Love's Labors Tossed

by Robert Farrell Smith

  “Where should I put them?” he asked as if confused.

  “Put them in your pockets.”

  “I don’t have any front pockets,” he informed me. “I cut out the bottom of them so that I could stick my arms down in and scratch my legs in private.”

  I shook my head. “Put them in the back ones then.”

  “The front of my legs ain’t the only things that get itchy.”

  We secured the base and made corrections where we thought they were necessary. By the time we were done, it was too dark out to test it properly. Ed whined, however, until we agreed to give it just one fling.

  “We need something to use,” I said.

  “I’ve got just the thing,” Leonard volunteered.

  A few minutes later he came back with a thirty-pound medicine ball. The only time I had ever seen one before was at the gym back in Southdale.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Leonard said while setting it on the catapult.

  “We might not be able to find it once it’s flung,” I warned him.

  “That’s okay,” he waved. “I’ve got a couple more.”

  I turned to Ed. “Fire.”

  He pulled the rope, and the giant spring propelled that ball through the air at such a breakneck speed that I lost sight of it until it whizzed by the almost-full moon.

  “Wow,” Leonard whistled. “That thing could toss a mule to the Heck house.”

  There wasn’t much else to say, except maybe that Grover Fairfield, a carpenter who lived across the river and deep in the woods, now had a new, though unexpected, entryway in the front of his house.

  “This could come in handy,” Leonard added.

  “How?” I questioned with a smile.

  “I can think of a thousand things that I would simply like to fling away.”

  “A thousand,” Ed said in awe, as if contemplating such a high number made him dizzy.

  “I don’t know,” I wondered. “It sort of makes me nervous to have something like this lying around.”

  “Want me to shoot it up?” Pete asked, pulling out one of his guns.

  “No way,” Ed hollered. “This is my creation. My creation,” he repeated, having so liked the sound of it.

  Pete put his gun away, and we called it a night.

  All right. That’s not completely true. Pete put his gun away, and they called it a night. Me? I walked across the meadow and stepped into a big old pile of complications.

  20

  The Dead Make Lousy Chaperones

  The night was vacant, the moon making the surroundings look two-dimensional and thin—I breathed with caution, afraid to blow the dark away. Everyone had turned in. Even the boardinghouse looked unusually dead. Before I made it there, however, I was stopped by the sound of someone’s calling my name.

  “Trust.”

  I really didn’t want to look.

  “Hope?”

  She was standing a few feet away and wearing shorts and a billowy shirt. I tried not to notice her amazing knees.

  “I guess Ed’s idea was a success,” she said soothingly, stepping up so close to me that if I were wearing a tie she could have been straightening it.

  I tried to step back, but her aura held me like a net.

  “Can we talk for a minute?” she asked, filling my personal space with her presence.

  “It’s kind of late,” I tried, looking around for someone to save me from myself.

  We were all alone.

  “It won’t take long,” she pouted.

  It was one powerful pout. I looked over at the cemetery and figured it was as good a place to converse as any. I prayed silently that the spirits of those who were dead might act as chaperones.

  “Let’s go to the cemetery,” I suggested.

  “Oh, you’re bad, Trust,” she cooed, lightly tapping my chest.

  “I’m not really,” I pleaded.

  She ignored me, walking over to the small gate by the bronze statue of Thelma. I had to follow, seeing how the whole cemetery thing was my “bad” idea. I wanted us to sit down by the Watson mausoleum, seeing how dead Bishop Watson’s corpse was lying in there. He had been my bishop when I first came out on my mission, and I needed him now. But as I tried to sit, Hope took my hand and pulled me to the back of the cemetery by the river. The Girth River was spilling up into the cemetery, its border practically touching the tombstones.

  “It’s so much prettier back here,” she insisted.

  I suppose if your definition of pretty is sitting by a large river under the moonlight, in a deserted—except for the dead—cemetery with a girl of unfathomable beauty, then it was all right. We sat down on the chairs that had been cemented at the head of Feeble and Roswell’s graves. I had helped dig the graves. Feeble’s was full, but Roswell’s coffin was empty because he had been presumed translated at that point. We had used their favorite porch chairs as headstones. It was much less expensive and provided a nice place to sit while visiting their graves. At the moment I cursed our frugality and practicality.

  The one nice thing was that since the chairs were permanently planted, Hope and I couldn’t scoot too close to each other.

  “I like it here,” Hope began.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to hold back my charm.

  “So you served a mission here?” she asked.

  “I did.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Um, hum.”

  “You’re quite the talker,” she laughed.

  “I’m engaged,” I pleaded, as if she were some terrorist torturing me for details.

  Hope laughed again.

  “I know. I’ve seen her,” she said nicely. “She’s beautiful. I’ve always thought red hair was so pretty. Me, I’m stuck with this mop.”

  “It’s not a mop,” I said with way too much I’m-totally-in-awe-of-your-earth-shattering-beauty in my voice.

  “Thanks, Trust.”

  “So how did you know about Thelma’s Way?” I asked.

