The Fancy Dancer

around, did you?”
    “I knew some young artists around the state who do the kind of thing Missy and I did, only sometimes more modem. But they didn’t have facilities to live cheap and do it all together.”
    “Are you telling me this is a commune?”
    “Oh, something like that. We’ll work and market as a group. The girls are going to live in the house with me. The boys are fixing up a dormitory out in one end of the big building. Have to keep them separate, you know. Of course, I know there’s going to be a little hanky-panky.” She winked at me. “But I wouldn’t want to be ran out of town, after all the fuss people made about those co-ed dormitories at Missoula.”
    I grinned. “Mrs. Faux, be careful, or Mrs. Shoup will come down on you like a bomb.”
    Her eyes glinted combatively. “There’s nothing for that nasty woman to do around here. You can bum books, but there’s not much point in burning embroidery.”
    Proudly she took me in the house and showed me examples of her new associates’ work. Patchwork pillows with herbs in them, wall hangings, crewel work and batiks were thrown all over the living room.
    “I’m learning so many new things,” she said. “Batik-ing is something new that Missy and I never tried. And then some of them have the cleverest new ideas about things Missy and I have done all our lives. One of the boys crochets better than me. He takes lace crochet patterns and does them in big wool instead, and he uses the most amazing color combinations.” She spread out a rich and striking-looking afghan done in red, salmon, purple, pink and blue. “Now look at that. Why didn’t we ever think of that?”
    I thought to myself that people in town would wonder no end about a boy who crocheted.
    We finally made it into the kitchen and sat down.
    “The coffee pot goes day and night now,” she said.
    We sat drinking our coffee, and Clare made me eat a couple of freshly baked brownies.
    “This must be costing you a lot of money,” I said.
    “Some,” she admitted. “But Missy and I do have some savings, and she left me hers in her will. And we’re doing a lot of things ourselves.” She started to laugh. “Oh, the kids have a lot of grandiose notions. They even want to have cows and chickens and a great big garden. Most of them don’t know a blessed thing about cows. They want to do everything all at the same time, yesterday.”
    “They must wear you ragged,” I said. “You take care of yourself.”
    “Speaking of taking care of yourself,” she said sternly, “you look pretty peaked, Father.”
    “Working too hard,” I said.
    She peered at me shrewdly. She knew I was in trouble of some kind. But I had declined to invade her past, and perhaps that was why she didn’t now invade my present.
    » » »
    One afternoon, Father Matt called me up from Helena.
    He said bluntly, “It’s been two months now since you’ve been to see me.”
    “I know, Father,” I said, my insides shrinking into the familiar ball of nervousness.
    “You missed that time that your car supposedly broke down, and now you’ve missed again.”
    “I know,” I said. “Things have been pretty frantic here, with the Bicentennial thing coming up, and then I was at the Denver conference for a week.”
    “Don’t make petty excuses, Tom,” he said sharply. “The last time you were here, I suspected that you were hiding something. Now I’m convinced you are. All this time, you have been lying to me. I’m very afraid for you.”
    “But, Father, there’s no need to be,” I said.
    “Tom, please come and see me, and tell me what is happening to you. Your immortal soul is in serious danger.”
    “I’m the judge of that,” I said, “and I don’t think so.”
    “Your problem is of a sexual nature, isn’t it?”
    A shock wave of fright went through me. “What on earth makes you say that?”
    “Knowing you as I do,” said Father Matt, “it’s the first tiling that comes to mind.”
    He had to suspect something. After all, he had brusquely separated Doric and me. At the time, he had questioned me sharply about our friendship, though he hadn’t asked questions that were specific on sex. I had been in a panic for all the reasons that I refused to understand, and I was confused and terrified by his questions. I insisted that there was nothing wrong with my friendship with Doric. But afterward I had avoided Doric, and he had avoided me too. Father Matt remembered all that for sure, and now he