Peach Clobbered

by Anna Gerard

  By way of reply, the little nun scurried into the room with her bag. “Yes, I like,” she declared in her thick accent, eyes gleaming.

  Which left Sister Mary Julian. She was the only one of the nuns thus far whom I’d not heard speak. Thin with an olive complexion, she had the pale lips and sunken cheeks of an ascetic. I suspected she might feel right at home in the last bedroom.

  The room had been empty when I’d moved in. A little research into similar floor plans made me think it might once have served as a lady’s dressing room. Since the current lady of the house was more than capable of getting dressed in her own bedroom, I had decided to turn it into a fourth upstairs bedroom. With that in mind, I’d furnished it with a few of my own pieces: a simple cherry four-poster and dresser. A teak lap desk sat atop the tan counterpane and could serve as a breakfast table or bedside stand.

  The wallpaper here was in shades of sand and the palest of pinks, with its design of tiny cranes amid bamboo evoking an Asian feel. Taking that as my theme, I’d added a wall scroll I’d found at a garage sale, its red kanji symbols representing love, wisdom, and health. The window, I’d covered in a simple linen shade that resembled a miniature shoji screen. I’d told myself that, if I ever decided to take up yoga or meditation, this would be the room for it.

  “Here you go, Sister. It’s a bit small,” I apologized as I opened the door, “but you get it to yourself.”

  The nun rolled her bag inside and glanced about. Then she smiled, the action transforming her expression from frighteningly grim to severely handsome.

  “Lovely,” she bellowed in a voice that made me jump. I might have expected that volume to come from a Cymbeline High linebacker, but not from this sharp-edged woman. In the same loud tones, she added, “I’ll get unpacked right now. Thank you.”

  Heaving a relieved sigh, I backed out into the hallway. So far, so good. My guests appeared to be happy with their rooms. Mattie had her fuzzy head poked halfway into the Prince Chamber, where her new friend, Sister Mary Thomas, had taken up residence. I’d been a little concerned as to whether or not the Aussie would be willing to share her digs with strangers, but apparently she was good with this particular group.

  I whistled the dog away from the room and headed for the stairs. I’d give the sisters time to unpack—which should take about five minutes—and then I’d show them where the coffee and tea and my kind-of-homemade cookies were located. They’d also put in a request for a place to hold their daily prayers, so I’d rearranged the parlor to give them ample room. And maybe they’d want a look at the garden, or—

  “Sisters,” came Mother Superior’s imperious nasal tones just as I’d started down the first step.

  I turned to see her standing in the hallway. The other nuns promptly quit their rooms to gather before her. She glanced at the large, leather-strapped watch on her left wrist.

  “It’s nine forty,” the nun confirmed. “Finish unpacking and attending to any personal needs, and then let’s gather at ten AM sharp in the downstairs hallway. We’ll need time to pick up the signs, and then we’ll want to be ready for the arriving tourists and the lunch crowd afterward. Oh, and you have permission to change into your outdoor habits. Any questions?”

  The other sisters apparently did not. I, on the other hand, did. Signs and tourists and lunch crowds combined with nuns sounded a bit, well, strange. Plus, I felt somewhat responsible for the old women now that I was in charge of housing them. Reassuring myself I wasn’t just being nosy, I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Ms. Fleet?”

  “Uh, where are you and the sisters going?” I ventured. “I mean, not that it’s my business, but I need to know if I should put out the cookie platter and coffee after lunch, or if you’ll be gone all day. Or if you want me to call you an Uber or something?”

  Mother Superior gave me another of those looks through those oversized glasses, but her tone was mild as she replied, “We can walk, thank you. We’re only going as far as the town square. You see, even though we’ve been evicted from our convent, we sisters haven’t given up the fight. And so we requested a permit from the town. We’re staging a protest outside of Mr. Bainbridge’s office … and we shall show up there daily, rain and shine, until he reinstates our lease.”

  Chapter Six

  “Isn’t this exciting?” Sister Mary Christopher warbled as the nuns walked, two by two, toward the town square. “I’ve never been in a protest before. Will it be dangerous?”

