CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Los Angeles, 1959

It was almost disturbingly easy to get time off from my job; obviously, my absence wasn’t going to cause a ripple at Newsweek. My boss was a bluff, cheerful sort, who called it like it was, usually. “Editors aren’t comfortable with single women, even smart broads,” he said to me once.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because they’ll get married. And then they’ll get pregnant.”

“So there’s not much room for us,” I managed.

“You made the copy desk,” he pointed out.

“Will I go higher?”

He seemed genuinely astonished to be asked. “Isn’t that enough?”

So it was confirmed—I had time off. I typed up a fresh copy of the rejected Barbie piece and stuffed it in the mail to Life magazine as fast as I could, sending it off with a version of a prayer.

Then I got down to the business of packing, which brought back some long-forgotten memories.

“Did I ever tell you I tried to pack a year’s supply of Kotex when I left L.A. for college?” I said to Kathleen the night before my flight.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wasn’t sure if a small Northeastern town would have drugstores.”

“God, Jesse.” A pause. A sudden burst of static over the phone line. Or was it a repressed laugh? “You really were a combination of extremes.”

Kathleen’s comment nagged at me as I boarded my plane the next morning—probably because “a combination of extremes” said it too well. I needed some middle ground. I took my seat and started flipping through the latest Saturday Evening Post, scanning the short stories, hoping that one I had sent them would be bought. I fancied it sitting, unread, in some editor’s box—where, quite possibly, it would never be read, so that one of those standard rejection slips would just show up in my mail again.

The flight was long and boring. Fortunately, the drone of the Douglas DC-7’s engines kept me asleep for most of the trip, letting me dream various floaty scenarios heavy with sunshine and palm trees.

I awoke with a start, my head still tangled in cobwebs, only when the pilot announced we were approaching Los Angeles. I pressed my nose against the window. We were right above a scattering of bright-blue patches. Of course, the pools of Beverly Hills. What perfect, corny timing; it gave me the shivers.

Enough of that. I opened my purse, pulled out a silver compact, and brushed powder over my nose, applying it quickly. And then a flash of memory: Mother’s horrified face that day I defied the bishop at Mass, which she called a betrayal. Were memories going to pop up like that all week? I was an idiot to come.

A bounce, a screech of brakes. The question was moot; we were on the tarmac, rolling toward the arrival gate.

Kathleen was waiting, hands shoved into the pockets of a bright-green windbreaker, with a wide grin on her face. How long since we had seen each other? Two years since her last visit to New York? Her face was thinner, her cheeks were less rosy, and her hair was more of a subdued auburn now. But she wore it pulled back into a casual ponytail that bounced and caught the light in perpetual motion. Yes, this was still my ebullient friend.

“I’ll bet you’re the only L.A. real-estate agent wearing a ponytail,” I said, reaching out to hug her.

“If it droops when I show you a house, it means I think it’s overpriced,” she said with a grin. “God, it’s good to see you.” She gestured over to the next gate, where an impossibly slender blonde was boarding a plane, waving to a cluster of people shouting goodbye. “That’s Betty Hutton, off to Las Vegas. Her last movie bombed; she’s hoping for a winning streak. I sold her house for her—got a great price.”

I felt better already as she scooped up my suitcase at the baggage claim with an elaborate frown. “Filled with Kotex again?” she asked innocently.

That turned a few heads in our direction. I laughed, delighted in my sudden lightheartedness. Thank you, Kathleen.

Kathleen’s car was a sporty white MG convertible. “Wow,” I said, truly impressed. We piled my luggage in the trunk, and I slid into the passenger seat, smoothing the soft black leather upholstery with my hand.

“That’s what I said when I saw it in the showroom,” she said as she maneuvered the car swiftly out of the airport parking lot and onto the road, her foot firmly on the gas pedal.

“You’ve done all this on your own.”

“Right. I like being independent. Great car, isn’t it?” she shouted over the rush of wind that came with our quickening speed.

“Yes, but what do you do when it rains?” I shouted back.

“Jesse,” she laughed, “you’re back in Los Angeles, remember? The land of perpetual sunshine!”

I tipped my head up to the sun, and for just a second I felt Kathleen’s exuberance sweep through me; then I caught myself. “A land of pretty harsh sunshine, as I recall,” I said.

