The Water Keeper(10)

“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?”

“Something.”

She twirled her finger through the strap of her bikini. “Should’ve taken it a few minutes ago. More fun to look at.”

“I got what I needed.”

“Needed or wanted?”

This girl was smart. “I’ll bet somebody’s looking for you right now.”

Something rested on her tongue but she smiled and swallowed it. “You ever write letters, Padre?”

“I write some.”

Her eyes wandered across the pews and everything about her darkened. Even the playfulness of her voice. “I wrote a letter.”

“Can I read it?”

She looked directly at me. “It’s not addressed to you.” She swallowed again. “I wrote it to my mom, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t like it.”

“Why?”

She didn’t answer.

The foghorn sounded again. Last time she heard it; this time she considered it. Having done so, she turned and studied me as if she were taking a picture of her own. Then she glanced up at the confessional, took another, and hesitated. Finally, she spoke without looking at me. “You think God gives us credit for showing up even when the priest didn’t?”

For the first time, I spoke through the cloud, directly to her. “If this life is based on credits and debits—” I shook my head. “Then we’re all gone anyway.”

In a rare moment of lucidity, she turned to me. “What do you think it’s based on?”

The wall of names painted the backdrop behind me. “The walk . . . from broken to not.”

She nodded, wrapped herself in the rain jacket, and silently stumbled out into the rain.

I stood at the water’s edge, my face shrouded in shadow, and watched her walk out my dock and step aboard the waiting vessel. A yacht. Eighty feet or better. The muscled captain tipped his hat to me, cranked the engines, and used his thrusters to move ninety degrees away from the dock. He did so against the current and a contrary wind—again suggesting experience. Moving fore to aft, the girl swayed, bouncing between railing and cabin wall as she walked toward the rear deck and the other partygoers. Blue lights lit the aft deck, revealing a Jacuzzi. A bartender. DJ. No expense spared.