  “This isn’t the 1960s,” Sister Mary George said with a smile. “The only danger is if you don’t stay hydrated. Did everyone remember a water bottle?”

  The “everyone” all nodded … me included. Still feeling like they were my responsibility, I’d managed to persuade Mother Superior to let me tag along with her and the other nuns. She hadn’t seemed too keen on the idea until I bribed her with the cookie platter.

  I felt a little conspicuous in my bright pink as I trotted down the sidewalk alongside them. They had changed into what apparently was the order’s outdoor habit: medium gray instead of black, with short sleeves and a nape-length veil, and socks instead of stocking. And, of course, the usual gold crucifix. Doubtless this was a much more practical uniform than the 1940s-era long black habit for wrangling goats and making cheese.

  “Do you think the townspeople will be on our side?” Sister Mary Thomas wanted to know. “What if they think it’s better to replace the convent with the golf course?”

  “The mayor has assured me that the majority of Cymbeline’s citizens are on our side,” Mother Superior replied. “What we hope to do by our presence is galvanize them to put pressure on Mr. Bainbridge to reverse his decision.”

  “You said you had signs for the protest?” I asked Mother Superior.

  “Yes. Ms. Gleason, who owns the print shop on the square’s west side, said she would print them up for us.”

  “Back in the old days,” Sister Mary Julian loudly observed, “we used to make our own protest signs with paint and a cut-up cardboard box. We didn’t buy them from the store.”

  “Yes, but Ms. Gleason kindly donated her services,” Mother Superior countered. “It would have been rude to refuse.”

  We reached the town square a few minutes later. Given that it was a Monday, the place wasn’t packed like it would have been on a weekend. But with classes out for the semester, plenty of schoolkids and college students on summer vacay mingled with the usual retirees and antique-hunting tourists.

  Our first stop was Bard Printing. As with coffee, there apparently weren’t any Shakespearean quotes about the printing press that could be twisted into a clever business name. Though at least the owner had made an effort. A string of tinkling bells announced our entry.

  The inside of the neat red-bricked storefront was mostly a long white counter piled with books of forms and sample invitations. Half of the tan wall behind the counter was adorned with framed custom posters. The other half was decorated with framed, silkscreened T-shirts in different colors. Each tee was printed with the business’s logo: a stylized Shakespeare head with BARD PRINTING in Elizabethan-style block font.

  “Good morning, Sisters … Reverend Mother,” came a woman’s cheery voice from the open doorway behind the counter. I’d met the owner, Becca Gleason, when I’d decided to send formal change-of-address cards to my relatives and friends and needed a printer. Childless, divorced, and currently not looking, Becca ran her shop single-handedly except for a couple of part-time college kids.

  She walked to the counter while peeling off an ink-stained work apron. Beneath it she wore one of the logo T-shirts in an autumn orange hue that artfully set off her dark skin and the best afro since Pam Grier.

  “We’re here for the signs, Ms. Gleason,” Mother Superior said. “As I told you on the telephone, it was very kind of you to donate them.”

  “Not at all.” Her genial expression hardened. “Believe me, if there’s any chance to put the screws to Greg Bainbridge, I’m glad to help.”

>   Then, catching sight of me amid the bevy of nuns, she nodded. “Hi, Nina. Are you going to take part in the protest?”

  “Just in charge of the refreshments,” I answered with a smile, and raised the plastic bin of cookies. “I’m letting the good sisters do the heavy lifting.”

  “Well, I’m tempted to join them.” Becca reached under the broad counter and pulled out half a dozen white corrugated plastic signs with wooden handles attached. “That sorry so-and-so Bainbridge conned my daddy into selling his property south of town for a third of what it was worth. He did that with a lot of folks—that’s how he was able to build Southbridge.”

  As she spoke, she handed out the signs, one per nun. “I did like you asked, Reverend Mother. The same slogan on one side for all of them, and then the different slogans on the other sides.”

