Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [43]
I couldn’t hear his answer, but Ethel turns back and gives me a look that says whatever it is you are thinkin’ at the present moment, it’d be a mighty good idea to keep it to yourself and get your behind outta that door.
“What a delightful surprise,” Father Mickey says when we join him and Mrs. Galecki under the crab apple tree. He is a different kind of Irish than our family is. He is black Irish, which doesn’t mean he’s a Negro born in Killarney the way people might think. It means that Father has hair the color of a funeral, not a stop sign. Most Irish people have bad tempers, but black Irish people are famous for having the worst. “Hello, Sally. Haven’t seen you since school let out.”
“Good afternoon, Father . . . I . . . I came over to read to Mrs. Galecki.” I hold up the book so he doesn’t think I’m lying.
“Ah, yes. Your sister tells me you’re quite the reader.”
“Don’t you mean she tells you that I’m a bonehead?”
When Father Mickey smiles grandly, I can see what everybody goes silly over.
“That’s a beautiful watch you’ve got there.” He taps his finger on the face. “A Timex, isn’t it?”
“It was my daddy’s,” I say, forgetting that pride is a sin. Father musta forgot that, too, because the watch he has on is very fancy. “Mother got it made small for me.”
Father says with a twinkle in his eye, “Helen’s always been a very considerate person.”
I wouldn’t use that word to describe Mother in a million years. I guess he must be referring to the way she used to be back in the olden days. Before Daddy died. Before she got married to Hall. Before she got sick.
“Is there anything I could offer ya before ya go, Father?” Ethel with the perfect manners asks. “A glass a fresh-squeezed lemonade should set ya right.”
“I cannot imagine anything I’d enjoy more, but I’m afraid I’ve got another parishioner to attend to.” He lifts up my wrist and taps my watch. His fingers are soft and his nails are shiny like they’ve been painted with something. “Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’,” he says, not to me, but Mrs. Galecki. “Just like you, Bertha.”
Mrs. Galecki’s head bobs up and down, but that doesn’t mean she is agreeing with him. She’s got some palsy.
Father slips his golden chalice that he brought the Holy Communion in over from the church into a black velvet bag and says, “Tell your sister to come a little earlier Tuesday night, Sally. We have a lot to discuss.”
That’s the day Troo goes up to church for her extra religious instruction. If she doesn’t get holier soon, she’s gonna end up going to Vliet Street School. I will miss walking up to Mother of Good Hope with her and eating lunch together and even ringing doorbells on our way home, but most of all, how will I ever keep watch over my sister if we’re not going to the same school? The thought of her being out of my sight that many hours of the day makes me want to curl up. The only one that could prevent that from happening is Father Mickey.
He tells Ethel, “Tomorrow, same time,” and heads toward the front of the house, but stops at the bushes that run alongside it. When he trots back and lays the pale pink flower in Mrs. Galecki’s lap, he says, “A rose by any other name.”
Now, if you weren’t me, you would be thinking to yourself, Boy, how did this neighborhood get so lucky? This priest is really something! He can even make the same quote that Donny O’Malley would make when he’d stuff fallen petals into his daughters’ pillowcases so they would be guaranteed sweet dreams. But on this hot, hot day, all I can think of as Father Mickey leaves to minister to another one of his flock is how much he reminds me of the black ice we get on the streets during winter. It’s slick. And invisible to the naked eye.
What’s wrong with me?
Ethel places the rose Father picked off the bush gently into Mrs. Galecki’s