Works and Days

 “NEXT MONDAY!” Geoff shouted over the music in the Blue Jewel.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it, Big Brother?” Ann said, patting her brother on the shoulder.

“I don’t want another priest,” Geoff said. “I want,” he added, disconsolately jabbing his spoon into the empty bowl, “another piece of pie.”

“Really?” Jewell raised an eyebrow.

“What? Am I getting fat?” Geoff asked her. Before she could answer, he touched his stomach. “I am getting fat.”

“Will that be ala mode?” Jewell asked.

“Yeah,” said Geoff.

“Well, Geoffrey,” Chayne said while Jewell walked away with the Geoff’s empty bowl, “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 said.

Around them they heard people clapping and, looking up, they all clapped for the band coming off stage while Jewell ran up with the empty ice cream bowl and shouted into 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!”

By then Jason Dygulski, the lead guitarist of the Comets, was sitting with Chayne, Father Ford and Ann, pleased and hamster faced. Ted, still holding his bass, pulled a chair from another table and straddled it, sitting down next to Chayne.

“You all are really great,” Ann was telling Diggs.

“Oh, we’re even better with a singer,” Diggs told Ann. “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 Ted won’t go back up.”

“Really?” Chayne looked at Ted.

Ted gave an entirely too senister smile and Chayne said, “You’ll pay for this.”

“Probably,” Ted agreed.

“Oh, get up!” Ann stopped, realizing how loud and insistent she was. “I mean, come on Chayne!”

Chayne looked sharply at Ann, then archly at Jewell who had returned with more pie, and his friend shrugged at him.

“I love to hear the Comets play,” Ann said, “and I love hearing you, Chayne.”

“Looks like you’ll be singing,” Jewell observed.

 

The doorbell buzzed four times. Geoff from his easy chair called out, “It’s open!”

It buzzed again, and Ann, leaving the kitchen, headed for the door saying, “Here, I come. Oh, hello. Geoff, you’d better come here.”

“Oh,” Geoff folded the newspaper, got up and came to the door to greet a man in a fedora and great coat. He was carrying two suitcases, and Geoff noted the Roman collar.

“You must be Robert Heinz,” Geoff said, making way for the priest to enter and sit his bags down.

“And you must be Geoff Ford,” the new priest shook Geoff’s hand vigorously.

“Let me help you,” Geoff offered, 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 after it, they passed Geoff’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.” Ann said. “You get to look out at More Street. This is a great view. See the desk here, you can look down and see all the kids passing by after school, cars driving by while you write in your journal. If you keep journals.”

Geoff’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 Ann Ford,” Ann said, giving her hand to the priest who shook it.

“Related to Geoff, here?”

“She’s my sister,” Geoff ducked his head.

“Oh, you live around here?”

Ann looked to Geoff 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,” Geoff said. “She thought you would prefer this room, though.”

He wasn’t going to let his sister go unappreciated.

Ann only blushed and nodded.

“Well... why, thank you, Miss Ford—Ann?”

“Ann,” 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.”

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 Geoff, 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 open a little. “Great. I’ll get settled while you do that. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Great.”

Geoff felt strangely relieved when he was out of Robert Heinz’s presence, 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 living room, feet planted wide apart, sniffed the air and pronounced the coffee good, and then went in with Geoff to make himself a cup.

“So, I guess you want me to tell you some thing about myself,” Robert Heinz assumed and Geoff, nodding, said, “That would be nice.”

“Let’s see,” Robert said taking a hand through his hair. Geoff noted—against his will—that not only did Robert Heinz unabashedly take up space, he was tall and dark and very handsome.

“Firstly, I prefer to be called Bobby, none of that fancy Robert stuff.”

“Oh, okay,” Geoff tried to smile and sipped 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,” Geoff 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 Geoff’s dismay, switched back to English.

“You speak Latin?”

“All priests speak Latin,” Bobby said.

“You can converse in Latin?” Geoff 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,” Geoff 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,” Geoff shook his head.

“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 Geoff’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,” Geoff said, nodding. “Yeah. Someone does.”

“So what time is Mass this evening?” Bobby asked.

Geoff 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 too. You’ve done 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 Geoff going to his desk by the large window that overlooked More Street where the yellow school bus was pulling up, “but don’t be too upset if you don’t get very many people.”