  “Very good,” the old woman said with an approving nod. “Let us pray they are effective. Come, Sisters. It’s time to march. We’ll make our starting point the bench on the square that faces Mr. Bainbridge’s office.”

  We made our goodbyes and headed down the street, where we turned at the corner. We passed a couple of antique shops and the First Folio bookstore. Now a small independent druggist and a real estate office lay directly ahead of us. Beyond those businesses were the Taste-Tee-Freeze Creamery and the antiques store above which Bainbridge had his office.

  It was warming up, and I was glad that Sister Mary George had insisted on the bottles of water. The one thing the town square lacked was a water fountain, meaning you had to walk all the way to the public restroom one block over for water and other relief. Maybe now that I was part of the Chamber of Commerce, I’d suggest that we install a drinking fountain directly on the square. Heck, if they’d put up a plaque with my name on it, maybe I’d donate the fixture to the town myself.

  I was so wrapped up in picturing my new commemorative drinking fountain that, before I realized it, I was lagging well behind the sisters. They’d already reached the corner and were making their way across the painted crosswalk to the designated protest bench on the square.

  With a glance about to be certain the sheriff wasn’t lurking nearby, I decided to cross the one-way street midblock. I didn’t hear the warning blat of a car horn until I’d already stepped off the curb and into the vehicle’s path.

  Barely had the first couple of years of my life flashed before my eyes when a strong hand clamped onto my shoulder. A heartbeat later, I found myself yanked back onto the sidewalk just as a land yacht of a sedan screeched to a halt right where I’d been standing seconds earlier.

  As I struggled to regain the breath that had whooshed right out of me, the car’s tinted front passenger window slid halfway down. A hunched-shoulder white guy somewhere past retirement age with an impossibly full head of equally white hair turned to look at me.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” I gasped in his direction. “Don’t worry, I’m fine … I, uh—”

  The man didn’t bother acknowledging my attempted apology. Instead, he lifted a pudgy wrinkled hand and silently extended a finger … and not the finger that would indicate I was Number One. Before I could react to that, the power window rolled up again, and the man drove off.

  “Well, that was classy,” came a male voice behind me—belonging, I assumed, to the Good Samaritan who’d pulled me from the car’s path.

  The man’s words were muffled, but he sounded vaguely familiar. Trouble was, I was so shaken by the realization that I’d almost become a hood ornament that I couldn’t focus enough to figure out who the speaker was.

  “Don’t let that middle-finger salute rattle you,” he went on as he released his grip on me. “Mr. Tough Guy had a New York plate on his car. He’s probably a snowbird who forgot he’s almost a thousand miles from home. It didn’t mean anything.”

  The snowbird reference meant someone who spent their fall and winter down south and returned north for the spring and summer. While most of those part-time residents were lovely folks, some of them … well, weren’t.

  Nodding, I turned to agree with my rescuer.

  “On the bright side,” I began, “he probably—what the heck, you?”

  Chapter Seven

  “You!” my rescuer shot back at me through a layer of black-and-white fleece.

  We stared at each other for a few seconds in mutual disbelief—or at least, I assumed he was as dismayed as me. It’s hard to judge expression when the other person is wearing a giant bird head. For the person who’d yanked me from the jaws of death was none other than my old nemesis, Freezie the Penguin … aka Harry Wescott.

  This time, the penguin head was in place—hence the muffled voice—but his right flipper was tucked to one side so that it bared his arm, which he’d used to pull me to safety. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him, since I’d just walked past the ice cream shop that was his home base. He must have exited the place for a round of mascotting on the square at the same time I’d done my death-defying move.

  It looked like I owed Harry Westcott big-time. And that wasn’t the sort of obligation I wanted hanging over me.

  Sighing, I set down the cookie bin at my feet and stuck out my hand. “How about we call a truce, Mr. Westcott … at least, long enough for me to say thanks for saving my bacon.”

  For a few uncomfortable seconds, I was afraid he wasn’t going to reciprocate. Then the big penguin head nodded, and he shook.

  “Fine, truce. But you’re lucky I didn’t recognize you from the back, or I might not have run so fast. You did something with your hair, or something.”

