Carolyn Jessop; Laura Palmer (8 page)

Linda was married at the courthouse. My mother and father were there, as was Alma’s mother. His father refused to come since he opposed the marriage. Linda wore a simple white wedding dress. The ceremony felt more like a disgrace than a celebration. Linda seemed so unhappy. My father could barely hide his disgust for her. He made it clear that for him, this felt like the lesser of two evils.

Alma’s mother didn’t look too happy, but to his credit Alma had managed to do something rare within the community: marry someone he was genuinely in love with.

The tension crackled just beneath the surface at the ceremony. But the judge was oblivious to what was really taking place. He talked about what an honor it was for a couple to be married in the eyes of God. In his remarks he told them how important it was to find a way to say “I love you” every day to each other. Marriage was a serious responsibility, he said, one that should not be entered into lightly. If only he knew!

No one smiled when the couple said “I do.” They kissed robotically, like a couple on a bad blind date.

When we left the courtroom, I had to say goodbye to Linda again. Neither one of us said anything. I didn’t know words that could reach into her unhappiness and make her feel better. She began her new life like a condemned woman, knowing she was a disgrace and disappointment to her mother and father.

It would be several years before Linda and I would see or speak to each other again. It broke my heart. Because she had agreed to a marriage that was ordained by the prophet, she was no longer considered an apostate. But she was still in rebellion to her faith. That meant that she was left out in the cold and could not be included in our lives from that day forward.

Several months later, we heard through the grapevine that Linda was pregnant. Even though she had acquiesced to my father’s wishes, he was no longer concerned for her well-being. There was much he could have done to ease the hardships she faced in the next five years, but he didn’t lift a finger to help the daughter he had once professed to love, nor did he reach out to his two grandchildren.

I learned a terrible and powerful lesson from Linda’s ordeal: escape was not the answer. I knew that if I tried, I’d be hunted down like a fugitive and then forced into a situation that guaranteed misery and unhappiness.

The Nusses

T
he moment I saw them, I knew they were trouble. A long line of girls walking two by two turned a corner and streamed into the corridor at the new public high school on the first day of registration. There seemed to be no end to them—and they were all sisters. Their dresses had several layers of flounces that bounced when they walked. Their sleeves, bodices, and necklines were trimmed with yards of lace and frills. They looked like those crocheted pastel dolls that cover up Kleenex boxes, except that they all wore big blue boys’ sports shoes and made it clear that they would vaporize anyone who tried to cross them.

I looked at my cousins as if to say,
Who are they?
Shannon started laughing. “Those are Merril Jessop’s daughters and they own the school.”

“It’s obvious that they own the hallway,” I said.

My cousin Jayne chimed in, “Oh, they’re not as bad as they look. They do a lot of funny things, trying to be so superior and pious.”

“Funnier than the way they dress?” I asked, thinking of those blue sports shoes. “Does everyone at school dress that way?”

Jayne and Shannon were giggling again. “No,” Shannon said. “Not everyone dresses like that, just the nusses and the wanna-be nusses.”

I looked blank. I had no idea what Shannon was talking about. “We call everyone who dresses that way nusses,” she said.

Jayne jumped in. “It all started out when we called them
righteousnesses
. People who didn’t dress like them or want to be like them were called
hoods
.
Righteousnesses
was too long, so we shortened it to
nusses
.”

I could see that the nusses were going to be one of the strangest components to the strange school year of 1984–85.

Registration day was huge for me because I had been out of school for a year. The split in our community was now in its seventh year. One of the consequences was that many families pulled their children out of the private high school so they would not be contaminated by the children of the families on the other side of the divide who supported Uncle Roy. As a result, many boys wound up working on construction jobs instead of going to high school. The girls who were forbidden to go to the private high school were confined to their homes. Most of the girls who were kept out of school were disappointed because they had wanted an education and a diploma before they were assigned to a marriage. They knew their futures were being shortchanged.

I had been working at my father’s office during my year away from school, which was at least better than being stuck at home doing babysitting and chores. I was diligent about my correspondence courses but eager to get back into the classroom. I was thrilled when the Colorado City High School opened.

I realized as I stood in the registration line that I didn’t have any friends on the Uncle Roy side of the split even though my parents supported him. I had gone against their wishes and maintained friendships with children whose parents supported the brethren, the side that believed that disciples should assist the prophet in interpreting God’s word.

No one else looked and dressed like the nusses. Those of us on the Uncle Roy side of the split usually wore only skirts and blouses, as did the girls on the brethren side. Sometimes we’d wear jumpers, and on rare occasions, a dress. I was still wearing my hair piled on top of my head in a granny knot. We’d been forbidden to wear it down at our former school. Even braids were unacceptable.