She said nothing, just reached a hand over to squeeze mine.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Home, right now. You’re three hours ahead of us—you’ll pass out early.”

“Where is home?”

“An apartment off La Brea Avenue, near the tar pits. Actually, pretty near the old Charlie Chaplin Studio. It’s disgusting what the pinko-haters did, banning him from the country. It wasn’t enough to try and kill his movie.”

The boycott of Limelight, when Chaplin was hounded out of the United States. That was 1952. “I heard that, after HUAC’s charges, people yelled at Chaplin in restaurants and even spat in his face,” I said.

Kathleen nodded. “Those were awful times here,” she said. “I keep asking myself, how did this country let Joe McCarthy take over?” She shook her head. “Did that vicious man ever ruin lives.”

I thought of Jerry Feldstein and all the others. “Including the lives of my father’s friends,” I said. “He was a destroyer.”

We sat in silence, remembering. The vigilante senator from Wisconsin had died a couple of years ago, and I had cheered. His power had dribbled away as people began stepping back, finally looking at the cost of all the hysteria over communists and reaching the point of being ashamed.

“It’s such an old horror now,” I said.

“Not completely. The morality police still hold sway.”

“I wonder if the government will relent on Ingrid Bergman. She survived the morality police, that’s for sure. They didn’t kill her career in Europe.”

Ingrid’s long absence from the United States had not stopped her career from flourishing. She and Rossellini had finally married, but only after a bitter divorce and custody fight with the angry Petter Lindström. She and Rossellini made five more films together, none of which gained audiences in the United States.

“She’s done all right, don’t you think? Movies, the stage—just not here. Other than winning an Academy Award for Anastasia, which she couldn’t come pick up.”

“Thanks to Ed Sullivan. That jerk. She’d be back here by now if it weren’t for what he did.”

When Anastasia was released in 1956, Ingrid was quietly invited back to the States to receive the New York Critics Award. The TV host Ed Sullivan, whose Sunday-night television program was watched by millions, got wind of the impending weekend visit, and in a grandiose gesture decided to let his viewers vote—thumbs up or down—on whether to invite Ingrid Bergman to appear on his show.

“This woman has had seven and a half years of time for penance. Should we let her appear on U.S. television? It’s up to the public!” he declared.

An uproar followed: who was Sullivan to launch a national vote for condemnation or praise of an actress? He apologized, but the spotlight of notoriety had been turned on Ingrid again.

Her visit was brief. She fled back to Europe as quickly as she could.

My thoughts went back to Stromboli—to the sight of Ingrid Bergman in her red skirt, standing on that hill, linked to Rossellini. And, yes, to my father’s devastation.

All signs pointed initially to a happy union. She had loved Rossellini, that was clear. The U.S. tabloids paid less attention to the two of them as the years went by, especially as she seemed to settle into domesticity—producing twin daughters after they were finally able to marry. Kathleen and I never lost interest, of course, and we agreed at one point that Ingrid’s unlikely new family would stabilize.

But the rumors of a volatile relationship came into the open when Ingrid—against Rossellini’s wishes—made two career decisions. She would star in Anastasia, which meant leaving Italy to film in England—and she also accepted the lead role in Tea and Sympathy, a controversial play about homosexuality, which would take her to Paris. Rossellini, the press reported, was furious.

It wasn’t very long before we learned that Ingrid and Rossellini were getting divorced.

“So are you disillusioned?” Kathleen had asked in one of our phone conversations at the time.

“Not really,” I said. I liked to think nothing could shock me anymore. My own life had seen some turbulence, after all—no need to go over that. “I wonder what my father would say.”

“He’d probably think it was funny.”

“I liked that quote of hers about the divorce—you know the one.”

“Yep: ‘Italians and Swedes don’t mix.’ ”

And so it came to something that simple. Kathleen gave me a knowing look. “Now, if you and I were fifteen again, we’d be inhaling movie-mag stories on Ingrid and her new husband,” she said.

“There don’t seem to be that many, do there? I guess a solid Swedish film producer named Lars Schmidt isn’t quite as juicy fodder as a romantic Italian,” I said.

“So, given the fact that we’re too grown-up for that stuff, I’ve got an idea for tomorrow.”

I was loving the breeze in my hair as Kathleen drove, and feeling sleepy already. “Tomorrow?” I asked.

