The Second Coming of Elizabeth Ford: A Geschichte Falls Story

[ChrisGibson]

“NEXT MONDAY!” Jeff cried in the Blue Jewel over the music.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it, Big Brother?” Liz said, patting her brother on the shoulder.
“I don’t want another priest,” Jeff said. “I want,” he added, disconsolately jabbing his spoon into the empty bowl, “another piece of pie.”
“Really?” Amber raised an eyebrow, reaching for the bowl.
“What, am I getting fat?” Jeff asked her. Before she could answer, he touched is stomach. “I am getting fat.”
“Will that be ala mode?” Amber asked.
“Yeah,” said Jeff.
“Well, Jeffrey,” Chayne spoke, at last. “You know, this can be a good thing. Evervirgin has four priests and—I believe—six deacons. All we have is you. You could use a rest.”
“What if I don’t want a rest?”
“Looks like you’ll be getting one anyway,” Chayne remarked dispassionately, sipping on his beer.
Around them they heard people clapping and, looking up, they all clapped for the band as they came off stage and Amber, lifting her finger, ran to the stage and then shouted in the microphone, “The Comets’ll be up to do a second set in the next hour. Let’s have another hand for the Comets, Woo! Woo!”
She then down and skirted through the tables of clapping people. By then Diggs was sitting with Chayne, Father Ford and Liz, pleased and hamster faced.
“You all are really great,” Liz was telling Diggs.
“Oh, we’re even better with a singer,” Diggs told Liz. “Chayne, are you going to get up and sing with us?”
“Oh, I don’t know if I want to tonight.”
“Come on, Chayne.”
“I’m tired. Too bad Russell isn’t here or else he’d be right on stage.”
“Well,” Diggs said, suddenly, “if you don’t get up and sing, me and Tad won’t get up.”
“Oh, get up!” Liz stopped, realizing how loud and insistent she was. “I mean, come on Chayne!”
Chayne looked sharply at Liz, then archly at Amber, and his friend shrugged at him.
“I love to hear the Comets play,” Liz said, turning her head dizzily. Then adding, “and I love hearing you, Chayne.”
“Looks like you’ll be singing,” Amber observed.

