Love is a Killer. Prolouge, in which a confession is made, sex is exchanged and June finds her true love.

Prologue
June 1973

Calder Larsen stopped attending church the first Sunday of June 1973. Until then it hadn’t mattered. He never believed in the church anyway. He went to please his father, and because his Grandma Mary asked him to drive her in the "49" Chevy coupe. He didn’t mind, he liked sitting next to his Grandma and listening to the old hymns: "I Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet," "Come, Come Yea Saints," "The Spirit of God Like a Fire," "I know that my Redeemer Lives," and the other good Mormon hymns they sang on Sunday.

That Sunday’s service started with a hymn, a prayer and invitation for the members to share their testimonies. Grandma Mary walked to the front of the church, still steady at ninety-two, and leaned against the oak pulpit. She spoke of her faith and her mother and grandfather who left their English village and set up homes and farms on the Utah-Idaho border.

She said, "Because of his testimony, my grandfather gave up his home in England to journey to America. They landed in New Orleans and took a steam boat to St. Louis. Cholera broke out, and his wife and firstborn son were the first to die, but he never lost his faith."

A little boy in the front row flicked a spit wad at Call. It missed. As was always the case during Sacrament Meeting, the young children caused mischief. The boy hit him with another. Call put aside the dignity of his seventeen years, and flicked the wet paper back at the six-year-old.

His grandmother paused to collect her thoughts, as was her way. She leaned forward at the pulpit and continued. "At Council Bluffs he and his two daughters joined a handcart company to cross the plains. They were too poor to buy a wagon with oxen. They made a two wheeled handcart from castoff wood and loaded on their possessions and pulled it across the plains. My mother walked most of those miles because her father was too sick and weak to pull her on that rickety cart. They walked thirteen hundred miles to Salt Lake City. Papa buried one daughter on that trip and entered the Utah Valley in the fall of 1859 with my mother who was eight years old. He built a one room log house and lived there with his new wife and her sister, Aunt Maggie. There was never enough food and many nights they ate boiled crow and service berries. They sacrificed everything for their beliefs. I love this church and I know as surely as my grandfather knew, that it is true. I am the last leaf on our tree. All my family is gone. In the temple we are promised that we will live with our families forever. This is a great promise and I am here to say I know it is true."

Whenever he listened to that story, and he had heard it many times before, Call almost — almost — believed. He had grown up listening to the stories of his great aunts and uncles and grandparents about the sacrifices they made for a faith that carried them across the sea and plains to settle a rough land of sage and sky. Faith kept them rooted and they built homes and bred large families and believed in a richer future. It was always going to be better.

His grandmother sat and he patted her hand. A few more of the older women got up and talked about their families. Gwen Parker got up and read a poem about her pioneer grandfather that she’d written and shared with her quilting group a week earlier.

Then, across the aisle from him, Rodney Anderson stood up and walked to the pulpit. For some reason, it angered Call to see him take those four steps to the stand. Rodney’s mother gave birth to him at forty-six and after that the other five Anderson kids didn’t exist. He was skinny with thick glasses, and wore his religion like a red fur coat. He stood at the pulpit, shaking and white.

"Satan lived with us in the pre-existence and knows all our weakness. He knows mine." Rodney clasped his hands in front of him and looked down.


With a sudden jerk, he looked up at the ward, and said loudly, "He tempted me."
Rodney hesitated and bowed his head so low the microphone scarcely picked up his words when he said, "I was led to the waters of hell. I had my lips on those cold waters and was ready to drink and sink down into sin. By a miracle I was saved." Rodney began to cry in big heaving gulps and shakes.

Grandma Mary leaned over and said to Call, "What’s that boy saying? I can’t hear him."

"I don’t know. Something about the devil."

"Well, Bishop Benson should stop him. No one wants to hear that."

