"We're fighting about money," said Step.
"We're not fighting at all," said DeAnne. "We're worrying together."
"I'll stick with the job for a while. But if it starts looking like Ray's going to change his policy, I'm quitting on the spot. Not even giving notice. I can't afford to give up this Agamemnon thing."
"Fine, that's good."
But it wasn't good, Step knew. Ray Keene wouldn't give any advance signals that he was going to change his mind. He'd just send around another memo, announcing that Eight Bits Inc. was going to support the PC. It wouldn't even mention that there had ever been a different policy. And there Step would be, holding that new memo, feeling his future slip away. I'll be under Dicky's control, then, Step thought. For years and years and years.
Still, at the moment he knew that DeAnne's fears were more important than his. So he would stay on the job, and they would just have to pray that Ray Keene would be really stupid.
To help ease the tension, Step took over fixing dinner. It was simple-toasted tuna and cheese sandwiches-and while he was doing it, DeAnne could go lie down. But she stayed in the kitchen and tore up lettuce for a salad. Step knew that her way of relaxing was to be with him, to talk to him. His way was exactly the opposite. What he needed was to be alone in the kitchen, fixing dinner, concentrating on the task at hand, letting his tension slip away. But DeAnne could never seem to understand that. When she saw that he was tense or upset or worried, she tried to minister to him, fuss over him, chat with him until he wanted to scream, Just leave me alone! He never did, though. Now he stayed in the kitchen with her as she talked about her day, letting her unwind, knowing that he would be able to get off by himself later, that when he sat down at the 64 in his office and started working on the Hacker Snack adaptation again, he could shut everything out and that would be good solo time for him.
As Step was still mixing up the tuna and Miracle Whip, the phone rang. It was a woman. "Is this Mr.
Fletcher?"
"Yes," said Step. "And who is this?"
"I'm Lee Weeks's mother. I understand you want to take him somewhere tonight."
Step was puzzled. He hadn't called Lee Weeks yet. He was too busy. It was nearly the end of the month, and so he needed to call him if he was going to get any of his May home teaching done. He had even said so to DeAnne. But he hadn't actually called Lee Weeks. And he certainly had not planned on going out home teaching tonight.
"Just a second," he said on the phone. "Can you hold on for a second?"
"Of course," said Mrs. Weeks.
Step covered the handset and looked at DeAnne. "It's my home teaching companion's mother. She thinks I'm planning to take him somewhere tonight."
"Yes," said DeAnne. "I called her for you. I thought you wanted me to help you get it scheduled."
"Tonight?" asked Step. "You didn't mention it to me."
"I didn't actually talk to anybody," said DeAnne. "I left a message on her machine, that's all. That you wanted to take him home teaching. I don't think I said tonight, but maybe something I said gave her that impression."
Step uncovered the phone. "Sorry for the delay," he said. "Yes, I wanted to take Lee home teaching. I've been assigned as his companion. What we do is, we go visit in the homes of a few families in the ward. We teach a little lesson, we see if they need anything. Like a permanent Welcome Wagon, without the gift certificates."
She laughed. "Well, that certainly sounds fine. But I'd like to meet you before you take him. You know that he doesn't drive. Sometimes he tries to, and you must understand that he is not to drive. He doesn't have a license. And I need to meet you, I think."
"Yes," said Step. "I'd be glad to meet you, and I won't let him drive." How old did she think her son was?
At nineteen, the poor kid still had his mother screening anybody who came to pick him up and take him anywhere. And she made such a point of his not driving.
Maybe he's an epileptic or something. Maybe he can't drive and it isn't just that she's being overprotective.
Give the woman the benefit of the doubt.
"Lee will be ready at seven-thirty," said Mrs. Weeks. "Do you think you can have him home by nine?"
"Between nine and nine-thirty," said Step. "We wouldn't be able to visit anybody later than that anyway."
"Well, I'll look forward to meeting you, then."
She gave him the directions and they said their good-byes.
Step went back to the tuna fish, feeling glum. "I was all set to really plunge into Hacker Snack tonight," he said. "This wasn't a night that I wanted to go home teaching."
"I'm sorry," said DeAnne. "I've been thinking through what I said, and I'm sure tha t all I said was that my husband, Stephen Fletcher, wanted to set up an appointment to go home teaching with Lee Weeks. She's the one who interpreted that to mean tonight."
"Fine," said Step. "I wasn't blaming you." DeAnne seemed really upset. Or worried, anyway. She still hadn't calmed down since the conversation about quitting. "She sounds nice."
"So you're going home teaching then?"
"Yes," said Step.
She seemed relieved. What, had she worried that he was somehow drifting away from the Church? Why would it relieve her when he went home teaching?
Never mind.
He turned the heat on the griddle. "If the salad's ready then I'll start toasting the sandwiches," he said.
"Yes, sure," said DeAnne. "I'll call the kids." She struggled to her feet and left the room.
Two months left, thought Step, and she's already so big she's got the pregnant-woman waddle. What's it going to be like for her by the end of July?
Lee Weeks lived in a simple ranch-style house out in the county, but there was a lot of yard around it and it was all meticulously landscaped and manicured. And the driveway was a turnaround. La-di-da, thought Step as he drove up and parked at the front door.
