Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  President Wakefield looked down at Anna and her mother. “We are very aware, in this branch, that fine people live in all lands. We see that in the Stoltzes, who came to us from Germany. We love them dearly. It is help and healing that I hope we will offer the German people–all of them–when this war is over.”

  President Newton nodded and seemed a little shamefaced. When the service ended, he came down to meet Anna and her mother, to tell them he hoped he hadn’t offended them. They told him they were not hurt by his words.

  After, as the Dillinghams and Anna and her mother waited for the underground train, Edward said, “I must say, I agreed with that gentleman when he spoke about Germany–or at least I would have, if you hadn’t been sitting next to me. I liked what your minister said. Not many of us are as Christian as we ought to be these days. You two have done more for us than anyone–and the world would have us believe that you are our enemies.”

  “Good people are everywhere,” Sister Stoltz said. “And bad.”

  Dorothy hugged her and said, “And ever so many more who are like us–somewhere in between.”

  Chapter 14

  LaRue was upstairs in her room when she heard her father’s voice booming up the stairway. “LaRue, come down here.”

  She didn’t like the sound of this. She was getting ready to go to the USO. At least she hadn’t put any lipstick on–yet.

  She took her time, partly because she was fixing her hair and it still needed some work, but also because she hated the way her father had demanded that she come downstairs, without so much as asking whether she was busy. By the time she did walk down, she could see that the wait had not pleased him. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking stern, his jaw set even tighter than usual, and LaRue wondered what she had done to get him so upset.

  “Step back to my office with me, LaRue,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure, Pop,” LaRue said. She pretended to slug him on the shoulder. That sort of playfulness sometimes softened President Thomas, but it seemed to have the opposite effect now. He didn’t smile back at her. He turned and led the way, striding stiffly.

  Inside his office, President Thomas sat down behind his desk. This was the place where he brought people for stake president interviews or for counseling. He rarely used it for family talks. But certainly he had a sense that the place, the desk, added some authority to what he had to say. He used that aura now as he said, “LaRue, I got a telephone call a few minutes ago. Someone warned me that I ought to be looking out for you a little more carefully. I’m very concerned about what I just heard.”

  “What are you talking about?” LaRue asked, but she knew.

  “You make this volunteer work you do at the USO sound like your great sacrifice for the war. But now I find out you have a boyfriend down there–some non-Mormon fellow.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend, Dad. There’s a boy who likes me, but that’s all there is to it.”

  “LaRue, I told you I was going to give you some room to make your own choices–but I didn’t think you would abuse your freedom. I thought you would learn from it. The person who just called told me that your behavior is anything but becoming to the daughter of a stake president. From what you’ve been seen doing in public, I hate to think what else might be going on.”

  LaRue was suddenly irate. She knew, for one thing, that her friend Gaye had said something to Gaye’s mother–and it was the mother who had called. That was the only source for this information. But more than that, it was the accusation that enraged LaRue.

  “Dad, I dance with him. And I’ve let him kiss me goodnight. But that’s all. What do you think I do, sneak out in back with him? You have no right to say something like that.”

  “LaRue, I know how these gentile boys behave. I know what they want from pretty young girls–whether they’re nice girls or not. You’re too young to be kissing boys, and he’s not going to be satisfied with a goodnight kiss forever.”

  “What do you take me for, Dad? Some little harlot?”

  “According to what I just heard, you let him wrap himself all around you when you’re dancing.”

  “Dad, we dance close. That’s how everyone dances. I’ll bet you danced that way when you were my age.”

  “No. I didn’t. Not like that.” President Thomas folded his arms over his chest, across his white shirt and tie. It was his uniform. All LaRue’s life, this was almost the only way she had seen him dressed. Most men who wore a white shirt and tie to work seemed to be only too happy to change into sport clothes at home, but her father was always off to a church meeting, or had someone coming over. He never said it, but LaRue knew that even if he went to a high-school football game or stopped off at a grocery store to pick up some eggs for Mom, he felt he had to look like a stake president. Now that shirt and tie–and the desk–only served to remind her that when he called her on the carpet, he always brought the whole church along, and all the extra shame that it evoked.

  “Let me ask you this,” he said. “Did you lie about your age to start volunteering down there?”

  LaRue let out a little sigh of defeat–and disgust. “Not exactly,” she said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Girls my age can volunteer. We’re just not supposed to dance. I never actually told anyone I was older than I am. They just assumed it.”

  “When they saw you dancing, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah. I guess. But I don’t see what difference it makes.”

  “This is one difference. I told you I would trust you. And you abused that trust. Now you’ve lost it.”

  “It’s interesting, Dad,” LaRue said carefully but with acid in her voice, “that you would take a phone call, listen to some busybody, and accept anything you hear. It just shows how little trust you actually give me. You granted me a tiny bit of room just so later on you could say, ‘See, I knew you couldn’t handle it.’”

  “LaRue, you just told me you’ve been kissing some boy from who-knows-where. You’re fifteen years old. What do I need to know that you haven’t admitted yourself?”