It was quiet with everyone leaning forward waiting for the next confession. The bishop stood up. Rodney looked over his shoulder, and then turned back to the congregation. His eyes were wide, eyebrows raised above the rims of his glasses.
His voice broke and came out high and squeaky, "The devil is here!" His arm swung in a wide arc with a finger pointing to June Jackson, who sat by herself on the last bench. Heads turned and starchy whispers spread through the congregation. The bishop, a large strong man, rushed to the pulpit and gathered Rodney in his arms. Together they walked out of the chapel, the older man with his arm around the younger.

Call had known June since they were kids. She was bad. It had been her idea to leave a dead fish in Sister Benson’s mailbox after the woman yelled at them for throwing rocks into cowpies and splashing shit on themselves; it had been her idea to borrow her father’s girly magazines and let Call and his friends look at them; it had been her idea to steal wine in seventh grade and skip school to get drunk and float the canal in an old inner tube. But her badness was always the same, nothing mean, it was always fun. Like the time in third grade when June gave him two dollars for showing her what was between his legs and earned one back by showing Call the same.

After the bishop and Rodney left the chapel, the ward sat in silence. Some looked at June. Others flipped the pages of their leather-bound bibles. When it became obvious the service was over, the chorister stood up, and the organist began to play the prelude music to "I Stand All Amazed." It was then June stood, with as much dignity as a seventeen-year-old girl could gather, and walked out the side door. Call followed.

She was sitting on the bottom step of the side stairs, humming and watching an ant carry a crumb of bread. He sat by her and noticed how her chest was flushed a deep pink. With each breath the mole on her left breast moved up over the lace of her dress and then sank back down.

"I was going to leave, but I love that song. I’ll leave when it’s over. Call, tell Grandma Mary I liked her testimony."

"What happened back there?"

June moved her shoulders up and let them drop in a grand gesture. The singing swelled as the congregation moved to the chorus and she sang along in her pure alto. "I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me. She hummed the rest until the last chorus and sang, "Oh, it is wonderful that he should care enough to die for me. Oh, it is wonderful. Wonderful to me."

She stood up and brushed down her short flowered dress. The dress was tight under her breasts with a deep scooped neckline and puffy sleeves trimmed in lace. She looked so beautiful to Call.

Call asked, "Are you going to tell me what that was about?"

"You don’t like that song?"

"I hadn’t thought about it?"


"I love it."

"Why?"

"What a great love song. ‘Oh, it is wonderful, that he should care for me enough to die for me. Oh, it is wonderful to me.’ "

"I don’t think it’s about love at all. I think it’s about death."

"Maybe. So are you here to be tempted? Do you want me to lead you down to those cold deep waters of hell?" She laughed and pulled at her sleeve.

"I was just curious with what happened between you and that dick, Rodney?"

"Good hell." She smiled at him. "You know, I have some beer at the house."

It beat church, he took her arm, and they walked the mile to her house in silence.
June lived with her father in a fine old house on a bluff. The New York canal, named by the east coast investors that built the canal in the early 1900's ran in front of it. Poplars lined the gravel road that curved upwards to the old sandstone farmhouse. June’s dad was old, seventy-six. Lo and June lived alone, but that Sunday he was at some cattle sale in Montana looking for a range bull.
The house was dark and cool, smelled of lilacs and polished wood. He used to like to visit, and watch Lo play chess with his cousin, Woody, who had lost most of his eyesight drinking wood alcohol during Prohibition.

"Sit down, I’m going to change."

Call walked to the piano and studied the picture that hung on the wall surrounded by a heavy gilt frame of entwining roses and leaves, and grapes and vines. In a few places the gold gilt was cracked and beginning to peel. The print was of a sleeping woman enveloped in sheer orange silk that drew attention to the line of her flank, but what attracted him was not the nipple that showed through the transparent tunic, or the lovely face, but the smooth white skin of the woman’s upper arm.
He reached out and ran his finger over the high polish of the ebony piano and wondered who was keeping house for Lo. June came out of the bedroom wearing cut off Levi’s that hung loose on her hips and white T-shirt that showed the round outlines of her breasts.

"Did Lo buy this?" He pointed to the picture.

"I don’t know it’s always been here. It’s called "Flaming June" by some painter named Frederic Leighton. I hate it. It’s beautiful and all, but there she is asleep with her tit showing and its like look, but don’t fuck. It is so damn languid. "

"Did Lo name you because of it?"

