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“Mam, I was wondering,” she said. “Can I go to the movies tomorrow? I’ve been saving up,” she added before the hard no came down like a hammer blow. “And I can work extra next week. Can I go, Mam? Please?”

“And what sort of movie would you be wanting to see?”

Mairin had learned that it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible. If she could get Mam to yes , then she could skip the mention of Kevin Doyle.

“It’s called The Graduate,” she said. At least it had a decent-sounding title. Not like demon vampires or something that would immediately send her mother

into a tailspin. The song about Mrs. Robinson immediately popped into Mairin’s head. It was a fantastic song. It would be

even more fantastic in the movie. She just knew it.

“ The Graduate,” Mam said. “And what might that be about altogether?”

“It’s, um, it’s about succeeding in school, Mam.” Mairin was fairly certain her mother hadn’t read a review in the paper.

Her mother had never been much for reading. With any luck, Mam hadn’t seen the ad for the movie, with the woman’s sexy leg.

“Don’t you want me to learn about succeeding in school?”

“Pah. In my day, a girl didn’t need school if she had a good head on her shoulders.”

Mairin hated it when her mother said her in my day things. She was no fan of school, especially St. Wilda’s, where the nuns were wicked strict. They spent so much time on Latin

declensions and quizzing everyone on the canon of the saints, matters Mairin found totally pointless. Still, between the prayers

and assemblies, there were a few lay teachers who taught lessons about nature—the rhythm of the seasons, the habits of birds

and wildlife, the wonder of growing things, the science of the stars, the order of the universe, the satisfaction of solving

a problem. Mairin lapped up those lessons, and sometimes she even stayed after class to help Miss Baxter, who encouraged her

to read books about absolutely everything, and to study the way words worked and how great thinkers expressed their ideas.

Miss Baxter even suggested that a girl who kept her grades up and learned to think for herself could go to college, and not

just teacher college or nursing school. If Mairin made good enough scores on the Regents exam, she might be able to get a

scholarship to study science or agriculture or meteorology, which would be a dream. Mairin had always been interested in the

weather and growing things. The patterns of the seasons held a certain fascination for her, and she tracked the information

in the Farmers’ Almanac . Mam thought it was silly, so Mairin kept the dog-eared paperbound book in her room and studied it late into the night.

“So can I?” Mairin asked, neatly stacking the pale, shucked ears on a tray. “Can I go, Mam?”

“Seems a terrible waste of your hard-earned money,” Mam said.

“It’s the last Saturday before school starts. Please, Mam. Please.”

Mam gave a tight smile. “We’ll see.”

Mairin felt a spike of excitement. We’ll see was almost maybe. And maybe was practically yes.

Fiona wasn’t at mass on Sunday morning, which totally annoyed Mairin, since she was dying to tell her friend everything about

the movie date with Kevin Doyle. Her first date. To a grown-up movie.

She was bursting with the news that she had actually managed to pull it off. She’d worn her jumper dress with the buckle shoulders,

which she’d made in home ec. Even though it was homemade, it looked just like the one she’d coveted in the Montgomery Ward

catalog, which of course Mam said they couldn’t afford. Mairin had also hidden a tube of strawberry-flavored Mary Quant lipstick

in her pocket along with her bus pass and a dollar fifty for the movie ticket.

One way she knew she’d gone on a real actual date was that Kevin hadn’t been wearing his Yankees baseball cap, and his hair

was slicked back with the comb furrows showing the topography of his head. Also, he had already paid for her ticket, so she

was able to buy a bucket of popcorn to share. They both blushed and stammered a bit, but during the cartoons that played before

the main event, they managed to relax and laugh at the show.

She didn’t think any movie could be as good as A Hard Day’s Night with the Beatles, which of course was the best thing she’d ever seen or heard. But The Graduate was just as good in its own crazy way. Crazy, because after spending all that time going to college, the guy named Benjamin

didn’t seem to have any idea what to do with himself except go back to his parents’ California home and float around in the

pool and have an affair with the neighbor woman, who drank fancy cocktails and smoked like a chimney. And after all that,

he suddenly turned around and fell in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter. Mairin thought the whole thing was hilarious in

a weird way. And the music was phenomenal.

