Something Nice: An Original Sinners Novella Read online

  “I’ve been taking care of myself for five years,” she said, staring at the center of his chest. Easier than meeting his eyes. “And I got pretty damn good at it.”

  “I know. I know it’s hard to give that up and let someone else take care of you. When you were mine before, I took care of you. If you let me, I’ll do again. And this time we’ll get it right. If you let me. And that’s nothing I can order you to do. You have to give yourself to me freely. I’m not going to throw you a lifeline until you ask for it. If you want to drown, that’s your choice. But if you want my help—”

  “Fine. Help me, please,” she said, looking up to meet his gaze finally.

  “With what?”

  “I feel out of place. I don’t have any friends here. I don’t know how to talk to anyone. I don’t know what to talk about. I’m scared people will judge me. I’m scared people will hate me when they get to know me. This is not my world anymore. It probably never was. I don’t know how to belong here. You keep saying I do, and I don’t want to disappoint you but I don’t. I just don’t belong here. And I have no idea how you can help me with that but you seem to think you can so…prove it.”

  He smiled. “I will.”

  Nora gave him one more look before returning to the party. She filled a plate with food—beer-battered fried fish, fruit salad, wheat rolls with honey butter. All delicious and yet it felt like sand in her mouth. She didn’t want to talk to Kelly anymore. If she mentioned Søren’s “engine” one more time, Nora might have to clock the woman. Instead she went to sit on the ground at the edge of a circle of chairs and picnic blankets. An older man in a fishing shirt stopped her and found her a lawn chair of her own. While she picked at her food, Nora and the fisherman talked about Mrs. Maywood’s farm and the pond and the weather they’d been having. That killed a few minutes. Maybe after she ate she could go for a walk in the little woods for the next—she checked the time on her phone again—three hours. After a few bland bites, she gave up on her food and walked down to the pond. The water looked inviting. Half a dozen kids were swimming there already, being watched over by twice as many parents and grandparents. It was all so tame, so vanilla, so terribly normal. Why in hell did Søren think she belonged here? Last year a man paid her ten thousand dollars to put metal sounds into his urethra and she’d done it. She’d done it and she’d enjoyed it. How was someone like her supposed to spend a day with stay-at-home moms and kids and sweet old men and Mrs. Maywood and all those people who wouldn’t know a urethral sound if they had one shoved up their, well, their urethras.

  “Miss Ellie?”

  Nora looked down and saw a little boy standing on the dock. He had messy black hair and wore neon yellow swim shorts.

  “Owen, right?” she asked. “Didn’t I help you tie your shoes once?”

  “I take the fifth.”

  “Do you know what ‘taking the fifth’ means?”

  “No, but dad says it to my mom.”

  “I’m sure she loves that. How can I help you, Owen?”

  “Father S told me to come get you.”

  “What does he want?” she asked.

  Owen shrugged his skinny shoulders.

  “Don’t ask me,” he said. “I just work here.”

  “Does your dad also say that to your mom?”

  The boy nodded. “All the time.”

  Nora laughed and let Owen take her by the hand and drag her up from the pond and back to the party.

  “Here she is, Father S,” Owen said, breaking into a run and Nora had to jog to keep up with him. He brought her to a clearing under Mrs. Maywood’s oldest oak tree where most of the adults at the picnic and half the teenage girls had congregated. Søren sat in an Adirondack chair with a beer in his hand and a girl of about thirteen or fourteen at his elbow. They seemed to be arguing with each other about something, but Nora couldn’t say for sure, as they were both speaking in rapid Spanish.

  “Sí,” the girl said.

  “No,” Søren said.

  “Por favor, por favor, por favor…” The girl was clearly pleading with him to do something. Søren appeared utterly unmoved by her begging.

  “Amelia…”

  “Ahem?” Nora said. “You summoned me?” She hoped everyone would attribute the bright blush she wore to running in the sun with Owen and not to nervousness.

  “Eleanor, this is Amelia. She wants a ride on my bike,” he said. “And she won’t take no for an answer.”

  “Good,” Nora said. “My kind of girl. Why won’t he take you out?” she asked the girl.

  Amelia rolled her eyes dramatically. “Because, you know…”

  “Rules are rules,” he said.

