Vanessa Discerns

The news that Vanessa van der Post and Mike Machowski had agreed to be Vocation Discernment Partners swept through the most self-consciously Catholic part of the student body. There was much discussion in dorms and dining-halls of what a Vocation Discernment Partner really was, and if this was just Mike's excuse to get close to Vanessa, or just Vanessa's excuse to get close to Mike. An extra frisson was added to the news of the day when Sandra Lee, being told of the unlikely alliance, choked on her cereal and fled to parts unknown. By lunchtime it was all over campus that little Sandra liked Mike.

"Oh, I don't think so," said Vanessa. "She barely registers that he's alive."

"Ha," said red-haired Petra, cutting up her chicken cutlet. "You didn't see her face this morning when Robert told us the news."

"I didn't need to see her face," said Vanessa tranquilly. "Anyway, it wasn't registering dismay. It was probably registering guilt."

She crushed a handful of crackers into her soup.

Petra exchanged a glance with Rob, who shrugged.

"Guilt?" repeated Petra.

"Yes," said Vanessa. "Guilt."

She stirred her soup meditatively.

"Quite a lot of people suffer from it."

Rob laughed nervously.

"Don't you?" he asked.

Vanessa tasted her soup.

"Don't ask that question unless you're willing to answer it yourself, Rob," she said. "It's more of a conversation for your Vocation Discernment Partner."

"I don't have a Vocation Discernment Partner," said Rob.

"Oh," said Vanessa, looking at Petra, who dropped her eyes, and looking at Rob again. "I thought you did. Especially since you're thinking about the priesthood."

"Kind of thinking," said Rob, looking nervously at Petra, who kept her eyes resolutely on her cutlet.

"Hmmm," said Vanessa. "That sounds like a lonely process. Just you and....The Infinite. You must have a great prayer life."

"Uh, well," said Rob. "There's room for improvement, I guess."

He looked vastly relieved when Anne sat down beside him.

"Hey, Anne."

"Hey, people," said Anne. She looked squarely at Vanessa.

"So Mike found a VDP after all."

Vanessa smiled sweetly.

"Yes, he did. I feel very honoured. It's an enormous responsibility. Mike's a great guy. He could be a priest, he could be a husband, he could be a monk, he could be called to devote his life to a major career, where vows might be a hinderance. It's all his to discover, and I'll be with him every step of the way."

"It could take years," said Anne.

"Hooray for the internet," said Vanessa. "Of course, if I find my vocation first, the deal's off."

"Off?"

"Well, when I find it, I won't have time for Mike anymore, will I? But in the meantime, I haven't, so I can still offer the gift of service."

"Hmm," said Anne. "That's very noble of you."

"Thank you," said Vanessa.

She flashed her teeth in a grin and rapidly sipped her soup.

"It's still tinned, but it's better than usual," she said.

"I don't quite understand," said Petra, still looking at her plate. "How does this VDP thing work? Is there a booklet about it?"

"I don't know about booklets," said Vanessa, "but in half an hour I'm going to meet up with Mike and talk about Casti Connubii."

"So you're starting with marriage," snapped Anne. "Interesting."

"Isn't it?" said Vanessa. "From a couple of things Mike dropped yesterday, I'm guessing that's the right starting point."

The entire table stopped chewing. Petra looked up from her plate.

"Well, I'm done," said Vanessa, picking up her tray. "See you all later."

She sashayed to the kitchen hatch and, depositing her tray, went out. As she did, two senior guys coming in looked back at her. One started off in her direction and, laughing, his buddy pulled him back by the arm.

"Vanessa," thought Anne, "is a total rhymes with itch."

"Mike's a lucky bastard," said Rob.

"What?" asked Petra.

"Nothing," said Rob. He stood up. "Gotta go."

"Fine," said Petra. "See you."

"See you! See you, Anne."

"See you, Rob."

As Rob passed, he grabbed Petra's shoulder. She winced.

"You can do better, you know," said Anne.

"I don't want to talk about it," said Petra.

Vanessa strode along the campus to the library and looked up Casti Connubii on the internet. She skimmed the document until she found what she was looking for, and then she smiled. Hitting 'print', she logged off and retrieved her copy from the printer. Then she went to the library coffee shop, where she found Mike waiting.

