Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

hear us, their presence reminded me to always be on guard. And never more so than when I started my cooking lessons with Prophet Solomon’s widow.
    “What time am I expected over at Sister Ermaline’s?” I asked Saul, deciding that it was time to change the subject before we both began to cry in frustration.
    He looked relieved. “Five in the morning. Now let’s get back into the house and pretend to be a happy married couple. And Lena? Try to look romantic.”
    Romantic. That was a good one. But then I envisioned Dusty’s muscular arms wrapped around me, his thighs enveloping mine. Dusty might have been a couple hundred miles away but his memory was right here in my head. Oh, yes, I could manage to look romantic.
    To Ruby’s astonishment, I was holding Saul’s hand when we entered the house.
    We didn’t have sex, of course, although to judge from all the moaning and groaning and spring-squeaking that night, we sounded like the floor show at an orgy. I could sense Ruby’s ear pressed against the bedroom door as I jumped up and down on the bed, screaming, “Deeper, deeper, deeper!” while Saul sat in the corner chair trying not to laugh. After I had finally reached my Meg Ryan-inspired orgasm, he raised his voice for Ruby’s benefit. “Told you I was hot, didn’t I, wife?”
    I raised my voice, too. “Husband, you are
such
a stud!”
    A few seconds later, we heard Ruby’s door close.
    Saul used an old pile of blankets to make himself a nest on the floor, leaving the bed to me. Once I heard his snores, I allowed myself to fall asleep.
    But the night brought dreams. Of my mother.
    We rode in the big white bus and people were singing. My golden-haired mother, the woman who looked like me, raised her gun. She pointed it right at me.
    “I’ll kill her,”
she said.
“I’ll kill her.”
    “Mommy, no!”
    A loud noise. Searing pain in my head, then in my stomach. Another scream. Then I began to die.
    A sense of falling.
    Then nothing.
    “Jesus, Lena, you sound like Ruby used to. What the hell were you dreaming?” Saul stood over me, a concerned look on his face. It was still dark.
    “Just the usual, no big deal,” I said, glancing at the clock. Four-thirty a.m. Time to rise and shine.
    “But Lena…” He didn’t want to let it go.
    “See you after the cooking lesson.” With that, I slipped my housecoat over my pajamas and ran to the bathroom, where I showered away my memories.
    Minutes later, I crossed the dark compound to Prophet Solomon’s house. As I glanced over at the clinic, I wondered if Rosalinda had delivered her baby yet.
    It wasn’t quite five, but lights already blazed from Prophet Solomon’s immense brick home, which looked only slightly smaller than the church. I’d been told not to bother knocking, to just walk in, and as I entered the Persian-carpeted living room, I saw and heard gangs of sleepy children in various stages of getting dressed.
    The room, although obviously expensively furnished, was an environmentalist’s nightmare. An entire cattle herd had probably sacrificed its life for the many leather sofas, chairs and leather-topped tables I saw scattered around. The wood paneling alone could have taken out half the Sequoia National Forest. Photographs of children covered every available wall and table. I would have counted them to see how many the old prophet actually had sired, but I didn’t have the time. Maybe I’d try when I had a year or two to spare.
    I did have time, though, to count the crosses hanging on the walls. Ten. And each one of them bigger and gaudier than the last. A painting of the prophet, looking meaner than he’d looked as he lay dead in the canyon, hung above the big rock fireplace next to an embroidered sampler which read, “I, the Lord thy God am a jealous God and I will allow no other gods before me.” Remembering that Prophet Solomon frequently confused himself with the Deity, it creeped me out.
    The din in the room was awful as the older children helped the younger ones dress. Even though most of the clothes being brandished appeared mismatched, I noticed that Solomon’s children wore better clothes than the other children in the compound. I wondered how long that would last. Until the Circle of Elders parceled them out to new “fathers”?
    As I settled into an overstuffed leather chair to watch the show, a pregnant woman wearing a purple-flowered granny dress and a clashing yellow apron that made her look like a giant Easter egg