“Well, how about this? They closed Saint Ann’s ten days ago. But tomorrow there’s an auction of artifacts, memorabilia, lots of stuff.” She hesitated. “It might feel strange, but—”

“What is Doyle selling off, the desks? The blackboards? The statues and chalices from the chapel?”

“Probably.”

“It’s that easy to get rid of objects we were supposed to venerate?”

“Yep.”

“You’re not indignant?”

“I never cared about all that as much as you did.” There was a tone in her voice, a hardening around the edges.

“You want to go?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m not going to fall apart, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said quickly.

Kathleen twisted the wheel with one hand, taking a sharp left onto Century Boulevard. “I’m not worried about you—I’m worried about me.”

Her apartment was the top floor of a 1930s stucco bungalow with large windows and arched door frames that gave the interior extra grace. It really was warm and inviting. “It’s like you,” I said, settling in on a bright orange modern sofa and looking around. I nodded in the direction of a large fireplace lined in rust-and-gold Mexican tiles. “Do you use it?” I asked.

“Of course not,” she said cheerfully. She finished pouring two glasses of white wine, handed me one, and plopped down on the sofa next to me. “How is your mother?” she asked, looking away as she sipped her wine.

“She’s doing fine, I guess.”

“Are you heading up to Sacramento to see her after the awards ceremony?”

“I haven’t decided. I’m not sure I can take more time off.” Which was a lie, of course. Half the people at the magazine would have been hard-pressed to know my name, and my boss had even said to take a few more days if I wanted to. Kathleen would know the truth.

“Well, if you’re brave enough to come to L.A., Sacramento shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.”

“When did I give you permission to see through me?”

“Same time I gave permission to you to do the same. Pretty early, I think.”

The silence that followed was safe.

“I feel more comfortable holding her away from me,” I said. “But—you know?—she doesn’t seem to mind. She does the same when I visit. I don’t know if it’s a truce or a resolution.”

“She and my mother have struck up a friendship; did you know that?”

“No.” I was surprised. “How did that happen?”

Kathleen shrugged. “Your mother used to come into the May Company a lot after you left; I guess it was that summer. Mine told me a few months ago that they still write each other, but she shares no details.”

A lurch of guilt; I had pretty much frozen Mother out in those months after Father died. I had a sudden image of her standing at the May Company hosiery counter, buying stockings she didn’t need, as an excuse to talk to someone sympathetic.

“I can tell you’re already building a story,” Kathleen said gently. “It may be in your genes, but don’t go Hollywood too fast.”

I closed my eyes, then opened them again and said, “Your mother was never as devout as my mother. Did that change?”

“No, she treats it all as…kind of as a joke.”

“What about your father? Has he reappeared at all?”

Kathleen tossed down the rest of her wine in a single gulp and stood. “Nothing much to say. He’s out there somewhere. Pizza for dinner, if you can stay awake.”

I sighed, eyeing the bedroom door with some longing. No more talking tonight. “I think I’ll skip the pizza,” I said.

“Good—more for me.” Kathleen handed me some toothpaste and said good night.

I don’t remember much after that: my first night back in this hostile city was spent in deep and dreamless sleep.

The next morning, we set out early and stopped at a pancake house, where I drank lots of coffee. Kathleen was as bright and bouncy as the day, but I was jumpy, and not just from the coffee. I was beginning to wonder what Saint Ann’s Academy would look like without students.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. But as we drove into the old parking lot, it was the silence—the suspended animation—that struck me first. The hedges, the palm trees, even the blades of grass and the winding paths, were still. It was as if Saint Ann’s had ceased to breathe. Empty. No motion, no sudden movement along those paths, no sound of girls murmuring, no bells ringing. I shut my eyes, trying to conjure up the past.

We parked and stepped out into what felt at first like the flat, still terrain of a cemetery.

“It’s not dead until we’re out of here,” Kathleen said.

“Right.”

We walked toward the tennis courts, taking in the sagging volleyball net that nobody had seen fit to remove. We peeked in the building that housed the old study hall and saw it was emptied of desks—probably already auctioned off.

“You’re looking a little teary-eyed,” Kathleen warned, tugging me toward the tennis court. “I want to see where you were always yelling you were sorry every time you missed a shot.”

“I beat you a few times.”

“Twice.”

