Without the grace of Confirmation, acceptance into eternal peace seemed as remote as acceptance into the Clan that governed Coalton Hills High. Hell was a long way off, though, and Joanne was used to pushing back its reality. The Clan was immediate, and she would have to endure it for four more years.
"I should be happy to have any friends," she told herself sternly. "Why can't I be satisfied?"
Still, her friendship with Michelle and the others grew, and the yearning to belong to the bigger group was just a dull, deep ache. The Clan members, while not accepting her into their social core, respected her academic talent and began to come to her for help with their homework. She coached them in Latin and English during the first two years, then French and geometry. Bored during the Christmas vacation her junior year, Joanne wrote out all the exercises in her French and geometry books and then announced that she had her homework done for the rest of the year. But still she hated history, and still she could read a sentence until she memorized it and see no meaning in it. There was no flesh to it, no chance to figure something out, nothing to challenge and entertain her mind, just bare, dull facts to memorize. Still, she knew she would graduate, and she knew that somehow she would go to college. And still she read compulsively and indiscriminately, whatever she found. Yet her friends were her focus, and if they didn't share her enthusiasms, she didn't mention them.
When Joanne wanted advice, she turned to Shelley. They were the only Catholics in the group, but belonged to different parishes. Shelley attended Mass and religious instructions at Holy Angels in Upper Borough. She and Joanne were making the First Fridays there. The first Friday of each month, they went to evening Mass and received Communion. If they went nine months in a row, they were promised eternal salvation. Joanne had gotten so used to burying her shame that she almost forgot that she was only adding to her burden of sacrilege.
So far, they had done five First Friday. Afterwards, they would spend the night together, staying up late to chat about school and plans for the future. They pored over college catalogs, sharing their hopes and fears. They were almost seniors; in another year the little world of Coalton Hills would dump them out and scatter them.
In Shelley's rosebud-patterned bedroom, she and Joanne each lounged on a twin bed. "I wanted you to stay tonight because I have to talk to you," Shelley said. "Sister Mercy - she teaches at Holy Angels - asked me if I want to make a retreat. I thought you might like to come along."
"What's a retreat?"
"It's supposed to be a time to think about your life and what you want to do with it. There are sermons and prayers and meditations. It's at the Motherhouse, and you get to meet the new nuns - the novices and postulants, Sister called them. I think they're trying to get girls to enter the convent."
"You're not going to be a nun, are you, Shelley?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
Joanne studied her friend's pretty, heart-shaped face, with its eyes that were always laughing. She tried to imagine her stern and silent. "But you can't be quiet for two minutes!"
"I know," laughed Shelley. "But neither can Sister Mercy, and she's a nun."
"You must like her."
"I do. You would, too, I think. The Sisters of Saint John aren't stuffy. They're really nice."
"Our nuns are nice, too," mused Joanne. "But they act as though they were born old."
"I know what you mean. I felt that way about our nuns, too - until I met Sister Mercy."
They were quiet for a moment, thinking.
"Did you ever think about entering the convent?" asked Shelley.
"Well, …well, yes. But I don't think I could. I'm not … well, I know I'm not good enough."
"Sister Mercy says you don't enter because you're good enough, but because you want to be."
"I still don't think … but I would like to go to the retreat."
"Great! I'll drive."
"There's just one thing, Shelley. If you ever decide to be a nun, will you tell me?"
"Of course, silly. I don't have to decide anything yet, though. We still have a whole year of high school left."
"Yeah, and then, who knows? I guess we'll all go different ways after graduation. I'll really miss our "Silly Six."
"Me, too. Especially you."
Michelle yawned. "Well, let's not think about that yet. We have the whole year - the yearbook, the prom, commencement. It will be fun, won't it?"
They lay quietly.
"Shelley?" whispered Joanne.
There was no answer. She lay awake, lonely, listening to her friend's soft breathing. Her last thought was of the weekend to come and the nuns they would meet.