Mrs. Weeks answered the door. She was slim, and Step imagined that she probably thought of herself as tall, though of course she was much shorter than he was. She brought him into the living room and engaged him in conversation; he was aware that she was extracting information from him, but it wasn't really the information he expected her to be interested in. She did ask what he did for a living-the standard American status measurement--but then she went on to talk about an odd array of things, includ ing local politics.
Gradually it dawned on him that she was testing him. But for what? She found out that he thought the mixed-race city schools should be consolidated with the mostly-white county schools. That he opposed Jesse Helms and his racist attacks on Governor Hunt, his probable opponent in the next election. What could this possibly have to do with Lee? Yet it was only when Lee's mother was certain that Step was a staunch civil rights supporter that she finally called her little boy into the room.
Little boy! When he walked into the room, Step realized that the kid must be at least six- five, because Step, at six-two, found himself staring straight into Lee's chin. Nineteen years old, tall enough to be an NBA guard, and his mother still wouldn't let him drive or go out with strangers until she interviewed them. Strange indeed.
Especially since he was really a good- looking kid. Surely somewhere along the line he would have found out that he was attractive to women and got himself out from under her thumb.
Lee was cheerful enough, though, and when they finally got out into the car, Lee started laughing. "Mom's really something, isn't she!"
"A very interesting woman."
"She treats everybody like a patient." Lee seemed to be full of barely smothered mirth.
"A patient?"
"Oh, she's a shrink, didn't you know? Couldn't you feel yourself being analyzed?"
"I guess I could," said Step.
"She's nice, though," said Lee.
That was a weird thing to say about your own mother, thought Step. And he said it with such detachment that she could have been anybody. His teacher. His chauffeur.
Which, in fact,
she was.
It was already well after eight o'clock, so Step had been right when he guessed that they'd probably only get to make one visit tonight. Step had decided on Sister Highsmith, an elderly widow, since she would presumably be glad to see them and wouldn't throw him any curves as he was introducing Lee to the idea of home teaching.
On the way to her house, he briefly told Lee what home teaching was all about.
"Oh, so we're not, like, giving a lesson," said Lee.
"A message is all. Very brief. And then drawing her out, letting her talk. She's been a widow for twenty years, and she's kind of a talker. Doesn't get much company, so whoever comes over is going to get an earful.
But that's fine-that's part of what we're coming for. To help her feel connected to the Church. To life."
"I thought you said this was your first time visiting these people."
"That's right. I've never met this sister, in fact. Or anyway, not that I remember."
"Then how do you know so much about her?" asked Lee.
"I don't know anything about her."
"She's a widow for twenty years, she's lonely, she's a talker..."
"Oh, well, that's just stuff that the elders quorum president knew about her. I mean, she's had home teachers before us."
"So we report on these people?"
"Man, you make it sound like we're spying," said Step, laughing.
Lee didn't laugh.
"Lee, it's not like that. We don't pry. People tell us what they want to tell us. Most of it's just like stuff you'd tell any friend. And we don't talk about it except if the Church needs to get involved. Like, for instance, this one family back in Vigor, Indiana, the dad was a trucker but he broke his leg playing touch football. They weren't even active in the Church, but I was their home teacher and I went to their house and the mom spilled her guts about how they didn't have any money and no insurance and they didn't know where to turn. She had a job, but as she said, she was getting paid like a woman, so they were not exactly going to make ends meet. They didn't have anything to eat till she got paid on Monday. So I invited them over to dinner at our house. And then I went and got her visiting teachers and we went to the store and did a week's worth of grocery shopping and dropped it off at their house."
"Oh," said Lee.
"We didn't tell anybody else in the ward except the bishop, and he got in touch with them about welfare assistance and it was all very discreet. You see what they need, and then you do it. If that's spying, I wish I had more spies in my life." Which was true enough-presumably someone had been assigned to home teach Step's family, but they had never shown up. Home teaching was a great idea, but it just didn't happen all that often, and when it did it usually wasn't much more than dropping by, taking up a half hour with empty conversation, and then saying, Well, let us know if you need anything, and then they were gone till the last day of the next month. No need to tell Lee that yet, though. Why not let him think that Mormons actually took home teaching seriously and watched out for each other faithfully? There'd be plenty of time to be disillusioned later, and in the meantime Lee might have got into the habit of doing it right.
When they got to Sister Highsmith's apartment building, Step and Lee waited in the car for a moment while Step led them in a short prayer. Help us know what she needs and provide it for her, help her know that she can rely on us-that sort of prayer. Then they went up to the door and knocked.
It took forever for her to get to the door, but when she got there it was as if she were receiving royalty. She was dressed to the nines and her stark white hair looked as though she had just stepped out of a beauty parlor.
She was gracious and elegant, as was her home, though it tended to be a little too knick-knacky for Step's taste.
A grandma house, he decided, a grandma house where the grandchildren never came, so that nothing had ever had to be put up out of the reach of children.
