Until the End of Time (15 page)

“But it’s not religious based,” she reminded him with a look of concern, but Bill wasn’t worried.

“Who cares? You’re a minister’s wife—you can teach them how to do their makeup, and you can be talking about values and drugs and sex and all the issues that are important to them at the same time. What a great way to reach out to local kids and get them to church!” He was fully in favor of the project, and she contacted the two girls who had approached her, and said she would meet them at her home after the new year. She suggested Friday afternoons after school. That way it wouldn’t interfere with their weekend social
life, or their homework, and parents were less likely to object, which made perfect sense, and the girls liked it too. They were fourteen and fifteen, and their friends were roughly the same age, although one of them knew an eighth grader who wanted to come too, which sounded fine to Jenny. Bill had made a good point about the value of the group.

Before she started the group, she had Azaya send her several books about how to apply makeup, since Jenny wore very little, and had never applied it to anyone else, although she had seen lots of models being made up for shoots, both in her recent work and in her years at
Vogue
. Azaya promised to have Nelson send her a bunch of cosmetics samples, and she was impressed but not surprised at how enterprising Jenny was. And much to Jenny’s relief, Azaya said that none of her clients were complaining, although Jenny called them once a week to touch base, and more often if there was a problem. So far dealing with them from a distance had gone well, with Azaya and Nelson meeting their needs, and there was no reason to think that would change.

Bill held a special service at the church with Christmas carols the day before Christmas Eve, and they had a midnight service on Christmas Eve, which was heavily attended, and on Christmas Day Bill and Jenny visited many people in the congregation, particularly the sick and elderly. It was a very rewarding day. And that night, they wished each other a merry Christmas and exchanged presents. They had agreed to buy all their gifts for each other at the
mall that year. Bill bought her a new warm jacket, a cowboy hat, and a beautiful pair of black lizard cowboy boots with a matching belt, and a set of fuzzy dice for her yellow truck. And she had gotten him cowboy boots very similar to the ones he gave her, and two warm sweaters to wear when he visited people in the congregation, a camera he had wanted, riding gloves, and a black Stetson just like Clay’s, which he had admired, and which looked great on Bill. They bought a new collar for Gus, who was growing by leaps and bounds. Timmie had come to visit him several times, and he had gone riding with Bill a few times, and they were becoming good friends. Timmie seemed to revel in the company of a man, and admitted to him how much he missed his father.

They were enjoying their new life in Wyoming, and they called Tom, and Jenny’s mother, on Christmas Day. Their old life seemed light-years away, and it was hard to believe that Bill had been there for only three months, and Jenny for two. And when she went back to New York in late January before the shows, it felt like another planet. But she was relieved to see that her clients were doing well. They were happy to see her, and grateful that she had come back to help them with their shows. She had consulted with them frequently about their selections and was fully prepared when she got to New York. She had even helped them choose the models for their runway shows from the distance, with Azaya’s help. And the clients were all pleased to be working with Azaya too. She had been well trained by Jenny and had good ideas of her own.

Jenny was happy to get back from New York and everyone in Moose said how much they’d missed her while she was away, particularly
Gretchen. Jenny brought some clothes back for her, which fit her perfectly, and a bracelet she loved. Gretchen was thrilled with her new fashions from New York.

As soon as she returned to Moose, Jenny started her teenage group on Friday afternoons. It was more fun than she had expected. The girls were outspoken and funny and open about their concerns. They wanted to learn more from her than how to put on makeup—they wanted to learn about fashion and style. And they wound up talking about boys, and sex and drugs, birth control, and how to deal with their parents. Some of them talked about college and wanted to leave Wyoming, while others were terrified to leave the womb they had grown up in. And every week a few more girls joined them.

There were fifteen girls in her group within a month, and in February there were so many, she split them into two groups, and she was impressed by how great they looked and how much they were learning from her. They looked cleaner and sleeker, got better haircuts, did their nails, wore less makeup, and saw the merits of simpler clothes. She bought them makeup herself and went to the mall to shop with them. They looked so pretty and fresh, even their parents were impressed. And so was Bill. Jenny had a wonderful way with them, and they all loved her.

