50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Page 14

  “Thanks anyway, Frank. I love running in the rain and I need the exercise,” I said as convincingly as possible.

  “Ya sure as hell don’t,” Frank said. “Not in this weather! What ya doing, trying to be polite or something?”

  Frank looked back at Val, “Tell your friend to get in the car. It’s okay!” Val didn’t say a word. She looked dumbfounded.

  Looking back at me, Frank said, “We aren’t going to kidnap ya!”

  “For hell sakes, get in out of the damn rain!” Jay ordered.

  If Val would’ve had lessons, she’d have learned how to tell tall tales that would help get her out of this kind of fix. But she had never lived in Plygville. Neither of her dad’s wives lived together in the same house or even near each other. So she hadn’t led much of a secret life. Fibs were designed for that very reason, to protect our families and gain a safety net of approval from neighbors and peers. This had always been a crucial aspect of our survival.

  Finally Frank jumped out of the car, grabbed my books from my arms, and shoved me into the front seat next to Jay. Then Frank slid in next to me and slammed the door shut.

  “There!” he snapped. “I guess we’ll have to kidnap ya.”

  “Just take me over to Val’s house,” I told Jay. “You’re going there anyway, aren’t you?”

  “Why? Why not just take ya home?” Frank asked me.

  “Well, maybe Val and I can do our homework together.”

  Frank turned around and looked at Val. “Didn’t ya say ya had piano lessons today?”

  “Yeah,” Val murmured, “but—”

  Frank interrupted her. “See, it’s okay, Sophia. We really don’t mind taking ya home.”

  Right then I thought Val was as dumb as a doornail. I’d done everything I could think of to protect her secrets, but she wouldn’t say a word. If I were her, I’d have told them, “Yeah, bring Sophia over to my house. After piano lessons we can do our Spanish homework together.” Whether that really happened or not wouldn’t matter. Once the boys dropped me off at her house, her mother could have taken me home, or I could have walked the extra miles.

  By then we were well on our way. Jay was asking for directions. As I pointed and told him where to turn, I was still trying to figure out how to rescue Val and myself from total embarrassment. I could ask him to drop me off at a stranger’s house and pretend it was mine, but what if the owner saw me and wondered who in the heck was in their yard?

  Between every turn I tried to think of something. At one point I said, “Just drop me off here and I’ll walk the rest of the way home.” Jay thought that was a stupid idea.

  I could have told him, “I’ve got to stop at so-and-so’s house to pick up a—” A what? But I didn’t have a so-and-so’s house to stop at.

  By the time we turned right off 5900 South onto 300 East, Frank was totally keyed up. “Ya live this close to Plygville? Holy Toledo!”

  “I sure do,” I said sternly. I couldn’t protect Val’s anonymity, and she hadn’t helped a single bit. “I live right next door to them.”

  “Shiest!” Jay said as he slowed way down. “You do live right here in Plygville.”

  “Wow, doesn’t that bother you, Sophia?” Ruthie asked.

  “YES!” I wanted to screech at her. “Of course it bothers me! How do you think I’ve felt all of my life and right this minute, while all of you act like we are freaking monsters or something?”

  Instead, I frowned and said sarcastically, “Yes, I’m scared to death they are going to kill me!”

  Ruthie looked nervous. She didn’t say another word as she stared fixedly out the window while I gave Jay the very last direction.

  “Turn right here, down this dirt driveway on your right.”

  “No way, Sophia,” Frank yelled. “Ya don’t live down here! This is where all the big-wig polygamists live . . . where they have their meetings.”

  Jay drove slowly down our long driveway, then asked solemnly, “You’re jiving with us aren’t you, Sophia?”

  “No! I’m not jiving with you. This is my ‘big-wig’ dad’s garage where he holds all of the polygamist meetings.”

  Frank opened the door for me. Looking quite disconcerted, he slid out of the car. Then I got out. Other than a few uneasy goodbyes, no one said another word.

  I was sorry I’d let Val down. I felt sure she knew. She figured out how to explain our connection without implicating herself, and to my surprise, her free-loving, wanna-be-hippy, friends continued to be kind to me whenever I was around them.

