by Carys Bray
The door closes of its own volition and she swishes to the far corner and slides her bottom onto the edge of a table. The petticoats and layers of net puff the wedding dress up, and when she tries to smooth the material, she realizes she is still holding Sister Stevens’s handouts: “Dating Decisions” and “The Young Women’s Wedding Guide.” There is just enough light for her to make out the words.
The “Dating Decisions” handout is a single sheet divided into four headed sections: 1. Avoid the Dangers of the Dark, 2. Beware the Hazard of the Horizontal, 3. Remember the Perils of Privacy, 4. Modesty Is a Must. At the bottom of the sheet, Sister Stevens has added an extra, handwritten warning: Beware of the naughty B’s—never show your breasts, back, bottom, or belly.
“The Young Women’s Wedding Guide” is bigger. There are several pages and spaces to fill in.
I think my future husband will have ___ hair, ___ eyes and be ___ tall.
I think I will be ___ years old when I get married.
I will have ___ bridesmaids. (Write your bridesmaids’ names below.)
Zippy realizes something very sad as she examines “The Young Women’s Wedding Guide”: Issy won’t be her bridesmaid. When she has absorbed this new loss, she carries on reading.
Here is a picture of the kind of wedding dress I would like to wear. (Stick a picture from a bridal magazine below.)
I would like to get married in the month of ___ and have ___ children.
My future children. (Write your future children’s names below.)
On the last page there’s a photograph of the Temple and Sister Stevens has printed some words underneath.
I believe the most important single thing I will do is marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority.
I promise to marry a worthy priesthood holder in the Temple.
Signed ___________________ (Write your name here.)
The door opens and Adam slips into the shadows. “I saw you walk past,” he says. “You looked like you were headed outside.”
Zippy’s heart thuds. She looks down at the dress and grabs a handful of material to show why she stayed indoors. He joins her in the corner of the room and leans against the table, arms propped behind him, legs stretched out. They stare straight ahead at the light that steals through the small window in the door, illuminating the edge of the room. Eventually she speaks.
“It was a joke, what I said about getting married at the party. I didn’t mean it.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“So, are we—are we OK, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“You look like a massive fairy.”
“I know. I feel like an idiot.”
He turns and has a proper look, which makes her hot and twitchy and glad of the dark.
“It’s not that bad, actually. I like you in it.”
He likes her in a wedding dress. “Liar,” she accuses, hoping he’ll say it again.
“Do you want to get married?”
For an impossible, wonderful moment, she thinks he is asking if she wants to get married to him and she is so overwhelmed she can’t form the words to accept.
“Sometimes I do,” he continues, “just because it’s what they’re all expecting. But other times I don’t.”
“Oh.” She catches her happiness and swallows it. “Marriage isn’t just a Church thing, you know,” she says. “People outside the Church get married too. It’s not like baptisms for the dead or Temple garments—there’s nothing weird about it.”
“They don’t dress up and have make-believe weddings. They get married later, when they’re like thirty or something. Don’t you ever think about not doing what everyone’s expecting you to do?”
Of course she thinks about it, but she doesn’t have any intention of breaking the commandments in real life; that would be awful. When she reads books, she eggs the characters on, encourages them to do all sorts of things she wouldn’t dream of doing herself, things that would see her excommunicated and disgraced. Perhaps it’s OK because the characters in her books are nonmembers; they haven’t received the greater light, which means that they, unlike her, are exempt from condemnation. Dad would say that it’s important to avoid even the appearance of evil; he wouldn’t approve of some of the books she reads, he’d say just thinking about breaking the commandments is morally wrong, but he doesn’t mind that the scriptures are full of people doing things you shouldn’t even think about, like King David ogling Bathsheba in the bath.
“I think about it,” she says. “But I wouldn’t … when I read Jane Eyre I wanted her to live in sin with Mr. Rochester.”
“Why?”
“It was complicated, he had this mad wife in the attic, so he wasn’t free to marry Jane, even though he loved her and—”
“No, I mean why is it OK for Jane what’s-her-name to live in sin?”
“It’s just a story, Adam.”
“Let’s say this Jane woman was real and she wanted to get married but there was a mad wife in her boyfriend’s attic. What would you say then?”
“If her boyfriend couldn’t get divorced, I’d tell her to live in sin.”
“What if you had a boyfriend who couldn’t get divorced? What then?”
“I wouldn’t be in that position.”
“That’s such a cop-out.”
“OK, I wouldn’t live in sin.”
“Why not? Why’s it OK in stories, but not OK for you?”
“The clue’s in the ‘sin’ part.”
“You’ve divided yourself into two bits. An obedient bit and a normal bit.”
It’s such a relief to talk to him again, he’s the only person in the whole world she can talk to with her whole self, but she wishes he’d stop trying to poke holes in things.
“Isn’t Brother Campbell going to wonder where you are?”
“Nah, he’s gone into the hall to help with your activity. While he’s gone we’re supposed to be making a list of the things our mums need to teach us before we go on our missions: ironing, cooking, washing, sewing on buttons … He’s been asked to talk to you lot about how it felt to marry Sister Campbell for Eternity, in the Temple. I reckon it felt like a life and death sentence.”
