Godsent Page 2

  “Kissing is all I’m comfortable with right now,” she said, feeling her face flush red with embarrassment and anger. “I’ve told you that.” She glanced at Luanne, who was still snoring on obliviously, thank God. “I can’t believe you’re doing this!”

  “You don’t know what it’s like for guys, Kate. It’s different for us.”

  “Try a cold shower,” she advised him. “I hear that works wonders.”

  “Aw, Kate! Don’t be like that.” He leaned toward her again. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s late, Brady. You’d better get back to your room.”

  For a second it looked like he might argue, but then he pressed his lips together, biting off whatever words he was about to say. Even so, she could hear the anger in his voice as he pushed himself off the bed and made for the door. “Fine. See you at breakfast tomorrow.”

  She almost called him back, not wanting to end what had been such a wonderful day on a harsh note, but in the end she let him go, afraid that one of the Sisters might come by to check on them. That would be a disaster. She’d had a hard enough time convincing her parents to let her come on this trip as it was. By comparison to her mom and dad, to say nothing of Papa Jim, the nuns were downright permissive. If she were caught with a boy in her room, and her folks heard about it, she’d be grounded.

  For life.

  Now, outside the museum, Brady was pouting again, his blue eyes full of hurt and resentment, like a spoiled little boy who hadn’t gotten his way. Kate sighed. “Look, Brady. Can’t we just pretend nothing happened last night?”

  “Nothing did happen.”

  “You make it sound like I’m the one who should apologize.”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” she said. “But I had to jump through a lot of hoops to come on this trip. I want to enjoy myself. If you can’t be pleasant, I’d just as soon be by myself.”

  “Right,” he said. “Like I’m going to go off and leave you alone in the middle of New York City. Sister Sarah would skin me alive. And your grandfather would put me in one of his prisons! I’m supposed to—” He broke off abruptly, flushing bright red.

  Kate felt her own blood rising. “Supposed to what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Brady Perkins Maxwell, you tell me the truth right now,” she insisted, hands on her hips. “If you don’t, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  He ran a hand through his short blond hair. “Okay, so your grandfather asked me to keep an eye on you. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing’s wrong . . . if that’s all he did. But I know my grandfather. Are you sure he didn’t do more than ask?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh my God,” she said. “He paid you, didn’t he? My grandfather paid my boyfriend to spy on me!”

  “Not spy,” he corrected quickly. “ To watch out for you, protect you.”

  “How much?”

  “Is it really important?”

  “How much, Brady?”

  “Um . . . a hundred dollars. I was going to use it to buy you something really nice,” he added.

  “You can keep it,” she said and suddenly, to her surprise and mortification, burst into tears.

  Brady gazed at her like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

  “If you take one step after me, so help me, I’ll scream,” she warned him, having finally managed to extricate some Kleenex from her purse. Then she pushed past him.

  He didn’t follow as she ran up the front steps of the museum, ignoring the looks of curiosity and concern directed toward her by passersby. At the top, having wrestled her tears under control, she stopped, turned, and looked back to see if Brady was following her. But her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend, she mentally corrected—was gone.

  Relieved, Kate took another moment to compose herself, standing to one side of the entrance as people streamed in and out of the museum. She was furious at her grandfather . . . but, unfortunately, not really all that surprised. Papa Jim was incredibly overprotective and didn’t have the most highly developed sense of boundaries: a bad combination. She sometimes wondered if he thought of her as a person at all, or only as a possession, albeit a valuable one. As for Brady . . . she didn’t want to think about him at all right now, or else she’d start crying again. She felt like a jerk for caring, for hurting, when it was so clear now that he just wasn’t worth it. But that didn’t make the pain go away.

  “Are you okay?”

  Startled, she glanced up to see a young black man in a red beret—the sidewalk artist she and Brady had been watching earlier. He was no more than five four, which made him an inch shorter than she was, and he didn’t look much older, perhaps eighteen or nineteen. He wore a black jacket over a T-shirt so white it looked newly bleached, and black jeans. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, grinning. “It’s just . . . well, I saw you crying. You looked like you might be in some kind of trouble.”

  “I’m fine,” she said rather frostily, clutching her purse to her side.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she said, though in fact she was. Yet it was hard to say why. She was in a public place, surrounded by people, and the man talking to her hadn’t said or done anything remotely threatening. Nor was she picking up a flirtatious vibe. Just the same, something about him, or the situation, was off. She felt a tingling along her nerves, and goose bumps popped up along her arms. She hugged herself as if at a sudden chill in the air. “Look, I’m meeting some people,” she began.

  “South Carolina,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your accent. You’re from South Carolina, aren’t you? Me too.”

  She regarded him with suspicion. “You don’t sound like it.”

  He grinned again and dropped into a familiar drawl, exaggerated for comic effect. “Honey, my people been down around Marion going on two hundred years now.”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “I’m from Charleston.”

  “Beautiful city,” he said and extended his hand. “Name’s Gabriel.”

  She took his hand and shook, feeling that strange tingling sensation again, almost like a low-level electric shock. But the fear was gone. “I’m Kate.”

  He nodded as though perfectly aware of that already. “God is with you, Kate.”