  “My father was an explorer. He came through here many years ago. He would always talk about how beautiful the Girth River was and how perfectly secluded this place is. I wanted to see it for myself before he dies.”

  “Is he sick?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said with emotion. “While scaling the Himalayas he broke his back. He was trying to save a child trapped under an avalanche. He broke his back falling off an ice shelf. Even with his injuries he dug the child out and brought him back to safety. He collapsed after the experience, his body was so weak from the rescue. He probably would have been okay, but he got pneumonia, and now the doctors are giving him no more than a couple of months to live. That’s why I’m here painting, Trust. I want to bring the pictures home to him so that he can get one last look at this land that he loved.”

  We were silent for a few minutes while nature did everything it could to make this as uncomfortable for me as possible. The river shimmered, and a cool breeze brushed past us while the theater of the sky dropped shooting stars like it was the end of the world.

  “What about you?” I asked, wanting to talk about something that would distract us from our environment. “Is there a someone in your life?”

  “There was.” She answered so sadly that I wanted to wrap my arms around her and make everything better. “I’m sorry,” she tried to laugh. “It’s just that I’ve never talked to anybody about it before. I don’t know what it is about you, Trust. I just want to open up. I feel like I’ve known you before.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Thanks.” I still guessed.

  “He was a Spaniard,” she spilled. “His name was Rolio. We met at an art exhibit in Paris.”

  “You’ve been to Paris?”

  “Sure,” Hope waved it off. “We fell madly in love. One thing led to another, and he proposed to me at the pyramids in Egypt right after he bought me this necklace. I said yes, of course. I was in
love, Trust.”

  She had such a nice way of throwing my name around. Hope leaned over and showed me her necklace. Her shoulder brushed my arm.

  “It was made by an Egyptian woman with no arms. She actually makes these with her feet and mouth. It takes her a year to make just one. There are no more than fifteen in existence.”

  “With her feet?” I questioned.

  “With her feet.”

  A group of six deer walked by us to the right. They stopped and stared at us, their eyes catching the light of the moon. An owl hooted, and they walked away.

  “Those deer remind me of him,” she went on. “He was the head of the international animal rights group. Sadly, I think he cared for creatures more than he cared for me.”

  “So it didn’t work out?” I asked. “You and this guy.”

  “Rolio left me the day before our wedding for a woman he met on the subway in England.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Hope said, brushing tears from her eyes. “I know something better will come along. I’ve just got to have faith.”

  She was so spiritual.

  “Enough about me,” she turned to face me. “Tell me about you and Grace.”

  “There’s not much to say,” I said lamely. “We met just over there by that tree stump. And I asked her to marry me under a bridge in Southdale.”

  “How wonderful,” she said mercifully.

  “Yeah,” I said, suddenly embarrassed about Grace’s and my relationship.

  “I’m sure she’s everything you’ve ever wanted in a girl.”

  “She is great,” I confirmed.

  “I hope you two are very happy together.”

  “We are,” I said with less conviction than I needed.

  “Trust, can I tell you something?”

  “Sure,” I answered cautiously, shifting on Feeble’s headstone.

  “I really shouldn’t,” she hesitated. “But you’re being so open with me. It’s going to sound silly, but when I first saw you I wished so badly that you might be free. There was just something in the way you stood that made me like you right off. It must have been love at first sight,” she joked. “Just my luck, I fall for the married guy.”

  “Engaged,” I shouldn’t have added.

  Hope smiled. “Trust, you really are great. You make Rolio look like nothing.”

  The compliments didn’t hurt.

  “I just wish I had met you earlier,” she said.

  “Me too,” I heard myself say.

  I couldn’t believe it. Grace was my everything. Sure, Hope was knock-your-socks-off, make-every-other-woman-in-the-world-feel-bad-about-her-self-image beautiful. But she honestly had nothing on Grace.

  I looked over at the tree stump where Grace and I had met. I could still remember her face and how she looked when she woke me up. Our relationship had not always been easy, or even possible for that matter. But we had gone through a lot together, discovering in the process that we were made for each other. I had taken Grace back to Southdale, where she had seemed to change my entire town. Now here we were, waiting out the short while before our wedding. I started thinking about how smart short engagements were. A giggling couple that was walking through the cemetery interrupted my thoughts.

  It was the Knapworths, and they weren’t exactly tracting.

  “Hello, Trust. Hello, Grace,” Sister Knapworth said happily. “Whoa, that’s not Grace,” she suddenly noticed.

  I stood up quickly, looking as guilty as an alcoholic surrounded by empties. “You two know Hope, don’t you?”

  “Haven’t had the pleasure.” Sister Knapworth eyed her.

  “Nice to meet you.” Hope stood, looking far too beautiful to be alone with.

  “Where’s Grace?” Elder Knapworth asked, obviously not happy about what he saw.

  “She’s in Collin’s Blight with her mother.”

  “Oh,” they both said.

  “We were just talking,” I defended. “Hope’s new here and needed someone to talk to. Isn’t that right?” I asked her.

