Authors: June Ahern
The principal responded with a cool finality.
“Have you not received a letter from Girls Convent? I spoke with them recently. June was not accepted. I doubt any Catholic school will have her.”
Cathy speculated as to which of her daughters would hide the mail from her. She offered no suggestions about who the culprit might be.
Jimmy’s beady eyes widened and he glared at Mother Superior as though ready to pounce on her authority. Instead, he blew out a loud sharp breath, shook his head and stood up. He picked up the book, and in a surprisingly patient voice said, “You tell me one of my girls is no good enough to be in a Catholic school? It’s no right. I worked hard for that. I’ll take the matter to the Monsignor. We’ll see then.”
The Mother Superior rose sharply from h
er seat. She informed them she and the Monsignor had already discussed the matter and agreed upon the solution. June must leave Holy Savior at once. With a curt nod and a short, “Thank you for coming in,” they were dismissed.
The couple, stunned into silence, obeyed Mother Superior and shuffled out of the office and into the bright spring sunlight. Before they were scarcely through the front doors, Jimmy spun to face his wife.
“You happy now?” he said angrily. “See the trouble you’ve caused, letting her mind run wild with that damn imaginary friend shit? Well, there’s your wee pagan baby grown up to be a bloody heathen witch, excommunicated from the Church! It’s all
your
fault, Cathy.”
He walked briskly away from the school with his wife scurrying behind him.
Riled by what she thought were unfair accusations about her daughter, she said, “Och, for God’s sakes Jimmy! She’s not excommunicated, just expelled.”
Jimmy got into the driver
’s seat of the car and slammed the door closed. For a minute Cathy thought he’d drive away without her. Finally, he unlocked the passenger door and she got in.
Violently, he threw the book onto the dashboard and yelled at her as he fired up the engine.
“Oh, aye. Poor wee June. Nobody understands her. Isn’t that right?”
Cathy trembled as his rage escalated. His Scottish brogue thickened as he continued ranting.
“And you tell Annie, scholarship or not, she’s going to no bloody university. I need her to keep her job and help out at home. College for a woman! What a stupid idea! What she’ll be doing is getting married and having weans. That’s that.”
A fire leapt up from the pit of Cathy
’s stomach as she spat out angrily, “Jimmy, you can’t force them to live as you want. And those people,” she said, pointing back toward the school, “can’t tell me any of my girls are bad. I won’t have it. I won’t!”
“
Woman! Be quiet!” He put a fist close to her face. “You’re a lousy mother. You’re lucky I took you as you came.”
Shrinking away, Cathy silently prayed to Our Lady to protect June.
The old black station wagon careened up Castro Street as Jimmy continued raging about the evils of his daughter’s heathen ways. Cathy couldn’t wait to escape from him. The tires squealed with a fast and furious turn onto Liberty Street, causing the car to fishtail and forcing him to slow down. The air was heavy with tension.
Jimmy spotted a girl leaning into a
‘55 Chevy parked in the middle of the street a few doors from their house. Her rear end was pointed up in the air and swayed side-to-side, causing her short skirt to swish around her hips. Cathy saw her too, and from the long skinny legs she knew which daughter it was. Jimmy slowed down the car and watched her.
“
She’s up to no good,” Jimmy sneered.
Maggie flipped her hair and threw back her head laughing. Engros
sed in her flirting, she didn’t see the station wagon park and her father leaping out from it.
“
Margaret!” Jimmy bellowed as he stormed up to the car.
He pushed Maggie aside and leaned into the car filled w
ith a gang of pimply-faced teen boys staring back at him. In fright, they paled at Mr. MacDonald’s furious face.
“You
punks get out of here before I kick your bloody arses,” he shouted at them.
The car squealed away. With his fist up in the air, Jimmy yelled after them to leave his daughter alone.
“Look at her face all done up. There’s one of
your
good Catholic girls, mother,” Jimmy spat.
Cathy was shocked. Maggie didn
’t look like the same girl who had left home that morning in a crisp, clean school uniform. Instead of her clunky oxford shoes, she now wore white vinyl go-go boots with her uniform skirt rolled up short, showing off her boney knees. Her hair was backcombed high on top of her head. Her pale pink lipstick accentuated the blackness of the eyeliner around her striking green eyes.
Jimmy made a quick thrust and grabbed at his daughter
’s neck, but she sidestepped him. Cathy nudged Maggie behind her. They stared at him like animals facing a hunter.
“You
look like a bloody whore!” Jimmy shouted.
“
I do not. And I’m not a whore. I am a virgin,” Maggie said defiantly.
“
That’s enough cheek from you,” her father sputtered. Regaining his wits, he shouted, “Where’s June?”
Self-consciously, Maggie wiped at her eye make-up with the cuff of her sweater as tears began to well up in her eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe at the Callaghans,” she answered meekly.
“
The Callaghans? She better not be! Cathy, didne I tell you not to let them go to that den of iniquity? Those two women, a bunch of man-haters.”
“
Jimmy, please, not so loud,” Cathy said, fearing the neighbors might hear him.
“Shut you
r mouth, woman.” To Maggie he yelled, “Go get your sister!”
Hesitating
, Maggie stared at him. Quietly said to her mother, “I don’t want to bring June back here.”
“Now!” Jimmy ordered, his voice booming.
“Better do as he says,” Cathy said, her face pale.
As commanded, Maggie took off running down the street. Cathy thought of the many time
s, when the girls were young, she had stood on the front porch and enjoyed watching Maggie and June skipping down Liberty Street, hand-in-hand. The memory would have been sweet had it not been darkened by the present situation. Cathy’s heart thumped in anticipation of the scene yet to unfold.
