After another immeasurable period of waiting, in even deeper despair than before, I heard a new guard come to my cell. "Visitors, Shunn," he said, unlocking the door. "Coupla fellows from your church. They've even got some different clothes for you."

Finally! Although I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that clothes thing . . .

The guard escorted me back down the corridor, then into an area of the cell block that I hadn't seen before. He led me into a tiny, dim room containing a table and a few chairs. I sat down in one of the chairs, and the guard locked me in.

A few minutes later, the door opened again. President Tuttle entered, followed by Fred Harvey, a tall, thin, fiftyish fellow with white hair. Harvey was the first counselor to the president of the Calgary South Stake—the stake in which Elder Snow and I worked. I'd met Harvey before, in correlation meetings between the missionaries and the stake presidency. I wasn't thrilled to see him, though. I'd been hoping that Elder Snow would accompany President Tuttle.

Tuttle was carrying one of my suits on a hanger, complete with white shirt, tie, belt, and name tag. Harvey had a pair of my dress shoes, with a pair of socks stuffed into one of them. Tuttle laid the suit out on the table, then gave me a big hug. "Sorry that Elder Snow couldn't come in, too. They would only let two of us in to see you, so he's waiting outside with Elder Herring, who's going to be his companion for the time being. You know President Harvey?"

I shook hands with Harvey, nodding. "How are you, Elder Shunn?" Harvey asked.

"I've been better."

"I don't know if you knew it," said President Tuttle, "but Fred here is a lawyer. When he found out what had happened, he offered his services to the mission, gratis. Do you want to change into this suit? You'll have your bail hearing in the morning, and I think it would be best if you looked as respectable as possible."

That was naïve of President Tuttle—as would soon become apparent—but how could he have known? He didn't have much experience with this sort of thing, missionaries in jail.

I really didn't want to be wearing an outfit that would set me any farther apart from the general run of inmates—but Tuttle was my mission president. You don't argue with your mission president. You obey your mission president, since he knows best.

This is called "blind obedience." It is a Bad Thing.

Tuttle and Harvey politely looked away as I changed. The guard—keeping an eye on us through the window in the door—didn't. I was certain those clothes had received a thorough going-over before they ever reached me, but the cops weren't taking any chances.

When I was all nattily turned out, the three of us seated ourselves at the table, me on one side, Tuttle and Harvey on the other. "I've got to be straight with you, Elder," said Harvey. "The reason you haven't seen the bail magistrate tonight is that orders have come down from the Alberta Crown Prosecutor's office. That's like a state attorney general in the U.S. The Crown Prosecutor himself is watching this one, and he says you're not to be released on bail. He wants to send a clear message that terrorism will not be tolerated in this province."

"Terrorism?" I said, blinking. "It wasn't terrorism. They arrested me for public mischief."

"I know, but the Crown Prosecutor sees it differently. Anyway, the magistrate has his orders: no bail. Of course," Harvey added, raising his eyebrows, "that doesn't mean we're not going to fight. You just need to be prepared for what could happen in there tomorrow morning."

The mention of morning knocked me over onto a different mental track. "What time is it, anyway?" I asked. "They took my watch, and I have no idea how long I've been in here."

"It's just after midnight," said President Tuttle. "We've been waiting out there since ten o'clock, but no one would let us see you until now."

I leaned back in my chair with a sinking feeling. The implications of what I had done sank deeper ever time I turned around. I was in a hell of lot more trouble than I ever thought.

President Harvey looked at his watch. "I'm afraid we really don't have much time, though. They're going to haul us out of here any minute."

"Before you go," I said suddenly and self-consciously, "I wonder if . . . if you both could give me a blessing."

As ordained holders of the priesthood, all three of us were empowered to give blessings—of counsel, of comfort, of healing, and so forth—in the name of God. (Not at all presumptuous, eh?) It is not at all unusual for a Mormon in as great an extremity as I was to ask for a blessing—which basically boils down to asking someone in authority for reassurance that everything is going to be all right.

(Some Mormons are so blessing-happy that they routinely ask family members or leaders for blessings over matters as insignificant as hangnails. I guess they're too paralyzed by normal life to attempt anything without the appropriate leave from on high. Myself, I was always rather shy about asking for blessings—maybe because, deep down, I felt silly doing it.)

President Tuttle readily agreed. He and Harvey came around the table, stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind me, and placed their hands on my head. Tuttle pronounced the blessing, in which he promised me that I would be cared for, assured me that I would emerge from my trial strengthened, counseled me to be patient, and confirmed that God really did love me and was mindful of what I was going through.

