STRIP-TEASER AT SIXTEEN Minister’s wife at twenty-one (Daring Romances September 1959)

Daring Romances September 1959

STRIP-TEASER AT SIXTEEN

Minister’s wife at twenty-one

GREG'S voice came strong and clear from the pulpit as he started his sermon, and from the choir loft I looked down at him with love and tenderness and the never-ending wonder that he belonged to me. Even after being his wife for four years and the mother of his child, I still couldn't believe it had really happened to me, Bonnie Walters. But I wasn't Bonnie Walters, I corrected myself fast. I was Mrs. Gregory White, wife of the young pastor of St. Mark's church.

But just remembering that former name, Bonnie Walters, brought back ugly pictures of the past, and I squirmed there in the stuffy choir loft and tried to shut out the thoughts that came crowding in.

Bonnie Walters—that name had been plastered over the marquees of cheap night clubs and burlesque houses up and down the West Coast. "See Bonnie, Sexational Strip-Teaser," the newspaper ads had read, and men had poured into the clubs and theaters and devoured me with their eyes and shouted coarse demands as I paraded before them in a scanty costume and with a frozen, painted smile on my face.

Sitting there in the choir loft, I felt deathly sick to my stomach, as I always did when the past shoved itself into my mind. Dear God, what wouldn't I give to undo those five terrible years? I'd been broke, friendless, a kid of sixteen who'd been kicked around so much by a drunken father that I'd finally run away to San Francisco from Pa's broken-down farm near Bakersfield.

When I got to San Francisco. I immediately looked through newspaper want ads to get a job. I knew I couldn't possibly fill any of the ones calling for typists or stenographers, so I took a chance and answered one that called for show girls. People back home were always saying I was pretty enough to be in show business. Maybe I'd be lucky enough to get into it even though I was green as grass.

The man who'd placed the ad didn't waste words once he looked me over. "You'll do," he said, leering at me. "The job's yours if you'll do a strip-tease."

I wanted to slap that grin off his face, but in the spot I was in, I just couldn't. Just the same I was so horrified I walked out and slammed the door behind me.

It was raining and cold, and I had no place to go. I passed a restaurant and almost fainted from hunger as I caught the odor of hot food. Strip or starve. I slowed my walk and pulled my thin coat around me. Hunger pains knotted my stomach, and I moaned softly. Strip or starve. No one in San Francisco knew me. It would just be a temporary job, something better would come along. I turned and went back to the burlesque office, hoping another girl hadn't landed the job.

I would have broken away if it hadn't been for the kids—my sister and two brothers. But I knew what a rotten time the three of them must be having with me gone and Pa kicking them around and roaring how he wished they'd never been born—the same as he used to yell at me. Timmy was only fifteen and George and Alma eleven and nine, and I just about went crazy at times worrying over them. But sending money helped a little. I sent it to Mrs. Grady, the next-door neighbor, and asked her to buy the kids clothes and see that there was decent food in the house. I didn't dare send the money to Pa. because it would go for liquor, every red cent of it.

Kids cost a lot when they're growing up. If I quit, I figured, it was the kids who would suffer. So I went on and on, getting a little harder, a little tougher every year.

THEN Pa died, and Timmy joined the Army, and I was frantic worrying over who'd care for George and Alma. And then Mrs. Grady wrote that George had run away and she was keeping Alma until she heard from me. Money, money, money! Everything could be solved with money. I could hire detectives to search for George, and I could pay for Alma's care in some nice boarding school.

I went out looking for anything that would bring in more money, and I found it. Stag parties, convention shows —just put in a call, and Bonnie Walters was there with her hand outstretched for the money. I worked day and night, feverishly fighting for every dollar I could get, and I'd try to hide the signs of fatigue with make-up. But being tired wasn't important.

After George had been found, he was placed in a good foster home by the State, and Alma, after a year at boarding school, went to live with Pa's sister and her husband in Michigan. She wrote that she was happy there and wanted to remain.

