by Peg Cochran
“Here it is.” Flo pointed at a small shop tucked in between two larger buildings. She pulled the Mustang into the parking lot and found a space way in the back.
“What are we parking all the way back here for?” Lucille said as she pushed open her door. “There’s a space up there right near the door.”
“I don’t want no scratches on my baby, so I’d rather stay as far away from the other cars as possible.”
“Now we got to walk all that way.”
“It’s good exercise, Lucille. You’re always saying you want to lose weight. Well, you’ve got to move.”
She moved plenty, Lucille thought—pushing the vacuum cleaner, running between the stove and the refrigerator, sweeping leaves off the front steps, rocking Lucy when she didn’t want to go down.
The shop was empty when they walked in. No one was behind the counter, so Flo hit the silver bell sitting next to the cash register. It made a shrill ping and seconds later someone came out of the back room. He was wearing a clown costume with a frizzy red wig and red plastic nose.
“How can I help you ladies?”
“We’re looking to rent a couple of nun’s costumes.”
“You’ve come to the right place. Going to a costume party?”
“Not exactly,” Lucille said.
“Not going to impersonate a nun, are you?” The guy laughed at his own joke. He stopped when he noticed that neither Flo nor Lucille had joined him.
“It’s your lucky day. Someone just returned a bunch of nun’s costumes. Their school was doing the Sound of Music. I should be able to fit you up real easy.”
He disappeared into the back room and came out holding two hangers with garments covered in dry cleaning bags. He draped them over the counter. “Will these do?”
Flo peered through the plastic bag. “They’re white.”
The guy shrugged. “That’s all we’ve got at the moment. I can order some black ones for you from our warehouse. It will only take a couple of days.”
Lucille turned to Flo. “We don’t got time for that.”
“But what if these sisters are wearing black and we show up in white habits?”
“We’ll tell them we’re from somewhere tropical. Like California.”
“Good idea.” Flo turned to the salesman. “We’ll take them. How much are they?”
The young man consulted a catalog sitting on the counter. “For the two of them that will be a hundred dollars.”
“A hundred dollars!” Flo turned to Lucille. “We can’t pay that much.”
“I’ll tell you what.” The young man leaned on the counter. “If you get them back by close of business today, I’ll give ’em to you for twenty-five bucks apiece. And to sweeten the pot, as they say, I’ll throw in a clown costume free of charge.”
“When do you close?”
“Not till nine p.m. Now, I don’t know what you gals plan to do with these costumes, but if that’ll work for you, it will save you a lot of money.”
“Fine.” Flo pulled out her wallet and handed him a credit card.
They paid for the costumes and started back toward Flo’s car.
“We should have let him keep the clown costume,” Lucille said. “We don’t got no use for that.”
“Don’t be so hasty,” Flo said. “It might be kind of fun to put it on tonight when Richie comes over to my place. Play a little dress-up, you know?”
No, she didn’t know, Lucille thought. What on earth was Flo thinking?
“Sometimes you have to change things up a bit. Keep the man on his toes.”
“By wearing a clown costume?”
“I didn’t say I was going to wear the whole costume,” Flo responded. “I’m thinking the wig, the plastic nose, the bow tie and my new red thong from Victoria’s Secret.” And she flounced ahead of Lucille, her heels clacking against the macadam.
Lucille felt herself blushing. She could never . . . she gave herself a mental shake. If she was going to modernize her thinking, she might as well start right now. Somehow she didn’t think a clown costume was going to turn Frankie on. She’d have to come up with something else.
She wondered how he’d feel about a nun’s habit.
Chapter 21
Lucille stopped Flo as they got closer to her house. “Go slow and let me make sure that Frankie’s truck isn’t in the driveway. I don’t want him to find out what we’re doing. He’ll just make a fuss for nothing.”
Flo slowed the Mustang and they crawled past Lucille’s house. The driveway was empty.
“Let me go look in the garage window in case Frankie decided to pull the truck in.”
Lucille got out of the car, scuttled up to the garage door, peered through the window, then turned around and gave Flo the thumbs-up. This was kind of fun, she thought. Like they were secret agents or something.
Flo parked the car while Lucille unlocked the front door. The house was quiet.
“Shhh,” she said to Flo. “Lucy must be napping.”
They tiptoed into the kitchen, where they draped the nun’s costumes over a chair.
“You can take yours into the powder room if you want.”
“Thanks.” Flo picked up one of the costumes. “I’ve always wondered what I would look like as a nun.” She slung her purse over her arm and headed toward the bathroom.
Lucille tiptoed upstairs to her bedroom, closed the door and pulled off her top and pants. She slipped the garments out of the plastic bag and spread them out on the bed. The long dress-like part obviously went on first. Lucille pulled it over her head. She examined the rest of the costume. There was a piece that looked like one of Lucy’s baby bonnets. Lucille stood in front of the mirror and carefully eased it on. She didn’t want to crush her set too much. She thought she’d leave her bangs out—she looked better that way. She tied it under her chin and picked up another garment that was stiff and looked somewhat like an old-fashioned nurse’s cap. Good thing she was Catholic and had spent plenty of time around nuns or she wouldn’t know what to do with all this here stuff.