I felt better after the blessing. Not exactly chipper, but better. You see, President Tuttle was supposedly speaking the mind and will of God to me, and he said things were going to be fine. Or something that sounded remarkably like that. So there was nothing to worry about, right?

Hah.

Shortly after the blessing, the guard opened the door and led Tuttle and Harvey away. Another guard came for me a few minutes later—but he didn't take me back to the holding cell. "You're going to get processed in," said this guard. "Into the real jail."

Boy, I couldn't wait.

The guard led me down yet another corridor, then up a flight of stairs, until we finally emerged into a wide foyer that resembled nothing so much as the waiting area at some government office—which I suppose, in a way, it was. There were benches against the wall, tiles on the floor, and a counter with a big record-keeping area behind it. The only difference here was that there was an armed policeman behind the counter, not some mere run-of-the-mill civil servant.

The guard escorted me to the counter. The cop there looked me over, then asked me to hand him my belt, my tie, and my name tag. I forked over the items with no argument, and then the cop asked to see one of my shoes. I removed one and handed it over. After inspecting the shoe, he returned it to me, saying I could keep it. I guess I'm lucky he let me keep the shoelaces. Walking certainly would have been difficult otherwise.

But now I no longer looked like a missionary. With my name tag missing, my shirt collar open, and my beltless pants sagging, I probably looked more like a cheap lounge singer with a bad tailor than anything else. Boy, was I ever going to impress that magistrate in the morning!

After I filled out some forms and signed away my accessories, the guard led me to a door to the left of the counter. When he unlocked this door, a huge and grim-face cop emerged. Did I say huge? I'm talking mountainously tall and fat. I mean, Everest had nothing on this guy.

"This way," he rumbled in chillingly sepulchral tones, turning back the way he had come.

I trailed that ambulatory boulder through the door—which slammed resoundingly shut behind me. Like a stone closing on a crypt.

I didn't realize it yet, but I was walking into one of the most harrowing nightmares of my life—one that, frighteningly enough, would have made me a true living legend in the Canada Calgary Mission if earlier events hadn't already made that certain.

After walking about halfway down a dim gray corridor, that cellulite orgy of a police officer I was following stopped beside a door that opened off to the left. He pointed into the room beyond—reminding me, despite his girth, of the Ghost of Christmas Future directing poor Scrooge's gaze toward his own tombstone. "In there," rumbled the cop.

I entered the room. It was a whitewashed box, maybe twelve feet square and eight feet high, with a naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling. The room was completely devoid of furnishings—without even a bench to sit on. The cell door was a massive slab of riveted, banded, whitewashed steel that opened inward. This couldn't be where I was slated to spend the night . . .

I was standing in the center of the cell, back to the cop, gawking like a fish, waiting for the door to slam, when he said, "Give me your jacket."

I turned. The cop was standing in the doorway, filling it. He had black hair and a typical cop's black mustache. His face was sweaty.

And he wore an expression of the coldest, deadest meanness I had ever seen.

Come on, I thought. What the hell is this? I had already given up half my wardrobe at the processing desk.

I must have hesitated, because the cop repeated the command in a resounding bark: "Your jacket! Now!"

So I took off my suit coat and handed it to him. I was still sufficiently befuddled that I didn't realize what was starting.

The cop ran his hands expertly through every pocket of my suit coat, felt every stitch of the lining. That's when it dawned on me.

The cop looked up from my jacket suddenly. "Everything else, too!" he ordered. "C'mon, strip!"

I felt myself shrivel, hollow with dread. The memory of every embarrassing moment in junior-high locker rooms came back to me then—my painful body-consciousness, the agony of undressing with other people around—and I realized that experience was going to suck in all the horror of those days in school and spew it back at me a hundred times magnified. For the first time that night, I was really and genuinely scared—icy-hands-in-the-gut, freon-blooded, testicle-retractingly terrified.

But I wasn't paralyzed. With shaking hands, I began to undress.

I handed the cop my clothes piece by piece, and he searched every square inch of them. My pants, my shirt, my socks, and—after another shouted prodding—my garments. When he was through with each item, he tossed it cavalierly up to drape over the top of the open door. He took each of my shoes, pounded the heels against the wall, crammed his baseball-mitt hands inside them like shoehorns, and dropped them to the floor.

I stood in front of him—naked, shivering—like a starved concentration-camp inmate facing the barrel of a machine gun, open lime pit at my back.

And then the cop said, "Run your fingers through your hair."

