by Dean Hughes
Bea smiled. She was happy for him, pleased for the family. She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t as excited as her husband was.
President Thomas sat down at his desk. Bea knew he wanted her to sit down too, to revel in this. The fact was, she had a letter from Boeing, in Seattle, telling her that her last order had never arrived, and she knew that wasn’t true. She had the paperwork to prove it, but she wasn’t going to be able to sleep that night if she couldn’t find it. Still, she stayed.
“Bea, think about the opportunity we have.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. He had started to put on a little more weight lately, and his white shirt was straining a bit in the shoulders and over his chest. “Alex and Wally are essentially set for life.” He held up his hand immediately. “Don’t even say it. I know. I can’t make up their minds for them. They’re going to have to decide if they want to be involved.”
“No. That isn’t what I was thinking. I just have a hard time imagining a future like that until I actually see them here, safe and well.”
“I know that. An hour never passes that I don’t think about that very thing. But I’m just saying that a door is being opened, and the war is winding down. I want to believe they’ll soon be back here and looking for a path to take. Maybe both of them will tell me they don’t want a thing to do with all this. But Bea, we’ve built something, and I can’t imagine that they won’t want to be part of it.” He nodded emphatically, and Bea had to think of the Al Thomas she had met so many years ago at the University. He had seen nothing but bright skies in the future, and she had fallen as much for his visions as for himself. It was nice to see some of that spark back, but Bea couldn’t feel the same joy—not yet.
“Al, I know what you’re saying. But who is Wally now? I see pictures of these skeletons they released in the Philippines, and I wonder what the starvation has done to them. I keep telling myself he’s alive, but we have no proof of it. And what kind of attitude does he have by now? Won’t he be bitter about everything? When he left here, the last thing in the world he wanted was to be in business with you.”
“Bea, look at me. I’ve thought every one of those thoughts. But it’s not what I believe. I know I rant about our heritage and the kids laugh at me for it, but Wally is a Snow and a Thomas. I believe that boy has gotten stronger, not weaker. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but I believe it’s what the Spirit is telling me.”
The words were touching to Sister Thomas, and she thought she felt her spirit verifying them. But she also knew that it was what she wanted to believe.
“Here’s another thought,” President Thomas said, and Bea could tell he had been running all this through his head long before the contract had come. “LaRue has a way of stopping me short. She always says, ‘What about me? Don’t Bobbi and Beverly and I get in on all this?’”
“That’s a fair question, too.”
“Well, sure. Those girls just might marry young men who want to make it on their own—not get stuck in the in-laws’ business.”
“Or someone who doesn’t want to be in business at all, whether he makes a lot of money or not. I think that’s how Richard is.”
“Richard is smart, Bea. He may have his own plans, and I don’t want to interfere. But on the other hand, what if some of the kids are really well off and others aren’t? Richard isn’t going to be able to work with his hands, but he could manage one of our businesses. The way I see it, there’s no limit to where we can expand. We have a reliable reputation now, and production in this country is going to go wild. We could make parts for refrigerators, cars, trucks, bicycles—who knows what.”
But all this made Bea nervous. She was wearing a suit she often wore to work: blue-green, with a double-breasted jacket. She looked down at the skirt, smoothed it a little. “Al, I know you mean well about all this. And maybe you’re right. But Richard is one egg we’d better not count before he’s tucked away in our basket.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s got it in his head that he has to be successful—to meet some standard he thinks we have.”
“I’ll talk to him about all that. I’ll sit down with him and talk man to man. I’m going to need good managers. Why shouldn’t they come from my family? I’m sure we can work things out.” President Thomas leaned back, the way he often did when he thought he had pronounced the final word on a subject.
“Just go a little slow with him, Al. Bobbi could be gone for a long time yet, and for now, I think Richard needs to go to school and get some things behind him.”
“Oh, sure. There’s no rush on any of this. LaRue and Bev are the same way. I’m just talking about the future, as this thing starts to mushroom for us. But here’s the thing about LaRue. She’s not going to be happy if she marries some fellow who doesn’t make a good living. She needs a husband with some push to him. And all I’m saying is that if a boy like that comes along, and he wants an opportunity, we’ll have one for him.”
“What if it’s LaRue who wants to be part of the business, not her husband?”
President Thomas laughed. “You and your daughter. I can always see the next question coming.”
“Since when? You’re still talking about her husband and not LaRue.”
President Thomas began to twist his swivel chair back and forth, fidgeting. Sister Thomas knew she had to be careful. All this meant so much to him, and she really didn’t want to throw cold water on his enthusiasm.
But he was still smiling. “Bea, LaRue is going to grow up. She won’t feel the same way once she’s old enough to get married. All this business about being a big shot—she’ll forget about that. She’ll always be a little spunky, but she’ll start to understand what it means to have a family and to be a mother. I worry about her sometimes, but I really do think she’ll come around.”