Five years had gone by then from the time I'd left home, and now that the worry of the kids was over, I knew I had to do something about myself. One night I sat staring into the mirror in my dressing room at the burlesque theater, hating what I saw. You can't live and work among cheapness and filth and not have some of it rub off on you, and I felt that I looked cheap and hard. I knew that I was different from most girls of twenty-one. I was brazen, getting a price—any price I could get—for flaunting my body.

Bitterness welled up in me. The last show was over, and I was due at a stag party in half an hour, but I vowed to myself aloud, "This is the end. After tonight I'm through." I looked at my drawn face in the cracked mirror and added, "When you can't stand living with yourself, it's time to quit."

But halfway through the show we put on at the stag party that night, the place was raided.

"That lousy mayor!" Nina, one of the other girls, grumbled as the police herded us into the car. "He's been cracking down on all the night spots lately just because election time's coming up and he wants to be the fair-haired boy."

"I'm worried about the fine," I answered, putting on my shoulders a coat that a detective lent me after the raid. "If Judge Anders is working night court tonight, I'm a dead duck! He slapped a fifty-buck fine on me last month when I was working that convention party, and he gave me a lecture, besides."

Nina made a sound of disgust and folded a stick of gum into her mouth.

"Oh, sure. It's easy for them guys to tell you how to live. Let 'em try being in our shoes once and see what they'd do."

There were a half-dozen drunks ahead of us in night court, and when it came to my turn. Judge Anders scowled down at me.

"Well! So it's you again, Bonnie!"

An officer was reciting the charge against me in a monotonous drone while the middle-aged judge blinked at me with disapproval from behind his glasses.

"Fifty—"

I said I was through with all of it, and I meant it. And I needed every cent I'd managed to save. That's why I dared interrupt Judge Anders then and plead for mercy, telling him I wanted to make my life over.

When I finished, I held my breath and anxiously waited to hear what he'd say. So much depended on his answer.

"I hope you mean it when you say you want to make your life over," he said finally, after a minute or so of thoughtful silence. "All right—if you leave town within forty-eight hours, I'll suspend the fine."

It had been a long time since I'd smiled, but I was smiling then. Fifty bucks saved by the bell!

"I'll be out of town tomorrow, Your Honor. I promise!"

I went to a quiet little summer resort in Wisconsin because a vacation pamphlet at the travel bureau spoke of clean, cool air and whispering pines. And that's what I needed more than anything. Years of city dirt and noise made me long for green grass and cool rivers and the peace of country woods. And when the bus pulled up in front of the rustic lodge that was the resort office, I felt peace enter my heart.

I can't tell you the change that came over me once I got there. I was all alone, but not lonely. I walked for hours, thinking over all the mistakes and shoddiness of my life, and I felt no bitterness. It was bad, but it was over. Here in this simple, quiet spot I could rest, refresh myself, and start a new life.

AND then one day while I roamed the woods behind the cabins, I saw Greg. He was sprawled on the grass, reading a book, his white shirt open at the neck. When he heard me, he looked up and smiled—the friendliest, sweetest smile I'd ever seen.

"Hello." That rich, vibrant voice was like the warm touch of a hand. "Do you know what I'm doing? I'm reading 'Tom Sawyer' over again, and it's wonderful. Sit down and listen to this," he chuckled and then started a passage from the book.

I learned so much about him that lazy afternoon. He told me he'd been a minister for seven years and how much he liked the little Minnesota town where he'd been newly transferred. He spoke of church socials and ball games and bazaars to reduce the church debt, and I sat there and listened with growing wonder. I didn't know very much about ministers, but Greg didn't seem a bit like anything I'd imagined. He wasn't solemn and preachy. Instead he was gentle and fun loving, and he made working for God seem like the most wonderful job on earth.

"Are you going back out West when vacation's over Bonnie?" he asked idly as we sauntered back to the lodge. I'd told him that I'd' been clerking in department stores out West.