Well, okay, that sounded easy. I sort of ran the fingers of one hand quickly through my hair and let the hand drop back to my side.

The cop came closer. "Both hands!" he said. "Slowly!"

So I ran both hands through my hair while he watched—and while my heart thumped audibly in my chest. Never mind that my hair was too short to hide anything.

Next he had me fold down each of my ears so he could peer behind them. He looked inside each ear. He looked into my nostrils as I flared them. He looked into my mouth as I peeled back my lips and lifted my tongue.

Once it was determined that I was hiding nothing on or in my head—no sniggers, please—I had to lift up my arms so the sparse tufts there could be inspected. As if I could really hide a grenade or something in my armpit.

Then I had to prove that nothing was lurking down there in—well, there in the southern junglelands.

(I said no sniggers!)

Well, that wasn't so bad after all, I thought to myself when the examination was done. Certainly no worse than when I had to undress for a youngish lady doctor at the age of thirteen in order to get certified so I could go to Boy Scout camp.

The nightmare was over. I could start breathing again.

But no. Wait. The nightmare was just beginning.

The cop was pulling on a rubber glove.

That little voice of denial started up again. No, no, no, no, no . . .

"Turn around and bend over," said the cop.

Oh, shit. Numbly, I did what he told me.

"Now spread your cheeks."

Huh?

"Spread your cheeks, now!"

From my bent-over position, I could see the cop—squatting like a big blob of lard plopped onto the floor, finger poised—upside-down between my legs. I strained those muscles back there as hard as I could, so hard that I trembled, trying to follow his instructions.

And the cop shouted, "Put your hands on your cheeks and SPREAD 'EM!"

I think I jumped a little at that. Quicker than a seven-ten split, I slapped my hands back on my ass and spread those cheeks wide.

I waited, as taut as a body on the rack, while the cop squinted and peered and squinted some more. I waited for what seemed like hours.

And then . . .

And then the cop said, "Okay, get dressed."

I was the Death Row inmate strapped into Old Sparky, the bowl already being lowered onto my shaved skull, when the stay comes down from the governor. I was the mugging victim on the business end of a .45 when the hammer falls and a little flag saying Bang! pops out and unfurls. I was the airline passenger who just learned the bomb threat holding up his flight was only a hoax. I felt like deflating right then and there, just slumping to the floor like a jellyfish, but somehow my hands cooperated and I managed to get my clothes back on without inordinate difficulty.

Then I followed the poor fat cop with the worst possible job in the world down a long corridor and around the corner, toward the place where I'd be spending the night.

We ended up somewhere in the middle of a cell block that was larger than I could properly perceive in the darkness. The cop unlocked a barred door and held it open for me. I walked through. The door slammed shut behind me. "Pick a bunk, kid," said the cop before lumbering away.

A couple of forms stirred in the darkness. There was no light in the cell itself, but dim illumination filtered in from the corridor. My eyes adjusted pretty quickly. The cell was big, maybe twenty feet by thirty. Jutting out from one wall were five two-level bunk beds—well, bunk cots, really—each decked out with a thin mattress and blanket. Maybe half the bunks were occupied.

Against the opposite wall were what looked like two metal picnic tables, complete with attached benches. There was a toilet in the corner, without a screen. The two side walls were made of bars.

I took the lower berth of the second bunk in line. The berth above was empty, but there were slumbering inmates to either side of me. One of them I thought I recognized from the holding cell earlier in the evening, but it was hard to tell in the dimness.

I didn't want the top berth because I was afraid of falling out. I didn't want to sleep with another person either above or below me, first because I wanted to be as far away from the other inmates as possible, and second because I didn't want to wake anyone up by clambering around on his bunk. Frightened nearly out of my wits, I rolled up my suit coat to use as a pillow, slipped off my shoes and put them next to the bunk, laid down firmly on my back, and resolutely tried not go to sleep.

This was a city jail, not a prison, but after that strip search I wasn't taking any chances. I was terrified—unreasonably, no doubt, but terrified nonetheless—of being raped.

I don't know how long I lay there with my eyes open. I only know that it was a long, long time, maybe a couple of hours. Eventually I did fall asleep, but not before convincing myself that my mission was at an end. When this ordeal was over, I was certain I'd be put on a plane back home to Utah. When a missionary commits a crime, that's it. It's over. Finito. Kaput.

Home.

Katrina.

At some point, I dropped off into blackness.

It seemed as though only a minute or two had passed before bright lights snapped on and a coarse voice shouted, "All right, ladies! Let's get those asses out of bed!"

