William Kienzle - Deadline for a Critic

“But you haven’t gone back.”

“I decided not to. At least not for now.” He was strongly tempted to tell her it was none of her business. Some sense of chivalry prompted him not to.

“I thought maybe it had something to do with us.”

“No, of course not” He flushed. Absolutely the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about. Especially with his partner in sin. Why else had he taken his confession to a deaf priest?

“I just thought it might have been. And I felt bad about that”

“No. No. For one thing . . . that . . . happened at New Year’s. And I went back to the seminary after Christmas vacation. So . . . that—had nothing to do with my staying home now. Nothing!”

It was Jane’s turn to feel a stab of anger. “Nothing! It was hardly ‘nothing’!”

“I don’t mean that. I don’t mean that at all. I’m sorry. I just mean it had no bearing on my not returning to the seminary. But I don’t want to talk about that.”

“About what happened between us? Or about not going back to the seminary?”

“Neither one. I don’t want to talk about either one.”

They walked in silence for a while. It occurred to Groendal that this was not unlike the seemingly endless walks he used to take around the seminary grounds. Except of course he had never walked those sacred paths with a girl in tow.

“That was an accident you know.”

“What?”

“What happened between us.”

Hadn’t he just told her he didn’t want to talk about that? This had to be it. This is what she simply had to talk to him about. Well, maybe if he let her get it out of her system she’d be satisfied and she wouldn’t have to talk about it anymore.

That’s what some of the priests out in the field had told the seminarians in conferences. The students had been told by men who were on the firing line that just listening could be an apostolate in itself. If they would just listen while some troubled soul got the problem off his or her chest, he or she might get rid of an intolerable burden.

Maybe it would work now. He certainly prayed it would. One more time. Then he would never have to think of that night again.

He sighed. “You really want to talk about it”

“I think we have to talk about it.”

Why, he thought would they have to talk about it? “Well, if you really feel you have to . . .”

“Do you suppose we could sit down? Do we have to keep walking?”

The request took him by surprise. It had never occurred to him that not everyone walked endlessly while talking. He looked about. Unlike the seminary, here benches lined the walkways. And—something he had not adverted to before—there were very few other people in the park.

“Sure. We can sit down.”

They did, at the next bench, near the deserted pavilion. They were silent for a few moments.

“This whole thing started out innocently enough, Rid. I had a schoolgirl crush on you. I used to time it so I could see you when we went to school. You always left at the same time, so I did too. Of course I was younger than you, and the girls and boys almost never got together at Redeemer, so you wouldn’t have noticed me.”

That was true. He’d never really seen her before that night at the Stratford when something—something indefinable—had happened. But with the careful and continued surveillance she was describing, he wondered how he had managed not to notice her.

“I used to daydream about going out with you. And then you went away to the seminary, so that was that as far as a date went. But I never quite got over you. I used to watch you serve Mass when you were home on vacation. And I never missed any of your piano recitals.”

Groendal felt haunted. How could he have overlooked someone who described herself as in almost constant attendance on him? Either he had instinctively avoided looking at the girl—a testimony to the custody of the eyes he’d been so carefully taught in the seminary—or it was a monumental lack of awareness.

“When I got that job at the Stratford I never thought I’d see you there. It never crossed my mind that you’d be so close to me.”

She shivered. It was colder sitting on the bench than it was walking. And all she had was that thin coat. Tentatively, he put one arm across her shoulders. She settled gratefully against him. Immediately he regretted his action. But, having given the arm, he could not in good grace withdraw it.

“Something happened, didn’t it? You felt it too, didn’t you? When you handed me your ticket. Something happened. Didn’t you notice it?”

“Yes, something. I guess I noticed you for the first time.”

“It was more than that. There was no need for me to walk up and down the aisle as often as I did that night. But I could feel you looking at me. And I liked that . . . a lot”

All she was saying was true. He had felt something akin to a not unpleasant shock when their fingers touched as he’d handed her his ticket. And he had noticed her as she repeatedly walked by that night. He’d supposed—correctly, as it turned out—that she’d taken many unnecessary trips, all for his benefit. And it hadn’t been wasted. He had studied her each and every trip. Unobserved, he had thought. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten away with it.

“Then when you came back the next night I knew you had come back to see me. I can’t tell you how happy I was. I never expected it. I could hardly even believe it”

Well, part of the reason for his return was to see that excellent movie again. But why tell her that? She would never believe it. Besides, she was on the right track: A good part of his reason for going back had been to see her. What had the priests told the seminarians? Listen.

“Just knowing that you had come back to see me made me really happy. Then when you asked me out after the show, I was nearly delirious. But—and this is very definite, Rid—I didn’t have any reason for inviting you over on New Year’s Eve except just to see you again. I wanted to see you and I knew you’d have to be going back to school soon and I just figured you were in the right mood to see me again. And that if you went back to school you might forget me. I was sort of striking while the iron was hot . . . do you know what I mean, Rid?”

He shrugged. It was up for grabs. Who knew what she’d really had in mind? It was certainly possible she had just wanted an innocent date. After all, how could she have come up with such an elaborate plot when she had no way of knowing he would come back to the movie or ask her out after the show?

On the other hand, once he did return to the Stratford and asked her out, she had the entire length of the movie to make her plans for New Year’s Eve. He’d put a judgment on that matter on the back burner for the moment.

“Everybody goes out to parties on New Year’s Eve,” she continued. “I didn’t think you’d want to do that. Besides, as long as we had this date that it seemed like I’d been waiting for most of my life, I wanted you all to myself. There didn’t seem to be any better place than home.

“I swear, Rid, I would have invited you over even if my parents had been home. They would have let us alone. But since they were going to a party, it seemed just perfect.” She hesitated. “The very last thing in the world I wanted to happen was what happened . . . you do believe that, don’t you. Rid?”

Again he shrugged. What had happened he had tried to put out of his mind. As time passed and particularly with the relationship that had grown with Charlie Hogan, Groendal had been quite successful in suppressing the memory. Now she was dusting off an old recollection that he preferred keeping buried.

He felt himself begin to flush. He tried to check his embarrassment. But the more he tried, the more he was conscious of the reddening that betrayed his emotion.