Mount Saint John, motherhouse of the Sisters of Saint John, sat imposingly on a hillside thirty miles from Coalton. Its mottled brick fa�ade was barely visible from the winding road, masked by ancient oaks and maples on the sloping dense lawn.
As Shelley turned the blue Chrysler up the long, gravel drive, Joanne saw several groups of brightly dressed girls, each group clustering around one of the black-robed nuns. One of the nuns broke away from her group when she spotted Shelley and hurried over to greet her with a hug.
"Sister Mercy, this is Joanne Curry." Shelley introduced them and Sister gave Joanne a hug, too.
"Welcome," she said, her voice deep and rich. Her pale eyes twinkled under thick blond lashes, and Joanne thought her broad smile might split the starched linen that encased her face.
"Come and meet the other girls," she chimed, "and then I'll show you to your rooms."
There were five others from Coalton, all students from Catholic High. They chatted with Joanne and Michelle before entering the building by a side door. Abruptly, then, they stopped talking and followed Sister Mercy through a narrow hall and up a wooden stairway. Dark wooden doors stood open along a polished hall, and Joanne and Shelley entered the room Sister indicated to them.
It was tiny and bare, with a closet next to the door, two cots, and two straight chairs. A carved wooden crucifix above the door was the only decoration. The girls put their suitcases on the cots along the walls, and Sister Mercy beckoned to them.
"You can go outside again until five-thirty," she whispered. "Then meet at the door we came in, and Sister Angelica will show you to the dining room."
Sister Angelica was older than Sister Mercy, but Joanne couldn't guess how old. Only the middle of her face showed under the tight linen. She was tall and flowing; her gown seemed to float of its own accord, sweeping her along with it. Like a kite, she drifted into the dining room, the fifty young girls who followed making up the tail.
When the girls were seated, she stood in front of the tables and introduced herself as the retreat mistress. There would be silence, she instructed them, during dinner and afterwards until eight o'clock. After dinner, they would go directly to the chapel for Benediction, Father Kinkannon's opening sermon, and Confession. Then they would meet in the gym for recreation with the novices and postulants.
Eating in silence made Joanne feel nervous and embarrassed. She didn't think she'd mind being quiet in the halls or outside, for she was used to living within herself, but passing food up and down the table without talking made her want to giggle. It went quickly, though. Sister Angelica rang a little bell and they followed her into the chapel.
The name was deceptive. The chapel was bigger than St. Theresa's Church, and everything gleamed. The pews, four rows across, were dark, glowing wood, the floor burnished burgundy concrete. The stained glass windows were tall and widely spaced; they must have passed ten of them going down the sloping aisle to the front. A nun was lighting candles on the massive marble altar. There were two smaller altars; in front of the closest one stood a statue of the Virgin, her eyes raised, her arms held up and away from her body, but bent at the elbows, with the hands curving toward each other. She looked as though she'd been holding the Infant and he'd vanished.
Across the narrow aisle from them sat the novices and postulants, three to a pew, their backs and necks straight, looking directly ahead. As Father Kinkannon approached the altar, the novices and postulants rose in unison. The girls scrambled to their feet.
Joanne loved Benediction. The Host shone a translucent white in its gold monstrance shaped like an Aztec sun. The high notes of "O Sanctissima" thrilled Joanne's ears and vocal cords, while the fragrance of incenses lifted her to a trance of serenity.
Then it was over, and Father turned to face them from the pulpit, his face young and intense, his blue eyes blazing under wavy, black hair. Joanne was close enough to see the smoothness of his cheeks, the kindness of his mouth, the honest fervor of his expression.
His subject was penance. He urged them to review their lives and make a general confession. They could tell anything. If they didn't know what to say, he would help them. His searching eyes peered into that dark corner where Joanne had hidden her guilt and shame; she was sure he saw it. She felt he would understand.