The door buzzed four times. Jeff from his easy chair called out, “It’s open!”
It buzzed again, and Liz, leaving the kitchen, headed for the door saying, “Here, I come. Oh, hello. Jeff, you’d better come to the door.”
“Oh,” Jeff folded the newspaper, got up and came to the door to greet another man in a fedora and great coat. He was bearing two suitcases, and Jeff noted the Roman collar.
“You must be Robert Heinz,” said Jeff, making way for the priest to enter and sit his bags down.
“And you must be Jeff Ford,” the new priest shook Jeff’s hand vigorously.
“Let me help you,” said Jeff, and he took one bag and went up the stairs before Robert Heinz.
The upstairs of the rectory was a narrow hallway. To their left as they came up was the bathroom and rounding it passed Jeff’s room that overlooked the church and then came to a new room, the window overlooking More Street, grey and wet in December.
“This is yours.” Liz said. “You get to look out at More Street. This is a great view. See the desk here, you can look over More Street and see all the kids passing by after school, cars driving by while you write in your journal. If you keep journals.”
Jeff’s brows were furrowed as he listened to his sister.
“I really like this,” Robert said, looking around the room that was actually quite drab in the gray of the day, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“I’m Elizabeth Ford,” Liz said, giving her hand to the priest who shook it.
“Related to Jeff, here?”
“She’s my sister,” Jeff ducked his head.
“Oh, you live around here?”
Liz looked to Jeff for an answer.
“She actually lives right here. In the rectory. With me.”
“I sleep in that last room, the one that overlooks the garden and the school playground.”
“Oh,” Robert said noncommittally.
“She used to sleep here,” Jeff said. “She thought you would prefer this room, though.”
He wasn’t going to let his sister go on unappreciated.
Liz only blushed and nodded.
“Well,... why, thank you, Liz—Elizabeth?”
“Liz,” she said. “I,” she turned to her brother and then included Robert in her gaze. “I need to go to the church now. The seventh graders are coming so we can practice some songs for the school mass on Friday. New ones, you know. With Christmas around the corner and all. Good to see you. I’ll see you tonight,” said Liz, and she disappeared down the hall to her room, and then came out a few minutes later in her blue coat and pom pom topped hat, waving and trundling down the stairs.
“So,” said Jeff turning from the picture of his departing sister, “can I get you something? Coffee. Tea? Food? Did you have a long drive?”
“Ah no... Yes,” the new priest smiled politely. and shook the cobwebs out of his head before blowing his cheeks out. “That would be really nice right now. Something to drink. Coffee.”
“I’ll go make some.”
“Ah,” Robert Heinz looked around, his mouth openned a little. “Great. I’ll get settled while you do that. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Great.”
Jeff felt strangely relieved when he was out of the presence of Robert Heinz and a little unnerved by the fact that from now on he would be living here, inhabiting what had been, until now, family space.
When Robert finally came down he was in sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt. He stood in the middle of the ugly harvest gold and orange and brown living room, feet planted wide apart, sniffed the air and pronounced the coffee good, and then went in with Jeff to make himself a cup.
“So, I guess you want me to tell you some things about myself,” Robert Heinz assumed and Jeff, nodding, said, “That would be nice.”
“Let’s see,” Robert said taking a hand through his hair. Jeff noted—against his will—that not only was Robert Heinz open and unassuming, he was tall and dark and very handsome. “Firstly, I prefer to be called Bobby, none of that fancy Robert stuff.”
“Oh, okay,” Jeff tried to smile and sipped from his coffee.
“I went to Holy Cross,”
“Not the college in South Bend?”
Robert—Bobby—laughed, “Oh, the Rudy school. No. Holy Cross in Boston. The bishop said you went to the Rudy one though.”
“Yes,” Jeff smiled over his cringe. “But I went on to Notre Dame.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Holy Cross priests!”
There was something about the way Bobby said this that irked the particular Holy Cross priest sitting before him.
“I’m a Jesuit, you see?” Bobby said.
“I’ve heard they’re a hard order.
“Yeah, we’re supposed to be the cream of the crop in the priesthood.” Robert began to disinterestly rattle off Latin. and then, to Jeff’s dismay, switched back to English.
“You speak Latin?”
“All priests speak Latin,” Bobby said.
“You can converse in Latin?” Jeff specified.
“Oh, yeah, it’s something I taught myself in high school. Had the free time you know?”
So he had been a dork in high school? Of course, it’s why he was a priest now.
“I mean,” Bobby went on, “between wrestling and water polo and the intramural basketball team, then choir and LaCrosse... Wow,” Bobby furrowed his brow. “I guess I was more active than I thought.”
“I was never... very active in high school,” Jeff confessed. “People liked me. The teachers did, I mean.”
“The teachers weren’t always that gung ho on me,” Bobby told him. “I remember Father McCafferty protesting me getting the Homecoming Crown. And I still became a priest anyway! Looking back it was just that he didn’t think someone should win two Crowns in a year. Other people should have a chance. I guess he was right—”
“You had two Crowns?”
“Oh, yeah,” Bobby went on. “There was Homecoming and Prom King senior year and then I was Prince of junior court the year before. I’m pretty sure I just got that because I was class president. Isn’t it silly how much store people put in trite stuff like that?”
“Yeah. So leaving high school behind...”
“Aw yea, you probably want to hear about the more recent me.”
“At Boston College.”
“Yeah, that was hard. Seminary really kicked me.”
“Yeah, me too, it’s like no matter how hard I tried,” Jeff said, sitting. “Don’t get me wrong. I did well, but I was always a little resentful of the guy at the top of my class. You know? I mean, did you ever resent the guy at the top?”
Bobby smiled and looked a little sick for a second.
The smile fell from Jeff’s face and he said, “Let me guess... You were the guy... at the top of your class.”
Bobby pushed out a high laugh. “Well, someone’s gotta to be!”
“Yeah,” Jeff said, nodding. “Yeah. Someone does.”
“So what time is Mass this evening?” Bobby asked.
Jeff looked at him oddly. “Oh, we never have an evening mass.”
“Why not? I think people would like that. A little celebration around God’s table after a hard day at work,” Father Heinz rapped on the table and gave a dazzling smile.
“A bit of fellowship.”
“I’ve never been able to get people interested in more than the midday Mass, and then with all my duties in the parish, I’m pretty tired too.”
“Well, that’s all right. I’d be tired if I was you. You’ve doe a valiant job with this parish. I tell you what? Give me the parish directory and I’ll round up a crowd for a five-thirty mass. I want to introduce myself to the people as soon as possible.”
“All right,” said Jeff going to his desk by the large window over the porch that overlooked More Street where the yellow school bus was pulling up, “but don’t be to upset if you don’t get very many people.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

This was a great surprise! I am enjoying reading about Jeff and Bobby getting to know each other. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

FATHER BOBBY KICKS OFF HIS FIRST SERMON AND FATHER GEOFF WORRIES ABOUT HIS COMPETITION


“I want to thank you all for coming this afternoon,” Bobby said, spreading his purple robed arms over the congregation. “We’re so near Christmas. Really, only a little more than a week off, and I find myself in this new place, but not a strange place among a family I didn’t know until now. I suppose I’m only a little more surprised to be here than all of you who may have gotten my phone call or heard from word of mouth about the new priest in town. I want to tell you that we should thank God right now. Right now, in our midst he is reenacting the very miracle of Christmas. How in an unlikely place, an unlikely couple found their way into a shelter from the cold. Just a stable, just a cave the way this is just a building of mortar and stone. But there was born the family of God and light of the world. This evening, after such a long and tiring day, I want to invite you to come here and enjoy your family, the shelter from the cold. Christ is born here. His light glowing as surely as it was two thousand years ago. I invite you. He invites you to come and dine and be renewed. My brothers and sisters....”

