I stood in front of St. Joseph’s church, trying to work up the courage to go inside. I knew it was foolish to be nervous about moving forward, but my profession went against everything these people believed in. I was the devil in disguise, walking into their place of worship, and I was afraid that it would be written all over my face.
“Oh hello, can I help you?” an older nun asked as she exited the church.
Thank you, Jesus! I said to myself as I mentally made the sign of the cross. “Umm…yes, I’m an old friend of Hann—I mean Sister Hannah,” I fibbed. I was going to hell anyway, so why stop then. “She said she’d be teaching Sunday school, and I could meet her here.”
She cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses, giving me the once-over before responding. “Oh yes, if you go into the church vestibule you’ll see a door on the right that leads to the church basement. That’s where they hold Sunday school. I believe Sister Hannah’s classroom is the first one on the left.”
“Great. Thanks.” I moved forward, feeling a little better knowing I didn’t have to go past the entryway of the church, and I was going down—which was the appropriate direction, given the circumstances.
My nasal passages flooded with the familiar scent of incense when I walked inside. I inhaled deeply, remembering that eight-year-old girl who was dragged to nine o’clock mass every Sunday morning with her grandmother. Even though I hated it back then, I would have given anything to have just one of those Sunday mornings back, to be with my grandmother once again. She was the only mother figure I had growing up, and the reason I had become such a successful dancer. She’d take me to all of my dance classes and would wake up at the crack of dawn to drive me miles away to my competitions. She was the only reason I didn’t want to leave home to pursue my dream, but she was the one who had pushed me the hardest to go. I knew I couldn’t let her down, so I did. Her dream was to see me perform in my first big show. She was beaming when she was able to make that a reality, traveling across the country to cheer me on, never letting on to me that she was sick. She lost her battle to cancer two weeks later, and I was blindsided with grief. Once she passed away, the glue that held my family together dried up. He was now the only thing left that tied me to that town, and the only reason I’d ever want to go back. I would tear up whenever I thought of him, and the guilt I still harbored because of it. Five long years, and I still couldn’t utter his name. Not even in my thoughts.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled it together and headed down the stairs, returning the smiles of a few parents who had their kids in tow as I passed them in the stairwell. It was funny how I suddenly felt reinvented just by being in the confines of the church walls. These people had no idea who I was or what I did. For all they knew I was just your average church-going mom who stayed home all day and baked cookies while her kids were at school. It was actually fun to imagine myself as someone I knew I’d never be—although maybe a small part of me wished I could be that person. I reached the bottom of the steps and chased that ridiculous thought from my head, focusing my attention to the first door on the left. I peeked in to find the chaos inside Hannah’s classroom as the parents gathered their children’s belongings, some making a mad rush for the door and others standing around gossiping.
“Bree.” Hannah smiled, seeming surprised to see me. “I’m so sorry for inconveniencing you this way.”
“No problem, it’s nice to see how the other half lives,” I joked, but I was fairly certain it went right over her head.
“It looks like all of the parents are here.” She looked around the room, focusing on the little blond boy still sitting at his desk. “Oh, except for Jack.”
“Sister Hannah,” one of the parents called.
“Excuse me just one second, Bree,” Hannah said as she scurried off.
All of the kids seemed to range from two to five years old, and all were little germ magnets with runny noses and hacking coughs, whining at their parents for one thing or another. The maternal moment I had just a few moments earlier was gone. I was as out of place with these kids as Hannah was writing a sex scene. My eyes honed in on the little boy who Hannah had referred to as Jack as he sat quietly at his desk, drawing. He wasn’t like the rest of these kids. He didn’t have snot dripping down his face, he wasn’t breeding germs with an obnoxious mucus-filled cough, and he certainly wasn’t a whiny little brat like the others. This little boy seemed like the perfect little gentleman. If I had to guess, I would have said he was four or five, with sandy blond wavy hair, chubby cheeks, and the most adorable wire-rimmed glasses. Normally I steered clear of kids, but there was something about that little boy that made me just want to hug him. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. If I ever had a child, I would want him to be just like Jack.
