Where No Gods Came

by Sheila O'Connor

  “Ever wonder why we don't look anything alike?” I asked her.

  “I guess I look like my dad, and you look like Lenore,” she said.

  “Really? Do you really look like our dad?”

  “That's what Lenore says. She says I'm from his dark side; she says that's where I get my gypsy look, like I'm from another country.”

  “Yeah,” I said, taking another big guzzle. “Lenore's always one for a good story.”

  We split my next drink, and the next and the next. She took my advice and learned to like it. A few guys stopped by the table to flirt with me, dropping off bags of beer nuts and pretzels, but I made a point of letting them know I wasn't alone. Another night, maybe, but I wanted this to be for the two of us.

  “Let's dance,” I said, pulling her up out of the booth and into the back corner. Bob Dylan was singing “Lay Lady Lay,” and his smokey voice reminded me of old nights with Tony. “I love this song.”

  “I don't dance, Cammy,” she said, staggering a little. I wrapped her arms up around my neck, pulled her closer. “We'll slow dance. It's easy. Just let go, close your eyes, feel the music move through you.”

  I put my hands on her baby hips. She was so delicate in my arms, I felt like I was dancing with a chicken wing. “I'll take care of you,” I said. “My baby sister.” Her mounds of Kleenex rubbed against my stomach. When the song was over, I rested my head on her head, closed my eyes, and let her sway against me.

  “You'll be beautiful someday,” I said. It wasn't just the rum. I meant it. “Maybe not like me, but in a way that will be worth something.”

  Then I lifted her chin and studied her strange face, that crooked grin, those frightening black eyes, that odd pink gash across her eyebrow. I brushed my lips against her lips, so gentle and dry they startled me. “I can kiss you,” I said, weaving her fingers through mine. “We're family.”

  Hi Honey,

  So she's back. The missing Cammy. I had a feeling she'd show up before too long. It isn't easy making it away from home, I know that well enough. Left my folks' farm at 15, went hungry plenty. I'm glad you girls are hitting it off, no cat fights yet I hope. A house full of women. Glad I'm not there to see it.

  Sounds like you were a hit there in the school show. Singing solo. Sure is strange the way things worked out. I never saw this ahead of us. Always thought the two of us would be together. At least until you left me for some guy. Not this Jimmy. It's good you got a friend, but be careful. I'm not too keen on you hanging with a teenage guy. Hand him over to Cammy. She's probably more his speed. I was 16 once. It occurs to me there's a lot we haven't covered, maybe Lenore and Cammy will fill in the blanks. We're in Perth for a week. Even when I close my eyes I can see the mud come flying at me. Can't shake the feeling I'm always on that rig. Work's so filthy I got to buy work clothes every time I get to town. Roughnecking. It's rough all right, but the tag can't do it justice. Wonder if it's worth it just to save my ass and skip a couple years of taxes. Wiley's conned me into the track, I got to have some fun. But guess what. I'm winning. Don't worry, I'll quit while I'm ahead. Say hi to Croc for me, the rest of the clan too. Lenore. Cammy. I love you, Dad

  Faina - Gifts

  In April, when the archbishop comes to Cathedral to confirm Mrs. Lajoy's third-graders I will be with them, the only seventh-grader who hasn't made the sacrament yet. Sister Cyril sends me down to the primary wing for training. I sit in the back corner of Mrs. Lajoy's classroom, my knees banging against the top of the miniature desk.

  We color in the pictures—amber and red flames burning over the apostles' heads, St. Catherine holding a torture wheel, St. Cecelia plucking her harp. I answer the worksheets, fill in the blanks. For fun, we play saint crossword puzzles and Name That Saint. I doodle Jimmy's initials in the margin of my workbook, J.C. J.C., and Mrs. Lajoy thinks she knows what it means, but she doesn't.

  I'm happy to escape Values Clarification, the moral dilemmas I can never answer correctly. I prefer the Holy Spirit, the saints with their gruesome tales, the apostles speaking in tongues. Of all the gifts I've got coming, speaking in tongues is the one I'd like most of all.

  “Does it happen right away?” I ask Mrs. Lajoy. “I mean as soon as the archbishop blesses us?”

  “What? Does what?” She's staring out the window at the flurry of fresh snow.