“It was a beautiful sermon, Father,” Jackie Lewis was shaking Father Bobby’s hand as she headed out the side door.
“I’m glad you could come, Jaclyn.”
Geoff, beside Bobby, marveled that he could know Jackie Lewis’s name so quickly. What kind of trick was this?”
“Oh, and Hannah, I want to thank you for playing organ on such short notice.”
“Thank you, Father,” she said beside her husband, “for such a wonderful Mass. I wonder why we never did a five thirty before.”
“You always said—” Geoff began.
“Well, we’ll see you on Sunday, Father, Come on, Will.”
In the midst of tugging at her her husband’s sleeve she said, looking startled, “Oh, Father Geoff, we didn’t even see you,” while right behind Geoff popped Bill Dwyer, declaring:
“Father Bobby, that was the best Mass I’ve ever attended....”

“Don’t you just love a lively congregation?” Bobby asked Geoff at the table that night as Liz brought the food to the table.
“I wouldn’t know,” Geoff commented, dumping salt onto his food.
Liz sat down at the end of the table facing the kitchen, the two priests were in the middle of the long table, facing each other.
“Don’t you think we should all say a blessing before we just rake in the food?” Bobby asked.
“Oh, yes,” Liz smiled brightly. “Certainly.”
“Lord Jesus,” Bobby said, looking up at the ceiling, eyes closed, “we just want to thank you for this wonderful meal our beloved sister Elizabeth has prepared for us, and for our rising and our lying down. For every good thing. I especially want to thank you for the wonderful family I’ve found at Saint Adjeanet’s, and my new brother Geoff, whom I pray I might be a worthy helpmeet too. In your holy name we do ask blessing on this food. Amen.”
“Amen,” Geoff muttered, picking up the salt shaker.
“You know, Geoffrey, all that salt’s not good for you,” Bobby said.
“He just likes to give it flavor,” Liz told Bobby.
“Oh, Liz, let me in the kitchen tomorrow, and I’ll help you learn to bake the food a little longer and season it. That way we won’t have to use all that salt and ruin your gracious culinary attempts.”
Liz wasn’t sure if she should feel praised or insulted, but was leaning toward insulted.
“So, Geoff, is there any part of church administration you want me to take over?” Bobby asked. “Just think about it. You don’t have to tell me now.”
“I’m not sure I could tell you now.”
“It’s just that—can I confess something?” Bobby leaned closer as if there was someone to hide this from, “I have a passion for youth ministry. Especially working with young men. After eighth grade, when they’re not altar boys, it’s so easy to lose them.”
“Ah,” Geoff sounded as if he were just waking up, “Most of the young men of our parish go to Our Lady of Mercy, the high school a few blocks down Kirkland.”
“Wow, I should probably run down there tomorrow and talk to the people and see if I can speak with the boys. I’d like to start a basketball team. I love B-Ball. You wanna help. Geoffrey?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Geoff said lamely, turning the broccoli around with his fork. “I’m not much good at... B-Ball.”

It would be good to sleep.


When the alarm went off in the dark and Geoff Ford’s palm smashed it to silence, his first thoughts, blinking at the ceiling were, “It’s only Tuesday!”
He pushed this thought aside. He could smell the coffee Liz had started and he groped for his Liturgy of the Hours.
Geoff stumbled down into the living room to get his cup off coffee and sit down in his chair and pray the Hours. The door flew open and in ran Father Bobby drenched in sweat.
“Good morning, Geoffrey! Man, it’s great, just to commune with the Almighty when no one else is really up. You’re missing it, Geoff.”
The priest took off his sweatshirt and tee shirt and Geoff felt immediately inferior. “Time to hit the showers.” Bobby Heinz ran up the stairs.
Liz Ford came out with the cup of coffee on a white saucer.
“Just the way you like it,” Liz said
Geoff ignored his sister and went to the mirror over the bureau across from the dining room table. He studied himself. It was impossible, in the very little light he tolerated this early in the morning in the dining room, to really see himself, and he knew that better light would be a harsher judge. His non-descript hair, some times flatteringly called golden brown, was still sticking up. His lips were small, he detected a touch of a double chin, and a dimple under his lip that made him look fat. He tried to smile and make his blue eyes sparkle. They were supposed to be his best feature, but they did nothing for him right now. Liz watched her brother, patting down his hair, patting down the unrelieved roundness of his own stomach and becoming displeased with the plumpness of his hands.
“Geoffrey, what’s wrong?” she said at last.
“Liz,” he said at last. “Do you think I’m attractive?”
“Yes, very.”
“What do the people think of me?”
“People?”
“You know,” said Geoff. “The parish.”
“They love you.”
“They love the new—Bobby.”
Upstairs they could hear the shower water running and Bobby singing “Stormy Weather,”
“They loved his Mass yesterday,” Liz said. “They haven’t stopped loving you.”
They were both quiet for a while. Geoff pressed his fingers together and then sighing said, “Do you think that it would be possible...”
“Yes?”
“To take an... unofficial poll.?”
“What?”
“Go around and just sort of ask people how they feel about me?”
“Geoff, that’s so silly!”
“I know. I know.”
And because Liz Ford was silly, she did it.


