“He put a lot of work into it,” said Mrs. Avila.
“And I got an A and a gold star!” said Patrick, husky with fresh anger.
“He did too,” said Mrs. Avila. “But, this morning, he asked me for permission to take his Tarzan DVD to school.”
“Because today is Monkey Day,” said Patrick. “And I even put on monkey feet and we stopped at the store and bought bananas for everybody in my class—”
“And I asked him if he had permission to bring a cartoon to school,” said Mrs. Avila, looking at Patrick sternly.
“Well, it’s Monkey Day!” shouted Patrick, “So I said yes, okay? But then when I got to school I was giving everybody bananas—and Ms. Washburn said there was no eating in class—and I said it was Monkey Day, and she—”
“She laughed at him,” said Mrs. Avila.
“So then I said I was going to go to Audiovisual to get the DVD player, and she said no, and I said but it was Monkey Day, and she said, Patrick, don’t be silly, that was five months ago, and I said no it wasn’t, Monkey Day is on February 12—”
“Because it’s Darwin’s birthday,” explained Mrs. Avila, looking a little embarrassed. “His father came up with that.”
“No, that’s okay,” Father Souza said. “Catholics don’t have a problem with Evolution.”
“And she said, Monkey Day was only made up, so we couldn’t have it! And then she said, ‘Take those rid—ridic—ridiculous things off your feet’!”
“And he called her a Work Destroyer,” said Mrs. Avila dryly. “And a few other things. I got quite an e-mail from her. I had to leave work to go pick him up from the principal’s office.”
“Oh, dear.”
“They have a behavior chart at his school,” said Mrs. Avila. “It’s set up by colors. You get a green ticket in the morning, and if you’re good, you get to keep it all day. If you misbehave, you lose the green ticket and get a yellow one. If you act worse, the Yellow gets taken away and you get an orange one. Patrick went all the way down the chart over a period of three minutes and wound up with five red tickets.”
“Oh, dear,” said Father Souza.
“I hate her!” said Patrick.
“No, no, Patrick, you can’t do that,” said Father Souza. “It sounds as though it was just a misunderstanding.”
“She laughed at me,” said Patrick.
“I plan on talking to the principal about that,” said Mrs. Avila. “But what has him really upset is that she said—”
“All holidays are just made up,” said Patrick, in a terrible voice. “Even Christmas. She said they’re all imaginary, that people just make things up!” He folded his arms, and glared at Father Souza in righteous indignation.
“Ah. Okay,” said Father Souza. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Up from his memory floated a scrap about Ms. Washburn: Brittany Machado’s grandmother said she was going to Hell. “I guess she’s a militant atheist?”
“And I have to say I’m a little annoyed at her agenda,” said Mrs. Avila. “I’d like to choose my own time to tell my kids there isn’t any Santa Claus, thank you very much.”
“Except Santa Claus is real,” said Patrick. “Right, Father Mark?”
Father Souza looked uncertainly from Patrick to his mother. “Saint Nicholas is real, yes. And children get presents at Christmas for the sake of Baby Jesus, of course. Some people don’t believe that, Patrick. It’s a shame, but we shouldn’t hate them for it.”
“Can we hate people because they’re mean?” asked Patrick.
“No,” said Father Souza. “But you can hate meanness.”
“Well, I really really really hate meanness,” said Patrick. “And I think what you ought to do is go over to her house with a Bible like that guy in that exercise movie and say a spell so her head turns around. Because then people will laugh at her and not listen to what she says.”
Father Souza and Mrs. Avila stared at him in mutual incomprehension. Then Mrs. Avila said, “Did you watch The Exorcist, after your father and I told you not to?”
Patrick winced.
“Urn, just a little. Because it happened to be on. Because I was over at Kyla’s house. And it was way back at Halloween. So anyway Father, you need to use your powers on Ms. Washburn, okay?”
“Patrick,” said Mrs. Avila, “we’re going to have a long talk with Daddy when he gets back. And priests don’t do magic spells. Is that what you made me bring you all the way up here to ask?”
“They do spells in Theo’s Dragon Gamer Module,” muttered Patrick, not meeting her eyes.
Sensing an explosion immanent, Father Souza said hastily: “I’ll try to talk to your teacher, okay, Patrick?”
“And we’re going to have a long talk with your brother too,” said Mrs. Avila to Patrick, rising to her feet. “I’m sorry, Father Mark. It looks as though Patrick wasn’t really interested in spiritual advice.”
She led Patrick out the door by his upper arm. Patrick turned in the doorway and winked broadly, twice, so Father Souza wouldn’t miss it. Father Souza had used to play ping-pong with Father Connolly, until the old man had passed away. Now he got his exercise most afternoons by walking down the hill and out onto the pier, as far as the end, and back.
He never power-walked. He idled. Sometimes he chatted with the fishermen; today he leaned on the rail and watched the surfers riding the long white combers into land or more often idling themselves, floating on the swell, resting on their boards. Some of the surfers were girls. The black neoprene suits made them look like seal-women out of Celtic legend, strangely arousing. Father Souza watched them regretfully, and lifted his head to stare far down the beach. Just visible at the edge of the dunes was a grove of dead trees, with silvered and twisted trunks. It was a white and silent place. When he had been a child, he had thought that God lived there.
Sighing, he put his hands in his jacket pockets and moved on. Salt mist was beading on his clothes, chilly and damp.
The arcade that used to be at the foot of the pier was gone, had been gone since a long-ago winter storm sent waves over the seawall and collapsed its roof. There was a doughnut shop there now. Father Souza stopped in and bought a latte, and settled into a vacant booth.
He warmed his hands on the cup and watched the early twilight falling. Something came rolling down the sidewalk, on a wobbly trajectory: a cocoanut. It came to rest against a planter containing a skimpy date palm, as though huddling with a fellow exile from tropical climes. Father Souza wondered how it had got there.
A woman was sitting in the booth across from him, sipping coffee and making notes on something with a red pen. Grading papers? Yes. He recognized Ms. Washburn.
He cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said. “You teach at the public school, don’t you?”
She lifted her eyes to his, and he had a mental image of a figure in armor going on guard. Her eyes were gray as steel.
“I do, yes.”
“You’re Patrick Avila’s teacher?”
“Ah,” she said. “I imagine I know what this is about.”
He smiled awkwardly and extended a hand. “I’m Father Souza. I guess you did me a favor; one of my parishioners actually got upset enough about something to ask my advice. Can I hear your side of the story?”
But he could tell his attempt at self-depreciating charm was wasted. It was plain, from the look on her face, that she saw a host of blood-drinking popes and Inquisitors in phantom form standing at his shoulder.
“I don’t particularly see any need to defend my actions to you,” she said. Her accent was patrician, with a certain New England starch.