"Hey," said Mike, standing.

"Very good," said Vanessa. "You remembered!"

"Yeah," said Mike. "Always stand when a lady comes into the room."

"And?"

"And?"

"And pull out her chair."

"Oh yeah," said Mike. He pulled out Vanessa's chair.

"Thank you," said Vanessa.

"You know, I'm really grateful," said Mike. "That Katie must think she's all that and a bag of chips. When I asked her to be my VDP, she looked at me like I was an axe-murderer or something."

"I remember you mentioning that last night," said Vanessa.

"It was like I had asked her something completely unreasonable. I mean, who does she think she is?"

"You have to wonder," said Vanessa.

"It's, like, we're supposed to be discerning our vocations. We pray for vocations all the time. So here I am, stepping up to the plate, offering to discern my vocation properly, being open-minded, and she looks at me like I'm totally psycho."

"Did she?" said Vanessa.

"She did," said Mike.

"This seems to have annoyed you."

"Damn straight it annoyed me. I can't get it out of my head."

"You can't get her out of your head?"

"Yeah, she really made me mad."

One day, Vanessa hoped, she would meet a man she could not read like a book. But in the meantime, she was going to amuse herself.

"Well," she said. "It's probably just as well that she isn't your VDP because--just between you and me--I don't think she's orthodox."

Mike looked stunned.

"Oh," he said, flushing. "I didn't mean... I don't think... I mean, of course she's orthodox. I mean, that's why I asked her in the first place. I mean, she has to be orthodox."

"She might think she's orthodox," said Vanessa brightly. "And if she isn't, it isn't her fault. She's just been badly catechized. But I suspect--and again, this is strictly between you and me--that she has an overly romantic view of marriage."

"Oh. Uh. Really?"

"Yes," said Vanessa, sighing sadly. "I see it all the time. It's one of the things that most drives me crazy about women, incidentally. But I'm pretty sure Katie puts too much of an emphasis on that passing affection of sense of spirit expressly condemned by Casti Connubii."

"What's that?"

"Well," said Vanessa. "I'm not sure, exactly, but maybe we can figure it out from the document."

To be continued...

Sandra Blabs

"So," said Vanessa, brushing her long dark hair in the mirror. It fell in shimmering waves to her hips. "What was up with Straighty Katie?"

Sandra was sitting cross-legged on Vanessa's bed, setting out her French manicure kit on Vanessa's battered old "Intro to Psych" textbook. She started and blushed.

"Nothing much. Do you want your nails rounded or square?"

"Square," said Vanessa. She wrapped her hair into a chignon and fixed it with a comb. A lesser woman would have pointed out that she had seen Katie crying in the lounge, but Vanessa was above such brutal attacks. Instead she flipped through the carefully compiled social dossier in her memory, and chose her words carefully.

"Katie would be really popular if she made more of an effort," she said, languidly clambering onto her bed. She sat across from Sandra and leaned back against the silk cushions. Vanessa, who was not herself South Asian, had a thing for India and had draped her dorm room in sari fabric and decorated with elephants and idols. The more sensitive Catholic girls, made nervous by the presence of Ganesh & Co., were afraid to go in.

"I think Katie is popular," said Sandra indignantly. "Give me your left hand. Everybody likes Katie."

"Oh, sure," said Vanessa, extending a slender arm. "Everybody likes Katie. As a friend. She's pretty, but she doesn't know how to play it up, do you know what I mean? She'd got to ditch those skirts that go down to her ankles and rock a miniskirt once in a while. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise what?"

"Otherwise a certain somebody is always going to see her as the friend type."

"Oh my gosh!" squealed Sandra, dropping the emery board. "Who? Who?"

"I don't think I should say," purred Vanessa. "I've seen her looking at him from time to time, even at Mass, scandal. But I don't want to start any rumours. I like Katie and I'm sorry she was so upset just now. I guess she tried her luck with this guy and he shot her down."

"No!" said Sandra. "It wasn't like that at all. It was--! But I'm not supposed to say anything."

"That's okay," said Vanessa, mentally letting out metaphorical fishing line, "I think I can guess. Don't tell me."