Later that day, thinking back on things, I calculated that the wake-up call must have come at six-thirty (which, coincidentally enough, was the same time the White Bible decreed that missionaries must arise). At the time, though, all I knew was that someone was trying to get me to wake up long before I was ready to. Give me just ten more minutes, Dad . . .

"I said move!"

Reluctantly I struggled up from the bunk. Inmates were stirring all around me. A guard had opened the door to the cell and brought in a broom, a mop, a bucket of soapy water, and a few other cleaning implements. "Someone sweep, someone mop the floor, someone get the tables, and someone scrub the toilet," the guard said.

I didn't want to help with the cleaning—particularly because I was wearing my suit—so I hung back just long enough so that all the jobs were taken by other inmates. I know that was uncharitable of me, and I feel somewhat ashamed of it now, but on no account was I going to let the taint of jail sink into me any deeper than it had to.

After the cleaning was finished, there was nothing to do but hang out. A couple of new recruits had joined us sometime overnight, and the seven or eight of us either lounged on our bunks or sat at the tables smoking. (That is, other fellows sat at the tables smoking. I lounged around on my bunk. No caving in to peer pressure for me, nosiree.) A few of the fellows talked or joked around with each other, but for the most part we were a silent crew.

Eventually, the demands of my bladder drove me to the unscreened toilet. I had put this off as long as I could, still uneasy with the notion of doing my business while people watched. Somewhat to my surprise, no one seemed to care that I was peeing in front of them. When I was done, I went back to my berth and lounged some more.

The absence of my watch was driving me out of my skull. I was ready to climb the walls by the time a guard out in the hall announced breakfast.

The corridor outside filled up with inmates as the cells were unlocked one by one. When our turn came, we filed out the door and joined the queue outside. At the far end of the corridor was a long wheeled cart heaped with pots and hot-plates and a big coffee urn. When I reached the head of the line, a uniformed server handed me a plate. Meager portions of reconstituted eggs and crusty bacon congealed alongside a pair of round, flat items that were intended, I can only suppose, as a taunting parody of real blueberry pancakes. As I picked up my steel utensils, the next server tried to hand me a styrofoam cup filled with a thick, vaguely coffeelike substance. I waved the cup away, saying, "No, thanks."

The server thrust the cup at me again. "Take the coffee," he said in a low, menacing hiss—one that seemed all the more threatening for its lack of volume. This was supposedly one of the good guys, but I wouldn't have wanted to meet him in a dark alley—or even in a nice sunny one, come to think of it.

"I don't drink coffee," I said firmly. Mormons, of course, are forbidden to drink coffee by dint of a set of commandments known collectively as the Word of Wisdom. I had never tasted the stuff in my life. (Incidentally, I had my first cup of coffee in the summer of 1995, during a trip to San Francisco. Didn't really care for it at the time, but the taste has since grown on me in a big way.)

Well, it was one of those moments where all conversation seems to cease and the entire universe narrows down to just the icy-cold connection between two adversarial sets of eyes. If it had been a movie, this would have been The Start of Something Big—a prison riot at worst, or a simple knife-fight if the other prisoners were still too sleepy to get riled up. At the very least, I'd need to watch my back for the duration of the next two reels. I don't know what the problem was—whether the guy was under orders to see that every inmate got a cuppa, or whether I offended him by snubbing his special brew, or whether he just didn't like me and wanted to make trouble. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to flinch until I did. It was personal now.

So I simply moved on—just headed back down the row to my cell, waiting for the guy to tackle me or to throw the scalding coffee on me or to carve out my kidneys with a plastic spoon. But nothing happened. Nothing at all.

I'm glad life isn't like a movie.

Later I realized that I should probably have just accepted the cup and then passed it on to one my cellmates—possibly making a friend in the process—but I hope I can be forgiven for not thinking through all the possibilities while that swine tried to force his rotten coffee on me.

Heck, the stuff didn't even smell good. Normally I adore the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee, but something that smelled like the stuff in that cup I wouldn't have fed to a goat.

Back at the cell, I found an open space at one of the tables, as far away from the others as possible. I ate my breakfast silently, washing down the pancakes with water from the drinking fountain next to the toilet. I nearly choked on those "pancakes"—if a word with such homey, savory, and belly-warming connotations can be used to describe those little round offenses against nature. I kid you not—the pancakes resembled nothing so much as circles cut from cardboard and dotted with a purple marker. Even the accompanying margarine and syrup did little more than moisten the surface of the pancakes into a sort of fibrous pulp. Blechh!

I ate every bite.

