Chapter 37
BIRDIE
Her hair is a glossy chestnut color, and she’s in a fitted one-shouldered gown that shows off her lean frame while also making sure the viewer’s impression is of money and good taste rather than her body itself.
She’s wearing a cross at the base of her neck—delicate, studded with glittering gems, diamonds maybe—small enough that it doesn’t compete with the structured fabric bow at one shoulder. No scapular, no wedding ring.
She’s laughing with a group of people who look as expensive as she does, and I think of laminate tables and vape clouds, of plastic laptop keys clicking and clicking.
I’ll give you until Sunday to be out of my house.
I suddenly have trouble breathing, my lungs refusing to expel the old air, and the world is so loud and so close to me, it’s an upturned metal pail and I’m trapped inside.
The buzzing inside me can’t help, the big hand on my back can’t help, and everything is too much, and I can’t let go of the air in my body, and I can’t draw in a fresh breath.
If she sees me—if she sees me with Bell…
I don’t know, I don’t know what will happen, but my body knows something will happen for sure because it’s dumping adrenaline into my bloodstream, it’s speeding my heart and making my mouth dry, and I need to go.
I need to get away, somewhere else, somewhere else.
With a small jerk, I’m finally able to make my diaphragm and lungs move, and I take a deep breath. Bell feels the abrupt inhale and drops his eyes to me in concern.
I have a moment—so short, an instant, really—when I want him to protect me from this.
I want him to fix this. He’s supposed to be my worst thing, not Kaitlyn Masterson, and if I tell him that she’s here and that it’s upsetting me, I have no doubt he’ll act.
Whisk me away or find an organizer to ask that she’s subtly sequestered or stride over there and inform her that she’s not allowed within a pew length of me.
He’ll protect me and he’ll do it right away and—
And then he’ll have to walk away from this city council member who is currently nodding along enthusiastically with everything Bell is saying.
He’ll have to interrupt the Bell charm offensive currently working in perfect synchronicity, Sean and Zenny in one corner, Elijah and Aiden at the far end of the room, everyone wooing the human machinery of the city into caring about the city itself.
No, I can’t risk it.
If he steps away now, he might not have a chance to resume this conversation, and the thing is that I know he’ll step away.
I know he’ll put me first and figure everything else out later, and being put first is such an unfamiliar feeling that I’m not sure how it fits alongside all my other feelings, and I can’t deal with it right now.
I force a smile up at Bell and push up on my feet a little to speak into his ear. “I’m going to run to the restroom,” I lie, relieved the words come out steadily. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
There’s a subtle lift to one of his eyebrows, but he doesn’t press. He just squeezes me, and his hand drops into his pocket. The rumbling inside my body ceases for the moment—a courtesy from him, since he thinks I’ll be using the restroom.
“Hurry back,” he murmurs and kisses my cheek. The people in our group coo, and I keep the smile on my face as I duck away and make my escape.
I don’t run far—I don’t want to make my lie the kind that would actually cause Bell distress.
I just need a minute to hide. To catch my breath and make sure that Kaitlyn can’t see me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the stairs up to the mezzanine and follow some ancient arboreal instinct to climb, to be where I can survey but not be surveyed.
I go up the stairs and find the mezzanine far less crowded than it was earlier, with only a thin drift of guests up at the railings and at the upstairs bar.
I find a window far away from everyone, press my back against it, and then close my eyes.
I breathe out and breathe in, which was so impossible earlier, and I’m now able to do it at will at least. Exhale and inhale. Exchange carbon dioxide with oxygen. I have control over that. Like God himself, I can breathe life into clay.
Suddenly, I feel my champagne flute being gently plucked from my fingers, and when I open my eyes and look up, I don’t see Bell or one of his concerned brothers but a tall, broad-shouldered man with honey-colored hair and dark, dark brown eyes.
His skin is sun-kissed into a light gold, gilded further by the gold of his eyelashes and the stubble on his cheeks, and set off to perfection by his black clerical shirt with its white collar at the base of his throat. A priest.
A priest I know.
