Eleanor felt the floor shiver under her feet. Her eyes filled with tears.

"S0ren?"

"When I was fourteen I decided to become a priest," he said. "Once I made that decision, I felt peace in my heart for the first time in my life. And I didn"t know why or from where that peace came. It should have scared me-a life of poverty, a life of celibacy and chast.i.ty, a life of obedience to a community that could and would send me all over the world. But I knew there was a reason I needed to be a priest. I was certain of it. And that certainty carried me all the way through seminary and all the way here. And now I know why I needed to become a priest. Because G.o.d knew long before I did that I would need to be a priest to find you and help you and keep you on the right path. And I will keep you safe even if it kills me."

A lone tear traveled down her cheek and dropped onto the floor. Now she was grateful he wouldn"t look at her so he wouldn"t see her crying.

"And if I weren"t a priest," S0ren continued, "I would likely be dead. There were moments when I was your age and younger, foolish moments when I feared I didn"t deserve to live. The things I"d done, the things I wanted to do, taunted me constantly. I worried G.o.d had made some terrible mistake when he"d made me, and perhaps the world would be better off if I wasn"t in it."

"No ..." She nearly choked on the word. The thought of S0ren dead was an insult to everything she believed in, especially him because she believed in him the most.

"When I felt the first stirrings of the call to become a Jesuit, those feelings started to fade and new ones took their place. G.o.d had created me for a reason, made me like I was for a reason."

"Like what? You"re-"

"My call to the priesthood saved me, Eleanor. Like it saved you. If I weren"t a priest you wouldn"t be in this sanctuary and neither would I. So please ..." He stopped and raised his hand, holding it up almost in a posture of surrender. "Please don"t make this any more difficult than it already is."

He lowered his hand again.

"I"m sorry," she whispered.

"There"s nothing to be sorry for."

"Are you sure?"

"I am. I told you months ago that the new rules I created were for my sake, because of my need for boundaries. I"m asking you to honor that."

"I can," she promised. "I will."

"Thank you," he said.

She wanted to say more, to say she would never go into his office again, not without permission anyway. He hadn"t said anything about what she"d done on his desk but she was certain he knew, and it was because of that he couldn"t look at her right now. She imagined he wasn"t looking at her for her own sake-to protect her from the embarra.s.sment. But strangely, she felt none. Only sadness that he was right. As much as she wished he wasn"t a priest so they could be together, she knew that they would never have met if he wasn"t a priest. What had brought them together was the very thing that kept them apart. She wanted to say all that to him but before she could open her mouth, the sound of a car horn discreetly honking interrupted their tense silence.

"That"s for me," S0ren said. "I have to go."

"Where are you going?"

"I can"t answer that," he said.

"Can"t or won"t?"

S0ren rose off the piano bench and walked past her, still without meeting her eyes. She followed behind him.

At the door to the sanctuary he paused.

"We won"t ever have to have this talk again," S0ren said. The sentence was phrased like a statement but she heard an order lurking under the words. She knew what he meant. They would never have to have this talk again because she was never going to sneak into his office and m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e on his desk again. "And we"ll pretend we didn"t have to have this talk. By tomorrow we"ll both feel better. In a week it will be a distant memory. Yes?"

"Okay," she said.

S0ren nodded. He put his hand on the door handle but didn"t push it open.

"Are you sure you don"t remember what it is that you wanted to ask me?"

"I"m sure."

"If you think of it ..."

"Doesn"t matter," she said, remembering the question she"d wanted to ask him and deciding not to ask it. "Are you sure you can"t tell me where you"re going?"

"Quite sure. I will say this-I wish I could take you with me."

She smiled. Finally some of the tension started to leave her body.

"Me, too. I"d go anywhere with you."

S0ren met her eyes for the first time that night and gave her the faintest of smiles.

"Don"t worry. Someday you will."

And with that, he pushed open the door and strode into the night. In front of the church in a shadowy patch of street sat a car, but not any old car. S0ren entered the back pa.s.senger side and the car drove away.

Eleanor couldn"t believe what she"d seen. But she had seen it. She knew cars. She knew all cars, all makes, all models. But it made no sense what she"d seen. Whose was it? Where had it come from? Where was it going?

Maybe someday she would get her answers to those questions. But tonight she had to content herself with the answer to one question. Only you know the answer to that, S0ren had said when she"d asked him whose feet she should sit at.

Now she knew what he meant. It was her decision whose feet she sat at. Only she knew the answer to that question because only she could make that choice. S0ren couldn"t tell her, her mom couldn"t tell her, G.o.d couldn"t tell her. It was her choice alone. Whose feet? She already knew the answer.

And the answer was being driven away right now in a gleaming, glorious, pristine, worth-a-fortune 1953 Silver Wraith limousine-style ...

Rolls. f.u.c.king. Royce.

12.

Eleanor AFTER THAT NIGHT OF THE ROLLS-ROYCE, AS ELEANOR had dubbed it, things between her and S0ren went back to normal. Or as close to normal as things ever were. Summer pa.s.sed so quickly that the days blurred like scenes outside the window of a moving car. She almost grieved when the time came to start her junior year of high school. She"d practically lived at church for the past three months and saw S0ren nearly every day. Each week she logged almost forty hours of community service. S0ren gave her reading a.s.signments from her Bible and made her meditate on them. Even those couple of weeks she worked at a day camp for underprivileged kids she still saw him in the evenings. She"d even made him an embroidered bookmark.

