Lara breezed by with a load of stacked dishes and whispered, “It doesn’t matter, Sam.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
After the dishes were done, Lara came back, kissed me, and whispered, “Two-thirds.”
“What?” I snapped.
“The answer is two-thirds.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s a problem my father gave us when we were little.”
“You didn’t have to tell me,” I complained. I would’ve worked it out by myself.”
“Sorry—I just wanted to help. Well, I have to take a shower. See you later.”
In a few minutes, Bob and his father brought Adam in the house. He had just had his first horseback ride.
“Got that problem solved yet?” Bob asked.
“Two-thirds,” I said.
“Right—did Lara tell you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. Well here’s another problem you might like . . .”
In the afternoon the extended family came—more brothers and sisters and their children. I stood, smiled, shook hands, and forgot their names.
There was always the unspoken question on their faces about Lara and me—were we engaged yet, and if we weren’t, when would we be? And if we weren’t going to get engaged, why had she brought me home?
Lara was one of seven children, three daughters and four sons. She was the second daughter, but the only one not married. The youngest girl had married a few months before.
After lunch Bob brought the question out in the open. “Hey, Sis, have you and Sam got anything to tell us?”
“About what, Bob?”
“Are you going to get married?”
Bob’s wife tried to shush him, but that was impossible.
I was glowing red.
“We don’t know, Bob,” Lara said.
“You’d better get something going soon—you’re not getting any younger, you know.”
“Thanks for the reminder, Bob,” she said, more politely than I would have.
I looked at Lara. With all the crawling, nursing, wetting, walking babies in the room, with all the husbands and wives, you could have cut the pressure she was feeling with a knife.
As soon as I could leave without too much notice, I took Adam upstairs to give him a bath—any excuse to escape. While he played in the tub, I looked out the window and wished we’d never come.
A few minutes later, I heard Lara at the door. While I’d been rearranging my thoughts, Adam had managed to open the shampoo bottle. The whole tub was full of suds. His head looked like the cherry on a pile of whipped cream.
“Sam?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I want to take Adam to see the horses again. Will you be long?”
“Not very long.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Fine—I’m giving him a bath.”
“Can I help?”
I opened the door. She rushed into my arms.
“I’m sorry, Sam. Don’t let them bug you, okay?”
We kissed. Adam looked over at us and laughed.
“Daddy kissing,” he grinned.
“Don’t knock it, kid,” I said.
Lara viewed the white tornado. “Think you have enough soap?”
“I’m willing to share.” I scooped up a bunch of bubbles and plopped them on her head.
She just looked at me.
I had Adam stand up, ran water to rinse him off, lifted him out of the tub, then turned quickly and set Lara screaming into the water.
We retreated to our room, and I got Adam dressed. A few minutes later we stepped gingerly outside, looking for Lara, but she was nowhere to be seen. We went to the barn and talked to Bob.
Lara’s father took Adam on another horseback ride.
A few minutes later, Bob and I were leaning against a fence looking at the horses. Lara came out with a bucket.
“What’s in the bucket?” Bob asked.
“Water—I’m going to throw it on Sam. Move away.”
“No, she’s not,” I assured him “It’s an old clown routine. The bucket is full of confetti and she makes us think it’s full of water. She’s done that routine dozens of times at ward parties in Utah. Don’t worry, Bob.”
“Bob, it’s really full of water. Move away from Sam”
“Bob,” I countered, “you’ve known Lara far longer than I have. She’s not the type who’d walk up and throw water on a houseguest, is she? I mean, she’s a very conscientious person. So don’t worry. It’s just a clown routine.”
Bob relaxed.
Lara chucked the contents of the bucket at us. We both yelled as the water drenched us. “Sam,” she said calmly, “in some ways I’ve changed being around you.” Then she walked back to the house.
“Isn’t she terrific?” I roared with laughter, slapping Bob on his soggy shoulders.
* * * * *
That night the whole family got together for one giant family home evening. We had thirty children in the house along with their parents.
We were just finishing up when another family arrived—a tall, rugged man, his blonde wife, and their two children.
Lara rushed into the hall and hugged them both. She knelt down to adore the one-year-old boy, then stood up to fuss over the babe in arms.
“Do you know who they are?” Bob asked me.
“No.”
“Hasn’t Lara ever told you about Craig? She nearly married him before her mission.”
Lara brought them into the congested living room and introduced them to me.
“Ann, you look so good!” Lara said. “How do you keep up with two little children?”
“Well, it keeps me busy, I’ll tell you,” Ann smiled happily. “But I love it—except for the two a.m. feedings, that is.”
“Oh, look at these darling children!” Lara’s mother bubbled, coming in from the kitchen. “They are so precious, Craig.”
“Lara, do you want to hold our baby?” Ann asked.
“Do I!” She lovingly picked up the baby and held her. “Look, she’s smiling at me! Oh, she’s so sweet.”
“Probably just gas pains,” Bob said.
