“Charmed,” Aldine said, but she didn’t shake hands because a tradesman was waiting on Mrs. Nith’s front step and looking over now and then, tilting his black umbrella.
Elder Lance had an upturned nose, which leaked in the cold, and his teeth, what he showed of them when he tried to smile, were faintly gingery like his hair and freckles. Both men were wearing cloth gloves and holding books within the shelter of their umbrellas, and their coats were clean but of poor fit and quality.
“And what would you be elders of?” Aldine asked just as Leenie said, from the parlor, “Oh, you wooly piece of shit!”
Elder Cooper colored slightly. “We’re not selling anything,” he said, “if that’s what’s worrying your . . .”
“That’s just my sister,” Aldine said, “and she doesn’t mean you.”
Leenie came up behind her. “This here’s Elder Cooper,” Aldine said. “And that one’s Elder Lance.”
Aldine knew that now she was the one being compared. Since earliest childhood Aldine had drawn pictures of herself with straight lines—her straight brown hair, her too-long legs, her too-long neck and arms, and she had very little bosom besides—whereas pictures of her sister, had she drawn them, would’ve flown from pleasing sweeps to curves. Leenie had gotten her full share of buxomness and Aldine’s besides, and if that were not enough, Leenie’s hair got all the curl.
Aldine could feel Leenie’s irritation, so she added, “Not sure what the elder part means yet.”
“We’re from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Elder Forehead said in a rush, as if he expected them to step back and shut the door. His umbrella was too large to fit next to his companion’s, so the other man stood a step behind, and rain flowed down the metal tips of their umbrella spokes and splashed on pink stones that were so wet the men might have been statues standing in a fountain. “We have a message to share with you.”
Leenie gave out a laugh that sounded frisky, to Aldine’s surprise. “Did you not announce you weren’t selling anything?”
The ginger one held his umbrella tightly and said, “We’re not selling anything,” and Elder Forehead jumped in with, “We’re here because we have something to give.”
Aldine almost laughed at that. What, she would later wonder while smoking cigarettes in a poorly insulated Kansas schoolhouse, would have happened to her and Leenie if the men had not seemed so comically earnest, like a pair of stray dogs? Was Elder Cooper the right man or the wrong man if you applied the Allegory of the Japanese Man?
Aldine checked the street (no one was passing and Mrs. Nith’s visitor had gone in) and said, “It’s Baltic out. Would you care for tea?”
2
Leenie thought Aldine would send them packing, so she was as shocked as the men were when Aldine asked them in.
“Are you alone here?” the good-looking one asked.
“Oh, no,” Leenie said, because she didn’t want them to think they were defenseless. “We live with our aunt.”
“Shall we introduce ourselves?” Elder Forehead asked.
“She’s very reclusive,” Aldine said, and Leenie almost laughed.
There were open jars of Silver and Golden Shred on the tray in the living room—lemon marmalade for Aldine, orange for Leenie. Empty cups and crumbs making it obvious tea was already over, and that only two of them had been drinking it, but no one brought up the aunt again.
The ginger boy tugged off his gloves, laid them on the sofa, then must have seen—as Leenie had—the dark spot where he’d been touching the glove to his runny nose, because at once he turned them over. Leenie decided it was Aldine’s monkey pile—Aldine asked them in; she could entertain them—so she settled herself on the pink velvet sofa beneath the stilled curl of the Japanese wave and picked up the chart for the sweater that was driving her insane. Aldine took the hint and carried the teapot to the kitchen to refill.
“Knitting?” the ginger one asked.
Leenie nodded. Obviously, she refrained from adding. But then the other one, Cooper, started talking, and he had a way about him.
“Are you twins?” Cooper asked her. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Leenie, right?” Later she would learn that he often sat that way when talking to people, giving them his full attention.
“Yes, as in Eileen. We’re not twins, though. I’m the eldest. Can’t you tell?”
He shook his head. “Do you have any other brothers and sisters?”
“Nay.”
A slight pause, not at all awkward. The rain running down the window glass and thudding on the roof. The room warmer because he was in it.
“What are you knitting?”
“A jumper. It’s for myself because it’d be cruel to make anyone wear a thing that I knitted.”
“I think it looks nice. I’d wear it.” His smile was large and unforced. He had such unspoiled teeth and a small, humble-seeming crinkle around the eyes when he grinned.
“Oh, I doubt that, but thanks. What about you? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes,” he said. “Four. A brother that’s fifteen and three younger sisters.”
“How lucky!” Leenie said. “I love big families.” She realized she hadn’t asked the ginger one anything and he was just staring around the room. “And you? Do you have a giant family also?”
“I have two younger brothers,” he said.
“And where are they?”
“Kansas. That’s where my family lives.”
“What’s that like? Kansas?”
“A lot drier than this,” he said.
Before Aldine even came back with a fresh pot and scones and butter and smoked venison sandwiches, Leenie had decided she liked them both, but especially Cooper. He was so boyish and clean seeming, as if he’d been carved from a bar of soap and brought to life. It was hard going, though, when the preaching started. Leenie tried not to look horrified when Cooper stopped grinning and became very serious and said he wanted to tell them about a fifteen-year-old boy who saw two angel-people hovering above him in the woods.
As Cooper spoke—Joseph Smith this, Joseph Smith that—Leenie hoped he couldn’t tell that she was pondering his forehead and his sea-water eyes and that she was wishing he would stop preaching and start talking about home or anything at all besides revelations. When Cooper said Joseph Smith prayed for wisdom, Leenie nodded stiffly. He then told quite a long story about how God appeared to Joseph in what Cooper seemed to be calling a pillow of light.
To avoid commenting on something so outlandish, Leenie asked, “More tea?” even though their cups were still full.
“I’m sorry. We can’t,” Cooper said.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Leenie asked.
“We don’t drink tea or coffee. It’s part of our faith,” Lance said. “No alcohol, either. And we don’t smoke.”
“No tea? Ever?”
“Ever.”