Feeling as if I was batting at least three hundred there at the rectory, I thought it was time to step up to bat or at least phone Ireland. I picked up the phone early the next morning to break it gently to Terry about my whereabouts. There was, of course, no answer. I couldn't decide if he was there and was refusing to answer the phone, or if he was out. I left a message: "I'm here; I'm not happy, me." He still didn't know where to reach me, but then if he was really interested, he would have been home. So, for the time being, I would keep my little secret about living in Grimbald's house, which I knew would send Terry into orbit. He hated Grimbald with a passion, and the very idea that I would condescend to move in to take care of him would be so thoroughly outrageous, Terry would probably refuse to speak anyway. He would, of course, give no credence to the Old Guard schemes and dreams, so using that excuse was an idea not worth the power to blow it to Hell. So, considering everything, I would just let him wonder. He didn't need to know anything anyway.

On the Thursday following the dinner party with Yoyo, I tagged along with Grim to the August Parish Council meeting, carrying a whopping tray of cookies I knew eight men couldn't finish off in an hour, and a relatively sober gallon of punch called Fen which was only really poisonous after a day in the sun when the bricks that held the lid finally blew off.

"It's the least I can do," I had explained to Father in a voice that came out from under a creamy, light strawberry shortcake. "For all the men who give so many hours of hard work and selflessness to the parish."

"That's very magnanimous of you, Anne, considering."

"Considering? Considering what?"

He looked at me and paused. "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."

"Really?"

"We'll go over at seven."

Father and I came in last after the PC members had made themselves comfortable. Father carried the punch bowl and ladle, and I carried the cookie tray bearing seven cookies designed for each of my men this evening. How enchanted they would be to know that I had worked so brilliantly to celebrate each member: The Triple Chocolate Cake with a soft chocolate drip center and a glob of fudge icing were brilliant. That award winner went to Flitcher Kuchen for his ultimate and complex greed. His theory was too much too soon and now.

Then there were my Dandie Dereks, dark and light choco-butterscotch-chip with cashews. That cookie was just made for Derek Chimes because you never knew which side you were on or which tasted better. If indecision killed, you were dead with Derek. Maybe I should change their names to Deadly Dereks, at least for the cookbook.

Then, without a doubt, the Peanut Butter Crunch Turbans with a Hershey's kiss were aimed beautifully at capturing Churl Feuchingham, in honor of his self coronation theme; turbans fit him so well.

Hermits dipped in chocolate were perfectly designed just for Mark Mitten, the man who hid from nearly everything until he was knee deep in it.

The Ginger Spice with cream cheese frosting called to the floor Jackson Blacking and his caustic personality; a little ginger went a long way.

Jam Cookies had Noddy Berryringer written all over them and all over him too as I knew he would snarf them up so fast that remnants would show for days on his face.

And the Russian Teacakes with a kiss inside couldn't have defined Thumper Muller better and accounted better for his big dopey poor honest boy neglect of himself and the world.

Grim couldn't take his eyes off the ten-pound tray of cookies that stayed wrapped until after I poured the Fen into the punch bowl. The smell of the Fen drifted into the air and like a magnet drew the whole herd's attention.

"Stay away from the punch, Grim," I whispered. "You won't like it; it's really sweet." I opened a soda and pushed it into his hand, and then unwrapped the cookies and moved out of the way. The stampede was of genuinely chivalrous proportion, making jousting seem a tame little sport in comparison.

In less than three minutes, half a gallon of Fen was consumed, leaving red drink lines above lips. In six minutes, the Fen was on its way to the bottom of the punch bowl while the tray of cookies were disappearing at a prodigious rate one sweetie at a time, and that was good because Fen needed a sugar high to give it a real wallop.

"Father, we can't begin," whined Noddy Berryringer, the tall dark nothing lifting one paw as if he were swishing flies. If there was one person nobody got along with it was Noddy Berryringer. He built his reputation by working for the parish in every fund-raising capacity there was for years as a volunteer and became known to nearly everyone as the parish busy body. He never had a real appointment, but he still managed to get himself a desk and then an office which he turned upside down as well as inside out. He mauled the parish computers and finally the staff. It was said, he was the orchestrator of Grabber Yoyo's war on the Old Guard teachers, the brains behind the firing lines. Noddy Berryringer slid and oiled himself into one thing after another until his father finally paid the parish to hire him as some kind of developer. Developer, I thought in the old days, would have been just right. He could have gone into some dark closet and then blown himself up.

"Oh?" quizzed Grim to Noddy whose face was still whining, but whose voice had given up.

"Churl isn't here."

"Where is Churl?"

"Well, he stayed in the parking lot to make sure no one took the end spot."

"What end spot?"

"He's out guarding the last triangular parking place marking that hangs over the last rectangular spot."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Noddy. Would you go get him, please?" Grim sighed.

Flitcher Kuchen, wearing a broad red lip; neared Grim and I as we stood a few paces from the cookie tray. Flitcher's eyes were at half-mast, and I figured the Fen would give him a headache large enough to shut 'em both in about an hour. "I believe this is a private meeting, Father," and he thumbed his finger at me and winked as if he and Father had a private understanding.

"It is, Flitcher, but it's not a confession; it's a meeting. The meeting has minutes and the minutes are posted. So what's the problem?"

"It's not a tea party either, Father," announced Jackson Blacking in a mildly caustic voice, his eyes narrowing to either the punch or the idea. Grim never appreciated even the mildest acid, and Jackson was usually caustic and it grated on Father's nerves. Jackson and Thumper Muller were the only elected members of the Parish Council. All the others were part of either the Robber Barons (the finance squad) or the school board. Jackson and Thumper thought they were a cut above the rest just because of their elections, and they loved to swagger in and parade ideas around as if they were brainstorms with consequence. Little did they know that their wives had actually beaten them in the election, but Grim didn't like women on the parish council, so he fixed the numbers with a wave of clericalism. I found that out from Lovey.

"Jackson, we are a community of believers. Anne is part of the community, and so are her gifts of time, talent and cookies." He winked at me and I bowed at him. Some of the men in the room exchanged looks. It was the kind of look that signaled a social danger: Grim seemed to be separating from the herd. Just then, Churl Feuchingham appeared with Noddy Berryringer. They came straight over to the punch bowl and took the last of it. Churl's big mushy hand went around three cookies at once and deposited them into his mouth.

"I believe, Father, that the community has already issued its report on Mrs. Lynch," cut in Thumper Muller whose voice began to drag pathetically in a "you've got to believe this Padre; I'm a poor honest fellow" routine.

"What does that mean, Thumper?"

"It means this council is not in favor of Mrs. Lynch accompanying you to meetings," Jackson Blacking added boldly in what I thought was an attempt to beef up Thumper's half-simper.