She pinned the cap to the bonnet and looked in the mirror. All she needed to add now was the veil. She looked at her reflection—she looked a bit like Sister Philippa, her fifth-grade catechism teacher.
All this stuff was sure hot. Lucille fanned herself with her hand. She didn’t know how the nuns could stand it in the summer. Maybe they were all cold-blooded.
Lucille made her way down the steps, careful not to trip on the hem of the habit. The last thing she needed was to fall down the stairs and have Frankie come home to find her there, sprawled on the floor, dressed as a nun. That would be awful hard to explain.
Flo was already in the kitchen waiting. Lucille stopped abruptly when she saw her. Flo’s habit was a good deal shorter, showing off part of her legs and her leopard-print ankle-strap stilettos. She had a bonnet on, too, but with her hair hanging out. The stiff white cap was tilted jauntily to one side. She’d obviously touched up her makeup. She had on a fresh coat of glossy red lipstick, her eyelids were painted a sparkly purple and her lashes were black and spikey.
“I don’t know, Flo. Somehow you don’t look like any of the nuns I’ve ever seen.”
“I thought I looked pretty good.” Flo pivoted in front of Lucille.
“It’s only that I’ve never seen a nun in high heels before.”
“That’s probably because their robes are longer and hide their feet. There’s no telling what they have on under those clothes. For all we know, they go commando. Not that I could blame them.” She fanned her face. “These habits are hot.”
Lucille sighed. There was no sense in arguing with Flo.
They both heard the footsteps on the stairs and froze.
“I thought you said Frankie wasn’t home,” Flo hissed.
“He’s not. It must be Bernadette.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Nothing. Just act natural.”
“That’s kind of hard in this get-up.”
“Do you think she noticed anything funny?”
“Nah,” Lucille said. “Not Bernadette.” She glanced at the kitchen clock. “We’d better get going.”
Lucille followed Flo out to her Mustang. It didn’t seem like the most appropriate car for a nun—the ones she knew used to ride around town in a station wagon. And there were never only two nuns—every seat in the car would be filled, including the one way in the back.
“It’s hard getting all this material in the car,” Flo said as she tried to slide into the driver’s seat. She pulled the habit up and tucked it in under her knees.
Lucille was having similar problems. She was all for tradition herself—she still said the same prayer every night before going to bed—but she really couldn’t see the point of wearing these cumbersome habits in this day and age.
Finally they were both situated in the car, and Flo backed out of the driveway and headed toward Summit.
Lucille turned to Flo. “What names are we going to use?”
Flo sighed. “How about Flo and Lucille seeing as how those are our real names.”
“Nuns usually take a different name when they take their vows—after a patron saint they admire. I’m thinking maybe Sister Margaret after St. Margaret of Scotland, patron saint of families. What about you?”
“I’m thinking let’s not complicate things. How about we stick with Flo and Lucille. I’ll be Sister Flo and you be Sister Lucille, okay?”
Lucille grunted.
They stopped at the light at the intersection of Springfield and New England avenues, and Flo, who was checking her reflection in her visor mirror, didn’t immediately notice when the light switched to green. A driver in a white van with Eric’s Electrical written on the side leaned on the horn, and then pulled out and around Flo’s Mustang.
Flo held up her middle finger as he passed, and they could both see his jaw drop in surprise.
“You’d think he’d never seen a nun flip the bird before,” Flo said as she stepped on the gas.
“He probably hasn’t,” Lucille said, grabbing for the edge of her seat.
Flo pulled into the driveway of the convent. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot.
Lucille looked up at the stone building. “This here place looks like a fortress. How are we going to get in?”
“Through the door, of course.” Flo pointed toward an unmarked metal door.
They strode across the parking lot. Lucille had to lift her skirts to keep from tripping on them. She glanced at Flo. Somehow those stiletto heels she was wearing just didn’t look right, but hopefully none of the nuns would notice.
Lucille grabbed the door handle and twisted. Locked. She turned to Flo. “What do we do now?”
“Find another door.”
They started walking around the building. It was locked up tighter than Fort Knox.
“What now?” Lucille was sweating under the heavy cloth of the habit. How did the nuns stand these things?
“Let’s go around front. It’s the only place we haven’t tried yet.”
They continued around the building, Flo’s heels leaving divots in the grass. They reached the front of the convent and could hear faint strands of music coming from inside. Flo nudged Lucille. “That’s the chapel. I’ll bet it’s open.”
They made their way up the broad stone steps to the ornate, double wooden doors. Lucille put out a finger and pushed but without much hope. The door moved an inch and then shut again. Lucille put the palm of her hand against it this time and it creaked open. Organ music drifted out from the chapel.
Lucille and Flo tiptoed inside. A priest was at the altar. He had his back to them and was readying the sacraments. A handful of women, their heads covered in lace mantillas or colorful scarves, were scattered among the pews.