"You'd never guess in a million years," said Sandra. "But you cannot tell anybody."

"I never do," said Vanessa.

"Okay," said Sandra, colouring slightly. "Give me your other hand. Some guy--."

"Who?"

"I don't know. They never said. Some guy asked Katie to be his VPD."

Vanessa snorted.

"You mean his girlfriend?"

"No," said Sandra excitedly. For once she knew something Vanessa didn't. "His VPD. His Vocational Discernment Partner."

"That's a VDP, not a VPD."

"Whatever," said Sandra. "And she said No, and now she's sad because she really likes this guy, and he said she would make a good nun. Or wait--no he didn't--but nuns came up. There was something about nuns."

"Hmm," said Vanessa. "I thought a Vocation Discernment Partner was a euphemism for a girlfriend or boyfriend. You know, you're dating and you're discerning if you really want to marry this person or if you just like making out with them and having someone to fall back on at parties."

"Nope." Sandra put down Vanessa's right hand and began to shake the bottle of white nail paint. "It's when the guy--or girl--is trying to figure out if he's called to be a priest or a monk or married or just single or whatever."

She picked up Vanessa's left hand and drew a white stripe on her thumbnail.

"I once dated a guy who told me he thought he might have a vocation to the priesthood," said Vanessa dreamily. "That was in first year, before your time. And I had met his parents at Thanksgiving and everything. I was extremely p.o.'d."

"Oh my gosh," said Sandra. It had not occured to her that such things might happen even to Vanessa. "What did you say?"

"I said I was terribly relieved, and that it was an answer to my prayers because I had fallen in love with his older brother at Thanksgiving and didn't know how to tell him."

Sandra slopped the next line.

"What?!"

"The cool part," said Vanessa, "was that he'd spent his entire life trying to outdo his brother, so you can imagine how that went down. He told me he'd never felt so betrayed in his life, blah, blah, blah."

Sandra erased the line with nail polish remover and redrew it.

"So did he go into the seminary?"

"Oh, please," said Vanessa. "What do you think? But he did transfer to State, so that was nice for me. I like my endings tidy."

Like many of the girls, Sandra thought that Vanessa was both really cool and kind of scary. But her conscience told her she had to say something so she said:

"Isn't that a bit....?"

"A bit what?"

"Umm....harsh?"

"Dog eat dog, baby," said Vanessa, triumphantly. "That's looking very good, by the way."

"Thanks," said Sandra, relieved.

"Now," said Vanessa, "the thing to do is to determine who this insensitive rat is and to punish him."

"I don't think Katie would like that," was the alarmed response. "She really, really likes him."

"And they never said who it was?"

"Nope."

"And yet she was actually crying," mused Vanessa. "So I think it has to be Mike."

"What!" squeaked Sandra. "Mike Machowski?"

"Yeeesss... That would be right. Come on, haven't you seen her looking at him? Sometimes I think I'm the only person in this school with eyes. Come to think of it, he's been looking at her lately, too. But it turns out he just wants some chick to talk at about his vocation. Interesting!"

"Oh my gosh," said Sandra. "I'm so relieved. I thought it might be Nick."

"Of course you did," said Vanessa. "You're obsessed with Nick."

"I'm not!"

"Then why do you work his name into every conversation? It's a dead giveaway. Anyway, don't interrupt my thought processes here. Mike Machowski is not bad-looking. In fact, he's mighty fine--and, we've discovered, available!"

"Well, not available, if he doesn't know if he's called to the priesthood or the married life or the monastery or..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Vanessa. "Like I said, av-ail-a-ble. So what is he going to do now that Katie's said No? Find someone else to be his VDP?"

"I don't know," said Sandra. "That's what Katie thinks."

"I will ponder this," said Vanessa. "Indeed, yes, I will ponder this. Hurry up with that topcoat, chica. I have places to be and people to see."

"Don't smudge it," the younger girl yelped. "You'll wreck my hard work."

Vanessa laughed and promised she wouldn't. For the next fifteen minutes she sat perfectly still and watched Sandra paint her nails and listened to Sandra enthuse about the mostly imaginary perfections of Nick Rivero. Nick Rivero was embroiled in a psychodrama with a Teaching Assistant, but Vanessa didn't think Sandra needed to know that.

