Favorite Wife Page 6

  As I rattled on, Carmela turned up the radio to cover the sound of the bedroom window sliding open. She slipped her legs over the ledge and dashed across the dark yard. Once she was out of the gate, she called softly for the dogs. The two huge mutts padded after her as she raced down the road toward Grandma’s.

  “Oh, Carmela,” I continued my monologue, my heart pounding with fright. “I just don’t know what to do about Lane. I like him a lot, but Estela’s so horrible . . .” I rattled on until I was sure Carmela had reached the corner of the road, then leaving the radio on, I followed her out the window and sprinted away from the house. Soon the two of us were jogging through the streets of Colonia LeBaron. The dogs bounded along with us until we reached the last corner; then, Carmela commanded them to go home.

  In a matter of minutes we stood panting inside Jay’s little house. Jay looked at me over the top of Carmela’s head, his blue eyes dark with gratitude. As I left them alone, Carmela was saying, “Oh, Jay, you really built all this for me? What color are we going to paint the kitchen?”

  I stood guard in the shadows outside. Across the street I could see Mom’s bedroom light, and I wondered if she was worrying about me. Wrapping my arms around my shoulders against the chilly air, I slid down in a huddle at the side of the adobe wall. The grass was sparse and no cushion at all for my bottom. I shifted uncomfortably, wishing Jay and Carmela would hurry and do whatever they were going to do.

  I thought about Alma and wondered how he could be so mean. I’d never liked Alma much. He made his kids eat cracked wheat cereal with goat’s milk and molasses for breakfast and wouldn’t let them eat chocolate cake or fudge, or anything with refined sugar or flour. He wouldn’t let his daughter Rosa wear pants, and she had to keep her hair braided. It was strange how different the people in the same family could be. I felt confident that Verlan would never try to run his children’s lives. He wasn’t forceful and manipulating like Alma. He couldn’t possibly be.

  It was a good thing that Jay and Carmela were eloping. I didn’t know just what my brother had in mind yet, and I wished he would come out and let me know. I was beginning to feel nervous. They were taking too long talking. They needed to decide what they were doing and get on with it.

  As the worries plagued my mind, car lights began to make their way down the main road that ran half a block away from me. I held my breath, for fear they would turn down our street. But they went on down the bumpy road toward the western mountains. I relaxed for a moment, then started to worry again. What would I do if Alma came looking for Carmela? Oh, God forbid.

  I was beginning to shiver and my legs were cramped. I stood up and began to walk around to warm up. This was ridiculous. Maybe I should go knock on Jay’s door and make them hurry.

  The sound of a distant engine coming nearer made me dash in panic to the corner of the house. Bright headlights swept down our road and a white pickup turned sharply into Jay’s gravel driveway. Alma climbed out and slammed the door shut. In his right hand he held a shotgun. I stood outlined in the bold glare of the headlights, squinting as I stared at him. He walked toward me, his face hard and pale under the lights of the pickup.

  “Okay, young lady, where is she?”

  His voice sounded absurdly friendly and conversational, and I eyed the shotgun in his hands, its double barrels glistening in the yellow light. I had to answer him, lie like crazy, say Carmela wasn’t here, but my tongue and brain were frozen. Tearing my eyes away from the gun, I glanced hastily over my shoulder, praying they had heard him and ran out the back door to safety.

  Alma pushed me aside and started around the side of the house. Suddenly I found my voice. “Jay!” I screamed through the stillness. “Alma has a shotgun!”

  My heart pounded with every step as I ran after him. “Jay! Look out! Alma has a gun!” I screamed again. I wasn’t afraid anymore, and grabbing his arm as he reached for the screen door, I yanked hard. “You leave them alone, you hear me?” I shouted. “Just what do you plan to do? Shoot them? What a mean old bully you are!”

  He shook my grip free and shoved me back. I stumbled and fell onto the grass. “You stay out of this!” he roared. “Someone ought to teach you some respect for your elders.”

  The door to the house swung open. Jay and Carmela filed out and stood gaping at us. Alma eyed them in cold fury; the shotgun held loosely in his hand. Across the street, Mother’s bedroom door banged. She hurried toward us, her slippers flapping.

