Stained Read online

  Once we’re out on the back deck, though, Gabe seems to forget all about the frogs.

  “I really like that cross, Jocelyn,” he says to me.

  “Me too,” I say

  “Boys can wear crosses, you know.”

  “I know.”

  He reaches over and lifts the cross from my chest. I feel the chain tighten on my neck as he brings it closer to his eyes.

  Please don’t break it, I whisper in my head.

  Gabe throws the chain back at me and runs down to the river.

  God heard me.

  ELEVEN

  “Did you notice?” Theresa has been talking to me, but I haven’t been listening. She’s made a potato chip and dip sandwich.

  “Notice what?”

  “Bernadette’s not here. I bet my theory’s right.”

  “Bernadette is never around when Gäbe’s not,” I say. Bernadette doesn’t go to Weaver Falls High. She lives in the next town over. She sometimes wanders into the Grill on Saturdays or attends school events when Gabe is playing or has his arm around her, but she never seems to speak to the other kids who trail Gabe for excitement. I wonder how he met her.

  “No one else takes her seriously,” Theresa says.

  “What do you mean?”

  Theresa looks at me as if I have two heads. “Gabe dates her for one thing, Joss.”

  This has never occurred to me before. I try to adjust my picture of the two of them, as if trying to bring a TV screen into better focus. Sure, Bernadette does dress in kind of a slinky way, but does this limit their relationship to sex?

  “Theresa!” It’s Joanne Montgomery. The first thing you think about when you see her is The Unsinkable Molly Brown. She played the title part in last year’s musical.

  “Hey, Ms. Molly,” Theresa says.

  “Hi, Joanne,” I say.

  “Isn’t this weird, Theresa, about Gabe O’Neil?” Joanne says. “I just heard the police telling Father Warren that none of his clothes or his extra cash was missing.”

  I wonder if anyone could tell if Gabe packed just a few things—say, in an overnight bag—and I’m about to ask this, but Joanne is filling Theresa in on the last conversation she had with Gabe. It sounds as if it was a while ago and rather meaningless, but for some reason, Joanne thinks it’s significant.

  I retreat and walk out the side door, onto the back lawn. Normally, there would be lots of kids out here. No doubt the LeBlancs thought that this is where the party would happen. It’s warm, and there are lawn chairs and card tables scattered about.

  Okay, so I kind of hope Benny will turn around and see me here. Maybe he’ll come out, where we can talk alone.

  I stare at the mountains and think about Gabe. I remember a Saturday a couple of months ago when we were working together. It was late afternoon, and Joe had gone to a chamber of commerce meeting. “I trust you guys to hold the fort,” he said.

  First Gabe made himself a double chocolate shake. Then he went down to Ray’s Market and returned with two scratch-and-win tickets. He sat up on the counter, two tickets in hand, and locked his feet while I waited on a couple of young girls who came into Joe’s for Cokes.

  “Which ticket do you want, Joss?” Gabe asked.

  “They’re your tickets,” I said.

  “How about this,” he said, waving a ticket. “I bet that this here ticket is a winner. If I’m right, I get to keep both tickets. If I’m wrong, you get the other ticket.”

  I shrugged. Why was he including me?

  He pulled a dime out of his pocket and rubbed the silver off the game circles. For a moment his eyes lit up. Then they dropped. “Yours,” he said, and handed me the other ticket.

  I started to scrape mine. Gabe pulled me closer so he could look over my shoulder. I felt his hands resting on my shoulders, and I could hardly scrape it.

  But then the bell over the door jangled, and Bernadette walked in.

  “Hey, Bernie,” Gabe said, jumping off the counter. “Do you know Jocelyn?”

  Bernadette and I both offered quick and awkward hi’s.

  Gabe slid sideways into a booth—one knee propped up on the seat. Bernadette joined him on the opposite seat. As I washed the tables down I couldn’t help glancing over. There was something that distinguished Bernadette from other high school kids. She seemed so sophisticated, so aware in this kind of voluptuous way. I felt like an immature, giddy two-year-old when she was around.

