Sam Page 6

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said I had to talk to my home teacher first.”

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “Yes, What do you think? Oh, before you say, Jon has a message for you. He said if you tell me not to marry him, he’ll break both your legs.”

  “Macho—real macho. Ask him if he wants to play any more racquetball.”

  “He also said to tell you he loves me very much.”

  “Jon said that?” I asked. “He actually used the word love?”

  “He can be very tender.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “Shirley, why are you asking me? You’re a big girl now—emotionally, that is.”

  “I’m asking you so you have a part in it.”

  “Marry him! He’ll make a good husband and a terrific father. In fact, I may mail my son to you both. He’s into the terrible twos now. Yesterday he took off his shirt and coated his body with peanut butter.”

  She laughed. “What did you do?”

  “I got two pieces of bread and threatened to make a sandwich out of him.”

  I hugged her and wished her well.

  “Do you have any advice for us?” she asked.

  “Advice? Oh sure . . . There were these two frogs, and they both got caught in this bucket of cream . . .”

  * * * * *

  Jon and Shirley were married in the temple in May. I was with them when they were sealed together as husband and wife for time and eternity. They were dry-eyed, but I wasn’t.

  Our clown project took off in the late spring. Suddenly we were in demand. We asked Sister Hilton to be our booking agent, and she kept busy juggling the calendar to accommodate the requests for us to appear at ward parties and service clubs.

  After one of our performances, she made a presentation of her palm tree to the children’s wing of the hospital.

  “To tell you the truth,” she said to me afterwards, “I don’t even have time to water it anymore.”

  I continued to home teach Paul, our mild-mannered graduate student. All through February and March he had studied for a written exam over course work. He passed it, and then the next hurdle was an oral exam over course work, and then research. He kept busy, so when we visited him, we didn’t stay long.

  About the only thing I did for Joan was to babysit for her once a week so she could go bowling with some friends from work.

  In June, Jon, Shirley, and I launched our boat for the first time—it floated. That’s always good news for a boat.

  In late June, they said they were going to Yellowstone Park for a few days’ vacation.

  “Come along with us, Sam,” Shirley said.

  “Sure,” I smiled, “that’s just what newlyweds need—a home teacher along with them.”

  “Well, it’s what you need. You need to get away.”

  “I’m getting along fine.”

  “Yes, but you’re stale. C’mon, it’ll be fun to have you along.”

  “What about nights?”

  “You get a tent and we’ll get a tent.”

  “It’s a dumb idea, Shirley.”

  “No it isn’t. You’re part of our family, so come along.”

  “He’ll come,” Jon said emphatically. “We’ll be leaving Monday, so be ready.”

  Adam and I went with them. On the way, as Jon drove, I sat in the backseat with Adam and went through all my banjo songs. Every two hours I offered to drive, but Jon was never tired. Jon never gets tired driving. He told us some hunting stories that were impossible to believe. Jon can make a simple thing like walking into the woods and shooting a deer seem like an epic adventure.

  By late afternoon we were in the park and found a camping site. I had a new tent and had trouble setting it up, so I just looked inept until Jon came over and put it up for me. I knew he would. Around him I practiced what could be called Studied Incompetence. If you played your cards wrong, Jon would do everything.

  After supper we had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows. Adam loved them, especially the ones that caught fire and turned black.

  Then it was night, and Jon took a trip while Shirley and I talked. Then Jon returned and Shirley made the same trip. When she returned, we all gazed into the embers of the fire while Jon told stories about grizzly bears ripping the arms off campers. Then he announced he was going to bed.

  Jon left. A minute later, Shirley yawned and said, “I think I might go to bed now too—if that’s all right.”

  “Oh, sure,” I smiled. “It was a long trip and I’ll bet you’re tired.”

  “You’ll be okay here?” she asked.

  “I’ll be okay. You go ahead.”

  I smiled at her and she smiled back.

  “Goodnight, Sam.”

  “Goodnight, Shirley.”

  “Shirl!” Jon called out, a little impatient. “You coming to bed or not?”

  She left quickly.

  I sat by the fire with Adam asleep in my lap, and looked at the dying embers. I was alone and Jon and Shirley were together. As much as we cared about each other, I would always be on the outside of their closeness.

  I could make it alone if I had to. It might not be the way I wanted, but I could make it alone. I had my friends—the other clowns. I loved the single adults.

  I put Adam in his sleeping bag and then decided to take a little walk down by the shore of Yellowstone Lake.

  As I stood there, I started to talk to Charly very softly.

  “Charly, I miss you. I wish you could be here tonight and we could talk. Charly, I want to get married again. I thought you ought to know. You knew about Elizabeth, but that was before I was really ready to love again—but now I am. If the right girl comes along, I will. And if I do, I’m not going to hold back because of you. That’s the way it has to be. And after we’re all on the other side, then we’ll work out things between the three of us. Anyway, I thought you should know.”

  A falling star flashed across the sky.

  “Charly, does that mean you approve—or that you don’t approve?”

