Chapter 3

"I still can't believe you talked Mother Marie-Elaine into letting us leave." Renee was marveling at the plush seats in first class as the plane made its way across the Atlantic toward the United States, sipping from the champagne glass that had been handed her as soon as she boarded and that had been refilled several times since.

"Yeah, well, she took this whole Nostradamus prediction thing very seriously," Jen answered. Much too seriously, Jen thought. The abbess had reacted with alarm at first, announcing that she had no intention of trusting the environmental future of the world to two young girls. She had changed her mind only after Jennifer pointed out that there was probably a reason that Nostradamus's dildo was the only non-dusty item in the room. Perhaps it had had something to do with the footsteps in the dust on the floor, the ones that led from the shelf on which the dildo had rested to a wooden door in the corner of the study. The door in question, Jennifer observed, lay just below the abbess's own quarters. Wasn't that strange? After that, Mother Marie-Elaine had enthusiastically endorsed Jennifer's scheme to get the ring in the hands of Al Gore's wife.

The conversation, and particularly the 200,000 euro line of credit that Mother Marie-Elaine had made available, had begun to turn Jennifer into a believer as well. There must be something to this if it could Jennifer out of this dive, with money in her pocket to boot. And so the two women's trip became more than just a convenient way of leaving the abbey; it became a mission to save the planet itself. Albeit not an entirely serious one.

"What I can't believe," Jennifer continued, "is that you put that dildo in my suitcase. I was lucky the security guard was a woman. Have you tried it yet?"

Marie-Renee sheepishly raised four fingers.

"Four times? We've only been gone four days. God, I hope you like fucking cleaned it before you threw it in my suitcase."

The young French girl blushed, and decided to change the subject.

"Thank you again for the shopping."

"Don't thank me, girlfriend. You didn't buy any of the clothes that I picked out for you."

The two women had spent three days in Paris, buying entirely new wardrobes. Renee, who had dropped the "Marie" as soon as she was out the door of the abbey, had evidently spent her time there studying fashion in addition to Medieval French and paleontology. She had an innate sense of what would look good on her, and had turned into quite the young gamine. Her beautiful face had been difficult to hide even under that hideous haircut, but her stunning figure had been a shock. During the last day they had spent there, she had attracted as many, if not more, admiring glances from the men in the French capital as Jennifer had. It was annoying, really, and only her sunny and open disposition had saved her from the younger woman's jealous wrath.

"So are you going to tell me about your plan for getting the ring to Mrs. Gore?" Renee asked. "Or are you going to keep it a secret until we reach New York?"

A smile on her face, Jennifer leaned toward Renee to whisper in her ear.