Tara Sivec - Shame on Me

It completely throws me that underneath the tough exterior of hers there’s a mushy romantic just like me.

“Can we please just go home so you can sleep off the booze emanating from your pores? All of this honesty tonight makes me want to castrate Andy AND Matt for messing with your heart.”

Okay, maybe not THAT mushy.

“Will you promise not to judge me for the poor choices I made while intoxicated?” I beg.

Lorelei starts up the car and pulls away from the curb. “I promise. I’ll even help you figure out a way to get Matt to forgive you, if that’s what you really want. One that doesn’t involve anonymous following or calling a bartender a dick.”

“I should probably go back and apologize for that, huh?”

Without bothering to remove the dark sunglasses perched on my face, I slide into the church pew at Saint Michael’s and briefly wonder if God knows I came into his house smelling like booze and shame.

“Take your glasses off—this isn’t a disco,” my mother whispers harshly in my ear.

Thankfully, I roll my eyes at her before I remove them. And avoid reminding her that it’s no longer 1970.

“Care to enlighten me on why you asked me to meet you at church?” I ask as I wince at the bright sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows while I stuff my sunglasses into my purse.

“You mean aside from the fact that your soul needs saving and it’s been over a month since you’ve set foot into a church?” she whispers back.

Super. Hangover from hell AND an extra helping of guilt.

I raise my eyebrow at her as the organ music blasts from behind us. She immediately stands and begins singing along with the other parishioners, ignoring me completely.

I wait for the song to end and everyone to sit back down before I try again.

“What was so important that it couldn’t wait until later today?” I whisper.

She shushes me when the priest begins talking, and it takes everything in me not to loudly remind her that she chose this meeting spot. After a few minutes, she leans in closer to me.

“Someone stole the Communion hosts from the church last week. And yesterday, the gold chalice went missing. You need to tell your friend Kennedy to help us.”

I bristle a little at the fact that she didn’t demand that I help her solve this case. She’s convinced my only purpose at Fool Me Once is to be a whore. Even my own mother doesn’t believe in my abilities.

“You know I work there too, right? Why couldn’t I be the one to help you?”

Not that I would. I’m too busy right now failing to help Matt, but it’s the principle of the thing.

“You kiss strange men and take nudie pictures. How are you going to help us?”

No matter how many times I tell her that kissing those men is a way for me to catch them cheating or how tasteful the photos are that I’ve done, she knows someone whose best friend goes to this church who has a daughter who posed for Playboy and then went on to do porn, or something like that. As soon as I was hired for my first modeling job ten years ago, she started praying the rosary every single night because she thought she’d lost me to the dark side.

“They aren’t nudie pictures. How many times do I have to tell you this?” I whisper angrily.

She shushes me again.

“We’re in the Lord’s house. This isn’t the time to be talking about your boo-boos,” she informs me, her hands waving in the general direction of my boobs.

I love my mother. I love my mother. I love my mother. Maybe if I keep reminding myself, I won’t strangle her in a church full of people.

The organ music starts up again and everyone stands.

“Mom, we’re a little busy at work right now. Why doesn’t someone just call the police and report the theft?”

She frowns at me. “That chalice was a gift from the Pope.”

She quickly crosses herself at the mention of the Pope and I roll my eyes.

My mother was born and raised Catholic and she had a very strict upbringing. When she left for college, she sowed her wild oats and went a little crazy. She never settled down and by the time she was forty, she had given up on ever finding Mr. Right and having a family. Fate decided to give her a nice swift kick in the ass on her fortieth birthday, however.

My mother was . . . how do I put this nicely . . . basically, my mother was a cougar. On her birthday, she decided to celebrate with a few girlfriends at a local college bar. After too many shots of whiskey, she met my father. He was a college student from the University of Michigan, visiting a few of his friends at Notre Dame for the weekend. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, and six weeks later, the stick turned pink. She never got my dad’s name and was too mortified to ever go back to the bar and ask around about him.

My mother immediately went back to her Catholic-guilt roots and started going to confession and Mass every single day. At seventy years old, she continues to go to Mass every day, I’m sure to pray for my soul, which she assumes is indecent and always naked.

“See that nice young man two rows in front of us with the blue shirt? That’s Harold Johnson. He’s single and his mother told me he’s always had a crush on you.”

I don’t even bother looking at the man in question. Ever since Andy and I got divorced, she’s been trying to set me up with random men at church.

“You’re kidding, right? His name is Harry Johnson?” I whisper back, trying to contain my laughter.

“What’s wrong with his name? It’s a strong Christian name,” she argues.

“That’s not a strong Christian name. It’s a name that shouts ‘my parents hate me.’”

“He has a good job and he even takes care of his mother,” she replies, ignoring my barb.

“Takes care of her, or lives in her basement?”

She huffs in irritation. “There is nothing wrong with a forty-year-old man living with his poor, ailing mother. You’re not getting any younger, Paige. You need to find someone special.”

“How do you know I haven’t found someone special?” I demand.

She pulls her head away and stares at me, searching my face to see if I’m being honest. I’ve never been able to lie to my mother and she knows it. Even in high school when I thought I could get away with anything because she was always gone from the house doing one thing or another for the church. Five minutes in the door and she’d be able to figure out just by looking at me how many beers I snuck at a party when I was supposed to be studying.