"Oh?" Father was oh-ing a lot this evening. It was often his excuse for not entering a conflict. Conflicts were painful and expensive. Hurt enough feelings, and Grim would have the whole parish to play in all by himself. Then over slunk Churl as if to hold court, a primitive court, a court of box tops and beetle jars for sure, but none the less important in the eyes of the beholders.

Churl Feuchingham was a self made man. He had "drug" himself up by his tennis shoes and often aspired to return to them. Churl would have been the decent sort if he could have kept his pomp at home. His parents named him Charlemagne, which in any vernacular is a beautiful name, but because they were Ovansvillians, they pronounced Charlemagne, Churlman, or just Churl for short.

"This council, Father Grimbald," began Churl in one of his puffy, grander than grand beginnings featuring enough pomp and chomp on his tongue to interfere with his cookie eating, "is in serious (chomp, chomp) doubt about the true and realistic (chomp, chomp) value of Mrs. Lynch residing (chomp, chomp) at all in the parish rectory for any and all reasons (chomp, chomp) as a matter of parish protocol, and propriety," and he paused to put another cookie in his mouth. "Considering her past and her apparent toll on the community at large, (swallow, gulp)."

"That's too bad," Grim said, cutting him short.

"Do we have to wait for the cookies to be gone so she can leave?" Noddy was not nearly as mannered or persuasive as Churl.

"No, we don't." Grim was holding unbelievably firm. "We'll begin with a prayer. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray. May God grant us the forgiveness we so desperately need and may this meeting be led by charity God Himself showed as He gave His only begotten son as our redeemer. Amen. Can we have the minutes, please, Flitcher?"

"I left them at home," said Flitcher in a voice bearing a child's stubbornness. Flitcher had been a really nice man before he came to St. Scholastica's. I remember him well. The first day he arrived to help Grim with the accounts; he was filled with humor and camp. He laughed and played around with a kind of manly intent often lacking at the parish. He was a breath of fresh air we desperately needed. It took six weeks to clone him into a nasty, empty shell, contemptuous of everyone, mean spirited and then no spirited at all. He became known as the king of the counting house, where he counted out his pennies. He slaughtered widows, young parents struggling with tuitions, the poor, the needy, and especially the down on their luck.

"You left the minutes at home?" Grim was patient, but the patience was collecting like clogging in a big tube.

"Yes, Father Grimbald."

"Did you leave the agenda at home too, Jackson?"

"No."

"Well?"

"We're voting on the new teachers Grabber hired for the new school year," Jackson said without emphasis.

"Why are we voting if they have already been hired?" Another patience clog went into Grim's pipe.

"Grabber said it was a vote of confidence."

"Can someone explain to me why we need more new teachers?" I heard Grim stick a big soundless "huh" in there between the more and the new.

"Well, Mrs. Lion is finally retiring, and Mr. Yoyo feels we need two teachers to cover all she did." Thumper Muller put on his dead bunny face, and Grim studied him with contempt.

"Why is Mrs. Lion leaving? She's been at St. Scholastica's nearly ten years." Grim was pleading at this point, and all at once I wish I had let him at the Fen.

"It's time." Mark Mitten was a member of the school board and had the double power seat of the Parish Council too, so that the school board and the PC could be linked. He was one of those people everyone hit it off with at once. You may have known him only thirty seconds, but he was so comfortable, you felt like you had known him ten years. He was friendly, out going and nice to look at, a genuinely handsome man, but under the handshake, while you were looking into his eyes, he suddenly became so infinitesimally small souled, so egregiously double tongued, so quadruple faced, you never quite knew where anyone stood because he'd agree to anything and one imagined him agreeing with both sides at some trial and being locked up for perjury.

Father Grimbald dug. "How many students does Mrs. Lion have?"

"We don't have that information, Father." Jackson Blacking sat as if he had both Park Place and Boardwalk in his possession. He was looking particularly important. I knew, however, because I met Dotty Lion in the Canyon just after morning Mass. She wasn't retiring, she was "not supported by the parents." And her hamster cage liner was not being renewed because she was nearing forty.

I approached Grim from across the room and whispered in his ear, "She has twelve students, Grim."

"Twelve?" I nodded. "She has twelve students, gentlemen." The men looked at Father like he was a great immovable feast, and he sighed. "OK" He threw up his arms. "Grabber runs the school. Who are the new teachers?"

"Tiffany Schlingersleimerfest and Starlina Hupfermeyermengle," Thumper's mouth moved over the names like they were mind candy, lollipops perhaps.

"Well, is there anything we should know about these women?"

"They come well recommended by the principal."

"Do they have degrees? What are their backgrounds? What is the experience they bring, what happened to vitas?" Quizzed Grim in monotone.

"That information is not available, Father." Jackson Blacking had suddenly built a hotel on Park Place, but the bar was painted green, just about the same color as Jackson's face now that the Fen was taking effect on his lower intestine.

"What can that mean, Jackson?"

"It means Grabber didn't send it over," he was hollering down from his penthouse on Park Place trying desperately to remain at least with the appearance of managing his body. I thought he was losing ground.

"Why not?" Grim was lost in the Never Never Land quality of the big boy room.

"We do have pictures," Thumper pulled two glossy 8x 10s out of a folder, "now look at this one, isn't she a beauty?" There was a clustering around the picture. The boys had to rise to see, and that's when the Fen hit really hard.

Jackson sat with a rather large thump and a few noises that originated someplace south of the border. Churl lowered himself into his seat with great care. I had the greatest urge to ask him about hot frying brain sandwiches and if ketchup and mustard and mayo, or a glob of runny cheese was enough to finish them off, but I was too busy watching Grim.

"I wouldn't like to judge," interjected Grim who looked at the picture with a casual interest. He passed it to me. It was a picture of a very attractive blonde in a bathing suit. I wondered if her IQ matched her other measurements and if she could speak English well enough to find her classroom without a guide dog. Just for fun, I turned the picture upside down and then side glanced at Jackson Blacking and winked.

There was silence in the room as the gentlemen were focusing inward. Grim, who was usually asleep by this time, had been unusually active. He shrunk a little and sighed again. "I suppose there is a motion here?" There was motion, but he didn't see it. Kool-Aid, vodka, rubbing alcohol, yeast, and passion fruit juice made a whole world of motions I could count on.

"I motion to accept the two teachers," said soft shoed Thumper, whose complexion was failing as a whole.

"I'll second it," piped in Marc Mitten, weakly.

"I thought so." Grim heaved again, completely oblivious to the war of the lower world going on in front of him. "Can we afford this?" Silence hung like a crystal chandelier. "Motion carried. What's next on the agenda?"

"The kitchen problem, Father."

"What kitchen problem, Flitcher?"

