Cat in a hot pink Pursuit by Carole Nelson Douglas

today’s washer would become that week’s stirrer. Just as today’s mother superior would defer to another leader when the time came.
    Peter and Paul, the stray cats that had unofficially joined the community when they’d wandered into the convent yard as kittens, had arranged themselves in supervisory positions. Peter, a chubby yellow striped cat, was tolerated on one chair seat, while the darker striped Paul was lying on the wide windowsill above the sink, absently patting at the intermittent faucet drips.
    There was a placid joy in the way the nuns moved, with long familiarity and an efficient grace that brought to mind the floor-length, flowing habits they’d once all worn, still welcoming a visitor to their modest domestic ritual as if he were a king, or a wandering saint.
    “How’s that darling redheaded girl?” Sister Seraphina, Matt’s former grade school teacher at St. Stanislaus in Chicago, asked right up front. That was “Sister Superfine,” dynamic and blunt. “I never see her at mass with you anymore.”
    “She’s Unitarian,” Matt explained, or didn’t really.
    But the nun just nodded and invited him to dinner. He was tempted, but....
    “Not this time. I’ve got a dinner appointment in the parish, though.”
    “A date?” Elderly Sister St. Rose of Lima beamed the way nuns who like to play matchmaker do.
    It touched Matt that his past in the priesthood was taken as a given here. He’d been officially laicized, leaving with permission, unlike most ex-priests. But like all newly ex-priests, he was still sensitive about his new noncelibate status. He found it endearing how these elderly “sisters”—the last, almost, of their uniquely devoted kind—gave him a free pass on their own turf.
    “Not a ‘date.’” I’m heading over to Lieutenant Molina’s.”
    Eyebrows raised.
    “Those aren’t exclusive subjects,” outspoken Sister Seraphina said. “Carmen Molina has achieved commendable responsibility in her job but she’s not a lieutenant all the time.”
    “I couldn’t swear by that. I think she wants to find out something that relates to her job.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Molina? Entertain for dinner?”
    Sister Seraphina stopped bustling and folded her arms. “Too much work and no play is bad for everybody. Carmen too. Maybe you can get her to forget about her job for a few hours.”
    “That would be an act of charity,” Sister Mary Monica said slyly.
    Matt laughed and headed for the door. “Gossip is a sin, sisters. Don’t get any ideas.”
    Their chorus of good-byes drifted out the screen door behind him like a breeze.

    Trying to second-guess Molina was futile.
    Matt pulled his new silver Crossfire to the curb in front of her house, got out, and heard a low wolf whistle.
    She was standing on the threshold of her seldom-used front door.
    “Not you. The car,” she said. “When did you develop ambitions to race in the Grand Prix?”
    “It just looks fast. And I finally didn’t need an undercover car,” he added, referring to his former stalker, as he came up the walk.
    “Better stay at the speed limit. That’s a real ticket-magnet. At least it isn’t red.”
    This was a Molina he’d never seen. She was wearing a gauzy white puffed-sleeve blouse and paprika-and-turquoise-pattern gauze skirt. Mexican casual. And she was barefoot. She looked fifteen years younger and about twenty-five years more relaxed.
    Still no jewelry, though, and no makeup except for a faint color on her lips.
    Matt thought he’d never seen her looking better.
    “Maybe we can go for a spin in the Crossfire after dinner,” he suggested.
    She laughed, and looked beyond him to the fancy car a bit ruefully. Maybe Sister Seraphina was right.
    “This is a no-diet zone tonight,” she warned as she led him into the modest one-story house.
    “You diet?” He was surprised. She was a strong five-ten, at least. Neither heavy nor thin. Sculptural, like a pillar, especially in those long, lean