“Looks like some women still cover their heads in church,” Lucille whispered to Flo. “Even though the Vatican says we don’t have to no more.”
One of the women turned around sharply, and Lucille pressed her lips together.
“We’d better slip into one of the pews,” Flo mouthed at Lucille, pointing to a vacant row.
Lucille followed behind her. Her shoe caught on the edge of her habit, and she catapulted forward, barely stifling the word shit as her head came in contact with the hard wooden back of the pew.
“Shhh,” Flo hissed.
“That really hurt.”
“Okay, but be quiet, would you? Everyone is starting to look at us.”
“Maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s your shoes they’re looking at,” Lucille hissed back.
This time even the priest turned around briefly. Both Flo and Lucille sank down into their seats.
Finally the service was over, and the few people who were in attendance began to file out. The priest and the altar boys disappeared through a door by the altar, and the chapel was finally empty.
“What do we do now?”
Flo started to get up. “Let’s try that door over there.”
“The one the priest went through?”
“Yeah.”
“But what if he’s changing?”
“This isn’t a gym, Lucille. I don’t think it’s a men’s locker room.”
Flo always thought she knew everything. Just their luck and they’d go through the door to find the priest in his Fruit of the Looms. But Flo was already on her feet, and Lucille had no choice but to follow.
Flo’s stilettos clattered against the stone floor as they made their way to the front of the chapel. A woman who had come in to straighten the hymnals gave them a strange look as they walked past.
“Hurry up,” Flo said, looking back at Lucille. “I think people are beginning to get suspicious.”
“Do you think it could possibly be on account of your shoes?” Lucille asked, trotting to keep up.
“Don’t be ridiculous. My shoes don’t have anything to do with it.”
By now they had reached the door off the chapel through which the priest and the altar boys had disappeared. Flo cracked it open and peered around the edge.
“What is it?” Lucille asked, crowding behind her.
“It’s a hallway.”
“Is it empty?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Flo and Lucille burst through the door and into the shadowy hall.
“How are we going to find this Sister Genevieve,” Flo whispered. “Do you have any idea what she looks like?”
“No, and it probably wouldn’t do any good. With these habits on, all the nuns look the same.” With the possible exception of Flo, Lucille thought. She was undoubtedly the only one in ankle-strapped high heels, with her hair cascading down her back and hanging out the sides of her veil. Not to mention her long nails and dragon red nail polish and lipstick.
There were a number of doors off the hallway, and they were all mercifully closed, although Lucille could hear the soft murmur of voices coming from behind some of them.
Suddenly one of the doors flew open and a nun glided out.
Chapter 22
Flo and Lucille stood stock-still, as if by not moving they would go unnoticed.
The nun was older, with plump cheeks and round wire-rimmed glasses. Lucille thought she had a kindly face. At least she hoped so.
“Can I help you?” The sister gave a tentative smile.
Flo’s heels clacked against the floor as they approached and the nun looked down in surprise. Her eyebrows rose so high they all but disappeared under her cap and veil.
“Can I help you?” she said again, her voice quavering uncertainly. She took a step backward.
“We’re here to see Sister Genevieve.”
“Oh, I see. You’re visiting then?”
“Yes,” Lucille said. “From Califor
nia. The Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual . . . er . . . Motion.”
“Ah, I always suspected they did things differently out there.” She looked Flo and Lucille up and down. “Is Sister Genevieve expecting you?”
“Not exactly.”
“A surprise visit then?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“We generally like to have these things arranged in advance, but since you’ve come all the way from California . . .”
Lucille thought she detected a note of amusement in the nun’s voice. Well, it didn’t matter if she believed them or not—just so they got to talk to this Sister Genevieve. Lucille had a sudden panicky thought. What if the nun called the police on them? Claimed they were intruders? But she was already leading them down the hall so it was too late to bolt.
The sister opened a door and led them into a parlor. The room was small and plain with a sofa that sagged in the middle, a stiff-looking wing-back chair and a round table covered with a lace cloth.
“If you will have a seat, I will see if Sister Genevieve is free.” She glanced at a clock on the wall. “It is almost time for our collation, so I am afraid you will only have a few minutes. Who should I say is visiting?”
“I’m Sister Lucille and this here’s Sister Flo.” Lucille jerked a thumb in Flo’s direction.
“I’ll just be a minute.”
“Sure, sure, that’s fine.” Lucille sat down on the sofa, shifting her position to avoid a spring that was poking through.
“Thank you, Sister,” Flo said as the nun turned to leave.
Flo looked around as they waited. “I don’t know how them nuns can stand this place. It’s so quiet.”
“It’s peaceful,” Lucille said.
There was a time, back when she was in first grade, when she thought of becoming a nun. Pretty much every Catholic girl she knew had toyed with the idea at one time or another. Nuns were so mysterious with those long black habits, all living together in a convent. It was like a secret club—like the one Patsy Morris down the street had formed when they were in fourth grade. And they all wondered about their hair—did they have any under those caps or did they shave their heads when they took their vows? No one had ever had the nerve to ask, so they never did find out.