Under My Enemy's Roof - Under Him

I suspected Dad would have sent me to a nunnery if that was still legal. Though the previous twelve years of convent school had been close enough. I suppose it says it all that our headmistress had been appropriately nick-named ‘The Wrecking-Ball.’

“Wonderful!” Dad exalted, finally saying what he meant as always, consequences be damned.

I couldn’t disagree with him there. The dorm was massive. It was closer to a two-bedroom condo with a huge open-concept living area, separate kitchen with a pass-through and one of the biggest bathrooms I’d ever seen, with a tub so deep I worried I might drown in it.

“Glad to know my money is going to good use,” Dad said, then added, “see you later, kitten.”

Giving me a goodbye kiss on the cheek, he all but jigged out of the apartment, leaving my luggage sitting under the pass through. As the door closed, my heart stopped. Or at least that was what it felt like.

It was real. I was alone. In a strange place with no one to talk to or ask for help. I fell to my knees, trying not to cry as the shock and fear washed over me. Pulling myself together enough to move, I pulled my backpack off and dug the trough until I found it.

Moving the small, smooth beads between my fingers, the prayers and petitions came as naturally as breathing. I prayed for courage and focus, to serve Him to the best of my potential in his holy name as the beads of the rosary made their rounds. I’d been using the same one since I was ten and knew every last bead on it.

Equilibrium slowly coming back, my breathing went from deep gulps to something more closely resembling regular intervals. I tried to focus my mind. There was work to be done.

Returning the rosary to the backpack, I got out my laptop and looked at the reading list for the semester. It was long and detailed, some prices coming close to my food budget for the month. Steeling myself against the forces of darkness, I copied the list to my phone and headed out to look for the bookstore.

The campus wasn’t as big as some. In the suburbs, it combined the steely exterior of a big city campus like NYU with the size and scenery of a smaller, more pastoral institution like the University of Oregon.

I had to struggle to keep my mind on the task at hand, because I was continually distracted by the splendor of it all. Controversial as it was in some circles, I thought Newton was certainly onto something when he used the beauty of nature to argue for the existence of a benevolent creator.

One thing I truly had to give the administration credit for were the small, British-style signposts. Each one was spiked with arrow shapes pointing in the general direction of the most important locations on campus.

Within minutes, I was ascending the steep stone stairs to the new library building. I held down the back of my skirt just in case there was anyone close behind me. I’d considered wearing pants to avoid such situations, but I could never get used to them. I had what Dad called ‘princess skin,’ which, while it sounds nice, could be annoying sometimes.

The bookstore was packed. Dozens of students were coming and going at any given time, adding to the unfathomable line stretching from the checkouts, through a maze of spectators taking up most of the western half of the floor space and back out the door again.

The actual shelves weren’t so bad. The class readings were kept separate from the general fiction and non-fiction the store also carried. I had to get a basket for all my weighty tomes. Some of them stood out as rather unusual. Not least of which was the volume concerning St. Francis of Assisi, a friar I got the impression was something of a heretic. As attested to by the fact that he was decanonized and reinstated no fewer than three times, depending on who was wearing the Pope’s hat.

His ideas were admittedly radical. He held notions such as religious enlightenment coming from within and not adhering to an outside institution. Slightly less controversial was the assertion that because God is a creator, creativity is the highest form of human endeavor, following the example of the Lord.

Hauling my cargo the length of the floor plan, I found the end of the line, which started roughly where I had come in. I migrated forward just enough so that I was actually in the building.

“Wow, that’s a load!” someone exclaimed.

“Wha-?” I asked, turning in the direction of the voice.

“The books. How many courses are you taking?”

“Six,” I said, always taught to answer plainly and truthfully.

“Holy shit!”

I blushed at her blasphemy. I didn’t mean to. I wanted nothing more than to fit in to my new surroundings, yet I still felt the heat rising in my cheeks. Like it did during confession.