Page 17 of Saint
That’s right. I have a monk ex-boyfriend. It’s my only party trick.
—“The Eternal Cool of Monks: Beer and Prayer in Some of the World’s Loneliest Abbeys” by Elijah Iverson
11
“Oh good!”the abbot exclaims, stepping out from behind Elijah and beaming down at me. “We were just looking for you.”
Oh God. Why were they looking for me?
Why is Elijah hereagain? Why did Elijah have to find me rightnow, at the stupidest possible moment? It couldn’t have been while I was vacuuming? Praying? Reading a book? Looking very serious and important? It had to benow?
Why why why why why why—
I try to dismount my bouncy ball, which is harder than it sounds in a robe and heavy work shoes. Eventually giving up on dignity, I stand up with the ball between my legs and free my robes, until I’m finally standing like a normal person in front of my abbot and my ex-boyfriend. The embarrassment is like being shellacked with hot asphalt from the inside out—all of me is gloppy and burning with it.
And I’m not sure which is more embarrassing, that I was bouncing on a giant toy like a child, or that my ex-boyfriend who has never been anything other than perfectly poised from the moment he was born witnessed it.
“Um,” I finally say to them. “Hi.”
“Why don’t you give Brother Titus his rubber ball back,” the abbot says, his eyes crinkling around the corners, “and come to my office for a moment.”
I can’t even bear to look up into Elijah’s face as I pick up the ball by the handle and hand it to Brother Titus as solemnly as someone handing off a briefcase with nuclear codes inside. And then I duck my head and follow Abbot Jerome and Elijah into the freshly vacuumed office area, and then into the abbot’s office itself. I see Brothers Thomas and Titus staring after us with heads tilted like curious puppies before the abbot shuts the office door and makes his way over to his seat.
“Sit down, sit down,” he entreats. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Elijah sit with an easy grace that’s as relaxed as it is attentive. He’s casual again today, so casual, although effortlessly stylish as always—olive trousers and an olive T-shirt, the look finished by loafers and a tattoo on his left forearm.
He didn’t have that when we were together.
Curiosity gnaws at me, but I can’t make myself look any closer. I’m still burning with shame that he saw me being so much like the man I used to be. I’m burning with shame that Iactedlike the man I used to be.
Irresponsible and silly and cringe-inducing.
What had Elijah ever seen in me?
I sit down too—with all the grace of a man who chants ancient temple hymns for a job and chops wood as a hobby—and look at my hands. I can hardly separate the shame from the dread for why I’m here. The abbot seems to be in a good enough mood, but nothing positive can come from this little convocation. My boss and the man whose heart I broke? This is how nightmares begin.
“So can I expect lots of bouncy ball parades while I’m here?” Elijah asks, and I have such a visceral response to the low music of his voice that I’m suddenly and terribly aware that I’m not in chastity right now.
AndthenI’m suddenly and terribly aware of what he’s just said.
“While you’re here?” I ask, keeping my head ducked but turning it slightly to look at him again. Not completely—I don’t think I can face him completely. But enough that I can see him cross his legs at the ankles. Enough that I catch a glimpse of amber eyes and a single raised eyebrow.
I look away again, my entire body in tumult.
“That’s right,” the abbot says amiably. “Mr. Iverson was so charmed by his visit a month back that he’s coming to retreat with us for a week. He’ll be writing a piece about his experience with us forMode.”
Elijah. Here.
For a week.
I want to flatten myself into the shape of an extinct sea creature and burrow into the seabed; I want to brick myself into an anchorage and eat nothing but crushed-up bricks until I die; I want to crawl into a keg of beer and pickle myself—because how am I supposed to survive this? I could barely survive seeing him in the cloister for thirty minutes, how am I going to survive him being at prayers, at Mass, at mealtimes? How, literally in the hell, am I going to live through the next week?
Calm down, I try to think rationally.You’ll only have to see him during prayers and meals—communal things. You won’t have to talk to him. You won’t have to hear about how great and dependable his new fiancé is.
The part of me that is already half-Cambrian sea bug doesn’t care. I was barely holding on before Elijah came, and I can’t see how I won’t be abject with his presence now. I’m supposed to be clearing my heart and mind of everything but God, and how am I supposed to do that when Elijah Iverson is here with his eyebrow arches and that cool composure which practically begs to be inflamed and also that mouth and also thatstubble—
“—and yes, it’s not traditionally how we do things, but I thought this would make the most sense, since your duties routinely take you all over the abbey grounds in the course of a day, and with your brother being Mr. Iverson’s brother-in-law and all...”
The abbot has been talking while I’ve been Kafka-ing into a sea bug, and it takes me a moment to catch up.
