"This will be FUN!" Sister Cabrini says with mega-wattage goodness that makes Hello Kitty look like a Visigoth--energizing the anarchist neurons in my sixteen-year old brain.
In her front-row seat, Mary Alice Margaret stops polishing her rosary beads and shoots up her hand. "Ooo, Ooo, Sister! Let me help!"
When Helene fingers her pearls at the neck of her French-blue uniform and whispers "F-Wad Toady" my laughter explodes like Krakatoa. And nothing says 'Batter-Up' to a nun like untimely laughter in class.
"Praise Jesus we have a volunteer!' Sister exclaims. "Alright my pretty maids march ye to the foyer in a row."
St. Elizabeth's Girls Priory sits atop a hundred acre verdant hill, the impenetrable brick fortress of our totally hot virginity thrown up against the sky like a come-hither sigh. A winding snake of side road slithers up to the entrance like boys sneaking a peek under your skirt.
The foyer is a cavernous white marble meat-locker. At the back is a floating grand double staircase in front of a three story glass wall over-looking a lushly terraced rose garden, a not so nuanced architectural leitmotif for marching up to Heaven's Gate. But for now, Sister Cabrini has unwittingly set the stage for Girls Gone Wild performance art.
She pauses at the bottom of the staircase, young, beautiful, slim, vibrantly alive, with the pure white hands of a corpse, waiting for the record player that I roll out of the AV closet and plug-in. Sister floats over to it in head-to-toe black habit, and selects practice music.
"Girls. Girls! Young ladies!" Sister says in her perfectly modulated voice. She waits another moment for quiet, and then claps her hands, "Alright, Enchanted Flowers of our Existence, pipe down." She runs through her spiel.
Next Friday night is the Father-Daughter Dance, our fathers will wait in the foyer with corsages. Daughters will be on the second floor. As our name is called we're to descend with impeccable posture, our hands folded waist high, and our chins and eyes up like some proud but wistful Jane Austin heroine scouring the horizon for our next good deed. Many of us will be test-driving our first pair of high heels down these two long flights of slippery marble stairs, which Sister insists we navigate down the center and without looking down. In the foyer, each father will pin a corsage on his daughter, she will take his arm, and they will promenade to the dance like God meant it to be. We are going to practice our descent so it's as sleek as lip-gloss for the night of the dance.
"Since Suzanne has so graciously volunteered we will start with her."
"Please let the Sky God suck-me up now," I say in Helene's ear hoping she'll get the giggle and by default be made the first to go, forestalling my death by 1,000 humiliations. She's close to bursting, but needs something stronger to push her over the edge. Sister sends me up the stairs, and so help me, starts the music, "These Foolish Things Remind Me of You," I look over the balcony at Helene who is micro-millimeters away from splitting internal organs.
"Alright Suzanne, dear. Head up. Up like a swan. Up. Up. That's our darling girl. Eyes up. Lets see those lovely blue eyes. Hands folded like a Virgin Saint. Alright, pause there dear at the top while I restart the music." She's over at the record player with her head down, so I Can-Can my skirt towards Helene who is by now biting a hole through her check. "You know girls, Suzanne means "Lily" and doesn't she look like a graceful, fragrant Casablanca Lily."
I'm thinking...just throw yourself down to bleed-out on the marble stairs or at least get a concussion to get out of this. Helene is doubled-over and poised to blow like a Yellowstone geyser.
Sister Cabrini is setting the needle on the record when the priory secretary comes out and whispers to her, "Alright Suzanne, you go ahead and demonstrate until I get back." The music starts.
The foyer is an echo chamber and if I can get the girls laughing they'll be heard, but I can't be seen from the school office. I start vamping down like a stripper. Crossing slowly from one side of the staircase to the other. Grabbing the stair rail seductively, posing, and shimmying at different parts to the music. Being as salacious as a girl in a Catholic school uniform can be. Lick my finger, touch it to my bottom and make a sizzling sound.
"You came, you saw, you conquered me
When you did that to me I knew somehow this had to be."
Oh yeah, they're laughing now. So I put it in high gear with more bumps and grinds than a carnival ride. Helene's biting her lip off. A few more moves and she will transformed into a freaking hyena.
"Two lovers on the street who walk like dreamers
Oh how the ghost of you clings, These foolish things
Remind me of you"
They're ready, right on the edge, I'm half way down, and kick-it like the Rockettes. Who doesn't like a flash of white cotton panties? So pure, and yet not. An entire vernacular, a symposium on irony.
"How strange, how sweet, to find you still
These things are dear to me
They seem to bring you so near to me."
That's it. They're gone. It's Stratospheric Hilarity and Sister Cabrini is out like a shot hunting culprits and taking names. I assume the Lily pose and stand innocently waiting for Helene to be pressed into practicing the waltz with Sister, who suddenly looks past me up the stairs, "Brother Bernard, do you know who started this?" She asks.
He starts down, I hear the tap-tap-tappity of his earnest shoes coming down but don't glance back at the young gorgeous priest we all pant for in our dreams. He passes me "Nice job, Lily."
Mary Alice Margaret's hand pops up, "Ooo, Ooo, Sister, it was Suzanne and Helene. As usual."
We know the drill. Into the office. We're sitting on the chairs outside Mother Superior's door. Helene mimics a high pitched whine, "Ooo, Ooo, Sister, it was Suzanne and Helene as usual."
"This will be FUN!" I reply.
It's over. We're on the floor.
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