  They chatted across the table in low voices. A few stragglers had begun coming into the Grill, so I caught only a word here and there. Words about a prom dress that Bernadette had seen in a window (had Gabe asked her yet?) and about a double play that Gabe described in detail—most likely an instant replay of last night’s game. Then Bernadette left. Gabe puttered around out back for a while. When I started to wash some soaking pots and pans, he joined me at the sink.

  “So what’d you win?” he asked.

  “Nothing. It was a dud.”

  Gabe made a pouting face.

  I started to walk into the back room and then thought to say, “I assumed you’d want me to cover for you—to punch you out.” It was almost closing time. If Joe weren’t back by then, I’d close up the Grill. I’d covered for Gabe before.

  “Bernadette probably thought the same thing,” Gabe said.

  I looked at his eyes to get his meaning.

  “I like to keep her guessing.”

  “You do?” This question spilled out of me. They looked so honest together. That Gabe would play games with her like this … well, that was hard to believe.

  He smiled. “Yeah. Sometimes when I’m with her, I won’t even touch her. Not once.”

  That would drive me out of my skin. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if Benny and I were together and he didn’t take my hand or comb his fingers through my hair or something.

  The thought of Benny and I never touching again catapults me back to reality, back to remembering that Benny and I are no longer, period. I get up and head back inside. I gotta get Benny to talk to me. I gotta know what he was trying to say.

  A cop stops me as I pass. He basically asks me the same questions my mother and the O’Neils asked me. Only first he wants to know my relationship to Gabe.

  I tell him that we are neighbors, that we both work at Joe’s Grill on Saturdays and during summer vacation.

  “Is that it?” he barks at the end of our brief conversation.

  For a moment I think to tell him that we used to take baths together. “That’s it,” I say instead.

  I feel a flood of departures around me. Most of the jocks are bored and leaving for places unknown. Benny’s gone.

  Theresa offers to cruise, but I can tell that she’s not up for a night of driving, so I have her take me home. Mom isn’t here—probably with the O’Neils. I walk over to the phone on the kitchen wall and dial Benny’s number. I hear a male voice say, “Hello?” But it’s Benny’s father, not Benny. I hang up.

  Upstairs in my room under the eaves I open the pine box my father made me when he was a senior in high school. Inside is a picture of my dad and me when I was three. He’s holding me on his lap, and I’m running my hand over his scruffy chin. I don’t really remember this moment. All that I remember is this: wrapping my arms around his forehead while he carried me on his shoulders; playing a game where I approached him while he was watching TV and he trapped me in his legs; his going out the door with his knapsack and his car keys while my mother screamed, “Don’t go!”

  That was the last time I saw or heard from him. For a while people told my mom where my dad was staying, but eventually, everyone in Weaver Falls lost interest.

  Also in the box is an ID bracelet that Benny gave me for my seventeenth birthday On the back he had engraved the year, 1975, and our initials. It’s hard to believe that he gave this to me only a month ago. I keep it in the box for fear of losing it.

  Under the ID bracelet are two tickets. One is the worthless lottery ticket that I had rubbed thin at Jo
e’s; the other is Gabe’s ticket that he’d left on the table when we closed that evening. For some foolish reason, I had reached down and grabbed it. He had won ten dollars. I still don’t know what that means. Nothing makes sense. Nothing. A tear rolls down my face, and I stick my tongue out to catch it.

  TWELVE

  I am in Sunday school. Sister Louise is preparing us for our First Communion. I picture myself in the white dress that’s hanging in my closet, the one that Margo gave me. In my picture I’m kneeling and my hands are folded, just like Saint Imelda in the engraving that Sister showed us. Even God is proud.

  The boys aren’t listening. They shout and tease one another. One boy takes another’s Jesus coloring book. A bossy girl tells him to give it back. The boys laugh. They chase.

  Sister Louise shouts at the class. She tells the boys to sit down. “You will have to confess your sins to the priest!”

  This gets everyone’s attention. Now? we wonder.

