The Nuns of La Padina

THE NUNS OF LA PADINA

COPYRIGHT 2013

@aladreth

In the San Juan Quin Valley, there is a little known convent called the Nuns of La Padina.  I knew six girls who went there to study.  They were quick to point out they signed a contract stating they didn't only worship God, but worshiped stones as well.  I wasn't sure why this was so important that they tell everyone - but it was.  

These girls wore their habits, but they were quite naughty before they came to study how to be a proper nun.  They had been really bad girls before they signed on at the convent.

One in particular was Leah, and she was a thief. 

One day I was in a car with her and I was so thrown off about how she was like, often saying to her, "See, how you are like!?!" 

That particular day, she had her nun's outfit on - except with six-inch high heels!  She looked like a dirty slutty whore, posing as a nun.

"I bet they have to tie you up to get you to say your bedtime prayers!" I said.

I imagined her tied with red rope around her wrists.  Thick rope.  Tight.  Permanently in the position of praying hands.

I was so caught up about her that day, I left my purse in a Chinese carry out.  I went back in to the restaurant and at the counter was a man named Thomas paying his check.  I teased him that I was a 'Doubting Thomas' myself right at that moment, worried nothing would be left in my purse, if it had even been recovered.

He let me go in front of him.  Then he stood next to me. A form of support.  Solidarity in a stranger.  I had lost something important to me.  My purse is a monument of nostalgia and love and promises and just all good stuff.  All my memories are locked in that purse and I carry it with me to remember everything from the past.  

One day Karen told me about one of her friends who would collect things and put them in her purse.  I asked, "What is wrong with that?" Knowing I did the same.  Karen replied, "She does it because she is broken.  There is something wrong with her.  Something happened in her past."  I just nodded and held on to the information.  There must be something wrong with me, as well.

Thomas felt for me.  I could tell.  Bones and sinew over a body of pain, I could see and he 

'got' me already.  Well, I guessed he did, because as they were locating my purse that had been returned by a nice do-good person, he put together a package for me.  Something like a little care package.

A plastic bag with candies and frilly bookmarks.  Little verses and fortunes he had collected by the cash register and purchased.  Oh, and gum.  Cinnamon flavour. 

Also included was a card he even signed as I was looking through my purse to make sure all was there. 

Credit cards? Check.  

Cash?  Really? Someone left the cash?  

They probably felt sorry for me as it wasn't much and I carry silly things in my purse.  

I was so grateful, but still so shook up.  I had almost lost my life.  Yes, my purse was my life.  And unless you have just about lost your life, don't argue with the fact that a purse can hold everything. I've seen women, on the news, in the middle of flash floods on the roof of their cars, holding tightly to their purse and the reporters from the helicopter commenting, "Let go, Lady! Your life is more important!" 

But, it's not true.  Their life is in their purse, man, their life is in there!

Roger, or did I say his name was Thomas?  I don't know because the rest of the night I didn't call him by his name.  I just called him, "The sweet boy."  Well, the people behind the counter knew him and seemed to 'tsk tsk' him, even making a comment about why would a nice, tall, good looking man like him want to risk his marriage.  

I looked over my glasses and rolled my eyes. Did they really think things would go that far from a goodie bag?  Well, I was sentimental.  

But excuse me!  Why bring up his evident better looking self! Sheeesh!

I asked him, "Can you write your name and number down in the card?"

Then another girl from behind the counter spoke up and said, "Roger Thomas, don't you dare! You are married!"  He looked at me and shrugged and then leaned down and whispered into the back of my head, right behind my ear, "Not happily."

"Oh, it doesn't matter, dear," I cooed, just as much to the girl behind the counter as to him, "It's just a thoughtful thing for you to make a nice little package of gifts here for me.  Just because I lost my purse? Oh, it's so sweet."   

I pondered, "Is he younger than me? He really looks it," and "I wonder if he has kids."  The kids thing bothered me.  I suppose every adult is free to do what they want.  I wanted to pretend this was a dream.  He wasn't married.  I could just erase that bit.  

What would be wrong with a dinner with a tall guy who just bought me stuff I was so nostalgic about?  It reminded me of airport departure goodbyes already.  Tiny books of kisses, signed, "I have so enjoyed our trip together.  I love you, I will always love you.  Here is a tiny book to prove it. Goodbye now, but we will see each other again. I am your slave forever."

 I still have that book. Tear stained book because I took that book in the airport bathroom and bawled like a baby in a stall as his airplane left.  

But, enough about airport departure goodbyes and stupid tiny books about kissing.  

Silly, really, when I'm not even much a kisser.  

Silly, really, because he's gone.  Long gone.  

And there was Thomas.

He was silly himself, I could tell.  He had on a yellow and red striped shirt and it was not in fashion.  But, oh, he was so good looking.

I sort of threw some of the hard candy at his chest and said, "I don't need these at all! Can't you see how fat I am?"  

"Good," is all he replied, as he caught them and stuck them back in my bag.

Leah was waiting in the car as I dragged Thomas out, holding his hand in one of my hands and his package of goodies in my other,  and my recovered life over my shoulder.

I pulled him in to the backseat and scooted over.

"So, you found everything, eh," she said turning around toward me, and then to Thomas, "She's quite persnickety," Shaking her head, "You've been warned." 

I defended myself, "She's not even a real nun, Thomas!  They don't worship God out there at that convent!  Just stones."