“Hannah Decker opened the front door and looked sideways at Liz.
“Why dontcha come on in, Liz?” she said. “It’s so cold. What’s up?”
Liz Ford was looking ridiculous in a purple pom pom hat and carrying a notebook her cross eyes were staring at. She laughed, snorted a little, and said:
“No, I’m just here for a second. I’m taking a poll.”
“Okay.”
“You know the new priest?”
“Father Bobby!” said Hannah. “Oh, my God he’s so great. And if he smiled in the middle of the night it would make the sunrise. He is so hot! If he wasn’t a priest the things I would do to that man—”
“Ey, Hannah!”
She shushed up and turned to see Will was at the door, face perplexed, belly sticking out.
“Oh, but you know he’s nothing compared to my baby,” she patted her husband’s face. “There’s my daddy bear. Growl for me! Come on now.”
“Will looked at Liz Ford, then at his wife. He growled, bit her, and went back into the house.
“Mama’s gonna tame you in a few minutes she laughed back, confiding in Liz, “Honey you’d never believe it, but he’s a hurricane in the sheets. It’s like going to Disneyland. Space Mountain!”
Hannah blushed, remembered herself, and said, “We were talking about the new priest.”
“Actually,” said Liz, “we were talking about my brother.”
“Oh.”
There was a vague look on Hannah’s face, as if she’d forgotten who Liz Ford’s brother was. Then she said. “All right, honey, what did you want to say?”
“He wanted—I wanted to know... what you thought of him.”
“I suppose he’s good enough. Think of him how?”
“As a priest? Is he a good priest?”
“He’s no Father Bob—hold on, I didn’t mean it that way.” Hannah stopped, folded her arms over her breasts and said, “Some people are flashy and wonderful and stir up big crowds. Some aren’t. Same with priests, I guess. Geoff just isn’t flashy. But he’s a good enough priest... I suppose.”

“It’s open!” Patti said, waiting for her next client as she stopped in the middle of hanging the green boughs around the living room.
“Liz?” she looked incredibly perplexed to see the unattractive little woman in the middle of her living room.
“Hi, Patti! Good morning!”
“Liz!”
Smile plastered to her face, Patricia Lewis climbed down from the ladder and said, “Can I help you?”
“Why yes, I’m taking a poll.”
Patti, eyebrow raised, waited for further explanation.
“You see, Geoff—my brother...”
“Father Ford?”
“Yes. He wants to know how he’s doing. What you all think of him?”
“Is this about the new priest and everything?” Patti murmured.
“Were you at the mass the other day?”
“No.”
“Busy doing things?”
“There was this delightful pack of Benson and Hedges I needed to finishe. He shouldn’t have called on such short notice. Anyway?”
Geoff wants to know... If people like him? How people feel about him.”
Patti eyed Liz incredulously.
“You mean to tell me Geoff Ford is having a popularity contest?”
“I wouldn’t call it that...”
“Then I don’t know what you would call it, but... You tell your brother he’s just a priest to me and—God forgive me—in the last thirty-eight years a priest has always pretty much been a priest to me. He’s no worse and certainly no better than all the rest.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent portion! I am enjoying getting back to the world of these characters and getting to know Bobby. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, there'll be more tomorrow, and more of the Book of the Blessed.

 

[ChrisGibson]

That evening Geoff didn’t ask Liz anything about her poll, which largely resulted in the whole parish saying either, “We’re indifferent to Geoff Ford,” or “The new priest is really great, but we’re indifferent to Geoff Ford.” Liz kept on pushing Bobby to say more, spend as much time as possible with Geoff so that her brother would not be able to find the time to ask what she had learned. It depressed Liz and for once her food was good. She thought maybe she should be depressed more often. This reflected badly on what the parish thought of her brother, and made Liz wonder what they thought of her.
As the mashed potatoes were coming to an end, she was inspired. Liz realized that there would be one house where good comment would come, and good council. A house always brimming with laughter and a solution to depression.
She still had not polled Chayne Kandzierski.