Just then the phone rang. The only reason I know is that I was sitting next to it. Otherwise nobody would have heard it over the noise.
Lara’s father answered it. “Lara, it’s a person-to-person long-distance call for you.”
The room quieted down as parents shushed their kids. This was a house where person-to-person, long-distance calls meant either great happiness or severe tragedy.
Lara, still holding Ann’s baby, answered it. “Hello. Oh, Steve, it’s you. . . . You got the loan for the other stores? That’s fantastic! . . . When do they start construction? . . . That soon? Oh, you must be excited. . . . Do you think I could do that? . . . Well, at least one of us is confident, because I’m not. Look, can I let you know next week? . . . Well, okay, call me tomorrow and I’ll see if I’ve decided by then. . . . Thanks, Steve. Goodbye.”
She hung up and everyone waited.
“What was that all about?” Bob asked.
“My boss called to tell me he’s got the money to build four more stores. He asked me to be an assistant manager where I work now, and to take over most of the details, because he’s not going to have time to worry about it now.”
Lara handed the baby back to Ann.
“Is it a lot more money?” Bob asked.
“Yes, quite a bit more.”
“Take it! Hey, I bet you’ll be making more than Sam, won’t you?”
“The money’s not important,” she said.
“Boy, I can tell you’re not raising a family,” Ann joked.
“If you two ever decide to get married,” Bob continued, “why don’t you have Sam stay home with the children and you keep working?” Bob laughed. “No kidding, I read somewhere that some kooky couple is doing just that.”
I looked at Lara’s parents—they were discouraged. More than anythin
g, they wanted Lara married and a mother, not a business executive. But because they loved her, they tried to be supportive. “Lara,” her father said, putting his arm around her, “if that’s what you really want, then more power to you.”
“You’ve always worked hard, haven’t you?” her mother added.
“I always knew Lara’d do good,” Craig said, at the same time reaching out to hold his wife’s hand.
Lara sat down beside me and we quietly endured the rest of the evening.
At eleven-thirty, tucked away in my room, I lay awake thinking. Finally, hoping a breeze would put me to sleep, I opened my window. I could hear someone crying. It was Lara in the next room. Her window was open too.
I undid my screen enough to be able to look out. “Lara?” I called softly.
“Sam?”
“Undo the latches so I can see you.” In a minute we were talking to each other out our windows.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry for crying so loud.”
“Is it because you still love Craig?” I asked painfully.
“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just coming home. I’m such a misfit here, such a failure. And it gets worse every year. Why do they make me feel so rotten?”
“They don’t mean to.”
“I nearly cried watching my mother fuss over Craig’s kids. She wishes I’d married him, because then all of us’d be together in this valley. I’m the only one who’s left, and the only one still single.”
“You have to live your own life.”
“I know. What shall I do about Steve’s offer?”
“Don’t do anything. I don’t trust us here. Let’s both make a no-decision pact. I won’t ask you to marry me this weekend, and you won’t give Steve an answer. Your relatives want us to wrap it up this weekend. But we’ve got to fight it. Don’t let them psych you out, no matter how many kids they parade past you. If we’re going to get married, let’s make the decision on our terms, in our own world—in my car listening to ‘Mystery Theater.’”
“Thanks,” she sighed. By stretching out, we could just manage to hold hands. “Sam, I think you’re wonderful.”
“You got good judgment, kid.”
* * * * *
The next day was Sunday and we went to church. The high council speaker talked about the importance of the family. He quoted a statement by Brigham Young that any young man over twenty-five who isn’t married is a menace to the community.
Lara snickered and punched me in the side.
He commented on the ever-increasing number of couples living together without marriage. He quoted a statistic claiming that only thirteen percent of families in the country consist of a husband, a wife who stays home, and children. He warned about women who believe they must leave the home to work.
Sunday afternoon after supper, Lara and I took a little walk.
“Lara, married people don’t understand the pressure we feel when they talk about families. What’s it like for a woman over twenty-five with no prospects for marriage? What’s it like when she goes to church? She’d get married if she could, but nobody’s come along. What does she do?”
“She copes, Sam. She gets hobbies, she works hard in her job, she gives help to others. Sometimes she does what I did last night—she cries.”
“Why don’t people who speak about eternal families ever say that those who don’t have that opportunity but remain faithful will not be shorted any blessings in the hereafter?”
“They don’t say it because they’re married,” she said.
Sunday evening Steve called. True to our pact, Lara gave him only a maybe.
On Monday we were both glad to leave. An hour down the road I asked her to tell me about Craig.
“We started going together during our senior year in high school. The next fall he went on a mission and I went to college. Two years later he returned. I wanted him to get a college education, but he wanted to stay home and take over his dad’s place. I loved school too much, and he loved farming. We still cared about each other, but we broke up. I guess I outgrew him.”
I cringed. “Think you’ll ever outgrow me, Lara?”
“No, Sam, I won’t.”
