The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (93 page)

“I do.” He pushed past her, and slammed the door.

Andie raced into the living room and snatched up the phone. Simon answered on the second ring.

“Winthrop, Winthrop, and Winthrop. How may I direct your call?” His standard line, yet she found herself grinning as if it were the first time she’d heard it.

“Customer service, please,” she played along.

“Sorry, all lines are busy.”

She dropped the pretense. “Simon, you won’t believe this but—”

“Great minds think alike,” he broke in. “I was just about to call
you.”

“You were?”

“There’s something I want to show you.”

“What?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Give me a hint at least.”

“You’ll know soon enough. I’ll pick you up in half an hour.” Typically, he hadn’t bothered to ask if she was busy.

When he beeped his horn in the driveway, her mother was still getting dressed for her date with Aubrey and Justin had left for Nesto’s. She called good-bye to her mother through her bedroom door and headed outside.

“You missed yesterday’s excitement,” she told him as they rattled their way down the quiet street. “Mom picked up Sam and Ian from the hospital. She said it was funny seeing them both come out in wheelchairs.”

“They’re lucky to be alive. Did you ever find out what caused the accident?”

“A deer. Ian swerved to keep from hitting it.” With all the excitement, the story hadn’t come out until the following day.

“It could’ve been a lot worse.”

She didn’t need Simon to tell her. “My grandmother’s convinced guardian angels were watching over them.”

“That’s crap,” he said good-naturedly.

“You don’t know that for a fact.” Simon claimed to be an atheist, but she thought it was only because he had a hard time believing in any kind of father figure, even God.

“You don’t know for a fact there are such things, either.”

“No one does.”

“I rest my case.”

He made the turn onto Hibiscus, where Mrs. Crawford’s house was decorated for Easter weeks in advance. She’d been the kindergarten teacher at Portola Elementary for about a hundred years, and had only recently retired. Now in her eighties, she was like a five-year-old herself, plastering her front window with decals and construction paper cutouts every holiday season. Right now it was decked in Kleenex roses and baby chicks made from Popsicle sticks and fat colored yarn.

“So what’s this thing you want to show me?” she asked.

“You’ll see.” He smiled mysteriously.

They passed the vacant lot where Andie and her best friend in elementary school, Amy Snow, had fashioned jumps out of old mop handles and broomsticks, pretending to be horses as they whinnied their way around the course. Then Simon was turning up the hill toward school.

He drew to a stop in front of the administration building, which looked to be deserted except for a janitor trundling his cart along the adjoining breezeway. Simon jingled his key ring as he plucked it from the ignition, giving her a meaningful look. Leave it to him to have the key. He’d probably gotten it from the principal himself, who considered Simon to be practically one of the faculty.

Inside, he led the way upstairs to the headquarters of the
Scribe,
where he motioned toward the chair by his desk. “Have a seat.” He unlocked the top drawer and pulled out a minirecorder. “Remember last week when I took that little trip up north?”

“Monica’s friend at Stanford?” Simon had missed two days of school.

He nodded, inserting a tape. “While I was in the neighborhood, I paid someone else a visit, too.”

“Who?” She was in no mood for guessing games. “Simon, will you please—”

He pressed the
PLAY
button. At first there was only the hissing of blank tape; then came Simon’s voice.
“Okay. Got it. First time I’ve used this thing … sorry. I’m a little nervous.”
He sounded like a bumbling sixth grader, which she knew to be an act. What on earth was going on?

A man’s low chuckle.
“Relax, son. We all have to start somewhere.” A
pause.
“Now, if you’ll refresh my memory, which school did you say you were from?”

“Portola High, sir.”

“Father, please. That doesn’t sound like a Catholic school.”

“It isn’t… uh, Father.”

“In that case, I don’t know that anything I say will be of interest to your fellow students.”

“Actually, uh, this isn’t for the school paper.”
Simon’s tone grew bolder.
“Did I forget to mention I also moonlight as a freelancer?”

“Really? Anything I would have seen?” The voice was amused.