“Father Brady?” I ask. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him or spoken to him, but he’s a striking person. Not easily forgettable.
Father Brady sets my glass on the windowsill behind me and looks at me with a kind, perceptive gaze.
“Is everything alright, Birdie?” he asks.
His voice is quiet enough that there’s no risk of it carrying but it’s also light and open, banishing all shame or anxiety from any potential answer.
Like his implied offer of help weighs nothing to him; like for him, help isn’t work, could never be an imposition.
It’s reassuring and also so alien to me that I want to retreat from it.
“I’m okay,” I say, trying to give Father Brady a smile. I think it comes out strained and small, but at least it comes. I do my best to sound like I’m a seasoned professional at dealing with anxiety at fancy galas. “I’m not good at this sort of thing, and I needed a minute.”
“Same,” he says, his voice still light but a little serious too.
He has the kind of face that seems meant for serious things, for holy things.
Uncomfortably beautiful, a face from heaven.
“I wouldn’t normally accept an invitation to an event like this, but it was only a few blocks away from my church, and one of my parishioners is giving a speech before the auction. I thought I’d come support her.”
He does give the impression that he walked here, that he’s only here for a friend.
His only concession to the night’s dress code is a black jacket over his priest’s shirt and collar, and while it looks sharp with his black trousers and shoes, you could hardly accuse him of indulging in the trappings of wealth.
“That was nice of you,” I say. I’m still struggling to slow my pulse and regulate my breathing. “I’m here for a friend too. Well, with him, I guess. It’s not like he needs my support.”
“You’d be surprised.” The windowsill isn’t deep enough to sit on, but he props himself on it, one foot out on the floor, the other foot braced against the wall.
“I’ve known people who seem like they have the world at their feet, but when you look more closely, you see that it doesn’t matter.
They’ve put their own worlds at the feet of someone else.
One of my parishioners, for example.” The priest tilts his head at the corner of the first floor we can see from the mezzanine, where the unmistakable figure of Sean Bell is holding court with a crowd of gala guests.
Equally unmistakable is the roving hand he has at his wife’s back, stroking her neck and shoulders and occasionally resting at the base of her spine, just above what would be considered appropriate in public.
My cheeks lift a little. It’s hard not to feel gladdened by the sight of them, and Father Brady is right. Sean’s entire world is at Zenny’s feet, and there’s no amount of success or recognition that could compete with a single smirk thrown his way from her.
“It’s not quite that way with my friend,” I say a little wistfully and then remember that Father Brady knows the Bell family. I should probably choose my words more carefully. “My boyfriend.”
Father Brady doesn’t remark on the change in vocabulary, but I don’t get the sense that he missed it, only that he’s choosing not to press me about it.
“It’s been some time since I’ve seen a new Birdie Cooper piece,” he says. The words are casual, but the way he says them conveys an awareness, a concern.
The panic, which was receding, now surges again, flooding my chest and filling my throat. He knows. He heard through the parish grapevine or from a Jesuit friend or from somewhere else that has one of my sculptures, and he knows about what happened at Evelyn or he thinks he knows.
His hand comes to press between my shoulders, palm flat against my spine. Warmth radiates out from him, warmth and a steady kind of strength.
“It’s okay, Birdie,” he says in a calming voice. “It’s okay. I’ve never believed the report held the whole truth. You’re safe with me. It’s okay.”
I don’t ask how he knew I was thinking of the report or of my past at all, mostly because I’m still trying to breathe but also because there’s so much certainty and assurance in the way he speaks, like of course it’s completely normal and right to respond to whatever might be silently preoccupying the person in front of him.
I nod and try to focus on the hand on my back, and then suddenly, the vibrating toy comes back to life inside me, triggered by Bell somewhere below, maybe assuming I was finished with my trip to the restroom by now.
After the absence of it, the buzzing makes itself deeply and intensely known, and I shiver, memories of Bell in my body flashing through my mind.
And then I blush, because I’m still being touched by a priest—on the bare skin of my back, no less.
Father Brady lifts his hand before I can shift away, perhaps interpreting the shiver as discomfort.
