by Dean Hughes
Mom accepted that, and Bobbi felt terrible to think herself capable of such effective lies. But Dad was a tougher sale. He wanted to know who the professor was. “I don’t like the idea. Taxpayers provide his salary. Why can’t he do his own work?”
“He normally would,” Bobbi told him. “It’s an emergency. Something in his family.”
“Or bad planning.”
But Dad let it go. And now Bobbi only had to talk to Phil, who turned out to be the easiest. He was impressed that professors in the department thought so highly of Bobbi. But when he asked which professor it was, Bobbi lost her nerve. “Dr. Wilson,” she said, and she heard her voice rise to a higher pitch. But Phil didn’t notice, and after Bobbi put the receiver back on the telephone, she felt guiltier than ever.
In spite of her doubts, however, at 6:45 she was starting her dad’s new Hudson, and she could hardly contain the tumult inside her. She knew she had to end all this, but she too wanted this one evening before she took the wiser course.
When Bobbi showed up in front of the “LA”—the Liberal Arts building—David was already there. But the problem they had been putting off was real now. They really couldn’t be seen together anywhere on campus, and they couldn’t go to a restaurant. “Listen,” David said, “don’t take this the wrong way. If I promise to be a gentleman, will you walk down to my apartment?”
“I don’t feel good about that, David.”
He laughed, the steam gusting from his mouth. “I’ll sit on the opposite side of the room. I won’t try anything.”
“And you won’t start claiming that your ceiling is covered with mistletoe?”
“There’s not a sprig in sight. I promise.”
But he was flirting with his eyes, and so was she. This was all so dangerous and thrilling she could hardly stand it. “Let’s drive down. Someone might see us walking.”
And so they walked off campus and then drove the Hudson down First South. When David opened the door to his apartment, Bobbi was surprised. The room was a little cluttered, mainly with books, but it was surprisingly clean. He took her coat and hat, offered her a seat on a little sofa, and then sat across the room, as he had promised. He was still wearing the tennis sweater, and Bobbi was a little embarrassed she had dressed up so much—in a pretty green dress with black, high-heel pumps. At least she had left her gloves in the car.
David’s chair was tattered but comfortable, with a floor lamp next to it. Bobbi could tell he spent a lot of time there. “What do you do every night?” she asked. “Do you read all the time?”
“No. I play some squash, or basketball, with another professor. Or I go swimming sometimes. I even go out for a drink once in a while.” He smiled. “But I do spend lots of hours sitting right here.”
“My goodness. The life of a professor does sound stimulating. You’re doing a marvelous job of recruiting me.”
“At least I make a handsome salary.”
Bobbi laughed, but then David told her how much he actually did love his life. He spent his days reading, lecturing, talking to other professors. “That isn’t work to me,” he said. “I come home, fix something to eat, and get lost in my books. And being alone is good in some ways. Sooner or later I want a family, but for now, these are my years to learn and contemplate.”
Bobbi wondered. She couldn’t imagine a life that wasn’t full of activity and people. “Why didn’t you go home for Christmas?”
“I couldn’t afford it.”
“What’s Christmas like in Connecticut?”
David leaned forward and smiled. “It’s terrific and just awful,” he said. “My parents are lovely people—I really mean that—but they’re painfully formal. Both my brothers are lawyers, and my brother-in-law is an investment banker. We eat a lot of good food, and we’re all very witty and charming. But I don’t know, there’s just too much posturing and name-dropping for me. I take off with my nephews and nieces. We go ice skating or sledding, or I get a snowball fight going.”
“It doesn’t sound much like the world I’ve grown up in.”
“What’s your Christmas like?”
“Lots of family around. This year it’s going to be nice with Alex home.”
“What’s it like to have him around? Is he still zealous?”
Bobbi had to think about that. “He’s not preachy, if that’s what you mean, but he’s gained some depth. I feel a kind of quiet confidence in him now.”
“He’s got all his pockets full of truth. That weighs a fellow down.”
“What he has is faith.”
David had been looking down, but his head came up quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not making fun of him. It’s just that the returned missionaries I’ve taught all seem to think they . . . well, never mind.”
Neither spoke for a time after that until Bobbi finally said, “David, you don’t feel comfortable at home anymore, but you’re not really comfortable here either, are you?”
“Well . . . no. But I get by all right.” He stood up. “Let’s see, can I get you something? I have Pepsi Cola, or—”
“No. That’s all right.”
He grinned. “Have you ever tasted alcohol?”
“Yes. In cough syrup.”
“I guess you wouldn’t want . . . no, never mind.”
“That’s right. Never mind.” Bobbi was beginning to feel awkward, but maybe that was good. It would be something to remember when she became unsatisfied with her life.
He sat down again, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Salt Lake isn’t so Mormon as everyone thinks. I could find a congenial group of friends here—especially at the university—and do just fine. But I think I’d rather move on before too many more years.”
“Why?”
“If I stayed, I’d have to burrow out a little cave and live in the middle of Mormonism. And I don’t want that. I would either want to be part of it or away from it.”
“Could you ever join the Church?”
He laughed. “‘The Church.’ We both know which church the Church is.”
