Chapter 36
It was standing room only at St. Mary’s church.
The pews were packed tightly with women, older folks, families—all with hands folded, eyes staring at the altar, some bored, some entirely hypnotized.
The room reeked of furniture polish, perfume, and Brylcreem; the stained-glass windows threw strange, fractured patterns across the wooden floor.
I stood just inside the side double doors, behind the baptismal font and some older kids. It felt prudent to stay out of people’s eyeline.
Billy’s accident was all anyone could talk about.
Rumor had it that he would be brought out of his coma any day now, and only then would they know if he had permanent brain damage.
Mr. and Mrs. Harris, Johnny, and Fred sat in the front row, heads bowed.
His name would be mentioned, no doubt, during the time prayers were offered to the ill and deceased.
There had been a vigil last night where people in the parish had been invited to say the rosary and light candles.
I’d heard the whispers on my way in, from parents and children alike. There she is. Can you believe she turned up? The audacity of it. I hadn’t wanted to come, obviously, but Cess had insisted.
“You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, Mabel. You’ll come to Mass with your head held high.”
And so I came, but I stopped short of sitting among the parishioners.
From my spot at the back though, I had a good view.
I was searching the pews for Daphne when I spotted the back of a familiar head.
I looked away—which was ridiculous, as it was the back of his head.
But he’d been on my mind a lot since the day on the beach—during a quiet moment in class, or when I lay in bed at night.
I wasn’t sure what to make of these thoughts, nor did I have any expectations that they would come to anything, all I knew was that they kept creeping in. I had, I suspected, my first crush.
Mass had only just started when he absented himself from the third row to offer his seat to Mrs. Gregory, who’d arrived late. I averted my gaze as he strolled toward me at the side door, but when he tapped my elbow and pointed outside, I had no choice but to look him in the eye.
“Outside,” he said.
I assumed there was an errand in need of doing.
It wasn’t uncommon for a child or two to be sent to the Presbytery during Mass to collect boxes of flyers about parish events that needed to be distributed at the end of Mass.
Given my size and strength, I was a popular candidate for these sorts of jobs.
It was also possible, I supposed, that the Harrises had spotted me, and I was being asked to leave.
There were enough possibilities that I simply nodded and followed.
We didn’t talk, and no one paid us any attention as we slipped out the side door, down the church steps, and around the back to a little nook that was hidden from the view of the street.
It was the same nook where Frank Sweeney and Geraldine Hobbs famously kissed after midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
I registered this fact with interest but without notions.
I was fourteen years old, a social pariah.
We may have been spending time together, but the idea that he—or anyone—would want to kiss me was absurd.
Except … apparently, it wasn’t.
It happened so fast. One moment we were walking with purpose, the next, he stopped, catching the crook of my elbow so I spun to face him. He smiled as he walked me slowly backward into the nook.
It was so different from my kiss with Billy.
I felt hyperaware of everything, the warmth of his mouth, the soft bump of his teeth against mine.
His hands—first on my sides, then my hips.
His warm chest, pressed against me; my cold back, pressed against the wall of the brick church.
It was the strangest feeling. Almost like I was a performer in a show, watching myself from the outside.
I wondered how I looked to him, how I felt.
It felt likely, given the throaty, satisfied noises that emanated from him, that I looked and felt good.
It felt like it went on forever. Three days, three weeks. Then, it was over.
“You liked that,” he said. Not a question. No inflection, no doubt. There was something about his confidence. I nodded stupidly.
He grinned at me. “Same time next week?”
I nodded again. “Yes, Mr. Loukas,” I said.