  *****

  Gary told me he wanted to ask me something after our Thespian Club meeting was over. As other students were filing out, he sat down next to me.

  “I’m sure this is a ridiculous question.” He was almost as nervous as I was. “I am more than likely way too late to be asking you. As nice and as pretty as you are, I’m sure you’ve already been asked. But if you haven’t already said yes to someone else, will you consider going to the Christmas dance with me?”

  Apparently Gary didn’t know yet I was a polygamous kid. Had he gone to Hillcrest Junior High with my peers, he would already have the lowdown about me. If anyone in his popular crowd had informed him, the poor guy would have known why I hadn’t been asked, and he wouldn’t have bothered.

  To my astonishment, Dad gave Gary (an outsider) permission over the phone to take me to the Christmas dance.

  During our exceptionally good time at dinner and then the dance, I allowed a sense of normalcy to touch my heart. I pretended I was accepted, even semi-popular, and could be vibrant and outgoing around the crowd of kids I’d attended school with for most of my life.

  At home by the front door, Gary kissed my lips once very softly. He asked me if he could take me out again sometime soon. My very foolish elation at Gary’s kindness and his desire to date me was short-lived.

  Before I saw him the following Monday at school, one of his cronies handed down the necessary warnings. Gary didn’t show up at the lunch table where we had planned to meet. He turned the other direction when he saw me in the hall and avoided me like the plague. For days on end I felt remorseful, and an overwhelming, self-conscious angst kept me from being fully functional. Gary never did speak to me again.

  In between my dates with Mark and Royce, I went out with a couple more Mormon guys from high school—relationships that also ended in discriminatory rejection. One of James’s friends told us both their LDS religion and their parents forbade them to associate with any polygamists. Things hadn’t changed since I was a kid.

  On the other hand, my brother James warned all guys he didn’t like or trust to keep clear away from his sister or he’d pound on them. Then he introduced me to a few guys he approved of.

  There was a cake-decorating contest to be held at the Valentine’s Day dance. My sister Hannah helped me create the most beautiful cake I’d ever seen. We placed a Barbie doll inside of an upside-down funnel cake to create her long, flowing hoop skirt. With a variety of brilliant valentine shades of icing, we dressed her from head to toe. She had a lacy, V-neck bodice and straps across her shoulders. Her elegant dress was complete with a matching umbrella she daintily held in her hands.

  If any of the girls had been required to put names on our cake entries, or if the judges had seen me with my cake, I wouldn’t have had the slightest chance of winning. I asked my date, with whom James had lined me up, if we could get there early and if he would carry my cake to the table without me.

  As we danced, I kept glancing toward the table where the cakes were on display. Everyone fussed and commented about my entry.

  “The winner of the cake contest is number 32!” someone shouted across the gymnasium to all of the hopeful contestants. “Whoever made cake number 32, please come up now.”

  When the crowd saw my date and I proudly approach the tables, hardly a soul clapped. Even though it cut to my core, I understood. They couldn’t applaud, to show approval and acceptance of me. However, my handsome (gay—I
found out years later) date smiled and proudly hugged me in front of everyone. Apparently he knew exactly how it felt to be a misfit and an outcast.

  Later in my sophomore year, James introduced me to Bryan. He wasn’t a handsome guy, but shortly after we met, I realized I adored him. He was funny, kind, smart, and talented. Bryan hung in there and remained my good friend for quite a while. I couldn’t understand why, until it occurred to me no one, including my brother James, had told him how notorious we were.

  Every day I anxiously waited for him to abandon our friendship, as so many boys and girls had done before. Surely, someone would tell him. If not, he’d soon figure it out.

  One evening while Bryan and I were sitting at Mom’s kitchen table doing an art project, Dad hiked up the stairs from Aunt Eleanor’s, walked over to the sink where Mom was doing dishes, and planted several goodnight kisses on her neck. Though Mom loved it and giggled, she said, “Owen, stop it—the kids are in here.”

