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PART I
SPEAKING IN TONGUES

37

“A BET,” MARINA whispered a week and a half after she learned about the birds and the bees, looking down at her lap when Bishop and Sister Albright broke the news. “For a speakeasy. With Boss Tom Pendergast. He’s a … what did you call him?”

“An underboss,” Bishop said gently when she couldn’t remember the word. “Boss Tom has several. They’re right under him, top dogs in the Machine. Trey is one. John Lazia, the head of the Mafia on the North side, is another, although higher up than Trey. There are a couple more. I’m sorry to be the messenger, Marina, but being ignorant of it won’t do you any favors. Now we have to figure out what to do.”

“Why did he wait to drug me then?”

“That, we still don’t know.”

“He could’ve forced me … ”

“I’m told he’s not that sort of man, and I have reason to believe it.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed. Being forced would absolve her, but more importantly, it would mean she wasn’t stupid enough to be drugged or unable fight off the effects. “How did you find all this out?”

“I have my sources.” He paused. “I have something else to tell you, but I’ll wait until this settles.”

“Please tell me now, since you’ve said that.”

He nodded. “You are correct that the Scarritts are your grandparents. I don’t know the situation with your mother and father, although I will try to find out. They’re from Memphis, did you know?”

“No,” Marina said miserably, suddenly unable to think of anything but all those lovely clothes she had made for Mother.

“Their real name is not Scarritt. It’s Truesdell. He is a charlatan, a conman. He has many mistresses amongst the congregation.”

“What’s a mistress?”

“Rev,” Sister Albright said quietly, “tread lightly. She is not Dot.”

He shrugged helplessly. “I talk straight, Liz. You tell her.”

Marina could not be shocked, not anymore. She listened to her explanation of a mistress and thought of all the comforting Father had done. “Mother knows?”

“It’s the way it’s done with gentlewomen,” Sister Albright murmured. “It has been for centuries. But that’s not important right now.”

“Do they know I’m here?”

“They have other things to worry about at the moment,” Bishop said tersely, casting Sister Albright a glare. Marina would have quailed from that glare, but Sister Albright smiled sweetly. Bishop rolled his eyes and heaved a resigned sigh. Marina didn’t know what that silent exchange meant because she hadn’t seen the two interact much.

They were almost never in the same room together, except at supper, as they were always about their own business. Half that time they argued, but they made up just as loudly, yelling I’m sorry! at each other until they hugged and kissed. The other half …

She’d seen Bishop squeeze Sister Albright’s bottom when he came home from work, at which Sister Albright laughed and said, “Welcome home, dear.” He would hug her from behind and growl, “You look good enough to eat, my little honeypot,” at which she would snicker and murmur something about letting him eat all he wanted.

Moreover, they slept in the same bed. Sister Albright had just had a baby which meant … Marina hadn’t wanted to think about that.

In the days that followed the revelation about the bet, Dot comforted Marina and made sure she was asleep before going about her nightly routine. She more or less happily accompanied Marina and Sister Albright to get Marina’s hair cut and permed, makeup to flatter her face, and some new clothes including pretty Sunday dresses. Once mother and daughter had finished with Marina, she didn’t recognize herself. She looked better in her housekeeping “uniform” of denims and checkered blouse than she ever had in her finest trousers.

Marina finally got to go to one of Dot’s activities and she was horrified by Dot dancing with her partner.

“He put his hands on you! In your between! So he could throw you in the air!”

“I told you. He doesn’t like girls.”

“Is that why Gene didn’t mind?”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” she snapped.

Dot’s Sunday school was in the morning. They had their main service, which they called sacrament meeting, in the evening. No plate was passed. They had bread and water for communion. Marina didn’t know if she should partake or not, since her doctrine fell apart the second she found out what a conman Father was.

Now she knew why Trey wanted her to read Elmer Gantry, and what Elmer had been doing with all those other women. Trey, too, had known all along.

On Tuesday the women got together for what they called Relief Society. They talked about who needed what in their congregation, which they called a ward, divvied up assignments to take care of them, then spent the rest of the evening discussing Emily Dickinson.