“Maybe I’ve already found a great guy,” I mumble, sniffling in sadness.

“You’ll never find a great guy if you continue working as a floozy,” she counters.

“Oh, my God, I am not a floozy! I haven’t had sex with anyone since Andy!”

Of course the church chooses that moment to go completely silent. My mother looks around frantically and smiles embarrassedly to the people within hearing distance.

“At least wait until after Communion to talk about s-e-x,” she scolds in my ear, spelling out the word like I’m a toddler.

I make it through the rest of Mass without doing my mother any bodily harm and as we exit the church, she walks me up to the priest.

“Beautiful sermon today, Father Bob. You remember my daughter, Paige?”

Father Bob shakes my hand and gives me a warm smile. “Of course I remember her. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you at Mass.”

My mother looks pointedly at me and I immediately feel like I’m in second grade at confession for the first time and quickly drop Father Bob’s hand.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a month since my last church service and I’ve been having impure thoughts.

“My mother mentioned you’ve had problems lately with some thefts in the church. I’m not sure if she told you, but I work for a private investigations firm,” I tell him, quickly shutting down my brain and thoughts of being impure with Matt.

“Oh, yes, yes. It’s really not as bad as it sounds. I’m positive it’s just some poor, homeless soul who has strayed from the path of God. All we need to do is say some prayers and everything will be fine.”

Father Bob quickly excuses himself before I can reply and rushes away to greet other parishioners.

I watch him silently for a few minutes and every once in a while he looks back over his shoulder at me, turning away quickly when he catches me staring.

“Father Bob looks guilty. I think he knows more than he’s letting on,” I tell my mother as we make our way to the parking lot.

“Paige Elizabeth! Father Bob is a saint. That man baptized you, gave you your First Holy Communion, and married you and Andy,” she admonishes.

“Yeah, and we see how well that turned out,” I mutter.

“Fran, Eunice, come over here and say hello to Paige.”

I turn in the direction my mother is looking and see her two friends quickly amble over to us. Well, as quickly as they can considering Fran uses a cane and Eunice is pushing a walker.

“Paige, it’s good to see you back at church. Did you hear that Harold Johnson is single?” Eunice asks.

Oh, for the love of God.

“Eunice, who in their right mind would date that man? He lives with his mother and collects aspirin,” Fran interjects.

“I’m sorry, he collects what?” I ask in bewilderment.

“Aspirin. Every size, shape, and color imaginable. He glues them to poster board and hangs them up all over his mother’s house. I think he’s a serial killer,” Fran explains, dramatically whispering the last part.

“I think it’s very artistic,” my mother says indignantly. “I heard he even has aspirin from Germany.”

“I’d be willing to bet next week’s bingo winnings that those are roofies hanging all over his mother’s house.”

We all turn to stare at Fran.

“What are roofies? Are those the ones from Germany?” Eunice asks.

Fran opens her mouth to most likely school Eunice on all things roofies, and I quickly change the subject before this conversation goes downhill any faster.

“So, what do you guys think about Father Bob and the thefts that have been going on here?”

Fran huffs and lifts up her cane to point it at me. “It’s just not right, Paige. What is this world coming to when a church isn’t even safe? We should all get guns.”

“Oh, my God, no! You should definitely not get any guns. That is a bad idea,” I argue.

“Can I get a gun at Kroger? I have a coupon in my pocketbook for a dollar off any item,” Eunice says excitedly.

“I say we handle this ourselves. Take back the church!” my mother shouts.

“TAKE BACK THE CHURCH!” Fran and Eunice echo.

I need to put a stop to this before it turns into all-out old-lady anarchy.

“No one is taking back anything! Mom, as soon as I get some free time this week, I will look into this, I promise.”

Talk of guns is forgotten as Fran and Eunice begin discussing what dessert they’ll be making for their Altar and Rosary meeting later this week.

“Don’t you go to any trouble now, Paige. You just give Kennedy a call for me. I’m sure she’ll be able to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, I’ll give Harold your number. Maybe he’ll let you look at all his roofies.”

Grabbing three canisters of pepper spray from the junk drawer in my kitchen, I shove them into my bag. Slamming the drawer closed with my hip, I pause when I hear a knock at the door.

Maybe it’s Lorelei. She knows I used her computer at the office to pull up old court records of Vinnie DeMarco so I could get his address. She knows I’m planning on staking out his house to see if Melanie shows up. If I’m real quiet, she’ll go away. She won’t break the door down like Kennedy if I don’t answer.

“Paige, are you home? It’s Matt.”

The sound of his voice makes a lump form in my throat, especially since our last encounter wasn’t a pleasant one.

* * *

On the way home from church with my mother the previous week, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few odds and ends. As I was walking back out to my car, my arms loaded with bags, I ran into Matt. Literally. I was losing the grip on one of the bags and as I stepped down off of the curb trying to juggle them, I barreled right into him. Of course the bag filled with all of the items a woman needs to get over a man spilled out at his feet: a family-size bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, two bottles of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, a can of Reddi-wip, and a bottle of Moscato.