Bobbi was embarrassed, partly because of her provincialism, which he was teasing her about, and partly because her question was so transparent—and they both knew it.
“I don’t like the pressure Mormons put on each other. You can’t just be religious; you have to show it. Still, you really are religious. And that’s the thing I envy: that certainty. I wish sometimes I could share in that.”
Was that something to build on? Bobbi allowed herself a little fantasy. One day she would bump into David on campus, and he would say, “Guess what? I’ve been looking more deeply into your church, and I’ve decided to join.” Then, suddenly, everything would be different.
David seemed to know what she was thinking. “I doubt I could ever feel the way you do about the Church”—he smiled—”but maybe I could . . . find a way to . . .”
“Fake it?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that.”
Bobbi felt the fantasy vanish, and suddenly she wished she weren’t there. She thought of making an excuse and leaving, but she decided to keep things neutral, to make cordial conversation, and then to leave gracefully, with all this behind her. So she asked David about his time at Columbia, about his childhood, and David asked about life in a stake president’s home. It was all very polite, but the magic Bobbi had both feared and desired simply wasn’t there.
After an hour, which actually passed rather slowly, Bobbi decided she’d better make her escape back to her own life. “I need to leave,” she said. She had told him earlier about the family party. Now she stood up.
“I’m sorry,” David said softly. “This didn’t turn out the way I had hoped.”
“What were you hoping?”
“I don’t know.” He stood up, and he ran his fingers through his hair. “I think we’re both kind of nervous.”
“Yes. I think so.”
He walked over to her. “But I still have a problem.”
“What problem?�
� She knew better than to ask, knew she should leave—but she wanted to hear the words.
“I’m in love with you, Bobbi. You know that. I think about you all day, every day.” She took a long look into his eyes, gave him a tiny little nod, and then walked to the chair where David had placed her coat. “Do you feel something for me, Bobbi?”
She looked back at him. “Yes. You know I do. But—”
“I know.” He followed, and he helped her on with her coat. Then she walked to the door. “Bobbi, I shouldn’t have said those things about Phil. Maybe you two will be all right.”
She nodded. “I have to decide about that—soon.”
And that was the end. Bobbi reached for the door.
But he was walking toward her. Bobbi knew she should put her hand out and stop him, but she wanted this. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and then he held her close. “There must be a way. Somehow,” he said, his mouth by her ear.
But already Bobbi’s wiser self was pushing itself back into control. “I just don’t think so,” she said, and she pulled away.
“We need to talk more. Maybe if we left Utah. We could find a church that we could—”
“No. You know I wouldn’t do that.”
“All right . . . but. . . .”
“I shouldn’t have come. I need to—”
But then he had her in his arms, and they were kissing again. He slowly ran his fingers over her hair. She felt the tingling run along her neck, then spread all through her. But once again she pulled away. She was surprised when the first tears dropped onto her cheeks; she hadn’t known she was crying.
“Bobbi, I think I could be a Mormon—in my own way. There’s so much about the Church that appeals to me.”
“Don’t, David. You know that wouldn’t work.”
“Why not? Let’s think about it. I’d be willing to study the Church more, or . . . I don’t know. Bobbi, I don’t want to lose you.”
Bobbi was crying harder now. She wanted this, but she didn’t trust it. And she knew she had to leave before she made promises she wouldn’t be able to keep. “I’ve got to go,” she said again.
“Will you talk to me more about this?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.” She opened the door and stepped out, and she hurried down the stairs and out to the car. She had to get to the family party, but she couldn’t go while she was in this state. And so she drove for a time, stalled longer than she should have before she finally pulled up in front of her Grandma and Grandpa Snow’s home. And then she went inside and told her lies again: the students’ papers had taken a little longer than she had expected. No one seemed to doubt her, but then, never before had she given them any reason to do so.
Bobbi slept much later than usual the next morning—partly because she had struggled for such a long time to go to sleep. When she finally did wake, she looked toward her window and saw that snow was falling. She was glad for that. At the university the skies had been clear lately, but her home was deep enough into the valley to have been locked in the dark blanket of soot that sometimes covered the valley for weeks. This storm would clear some of that.
During her wakeful night, she had told herself over and over that she had to make things work with Phil. If she didn’t like him at times, it was because of her own attitude more than anything that was wrong with him. Things would never work with David, and it was time to stop playing with ideas that were not just useless but also dangerous. The ache she was feeling would go away if she got the right thoughts in her head.
But she kept thinking of the kisses, of the way she had felt when he had held her. And those feelings were far too powerful to push aside. She heard his words over and over: “Bobbi, I don’t want to lose you.” And try as she might to force the thought away, she kept wondering whether she and David couldn’t find some answer that would work for both of them.
She was still lying in bed when she heard a squeal and then an angry voice from the bedroom next door. She didn’t worry too much about it until she heard Beverly begin to cry, but then she got up, walked to the girls’ room, and opened the door. “What’s the trouble?” she said.
Beverly was sitting on her bed, but now she jumped off, ran to Bobbi, and threw her arms around her. “LaRue says Santa won’t come to me.”