"The five women who run the school's kitchen."

"Yes, I know, Katy Summers and her ladies. Nice women; they do a nice job."

"Well that may be, Father, but when they make a profit, they keep it." I wondered why Flitcher was not bothered by the Fen, when I suddenly remembered what an anal retentive he was. Of course, he could probably hold the bowels for the whole court.

"Fletcher, that's the agreement. They buy, they sell and if there is a profit, they keep it. It's called a business, theirs." Grim shook his head as if he was drilling math to a special education student.

"That's the problem, Father," said Noddy with a large burp. "They get the profits we should get."

"What are you talking about?"

"If we hire someone at minimum wage to run the kitchen, then if there are any profits we get them." Berryringer sat like a fat cat with the luxury of milk on his face; one licking of milk now would probably produce an explosion.

"Noddy, we can't do that. We have an agreement with Katy," suggested Grim.

"It's an agreement which can be undone."

"What's the profit, Noddy?"

"I don't know, but Grabber is sure it's a fair amount."

"Isn't the first step finding out?" Father was sarcastic for the first time. It seemed his patience tube was full.

"Grabber wants the road cleared, so to speak, so he can hire a new group."

"Does anyone of you have a problem with this?" Sarcasm two.

Silence now hung like a dead rat from the crystal chandelier. Four of the six were stuck in their chairs motionless. Move it and loose it was probably applicable to Jackson, Churl, Thumper and Marc. Flitcher and Noddy were bringing up the rear.

Grim shook his head and looked at me.

"Katy's a nice woman, Grim, do you really want to treat her that way? She makes very little profit, Grim."

"How do you know that?"

"Father Grimbald, this may not be a confession, but it's got its public limits." Jackson suddenly ran from the room. The question was, up or down. It was always hard to tell how Fen would affect the drinker. The question wasn't how hard it would hit; it was a question of which direction. I changed the subject.

"Grim, when I worked in the school, I talked to Katy a lot about feeding the children, and she told me then that she makes about one dollar a day per plate at say sixty plates. Now divide that by five."

"We haven't heard from you, Derek; what do you have to say about this?"

"Well, I'm not sure, Father. I'm just undecided." Derek was like a one lane tunnel with a traffic light. It took a long time to get from one side to another, but Derek was a master of patience so long as he didn't ever have to actually take sides.

"Well, undecided or not," said Grim, "we won't hire our own workers. It would cost us more than sixty dollars a day to hire people."

There was no argument. For the most part, there was no energy left to fight.

"What else?" Grim was not happy at this point.

"Father," began Flitcher, "I think it's time we talk about a certain drain on the parish I think we can stop. The elderly are getting more than their fair share of your time and talent, and the treasure at the palace, I mean parish. Visits to the shut-ins require a lot of your time and then there are the expenses."

"Let's table this," said Grim.

"For next month, Father?" asked Flitcher who held a pencil to his calendar.

"For never. If that's it, gentlemen, I motion we conclude."

The room had no trouble clearing in thirty seconds and that left Grim and me to turn off the lights and lock the doors. I wrapped up the rest of the cookies silently. I didn't say anything as we crossed the parking lot. As we entered the back door of the rectory into the kitchen, I put the cookies down and faced him.

"Don't say a word," he warned, half exhausted and half pissed.

"I don't have to." I smiled and he glared.

"Thank God for celibacy," he said and sauntered out of the kitchen, and I galloped out of the kitchen for a hot bath.

Peace and harmony were neck and neck with the donkey team of tattle and tale. There was some sniveling about Mrs. Lynch poisoning the whole parish, and how the very united PC had brought her to her knees, striking the infidel with the claw of righteousness. The chitchat went on for about a week, but when the name calling began to trespass into Father's sense of peace and harmony, he drew clericalism out of the closet and silenced everyone.

"What was that pink stuff?" he asked me one day.

"Fen."

"Fen? That's an odd name."

"It's an Irish holiday punch used to celebrate the cutting of the peat."

"What's in it?"

"Pink stuff."

"Is that all?"

"That's it."

Avoiding a reckoning on the punch was easier than avoiding Terry any longer than the two weeks it took for him to weasel out of Ellen where I was. He called the parish.

"What the hell do you think you are up to?"

"About page seventy-five."

He was silent. I was silent. He was silent again. I was silent again.

"Well, it's been nice talking to you." I said with what I was sure sounded as if I was ready to hang up.

"What the hell is the matter with you?"

"I have a strong father complex?"

"You're insane."

"Not quite, but I'm working on it."

"Anne!"

"Terry, if I have to write this thing, what better and quicker way of doing it than with a front row seat."

"You re just asking to be hurt again."

"I figure it's like chicken pox; it's a one time thing."

"Why don't you just chuck it and come home?"

"Do you miss me horribly?"

"Not really."

"Then I'll take my chance with the priest."

He hung up the phone. Terry Lynch was the most aloof of all men. He could live with or without anything or anyone. He wouldn't miss me at all, and that was fine. If he did, he needed to tell me, and that he would never do. So, in the manner of thirty years of marriage, I would let him stew and maintain himself like he had always done--by himself--and once in a while he would call me because I would never call him.

"Who was that?" asked Grimbald as he came through the kitchen door just as I put the phone down.

"Terry."

"From Ireland?"

"Yes."

"How is he?"

"I don't know; he didn't say."

"Anne, are you all right?"

"Never better."

He reached out to touch me, but I moved quickly away. I wasn't mad; I was unhappy, and I detested being unhappy. Trying to be kind to me while I was unhappy made me cry. I didn't want to cry; crying made me throw up, so I just moved away and got busy.

Happiness is a relative thing. It is also something that is flighty, momentary and caused by humor. Humor I understood; it comes from incongruent things. It comes from watching a monkey act like a man. On the Saturday just prior to school starting on Wednesday, M&M and Ellen came over to help me move the desk. After early Mass, breakfast and the ascent to the other world of many ablutions, we broke into the old school. Actually, we didn't break in; we used the new copies I had made of the set of Grim's keys I found lying on the table in the foyer. They fit every door in the St. Scholastica's complex including the Tabernacle and the Holy Vessels closet. It was freedom's ring, so to speak.

"Where did you get the keys?" M&M asked.

"From the hardware store."

"You can't copy school keys. It says right on it, 'do not copy'."

"That only counts if the key-guy can read," chimed in Ellen.

"Why are we here?" whispered M&M.

"I'm shopping for a desk."

"In here?" We were moving through the old school and closing in on the cockroach's office. I opened the door and spied his desk.

"It's perfect. I want it."

"You can't take his desk," huffed M&M in her this has got to be a gag laugh she used when she was struck with disbelief.

"Why?" asked Ellen, "he took Anne's job. Don't you think it's tit for tat?"