Liz did not knock because she knew there was no need. There was no noise coming from inside the house, but the lights from the windows seemed to tell of cheeriness. No one was in the living room, but Chayne and Russell, Jackie, Felice, Diggs and Amber and Shannon were chatting softly in the kitchen. They all looked up at her in amazement and Chayne said, “Liz?”
“I’m taking a poll—” she started, but Jackie, gushing smoke out of her mouth said:
“Patti told me about it today.”
“Poll?” Chayne had not heard of this.
“It’s like,” Liz started and was at a lack of words. She looked to Jackie.
“It’s a popularity poll,” Jackie said.
“My God!” muttered Chayne. “Because of the new priest?” Liz, embarassed, nodded her head.
“He’s really good,” started the shaggy headed Diggs, and then he humphed because Chayne had kicked him under the table, and amended, “but he’s no contest for our Geoffy.”
“Chayne,” said Liz. “Could I talk to you for a moment...? Privately?”
Chayne nodded, then got up, rounded the table and came to Liz who still stood at the entrance to the kitchen. They went into the living room.
“Have you met the new priest?” she asked him in a small voice.
“Is he... a jerk?” Chayne asked.
“He’s the nicest person on earth. He prays beautifully. He’s starting a basketball team for youth outreach. He gets up before dawn to pray and run eight miles. He speaks fluent Latin, was top of his class in seminary, went to Holy Cross in Massachusetts and won the Homecoming and Prom King Crowns back in high school, not to mention he was class president every year and he’s very tall, very energetic and extremely good looking. He’s been here two days and the parish is already three times as efficient as it used to be. He’s memorized half the congregation’s names and everybody loves him.”
“Bastard,” Chayne swore in earnest, shaking his head for Geoff Ford.
“I wish you would talk to Geoff.”
“What? How did it get from the new priest is wonderful to Chayne Kandzierski should talk to Geoff?”
“I think he’d listen to you?”
“Really? Well, that’s a shame because I try not to talk to priests... There’s something unnatural about them.”
“But you knew Geoff before he was a priest. Remember back in college?”
“And he was unnatural then! Unnatural boys become unnatural men. Unnatural Catholic boys that can’t get dates on Friday night and have something to prove to the world become priests.”
“Oh, Chayne!”
“Oh, Liz, please don’t make me have a heart to heart with your brother.”
Liz cocked her head and gave what, on an attractive person might have been called puppy dog eyes, but on Liz was considered a valiant attempt at manipulation. Chayne had to admire it.
“You’re going to make me have a heart to heart with Geoff,” he concluded sadly. “I think I would rather castrate myself with a plastic spoon from Dairy Queen.”
“Oh, thank you, Chayne,” Liz threw her arms around Chayne, who couldn’t help but notice how musty she smelled. “And I have another favor?” she whispered as he set her down.
“No!”
“Chayne. I’m feeling bold tonight. I asked one I might as well ask for something else?”
“I’m a genie now?”
Liz didn’t answer that. She just gestured into the kitchen and said, longingly, “I think he’s so cute, Chayne.”
Since there were six people in the kitchen, four of them women and one of the males under twenty, he assumed Liz was looking at his hamster faced, disheveled haired friend.
“Diggs?”
Liz nodded, smiling widely and blushing so that Chayne thought she was almost cute.
“Do you think you could talk to him for me?”
Chayne looked blankly at Liz.
“”Just....” said Liz. “Think about it. For me?”

“Breakfast was excellent!” Bobby said, coming back into the kitchen and rinsing off the dish. He made for the dishwasher. Liz touched his hand.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve got it.”
“Thank you, Liz!” Bobby smiled at her.
Only Wednesday and it was already exhausting. As the new priest left the kitchen, Liz reflected that everything he said ended in an exclamation point. Liz looked outside. How could he be so cheerful in a world grey as this? The sky was white and grey, the asphalt of the church parking lot-turned-school playground was grey beyond the grey and white early winter garden. Then Liz looked around the kitchen even this seemed grey.
She found herself in the church with Hannah on one of the days when the two women sang and play piano to teach or the students at Saint Adjeanet’s the new hymns they’d all be singing at Mass on Friday. Today they were rehearsing the songs for Christmas, though. All the blue trousers, all the white shirts, all the navy ties. All the plaid skirts, all the green sweaters, all the navy cardigans sitting there singing. The sixth grade. Or was this the seventh?
Hannah’s playing was dull, far away, the kids’ mouths moved in slow motion.
“Sleep in heavenly peace.... Sleep in heavenly.... Sleep.”
The children blurred. Liz saw the rosette window over the choir loft, and then the brass lanterns, and then she heard a thud which was vaguely irritating. Then there was nothing.
And this relieved her.

Elizabeth Ford blinked and blinked in the sunlight, and then there was Hannah Decker’s face before her, eyes smiling in commiseration through her glasses. Hannah reached up to shut the blinds. Liz looked around. They were in one of the two little sick rooms the nurse kept. Liz remembered this place. From childhood. When she was a little girl, hating school, she’d play sick and spend as much time here as possible. The window overlooked More Street. She felt so safe then. And a little naughty. She felt a little naughty being here now, as if she’d taken the easy way out. Blinking, and looking out the window, ignoring Hannah a little, she saw the houses on the other side of More Street. Could she have imagined as a school girl here that in life she would go many places only to end up living next door to the school?
“You fainted, Liz,” Hannah said softly. “You haven’t been yourself. Have you been feeling okay?”
“What do you think of me, Hannah?”
“Ah?”
“Do you think I’m pathetic?”
“Liz, who told you that?”
“No one had to tell anything. I don’t wonder if people say it behind my back. I bet they do. No one really likes Geoff either, do they? I can’t imagine them being in love with his sister. His weird sister who’s over thirty and lives in the rectory like a maid—”
“Elizabeth!” Hannah’s voice was amazing stern and gentle. Liz had never heard it that way before.
“That’s what people think, right? What the parish thinks?”
“The parish?” Hannah laughs. “The town? What? Who gives a damn what they think? Why should it matter?”
“It does matter,” Liz told Hannah, “if the parish are the only people you have. I see that new Bobby. He’s not Geoff. He’s not the brother that needs to be cared for. He’s just the new priest. And I’m the maid. And that’s not right. I didn’t live my life to end up being a maid to a priest. But... but maybe I did. No... no... It hasn’t always been like this...”

