Falling for Grace

by Robert Farrell Smith

  “. . . I will better myself by loving you. I will seek to find resolution by committing myself to the idea of being eternally proactive with my lady . . .”

  Doran was wearing a gray suit that accentuated his gangly figure. He had on a cowboy tie and boots that he had tucked the legs of his pants into. His spiky hair was gelled down and parted perfectly in the middle. He looked at us from across the room and sighed. I felt sorry for him. I knew what it was like to love Grace from afar. I could only imagine how hard it would be to know that she cared for someone else. I needed to be more compassionate with Doran.

  After the sacrament was administered, the youth speaker, Jeffy Smith, talked about honesty and how his aunt was in jail for mail fraud. I watched Sister Smith hide her head as her boy aired their dirty laundry without a thought. At least we knew he had written his own remarks. Jeffy then reported on the Scouts’ last camp out and announced that anyone who may have ended up with an extra mess kit needed to return it before his big brother found out he had borrowed it.

  Amen, I think.

  The Rose children sang “In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions.” It was a lovely number, but as it progressed I could hear Brother and Sister Carp growing angry in the pew behind us. It was no secret that the Carps and the Roses didn’t really get along. The Roses were a very well-to-do family. Brother Rose was a partner with one of the largest law firms in the state. He was also the school board president, and had been elected Father of the Year twice. His family drove the nicest cars, had the nicest house, and were constantly talking about their huge summer home in Wyoming. Well, Brother Carp didn’t have a summer home. In fact, thanks to a bad business deal, he and his family were back living with his parents in their duplex. Brother Carp claimed it was temporary and that they were only going to stay with his folks until he could get his financial feet back on the ground. Well, that was two years ago. Now, instead of looking for work, he chose to pick apart those who actually had some—Brother Rose being his favorite target. The Roses had tried to get along with the Carps but whatever they tried seemed to backfire. So Brother and Sister Carp continued to grow more and more bitter, biting at the Roses whenever possible and finding offense in nearly everything they did. Now here were the young Rose children singing “In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions.” Brother Carp missed the analogy completely, thinking that the Roses were simply bragging about their summer home. He stood up and stormed out.

  I took a moment to self-righteously contemplate how someone could possibly be so offended by something so simple.

  The Rose children finished singing and sat down. I watched someone get up and walk to the podium. I watched that same someone claim that his name was Noah Taylor and that he was happy to be speaking today. There had to be some kind of a mistake! This man didn’t look like a Noah Taylor—he looked more like a Mr. “I’m everything every woman could ever want in a man and then some.” The Noah Taylor I had imagined was a gray-haired old man from Manti, Utah. A widower with a bad hip, a long beard, and a tendency to go on and on about how rotten our society had become. You know, Noah . . . Noah Taylor. What stood before me was something altogether different.

  “That’s Brother Taylor?” I whispered to Grace, hoping the answer would be anything but what I knew it was.

  “That’s Noah,” Grace said without taking her eyes off him.

  This was just awful. Noah Taylor was a good-looking man. He had short brown hair that seemed just clean-cut enough to indicate that he was orderly, and just tousled enough to show that he wasn’t worried about what others thought. He wore a sweater with a tie that only a woman would pick out. He looked to have a few years on my twenty-three. I suspected he was pretty close to thirty. He smiled and made a bad joke about food storage that every member of the congregation laughed at.

  I didn’t think I liked Noah Taylor.

  “I thought you said he was widowed,” I said.

  “His wife died a year and a half ago.” Grace frowned. “Isn’t it sad?”

  I was grieving.

  Noah talked all about the last days, and how God was hoping that we were watching for Him. He laughed, he cried, and he convinced even me that he was too good to be true. He pitched his effort to prepare everyone, pleading with the members to let him help organize them.