  “Stupid rules,” Amelia said. “There are two hundred people here, Father S. If you’re going to kidnap and murder me, you wouldn’t do it in front of two hundred witnesses.”

  “If you ask her very politely, Miss Eleanor might take you for a quick spin on my bike.”

  “You know how to ride a motorcycle?” Amelia looked up at Nora in wonder and amazement.

  “Well…yeah,” Nora said. “You do know women can ride motorcycles too, right?”

  Amelia shrugged. Maybe she didn’t know that. Maybe it’s time she learned.

  “Where’d you learn how to ride a motorcycle, Ellie?” Mrs. Maywood asked. She sat in the chair next to Søren’s.

  “Dad,” she said. “You know he knew cars and bikes really well.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Maywood said, remembering her father well enough to say no more.

  “Would you please take me for a ride on Father S’s bike?” Amelia asked. “And thank you.”

  “Sure. Your parents are cool with that?” she asked Amelia.

  “Mama!” Amelia screamed. Nora winced. A woman on the other side of the circle yelled something back in Spanish.

  “What was that?” Nora asked.

  “She said ‘Go but wear a helmet,’” Søren said.

  “You only have the one helmet, right?” Nora asked.

  “Yes, so be careful. Go down the main road, turn around, come back,” he said. “Let Amelia have the helmet. Stay under the speed limit. Try not to swallow too many insects.” He reached into his pocket and fished out his keys. “Also, don’t break my duke. Don’t break Amelia. Don’t break yourself. I’m trusting you.”

  “That was your first mistake,” she said. “You like the beach?”

  “Love the beach,” Amelia said.

  “Then let’s go. We can make it to Miami by morning if we leave right now.”

  Amelia whooped as she came to her feet and ran toward Søren’s motorcycle.

  “Bring me my keys back,” Søren said, holding out his hand.

  “Too late, sucker!” She ran off after Amelia who was already strapping Søren’s helmet on.

  “You really know how to drive this thing?” Amelia asked.

  “I do,” Nora said. “And this is not a thing. This is a 1992 Ducati 902 i.e.”

  “Wow, it’s older than I am.”

  “Yes, it’s vintage. It’s beautiful. And we’re not going to hurt it. Ducatis are also called dukes or ducks. Did you know that?”

  “Didn’t know that.”

  “Now you can tell people your priest rides a duck.”

  “I will totally do that.”

  “Now, safety lecture time. While on the bike, you put your arms around my waist and hang on for dear life. This is a motorcycle and motorcycles are dangerous. You remember when Father S got into that accident a couple years ago?”

  “The one that turned his back into ground beef?”

  “That one. You don’t want to be a human hamburger, do you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good. Then you behave on the bike. Don’t let go of me. Don’t distract me. Don’t move around. If you need me to slow down, pinch my leg. If you need me to stop, pinch it twice. Got it?”

  “Got it. But…can we go fast?”

  Nora narrowed her eyes at the girl.

  “Y
ou remember what Father S said about staying under the speed limit?”

  “Nope,” Amelia said.

  “Yeah,” Nora said with a grin, her first real smile of the day. “Me neither.”

  4

  Once Amelia was firmly in place with her skinny teenage arms around Nora’s waist, she stuck her key into the ignition, started the bike, and kicked off down the dirt driveway to the country road in front of Mrs. Maywood’s farm. The Ducati was in a good mood today, handling well. Sometimes it only wanted to behave for Søren, but today it was happy to have her in the driver’s seat. And Amelia was a good passenger. She kept her mouth shut and hung on hard. As instructed, Amelia didn’t freak out, flail around, or do anything reckless. Nora stayed close to the speed limit but it was so nice to feel the wind in her hair and so much power between her thighs that she let it ease up past sixty before bringing it back down to a rational forty-five again. They made it to the highway and Nora turned around and headed back past the farm. They made one more loop before returning. Amelia whooped again when she took the helmet off.

  “That was awesome,” Amelia said. “I want one.”

  “Start saving your lunch money.”

  “Thanks for taking me out. That was really nice of you.”

  “Any excuse to steal Father S’s bike.”

