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Love's Labors Tossed

Page 22

by Robert Farrell Smith


  We found that it had been Ed who had accidentally locked Grace and me in the Watson vault. He had been walking through the cemetery on his way to get his axe back from Todd Nodd when he saw the cracked door and thought he would do Sister Watson a favor by locking it up for her. I suppose if we had died, I would have been very bothered by his favor. But since we lived, I let it go. Ed had been retrieving the axe so he could disassemble the catapult. He figured it was just too dangerous to have lying around. It was one of the most logical conclusions I had ever seen him make. His schooling was obviously paying off.

  Digby had learned all he could from Wad. So he set up a competing barber shack just a couple feet over from Wad’s. To show there were no hard feelings, however, Miss Flitrey graciously had half her hair done by Digby and the other half by Wad. She looked like a completely different person, depending on which side of her you were looking at.

  Pete opened up a gun shop in the same tree house I had once stayed in. It was a great idea, actually. It seemed that gun lovers didn’t mind climbing up into forts to do business. He signaled the opening of his place every day by firing off a few rounds. And he notified everyone of its closing by playing Taps on his trombone at five each afternoon.

  The Knapworths never came back. President Heck had called the mission home and told them that our town was not going to be flooded, but the mission president still didn’t return them. He said they needed to be someplace less intimate and beautiful.

  Daryll Bean had become a permanent member of our society. He moved in with Frank Porter and all his boys. He was a little slow, which made him seem like family already. Sybil Porter had even begun to show an interest in him. I caught her cursing behind the new boardinghouse about how she shouldn’t have these feelings for her brother. I then explained to Sybil that just because Daryll was living with them didn’t make him an actual brother.

  It was the first time Sybil had ever smiled at me.

  Our town received a nice surprise a short while back when Paul Leeper came strolling in from Virgil’s Find holding Cindy’s hand. Cindy had been forced to stay in the hospital a long time due to some weird reading they kept getting from her head x-rays. Well, while Cindy was recovering, Winton told Paul all the stories he knew about her when she had lived near him in Georgia. Paul was intrigued. It isn’t often that a person discovers a woman with equal embellishing powers. So, every day Paul would pass by her room on his way to the mall or some other place in Virgil’s Find. After the twentieth time of passing by, he worked up the nerve to walk in and compliment her on how well she could fabricate. Cindy returned the compliment, having heard stories of Paul’s powers of deception as well. The two of them told stories about themselves until both were hopelessly in love. Sure, Paul was a little older than Cindy, but she felt their relationship mirrored that of the one in Aged Heat, the novel she was currently reading.

  Jerry Scotch was writing a traffic cop who had pulled him over while he was driving Winton back to Georgia. Jerry had borrowed a car from one of his co-workers at the Corndog Tent. Well, he had no license and no insurance and had been caught driving backwards on the median. The female cop gave him a break, letting him go if he promised never to drive through her state again. Well, to Jerry that was like whispering sweet nothings in his ear. He had written her every day for the last three weeks. When I asked him if he had ever gotten a response, he told me that mail took longer to get here than it did to go there. He then asked me what a restraining order was.

  Since Teddy’s confession about hating to cook had not been confidential, I took it upon myself to tell everyone how she really felt. The town rallied by sending around a sign-up sheet to feed her for the entire next year. By the time I actually saw the calendar, it was completely filled except for two days in February and the third Saturday in May.

  President Heck found a new chair to use on his path. He spent many afternoons holding the hose and rolling around the house to water the potted plants or feed his chickens. He said it was the perfect place to think about all the things God needed him to contemplate. I’m certain that one of the things he thought a lot about was the fact that he had received word that the Church would make our branch a ward again soon. It was obvious that he would be going from president to bishop any day now.

  CleeDee had her baby just a few days ago. It was a huge girl with more hair than half the grown men in Thelma’s Way. They named her GunnySue after CleeDee’s great-grandmother. If it had been a boy, it would have been Toebert, the name of CleeDee’s grandfather. I actually thought Gunny was kind of a cute nickname, but when I called her just that CleeDee quickly corrected me.

  “GunnySue. We don’t call you ‘Tru.’”

  I had actually forgotten that the newly married Doran and Lucy had even come to Thelma’s Way until a couple weeks after the fake reception when they came down from the hills and reminded us of it. No one had seen anything of them during that whole time.