When I finally sat down with a counselor, I held my breath. I didn’t know if all my correspondence courses would be accepted for credit. My fear was that if they weren’t, I would be forced to start as a sophomore again, instead of a junior. That would mean I’d turn eighteen before I graduated. If I was assigned in marriage shortly after turning eighteen, as so many girls were, I might not even get my diploma. (By twenty, a girl who was unmarried was considered an old maid.)

But all my credits were accepted, and to my surprise I was told that I was going to begin as a senior. I felt elated. Starting as a senior meant I’d be seventeen when I graduated, and so I’d have a year of college under my belt before I was assigned in marriage. I was beginning to dream about becoming a pediatrician. There were so many children in the community who had no access to comprehensive medical care. Aunt Lydia, the self-taught nurse and midwife, had many practical skills, but she was getting older and soon would have to quit working altogether. I thought that I might be allowed to become a doctor if I worked only with children. But that was a dream in the still distant future. I was thrilled and proud at the thought of being in the first graduating class at the high school. Ever so slowly, my life was starting to feel like my own.

This was shaping up to be an interesting year. It would be lonely being in a school without many of my friends. The majority of my classmates were going to be nusses. Did I really want a diploma bad enough to put up with them? Yes, I did. The trade-off was that I was now a year ahead and would have a chance to get started in college.

On my first day of classes, the nusses were tripping over themselves with femininity. They didn’t walk, they pranced on tiptoe. When they spoke, it was in soft and girly voices. When they laughed, it was subdued and modest. “Oh, for heaven’s sake” was their all-purpose refrain when anything went wrong, like a book dropping to the floor. Their piety was precious to them but fundamentally fake.

But some of the teachers loved the nusses. They practiced perfect penmanship and were diligent A-plus students. The teachers who loved the nusses looked at me as if I had a righteousness deficiency. Thankfully, my cousin Lee Ann was in several classes with me, and some of my teachers remembered me from the private school I’d attended before.

By the end of the first week, I realized that for the first time I was embarrassed to be a woman. The nusses sickened me. I knew that I lived in a culture where a baby girl was of less value to her parents than a baby boy, but I’d never thought of myself as “less than.” But when I saw the nusses prancing and cavorting through school I felt ashamed and humiliated. Couldn’t they see that they were acting like perfect idiots?

Then something snapped inside me. The nusses did not represent women, only fools. Why should I feel disgraced? I knew in my heart that there was nothing wrong with being a woman. I
wanted
to roar like a woman. I knew that would never be allowed, but that didn’t stop me from being proud of myself. I was a woman, not a fake!

I grabbed Shannon and Jayne and asked them to meet me Friday after school. I could barely contain myself. “These girls are driving me crazy. Why do they act like this?”

Jayne and Shannon started laughing. “All right, all right,” I demanded, “you two have got to let me in on the joke.”

Shannon whispered two words in my ear: “
Fascinating Womanhood.
” I pushed Shannon away and loudly said, “What?”

Jayne’s voice was very matter-of-fact. “It’s a book called
Fascinating Womanhood
. It’s all about how to manipulate men.”

“But what does that have to do with being an idiot?” I asked.

“Everything,” they said. “You have to read the book. It’s a scream.”

I tracked down a copy and spent the entire weekend reading it. I was stunned. It was a self-help book about how a woman in a monogamous relationship could manipulate and control her husband. The first few chapters were all about why a man loved a woman who could make him feel like a manly man. Men didn’t love women who intimidated them. That I could see—no one wants to be made to feel inferior.

But the farther I got into the book, the more I could see how it was the nusses’ playbook.
Fascinating Womanhood
was the script that the nusses were following. But what was so surreal was that we didn’t even have that many boys in our school. What were they thinking?

There were descriptions about how to pout perfectly when your husband tells you no. The book explained how to stand, how to pucker in anger, and how to stomp your foot in an adorable and feminine way.

The manipulation chapters were outrageous to me. They were also designed for women who were the only wife. What was a plural wife supposed to do, and how could these methods work on a man who was supposed to be obedient to his religion? We were taught not to manipulate our husbands. A woman was supposed to pray for guidance and understanding about fulfilling her husband’s desires.