What the hell am I thinking? Either I’m borderline kidnapper or just plain old out of my mind.
I walked around the classroom looking at the drawings on the bulletin board while Hannah helped to usher her students and their parents out of the classroom.
“Jack, sweetie, get your coat on. Daddy is on his way and is going to bring you home. I have to go to Aunt Kayla’s baby shower.”
I immediately turned around to see the lucky mother who got to claim that sweet little boy as her child. As expected, she was pretty and very well put together. And for one insane moment, I was actually jealous of her. I watched as she zipped up his coat and pulled his hat down over his head until just the lenses on his glasses were showing. He stood silently as she fumbled through the papers on his desk. I took a deep breath, giving Jack one last look before focusing my attention back to the bulletin board—quickly distracted once again when I heard the woman shout, “There’s Daddy!”
Unable to control myself, I twisted back around to see just how perfect Jack’s daddy was—holding in my gasp when my eyes simultaneously locked with Thursday Afternoon’s. A tight knot formed deep within the pit of my stomach, and I wasn’t sure which of us was more surprised by the encounter. I looked away, turning back around and wishing the floor would open and suck me in. Sometimes my clients chose to share their marriage problems, and as I listened I would always envision some faceless woman as their spouse. So to come face to face with not only a client’s wife but their child was all too real. What was so wrong in their marriage that he needed my services? She was young, pretty, seemed sweet enough, and they had a young child together. For the first time ever I was feeling a little guilty over the effects that my profession had on this family. He was someone’s husband. Someone’s father. He wasn’t just the business deal that I always viewed my clients as.
“See you later, Jack,” I heard Hannah shout.
I waited a few minutes to make sure it was safe to show my face once again, finding an almost empty classroom when I did. I managed to pull it together by the time the last child exited.
“Sorry about that. Sometimes the parents want a play-by-play of what their child did while they were in church for forty-five minutes.”
“No problem,” I whispered. “So are these the same students you teach all week?”
“Some of them are. Some are a grade or two above and some others attend public school. I have the pre-K kids during the week.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip, deep in thought. Jack seemed to be of pre-K age. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was one of Hannah’s students, and if he was, I wondered how much she knew about his mother and father.
“Ready?” Hannah asked as she gathered her belongings.
I nodded, following her out of the classroom, trying to get Thursday Afternoon off my mind and focus on Sunday afternoon instead.
***
“So what’s your story going to be about?” I asked Hannah as we sat down with our peppermint lattes.
She sighed heavily. “I’m not really sure. I’m kind of making it up as I go along.”
I didn’t know anything about writing a book, but I was fairly certain that some type of plotline was needed before you began. “What are the names of your main characters?”
“Barbara and Larry.”
I choked on the sip I had just taken of my latte, failing miserably at my attempt to hide my amusement. I wasn’t into romance novels, but I did watch soap operas—which were close enough—and I knew her characters needed trendier names than Barbara and Larry.
“Don’t you like those names?” She seemed a little upset.
“Oh no, those are very nice names, but I think for a romance novel you need to go with something a little more hip. When I hear the name Larry, I think of someone’s dad or a plumber. You know, just an everyday guy. Don’t you want your reader to think of some hot, powerful businessman with a gorgeous body, crystal green eyes, perfectly chiseled facial features, deep dimples, and an adorable cleft in his chin?” I had just subconsciously described Thursday Afternoon—minus the British accent.
She gazed at me questioningly, waiting for me to come out of my foolish little fantasy. “I thought you didn’t read romance novels.”
“I don’t.”
“Well you sure did a really good job of describing your hero.”
“Oh, that’s from all the soaps I watch. But really, you can make him look however you want. Brown eyes, blue eyes. White, black, Asian.” I tried playing it off. “He just has to be appealing to the reader and not come off as, well…boring. And the name Larry screams boring.”
“What name would you suggest?”
