“Exactly!”
“Is that why you’re carrying your rosary?” Irene gestured at the rather ornate black rosary resting in Joan’s lap. “Did the experience frighten you into getting religion?”
Joan glanced down at her all-but-forgotten rosary, and chuckled. “No, this was a last-minute purchase.” She laughed again. “Actually, it was and it wasn’t.”
“Make up your mind, lady.”
“Well, it started the first day we arrived. Remember when we were driven all over the countryside for hours because our rooms weren’t ready?”
“I’ll never forget! Nor will I forget that yesterday they told us the water would be turned off for a few hours, and we never saw it again . . . including this morning!”
“Yes, it was dreadful, wasn’t it,” Joan sympathized. “I do hope you had the foresight to fill your tub with water before they turned it off.”
Ms. Perfect again, thought Irene.
“Well, anyway, no sooner did we get to the hotel than this peddler—you know, the one with a pushcart full of religious articles—came up to me and started rattling away in Italian. He saw that I admired this rosary, so he took it out of its box and showed it to me. I said—with gestures, ‘How much?’ He said— with gestures, ‘6500 lire.’ I said—with a lot of gestures, ‘Too much!’ He just shrugged and walked away. I think he knew I was going to become a captive audience.”
“Sixty-five hundred lire! Why that’s . . . that’s . . .”
“About five dollars.”
“Robbery!”
“That’s what I thought. But every day as I left or entered the hotel, there he would be. With the rosary. And every day the price would go down. And every day it was still too high.
“Well, this morning I took a short walk outside the hotel before breakfast and there he was. By now, the price was down to 2600 lire.”
“About two dollars.” Irene’s arithmetic was improving.
“So I said, ‘No, no,’ and held up a one dollar bill, but he just shrugged and walked away again.
“Then, after breakfast, we were about to get on the bus, and I guess he could tell this was the end of our negotiations. He came over to me with the rosary, and said, sort of disgustedly, ‘Hokay, una buck.’ But I told him that was my offer
“He shook his head and muttered something.
“Well, I got on the bus and sat down. Suddenly, there was a tapping at the window. There he stood, grimacing, but nodding, with the rosary held up in one hand and the other open palm outstretched.
“So I opened the window, took the rosary, put the two quarters in his hand, and he turned and walked away and that’s the last I saw of him.”
“Bet he’ll never forget you!”
“I guess not. I really feel rather proud of myself.” Joan held up the rosary rather like a trophy. “Oh, I forgot to get it blessed.”
“I think you can probably find a clergyman not a hundred miles from here to do that.”
“How about you?” Joan asked. “Did you get any souvenirs?”
Irene nodded, and smiled sheepishly. “Yes, but unlike you, I sort of got taken.”
“Oh? How?”
“Well, I went on that bus trip—you know, Rome’s version of the Grey Line Tour. We began and ended at St. Peter’s. When we finished the tour, the guide touted us into a religious goods store right in the building. So I bought a bunch of stuff. Then I went up the stairs to the first roof of the basilica—you know, where all the tall statues are.
“And there, I discovered another religious goods shop run by a bunch of sweet little nuns. Their stuff was lots nicer than what was selling downstairs, and a fraction of the price.”
“No!”
“Well, I went right back down and demanded my money back. I’ll say this for them: they didn’t bother pulling that ‘no spika English’ routine. They just told me that there were no refunds. I could see my traveler’s check on top of a pile of others on the back counter, but I couldn’t reach it, or I would’ve just taken it.”
“How frustrating!”
“Yes. But the Irish kid doesn’t quit when the score’s one to nothing against her.
“I marched outside just as another tour bus was pulling up and the guide was giving the passengers the same pitch our guide gave us—all about this great shop where you could get all this great stuff at a great price. I’ll bet every one of those guides gets a kickback from the shop owner.
“Anyway, before all those passengers could even go in, I stood at the door and told them all about the better, less expensive place upstairs.”
“You didn’t!”
“Yes, I did! And everybody marched up to the little sisters’ shop. And you should have seen the salespeople from that ripoff shop: they weren’t happy, any of them—including the bus driver and the tour guide. Oh, I’m sure they get some sort of rakeoff for touting the store.
“And none of them got any happier when I spent the entire afternoon standing there diverting tour passengers away from their store and upstairs to the nuns’ shop.”
“They let you get away with it?”
“Oh, they said a few things in Italian, English, and Profane. But I guess they decided it wasn’t worth putting out a contract on me—although at one point they did call the police. And when I explained to the police that those people refused to give my money back, they told the police I was crazy in the head from standing in the sun all afternoon! By that time, it was late in the day, so I decided I’d made my point, and called a halt to my crusade.”
“Well, good for you! That’s showing them. I’m proud of you!”
“It was sort of a standoff. They didn’t get any more customers that afternoon . . . but I didn’t get my refund either.”
“Excuse me, Irene . . .” Joan stood and stepped into the aisle. “While I’m thinking of it, I’m going to take this rosary to Bob Koesler for a blessing.”
“Why stop with a lowly priest,” Irene called after her, “when there’s a Holy Roman Cardinal aboard?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bother the Cardinal just to bless a rosary!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain. We remain on schedule. We should be touching down at Heathrow Airport at 10:25 a.m. London time. The temperature in London is fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit and the weather is—you guessed it—rainy.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you look out the windows on the right side there you can just see Paris off in the distance. At least you should be able to make out the Eiffel Tower.”
“It never fails,” said Father Koesler to his row companion, Ramon Toussaint, “when one of those announcements is made, I am always on the wrong side of the plane.”
Neither man made a move to the other side of the cabin to see the Eiffel Tower.
“Oh, Bob,” said Joan Blackford Hayes, “could I get you to bless this rosary for me?”
“Of course, Joan. But why pick on me when you’ve got a Cardinal on board?”
“Oh, I couldn’t bother the Cardinal just to bless a rosary!”
“Well,” Koesler grinned at Toussaint, “I guess that puts me in my place!”
Holding the rosary in his left palm, Koesler traced a cross over the beads with his right hand. Then he returned the rosary to Joan.
“That’s it?” she said with a touch of incredulity.
“That’s what you get for giving your rosary to a simple parish priest,” Koesler responded. “Now, if you had tried the Cardinal, he probably would have used incense.”
“Of course he would have, Bobby. But you’re sure it’s blessed?”
“It’s blessed already.”
“Then thank you.”