  “Trust was just keeping me company,” she said, putting her arm through mine. I shook it off.

  “I wasn’t keeping anyone company,” I insisted.

  “We’d better go,” they said.

  “Don’t go,” I begged.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, Trust,” Brother Knapworth said righteously. “But it looks wrong.”

  “There’s no wrong going on here.”

  “Good night, Hope,” he said. “I hope the graves you’re standing on didn’t witness anything inappropriate.”

  “I really should go too,” Hope said. “See you later, Trust.”

  Everyone left me. I was completely alone with myself. I have to say I could barely stand the company.

  21

  Candy from a Babe

  Cindy closed the door to the spare bedroom in Sister Watson’s house and smiled. It was the first honest and genuine thing she had done since she had arrived here.

  She was happy in a wicked way.

  The cemetery had been the perfect place to unleash the beginning of her plan—how nice of Trust to have suggested it. She couldn’t believe how closely the whole incident had mirrored that of the current book she was reading, Digging for Love, an account of Dusty Earth’s obsession with a long-dead grave digger named Newly Tilled. It was obvious that fate was with Cindy.

  This was going to be so much easier than she had anticipated. Trust was breakable. It was just a matter of time before he was completely fooled into falling for her. Sure, it would take a while, but he was a weak link in a short chain. The only thing Cindy need do was wait. She couldn’t push this too fast. She hated the fact that this course of action required her having to hang around Thelma’s Way a little longer than she had originally thought, but the sacrifice would be worth it.

  Trust would be hers.

  She couldn’t believe how willing these people were to accept her. She had been given a free room and unchecked kindness from everyone. She could manipulate these simple minds like clay—pushing and pounding them into flat doormats that she could walk over.

  Her next move was to back off a bit to give Trust some time to think about her. Much like the brilliant sea stewardess Glinda from her book Salted Passion, she had set the bait and would now wait to throw the net.

  Cindy could be patient this once. After all, once Trust was hers, she would never have to be patient again.

  22

  The Pain of Separation

  Friday morning I was awakened by a loud knock on my door. I rolled out of bed and opened it to find an angered Teddy Yetch holding an empty metal dish.

  “I was going to make you a pan of Tickberry bread, but after hearin’ what you done in the cemetery I decided against it.” Teddy threw the pan down and stomped off.

  “Wait, Sister Yetch . . .” It was too late.

  So the Knapworths had squealed. The word was probably all over town by now. I thought about writing a letter to the Knapworths’ mission president and telling on them for all the kissing and hand-holding they had been doing. What kind of people tell on another person for something that wasn’t even what the people thought it was? There was another knock on the door. I opened it up expecting to find Sister Watson wagging her finger at me. It was President Heck.

  I half wished for the finger.

  “President,” I said nervously, forgetting that he was the same person who could get excited about finding a rolling kitchen chair.

  “Can I come in?” he asked calmly.

  “Sure.”

  He stepped in and closed the door behind him. He walked to the window and looked down on the meadow. “That catapult sure is impressive,” he said, trying to make small talk.

  “Ed did most of it,” I explained.

  President Heck turned and sat down on the desk chair next to the bed. He then sighed as if there were air at the bottom of his toes that needed to come out.

  “You kn
ow, Trust, I have always thought of you as a son,” he said. “If there is anything you would like to tell me, I’m always there for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anything.”

  “Thanks, again.”

  “I mean it. Say you’re having a problem with stealing or morality,” he emphasized. “I’d be open to listen.”

  “I’d be happy to talk.”

  “So do you have something to say?”

  “Actually, I’m glad you mentioned it,” I said, trying to keep this conversation light. “I stole a pack of gum from the store in Virgil’s Find.”

  “What flavor?” he asked solemnly.

  “Strawberry.”

  “That’s my favorite.”

  I think he was expecting me to give him a piece.

  “I’m just kidding,” I clarified.

  He seemed disappointed.

  “Listen, Trust, I heard some things,” he said, making eye contact with me. “Seems folks are talking about you kissing Hope at the cemetery last night.”

  “I never kissed Hope,” I guffawed.

  “So it’s not true?” he asked with relief.

  “I went to the cemetery,” I tried to explain. “But I certainly didn’t kiss her.”

  “Trust.”

  “Honest,” I insisted. “I’m in love with, and engaged to, your daughter.”

  “Going to the cemetery seems like a silly way to show that.”

  “Hope wanted to talk,” I explained. “It’s no different than me going there with Nippy Ward or Sister Watson.”

  “Have you seen Nippy lately?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s different.”

  “You have to believe me. Nothing happened.”

  “Hope’s a beautiful girl,” he said as if he wasn’t listening to me. “I’m not too sure why she’s even here. But then again, I’m not too sure about a lot of things. But I know my daughter loves you. And I know that this isn’t going to make her happy.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “I’ll spread the word that you’re innocent. But you’d better talk to Grace before someone else does.”

  “I will.”

  “It’s too late. I’ve already told her,” he confessed.