  “Our gifts from the Holy Spirit. Will they automatically appear?”

  “You have to wait and see. I think.”

  “But can we expect to get them all? I mean this thing about tongues and prophesies. Is that for real?”

  “I don't have the answers,” Mrs. Lajoy says. “It's a mystery. Like faith.”

  Mrs. Lajoy assigns me to help with the children. I correct their answers, smooth bubbles out of their glued pictures, punch the holes for their construction-paper books. I like the work. The smell of kids just after recess, the way they cluster around my desk and hug me when I come into the room.

  I imagine being Mrs. Lajoy someday, a gentle teacher in a long flowered skirt, a knit shawl wrapped around my shoulders, my hair bushing out in fuzzy brown curls, my voice always mild and kind. “You're good with children,” she tells me, and I zip the next jacket with pride.

  “Confirmation? What the hell is that?” Cammy asks. We're gathered together for our afternoon chat. When I come home from school now, they roll apart, make room for me in the middle of Lenore's warm bed, the quilt pulled up to my neck, the sheets still hot from their skin. “Cuddle up,” Cammy says. Then she brings me a teacup of instant cocoa and a plate of oatmeal cookies.

  “It's where you take a saint's name. Didn't you do anything like this, Lenore?”

  “No,” Lenore says. “I never got that far. Mother only took me to church on holidays. But I'm proud of you,” she says, rubbing my arm absentmindedly. “You're such a good girl, Faina. Such a good girl.”

  “Sounds like crap to me,” Cammy says. “Who's the archbishop, anyway?”

  “Who knows?” I say. “But I'm going to need a sponsor.” This is a subject I've been afraid to bring up to Lenore. Even though my confirmation is still months away, we already need the names of our sponsors.

  “What's that?” Lenore asks, suddenly suspicious. She sits up in bed and pulls the pillow down her back. “I don't like the concept.”

  “I think it's just somebody who goes up with you when you make the sacrament. We need to draw pictures of them in our booklets. The trouble is, I don't really know anybody here.”

  “What about your teacher? Let her be your sponsor. Isn't that what those nuns are there for?” Lenore tugs at her hair nervously.

  “What about me?” Cammy says. “I'll be your sponsor.” I look at Cammy hanging off the edge of Lenore's bed in her Grateful Dead T-shirt, red underwear, a ring of mascara under her eyes, her legs pale and whiskery.

  “I don't think Monsignor will let you be my sponsor. I think it needs to be an adult.” I blow on my cocoa to cool it.

  “I can pass for eighteen.”

  “A Catholic adult. The sponsor has to be Catholic.”

  “Who would that be?” Lenore asks, lifting an oatmeal cookie off my plate. “We don't know any Catholics. And I don't like the idea of outsiders getting involved with our family.”

  “We know Faina,” Cammy says. “She's Catholic.”

  “No, Faina's not Catholic,” Lenore says. “She's pretending.”

  “You ever make your confirmation?” I ask Jimmy. We've fallen back into our old routine of meeting on the fire escape after Jimmy's shift ends at Kenny's. All the awkwardness of Christmas, that kiss, is behind us.

  “Sure,” he says. “In third grade. Like every Catholic kid. What about it?”

  “I missed mine in San Diego. I guess the archbishop must have skipped my school. So I'm making it here at Cathedral. In April.”

  “Got a name?”

  “Not yet. I'm still thinking. What's yours?”

  Jimmy laughs. Shakes his head. “I'm not telling.”

>   “Come on.”

  I give him a little shove, throw him off balance for a second, just enough so he has to reach out and grab the railing.

  “Ama,” he says, choking. He's laughing so hard he can hardly speak. “Amadeo.”

  “Oh, my god. That's awful. Amadeo. What's that mean?”

  “What's awful is Faina; you got stuck with a name no one can even pronounce. Anyway, it's after my grandfather. It means something like the love of god.”

  “What's your middle name?”

  “William, same as my father.”

  “James William Amadeo Cordova.” It sounds ridiculous tripping off my tongue. It doesn't fit the boy standing in front of me smoking.

  “Quit laughing,” he says, yanking my beret off my head and tossing it down into the snow. “I told you I have secrets of my own.”