It took two minutes to dump the girly magazines and the other papers on the floor and three more to take the desk out the side door and across the parking lot to the rectory kitchen door.

"I'll paint it right away. They'll never know."

Actually, it fit the smaller room rather well with the bed pushed up against the wall. I painted it hot pink and put a few dents in the right corner of the top. Then I dug out the lock and threw it away. "Too bad, I said out loud, "but insurance costs."

Sunday was bliss. I attended all the Masses including Good Father Harry's six a.m. There were always more people at six than any other Mass simply because there was no homily. That told you something. Grim knew I was a Mass junkie. We spoke about it only in argument. He thought I was spiritually deformed because I liked sitting through one Mass after another. "That's not the point," he nearly yelled after ten-thirty, trying to force his grander understanding of the faith. Somehow it only seemed to me reservation, conservation, and hesitation.

"There's something about attending the miracle, Grim. I like it."

"But you lose the community when you go off the track like that."

"But I don't go to Mass for community."

"What?"

"I go to Mass for the supernatural."

"Terry's right," he quipped. "You are primitive."

"Nice trump, Pot, but it won't work. I like the ritual, the tradition and the sacrifice and how you and Big Dog present it. I don't like the community. I like being around the hardware better than some of your software members. Candles are warm and community is not. Crucifixes remind one that crucifixions are real, especially at St. Scholastica's; that's why some of us wear beads and medals, and I happen to like the feel of holy water."

"And how does holy water feel?" He couldn't resist laughing.

"Wet."

"You're awful."

"If I'm awful, what do you call someone who never goes to Mass?"

He knew where I was directing traffic: right to Grabber Yoyo's house. Yoyo saw the inside of the church on holy days of obligation when he couldn't avoid going. He usually came wearing the face of someone long suffering. Everybody knew the school principal never attended on Sundays nor did he even belong to a parish. In fact, he was so fallen away, he was absolutely severed. Grimbald slivered his eyes and began to wag his finger in my face.

"Stop."

"A stop?"

"No, you stop it right now."

"I'm primitive and he's a saint. You're making about as much sense as your homily."

"My homily?"

"You're late for confessions." I pointed at the confessionals and looked at my watch. His contempt level rose to the vast high ceiling of the beautiful vaulted church, and I wondered how he was going to squeeze it back through the narrow gate of the confessional. He took off, robes flying, and voice mumbling about hearing sin for a few minutes before Mass.

Grimbald was irritated with me all day and spent most of his time upstairs. I baked a chicken and made over-cooked vegetables and a big plate of chocolate chip chocolate frosted chocolate brownies with walnuts and pecans for dessert that he ate in the kitchen about eight in the evening. It was then I told him I was sorry about the homily crack, that it was a pretty good homily considering the readings, which made him roll his whole head and point to the kitchen and to me, but he didn't say much because his mouth was embracing chocolate with a passion.

Then came Monday, an exceptional day. About nine o' clock there was a knock on the door. Fulbert was saying Mass, and Grimbald was playing cards on his computer, so I answered the knock. There stood Yoyo with a face like a sawdust doll stitched together in a mad face.

"Yes," I said as evenly as I could for one word.

"Give me back my desk," every word a drop of purple poison.

"What desk?"

"My desk, you bitch." He looked past me to make sure a black shirt was not lurking in earshot.

"Are you addressing Father's housekeeper?"

"Housekeeper my ass. You're just looking for trouble fawning over that priest."

"What a terribly disrespectful tone we are using. I think I should go in tears to Father and weep openly in shock and grief." Not bad, I thought for a straight middle C monotone.

"Weep away, lady, I have the school board and the parish council as well as the finance committee on my side. Enjoy your last days. You're out of here."

"Really? Haven't you heard of clericalism?"

"What?"

"Clericalism. It's an approach to life through church doors."

Just then, Grimbald descended the stairs, not nearly as well as the nude in Braque's painting, but in good enough form for a man shaped like a pear.

"You have a guest, Father."

"Grabber, what can I do for you?"

"You can tell that woman to return my desk."

"What?"

"She stole my desk, Father."

I stood silently and let him accuse away. Dignity was piling up on my side quite nicely as he whined and stamped his feet. Grimbald looked at me, and I just shook my head to indicate a mild reproach of such meager assaults.

"Is it missing?" asked Grimbald with a no-concern face. Nice deduction, Sherlock.

"She took my desk, Father; I want it back."

"Did you take his desk, Anne?"

"Why would I want his desk, Father, when I have a perfectly serviceable desk of my own."

Grim looked at Yoyo then at me, his mood souring by the second.

"I think it's unfortunate, Father, that this person feels compelled to come to your home and call your housekeeper filthy names especially when it was my idea to invite him to dinner."

"I never said anything to her, Father, I promise," insisted the cockroach, looking particularly low and brown and shiny.

Grimbald covered his face with his hands. "We better call the police if people are breaking into the school and stealing desks."

"You don't need the police. You need to look at her desk to see if it's my desk."

This was a delicious invitation to invade my privacy. That would never do. It was as if Yoyo was forcing him to cross over church and state boundaries--worse than that, female boundariesboudoirlace palace, perfume parlor, pink zone, leading to the red stress zone. I waited calmly without giving invitations or blocks.

"Do you mind if we look at your desk, Anne?" The priest's temperature was rising out of the red into the purple zone very nicely.

"Not at all, Father, make yourself at home. I have a cheesecake in the oven that I have to see about. By the way, do you want a chocolate topping or something sticky with nuts?"

"Surprise me."

"I always surprise you, Pere." My sweet tone made Yoyo's eyes dart between us. He stuck his finger in his mouth as he followed Grim through the house past the swinging door of the kitchen and then into my room.

"The paint is still wet!" called the man at the priest just before the kitchen door pushed open again.

"Anne!" My name in demand only caused me to turn slowly and cock my head at the two men.

"Yes, Father?"

"Is that Grabber's desk?"

"It's mine, Father, but if he really needs a desk, and he doesn't mind hot pink, he can have it. I'll even help him move it over to the school."

"I don't know," said the priest with frustration covering him like a spilled gallon of pink paint.

There was an appreciable silence into which I hummed, "Torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool," so slowly they couldn't detect it, but it made me smile.

"I have a receipt, Father, if you'd like to see it." I paused just long enough to punctuate the tone. "Ellen helped me carry it in from our shopping spree; you can ask her about the desk."

"That won't be necessary."

"Do you want this?" I dug in my purse for a receipt with just an amount written. Perfect, I thought, the used clothing store's twenty-five dollar bill for the new red wool suit I couldn't resist. Grimbald studied the receipt not long enough to count for air. He looked from one of us to the other.