  “Right? It’s so cool. How could such a dork have such an awesome bike?”

  “You think Father S is a dork?”

  “Maybe more a nerd than a dork. He’s got the entire Bible memorized. And the catechism. It’s disturbing.”

  “Nerd I’ll give you,” Nora said. “But he’s cute, right?”

  “I guess.” Amelia shrugged. “For an old guy. Thanks again for the ride. You rock.”

  She handed Nora the helmet and ran off to rejoin her friends.

  Nora laughed as she hung the helmet back on Søren’s handlebars. An old dork with a motorcycle much cooler than he was. That’s how Amelia saw Søren. That was hilarious. She couldn’t wait to tell him he was a dork and an old dork at that. Even better, she couldn’t wait to tell Kingsley.

  “How was the drive?” Mrs. Maywood asked when Nora returned to the circle of chairs.

  “Good,” Nora said. “We made it halfway to Miami and then Amelia remembered she forgot her toothbrush. So we came back.”

  “Can’t go anywhere without a toothbrush,” Mrs. Maywood said. Søren held out his hand for his keys and Nora dangled them over his palm.

  “Eleanor. Give me my keys back.”

  “Say please,” she said.

  “Eleanor.” He snapped his fingers. “Keys.”

  “Keys rhymes with please.”

  “I thought your name was Nora.”

  Both Nora and Søren turned to the girl who’d said that—a teenage girl Nora had seen around Sacred Heart. She was older than Amelia—seventeen or eighteen probably—and she wore a Sacred Heart Intramural Soccer Team shirt.

  “Eleanor, meet Maxine. She’s one of the best fielders on our soccer team. Next to her is Angie—she’s my housekeeper Mrs. Scalera’s granddaughter. This is Jessika, Josefina, and Katie,” he said, pointing out the girls grouped around them on picnic blankets. “You already know Diane and Mrs. Maywood.” The teenagers smiled and gave her little waves. Diane, Søren’s secretary, gave her a wink that Nora ignored. Diane knew about her and Søren.

  “You can call me Nora,” she said to Maxine. “Or Elle. He only calls me Eleanor because, well, it’s a long story.” Nora dropped her keys into his hand and sat down in her lawn chair again.

  “What’s the story?” Maxine asked. The five or six girls scattered around them on the picnic blankets were following their conversation very closely.

  “You want to take this one?” Nora asked Søren, scared of saying the wrong thing.

  “Mrs. Maywood, you’ve been at Sacred Heart for thirty years, right?” Søren asked.

  “Thirty-one years,” Mrs. Maywood said. “We threw our first picnic the year after our youngest was born.”

  “Can you name someone who was at Sacred Heart before you were?” he asked.

  “Easy,” she said and pointed right at Nora. “That little girl right there. She was at Sacred Heart when we started.”

  “Not so little anymore,” Nora said as she stretched out her legs and crossed them at the ankles.

  “Debatable,” Søren said.

  “I’m not short. You’re unnecessarily tall,” she said.

  “I thought you were new,” Maxine said to Nora.

  “Eleanor was christened at Sacred Heart,” Søren said. “She attended very steadily until she was…how old? College?”

  “College,” Nora said. “Then I came back. Then I left again a few years ago. Then I came back. The Catholic Church is a lot like the Hotel California. You can check out, but you can’t ever leave.”

  “While Eleanor was gone,” Søren continued, “she began a writing career and took a pen name based on her own name. Elea-Nora. I knew her before she was Nora. Ergo she’s Eleanor to me, Nora to almost everyone else.”

  “Not me,” Mrs. Maywood said. “She’ll always be Ellie to me.”

  “Could be worse,” Nora said. “Father Greg used to call me Ellen.”

  Maxine laughed.

  “Eleanor’s been at Sacred Heart longer than anyone else on the current membership roles,” Søren said. “Except for a few housebound elderly who can’t make it into Mass anymore.”

  “That’ll be me soon enough,” Mrs. Maywood said with a grin.

  “Hush,” Søren said. “You’re as young as you were the day I started.” He kissed the back of her hand and Mrs. Maywood, seventy years old and counting, blushed.

  “When did you start, Father S?” Maxine asked.