On Valentine’s Day, after she returned from New York, they surprised her and gave her a party to tell her how much they appreciated her. They made cupcakes with her initials on them, and had T-shirts made with their pictures on them inside a big heart. They called themselves “Jenny’s Girls,” and it was a status symbol in Moose to be one of them.

Also in February, Jenny started her abuse group, under the heading
DVA, Domestic Violence Anonymous, and like the other groups, she held it at her house. And just like AA, it took time to get started, but word of mouth traveled fast, and by the end of February, there were six women in her living room on Monday nights. They told their husbands that they were going to an embroidery class at the church. And they all referred to it as the Embroidery Group. But the women in town all knew what it was. It was a secret code that allowed them to attend and discuss it among themselves. Jenny was disappointed to see that Debbie never joined them. She had talked to her about it, but Debbie said her husband would kill her if he found out, so she didn’t push it. By then, Jenny had seen her with blackened eyes and bruises several times, and Debbie no longer pretended that she had walked into a door or fallen off a horse. They both knew how the bruises had occurred. Her husband Tony beat her up every time he got drunk, or anytime the kids annoyed him, made noise, or woke him up, which they did often, but Debbie never left him and was afraid of his reaction if she did. She had a sister in Moose, and another one in Cheyenne, but they couldn’t take her in with four kids. And history was repeating itself. Her mother had been beaten by her alcoholic husband until he died. Debbie had grown up watching that and thought it was her lot in life to be abused whenever her husband felt like it. She had no money, no job, and nowhere to go, and four kids to take with her if she left. Her life was a dead end at twenty-four. It broke Jenny’s heart seeing that, and she spoke to Bill about it often, but they were afraid to interfere and make it worse.

Right after Valentine’s Day, Jenny discovered that she was pregnant. She and Bill were ecstatic, but cautious this time. They were
afraid to get too excited in case she lost it again. They told her mother and Gretchen and no one else. She continued running all her groups, and she felt fine. She was seeing a doctor in Jackson Hole, and he was satisfied with her progress and sure she wouldn’t have another ectopic, but on a quiet Sunday afternoon in March, watching movies on the couch with Bill, she started getting cramps, and when she went to the bathroom, she saw that she was bleeding. She was eight weeks pregnant, and she came back from the bathroom in tears.

“What’s wrong?” Bill looked at her in panic, remembering what had happened last time. But this was different. She called the doctor, and he told her to come in. He admitted her to the hospital to be on the safe side, and Bill stayed with her, holding her hand and talking to her through the night as the cramps got worse and turned into contractions. In the morning she lost it, and sobbed uncontrollably as Bill held her. They let him stay with her this time. Her life was never in danger, but she miscarried. They did a D and C, and she went back to Moose in a deep gloom. The doctor had told her that some women were able to get pregnant, but not to carry a baby to term, and she might be one of them. It was hard to predict. He told them that they should consider adoption, which neither of them wanted to do. They weren’t ready to take that route.

“It’s not the end of the world, Jenny,” Bill said gently. He was as heartbroken as she was to have lost another baby, but he was grateful that this time her own life hadn’t been at risk. But she had had two miscarriages in six months, and she was profoundly depressed. Gretchen took over her abuse group that night and came upstairs to see her afterward. The women in the group were all sorry to hear
that she was sick, although they didn’t know why. Gretchen came and sat on her bed, after the group.

“I’m sorry, Jenny. Life just isn’t fair. Half the women in this town got married because they had to and don’t want the babies they have. And then someone like you is desperate to have one and can’t.” Gretchen was wearing one of the pants outfits that Jenny had bought her in New York, and she told her friend how nice she looked. Jenny was singlehandedly changing the women of Moose, just by who she was. “Why don’t you and Bill try adopting? You can always have your own baby, if you can. It might take the heat off. I’ve often heard about people getting pregnant after they adopt.”

“I’d probably lose it,” she said sadly.

“Lots of girls from around here wind up at St. Mary’s in Alpine and give their babies up for adoption,” Gretchen said quietly. “You should talk to them.”

