Snow Globes and Hand Grenades (24 page)

“Yes.”

“Well, where is this damned place?”

“It's not around here. It's out of state.” She thought of Miss Kleinschmidt's Visit Colorado snow globe and bit back her tears.

“Oh. When are you going?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Patrick slapped his forehead and looked at her. “Why so damned fast? It's barely even summer.”

Patrick could see that her lashes were wet, that she'd been crying, and he had to stop himself from hugging her.

She saw him studying her face, so she put a foot on one of the pedals and got ready to shove off. “Please tell Tony I'm sorry for not going in, but I don't want him kissing me and getting sick. And I can't be kissing you, either.”

Patrick nodded. “OK, but don't leave yet. Here, you want a smoke?”

“No, that shit's bad for you. You should give it up.” She smiled at him and pushed off. Patrick watched her. She did a little loop around the playground ringing her bike bell as if she were still a girl at recess with nothing to worry about but homework.

Patrick tried to understand it, but he couldn't.
What the hell?
Something
invisible had happened. The grade school from which Mimi had almost escaped as herself, had grabbed her at the last minute and somehow changed her. It seemed the things she had mocked—the statues and creeds—she had now ingested whole. Something awful had happened. A switch had flipped, and Mimi's gears that had been all turning one way, were now in reverse. She was no longer her own girl. She had dropped dead somehow and come back a stranger.
Mimi, Mimi … wake up. What is your problem? What are you thinking?

Patrick spit on the playground. Look at her, both hands on the handlebars. So proper.
Finishing school!
What a waste. She would probably end up married to a parish man with wingtips and careful ties who would work downtown, and they would send their kids to a school just like Mary Queen of Our Hearts, maybe here or in another state, and her kids would never know the truth—the
real
Mimi she had once been. They would only know her as a Catholic mom taking them to Mass on time, or ironing their school uniforms, and telling them to grow up right.

He watched as she looped around the playground once more and slipped between the church and the school, disappearing into the night. He lit his Camel and took a long drag. It was a dangerous time to be alive, the last two weeks of eighth grade. Anything could happen.

THE GOLF CART sat in the middle of the fairway in the cool of the summer morning. Monsignor O'Day was behind the wheel with Father Maligan riding shotgun, Sister Helen and Miss Kleinschmidt were in back. It was the parish scramble fundraiser, and everyone was discussing President Nixon and whether or not he was guilty of more than he had admitted.

“I hope they send him to prison,” Miss Kleinschmidt said, as she got out to hit her ball. She squinted at the flag on the green in the distance. “He's set a bad example for today's youth. Why, when I first voted for Roosevelt—”

“Stop making speeches and hit the ball, you bird,” Father Maligan interrupted.

Miss Kleinschmidt got into position and took a practice swing. She was glad it was a scramble as her balls were always landing in the woods or sand traps. She told herself to pretend the pond wasn't there and hit straight for the green. The morning wind ruffled her grey hair as she swung back. With a fierce twitch forward, her club topped the ball, sending it bulleting straight into the pond where it torpedoed to the bottom, striking the leaf-covered skin of Mr. Maloney's missing hand grenade. The surface of the pond barfed up in a twenty-foot tall column of water, and Miss Kleinschmidt was blown back on her ass cursing and flailing as a bluegill landed on her blouse flopping in the sun.

“What the hell?” She flung the fish off her and scrambled to her feet.

They watched the pond waves ripple to the shore and then back again.

“What the hell kind of ball were you hitting?” Father Maligan asked.

“It wasn't the ball, you fool. There's something wrong with that pond. We should report this to the police.”

She looked at Sister Helen. Sister Helen and Father Maligan looked at Monsignor O'Day.

“We aren't reporting anything,” he said shaking his head, “We've had enough folly for one spring.”

They got back in the golf cart and played the rest of the course as if nothing ever happened. But Miss Kleinschmidt was sullen, knowing it had something to do with the reckless boys in the parish, maybe even some boy in her own class—or even that Mimi Maloney—but some things you just can't ever prove.

When he's not writing, Kevin Killeen pretends to work as a reporter for KMOX Radio in St. Louis, covering crime, politics, and odd happenings of no consequence. His hobbies include tripping over his children's shoes, turning down loud music, and rubbing his wife's feet while she lies on the living room couch discussing the bills as he stares at the cracks in the ceiling. His first novel,
Never Hug a Nun
(Blank Slate Press, 2012), features the earlier exploits of Patrick Cantwell, set in Webster Groves, Missouri. It won a Ben Franklin award in the humor category from the Independent Book Publishers Association of America. His second novel,
Try to Kiss a Girl
(Blank Slate Press, 2014), featured Patrick and his family on vacation in Michigan and won the humor category in the Midwest Independent Publisher's Association's awards in 2014.