As promised Trixie organized a lunch for the three sisters the Saturday after Mary Grace arrived home from Bermuda.  The two of them made the three hour drive to Virginia in Mary Grace’s red Mercedes, picking up Madeleine at the convent.  She waved happily to her sisters as the car pulled up and was barely inside the vehicle when Mary Grace blurted, “It’s about fucking time you decided to unlock the chastity belt.  I don’t know what possessed you to sign up for that prison of a lifestyle in the first place.”
.        Dressed in a Prada cream sleeveless silk blouse and tailored slacks, lips stained her signature cherry red, black RayBans covering her eyes and a chunky three carat marquis diamond ring and band set in platinum on her finger, Mary Grace could have been wearing a roll of hundred dollar bills as a bangle bracelet for as much as her appearance smacked of money and upscale style.
.        “I see you filled her in,” Madeleine directed the comment to Trixie, sliding into the back seat and closing the door behind her.  Trixie returned a fading look of apology, shrugging her shoulders.
.        “I want to hear all about this prince charming,” Mary Grace continued, peeling out of the parking lot, spinning the wheels unnecessarily, kicking up gravel and a thick gray dust.
.        Madeleine began to catch her sister up on the story of Adam Drechsler, how they spent their weekly afternoons together and how she’d fallen in love.  Halfway through she was interrupted with a dramatic flourish of Mary Grace’s hand.
.        “Yeah yeah yeah, he sounds so fascinating.  What does he look like?”
.        Madeleine was happy to accommodate this request as well.  “Oh, he’s so beautiful,” she swooned.  “Jet black hair, smoldering hazel eyes, over six feet tall.”
.        “Darling, hazel eyes don’t smolder.”
.        “His do.  They smolder and crackle and pop.”
.        “He sounds like he has all the appeal of a kiddie cereal.  I want to know if he has the goods to make your clitty crackle and pop.”
.        Trixie tossed a disgusted face her.  “Must you?”
.        Maggy grinned lasciviously, running her tongue along her lower lip.  Indeed such talk did make Madeleine a tad uncomfortable as well, which is why she’d chosen to first tell Trixie about Adam rather than her twin.
.        “Is he broad?” Mary Grace was asking.  “Bulging muscles?  Bulging bulge?”
.        Madeleine wouldn’t be rattled by her sister’s crassness.  She was a little extreme, but maybe Madeleine could use a little of her sexual confidence.  Mary Grace was definitely motivated by people’s reactions to her bawdiness; Madeleine didn’t think it wise to send her completely into a spiral of vulgarity by acting too much of a prude.  She chose her words carefully, wanting to use the best description that did him justice to Maggy’s requirements, while also paying respect.
.        “He’s . . . sturdy.  And appears quite . . . capable.”
.        This answer seemed to appease Mary Grace.  “Ooh,” she cooed, shivering slightly and rolling her shoulders.
.        The sisters had barely taken their seats at an area Ruby Tuesday before Mary Grace was laying out her plan for Madeleine’s defection from the Church.
.        “Don’t wait on this Adam character to make his move before you jump the nunnery.  He’s never going to see you as girlfriend or wife or even fuckable material until you get Jesus firmly out of the picture.  Trixie filled me in on the important details, and I’ve been formulating a plan ever since.  So after lunch, you go back and talk to whoever it is you’ve got to talk to to get the ball rolling.  That’s number one.  And don’t worry about where you’ll live or work or feed yourself.  I can support you for as long as it takes to transfer your daily maintenance to Prince Charming.  Although, I must say, you could have picked someone with a little more financial substance to swing your thighs over.  Maybe once you sleep with him he’ll be out of your system and I can introduce you to someone whose house is built on at least four acres.”
.        Madeleine knew her sister meant well, and she may know more about how to beguile a man than she did, but Madeleine also believed knowing how to get into a man’s bed wasn’t the same–or as important–as getting into his heart.
.        “I don’t want to get him out of my system, Maggy.  I want to find a way to get into his.”