  “Before you make your First Communion,” says Sister Louise, softly, like she’s telling a secret. “Before you make your First Communion, you will have to confess your sins.”

  “Why?” asks one of the bad boys.

  “Your souls are stained. Dirty as coal. If you could look inside yourself, you’d see. They are not made pure until you confess your sins and take your First Communion.”

  “That’s why some children can’t go to heaven,” says a knowing girl. “Their souls aren’t clean. They have to float in purgatory.”

  I am not sure how the rules work. Does everyone in the class have a stained soul or just the bad boys? The question is pressing on me hard. I raise my hand.

  “Everyone?” I ask.

  Sister Louise stares at me. “Yes, Jocelyn. You will have to confess too.”

  I wonder what Sister Louise knows about me. Her voice goes on about Jesus making fish and Wonder bread, but I can’t hear her words. The boys aren’t listening either. Gabe is playing baseball with a piece of paper. Another boy is pretending to die.

  Sister Louise moves around the wooden desks, layers of gray dress trailing. When she comes close to me, I tell her I have a stomachache. She waves her hand toward the door. She tells me to go wait for my mother on the swings. Church is ending. My mother sees me come out of the basement before catechism is over. She gives me the look that says, This better be good, young lady.

  I try to explain about my stomachache. I ask, “What happens to you if you have a stained soul? If I die now, will I float in purgatory or …” I can’t bring myself to finish my question.

  Disgusted, my mother yanks me to the car by the arm. I should have listened better.

  Mom sleeps late the following Sunday and the Sunday after that. Diane, the bossy girl, recognizes me on the playground at school. While I hang upside down on the monkey bars, she tells me that Sister Louise has said that I will not be able to make my First Communion if I do not come to Sunday school next week. I pull my shirt down to cover my belly button. And my stained soul.

  That Sunday, I beg my mother to take me to Sunday school so that I can learn how to confess my sins and make my First Communion. I tell her that I will go to church with the O’Neils if she wants to sleep longer. She gets angry and tells me that it’s not necessary to attend church. She tells me that God is love and that he is everywhere and that I can talk to him whenever and wherever I want to. “You don’t need a priest, Jocelyn,” she tells me.

  I still don’t understand.

  “I’ve had it, Jocelyn. What crap.” She gets up to make herself a cup of coffee.

  I want to tell her all the terrible things I’ve done to stain my soul, but she’s busy looking in the newspaper, trying to find out what kind of day Virgo will have, and I can’t make myself begin.

  THIRTEEN

  I wake to my mother sitting on the edge of my bed, coffee cup and cigarette in hand. I’m still in the clothes I wore to the party. “Get changed, Jocelyn. We’re going to church.”

  I haven’t heard that in about ten years. I raise my eyebrows. Do we trust the God of church again? Will God make Gabe reappear?

  “We’re going to support the O’Neils. They need us.”

  I’m ashamed because instead of thinking about Gabe, I’m wondering what people wear to church now. Do they still dress up like they did when I was seven? Or are dresses out, like Latin Mass and hats? I decide to wear my embroidered shirt over my brown corduroys. No one will be able to tell that I’m in pants when I’m sitting in the pew.

  We walk toward the church with the O’Neils. People have clustered on the front lawn and on the steps. A group of seniors stares at me for a minute. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m with the entire O’Neil clan—Gabe’s sister and brothers drove up from their homes to be with their parents this morning—or if it’s because I’m not a practicing Catholic. Either way, they look away quickly, as if in looking at me they’ve broken a rule and they don’t want to be caught. It isn’t only the Amish who shun those who have strayed. I am invisible.

  Once inside, my mother starts to put her hand in the holy water and then stops herself. The sign of the cross that she doesn’t make hangs in the air like a song whose last note hasn’t been sung. I want to complete it for her. I do an imaginary sign of the cross in my head. If I were to really cross myself, I’d probably do it backward.

  We slide into a pew and wait. I look around surreptitiously. I wonder if Theresa has arrived. More truthfully, I need to know if Benny has. Where does he sit? Does he see me? What will his eyes say today? Will they send a message of longing? Will they joke a flat hello? So far, nothing.

