Love's Labors Tossed

by Robert Farrell Smith

  Leonard looked around in excitement. “Keep talking, Trust, I think your voice is drawing them in.”

  I kept talking, but I don’t think they were the words Leonard wanted me to say. He claimed he was hurt, closed the lesson, and then asked me if I thought he was shrinking. I told him yes and then went out to find Grace. She was still in class, but I opened the door and told Sister Watson, who was teaching, that there was an emergency and Grace was needed on the other side of the meadow near the river and below the high pines. Once outside, Grace pestered me to tell her what was going on.

  I took her there and thoroughly explained the situation.

  29

  Stamped

  Monday was beautiful. The sky was as appealing as a clear conscience, the sun hanging overhead like a ball of wax, dripping its warm runoff over everything I saw. I helped Ed work out some of the kinks on his catapult. He was experimenting with which direction was best to fling things. Then I soaked up the environment, waiting for Grace to wander down from the hills. Before she emerged, the mail arrived, and with it were three boxes filled with Grace’s and my wedding announcements. I hated to say it, but my mom was right. I should have worn a different shirt. Grace, of course, looked stunning.

  As I was looking at them, Hope came into the boardinghouse. She momentarily seemed bothered by what I was doing.

  “Grace is sure a lucky girl,” she said sadly, her ideal face making me feel for her. “What I wouldn’t give to find a guy like you. You really are a catch.”

  She was making such perfect sense. I couldn’t just push her away.

  “How’s the painting coming?”

  “All right, I guess.” She looked sad.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Daddy’s slipping,” she sniffed.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m trying my best, but it takes me so long to mix my paints. I sprained my wrist pushing one of the children on the tire swing.” Hope showed me her wrist. It looked better than all right to me.

  Toby was just strolling by outside, so I hollered out to him. He couldn’t hear me too well because of the bandage around his head. But after a strong whistle, he turned and I waved him inside.

  “Hope’s wrist is sprained,” I pointed.

  “Let’s have a look-see.” He grabbed her wrist and bent it wildly in every direction. Hope screamed appropriately.

  “It’s sprained, all right.” Toby took the bandage off his noggin and fixed Hope up. If she hadn’t been in such pain, I would have almost sworn that she was scowling at Toby and his less-than-sanitary bandage.

  “That should take care of it,” Toby confirmed. “Let me know if a bone starts to stick out, or if it swells bigger than a quart-sized melon.”

  Hope moaned as Toby walked away. “I’ll never get my painting done now.”

  “Can’t you mix with your left hand?” I asked.

  “I suppose,” Hope cried. “I just don’t think it will be done in time for Daddy.”

  “Hold on a second,” I said. “Let me see if I can help.”

  “Would you?” she asked with such hope that I almost forgot about every single thing in my entire life besides her.

  “Wait here,” I said, quickly pulling myself away and mentally splashing water on my mind by thinking of how Pete Kennedy looked two summers ago in a swimming suit.

  Ed Washington was out in the meadow messing around with his catapult. He had been trying to work out every last bug. His creation had been well used. Instead of hauling their old furniture or clothing to the dump, people just put their stuff on the catapult and flung it into oblivion. It worked nicely because the direction it faced hurled most of the things towards the Heck home. More than once, I had heard President Heck talking happily about certain worn-out items the heavens had heaved at him. The only kink Ed couldn’t seem to work out was the touchy trigger. At times, all you had to do was simply lay something on it and the weight would release it and send it flying. It had gone off on accident while Miss Flitrey was emptying trash from her pockets onto it. The pole snagged the elastic waistband of the skirt she was wearing and stretched it until it snapped back, leaving her with one gigantic, waist-long welt. Ed was working on the faulty trigger problem when I interrupted him.

  “Hey, Ed, could you do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” he replied.

  “How are your hands?”

  He looked at them. “The rash has cleared.”

  “Perfect.”

  I sent him indoors to be with Hope. I was so proud of myself for doing what was right until I saw Hope walk out of the boardinghouse holding Ed’s arm, and I realized that I was more than just a little bit jealous.

  Hope was my pretend girlfriend.

  I saw Sister Watson break from the tree line and come racing towards the boardinghouse. She had a purpose. Her wig was crooked, and her ears were steaming. I stood in front of her.

  “What’s . . .”

  “No time, Trust.” She pushed me and kept going. I followed.

  “Leonard!” she screamed as she stepped up into the boardinghouse. “Leonard! He’s never around when I need him,” she ranted. “Roswell, you seen Leonard?”

  “I ain’t married to him,” Roswell argued.

  “Well, of course you’re not married to him,” she said in frustration. “I’m just wondering if you know where he is.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know.”

  Leonard appeared from out of nowhere, darkening the door frame with his long head and thin body.

  “What’s all the noise?” he asked.

  “I called the state,” Sister Watson dove in. “I fished around for information like you said. I didn’t tell them who I was but just that I was wondering what it would take to get a road put in where there wasn’t one. You ready for this?” she asked.

  Leonard had actually lost interest and was working a knot out of his shoulder. He noticed the dead air and told Sister Watson to go on.