It hadn’t always been like this.
There had been a day in this very sick room lit with that ugly fluorescent tube when she made a vow she’d never be teased, she’d never be disrespected again. She’d go far. She would show so many people so many things. Danny Cook, JoAnn Risedale, Suzie Nickener. The odd thing is the names of the other people, the ones who had not made her feel small, she could no longer remember. She remembered these people not worth remembering. And despite the fact that she had it on good authority that none of them had ever done anything great in life, that they, in fact, still lived in Lothrop County if not this very small city, she had never seen them again. They had faded with childhood, The boys before high school, the girls in high school though they had all gone to the same one.
The year she’d made this vow, after having been called a cross-eyed freak (why did she remember the bad things so well?) was the year after Geoff had graduated and Mom and Dad had sent him, not to Our Lady of Mercy, but to Saint Vitus, the good school in Saint Gregory. There had been no brother to protect her anymore. Their older brother Anthony, had left Saint Adjeanet’s long before that, first in his class and all. Tony would be Valedictorian of Saint Vitus’s that year everyone was certain.
Aside from making that vow, life did not change in sixth, seventh or eighth grade. It did not change when her parents sent her to Rosary for high school. Rosary had been especially dreadful. She was a poor fit there, and it was far from the best school in town. Her parents never thought she should have the best girl’s school. It wasn’t necessary. She applied to Saint Mary’s down in South Bend for college. Her parents said she couldn’t get in. She crossed her fingers and lit candles anyway. Saint Mary’s agreed with her parents, but they made her what was called a Link, going to Holy Cross, living at Saint Mary’s provionally until her grades were up and she could be formally accepted to the school of her choice. She lived like this for a year, and went to Holy Cross right as her brother was transferring to Notre Dame.
There was a solidarity she felt with Geoff and not with Tony. Geoff, like herself, had something to prove. The much older and by far more attractive Tony—who never went to Holy Cross Junior College, but had done four shining years at Notre Dame and was on his way to Catholic University of America—had nothing to prove to anyone.
So she had tried for her two years at Holy Cross to finally be acceptable to Saint Mary’s. She had dated then. That was something most people would scarcely believe. She had heard people, on occasion, whisper about if she or if she hadn’t ever had anybody. She had had Ralph senior year and had—in college—written a letter to say she didn’t want him anymore. He had driven down to South Bend to declare his love for her, and then weep knowing he couldn’t have her. And then there had been Redman who was very tall, and not a little fat. She had lost her virginity to him. She was not sure if he was bad or if sex was bad. It was the only sex she had ever had.

MORE ON THE OTHER SIDE

 

[CharmedFan28]

I enjoyed this Liz centric portion! I hope she finds happiness eventually and stops caring as much about what other people think. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, of course the whole story is Liz centric, hence the name, but this one has really settled down onto Liz's problems.

 

[ChrisGibson]

She’d broken up with Andy too and gone to Marietta, sure that now, still in the Midwest, but not at all in Michigan, she would do well. Only Liz had no idea what it was that she would do well. So when school was over she found herself back in Geschichte Falls for the year, working as a secretary then at a construction company then at this or that before nursing school looked good, looked okay. It seemed natural. Whenever Geoff came home from seminary he so needed to be taken care of. Tony almost never came home, and he made little comments about how nice it must be for Liz not to have to worry about ever leaving home. She did leave home, she said. Now she lived in Grand Rapids, in a little apartment not far from the nursing school. Somehow she was sure this was not what her brother meant and it was around this time that she realized she didn’t have any dreams. She checked around. Neither did anyone else, which made her feel better, and so she moved on.
About the time Liz was seeing a timid musician, Dad died. It was not a gradual sickness, he just dropped dead without warning. Tony was in North Carolina now, and he flew in and Geoff came up from Colorado where the Order of the Holy Cross had sent him now that he was ordained. Liz was not prepared for the fact that looking into the coffin at Princes of Geschichte Falls mortuary, she was not sorrowful. All the pictures of her and her parents showed her as doted upon. The pictures of her with Daddy showed her as Daddy’s little girl. But Daddy had never counted on the fact that little girls must, in time, grow up into women. As a result, here the girl was, nearly thirty years old and quite dried up, looking close to forty, feeling fourteen.
No one now ever talked of Father Ransom, but he had been the pastor before Geoff. He had two associate pastors, both older than God, that the diocese had no plans of replacing. When Ransom died, Geoff was made the new pastor, and Liz was happier than she ought to have been. Her companion and her protection had returned.
It was especially good because in the early days when Geoff returned and Liz had moved back into the house with her mother, she would often flee to the rectory for a bit of an escape. The place looked out of date. They couldn’t get new furniture, but Liz could help to take the old man smell out of the place, and she spent many weeks with Geoff making the place look a little bit better.
Finally, one week before her thirtieth birthday, Geoff had said, “why don’t you just stay here a while, that way you don’t have to bother with Mom.”
“Mom needs me.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Geoff said.”And I don’t think you need her.”
And if the latter could not be verified, the former could, for only a few weeks later Ann Ford was not in need of anyone as she died watching Oprah. Again, going through the house, cleaning out things, Liz was startled to discover, sitting on her parents’ bed, that she did not miss her mother either.
And the next morning she had gotten up a half hour before Geoff to prepare the coffee for him, and so things had been. They did not change, not really, until today. On this bed in the nurse’s office.
“Liz?” Hannah whispered. “Liz Ford, honey you’ve been staring off into nothing for the last few minutes. Now what’s wrong? Of course it wasn’t always like this. What’s going on?”
“I’m a mess. I don’t... I don’t know what to do,” Liz said. “I can’t... I don’t think I can keep doing what I’m doing.”
“What are you doing?”
“That’s just it!” she came to life. “I can’t go forward and there’s certainly no going back. I am so stuck right now. I feel like I’m dead. I want to... I think I want to leave.”
“Life?” Hannah tried, warily.
“Sometimes,” Liz confessed. “But that’s not what I meant. I meant... Home, only I don’t know... where to go.”
Hannah was quiet a while. She dropped her eyes and sucked in her breath before speaking.
“Elizabeth?”
Liz looked at her, dully.
“The other day me and Will were talking about you. He said, ‘She sure is a nice girl. I wish we could help her.’ Liz, if you want someplace to come 8411 Shuster Street is always open to you for as long as you need.”
Liz looked at Hannah in amazement, not knowing what to say.





