Free Favorite Wife by Susan Ray Schmidt Page A

brand-new red Chrysler sedan. He was taking Franny out every few nights and spending lots of time with her, which made her too busy to have much time for me. So I found myself thrown together more and more with Debbie Bateman.
    Debbie was so different from the girls I had grown up with. For the first few months of her life in the colony, she was full of Babylonian ideas about men and life in general. Yet as the weeks passed, it seemed to me she was becoming a bit ashamed of her wild ways and was honestly trying to become one of us. She was wearing less makeup and had stopped wearing her mini skirts. She’d moved in with Ervil’s wife, Anna Mae, and seemed to really enjoy being a member of Anna Mae’s busy household. At play practices, Esther Spencer had noticed a difference in Debbie too. For the past few weeks she’d gone out of her way to be nice to her and make her feel a part of our group.
    Lane had kept pretty much to himself since the day I had told him I didn’t love him. He barely nodded to me when we were in the same room. I knew we had lost for good our special friendship. In a way, it made me sad.
    Conference was almost upon us, and I was filled with nervous excitement about it. I knew I would get to see Verlan again. I could hardly wait to see what he looked like. Of course, I basically knew. But when I would try to imagine his face before me, I couldn’t seem to get it in the right proportions. I would be seeing him through different eyes, now that I planned to marry him someday.
    The meetings would take place on a three-day weekend. Six hundred people from all over the western United States and Mexico would be gathering to Colonia LeBaron to hear the Prophet Joel and the other leaders preach and outline their plans for further missionary work. Each evening there would be a social event. Friday night would be the play, and Saturday night we would have a big square dance. Sunday evening would conclude with the young people’s Fireside or spiritual lesson.
    My father’s sister, Thelma Chynoweth, her husband Bud, and their three unmarried children were coming from Utah. I hadn’t seen my Chynoweth relatives since I was a small child. They would be staying at our house, and I was delighted at the thought of getting to know them again. Due to my father’s insistent ministry, they had joined the church a couple of years ago, and their oldest daughter, my cousin Lorna, had become Ervil LeBaron’s fifth wife shortly after that.
    Aunt Thelma, Uncle Bud, and their kids arrived late Thursday night, and Mom and Dad scurried around, carrying lamps back and forth as they bedded everyone down. I could hear the adults visiting until the wee hours of the morning.
    The following day dawned full of clouds and rain, and I hurried through my chores outside so I could take a bath and dry my hair before the ten o’clock meeting. While Mom made wonderberry pancakes in honor of our company, Aunt Thelma bustled around the kitchen, setting the table, straining the milk for me, and talking nonstop.
    Aunt Thelma didn’t look a thing like my father. She was above average height and had kept a trim, firm figure for being in her fifties. She had perfect skin, laughing blue eyes, and exceptional white teeth. Her light brown hair was just beginning to show a little frost. She wore large pearly earrings and carefully tailored clothes. Elegant was the word for Aunt Thelma.
    Uncle Bud was a jolly man, and immediately I loved him. When I looked at his face, kindness and goodness barely stayed hidden behind the smirk of a lighthearted tease. I was soon to find out Uncle Bud teased the people he loved until they wanted to pinch him.
    â€œYou’re going to have to watch this girl, Vern,” he mumbled between bites of pancake as he reached over and gently yanked on my carefully pinned up hair. “She’s going to steal all those men’s hearts at meeting today. How old are you now, Suze?