The Guineveres (16 page)

“We're happy to continue—” Ginny started to say, but Sister Fran interrupted her to remind her that she wasn't asked to speak.

“The season of Advent is nearly upon us, girls. Do you remember the meaning of the word ‘advent'?” She looked at us, one by one. Gwen raised her hand, and Sister Fran nodded toward her.

“It means ‘a coming,' Sister,” she said.

We'd learned this during our Morning Instruction only a few days prior. Sister Fran stood at the front of the room, pointing to where she had written on the chalkboard
Advent
=
a coming.
“Say it three times, girls,” she said. “The rule of three: It takes a trinity of repetitions to commit a fact to memory.”

“Yes,” Sister Fran said, pleased with Gwen's answer. “Indeed it does.” She placed both her hands on the desk in front of her. Veins popped out like little blue rivers, and her raised knuckles were small, rocky islands.

“It also means ‘an arrival,'” Sister Fran said, though she hadn't mentioned this part during our instruction session. “The season asks us to wait in celebration of the First Advent and in hopeful anticipation of the Second.” We nodded, uncertain why she was giving us this lesson yet again. We were tired of lessons. To us, Advent meant lighting a few extra candles, hanging a wreath, and attending additional church services in the long lead-up to Christmas. In our Unholy Lives, some of us used to make chain links out of construction paper to help with the countdown to the holiday, but Sister Fran found the idea too secular for the sanctity of the occasion. Instead, she let us decorate the Rec Room with cardboard ornaments, each containing a scripture of the day. “Father James and I, seeing how dutifully you executed your responsibilities with the convalescents, believe you have been called to a life of service. Destined for acts of selflessness and servitude like Saint Bernadette or Saint Veronica. We applaud you on the completion of your JUG, and we hope that you've been filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. It seems you've reformed your wayward behavior. Your itch, shall we say, to leave the convent. You've impressed us, girls. And now, we believe your call has been extended, beyond your original JUG. What I am saying, girls, is this…” Here she scanned each of us, moving her eyes up and down our uniformed bodies, in the habit of examining us for dress code violations. “You've been chosen to act as altar servers.”

We furrowed our brows and widened our eyes, which may have looked similar to our Holy Constipation look, but it was merely a look of confusion. Holy Confusion. Girls weren't allowed to be servers—that's why they were called altar
boys.

Sister Fran continued, “Ordinarily, such an overt disregard of sacred tradition would be blasphemous; however, with so many boys called away to fight, these are extraordinary times, and we have an extraordinary need. Father James insists the doctrine of Our Creator evolves with the needs of His people. We're all a part of the War Effort, girls, and we must lend our skills and talents where needed. We mustn't keep them under a bushel basket, as the Bible tells us. Don't you agree?” The Guineveres wanted to stop her here to inform her that we were already contributing to the War Effort. No, not knitting scarves to send overseas, as the other girls did during their Rec Time. Our contribution was larger than that: waking Our Boys, going home with them. It's true, no Lazarus-style miracles had occurred, but we were willing to wait.
This
was our duty and our obligation.
This
was our contribution. We wanted to be nurses, not altar girls, for altar girls couldn't leave the convent to care for wounded soldiers, to accustom them to their new lives, the way Ebbie Beaumont had.

But, of course, we couldn't tell her that. Instead, we simply nodded our heads again. “And you, young ladies, will be among the first female altar servers in the entire country.” Sister Fran smiled, the corners of her mouth poking upward. “Oh, isn't this wonderful, girls? What an advancement! What an opportunity!”

We remained still in our seats, trying to grow excited, too, if only for Sister Fran's sake. We had to admit that, although Sister Fran more often terrified us than not, we still craved her praise. She was, after all, our de facto parent, and what girl doesn't seek such approval? But how could we hope for a miracle, how could we tend to Our Boys in the Sick Ward if we couldn't even see them? And what should happen if they woke up without us? Who would go home with them then?