  “What in the world is going on here?” she snapped, pulling her robe tighter around her. The shotgun in Alma’s hand brought her up short. A look of incredulity crossed her features.

  “Alma LeBaron, just what do you think you’re doing!” she gasped.

  “Mathel, I warned Jay to stay away from my daughter weeks ago,” Alma said stiffly. “I meant what I said. I don’t want there to be any trouble, and there won’t be if he will abide by my wishes. But he’d better take me serious. I have other plans for Carmela.” He turned back to Jay, his eyes two dark slits. “If you’re looking for trouble, boy, you’re headed in the right direction. I won’t warn you again. Stay away from my daughter.”

  Jay’s face looked white as marble as Alma grabbed Carmela’s arm and pushed her down the sidewalk. She gaped back at Jay before she got in the pickup, her eyes two black circles in her dark face.

  I picked myself up from the grass. My knees felt rubbery as I stood next to Mom and Jay and watched the white pickup back out of the driveway.

  Mom was the first to speak. Her voice shook, “I don’t know how this all came about, but I would like to personally fill that man’s butt with bird shot for having the nerve to bring a gun over here, onto our property, and threaten my son with it. How dare he! I wish your father were here! He’d have something to say to that self-righteous . . .”

  “Mom,” Jay interrupted quietly. “He did warn me. As wrong as he is, at least he warned me in advance. Oh, damn, I don’t know what to do. I can’t just stand by and watch her marry Hector! I can’t believe that’s God’s will. Alma’s wrong! I only wish Joel were here to tell me what to do.” He choked, turned away from us, and stumbled into the shadows. He leaned against the house and sobbed.

  Mom turned and glared at me. “And just what part did you play in this? Why in the name of heaven are you involved in this stupid fight with Alma?”

  “Jay is my brother and Carmela is my friend!” I said fiercely. “That makes me involved. Jay wanted to talk to her and I invited her over, that’s all.”

  “I asked Susan to bring Carmela over here,” Jay’s voice sounded hollow. “None of this is her fault. I’m sorry, Sis. Did he hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “What are you going to do?”

  “Leave it alone for now, I guess. I’ll think of something. You two go on to bed. Mom, I’m really sorry about this,” Jay walked back and put his arms around us. We hugged for a moment, and as I felt the tears on his cheek, a horrible hatred filled my soul like I had never known before. I wanted to yank Alma’s thin hair out, tear his eyes out, and scratch his face.

  “It’ll be okay, Jay,” I whispered in his ear. And then Mom and I walked across the street and left him alone in his and Carmela’s little dream house.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The rest of the month swiftly passed, filled with school and church activities, piano lessons and play practices. The early spring leaves on the cottonwood trees had matured to jade colors. Roses and painted daisies were blooming, and summer heat and freedom were just around the corner. The three-room adobe building that served as a school for the colony’s elementary and middle school grades was stifling in the desert heat. Our government-paid Mexican teachers were as anxious as their gringo students were for the summer break.

  Jay went back to New Mexico with Dad to work. I knew it was because he couldn’t stand to be in the colony with things the w
ay they were with Alma and Carmela. In school, Carmela was distant and withdrawn. I ached for her.

  As for my own life, I harbored the secret of my dream like a hidden treasure deep in my heart. I had finally confided in my mother about it, but other than her and me, no one knew but Grandma LeBaron.

  Francisca begged me to tell her what was going on with me. “I know you’re not telling me something important,” she complained. “I tell you everything. It’s not fair.” Francisca had fallen in love over the past month with Alma LeBaron’s oldest son Alma D. She was crazy about him. Alma D. had been gone for the past six or eight months, working in Las Vegas. He’d come home with fancy new clothes and a brand-new red Chrysler sedan. He was taking Franny out every few nights and spending lots of time with her, which made her too busy to have much time for me. So I found myself thrown together more and more with Debbie Bateman.