  I was not one bit surprised, just angry, when Aunt Eleanor was right behind him leering over the banister. Her limitless reasons and excuses to invade my mother’s space would never end. If they ever did, she’d invent some more of them. Though Dad had surely said goodnight to her before heading up to Aunt Maryann’s house, she had another reason to butt into my mother’s few seconds. Instead of expressing her lame reason for following him up the stairs, she saw him kissing Mom. So right in front of Bryon, Aunt Eleanor smooched on Dad’s lips while she gently pinched his rear. “Just had to tell you goodbye again, my darling,” she cooed.

  Bryan looked shocked at “Aunt” El’s display of affection and her comment to her supposed brother, while Mom and I were miffed. I wanted to slap the ignorance and callousness right out of her.

  “Didn’t you tell me your Aunt was your dad’s sister?” Bryan asked when we were alone.

  “Yeah, that’s what I told you.” I said in frustration.

  I saw hurt and confusion creep over his face. I need to get him out of my life now—today—I decided. The longer he doesn’t know about us, the longer it will extend my anxiety and prolong his most certain abandonment of me. He has a right to know the truth so he won’t be hurt any longer than necessary. I’ll tell him and get it over with for both of us, once and for all.

  On our back patio, I interrupted the pleasant sounds of Bryan’s guitar strumming. “All right, here goes, Bryan,” I blurted out after working up my courage. “I’ve been meaning to explain something to you for quite some time now.”

  Poor Bryan—the sadness in his eyes touched my heart. It would have been easier to have him walk out on our friendship, like I was so accustomed to.

  Bryan swore he’d never heard of polygamy before. “Maybe an insignificant word or two, somewhere in the Bible,” he claimed.

  I thought he was lying and playing games with me because he didn’t know how else to discuss the subject.

  “It started with the Mormons. The Prophet Joseph Smith started it all. Don’t you know your history?” I said in a grouchy voice, disliking my insolence.

  “You’ll figure it out and then you’ll need to dump our friendship—but that’s okay Bryan; everyone else on the “outside” has, so you can too.”

  I was shocked when he didn’t grab his guitar, shove it in the case, and take off. Instead he sat down next to me on the patio bench and said,

  “Whatever it is or isn’t—whatever I find out—I promise I won’t abandon our friendship. I promise you, Sophia.”

  My heart told me he was telling the truth, at least for a while.

  After sacrament meeting, Dad called me into his office, which was in Aunt Eleanor’s bedroom. I sat on the edge of her bed and watched a tender smile spread across his face. He chuckled and said,

  “In the past few weeks, at least a dozen men have asked me if they can court you. You’re a beauty, Sophia, and they know it.” Then he added solemnly, “Sometimes that worries me.”

  “Anyway, my darling daughter, since you are now sixteen—you are sixteen, aren’t you?” I nodded. “Well, you can tell these guys no, or you can tell them yes if you want to get to know any one of them and their wives.”

  “I don’t want to talk to them at all, Dad. Please tell them no as soon as they ask you,” I said. “I’m not interested in marrying an older man.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that for you, honey,” he said, “but there are three of these men I have a lot of respect for, and I’d like you to prayerfully consider each one of them before you give them an answer. Okay?”

  My answer to Dad was “Absolutely no,” since I wasn’t at all interested in any of them. Plus, there was no sense in praying about anyone anymore. I didn’t trust I’d know today, tomorrow, next week, or ever who the “right” guy was. I began to believe I must not have a covenant mate or a predestined commitment to any man, and that’s why God hadn’t given me a profound answer.

  *****

  Our hay riding parties were some of my most cherished times. At the riding stables in Draper City, the owner hitched up two of his horses to a flatbed trailer, piled it with straw and a bunch of deliriously happy young people, and took off. Some talked, some made out, some laughed, some sang, and some of the Independents drank. The driver drove us a couple of miles into the foothills on a narrow, bumpy, dirt road winding in and out of sagebrush and scrub oak. Then we had to head back. Our excursions were always too short and ended far too soon. Afterward, most of us would gather around the fire pit to roast hotdogs and marshmallows.

  Merrill, an Independent polygamist man, who’d recently married my brother, Charles’s sweet-heart, as his second wife, while he was still in Vietnam, was drunk again. As the evening passed by, he started in on another of crude tirades.

