Emily

by Jack Weyland

  Emily

  Jack Weyland

  © 1999 Deseret Book Company.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, P.O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City Utah 30178. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book. Deseret Book is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is based on a true story. My thanks to the real Emily for being willing to share with me her experience as a burn survivor. I also express my appreciation to the nurses and child-life specialists at the Intermountain Burn Center of the University of Utah Medical Center for their assistance. One cannot spend time with them without gaining a profound appreciation for their dedication, expertise, and compassion.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Ten Suggestions for Approaching Someone Who is Disabled

  Reminders from the Intermountain Burn Center at the University of Utah

  Chapter 1

  Blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful in her wedding dress, Emily waited anxiously at the entrance of the Ogden Temple for her true love to show up so they could be married for time and all eternity.

  There was just one problem, though. She couldn’t remember his name.

  Every few minutes a young man would approach the place she was standing. She looked hopefully at each one. Some smiled, some even said hello, but none of them took her by the hand, and all of them entered the temple without her.

  “So, what’s keeping him?” her older brother, Jeremy, finally asked.

  “He’ll be here.”

  “Why don’t you call and see if he’s left yet?”

  Emily had gone her whole life being made fun of by Jeremy, so she didn’t want him to know she couldn’t remember her fiancé’s name. “I don’t know his phone number,” she said.

  “So? Look it up.”

  “Yes, I could do that if . . .” her voice trailed off.

  “You do remember his name, don’t you?”

  “Well, not actually, but I’m sure it will come to me.”

  “Oh, man, I can’t believe this.” Jeremy banged his forehead with his hand. “Look, if you can’t remember his name, you’re probably not ready to marry him.”

  “Stop talking down to me, Jeremy.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I’m a woman now.”

  “Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “You’re no woman. A woman would at least know the name of the man she was about to marry.”

  “Oh, look, maybe this is him.” A boy she recognized from school approached her, smiled, then continued on his way.

  “So what are you going to do? Marry the first guy who stops to talk to you?”

  “I know who he is. I just can’t remember his name, that’s all. Look, this could happen to anybody.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  A car pulled into the parking lot of the temple. “That’s Austin,” Jeremy said. “We’re going to do some baptisms. He’s right on time.”

  Austin walked up the steps of the temple to where they were standing.

  “Hey, man, what’s happening?” Jeremy said.

  Austin nodded vaguely at Jeremy, then approached Emily and, taking her hand, asked, “Are you ready for this?”

  “You know I am,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. So this is who I’m going to marry! she thought.

  “Let’s go then.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. What about me?” Jeremy asked. “I’m your best friend.”

  “I know, but I can’t marry you. Sorry,” Austin said with a smile, then gazed into Emily’s eyes and kissed her on the lips.

  Oh, yes! Emily thought. This is the kiss of the century!

  Jeremy broke them up and pulled Emily aside. “You can’t marry Austin, okay?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, you’re way too young for him.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What do you mean, not anymore?”

  “I’m a year ahead of him in college.”

  “Since when? How could that be?”

  “You and Austin have already served your missions.”

  Jeremy looked puzzled. “We have? How come I can’t remember?”

  “Only you can answer that question, Jeremy,” she said mysteriously. She then took Austin’s hand and, together, they entered the temple.

  And then, unfortunately, Emily woke up.

  It had been the most wonderful dream she’d ever had. And it had seemed so real, especially when Austin had looked into her eyes and tenderly kissed her. More than anything, she wanted to return to her dream. Not only because it was so romantic but also because she wanted to get some ideas for when she actually did get married. She wanted to see what the reception would be like. She pictured herself standing next to Austin, greeting friends and neighbors.

  She wanted to get to the part where the bride and groom share the wedding cake. That had always been her favorite part. She smiled as she thought of shoving the cake into his mouth and smearing it all over his face and of how their friends and family would laugh at their antics.

  She wanted to see what it would be like sharing the first dance together with all their friends looking on. She would be elegant in her gown, and he would be handsome in his tux. For that one night they would be royalty, the lovely princess and the handsome prince, together at last.

  She wanted to see what the cake and the table decorations looked like. She wanted to get every little detail right.

  She and Austin had grown up in the same neighborhood in Ogden, Utah. Austin was now nineteen years old and about to go on a mission. Emily was two years younger, and, in the fall, she would begin attending college at Utah State University. She’d known Austin since she was in fifth grade, when he and Jeremy had become best friends. But in all the time Austin had spent at the house with Jeremy, Austin had never paid Emily much attention. He was, of course, polite and usually said hello, and sometimes he asked about school, but the two of them had never done anything together. To Austin, Emily was just his best friend’s little sister.