We stood at the mesh fence, staring at the old court. It clearly hadn’t been used in quite a while. The white paint on the weathered clay had faded, leaving the baseline’s location something of a puzzle. But for just a moment, if I blinked, I could hear again the satisfying pop each time a tennis ball met my racquet, feel again that delicious satisfaction of getting one over, clean and fast and low.

“Do you still play?” I asked.

“When I can.”

“Same here.”

We walked slowly over to the pool, reminiscing about the day when Sister Teresa Mary scolded Kathleen for the unforgivable offense of wearing a two-piece bathing suit. As we rounded the corner, we stopped and stared. The pool had been drained of water, which wasn’t surprising. But what was jolting was the sight of jackhammers and other demolition equipment waiting at the shallow end. Two workmen, smoking, sat idly, their legs dangling over the edge of the pool. They were cheerful; greeting us was a diversion from waiting for the signal to smash the pool apart. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow.

We walked on; no lingering here.

“You know what I think?” I said to Kathleen.

“Probably.”

“I think the archdiocese didn’t give the nuns enough money to fix things up properly because they knew for years they were going to tear down the school. It’s always been just real estate to them.”

“Cuts a little close to the script of The Bells of St. Mary’s,” she said.

“You agree?”

“It’s plausible. Yeah, I think I do.” She stopped, checking her watch. “It’s about time for the auction to begin,” she said.

“Where is it?”

“On the front lawn. You okay with that?” She looked at me inquiringly.

Well, of course. Where else was there on the school grounds an expanse of space big enough for this kind of event? It was going to be right where, for me, everything ended: auctioneers standing on the steps of the administration building, looking onto the lawn where generations of Saint Ann’s graduates had gathered in white dresses with their floral bouquets for the guaranteed tranquil passage into smug and unquestioning adulthood.

So here I was, about to revisit the site of the graduation I had spent nine years trying to erase.

Kathleen’s voice cut in abruptly. “Look, you can walk with ghosts or you can attend an auction. Choose one?”

I blinked. “Let’s go,” I said.

Dozens of people were milling about when we reached the front lawn—a mix of men and women, examining tables laden with artifacts arranged in jumbled fashion, many smoking as they poked away at everything from framed pictures of the Sacred Heart that had once hung in classrooms to well-used Ping-Pong paddles. We spied some of our old classmates. They were eager to chat along predictable lines: Hello, how are you, where do you live now, oh my goodness, you live in New York? How glamorous. Married Neddy from Mount Carmel High School, remember him? The twins are almost six years old now. Think I’ve got another one on the way….Nobody brought up graduation.

“I guess there’s something about being almost ten years out of school that makes us all best friends,” Kathleen murmured as we moved along.

I ran into one of Miss Coultrane’s students; she and I actually shared some real memories of our wonderfully imperious teacher, who had, she told me, died a few years ago. That set me back—I hadn’t expected it.

But the real surprise came next.

“Hello, Jesse.”

I jumped at the familiar voice and turned around. Standing there, smiling, was a woman with weathered skin who looked to be in her sixties. I wasn’t sure at first—she wore a plain navy skirt, some kind of navy cape, and a short veil. But then I knew.

“Sister Teresa Mary?” I blurted.

She smiled. “Good, you recognize me. Not everybody does.”

I stuttered out a few pleasantries, and we shared a superficial exchange of information—the type of polite chatter that conveys almost nothing. She asked after my mother, my job, what life was like in New York. I wanted to ask her how it felt to be uprooted from her home, but the crowd was milling around us now, jostling, getting noisier. A couple of former students were hovering nearby, eager to talk to her.

She glanced at them, then said, “Why don’t you stop by and see me while you’re in town? We’ve been moved to a school dormitory in the Valley.” Her smile turned wry. “It’s quite different from here, and needs some fixing up—but we’re almost ready.”

“Why, thank you, I would like that,” I said, startled. And wondered if I meant it.

“Kathleen knows where we are. I’ll call you at her house in the next day or two.”

I wanted to talk more, but one of the hovering students tapped her on the shoulder and she turned away. I stared after her. So many questions never answered.

Kathleen and I kept wandering from table to table—yes, desks lined in a row, most already tagged by potential buyers. Holy-water fonts from the chapel. The stained-glass windows, though stacked behind one of the tables, were labeled “not for sale.”

“Our bishop knows what is valuable,” Kathleen murmured.