  “Yeah, I washed it and brushed it for a change,” was my ironic reply, recalling that the first time he’d seen me had been while I’d been gardening, with my hair a sweaty, tied-back mess.

  “Well, uh, it looks good.”

  Which half-hearted compliment probably burned his beak—er, lips—to say, but I’d take it.

  “Yoo-hoo, Nina!” Sister Mary Julian bellowed from the corner of the square across from us. “Hurry up; we’re about to start.”

  “On the way!” I called back, and smiled and waved in her direction. To Harry, I said, “Thanks again for the rescue, but I’ve got to go. I kind of talked my way into helping Mother Superior and the other sisters with their protest.”

  “You’re with those nuns?” Harry asked, his penguin head tilting to one side in apparent confusion. The protest part of my explanation had seemingly blown right by him.

  “Kind of. They’re the first guests of my new bed-and-breakfast, so I’m giving them the full concierge experience. Homemade snacks delivered while they protest against their oppressor,” I said, and raised the cookie bin so he could see its contents.

  The penguin head snapped upright so quickly, I was sure he’d suffered whiplash. “Wait, what? You’re saying you’ve turned my house into a B&B?”

  “I’ve turned my house into a B&B,” I corrected him. “Now, gotta go. Can’t start the protest late!”

  Not waiting for a reply, I glanced both ways this time before rushing across the street to the square. Once safely across, I passed the boiled-peanut cart and jogged toward the corner bench beneath a large shade tree where the sisters had gathered. The signs leaned at crazy angles against the bench arm in anticipation.

  “Sorry, don’t mind me,” I panted as I reached the group. “I took a little detour to say hi to an old friend. Are we ready to start the march?”

  “We are,” Mother Superior said as the nuns gathered closer, “but first, we should ask for fortitude and guidance in our endeavor. Sisters—and Ms. Fleet—let us pray.”

  I listened politely as Mother Superior intoned the usual words of thanks and requests for protection. Following a chorus of amens, the nuns moved briskly back to the bench, where each old woman shouldered a protest sign. Mother Superior raised hers and swept a glance across their small group.

  “When we passed the parking lot next to the square a few minutes ago, Mr. Bainbridge’s automobile was parked there, me
aning he is in his office.”

  She pointed in the direction of the Weary Bones Antique Shoppe. The second story above that business was unmarked, but a pair of open windows with fluttering lace curtains indicated it was occupied. I assumed the entry was a stairway to the rear in the alley, just as with many of the other second-floor businesses on the square.

  The nun went on, “While it’s not necessary for Mr. Bainbridge to witness our efforts, it certainly does not hurt. Sister Mary George, you have the whistle?”

  “Right here, Reverend Mother.” The tall nun smiled, indicating a silver gym coach whistle that hung around her neck.

  Mother Superior nodded. “Very well. Sisters, let us begin.”

  While I settled on the bench with my cookies and the water bottles to serve as cheerleader, the nuns fell into line and began their march around the square. I watched in interest, for their protest was unlike any I’d seen before.

  No bullhorns, cat hats, or rocks here. Instead, the women trooped along the sidewalk in silence, spaced equidistant from each other and moving at a measured pace as they began to traverse the square. Tiny Sister Mary Paul led the procession, with the statuesque Sister Mary George bringing up the rear. The remaining nuns were arranged between them by size.

  Interestingly, none of their signage seemed directed at Bainbridge personally. The fronts of all the signs read the same: GOD’S WILL BE DONE. The backs varied: GOD IS THE BUILDER OF EVERYTHING, BLESS THE HOUSE OF YOUR SERVANT, and more. My favorite, however, was the one Sister Mary Thomas wielded—the one that read GOATS, NOT GOLF!.

  Each time the nuns reached the corner where Bainbridge’s second-story office overlooked the square, they stopped and lined up, facing it. On some silent signal, they would flip their signs around so the “God’s Will” slogans all pointed that way. If the developer was brave enough to glance out his window, no way could he miss seeing the sisters standing there in silent witness.