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.        Madeleine was a virgin.  Unlike her outgoing, different date every Saturday night twin Mary Grace, Madeleine had a few dates with a boy named Fitz Lemming throughout her high school career.   Although he didn’t share her religious calling, he tolerated it even if at times he tried to get her to change her mind.  She never hid from him her intention to join the nunnery, yet he was still stunned when she announced she entered her candidacy upon graduation.  He’d been so distressed she somehow found herself in the ridiculous position of administering a clumsy hand job on her parents’ living room couch.  Washing the semen off her hands with the fervor of Lady Macbeth outing a damned spot, she took comfort in the realization that her penis pleasing days were over before they’d began.  She was curious, sure, had even had that stirring in her belly and crackling between her legs, but her heart had a greater calling, one that the desires of her flesh would simply have to capitulate to.  Now, at thirty-seven, it seemed that capitulation was over.  Now she’d be stepping into the life of her sister.  Or, at least, she’d be bringing Mary Grace into hers.
.        The first step was to introduce her to Adam.  He already knew Madeleine had a twin, but now he would see for himself just how identical they were via a photo she had tucked into the latest book she was reading, Beatriz Williams’ A Hundred Summers.  The second step would be a tad more difficult:  create the lie.  The third, to cultivate it and the fourth, reinforce it.  In order to get inside Adam’s world, Mary Grace said, Madeleine would have to lie.  And lie again.  And lie harder.  The thought of it all turned her inside out.  How in the world was she supposed to build a life with Adam based on deception?  It went against everything she believed in, everything that composed her, everything she’d ever based her hopes and dreams and faith on.  Truth.  Truth was salvation.  Truth was love.  Truth was life.  Without truth, there was nothing.  How could she have faith in nothing?  How could she build a foundation with Adam on nothing?  And yet . . .
.        If Adam was the man she believed him to be, it was the only way.  Better to burden herself with the lie than place the onus on him for being the thing that would separate her from God.  For surely that would be the way he would see it.  And if he were a man of substance, he would not allow that to happen.  He would never look upon her with lustful eyes as long as she wore the habit.
.        As Mary Grace had begun unfolding the plan, Madeleine’s heart began to pound a crescending rhythm against her breast bone, her mouth growing as dry as her palms were sweaty.  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  There was no way she could do it, no way she could pull it off.  Her life had trained her for quite the opposite.
.        Trixie left no room for interpretation on where she stood with it all.  She thought the plan ridiculous, underhanded, and impossible to pull off.
.        “This is Maddy’s life, not a reality show concept.  You are out of your mind to even suggest it, and you–” she turned her incredulous eyes onto Madeleine “–are beyond all retention of sanity if you seriously think this can yield anything other than disaster.”
.        Mary Grace ignored her.  She grabbed Madeleine by the hands, commanding her attention.
.        “Where has the concept of sanity ever fit into your world?  A man rising from the dead?  Eating a piece of stale bread and calling it human flesh?  Blind men seeing again, cripples walking, men living to be two hundred?  Are you kidding me with this horseshit?  What sort of real world do you live in?  You can believe when you confess to a priest you’re speaking directly to God but it’s ridiculous to think Adam could be fooled–temporarily–into thinking you’re me?”
.        During the past few days via email the twins fleshed out the plan conceived by Mary Grace over Saturday’s lunch.
.        Is this really smart? Madeleine had typed in her last correspondence.  A paper trail?
.        A paper trail?  Madeleine could hear Mary Grace’s biting tone in her typed words.  What is this, an episode of Scandal?  Who even says paper trail any more?  Yes, I’m going to print this out and blackmail you.  Sheltered retard.  There.  Now you can blackmail me someday for my socially unacceptable use of the word retard.
.        Madeleine was thinking of the future.  She had jumped to a day when she and Adam would be sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee after a night of wild passion and declarations of love.  By the way, I’m really Madeleine.  You remember; the ex-nun?  You’d never guess from my mad blow-job skills, would you?
.        How could this ever end well?
.        Was she really thinking of the end before the beginning even had a chance?
.        The deception didn’t have to last long.  She just needed enough time to discover whether or not he could ever be attracted to her, could be open to a serious relationship.  Once that was established, she would leave the Church and introduce herself into Adam’s world as a potential life partner.
.        “Phase one,” she said under her breath, setting down a pickle and olive tray in the center of the table beside the pitcher of Tang, which she’d mixed with fresh orange slices.  She also had a variety of cheeses and Triscuit crackers, hard salami and Hormel turkey pepperoni.  The book was on the table, too, the most important prop of all.