"I won't tolerate this," he began. "Anne, I'm warning you, stay in the kitchen, and Grabber, you stay in the school. Children. That's all you two are. And you," and he pointed to the cockroach, "I don't know what happened to your desk, but if you need a new desk, go buy one and don't charge it to the school." Then he left the room, and Yoyo slammed out the back.

"Point, counter point, fail, point," I hissed.

The cheesecake was delicious.

I invented the cookie fiasco late in the month just prior to the parish picnic. What better cookbook writing ruse than a barrage of old baking queens slaving away in Grim's brand new kitchen, making a real mess and having a ball at his expense.

Two days before the parish picnic, when the tents were up, the barbecue pits filled, the rides hauled in and put together, and the baseball throw game filled with water, the stage was more or less set for the crowds of thousands. It was then I met some of the Dear Ones out in the parking lot after morning Mass. The Dear Ones were the elderly ladies between seventy and ninety something who always went to seven a.m. Mass and congregated afterward to complain about anything worth complaining about in and about the church.

"I think it's disgraceful that the St. Scholastic Tabernacle is back off the altar in the rear of the church." Marcia Revkey was perhaps the most verbal of the ladies. "Did you see where Father Fulbert has removed the candle holders again?" Almost audible sounds followed her initial dissatisfaction as the Dear Ones grumbled to one another privately. It was never your basic whine. It was always a low and menacing rather than an annoying high pitch.

I waited until they were looking for a new topic. Then I said, "I think you are all wonderful to bake cookies every year for the picnic."

"We do it because no one else thinks to," said Marcia in an irritated manner--not at me, but at the parish. She had once snubbed me when I first joined the parish. It had taken two years of going to daily Mass for her to initiate a civil hello. Now I might as well be one of the Dear Ones because we got on famously. They didn't discriminate by age, I found out, only by devotion. As a Mass junkie, I fit right in.

"Marcia, wouldn't it be fun to have a cookie party? I mean, what if we got together and baked cookies at say the new rectory? I would love to help, and we could bake a lot more if we all worked together, and it would be a lot of fun."

"I could bring a bottle of Scotch, and it would be a lot more fun," said the older woman with her glasses falling down to the end of her nose.

"You bring the Scotch and three friends over to the new rectory, and I'll supply everything else."

"When?"

It was Grim's day off. He would be back in from the big Abbey somewhere in the mid afternoon. The crest of the cookie party would take place about three. I calculated it would take about four hours to make a thousand cookies. "Noon," I finally said.

"And that meddlesome priest. Where will he be hiding?"

"It's his day off. He's going up to the Abbey."

"Good. I'll bring lunch."

Lunch brought amounted to ten peanut butter and pickle relish sandwiches. They were unusual, but not that bad, actually. It was not something I would feed the boys, but I wouldn't reject the combination of tastes myself. I poured soda, and they poured in the Scotch.

We ate the sandwiches as I brought out the flour, the sugars, the chocolate and butter and all the other ingredients that make up cookies. Now cookie making isn't a neat project. Just keeping the flour in the bowl can take a maximum effort, especially when the Scotch bottle has been opened over an hour.

Pernicia Coddlebine, age eighty-two, was our official butter creamer. She could still twist a mean spoon. She sat at the table across from her sister, Dementia Coddlebine, also age eighty-two. Pernicia and Dementia had, in infancy, been named Prudence and Daphne, but they had exhibited such wild and malicious behavior toward one another; their father had walked all the way to city hall to change their name to Dementia and Pernicia. Then, as a firm believer in follow-through punishment, he refused to allow them to reverse his action until they were twenty-one. By that time, they didn't care who called them what. "One name is as good as another," they sniped.

Dementia was the "incidental merchant." It was she who put in the salt, the baking powder, and the soda. She tasted everything with the end of a plastic fork. "Not bad," she kept saying. "Not bad, but not good. I'll tell you when it's good." Then she'd taste again and add another pinch of salt.

Maryanne Hemmerschlemmer was our "mix-master." A short fireplug type who always had to have the upper hand, Maryanne listened twice to everything and had everybody repeat themselves so she could. If in the course of the repetition, the repeater missed or differed, she'd butt in and redress the repeater as one of the following: liar, bureau of misinformation or just dumb. It was nearly impossible to tell her anything, but that was okay, because she didn't remember much anyway. She was taking particular delight in weaving the egg mixture into the flower. "It's is the most important part," she kept saying. "This is what really matters, or your cookies will fail-fail, fail, fail, fail," she hammered. Everybody ignored her.

Marcia Revkey would man the oven once the cookies were ready to be baked. She tended the Scotch bottle and watched over the chocolate. She also watched over everybody else including looking out for Grimbald who she was sure would sabotage their afternoon.

I stood back, watching the experts not measure anything and in some respects felt I belonged. They ground sugar into butter, squashed eggs into what became slop, then pushed flour into an emerging dough. It seemed like chaos until the whole mess produced twenty rolls of homemade slice and bake cookies neatly arranged on the table--ready for the oven.

Then the plain dough was dumped into the freezer for a half hour while the ladies opened the Scotch bottle again. We had talked about everyone in the parish who had died recently. They told wonderful stories with a lot of personal details no one would have ever guessed.

"He asked me to marry him," said Dementia.

"He did not," retorted Pernicia.

"He did so. It was New Year's Eve, 1931; we were spooning over by Knight's Hill, and he asked me."

"You and your spoonin'. Trouble with you, Dementia, was that you'd spoon with anyone."

"Got a good man out of it."

"Henry Coddlebine was not a good man."

"He was to me and in ways you'll never know about," she flounced.

"Now Pernicia," said Marcia, "You can't go judge Dementia's husband like that."

"Why can't I?"

"Because you wouldn't want anyone judging your husband."

"Mine was a saint next to hers."

"Weren't they brothers?" I asked innocently and received three frowns that I took to mean butt out.

"And mine put them both to shame," added Marcia.

"Yours! My God, I wouldn't have been married to him for anything." The twins finally agreed on something leaving Marcia miffed.

"What did you say," began Maryanne, and I thought it would go on forever.

"Nothing," finished Marcia, and it was over like cleaning the blackboard, and we were ready for something new.

"Can we agree that in retrospect, men, for the most part, are troublesome?" I intervened again, hoping not to get hit in traffic. All eyes were on me.

"Why are you here, and why is your husband still in Ireland?"

"Because he's my husband and not my dog." They liked that; it made them laugh.

"It sure would be nice to be able to leave mine once in a while, suggested Marcia.

"But look, Marcia, Anne leaves one and takes up with another." They all got a kick out of that and laughed and poured more Scotch.

"Is that what's in the gossip circuit?" I asked with less interest in my voice than in my mind.

"Everybody's watching you, Anne Lynch."

