“The last great hope of western civilization,” he quipped, standing very close behind her at the window. “Shopping.”
She declined a pre-dinner cocktail, hoping to hold on until dinner when food in her system might help the slow trek back to sober. With a shrug and a smile he poured himself a snifter of aged Barbados rum from a decanter.
They began to chat and it wasn’t like two strangers feeling each other out at all. They were colleagues, two like minds, two (dare she think it) writers sharing thoughts on aesthetics and craft.
They talked opera and film noir, Mark Twain and Aristophanes and Kurt Weill. When the discussion turned to teenage favorites, she confessed to Chesterton, he to Graham Greene.
“Both Catholics,” he remarked. “Imagine that.”
They dined at half past eight—she, skillet-roasted barramundi with wok-fried greens and rockmelon salsa; he, roast lamb rump with sweet potato rosti and port wine jus—and with dinner and its web of aromas came champagne, Billecart-Salmon 1996 Cuvee, then further talk of such dizzying digression they could sometimes not remember who’d made which point.
Blithering on, he called it. She was in heaven.
Agreeing to the champagne, perhaps, had been reckless, but he intended to celebrate her success, as he called it, and she lacked the heart (or the nerve) to tell him the truth, that her success was a sham, her career kaput when only half begun. Besides, the crisp pink bubbles cheered her. She relaxed.
Two hours later (and after but another bottle of Billecart-Salmon, delivered by a judiciously unobservant room service waiter), they finished their dessert of three milk cake and hazelnut mousse with chocolate biscotti, and Rita plopped onto the sofa, slipped off her flats and tucked her legs beneath her, an overly feminine pose, perhaps, and thus needlessly provocative.
Try slutty.
If he noticed, he hid it well. He just continued with the discussion, sitting there beside her, leaning over to top off her crystal flute from time to time, his eyes always fastened on hers.
It was deft, how he did it, reaching over to lay his hand on hers in agreement of a point she made—something to do with Flannery O’Connor, one more tortured Catholic—and then the hand lingered.
Secretly, she savored the touch. A vow of chastity was one thing, forsaking affection quite another.
She’d not come to the convent inexperienced, few if any of the sisters in America under forty had—not that her tortured misadventures, above and beyond whatever happened with those boys in the motel room that night, would qualify as a sex life. But here and now, the simple warmth of his hand, enveloping hers, filled her with a murky heat. She had the sense that, if he wanted, he could somehow make her disappear.
Very slowly, he withdrew his hand, only to collect her stocking foot, which he held tenderly for an instant, as though caressing a wounded bird. Then he speared his thumb into the sole with an artful pressure and her entire musculature uncoiled.
The next thing she knew both feet lay in his lap, he was kneading them like a crazed baker, blithering on about the existentialist hero and the Continental Op, until the heat of her blood made her head pound, the room started dancing, the lights played tricks.
“Excuse me for just a moment,” she whispered, disengaging herself and fleeing to the bathroom where she locked the door behind her. A quarter of an hour later, the door remained locked, with each of them on opposite sides.
Splashing water on her face, she glanced up into the mirror and regarded her reflection with dismay. The thing they never tell you about sin, she thought, is how it returns you, over and over, to the same terrible place, a precursor of eternity in hell.
And so here she was, once again, like almost twenty years ago, blind from drink, in a room with a man—narrowing it down to one, was that progress? You failed as a daughter, you’ve failed as a writer, are you trying to fail as a nun as well? To prove what?
She toweled dry her face and hands, then finally mustered the courage to unlock the door and come out.
“I feel foolish.” She padded to the couch, poked her feet into her shoes, and took a slow deep breath.
“Pardon me if this is overly personal.” He came up behind her gingerly. “But if your vows require of you such theatrics when you’re simply alone with a member of the opposite sex, could it be that it—celibacy I mean—is the problem, not you or me?”
“I didn’t say you were a problem,” she replied. And what to make of “simply” alone?
“Making a vice of sex is itself a bit depraved, don’t you think? You’ve got priests laying on hands when anything under thirteen prances by, but none of the men in the funny hats thinks that maybe, just maybe, vows of lifelong chastity are unnatural. No. Better the Vatican puts its mind to abolishing limbo.”