“There was a piece on Monica Vincent in last Thursday’s
Chronicle.
That was mine. It was picked up from our local paper by UPI. Not bad for my first time out, huh?”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with the archdiocese.”
A note of strain had crept into the voice that could belong to none other than Claire’s father.

“I’m getting to that,”
Simon went on.
“You see, I’m doing this story on our local convent, Our Lady of the Wayside. It started out as a human interest piece, but when I dug a little deeper I saw there was more to it than that.”

“I see. How so?”

“There’s this woman, Gerry Fitzgerald, who runs their beekeeping operation. Well, anyway, her daughter’s a friend of mine and she told me an interesting story: A long time ago her mom was a nun, but had to leave the convent when she found out she was pregnant.”
Pause.
“Father, are you okay? You look a little pale.”

The rumble of a throat being cleared.
“N-no, I’m all right. You were saying?”

“Yeah, well, according to my friend, the father of that baby was you.”

A moment of silence, then came a choked cry.
“How dare you!”
He struggled to catch his breath.
“Get out. Now. Before I call the police and have you charged with … with impersonating a … a …”

“A reporter?”
Andie pictured Simon smiling.
“Father, with all due respect, I only wanted to get your side of the story. I mean, you never know, one of the wire services might pick it up, and if it goes national, I’d hate not having all the facts straight.”

“Get out. Get out of my office! Or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?”
All at once Simon was his hard-nosed self.
“Get the poor woman fired? Oh yeah, I heard about that, too. How does this headline sound?
PRIEST FATHERS BABY WITH FORMER NUN
.
It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? I also have an interview lined up with your daughter.”

“What do you want from me?”
All the anger had gone out of the man’s voice. He sounded frightened.

“I told you. I’m doing this for
—”

“She sent you, didn’t she?”

“Ms. Fitzgerald? She doesn’t even know I’m here.”
That was the truth, at least.

“I didn’t believe it when she threatened me, but—” He broke off suddenly. “She’s out to get me.”

“Forgive me, Father, but it sounds like it’s the other way
—”

He was abruptly cut off.

Simon, perched on the edge of his desk, thumbed the
STOP
button.

For a long moment, Andie just sat there, staring at the recorder as if hypnotized.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” Simon asked.

“Mad?” She blinked, and looked up at him. “That was amazing.”

Simon grinned. “I wish you could’ve seen it—he crumbled like stale bread. I felt a little bad for the guy.”

“My grandmother was right. She said you had moxie to burn.” Andie was grinning, too. “My, God, Simon— blackmailing a priest. It could just as easily have backfired.” She hadn’t imagined anything like this when she’d confided in him.

“The point is, it didn’t.”

“You could’ve been arrested or … or gone to hell.”

“I don’t believe in hell, remember.”

“Still …”

“Look, it worked. Isn’t that all that matters? I made him promise to back off in exchange for killing the piece.”

“You weren’t really going to do it, were you?”

“No, but he didn’t have to know that, did he?” Simon looked so pleased with himself, she had no doubt he
would
one day win the Pulitzer Prize.

“If my mother ever finds out, she’ll be pissed.” Gerry preferred to fight her own battles.

“In that case, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” He took hold of Andie’s hand, bringing it to his lips. His eyes behind the smudged lenses of his glasses were large as he peered at her over his knuckles. “Which reminds me, I got the name of a doctor—Monica’s.”

“You told
Monica?”

He lowered her hand. “Relax. I didn’t tell her who it was for.”

The tape of Father Gallagher had temporarily eclipsed her own good news, but now it came bubbling to the surface. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you ab—”

“Don’t worry. I have some money saved up. No one has to know.”

“Simon. I—”

“It’ll be all right, I promise.” The tender concern in his face was almost enough to make her cry.

“I’m not pregnant,” she managed to blurt at last.

He rocked back, stunned, a goofy look of relief dawning on his face. He hopped down off the desk, seizing her by the hands and pulling her to her feet. “Why didn’t you
tell
me? All this time I’ve been going on and on … when did you find out?”

