Absence of Grace (24 page)

“You could at least have said goodbye.”

“You’re right, of course. I should have.”

Dammit, Thomasina wasn’t giving her anything to vent her anger on. “Did it work? Going away?”

“Not entirely.”

“Did you at least figure out what good God is?”

“I think the gift of life comes from God with the possibility for both joy and pain. None of us escapes without drinking a full measure of both.”

“Well, we don’t all seem to get the same measure of good stuff.”

“No. It’s hard being human.”

“I need to go...”

“Come see me again, Clen.”

But she didn’t, and whenever she encountered Thomasina she hurried through the interaction, escaping before the need to confess overwhelmed her.

“If you won’t go to a mixer, how do you expect to meet someone?” Maxine asked.

“I tried it once. You saw what happened. Or maybe you didn’t. You were so busy dancing, while guys were practically falling over themselves to beat a path around me.”

“That is a huge exaggeration. I saw you dancing.”

“Did you happen to get a look at the guy?”

“Well, he was a little short.”

“You think?” Clen sighed. The man’s stature hadn’t been the problem. He’d even been a halfway decent dancer. “Would you believe? He’s a bodybuilder.”

“Really?”

“Really. I now know more details about building up pecs than I can bear to think about.”

“We’re girls. We don’t do pecs.”

“Yeah. You know that and I know that, but it seems to have escaped Mr. Bodybuilder’s attention.”

“There were lots of other guys.”

“None of whom gave me a second look.”

“You need to give it another chance.”

“No thanks. I have a philosophy paper due Monday. I think working on that is a much better use of my time.”

A week later, Maxine went downstairs to meet the man who’d made a date with her at the mixer. In five minutes, she was back.

“Come on.” She grabbed Clen’s arm and pulled. “You’ve got to help me out. He brought a couple of extra guys. We’re going bowling.”

“I need to change.”

“Into what?”

“Well, at least let me comb my hair.”

“It’s fine. Come on.”

Clen gave in. It was bowling, after all, and she liked to bowl. With six of them, how bad could it be?

The guy designated as her date, Samuel Saint Burke, was good-looking enough he didn’t need to be fixed up with someone like her. She liked him for being a good sport about it.

Several days later, he dropped by and invited her to a movie. After that, he came by every few days to take her for a walk or for pizza. Eventually, she asked if she could draw his portrait. When he arrived for the session, she had him sit on a stool at the front of the empty art classroom, and she set up her drawing board a few feet away.

She worked laboriously, trying to get the proportions right. Trying to also capture her sense of him—masculine and strong, but tempered by something softer.

“It’s nice getting away from the barracks,” he said. “Always something going on. Banging doors, loud music. People yelling down the hall. Wears a person down, but I expect you know what I mean.”

She gave him a questioning look.

“Living in a dormitory,” he said. “It can’t be a whole lot different from a barracks.”

“Oh, I think you’ve got it wrong. We have rules. We bang a door, yell, or play music too loud, we get demerits.”

“Then what?”

“We can’t leave campus. Or have visitors.”

“Exactly like the military.”

Did he realize how appealing he was when he grinned? Clen looked back at her paper and erased yet another line. “It’s not so bad. Guess I’m used to it. I’ve been on my best behavior for, oh, a couple of years now.”

He shifted, and she waited for him to settle before she continued to draw.

“There’s something you need to know about me,” he said. “Don’t want you to go getting the wrong idea or anything. You see...I’m engaged.”

She steadied her pencil and continued making random marks on the page in front of her. Marks that no longer had anything to do with capturing the planes and angles of his face, the suppleness of his mouth, the humor in his eyes.

“I joined the group because my buddies gave me a really hard time.” He clenched and unclenched his hands. “But I like you. Being with you. It’s peaceful. A break. I thought, we could just be friends. You know, nothing romantic or anything.”

Of course he wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship. How could she have thought he was? It would take a lot more than a name change and a haircut to transform the awkward girl nobody ever asked out.

“Is that okay with you?” he asked. “Because I know it’s kind of weird, and I’ll understand if you don’t think we should.”

“No.” The word croaked out.

At the one syllable, his face fell.