"No, I'm sick of the West. I haven't made any plans yet. I guess you'd say I was just drifting."

He took my hand and swung it as we walked up the gravel path.

"If I can help in any way, call on me, will you? Sometimes a person who's just drifting needs a friend to steer him on course."

Tears sprung to my eyes. "Thanks. I think maybe you can help me more than anyone else in the world!"

Greg and I were inseparable during the next two weeks, and a whole new world opened up to me. Greg taught me to love and forgive my fellow man, never to be afraid, because there was always God to turn to, and to remember that prayer worked quiet miracles for every man. I didn't know much about praying or about God. I was only eleven when Ma died, but I did remember how she knelt with me each night and listened to my prayers and how I always felt better afterward. But that had been so many years ago. I hadn't thought of praying since.

Greg helped me get a waitress job at the resort when one of the regular girls was taken ill and had to leave, and when he returned to his Minnesota town, I felt desolate and lost.

"It's only about a hundred and fifty miles from here," Greg smiled as he kissed me good-by. "I'll try to visit you a few times a month."

I nodded and lowered my head. He mustn't see my eyes and read the truth. I knew I was desperately in love with him and that it was the craziest, most impossible situation on earth.

But because Greg had taught me to pray, I prayed that he might love me, and the miracle happened. Every week during that long, golden summer, Greg's little black sedan rolled up the graveled path, and his rich voice boomed out my name. "Bonnie! Bonnie, where are you, honey?"

And early in September he took me in his arms and whispered those three words I'd prayed to hear.

"I love you!" His lips claimed mine, and I clung to him, weak with rapture. "Bonnie, will you marry me, darling?"

He was talking on about our being married in his little church and about the pretty little cottage that was his rectory and how all his parishioners were dying to meet me. I knew then that there was no doubt in my mind about telling him of my past. Risk that heaven on earth he was offering me? He was good and kind and charitable— but he was also a man in love. I couldn't, I wouldn't pit his moral strength against his human nature. The West Coast was far away, and my old life was buried. Greg and I would find happiness together in a new life. Only a fool would first drag out the past.

"MRS. white, it's time for the next hymn," Addie Young nudged me, and I scrambled to my feet and realized Greg had finished his sermon. I turned the pages of the hymn book quickly, trying to find the right place. All those thoughts of the past had so engrossed me that I hadn't heard a word of the sermon, and Greg always asked my opinion of it over Sunday dinner. Oh, well, it was always safe to say something complimentary. My lips curved in a smile as I sang, and my eyes roamed over the congregation seated below.

My little Peter was there in the first row, squirming with a three-year-old's impatience and getting dark looks from an older child beside him. I spied Helen Giggs, president of the teen-age club, and made a mental note to tell her that Greg gave his permission for the dance the kids wanted to hold.

Suddenly I broke off singing, my throat tightening as my gaze rested on a man whose face was turned in profile. Those broad shoulders, those eyes blinking in a quick, nervous manner behind glasses—I swayed, and yet my eyes never moved from the man. It couldn't be—it mustn't be Judge Anders! The man turned back to the pulpit, and I strained forward, trying to get a better view of him. And then the service ended, and Greg, was walking down the aisle to take his position at the door as the churchgoers left.

"Come on, Bonnie. Time to take our roasts out of the oven," Charlotte Kimball called cheerily as she closed the organ and stacked up hymnals.

But I was waiting for the broad-shouldered man to move out of his pew and face the rear of the church as he started down the aisle. Three or four people nodded and smiled at him as they passed, and I dug my nails into a chair back, waiting—waiting for him to turn around. At last he moved from the pew, and I held my breath.

And then—just one close look, and I felt my blood turn to ice water. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. My eyes fastened on him until he passed beyond view, and then I crept slowly down the stairs and darted into a closet until I was sure that the judge had walked out.

Why was he here in this little Minnesota town? Could he possibly know that I'd married Greg? Did he know Greg from some time in the past? A hundred fearful questions nagged at me as I slipped out of the closet and ran from the church to our little house next door.