At the same time, the children had activities in what they called Primary. And the teenagers had their own activities during what they called Mutual. The first week at Mutual, after a prayer (which a teenager gave) (during which they addressed God as “thee” and “thy” and “thou” and “thine”) they played softball.

Marina was assigned right field and she cowered from a fly ball and cost her side the game. Dot was on third base, but Marina was guiltily happy that while Dot wasn’t a coward, she was a bungler. No wonder she didn’t like baseball.

Marina wouldn’t have gone at all, because one of the girls went to Paseo High School, knew Ruthie, and could guess why Marina was staying with the Albrights. It was all through the youth before the night was over. Dot came home from church furious and ran Bishop down in the shed out back where he was tending a sick horse. From the kitchen, Marina could hear Dot yelling at her father what had happened. When school started in September, it would be all over, if it wasn’t already: Marina Scarritt was gone because she was in the family way.

She was thoroughly humiliated.

Friday was a potluck with square dancing after, which Dot didn’t like, but her dance partner did, so she danced. Bishop and Sister Albright had a jolly ol’ time dancing, laughing, breathless, and kissing in indecent ways that embarrassed half the congregation.

She overheard some of it.

“I don’t believe the Lord called Rev to be bishop.”

“I do.”

“But he’s a bootlegger! And she’s a flapper!”

“Not anymore. Besides, church is a hospital for sinners.”

“Except he’s our judge in Israel!”

“I’d rather be judged by a former bootlegger than a man who never sinned a day in his life. Ruby, mind your own business. It’s not for you to judge.”

Repentance. Forgiveness. Mercy. Grace.

Marina understood those things.

It was the talk of working one’s way into heaven that made her stumble because she’d never heard that from Dot.

“Faith without works is dead,” Sister Albright told her when she asked. “We’re all born saved, Marina. We don’t have to do anything to earn it. Jesus commanded us to take care of the poor and needy. We do it because we love him and so we show respect by being obedient.”

“Father said if you’re saved the Spirit of the Lord works through you to make you want to do those things.”

Sister Albright didn’t point out Father’s hypocrisy. “And what happens if you’re saved but you don’t do those things?”

“You don’t get as many jewels in your crown and your mansion in heaven isn’t as grand.”

Marina didn’t like the flash of pity across Sister Albright’s face. “We put some thought and effort into it,” she said matter-of-factly, which was pretty much the way she said and did everything unless she was yelling at her family, all of whom were so loud she had to yell to be heard. “What happens here is, people forget grace and start thinking they have to contribute to their salvation. That’s all right for them, because the job gets done. But then they try to make other people behave the way they think they ought to behave. That’s what you’re hearing and it’s wrong.”

The next Sunday at sacrament meeting, instead of a whole bunch of people getting up to “give a talk,” Bishop preached a real sermon.

“The Two Rules Sermon,” Dot huffed. “I swear if I have to listen to that one more time … ”

It was a lovely sermon.

It was simple: Love the Lord. Take care of the poor and needy.

It was also boring, which now explained Dot’s willingness to come to Marina’s services as entertainment. Dot might have known the faith healing and speaking in tongues were fake, and though she hadn’t known how much of a charlatan and conman Father was, she still liked the show.

“Yes, we know, Daddy. ‘Follow the two rules and works follow as a consequence.’”

That, Marina understood.

“He preaches that at least four times a year and you never know when he’s going to do it. Mama says he does it whenever the Lord tells him to.”

Marina didn’t see a whole lot of the Lord’s Spirit in the Albrights’ house except for supper prayer and going to church. It was too noisy, too raucous with laughter and delight and fun and playing. They worked hard. Then they stopped working and played.

Maybe it was because their services were so quiet and solemn.

“Sister Albright, I don’t see any crosses in your church.”

“We don’t idolize the crucifixion. We celebrate the resurrection.”

So far as Marina could see, Mormons were Christians, but she kept hearing Father’s sermons against them. But Father was a liar and a thief.

“We don’t believe in the Trinity,” Sister Albright said when Marina mentioned this. At Marina’s confused look, she said, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three distinct people, not one. It’s not like an egg, with a yolk, white, and shell.”

“Oh.”

But Marina couldn’t parse the difference because her brain was tired. It was tired a whole lot.