  “First they send a state employee out here to see how many people there are because there has to be enough for them to consider a road. And then some studies are done. They say it would cost about twenty or thirty thousand just to get the thing okayed.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” was all Leonard said.

  “So the road’s out?” I asked, feeling I needed to participate.

  “The road’s not out,” Sister Watson insisted. “Progress can’t be stopped. We need that Book of Mormon.”

  “Trust, didn’t you say it was worth something big?” She turned to me.

  “Could be.”

  “So we find it, and we’re in business,” she said with finality.

  “You’ll never find it,” I pointed out. “Every inch of this place has been searched at least ten times over.”

  “It’s got to be somewhere,” she insisted.

  “Sister—” I tried to reason.

  “Brother Williams, there is no time for nay-saying.”

  I found some time for it in my head.

  “I’m going to start looking right now.” She turned on her big heels and headed out.

  “Boy, some people get an idea in their head and they don’t . . . where was I going with this?” Leonard asked me.

  “I have no idea.”

  I noticed for the first time that Leonard’s face was dotted with the beginnings of a beard.

  “So you decided to grow a beard.”

  “It isn’t coming in as fast as I’d like it to.”

  “Life’s not easy.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Leonard spotted the boxes of wedding announcements on the boardinghouse counter. He picked one up and looked at it.

  “I guess you didn’t want to dress up.”

  I was going to say something clever and cutting, but Leonard suddenly looked as if inspiration had slapped him on the chin.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, trying to brush off what I had just seen.
“Nothing. How many announcements did you and Grace order?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. A few thousand. Why?”

  “No reason,” Leonard said casually. “I’m just interested in you, Trust.”

  “Please be interested in a noninterfering way,” I begged.

  “You keep that humor coming,” he laughed. “Enough massaging the fat, though. Let’s go start looking for that book,” he said, setting down the announcement and clapping his hands as if he were a parent trying to excite a young child.

  “It’s pointless,” I said.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  I ignored Leonard as he had me, picked up an announcement, and went to see Grace.

  As I walked through the meadow, I could already hear news of the new and improved Book of Mormon search being thrown around. The Thelma’s Way meadow was one powerful conduit for spreading news. All a person had to do was toss some information into the air and stand back. Jeff Titter had once told Pete Kennedy that he thought he saw Wad down at the dump with a woman besides Miss Flitrey, and within twenty minutes, the entire valley knew. Thirty minutes later, Miss Flitrey was packed and looking for a place to stay until her husband got the help he needed. Luckily, the “woman” Wad had been spotted with turned out to be Digby after he had experimented with curling his own hair.

  The meadow was a melting pot of information and activity. Everything involved, devolved, or revolved around it in some way. It had no official name, although Toby told me once when he was ill and of unusually unsound mind that it was once called Thorton’s Patch and that Thorton Standly had been one of the original settlers of the area. He was a poor man who had foolishly followed Thelma and her misguided party the wrong way. According to legend, when everyone arrived here they just began throwing their things down, sick of traveling and tired of moving. Well, where their things had fallen their roots were planted. The Ford clan had dropped their belongings where the boardinghouse now stood. The Watson ancestors had collapsed where the old Watson home stood. Everyone insisted on sticking to where they first squatted. Thorton took the meadow. He spread his junk out over the entire area, a pan here, a shoe there—like a family spreading purses and jackets to claim an entire church pew all for themselves. He then sat in the middle of the meadow, insisting that no one crowd his space or touch his stuff. After a couple of days, he built a small lean-to and dug a latrine, thus making it known that he was there to stay. One night, however, the extremely nervy Thump Ford, Roswell’s great-grandfather, ignored the invisible borders Thorton had established and selfishly parked his two wagons on Thorton’s ground so as to free up some space in his own area.

  Well, as the next day dawned, Thorton spotted the wagons and decided to claim them as his own. After all, they were in his space. Thump tried to drag them back, but Thorton’s sturdy wife, Elisa Standly, taught Thump a few things about weight and gravity. So, with a bad back and permanent grass stains, Thump withdrew, leaving his wagons where they stood.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it. Thump told Thelma about what Thorton had done, and Thelma instantly took Thump’s side, simply because he was so much better bred than Thorton. Thorton called Thelma a brat, and Thelma called Thorton a burr. Thorton demanded a definition of burr, which Thelma gladly gave him, plus a few words more.

  “Burr, as in thorn or irritant. As in the stupid thistle that infest this patch you’ve claimed as your home.”

  The argument was never settled due to Thelma’s dying a short time later while trying to cross the Girth River. But the name Thorton’s Patch stuck, even though Thorton and his wife eventually packed up and went elsewhere. It probably would have stayed named that if it had not been for Thump, who on his deathbed made his posterity promise to fulfill his dying wish—his wish being that they rename the patch so that Thorton’s name would not live on. Well, Thump’s posterity made the promise but couldn’t think of a single thing to name it, so they went with “the meadow.”