They laugh together, and things are instantly better.
“So what’re you doing in here by yourself, then?”
She swings her legs backward and forward a few times before answering. “I don’t know.”
“Come on.”
“They were singing ‘Families Can Be Together Forever.’ I didn’t want to cry in front of everyone.”
“Sorry.”
“My dad left, I think your dad wanted to interview him or they’ve gone to visit someone. So when I got a chance, I left too. I feel like a big doofus. I mean, look.” She slides off the table to stand and face him. “Other people have got lovely dresses. Sister Valentine hired one specially and Sister Stevens has sequins all over her top.” She moves her hands across the sweetheart neck of Mum’s dress as she speaks, to illustrate the position of Sister Stevens’s sparkles. “But Sister Campbell’s got this weird dress with pointy sleeves and she tried to say my dress isn’t white because Mum’s a convert.”
When she notices Adam isn’t listening, she follows his eyes and realizes he is looking down the front of the wedding dress where it gapes, ogling her bra and the crests of her chest. His mouth is half open and his tongue snakes along his bottom lip. Even though he knows she is watching him, he doesn’t avert his gaze. It’s like he can’t, and she isn’t sure what to do. She doesn’t want to be “walking pornography,” so she lifts a hand to rearrange the front of the dress but he keeps staring, as if he’s been hypnotized. She tries to break the spell.
“I’m so glad no one from school can see me like this.”
Finally he looks away, at the closed door. When he looks back he meets her eye. “I think it’s fine for … friends to kiss each other occasionally, don’t you?”
She shou
ld say no, what with the Dangers of the Dark, the Perils of Privacy, and her accidental contravention of Modesty Is a Must. He’s only just started talking to her again and she doesn’t want to spoil things—everything went weird the last time they kissed. But it would be so nice to be wrapped up in a warm pair of arms, his arms in particular.
“Will you hug me first?” she asks.
“OK.”
He pushes himself up from the table and folds his arms around her. She closes her eyes and rests her head against his chest; he is lovely and warm and she experiences an unexpected bolt of missing Issy, followed by the memory of dressing her with Mum and how cold her skin was, how inanimate and empty.
“Can I kiss you now?” His voice rumbles in his chest and its vibrations travel through the wedding dress and into her skin.
“In a minute,” she says. If she listens carefully she can hear the motor of his heart as it pumps the blood around his body. There is something about being held like this that is almost as moving as listening to “Families Can Be Together Forever.”
“Now?”
“Just a bit longer. Please.”
“How much longer?”
“Another minute.” She closes her eyes and listens to his body. She squeezes him hard, bursting with feelings; if he would only say something nice she would let him open her up and reach past the crate of her ribs to hold her heart.
“Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.”
His arms drop and he leans forward to claim her lips. They kiss for a while and then he moves his head so he can put his mouth on her collarbone. She should probably push him away, he hasn’t even asked her to be his girlfriend, but she leans her head back because it feels so nice. It’s lovely to be liked, to have another person stamp his mouth all over your skin and kiss your sadness better. He rests his hands on her waist, just above the fabric roses, and then he moves his lips lower. His mouth is warm and soft, and his chin is just a little bit scratchy. Goosebumps are erupting on her arms and legs, he is making her feel lovely, and it will be even nicer when he uses his mouth to say the words that will make her feel loved.
He moves his lips lower, nudges the gape of her dress with his chin and kisses the top of her chest, which is definitely a sin. She is breaking the Law of Chastity and even though it’s not a massive sin, not yet at least, it’s big enough that she is going to have to confess it and repent if she wants to get married in the Temple. She’d like him to stop, but she doesn’t know how to ask without spoiling everything. She has learned about chastity in terms of not letting anyone do anything to her; no one has ever mentioned how she might feel or what she might want. And she wants this, with him, but later, when it’s not a sin. He cups her bottom with his hands and she can feel his thing through the bunch of her dress, which isn’t supposed to happen and is entirely her fault for not finding the right words to stop him. She is still searching for the right words when the classroom door bursts open.
“Zipporah! Oh dear …”
Adam springs away, but it’s too late. Sister Valentine is standing in the doorway like the ghost of Temple weddings yet to come.
“Oh dear,” she says again, waving her arms, swatting at an invisible fly. “You shouldn’t—you mustn’t—the Law of Chastity … that, what you were doing, was wrong.”
Zippy can’t look at Adam, so she concentrates on the diamantés on Sister Valentine’s sleeves.
“We need to keep a better eye on you. Come on.” Sister Valentine grasps Zippy’s hand and pulls her to the door.
“We’ve got some old copies of Unveiled and Modern Bride and we’re going to choose our favorite dresses. Then we’ve going to eat cake and take photographs. And then”—she turns to give Adam a fierce look—“we’re going to choose honeymoons.”
WHEN ZIPPY HAS helped Sister Stevens tidy up and carry all the wedding paraphernalia out to her car, she sits in the foyer outside Dad’s office with Adam and Alma while Dad and President Carmichael finish their meeting. On her lap are the marriage handouts and a Polaroid photograph in which she is standing next to the wedding cake, trying to smile.