But time wouldn"t be denied. September came and she survived the first day of school without incident. No fights. No arguing with teachers. No accusing beloved saints of having unnatural relations with seraphim. f.u.c.k, she was a saint these days. She didn"t run away to the city to hang out at her dad"s shop anymore. She didn"t sneak out to her friend Jordan"s anymore. She didn"t stay up until 3:00 a.m. reading dirty books with a hand down her panties anymore. Well, she still did that, but only on the weekends. Before S0ren, Elle had wanted school to end so she could go home, sleep and read. But now she counted the hours until she could get out of school only so she could go to church.

When she arrived at Sacred Heart after her first day back to school, she changed clothes and got her watering can. S0ren"s office door was shut, and she could hear voices inside. Curious, she pressed her ear to the door and tried to make out the words. S0ren spoke clearly and loudly enough that she could hear him, but none of the words made any sense. In fact, it sounded like he was speaking a different language. Definitely not German. No, it sounded kind of s.e.xy and romantic. Hearing him talk like that made her thighs quiver. It must be French.

French? Who the h.e.l.l was he talking to in French?

Next time he was on the phone while she stood outside his office eavesdropping, he should have the human decency to at least speak in English.

Frustrated, Eleanor started toward the fellowship hall when she heard the door open. She turned around and saw S0ren"s arm extending from inside the office like some kind of sideways periscope. He crooked his finger at her and Eleanor walked back to him.

"Are you trapped inside your office?" she whispered as she pressed her back flat against the wall by the door. "Some kind of force field and only your arm can escape it?"

"Yes," he said as his arm disappeared back inside his office. She faced him from across the threshold. "It"s called a dissertation."

"A who a what?"

"A dissertation." He sat back behind his desk. Two piles of books flanked him. "I"m finishing my Ph.D. work. I have ordered myself not to leave my office until I have made significant progress on it this evening."

"What"s a dissertation?"

"If Satan gave you instructions for writing the book report from h.e.l.l, it would closely resemble those of a Ph.D. dissertation."

She scrunched up her face in sympathetic disgust.

"I wrote the book report from h.e.l.l last year on Jane Eyre and the wife in the attic. I called it "Jane Versus One Crazy b.i.t.c.h.""

"An interesting topic."

"What"s your topic?"

""The theology of pain and suffering in the letters of Saint Ignatius.""

"Is that as boring as it sounds?"

"More."

"It needs a better t.i.tle."

"Better than "The theology of pain and suffering in the letters of Saint Ignatius"?"

"How about "Hurts So G.o.d." It"s a riff on that John Cougar song "Hurts So Good.""

S0ren rested his chin on top of the nearest pile of books and narrowed his eyes at her.

"Your mind must be the most marvelous playground."

"I think my mental swing sets are rusty."

"We should fix that." He got up from behind his desk, grabbed his Bible and left the office.

"Hey, whoa there, big papa." She followed him as he strode toward the sanctuary. "You aren"t supposed to leave your office."

"I made the rule. I can break it."

"Can I break your rules?" she asked.

"No." He stared down at her. "Come with me. Bring your Bible."

She grabbed her Bible from her backpack and made her way to the choir loft in the sanctuary.

"What are we doing today?" she asked once she reached the loft. "Are you going to make me meditate on Jesus again?"

"You don"t want to? Meditating on the life of Christ is a vital part of the Spiritual Exercises."

"I know," she said as she threw herself down in a pew and stretched out long ways. "But Jesus always looks like Eddie Vedder in my meditations, and I don"t like finding Jesus s.e.xy. It"s uncomfortable, like seeing a picture of your grandfather when he was eighteen and thinking he was a babe."

"I"m sure Jesus would be honored that you picture him as attractive. There is no sin in finding someone attractive."

"You said that before, but I don"t think that rule applies to Jesus."

"Well, do you have any questions you want answered?" S0ren asked, slapping her thigh with a Bible to make her sit up. "Meaning of original sin? The prophecies regarding Christ found in Isaiah? Anything?"

"Yes, I have a question." She looked up at him.

"Ask."

"Why are you so d.a.m.n tall? You"re what? Six foot something?"

"Six foot four."

"That"s ridiculous. Is it necessary you"re this tall or are you doing it for attention?"

"This is your theological inquiry?"

"G.o.d created you. He created you tall. This is my theological inquiry."

"Very well, then. Tall people are closer to G.o.d. Since I"m tall I can hear Him better, which is why you should always listen to me when I tell you something."

She glared at him.

"That is the biggest pile of bulls.h.i.t anyone has ever dumped on me."

"Prove me wrong, then. Using the Bible."

"This is my a.s.signment? I have to prove to you that you"re full of s.h.i.t?"

"Yes."

"You can"t give me a good Bible a.s.signment? Like read all the s.e.xy parts?"

"You can do that, too, if you wish."

"Song of Songs it is, then. I like that he describes her t.i.ts as being like antelopes."

"I prefer the Book of Esther. More plot. Fewer bizarre metaphors involving ruminant mammals."