  “I remember.” I run down to the parking lot to save my beret before the gritty snow bleeds through it. Now that it's January, the snow is always gray, and the cold is nothing like December. It's bitter, harsh, a wind that never lets up.

  “I got a name for you.” Jimmy's standing beside me in the parking lot, tucking my hair into the side of my hat. “Guinevere. It suits you.”

  “Guinevere?”

  “It's the name of my favorite sister. Gwen. You remind me of her. And you know Guinevere was King Arthur's true love. I used to be all tied up in those round table stories.”

  “Okay.” I hook my arm through Jimmy's arm. “Guinevere. I'll think about it.”

  “Guinevere?” Cammy says, shocked. “Like Camelot?” We're downtown, in an alley behind the Hollywood Theater, wedged between two dumpsters, hugging each other to try to stay warm. As soon as the early show streams out, she's sneaking me in to see Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues.

  “I've never paid here,” Cammy says. “I've been doing it since I was a kid. I've seen everything free, even Last Tango in Paris. That's why it reeks so bad in there now. The whole joint jacking off. You can still smell it on the seats.”

  “I never saw Camelot.” I try to steer Cammy away from this subject. Sex. The gory details she loves to describe.

  “Well, she screwed Lancelot. I don't think that makes her a saint.” When the seven o'clock crowd pours out, Cammy grabs the back door, weaves in against the flood of customers. I follow, my usual few steps behind her, down the dark slanted corridor, past the heavy black curtain to the second row of seats. “Duck down,” she orders. “Pull your hat down low on your head.”

  The theater stinks like disinfectant and old popcorn, stale smoke, mildew. The smell reminds me of Lenore's dark basement, the day Hank threw me in there. The walls are covered in scarlet flocked wallpaper, peeled away in scabby bare patches. I scrunch down into the bristly seat, my face buried in my coat, my boots making a sucking sound against the sticky floor.

  “Keep your feet up, Guinevere,” Cammy whispers. “They've had rats.” I curl my legs under me, wrap my scarf over my nose.

  “Want any?” Cammy says, passing me the box of Milk Duds she stole from Border Drug.

  “No thanks.” I know if I take the scarf from my face I'll gag.

  “Better get used to it,” Cammy says. “That's the smell of sex.”

  When the movie is over, we wander out the front door with the rest of the crowd. The usher glares at me. “What are you doing at an R-rated movie?”

  “Fuck off,” Cammy says, walking past him. “Who are you, the police?”

  Out on the sidewalk, under the bright lights of the marquee, we light up right away. “Let's smoke one before the bus,” Cammy says. “God, I can't sit through a movie without a cig. But I didn't want that usher breathing down my neck. What'd you think of the movie?”

  “Too sad.” I picture Lady sticking the needle into her veins, the bruised smudges under her eyes. Bone-thin like Lenore, her hands quaking. Suddenly everything looks lost, the trash cans outside the theater, the black front window of Downtown Shoe Doctor, the crumbling brick of the old buildings, the snow heaped up along the sidewalk. “I'll never touch drugs.”

  “Everyone says that when they're a kid.” Cammy tosses her hair back, rests her arm across my shoulder. “It's just a movie. There's nothing better than a good high. In fact, that movie made me thirsty. Let's go down to Lord Leo's. I know where we could score some grass. You'll love it; just give it a try.”

  “It's the middle of the night. Don't you think Lenore will wake up and worry?” I wonder if Lenore woke up already, sweating from some frightening dream, screaming for Cammy. It's Cammy's name she calls now.

  “Who cares?” Cammy says. “She's lucky I'm living there at all. I'd be long gone if it wasn't for you.”

  “Really? What about all the days you spend together? And your private conversations when I have to leave the room? It seems like you do fine without me.”

  “I'm here to raise you,” she says, kissing my forehead. “That's all. You got to grow up, you can't stay little forever.”

  “Can one of the teachers be a sponsor?” I ask Mrs. Lajoy. I'm staying in to help her over lunch recess, correcting spelling tests while the rest of her class plays outdoors. I lick the back of the GOOD JOB sticker, press it on the corner of the perfect paper.

  “No. It's a relative usually, or a friend of the family.” Mrs. Lajoy records the scores in her book.

  “My relatives live far away.”