"Hell, no. He named me June because I was born on the first of June. You knew that. Lo thought it would help him remember my birthday."

"Does it?"

"No. Forgets it half the time, even if I remind him."

She waved him into the kitchen where she took a six pack of beer from the fridge. They left by the back door, stepping on the creaky wooden steps together.

Snowball bushes and lilacs hovered on the edges of the house, springing up in front of windows and draping down in clumps of flowers.

The blooms were starting to fade and scatter to the ground like confetti. June stopped by a lilac bush with deep purple clusters of flowers, placed the six-pack on the ground. She took out a pocket knife, cut off several branches, and held them in one arm while she picked up the beer.

They left the yard by the old wire gate and walked through the orchard.
Wind came off the desert, and sent pink and white petals into their hair. Both tossed their heads to shake them loose. Carefully he reached out and brushed a few remaining apple blossoms away from her hair. She looked over her shoulder and smiled so he let his hand move down her back, his knuckles
tapped down her spine until she skipped ahead of him.

They walked across the back pasture to an old plank bridge that spanned an irrigation ditch where they stopped. While he waited, June took two beers, gave him one, and plunged the rest beneath the current, hooking them against a rock at the bottom of the ditch.

She sat on the plank and let her feet dip into the water.

"Damn it’s cold."

Call stood there, watching and not knowing what to say.

It was the summer after their senior year, and June had ignored him since last fall when she had started sleeping with Stewart. She finished the beer by taking long hard swallows. Her mannerisms reminded Call of her father, although he did not mention it.

With the flowers still in her arms, June led him to a place where two ditches came together and formed a shelter of pasture grass and clover.

Call had not gone there with her since fifth grade, when they buried her dead turtle in a matchbox lined with gray silk she cut from inside of her dad’s Sunday suit. Trouble had come from the hole in the lining of the suit jacket, but not much. Lo only yelled a little and finally felt bad about that, and ended up taking him and June to Arctic Circle for root beer floats.

A white cross marked a mound of dirt covered with a scruff of grass, wilted dandelions, and pansies. Kneeling, she swept away the dead flowers and arranged the lilacs and snowballs on the grave. The cross had the word Trixie written in uneven letters.

She said, "You remember Trixie? She was fifteen when she died. That’s old for a dog. Dad won’t let me get another. Says I’m off to college and he doesn’t have time to take care of it."

June got two more beers and they drank them. It went to his head and he had to lie down and rest as the sun poured over him. June lay next to him and they watched the clouds.

"Do you want to hear about Rodney?"

"No. I don’t care anymore. It was just an excuse to get out of church."

"I’ll tell you."

"I don’t care."

"Do you want another beer?"

"Sure."

June got up and went for the beer. Call turned his head and watched her. When she leaned over to take the beer from the ditch, he could see the white flesh of her bottom. June turned and walked toward him, her breasts moving softly up and down with each step. He watched until she sat next to him, legs spread wide, a rich warm smell came from her.

"Here." She handed him a beer and slid to the grass with her arms stretched out behind her head—bare feet pointed.

"Let me tell you about Rodney?"

"Sure, June. Tell me about Rodney." He had let June ignore him so he didn’t have to hear about her boyfriends. Only the night before, after drinking with his friends, he had seen June parked with some guy. In his bed, Call had dreamed of her. Even in his dream things didn’t go the way he wanted, which didn’t seem right.

"Calder, you know how much I hate him."

"We all hate him."

"No, I mean I really hate him."

"Since fifth grade when he showed everyone your spelling score."

"I’m not stupid."

"You’re not stupid."

"I just can’t spell. That does not make a person stupid."

"No, June it doesn’t."

"Do you think I’m stupid?"

"No."

"Well, I’m not. So anyways, let me tell you about Rodney. What a pussy. "

June sat up and tipped the beer to her lips and killed it. She sat the empty next to her before placing a hand over her mouth and burping.

