Waiting to Believe (18 page)

“Yes, Sister.”

“Be at my office at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. No time to waste! Go in peace!” The nun turned from Kacey and sailed off down the icy sidewalk with the cold wind propelling her.

“You've got to be kidding!” Lisa stared at Kacey in astonishment.

“No, really! Boniface has finally convinced me I can do this! I couldn't believe it at first, either, but I've changed my mind.” Kacey pushed back her chair. “But here's my biggest hurdle: I've been wracking my brain to come up with enough sisters to fill out the cast. I mean, how many potential actresses enter the community?”

In the background, Johnny Cash sang, “
As I walked out on the streets of Laredo
. . .” Kacey and Lisa sat in front of the new jigsaw puzzle: a thousand pieces of Notre Dame as seen from the River Seine. The picture was daunting. Lisa searched for edge pieces, while Kacey tried to fit shapes and colors together. Always an irritation to Lisa. She held up a corner piece. “Here. Let's start at the bottom, shall we?”

“Oh, Lisa, no matter how your family did it, there really are
no
rules for jigsaw puzzles!”

Lisa gave up. “Okay, okay. So tell me more about your hurdle.”

“Well, this could be where you come in. I think you should try out for the part of Maria.”

“You're crazy! I can't sing!”

“I've heard you in matins and vespers. You sing well enough.”

“Absolutely not! I'll cheer you on from afar!”

“Aw, Lisa . . .”

“Nope!”

Before Kacey could respond, Sister Mary Clotilda shuffled over and joined them while Johnny sang on, “
I spied a poor cowboy wrapped in white linen. Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay
. . .” The tall, stooped newcomer looked over her wire-rimmed glasses at Kacey. Her craggy face had a brightness to it. A gentleness. “I understand you're directing
The Sound of Music
, Sister Mary Laurence.”

Kacey didn't believe they had ever spoken. “Yes, Sister. I am.”

“Well, I'm thinking of trying out for the part of Mother Superior. I've never admitted this to anyone, but,” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “I've always wanted to be a mother superior. This might be my only chance.”

31

Kacey threw herself into her work with the young sisters who became actresses and singers under her direction. It seemed comical in the beginning, but as rehearsals progressed, inhibitions fell away. Kacey and her little troupe grew enthusiastic, even confident.

Sister Mary Boniface was waiting as Kacey approached the gym for afternoon rehearsal. Kacey smiled in greeting, but then saw the drama instructor's brows knit into a deep frown. “You're to go directly to Mother Mary Bernard.”

“Before rehearsal? Everyone's waiting for me.” Even as she spoke, Kacey realized how foolish it was to question a command.

“Go directly,” Boniface replied in a low growl.

“Yes, Sister! Right away, Sister!” Kacey clasped her script to her chest, her fingers tightening on it in apprehension. She hurried down the hall to her superior's office, a destination she knew all too well. Her stomach churned as she entered the office.

Mother Mary Bernard was seated behind her oversized desk. Kacey entered, trying for a small smile. “You wanted to see me, Mother Mary Bernard?”

The old nun stood but did not offer Kacey a chair. The omission was significant. Kacey could feel and hear her heart beat in her ears.

“This belongs to you, I believe.” Mother Mary Bernard held a crumpled piece of paper in the hand she extended to Kacey. Even from across the desk, Kacey recognized the
X
s penciled in at various points within a box drawn on the paper. She could make out the scribbled names beside each
X
.

Mary Bernard pulled her hand back and smoothed the paper between her fingers. “Tom. Tim. Phil,” she read tonelessly.

Kacey instantly understood her indiscretion.

“You refer to our sisters as ‘Tom,' ‘Tim,' ‘Phil'? You've given them
nicknames
? By whose authority do you take these sacrilegious liberties, Sister Mary Laurence? I, myself, have never known this to happen in all my years here.” Her fingers flew to her chest as she made a sweeping sign of the cross. She laid the paper on her desk.

“I'm so sorry, Mother Mary Bernard. Not nicknames. It was like shorthand! I meant no disrespect.”

“Ah, but you
did
disrespect your sisters!” She leaned forward across the wide desk, picking up the paper once again and waving it in front of Kacey's face. “Did you not?”

Kacey lurched backward. Her voice was ragged. “Mother, I'm truly sorry! It was just a note I scribbled for myself during rehearsal to help me with staging. Like a cue card. It showed me where everyone should stand during a crowd scene. I didn't mean for anyone to see it!”

