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PART I
SPEAKING IN TONGUES

18

“HE WHAT?!” DOT hissed at lunch on Wednesday, horrified.

Dot’s horror made Marina even more gleeful. “He told Trey I could walk out with him on Friday and Saturday nights. Trey’s taking me out Friday. I don’t know where.”

“Without me?” she asked plaintively, which dampened Marina’s glee quite a bit.

“I— Well, yes. But you— You have your church activities then,” Marina said hesitantly. “You, um … You have a dance at church Friday, don’t you? I didn’t think you’d mind, especially if you asked Gene to go. He would, I bet.”

Dot blinked. “Uh … ”

“Golly, Dot, didn’t you even think of it?” Marina started to get excited again. “Gene went to your show and he really liked it. Why don’t you ask him if he’d like to go?”

Dot’s expression turned doubtful. “I don’t think that’s quite proper. That’s almost like asking him out on a date.”

“Even if you don’t want to ask him, you can tell him about it. I bet he’d get the hint. He can’t show up to a party he doesn’t know is happening.”

“That’s a ducky idea!”

“Hi, Marina.”

Marina was surprised when a girl in the class ahead sat beside her.

“Soooo who’s your highjohn?”

“Go chase yourself, Ruthie,” Dot clucked.

Ruthie ignored Dot, her eyes narrowing on Marina. “Well?”

“His name is Trey,” Marina said calmly, although her heart was thumping. She didn’t know if she was pleased to have caught the attention of Ruthie and her clique or not. She wanted to brag about him, but she didn’t want to open herself up to ridicule.

“Mmm hm. And what’s he do that he’s got that snazzy car?”

“He sells insurance.”

“Marina, you don’t have to answer her questions. She’s just jealous.”

Ruthie rolled her eyes. “Where’d you meet him?”

“Kresge’s.”

“He doesn’t look like the kind of man who’d go with someone like you.”

Marina knew it. Dot knew it. Trey knew it. Gene knew it. Every­one in school knew it. And yet … “He looks like he looks and he’s going with me, so I guess you need spectacles.” Dot choked on her milk, then started laughing. Marina gave Ruthie an innocent shrug and said, “Sorry.”

Ruthie curled her lip and flounced off.

Dot was still laughing, but Marina swirled her spoon in her chocolate pudding, no longer able to eat.

“Oh, Marina,” Dot sighed when she finally realized Marina wasn’t happy.

“It’s true,” she muttered. “It’s just a matter of time. I thought … I thought people would look at me differently if they knew about Trey, but they don’t. They just think Trey has an ulterior motive.”

Dot and Marina didn’t speak for the rest of the day. Marina was too sad. Dot knew there were no words to make it better.

“Dot!”

“Dot!”

“Dot!”

went the barks of little puppies at the end of the day as Marina and Dot were gathering their books.

Dot gave them the side-eye, but didn’t smile, didn’t chat, didn’t flirt. She had been doing this for the last three weeks, but they wouldn’t give up. “I wish Gene would come pick me up at school, too,” Dot grumbled.

“They’ve seen him at Kresge’s, haven’t they?” Marina asked as they headed toward the front doors.

She shrugged. “We both have beaux and our problems didn’t get solved. I thought … ”

Marina looked for Trey at the bottom of the long flight of stairs from the front doors of Paseo High School, but he wasn’t there. She heaved a sigh. “I thought too, Dot,” she muttered.

“Did he get tired of you, Marina?” Ruthie sing-songed in her ear.

“He has a job, Ruthie,” Dot sniped. “More than I can say for the dewdroppers in your family.”

“You’re such a ritz,” Ruthie snarled.

“And you’re a ritzy burg,” Dot returned sweetly.

“Marina!”

Marina’s heart stopped and she looked up the street to see Trey waving at her. “Trey!” she yelled back. “Golly, Dot, look!”

But she’d already seen. “Gene!” Dot squealed and waved.

Both men looked like the cat that ate the canary and leaned back against Trey’s car, folding their arms over their chests.

Dot stopped cold and looked at Ruthie. “That,” she said, “is my beau.”

Ruthie sniffed. “He looks Sicilian.”

“A very handsome Sicilian. If he were. But he’s not. So I guess he’s just plain ol’ handsome.”

Marina snickered.

“C’mon, Marina. We have men waiting for us.”

