"Charly" (Chapter Three) from Charly's Point of View

I don’t know what was up with that old stick-in-the-mud. I wanted to marry him, but Sam seemed to take his sweet time making his mind up. One day we went to the department store together. We passed the maternity section and I modeled one of the dresses.

 “How many children do you want, Sam?”

“At least six.” Holy moly! And here I was thinking two would be a lot.

“How come? Religious reasons?”

“That’s right.” My parents had warned me that Mormons had a million kids, but I hadn’t believed it till now.

“Six kids. Nearly a baseball team,” I tried to lighten the mood a little.

“They come one at a time. That way you can make all your mistakes on the first one.”

“Easy, fella, I was the first one.”

I tried again later when we passed the toy department. I tried to carry six dolls, but one fell to the ground. “I can’t get six, Sam,” I said. “I’ll be good mother, Sam. As good as if I’d grown up in Utah.” I was earnest. Well, maybe I wouldn’t be the perfect Mormon mom, but I would try. He didn’t respond.

We had gotten everything we needed when Sam remembered some hose piece he’d forgotten. We decided to separate and—I suggested—meet up at, say, the jewelry counter.

I wandered over to the CD section, idly browsing the music selection. I finally picked out a Bach CD to give Sam. I went to the jewelry counter, browsed the rings, and waited. And waited. Seriously, how hard is it to find a coupling or whatever he was looking for anyway. Where on earth did that knucklehead go? I got some popcorn and checked out without him.

That was when a brilliant idea popped into my head.

I went up to customer service.

“Excuse me,” I said, “But could you help me? I’ve lost my son. He won’t know where I am.” I smiled a shaky smile at the large man behind the desk and blinked false tears out of my 
eyes.

“Of course, ma’am,” He said in a sympathetic tone. “Just use our P.A. system.”

“Thank you so much!” He offered me a tissue and helped me use the P.A. system.

“Sam, Sammy, do you hear me? This is Mommy. The nice men in the store let me use their big radio. Sammy, wherever you are in the store, stop and listen to Mommy. Sammy, darling, if you can hear me, listen carefully. Remember when Mommy bought you a big bag of popcorn last week? Sam, go to the popcorn machine and Mommy will be there. Do you understand? The popcorn place. Mommy has a big bag of popcorn for you. Mommy loves you, dear.”

I thought it was a clever idea. It would certainly get his hiney over there. I went to the popcorn machine and waited for—sure enough—only a minute before he came over, eyes blazing, with that stupid coupling in his hand. I smiled my sweetest smile at him.

“I got a Passion for you,” I presented the CD. His only reply was to forcefully take my arm to rush me out of the store. Talk about taking things too seriously.

“Did you find your boy?” a security guard asked as we rushed past.

“Big for his age, isn’t he?”
Sam was obviously not amused.

“Why don’t you grow up?” He said after we’d gotten in the car. “You think the world is made for your amusement?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or do you want a real answer?”

“What if there had been an emergency? You think you can tie up their P.A. system for your own amusement?”

“‘Attention, shoppers,’” I imitated the computer-like female store announcement voice, “‘there’s a blue-light special this hour on shredded muslin at two dollars a yard.’ You call that an emergency?”

“There’s such a thing as responsibility.”

“I’m sure there is, and there’s also such a thing as being a stuffed shirt.”

He was angry. You could tell by the insane way he drove—almost resulting in several accidents. He slammed on the brakes as soon as we reached my house.

“You talk about marriage,” he said. “Well, I’m not ready to get married to someone who hasn’t grown up yet.”

“Why do you have to be such a self-righteous bore?” I stomped out of the car and started up the porch. Maybe I really shouldn’t have been so hard on him. I turned back. “Sam, I really should apologize.”

“Okay.” I couldn’t do it. Not with him looking so... well, so self-satisfied.

“I didn’t offer you any popcorn, did I?”

I dumped the bag of popcorn onto his head and ran into the house.

I thought that when he called to apologize I would forgive him and all would be well. But he didn’t call. So I decided to let him go.