“I lay in that tub on the seventeenth floor of this hotel for-women-only, high up over the jazz and push of New York, for near unto an hour, and I felt myself growing pure again. I don't believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water.”

“You have the Super Soaker filled with holy water?”“Yeah. I sucked it out of the church. You know that bird-bath thing they got right up front?”“The baptismal font?”“That’s it. They got it filled with holy water, free for the taking.”“Brilliant,” I said to Lula.She tapped her head with her finger. “No grass growin’ here.”

“Truth.It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that's been burning me up all my life.Truth, I say inside my head again, just for that feeling.”

“Long dormant feelings poured through my dried-up limbs and wound through me, slowly filling the emptiness. Like an irrigated field, I felt myself blossom and grow with new vigor. He was the sun, and the tenderness he showed me was life-giving water. ”

“There's something about rushing water that I can watch for hours and feel as if I need to do nothing more. It's alive in a way that's greater than any description of it...”

“What's with the super soaker?" -Stephine"I had a stork of genius when you called me this morning I said what do I have to do to protect myself from the vampire? And the answer that came to me was holy water! I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner." -Lula"You have the Super Soaker filled with holy water?" -Stephine"Yeah I sucked it out of the church. You know that birdbath thing they got right up front?" -Lula"THe baptismal font?" -Stephine"That's it. They got it filled with holy water, free for the taking." -Lula"Brilliant." -Stephine”