When he left the altar and went into the confessional, Joanne knelt in the pew as the other girls queued up. A nun extinguished the candles; smoke from the incense curled around them in gray haloes, rising slowly toward the ceiling. Joanne knelt a long time, knowing that the time had come to tell about all those years, those dead years since she was eight years old.
In the anonymity of the dark box, she asked Father to help her, and he was patient, questioning gently.
"I sinned against the sixth commandment, " she admitted.
"In thought or deed."
"With someone else?"
"No, alone."
She explained how she had tried to confess and failed, how she had continued to receive the sacraments afterwards.
"And you were confirmed during that time?"
"Yes, Father."
"Are you truly sorry?"
"Yes, Father."
He raised his hand in absolution, and Joanne felt her soul throbbing, clean and new, through every pulse and breath. She was reborn. For the first time she understood what it was to be saved.
Surely, she thought, such a difference in her soul must show. She drifted through Saturday and Sunday, feeling as sublime as Sister Angelica looked. Like the early Christians, who after their conversion saw no need for confession, she felt she could never sin again. She was free now to give herself wholly to God. She could be worthy of his call; she could wrap herself in his love and begin her life in it. The dead years were over; she would bury them.
Chapter VI
Riding home that Sunday, Joanne remembered the childlike excitement of the novices' smiles, their openness, and the tranquility of their lives. She was free now to let herself think of a religious vocation; she was certain it was what she wanted. For the first time, she felt there was a place she could fit in, truly belong.
She could not, would not sin again. She would be kind, obedient, tolerant. "Charity begins at home, " she reminded herself. I f she wanted to prove herself worthy of God's call, she would have to start by loving her family.
She spent the summer evenings playing Scrabble or chess with Daddy and Tim. Mother and Rick hated games. The TV was usually on at night, and one Sunday they watched a dance group perform.
"My, that girl has fat legs, " remarked Mother.
"I think it's the screen," said Joanne. "It's distorted in the middle."
Mother exploded. "There you go again! Always contradicting me. Why do you have to stick up for everybody?"
"That's not such a bad quality, " said Daddy softly.
Mother glared at him. "You always take her part."
Joanne clenched her fists and fled to her room. What was there between her and Mother that brought out the worst in each of them? Mother nagged, and Joanne, fortified, she thought, by her new grace, tried to please her, to do her chores without daydreaming, to submit to her prodding. Mother couldn't see that Joanne was different now, and Joanne couldn't tell her. Mrs. Curry would never stop complaining about her first born, "I don't know what's ever going to become of her."
About Rick, her first son, the one most like herself, she commented, "He thinks the world owes him a living. I pity the girl who marries him."
There was pride in her assurance that Rick would have no trouble attracting a devoted wife. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his hair now combed into a pompadour as high as he and Charles Antell could make it. The contrast between silver hair and square tanned face was stunning, and the blue-violet eyes that gazed out wore an innocent, almost hurt expression, which hypnotized the giggling girls who followed him.
"I know Rick was in on it," said a teacher, "but when I look into those blue eyes, I just can't imagine he'd do anything wrong."
"Rick is so polite," said the neighbors.
"He'll get by on his personality," said aunts and uncles.
"He's just plain mean," thought Joanne.
When she was in junior high, he had accused her of taking a note from one of his girlfriends. He found it later in his jacket pocket, but not before he had punched Joanne and blackened her eye. Mother blamed "the wrong crowd" for the trouble he invited. He was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. She blamed Daddy for not being firm enough.
Then Rick got into real trouble. The rest of the family had gone for their customary Sunday drive, but Rick had elected to stay home. Daddy drove to the highway, picked a road he didn't know, and followed it to see where it went. When they saw cars pulling off and people in swimwear exiting from them, they parked and took out the bathing suits and towels they always carried in the trunk. After dressing in the car, they followed the shouting and splashing sounds until they reached a creek that had been dammed up to make a swimming hole. Joanne and Timmy swung from a grapevine on the bank into the middle of the pool. Farther downstream, the current was strong, and when Timmy charged into it, it swept him along. Joanne hurried to the edge of the stream and ran down it until she was ahead of him, then waded in to intercept him.