And at least I didn't have the coffee to deal with. As they drank it, my cellmates cracked jokes about toxic waste and industrial sewage and even more hideous substances—but even with laughter as a substitute for the sugar that helps the medicine goes down, not one of them could finish an entire cup without pulling a face worthy of Jim Varney at his most moronic.

Come to think of it, maybe it's a good thing I didn't take a cup and try to foist it off on someone else. There are worse fates than friendlessness, you know.

Shortly after breakfast was over, and after all our used utensils had been collected and carted away with the rest of the garbage, a guard came to the door of the cell and called my name. "You've got a visitor," he said.

My heart leapt. Maybe Elder Snow had made it in to see me after all!

The guard unlocked the door and led me around a few corners to a small visitation room—where I was to be disappointed once again. Waiting for me inside the room was a man wearing a neat beard and a fairly nice suit. He stood up when I entered. "Who are you?" I asked as the guard locked us in the small room together.

I have forgotten his name in the time since, but the fellow introduced himself as an agent from Canada Immigration. "We're notified every time a foreign national is arrested on our soil," he said. "I've come to explain a few things to you, and to inform you of what the consequences of this little . . . incident of yours may be."

We seated ourselves at opposite sides of the small table that took up much of the room. "Mr. Shunn," he went on, "you're currently a guest of our country, here on a work authorization. The fact that you have been charged with a serious crime puts your status as a legal alien resident in jeopardy. A final determination of your future status in Canada won't be made, however, until after you've gone to trial."

He paused, giving me a significant look. "Which brings us to the matter at hand. You have a bail hearing this morning at ten-thirty. There is a certain possibility that you'll be released on bail and then be free until your trial. Once free, you may feel that your best course of action will be to run home to the United States, in order to avoid the possibility of going to prison.

"I'm here to urge you very strongly to stay in Canada until your trial.

"If you should happen to leave the country, and thus do not show up for your trial, there will probably be no legal recourse for the Canadian government. You will have gotten away clean. However, a warrant will be issued for your arrest in this country, and if you ever attempt to enter Canada again, and if your name if checked against out computerized records—which would be a gamble on your part, because we don't always check—then you would be taken into custody on the spot, and you would be treated not just as a terrorist but as an international fugitive from justice."

The agent's monologue had taken on a hostile edge, one that completely bewildered me and certainly did nothing to endear him to me. I mean, there I was, not even tried yet and being taken to task for crimes I hadn't even thought of committing yet! "However it happens," he continued, "an arrest under those circumstances would be extremely bad news for you. If you were traveling alone, then no one would have any idea what happened to you. If you were traveling with friends, you would be very embarrassed in front of them. The bottom line is that it's in your own best interest to stay in Calgary until your trial."

I refrained from asking him what made him think I would have wanted to come back to his crummy country anyway. "Listen," I said, "I plan to stay. I'm not exactly stupid or uneducated. I have important work to do in Calgary, and I'm not about to go running away from it." (See how well I had learned my lessons?)

The agent seemed taken aback. I guess he had grown too accustomed to dealing with subliterates. He tried to do some hurried backpedaling. "Well, all I came here to do was to apprise you of the possible consequences of any of your actions, as the law requires."

"Is that all you have to tell me?" I asked.

"Uh, yes," he said. "Unless you have any questions."

"Yes," I said. "If I'm found guilty in my trial, what then? Am I going to have to leave Canada?"

"There would be an inquiry by Immigration to determine that—but the chances of it are pretty good."

Damn. "Okay, that's all I wanted to know," I said, standing up. Then one more question hit me. "Oh, by the way, would you happen to know what time it is?"

Nonplussed, he looked at his expensive watch. "It's about five minutes to nine," he said.

"Thanks." I knocked on the door, and the guard opened it up.

"Hey," said the immigration agent. "Good luck at the hearing."

Now I was nonplussed. "Uh, thanks," I said. Then the guard escorted me back to my cell.

An hour and a half until the bail hearing. It seemed like years left to go.

After lounging for another half-hour or forty-five minutes, though, I heard a guard come down the hall announcing something about free legal aid. Most of the inmates in the cell stood up or swung off their bunks. A big line began forming in the corridor. The guard unlocked our cell. "Whoever wants or needs it, come on."

I wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but I joined the line nevertheless. If nothing else, it was something to break up the monotony of imprisonment. After a minute or two, the long line of us moved off down the corridor. We emerged a short time later into the waiting area with the counter where I had given up my belt, tie, and name tag the night before.

