June 10 – Dear Diary, Today I read an article in a magazine. It said, “Test your talent.” I drew some pictures. One was a bulldog. I thought they were just like the ones in the magazine. I sent the bulldog away for the test to “Test your talent.” Last night, this young singer named Barbara Streisand sang on The Ed Sullivan Show. Mother says she’s got what it takes. Also today JFK signed a new law, equal pay for women and men. Mother says that after a woman gets married, she should never take on a job—her job is in the home—and if you take a job outside the home, you will get used to the money and you won’t be able to give it up when the babies come. Just a reminder, only eleven days left until the Pope gets elected!
A week of fantasizing about becoming a nun produced what I thought was a well-developed story of me, at twelve-years-old, becoming the youngest nun ever. I knew the class could not resist; they would burst into applause at my announcement. However, after my depressing realization that nuns are donkeys compared to the stallion glory of the priesthood, I had to come up with something to replace the nun story. I had their attention as long as I had a connection with Stefanucci and the Pope, but all this lying was making me dizzy, and there wasn’t time to make up anything before class! I now dreaded Sister Everista’s question, Have you heard from the Cardinal? Unbelievably, she went straight into math after the opening prayer.
What a relief! My guardian angel really was looking out for me.
But just a few minutes later, our pastor Monsignor Boyle came to visit. We all stood, freshly attentive; there’s nothing like a visitor to break up the boredom of school.
“Good morning, Monsignor Boyle,” we said in singsong unison. Sister Everista stood beside him, fawning. She always acted like she was the luckiest woman on earth whenever the Monsignor visited her class, and today I think she was blushing. I used to wonder if Monsignor could tell (was she flirting with him?) but I’m pretty sure it didn’t even occur to him; he always had this air of being the most important person in the world. He expected preferential treatment. And he acted like we all loved him. Let me set the record straight: we didn’t all love him; he used to grab my nose and pretend to pull it off after Sunday Mass if I accidentally stood too close to Mother. I could hardly wait until Cardinal Stefanucci got elected Pope; I would get some grown-up respect then.
“Good morning, class,” Monsignor Boyle said, “I understand that we have with us a close family friend of Cardinal Stefanucci.” Oh, no here it comes, I thought. What do I say now that I don’t want to be a nun? “And, that Cardinal Stefanucci,” he continued, “may be called to ultimate service by Jesus Christ our Lord to lead the Catholic Church as His Holiness, the Pope.”
When he put it like that, it seemed like centuries of the Catholic Church, all the nuns, priests, bishops, and cardinals with all their vestments, incense and gold chalices from the ages came into the room with him and stood there, staring at me. And they could see that I had been lying. Not only was I rejecting the nuns, I had been making up stories to satisfy my own vanity. (Vanity, vanity, vanity! Mother always warns.) Right now I was caught, and Monsignor Boyle was going to expose me in front of my entire class! My face started feeling hot. The whole parish would know! I was turning the color of my hair. I glanced over at Wanda, my best friend; she looked terrified. I stood up next to my desk, staring at the floor. Monsignor walked closer.
“And I hear you report anecdotes directly from Rome?” Busted! What could I possibly say now to justify my lies?
“Well,” I began, trying to think on my feet. Wanda rolled her eyes.
“You’re actually talking to the Cardinal?” Monsignor interrupted me, gently and curiously. I searched his face, confused, still unable to speak. “The Cardinal is phoning the family?” Now he sounded like he really wanted to know. (!!!) Wanda looked hopeful. Monsignor was waiting on a word from me.
So I went with it.
“Yes, Monsignor! Last night when he called the house, the gossip was that my father’s best friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, reported that he almost had the critical percentage of cardinals on his side.” The Monsignor seemed pleased; I was so relieved I was gushing.
“He’s an intelligent man,” he said, strolling the aisles, “and he’s quite personable.”
“Yes, he is very intelligent!” I exclaimed a little too eagerly, as if I was the keeper of intelligence standards.
“I met him myself, once, in Rome,” he went on.
“He came over to our house twice,” I bragged, my voice getting louder.
“Oh? What’s he like, then?” Ooops! (I was probably six-years-old when he visited. I don’t remember him well enough to recognize him on the street).
“He’s… taller than me,” I blurted, trying to think fast. “And he wears a purple gown with a beanie on his head.”
“Cardinals wear red, my dear, a red cassock, a red mozzetta over the rochet, and a red biretta on their heads.”
“He wasn’t… Cardinal… yet when he last visited us, so… I think he was wearing civilian clothes.” Oh, God help me! Civilian—that’s what Daddy says for non-military people. But Monsignor didn’t seem to notice my gaffe.
“It’s not the clothes that make the man. It’s his soul,” he said, walking up to me and grabbing my nose. (!) He held up his clenched hand, showing his fat thumb between his fingers on his fist.
“Got it, he said, “Ha, ha, ha!” (Like I was five-years -old and I would believe that he had pulled my nose off!) My face was practically vibrating with humiliation.
“If the eyes are the windows of the soul, what is the nose?” he grilled me. What??? There’s something religious about the nose? Wanda was shaking her head.
“It smells sins?” I guessed. Now she looked down at her desk, holding her head in her hands. The nose is the pantry of the soul? That didn’t sound right. I had to change the subject.
“There’s something else, Monsignor,” I said, emboldened by panic.
“Yes, my child?” By this time he was roughing up the stiff crew cut on Todd Zimmerman’s head.
“He gave me his blessing.”
“His blessing?”
“To become a Carmelite nun.” The class gasped. Monsignor turned towards me.
“Did he?”
“I’m going to be the youngest nun there ever was.” A collective, “Oh!” Monsignor smiled.
“Do the Carmelites know this, my child?” He could have been chuckling.
“When the Cardinal gives his blessing, I think the nuns know.”
“What about your parents?”
“They said, ‘You have my blessing, my child.’”
“And the convent? For the youngest nun ever—where would that be?” Now he was smiling indulgently, humoring me. I had to top that.
“Africa!”