  “So, there you are, miss So-ph-ia Allred--one of Rulon Allred’s nieces? I’m talkin about that damn bastard who thinks he’s a high and mighty God? Well, he can kiss my ass and go straight to hell as far as I give a gaw damn!”

  “Shut up, Merrill!” his first wife scolded. “Stop it right now. Stop being so rude.”

  “Do ya think I give a damn if she hears me?” Merrill thundered back at her.

  I moved closer to the fire pit and to Merrill to let him know I could hear him.

  “Do ya hear me, huh, Miss So-phee-a-all-red-ite? Well, the way I figure it is, ya should know yer uncle Rulon is nothing but a good-for-nothing bastard!”

  Merrill kept on with his rudeness, so I stepped in front of him and said, “Shut your mouth right now!” The more everyone told Merrill to knock it off and shut up, the more he laughed and carried on. It was evident he enjoyed offending me. I was so infuriated I wanted to literally punch his lights out. Just as I swung at him, Royce grabbed around my arms, and carried me ten or fifteen feet away.

  “Put me down! Let me knock the crap out of him!” I hollered. “If my brothers were here, they would do it! Leave me alone! Put me down!”

  Merrill snickered.

  “Listen to me, Sophia,” Royce said. “Calm down and listen. Merrill may be drunk and falling on his ass, but he can and will knock you out with one punch if you get near him. And in his state of mind, he’d think nothing of it.”

  “Yeah, put ’er down, Royce. Let ’er come after me. Come on, little So-phee-all-red-ite,” Merrill continued to taunt. “Someone needs to kick that rotten Allred blood right outta yer head!”

  Merrill staggered up from his folding chair and stumbled toward me. Royce hauled me into the parking lot. He pushed me into his car, got in, and slammed the door. I was still furious, and bawling.

  “Sophia, calm down. Merrill has been like this for as long as he is shallow, and that’s been forever, so don’t let him get to you. Just let it go.”

  I stayed in the car to compose myself. My eyes were again open to the hatred and prejudices men outside of The Allred Group, carried toward my uncle’s position with Joseph Musser. More than sixteen years after the Split, grudges, hate, and contempt were still raging on.

  After a while, I
joined some of the crowd who were farther from the fire pit. Then Mark took my hand and asked me to walk across the road and down into the gully with him.

  When we sat down on the cold earth, he reminded me again of his deep love for me. He said he knew without a doubt we were meant for each other, and we made covenants in the pre-existence to be together on this earth.

  I told him how sorry I was I still didn’t know or feel the same way, and he needed to give up on me before I hurt him even more.

  For the longest time, Mark sat still; he was heartbroken and fuming. Feeling responsible for his anguish, I sobbed. Then he suddenly jumped up, angrily grabbed my arm, and pulled me up the hill, while I fought with him to leave me alone.

  “I’m going to take you home!” he snarled at me.

  “I don’t want to go home now,” I shouted.

  No matter what I did or said, Mark insisted, he’d taken me to the party, so it was his obligation to make sure I got home, whether I liked it or not. I knew he was masking his disappointment and tears by acting outraged. I wept in anger, remorse and fear while he recklessly sped home.

  *****

  During the past few years, between my breaking up and getting back with Royce, he’d taken me to my junior prom at the capitol building, to the notorious Heidelberg Restaurant, and to the elegant Hotel Utah Restaurant, all the while hoping he’d win my heart and my hand in marriage.

  To others, it probably looked like I had done nothing but use his and other men’s love and adoration to fill my emptiness, to find some solitude, and to have a reason for being. I felt like such a despicable person.

  When I broke up with Royce for the very last and final time, he still insisted he would always love me and I was making a terrible mistake—one I’d someday regret.

  Sometime that Autumn Aunt Maryann packed up and left Dad for a deejay she’d “allegedly” been carrying on with. Rick went with his mother. Dad divided his and Maryann’s four other children between his three remaining wives. The space I had so longed for, and the bedroom I finally had all to myself for at least six months, I gratefully shared with my precious sister Jolie.