One by one, my fellow inmates were beckoned and led into small rooms, from which they would emerge a few minutes later. I sat on a bench and waited. After a long wait, my own name was called.

I was led down a hall a short distance and then into a small consultation room. The door closed behind me. There was a table in the room, and seated on the other side of it was a petite and terribly attractive young brown-haired woman, dressed in a conservative business suit. I could have stood there staring at her all day, but she indicated the empty chair and I sat down. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Donald William Shunn the Second," I answered, a bit nervously.

She shuffled through the papers on the table in front of her.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

Her shuffling stopped and she gave me an aggrieved look. "What?"

"What exactly is this all about? What am I here for?"

She took a deep breath, as if annoyed by the fact that she had to deal with idiots like me. "I'm a law student at the University of Calgary," she said. "We come here for practice, giving legal counsel to people who need it."

"Now, then," I said, "I already have a lawyer. Does that mean I don't need to talk to you?"

"That's right," she said, clearly unhappy with the way this was going.

I stood up. "That's what I thought," I said, "but I wasn't quite sure. I'm sorry I wasted your time." I paused at the door. "It was worth it to get out of the cell for a few minutes, though, and to see a friendly face in this rotten place."

Not that she had been friendly up to that point—but she was smiling as the guard opened the door to let me out. "Glad to help," she said.

As I was taken back to the cell, I reflected that in some ways it was unfortunate that I had private counsel.

At long last, as I lounged on my bunk in the cell that now seemed so much like home (but only because I could barely remember ever living anywhere else), a guard unlocked the door to the cell and read four or five names from a list. Mine was one of the names. "Let's go!" he said. "Bail hearing!"

Those of us who had been named left the cell and joined a queue of about a dozen other inmates in the corridor outside. With a guard at the head of the line and one at the rear, we set off. Along the way, we stopped to let a few other inmates join us. Then we set off on a great, twisty backstage tour that would have had Willy Wonka turning mint-colored with envy.

We marched down corridors, around corners, up stairs, down stairs, into elevators, and through narrow spaces with pipes on the walls and ceilings until I was so thoroughly confused and lost that it almost seemed we were wandering through that M.C. Escher lithograph that has people walking on the undersides of staircases. The intention of all this wandering was, I'm certain, to make us lose track of where we were. I mean, how could we escape if we didn't know which way was out?

At one point we marched through the middle of the detention block where they kept convicts serving sentences of up to one year. Through the thick glass windows of their cells, I saw jumpsuited convicts playing poker, Monopoly, and Risk, with Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and Playboy centerfolds plastered on the walls all around them.

Didn't seem too bad in there.

After a while we came to a barred gate. One of the guards stuck a key into a switchbox beside it and the gate rumbled open. We were escorted into a yellow-painted corridor with high windows, then directed into a holding cell fronted with sliding bulletproof glass rather than bars. The room was about half the size of the holding cell where I'd sat for so long the previous night, and all twenty or so of us had to cram ourselves inside.

We waited there for at least half an hour, maybe longer.

Then the guards opened the sliding glass door, and we were escorted the rest of the way down the yellow corridor and around another corner. One of the guards opened a door in this corridor, and we were all herded through. We ended up in a long, high, narrow passageway—wide enough for an average-sized man to walk down it without scraping his shoulders on the walls, but only just. A long bench attached to one wall made that sort of experiment impossible, however. At the end of the passage was a metal door with no handle. The number 378 was painted in large brown numerals above the door.

And there we waited, some on the bench, some scrunched up on the floor, for a short while longer. It was a claustrophobic's worst nightmare.

The guys around me were a varied lot. There was a fat, wispy-bearded biker type who was continually laughing; a fellow who looked and smoked like Father Guido Sarducci; the hardened, fortyish guy who had been in the holding cell the previous night and who had also been in the cell with me overnight (and who could have been a cast member in any prison film I've ever seen, and who I will call Hard Guy from now on); a couple of the scowling Southeast Asian kids from the previous night; and assorted other thugs, hoods, losers, and vagrants. One sorry-looking guy wore his corduroy jacket with the collar turned up and looked like he was nursing one mother of a hangover.

As we waited to be summoned through the door, some of these guys talked and joked like they were old hands at the whole routine. The whole assemblage seemed to sort itself fairly readily into an odd pecking order, with the biker dude clearly at the top of the heap. He laughed and joked around and seemed to be having the time of his life, and no one gave him any crap. Guido Sarducci was up there near the top, too, as was Hard Guy. It was clear from the way they talked that many of them knew each other, and none of them were really surprised to find themselves where they were. At one point, someone low on the totem pole said something that got the Asians all riled up, and a fight almost broke out before Biker Dude got things calmed down.

