Death Goes on Retreat Read Online Free

skillet in the whole place on purpose. I’ve been here, Sister, three months now, and I really need the job. I’ve tried, but I just can’t take her.
    “Nothing I do is ever right, no matter how hard I try. When she is nice, it’s worse. It scares me, like she wants something from me.” Laura shuddered and Felicita put her arm around the thin, rigid shoulders.
    “When Greg came to pick me up, she told him to come back in two hours. She knows my car is dead and that he was going to pick me up for the show.” Laura’s green eyes blazed. “She makes me so mad, I could clobber her with one of her precious pots.”
    “Who is Greg?” Felicita asked, obviously trying to distract her.
    “My boyfriend. Actually, he is—almost—my fiancé.”
    For the first time, Felicita seemed to remember Mary Helen and Eileen, who were standing a little apart. “Why don’t you Sisters wait for me in St. Agnes’?”—she nodded toward the far redwood building with an alpine roof—“until Laura and I get this settled.”
    “It is settled,” Laura said, her lips set in a thin line.
    Before Felicita could protest or the other two nuns could move, tires screeched and a pair of headlights swept across the parking lot.
    The dogs pitched forward, barking and nipping at the wheels of a sporty white Camaro. When the driver switched off the motor, they seemed to lose interest and, with a perfunctory bark or two, went chasing after another supposed intruder in the underbrush.
    “It’s Greg,” Laura said, standing up and smoothing her hair from her face. She forced a smile.
    The door swung open and a broad-shouldered young man unfolded himself from the driver’s seat. Although it was difficult to tell much in the dim light, Mary Helen thought him good-looking in a blond, sun-bleached, surfer sort of way.
    “Are you okay, Laura?” he asked.
    Quickly, Laura went to him, buried her face in his leather bomber jacket, and began to sob again.
    “What’s wrong, babe?” he asked. “Are you hurt or something?”
    “Hurt?” She pulled herself away. “I am not hurt. I am furious. I am so mad I could scream.”
    “Sounds like you are,” Greg teased.
    “This is not funny, Greg,” she said, although the anger was already seeping out of her tone.
    “Beverly again?” he asked.
    “Again! Still! Always! But I’m not taking it anymore, Greg. No matter how much we need the money, I quit!” Laura nuzzled her face back into the front of Greg’s leather jacket.
    Felicita groaned.
    Greg enveloped Laura with his arms, pressed his chin onto the top of her head, and smiled helplessly at Felicita. “She ain’t a redhead for nothing, Sister,” he said.
    The door of St. Jude’s opened and a beacon of light spread across the parking lot. “I thought the priests’ retreat started tomorrow,” Greg said, staring at the laughing clerics framed in the doorway.
    “A couple came early,” Laura muttered, without ever moving her face from his chest. “That’s what started all the trouble, I think.”
    Ed Moreno raised his hand in a wave and the group strolled across the blacktop.
    “Let’s go,” Greg said quickly, “or we’ll miss the last show.”
    “Maybe tomorrow, when Laura calms down, she and I can talk,” Felicita appealed to Greg.
    “I’m sorry, Sister.” Laura’s back stiffened. “I have had it.”
    With a stiff plastic smile, Felicita watched the car disappear over the hill and the five priests disappear into their building before she sank down on the bench. “She’s had it?” Felicita sighed. One tear ran down her soft, round cheek and splashed onto her scapular. “What about me?”
    A distinctive buzz reminded Mary Helen that, sitting on the bench, they were nothing more than the entree for the mosquitoes’ main meal. “Is there someplace inside we can sit?” she asked.
    “There’s a small kitchenette in St. Philomena’s Hall.” Felicita removed her rimless glasses and dabbed her eyes with her snowy white