Page 10 of Priest (Priest 1)
Definitely a cold shower then.
Half an hour later, I was back in my uniform: black slacks, Armani belt (a hand-me-down from one of the Business Brothers), long-sleeved black shirt with the cuffs rolled up to the elbows. And my collar, of course. St. Augustine gazed austerely out over the office, reminding me that I was here to help Poppy, not to daydream about sports bras and running shorts. And I wanted to be here to help her. I remembered her soft crying in the confessional and my chest tightened.
I would help her if it killed me.
Poppy was one minute early, and the easy but precise way she walked through the door told me that she was accustomed to being prompt, took pleasure in it, was the kind of person who could never understand why other people weren’t on time. Whereas three years of waking up at seven o’clock had still not transformed me into a morning person and more often than not, Mass started at 8:10 rather than 8:00.
“Hi,” she said as I indicated a chair next to me. I’d chosen the two upholstered chairs in the corner of the office, hating to talk to people from behind my desk like I was a middle school principal. And with Poppy, I wanted to be able to soothe her, touch her if I needed, show her a more personal church experience than the Ancient Booth of Death.
She sank into the chair in this elegant, graceful way that was fucking mesmerizing…like watching a ballerina lace up her slippers or a geisha pour tea. She had on that igniting shade of lipstick again, bright red, and was in a pair of high-waisted shorts and a blouse that tied at the neck, looking more ready for a Saturday yachting trip than a meeting in my dingy office. But her hair was still wet and her cheeks still had that post-run flush, and I felt a small swell of possessive pride that I got to see this polished women slightly unraveled, which was a bad impulse. I pushed it down.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” she said, crossing her legs as she set down her purse. Which was not a purse but a sleek laptop bag, filled with strata of brightly colored folders. “I’ve been thinking a lot about seeking something like this out, but I’ve never been religious before, and part of me still kind of balks at the idea…”
“Don’t think of it as being religious,” I advised. “I’m not here to convert you. Why don’t we just talk? And maybe there will be some activities or groups here that match what you need.”
“And if there’s not? Will you refer me to the Methodists?”
“I would never,” I said with mock gravity. “I always refer to the Lutherans first.”
That earned me another smile.
“So how did you end up in Kansas City?”
She hesitated. “It’s a long story.”
I leaned back in the chair, making a show of settling in. “I’ve got the time.”
“It’s boring,” she warned.
“My day is a praxis of liturgical laws that date from the Middle Ages. I can handle boring. Promise.”
“Okay, well, I’m not sure where to start, so I guess I should start at the beginning?” Her gaze slid over to the wall of books as she worried her lower lip with her teeth, as if she were trying to decide what the beginning really was. “I’m not your typical runaway,” she said after a minute. “I didn’t sneak out of a window when I was sixteen or steal my father’s car and drive to the nearest ocean. I was dutiful and obedient and my father’s favorite child right up until I walked across the stage at Dartmouth and officially received my MBA. I looked at my parents, and I finally really realized what they saw when they looked at me—another asset, another folder in the portfolio.
“There she is, our youngest, I could picture them saying to the family next to them. Graduated magna cum laude, you know, and only the best schools growing up. Spent the last three summers volunteering in Haiti. She was a shoo-in for dance at Juilliard, but of course she chose to pursue business instead, our level-headed girl.”
“You volunteered in Haiti?” I interrupted.
She nodded. “At a charity called Maison de Naissance. It’s a place for rural Haitian mothers to get free prenatal care, as well as a place for them to give birth. It’s the only place besides the summer house in Marseille that my boarding school French has come in remotely useful.”
Dartmouth. Marseille. Boarding school. I had sensed that Poppy was polished, had guessed from her mention of Newport that she had known privilege and wealth at some point in her life, but I could see now exactly how much privilege, how much wealth. I studied her face. There was a thriving confidence there, an old-fashioned bent toward etiquette and politeness, but there was also no pretentiousness, no elitism.
“Did you like working there?”
Her face lit up. “I did! It’s a beautiful place, filled with beautiful people. I got to help deliver seven babies my last summer there. Two of them were twins…they were so tiny, and the midwife told me later that if the mom hadn’t come to MN, she and the babies almost certainly would have died. The mother even let me help her pick out names for her sons.” Her expression turned almost shy, and I realized that this was the first time she’d gotten to share this pure form of joy with anyone. “I miss it there.”
I grinned at her. I couldn’t help it, I just rarely saw anyone so excited by the experience of helping people in need.
“My family’s idea of charity is hosting a political fundraiser,” she said, matching my grin with a wry one of her own. “Or donating enough to a pet cause so that they can take a picture with a giant check. And then they’ll step over homeless people in the city. It’s embarrassing.”
“It’s common.”
She shook her head vehemently. “It shouldn’t be. I, at least, refuse to live like that.”
Good for her. I refused as well, but I also had grown up in a household of religion, of volunteering. It had been easy for me; I didn’t think this conviction had come easily to her. I wanted to stop her right then, hear more about her time in Haiti, introduce her to all the ways she could help people here at St. Margaret’s. We needed people like her, people who cared, people who could volunteer and give their time and talents—not just their treasure. In fact, I almost blurted all this out. I almost fell to my knees and begged her to help us with the food pantry or the pancake breakfast that was so chronically short-staffed, because we needed her help, and (if I was being honest) I wanted her at everything, I wanted to see her everywhere.
But maybe that wasn’t the best way to feel. I steered us back to her earlier and safer topic of conversation. “So you were at your graduation…”
“Graduation. Right. And I realized, looking at my parents, that I was everything they had wanted. That they had groomed me for. I was the whole package, the manicured, sleekly highlighted, expensively dressed package.”