She and Bill had discussed it. Jenny wasn’t sure how she felt about adoption, but she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life without children. After Gretchen left, Jenny told Bill about St. Mary’s home for unwed girls. Gretchen had said that some of the girls who went there to have babies were as young as twelve or thirteen, which seemed tragic to Jenny. It reminded her that she wanted to talk about birth control again with her group for teenage girls. Several of them were now on the Pill. She didn’t want any of them to wind up at St. Mary’s.

She and Bill decided that night that it was too soon for them to make a decision. They hadn’t fully given up yet on having their own children, and Jenny wanted to try again. But this time she knew she hadn’t overdone anything, she wasn’t stressed or overworked. She
had had the miscarriage for no reason at all. But at least it had been less traumatic than the ectopic pregnancy, and she knew she could get pregnant again, with only one ovary and one tube. But she hadn’t been able to carry it to term.

Gretchen took over all her groups that week, and Jenny stayed in bed, not for any medical reason, but just because she was depressed. She got up on Friday finally, to meet with her teenage girls. She didn’t want to let them down. She had some new makeup for them, lots of magazines, and a book she wanted to share with them. They discussed a variety of topics, and she brought up the subject of birth control again. She reminded them to be honest with themselves about what they were doing and not trust to blind luck or phases of the moon for protection. And if they were having sex, they needed to get birth control. All the girls seemed to agree with what she was saying.

A girl she didn’t know as well stayed to talk to her after the group. Her name was Lucy and she was fourteen years old. She was a freshman in high school, and she had mentioned in the group several times that she didn’t get along with her mother, and that her father hit her mother when he was drinking. Jenny would have liked to get her mother into Al-Anon or the abuse group, but she had never met her, so she couldn’t suggest it. She wondered if Lucy wanted to talk to her about the violence at home or her father’s drinking, and she handed her a Coke after the others left.

“How’s everything going?” Jenny asked her with a warm smile. It had been a lively group that night, with lots of discussion about turning down drugs and not getting into a car with a boy who had been drinking. They had gone way past makeup and hairdos since
the group started, although they talked about appearance too. Being with them had boosted Jenny’s spirits a little, and she felt better than she had all week. It was her first step back into the world. “How are things at home?” Jenny asked her, and Lucy shrugged. She was a pretty girl, with dark hair like Jenny’s, and dark eyes. She had an exotic look and a full figure, and she appeared older than she was, which Jenny knew could be hard on girls her age, when older boys pursued them and then manipulated them into doing things they couldn’t handle. She encouraged the girls to avoid situations they weren’t comfortable with, or that didn’t seem safe, which wasn’t always easy to do.

“Things are okay at home, I guess. My dad hasn’t been as bad lately. My mom says we just can’t get him mad.” Jenny knew that Lucy had an older brother who was eighteen. He had run away from home, was living in Laramie, and was working for a rodeo. Lucy hadn’t seen him in two years. Her father had been angry ever since, at the son who had escaped, and he took it out on everyone else, particularly his wife, whom he blamed for driving the boy away, when he had really run away because of him, a fact the father was unable to face.

“Jenny,” Lucy began hesitantly, “I think I have a problem. Kind of like we were talking about tonight.” Jenny ran down the list of topics in her head and guessed that it might be birth control, or a boy pressuring her into things she didn’t want to do, and how hard it was to say no, especially if the boy got mad, or was cute. The problems of young girls were universal. They were problems Jenny had faced herself in her youth, not that long ago.

“A problem about boys?” Jenny asked her gently.

Lucy nodded. “Kind of. There was a boy I really liked. I went to the Halloween dance at school with him. He’s a senior, and he didn’t know I was a freshman. I lied to him and said I was sixteen.” And with her lush figure, it was easy to believe. She wasn’t the first girl to have lied about her age in order to attract an older boy. And no one would have guessed how young she was. “My dad wouldn’t let me go to the dance, so I lied to him too. My mom knew, though. I always tell her the truth.” Jenny nodded, waiting for the rest.