He's going to be a priest! She could still hardly believe it. That's why he can't get emotionally involved with a woman!
That night in Gail's room, she told her all about it.
"That's why he isn't interested in me," Gail said, tears welling up inside her.
Barbara sat with her on the bed and hugged her.
Oh, my God! she realized. You're crazy in love with Paul, too! Gail then poured her heart out. "I've known Paul since we were in high school at New Trier in Winnetka. I've probably been in love with him since then, too. When he was both captain of the basketball team and editor of our school paper. I became a cheerleader and a reporter just to be near him. He was so nice and thoughtful even then. And he was beautiful to look at on the basketball court. So agile, so exciting to watch."
He's still exciting to watch, Barbara wanted to say. To just look at! She felt dizzy and was glad she was sitting on her friend's bed. If she had been standing up and heard all that, she might have collapsed.
"I was a junior and he a senior, like now," Gail said. "We didn't actually date then. He was always either shy or too busy, in sports and on the paper and then working in a garage after school and on weekends. He didn't have to work; his parents are wealthy. He just wanted to, so he had something to do besides play, and he wanted to start earning his own money, too.
"His mother is very religious. And he has uncles who are priests and an aunt who is a nun. I thought at first, when he told me wasn't going to a regular college but to a seminary to study for the priesthood, that it was to please his mother. But after his first year at Mundelein, I realized he chose to become a priest because it's a calling he's felt on his own."
Barbara had to ask it. "Have you tried talking him out of it?"
"Not exactly, in so many words. But he knows I'd rather be his wife than someone to hear my confession or put a Communion wafer in my mouth."
It took Barbara a long time to fall asleep that night, after another pig-out dinner that did not satisfy the hunger in her for Paul Riordan. She still tossed and turned after getting up and drinking a cup of hot milk to hasten the angels of slumber. They hovered over her head, tittering and then laughing out loud at her.