She turned to face him. “Jon?”
“Can’t tell you how relieved I am that one’s finally settled. Now Jews and Buddhists can get into heaven. Pity none of them believe in it.”
“Jon—”
“Do you really think all those parsons and rabbis shake hands with the bloody devil when they—”
“Renouncing sex doesn’t prevent me from loving. On the contrary, it allows me the freedom to express many other kinds of love, for many other people, in many other ways.”
He shifted his weight uneasily, as though an itch had struck an odd spot. “Please excuse my saying this, but that came out just a wee bit practiced. And half-hearted.”
“That may be.” She ventured a cautious step forward. “But it’s not with half my heart that I thank you for the lovely dinner, the wonderful conversation, and wish you goodnight.”
When she entered her room she found it immaculate, everything prim and tucked away, courtesy of housekeeping. The accommodations had been generously provided by the conference. “In the event you need somewhere to freshen up,” they’d said innocently.
For a moment, as the door clicked shut behind her, the utter anonymity of it all made her feel that she’d somehow wandered into the wrong place. This wasn’t her room. It wasn’t her life.
The effect of the champagne lingered but that wasn’t it. She felt a blurring of the edges of everything, even her own body, as though existence itself—what Chesterton called “the mystical minimum”—was dissolving.
So different from the warm dissolution she’d felt at the touch of Jon Carleton’s hand. This was pernicious, impersonal, as though to remind her that the stuff of life is just a dream, vivid but meaningless, over too soon.
She’d devised a ritual for dispelling this creeping sense of unreality, which came over her when she felt particularly alone. And she’d felt alone a great deal since her mother’s death.
She sat down at the dressing table. Opening the drawer, she removed the items she’d shoplifted from nearby drugstores earlier in the day, after her meeting with Jean Virdell, anticipating there might be a need tonight.
Her students bragged about how easily it was done, thinking they could scandalize her, not knowing she’d been quite the little thief herself when she was their age.
The Three Holy Terrors, they’d called themselves: Rita, Molly Napolitano, Jan Smulski. After school, they’d wander downtown Dubuque, especially the winter-scarred back alleys from St. Patrick’s to Cable Car Square, playing scissors-paper-rock to determine who would create the diversion, who would serve as lookout, who would get to do the actual stealing.
Rita always envied the designated thief, and felt thrilled when she earned the right herself—cherishing the way her heart pounded like a fist inside her chest when her eye fastened on what it was she intended to take.
They’d started with candy and gum, then moved up to magazines or cigarettes (Molly’s obsession), only turning to cosmetics once boys entered the picture. None of them were beauties, and each had suffered the ultimate teenage insult: Lesbo. All the more reason to get with the prog
ram, they’d told themselves, accentuate the positive.
Booty in hand, they’d scurry up Iowa Street to Madison Park, then smoke menthols as they tutored one another on the intricacies of how beauty got done, what colors worked best with whose complexion, how much was too much and why, tricks learned from their mothers or older sisters.
How curious, the way things turned out. Molly had taken a job with Allstate and moved to Sioux City, where she’d screamed her way through two marriages and now silenced her regret by pursuing the title of Life Master in contract bridge. Jan had gone off to college in Madison, where she confirmed everyone’s suspicions by taking up with one of her professors, a woman, and hadn’t set foot in Dubuque since.
Rita, of course, had found her vocation, the success story of the group. Everyone said so. But what does anyone know about such things? How can you look at someone, even someone you’ve known from birth, and weigh their heartbreak or fathom their secrets?
Enough with the brooding. Get on with it.
She started with powder, enjoying the comforting softness of the puff gliding across her skin.
Next came rouge, a touch of rust-and-rose for her cheeks, then she penciled in eyeliner and darkened her lashes with mascara, savoring the airy tingle of the brush.
She finished up with lipstick, a color called Cherries in the Snow.
Bit by bit her plain features took form, highlights and shadow, her pale eyes acquiring a wistful intensity, her meager lips turning sensual and bold.
Sitting back to appraise her handiwork, she gave in to a sense of defiant surrender, thinking: The face only God’s allowed to see. Assuming he bothers to look.