  After sacrament meeting was over, Grace insisted that I meet Noah personally. She dragged me up onto the stage to wait at the end of the line. I ran my fingers though my half-missing hair, hoping he would think it was some sort of cool new style and knowing that he probably wouldn’t. Every woman in the ward was frantically trying to thank Brother Taylor for his inspiring words. Our neighbor, Sister Lewis, was talking with such animation to him that she seemed to spit all over everyone. Sister Cravitz hugged him twice, and Sister Johnson spent a good four minutes questioning him about the shelf life of chocolate drink mix vs. fruit punch. Eventually the adoring throngs thinned out and Grace and I approached.

  “Grace,” he said with far too familiar an inflection. “How’d I do?”

  “Great,” she replied. “I wanted you to meet Trust.”

  I stuck out my hand to say, “Hey.”

  “It’s nice to finally meet you, Trust,” he said as if on cue.

  “Likewise.” I nodded.

  “Grace has sure been a lifesaver at the warehouse,” he complimented. “Thanks for bringing her out here.”

  “I thought you were old,” was my only response.

  “Well, I feel old,” Noah said, looking at me queerly.

  “Probably not as old as I thought you were,” I said kindly.

  “How old did you think I was?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, sincerely trying to sound friendly. “I sort of pictured you looking like Moses, or Colonel Sanders.”

  “The chicken guy?” Noah asked. “Is that how Grace has been describing me?” He laughed.

  “Trust really hit his head hard when he fell out of that truck.” Grace playfully defended me.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you’re feeling better,” Noah said perfectly. “I’d better run now,” he added. “Sister Treat wants me to look at her wheat.”

  He was smooth.

  Noah walked down from the podium, shaking people’s hands and patting them on their backs. The confidence the guy radiated couldn’t be contained on the North American continent, let alone in the room. I couldn’t believe that someone with the first name of Noah could be so suave. Grace smiled at me knowingly.

  “Colonel Sanders, huh?” She laughed.

  “What?”

  “You’re not jealous, are you?”

  “Me jealous of him? I mean, just because he’s good-looking and sort of stylish. . . .”

  “He does look nice today, doesn’t he,” Grace reflected.

  Darn that sweater.

  “I’m just wondering why you never mentioned what he looked like before.”

  “I didn’t think it was important,” she teased. “Besides, you know I’m not really into good-looking guys.”

  “Thanks,” I martyred, as we began to walk down from the stand.

  I was going to go on and on about how hurt I was, milking it for all it was worth, when suddenly there was Lucy. I actually hollered, making myself look guilty.

  “Ahhhhh!”

  “Hello, Trust,” Lucy said, obviously pleased by my reaction.

  Lucy looked great. No, better than great. She looked as if she had tossed aside her old self and was now emerging as something completely new and fascinating. Her blue eyes had been so shallow, but now they looked deep and cloudy. I could tell that the last little while had really worked her over and was forcing her to look at life differently.

  “Lucy, what are you doing here?” I asked, still startled and standing in front of Grace as if to hide her. It was a bad move.

  “I’m back in my parents’ home,” Lucy informed us. “They’ll be out of the country for another month still. I wanted to come to church so badly. Lance didn’t really
approve of me going.”

  Grace squeezed my arm harder than necessary as she stepped out from behind me.

  “Oh, yes,” I fumbled. “Lucy, I would like you to meet Grace Heck. Grace, this is Lucy Fall. She’s an old friend of mine.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Lucy said dispassionately.

  “Nice to meet you, Lucy,” Grace replied kindly.

  I thought now would have been a good time to end this discussion, but Lucy felt otherwise.

  “Well, Trust, you look better than you did the other day,” she commented, digging my grave by big, huge shovelfuls. “Your hair’s growing back nicely.”

  “The other day?” Grace inquired.

  I tried lamely to cover my tracks. “Didn’t I tell you about Lucy stopping by the hospital?”

  “I don’t remember you mentioning that.” Grace smiled.

