Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [92]
Naturally, she had heard a lot about missionary work but he explained some of the things that didn't always get mentioned. For instance, he told her how a missionary might have trouble with companion. It could be tough to live with a fellow who was a complete stranger. You and your companion had to be together all the time in a foreign city. It was closer than marriage. You did your work and you lived together in pairs. Even people who really knew how to get along had to grate on each other a little with their personal habits. Just the noise you made brushing your teeth. Of course, they had a practice of rotating missionaries before too much irritation built up.
The most valuable part, he told her, was the way you developed your ability to take rebuff. Sometimes you would really be having fruitful conversations with a possible convert, and the person even declare they were close. Then one day you'd go over, and, behold, the local Catholic priest was sitting there. He wasn't too friendly to you. There were a lot of such setbacks. You learn it wasn't you doing the converting but the readiness of other person to meet the Spirit.
Colleen's family life wasn't too different from his. Her family did a lot of things that centered around the church, and they wanted you to take on things and do well. In high school, she told him she had been Yearbook Editor, President of the Service Club, and School Artist. She had also done portraits out at Lagoon Resort, which enabled her to save money for college. From the time she entered grade school, she wanted her drawings to be better than anyone else's.
All the while, she kept feeling how strong a person he was. He was strict and wouldn't bend spiritually or mentally. She could tell even in the way he felt obligated to tell her that he was dating another girl. He did take the sharp edge off, however, by describing how things were not going well with the other girl who was not strong enough, in his opinion, about the Church. Then he mentioned that he had a sister who was also named Colleen and he liked the name.
Afterward, he drove her home in his car, a bright red Nova he kept sparkling clean. Her roommates said the two of them looked good together as a couple.
On their second date they went to hear a speaker on Sunday night meeting in church, a Fireside. On their third date, they saw South Pacific put on at the college. Afterward, she got him to go to a dance.
He didn't care for them usually, but this was a nice slow one with foxtrots and waltzes, nothing exhibitionistic. She teased him because he didn't like to dance. Hadn't he been told in Sunday School how their ancestors danced their way across the plains when that was the only entertainment?
Now they began dating pretty steadily. Colleen never did think, however, that it was exactly love at first sight. It was more that Max was impressed with her, and she was impressed with him.
Her birthday was on December 3, and he made reservations at Sherwood Hills, about twenty miles from Logan, a special place to go and eat. That evening he also bought her a red rose. Colleen really appreciated his thoughtfulness. She wore a velvet dress and he was in a suit; they spent about two hours at Sherwood Hills eating steak.
On February 1 of 1975, they got engaged. Just that morning he had received a letter from BYU Law School accepting him. In the evening, they went to a basketball game and he kept turning to her and saying. "When we're at the Y next year"-by which he meant BYU. But he hadn't asked her to marry him. So Colleen kept saying, "When you're at the Y . . . "
It began to bother him. Later that night, they were driving to Montpelier, Idaho, to hear his father speak at church the next day, and en route, Max stopped at the shores of Bear Lake, on a little road that led to a docking area. Laughing a little, he told her to get out of the car. She answered that she'd freeze to death. "Ah, come and see the beautiful sight," he said. She was shivering in her blue parka with the fur around it, but she left the