“Hmm…” I stared straight ahead, thinking of some of my favorite soap opera characters. “Dante.”
She turned her nose up.
“Andre, Steele, Grayson…Simon.” Did I really just say Simon?
“Oh, I kind of like Simon.”
Shit! Of course she did! I hoped she would never be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together and figure just who her hero was molded after.
“What about my female character?”
“Again, Barbara sounds like she could be someone’s grandmother or—” I paused for a moment. “Don’t take offense to this…but the name Barbara sounds like a nun.”
She raised an eyebrow at me.
“I’m sorry, but it does.”
Unable to hold back her laughter any longer, she confessed, “I had a Mother Superior who was very kind to me when I first joined. Her name was Barbara.”
“There you go.” I laughed back. “You need a modern name like Taylor, Madison, or Peyton,” I rattled off.
She didn’t seem to care for any of them too much.
“You can think about it. But you get where I’m coming from, right?”
“I do.”
“And are you writing under a pen name?”
“Oh my, I didn’t even think about that.”
“Well, you better. You don’t want it getting out to all of the other nuns that you’re peddling smut,” I joked, trying to get her to crack a smile. She was clearly overwhelmed by everything I was throwing at her. “Maybe your pen name can be Barbara.”
She nodded vigorously in agreement. “What about the last name?”
“Latte,” I replied, looking down at my coffee cup.
“Barbara Latte,” she repeated. “I like that.”
“Great!”
“Bree? Do you have a pen name?”
“I-I don’t follow you?”
“Do you go by a different name to your clients?”
“Sorta.”
“So Bree isn’t your real name?”
“Sorta,” I reiterated.
“I’m confused.” She crinkled her forehead.
“Bree is a nickname for my real name. And no, I’m not telling you what it is. That’s a name reserved just for my family and friends.” I picked up the papers on the table and began to read her story:
She lay on the bed, waiting to feel his manhood blossoming inside her. The yearning inside of her growing as she waited to be mounted.
“What do you think?” she asked in anticipation.
I looked down at the piece of paper once again, trying to pretend I was deep in thought and not on the verge of laughter. I had offended her enough for one day by criticizing her name choices. “Well…” I paused, trying to choose my words carefully but also wanting to be completely honest with her. She wanted the opinion of an expert, and that was what I was going to give her. “First off, the word ‘manhood’—it sounds like a word from the eighteen hundreds that one would use to describe the male anatomy.”
“Oh. Then what do you suggest?” She looked around and whispered, “Penis?” She turned a bright shade of red as soon as the word expelled from her mouth.
“Well...maybe, but it sounds a little too clinical. If you really want to grab their attention, I’d say go with dick or cock. And mounted...it sounds like they’re riding horses. May I suggest that mounted be replaced with fu—”
She covered her ears and shook her head before I could even get the full word out. Her face was now ten times brighter. “Oh no, I could never use those words!”
“You couldn’t, but Barbara Latte can.”
She let out a deep sigh, still seeming a little unsure over it all. “How do you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Pretend to be someone else to your clients. I mean, don’t you sometimes just want to be yourself?”
She had caught me totally off guard with that question. No one had ever asked me that before, because the truth was, very few people knew of the charade I put on when I went to work. “You just get used to it, and after a while you almost become that person—even though deep down inside you despise her.” I looked down at the table, the familiar burn of tears welling in my eyes, knowing I had divulged a little too much, but I was unable to stop myself.
“Then why do you do it?”
I lifted my head and gazed into her sympathetic baby blue eyes.
“Why? If it makes you dislike yourself because of it?”
I shrugged. “Guess for the same reasons people do anything—it’s a means to an end. And trust me, my profession isn’t the only reason for my self-loathing. In a way it just validates it more.”
“You shouldn’t feel that way about yourself. You’re a beautiful, intelligent girl, it’s not too late—”
I put my hand up to stop her. “Please, let’s not go there. It’s fine. I’m fine…now let’s discuss this book.”
