16
Bless Us, Father
As a public relations expert, Temple was used to plunging into new settings and situations as a five-foot-zero bundle of energy on spike heels that dug into any assignment like mountain-climbing pitons.
She’d learned long before that small girls and women have to be dynamic not to be overlooked and underestimated. Or stepped on, physically or metaphorically.
So when Matt knocked on her door to collect her for their errand, he couldn’t hide the confusion on his face.
Temple wore a classic beige summer suit, short-sleeved but long-skirted, and carried a slim navy-blue envelope bag on a thin shoulder strap, not her signature large, jazzy tote bag. He stepped back to view her shoes, navy pumps.
“That’s not a three-inch heel,” he said.
“Two-and-half.”
“That’s not a summer sandal style.”
“Classic closed-toe pump.”
“No hat?”
Temple shook her abundant red-gold curls. “I only wear one when driving the Miata with the top down. I assume we’ll be taking your car.”
“Well,” Matt said, “I suppose the only thing you’re missing is the black lace doily on your head and you’d be the perfect model of a nineteen-fifties Catholic churchgoer. We’re only going to the OLG Rectory, not the church. How did you know that navy is the inevitable color of Catholic school girl uniforms?”
“Is it really?”
Matt nodded, then shook his head. “Are you actually nervous?”
“Yeah. Father Hernandez is…imposing.”
“That’s the man’s temperament, Temple, not the priest’s. He’s just a humble parish priest who’s not so humble.”
Temple stepped very close. “Now, if I were going to see you, I’d wear my new resale shop Manolo Blahnik heels and a thigh-high slit skirt with a cocktail hat tilted over my right eyebrow.”
Matt pulled her close, as close as close could be, by her elbows and kissed her the way a dame dressed like that should be kissed. “Shall we stand up Father Hernandez?”
She teetered back as he steadied her. “No. I don’t see a man about a wedding every day. Now I’m thinking I ought to.”
Matt stroked the linen lapel of her suit. “The prim Save a Soul Mission lady from Guys and Dolls is an inviting look too.”
“Hopefully not for Father Hernandez,” Temple said, well, primly.
The Rectory resembled a grander, bigger house left over from an earlier era, red-brick, two-story, eight stone steps in a neighborhood of established one-story older bungalows. It was not only Father Hernandez Temple dressed to please. She didn’t want to run into parishioner Lieutenant C. R. Molina looking like a frump. Not that Molina, as a professional woman committed to neutral-color pantsuits suitable for covering a gun holster, cared about what Temple would call a “wardrobe”.
At five-ten with the attitude of a mother superior and stern dark eyebrows Temple itched to pluck into a more flattering arch, the two of them were oil and water in all respects. She’d have traded her wishy-washy blue-gray eyes for Molina’s electric blue any day, though.
And now, with a gazillion wedding chapels in Vegas, Temple was going to be married in a family church in Molina’s backyard.
Matt held Temple’s elbow as he rang the doorbell. The housekeeper came at once, an overweight, beaming woman with natural silver highlights in her thick dark hair. “Miss Barr, Mr. Devine, Father is waiting for you in his study.”
“Thank you, Pilar,” Matt said.
Temple checked her analog watch to make sure they weren’t late. Father Hernandez seemed a man you would not want to keep waiting.
To Temple, the “study” was out of a vintage English mystery. Dark paneling, bookcase-lined walls blinking gold from hardcover title spines, a huge old desk, and, behind it, in a broad Golden Oak swivel chair, the neat contained figure of Father Hernandez, with his Old-World bearing and piercing black eyes.
By God, if you were married by Father Hernandez, you would feel “married”. For eternity.
Temple, from her family’s membership in the Unitarian Universalists, an inclusive multi-faith church with humanist and social justice concerns, not dogma, wanted to know what Matt had grown up with, wanted to glimpse the renounced priest side of him. Wanted to see every side of what had made him the man she had to love.
She was startled to find Father Hernandez’s dark eyes regarding her with a shy twinkle. “Miss Barr. How could I miss you that first time in the congregation at Mass with Matt? Quickly grasping the ups and downs, when to stand and when to kneel, and the responses of the Holy Mass, your fiery head of hair shouting you were an outsider in this Hispanic neighborhood, but you would not be caught napping, eh?”
“You’re only as much of an outsider as you choose to be, Father Hernandez.”
He nodded. “Very wise. I made an outsider of myself for a certain bad time, for which I owe Matt, and you, many thanks. I admit I felt disappointed that such a promising young man left our brotherhood, which is sometimes lonely.” He sighed. “But the vocations we are called to may change as we face ourselves, and I am happy to be asked to marry you here at Our Lady of Guadalupe.”
“It’s a beautiful church.”
“My family in Chicago,” Matt added, “wanted the Polish Cathedral.”
“Certainly a majestic site, and honoring your ancestry,” Father Hernandez said diplomatically, for him.
“But it’s so echoing and huge,” Temple said. “Who could hear the vows? My family in Minneapolis would have chosen a parklike outdoor site or a historic mansion. That would have been more intimate but not…personally significant.”
“So we figured,” Matt said, “our families can come to Vegas. My Polish Catholic relatives will love OLG as a site.”
“My family would be all right with a wedding chapel in Vegas or a cathedral somewhere else, so they’d be getting a bit of both.”
“An excellent compromise. I see you’ve thought this out. Families can fly from both cities, meet here, and share the Las Vegas tourist opportunities.”
“We’ll be disappointing our beloved landlady,” Temple said, “who takes credit for providing the place that we met, the Circle Ritz. She also operates the Lover’s Knot Wedding Chapel.”
“Ah, Las Vegas,” mused Father Hernandez. “Commerce is king. Now for the wedding date.” He pulled out a calendar the size of a college annual, paging forward rapidly. “And of course we must book the pre-Cana classes, and announce the banns.”
“Ah…” said Temple.
“A Christmas wedding would be nice,” Father Hernandez said, twinkling again, which was most disconcerting. “Your red hair would be right in season.”
“Father,” Matt interrupted. “Her red hair is always in season with me.” Matt sounded quite definite. “We’ve decided to get married now because—this is quite confidential—Temple and I are embarking on a whole new career together, right here in Vegas, and we’ll have no time to get married that late in the year.”
“Oh, but these things can’t be rushed. Our Lady of Guadalupe is not a twenty-four-hour wedding chapel.”
“Certainly not,” Temple said, “We’re thinking of an evening ceremony so no regular church services are affected. And with my Crystal Phoenix connections, I can pull together a family influx and a gala reception in no time.”
“‘In no time’? But the Church advises—”
“I’ve done pre-Cana counseling for years, Father,” Matt said. “And Temple’s a very quick study, as you note. If you like, we can do the eight-hour online course.”
“Online course,” the priest echoed, dazed.
“You know,” Matt continued, “how much heart and heroism Temple has, when she almost died helping your elderly parishioner and when the convent nuns were being stalked by a profane anonymous caller and poor Peter, the convent cat, was almost crucified like the Disciple he was named for.