  “I just stopped by to say hi to Trust,” Lucy explained. “Ever since Lance left, I’ve been so lonely. When I heard that Trust was in the hospital, I thought it might help me feel better to visit an old friend.”

  “Who left?” Grace asked.

  “My husband, Lance,” Lucy said sorrowfully. “Or I guess I should say my ex-husband. The divorce has already gone through.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Grace consoled.

  “It’s better this way,” Lucy sighed. “Well, I should get going,” she added. “I just wanted to say hi again, and thank you for cheering me up.”

  “No problem,” I lied.

  “It was nice meeting you, Grace.”

  “You too, Lucy. I hope things work out for you.”

  Lucy managed a smile.

  Grace stood there still holding my arm tightly as Lucy walked away. I was in for it. I had meant to tell Grace about Lucy, but it had slipped my mind. There was no way I could ever be interested in Lucy again. She was just an old friend who needed some comfort. It would be wrong of me to simply abandon those in need because they were beautiful ex-girlfriends that I used to obsess over.

  “She seems nice,” Grace said coyly as we both watched Lucy wander off.

  “I meant to tell you about her stopping by the hospital,” I tried.

  “I’m sure you did.”

  “Seriously.”

  “I believe you,” Grace toyed with me. “That’s too bad about her marriage.”

  “Isn’t it,” I said, trying to sound sincere.

  “She sure is pretty,” Grace observed. “She’s even more beautiful than her picture.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” I said, quickly adding, “and what picture have you seen of her? I don’t remember ever having shown you one.”

  “There was one in your house.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s not important,” Grace insisted.

  “Seriously,” I persisted. “I didn’t know we had one around.”

  “There’s that one,” Grace said. “On that table by the nook.”

  “Oh,” I said, not realizing that we had a nook.

  “So were you trying to hide me from Lucy?” Grace asked accusingly as she moved on. “You’re not embarrassed by me, are you?”

  “No,” I said, slower than I should have. “It was just a reflex. Like a spasm or something.”

  “A spasm?”

  “Or something.”

  “Oh.”

  “Really, I get them all the time.”

  “How attractive,” Grace joked.

  “I mean they’re not real noticeable.”

  “We’d better get to Sunday School,” Grace said, changing the subject. “Wendy’s probably still waiting in the foyer.”

  As we walked out of the chapel, Wendy was nowhere to be seen, but Doran was waiting for us. He stepped up and addressed Grace.

  “Hello, Doran,” she replied.

  “Grace, I was wondering if you would accompany me to Sunday School?” He stuck his arm out eagerly for her to latch on.

  “Actually—” Grace began to say.

  “I know you’re still seeing Trust,” he interrupted. “But I’m just asking for thirty minutes of your time. If you don’t feel differently about me after that, then I’ll try another approach.”

  “Doran, don’t you think this is a little—” I was interrupted.

  “You know,” Grace said, “maybe I’ll take you up on that, Doran. Trust needs a little time to think about his reflexes.”

  Grace took Doran’s arm and walked off down the hall. I stood there in the now-empty foyer feeling like a pair of glasses on a blind man—worthless. The two full-time missionaries, Elder Nicks and Elder Minert, came down the hall and walked up to me.

  “Have you seen Grace Heck?” Elder Minert asked.

  “No, why?” I asked despondently.

  “My companion wants to get her address so he can write her when he gets home.”

  Elder Nicks blushed.

  “She went that way.” I pointed.

  The two elders skipped off toward the Relief Society/gospel doctrine classroom. I walked outside of the church building, across the street, and all the way home. When everyone got back from church, Grace went directly to Wendy’s house without even stopping to check in on me. She also skipped our family dinner, not even bothering to call to inform us that she wasn’t coming. When I walked over to her place later that night, Wendy gave me some lame excuse about Grace already having gone to bed.

  I was beginning to worry.

  17

  A Little Closer

  Few things had ever stirred up Thelma’s Way as much as the offer of having their picture put on the front of a book did. Everyone was trying frantically to locate the missing Book of Mormon.