  There is the faint smell of incense. I breathe slowly, trying to pull that sweet smell deep inside me. I am taken back to little-girl times, sitting in the last pew. My mother has slipped in to avoid the stares of parishioners who seemed to say, Either you’re not divorced or you’re not Catholic, which is it? I remember sitting with a book, The Little Golden Book of God, on my lap, my feet swinging in red Mary Janes, slowly letting my eyes travel up one side of the church—all the way to Jesus nailed on the cross—and then back down the other side.

  By the time my eyes reached the side opposite, the sun would have come up behind the mountains, pouring light through the stained-glass windows. The geometric faces of the Bible people would glow brighter. I’d stare at the windows until I no longer saw pictures, only strands of color, golden reds and yellows that fell across the cheeks and laps of parishioners. Even mine.

  I stare at the stained glass now, trying to recapture that feeling of being touched by divinity. The faces look vaguely familiar, but I can’t remember the names or the stories, except for the birth and crucifixion of Christ. I look at the compassionate eyes of Mary holding her baby boy. My gut tightens. I remember the words to a Christmas carol my grandmother used to sing: Lullay my liking, my dear Son, my Sweeting. For the first time I am hit by what Margo must be feeling. I look up at the high beams and say a prayer in my head. It isn’t the first prayer I’ve uttered since leaving the Church, but it’s still awkward. In here God and I are strangers.

  Theresa slides into the pew next to me and puts her head on my shoulder for a moment. She’s a funny Catholic. She doesn’t get hung up on the pope’s laws the way Benny does. She says that she likes going to church. She likes knowing that she’s part of a tradition that’s thousands of years old. But when she lost her virginity to Sam, a guy who attends community college, she didn’t confess. “It’s none of Father Warren’s business,” she said assuredly. “What would he know about such things, anyway?”

  I get through the service remembering—and not remembering. Standing, kneeling, sitting one beat after everyone else. Wishing for a moment that I belonged and at the same time scornful of the beliefs that forced us out. Remaining with my mother while worshippers around us rose for Communion.

  The service ends, and I wish that Theresa and I could find something to do together, but she’s singing with her family, an occasional performing trou
pe, at the state hospital in Concord. She says good-bye to me on the front steps, and I cup my hands above my eyes to spot my mother and the O’Neils in the slowly emerging crowd.

  That’s when I hear my name.

  “Jossee.”

  Just the way I like it. I turn to look at Benny.

  “How are you?” he asks.

  “I’m okay,” I say. I walk slowly over to the side of the crowd near the little cemetery, hoping Benny will follow. He does, but his hands are in his pockets and his eyes stay on the flock.

  “How are you doing?” This is the question. I feel like my life is hanging here.

  “Okay,” he says. Which tells me nothing.

  “How’s your mother?” I ask.

  “Better this morning, but she didn’t feel well enough for church. Father Warren will come out and give her the sacraments later.”

  “Lucky you,” I say. “Church twice.” I sound more cynical than I mean to.

  “Any ideas about Gabe?” he asks.

  “Not a one. I feel like I should be doing something, but I don’t know what.”

  Benny still watches the door. I wonder who he’s looking for.

  Father Warren comes out of the church and begins to shake the hands of parishioners.

  “I better run,” says Benny. “I’m chopping wood this afternoon.”

  Sounds like a quick dismissal. Only I know it’s an invitation.

  FOURTEEN

  We’re seven years old. My mother tells me to put on any old dress and get in the car. We are going to watch Gabe, who still gets to be Catholic, make his First Communion. Just as we arrive it is Gabe’s turn to go into the confessional booth. I hold my breath as he disappears behind the black curtain. What will he say first? What will the priest say? What will Gabe’s punishment be? His father is standing with Gabe’s sister and brothers, who are jumping in the aisle of the church. He gives Gabe’s brother Timmy a look that says, Cut it out. Timmy stops cold. I can’t hear Margo and my mother’s talk; I hear only a ringing in my ears.