"That's enough excitement for one day, " said Mother, and they went home.
Rick was waiting at the spot where their blacktop road turned off the highway.
"I wrecked the car," he said.
"He's joking," said Joanne.
"No, he's not," answered Mother. His face was almost as white as his hair, and this time his eyes did look guilty. He had hot-wired the old Dodge, rounded up three of his girlfriends, and stopped at the dairy for ice cream cones. Cruising towards home, he dropped his and instinctively bent over to pick it up, crashing into a grassy bank. Fortunately, only the hood of the car and the neighbor's lawn were damaged, but Daddy was furious.
"Your cook is goosed, " he shouted, and no one even laughed at the Spoonerism until years later. Rick had no license; he wasn't even old enough for a permit. Later, Joanne would hear Mother say that they could have sent him to reform school. Instead, they grounded him.
He was still grounded when school started. Joanne plunged into her senior year. She saw Rick at school occasionally, but he never approached her unless he wanted to borrow money. When that happened, someone invariably asked in awe, "Is that your brother?"
Yes, timid Joanne Curry had a brother that even the older girls gaped after. Joanne understood Rick's failure to acknowledge her. She wondered whether, if she had been popular, she might have done the same thing.
At home, he didn't ignore her. Once they spent days quibbling about whether white was the absence of color or a total of all the colors. Finally, she looked it up.
"See," she showed him. "It's just what I said. If you're talking about pigment, white is the absence of color and black is a combination of them all. If you're talking about light, it's just the opposite."
"That's what I said, " he retorted.
He had to be right. If Joanne refused to argue, he hounded her for an opinion. She tried to stay out of his way, throwing herself into research for the term paper she was writing, "The Roman Catholic Nun in America." The topic was too broad; she found stacks of books and hundreds of articles, but she devoured them all. She knew she wanted to be a nun, her question was whether that was what God wanted. It was wrong, she read, to enter the convent to escape the world. Was that her motive? She would wait and pray.
In March, she took a competitive scholarship exam at St. Aloysius, a small Catholic college nearby. If she won, that would indicate God's will. She waited.
At home a book disappeared. In the downstairs bathroom, the Curries kept a basket of reading materials: books, Reader's Digest, Catholic Digest, yesterday's newspaper. Joanne saw a paperback there, examined it, and threw it down. It was trash. When Mother looked for it, it was gone.
"Joanne, did you take a book from the bathroom?"
"You mean that dirty one? No."
"Rick, did you?"
"What book?"
That night, Joanne awakened, startled to see Rick in her doorway.
"What are you doing?"
"I got lost. I was just going to the bathroom.'
The bathroom was across the hall from Joanne's room, right next to the boys' bedroom. Sleepily, Joanne wondered what Rick was up to. She wished she had a lock on her door.
The next day, Mother found the book - under Joanne's mattress.
"It's not your taking the book that upsets me, Joanne. It's your lying about it. "
"But I didn't take it."
Mother could not believe her. Rick looked Mother in the eye, his face calm. "I never saw it," he said.
Joanne excused Rick, even while she hated him. She had read about schizophrenia, split personalities, pathological liars. Rick probably didn't even know what he had done. He had convinced himself of his innocence as easily as he had convinced his parents. He would have convinced Joanne, too, if she didn't know. It was useless to blame him.
But when Daddy turned to her, his usually mild brown eyes red with accusation, the years of sin and shame came storming back. Maybe she was the one who was schizophrenic. She turned her back on her family. Graduation was coming; she would get out. She would flee to the refuge of absolution, the one place where she had felt welcome, Mount St. John.