  Debbie was so different from the girls I had grown up with. For the first few months of her life in the colony, she was full of Babylonian ideas about men and life in general. Yet as the weeks passed, it seemed to me she was becoming a bit ashamed of her wild ways and was honestly trying to become one of us. She was wearing less makeup and had stopped wearing her mini skirts. She’d moved in with Ervil’s wife, Anna Mae, and seemed to really enjoy being a member of Anna Mae’s busy household. At play practices, Esther Spencer had noticed a difference in Debbie too. For the past few weeks she’d gone out of her way to be nice to her and make her feel a part of our group.

  Lane had kept pretty much to himself since the day I had told him I didn’t love him. He barely nodded to me when we were in the same room. I knew we had lost for good our special friendship. In a way, it made me sad.

  Conference was almost upon us, and I was filled with nervous excitement about it. I knew I would get to see Verlan again. I could hardly wait to see what he looked like. Of course, I basically knew. But when I would try to imagine his face before me, I couldn’t seem to get it in the right proportions. I would be seeing him through different eyes, now that I planned to marry him someday.

  The meetings would take place on a three-day weekend. Six hundred people from all over the western United States and Mexico would be gathering to Colonia LeBaron to hear the Prophet Joel and the other leaders preach and outline their plans for further missionary work. Each evening there would be a social event. Friday night would be the play, and Saturday night we would have a big square dance. Sunday evening would conclude with the young people’s Fireside or spiritual lesson.

  My father’s sister, Thelma Chynoweth, her husband Bud, and their three unmarried children were coming from Utah. I hadn’t seen my Chynoweth relatives since I was a small child. They would be staying at our house, and I was delighted at the thought of getting to know them again. Due to my father’s insistent ministry, they had joined the church a couple of years ago, and their oldest daughter, my cousin Lorna, had become Ervil LeBaron’s fifth wife shortly after that.

  Aunt Thelma, Uncle Bud, and their kids arrived late Thursday night, and Mom and Dad scurried around, carrying lamps back and forth as they bedded everyone down. I could hear the adults visiting until the wee hours of the morning.

  The following day dawned full of clouds and rain, and I hurried through my chores outside so I could take a bath and dry my hair before the ten o’clock meeting. While Mom made wonderberry pancakes in honor of our company, Aunt Thelma bustled around the kitchen, setting the table, straining the milk for me, and talking nonstop.

  Aunt Thelma didn’t look a thing like my father. She was above average height and had kept a trim, firm figure for being in her fifties. She had perfect skin, laughing blue eyes, and exceptional white teeth. Her light brown hair was just beginning to show a little frost. She wore large pearly earrings and carefully tailored clothes. Elegant was the word for Aunt Thelma.

  Uncle Bud was a jolly man, and immediately I loved him. When I looked at his face, kindness and goodness barely stayed hidden behind the smirk of a lighthearted tease. I was soon to find out Uncle Bud teased the people he loved until they wanted to pinch him.

  “You’re going to have to watch this girl, Vern,” he mumbled between bites of pancake as he reached over and gently yanked on my carefully pinned up hair. “She’s going to steal all those men’s hearts at meeting today. How old are you now, Suze? About twenty-three?”

  “Now, Bud, don’t you start in on her,” Aunt Thelma interrupted. “I was the same way when I was her age. We Ray women mature early, and not just in looks. She may only be fourteen, but she could give any eighteen-year-old a run for her money. Couldn’t you, Susie?”

  I managed a tight smile and excused myself from the table.

  Cousin Mark, the boy just older than me, grinned and winked at me as I walked past him, and I fumed. I hated being treated like a child. I was grown up, whether Uncle Bud thought so or not. Hadn’t God given me a revelation about whom to marry?

  As I walked down the hall to my room, Uncle Bud was keeping it up. “Yep, Vern, you’re going to have to oil up the old shotgun because of that little blond.”

  “Speaking of shotguns,” Dad’s deep voice boomed down the hall, “we had a little run-in with a shotgun here about a month ago. I tell you, Bud, some of these LeBaron men think they’re above the law.”

  I propped my bedroom door open a bit so I could eavesdrop. Dad went on and on about Alma’s visit to Jay and just what he thought about the whole thing. As they talked, I fixed my hair where Uncle Bud had pulled it loose from the French twist. I had on my favorite pink dress, but as I examined myself in the mirror, I pulled it off and changed into the blue and gray dress with the full skirt because Jay had told me it matched my eyes. Also, I was afraid Verlan would recognize my pink one.