“No, I mean, no problem. It’s okay. Sure. Friends. Works for me.” A practice boyfriend. She would have laughed except it got caught in her throat.

That night she had a shaking spell. The first in months.

She began calling him Saint as a reminder of how they needed to behave, and the friendship worked. At least for him. Clen, though, was quickly in way over her head, and she was barely managing to hide that from him when he learned about the Marymead ball.

“How about it? Would you like me to take you?” he asked.

“Absolutely not.”

“Because you don’t know how to dance?”

“Of course, I know how to dance. I’ll have you know I spent years being pushed around dance classes like I was a large cardboard carton. Although, I do know the steps.”

He grinned. “You must let me take you, then. To see what dancing’s supposed to be like. After all, that’s what a friend is for.”

“I don’t have a dress.”

“Rumor has it Mead has stores. Come on, Clen. Please? I love to dance. It’s no different from going for a walk or to a movie with me.”

She suspected that was a lie, but she gave in anyway. She made Maxine go shopping with her although likely it would have been impossible to keep Maxie away. When she pulled the slim, dark green dress that reminded her of a Chinese cheongsam off the rack, Maxine made a face. “I get that you don’t want pastel, but that dress is too...plain.”

But plain was her goal. The dresses Maxine was pushing, although conservative by Maxine’s standards, would still make Clen feel like an overdecorated cake.

She came out of the changing room in the green dress, and Maxine caught her breath and bit her lip. “Oh. Well, it’s not as bad as I thought, but you won’t get past the dress police with that.” Maxine pointed at the deep slit up the side of the narrow skirt.

“They check bosoms, Maxie, and I don’t have any.” Clen knew she was going to buy the dress as soon as she saw the look on her friend’s face.

On the big night, when she walked toward Saint, he got a similar look. And that set something roughly the size of a kangaroo bounding around Clen’s stomach.

He took her hand. “C-Clen?” He cleared his throat. “You look...amazing.”

What was most amazing, he seemed to mean it, although he was the beautiful one—in dress blues that matched his eyes. He continued to stare at her with that new look that was admiring and something more. A something that made whatever was lurching around inside Clen’s stomach land with a thump.

They walked over to the Fine Arts Building and she introduced Saint to Thomasina, who, if she noticed the slit, refrained from commenting on it. Then they entered the dimly lit ballroom, and Saint took her in his arms. Clen laid her cheek against his, breathing in the good scent of soap, aftershave, and warm skin as he began to guide her around the room, moving with an ease and competent authority that made her feel delicate and graceful for the first time in her life. For a brief, magical time, she allowed herself to forget he was engaged.

On the way back to the dorm after the dance, he led her off the path into the shadows and took her once again into his arms, holding her even closer than when they were dancing. She knew she should pull away. Should stop him before she knew what it felt like to kiss him.

Such a simple thing, a kiss. The touch of his lips on hers. Causing such upheaval. Such a yearning to press against him, until there was no more Clen separate from Saint.

No longer did the idea, nor indeed the reality, of his tongue in her mouth seem the least bit disgusting.

After that night, every time she saw him, there were more kisses. In the car after they’d sat without touching in a movie. In a dark corner of the lounge where nobody could see them. Behind a tree along the river. Neither of them either willing or able to stop. What stopped them was Vietnam. After Saint shipped out, they wrote to each other, but when he returned to the States, it was to his fiancée.

Clen didn’t hear from him again.

1985

Clen was an enigma Gerrum spent a considerable amount of time thinking about. In spite of their time together, he still had no hint of why she’d shucked career along with husband, and she hadn’t dropped a single clue about where the abbey fit in. Clearly, he needed to see more of her to get those details, but since the Anan trip, she seemed to be avoiding him.

Then one evening as he walked by Bear Lodge from the marina, Clen stepped outside pulling on a jacket. “Oh. Hello, Gerrum.”

He had the distinct impression she was waiting for him to walk on by, something he had no intention of doing. “Looks like you’re going for a walk. Would you like company?”

She stood in place, fiddling with her zipper before finally stepping off the porch and walking toward him. Kody raised his head, but when he saw Gerrum, he yawned and went back to sleep.