The scholarship results were announced. Joanne was the recipient of a full tuition grant to St. Aloysius. That was God's will. He didn't want her.
Chapter VII
Graduation came, the girls crying, the boys laughing at them. The summer passed in a round of parties, the last a shower for Michelle. Joanne had been helping her shop and knew what she needed for the convent.
"Do you have a bad back?" asked the salesclerk who helped fit her for the stiff, boned corset.
"No, I'm entering the convent."
"Oh, " she gulped, the sympathy in her expression giving way to incredulity.
In the notions department, they picked out darning needles, black thread and pins. "I'll need a darning egg, too." The clerk handed Michelle a wooden tool that looked like a fat drumstick.
They bought men's white tee shirts and black "old lady" shoes, and black stockings. Sister Mercy had made two postulant dresses, ankle length gowns of black serge. Michelle modeled one of them at her shower.
"You look beautiful, " cried the girls. Michelle was radiant as a bride. She opened her gifts of aprons, a rosary, black gloves and toiletries and hugged the friends she would see so rarely.
"I can't write until Christmas, but I won't forget you," said Michelle. Joanne hung back until the others had gone.
"I wish I were going with you."
"I do, too. I'll be thinking of you. And you can write anytime, even if I can't answer right away."
"Oh, and I'll see you at the next retreat!"
On September 8, Michelle left and Joanne finished her own packing. She knew no one at St. Aloysius, but that might be an advantage. She'd have a fresh start.
The dorm was still under construction when Freshman Week began. Built as a monastery, it was being converted to house the freshman girls, and she was directed to what had been the chapel, a large, drafty room with a concrete floor. Bunk beds stuck out from the green walls, and she threw her luggage onto one of the top ones.
Julie, a gangly girl from Boston sprawled on another bed, discussing a "pahty" she had attended the night before. She stopped to introduce herself and her three listeners, Sharon from Connecticut, Sue from Ohio and Carol from Long Island. The rest arrived and they were seven in all. They left together for the dining hall
"I'm part of it," thought Joanne.
The upperclassmen arrived and initiation brought Joanne a new nickname, Josie. It was the first time she'd ever been granted the familiarity of a diminutive, and she delighted in it. The girls soon noticed that she had no experience with dating.
"You scare off the boys," said Sue. "They think you're stuck up."
"Didn't your mother ever teach you how to flirt?" asked Carol. Joanne giggled.
"You don't know how pretty you are," added Sharon. If you just put on some makeup and … well, there's a dance on Friday. We'll get you ready."
Sharon brought out a black dress. "That will never fit me," demurred Joanne.
"Try it! You've lost weight, you know."
That was true. A straight skirt that used to fit Joanne now hung from her hips and reached her ankles. She had set it aside to take in.
The borrowed dress set off her pink cheeks and dark eyes. The V neck revealed a slender strip of white at the edge of each breast and Joanne clutched it together.
"Don't be silly. There's nothing wrong with a little cleavage," said Carol. "I wish I had some."
Sue rummaged through her jewelry box. "Here. I never wear this, but it's perfect for you." She draped a cameo on a gold chain over Joanne's neck.
"Now for your hair." Julie pulled Joanne's hair behind her ears and the warm tingles enveloped her.
"Mmm, I could have my hair combed forever," she said. "It feels so good."
"So that's what turns you on, " shrieked Carol. Wait till I tell Karl."
"Karl who?"
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed? He's been making eyes at you in theology class for weeks."
"She noticed, all right," said Sharon. "Look at her face."
Joanne could feel the flush and knew that her face was purple. But it wasn't the allusion to Karl. The words "turned on" embarrassed her.
"Karl Schwabb is a dream!" gushed Mary Beth. "I'd blush, too, if he looked at me with those bedroom eyes. But he's so shy, it will take him all year to ask Josie for a date. Then he'll probably just shake her hand when he says good night."