Sister Thomas nodded. Some part of her said that was right. When women had children, they did have a responsibility to them. She hoped that LaRue would tone down some of her “attitude” about things. But something in Bea wouldn’t let all this drop quite that easily. “Al, do you think being a father is different from being a mother?”
“Of course I do. Different roles.”
“But both of them owe their first responsibility to the family, don’t they?”
“Bea, look, let’s not do this today. I know what you’re telling me. I haven’t been home as much as I would like. I haven’t always—”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. I just wonder. I know some women who teach school, for instance, and raise their children too. I don’t know how I feel about that. I didn’t do anything like that, but I never really considered it. LaRue is going to think about it, and I’m not sure what to tell her. Maybe she could start her own company—or do some of those things she thinks about. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It’s not God’s plan, Bea.”
“God’s or men’s?”
“Bea, please. You know better than that.”
She saw his eyes narrow, his breath draw in. Sister Thomas made a decision. She wasn’t going to start anything. She wasn’t even sure what she had been about to get into anyway. The fact was, she really had been asking a question, and she didn’t know the answer. “Well,” she said, “we’ll have to see what happens. It’s nice to know that the plant won’t fold when the war ends.”
“That’s right. And honey, it’s going to be good for you and me, too. I’ll step back from it a little at a time. And you can get out of the rat race.”
She tried to hold to her decision not to say anything else, actually almost got out of her chair, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “So, do you have everything planned out for me, too?” she asked.
Now some air blew out of him, and she knew exactly what he was thinking: “Here she goes again.” But he was careful to say, “Bea, I’m going to need you around here for quite a while yet. We don’t have anyone who could even start to step in and take over. Including me. But won’t you be glad to get a
way from this place when you can?”
“In some ways. I get tired of keeping up with it all. But our home is going to be empty in another few years, and I’m not sure I want to knock around that big old house all by myself. I’ve spent a long time as the ‘bishop’s wife’ and the ‘stake president’s wife,’ but around here I’m Mrs. Thomas, or I’m Bea, and I have a lot of people out on that floor who think I know what I’m doing. I like that.”
President Thomas nodded. “I can understand that. I’ve always gotten a lot of that kind of attention in my life—so much so that I hardly think about it. And maybe it would be hard to set it all aside. I just didn’t think that sort of thing mattered to you.”
“I’m not sure it does. Or that it ought to. I just try to picture the day when I get up in the morning with no kids in the house and know that I’m going to be there alone all day. I find myself thinking that one of the kids might take this operation over and make a mess of it. Alex did all right with it before he left for the service, but a lot of things were way too messy when I came to work here. This is a much smoother operation now, if I do say so myself.”
Al laughed. “No question about that. I’m proud of you, too.”
“Well, I need to get back to work—or it won’t be such a smooth operation much longer. I have a hundred things to do.” She stood up. But something was still bothering her, and she wondered whether she should say it.
“Let’s go out tonight,” Al said.
“Out? What do you mean?”
“Let’s go get some supper somewhere. Or go dancing.”
Sister Thomas stared at her husband. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Al, we haven’t gone dancing in ages.”
“Of course we have. We go to the church dances.”
“That’s not ‘going dancing.’ That’s ‘making an appearance as the stake president.’ You spend the whole time talking to people.”
“I know; it usually turns into that. That’s why I’m saying we ought to go somewhere else. Somewhere I won’t get called ‘President’ a single time the whole night.”
“We might have to drive out of state to find a place like that.”
“No, no. Can’t we just go to one of these dance halls around town?”
Bea was standing at the desk. She leaned over, put her hands on the surface, and said, “Al, the last time we went to the Rainbow Rendezvous, you didn’t last half an hour. You said there was too much smoking and drinking.”
“Well, that place has turned into a mess. The wrong element has taken it over. A lot of it is these military people who are stationed around here.”
“There was always a lot of drinking at that place, long before the war. You just didn’t let it bother you when you were younger.”
“Well . . . that’s probably true. But I don’t want to go down there. Let’s go to the Empire Room. We can order a good meal, and they usually have a nice band—not one of these jivey, loud things I hear on the radio all the time now.”
“Everyone there will know you.”
“Not everyone. Or even if they do, we’ll still dance.”
Bea laughed. “Well . . . okay,” she said, and suddenly the idea did appeal to her.
“If you wanted, you could take off early and stop in town—buy yourself a new dress.”
“What is this?” Bea came around the desk and put her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “You haven’t been nipping a little whiskey yourself, have you?”
President Thomas laughed. “Not that I remember,” he said. “Look, I don’t know. I’m just tired of having to be so serious all the time. We worry too much. We work too much. We hardly ever do anything fun.”
“Al, that’s my speech.”
“I know. But today I’m feeling that you’re right. We just got a contract that could be worth—who knows?—maybe a million dollars, in time. We can spend fifty bucks on a dress and a pair of shoes.”