“Do you want to play footie in the hall?” Alma asks Adam.
“Yeah. In a minute.”
“Cool. Got a ball?”
Adam reaches into the sports bag at his feet and pulls out the sponge football they use indoors. He throws it to Alma, who dribbles it down the corridor. As soon as the hall door swings shut behind Alma, Adam speaks.
“I’m sorry.”
“At least it wasn’t Sister Campbell.”
“True. She’s a nightmare.” He clasps his hands together and cracks his fingers. “And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone I did that first.”
“What?”
He points in the direction of her chest, as if she is the owner of a pair of mountains he’s just laid claim to with an Adam Carmichael flag.
“I’m not worried.” She shuffles the handouts. “There’s no prize for being first. It’s not a race, you’re not the winner.”
“Being first is important to some people.”
She’d like to tell him he’s wrong, but the Law of Chastity is all about being the first. Yet she can’t help wondering whether it’s more important to be the last, because if something happened—if Adam made a mistake with someone else—she thinks she’d be able to forgive him, as long as afterward it was just the two of them, for Eternity.
“To go where no man has gone before,” he continues.
“Stop joking.”
“Well, it’s a Church thing, isn’t it?” He clears his throat and straightens an imaginary tie. “Respect girls who respect themselves.”
“Right. Thanks.”
“No, I didn’t mean—I was being Brother Campbell. We didn’t, we only … you’re not going to tell your dad, are you?”
She imagines telling Dad about what she allowed to happen and how it would make him feel with Issy, Mum, and everything.
“You won’t, will you?” he pushes.
“I should confess.”
“You haven’t got to. Wait a bit, ’til you’re older. Wait ’til you’re eighteen and you know whether you want to keep living like this.” He strokes the spread of Mum’s dress and shakes his head. “Everything’s so small right now.”
“Our lives seem small, but they’re bigger than we can imagine. Eternity’s a long time.”
“That’s not what I meant. Anyway, there’ll probably be a different bishop by the time you’re eighteen and you can confess everything, all at once. It’ll be easier.”
“All at once? I haven’t got anything else to confess.”
“You will.”
“I’m definitely not going to do anything with anyone else.”
“You will. You know you will. You’re …”
“What? What am I?”
“Hot to trot.”
“What?”
“You went from zero to sixty in—”
“I didn’t do anything. I just stood—”
“Aw, come on, don’t pretend you weren’t into it.”
“I should’ve said something and I shouldn’t have been by myself with you in the dark. It’s my fault about the dress too.” She crosses her arms over her chest, just to make sure. “If I die and I haven’t repented, I won’t be with Issy again.”
“Course. Sorry.” He rubs his hands along his thighs. “I didn’t think. Can you just not mention me?”
She nods. She will be extremely careful. And it’s mostly her fault anyway, for tempting him with her chest.
“What’re these?” He lifts the papers out of her hands, leaving the photograph in her lap. “ ‘Beware of the naughty B’s—never show your breasts, back, bottom, or belly’—this is awful.” He laughs and nudges her. “They forgot to include balls.”
She glances at the photograph and remembers what he said in the classroom—“I like you in that”—and while he leafs through the handouts, chuckling quietly, she drops it into his bag.
; WHEN THE OFFICE door opens, Dad and President Carmichael step out and Adam passes the papers back.
“Ah, Zipporah, just the young lady,” President Carmichael says. “Can I have a word? You don’t mind if I just borrow your office and your daughter for a moment, do you, Bishop?”
Dad shakes his head. He looks rumpled and tired. Zippy leaves the handouts on the seat next to Adam and crosses the corridor to the office. It must be the Holy Ghost that has made President Carmichael ask to speak to her at this precise moment while she is wrestling with right and wrong. Priesthood leaders have the spirit of discernment, they can see right into people’s souls and they know when people have sinned and whether or not they are lying. She flattens the dress and squeezes through the door. President Carmichael follows her and points to the empty chair opposite the desk. He waits for her to sit down. His suit isn’t shiny at the elbows like Dad’s and his shoes are those expensive ones with little holes and patterns all over them. He’s still sort of handsome, even though he’s middle-aged. And he looks a lot like Adam sometimes, especially when he smiles.
“How are you?” he asks as he sits.
“I’m OK, thanks.”
She can’t decide whether to confess. It might be easier to tell him than Dad, but what will he think of her when he finds out? Will he remember what she has done, forever? Will he hold it against her and make sure Adam never marries her?
“It’s been a difficult time. How are you coping?”
“OK, yeah.”
He looks at her and it’s like he’s switched on his discernment; she knows she needs to confess before the Holy Ghost tells him what she has done.
“Zipporah, I’m getting a sense that …”
She takes a deep breath. “I’ve done something. With a boy.” As soon as the words leave her mouth she feels like she’s going to throw up.
President Carmichael doesn’t flinch. “Ah,” he says, as calmly as if he suspected as much. “Well, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Can you tell me what happened, so I know how serious it is?”
She tries to think of a way to say it that doesn’t involve the words “chest,” “breasts,” or “boobs,” but she can’t, so she just sits there, lips pursed, like an enormous toilet-roll-cover doll.