The Fancy Dancer

the heavy initialed sterling knife and fork, and handed our plates to us.
    “How are things at St. Mary’s?” my mother asked me.
    Her voice always carried a tinny note of strain when she asked me this question. My parents hadn’t been wild about my being a priest. As far as they were concerned, the priesthood was a fine thing, but it should happen to other families’ sons. My father had been set on my working in the bank. My mother wanted me to be a musician. Both of them wanted me to have a family of my own. I was their only child,
    and they wanted a bunch of grandchildren. My dad had always been good about making time to be with me, and he wanted to jump out from behind his green velvet wing chair in the parlor and say “Boo” to grandchildren the way he had with me.
    All through high school they had watched with uneasy indulgence the faithful way I went to church, and my'yawning carelessness about dating nice Helena girls. In college, the exotic atmosphere of the sixties got to me a little, and I dated some, and actually got engaged to a very nice girl named Jean Moser, and smoked a little pot. I dropped out of Montana U. for a semester, and traveled around the West working on various social programs because I was hungry to know people and places. I wound up in VISTA in California for another year, working with Chicanos.
    That year was when it hit me that I wanted to be a priest. My mission was back home, at the grass roots. When my year was up, I caught a plane right back to Helena, and went straight to register for the seminary.
    “Well, I’m not surprised,” my mother had said sadly. when I told her. “You were always very interested in people.”
    My dad had just said, “Well, do what you feel you should do. We’re behind you one hundred percent even if we don’t agree.”
    When I was ordained, my parents had apparently expected to see me turn overnight into a wind-up eunuch. Maybe they gave me the sports car to keep me from getting that way. Sometimes I wondered if they secretly hoped I’d do a Wine and the Music number and fall in love with a girl and leave the ministry. If I ever did, I certainly wouldn’t have as hard a time finding a job as the priest in that novel did. My dad would give me a job in the bank right away.
    “Things at St. Mary’s are just about the same,” I said. “They’re crazy.”
    They laughed at some stories of my latest hassles with Father Vance. Two flushed spots came out on my mother’s cheekbones, and my dad had to cough into his fine old damask napkin.
    Now that we were more relaxed, we talked family talk. But I wasn’t really paying much attention. That hot white light of exhilaration still burned inside of me, brighter than ever. I could see myself dealing masterfully with Vidal’s problem, whatever it was. My hands reached out and touched his. When God and I got done with him, he would be happy, sober, confident, disciplined. Nobody in Cottonwood would put him down anymore.
    Vidal. The name was uncommon for whites, but it was common among Montana Indians. The French had scattered the name through the tribes when they intermarried in the early days. The name had a leap of life to it. In fact, it’s root was the Latin vita, “life.”
    “. . . And so Mrs. MacPherson said that the Historical Society . . . Tom, you aren’t listening,” said my father.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”
    “Tom, you seem miles away today,” said my mother. “Do I?” I said. “I was thinking about a parishioner I’m counseling. A very tough case.”
    To stop this line of conversation, I got up and helped Rosie clear away the plates.
    Then Rosie marched in with the cake. It was a real homemade “white mountain” cake, with fondant icing. Rosie had decorated it with pink and silver roses, and ten silver candles which, multiplied by five, gave away my mother’s age.
    My dad lit the candles and he, I and Rosie sang “Happy birthday.” Mother gave one of her little screams and managed to puff out five candles. I did the honors on the rest.
    We made Rosie sit down with us to have some cake, and I got her a chair and a plate.
    Rosie’s present to Mother was a lavender mohair shawl she’d crocheted herself. My father’s present was a second three-carat diamond for a necklace he’d started for her long ago. I gawked at it—it looked almost as big as one of the headlights on the Triumph. I suspect that he regarded it as gift and investment both.