Carrie nodded. She leaned in and stood on her tiptoes to kiss Lyle on the cheek. “My love for you, Lyle — it’s very irregular, I know.” She laughed. “But in the words of Miss Colthurst, ‘What is regular in a world that’s spinning off its axis?’”
Sister Lydia had chosen “Roses” as the theme for the first service to be held in her newly constructed (or rather, very nearly constructed) temple. Roses had always played a big part in her ministry. There were many photographs in the rotogravure pages of the country’s Sunday editions of the smiling evangelist, dressed in her simple white muslin “nurse’s uniform,” a dark serge cape draped over her shoulders, stepping from trains while holding large bouquets of long-stemmed roses, which had just been placed in the crook of her arm by local welcoming committees.
The auditorium was filled with roses. They were spread around the stage as if it had been besieged by a hundred wedding-ceremony flower girls dropping petals and stems wherever their little fingers sought to release them.
The dress rehearsal went well. There were only a couple of minor problems, both having to do with lights that did not come on when they were supposed to, as if there were still shorts in the electric circuits that needed to be addressed.
While the orchestra played a piece especially written for the celebration, the ushers took their places at the top and bottom of the three steeply raked aisles and along the walls of the mezzanine and balcony. Each of the twenty-five women wore crimson sashes appropriate for the rose theme of the day. Once they’d found their spots, a dozen male volunteers wearing their best Sunday suits filed in and took seats upon a riser along the upstage wall. These men represented the pastors of Zenith’s various religious denominations, who had promised to attend to show their support for the launch of their colleague’s permanent ministry.
The choir entered next, all twenty women mantled in deep burgundy velveteen robes. Once inside the choir box, each went to kneel before her chair. It was through this expression of reverent genuflection that the choir members acknowledged the arrival of Sister Lydia, who came gusting down the center aisle, her cape flapping behind her. As she mounted the stage and crossed to her podium upon a path of broken roses, the orchestra played “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”
Sister Lydia knelt next to the podium and waited for the orchestra to finish. When she finally stood up, the choir stood up along with her, and under Vivian Colthurst’s direction, they sang a brand-new song in the hymnological canon (written just the year before), but one well suited for Sister Lydia’s purpose:
Jesus, Rose of Sharon, bloom within my heart;
Beauties of Thy truth and holiness impart,
That where’er I go my life may shed abroad
Fragrance of the knowledge of the love of God.
When the song was finished, Sister Lydia addressed the four thousand empty seats in front of her, pretending that each was occupied by someone eager to hear her words of happy salutation. “A warm welcome to each and every one of you here today. May God’s grace live within your heart and His love anoint your abiding spirit.”
Will Holborne had been to see Minerva Quintane twice before. The first trip was made early in his college career when he motored out from Zenith with Jerry and Tom and Pat, each of the four woefully under-versed in the ways of love — even the kind of love that is obtained for a sawbuck (or a shiny Indian Head eagle if one wishes to impress). It was a longstanding rite of passage for the Winnemac Aggie to pay at least one visit to Minerva and her “girls” at some point during his four years at the A&M. Aggies mounted the stairs of Miss Minerva’s storied gingerbread Victorian on the outskirts of town as boys, and, it was said, descended those same stairs fifteen to twenty minutes later as men.
The second time Will went to see Minerva he was alone. She didn’t remember him from the time before (“Far too many of you panting-mouthed puppies for poor Miss Minerva to keep track of”) but got to know him over ersatz Brandy Daisies in her front piano parlor, which was where she preferred to conduct all her interviews — those little booze-lubricated tête-à-têtes that helped the madam pick just the right girl for every taste. Will, as Minerva quickly discovered, liked big-boned, flaxen-haired Swedish farm girls, of which Minerva had at least two in residence. (Strong, big-boned farm girls, Minerva confided, also came in handy around the place on Monday chore days.)
Today, Will Holborne was making his third visit. This time Minerva did remember him. She recalled that he liked girls with an ethnic heritage similar to his own. But today Will didn’t want Katrin or Helfrida. He had a very different type in mind.
“Do you have any girls staying here that maybe don’t seem to have much use for men?”
“Don’t have much use for men?” Minerva clucked like an old hen. “That’s like asking do I keep any dairy cows out in the barn that don’t give milk. What a silly question!”
Will’s serious expression remained fixed. It told Minerva that he didn’t think the question silly at all.
Minerva stopped smiling. She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “Do you happen to know a girl who’s that way? Did she break your heart, slugger?”
Will didn’t answer right away. He took a drink first. “She didn’t break my heart,” he finally disclosed. “But she was bad news.”
Minerva nodded, slowly comprehending. “Sounds to me like it was one particular man she didn’t have much use for.”
Will shook his head. “No, Miss Quintane. It was men in general. There are girls like that. You must know a few. I knew a man who was like that, but the other way around.”
“And if I find you a girl like that, what are you going to do, Will?”
“I’ll make her do what nature intended. Whether she likes it or not.”
Minerva laughed. “But of course she wouldn’t like it — wouldn’t like it at all, would she? Will, honey, I don’t think you have any business punishing any girl — mine or any other — for what some other girl did to you. There is no amount of money that can get me to arrange something like that.”
Then Minerva grinned enigmatically.
“But maybe there is a way I can be of service. But only if you promise to be a good boy and play by the rules. Rose. She has a special gift. She can pretend to be anybody you like.”
“Is she pretty?”
“She’s quite pretty. She is a little Rubenesque.”
“I don’t know what that word means.”
“She’s ample, darling. She’s well-rounded, in the physical sense.”
“That’s good. I like that. That works.”
Minerva set her glass down and rose from her chair. “You intrigue me, Mr. Holborne. You’re quite a closed book. But then, what man isn’t?”
Sister Lydia now spread her arms out to the sides and lifted her eyes to the stained-glass skylights in the dome above her. “I thank You, my loving God, for Your divine presence in the lives of all Your children who’ve gathered here today. So very grateful are we for the wondrous blessings You’ve bestowed upon us.”
Sister Lydia lowered her arms and re-engaged her imagined audience with a look of fevered passion. She stepped to the side of the rose-covered pulpit and sniffed. “Do you smell it, brothers and sisters? Do you smell that sweet attar of roses in the air? Is there any flower more fragrant? Any flower more delicate in its construction? What is the rose but the embodiment of beauty upon this earth?”