  Dad’s voice carried well down the hall, and suddenly I heard him say, “You know, Bud, those LeBaron men are all so different. But in some things they’re like peas in a pod. Take Ervil now; just like Alma, Ervil thinks he can run people’s lives.”

  Dad’s voice abruptly dropped in volume. Whatever else he was saying about Ervil LeBaron was being muffled. I hurried to the door and stuck my head out, but the conversation was being carried on in a whisper. I lingered for a moment, but Dad’s voice remained too low. Whatever he was discussing now was a secret, and it sounded like Dad was unhappy with Ervil again. Bud’s oldest daughter was one of Ervil’s wives, and what was Dad doing ragging on Ervil to him? I wished I knew more about what was going on.

  I closed the door and took one last look in the mirror. Today of all days I wanted to look my best. Staring back at me was a five-foot-five-inch young lady of medium build, with high cheekbones, a clear complexion, and big blue eyes fringed with dark, curly lashes and brown, even brows. Thick, ash-blond hair, pulled up in a mature style, definitely made me look eighteen. My dress was belted snug around my waist, and my bosom pushed hard at the fabric. I might not steal all the men’s hearts today, but there was one man’s heart that I hoped would at least skip a beat or two. I put just a dab of Mom’s perfume behind my ears, picked up my Bible and Book of Mormon, and walked into the kitchen.

  “Are you guys ready?” I called to Jay and Mark as they combed their hair at the mirror above the washstand by the back door. They certainly looked ready—a couple of lady-killers, all dolled up in their suits and ties. I whistled my admiration. Mark’s hair curled long over his collar and glistened with blond highlights. He’d inherited Aunt Thelma’s perfect, white smile and Uncle Bud’s hazel eyes, complete with the constant twinkle. He wasn’t very tall, but his muscular body sported a golden tan.

  Next to Mark, Jay’s serious persona seemed especially grave. He looked his best, with his dark brown hair all plastered down and his nicest clothes on, but his dark blue eyes were thoughtful and distant. I ached for him.

  “I will certainly feel proud to walk to church with the two best-looking guys in town,” I declared, smil
ing brightly.

  Jay grinned self-consciously. Taking my books, he tucked them under his arm, then bent his other elbow and held it out to me in a gallant gesture. “Ya don’t look too shabby yourself, Sis,” he eyed me up and down.

  “You kids run along,” Mom said from her seat at the breakfast table. “We’re just going to finish our last cup of coffee then we’ll join you at the church.”

  “Save us a seat,” Aunt Thelma sung merrily after us.

  As Mark, Jay, and I walked out the door, I hesitated momentarily, looking back at the lovely picture my Uncle Bud and Aunt Thelma made, seated with Mom and Dad, drinking the forbidden coffee in a cozy family group around the table in our kitchen. That memory would come back to fill me with haunting sadness in the years to come—tragic years that changed one of these loving, God-fearing people into an accomplice to murder.

  I knew Verlan would sit up on the stage with the rest of the leaders. The thought filled me with a glowing, tingling pride. My future husband was a man of such importance, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. The Prophet Joel, of course, led the church; then came Ervil, the church patriarch, then Verlan’s position was next in prominence. The President of the Twelve Apostles! Marrying me, Susan Ray.

  I chose a seat four benches back, not too close to the front but close enough so he would be sure to notice me. I wondered if he had brought any of his wives with him from Baja. I hoped not. I wanted him to have plenty of time to look around.

  The church building was full already, people hurrying about, shaking each other’s hands, laughing and crying—all the things people do who haven’t seen their friends and relatives for months. I sat quietly and watched the goings-on around me, and waited expectantly to see a certain tall man in a business suit walk in. I leaned back on the hard bench and imagined how it would be when Verlan arrived. He would see me sitting here all alone, and he would walk over to me. I would be studiously reading my Book of Mormon, and he would reach for my hand and say, “Well, hello, Susan. I was hoping to see you today.” And he would smile at me with that intimate look in his eyes. I knew that look by heart, because I had thought about it for weeks.