  By default, Roger Williams was actually doing the town a great favor. For so long most of the members in the area had been inactive. Now everyone was asking President Heck for forgiveness, and begging him to be assigned to as many home teaching and visiting teaching families as possible. To the locals this seemed like the best way to get into people’s homes to take a look around. People were showing up at each other’s houses with pies and bread and lessons that required them to stay for a while. Folks were even teaching those that had already been taught, bringing the home teaching percentage to 140 percent, and visiting teaching to 112. In two days the attitude of the entire valley had changed. And in the process everyone was forgetting why they had stayed away from church. Sure, they all knew that the reason people were visiting them was because of the Book of Mormon, but they didn’t care. It was just so nice to be getting along.

  Sunday morning sacrament meeting was packed. The branch presidency had to call upon the members to bring lawn chairs and grain drums for people to sit on. They lined the aisles with makeshift seats and large quilts. They were sprawling out on the floor and sitting on each other’s laps. Even the seats up around the podium were filled. President Heck sat with Toby Carver and Leo Tip looking out at the biggest crowd they had ever drawn. And Roger Williams sat on the other side of President Heck as the branch’s guest of honor.

  President Heck stood up and began the meeting. “Brothers and Sisters,” he said. “Never in the history of Thelma’s Way has there been so many members at one sacrament meeting. Now I ain’t so backwards as to pretend why you’re all here, but I’m sure God is happy to see you, even if it’s greed that brought you in.” President Heck cleared his throat and sniffed his nose.

  “Now this last week was Thanksgiving,” President Heck continued. “It’s a time to remember the pioneers. I hope that while you were all eating you took just a tick to think about those poor people that founded this great country. I know I did. I also took time to think about each of you, and be thankful for your company. But I suppose I’m most thankful for my family. The wife can harp a bit, and Digby ain’t doing as good in math as I’d like him to. But they’re blood, and I’m grateful to ’em,” he said elegantly.

  “We miss Grace,” he continued. “She didn’t actually hang around the home as much as we’d like her to done do, but still we m
iss her. Why just last night Narlette was talking about her. Isn’t that true, Narlette,” President Heck asked out to his daughter in the crowd.

  “Yes, Daddy,” she hollered back.

  “Kids can be so sweet sometimes,” President Heck pointed out. “And I’d be mighty neglectful if I didn’t say that we miss Elder Williams. That boy did more for this meadow than I care to recap. I don’t think there is a soul here that didn’t have some conversation or interaction with Elder Williams. He was good stock.”

  Roger Williams tried to stare passively out at the crowd. There had still not been a single person in Thelma’s Way who had made the connection between him and Trust.

  President Heck put both hands on the pulpit and straightened his arms. “I feel inspired to be honest with you,” he went on. “This Book of Mormon thing makes me a little jittery. Not since I gave up smoking for the final time have I been so shaky about something. I don’t really like us all smiling at each other just so that we can peek up our neighbors’ knickers. But I feel a comfort knowing that this book-writing Roger Williams has the same last name as our Elder Williams. I know we’re not supposed to be sniffing around for signs, but this one smells right. I figure if the Williams name has done us right once, then the Williams name will do us right twice.”

  The congregation began to whisper amongst themselves, commenting enthusiastically about how much sense this made.

  After the services, Roger Williams headed back to the boardinghouse to rest in his room. He had a couple of hours before he needed to go over to Sister Teddy Yetch’s home for dinner.

  Roger’s shoulders hung heavy as he walked. This whole thing was taking way too long, and each hour longer seemed to make things more complicated. He hoped with all his heart that it wouldn’t be someone like President Heck, or Sister Watson, or Toby Carver, or Narlette, or CleeDee, or . . . he hoped that whoever found the Book of Mormon would be someone that he had not begun to grow attached to. Roger didn’t know if he could honestly look them in the face and take it away.