An excerpt from TO FORGIVE, DIVINE:

JERRY DOLAN, a young priest, sits across a table from KATIE CACHENCKO, an attractive young married woman. He is...trying to hear her confession. However, as the scene has developed, they have found themselves talking about a parish reunion they attended the night before...

JERRY: (pause) I had a wonderful time last night.

KATIE: Did you?

JERRY: For the first time in my life I really felt what it was like to be part of a memory. I’d shake hands with a guy, and I wouldn’t see the guy, I’d see the boy he was. And I’d know he wasn’t looking at me, but at a kid with a face full of freckles and a runny nose and a baseball cap and creme from a Twinky at the corner of his mouth.

KATIE: (a bit wistfully) Oh, Jerry. FATHER! (Jerry reacts) Jerry.

JERRY: What’s the matter, Katie?

KATIE: I had such a wonderful time last night.

JERRY: Well, I’m glad. That’s what reunions are for.

KATIE: And you...really did...have a wonderful time, too, didn’t you?

JERRY: (an uncomfortable pause) Are you ready now?

KATIE: (fast) For what?

JERRY: For...confession.

KATIE: Not yet. I want to talk a little more.

JERRY: Sure. About what?

KATIE: Well, I mean, we’ve known each other since we were kids, there must be a million topics we could discuss.

JERRY: I bet.

KATIE: There’s...politics.

JERRY: Politics.

KATIE: Religion.

JERRY: That’d be good.

KATIE: Except you probably get that all the time.

JERRY: It comes up a lot in my job, yes.

KATIE: There’s literature.

JERRY: There’s that.

KATIE: There’s dancing.

JERRY: (a chord) Dancing?

KATIE: Wanna talk about dancing?

JERRY: What’s...there to talk about?

KATIE: I danced a lot last night.

JERRY: Did you?

KATIE: Yes. Oh, yes.

JERRY: (another uncomfortable pause) The band was great, didn’t you think?

KATIE: The band was phenomenal, yes.

JERRY: They were very inventive...with all the old songs.

KATIE: Phenomenally inventive.

JERRY: I mean, you wouldn’t’ think “Moon River,” “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “The Ballad of the Green Berets” would ever work in a medley, would you?...What were we talking about?

KATIE: Dancing.

JERRY: Oh. Yes. You danced a lot last night. You were telling me.

KATIE: And you didn’t leave your dancing shoes at the seminary, either.

JERRY: I made my way to the floor a few times.

KATIE: Nine.

JERRY: You counted?

KATIE: You’re a priest. Everybody counted.

JERRY: You’re not upset, are you?

KATIE: Why should I be upset?

JERRY: I don’t know.

KATIE: I mean, you never took a vow against the Hully Gully, right?

JERRY: Right.

KATIE: So, there’s no reason for me to be upset, now, is there?

JERRY: No reason at all.

KATIE: Jerry Dolan, the Dancing Padre!

JERRY: But you did count.

KATIE: Count what?

JERRY: My dances.

KATIE: Yes.

JERRY: So...?

KATIE: But...that was easy.

JERRY: What was easy?

KATIE: Counting your nine dances.

JERRY: (carefully) Why?

KATIE: (Fast) Because six of them were with me! (Leaps into the kneeler) Bless me, Father, for I have sinned!

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