  “Oh, and I guess when you were my age, you never kissed a girl.”

  All LaRue’s life she had known the right buttons to push to get what she wanted from her father. But she saw immediately he wasn’t buying this one. He actually smiled, and then he said, “I’ve watched the way you talk to the young men at church, LaRue. I’ve watched the way you eye the boys, no matter where we are–and how much you like them to look at you. You wear the shortest skirts you think I’ll let you get away with, and you smudge your face with makeup every time you think my back is turned. I don’t have to get phone calls. I know just as surely as we’re sitting here that you flirt with every boy who walks through the door down at that canteen, or whatever it is.”

  “No, Dad. You’re absolutely wrong about that. I only flirt with the good-looking ones. And you need to know, I’m very good at it.”

  It was a whole new approach for LaRue, but she liked it. And she saw that her harpoon had hit its mark. Her father’s face was suddenly red. He leaned forward and pointed at her. “You’re not going down there anymore. Never again. I’ve been way too easy on you. I had it in my head that I was too rough on Wally and that I had to ease off on you. But that was exactly the wrong approach. From now on, little girl, consider your wings clipped. No more of this running around you’ve gotten used to.”

  “Dad, I’m one of the best volunteers the USO has. Call the manager and ask him if you don’t believe me.”

  “I’ll call him and ask him why he’s allowing a fifteen-year-old girl to dance with grown men. Then see how pleased he is with you.”

  LaRue felt everything slipping away, and she couldn’t stand it. For the past few months her time at the USO had become the most exciting part of her life. Maybe her dad thought it was wrong to flirt, but that’s all she had ever done–except for those few kisses. What she loved was having the attention of all those young men–a
nd Ned’s devotion to her. What was so wrong about that?

  LaRue stood up. She had watched her dad make these kinds of pronouncements all her life, but she wasn’t going to let him get away with it this time–no matter what the other kids in the family had done. “I’m going down there, Dad. I promised to work tonight, and they need me.”

  “They’ll get by. Don’t you set one foot outside this house.”

  She walked to the door. “I told you. I’m going.”

  Her father stood up, but as he moved toward LaRue, she pulled the door open and stepped out into the dining room. “LaRue, you go up to your room and stay there,” he said, his voice almost frantic.

  “I am going to my room,” she said. “I have to put my coat on–and my lipstick.”

  Mom stepped through the door from the kitchen. “What on earth is going on?” she said.

  LaRue was already hurrying into the living room and from there into the front entry and up the stairs to her room. “LaRue,” her father called after her, “don’t you come down those stairs. You stay in your room.”

  But LaRue was going to the USO. If he wanted to grab onto her and hold her in the house, fine, but he was going to have to do just that. Or tie her to her bedpost. She wasn’t going to stop just because he told her to.

  When she reached the top of the stairs, LaRue saw Beverly standing in the hallway outside her bedroom door. “LaRue, don’t,” she said.

  LaRue knew what she meant, of course, but she said, “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t talk to Dad that way. Don’t get everyone so upset.”

  “Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” LaRue said, and she tried to laugh. She pushed past Beverly into her own room, where she grabbed her coat. Then she stepped to her dresser, picked up a tube of dark red lipstick and stroked on a wide, exaggerated sweep across both her lips.

  What surprised her now, however, was that she was hearing a commotion downstairs. Her parents were talking in raised voices, almost shouting at each other. That hardly seemed possible.

  As LaRue banged her way back through her bedroom door, she saw that Beverly was still in the hallway, but now she was crying. “Now look what you’ve done,” Beverly said. “They’re fighting.”

  LaRue felt the fear strike her. She didn’t want that. Maybe all this was going too far. But sheer inertia carried her past Beverly, down the hall and the stairs. By then she could hear her mother saying, her voice strident, “You haven’t learned one thing, Al. You drove Wally out of this house. I’m not going to let you do the same thing to LaRue.”

  “I’m not driving her out. I’m keeping her home,” President Thomas bellowed.

  “It’s the same thing, and you know it. And why assume the worst about her? You don’t know that she’s done one thing wrong.”

  LaRue stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Her father was standing near the front door. Her mother was shaking her stubby finger in his face. Nothing like this had ever happened in the Thomas home before.

  “Yes, Bea, that makes perfect sense. Let her get into some real trouble, and then try to stop her. I’m shutting the gate before the cow gets loose.”

  LaRue couldn’t resist. “I’m no cow, Dad. I don’t wander out just because a gate is open. I can think for myself. And take care of myself, too.”

  “You believe you can, anyway. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “But she’s got to find out,” Mom said, almost yelled into her husband’s face. “We either trust her or we don’t. We’ve either taught her well, or we haven’t. She’s growing up, and it’s time for her to make some decisions for herself.”

  “She’s not grown enough, Bea. She’s fifteen.”

  “And who decides when she’s grown enough? You didn’t even bother to ask me what I think about this.”