"Not when we get through with her. Julie, when you're through, I'll do the makeup. I know just what she needs," smiled Denise.
Julie swept Joanne's hair severely back and up, piling it into a thick bun on top. The extra height lengthened her round face and emphasized her large, slightly tilted eyes.
"You look like a Hawaiian princess, " said Denise, makeup kit in hand.
"Could I have a mirror?" asked Joanne.
"Not till we're finished."
The artist arranged her paints and brushes and smiled triumphantly as she embellished her model. "There," she said, finally handing Joanne a mirror.
"But I don't even look like me!"
The face that reflected her startled glance wore a mask of sophistication. The cheekbones had been raised, the lips thinned. The eyes looked huge and black.
"Sure you do," said Carol. "It's just the part of you you never show - the grown-up, sexy part."
"I don't want to look artificial. Sue, do you think it's too much?"
"It's perfect, " said Sue.
"Well…" Joanne knew that practical, sensible Sue would tell the truth, and yet she added, "I don't know."
A commotion outside interrupted them.
"It's the bus! The Belles of St. Mary have arrived."
St. Mary's was a girls' college about twenty miles away. Since St. Aloysius had originally been all-male, they had imported dates for their dances. Now that they were co-ed, men still outnumbered women, and the busses kept coming.
Ignored at last, Joanne pulled at the shoulders of her dress, then dabbed off some of the makeup.
"Can someone zip me, " asked Sue, and Joanne went to help. Dates arrived at the dorm and twenty minutes later only Joanne, Carol and Sue remained in the drafty room. They walked across to the gym, whose shabbiness was thinly disguised bye crepe paper and low lights.
"Here we are in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Aloysius, " quipped Carol, "in beautiful, downtown Hicksville."
"Well, you won't have to put up with it much longer," Sue reminded her. "You'll be at NYU next semester.
"I can't wait."
Several of the girls found the school isolated and provincial. Sue didn't mind, Joanne knew, but she was miserable without Mike, whom she had dated throughout high school. Everyone was waiting for something. Only Sue knew of Joanne's desire to enter religious life. But Joanne was happy and relaxed, knowing that there was no longer anything to escape. She was happy and relaxed with her new friends.
"God just wanted me to wait, that's all," she thought, listening vaguely to a cha-cha. "He just wanted me to know a little more about life. When I'm ready, he'll take me."
A slow, melancholic waltz began, and a deep voice intruded. "Oh, hi, Mac."
His face reminded her a little of Rick's. His hair was not so blond, his eyes a paler blue, but filled with intelligence and mischief.
"You were a million miles away. What were you thinking about?" he asked, leading her to the dance floor.
"I don't know," she lied. "Just listening to the music, I guess."
"Well, I'm glad you're back. Why do you look so different tonight? I know. It's your hair. You should wear it that way all the time."
Joanne had met Mac during initiation. Although he was almost two years older, she thought of him as a kid brother. She wondered why she felt so relaxed with him. He turned her gently, and she noticed Karl staring at her, serious and puzzled. Several times she had caught him watching her, but he had not approached.
After the last dance, Mac walked her back to the dorm. She agreed to go ice skating with him the next week and submitted to a casual kiss. Back in the dorm, she answered her roommates questions - yes, she had had a good time; no, she hadn't danced with Karl. He hadn't asked. Yes, she was going out with Mac, but he was just a friend. She returned the borrowed clothes and jewelry, combed her hair down, and scrubbed off the makeup It had been fun for one night, but she liked herself better in her own skin and plain pajamas.
Monday morning, she brushed her hair and let it fall loosely over her shoulders, then dressed in a smoky green crew neck, matching knee socks and a green plaid skirt. She applied lipstick lightly and smiled at her reflection, that of an ordinary co-ed, someone who belonged. She imagined herself in another uniform, picturing Michelle in her loose black gown. That, too, would suit her, and in the quiet, shining corridors of Mt. St. John, she would truly belong.