Happy as a lark now that Trey was here, Marina clipped down the stairs with Dot. He made everything so much better, and now she was getting impatient with high school and the catty girls and the fawning boys.

“Hellooooo, ladies,” Trey said with a wide smile after she and Dot had squeezed their way through the mass of bodies.

“Hi, Trey,” Marina chirped.

He took her hand and kissed the back of it with a wink and a sly smile, then leaned down and planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Aw, that’s cute,” Dot gushed. “Hi, Gene.”

“You want one too?” he asked with dry amusement.

“Of course!”

“Gene,” Marina said, once he had planted a kiss on Dot’s forehead. “Dot has a dance at her church Friday night.”

“Marina!” Dot cried.

“That was for his information. Nobody asked him to go. Nope.”

Trey started to laugh and Dot lightly slapped her arm. “Augh! You awful girl!”

“I guess I know where you’ll be Friday night,” Trey drawled.

“I guess you do,” Gene returned with a grin. “Good morning, Dot.”

“Good morning, Gene,” she returned sassily.

“All right, ladies, hop in,” Trey said as he went around to open the front door for Marina, and Gene, the back door for Dot. “Time for Kresge’s and then it’s church for all of us.”

• • •

“Would you be allowed to wear a dress Friday night if I asked?” Trey asked quietly underneath Dot chattering at an enthralled Gene. “I want to take you to Correggio’s for supper and they don’t allow women in trousers.”

“Perhaps,” Marina murmured. “Father likes you, but Mother is more … She’s not— Augh! What am I trying to say? She doesn’t like my walking out with you, but it’s not you. I don’t think. I have never had a beau before and I have tried to explain that I would like to enjoy having one for a while—”

“For a while?”

Marina took a deep breath. “Well … yes. I assume that eventually one of us will become disenchanted and not want to be with the other. It happens all the time. Susie is going with Johnny and then the next week, they’re each going with someone else.”

He gave her an odd look. “Marina, I am not a boy. I don’t waste time. What I said about Gene’s interest in Dot applies to my interest in you even more because I’m older than he is.”

Marina didn’t understand. “Are you saying you want to … um … ”

“I want to find out if I want to,” he said gently. “I can’t do that with Dot and Gene around. That’s why I went to your father.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Truly?”

“Truly. That is not to say you won’t get tired of me.”

“I don’t think I would get tired of you,” she mused, thinking. “I do think Mother would— I don’t think she— Augh! I mean to say I think she wants—”

“She wants you to stay home forever and take care of her!” Dot interrupted indignantly.

Marina’s brow wrinkled. “Do you think so?” she asked uncertainly.

“Oh, it’s clear as the nose on your face. You do all the housework, all the baking—”

“But she says she wants me to be a good—” She bit that off.

“Caretaker! If you think she will ever let you get married and leave her, think again.”

Marina’s attention fluttered up to the back wall of Kresge’s and considered, then looked back at Dot. “Nooo,” she said as she tried to put her thoughts into words. “I do the housework, but she goes out to the parishioners to tend them. I’m helping her be a good reverend’s wife. The parsonage isn’t a burden, as long as I keep up.”

“And you make all her clothes!”

“But I like doing that. It makes me happy when other people admire her. And she does all the cooking, which she would not do if she wanted me to take care of her.”

“But—”

“I can see what you’re saying, Miss Albright,” Trey interrupted gently. “But Marina doesn’t see it that way. Even if it were true, does it matter if Marina doesn’t mind?”

“She does mind!” Dot shot back, leaving Marina thoroughly bewild­ered. “I see her face when she wants a little praise or a sincere thank you and her mother doesn’t say anything or criticizes her or adds to her chores. I see her face when she asks to do the most innocent thing but is denied.”

“Dot,” Marina said thinly, “why—?”

“Because I want you to be happy, Marina,” she pled, taking her hands. “But you’re not.”

“But I can go lots of places and do things and I get pin money and I have good clothes and—”

“Yes, but—”

“What do you think would make her happy?” Trey asked.

Dot glanced at him with a tidge of contempt and said, “Well. I think being allowed to come to my church every so often would be a good start.”

“Are you still mad about that?” Marina asked, hurt all over again.

Dot flushed. “Not at you,” she muttered. “Marina, everyone loved the outfit you made me and I wanted to brag on you so you’ll know what it’s like to— I just wanted you to hear someone praise you. You never believe me. But noooooo your father just couldn’t be disturbed with his—”

Marina’s mouth twisted all sorts of different ways as she tried to sort that out. “He was in counseling with a woman with a family problem,” Marina said gently. “That was God’s will.”