.        It was put to the test minutes later when Adam arrived, carrying a heavy corrugated box with the top flaps cut off, several dozen books popping out in a series of uneven spines.  She quickly cleared a place on the table for him, moving aside the pitcher of Tang and snatching up the book.  She grabbed it by the cover, letting the pages flap as she flicked her wrist for good measure.  Her heart quickened as she saw something wafting through the air from the corner of her eye, accompanied by the telltale fluttering of the photo in a spiral of flight.
.        “Oh, my,” she prompted in the event he’d missed the errant picture, but she needn’t have.  As expected, he bent down and retrieved it, holding it out to her.  She let it linger in his grasp, giving him time to catch sight of the image.
.        “Oh, now I’ve lost my place,” she said, flipping through the copy of A Hundred Summers for the chapter once marked by the photo.
.        Once again, she was not to be disappointed.
.        “Oh, wow.  Is this . . .”
.        She looked up to find him staring at her, his eyes wide with wonder.  He turned the image toward her, his mouth formed in a slack oval shape.
.        “Is this your twin?”  he asked once he’d found his voice again.
.        Madeleine looked at the picture, taken during a trip to Disneyworld some three years ago, right around the time Maggy’s marriage to Wyatt was dissolving.  Despite the fact that her marriage was crumbling, in the photo Maggy was luminescent.  Her eyes sparkled, her alabaster skin glowed, her ruby lips shone like a fresh paint job on a cherry red convertible and her platinum Monroe-esque ‘do looked more like a halo than hair.  The pair of Mickey Mouse ears perched on her head only lent to the magic of her appearance.  While pleasantly pretty on her own, dewy-skinned, wholesome Madeleine paled in comparison to her mega-watt twin.  She’d selected this specific photo for that very reason.  She needed Adam’s first impression of Maggy to be a lasting one, one that lingered until he met her in the flesh.
.        “Maggy.  Yes.”
.        “Wow.”  He studied their images, his eyes lit with wonder.  He glanced up at her, smiling.  “She looks exactly like you.”
.        She smiled back pleasantly, trying to contain her excitement.  “Yes, she does.  That was about three years ago,” she said as he turned his attention back to the picture.  “It’s one of my favorites.”
.        “Mine, too,” he said, handing it back to her.  His eyes fastened onto hers as she slowly slipped the picture from his fingers.  She felt heat rising in her cheeks and she quickly turned her back to him, tucking the photo back in the book.
.        “She’s so glamorous,” she said.  “Maybe that’s why I felt the need to be so plain.  To have my own identity.”
.        “Joining the convent’s a little drastic, don’t you think?  Just so people can tell you apart from your twin?”
.        She turned to face him again, letting out a small laugh.  “Of course that’s not why.”
.        He returned her smile, pouring a glass of Tang.  He handed it to her, and she accepted it with a “thank you.”  He poured himself a glass, selected a piece of pepperoni from the tray and popped it into his mouth.
.        “So why did you?”  he asked.
.        She wasn’t prepared for the question.  They’d never discussed her reasons for joining the Church.  To do so would be the equivalent of asking a woman why she had married her husband, or chosen not to have children.  Sure, she’d heard the question many times before, from rude gossips looking to use her story as a means to justify their own choices.  She came prepared with a stock answer.  But the question coming from Adam was sincere.  He really wanted to know.  And there was no better time to introduce the truth; something he wouldn’t be getting from her for quite a while.
.        “If you had asked me that ten years ago, or even one, I would have had an answer for you.  But now I . . . I’m not so sure.  Now I look at that picture of Mary Grace and I and I see  more of who I am in her image than my own.”
.        She held her breath, awaiting his reaction.  His expression was neutral as he regarded her, contemplative at best.  He ate a few pickles, some olives and cheese slivers.  She was about to expound when he finally  spoke.
.        “I think that’s only natural,” he said.  “I think everyone questions their decisions at some point in their lives.  You know, would my life be different if I had done this instead.  Would I be happier.  But we work it out.  We find our purpose again.”
.        “You speak as if you have some firsthand knowledge.”
.        “Yeah, well.”  He paused a moment, then shrugged.  “That’s a story better left to a priest, Sister.”
.        He clapped his hands once, shifting back into his amiable work persona.  “Let’s get down to some books.”