Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

my voice again. “Why are Solomon’s widows so unhappy?” Toothaches?
    “Because the Circle of Elders plans to divvy them and their kids up between other men,” he whispered. “Martha Royal, his first wife, was the first to get a new husband, and from the way that’s turned out, it’s made the others plenty nervous. Vern Leonard, that’s Martha’s proud groom, is nobody’s idea of a hottie.”
    I struggled to keep my voice down. “You mean the Circle of Elders is just
giving
the widows away like hand-me-down clothing?”
    “It’s usually about favors, not money. The Circle was probably in debt to Vern for something. Or maybe one of the Circle was pissed at Martha and figured this was a great way to get even.”
    “That’s slavery!” My outrage made it difficult to keep my voice down.
    Saul put his finger to his lips. “Careful.”
    I bit my lip, and to get my mind off the terrified widows, scanned the crowd. Approximately one hundred and fifty people had now filed into the room and taken their seats, and as I studied them, I noticed something odd. Almost all were blonds. In fact, so many blue-eyed blonds populated the room that it could have passed for an Aryan Brotherhood meeting. Then I remembered something I’d learned at ASU while studying the history of the Southwest. After the Mormons started their missionary work in other countries, they made many converts in Scandinavia. Many of those converts moved to Salt Lake city, which at this point was probably the blondest city in the U.S. In Purity, that tendency to blondness had magnified. No wonder Prophet Davis had looked upon me with such approval. Except for my green eyes, I fit right in.
    While studying this profusion of blonds, I noticed Martha Royal sitting next to her new husband, his hand resting on her knee. If she leaned any farther away from him she’d topple off her chair.
    Most of the other women in the room looked little happier than Martha but few displayed her utter disgust. Seeing this many women together, though, did make me finally put my finger on something that had nudged at me since I’d arrived in the compound. The women’s granny dresses were sewn with various levels of competence. Some hems dangled and some showed the tracks of let-out seams. While clean, the fabrics were worn thin, with their former patterns faded into ghosts with repeated washings. Compared to these women, I was a virtual fashion statement.
    “You’d think they’d at least dress up for the meeting,” I commented.
    Saul took a quick look around. “They
are
dressed up. Remember, most of these women are on welfare.”
    I bit my lip again to keep from saying more. One group of women, though, looked far from destitute. They stood in a little circle, chatting happily while waiting for the meeting to start. Their granny dresses glowed with bright colors and new fabric. While many of the other women were pale to the point of anemia, these women’s faces radiated good health, and their teeth were as perfect as Davis’. As a group, they were the prettiest blonds in the room.
    Saul saw me watching them. “Those are Prophet Davis’s wives. Not bad, huh? He does have an eye for the ladies.”
    Ah, the old rock star perk. I recognized one woman from earlier in the day. About twenty, she was a younger, even more beautiful version of Martha Royal. Martha’s daughter, perhaps? She wore a bright blue-and-yellow calico that set off her pale hair and azure eyes.
    Saul saw me watching her. “That’s Sissy Royal, Davis’s sixth wife. He married her just after she turned sixteen, but she hasn’t given him any babies yet.”
    I remembered that the more children a woman bore, the higher her family status appeared to be. Sissy, while beautiful, wore the strained expression of a woman who knows she’s not measuring up.
    “How many children does Davis have?”
    Saul shrugged. “Around thirty, I think. Maybe more. Each of his other wives pops a baby out a year, and one of them even has two sets of twins. But I’ve got to say this for ol’ Davis, his wives look a lot happier than the rest of the women around here. Even Ruby wanted a couple of her daughters to marry him, course that was mainly so they wouldn’t have to marry guys living in some of the other compounds.”
    “What happened?”
    He shook his head. “They weren’t pretty enough for him. They got shipped off to some old guy in Sunset, about sixty miles away, and Ruby’s hated Davis ever since.”