"Just me?" I fished.

"You and that fat priest, what's his name, Baldy or something."

"You know how fond I am of Father Grimbald."

"We know how 'fond' he is of you, honey," the three chimed in together and tittered. "We see it in his face when he winks at you in the Communion line."

"You know, I've known him since he had hair."

"Hair don't mean nothin'."

"I've known him nearly thirty years, Pernicia."

"Well you must be doing something right, deary, because most marriages don't last that long."

"What did you say?" It was Maryanne again, and I knew the liquor was taking effect, so before they were reeling, the cookies still had to be cut and decorated. I got up, laughing and agreeing that marriages were indeed hard to make last--no matter the effort.

By two-thirty, nearly all the baking had been completed. Cookies were sliced, decorated and lined up to receive either powdered chocolate or chips or nonpareils or candy of some kind to make them special. Cookies lay across the kitchen counters like soldiers waiting for battle. Neat formations lined up neat rows resting from the oven, thousands of them. Cookies were squeezed into every possible square inch of the kitchen, making Grim's new home so perfectly disastrous, I though it would give him a basic panic attack when he walked in, which I estimated was any time.

The ladies were twice removed, and the Scotch was nearly gone. It was an early afternoon party atmosphere no man, especially a cleric, should ever be exposed to. I was admiring my effective stage setting when Grimbald walked through the wrong kitchen door.

"What are you doing?" he demanded as he looked at his beautiful kitchen turned cookie factory by the Dear Ones. I posed behind them all and raised my hands as if to say, "Don't ask me."

"Baking cookies," came the unified response as the Dear Ones ignored the cleric and went about their work.

"Anne, can I see you a minute?"

I took a deep breath, crossed the kitchen, and opened the swinging door. Grim was standing with a mustard face, making finger motions that I follow him to some remote part of the house. I ignored him. "Get them out," he whispered.

"I've tried."

"Try harder."

"They're baking for the church picnic," I said as an explanation.

"Get them out," he called quietly to match my efforts.

"Just think of all the new recipes I'm getting for my cookbook."

"Out, out, out."

"Damned spot?" He was purple. "Do you want to help?"

"No."

"Grim!" I stamped my foot.

"Get them out." He only moved his lips.

"Patience is a virtue."

"Out." It looked like a blown kiss so I replied. I was about to return to the kitchen when he lunged forward and caught my arm. "You have five minutes."

"Pot!"

"I thought," he came back with one of his own maliciously rendered in a brutal whisper, "that I only smelled Scotch."

Dementia clung to the swinging door. "You smell more than Scotch, Father, you smell life." She beamed in rare form.

"I'm sure I do, Mrs. Coddlebine, but it's a life I'm trying to avoid."

Marcia pushed open the door, and Dementia flew into Grimbald's arms. "I can see why you like him, Anne; he does seem very affectionate.

"Mrs. Revkey, I'm a very affectionate man, but this is not the time..."

"Well of course it is, dearie, it's a cookie and Scotch party. We have them all the time. You just follow us in the kitchen, and we'll show you one hell of a time."

He was all but drafted into the kitchen and pushed into a chair where he was handed a soda stiff with Scotch. I managed to swap his with mine that was Scotch free, and he nodded in appreciation as he found himself smothered in a frenzy of female excess. They couldn't get enough of his attention. They assaulted him with anecdotes and stories they thought he would appreciate. He laughed and I shook my head, indicating he should not encourage them--especially Maryanne, but it was too late. They had the green light. Their stories turned to questions that mortified him, and he couldn't get away.

"What do monks wear under those habits, Father?" asked Pernicia.

"It depends on what the temperature is, Mrs. Coddlebine."

"Now, Father," began Marcia, looking over the glasses on the tip of her nose.

"Mrs. Revkey, you can't ask me a question like that," he said, choking.

"I haven't asked it yet!"

"Well, don't!"

"I have one," chirped Dementia.

"Save it for a less spirited time," he pleaded.

"I don't see what you see in him, Anne," said Marcia. "He's not as much fun as Henry was."

"How would you know how much fun Henry was?" complained Dementia.

"I know just how much fun he was, Dementia, and so did everyone else in town."

"Oh, my God," said Grim and looked pleadingly at me.

"Ladies, how are we going to package these cookies?" I said to intervene.

"By twos in baggies, and fours in Ziploc bags," called Pernicia.

"I don't have enough, so why don't I take you all home, since I have to go out anyway."

I was trying to rescue him, as I had predicted. I had hurried to clean up everything and took the last batch of cookies out of the oven. I knew it would end the party. The ladies followed me out to the car. I went back in for my purse.

"I'm sorry Grim; they just all arrived. I was hoping it would be over and cleaned up by the time you got home."

He just stared at me with narrowed eyes.

"Don't look at me that way; they're your parishioners. What was I supposed to do, throw them out?"

"Yes."

"Like you did, I suppose?"

"Take them home--now." It was only slightly menacing. I felt a little bad about using the ladies, but something told me if I confided to them that I had invited them over just so I could rescue Grim and build some trust, I think the party would have been a whole lot wilder.

When I returned to the rectory, which still smelled of cookies, Grim was gone upstairs, which meant don't bother me because I'm so irritated I have to lie down. That was fine. I went over to the library and got a copy of Dr. Seuses's Cat in the Hat, which I left on the table opened to the "I always pick up all my playthings and so..." page.

He left me a note that read, "I was encouraged with the fact you pick up all your playthings. However, I am very suspicious of the other good games that you know." He went out for dinner, and I wondered if he was avoiding me out of anger or embarrassment. I bet Ellen lunch on the embarrassment. I put a plate of cookies in his room and the plate came back clean, so I figured Ellen owed me lunch.

The parish picnic was one of those huge events that goes on for days. It takes over the whole church proper in a carnival atmosphere and includes everyone willing or unwilling to work. I had planned, because of the cookie fiasco, to avoid Grim for a few days during the chaos of the picnic just so things would cool off naturally. Staying out of sight meant staying relatively out of mind too--his and everybody else's. Spending three days getting this novel off the ground was my full intent.

If it hadn't been for Flitcher Kuchen, everything would have gone according to plan, but Flitcher arrived at the rectory with a schedule of events as thick as an unabridged dictionary, and a face painted with doltish insensitivity. I left him standing at the door as if nobody was home and cringed in my room, but Grim found him standing on the stoop and let him in through the back door.

"Anne," hummed Grim at my closed door in a happier than I should be with you voice, "Flitcher Kuchen is here to see you." That was my cue to come out looking as if I'd been having a nightmare or at least engaging in a nightmare of my own invention, but I wasn't taking any changes. I appeared, for better or worse, with what I hoped was an "I'm busy make this quick" demeanor.