“I don’t think she had a family problem,” Dot muttered.

Both Trey and Gene started and gave Dot a long look.

“What else would he be doing?” Marina asked plaintively, feeling as if suddenly she were the only one at the table missing the joke.

“I guess it was God’s will,” Dot muttered unhappily, sliding down in her seat and glaring at her cherry lime phosphate. “It’s beautiful, Marina,” she whispered, dashing moisture off one of her cheeks. “I would wear it every Sunday if my mother didn’t have some silly rule about not wearing the same thing two Sundays in a row.”

Dot’s mother was quite a stickler for fashion rules and Dot had enough beautiful Sunday outfits to never wear one twice in three months.

Marina had a lovely closet too, but she didn’t seem to look as good in her clothes as the models in the fashion magazines.

“Well … ” Marina finally murmured, “thank you.”

“Gene,” Dot said, turning to her beau with a bright smile. “I need to go for a walk. Would you like to come along and protect my honor?”

“Certainly,” he said gravely, sliding out of the booth, offering his hand to her, then placing it on his crooked arm before strolling out.

There was an awkward silence between Marina and Trey because she was thoroughly embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” Marina muttered. “I’m not quite sure what she was trying to say or … what. I mean, I understand what she said. I don’t understand what she said … I mean! Arrrggghhh. I don’t know why she cares so much. She’s just so … The strangest things set her off.”

“She loves you,” Trey said simply. “She’s trying to protect you.”

“From what?!” Marina demanded.

“Well, first, from me. Now it appears she’s at the end of her patience with your mother.”

“Mother isn’t—” Marina stopped. Wasn’t what?

“Marina,” Trey said gently, “you’re a good daughter. Dot’s family is different from yours and she doesn’t seem to understand there’s more than one way to be a good daughter. Just her way.”

Marina sighed and fiddled with her napkin.

Trey leaned toward her and nudged her gently. “Whether your mother wants you to stay home forever or not, your father seems to want to see you settled. And in a good Christian household, the father is the head. I’m sure Dot’s parents would agree.”

“That’s true,” Marina mused, then glanced at Trey. “But Mormons aren’t Christians.”

He shrugged. “Whatever they are, they’re still good people in the most important ways. Dot’s proof of that.”

Marina nodded. “What did you say to Father that he agreed I could walk out with you alone?”

“I told him Dot was too protective of you for uninterrupted conversation,” he drawled.

Marina gaped at him, then laughed, then clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, I shouldn’t laugh. She means well.”

“And that was my point about her goodness. Your father appreciates Dot’s concern and protective nature. But he also understands that Dot is a little too good at it.”

“Oh.”

“Marina, I am not trying to come between you. I think Dot’s a good person, but she is also a lot more cynical than you are so she sees things you don’t or simply are not there. I think you’re charming just the way you are. Gene thinks Dot’s charming just the way she is. I would also like to see the outfit you made for Dot, but I see your mother’s clothes so I don’t need to see Dot’s outfit to know you’re a talented woman.”

Marina looked at him warily. That was the second time he’d referred to her as a woman. Furthermore, his compliment sounded like a statement of fact, not empty words.

“You want me to tell you you’re pretty.”

Marina gave him a tiny nod.

“I won’t.”

She pulled her lips between her teeth.

“I tell you I could look at you all day long. So why would I say things I don’t mean just to make you feel better?”

“You do have a point,” she said slowly.

“Dot wants you to feel better because she doesn’t think your mother does enough.” He held his hand up when Marina opened her mouth to protest. “Whether she does or not is not for me to say. I don’t know; I don’t want to get between you and your mother any more than I want to get between you and Dot. My only point is that however clumsy she is, Dot loves you and cares about your feelings. Most people spend their whole lives looking for a friend like that.”

“Do … You don’t have a friend like that, do you?”

He gave her a wry smile. “No.”

“Gene?”

“My employee, not my friend. Not like you and Dot.”

“Do you want a friend like that?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “I … Um … No,” he finally said. “Men have allies and mutually interested acquaintances who may or may not stay mutually interested if something doesn’t work out right.”

“You mean … business?”

“There are no friends at an auction, Marina.”

18

If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.

Speakeasy staff.