Mary Bernard sat back down. “Oh, I'm certain you didn't, but do you think that lessens the offense?”

“No, it doesn't,” Kacey admitted. “I used poor judgment. I see that now.”

Silence. Kacey waited. Mary Bernard tore the paper into small pieces. “You will honor the sanctity of our calling at all times, Sister. You will
never
again refer to any of our sisters by anything but their full community names.”

“Yes, Mother Mary Bernard.”

But the simmering old nun was not finished. “To think that I should have to give such an order to one of our own! I am of a mind to cancel the play!”

Kacey could not withhold a gasp.

“But I've decided that would only serve to punish the others who have worked hard on it. And those who look forward to seeing it.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Kacey murmured.

“Oh, do not thank me. I am not doing it for you. I think you would do well to spend the remainder of this week's recreation time pondering the significance of your act.” The superior leaned back in her chair, her eyes boring into Kacey.

She's enjoying this!
Kacey thought.

“You are willful, Sister Mary Laurence. It does not bode well for you. I urge you to devote yourself to prayer and penitence so you may make your way without stumbling.” She waved a bony finger at Kacey in a gesture of dismissal. “Go in peace,” she said with little charity in her voice.

Kacey retreated, shaken. She anguished over Bernard's assessment of her.
Willful? Was it true?

What she did not ponder was her indiscretion. She could not draw up any feeling of guilt.
Tom. Tim. Phil. Where's the harm?

“Now what?” Lisa whispered. “You look troubled.” She caught up with Kacey who was hurrying down a deserted hallway.

“Aww, Lisa, I'm so frustrated. Somehow Bernard got a hold of a note I'd drawn up for myself to position people for the crowd scene.”

“So?”

“I didn't write out full names. Just abbreviated. You know, Tom, Tim.”

Lisa made a face. “Oh, Kacey,” she murmured. “Capital offense.”

“So I found out! What I don't know is how she got the paper in the first place. I threw it in the gym wastebasket at the end of rehearsal.”

“Wait a minute!” Lisa exclaimed. “I saw someone digging in there just as we were leaving! I thought it was strange for someone to be taking something
out
of the wastebasket!”

Kacey's eyes widened. “Who was it?”

“I just got a glimpse walking past.”

“But you didn't see who it was?”

“No! No, of course not! We all look alike!”

Kacey's stomach tightened.
Oh, yes. We do indeed all look alike
. . .

In the end, the play went well. And in the process, Kacey gleaned new insights into herself. She liked what she discovered. Acting had been fun in high school, but now she had stepped into a leadership role, going beyond acting. She had a broader appreciation of her own talents.

No bouquet was thrust at her after the final curtain, but the gymnasium filled with energetic applause from the black-clad audience of one hundred. And for Kacey, the director, there was great pleasure in seeing Mother Mary Bernard smiling enthusiastically, clapping with more fervor than Kacey would have thought her capable.

The spring afternoon was perfect, but Kacey was restless. She sat studying at a library table overlooking the convent's burgeoning back garden. The cardinals whistled back and forth to one another. The sun, through an open window, penetrated her heavy habit with its welcome heat.

But peace would not come. Kacey's mind and heart were miles away. This afternoon, Bridget was graduating from high school. The formal invitation had arrived a month earlier, accompanied by a hurried note in Bridget's careless scrawl.

Hi, K.

I know you can't come, but I wanted you to get an invite, anyway. Don't think I'm not still mad at you for not being here with us, 'cuz I am. Probably always will be. I'm having a pretty big party. I've planned it myself. Where are you when I need you!!!

I'm narrowing my college choices. Applied to only 2: Purdue and St. Mary's in South Bend. Keep your fingers crossed or whatever you nuns do for good luck!

Love ya, B

A small alarm went off. Purdue and St. Mary's.
Both in Indiana. Why?
Greg
. Kacey flushed at the thought. It didn't seem possible, and yet . . .
Don't borrow trouble!

32

Kacey was registered for the last classes of spring semester—among them, one she had been waiting two years to take. “In this class, Sisters, there will be no syllabus, no textbook.
You
will be the resource we'll draw upon as we explore the ‘Moral Issues of the Twentieth Century.'”

The kindly nun was thin but not haggard, as Kacey thought so many of the older nuns were. Rather than hiding her hands in the folds of her habit sleeves, Mary Leo reached out with them, encompassing her students in an imaginary embrace.