“A little while ago.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

He raked a hand through his hair, making it stand up in a rooster comb. “That’s great. I mean, wow, that’s …
great
.” For once in his life, Simon was at a loss for words.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. If this were a TV movie, she thought, the violins would be playing, but it wasn’t, and when Simon drew back to look at her, the only sound was that of their breathing.

After a moment she said, “I can’t help wondering what it’d have been like.”

“What?”

“Our kid.”

“With our DNA? It would have been a genius.” He grinned.

She shook her head, holding her lips pressed together to keep from smiling, which would only encourage him. “I hope it’s a long, long time before I’m a parent.”

“It’s harder than it looks, believe me.” He caught hold of her hand, and they headed for the door. “I have an idea. There’s a Motel 6 down the road. Can’t you just see it, a piece on sleazy motels from a teen’s point of view? Think how it would sell. They’d be standing in line down at …”

He was still talking as she raced past him down the stairs.

“The most extraordinary thing.” Mother Ignatius’s wintry blue eyes peered at Gerry over the tops of her reading glasses. On her desk was a stack of mail, most of it unopened, as if her morning routine had been interrupted. “I just got off the phone with the motherhouse.

It seems that based on Sister Clement’s report, they’ve concluded that no drastic changes are called for. In short, we’re to continue on as before.”

Gerry stared at her in disbelief. She’d been so sure when the reverend mother called her in that it would be to ask for her resignation. Now goose bumps skittered up the back of her neck, making its tiny hairs stand on end. Not like a sighting of the Blessed Mother, but a miracle all the same.

She let out a breath. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

Mother Ignatius removed her glasses, folding them carefully before tucking them in her pocket. “Quite honestly, I don’t know what to make of it,” she said.

“Could Sister Clement have changed her mind?” Even as she said it, Gerry found it impossible to believe.

“It’s more likely due to the special mass I asked Father Reardon to say.”

“You, too?” When she’d buttonholed Dan last week, he hadn’t mentioned Mother Ignatius’s request. She smiled. “I figured I could use all the help I could get.”

And not just in keeping her job. She thought of everything she’d been through these past months: a daughter coming home and another one temporarily moving out; Sam’s near death and the birth of her baby (all in one night!); and, last but not least, Aubrey, who might or might not be in Carson Springs for good. It was enough to make her wonder if it was God behind the wheel—or someone learning to drive.

I’ll make the announcement in chapter, but I wanted you to be the first to know.” The reverend mother’s voice was calm, but her eyes shone. She extended her hand across her tidy desk. “Congratulations, my dear. I look forward to many more years of battling with you over what’s best for Blessed Bee.”

“Even though I sometimes win?” Gerry said with a laugh.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

They exchanged a wry smile. Gerry was turning to go when she was brought short by an unfamiliar sound: the reverend mother chuckling softly to herself.

She hurried off down the hall, knowing that if she didn’t share the good news with someone, she’d burst.

She immediately thought of Sister Agnes, but a quick tour of the garden netted only Sister Henry, on her knees weeding a flower bed.

“Sister Agnes is in the infirmary,” the older nun informed her. She shook her head sadly, and Gerry saw that she’d once been quite pretty before the years had taken their toll. “The poor dear doesn’t have much longer.” It was a panicked moment before Gerry realized she was talking about Sister Seraphina.

The infirmary was a former caretaker’s cottage that had been equipped with beds and state-of-the-art emergency care. The sisters who worked there were registered nurses, and a doctor made rounds twice a week. Now, as Gerry pushed her way through the door into the sunny foyer, she was struck as always by the contrast to the exterior. While the facade retained its ancient stones and thick curtain of ivy, the interior had been thoroughly modernized—white tile flooring and a built-in reception desk with a cozy, wicker-furnished lounge just beyond. Only the security camera over the door stood as a mute reminder of the community’s aging population: It guarded against those who tended to wander.

“I’m looking for Sister Agnes,” she told the plump-cheeked novice at the desk.