  “Seventeen years ago. I remember it like yesterday,” he said.

  “Holy shit,” Nora said.

  “What?” Søren asked.

  “I just realized something. I’m wearing the same shirt I had on that day you started.”

  “You remember what you were wearing the day Father S started at Sacred?” Maxine asked.

  “Of course I do,” Nora said and pointed at Søren. “You don’t forget the day the new pretty young priest at your church makes fun of your outfit.”

  “I did not. I absolutely did not make fun of your outfit,” he said, sitting forward in his chair. “Maxine, that is slander. Although…” He sat back in the chair again. “I was very pretty.”

  “You did too make fun of me,” she said. “You said my clothes made me look insane. Oh, and you thought I had mold growing in my hair.”

  “It was green.”

  “It was green hair dye, not fungus!”

  “You could have fooled me,” he said.

  “You two are funny,” Maxine said. “I wish I knew Father S when he was young.”

  “Did you hear that, Father?” Nora asked. “When you were young. Implying you aren’t anymore.”

  “Of course I’m not young anymore,” he said. “I’ve been pastoring a church you attend for seventeen years. It’s a miracle I still have my faculties intact.”

  “What’s a Pearl Jam?” Maxine asked, squinting at Nora’s faded black concert t-shirt.

  Søren grinned at her. “Now who’s old?” he asked her. The glare she gave him could have melted stone. She was about to ask him to tell the class exactly what the disco era was like when a pretty dark-skinned girl with ribbons in her pigtails ran up to him with a piece of paper in her hand.

  “Father S,” she said, panting. “I have to do this thing, so you’ll help me, right?”

  “Tisha, try that again, please,” Diane, Søren’s secretary said. Tisha? Oh hell, she hadn’t recognized Diane’s daughter. That was embarrassing. She’d been a bridesmaid in Diane’s wedding, had attended Tisha’s christening eleven years ago, and had been gone so long from Sacred Heart she’d hadn’t realized Tisha was middle school age already.

  “Father Stearns,” Tisha said. “Would you help me with my CCD homewo
rk now, please and thank you?”

  “Better,” Diane said, shaking her head at her daughter.

  “I can and I will,” Søren said, giving the girl his full attention. “What are we doing?”

  “We have to interview a member of the clergy,” Tisha said. “There’s only like six questions.”

  “What’s CCD?” Maxine asked.

  “It’s like Catholic school for kids who go to public schools,” Nora said.

  “So even if I didn’t go to Catholic school, I’d still have to go to Catholic school?” Maxine asked.

  “Told you,” Nora said. “Hotel California.”

  Søren ignored them both.

  “What’s the first question?” Søren asked Tisha.

  “What is your name and your title?” Tisha asked as she took a pencil out of her pocket and used Diane’s tray table as a desk.

  “I’m the Reverend Doctor Marcus L. Stearns, S.J.”

  “That’s a lot,” she said, making a face. “Hold on. Wait. Can I just write Rev for Reverend?”

  “Yes,” he said, and Nora could tell he was trying not to laugh. “R-E-V and D-R.”

  “What’s the S.J.?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “It stands for Society of Jesus. That’s my religious order.”

  “Oh, that’s the second question. Are you a member of a religious order?”

  “You can write either ‘The Jesuits’ or ‘The Society of Jesus,’” he said.

  “I’ll put down ‘Society of Jesus’ because I can spell that,” she said, pausing to write. “Next question. When did you decide to join a religious order? Oh, and why? I have to ask you why. But try to keep it snappy. They didn’t give me much room to write.”

  “Yeah, keep it snappy, Father,” Nora said.

  “When I was fourteen,” he began, pausing to return Nora’s glare. “I went to a Jesuit school.” He paused and looked over at Tisha’s paper. “J-E-S-U-I-T. I loved my Jesuit teachers, the brothers and priests there, and decided I wanted to be a Jesuit too. Is that snappy enough for you?”

  “Super duper snappy,” she said, writing furiously. Nora eavesdropped onto the conversation intently. Søren had never really told her what had precipitated his desire to be a priest. He never talked about that time in his life. She’d like the non-snappy answer. Something told her there was a story hiding behind the super duper snappy version.