“For fifty bucks I can get a handbag, a hat, and a pair of gloves to go with them.”
“No. If you want all that, spend a hundred. I mean it, Bea. I feel guilty about all you’ve done down here and how little you have to show for it. It’s time we start thinking about building us a new house.” Suddenly, he did the last thing she expected. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap.
“Al, someone could come in.”
“So what? I believe we’re married, aren’t we?”
She didn’t pull away. In fact, she put her arm around his shoulders, and she kissed him on the forehead. “Al, thanks,” she said, “but I love our house. I don’t need another one. And I don’t know how to spend a hundred dollars in one store. I couldn’t do it if I tried.”
“Practice, my dear. Practice. Maybe I can send LaRue with you. She could figure it out.”
Bea loved all this, and she hated it. She was glad to see her husband happy and feeling generous, but she didn’t know how to change that much, even felt uncomfortable with the idea of it. If they were going to have more money, she didn’t want to show it off. She didn’t want her neighbors to think that she considered herself too good for them. And she never wanted to leave her neighborhood. She even worried just a little that Al was losing his head, thinking a little too extravagantly before the money was actually in their pockets.
“I’ll tell you what,” Bea said. “I don’t have time to go shopping today. But I do need a nice church dress, and one of these days I’ll buy one. And yes, I will go dancing with you tonight as long as you don’t keep me out too late—because I do need to come down here in the morning.” She stood up and pulled away from him.
“It’s Friday, Bea. You can sleep in a little on Saturday morning.”
“I’ll sleep in as long as you do.”
“Bea, I can’t sleep in. If I could, I would, but you know I can’t.”
“And what would you do if you got up and had to make your own breakfast?”
“I’d do just fine. I can fry an egg.”
“Not without burning it up.”
“I can eat a burnt offering one Saturday morning.”
Bea was touched. And what affected her more than anything was that he was trying so hard. He seemed to be saying, “I know I need to loosen up about certain things. I want to be a nicer person to be around.”
There was still one thing wrong with all this, and try as she might, she couldn’t get it out of her head. She stepped to the door, but then she decided she wasn’t going to leave the office without saying something. The two of them needed this out of the way if they were going to go dancing. “Al,” she said, “why didn’t you talk to me about that Bendix contract?”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“You mentioned that you were making contacts and that Bendix had shown some interest. But this was a complete surprise to me today. How could you negotiate a contract, sign it, and never even let me know?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Al, you surprise someone with a gift—a birthday present. But this is different. You must have been working on this deal for a long time. You must have hired a lawyer to work on the contract, and you must have spent a lot of time working out all those details.” She pointed at the contract on his desk. “And yet, you haven’t ever talked to me about it.”
“I just didn’t know whether it was going to come together, so I decided I wouldn’t get you excited and then have it all fall through.”
“It’s you who would worry about that—not me.”
“But Bea, you don’t even seem to get the point. We’ve done well during the war, but I’ve always wondered when the bubble might pop. Now, we’re in the driver’s seat. And you know how my mind works. I’m thinking about politics, making a difference in this state. I can be an important influence. Certain things take money, Bea, and now we know for sure that we have it.”
Bea leaned against the door frame and shook her head. She had never wanted to be an “important influence” in anything. She didn’t even kn
ow what that meant. And she was a little uneasy about her husband’s motives. Was he talking about having power, being a big shot? He had always talked about having a righteous posterity, but this seemed to be about becoming a wealthy, prominent family. “Al, for the last year I’ve become the expert around here on our government contracts, our deals with big companies. I’ve tracked our production, trained new hires, paid the bills, met the payroll, listened to the girls cry on my shoulder about their boyfriend problems, negotiated with suppliers—everything from top to bottom.”
“I know that. I’ve told you a lot of times, ‘Do what you think is best. I’ll trust your judgment on this one.’”
“But I’ve always consulted with you about everything. Now, you come in and tell me you’ve put this whole deal together without getting my opinion about anything. At the very least you could have let me review the contract.”
“Bea, it’s a lot of legal lingo. I don’t understand much of it myself. The lawyers took care of all that.”
“But why not use your best resource? I could have helped you see some dangers. I could have given you some history on things that haven’t gone well with the companies we work with. I know I could have told you something that would have helped.” She was standing straight now, and she felt her own stiffness.
“Maybe so. I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t want to jinx the deal by telling anybody about it.”
“I’m not anybody. I’m your wife. Did you discuss it with your dad?”
“A little. Not much.”
Bea shook her head. And she tried not to cry. But then she said, resolutely, “Al, I don’t want to go dancing with you tonight.”
She left the office and went back to her desk. She stared at the papers in front of her, but she couldn’t focus on anything. After a few minutes Grace walked to the office door and said, “Bea, I found the paperwork on that order. We definitely sent it on time. What I can’t find is any confirmation that it arrived.”