  “In San Diego?” Mrs. Lajoy asks, barely glancing up at me. She's the only teacher who stays busy while we talk, the only one who doesn't insist on staring into my eyes. Even Sister Linette suspects me of something ugly. She hasn't spoken to me since I missed her Midnight Mass.

  “Yes.”

  “They might come for it,” she shrugs. “We have plenty of sponsors come in from out of town. If not, somebody else will fill in. Family friends. Anyone would be honored. But this really isn't your problem. Naturally it's up to your parents to ask.”

  “I was just wondering about that page in my booklet. How soon do I need to have it done?”

  “April is still a long way away.” Mrs. Lajoy closes her record book, sets her pencil down on her desk. She doesn't know yet how much of my book is actually missing. My baptism. Photos and certificate. My first communion. Same thing. A picture of my sponsor. I've only shown her my stories of saints, the illustrations, the books I've read for research. “You're a good student, Faina. I'm sure your book will be fine.”

  When their recess is over, I help her students hang their coats on their hooks, dry their mittens on the radiators, line up their wet boots along the wall outside the classroom. The children gather in a circle at Mrs. Lajoy's feet to sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Mrs. Lajoy leads them through the song, her fingers gently strumming the guitar strings, her voice soaring above theirs like an angel's. I love their happy faces flushed with cold, their pudgy hands folded in their laps, their eyelashes still wet from snow.

  “Faina, you'd better run along now,” Mrs. Lajoy says, snapping her guitar case closed. “Your class is in from recess. Sister Cyril doesn't want you to be late.”

  Upstairs the kids are still stuffing their coats into their lockers; the boys slap each other's butts with long winter scarves. I try to sneak past them, my arms barred across my chest. If I step too close, the boys knock me into the lockers, elbow my chest. Sometimes they bat me between them like a pinball. “Oh, sorry,” they laugh, as if it's all by accident.

  When the bell rings, Sister Cyril appears in the hallway. “Children, take your seats. We haven't got all day.”

  “So how's third grade?” Emmy Atwood asks. We're the only ones left at our lockers. “Learn to count yet? Isn't it embarrassing to sit downstairs with the little kids? I'd die.”

  “It's not so bad. I like the break.”

  “Well, we're having a blast out at recess. You're missing out on all the fun.” She covers her lips with Vaseline. The only make-up Sister will allow.

  “Yeah, a blast. Watching the boys throw a football in the snow.
” This winter, the seventh-grade girls spend their time lined up along the wire fence that divides the boy's piece of blacktop from the girl's. Cheering. Getting ready for next fall.

  “I'm going with Dave Fadden now. He asked me last weekend.” Emmy takes a copper ring out of her jumper pocket, slips it over her finger. “See? He gave this to me. Kind of like that sailor you were so busy with when you first came. What happened to him anyway? Or that sister of yours? Is she still off modeling?”

  “No. She's home.”

  “We know,” Emmy says. “I was just giving you a test. We know everything.”

  “So, I guess you received the gift of prophecy,” I say, slamming my locker shut.

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “The Lord is my shepherd,” I say. “Somebody's already watching me.”

  “Did someone from my school call here?” I ask Cammy. We're in the kitchen getting dinner ready. A canned ham warmed in the oven, frozen corn, scalloped potatoes made from a box. While Cammy stirs the corn, she lets her cigarette hang loose from her lips, the long ash snaking then fluttering down to the floor.

  “Yeah. They called. One day. They asked for my mother.”

  I take the cigarette from her mouth and set it on the ashtray. “You'll burn down the house.” At night when I leave Cammy smoking alone in the living room, surrounded by candles and incense, I imagine the flames swallowing us in our sleep. “What did you say? Why didn't you tell me?”

  “I didn't say anything, Guinevere.” She abandons the cooking spoon at the edge of the pan, takes a break at the kitchen table. “I'm cool about schools. I know the scene. I wouldn't give the phone to a drunk.”

  “Did they ask who you were?”

  “Yeah. I said I was your sister. So what? Am I a secret?”

  “Was it Sister Cyril? Did she say what she wanted?” I slip the quilted cooking mitt over my hand, pull the sizzling ham out of the oven. “When did you put this in, Cammy? It's burnt.”