When Sandra was done, she went away happily, although a little guilty that she had told Vanessa Katie's secret when she had promised not to. She comforted herself with the thought that although Vanessa rather spookily seemed to know everything, she very rarely told what she knew.

Vanessa waited for her nails to dry and then carefully plucked her phone out of her Coach bag. She went over to her computer and signed into her email account. After a few moments of clicking around, she found what she was looking for. She punched a number into her phone, got up, and looked out the window. The afternoon had faded away; it was almost time for dinner.

A male voice sounded from the phone.

"Hey, Mike," said Vanessa warmly. "It's Vanessa. Listen, will you meet me for dinner? I have something to ask you. You might think it's kind of random, but it would really mean a lot to me. No... no... Well, it'd kind of hard to explain over the phone, but it's a discernment thing. I'm looking for someone called a VDP."

To be continued... Part 4: Vanessa Discerns

Katie Weakens

Of course, a single phone call would not suffice. Rushing to her friend's aid at her time of need, Anne left the gym and returned to the dorm room she shared with Katie. She sat on her bed, and Katie sat on her bed, and the two of them pondered the matter.

They looked at it from Mike's point of view. They looked at it from Katie's point of view. They looked at it from Anne's point of view. They tried to find an appropriate quote from Alice von Hildebrand. And at long last they were hungry, so they stopped pondering long enough to go into the lounge and pop a bag of microwave popcorn.

"Of course," said Anne, who looked kind of like your very best friend, "you have to give him points for being honest."

"Who?" demanded a voice, and Sandra bounced into the room. Sandra was exactly like your slightly younger friend whom you really like, and is super-friendly and fun, but can never keep a secret.

"This guy," said Anne and Katie at once.

"Oh come on, chicas," said Sandra, throwing herself down on the couch. "Don't be like that. I want to knoooooow! Who? Who?"

Katie looked solemn.

"I would tell you," she said, "but I sort of have a gossip problem, and I promised God I wouldn't gossip about this."

"Oh," said Sandra. "Is that like a Lent thing?"

"It started as a Lent thing, but I'm going to try to make it a permanent thing," said Katie. "It's okay to say good things about people, but this isn't a good thing."

"It isn't gossip if you don't tell me who it is," said Sandra.

There was a pause, unbroken save for the popcorn popping.

"Well, okay," said Katie. "It's kind of complicated."

Sandra clapped her hands excitedly.

"Somebody asked Katie to be his VDP," said Anne.

"Eeeeee!" shrieked Sandra. "That's so EXCITING! Except, um, I don't know what a VDP is."

"It's a Vocation Discernment Partner," groaned Katie. "It's like a girlfriend only there is no guarantee romance is on the cards."

"The guy might become a priest instead," said Anne.

"Or a monk."

"Or a monk," repeated Anne. "Or just Single."

"Oh," said Sandra, nonplussed. "That's random."

"But at least he was honest about it," said Anne. "It wasn't like when you're seeing this guy, and he's really fun and sweet, and then the next thing you know he's having long talks with Father Bryan all the time, and then he goes on the Priesthood Discernment Retreat, and then he comes back and acts like nothing happened."

"Like Petra with Robert," said Sandra.

"Ex-ACT-ly. Or like Paul with Aileen."

"They're not really going out, though," said Katie. "Aileen's been talking about joining the Dominicans since frosh week."

"Yeah, and she's been going everywhere with Paul ever since. Whateverrrr."

"It's not going out unless you're both agreed its going out, though," said Katie.

"Whateverrrr!"

"If nobody says anything, how do you know when going out is going out?" asked Sandra. "Like, if Nick asked me to meet him for breakfast in the hall, would that be going out?"

"Not the first time," said Katie.

"It would still be a date, though," said Anne.

"No, it wouldn't," said Katie. "Breakfast is not a date."

"Maybe it is if you really like the guy," suggested Sandra.

"Not exactly," said Anne. "I think it's a date if he really likes you. And there's nobody else at the table when you get there. And he pays."

"It could just be a friend thing," argued Katie.

"Like being a VDP," said the younger girl.

Katie made a terrible face and shoved her hands through her hair.

"Aaaaaargh!"

