived, the boys were herded into the lobby. They wore white jackets and most of them sported a dark red carnation in their buttonholes. I spotted Leroy first. He didn’t even recognize me.

“Ye gads,” he said, “your hair is fluffed.”

“It’s not fluffed, it’s teased.”

I had had my hair up in curlers for three days and the effect was, to say the least, hair-raising. All the day of the dance I had brushed it, but to no avail. Finally, in desperation, I got it all wet and it was like soaked bread—it swelled.

“Where’s Stephen?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “He wasn’t feeling well earlier today. Where is Mary?”

Mary finally stood up when Leroy prodded her and they danced out of my sight. I sat waiting for Stephen.

Mother Superior, who had accompanied the bus, was now ready to turn us over to the chaperones. The chaperones were trapped fathers of the sons of St. Giles and the daughters of St. Marks, who, with their wives, sat through the dance till midnight feeling old and tired. They looked benign and put upon.

Before Mother Superior left, she leaned over and said to me, “Have you seen Stephen?”

“No,” I answered, worried, “didn’t he come?”

“Oh, he’s here all right, just getting up nerve to find you.”