She was still humming “Mrs. Robinson” when she and Kevin walked out of the theater, and Kevin kind of accidentally-on-purpose let his hand bump into hers, and then he held on to it.

She’d had to hold in a gasp of excitement, even though it was just two hands with fingers intertwined.

He’d walked her to the bus stop, and for a single, breath-held moment, she thought he might kiss her.

Fiona once said you could tell a boy wanted to kiss you if he kept staring at your lips.

Mairin couldn’t really tell whether or not he was staring at her lips.

But there was no kiss, just a goodnightseeyouaround a few moments before the bus came and the doors opened with a hiss.

She wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or disappointed

about the swift farewell. She was home by nine-thirty, which was the curfew she’d negotiated with her mother.

She probably could have stayed out later, because Mam didn’t even stir when Mairin tiptoed through the back door. Mam was

asleep in front of the TV, where Petticoat Junction was just bleeding into the next show, Mannix . Colm was still out, probably over at Kell’s, drinking and boasting about something or other.

Good. They always argued over what to watch anyway. Colm wouldn’t let them watch The Smothers Brothers Show on TV. Even though the comedy team brothers were clean-cut, Colm claimed they were disrespectful, singing about how war was

bad and free love was good. Mairin couldn’t understand what was so awful about that. Especially since Colm was okay with watching

a show about a talking horse, and another about a guy whose mother had been reincarnated as a car.

On most Sundays, Mairin couldn’t stand going to church. It was boring and seemed pointless, especially since they did chapel

at school, confession every fourth Thursday, and endless catechism with the nuns. Most Sundays, she got up early and rode

her bike to St. Mary’s for the six o’clock mass. Liam thought she was nuts to get up so early, but she liked getting it over

with. Father Campbell, who had a full head of silver hair and a voice like a trumpet, liked to speed through the service,

probably so he could go back to bed. He never noticed when she read a library book or paged through Tiger Beat hidden within the pages of her St. Joseph missal.

Today, though, she dressed as if it were Easter Sunday—long lace mantilla instead of the usual bobby-pinned doily.

She willingly went to high mass, because she knew Kevin Doyle would be there.

He’d told her last night he was serving as thurifer, an important role.

Mairin made sure she was the last one into the pew, coming in behind Colm, her mom, and Liam, so she could be on the aisle, second row from the front.

Slipping a glance at Liam, she wondered how many more Sundays she’d have her brother by her side. She squeezed her eyes shut

and prayed to the Virgin and all the saints for Liam to be okay. She tried not to hear the songs of protest in her head, songs

about boys coming home in a box. She made a little gasp that sounded like a hiccup, and Liam gave her a nudge. “Heads up,

squirt,” he whispered.

She turned slightly as the processional approached, accompanied by the vibrating crescendos of the massive pipe organ playing

the opening strains of O Salutaris Hostia . The grand chords sounded like thunder from heaven, propelling the tall, ornate processional cross, followed by the candles

atop high staffs with banners and icons along the aisle to the altar.

Kevin’s job was to go to the sacristy and fill the thurible with lighted coals and incense grains. Seeing him in the processional

in his red-and-white, gold-embroidered raiment, swinging the censer with measured solemnity, was strangely thrilling—in a

nonreligious way. The cassock and surplice with the long, tunnel-like sleeves made him look like a medieval knight, only with

a big brass censer on a chain instead of a flail and sword. The scuffed Chuckies on his feet ruined the effect, but he still

looked really cute.

She knew he saw her, because their eyes met, and his lit from behind, as if someone had struck a match. She winked. She couldn’t

help it. She winked.

His mouth went stiff as he tried not to smile, and the tips of his ears turned red. Was he thinking about last night? Did

he wish he’d kissed her? The thought caused her to make a soft, involuntary sound, and Liam shifted and sent her a baffled-looking

frown.

As everyone sang O Salutaris , the servers with the boat approached the altar, followed by Kevin and his thurible. The priest made a great show of adding

more incense to the thurible, then he waved the puffs of smoke over the monstrance and handed the vessel back to Kevin.

During the start of the Tantum Ergo, she noticed that something had fallen out of the right sleeve of Kevin’s cassock. Craning her neck toward the altar, she could see a black-edged hole in Kevin’s garment. Was that a piece of coal? Yes, it was.

The hole was smoldering, but he didn’t seem to notice. No one noticed.