The popcorn battered ferociously at its bag, and the microwave beeped.

"Well, look at it this way," said Anne, taking out the popcorn. "You can eliminate him from the Possibles list."

"Wahhhhh," said Katie, throwing herself beside Sandra. "I don't want to eliminate him from the Possibles list."

Anne held the popcorn bag at arm's length and ruthlessly ripped the top off. Steam shot into the air.

"You will just have to be firm with yourself," she said. "He thought you would make a good nun. That's simply death. If a guy tells you you would make a good nun, and he isn't joking, you can forget about dating him."

"He didn't put it that way," said Katie. "He just said that lots of girls my age were becoming nuns. 'Real nuns, with habits.'"

"Look, chickie, if he's imagining you in a habit, you can just forget about it."

"Yeah," said Sandra loyally, "he can find himself another VD-whatever it is."

Anne stopped pouring the popcorn in mid-pour. She looked at Katie aghast.

"Oh my gosh," she said. "I hadn't thought of that."

"I did," said Katie and sniffed.

"Oh nooooo," said Sandra. "Don't cry. Don't cry, Katie."

"Right after I called Anne, I thought 'Now maybe he'll find someone else to be his VDP' and I thought... And I thought--."

Anne ripped a piece of paper towel from the roll over the sink and handed it wordlessly to her friend.

Katie dabbed at her eyes and then blew her nose.

"Thank you. And then I thought 'Wouldn't that be better than nothing?'"

"Oh noooo, Katieeeee...."

"I mean, I really like him and...maybe if he got to know me better, he would really like me..."

Anne put down the bowl and sat on Katie's other side.

"I know, honey. I know. It's hard. But what if he didn't? You know what a nice guy Paul is. Do you want to be like Paul, hoping all the time that Aileen will change her mind?"

"No," said Katie forcefully. "I don't."

She blew her nose again.

"But it's hard."

"I know it's hard. Life is hard. But you're strong. You're one of the strongest women I know. So you'll get through it. Now come on," she ordered, picking up the popcorn bowl. "I want to show you this thing on youtube."

"Okay," said Katie. "You want to come, Sandra?"

"No, that's okay," said Sandra. "I promised Vanessa I would do her nails before supper."

Sandra had a french manicure kit and a steady hand.

"See you later then," said Anne. "And don't tell anyone about you-know."

"'Kay!"

"We mean it," said Anne.

"'Kay!"

To be continued...

Update: See Part 3, "Sandra Blabs" here.

"Will You Be My VDP?"

They were at the same college, and they had seen each other at Mass and on the fringes of chaplaincy events. They had chatted a few times, and Katie liked Mike quite a lot. If he wasn't tall, at least he was taller than she. And if he wasn't very handsome, at least he was more handsome than the other guys around. He was always carrying some Catholic book or other, even though he was science student. Katie thought this was very cool.

Then one day, in the college library, which was a lot like your college library, where Katie was diligently trying to memorize vocabulary lists by writing out each word ten times, Mike appeared at her elbow. Katie looked up and smiled, hoping against hope that she was not blushing.

"Hey," said Mike.

"Hey," said Katie.

Mike looked around the library and then back down at Katie.

"So are you busy?"

"Kind of," said Katie and then, not quite fibbing because the thought had that very second occured to her, "I was thinking of taking a break."

"Cool," said Mike. "You want to grab a coffee or something?"

"Sure," said Katie and then, since she is a great fan of this blog, smiled and said, "You paying?"

"Sure," said Mike. "I want to ask you something."

Now Katie prayed to all her favourite saints that she wasn't blushing. She chewed the inside of her lip to keep from smiling too widely. Her heart pounded in her maidenly bosom. She scooped her papers and laptop into her bag, picked up her coat and followed Mike to the library cafe.

They chose a table with a view of the campus, and hung up their coats on the backs of their chairs, and put their bags on the floor. Katie watched as Mike unwound his college scarf from his neck and felt a bit woozy. She distracted herself by silently reciting vocabulary lists.

"So," said Mike. "A latte or what?"

"Double double," said Katie.

"Aha," said Mike. "A sweet tooth! I like that in a woman."

He strode to the counter and Katie sat on her hands so as not to chew her fingernails. She looked out the window and recited more unfamiliar words crucial to her studies.