She did not notice the note slipped under the door until she went to turn out the light in the entry. Hotel stationery, both the envelope and the single slip of paper inside.
Dear Rita:
As we talked tonight, you mentioned that your convent is in serious need of money. The older sisters, whom you clearly admire, require considerable medical care, while the diocese is strapped due to all the abuse litigation. As one of the only younger nuns in your order, you feel a special obligation. That is why you wrote your book—which I’ve read cover-to-cover twice, by the way, and think is marvelous. Please don’t doubt that. My praise was entirely sincere.
I happen to be in a position to lend a hand. Here is what I propose: I will begin to champion your novel in every interview I have, every article I write, every appearance I make. I will do everything in my power to get the word out until your publisher realizes the gem that lies in their hands. I also am fortunate in that I possess the means to do the obvious: write a generous check.
Please understand, none of this is motivated by guilt. I don’t believe either of us did anything even remotely wrong. Rather, it is my admiration and fondness for you that compels me to reach out and help.
I hope this is acceptable. If not, well, try and stop me.
All the very best,
Jon
Come morning, she still lay awake, staring at the single page of folded paper resting on her nightstand. And like the refrain of a song that she couldn’t get out of her head, one of her mother’s expressions—a favorite, right up until the end—kept repeating over and over within the tumble of her thoughts.
Only cowards close their hearts to the miraculous.
Acknowledgments
Most of the stories in this collection first appeared, sometimes in slightly different form, in various magazines, anthologies, or collections: “Pretty Little Parasite” in Las Vegas Noir, edited by Jarret Keene and Todd James Pierce (it was also selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2009, edited by Jeffery Deaver and Otto Penzler); “Are You With Me, Doctor Wu?” first appeared in ***, edited by Jim Fusilli; “Stray,” in The Smoking Poet; “It Can Happen” (a Macavity Award nominee for Best Short Story), in San Francisco Noir, edited by Peter Maravelis; “Untamed Animal” in Needle Magazine, edited by Steve Weddle; “What the Creature Hath Built” in Scoundrels, edited by Gary Phillips; “Dead by Christmas,” in Phoenix Noir, edited by Patrick Millikan (with a special word of appreciation to Det. Jay Pirouznia (ret.), Tempe PD); “The Axiom of Choice,” in The Strand Magazine; The Ant Who Carried Stones,” in Kwik Krimes, edited by Otto Penzler; “Returning to the Knife,” in West Coast Crime Wave, edited by Brian Thornton; “A Boy and a Girl,” in Out of the Gutter 8, edited by Matthew Louis, Joe Clifford, Tom Pitts, and Court Merrigan.
Also, five of the stories included here appeared in a predecessor collection, Killing Yourself to Survive, also published by Mysterious Press in conjunction with Open Road Media.
About the Author
Before becoming a novelist, David Corbett (b. 1953) spent fifteen years as an investigator for the San Francisco private detective agency Palladino & Sutherland, working on several high-profile cases. In 1995, he left to help his wife set up her own law firm, and in 2000 he sold his first novel, The Devil’s Redhead, a thriller about a reformed pot smuggler trying to save his ex-girlfriend from the deadly consequences of her own misguided sympathy.
Corbett’s second novel, Done for a Dime (2003), begins with the murder of a blues legend and turns into a battle for the soul of a small town. It was a New York Times Notable Book and was nominated for a Macavity Award from Mystery Readers International. Next came Blood of Paradise (2007), which was nominated for the Edgar and numerous other awards. It was named both a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book and one of the Top Ten Mysteries and Thrillers of 2007 by the Washington Post. Corbett’s fourth novel, the critically acclaimed Do They Know I’m Running? (2010), tells of a young Salvadoran-American’s harrowing journey to El Salvador to retrieve his deported uncle. It received the Spinetingler Award, Best Novel: Rising Star Category. He has also contributed chapters to the two Harry Middleton serial novels.
Corbett’s most recent book, a collection of short stories titled Thirteen Confessions (2016), is offered exclusively through Mysterious Press and Open Road Media.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.”
Copyright © 2016 by David Corbett
Cover art by Mauricio Díaz
978-1-5040-3594-1
Published in 2016 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Thirteen Confessions Page 22