Bobbi held on to Beverly but looked across the room to LaRue, who was standing by her bed, still in her flannel nightgown. She defiantly cocked her head to one side and said, “She never does what Mama tells her to do.”
“I just forget sometimes,” Beverly moaned, pressing her face against Bobbi’s middle. And Bobbi had to smile. Beverly lived in her own world, always imagining, always playing games with her dolls. The real world of chores and duties sometimes slipped her mind. Mom scolded Beverly for that now and then, and LaRue found her mother’s words handy as weapons when the girls got upset with each other. Bobbi was sure LaRue no longer believed in Santa Claus, although she had never announced that to her family, but her knowledge gave her power over her sister, who was clinging to belief.
“If you’re bad, Santa doesn’t come, does he, Bobbi?” LaRue demanded. “Jesus doesn’t love bad people either.”
“Jesus loves everyone, LaRue. You should never say that.”
“Well, if you’re bad, he won’t let you go to heaven.”
“LaRue, your sister isn’t bad. She forgets sometimes. You’re the one being bad right now.”
Beverly let go and twisted around. “Yeah!” she said.
LaRue stuck her tongue out.
“Now you’re both being bad,” Bobbi said. And she began to walk away. But the words struck Beverly hard, and she began to cry again. Bobbi turned back and knelt in front of her. “Oh, honey,” she said, “don’t worry. You’re not bad.” She looked up. “Can’t you two be nice to each other?”
“Does Jesus love us?” Beverly asked, swallowing now, trying not to cry.
“Yes. No matter what you do, he loves you. But it’s still important to be good.”
Bobbi left after that, and she walked back to her room, to the window, and she watched the snow falling through the limbs of the apple tree. She didn’t want to be bad either, she told herself. But why did the choices have to be so complicated?
Chapter 20
Christmas day started out like all the others, except that Alex was back and, as always, had a way of becoming the center of things. He played with the little girls, and they fussed over him, sat on his lap, and laughed with him. When Alex asked who was going to win the Rose Bowl, Gene, who read every word in both newspapers’ sports sections, gave Alex the whole rundown on why he figured Southern Cal would beat Tennessee.
Wally couldn’t help feeling a little jealous, but he was waiting for his special little pleasure in watching Mom and Dad open their presents from Beverly and LaRue. Mom had asked Wally to go Christmas shopping with the girls, and Wally had liked that. He had taken them downtown on the trolley, which they loved to ride. The city had been great—so busy that it was hard to walk along Main Street. Music was playing; people were waving and greeting each other. The street lamps were wrapped in red and white like candy canes, and high-arching evergreen bows were draped across the streets.
Wally loved it, and he had fun with the girls. They spent most of their time in W. T. Grant’s, the “five and dime store.” The girls looked at potholders and fancy combs, screwdrivers and shoe-polish brushes—everything. They walked up and down the aisles, picked up half the items in the store, it seemed, and all the while chattered about the many choices. Wally teased them constantly, showing them that the shoe brush looked like Hitler’s mustache and using an eggbeater to muss their hair.
Finally the girls settled on the right gifts. For Mom, they chose a little music box that Wally had to “go halves” on. It cost $1.29, and the girls, together, had only a dollar to shop with. Wally also helped out on a 49-cent tie. It was an ugly thing, maroon with a flock of ducks flying south across it. Wally loved it mainly because he knew Dad wo
uld wear it. He would feel he had to, because of the girls, but also because it had been paid for and ought to be put to use.
After shopping, Wally and the girls had gone to Walgreen’s and ordered strawberry sodas. Beverly and LaRue loved to watch the “soda jerks” toss the dips of ice cream in the air and catch them in the big glasses and then, with a flair, run soda over the ice cream and create lots of pink foam. He knew, too, that they both liked to look at themselves in the mirrors behind the counter and admire their pretty new winter coats and hats.
But even after all that, it was Alex they wanted to be close to, now, on Christmas day. That was partly because Alex was gone a lot in the evenings—because he had gone to work for Dad—but Alex also knew that the girls got tired of Wally’s teasing.
Mom loved her music box and thanked the girls—as well as Wally. And Dad hated the tie but pretended he didn’t, which was perfect. “Thank you for helping them, Wally,” Dad said with an ironic smirk.
“Don’t give me the credit,” he told his dad. “They picked it out by themselves.” Beverly and LaRue were quick—and proud—to agree. The rest of the family took delight in that.
After the gifts were opened, Mom marshaled the troops into the kitchen. While everyone was gathered around the table eating, Dad and Alex began to talk about the war. All the talk in the newspapers was about the “phony war.” Little fighting had actually taken place, except at sea. The Graf Spee, a German pocket battleship, had sunk a number of British freighters in the Atlantic and then, recently, taken a pounding itself and had to be scuttled off the coast of Uruguay, near Montevideo. So far, that was the only major victory of the war for the Allies, and it had come at a heavy cost.
“Hitler’s the one talking peace now, I notice,” Dad told Alex.
“Sure, he always gets what he wants and then tries to lie his way into a treaty—which he breaks as soon as he sees an opportunity to grab something else. Everyone wants peace so badly they let him pull the wool over their eyes.”