  “I approve,” a voice called out.

  I turned to face two young couples who had been watching me talk to the sky. They burst out laughing.

  I walked past them quickly, embarrassed.

  “Charlie, are you out there?” one of them mimicked. The others laughed again.

  The trouble with people today is that they have precious little respect for someone who talks to himself in the middle of the night.

  I returned to camp, changed Adam’s diaper, and went to bed.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seven

  It was summer and the night of the Major League all-star game, and also the night for the stake single adult committee meeting.

  In the spirit of pioneer sacrifice, I left the TV and walked to the meetinghouse, listening to the game on my old portable radio. It was a scruffy-looking model but it worked, except the back cover fell off with the slightest jar.

  We held our meetings in the high council room. When I arrived, the only person in the room was a new female representative from another ward. I knew at once she was a returned missionary because of her short, easily kept hair style and her white blouse buttoned to the top, accented with a scarf around her neck.

  She looked up as I entered, and I, with radio to my ear, nodded politely and sat down on the far end of the long table, about fifteen feet from her, and continued listening to the game.

  It was the bottom of the eighth inning and the score was tied.

  As time passed, most of the guys on the committee sat near me, and we all listened to the game.

  Finally it was the bottom of the ninth, my team was one run behind, with two men on and one away.

  The stake clerk came into the room and announced that our high councilor on the committee wouldn’t be able to attend because his wife had just gone into labor. He asked if I would conduct the meeting.

  “Why don’t we wait a
minute for the game to end?” I asked. “Is that all right with everyone?”

  “I think we should begin now,” the new girl said.

  To this day I’m not sure I heard her say anything. I turned up the radio, The batter hit a single into shallow center field. Three men were on with only one away.

  During a station break while they changed pitchers, the new representative walked over to where we were sitting. “If we say a meeting is going to start at seven-thirty, then I think it should start at seven-thirty.”

  The next batter hit a long fly ball into right field. It was caught on the warning track. Two men out. The next batter went to a full count. Time out because somebody threw some trash on the field.

  “If we can’t set a good example for promptness as a stake committee, how can we expect the same from the wards?”

  I didn’t hear a word she said.

  “Now as we resume the game, the count is three balls, two strikes, the bases loaded—here’s the windup, and the pitch—”

  She turned off my radio!

  “Doesn’t anybody care about promptness?”

  Two of us dived to turn on the radio, proceeding instead to knock it off the table. I ran to the other side of the table, only to see the back cover off and batteries scattered over the floor.

  I fell to my knees and frantically began stuffing the batteries inside. One was missing. I crawled under the table to look for it.

  “I’m sorry about your radio!” she called out, looking at me under the table.

  Then she crawled under the table with me, searching and apologizing at the same time.

  “It’s just that time is so valuable, do you know what I mean? Time’s all we have, isn’t it? That’s one of the most important lessons from my mission.”

  I stopped searching to stare at her.

  It’s Charly! I thought with a sudden leap of emotion. Who else would be crazy enough to be under a high council table with me?

  She found the missing battery and gave it to me. I continued to stare at her as though she came from another planet.

  “Are you going to turn it on now?” she asked.

  “You mean my charm?” I said, nearly giggling.

  “Sam!” someone yelled. “For crying out loud, turn on the radio!”

  I slipped the battery in the radio.

  “In all my years covering baseball, I don’t ever recall a play like that last one!”

  “What play?” somebody yelled.

  “. . . the technical director for this broadcast has been Morris Selmyers . . .”

  “What play?”

  “. . . so on behalf of the CBS Network . . .”

  It was over and we didn’t know the score.

  I was still grinning at her. She smiled back politely and left me.

  I crawled out, stood up, and found myself staring at her again. She had light brown hair with a slightly reddish tint. There were hundreds of curls—I imagined that when she washed her hair all she did to dry off was shake her head like a cocker spaniel. She had a long, graceful, Audrey Hepburn neck, partially obscured by a scarf that added some color to the creamy white embroidered blouse she was wearing. Her face was very nice—its most appealing features were her brown eyes and a summer’s crop of freckles.

  Maybe she’s like Charly, I thought.

  She broke the spell by walking down to pick up a clipboard and returning to say, “Well, I guess we can get started on our meeting now, can’t we.”

  Oh, rats, I moaned inwardly, she’s efficient.

  I asked someone to pray. After that I realized I had no idea what business to cover. I asked for the minutes to be read, hoping to get a clue.

  “Margaret’s not here, and she has the minute book.”

  “Well,” I stammered, “I’m not exactly sure what Brother Hammond had in mind for us to talk about tonight.”

  Silence.

  “Did he talk to anyone about what he wanted us to cover?”

  Silence—lowered heads.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a tentative agenda,” the new girl said.

  “Oh? What’s your name?”

  “Lara Whyte. I’m the young adult representative from Second Ward. I just returned from a mission to New Mexico. I’m originally from Idaho, but I’m working in Salt Lake City and staying with my aunt.”