  They had then headed back to Southdale to continue with their jobs, schooling, and future projects.

  Grace and I would soon be doing the same, but for the moment we were enjoying just being happily mar- ried. To say that our wedding went off with no hitch, though, would be like listing your favorite Christmas songs and not including “Carol of the Bells.” There were the usual problems, but on top of those, there was Leonard trying to make sales outside the temple and my mother crying through the entire ceremony. I was touched, until she confessed that the only reason she was bawling was that another woman there was wearing a dress just like hers.

  “I’m joking, Trust,” she had smiled. “I’m just so happy for you.”

  Grace had looked marvelous, of course. I would have sworn that there had been angels in attendance while the ceremony was taking place. But any angels would have been crazy to think that they could muster up anything more than a weak glow in the presence of someone like Grace.

  We had held a reception in Southdale and another in Thelma’s Way. The one in Southdale went off smoothly, which is more than I can say for the one we had in Thelma’s Way. If you think my mother cried at our reception in Southdale, you should have seen her at our reception in Thelma’s Way. I wondered if the surroundings had anything to do with it. I’d go into depth about our reception there, but it pretty much ran exactly like the fake one we had put on previously. The only major differences were that Grace was happy to stand by my side and that at the reception’s end nobody stood up and told us we would all be covered in water in a short while. I guess there was one other major difference. This time we had really been married.

  Thelma’s Way had done its job. It had brought two people together who might never have met any other way. I couldn’t wait to produce future generations so that I could tell them all about it.

  I looked out over the mountains. I could see a shadow growing in the far distance, making a patch of dark sky darker. It was most likely coming from Mistake Lake. You see, the lake had an unusual effect on Thelma’s Way. Every night at around ten, great clouds of mist would rise up off it and settle over our town. The mist made the ground greener and gardens thicker. It kept clothes on wash lines wet and windows spotted. But more than anything, it seemed to cover up Thelma’s Way each night, holding us down until we could wake and live again. It was like a pleasant veil, hiding the great secret that Thelma’s Way really was.

  Sure, our town wasn’t on many maps. It wasn’t about to be voted an All-American city or chosen to be the number-one place to live and raise children. No one vacations in Thelma’s Way. In fact, I can safely say that in the history of time I bet there has never been a single travel agent who has ever uttered the words, “Might I suggest a six-day stay in Thelma’s Way, Tennessee?”

  People didn’t know what they were missing.

  But Thelma’s Way was one of the few dreams that God was allowing me to remember. It had filled me up, out, and in. It had been the connecting point to Grace and the outlet for countless wonders. The leash my Heavenly Fa
ther had given me was longer than anything I would ever have trusted myself with. He had let me wander over his creations, scraping my knees and skinning my hands on the textures and surfaces of his miracles. I could never repay him for the experience.

  I was reminded of that one scripture somewhere that said that one thing. I couldn’t really remember a single exact word of it, but I was confident it expressed precisely how I felt.

  I thought about the sought-after and fought-after first edition Book of Mormon. No one speculated or asked about it any longer. At first Paul had talked about how it could still finance a weather shelter, and Mavis tried suggesting a road again. But in truth, no one really wanted those kinds of changes anymore. We liked Thelma’s Way just how it was—endearingly flawed. I think most folks assumed that my father had simply sold the Book of Mormon to defer some of the lawyer bills. He hadn’t. My dad had given it to President Heck and told him to put it someplace where it wouldn’t cause any trouble and couldn’t get lost. It was an important part of Thelma’s Way history that needed to be put away until people forgot about it. President Heck never told me exactly where he had ended up hiding it. I did notice, however, the last time I was in his house his couch no longer wobbled.

  I heard the balcony door open behind me. I turned and there was Grace. I looked at her and smiled. Love was a funny thing. At eight, it was a new bike and a chocolate milk shake. At twelve, it was a video arcade and a pocket full of quarters. At sixteen, it was a label for something I was certain I was lacking. At twenty, it was a blonde named Lucy who wore a lot of sweaters and shiny black shoes. Now, at twenty-four, I finally understood. Love was deeper, better, and larger than even Thelma’s Way could contain. Love was a woman with red hair and green eyes. Grace.

  “Had enough?” she asked.

  “Never,” I answered honestly.

 

 

 


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