All this time, no one talked to me, though it was clear that they were all aware of me—and aware that I was different from them.

After a while, the door labeled 378 opened up, and a guard summoned Guido Sarducci. Beyond the guard, through the open door, I could see a sumptuously appointed courtroom. It was as if we were actors in some old-fashioned legal drama waiting backstage for our cues. It was as if we were Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns, trapped in some gray shadowland while the dramatic action went on someplace else, awaiting the summons that would make us real—if only for a few moments.

When Guido Sarducci was gone and the door had closed behind him, Biker Dude finally deigned to speak to me. "Well, you sure don't look like you belong here," he said, chuckling. "What're you in for?"

I looked around, uncertain that he had really been addressing me. "I called in a bomb threat on an airplane," I said nervously.

Biker Dude laughed and laughed at that—but not in a cruel way. He seemed to find that genuinely funny. A lot of the other guys laughed, and I laughed, too. I started to relax a little.

Hard Guy just shook his head.

Guido Sarducci returned after a couple of minutes, smiling. He'd gotten a couple hundred dollars for bail. The guard in the doorway called my name. I stood up and threaded my way to the door like a red corpuscle inching through a clogged artery.

Strangely, when I think back on that courtroom, I don't see it from my own point of view. I see it instead from what I imagine must have been President Tuttle's point of view. He was the first person I saw when I stepped through the door, sitting in the gallery off beyond the railing, and the look on his face as I entered the room was one of shock and disbelief—and maybe even some anger. I see myself standing there to the left of the magistrate's bench, unshaven, hair mussed, suit coat rumpled, collar open, no tie, trousers riding low for lack of a belt, no name tag—and believe you me, it's a pretty pathetic sight.

I still don't know if Tuttle was angry at me or at the system, but I wanted to run to him and tell him that it wasn't my fault, that I looked like hammered shit because they'd taken away everything that would make me look presentable. But I didn't, of course. I just stood there with my hands clasped in front of me and my head slightly lowered, trying to look as pathetic and penitent as possible.

The judge asked if I was Donald William Shunn II, and I said that I was. Much of what followed is a blur to me. A prosecutor stood up in that great large walnut-paneled courtroom and proceeded to tick off the reasons I should be held without bail. Then Fred Harvey, looking distinguished in a muted blue suit, stood up and told the judge why it was wrong to hold a heretofore law-abiding boy like me in jail with hardened criminals when all I really wanted to do was be out preaching the gospel and all I had done was try to prevent a fellow laborer from making what I thought was a grave mistake. And so on and so forth.

It was an eloquent and passionate argument, and I felt chills as I listened. But at the same time I felt terribly guilty—because deep inside I know that I had done what I had done more out of fear of getting in trouble with President Tuttle than out of any concern for Elder Finn's soul. As Harvey laid all my virtues out before the court, I felt like an imposter.

When Harvey was finished, President Tuttle asked to speak for moment. He promised the court that, if I were released on bail, the mission would take full responsibility for seeing that I stayed in Calgary until my trial date, and that he would keep me at the mission office doing clerical work in the meantime.

When the arguments were complete, this judge who had been instructed by the Alberta Crown Prosecutor not to release me on bail deliberated for few moments, announced, "One thousand dollars bail," and rapped on the bench with his gavel.

I almost fell over. I was going to get out. I was going to get out!

I didn't get to see Tuttle's and Harvey's reactions, because the guard was already opening the door and pushing me back into the narrow, crowded passageway. "So what'd you get?" asked Biker Dude as I sat down and another inmate was called out.

"A thousand dollars."

It seemed like a ludicrously small amount to me, given the fact that I'd expected to be held with no bail at all, but the look on Biker Dude's face changed to one of shock. "A thousand dollars?"

I nodded, and people around me murmured. Biker Dude looked at me with something that could almost have been respect. "Now that is some serious bail money," he said. "Wow. You gonna make it?"

I shrugged nonchalantly. "Sure," I said. "No big deal."

But on the inside I was close to bursting with pride. I'd impressed the hell out of a slew of repeat offenders! I was Big Man in Jail, I was Leader of the Pack, I was King of Bunker Hill—for a short while, anyway.

And let me tell you, it felt sweet while it lasted.

The only one who didn't seem impressed was Hard Guy. And I'd have my run-in with him soon enough.

When all the bail determinations were finished, we were taken back to our cells, this time by a more direct route. Then there was another eternity to suffer through before my papers were finally processed and I could leave.

