“He’s my dad’s neighbor.”
“How is John?”
“He’s fine,” I say. “But my granddad hasn’t been back to Billings since he visited you. And it’s kind of a big deal, because my dad hasn’t seen or heard from him since either, and now he’s dying, and —”
“Oh! Poor dear,” Laurelei says, and even though it’s lunch and we’re eating, she actually stands up, comes over behind me, and puts her hands on my shoulders while I sit. She rubs them softly. It’s the weirdest thing ever.
“It’s fine,” I say, my body rigid. “I hardly know him. He’s a drunk. I mean. My mom and I left when I was three. We’re like … just taking care of him now while he’s —”
I can’t finish the sentence, and I find myself counting by elevens to 209.
Laurelei continues to massage my shoulders, and I see that Thomas has stopped eating and is looking at me with very kind eyes.
“There’s a lot of feelings in there,” he says, pointing at my chest, and I’m like, Whoa, fella. Buy me a drink first. I’m just fine, thanks.
Then I realize I haven’t been breathing.
Laurelei goes back to her seat, and I must be two people now, because part of me thinks, Awkward turtle, and the other part thinks, Come back, please. I’m not done being touched.
“So, um,” I say, trying to get my head back. “Do you have any idea what was going on? Why he left without telling my dad?”
Thomas and Laurelei look at each other. “Not a whole lot,” he says after a beat. “He was a nice man and we enjoyed him. If I recall, it was a tough time in his journey.”
Laurelei nods. “Such a sweet man. Like you, Carson.”
I look down at my food.
“So, nothing else?” Aisha asks.
“Sorry,” Thomas says, looking at Laurelei. “I wish we could be more helpful.”
Our only clue, a dead end. Then I remember the letter my grandfather sent.
“Wait,” I say. “Yeah. He wrote this letter to Pastor John from here. We have it.” I pull the letter out of my pocket and read it aloud to them.
Thomas looks up at the ceiling like he’s pondering the whole thing. “What’s the world’s most dangerous grid?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“Maybe an electrical grid?” he says.
“It’s expensive too,” I say.
“Right. Of course. An expensive and dangerous electrical grid, run by a church choir director.” He chuckles. “Doesn’t ring a bell when it comes to Russ. I know it’s been a lot of years ago, but I don’t remember much going on about expensive grids.”
Laurelei shakes her head. “No. That one doesn’t mean anything to me either. Sorry.”
“Anything come to mind when I tell you to ‘have faith in the KSREF’?” I quote the letter again.
Laurelei squints. “I’m afraid not.”
“Oh well. And you’re sure you never heard from him again?” I ask.
Thomas wipes some salad dressing off his chin. “I’m pretty sure.”
“Sorry. Me too,” Laurelei says.
“Oh well,” I say again.
Aware that our visit has just become a lunch with nice people we’ll never see again, we move on to other subjects. Thomas talks about how he fell in love with Laurelei in college in Colorado. She wanted to be an artist, and he was into religion. After college, they traveled to third-world countries like Borneo and Uganda, where they built homes for people and taught them how to sanitize their drinking water. In their thirties, they settled in Wyoming, and he became pastor of a church in Thermopolis.
“I liked it at first,” Thomas says, “but then the pressure came.” He looks at Laurelei, and she offers a sad smile.
“Misguided people,” she says. “Ugliness.”
The head of the church asked him to speak out against the Equal Rights Amendment in his sermons. Laurelei explains that the ERA was a proposed amendment to the Constitution in the 1970s that would guarantee equal rights for women. It passed in many states, but not enough to make it into the Constitution.
“I told him to follow his heart,” Laurelei says, and Thomas laughs.
“You told me that if I said a word against equal rights for women, you’d divorce my ass and move to California.”
She laughs back. “Tomato, tomahtoe.” He reaches out, and her hand clasps his. They squeeze each other’s hands like they’re doing Morse code. I feel like I’m glimpsing something intimate and sweet, and I wonder what it takes to find a Laurelei.
Thomas explains that they gave up organized religion years ago in response to the rise of the religious right in the early 1980s. They didn’t care for the politics. He’d met Pastor John at religious conferences, though, and when he received a phone call from him asking for a place for his friend to stay, he was happy to help.
“So you remember this from, like, over thirty years ago?” Aisha asks.
Thomas spreads his fingers wide. “I can count on this hand the number of friends we’ve had come stay with us since we’ve settled here. Our life is very simple. We like it that way.”
“No Facebook?” Aisha says, and Laurelei smiles as a response.
“We don’t have television and we don’t own a computer,” Thomas says. “One of our friends urged us to start an email account using his computer. We did, but I’m sure we haven’t looked at it in ages, have we, darling?”
Laurelei shakes her head. I try to imagine not having a TV or a computer. It’s such an unbelievable idea that I involuntarily gasp.
“My life is so different from yours,” I say, and they all look at me. “I’m from New York. I pass by thousands of people every day on the streets, and on the subway I’m shoved up against strangers all the time, yet nobody ever says hi to anyone else. I text and I email, and I almost never feel like I’m really connected. And you had a full morning,” I say to Laurelei, “because you got to play with a neighbor’s dog. That’s crazy. Crazy good.”
She gives me the warmest, sweetest smile, and I feel myself falling for these people and their world. I really don’t want to leave.
“Stay for a few days if ya like,” Thomas says, as if he’s reading my mind, and Aisha and I, without even looking at each other, say yes in unison.
Laurelei asks if we’re a couple.
“Gay girl, straight guy. Buds,” Aisha says before I can respond, and Laurelei smiles again, and Thomas says, “Well, it’s settled then. We’re so glad you’ll stay!”
I quickly call my mom and tell her that we are in Wyoming staying with friends of Aisha’s, and we’ll be back tomorrow. She does her usual thing, which includes passive-aggressive breathing followed by a “Whatever you think, honey.” Instead of it bothering me, I just feel relieved, because right now I don’t want to be part of my broken family. I want to be part of this family, and I wonder if there’s some way I can get the Leffs to adopt me. Us.
Thomas looks at his watch and says they have meditation class at two. It centers them, he says, and I can’t help but imagine them literally centered in every room, every photo they’re in. It’s now 1:10.
“We can cancel,” Laurelei says. “Unless — would you like to come?”
I’ve tried something like meditation only the one time, with the gentle yoga, and it was not the most successful thing. Could I do better now? I want to think that I could do better, but I’m scared that I won’t, and I don’t want to let Thomas and especially Laurelei down.
Aisha says, “Sure.”
This is exactly the kind of invitation I’d normally decline, because it’s new and different and maybe a little scary. What if I suck at it? And then I look at Laurelei, smiling expectantly at me, and I drop all that stuff. “Yep,” I say. “Sure. I’m in.”