"Anne," began Flitcher in his long serious face and his slow motion voice. "You'll be taking the long gate east side cookie booth in blue with Mrs. St. Petersburg. I have a list of your hours with me. Please see to it that you are on time and are dressed appropriately. We expect that you are available to set up tables, clean up trash and take the tables down at the end of the social. Do you have any questions?"

"Are you asking me to volunteer, Flitcher?" The end of my sentence stressed Flitcher, especially the ch.

"I don't understand your question."

"Are you inviting me to participate in the social functioning of the parish? I mean that's a big responsibility."

"Here are your hours, and here are the guidelines for turning in your cash. There are cash monitors."

I looked at Grimbald who was smirking and ready to laugh.

"I hadn't planned on deserving this, Flitcher. I suppose I should be very grateful to you."

"Everybody helps, Anne."

"Everybody helps what, Flitcher?"

"I think that's all." Flitcher lifted his head with his face still long and forlorn and left.

I glared at Grimbald. "Everybody helps," he said and burst into laughter. I threw the papers at the man in the killer whale suit. "You made the cookies, Anne. It seems only right that you sell them for the parish, especially considering you used my kitchen, my brand new kitchen when you could have used the school."

"So you set this up!"

"What better way of making yourself visible in your new job than to spend three days selling cookies."

"Three days?" I grabbed the papers off the floor and looked at the time sheet. The two-hour time slots were all circled. He left me in the kitchen tearing up the time sheets and the guidelines for turning in my money and disappeared into the house.

I didn't see him again for the next three days. While he sought the lights and the action of the circus with the natural child's curiosity that lingers into the adult lives of most people, I fumed about having to be gracious to the ungracious St. Scholastica's parishioners.

Everyone was there I least wanted to see. Ellen and I were selling some of the palace cookies when two of the nastiest gossips in the parish presented themselves at our booth. Harriet Sispool and her sidekick, Desdemona Fishbite, stood with arms akimbo, looking not unlike Disney character harpies.

"Ladies, what a lovely surprise." I was cheerful and about as charmed at their presence as I would have been had a skunk wandered into the unguarded circle of one of my nearly floor length skirts.

"We don't agree with Father hiring you," blurted out Harriet in her finest lack of tact style that could only be compared in a culinary class to minted butter.

"He didn't," said Ellen, slamming a hard wooden spoon on Harriet's minted butter.

"Who did?" demanded Dizzy Desdemona, whose eyes seemed always a bit exophthalmic, not unlike a Betty Boop doll, so it was hard to take her seriously even when she spit out her words into your face.

"The parish council and the abbot," said Ellen in her best schoolteacher, don't argue with me, young lady voice she could muster in three seconds.

"Nuh un," they said in unison and then looked at each other and squinted as if they were silently working on a new gossip thread.

"Uh hun," I responded.

"Nuh un," commented Harriet, quite possibly unable to work for very long.

"Harriet, dear," I began in a smooth inclusive voice, "the abbot wanted someone here he knew and trusted to take care of Fr. Grimbald." I paused just long enough to let the words ricochet in their heads. "Desdemona, you know you can't just feed a monk anything."

"Why not?"

"Because even in his ordinary life, food has to have a nature that is conducive to enhancing his supernatural life."

"Well, I don't know about that. He doesn't seem very supernatural to me."

"Really? Do you mean you've never seen him glow in the dark?"

"Nuh un."

"Well, you should come by one evening while he's taking the garbage to the curb."

"Now why would Harriet want to watch him take the garbage to the curb?"

"I don't know, but the abbot was very convinced I should, so he called me in Ireland and sent me the plane fare."

"Nuh un."

"Uh hun."

"Nuh un."

I wasn't sure where this was going exactly, but the vocabulary was such a delicious treat, and keeping up with her was no trouble really, and it was lots of fun in comparison to what was slinking up to the cookie booth.

Thumper Muller brought himself up tall next to Noddy Berryringer who slumped with his hand out. I put a cookie on his palm, placing it there as if I were placing the winning chip on the wheel of fortune.

"Money, money," he demanded in a clipped and edgy voice.

"Money, money? What money, money?" I hurried along too.

"You know, Anne, what we're after." Thumper's head dropped to the side. His remarkable ability to look like a sad version of Huckleberry Hound gripped me, and I started to laugh at him.

"That's illegal in this state," Harriet exclaimed with great hostility and ill purpose. Harriet was not about to let Thumper invade her nasty space.

Silence after laughter is a beautiful thing. I dreamed I was a clown and someone just shot the ringmaster. The whole parade was a mouth-watering fiction.

"Can we have your money, Mrs. Lynch?"

Ellen stepped forward. "Stand up straight, Noddy, for goodness sake; you look like a thief. Now what if I tell your mother how rude and vulgar you are?" Noddy wasn't paying attention at all to Ellen, who had been his teacher once; he just spied the cashbox and in quasi coordination climbed over the table on the way out as he had climbed in. But out seemed not as easy as in. He smushed the cookies as he tried to sail over the booth. He caught an impatient penny loafer in a giant cellophane bow that had been attached to the table with duct tape and it began to topple. Thumper's face turned from Huckleberry Hound to Hound of the Baskervilles for just a moment as the cash box went up in the air. He managed to catch the box from the falling Noddy who at last crashed to the ground taking the table and the cookies with him. All that was important was saved and Baskerville went back to a Huck face.

"Does this mean time out?" I heaved at Ellen who was snickering in the rear of the tent. As the two left our booth with the table still toppled and the cookies scattered, but the box tight in their hands, the ladies Desdemona and Harriet stood by with their mouths open.

"How much was in the cash box?" asked a nosey Desdemona.

"Not much." I whipped out a stack of singles, fives, tens and twenty's from the pocket of my apron that would make even Ovensville a dangerous place.

"Serves them right," snorted Harriet.

Harriet and Desdemona helped pick up the table and the cookies. "You know what I've heard about Berryringer?" I dropped the gossip quip and in five seconds drool began to form on lips. "I heard Noddy is going to become a monk."

"He's married!" protested Desdemona.

"For now, but you know Noddy."

"Serves him right," said Harriet and the two took off with their gossip trophy.

"Now what does that mean? Whose side is she on?" I asked.

"She doesn't know."

"Well, it all should backfire nicely once one of them tells another of them who and what of it all. Gossip circles are a bit..."

"Fast playing like old 38s?"

"Too bad they don't backfire like an old 38 revolver and blow one of them up."

"Watch out; flesh fallout."

"True. It would seem like a butchery."

"Glue factory."

