“Maybe you could help me out in the church, if you’re not so keen on fashion,” says a gentle, amused voice from behind us.
Great. This is all I need. I turn around a second too slow, just so the guy can really feel the frost. “Idolike fashion,” I tell him. “That’s the fucking problem, Father O’Leary.” I hold up a faded-to-white tee with the wordHypercoloracross the front to make my point for me.
His smile doesn’t even falter. “As I said before, please just call me Aidan. I’m definitely not a Father; just a seminarian helping out where I can.”
Well, that explains the jeans and sweater in place of the cassock and collar. I fake-smile right back at him. “Seminarian, huh?”
Celia, who can tell I’m about to make a vulgar joke, breaks in. “How did the bake sale go on Wednesday, Aidan?”
“Wonderful, wonderful. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there, but I understand you had an ultrasound booked. I hope all is well with the pregnancy.”
Celia’s ears turn red, and she touches the lump under her clothes, a custom-made baby-belly usually used on stage. We got different sizes for different stages of the pregnancy. Celia hates them. But she wears them.
“Yup, all good,” she squeaks. “Great, actually. Just…so great.”
She’s not a good liar, my outlaw sister.
“I can bake some goods for next time,” I say. “Real special brownies, if you know what I mean. People go crazy for them.”
“Um, if you’re referring to cannabis brownies, I’m afraid—” Aidan begins, frowning.
“Wow, way to stomp on the joke, Father.”
“Please, just Aidan is fine.”
“You know what Finch’s problem is?” Celia asks, smiling desperately. “He doesn’t know all thegoodthe Church does for the community. I brought him here to try to show him.”
“And here I thought we were gonna inflict these rags on people as part of their penance.”
Aidan O’Leary laughs like he thinks I’m kidding. Mrs. Murphy and her cronies across the room lean in and whisper angrily to each other, staring at me.
“Why don’t you go help Aidan,” Celia says quickly. “And I’ll finish up here.”
I decide to make Celia’s life a little easier and just follow the priest. Excuse me,seminarian. Marco jumps up from across the room and follows, but how much trouble could one skinny seminarian be?
Call-Me-Aidan chats the whole way, telling me about how wonderful Celia is, how generous with her time despite being pregnant, and how she’s just fit right in with the Ladies’ Committee and the Friday Fun Club, whatever the hell that is.
“Celia’s great,” I say as we enter the church proper. “On that we can agree.”
Aidan turns to glance over his shoulder at me. He’s picked up my tone. “On that, and only that?” He stops and leans over to adjust a prayer book in the pew we’re passing.
“I assume so. I’m notreligious.”
Again he gives me that friendly grin, like he thinks it’ll thaw any of the frost I’ve got going on. “Yeah. You don’t look it.”
“What the hell isthatsupposed to mean?”
He waves a hand up and down my body, just about smirking. “You know what I mean. This whole thing you have going on. Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he calls over his shoulder, taking off down the aisle again. “I can appreciate a great ’fit as much as the next New Yorker.”
“A greatwhat?”
He turns, walking backwards, his eyebrows raised. “A great ’fit,” he repeats. “Outfit?”
I’m wearing gunmetal Rick Owens drop-crotch pants and a matching bomber jacket today, picked solely with the intent of riling up the churchy types. My darling husband snorted when he saw me, and I returned in kind with a bird-flip.
“You look like you shat your pants,” Luca’d said over his morning espresso and biscotti.
“You can suck a dick,” I’d replied. “I’m on a mission today to save Celia from Catholic clutches.”
