Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [32]
They went to a diner around the corner and had a cup of coffee, then another. Bessie told Frank a little about herself, and in turn learned a little about him. He was an ad salesman for Utah Magazine and had been a salesman all around the country. Someday, he said, he wanted to have a magazine of his own. He had a confident, intelligent way of talking, Bessie thought, plus he was deeply attractive. The thought came on Bessie suddenly that she liked this man. She remembered an old saying: You meet the right man and you throw caution to the aside. Sitting there in the Salt Lake diner, drinking coffee with Frank Gilmore, Bessie thought: Here’s a man I might be willing to throw caution aside for.
Frank must have sensed something about the thought, because he found a way to drop a bombshell into the conversation. He said: “I’m getting married tomorrow.”
Bessie sat there, stunned. Here she was, liking a man who only three days before had broken up with one of her best friends, and who was already preparing to marry another woman. She had never experienced anything like it before.
Bessie didn’t ask for any explanations, and Frank Gilmore didn’t offer any. He wasn’t that way.
“Congratulations,” she said.
ALMOST A YEAR LATER, BESSIE RAN INTO FRANK AGAIN, standing in front of the same hotel. “Well, how’s your marriage?” she asked.
“Oh, that didn’t last,” Frank said. “It broke up.” He shrugged like it was already a forgotten mistake. Then he smiled at her. “I was planning on going to a movie tonight,” he said. “Would you like to join me?”
Bessie thought about the first boy who had ever caught her fancy, an Italian kid by the name of Joe, who worked at a candy factory with her back in Provo. To Bessie he was perfection: tall, with a good build and brown eyes. Working on the assembly line, where several people worked together, wrapping the hot candy and placing it in packages, Bessie saw a cute little routine develop. Every once in a while, one of the girls would “accidentally” leave one of her tools on the factory belt and then act flustered. When the tool got down to Joe at the end of the belt, he would retrieve it and graciously bring it back to them. Bessie decided to try the same trick. One day, she shoved her candy pan onto the belt and let it get away from her. When Joe brought it back to her she was so self-conscious she couldn’t even look at him and couldn’t say thank you. She spent the rest of the day hating herself. After that, she decided: If I want to win a fellow over, I’m going to look at him and smile; I’m going to really make him think he is outstanding and something very special and wonderful. No more do I just take my pan and walk away and ignore him.
Standing outside the Utah Hotel, Bessie Brown gave Frank Gilmore her best smile. “I’d love to go to the movie with you,” she said.
ACTUALLY, BESSIE DIDN’T MUCH LIKE GOING TO MOVIES. Something about the vast darkness of a theater reminded her of a tomb. But she felt better about the experience, sitting next to Frank. He was a strong man, and she felt less afraid of the darkness with him close by. Years later, she would remember that feeling and wonder where it had gone.
On their second date, a night or two later, Frank took Bessie to a bar. Bessie didn’t drink, but Frank did. He began to talk a bit about his past. Not too much—just enough to let her know that he was a man who had led an interesting life.
Apparently he had grown up around show business and had worked as a performer himself. In 1910—before Bessie had even been born— Frank had been a clown and tightrope walker in the Barnum & Bailey Circus, and he had gone by the name of Laffo the Clown. He would wobble his way across the tightrope humorously, like a drunk. Other times, Laffo would build a tower of precariously balanced chairs and then, in his drunken manner, scale the chairs to the top, where he’d do a handstand. One night, the real Laffo was really drunk. He got to the top of the chair pyramid and one of the chairs at the bottom slipped.