  “I thought I knew what you’d think.”

  “You don’t know that at all. Why couldn’t we all sit down together and talk it out? LaRue isn’t a bad girl. I know she isn’t. She’s always been willing to listen to reason.”

  “That’s what you told me before, and look what’s happened.”

  “Al, when you tell LaRue what to do, she gets her back up. That’s how she’s been since she was a little girl.”

  “That’s all the more reason she needs to be stopped, Bea. Is that the way you want her to go through life–rebellious and disobedient?”

  Sister Thomas was losing some of her strength, some of her anger. She stepped back a little, tucked her hands into the pockets on her flowered apron, and glanced at LaRue. LaRue was feeling more frightened than rebellious at the moment. She didn’t want her parents to fight, not for any reason.

  “All I’m saying, Al,” Sister Thomas said, and now she was trying to control her voice, “is that each child is different. You’re never going to stomp on LaRue and get compliance. Maybe some things she’s going to have to learn for herself.”

  President Thomas had his hands on his hips, his big jaw set like a bear trap. He waited a very long time, half a minute perhaps, while everything stood still. LaRue thought maybe it was time to give in, to tell them she would stop going to the USO. But the thought only brought back her fury. She hadn’t done anything so wrong as to deserve this–to be stuck home from now on when she loved the USO so much.

  “All right, LaRue,” President Thomas finally said. “Your mother thinks you have to learn the hard way. Once again, I’m the bad guy because I want to put some controls on you. So you go ahead. You run downtown, and you do whatever it is you do at the USO. And if it turns out to be a disaster, I guess I’m supposed to feel perfectly happy with that.”

  Suddenly Sister Thomas’s voice was full of fire again. “That’s not fair! Our whole married life you’ve been doing this to me.” She was holding both her hands up, tightened into fists, as though ready to beat on her husband’s chest. “You think you’re the only one who knows anything. If I so much as suggest that I have an opinion, you accuse me of challenging your great authority.”

  “Where is all this coming from?” President Thomas asked, sounding honestly surprised. “You’ve never once said anything like that before.”

  “That’s because you make me coax and scheme just to get my say once in a while. And I’m sick of that. I’m not trying to throw our daughter to the wolves. I’ve talked to her many times about what she does at the USO, and we’ve discussed the dangers. Have you ever once done anything but warn her and accuse her?”

  LaRue had never seen her father so undone. The color had left his face. Finally, hesitantly, he said, “Bea, this is something you and I ought to talk about alone.”

  LaRue knew what he meant. Her mother had challenged him in front of his daughters, and that was humiliating to him. But he was also scared–maybe scared he actually was wrong–and surely alarmed that the world as he knew it was tipping on its edge. LaRue sensed that too, that their family would never be the same after this moment.

  LaRue also knew what she needed to do. It was the right time to say, “Mom, Dad, let’s sit down now. Let’s talk about this.” But she also sensed her chance to keep what she wanted, and she was almost sure she would lose that in a quiet conversation. So she stepped forward. “I’m going to be late,” she said, and she walked past her father, who actually moved out of the way as she passed him. Then she walked to Twenty-First South, where she caught a streetcar downtown. She wondered what was happening at home, but she also felt a new freedom that was rather satisfying.

  By the time she reached the USO, however, she was feeling more guilt than she wanted to, and that made her angry. She knew, of course, that she hadn’t been as candid as her mother had thought. She had promised to meet Ned tonight. Maybe he even considered that a date. But still, she hadn’t done anything wrong with him. That was the accusation that angered her so deeply.

  If her father only knew, Ned was as nice as any of the Mormon boys at East High. He wasn’t anyone to worry about. Dad had it in his head that any boy who w
asn’t LDS was some kind of lecher, and that wasn’t fair. Ned was sweet, and he was head over heels in love with her, even wanted to marry her. He had stopped swearing when he was around her, and he never drank. Those goodnight kisses were all she had allowed, and he had never pushed for anything else.

  When LaRue arrived, a little late, she spotted Ned alone at a table. She was glad for that. She didn’t like his friends all that much. She walked over and said hello to him. He stood up and greeted her, but she kept her distance. She didn’t want him to show her any affection.

  “I’ve got to check in and see what they want me to do tonight. I’ll dance with you after a while. All right?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  After she checked in and then helped out at the sandwich counter for a while, she did go back and dance with Ned, but again she kept him more distant than usual. After, when they sat down together at his table, he said, “LaRue, I know something is wrong. Just tell me what it is.”

  “I got in a fight with my dad tonight. He doesn’t want me to come here anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  She told him about the phone call, but she left out the things she didn’t want Ned to know. He still had no idea how young she was.

  “I don’t get it,” Ned responded. “What’s he so upset about?”

  “You.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re not a Mormon. That’s the main thing.”

  LaRue had learned before that Ned wasn’t one to fly off the handle. She watched him now, running her words through his head, deciding how he was going to respond. “Is it like Catholics?” he asked. “Do you get excommunicated if you marry me?”