He was almost ready to believe Mother Isobel really had been hitting him over the head with that ridiculous winged bat, but then rationality reasserted itself. I must have been thrashing around, hit my head on the headboard, he decided. That would explain the bumps and bruises and the way the dream ended; the rest of it was obviously a normal product of libido, association, and memory.
He’d never had a dream that vivid before. Maybe that’s why his unconscious had chosen such a violent way of censoring his dream-scenario, while at the same time reminding him that if he ever divorced his wife, or was unfaithful to her in some way that Mother Isobel found out about, he’d have to deal with her. She wouldn’t just hit him over the head, she’d fire him like she’d fired Ted Adelard, the art teacher who’d been working nights in that gay bar in Monterey.
He went into the kitchen and put on some coffee, gulped down the four aspirin he’d gotten out of the medicine cabinet. He needed more sleep, but the memory of Mother Isobel smashing him over the head was too vivid for him to trust his unconscious to program any more dreams for him, so he went into the living room and tried to read. But the headache made concentration impossible and he had to give up.
He went back to the bathroom for more aspirin. Suddenly remembering how old and filthy he’d looked in the dream, and how horrible his skin and legs had been, he took off his pajamas and examined himself naked in the full-length mirror. He didn’t look young, but he was more dried out and wrinkled than mottled and flabby, and he wasn’t nearly as hairy as in the dream. His legs were still good, a little scrawny around the ankles, maybe, but otherwise almost shapely for a middle-aged man’s legs. He walked a lot.
Somewhat satisfied, he took extra care bathing and shaving, then went back to the living room to read and drink coffee until it was time to fix breakfast. But the dream kept coming back to him and destroying his concentration. At last he gave up and got out a batch of tests he hadn’t planned to grade before the weekend.
Halfway through his second period Dante class, Mother Isobel announced over the intercom that all third- and fourth-period classes were being cancelled for a special assembly in the chapel. All students and faculty were required to attend. St. Jacques was happy enough to skip his classes, since his lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with him.
On his way across the parking lot he saw Marcia coming toward him, accompanied as usual by June and Terri. June and Terri were both dark and slender with long brown hair and huge dark eyes, a way of staring straight at you that was somewhere between childlike and provocative, and high-cheekboned faces that were from some angles smooth and almost babyish, from others angular and striking; the two were never apart more than a few minutes and the faculty had taken to calling them The Twins.
Marcia didn’t see St. Jacques at first, but when she did she shot him a look of such pure loathing and contempt that it astonished him. She said something to the others—he thought he heard the word
He must’ve let his feeling show when he’d been fantasizing about her in class the day before. He told himself it didn’t matter, that their derision couldn’t mean anything to a mature man like himself, but he knew that ridiculous though it was to let such things bother him, they probably always would.
The front row of pews was reserved for the faculty. St. Jacques sat in his assigned place, between Veronica and Russell Thomas, the insipidly handsome Christian mystical poet who taught English, and whose poetry and conversation Mother Isobel and Veronica found so edifying. St. Jacques was glad to get off his feet; he’d felt stiff and heavy all day, and the bumps on his head hurt when he stood up and walked around. Thomas returned his greeting; Veronica was reading and just nodded back to him when he said hello.
Mother Isobel made her way determinedly to the front, accompanied by a short, rotund priest St. Jacques didn’t recognize. The priest was robed in a surplice and violet stole; his roundness and slight rolling walk set off the nun’s rigid carriage and severe figure; if Veronica was slightly angular, her sister was skeletal. Veronica marked her place—St. Jacques saw she was reading something about New Age Christian Calisthenics, undoubtedly in hope of finding ideas she could use for her swim team—and St. Jacques allowed himself to relax. Veronica would remember her sister’s every word, so he could doze off and ask her what happened later.