That whole night Liz seemed, to her brother, to be in a trance, albeit a happy one. The food was actually good, and Bobby commented on this.
“We’re having the first meeting of the basketball team tonight,” Bobby was saying.
“Already?” said Geoff, reaching for a roll.
“Yeah, we couldn’t call it practice because we don’t really have a team to play against. I was thinking about dividing the boys we have into two teams. And then I thought maybe next week I’d go talk to the priests over at Evervirgin—”
“Evervirgin!” interjected Geoff.
Liz just sat down and drank her water.

Thursday morning, Geoff woke up to the sun in his eyes. Which never happened. He had hit snooze on his alarm, thinking it was wrong because he couldn’t smell Liz’s coffee. But when he came downstairs in the early morning, there was still no Liz. What was more, he realized that he’d missed eight o’clock Mass. Walking into the kitchen Geoff found, in her big, sloppy handwriting a note.

BIG BROTHER,
I HAD TO LEAVE. I REALIZED IT LAST NIGHT WHEN I WAS TRYING TO SLEEP. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE ALONE NOW THAT BOBBY’S HERE. I’M LIVING ON SHUSTER STREET.

LOVE,
LIZ

P.S.

XOXOXOXO!!!





Geoffrey Ford was so mad he could have hit something. The door opened and in came Bobby.
“You finally woke up, are you feeling alright?” asked the priest.
“I covered the eight o’clock for you. Anytime you need me to, let me know, alright?”
“Liz is gone,” Geoff said breathlessly. “She decided to move away. She’s gone.”
Robert Heinz seemed to be considering this for the moment, then he said, “It’s probably best. She didn’t belong in a rectory anyway.”
Before Geoff could recover from that there was a ring at the door, and he went to answer it.
“Chayne!”
“Good morning, Geoffrey,” Chayne Kandzierski was leaning against the door. “May I come in?”
“Come on in,” Geoff gestured to the living room, genuinely glad to see Chayne. “You’re hanging out in the rectory a lot this year.”
“Yeah,” Chayne didn’t look pleased by this.
“Can I get you something?” Geoff asked.
“No, your sister said you might want to talk is all.”
“Chayne?”
Chayne looked at the other man in black.
“You have to be Chayne Kandzierski,” Bobby offered his hand.
Chayne, reluctantly, offered his hand, and Bobby shook it briskly.
“Father Robert Heinz,” he identified himself. “You can call me Father Bobby,”
“Do I have to?”
“As you wish. I’m looking forward to getting to know you, Chayne. I’ve gotta be off now.” Robert Heinz clapped Chayne on the back, and Chayne waited for him to go before he said to Geoff, “I can understand why you hate him. I hate him, already myself, and he’s not even in my territory.”
“Oh, by the way, Chayne,” Robert Heinz shouted, coming back down the stairs with his coat in hand, “When you get the chance, I want to talk to you about the music. There a couple of changes I’d like us to make, alright?”
“Okay, it’s official,” Chayne decided while the new priest was leaving. “We hate him.”
“I don’t... hate him,” Geoff said.
“Well, Father Popularity Poll, while you try to convince yourself of that, why don’t you let me help you?”
“What?”
“Liz came over the night before last and asked me to talk to you.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. Now, let’s talk. This is the kind of thing I generally try to avoid, but now that I’m here.....”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Which brings us back to the popularity poll.”
“It was not a—”
“Geoffrey, stop.”
“It’s just that he’s so wonderful, and I’m so.... Geoff.” Geoff said.
“And what’s wrong with Geoff? I mean, criminally wrong?”
“Look Chayne, I don’t feel like this right now.”
Chayne started to talk, then said, “Well good, because neither do I,” and turned around for the door. As he was opening it, Geoff said: “Chayne!”
“Yes.”
“Look at me!”
“I’m looking,” said Chayne, patiently.
“Would you say that I’m impressive? Would you say that I’m attractive. Really?”
“I’d say you’re average,” Chayne answered too weary to be less than honest. “No better, no worse. You’re a priest, Geoff, you don’t have to be attractive. Your genes aren’t getting passed on.”
When Geoff was about to say something, Chayne added.
“And I’m average too. What’s the problem? Why does everyone have to be tall and beautiful.? Why does everybody have to be somebody?”
“That’s easy for you to say. You are somebody.”
Chayne laughed outloud.
“This is all I have,” Geoff said. “And now this... Bobby just walks in and takes it, makes camp. He even sent Liz packing.”
“Liz?”
“Liz left this morning. I—I don’t know what to do... about anything.
“Chayne?”
“Yes?”
“What did you do... when you realized you couldn’t stay back East anymore?”
“You know what I did, Geoff. I came here. I came home.”
“Oh.”
“Only, you’re already home.”
“Well, what did you next?”
“I’m still doing it. You wait for the next step.”