For three days I watched the parish pass me by. It was a remarkable parade with nearly everyone finally making their way to the cookies. Grim was right about being visible. Ellen and I were center stage. That of course meant Ellen and I needed the right costumes and just the right demeanor. We wore moderate smiles, a little like mimes, and we carried fly swatters. It was enough; overdoing it in Ovensville in late July would have amounted to re-baking everything in sight in the ninety-two degrees and one hundred percent humidity when it wasn't raining.

In the evening, while the soupy steam from the day hung like a wet towel, Ellen and I received a small honor--a visit from the Red Queen, Kathleen Fostoria-Mench Haggemeister. Kathleen was one of the parish's most elevated members. She was elegant where even elegance feared to go. She wasn't exactly born to it; more, she was borne in spite of it. Kathleen was originally from over the river and through the woods, and had escaped her less than regal past with changing her name from Frostyman to Fostoria-Mench. Ellen often remarked that Kathleen had a remarkable ability to "reconcile trailer trash with a brand new version of Versailles."

Kathleen Fostoria-Mench had finally, at the late age of thirty-eight, acquired a husband with a serious name, Lord Haggemeister. She quickly did the family thing and settled in one of Ovensville's finest homes where she spread out her kingdom as far as she could see in any direction.

Her sister was not quite so lucky. Cynthia Fostoria-Mench fell in love with Paul Czychen, pronounced "chicken," and became Cissy Czychen. Kathleen was horrified at the impending nosedive her sister was taking and almost refused to go to the wedding. At the pre-cana classes, she made her voice very clear when she threw Grim's teapot out the window and it broke perpendicular ceiling to floor panes with a single effort.

She never quite got over Cissy's poor choice in men and punished Cissy by making her wear her hand me downs and walk five feet behind her on the gallop. Cissy was not as bright as the Red Queen or as lucky. Fame and fortune seemed to fall on Kathleen and she and Lord had two sons, Fenwick and Brisbane, and they lived in ever increasing wealth and status. And Kathleen schemed and planned to rule Ovensville with her unusually myopic eye. The trouble was, Kathleen just couldn't get appointed or elected to anything no matter how hard she tried. She did everything from starting her own school to running for every single volunteer action available in the city that would give her a working run at managing the world. She ran for everything at the parish from School Board to Parish Council, to head room mother and PTA president, but she kept losing. It was the trauma of her life.

Part of Kathleen's problem was her attitude. She always breezed in as if she owned the place and people resented it. No matter what high fashioned frock she wore, she was never really impressive. Her hair was always a real mess and her vocal arrangement made her sound as if she was always in a gradient outclass of everyone present. Today, she breezed over to the cookie booth wearing a red Chinese silk full-length chemise with a self-belt. She was either wearing nine layers of full slips, or she coated every square inch of flesh in antiperspirant in order that that red silk didn't become transparent in the heat and cling to her like cellophane on heated glass.

There she stood in hasty reserve, examining the paper plates for a hallmark and sighing as if she had suddenly taken a great step down just standing there.

"Slumming, Kathleen?"

"Don't start on me, Anne; I'm not in the mood."

"Kathleen, the cookies are on top of the plates."

"What's in these?"

"Toads and snails and puppy dog tails."

"The boys are such picky eaters. I don't know."

"If you really want them to eat the cookies, buy them for yourself, and tell them not to touch. They'll be gone in thirty seconds."

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I'm writing a cookbook."

"Aren't you supposed to be living in Texas or something?"

"Ireland, it's a suburb."

"Ellen, has that fly swatter been used around these cookies?"

"No. It was only used on Noddy Berryringer."

"I'll take the chocolate ones. I suppose I can freeze them for Christmas."

Kathleen walked off with her undistinguished plate of chocolate turbans. As I watched her try to keep her spiky heals from puncturing the ground, walking ever so carefully on her toes, I saw in the distance Amberchrystalmistydawn Blitz tete a teting across the bazaar ground with her heart's throb, Elliot Strawhouse.

"My Goodness," I said and I pointed at the cupcake who seemed to be trying to use Strawhouse as a pole climbing event. "Is that some rude attempt to requite love, or is that some strange aberration of courtly affection?"

Ellen spied me with contempt. "It's neither; it's spawning."

"You mean spooning?"

"If I meant spooning, I would have said spooning. I didn't. I said spawning. People spoon; catfish and other low vertebrates spawn."

"Well, spawn or fawn, there's a lot of it going on over there in the shadows. I wonder if they know just how bright the moon is?"

"Mmmmmmm." It was enough of a response.

The height of the evening was an unexpected visit from the abbot who came down to St. Scholastica's to give witness and approval for the parish event. He came by the cookie booth to receive his gift of a dozen free cookies and his usual plate of compliments he ate up about as fast as he swallowed the triple chip cookies.

"What are you doing back in town?" he asked with a very pointed interest.

"Making trouble."

"Not too much trouble; I don't want to hear about it," he said, wagging his finger and offering a sick kind of half a laugh while his eyes remained on the cookies.

"Well then, don't listen too closely." I smiled broadly and put a few dozen in a nice basket and handed it to him.

"I always listen closely."

I looked at him with one of those disapproving looks while I thought about listening closely and what it would have meant to the Old Guard teachers if he had really listened and then stepped in during the war of the worlds two years earlier.

"Really?"

"Anne, you are the most annoying woman. Don't be an annoying woman." He wagged his finger again at me. "Be quiet; be controllable."

"My darling abbot. You know that my life begins and ends with your affection. If it weren't for your visits, I'd be traumatized for life. The only thing worse about being here is that you're not there."

He tried to register what the word combination could have meant and apparently he couldn't quite decide what I meant, so he responded with "Where?"

"In Ireland."

"How's Terry?" He changed the subject; it was more to his liking.

"He's having the time of his life keeping things going while I'm here taking care of Grim."

He looked as if there were again too many words to clarify and said, "Well, I'm going to go." And he abruptly left which he was inclined to do.

I smiled and whispered to Ellen, "Didn't his mother teach him to do that before he left home?" Ellen elbowed me in the side.

"Listening, my front teeth. If he had really listened when we asked him to," griped Ellen, "it would have been the difference between living in the Garden of Eden and outside the walls."

"Yes, but if he had listened, that would have meant Grimbald would have had to repair the damage Yoyo did to the garden walls. Grimbald didn't, doesn't and never will have any tools to repair anything nor any talent for building even if he could find the damage."

"We should have told him that."

"Grim?"

"No, the Abbot."

"Not a chance, Ellen. I never risk he'll melt into one of his screaming tantrums. Don't you remember what I once told him about Father Alaric's Mass? I found myself the target of his disaffection. It was so thick; I thought I was swimming in yellow pudding. I tried for a year to digest being a heretic and the single reason there are no vocations in the world."

"Pretty powerful gas," said Ellen with thumbs up.

"So is methane."

The parish � shocked than wet and when she told him his next baptism would be by fire, everyone watching roared.