Win raised her hand, and Sister Fran acknowledged her with a hard blink. “What are our duties as altar girls, Sister?” she asked.

“It's an altar
server,
not an altar
girl
. There's no such thing as an altar girl,” she corrected. “Father James will provide you with adequate training.” She explained to us that we'd be serving during Sunday service in the parish church, as well as here during our weekly services for the convalescents. Our hearts quickened as she spoke these words. On Wednesdays, before our all-girl service in the chapel, Father James said a mass in the Sick Ward because the old folks were either too ill or too weak to attend Sunday's celebration. However, we'd never seen it. Usually during this time, we were praying, pencils poised, for the blessed release from our Morning Instruction.

We didn't ask another question after that. Getting out of Morning Instruction, spending Wednesdays in the Sick Ward service with Our Boys, leaving the convent to go to the church in town, even if it was just right up the hill: now
those
were ideas that excited us. Our eyes lifted to the tin ceiling of Sister Fran's office, and we imagined ourselves standing gloriously at the altar, beams of light raining down from above. Maybe God could hear our prayers better from an altar, and maybe that had been the problem all along, one of volume. It must be difficult to discern discrete requests among so many girls chattering in prayer.

“After your
incident
this summer, I had to pray for guidance on this matter. Father James is certain you've reformed. And I'm certain that God forgives even the lambs who stray from the path, but only once they're back with the flock. Be mindful of this, girls—and be careful what you do with such liberties. That is all. You may go.”

The Guineveres single-filed out of Sister Fran's office, but as soon as we rounded the corridor, out of earshot, we burst into squeals of delight. Linking arms, we jumped up and down, our toes touching and leaving the ground with perfect synchronization.

“Altar girls!” we said, light-headed from exhilaration. All was not lost. Our Boys could still awake to us, to The Guineveres who, at that moment, loved them more than anything in the world.

Years later, at a dinner party with the man she was supposed to marry, Win sat across the table from a woman bragging about winning the Butter Bean Beauty Pageant in her youth. The woman wore lipstick too bright for her complexion, and her voice had a southern accent that only seemed to highlight her insincerity. Win took a too-large gulp of her wine, turned to her, said, “I've never participated in a pageant, but I was one of the very first female altar servers.” She took another long slug from her glass. “In the entire country.” A smile spread across Win's face as she said this, but then she looked up at the man she was supposed to marry, who was shaking his head at her in disapproval, and an emptiness sank into Win that she hadn't felt in years. “Oh, how nice,” the southern woman said, turning stiffly to her husband. “She was an altar girl.”

“Altar
server,
” Win corrected. “There's no such thing as an altar girl.” She lifted her wine to her mouth, finishing the glass as she blinked back tears. She wasn't even sure why she was crying. I guess it was a mix of reasons.

Win never did marry that man, and she said it was the one thing in life she never regretted. That her choice had finally set her free.

*   *   *

The next morning, Sister Fran walked us up the steep graveled driveway for our first training session. Father James waited for us outside. He led us past the front entrance of the church with its broad, sweeping archways and into a side door leading to the rectory.

I can't explain it now, but back then, when we took our first steps into that rectory, we felt an advent in the truest sense of the word: We felt something coming—an arrival of some sort—though we didn't know what. Father James brought us into his office, shut the door, and motioned to a table where an assortment of pastries was laid out on a silver platter. A glass pitcher of the orangest juice we'd ever seen dripped beads of sweat down its belly.

“Well, you can't train on an empty stomach, now can you?” Father James said, and he picked up a pastry and bit into it. Small crumbs tumbled down his face.

We thought this might be a test at first—like the temptation of Christ—so we hesitated, looking at one another with uncertainty. Holy Confusion.

“Go on,” he said, and he took another bite, then licked his thumb.

Gwen stepped forward, plucked a pastry from the tray, and sank her teeth into the cap of a cheese crown. She smiled, and we could see cushions of dough packed around her gums.

