Chapter 49
On Monday after noon the staff gathered in one of the classrooms for their first getting to know you meeting with Sister Donna Maria. Ron got there a little late because at first he went to the convent but when no one answered the door he made his way back to the high school main office. He saw a hand written sign on the principal’s office that directed him to where the faculty meeting was being held. Ron wondered why the new principal hadn’t come over the PA to either introduce herself to the students that day or to tell the faculty where the meeting was going to be. He had spent a good part of the day telling students that he didn’t know when they asked him questions about what the new principal was like. When he arrived at the classroom, he saw that all of the nuns were seated on one side of the room and the lay teachers were on the other side of the room. Ron slid into desk towards the back of the room. Sister Vincent Salvatore turned around to him and held up a 4”by6” index card that had her name written on it and which had been creased down the middle so that it would stand up. “We have assigned seats,” she said happily.
Lifting his head, Ron saw that there was an index card on an empty desk in the first row, on the lay faculty’s side of the room and moved towards it. Sure enough, there was his name printed in block letters: Mr. Ronald Tuck, 2nd year, English. He slid down into the chair and looked up at the nun who was standing with her eyes closed and swaying slightly back and forth in front of the room. Ron saw that her lips were silently moving.
The physical appearance that she made could not have been more different from Irene Emanuel. Irene was tall and stately. Donna Maria was short and plump. Irene Emanuel moved with a flowing grace. Donna Maria shuffled. Irene Emanuel’s skin was very white and it seemed to Ron almost powdered. Donna Maria had a reddish splotches at her cheeks and on her forehead.
As the faculty watched, Donna Maria lifted her crucifix from her chest and pressed it into her splotchy forehead as her eyes remained closed and she continued to silently mumble. Ron looked at her in bewilderment and then his eyes sought out Bernadette who was staring daggers at her new principal. When she felt Ron’s eyes on her she gave him a quick eye roll and went back to her stare.
“I want to thank the Lord Jesus, the blessed Mother, our Holy Father, all of the saints and those dedicated souls in heaven who have brought me to be with you.” Ron felt his stomach begin to flip. “When I first learned of my mission here, I fell right to my knees and prayed that I would be worthy of the honor that was being bestowed upon me, an honor and a challenge to help bring the young ladies of this parish closer to God. To help keep them turned away from the devil’s temptations in this world and to perhaps even send the most worthy to the mother house as novitiates.” Ron felt his stomach flip again. What the hell was she talking about?
“I have prayed over the weekend so that I could appear here confident of my choices.” Silently, Ron wondered if perhaps someone else could have prayed for her to have gotten into some debilitating and non-fatal accident on the way there. “As you can see, I have assigned each of you a seat and given you a name card. Please remember to bring your name cards to each of our faculty meetings. We will have those meetings in a designated classroom every two weeks for the remainder of the year, so that I can become more familiar with each of you and the good work that you are doing. The host teacher will be told a couple of days in advance so that she can have her classroom prepared for visitors. That way,” she clapped her hands together with enthusiasm, “we can all see the pretty decorations that you have hung up and perhaps get ideas from each other. The convent is the home and refuge of the sisters and it did not seem right to me to continue to have the faculty meetings there. However, on special occasions, I am hopeful that we can all meet and pray together in the convent.” Ron took a mental snapshot of his room. Except for the Lincoln portrait and a skeleton that he had hung at his door at Halloween and never taken down, there were no decorations.
Then she stopped suddenly. “Does anyone have a question?”
Ron wondered what anyone could possibly ask about other than if she was out of her fucking mind. He looked around and to his shock there were two hands in the air. Vincent Salvatore said, “I would just like to say how happy we are to have you here and to ask if perhaps I could possibly help choosing the rooms for the meetings?”
Donna Maria clasped her hands at the side of her left ear and said, “Of course you can help, Sister. I am going to need everyone’s help.”
Ron was almost shocked to see that Doris had her hand in the air. “I’d just like to volunteer to bake some cookies for the next meeting.” His mouth fell open.
“Of course you can and I hope that others volunteer for other meetings.”
Now Ron was seriously nauseous. He put his head down and closed his eyes. Donna Maria saw this gesture and assumed that Ron was praying. She moved towards him with a shuffling burst of evangelic fervor and places fingertip on his desk. “I ask for guidance all day long as well, Mr. Ron.”
Ron looked up into her eyes and said slowly and he hoped without obvious sarcasm, “I’m sure that you do, Sister Donna.”
She smiled and said, “Sister Donna Maria, please.”
Then she shuffled back and said, “For now, everything else will stay as it is. Change will come slowly but it will surely come.”
As they left the classroom, Ron felt a hand on his shoulder. Sister Rita Julia smiled and said, “Ron, can we walk together?”
“Of course, Sister.”
“Irene Emanuel thought the world of you Ron and told more than once that you had the makings of a great teacher. At first I disagreed with her and thought that you were misplaced, but I have come to see that she was right. Sister Donna Maria has a good heart. Give her a chance to show it to you.”
“I’ll try, Sister.”
“I know that you spoke to Irene Emanuel often about teaching. Although we have not been close, I’d like to tell you that my door is always open to you.”
“Thank you, Sister. I would like to get to know you better.”
“Sister Donna Maria has asked me to take her place on the Faculty Council for the rest of this year, so I am sure that we will, Ron.”
The next day Sister Donna Marie appeared with a bag of Cheese Doodles. She made her way along the corridor offering a Cheese Doodle to each of the girls who passed her in the hallway. For each Doodle that she gave out she also ate one. For those that lingered, there were what Sister Donna Marie called a golden moment where they clasped hands and she crushed the Doodle bag between them and they closed their eyes together and gave silent praise to the Lord and to the Virgin. Some of the girls watched agape. Others seemed to enjoy the contact and ate their Cheese Doodle like a host.
Unfortunately, Sister Donna Marie also had the habit of kissing the girl tenderly on the cheek after they concluded their worshipful reverie and this left a slight orange mark from the Cheese Doodle. By noontime, Ron’s sophomores pointed out the girls who had been “Doodled” by Sister Donna Mary, forever to be known among them now as Sister Cheesy.
In the hall at the end of the day, Bernadette said to Ron in her side-mouth way of speaking that she always used with him now. “It’s going to become a circus here.”
“Let’s just make sure they don’t put us in the cages,” said Ron.