  Maybe I really am going to marry Austin, she thought. I’m glad to know that. I won’t tell him though. No use scaring him.

  She lay in bed and tried to return to her dream, but she was too excited to go back to sleep. And then she remembered that Austin had stayed the night and was probably asleep in the TV room in the basement with Jeremy.

  If I’m going to marry him, I need to get to know him better before he leaves on his mission. With that, she jumped out of bed. After brushing her teeth and doing what she could with her hair, she got dressed, then tiptoed downstairs to the TV room. It was seven-thirty in the morning, and her parents had already left for the temple. They went every Saturday morning but were usually home by eleven o’clock.

  Jeremy was asleep on one couch, Austin on the other, each of them in a sleeping bag. There were some empty soft drink cans and an open pizza box with several uneaten crusts in it lying on the coffee table in front of the couches. Two acoustic guitars also lay on the coffee table.

 
“Howdy, Cowboy,” she said softly to Austin, who was still asleep.

  Not that Austin was a cowboy, but he and Jeremy sang country songs together. She had never understood how they could get away with that when neither of them had ever been within five feet of either a cow or a horse.

  The whole thing had started as a joke. Acting on a dare from one of their friends, Jeremy and Austin had sung a country song for a school talent show. They were trying to make fun of western music, but apparently nobody noticed, and they became an instant sensation at school.

  Jeremy already knew how to play the guitar, and Austin soon learned, at least enough to get by. They even bought a couple of western shirts and some cowboy boots and black Stetson hats to wear while they performed.

  For a time they thought they might have a future in country music, but nothing turned out. And so, the previous fall, when Austin went away to USU and Jeremy to BYU, their singing career together was put on the shelf.

  But now they were back home for the summer, hanging out while waiting to go on their missions. They’d been asked to sing at the Fourth of July picnic at a city park, and the night before they had been practicing for that.

  Austin had always seemed to enjoy spending time at Jeremy’s, where things were much more relaxed than at his house. Austin’s parents were very formal and proper people, and Emily had always felt sorry for him for having to grow up with a dad who was a successful lawyer and who went by the name H. Lloyd Brunswick. His mother was so conscious of appearances that she wouldn’t eat fried chicken with her fingers, even at a ward picnic. Emily noticed things like that.

  It was cold in the basement, and Emily grabbed a blanket from a closet.

  She wrapped it around her and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Austin, studying his face. She’d never said anything about it, but she had always thought Austin was really good-looking. Even when he was being one of Jeremy’s pesky friends, she couldn’t help liking him. Not even her friends knew it, but she was fascinated by the way he laughed and the way he moved his mouth when he talked or sang.

  Once, when she was in ninth grade, Austin had squirted her with a hose while she was sunbathing. She pretended to be mad at him, but she was secretly thrilled to have him pay attention to her at all. Sometimes, when Jeremy and Austin would make a mess in the TV room, Emily’s mom would make her clean it up, but that was all right. She would just pretend she and Austin were already married and that she was doing what a wife does for her husband and her husband’s friends.

  She leaned closer to him. He really does have an interesting face, she thought. The face of a poet—a bad poet, one who doesn’t make much money selling his poems and who has a certain sadness about him.

  She wasn’t sure where the idea about poets had come from until she remembered that her parents had made her watch the opera La Boehme one night on public television as a part of family home evening. At the time she thought it was dumb, thinking that if these people would sing less and go out and get a job, they’d all be better off. But something had remained from the experience—the romance of being a starving poet living in a ghetto with friends as bad off as you.

  Austin had prominent cheekbones and a long narrow face. It made him look as though he wasn’t getting enough to eat. He also had thick, dark brown hair, which he was now keeping cut short in preparation for his mission.

  She used to think he was conceited, but now that she was going to marry him, she decided to think of him as being sure of himself.

  She was pretty certain Austin’s folks considered themselves superior to everyone else. And there were good reasons for them to think that. For one thing, they lived in the biggest house on the nicest street in the ward. Austin’s mom wore dresses to Church that made her look as if she were going to a fancy dinner party, and his dad always wore expensive suits and commercially laundered shirts and highly polished shoes. He was on the high council, and she went from one leadership position to another, in Relief Society and Young Women. Their oldest son was at Harvard, studying for his MBA, and their next oldest was in the honors program at BYU. Their biggest embarrassment had been when Austin hadn’t been accepted to BYU because his grades weren’t good enough. Emily wondered if Austin’s mother blamed Jeremy for that. Too much country music.

  I’ll never be good enough for Austin’s mother, Emily thought. But what do I care? I don’t like her very much anyway.

  Austin, my love. She had a hard time even thinking it without laughing. This isn’t easy, she thought,making the adjustment from being Jeremy’s little sister to Austin’s one and only true love.