  “Um, yeah . . .” Uh-oh. So that’s what she’d been picking up on. The guy was some kind of street preacher, trolling for fresh converts. She so did not need this right now.

  “I’m not trying to convert you or anything,” he said as though reading her mind. “I know you’re a good Catholic.”

  Okay, now the fear was back. How could he know that?

  “You’re blessed, Kate. God’s grace is upon you.”

  “Uh, thanks, but I really better get going . . .” She began to move off, but he stepped in front of her, blocking the way.

  “This is for you.” He held out a sheet of paper that had been folded in half.

  “What?”

  “It’s a sketch. Go on, take it.”

  Eager to get away, and not wanting to do anything that might rile him up, Kate took the paper and tucked it into her purse. “Thanks. Now, I really do have to go.”

  “Of course.” He stepped politely aside.

  With a nervous smile, Kate hurried past, into the haven of the museum. She half expected him to follow, but he didn’t; when she turned, she saw him heading back down the steps . . . or, rather, his red beret. It bobbed like a darting bird, a cardinal, before vanishing into the afternoon crowd.

  What a day this is turning out to be, she thought. First Brady, then Gabriel. What next? But strangely, she felt better now than she had before. The odd encounter had lifted her spirits. It struck her as a quintessentially quirky New York experience. Smiling, she imagined herself relating it to Luanne later. She could practically see the girl’s wide eyes, hear her breathy “Oh my God!”


  For the next two hours, Kate lost herself amid the treasures of the museum. A sense of peace settled over her as she drifted from gallery to gallery, making her way up to the second floor and the European Paintings gallery. There she lingered longest. She loved the centuries-old paintings best of all, especially those from the Renaissance: the bright, vibrant colors, the heavy shadows, the keen and vivid representations of scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Despite their great age, the canvases seemed fresh to her, invested with a spiritual life missing from much of the more modern artwork on display. Full of angelic visitations, acts of sacrifice and devotion, the paintings seemed to glow with a soulful inner light.

  She basked in that glow, deeply moved by the expressions on the faces of those depicted there, men and women who appeared so ordinary and yet had been touched by the divine. Mary most of all. To know God directly, how could there be a greater joy? She saw it on the rapt faces, in the eyes turned Heavenward with longing. In the tender looks that passed between Madonna and child in the many paintings of that subject. Yet she saw fear too, and suffering, and sadness that tugged at her own heart. Sometimes the eyes were directed outward, beyond the plane of the painting, to the viewer, to her, and in those gazes she thought she discerned a secret knowledge that was perhaps as much a torment as a blessing to those who possessed it.

  A verse from Luke rose up in her memory: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required . . .” She’d always taken that to mean that rich people, like her own family, had special obligations and responsibilities to give generously of their wealth, but now, suddenly, she realized that those who had been touched by God were the richest of all, and that it was they who would be required to give the most, even their very lives, just as Jesus had given His life . . .

  The touch of God must be a hard thing for a human being to bear, she thought and shuddered slightly, as she might have shuddered at a scene in a movie, full of sympathy yet glad, too, that she was only a witness and not a participant in the events depicted onscreen.

  By then it was getting late. Kate left the museum and hailed a cab to take her back to the hotel, where she hurriedly showered and changed. Then she and Luanne, who’d been napping when she came in, went downstairs, where the group was gathering under the stern and watchful eyes of Sister Sarah and Sister Mary Gabriel. Kate avoided Brady, who seemed content to be avoided.

  Dinner that evening was at Sam’s, an Italian restaurant in the theater district. Afterward, they saw the revival of Hello Dolly, with Carol Channing, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. The next morning, there was an early Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by a brief audience with Cardinal O’Connor that had been specially arranged by Papa Jim.

  Then it was home to Charleston, where she slid smoothly back into the normal round of school and church, family and friends. Brady tried to make up with her at first, but it was too late for apologies or amends. It didn’t help that he was wearing a new pair of Air Jordans, either. It took a couple of weeks, but finally he seemed to get the message.

  That was more than she could say for Papa Jim. When she confronted him about what he’d done, her grandfather took the cigar out of his mouth, leaned his shiny bald head back, and roared with laughter. “A hundred? Is that what that boy told you? Heck, I paid him twice that!”

  “Papa Jim!”

  “Go on now, baby girl. Papa Jim’s got work to do.”

  Two months later, in early January, following a routine physical exam, Kate’s doctor informed her that she was pregnant.

  CHAPTER 2

  1996

  “I’m what?” She stared at Dr. Rickert in shock.

  “You’re pregnant, Kate,” he repeated quite seriously from the other side of the desk.

  Dr. Rickert had been her doctor ever since she was a girl. He was a stocky man of forty-five or so with thick, curly black hair, a finely trimmed mustache, and small hands that were so white and well-manicured that they always kind of creeped her out, as if they belonged to a mannequin rather than a man. Not once in all the years she’d been coming to see him had he given her any reason to suspect that, in addition to being a physician, he was also a comedian. But that was the only explanation for what he was telling her now.

  Either that, or he was completely out of his mind.

  “I—I don’t understand,” she stammered. “Are you joking?”