  The meadow was now just an open space, lime green in summer and dirty white in winter. At any point in the year, trails crossed through it like shoelaces pulled through poorly placed loops. The only distinguishing characteristics that it bore were the two rotted wagons that had never been moved. They sat there as weathered and worn as a malt ball after a monsoon. There was a small hole in the center of the meadow that Toby swore was the remains of Thorton’s latrine, but both Pete and Ed claimed that it was simply the spot where they had tried to dig for gold after a rainbow had supposedly stuck its end down there.

  Despite its name, or lack thereof, I walked right through it and on to Grace.

  President Heck was working on his rolling path.

  “Trust,” he called out happily. “Grab a trowel and bend.”

  “I’d love to,” I answered back, thinking how I wouldn’t let just anyone tell me that. “But I need to show Grace this first,” I said, hoping he would ask to see the announcement I was carrying.

  “Suit yourself.” He whistled for a second as if that helped him think. “She’s upstairs.”

  I walked inside and saw Patty Heck teaching Narlette how to make pie crust.

  “Trust,” she greeted me.

  “Sister Heck,” I threw back, still not completely comfortable with calling her anything else. “The path outside is looking nice.”

  “Ricky’s always been good with his hands,” she complimented him. “He’d be the president if his brain was half as active as his wrists. But then, I guess God dishes out the gifts sparingly.”

  I smiled, thinking that this was probably the longest conversation I had ever had with my soon-to-be mother-in-law.

  “Is Grace upstairs?” I asked.

  “She is,” Sister Heck answered.

  “Mind if I . . . ?” I nodded towards the stairs.

  “I mind only two things,” she said casually, rolling out dough. “Hair in the dressing and a tight pair of shoes.”

  “What about Miss Flitrey?” Narlette asked, remembering something else her mother minded.

  “I wouldn’t mind that woman if she were the last person on earth,” Sister Heck said with finality.

  I walked up the stairs and found Grace sitting in the dormer window reading a book thicker than the last three books I had read.

  “The announcements came,” I announced, holding out the one I had brought.

  Grace put her book down and took a look.

  “Scary,” was all she said.

  “I know, I know. I should have worn something else.”

  Grace smiled. “You look perfect. It’s just that seeing it really makes it look inevitable.”

  “Makes what look inevitable?”

  “Marriage.”

  “That is the idea, isn’t it?” I asked. “We didn’t buy these just to see how the idea looked.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Grace insisted. “They look great.”

  It was an unsatisfactory response.

  “It’s too late for great,” I said. “Are you having second thoughts about all this?”

  Her reply was much too slow for my personal comfort.

  “No.”

  “Grace.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Is it about Hope?”

  “What about Hope?”

  “Nothing about her,” I said with passion. “It’s just that on occasion women seem to read things into things that aren’t readable.”

  “We do?” she asked.

  “Not you,” I backpedaled. “But some women. Like that one back in Southdale.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one with hair and glasses,” I made up.

  “Oh, her.” She seemed to understand.

  “Grace, if you’re having doubts about us, then we should talk.”

  “I’m not having doubts,” she said firmly. “It’s just that seeing it on those announcements really makes it hit home.”

  I looked at the announcement and back at Grace.

  “We could retake the pi
cture.”

  “There isn’t time.”

  “Grace.” I tried not to whine.

  “I’m just kidding.” She picked her book back up and ignored me.

  I couldn’t believe it. I had never known Grace to be so standoffish with me. Okay, there were those many times that she had run and hidden from me before we really knew each other, but that was it. I knew I wasn’t a perfect person, but I was capable of change and willing to let her rearrange me. Plus, I didn’t have any disgusting habits like spitting or scratching in places that were inappropriate.

  Wasn’t that enough?

  I headed back to the boardinghouse to see if there was something there that could take my mind off everything. No one was there besides Roswell and the Knapworths, who were talking to one of their grandchildren on the phone. Sister Knapworth was holding the phone and speaking extra loud into the receiver, as if she needed her voice to carry all the way to Montana. I sat down on a hard chair by Roswell and tried to look as if I wasn’t listening in.

  Roswell nodded at me as he wiped the counter.

  “You tell Grandma that you love her,” Sister Knapworth hollered into the phone, her loud voice actually making Roswell jump.

  “That woman can grate,” he whispered to me.

  “Tell them I love them too,” Elder Knapworth insisted, tugging on his wife’s sleeve.

  “Grandpa loves you too,” she screamed.

  Roswell actually plugged his ears.

  “What’s that, honey?” she asked the phone.

  “What’d they say?” Elder Knapworth asked, as if he sensed trouble.

  Sister Knapworth put her hand over the receiver and yelled at her husband. “Marlo Ann is on the line now. She wants to know if they can send us anything.”

  “Tell them about those razors.”

  Sister Knapworth removed her hand and spoke into the phone again. “Grandpa needs razors.” She listened for a moment. “Yes, they have razors here. But we can’t seem to find the kind that he likes. You know, the double blade with the comfort strip. You can buy them at Stillman’s down on Main,” she instructed. “I’m sure you can get them at other grocery stores there, but Grandpa likes them from Stillman’s.”

  “They’re by the magazines,” Elder Knapworth said.