A figure turning the corner at the bottom of the street caught her eye. It was Annie coming home from work. Cathy felt a leap of
gratitude knowing her eldest would be there to help, if need be, against Jimmy’s anger. Then she shuddered recalling the week before Annie had told her she was fed up with the worsening MacDonald dramas. She said she wanted to find a place of her own to have a little peace of mind.
Sun filtered through the curtains into the spacious Callaghans’ living room. Five teenagers lounged around on the floor on a pile of large, multi-colored pillows. Like bookends, June and Brian leaned against the large doorway to the room. The older teens didn’t really encourage the younger ones to hang out with them, but they didn’t exclude them either.
Music blared from a hi-fi. An empty bottle of wine and several glasses were scattered around a dark lacquered coffee table. The room swarmed with spiraling smoke as a joint was passed among the teens. Jeannie sat on the floor next to Tim, a handsome African-American teenager who had been good friends with both Jeannie and Maggie since his first difficult days at Holy Savior. He sucked the joint deeply and blew out smoke.
“Look, I just came to get stoned, not for religion class,” he said jokingly.
“
Tim, this is about freedom, man. Something your people have been fighting for,” Jeannie said energetically. “We women are also oppressed by religion and society. It’ll be you and I who will change the existing social and political environment. Can you dig it?”
“
Yeah, yeah. God’s really black. No, wait! God’s a woman,” he chortled as he stretched over to crank up the volume of the music. In his baritone voice, he began to sing along with the song playing, “
She’s Not There,”
by the English band The Zombies.
“Hey man, ‘member
you’re getting high on a woman’s pot,” Mary quipped, snapping her fingers for him to pass the joint.
Several rapid knocks at the front door interrupted the party. Loretta, who was snuggled on her boyfriend
’s lap, jumped up as though she had been sitting on hot coals. A month ago she had asked June to put a spell on her parents to help free her from their control. They had forbidden her to see “those hoodlums,” referring to the MacDonalds and Callaghans. Plus, she was tired of hiding her relationship with Alejandro, a Puerto Rican kid from the lower Mission District. Like the others in the room, except for Mary and the two younger ones, she would be graduating from high school in a few weeks. Her parents were planning her marriage to a newly immigrated Italian man. Loretta said she was sure they had imported him for that very purpose. “He’s so ancient, twenty-eight-years old,” she had cried. Jeannie suggested she run away, since she wasn’t strong enough to tell her parents no. June said she hadn’t yet found the right spell to help her.
“
Somebody open a window. Hurry,” Loretta begged.
The teens started to giggle nervously. Tim turned off the music. Soon they were spilling over each other, dashing around and fanning the smoke with their hands. Mary yanked open a window. June lit a stick of incense.
“Thought Sadie and Bernice were out for the night?” Jeannie whispered hoarsely to her brother.
Brian shrugged
and hid the glasses under the coffee table after taking a gulp from each one.
“
Maybe it’s the fuzz,” someone said.
After another impatient knock sounded, June peered through the peephole.
“Guess who?” she said as she backed up, retreating deeply into the shadow of the hallway.
Jeannie took her place at the peephole.
“Hell! You scared the shit out of us!” she said as she pulled open the door widely.
Maggie pushed past her and stormed into the living room. Everybody stared at the black make-up smeared in big circles around her eyes. She looked like a raccoon. They all burst out laughing.
“What?” she spat out breathlessly.
Their laughter ebbed away.
Mary sucked on the joint. It sparked. She handed it to Maggie as she blew out smoke. “Mellow out,” she croaked out.
“
Jesus, Mary!” she said, knocking it away.
“
And Joseph,” Mary teased.
Her sister narrowed her eyes.
“I’m not kiddin’ around. Something’s come down at home.”
Mary sat back down on a li
me-green cushion. “Why? Is the Big Bad Wolf pissed at us again?”
“
Heck yeah, it’s bad. Mom looked really bummed out.” Maggie told Brian. “Get June.”
June had heard the conversation and could tell fro
m Maggie’s quivering voice the news was very bad. She walked into the room with a small scythe in her hand.
“
Omigod! Who you gonna use that on?” Maggie said, her voice nearly hysterical as she moved away from the point of the knife.
“
Relax, I just cast a spell. You should be squealing soon,” June said snootily.
“
Unless you can do a spell for disappearing, you better get your butt home,” Maggie shot back.
June stood very still and studied Maggie. Pictures of her father and his emotions from the day
’s events appeared in June’s mind. She quivered.
Guilty at being so sharp-tongued, Maggie added in a kinder tone,
“It’ll be okay, Annie’s there.”
“
He knows,” June said quietly, but loud enough for all to hear.
Solemnly, she moved to Brian and passed him the scythe, as if in a ritual. No one spoke as June walked out the front door.
* * * * *
THE CONSEQUENCES
JUNE PLODDED UP the hill toward her home. She was leery as to what lay ahead. She wanted to make the short distance between the Callaghans’ and her house last longer.
Maggie and Mary walked behind her.
Not wanting to disturb her, they whispered cautiously as they passed her on the hill. She ignored them, not wanting to build her anxiety by speculating with them about her father’s anger. She didn’t want to be part of any fearful discussion about the consequences. Instead, she softly sang, “Sweet Mother, in danger defend us, in sorrow befriend us…” from her favorite hymn, “Bring Flowers of the Rarest.”
As her sisters scooted up the stairs, June lingered at the bottom staring at the dark, thick fog hovering over Twin Peaks. Soon it would drift down to mist Th
e Valley. Taking a deep breath she went up the stairs. She hesitated at the threshold before entering the house. She saw her mother and sisters down the hallway standing at the kitchen doorway. Annie grimly held the old wooden rolling pin brought from Scotland.