As she spoke, I spied a dusty bronze plaque propped up against one of the desks. “Look,” I said, pointing. I could hardly believe it—I was looking at the plaque installed so long ago as a proud commemoration of Saint Ann’s part in the making of The Bells of St. Mary’s.

“Well, what do you know, they didn’t throw it out after all,” Kathleen said with a chuckle. “That shameful episode—my, my, they just tucked it away from public view.”

It suddenly hit me. “Is this why you wanted to come?” I asked.

“No, but I did wonder about it. I figured if it still existed you might want it.” She looked at me expectantly. “And if bidding goes too high, we can pool our money.”

Did I really want it? Why? Maybe I didn’t want to throw away all the memories; maybe I wanted to hang on to something tangible.

A sudden sound from the newly activated mike. The auctioneer, a middle-aged man with a pencil-thin mustache and bored eyes, cleared his throat and raised a large wooden gavel. The auction was about to begin.

First went the carpets, wall hangings, candleholders, even some old books from the school library. There was quite a crowd now, most of them clustered around the front tables, still fingering through them for overlooked treasures. We saw not a single nun, which was no surprise.

“And now we have here a bizarre memento of Saint Ann’s history from the mid-forties,” announced the auctioneer, arching a theatrical eyebrow. “Folks, there actually was a time when Saint Ann’s lent itself to Hollywood for the making of an Ingrid Bergman movie—before the scandal, of course. And here’s a memento of that event, foisted on the good nuns by a fancy publicity campaign.”

One of his assistants hefted the bronze marker and handed it up to him. The auctioneer held it high. “It’s a pretty dusty piece of metal. Who will give me ten dollars for it? Anybody?”

Maybe it was the sneering “fancy publicity campaign,” but I suddenly knew I wanted that plaque. It had actually marked a proud moment, for both me and my school, and I wasn’t going to let it get discarded. I raised my hand.

“Ten dollars from the little lady in the back row. Am I bid twenty? Come on, folks, twenty bucks?”

A hand shot up near the front of the crowd. I tried to see the bidder, but couldn’t.

“We are off and running, ladies and gentlemen. Give me thirty?”

Hesitantly, I put up my hand again.

The other bidder promptly bid forty.

“I’m in for another ten,” Kathleen whispered. My hand went up for a third time. Fifty dollars—I was breaking into a sweat.

No use—the bidder in front never hesitated. I couldn’t go higher. Fifty dollars was a fortune; this was crazy.

“Going, going, gone,” intoned the auctioneer. “Sold to the gentleman in front for sixty dollars!”

It was all over in three minutes. I felt a bit dizzy at what we had risked, and frustrated. Even angry. So close, and then some stranger grabbed this memory of Ingrid away.

Kathleen squeezed my arm. “Do you see who I see?” she whispered.

I looked up. A man was walking toward us—a man of stocky frame, not very tall, with dark hair. He wore a weathered leather jacket and a baseball cap that shadowed his eyes. There was a faint, unbelieving smile on his lips.

The acne was gone.

“Malcolm?”

“It’s me,” he said, his voice deeper than I remembered. “And you really are Jessica Malloy. At least, you look like her.” His eyes searched my face. “I guess we were competing for that marker.”

My thoughts were scrambled. “How did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t.”

“You were bidding against me?”

“I didn’t know who I was bidding against,” he said. “And it turns out, hey, it’s the girl who left nine years ago. I kind of hoped for a note every now and then; didn’t happen.”

“I—”

“I know, college, and then I heard you got married and stayed out east. How’s New York?”

It was all said very casually, even as I was trying to get my bearings. I could see the boy I had known in his eyes, the boy who had altered my life at Redlands and kissed me at my prom. Just fleetingly. This was a stranger.

“No, I almost got married—that’s what you probably heard,” I said, instantly embarrassed that I had dropped that piece of information into the conversation.

“Oh.” He looked briefly startled.

I tried to say it in an easy way. It was just one of those things that didn’t work out, I said.

Kathleen, of course, knew the whole story. A romance with a Yale graduate student—I thought I was in love and he was, too—we even set a date for the wedding. My intellectual, worldly boyfriend thought it amusing that I wanted to get married before climbing into bed with him. So I gave in, afraid he would walk away. Which he did, of course—the wedding date disappeared. We lasted almost a year before he packed a bag one morning, left a note saying he wasn’t ready for marriage, and left.