“Atta girl,” Father James said. He stuffed the rest of the pastry into his mouth, then smiled with plump pink cheeks.

At that point, three more hungry hands grabbed for pastries, and we all stood eating until our fingers were sticky and our stomachs were full. We washed the pastries down with orange juice that tasted sour from the sugar that buzzed in our mouths.

After we ate, Father James led us back out of his office and through a hallway that connected the rectory to the church. We walked through the main foyer, with its gray-white marble floor and its statues of saints lined up like a greeting committee, and into a side room.

Unlike the church itself, this room was unadorned. It had a dull brown carpet and a leather couch along the wall. It smelled of woody incense in there and other scents that were not immediately recognizable, but we knew them simply as church smells.

“This is the vestry,” Father James explained. “On the days you serve, you'll come to the vestry first. You can find a cassock that fits you in here,” he said as he opened a closet. Two racks of identical white robes hung neatly on hangers. “These are worn
over
your clothing, of course,” he said and cleared his throat so as to remind us not to remove our clothes. “Go ahead, try one on.”

We sorted through the closet, but many of the robes were too big in the arms, and the hems dragged on the floor as we paced.

“These cassocks were not intended to be worn by…” Father James cleared his throat again and rubbed his large hands together as if he were soaping them. “By people of your size and stature, girls, but we must make do,” he said, and as he spoke we could smell the faint hint of alcohol on his breath. “They slip on
over
your clothing,” he reiterated as he turned his back toward us despite his instructions. Perhaps he felt it indecent to watch us dress in any fashion. “Let us pray that our young fellows return safely,” he muttered with his back to us.

We quickly found what appeared to be the smallest robes, and we slipped them on over our heads, mussing our hair in the process. They were baggy on us, and stiff, but Father James showed us how to cinch the rope belt in a way that drew up the hem so at least we wouldn't trip on the material. “Altar boys!” Win exclaimed when we looked in the mirror, and we all laughed. Father James told us there'd be none of that kind of tomfoolery, so we stopped and swapped out our laughter for church faces.

It's peculiar: For all our church instruction, we rarely thought about the symbolism of our actions during any given chapel service. We sat when we were told to sit, knelt when instructed to do so. When it was time, we melted communion wafers that tasted like cardboard on our tongues, yet we hardly stopped to consider why we were doing it. After Father James's scolding, however, we took our training seriously. We were shown where the processional candle was kept, how to hold the liturgical Bible during the ceremony so Father James could read from it. We all practiced the correct way to hold the large wooden cross and how to light and properly swing the incense jar, so the smoke didn't blow in just one direction. Afterward, he showed us how to carefully gather the linens, the chalice, and the missal from the credence table, the items he used to help him bless the sacrament, then how to pour a small pitcher of water into a glass bowl so he could wash his hands before the rite of Eucharist. After that we were to help him gather the bread and wine from the gift bearers and place them on the altar. This is when he'd consecrate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Transubstantiation, he explained to us, and we thought about that, really thought about what it meant to consume flesh and drink blood. It would have seemed cannibalistic if the ceremony itself weren't so solemn and beautiful.

“You are part of the flock now, girls. Stand up straight. Sing with your full voices. No giggling. No whispering. No sound-making of any kind. If you must sneeze, turn your head away from the altar. Above all, try to enjoy the service. This is a celebration, after all,” Father James said.

Our first celebration was the following morning, the first Sunday of Advent.

“What if I forget what I'm supposed to do?” questioned Ginny. We were in the cafeteria, taking timid sips of water. Church canon dictated we fast before mass so the host wouldn't mingle in our stomachs, digesting in unholy unison. Not that it mattered. We couldn't have eaten anyway. “What if I have an asthma attack?” In the winter, Ginny's freckles faded, lending her a clear complexion, but also drawing attention to the small scabs along her hairline from where she sometimes nervously pulled her hair from the roots. “I've never been onstage before.”