She eyed me up with doubt for a moment. I had a feeling she was seeing right through my fake persona. I had never admitted to anyone before just how I felt—not even myself.
By the time I looked down at my watch again, it was almost four, and we had spent the whole afternoon working on Hannah’s book. She seemed a little more amendable to going out of her comfort zone with her story than she had when we first started, and oddly enough I found that I enjoyed her company. We were polar opposites, but she and I just seemed to mesh.
“I cannot thank you enough! Hopefully when we get together again next week, I’ll have a few chapters done.”
“I look forward to reading them.”
“I’m sorry for holding you up all afternoon,” she said as she gathered her belongings and we put on our coats.
“It was actually a lot of fun.”
“It was.” She smiled. “Now I have to go and pay my furry friends a visit at the animal shelter.”
“Oh, how often do you do that?”
“I’m normally just scheduled a few days a week, but they’re really shorthanded right now so I try to go in whenever I can. Do you like animals?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“If you ever get the urge, we’re always looking for volunteers.”
“Umm…that sounds really nice, but I’m pretty booked up.”
“If you change your mind.” She reached into her purse and handed me a business card with the shelter information on it. “I’m there on Saturdays from nine to four and Thursday evenings from six to closing, and whatever other days they need me—like today.”
“Yeah, okay.” I dropped the card in my purse.
“Oh my, it’s really raining out!” Hannah fretted as we stepped outside and the ice-cold drops of water beat down on us.
“Such a waste,” I said, looking up at the sky, allowing the water to pour down my face.
“What is?” Hannah asked as she adjusted the hood on her jacket tighter and stepped back under the refuge of the awning of the coffee shop.
“Rain in January. There should me some rule with Mother Nature that if we must have precipitation in the winter, then it should always be snow. Don’t you think?”
She shrugged. “I never really thought about that before.”
“It’s kind of like a tradeoff. We’ll deal with the frigid temperatures, but give us snow. It makes those cold dreary days of winter a little brighter.” I turned around to look at her. “Do you know what my favorite part of a snow storm is?”
She shook her head.
“When it just starts. The city seems so quiet, so at peace as those first few flakes begin to silently fall from the sky, covering the streets with a blanket of untouched beauty. Then it’s gone. All the magic, all the excitement, and all the pureness that once graced the ground are trampled with dirt-filled footprints, never able to transform back to the flawless, unscathed splendor that it once was.”
I sensed sadness in her eyes as she stared at me questioningly. “Wow, I guess I never thought of it that way. I always saw it as a nuisance, but now that you’ve characterized it so eloquently, I really do see the beauty of it.”
“Maybe it’s just from growing up in a place where it always rained instead of snowed that makes me now see the magic in it. I know, I must sound crazy.” I brushed it off, taking a step back and moving my soaking-wet body under the awning next to her.
“I don’t think you sound crazy at all, Bree. In fact, I think it’s quite beautiful the way you personified it.”
“The way I what?”
“You gave life to the snow.”
“Oh.” I shrugged, not having a clue as to what she meant.
“Did you ever think of writing, Bree? You really have a way with words.”
I roared with laughter. “Um...no. I’ll stick with the research part and you can handle the writing.”
“It could be very therapeutic. Even if you just write in a notebook every day about your feelings.”
I totally brushed her off and pointed to the cab that had just pulled up.
“Oh no, you go ahead. You’re soaked to the bone. I’ll get the next one.”
“Thanks.” I smiled a genuine smile—not the usual forced one I was so used to giving.
“Bree?” Hannah called just as I stepped out into the rain, causing me to turn around.
“Every time it snows its a new opportunity to experience that beauty once again. Just because that snow gets trampled on and dirty doesn’t mean we’ll never see the pureness in it once more. Life is all about second chances. We’re given them all the time.”
I nodded and moved forward, stopping and turning around once again when I reached the cab. “Aubree,” I shouted over the rain. Seeing confusion on her face, I shouted louder, “My name is Aubree.”