  “Well, Sister Whyte, we’d like to welcome you to our meeting.”

  “I apologize for ruining your baseball game.”

  She handed me her clipboard with the agenda on it.

  “Well,” I said, “since Sister Whyte has been kind enough to provide us with an agenda, I guess we can proceed.” I stopped talking, not believing the first item on the agenda. “Let’s see the first item is . . . Christmas customs in New Mexico. Uh, is that right, Sister Whyte? Is this an agenda I’m reading?”

  “Yes, it is,” she said calmly.

  “I see—Christmas customs in New Mexico. Uh . . . what do you mean by that, Sister Whyte?”

  She stood and cleared her throat. Her hand nervously went to her scarf as she began. “Well, as I explained, I just returned from a mission to New Mexico. They have a wonderful Christmas custom there that’d be so worthwhile for us to start here. What they do is take a little paper bag, pour a little sand in it, then stick a candle in the sand and light it. They might have hundreds of these on their lawns, outlining their sidewalks, or even on the roof. The whole town looks like a little fairy castle. I think we should do something like that as a single adult project for Christmas.”

  One of the guys on the committee started laughing. “You want us to put candles in sacks and set them on fire?”

  You’re not Charly, I thought sadly.

  “Oh, no, the sack doesn’t burn, just the candle. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s beautiful.”

  “By any chance,” one of the guys joked, “does your father manufacture either bags or sand or candles?”

  “Or sell fire insurance?” another joked.

  “It’s a beautiful custom, she insisted.”

  Definitely not Charly, I thought. She’s a returned lady missionary with a clipboard. Either she was a pain to her supervising elders because she always complained, or else a pain to all the elders because she outperformed them in missionary work.

  “Thank you,” I said, carefully trying to avoid telling her how dumb I thought her idea was. “That was certainly an interesting suggestion, wasn’t it. And we’ll certainly want to give it more study. Since Christmas is five months away, maybe we could appoint a committee to look into it. Dave and Chuck, will you study her suggestion about burning bags for Christmas?”

  “Oh, we sure will,” Dave said with a grin.

  I glanced at the rest of her agenda. The second item was “Bread.” Somehow I knew she wanted everyone to stop eating white bread and start with whole wheat bread—no doubt causing the entire stake single adult group to develop problems with gas.

  The third item was “Scripture Bowl.” I knew she wanted us to sponsor a scripture chase, just so she could demonstrate her skill. Only thinking of herself with no consideration for the interests of the group. How selfish.

  No, you’re not Charly.

  The fourth item was “Journals.” I pictured a seminar in which she read boring passages from her life.

  Suddenly I was mad at her for not being Charly, and for her dumb ideas, and for talking so freely at her first council meeting instead of respectfully listening for a few months the way most of the other women on the committee did.

  I certainly wasn’t going to plod through the rest of her dumb agenda.

  “We certainly want to thank Sister Wheat—”

  “It’s Whyte, not Wheat,” she corrected.

  “ . . . for her input tonight. She’s only been here a short time and look at what she’s done already.”

  Two of the more avid baseball fans grumbled about what she’d done.

  “Thank you, Sister Whyte, for your suggestions.”


  “If you want, you may call me Lara.”

  “If it’s all the same, I’ll call you Sister Whyte,” I replied coolly.

  By setting my notebook on her agenda, I managed to bury it. “There are some items we should cover. I think it’d be nice if we sponsored a single adult racquetball tournament.”

  The rest of the meeting went smoothly. Sister Whyte contented herself with keeping notes. In an hour we had finished.

  AFter the meeting, she stayed behind to finish her notes while I talked to Dave about the size of the trophies for our racquetball tournament. Then he left and she and I were alone.

  “You don’t seem very interested in new ideas,” she said, still writing.

  “On the contrary, we always like new ideas. That’s how we progress.”

  “Why were you staring at me under the table?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought at first that you were like someone I used to know, but I was wrong. You aren’t anything like that person.”

  “Later in the meeting I felt you turned very cold toward me. If we’re going to work together on this committee, we should get along. Why don’t you like me?”

  “Sister Whyte, I don’t even know you enough not to like you. But I’m sure with time—” I shook my head. “I’m sorry—that’s not what I meant.”

  “Is it because you didn’t get along with sister missionaries on your mission?”

  That seemed a better explanation than the real one. “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose I’ll get much done with you in charge of the committee.”

  “You want us all to bake bread in unison with you, don’t you,” I snapped.

  “Why are you so mad at me?”

  “I’m not mad. There’s no reason for me to be mad at you, and so I’m not mad.”

  “Then please lower your voice.”

  “Sister Whyte, I”m going home now, but I’m leaving you with a compliment. You have nice hair. I like the short little curls.”

  “Thank you,” she said, softening a bit.

  “I’ll bet you don’t even have to curl it, do you? All you do is concentrate real hard and it does whatever you want, doesn’t it? Well, you’ll find that’s one difference between your hair and me. Good night, Sister Whyte.”