I feel bad. I don’t want him to think I wasn’t being calmed by him, but it’s not as if I can explain that Sean Bell’s younger brother just powered on my vibrating butt plug.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Caught a chill.”
“Not from me mentioning your art, I hope? It would be a loss for everyone if you stopped forever and especially for me. I have a small chapel in the north transept, and I think it’s calling out for your work.”
I look over to see him smiling gently at me, and I decide to take him at his word. He was kind and forthright all those years ago when he bought the carving for his sanctuary, and if the Bell brothers like him, then he must be trustworthy.
And he seems trustworthy; he exudes holiness, even if it’s the kind you might be afraid to stare right in the face.
“I am carving again,” I finally say. Bell knows, of course, and Busy, but saying it to someone I barely know makes it feel oddly real.
Less like a secret. “I had to stop for several years—other work took up too much time—but I have time and also a proper studio now. The person I’m with, he built it for me, stocked it for me, encouraged me.
It’s all happened so fast…it feels like a kind of destiny. ”
“Vocations are like that.” Father Brady’s smile is still gentle but commiserative now too. “They have their own pace, and they happen in a different kind of time from the kind containing ordinary life.”
Vocations are like that…and love.
Except one is the fulfillment of your soul and the other will raze you to the ground if you let it.
“What are you working on, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I pluck at the skirt of my gown. “A Golgotha tableau—Christ and the criminals on either side. I’ve finished one criminal, and I’m working on the other now, and they’ve been so easy to see in my mind, so close to the surface of the wood. But…”
“But?”
Even Bell doesn’t know this yet. “I’m having a harder time seeing how to carve Christ,” I admit.
“At first, I thought it was because I don’t have a live model for my initial sketches, but I didn’t need live models for the criminals, so that can’t be it.
I know I can make something—replicate crucifixes I’ve made in the past, copy my own work—but also there’s no client this time, no rush.
These are only for me, so why give up and settle for something I’ve already done?
Why not wait for fresh inspiration to come? ”
Father Brady adjusts his foot on the wall as he says, “Waiting is often all we can do. Be open to God’s voice, be open to love.”
His voice is solemn and the empathy meant in his words is clear, but it also feels like the kind of thing a priest would say to anyone who needed encouragement, and I find myself disappointed by it.
Be open to God’s love is the same platitude I’ve heard all my life, from Sunday school to Sunday sermons.
Be patient. Let God love you. As if all life’s problems come from not being sufficiently open to God’s love.
“Thank you, Father,” I say, I hope with evident gratitude, and I rest my hand on his arm to show I mean it.
I really am thankful that he’s here and that he took the time to speak with me.
If nothing else, I can breathe normally now.
If nothing else, I’m able to think in complete sentences and about something other than Kaitlyn Masterson.
“This must be your friend,” Father Brady says mildly, and I look over to the staircase to see Bell ascending the stairs with a smile on his mouth and murder in his eyes.
“Birdie, sweetheart, I was wondering where you’d flown to,” says Bell. His gaze moves to my hand, which is still on Father Brady’s arm, and back up to us, his expression as congenial as ever. “They’re starting the auction soon.”
I can be brave. I can go back down where Kaitlyn will be. And maybe she’ll be so distracted by the auction that I’ll be completely safe from notice. I drop my hand from Father Brady and murmur another thank you, which he returns with a nod.
“Anytime, Birdie,” he says, and he sounds like he means it. I wonder what life would have been like if I’d known I could ask for his help seven years ago.
Bell has his hand extended in an unequivocal gesture, and I walk over to him to take it, the humming toy in my body drawing heat and sensation to itself the minute I feel his skin against mine.
He enfolds my hand in a tight grip—not enough to hurt but certainly harder than that boyish smile would convey—and then waves to Father Brady as he turns us and guides us to the elevator banks.
He doesn’t speak while we wait, and he doesn’t speak as we step inside the elevator car. He taps a badge against a pad and then punches the last button on the panel.
“We’re not going down to the auction?” I ask.
And then he finally speaks. “No,” he says, and that’s it until we get to the top.