  He frowned. “I don’t find teenage pregnancy a joking matter, do you?”

  Kate crossed her legs nervously. She felt herself blushing, as if she really were pregnant. But of course that was impossible. She’d never been with a man. Never done more than kiss. She’d kept her vow of purity. With a trembling voice, she said as much to Dr. Rickert.

  He sighed as though he’d heard it all before. “The tests don’t lie,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s no doubt of it, Kate. No doubt at all. You are pregnant. About seven weeks along, I’d say.”

  “No.” She shook her head. Panic was welling up in her chest, and she felt a rush of tears to her eyes. “There’s been some mistake. You have to run the tests again, Dr. Rickert.”

  “I’ve run them twice already. There’s no mistake.” He pushed a box of Kleenex toward her across the desk with those snow-white hands of his. “Go on, take one. Have a good cry if you need to. And then we’ll talk about what comes next.”

  She ignored the tissues. She had nothing to cry about. She’d done nothing wrong. Wasn’t pregnant. She clasped her arms across her chest, willing herself to be calm and rational. “Next?”

  “I have to inform your parents, of course. Then you’ll want to discuss your options.”

  “Options?” She was repeating his words like a robot, scarcely aware of what she was saying. How could this be happening to her? Had the world gone crazy? She’d been feeling oddly for a month or so. Not sick, exactly. Just . . . strange. Off her game. Her period was late. And then she’d started putting on weight, suffering inexplicable bouts of nausea . . . Admittedly, now that she thought about it, it did sound a lot like the symptoms of pregnancy, except for the fact that she couldn’t possibly be pregnant. She’d expected Dr. Rickert to tell her that she had some kind of low-grade infection, even been a little worried that it was going to turn out to be something more serious. But this? Pregnant? No. That was beyond serious. It was absurd, surreal, like a story by that writer Kafka they’d studied in English class at school.

  Dr. Rickert sighed again and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The mind is great at denial, Kate. But the body—it’s not so good.”

  “I’m not in denial,” she said. “I’m telling the truth! Don’t you think I’d know if I’d . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. “Don’t you think I’d know?”

  “In a matter of weeks,” Dr. Rickert continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “your condition will be obvious to anyone who looks at you. I’m afraid ‘I never had sex’ is just not going to cut it, Kate.”

  “But it’s the truth,” she insisted, getting angry now.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Then, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, perhaps it’s a priest you need, not a doctor.”

  So he was a comedian after all, she thought. A bad one.

  “Your mother brought you in today, didn’t she? Is she waiting outside? I think we’d better ask her to come in.”

  “Go ahead,” Kate said sullenly.

  Dr. Rickert reached for the phone, then paused. “I’m not the enemy, Kate. I’m your doctor. And, I hope, a friend. I want to help you through this.”

  Kate shrugged. Refused to meet his gaze. “Whatever.”

  A moment later, Kate’s mother, Gloria Skylar, walked into the office. At thirty-five, Gloria—Glory, as everyone called her—was a strikingly beautiful woman who looked more like Kate’s older sister than her mom. Her long, lustrous blond hair, exquisitely styled at Stella Nova, fell in shimmering waves to the shoulders of her light blue cashmere sweater from Berlin’s. Her skin was a smooth, even tan, as though she’d
just returned from a week in Cancun (actually, she was a regular at the Ultratan salon on East Bay), and she carried a Fendi handbag that was only slightly darker. She wore a tiny gold crucifix around her neck and a pair of angel-skin coral pendant earrings.

  Dr. Rickert got to his feet as she entered the office, absently smoothing back his hair and smiling as if the reason he’d called her in had escaped his mind for the moment. Observing this reaction, Kate could only shake her head: Glory had that kind of effect on men.

  “Is she going to be all right, Doctor?” Glory asked anxiously. “Is my baby going to be all right?” A notorious hypochondriac, Kate’s mother was always quick to expect the worst when it came to the maladies of others.

  Dr. Rickert’s smile faltered. He cleared his throat. “You’d better have a seat, Glory,” he said, indicating the empty chair next to Kate’s.

  “Oh God, I knew it.” She sat down, casting a worried look in Kate’s direction as she crossed her legs in their white cotton twills.

  The absurdity of the whole situation struck Kate afresh at that look, which seemed somehow comical in its very seriousness, and she had to fight to keep from giggling. Dimly, at the back of her mind, she realized that she was in a kind of shock.

  Dr. Rickert settled back into his chair. “I think Kate should be the one to tell you.” He steepled his fingers in front of his nose and gazed at her expectantly, like a teacher calling upon a student to account for missing homework.

  “What is it, honey?” Glory asked, her voice trembling as she turned in the chair to face her daughter. Her hands were clasping her bag so tightly that the knuckles were white with tension.

  The wave of hilarity that had nearly swept Kate away seconds ago had receded, and in its wake she felt as if all her defenses had been stripped from her, leaving her totally exposed, totally helpless, at the mercy of these adults who, she knew, would never believe her, no matter what she told them. Suddenly she was crying, arms flung about her mother’s neck, hugging her tightly. “It’s not true,” she sobbed. “It’s not!”