“But look how you’re moving up. How much did Steve offer you?”
“What does it matter? I don’t care about the money. Sam, I love you.”
“Why, Lara? I’m a second-string computer programmer in a dead-end job. If I don’t progress any further then this, then I’m a failure—pure and simple.”
“So you feel threatened by my success.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel. They’re my feelings, not yours. I’m the only one who can say how I feel.”
She sighed. “Okay—how do you feel?”
“I don’t know.”
She smiled. “Well, that was certainly enlightening, wasn’t it.”
“I love you. And someday I’m going to ask you to marry me.”
“Which someday, Sam?”
“The problem isn’t how I feel about you. The problem is how I feel about myself.”
“I don’t care if you sell apples on the street—I’ll still love you.”
“I imagine us playing checkers in our old age and you deliberately losing just to keep me happy. That’s not right.”
“And it’s not right for you to think you always have to win at checkers either, is it?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Okay, Sam, I’ll lay it on the line. Nothing else much matters to me anymore except you and Adam. If you want me to be scatterbrained, I’ll do it. I’ll burn your food, I’ll wrinkle your clothes, and I’ll lose a sock from each pair. I’ll overdraw your checking account. Just tell me what you want from a wife and I’ll do it.”
“I appreciate that, but no, you be the best Lara you can be.”
“Oh, Sam,” she moaned, “not that.”
An hour later we pulled into a grocery store and gas station in a small town.
“Do you want a snack?” I asked as we went inside to pay for the gas.
“Whatever you think,” she said blandly.
“Well, would you like an apple?”
“You decide, Sam. I can’t make up my mind.”
“I know you like apples—shall I get you one?”
“It’s so hard for me to decide.”
“Lara, I know you’re practicing being a helpless female, but I need to know if you want an apple.”
“You know best, Sam.”
I went to the back of the store and got an apple. When I returned, she was grinning at me triumphantly.
“I want a Hostess Twinkie.”
“No—it has white refined sugar in it.”
“That’s what I want. Please buy me one.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, but I’m not going to let you do it.”
The lady behind the counter glanced up from her magazine to watch us.
“It’d be the best thing for us, Sam.”
She had a package in her hand, but I managed to pull it away from her. “You must really love me even to consider doing this.”
“Sam,” she said seriously, “give me the Twinkie.”
“And what about your teeth—don’t you owe them any consideration?”
She grabbed another package from the shelf and dramatically tore open the wrapper. Before taking a bite, she hesitated and started to read the ingredients.
“Sugar . . .”
“Lara, you don’t have to do this for me.”
“ . . . enriched white flour, corn syrup, dextrose, mono and diglycerides, sodium caseinate, polysorbate 60 . . .”
I wrestled it from her, squishing the filling all over my hand.
“Hey, you two, take it easy!” the lady warned us.
“You can’t stop me, Sam.” She picked up another package, ripped it open, and took a large bite out of the Twinkie.
“Lara,” I said slowly, “that was as noble a thing as I’ve ever seen. Words cannot
tell how I feel now.”
“Seventy cents for the two,” the lady said, “the one you have all over your hand and the one she’s eating.”
“Hey, Sam, these are really good! Let’s get one for Adam, too.”
“What have you done?” I moaned.
“You’ve bought three Twinkies, that’s what you’ve done,” the lady said.
“Lara, show this lady your teeth.”
“Not now—they’re full of cake.”
“A dollar five—you might as well lick it off your hand because you’re paying for it.”
“Lady, what’s the name of this store?” I asked. “I’m putting this in my journal.”
* * * * *
Chapter Twelve
It was billed as confidence-building survival experience for business executives. Steve told Lara about it at work the day after our return from Idaho when she talked to him about me. He phoned the office in California and they booked us for the Southern Utah site for the next week.
“Three hundred dollars?” I moaned when she told me how much it was going to cost.
“Think of it as tuition.”
We drove down the next Thursday. The camp consisted of several tents and a couple of Jeeps in a rocky ravine. We met the head of the program, a tall, lean man named Brock.
“Do you know who comes here?” he asked. “Failures come here. Oh, sure, they may be pulling down a hundred thousand a year, but they’re still failures. Do you know why they’re failures? Because they don’t have Self-Knowledge. And do you know what we do with them? We turn them into men who can match these mountains. And then they have Self-Knowledge.”
As we left him, I told Lara I was sure they’d turn her into a woman who could match the mountains. I didn’t want her to worry.
The first thing I noticed about the training was that they starved us. Wild turnips and jerky have never been among my favorite foods.
After sleeping in a tent with a wheezing, snoring business executive from Chicago, I faced breakfast—jerky, raisins, bread, and water.
Then we took a hike with Brock. After a few minutes, Lara and I figured out what he was doing. He would hike a fast pace until he was about five minutes ahead of the slowest members of the group, then sit down and rest until they just caught up with us. Then he’d take off again, giving the impression he was superhuman in endurance.