What a comedy. In
Fascinating Womanhood,
acting stupid was one of the most important ways a woman could make her husband feel manly. Installing the Dixie cup dispenser was one example. The husband asks his wife if she needs help. She refuses, insisting she can handle this itsy-bitsy chore herself. She pretends to read the instructions carefully and then hangs the dispenser upside down. Full of pride, she shows her husband what she has managed to do. When her husband explains the dispenser is upside down, the wife acts shocked and disappointed. She should have asked her husband to hang it after all, praising him for his many talents and manly abilities.

“For hell’s sake!” I shrieked to myself, not even trying to sanitize my reaction. I could not believe that anyone would believe such a stupid book. Were men so dumb that they could fall for something like that?

On Monday I found Jayne and mocked the book. She chided me about being disrespectful to the nusses’ Bible. “They have taken every part of that book to heart and it is going to be their salvation. This is how they will be treated like queens and escape their mothers’ fate.” I thought I would collapse in laughter. Apparently there was even a younger version,
Fascinating Girl,
which was making the rounds of the nusses’ younger siblings.

We began inventing nuss jokes. I came up with one of the first: “Did you hear about the nuss who was really stupid? She hung the Dixie cup dispenser right side up!”

Then there was the joke about the two hoods and the nuss who went on a trip to the Nevada desert. Their car broke down in the scorching heat, and the three girls realized that they would have to hike for help. One hood took a gallon of water from the car, and the other took the sandwiches they’d packed for the trip. The nuss took the car door so in case she got hot she could roll down the window!

There was a clear social divide at school between the hoods and the nusses. If we were in the same room, we never interacted with each other. When something came up at school that forced us to talk to each other, we were deliberately rude. We were divided into two camps, but there was a certain détente. The unwritten rule was that we were going to leave each other alone.

This worked very well until Margaret, one of Merril Jessop’s daughters, upset the delicate balance. Margaret was not attending high school. She worked for Merril and was about to turn twenty. She felt bad that she’d not been assigned in marriage yet. Unless something happened soon, she’d be the oldest old maid in town. So she decided to have a party and invite all the unmarried teenage girls. Her plan was to invite only the nusses and exclude all the hoods. That was just fine with us. We really didn’t want to go to a nuss party. The nusses were keeping us entertained, which was all we wanted from them.

One prime example of the pure theater they created was watching Merrilyn, one of Merril’s most beautiful daughters, flirt with a teacher she had a crush on. One day in class she was standing at the pencil sharpener, loving every moment of looking up into his eyes. The teacher was polite but clearly had a lot of other things to do while preparing for the next class’s lesson.

Merrilyn put her pencil in the sharpener and looked up at the teacher with an adoring gaze in her big green eyes. “Will you please turn the crank?” Without giving it a thought, the teacher turned the handle. Merrilyn removed the pencil, blowing on it carefully. “Thank you,” she said in her best little nuss voice.

Jayne witnessed the entire episode. Afterward she went up to Merrilyn and said, “So, Merrilyn, how does it feel to have your teacher turn your crank?” The teacher looked pretty sheepish when he realized what he’d been lured into. The nusses were so arrogant it was impossible for them to believe that we were making fun of them. They were so steeped in their own superiority.

The old maids’ party was turning into a big deal. All the girls were talking about it at school. One of Merril’s more serious daughters, Audrey, seemed bothered that we weren’t invited. She approached me in sewing class and asked if I’d come with some of my friends. She wanted us to put together a skit and be part of the entertainment. Other girls would be doing songs. I tried to back out of it—there wouldn’t be enough time, et cetera—but Audrey was persistent, and I knew her intentions were good.

Jayne and Shannon thought it would be fun. They loved the idea of performing before a captive audience of nusses and picked a song from
Fiddler on the Roof
that was about arranged marriages. I was sure the nusses would think we were mocking the prophet if we sang this song, and so I opted out of the skit, but my cousins persisted. They did a great job, and I thought if they were allowed to perform it, they’d be the hit of the party.

There was a dress rehearsal before the party, and each contingent of girls got up and did its part. But Merril’s daughter, who’d organized the party, hated my cousins’ song. A song about an arranged marriage somehow exacerbated the state of misery she was in about being unmarried. She told my cousins that they could come to the party, but they’d have to find another song. Of course, there wasn’t enough time for that.

The nusses’ old maids’ party was the following weekend. The day of the party, my father got a call from Merril Jessop, who was, in effect, king of the nusses. Merril and my father had been business partners for years. He was prominent in the FLDS and very tight with Uncle Roy. Merril wanted me and my cousins to come. Dad explained we hadn’t been invited, and Merril went into a whole song and dance about how that wasn’t the case. Dad didn’t see any reason why we should go to the party and let the matter drop.