“Forty-nine. How old are you?”
She responded without thinking. “Sixteen.” She leaned her head against the pew and closed her eyes again. “If you weren’t, you know, stuck in here with God breathing down your back, I’d introduce you to my mom—although we’re not on the best of terms right now, so you might neeeeed”—she raised a finger in the air to add emphasis—“to take a rain check on that.” She opened her eyes. “You like to dance, Padre?”
It wasn’t worth the effort to correct her. I shook my head. “Not much.”
She attempted to point at me but her finger missed again. This time by a couple of feet. “You’d like my mom. She’s one helluva—” She covered her mouth again and began crawling toward the door. “I need to get out of here.” She held her hand close to her face and began counting out loud, touching her fingers with each count. “Thirty-two, thirty-three . . .” She stopped and looked at me. “You’re old enough to be my dad. You should meet my mom.”
“Technically, I’m old enough to be your grandfather.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re pretty good looking for a grandpa.” She pushed off her knees, climbing up the pew one hand over another. Now standing, eyes closed and legs wobbly, she tugged on her bikini top, which came off rather easily. Chest bare and sunburned, she stood with her eyes closed, lips puckered, and waited for me to accept her invitation. A girl trying ever so hard to become a woman when being a girl was what she needed. A silver Jerusalem cross hung in the space between her breasts. Whenever she moved, it bounced off her skin and spun slightly, exposing the honeycomb engraving. She noticed me eyeing it.
“You like my cross?”
“I do.”
“You take it off me and you can have it.”
I pulled a robe off the hook on the back wall and hung it across her shoulders. Draped in white, she looked disappointed. “Not pretty enough for you?”
“You’re plenty beautiful.”
Twirling her bikini top, she was playing with me now. “Too dirty?”
“Nope.”
Suddenly, her eyebrows lifted and her eyes grew large, followed by a sly smile. “Oh . . .” Another point. Another miss by several feet. “This is one of those churches. You’re gay? I’m sorry . . .” She fumbled with her bikini top but got nowhere. “Here I am coming on to a—”
“Not gay.”
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
The space between her eyes narrowed and she held her chin in her hand. “Too young?”
I relented. “Something like that.”
Her nose caught scent of the puddle on the floor that separated us. Her lip curled. “You sure you don’t want some help with that?”
“You sure you want to go back to that boat?”
She closed her eyes and puckered her lips, holding the position several seconds. “I’m a good kisser, Padre. You should get it now while the getting’s good. You worried I’ll tell?”
“Not really.”
“I won’t tell a soul. It’ll be our secret.”
“You good at keeping secrets?”
She smiled knowingly. “I’m fr-fri-fricking Fort Knox.” She eyed the confessional again. “Can you call maybe a fill-in priest?” She pointed at the kneeler. “Anybody will do. I wanted to, uh—”
“No.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“This is a weird fri-fricking church.”
I laughed out loud.
The words she spoke circled her fuzzy and incoherent mind and settled somewhere near her understanding. When the reality of what she said sank in, she covered her mouth again. “Oh, I’m sorry. I need to shut my—”
“Will you let me give you my phone number?”
“What, you gonna have the priest call me?”
“No, I’m giving you my number. Not the other way around.”
She waved me off. “Padre, I’m not that kind of girl. I don’t ever give my number on the first date.”
“Is that what this is?”
She looked disappointed. “Not really. You won’t kiss me.”
I held out my hand.
She slipped her phone from the back pocket of her Daisy Dukes and held it in front of her. One finger unbuttoned the top of her Daisy Dukes, exposing the matching bikini bottom. “I’ll give you my phone if you kiss me.”
“Close your eyes.”
She did, then puckered and waited, swaying a little. Had I been thirty years younger I might have taken her up on it. Actually, I’m positive I would have. I gently took her phone, but it was locked so I pressed her thumb to the home button and unlocked it. She smiled, eyes still closed. “Padre, my lips are cramping.” I typed in my number and saved it under the name “ICE—Padre,” then handed her back her phone. She opened her eyes and read the new contact.
She looked confused. “ICE?”
“In Case of—”
She smiled and held out her right hand like a stop sign. “Emergency.”
Forcing her eyes to focus, she read my number out loud. Halfway through it, she said, “That doesn’t look like any phone number I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s a satellite phone.”
“Does that make me special?”
“It makes you one of a few select people on this planet who’ve ever had that number.”
She winked at me. “Oh . . . that’s a good one. You’re smooth, Padre. I’ll bet you get all the girls with that one.”
She held the phone over her heart and nodded. I didn’t know if she’d ever remember this conversation or even who “Padre” was, but maybe she had enough sober brain waves to recall it if she had an emergency. Then without notice, she raised her hands, twirled, then twirled again.
She strolled down the center aisle, shedding the priest’s robe as she walked. It lay in a pile on the floor. Stopping at the door, she clung to the massive iron latch. My voice stopped her. “Can I ask you one thing?”
She twirled again, eyes closed. “You gonna kiss me?”
“What’s your name?”
She stuck one finger in the air and waved it like a windshield wiper. “You gotta do better than that, Padre.”
I took one step closer. “Let’s say we get a new priest, and he asks about you—”
“Why would he do that?”
“So he can ask God to watch over you.”
She put her finger to her lips. “Ooh, that’s a good one too.” For the first time, she covered her chest with her arms, but her covering was playful. Not ashamed. “You got game, Padre. You tell that to all the girls?”
“Just you.”
She tied on her bikini top and eyed the walls that surrounded us. A girl again. Then without speaking, she walked to the wall of names, slid a lipstick tube from her back pocket, and wrote “Angel” at the bottom of the list.
“That your real name?” I asked.
She spoke without looking. “It’s what my momma calls me.” A pause. “Or used to.”
The soft light shone on her face. Drowned the pain. I held up my phone and clicked a picture. She liked the fact that I’d finally noticed her. She smiled. “Something to remember me by?”