“I told you he wasn’t my Japanese man. Anyway, I told him not to come round for a while.”
Aldine knew she should feel a bit sorry for George at this moment, but she didn’t. He worked at a motor shop, played darts, and drank but wasn’t the one to lead in anything, even a lark, and he’d once said Aldine reminded him of Buster Keaton.
Leenie said there was a church meeting they could attend a week later in Glasgow, where no one would know them (the Cream Pot having proved overly public), and she wanted to be able to say they’d read the whole book by then. “Let’s keep going. It’ll get more thrilling, maybe.”
It did not, not even when they skipped. Somewhere in the second book of Neffy, Aldine said she was pretty sure it was all blether.
Leenie lay flat on her back, eyes on the sloped wallpapered ceiling that was pink rose after pink rose. “Why?”
“Well, for starters, God and Jesus appearing to a runt of a farmer boy in the woods,” Aldine said, snorting a little.
“No,” Leenie said decisively. “That I believe dead certain, like Elder Cooper does. Think on it, Deenie. It’s no more peculiar than Jesus rolling back the stone of his tomb after he died, and look how many loads of people believe that.”
“No,” Aldine said. “It’s not the same at all.”
“It’s less peculiar, the fact is. Haven’t you ever been somewhere alone,” Leenie said, “like the hill above the Doon when there’s a low fog, and you see sun poke through in a column, like? I think that’s what it was for Joseph, only he saw God.” Leenie stopped to pick something off the tip of her tongue; then she inhaled again.
“You mean he saw the sun and it was like God or it was God?”
“Oh, was. Why not?”
Leenie always did fancy herself a mystic. “Why doesn’t God step through the sun for everybody then?” she asked. “And save all the babies that choke on lumps of bread.”
“I don’t know about the babies. Nobody does. But most people don’t pray for wisdom,” she said. “And they don’t listen, either.”
“Did you?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
Leenie shook her head and stubbed out her cigarette in the ceramic dish that had been painted, inexpertly, with a picture of Castle Culzean. “I prayed to ask if it was true.”
“And what?”
“The answer was yes.”
Aldine was astounded. “I think the answer was that you love Elder William Cooper’s forehead and you want to lie with him in the biblical manner.”
Leenie took the book back from Aldine and said, “You’ve never believed in God. That’s why you can’t stop thinking everything’s lust.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t dream of him ravishing you nightly.”
“He’s a missionary. It’s like asking if I’m gone on the reverend.”
“I can’t believe it. Sedge is going to die ten thousand deaths when you tell her,” Aldine said. “He’s your Japanese man.”
“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. In any case, I’m not going to stop believing something that makes me feel right inside.”
“Are you going to marry him and leave me here on Bellevue Crescent with Aunt Sedge?”
“Don’t be silly. Missionaries can’t go around with girls or talk about love with their converts.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. He’s never said an improper word and neither have I.”
“Don’t move to America.”
“All right,” Leenie said. “I’m going to sleep now.” As usual, Leenie was asleep in two seconds, and Aldine lay awake wondering what would happen when Elder Cooper took his soul-winning forehead home.
4
Three Saturdays later, the four of them knelt down in an empty park, grass soaking their knees, and prayed for the Spirit to tell them the church was true. What Aldine saw while her knees were soaking was Elder Cooper’s focused eyes, the concentrated force of his passion—it looked like faith but it could have been love—every time he looked at Leenie.
“Are you ready to be baptized?” Elder Cooper asked.
“Yes,” Leenie said.
“But the tea,” Aldine said to Leenie. “She can’t live without it,” she said to Cooper.
“I’m not worried,” Leenie said.
Aldine wanted to ask was she worried about giving up tarries, but she didn’t.
“How about you,” Cooper asked Aldine. He did the thing with his eyes.
“I’ll think on it,” Aldine said.
The Saturday after that, Leenie told Aunt Sedge she was going to the Cream Pot, but where she really meant to go was the mouth of the Doon for baptism, which it turned out was not a sprinkling on the forehead but a full dunking. She would need to wear all white (“Like a bride?” Aldine said) and go all the way underwater.
“No,” Aldine said. “You’re not doing that.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I could tell Sedge.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I might.”
“I don’t care. She can’t stop me, either. People have always done what their faith told them to do.”
“You’re not Joan of Arc.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You’re going to become a Mormon and then you’re going to go to America and marry him.”
“I told you he hasn’t said a word about love.”
Leenie started to put on her graduation dress: white pongee in a sailor style.
“That’s what you’re wearing to meet John the Baptist?”
Leenie pressed on the pleats of the skirt. “Don’t worry,” she said. “If I go to America, I’ll go to the temple place for you and Mum and Dad someday.”
Cooper had shown them a picture of a cathedral-type building in Salt Lake City. He said you could go there and do a thing (Aldine couldn’t recall what), say some words, and it was a spell, kind of, and you’d be joined to your family even if they were dead already.
Leenie kissed her and covered her white graduation getup with a coat, and she must have gotten by Aunt Sedge all right because Aldine saw her walking swiftly down the sidewalk to High Street. She found her again on the bank where the Doon met the Irish Sea, a beautiful spot for anything but going swimming in your clothes. Elder Cooper and Elder Lance were standing there looking a little ridiculous because they, too, were wearing white. As Aldine stood behind a tree, Leenie scuffled down the steep, muddy bank into the cold, brown water. She felt dishonest hiding from them all, so she stepped out, called hello, and waved.
Leenie waved back.