Peter and Greg came in a little later, just as I put dinner on the table, and I gave Greg a quick, fearful look.

"What happened to you, honey?" he smiled as he lifted Peter onto his chair. "That youngster, Helen Gibbs, was tearing all over the place trying to find you."

I felt the wetness of my palms as I rubbed them together.

"I was worried about the roast. I—I hurried right home to see if it had burned."

Greg bit into a slice of meat and grinned. "You worried for nothing. It's perfect!" He waved his fork at Peter. "If your wife can cook half as well as your mother can, you'll be a mighty lucky man, son."

My hands trembled as I passed rolls and vegetables. She's good at bumps and grinds, too, I added in my mind. You ought to have seen her, son. The hottest stripper on the burlesque circuit. I bit my lower lip hard. Stop it, I warned myself. You can't have hysterics now.

"By the way, honey," Greg said, "we're having company tonight. Mrs. Hinkley is bringing her brother over for a little visit. I asked them to come for supper—I knew you wouldn't mind.

"He's from California—a judge—and it's the first time he's been back home here in twenty years. I met him after services. Seems like a fine man."

A bit of food stuck in my throat, and I reached for my water glass, spiling it on the way to my mouth. So that was it! Of all the thousands of little towns in the country, this one had to be Judge Anders's former home town. What luck!

"How—how long is he staying?" I managed to ask.

Greg shrugged. "I don't know. A few weeks, I guess. Seems all the old timers in town are planning parties for him. We've been invited to a couple ourselves."

The quick hope I'd had of pleading illness tonight died a sudden death. I could avoid tonight's meeting, but if there were parties—well, I couldn't stay hidden forever.

SOMEHOW I held on to myself for the rest of dinner, and then when the dishes were done and Peter was settled down for a nap and Greg had gone visiting the sick, I went to my room and let loose the terrible cries of despair. What could I do? What would Judge Anders do when he saw me? Would he take Greg aside and tell him the ugly truth? Or would he confide in his sister and let her spread word of my shame throughout the congregation?

I buried my face in the pillow and clawed at the bedspread in an agony of fear. What could I do? The time was so short, and there was no escape, nothing to save me. The clock ticked on as I wiped cold perspiration from my face and tossed from side to side, thinking, thinking—

I could run away. I sat up abruptly, examining the thought. I could run away this very afternoon, before Judge Anders had a chance to see me, and Greg and Peter would be spared knowing what I'd once been. Shakily I got to my feet and took a suitcase from the closet. But almost at once I knew that idea was no good. Even though my past would remain a secret if I ran away, Greg and our son would still be hurt. There'd be sorrow and scandal as tongues wagged, and Greg would be left, bewildered and heartbroken, to wonder why I'd left. No, running away was as bad as having Greg find out the truth.

I shoved the suitcase back and looked at the clock. Ten minutes after four. Greg would be coming back soon. We'd have a light supper, and Judge Anders would come. I can't face it, I thought. I gripped the back of a chair, sick with fear. Maybe if I killed myself—but that was a sin. Greg had preached a sermon on suicide just a couple of weeks before. What was it he'd said? That suicide was a coward's way out and that a brave person accepted the trials God placed before him and worked them out the best he could. But I'm not brave, I told myself, falling into the chair, whimpering and lost in despair. I'm a wife and mother picturing everything she holds dear being snatched away. Who could be brave at a time like that?

Greg returned, and I talked and fixed a salad for supper and helped Peter set up his toy cars, and the clock ticked on. It was six, six-thirty. I gave Peter his supper. Then it was seven. They'd be here any minute. I kept looking at Greg and then at Peter, filling my eyes with the sight of them as though I'd never see them again. The phone rang, and I jumped, and Greg patted my shoulder as he went to answer.

"What's the matter, darling? You've seemed nervous all day."

