Tony winced. "I told Carol Koch, a long time ago, that the Fitzgeralds were a bunch of uptight Irish Catholic Puritans. Except Denise, of course. It's not just that Patrick and Mary Liz Murphy wouldn't have her in their house. She's eaten with us and the kids, with Bernadette there sometimes. But she's never even been to Denise's parents' house. Or to Suzanne Trelli's. Because the Fitzgeralds, too, saw her as a child of adultery. So far, the facts that came out at St. Mary's haven't gotten them to change their minds. At least not as far as meeting her goes. That's one reason she keeps so busy at work, I think. And doesn't mind going to Franconia. Let me see if Denise can come downtown for lunch. You maybe ought to talk to her about this. Or maybe Aura Lee could talk to her."
That immediately struck both of them as a brilliant idea, freeing them of further immediate obligations in regard to understanding the female of the species and permitting them to get back to fulfilling their respective public duties.
"When we were retelling the Harlan and Eden episode of the Stull family history, I couldn't tell from her face whether she was going to laugh or cry." Aura Lee held out her mug so Cora could refill it.
"She probably didn't know either," Denise got a refill too. "She's never had a date, so the . . . freewheeling . . . approach to it all in Dennis' family may have boggled her mind. The first time she ever went to a party was the staff Christmas party at her job, December before the Ring of Fire happened. She didn't want to face it by herself, but she did, and came through it okay."
"Why no dates? Because of that nun idea she has?" Aura Lee frowned.
"No. The 'nun idea' came up since the Ring of Fire. No dates because she wasn't willing to put out the payback that guys over in Fairmont expected from a girl with her background. From what I've picked up as her godmother. Ah, that was confidential."
"Isn't that a bit overblown?"
"Not when you add Patty's reputation as a party girl on top of Dennis and Pat."
"Oh." Aura Lee decided not to comment on that.
"Noelle told me once that when she was young enough to have dreams, back when she was fifteen or sixteen, she dreamed that some day she would leave Fairmont and go someplace like Denver or Seattle, where no one had ever heard of her family, and meet a nice guy at mass one day. Someone who had grown up in an orphan asylum and done well. That they'd fall in love and when she told him about her family he would say that he didn't care and didn't have any relatives who cared, either, and they would get married and live there and Pat would go visit them, but she'd never have to come back to West Virginia again."
"That is as sad as hell," Aura Lee put her mug down. "Twenty-three and talking about when she was young enough to have dreams."
"She was more like nineteen, then," Denise answered. "Instead of Noelle's getting to go away, Pat brought her to Grantville in search of affordable housing. Where she was even more in the middle of it. Going to mass at St. Vincent's, where Pat's relatives never acknowledged she was there. She finally had to give up her pretty daydreams completely when the Ring of Fire happened and she knew that she'd never be able to get away from people who knew about it all."
She sighed. "But it's one of the reasons that Bernadette doesn't take the 'nun idea' all that seriously. It isn't that Noelle didn't date—doesn't date—because she was never interested in getting married some day. She just doesn't believe that she has any chance of it now. Not with a 'nice guy.' "
Aura Lee frowned. "If you look at the available pool, she may not have much of a chance. I can't think of anyone I'd recommend for her. Not since she takes being Catholic seriously. The nice unmarried men within a reasonable range of her age, like Jim Horton or Danny Tipton, Gene Woodsell, maybe, are either Protestants or don't go to church at all."
"The hell of it is, that neither can we. Tony and I've talked about it some, since we're her godparents. The only Catholic guy anywhere her age who is anywhere near worthy of her in the whole town is Lawrence Quinn, but there's no spark there at all. Not on either side. Bernadette won't have her, though. For the new order they're planning, I mean. She says that Noelle's daydreams may have been of marrying a nice Catholic guy, but Pat came up with Dennis, who didn't make any sense for her at all. Which certainly didn't stop them. She's sure Noelle doesn't have a religious vocation. Especially since she gave us such an enthusiastic description of putting Eden's two little ones to bed."
"I hope it doesn't bother you, Denise, since you're Catholic yourself and all." Aura Lee dropped a couple of bills on the table to cover their coffee and a tip. "But that's a big relief from our point of view, the Stulls being Methodists. I'll mention that to Dennis and Joe, if you don't mind."