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Oscar.”
    “Together?”
    “Flirting and laughing. Strictly above board, of course. They seemed to be enjoying a private joke.”
    “Joke?”
    “Like he was here only to see her and they didn’t think anyone would notice. I can see it now that you mention it.”
    He was genuinely perplexed now. “That’s what I was afraid of,” he said. “But I thought he didn’t like her.”
    “Oh, he likes her,” I said. “Still, he seems like a decent boy to me.”
    “His decency isn’t at question here,” Card spat back. I looked chastened and ready for enlightenment. He gave it. “What’s at question is his susceptibility to the prodding of the Holy Spirit, a susceptibility he’s unlikely to have gotten at an altar of the Virgin Mary.”
    “Very true,” I said, shaking my head as if I thought it was the most profound thing ever said and I was disappointed I hadn’t thought of it myself. “Very true.”
    Card said, “You bet it is.” Only a man who made his living being meek could have accepted my ass-kissing so causally.
    “What should we do?” I asked.
    “Nothing for now, of course. I’ll talk to her tonight.” His face was tight with worry, the worry of a man with an unattractive daughter. All fathers fear that boys are predators, but the father of an unattractive daughter lives in terror of his daughter’s own low self-esteem.
    I looked at my watch and said I’d better be getting down the hall but, “Maybe it would be best if you don’t mention that I was the one who spilled the beans. For the sake of my ministry with your daughter. She might very well hold it against me and I’m afraid that…”
    “You’re right,” he said. “She needs to feel she can come to you about this or anything else.”
    I nodded. “Exactly. I’m sorry to have been the one to bring this to your attention.”
    He waved that away. “Glad you did. We’ll pray about it, and I’ll talk to Angela and her mother.”
    I said I’d pray about it and left.
    Back down the hall the kids were taking their seats. I preached them a good message that night on the dangers of alcohol. I was above reproach when it came to drinking, as I had never done it. Isn’t that sad? Never touched the stuff.
    I preached it a little harder than usual since I was worked up about my love and her basketball player. I made sure to point out that while some religions said it was okay to drink, the Bible said it was wrong. Which, of course, the Bible didn’t say exactly, but I was giving the parents in the back of the room what they wanted to hear and what most of the teenagers present had already come to expect.
    Take that, Catholic boy.
    Oscar, for his part, didn’t seem impressed. He spent the entirety of my message looking around the room, sizing up the girls. He never even saw Angela. She might have been an empty chair for all he cared. She beamed, though, as if he’d come riding in on a rainbow. The pudding sisters giggled as they cast glances at him, but he never looked back at any of them. I doubt he even knew their names.
     
     
    I went home after work that night more excited than I had been in a while. As I lay in front of one of my pornos, I contemplated the mechanics of stage one of my plan. I’d need to get Brother Card as riled up as possible against Oscar. Let him do the hard work. Then, slowly, I’d work on Angela. Shower her with attention, praise, understanding .
    I paused in the contemplation of the mechanics of my plan because the porn had reached its pivotal moment, and I reached a pivotal moment along with it. I went to the bathroom and cleaned up and then returned to my bed. I popped in another video and let it play as background music of sorts while I thought.
    The Cards…
    Even if I could get Angela to fall in love with me, what about the parents? They wouldn’t approve of their only begotten daughter being with the likes of me. I knew that. Do you doubt it? Do you think they would be happy to have me as a son-in-law?