The third Sunday they had a “special musical number” and a member of the congregation played An American in Paris on the piano. It wasn’t as good as at the concert with a full orchestra, but it was good enough to make Marina hurt so much tears stung her eyes. No one applauded when he was done. They did, however, swarm him after the service and gush.

In short, Marina was completely discombobulated and uncomfort­able there. In one of very few quiet moments, Sister Albright had asked her what was wrong. Marina had blurted it out before she thought, then clapped her hands over her mouth in horror that she had been so ungracious after everything they had done for her.

Sister Albright had simply smiled. “Marina, every new experience, good or bad, right or wrong, is uncomfortable and feels wrong. Joining this church was the second best thing I ever did, but I was as uncomfortable as you are. It took a couple of years before it seemed right.”

“What was the first?”

“Falling in love with my husband. I had never been in love before. I didn’t want to be. I fought it. Being that happy scared me. I was a loose woman. I really was all those things Mrs. Scarritt called you. I thought I didn’t deserve love, much less the love of someone I loved too. I thought he would eventually see what an awful woman I was and leave me, but here we are. Being a mother was frightening. Being alone with the children while he went to vet school was frightening. Being a bishop’s wife was frightening. It’s part of life. Every time you get used to something, something else comes up.”

“What’s uncomfortable for you right now?”

Her smile faded. “My little girl having her heart broken and I don’t know how to help her.”

No, no one could help Dot with her anger at Gene. Marina heard her cry into her pillow at night when she finally came to bed. Marina saw how red and swollen her eyes were when she got up for the day, how much powder she used to cover it.

Come September, Dot would be alone at school, shunned because of her association with Marina, the boys no longer fluttering around her because Gene had disappeared too and people would assume he had gotten Dot to do the indecent thing that made babies.

The two well-off preachers’ daughters got their comeuppance.

But Dot would keep up her front, go to school and participate as defiantly as she did everything else. At least now Dot had company at church.

Marina still spent every morning in the bathroom, unable to eat anything until noon except a piece of dry toast and a bottle of ginger ale. At supper, she was unable to stop eating. Sister Albright told her those symptoms should abate in a couple of weeks.

It didn’t occur to Marina to think about her future until Sister Albright asked her if she had.

Marina’s mind froze. She would have to earn money? Live on her own? Raise a baby by herself?

But of course. She wasn’t the Albrights’ child, and no matter how much she had always loved this house and wished she could live here, she couldn’t stay for long. Her parents had been chased out of the parsonage, but Marina couldn’t—wouldn’t—beg for help from them. She had no idea how to support herself much less a baby.

“I … Mother,” she croaked, then cleared her throat. “Mother trained me to be a housekeeper, so … ”

“And a dressmaker!” Dot said firmly.

“I don’t have a sewing machine or supplies. I don’t have any money.” Marina was starting to panic. “And how would I do that around a baby?”

“We’re looking for a couple to adopt it,” Sister Albright said as she put the lid on the Cream of Wheat pot. “Bishop will make sure you get enough money to start a new life and a sewing business.”

“That’s like … selling a baby.”

She looked shocked. “You will have suffered a lot for that baby. The least they can do is set you on your feet. You’ll have to be careful with that money though.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“I’ll teach you. I’ve been on my own since I was fourteen. But you don’t need to know all that. I am not that person anymore and I don’t tell her story.” She paused long enough to ask Dot to fetch the boys from the shed. “Marina, at some point, you will look back on this time and it will seem like a distant dream. You won’t remember the details and you won’t care. That will be your reward for becoming a stronger person. Or at least, I hope you will get stronger.”

It went unsaid: Marina was no Dot and she had no idea how she was going to survive life on her own.

“Liz,” Bishop said quietly from the doorway of the kitchen.

Marina knew that tone by now: bad news.

“I’ll take over, Sister Albright,” she murmured.

She had finished putting breakfast on the table when Sister Albright breezed into the kitchen with a bright smile.

“Marina!” she breathed with glee, nearly bouncing on the balls of her feet. She twisted and put her hands to her mouth. “DOT!”

Dot came running in. “Who’s on fire?”

“Go change clothes. Both of you.”

“What?” Dot demanded.

“We’re going shopping!”

37

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

Speakeasy staff.