Malcolm and I stood silently for a few seconds, without a script, until Kathleen jumped in.

“I wonder what closet that plaque got buried in for all these years?” she said cheerfully. “God, I love the nuns. They can be so discreetly sneaky.”

Malcolm laughed, and I relaxed.

“I’m imagining them peeking through the windows at all this,” I said.

“And hopefully getting a good chuckle out of it,” he added.

I couldn’t picture that, but he was trying.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Is there a nearby place for a cup of coffee? I’ll pick up the—what did the auctioneer call it?—‘bizarre memento’ later.”

Kathleen and I exchanged glances. Of course there was, our favorite drugstore, across the street, where all proper Saint Ann’s girls had hung out at one time or another—the place where we first bought and devoured our movie magazines.

But it wasn’t a drugstore with a soda counter anymore. It was a weary-looking place that called itself the Koffee Kup.

“Oh well,” Kathleen said. “We can get burgers.”

The booths were shabby and the menus sticky. “What a dump,” Kathleen said. She was fully at ease, but, then, she always was. We slid into one of the booths—not too easy a job, since the red plastic upholstery was not only cracked but peeling off.

“What are you doing?” I asked Malcolm. “Are you still in school?” I wanted to ask how he could afford to pay sixty dollars for a nostalgic piece of bronze, but held back.

Malcolm took a gulp of his coffee. “Maybe you still see me as a junior in high school,” he said gently. “I assure you, I graduated, went to college, and finished law school. Now I’m gainfully employed, doing fine.”

I flushed. That was a bit too close to the point, but, of course, nine years was a long time. “I’m sorry, I’m just trying to catch up,” I said.

“And what about you?”

“I’m a copy editor with Newsweek. Not the most exciting job, but I’m writing, trying to sell some of my work.”

“What are you writing about?”

“Right now, something to pay the bills.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“No.”

Kathleen and I glanced at each other. “Two reasons,” I said. “To see Saint Ann’s one more time, I guess. And—to go to the Academy Awards.”

He grinned. “So you’ve been acting or directing on the side?”

“Someone sent me an invitation. I thought it might be a joke, but it’s authentic.”

He put his cup down slowly. “You have no connections here anymore?”

“None—except Kathleen.”

“And, maybe, me.”

Kathleen’s eyes lit up with interest. “You’re an attorney now, right? What firm?”

“No firm, actually,” he said. “I’m working in the legal department at Selznick Productions.”

“You’re in the movie business?” My disappointment was too obvious. How could someone as kind as the Malcolm I remembered work for those cutthroats?

“Not everybody in the business is a sellout, Jesse.”

That brought back immediately a memory of my father laughing during the good times, calling the movie industry our “family business.” Not a happy memory.

“Okay, I’ll ask the question I’m wondering about. Did you send Jesse that invitation?” Kathleen asked. Our food had come, and she began biting into her hamburger with clear enjoyment. “Seeing as how you work at a studio and it would make a great romantic gesture by an old boyfriend?”

Malcolm laughed, shaking his head. “God, no,” he said. “I’m too junior in the department to have that power.” He looked at me, a quick glance. “But I would have if I could have. If it would’ve brought you back.”

That jumped a few hurdles very fast, which flustered me.

He squirted a blob of catsup on his hamburger and started eating. His hands were large, his fingers stubby. Somewhere in the background, a jukebox was playing a tinny version of “It’s Only Make Believe.”

There was hope that the lust for hunting moral and political transgressors in Hollywood was losing steam, he said. Plenty of reputations had been destroyed and friendships broken—much done that couldn’t be fixed. Movie moguls realized they were being laughed at now, and they didn’t like to be laughed at. But the censors were still strong in Washington.

“Even your church is quiet about it lately. Speaking of Catholics, what do you think about your new pope? He’s supposed to be quite a reformer. John XXIII, right? Why the hell would anyone want to be the twenty-third of anything?”

I nodded and smiled, still staring at my own burger, not sure I wanted to eat it. “He’s not my pope,” I said.

“We’ve both left the Church,” Kathleen said helpfully. “We’re officially ‘fallen away.’ ”

He turned to me, eyes curious. “How do you feel about that?”

I pushed the burger away. “Perfectly fine,” I said.