Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [129]
I began to panic. “Meg,” I whispered over the sizzle of burgers on the grill. “Help! I can’t go back out there. The guy from the desert is here.”
Peeking into the main dining area, she let out a giggle. “I’ve already told you, nothing is going to happen. He won’t tell on you,” she assured.
“I know, I know,” I said in a low tone, wishing that he would just get up and leave. I was also feeling guilty that he’d given me his phone number. It was highly improper for me to have the number of a man other than my priesthood husband.
I walked shyly over to the corner booth, where he sat engaged in conversation with his friends. Pulling out my order pad, I greeted them, told them about our lunch specials, and asked, “What can I get for you today?” With my eyes fixed on my notepad, I tried not to look up for fear of making eye contact with him. It seemed like the longest shift of my life, but I managed to make it through without ever meeting Lamont’s gaze.
Later on, I was at the register cashing out another customer when I felt someone staring at me. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” I heard a man’s voice whisper. I glanced up to see Lamont standing before me with his lunch check. Ordinarily that would not be enough to make me trust someone—such was the hysteria that Warren had introduced to all of us. But there was something in his smile that set me at ease. I smiled back at him as he settled his bill, but I didn’t want to tell him anything about me.
Lamont turned up at Mark Twain’s several more times that week. I didn’t know how to react then or later when he came in having secured a job as a cook. I had no idea that Lamont had begun to ask questions about me. After our meeting in the desert, he was curious about me and began investigating. He knew I was Meg’s friend, and he tried to find out from her why I had a black eye. It infuriated him to think that someone would strike a woman, and he grew even more upset when he heard that I was in an unhappy marriage.
It turned out that he’d seen me a couple of times over the few months before we met in the desert; he even remembered me from a Pioneer Day parade some years back. I had been one of the dancing girls, and he was marching just ahead of us as a platoon leader for the Sons of Helaman. He later confided that he’d been so taken with me that day that he’d turned in the wrong direction when the church elder called out his group’s marching orders.
As the days turned to weeks, my timidity around Lamont evaporated. The more I saw, the more I realized that he was not out to get me into trouble, and we began to forge a friendship. Lamont was living at his father’s house in Hildale at the time, but things at home were not going well for him. At first I didn’t know the full story, but from what I gathered he’d had some trouble with Warren and was trying to reconcile his complex emotions about our faith with the residual desire to reach heaven.
Later that month I met Meg and Jason at Brian Head Resort for a secret day of snowboarding. Jason had driven down from Salt Lake, and I was surprised when Lamont showed up to join us. They had a great group of friends, and their enthusiasm was infectious. Though he was a bit older, Lamont had a fun