I thought, maybe I'd better tell him now, as soon as he returns from the phone, throw it all in his face before the judge gets a chance. My mouth was dry as I started to pace the floor, waiting for Greg to finish. Someone was in trouble, and Greg's voice was warm and soothing as he offered consolation.

"The doctor knows best, Mr. Campbell, and I'm sure Joel will come out of it just fine."

Dimly I realized that the little Campbell boy must be facing the heart operation his mother had dreaded.

"You must pray, Mrs. Campbell," Greg went on more firmly. "God hears every prayer and offers help and comfort. Pray, my dear, and you'll be given strength."

I caught my breath in shock. How many hundreds of times had I heard Greg give that advice? How many times had I followed it since meeting Greg and discovering the truth of his words? And yet today, when the most terrible trial of my life had come, I had been swallowed in panic and despair, and— God forgive me—I had forgotten to pray. I clutched my hands in supplication. It was so late—the doorbell would ring any minute. Could God answer a prayer in such a short time? Would He forgive me for turning to Him last instead of first?

I closed my eyes and sank to my knees and opened the fears in my heart. I don't know how long I knelt there, but after, a while the doorbell rang, and I got up and walked to the hall, Peter following me, and there was no fear to cower me. Greg had just finished talking on the phone, and he joined me in the hall. I stood at his side as he opened the front door.

Judge Anders turned pale with shock as Mrs. Hinkley made the introduction. His lips moved, but no words came. Greg took him by the arm and ushered him into the living room, and Mrs. Hinkley and I followed, little Peter at my side. Greg was asking the usual polite questions, and the judge answered, but his nervous, blinking stare was ever on me. I could imagine his loathing and contempt.

WHEN I left the room to put Peter to bed, the judge followed, pretending he was interested in seeing Peter's display of toy cars. While I helped Peter get ready for bed, the judge chatted with him and then stood silently while I heard his prayers. Then I turned off the light and closed the bedroom door behind us, and we faced each other in the hall.

"Bonnie Walters." He took a cigar from his vest pocket and lit it, his face expressionless. "So this is what happened to Bonnie Walters."

His voice was flat, without emotion, and he puffed his cigar and looked at me thoughtfully.

"Does that young man know the truth about you?" he demanded.

I shook my head, looking away from him. He went on puffing his cigar, and my nerves grew taut as I waited. It was like the old days when I had stood before him and waited for him to judge me. Only, this time there was far more punishment coming than a fifty-dollar fine. Help me, God, I prayed. Give me strength to bear it when it comes. I looked back at the judge and lifted my chin high.

"When are you going to tell him?" I took a deep breath and held it in suspense.

He took the cigar from his lips and frowned. "Why should I tell him?" he barked. "I deal in enough human misery. I'm not looking for a chance to add to it."

I let out my breath in a long, shaky gasp and leaned against the wall for support.

"Everyone speaks well of you, Bonnie. I've heard of your fine work with the young people in the church, your helpfulness to those in need. Did you really think I'd destroy all that because of what used to be Bonnie Walters?" His mouth curved in a faint smile. "After all, child, even the courts refuse to try a man twice for the same crime."

I felt tears of gratitude and relief wet my cheeks. All my fears had been for nothing. If I hadn't given in to despair, I'd have realized that. Judge Anders had said, "Why should I tell him?" Yes—why should he? Looking at it clearly and calmly, I could see there was no reason to expect him to smash my life. It was a good life, and Judge Anders, more than anyone else in my past, would want me to keep it that way.

"Come now, dry your eyes and let's have supper," he said with a sort of gruff kindness.

"Yes, in just a moment. You go on ahead," I answered.

He went down the hall to the living room, and I slipped across to Greg's study. There was something peaceful about this little room where Greg spent so many hours. I knelt and bowed my head in a prayer of thanksgiving and found peace settling over me. It had been a terrible trial, but I'd asked for help and found it. How wonderful to know that help was there—always.

I got to my feet and closed the door of the study behind me. Then, with a smile on my lips, I joined the others.

THE END