"Sorry," and added. " I never liked Rodney. He has that holier than thou attitude. You know it’s got nothing to do with what he feels. Little fucker."

"Okay, June." She was getting wound up, was always getting wound up about one thing or another. However, a good drowsy feeling had come over him and he was willing to listen to almost anything.

"Kate and I were out smoking pot. You know how much Kate loves to smoke pot. It’s just crazy. And you know how mad it makes Brad. Don’t tell him. He always thinks it’s my fault and he hates me anyways. That stuff with his mother and Lo. Hell, that was years ago."

"You hate him."

"Brad’s a bully." While she talked, June ripped up handfuls of clover and searched
through them for lucky four leafs. She dropped the spent piles between them and the smell of clover and dirt drifted toward him. "So we’re sitting on the canal bank, Kate and me, over by the big cottonwood, smoking pot and skipping rocks. I had four, but Kate beat me with seven. Can you believe that? Seven skips. Then Rodney comes over and delivers a sermon or something about our wickedness and the general evil of the world and all sorts of horseshit. Kate leaves, she is going to meet Brad, and she’s all paranoid about that. Don’t tell him."

"I won’t."

"Please."

"I won’t tell him."

"Good." She brushed back his hair and pulled a dandelion leaf from it. "Anyways, I’m sitting there with Rodney taking the last hits off the joint and I ask him if he wants some. I think he’s going to say no, but he takes it. I show him what to do and he takes the biggest hit I ever seen. I have another joint and I take it out. He smokes it too. I’m pretty wasted. But, I can see and everything. You know how I get sometimes when I get high and can’t see. I am not laughing because you know when I’m high and laugh, I pee myself. That’s why I don’t smoke pot very often."
She paused and held up a four-leaf clover, smiling.

"Then this weird thing happened. Rodney’s eyes start to wander. They’re off in two completely different directions. One is looking toward your house and another is looking at the Big Butte. I think that’s called wall-eyed. Hell, I think that’s what dad calls it, and then Rodney starts to giggle."

She stopped to make sure he was listening and grabbed two handfuls of clover and grass and dropped them into a growing mound between their bodies.
"Call, then I start to think about that fucking spelling test. I can’t stop thinking about it. Then I get pissed, really pissed. Then I start to think about how he walks."

"What about the way he walks? I can’t see why that should bother you."

"It does. Have you watched him? I hate it. Rodney walks on the balls of his feet and sort of bounces. It’s not even walking the way a normal person would do it. He walks like he has a corn cob up his ass."

"You know. You’re right." He finished his third beer and wished June had brought more.

"So I’m sitting there pretty high and feeling really pissed off about the spelling test and how he walks." June reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a joint and a book of matches, which he lights as she continues to talk.

"And did you know he can’t skip rocks? Now what in the hell kind of person can’t skip rocks?"

"An asshole, June."

"Yeah. So I sucked his dick!"

"You what?"

"Do you know something?"

At the moment, Call didn’t know anything, but that June had placed her mouth around Rodney Anderson’s dick. He had never even kissed her. He took an enormous hit from the joint.

June tapped his shoulder to get his attention. She said, "And do you know what."

"No, what?" Call took another hit.

"Well, I’ll tell you. There is nothing worse to look at than an ugly guy having an orgasm! That look on his face, fuck, that was worth it. And he squealed like a pig. It was really gross."

He took another hit and saw that he smoked half and asked, "Why did you do that?"

She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

"God, June. Why do you do stuff like that? Stewart is going to find out. Everyone is going to know."

"I can’t help myself."

Call couldn’t help what he did next. He rolled onto her. The only fight she put up was to hold him closer and tighter than he’d ever been held. While he knew about his own arousal, the quickness of her responses surprised him. And she was as noisy in love as any other time. And when she showed him how to bring her to an orgasm she began her oh baby’s. Oh, baby, oh baby, baby, baby. Oh, baby. The last one came out in one long whimper.

At sunset the clumsiness of it being his first time had worn off and they forced one more performance from themselves. Then June spoiled the perfection of the day when she said. "Oh, baby. I love you!"