“She's never like this,” Father Jiminez mumbled, more to himself or to God than to Hatch and Lindsey. He tossed back half of his Perrier as if chugging hard liquor.
Hatch turned to Lindsey. Her eyes were a little glazed. She didn't seem to know what to say, so he returned his attention to the girl. “I suppose it's only fair if I tell you something about us.”
Putting aside her drink and starting to get up, Sister Immaculata said, “Really, Mr. Harrison, you don't have to put yourself through—”
Politely waving the nun back into her seat, Hatch said, “No, no. It's all right. Regina's a little nervous—”
“Not particularly,” Regina said.
“Of course, you are,” Hatch said.
“No, I'm not.”
“A little nervous,” Hatch insisted, “just as Lindsey and I are. It's okay.” He smiled at the girl as winningly as he could. “Well, let's see … I've had a lifelong interest in antiques, an affection for things that endure and have real character about them, and I have my own antique shop with two employees. That's how I earn my living. I don't like television much myself or—”
“What kind of a name is Hatch?” the girl interrupted. She giggled as if to imply that it was too funny to be the name of anyone except, perhaps, a talking goldfish.
“My full first name is Hatchford.”
“It's still funny.”
“Blame my mother,” Hatch said. “She always thought my dad was going to make a lot of money and move us up in society, and she thought Hatchford sounded like a really upper-crust name: Hatchford Benjamin Harrison. The only thing that would've made it a better name in her mind was if it was Hatchford Benjamin Rockefeller.”
“Did he?” the girl asked.
“Who he, did what?”
“Did your father make a lot of money?”
Hatch winked broadly at Lindsey and said, “Looks like we have a gold digger on our hands.”
“If you were rich,” the girl said, “of course, that would be a consideration.”
Sister Immaculata let a hiss of air escape between her teeth, and The Nun with No Name leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes with an expression of resignation. Father Jiminez got up and, waving Gujilio away, went to the wet bar to get something stronger than Perrier, Pepsi, or ginger ale. Because neither Hatch nor Lindsey seemed obviously offended by the girl's behavior, none of the others felt authorized to terminate the interview or even further reprimand the child.
“I'm afraid we're not rich,” Hatch told her. “Comfortable, yes. We don't want for anything. But we don't drive a Rolls-Royce, and we don't wear caviar pajamas.”
A flicker of genuine amusement crossed the girl's face, but she quickly suppressed it. She looked at Lindsey and said, “What about you?”
Lindsey blinked. She cleared her throat. “Uh, well, I'm an artist. A painter.”
“Like Picasso?”
“Not that style, no, but an artist like him, yes.”
“I saw a picture once of a bunch of dogs playing poker,” the girl said. “Did you paint that?”
Lindsey said, “No, I'm afraid I didn't.”
“Good. It was stupid. I saw a picture once of a bull and a bullfighter, it was on velvet, very bright colors. Do you paint in very bright colors on velvet?”
“No,” Lindsey said. “But if you like that sort of thing, I could paint any scene you wanted on velvet for your room.”
Regina crinkled up her face. “Puh-leeese. I'd rather put a dead cat on the wall.”
Nothing surprised the folks from St. Thomas's any more. The younger priest actually smiled, and Sister Immaculata murmured “dead cat,” not in exasperation but as if agreeing that such a bit of macabre decoration would, indeed, be preferable to a painting on velvet.
“My style,” Lindsey said, eager to rescue her reputation after offering to paint something so tacky, “is generally described as a blending of neoclassicism and surrealism. I know that's quite a big mouthful—”
“Well, it's not my favorite sort of thing,” Regina said, as if she had a hoot-owl's idea in hell what those styles were like and what a blend of them might resemble. “If I came to live with you, and if I had a room of my own, you wouldn't make me hang a lot of your paintings on my walls, would you?” The “your” was emphasized in such a way as to imply that she still preferred a dead cat even if velvet was not involved.
“Not a one,” Lindsey assured her.
“Good.”
“Do you think you might like living with us?” Lindsey asked, and Hatch wondered whether that prospect excited or terrified her.
Abruptly the girl struggled up from the chair, wobbling as she reached her feet, as if she might topple headfirst into the coffee table. Hatch rose, ready to grab her, even though he suspected it was all part of the act.
When she regained her balance, she put down her glass, from which she'd drunk all the Pepsi, and she said, “I've got to go pee, I've got a weak bladder. Part of my mutant genes. I can never hold myself. Half the time I feel like I'm going to burst in the most embarrassing places, like right here in Mr. Gujilio's office, which is another thing you should probably consider before taking me into your home. You probably have a lot of nice things, being in the antiques and art business, nice things you wouldn't want messed up, and here I am lurching into everything and breaking it or, worse, I get a bursting bladder attack all over something priceless. Then you'd ship me back to the orphanage, and I'd be so emotional about it, I'd clump up to the roof and throw myself off, a most tragic suicide, which none of us really would want to see happen. Nice meeting you.”
She turned and wrenched herself across the Persian carpet and out of the room in that most unlikely gait—sccccuuuurrrr … THUD! — which no doubt sprang from the same well of talent out of which she had drawn her goldfish ventriloquism. Her deep-auburn hair swayed and glinted like fire.
They all stood in silence, listening to the girl's slowly fading footsteps. At one point, she bumped against the wall with a solid thunk! that must have hurt, then bravely scrape-thudded onward.
“She does not have a weak bladder,” Father Jiminez said, taking a swallow from a glassful of amber liquid. He seemed to be drinking bourbon now. “That is not part of her disability.”
“She's not really like that,” Father Duran said, blinking his owlish eyes as if smoke had gotten in them. “She's a delightful child. I know that's hard for you to believe right now—”
“And she can walk much better than that, immeasurably better,” said The Nun with No Name. “I don't know what's gotten into her.”
“I do,” Sister Immaculata said. She wiped one hand wearily down her face. Her eyes were sad. “Two years ago, when she was eight, we managed to place her with adoptive parents. A couple in their thirties who were told they could never have children of their own. They convinced themselves that a disabled child would be a special blessing. Then, two weeks after Regina went to live with them, while they were in the pre-adoption trial phase, the woman became pregnant. Suddenly they were going to have their own child, after all, and the adoption didn't seem so wise.”
“And they just brought Regina back?” Lindsey asked. “Just dumped her at the orphanage? How terrible.”
“I can't judge them,” Sister Immaculata said. “They may have felt they didn't have enough love for a child of their own and poor Regina, too, in which case they did the right thing. Regina doesn't deserve to be raised in a home where every minute of every day she knows she's second best, second in love, something of an outsider. Anyway, she was broken up by the rejection. She took a long time to get her self-confidence back. And now I think she doesn't want to take another risk.”