TOMORROW: THE CONCLUSION

 

[CharmedFan28]

So Liz made a big decision to move? I think that will be good for her even if Geoff does not see it that way. Great writing and I look forward to the conclusion tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Liz has gotten desperate and had to shake things up no matter if she's ready or not, and that is going to force Geoff to contront a few things too.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“Is everything all right?” Will asked Liz when she came back down from the spare room.
“Ah, yes,” Liz looked around the cluttered living room.
“Sorry everything’s such a mess,” Will Decker said.
“Oh... oh, no,” Liz said. “I just... really appreciate you all having me.”
“We’re glad. We were saying you needed a friend,” Will modified this with a smile. “Or… that you needed to realize who your friends are. Hannah went to the store. She’ll be back in a minute.”
“Do you really think the new priest is better than my brother” Liz started, and was embarrassed at the juvenile nature of the question.
Will folded down his paper before asking:
“Do you really think he’s better looking than me?”
Liz looked levelly at Will and then both of them laughed at each other as Hannah came through the door with two grocery bags.
“There’s more in the car,” she said. “If you’re all free enough to laugh, you’re free enough to get a bag.”
Liz was first out the door, and as she came back in with two bags, Hannah said, “I don’t feel like cooking tonight. I feel like drinking after choir practice—”
“That’s right, there is choir practice tonight.” Liz remembered placing the bags on the counter.
“Then,” Hannah said, nodding. “I think we should go to the Blue Jewel. I need to smoke and drink and laugh my troubles away.”
“Troubles?” said Liz.
“Piano troubles, bill troubles, kids at the school troubles.”
Suddenly Hannah threw back her head and screamed. Then she smiled brightly. “I feel better now.”
“Good,” Liz said, smiling.


“Encore!” Chayne and Shannon shouted, but Hannah shook her head and sat back down, while the Comets decided what else to play.
“You want something to drink?” Amber asked. “I’ll even be nice and make it on the house.”
“How do you make money? No,” Hannah smiled. Then said. “You know what, I’ll have a Coke.”
“What about you Liz?” Amber said.
“You know what,” Hannah elbowed her, “Drink on me, Elizabeth!”
“Ah... A strawberry daiquiri?” Liz seemed to be looking at the other two women for permission, and they laughed.
“It’s allowed,” said Hannah. “But maybe you’d rather have a Brandy Alexander.”
“I’ve never had one.”
“It’s hot,” said Amber. “For the cold weather. I wish I could have a Brandy Alexander,”
“That’s right,” Hannah touched Amber’s stomach, “You’ve got a baby coming. When’s it due?”
Amber rolled her eyes: “May.”
Amber went off behind the bar.
“What are you looking at?” Hannah started. Then, eyes widening: “Who are you looking at? You’re—” Hannah started to laugh.
“What?” Liz blushed.
“Nothing,” Hannah shook her head and smiled. “Nothing.”
“Hannah!” Liz tried to get Hannah to tell her what was so funny, but by the time the drinks arrived, she knew it was useless.
The Brandy Alexander was going to Liz’s head, and Hannah got up to talk to Chayne.
“Did you know that Liz likes Diggs?” Hannah said without introduction as Shannon and Amber burst out laughing.
“She told you?” Chayne marveled.
“No, She just eye fucks him so hard I can’t believe he still walks straight.”
“Well,” Chayne leaned closer. They were both whispering over the Comets music, “what would you like me to do about it?”


On Friday, when Liz came home, she laughed the moment she walked in through the door.
“What are you laughin’ at?” Will demanded from his easy chair, smiling as he pushed the hair out of his face and rumpled his newspaper.
Liz shrugged. She was laughing because she had called 8411 Shuster home, and the word seemed right.
“I actually feel like it’s Christmas,” she said.
“If it feels like Christmas now,” Will said looking around the cluttered house, “wait till we start to decorate. Wait till we,” he raised an eyebrow, “bother to clean.”
That night Liz was in her room going over papers because there was nothing else to do, though they might end up at the Blue Jewel or even Chayne’s house. She had ignored the ring at the front door when she heard Hannah tapping on the door of her room and Liz opened it.
“Someone’s here for you,” Hannah said, excitedly.
Liz looked perplexed, and as she did, Hannah began to pull the brush on the dresser through Liz’s hair. “Now go,” she said, shoving the other woman down the narrow flight of stairs.
“Come down slowly, Liz,” Will told her, smiling.
More perplexed, Liz obeyed and glided—to the best of her ability—down the stairs.
When she was downstairs, she gasped.
Standing in the middle of the living room, hair combed ridiculously neat, a small bouquet of grocery store flowers in his hand stood Jason Dygulski, hamster faced and grinning,



THE END

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great ending! I have really enjoyed this story and look forward to other great ones like this one.