But there were pictures of children, and so Step asked about them, and that was good for fifteen minutes of talk about how wonderful they were but their parents just didn't seem to take the gospel seriously and the children were downright frivolous sometimes, all except her son's eldest girl, who was quite a serious child and wrote to her once a month, without any prompting from the girl's parents, which is a very fine thing in this day and age when children have no respect.
When that subject wound down-that is, when Sister Highsmith started asking about his family-he answered her briefly and then commented on the fact that she didn't seem to have a southern accent. That was good for another fifteen minutes about all the moving around that she and Nick had done before he retired from the military and they settled in Steuben. He died a year to the day after he retired, even though he had just invested most of their savings and all of her inheritance in a little fast- food franchise, but it turned out that Der Wienerschnitzel just didn't do all that well in Steuben. It just wasn't a southern franchise, they realized too late-southerners didn't want mustard and onions on their hot dogs, they wanted chili and Cole slaw and they also wanted a place to sit down and they weren't go ing to pay Der Wienerschnitzel prices to do it. So the business wound down and even though she lost all that money, she didn't mind, because she had plenty of pension money on top of social security and her life with Nick had been a good life and if he had lived he would have made the franchise work, she was sure of it. So now it was just a matter of waiting until the Lord saw fit to take her home to heaven so she could be with Nick again.
"Do you really think he's in heaven?" asked Lee.
It was the first thing he had said in Sister Highsmith's house after the initial greeting, and the question just hung there in the air for a moment, as Sister Highsmith tried to discern whether he was challenging her assessment of her husband's righteousness.
"Brother Weeks here is new in the Church," Step explained. "I don't think he's suggesting that Brother Highsmith isn't in heaven, I think he's asking a doctrinal question."
"Oh, yes," said Lee. "I didn't think of it that other way-no, of course he's in heaven! I mean, even people who open hot dog franchises can still go to heaven, right?" He laughed, and Sister Highsmith and Step politely laughed along, though Step was meanwhile thinking, OK, let's get this boy out of here. Apparently Mommy hasn't given Lee much chance to learn what you do and don't say, and what you do and don't joke about.
"What I was asking," said Lee, "was whether you think your husband is a god."
Step cringed inside. What had the LeSueurs taught this boy? Step loathed the way tha t some Mormons bandied about the idea of godhood as if it were first prize at the county fair and really good Mormons would bring it home like a giant stuffed bear.
"I mean that's what first attracted me to the Mormons," said Lee. "Was the idea that human beings can become gods. I've always felt that. And then I saw this movie about how that's what you Mormons all believe and so I phoned up the church here in town and the missionaries came by."
"What was the movie?" asked Step. "Was it by any chance called The Godmakers?"
"Yes, that was it," said Lee.
"That's an anti-Mormon film," said Step. "It distorts our doctrines beyond all recognition. And the answer to your question is no, Sister Highsmith does not believe that her husband is a god. He's a man, and a good man-am I right, Sister Highsmith?"
"The very best sort of man," she said. "He became a colonel before he retired."
"Yes," said Step, "and now his spirit has left his body behind and he lives on with those of his family who died before him. But Lee, becoming holy and perfect enough to fully share in God's work is very rare and when it does happen it would happen only after long development and a long, long time after death and to most people it never comes at all. It's not like becoming a colonel." And then, to help Lee realize that the discussion should now end, Step added, "And it's not a doctrine that we discuss much." Or at least, if we have any sense of proportion we don't discuss it much. We don't even understand what Joseph Smith mean
t by it, for heaven's sake! Much better to concentrate on things like loving your neighbor and trying not to screw up your life and the lives of everybody around you than to get into mysterious doctrines.
Apparently mysterious doctrines were all that Lee wanted to talk about. "I think about becoming a god all the time," he said. "I think it would be neat to design planets and stuff. I could sure do a better job than this world."
Sister Highsmith blanched, and Step knew that she would not be reluctant if he now got Lee out of the house. "Well," Step said, "it was wonderful to meet you, Sister Highsmith. Can we have a word of prayer before we go?"
"Oh, do you have to go already?" she said.
Step cringed again, waiting for her to say the obligatory Don't go, wait awhile, it's early yet.
But she didn't say it. "Well, how sweet of you two to come by. And I'd be glad if you'd say the prayer, Brother Fletcher."
Yes, Lee had really put the stamp of strangeness on this evening. Sister Highsmith was glad to see them go-not exactly the best finish for the evening.
Out in the car, Lee seemed oblivious to the idea that he might have said something wrong. "That was neat," he said. "To be able to talk like that about things that I've just kept bottled up inside for years. I mean, that's the best thing about the Mormons, I can tell my secret thoughts and people understand. Not like Mom, I can't tell her anything or she just analyzes me to death."
I can understand that, thought Step, if you talk very much about becoming a god. To a psychologist, no less!
"I can feel it inside me, you know," said Lee. "All the time. Sometimes even a voice. And I know that it's the voice of God, it's the presence of God, just like Sister LeSueur told me. She said she had a vision about me, that I had the seeds of godhood inside me and I was just waiting for the gospel to bring it out of me. Some times I think that if I could just strip away all the weakness of this body that just ties me down to earth I could fly.
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