Mike returned with a big cup of white coffee, a big cup of black coffee, a brownie and a plastic knife, all carefully balanced on a tray. He cut the brownie in half and smiled at Katie.

"I figured we might both need some chocolate by now."

"Thanks," said Katie faintly. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to text her best friend immediately, but she repressed it.

Mike flung himself in his seat and lifted his mug.

"Cheers!"

"Cheers," said Katie.

Her coffee was rich and sweet, exactly as she liked it.

"So," said Mike, leaning forward. "About that thing I wanted to ask you about?"

Katie composed her face into a look she hoped conveyed mildly ironic and detached womanly sophistication.

"Uh huh?"

"I was wondering. I mean, because we're Catholic and all, and go to the same stuff, and have the same friends, and get along great, if you'd consider being my VDP?"

Katie made a strange squeaking noise, turned red and stared at Mike blankly.

"Your what?"

"My VDP. You know, Vocation Discernment Partner."

"I'm sorry," said Katie. "I don't know what that is."

"Oh," said Mike. "Maybe it's not that popular here yet. Well, it's when you're trying to figure out if you're called to be married or a priest or what. I mean, obviously as Catholics we totally reject that whole stupid campus hook-up culture and just, you know, concentrate on discerning our vocations. And it's way easier to do that with another person. It's, like, by going out with you, I would figure out if I'm called to be a husband and father, and I think I would make a great husband and father, or a priest, who, you know, technically should have made a great husband and father if he hadn't become a priest, and you would figure out if you were called to be a nun or what."

"A nun?" said Katie. "Me?"

"Sure," said Mike. "Why not? Lots of women your age are becoming nuns now. Real nuns, with habits. Anyway, what do you think? Would you like to be my Vocations Discernment Partner?"

Katie became vaguely aware of some sort of interior shrieks, and wondered who was shrieking. It was her heart, but Katie didn't have time to attend to that right now.

"You're going to think I'm awfully stupid," she said, "but I still don't know what this entails. I mean, do we go out to the movies and stuff, or go to Mass together, or go to vocation discernment lectures together and talk about them afterwards?"

"All of that," said Mike enthusiastically. "I need to give every vocation a fair shake: marriage, priesthood--heck, even monastic life."

"I don't know how I can help you discern monastic life," said Katie.

"Well," said Mike, "say I go on retreat, to Kentucky with the Trappists or whomever. Then if I miss you really a lot, then that might give me a clue."

"A clue to how you feel about me?"

"Sure," said Mike nervously, "or women in general."

Katie's heart gave another wail.

"I don't know if that's flattering or not," said Katie, "standing in for women in general."

"That's the beauty of it," said Mike. "You represent women in general for me, and I represent men in general for you."

"Like in hook-up culture," said Katie.

Mike blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, it's like hook-up culture, isn't it? You use me--as a woman--for something, and I use you--as a man--for something. As a means to an end."

"No, I'm sorry," said Mike, not sounding sorry but actually annoyed. "That's not the same thing at all. Hook-up culture is about sex without strings, which is a mortal sin, and vocation discernment partnership is about finding out God's will for your life, which is awesome."

"But I already know God's will for my life," said Katie.

Mike blinked again.

"You do?"

"Yes," said Katie, standing up. "It's to spend time with people who want to be with me for me, and not just because I'm some woman."

"Hey," said Mike. "Sit down. You're not just some woman. There are tons of women on this campus. You're a, well, you're a nice Catholic girl."

"No, I'm not," said Katie, getting her coat. "I'm a fantastic Catholic girl. See you around, Mike. I hope you find your vocation soon."

Mike held his coffee cup with both hands and looked at the evenly divided brownie.

"I'm confused here," said Mike.

"Yes," said Katie, picking up her bag. "I can see that."

This was too big for texting. She left the library and began to walk to her dorm. She walked swiftly for a block, and then she began to run. She ran as if all the Vocation Discernment Partners in the world were after her. And when she got to her room, she pulled out her phone. As she turned it on, her eye fell on the crucifix.

"Just one," she promised.

She speed-dialed her best friend.

***
Update: Part 2, "Katie Weakens" here.

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