  She wanted this to be like the prince who walks in on Sleeping Beauty, falls in love with her, and kisses her. Except this time she was taking the prince’s part. Even so, she decided it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to try to kiss him, especially with Jeremy nearby. She was sure he would tell on her.

  Another problem was that Austin’s mouth was slightly open. A thin line of saliva had run down his chin and dripped onto the floor. She didn’t judge him harshly for that. She herself had awakened before to find drool on her pillow, but, even so, she wished she hadn’t seen it happening to Austin. It kind of took some of the magic out of the moment.

  Part of the problem—being in love with Austin—was that she’d known him a long time. He hadn’t always been cool. He used to be awkward and pick at his face a lot. But now he’d begun wearing longer shirts that didn’t pull up so you could see his underwear when he bent over. And it had been a year or so since he and Jeremy had prided themselves on making gross bodily sounds.

  Since coming home from his first year at USU, Austin did seem more mature to her. If he’s made this much progress in one year, just think what he’ll be like after he returns from his mission, she thought.

  Scooting closer, she tilted her head sideways, parallel to his, to see what it might be like to wake up in the morning and see him lying next to her. She wanted it to be romantic, but it wasn’t. For one thing, she was still put off by the saliva on the floor.

  She tried scooting a little closer to see if it made her feel more romantic toward him. She tilted her head and closed her eyes and then opened them slowly. “Good morning,” she whispered. She puckered her lips and moved closer as if she were going to kiss him.

  “Emily, what are you doing?” Jeremy grumbled.

  She turned around. Jeremy was sitting up in his sleeping bag. She wondered how long he’d been awake and what he’d seen.

  “Nothing,” she said, moving quickly away.

  “Don’t give me that. You were doing something.”

  “What was I doing?”

  “I’m not sure, but it wasn’t . . . normal.”

  “I was just waiting for Austin to wake up because I’ve decided to cook you two some breakfast.”

  “You don’t know how to cook breakfast.”

  “I do so.”

  “Fine, then, go cook it. When it’s done, we’ll eat it. Just don’t stare at people when they’re sleeping. It’s creepy. I mean, how would you like it if you woke up and somebody was sitting there watching you sleep. When he wakes up, I’m going to tell him what you were doing.”

  “Please don’t, okay?”

  “Well, I might let it go this time. But that breakfast better be good, that’s all I can say.”

  She hurried to the kitchen to cook breakfast. This will be the first meal I’ll cook for my future husband, she thought. And he’ll be gone for two years so it better be good, something he’ll remember while he’s away.

  She’d never been much of a cook. There was no need to learn in their family. Her mother was a great cook and prepared most of the food. And, in fact, her mom didn’t like people messing things up in what she called, “my kitchen.”

  Emily rummaged around in the refrigerator, looking for something to fix. She decided she’d make bacon and eggs and pancakes.

  She fried the bacon first, so the smell of it would fill the house. She set the cooked bacon aside
, then worked on making pancakes. At first she had the frying pan turned on too low, and the batter was too thick, so the pancakes turned out anemic looking, with the insides still runny.

  She thinned the mix and turned up the electric frying pan. The first batch would have turned out okay, but she flipped them too soon, so they landed in a wrinkled heap in the pan. She scraped them out and tried again.

  By the time she’d figured out how to cook pancakes, she’d run out of batter, and the garbage can was filled with her mistakes. She stirred up some new batter and started over again.

  Working patiently, she made fifteen really good pancakes, almost eight for each of them. She didn’t want any because she’d gotten filled eating scraps from what she’d thrown away.

  At first she was going to cook the eggs sunny-side up, but she broke two of the yolks, so she decided to make scrambled eggs.

  The hot chocolate went okay, except that she spilled half a cup taking it out of the microwave. She threw some paper towels in the microwave, promising herself to clean it up later.

  Finally everything was ready. She went downstairs to announce breakfast, but Jeremy and Austin were still sleeping. She had no patience with that. She began pulling the bottom of Jeremy’s sleeping bag. “Breakfast is ready.”

  He held onto the sleeping bag and pulled it up to his chin. “We need to sleep a little longer.”

  “No, you’ve slept long enough. Everything is getting cold. I’ll be upstairs waiting.”

  “What’s wrong with you, anyway?” Jeremy complained

  “You can sleep after you eat breakfast.”

  “What’s going on?” Austin asked sleepily.

  “My crazy sister has cooked breakfast for us.”

  “What for?”

  “Who knows why she does anything? Anyway, she wants us to eat now. You okay with that?”

  “Yeah, sure. If you think about it, it’s nice of her to do that.”