At one point, a guard came to the cell and unlocked the door—but he had come for Hard Guy, not for me.

It seemed like hours went by. Lunch came, which I don't remember very clearly. It seems as if we were served chipped beef on toast—or "shit on a shingle," as some call it—but I may be remembering incorrectly. What I do recall clearly is my cellmates having a serious lunchtime debate over whether the liquid in the styrofoam cups was meant to be coffee or tea. No one could make an authoritative determination.

I was only partway through my abominable meal when another guard came to the door of the cell. "Shunn!" he called. "Let's go!"

"Yes!" I said. I pushed my plate over to the fellow next to me. "Here, finish this. I'm outta here!"

And this time I really was. Sort of.

	A facsimile of the tag from the bag that held my personal effects.

The guard took me back out to that old familiar upstairs waiting area. I signed some papers at the processing counter, and my personal effects were all returned to me in a big plastic bag. A tag wired to the bag identified the contents as mine. "Okay, that's it," said the cop behind the counter. "I'll buzz you through that door over there. Then you'll go to the end of the hall and take a right, and you'll find an elevator there that'll take you down to the lobby. Then you're free."

Ah, the beauty of freedom. Just take the elevator down, hop in President Tuttle's car, and off I would go, free. I could taste the sweetness of it already.

The exit door buzzed, and I opened it. I walked down a hall filled with offices, then took a right as I had been instructed. The elevator was straight ahead, as advertised.

As I entered the small lounge area in which the elevator was situated, I saw that Hard Guy was sitting there on a chrome-and-vinyl couch. There were two women with him, one to either side. He had an arm around each one. The women were dressed more provocatively than my lady detective had been the previous night, and their make-up and hairdos fairly screamed out the name of the world's oldest profession! I was suddenly very curious to know what Hard Guy had been picked up for.

(I'm not being sarcastic there at all. Prostitution is legal in Alberta, as long as tricks aren't actively solicited. If you want some, you have to make the approach yourself.)

As I pressed the button to summon the elevator car, Hard Guy leaned over and whispered something to one of the women. She giggled. He was smiling nastily. I wondered what he had said.

The elevator arrived. I stepped into the car, eager to be gone, and pressed the button for the lobby. Just as the elevator doors began to close, the woman whom Hard Guy had whispered to yelled, "Look out! There's a bomb in the elevator!"

I turned red. The elevator doors closed, cutting off the miscreant trio's cruel laughter.

When I exited the elevator, I found myself on the street side of the Remand Center (rather than on the alley side, where I had entered the previous evening). The lobby I faced was wide and vast, with at least a dozen couches and twice as many employees servicing visitors from behind a long marble counter. I looked around, trying to spot President Tuttle, but I couldn't see him. By the clock on the wall it was just past one in the afternoon.

I found a restroom where I could put on my tie, my belt, and my name tag—all of which were wadded up in the plastic bag I carried with me. When I emerged a few minutes later, looking only somewhat more respectable, there was still no sign of President Tuttle.

This was beginning to annoy me. Where in the world was he?

I dug some coins out of my plastic bag and found a pay phone. I dialed up the mission office. "Canada Calgary Mission," said an elderly voice. "Elder Eby speaking. May I help you?"

Besides young elders and sisters, there is a third class of missionaries to whom you have not yet been introduced—senior couples. When they reach retirement age, most older couples in the L.D.S. Church are strenuously encouraged to serve missions together—though relatively few of them actually go. The few who do are generally not held to the same long proselyting hours as the younger missionaries, and sometimes they are called to work as office staff. This was the case with Elder and Sister Eby, a sweet old couple who hailed from somewhere rural, to judge from their hayseed accents.

"Elder Eby, this is Elder Shunn," I said. "Do you know where President Tuttle is?"

"Well, he just went out to lunch, I believe."

"What do you mean, he just went out to lunch? I thought he was here, waiting to pick me up."

"Where exactly are you, Elder Shunn?"

I tried not to let my frustration show. "I'm downtown. I just got out of jail. There's no one here to pick me up."

"It's good you got out, Elder. Are you doing okay?"

"I'm fine, but I'm stranded here with no one to pick me up."

"Well," said Elder Eby, "all I know is that President Tuttle came back after your hearing because they said it would take some time to get you all processed and released. He's really a very busy man, you know, Elder Shunn. There are a lot of things that demand his attention. We still have a leadership conference going on, you know."

I sagged against the phone. "Is there anyone else there who can come get me?"

"I'm the only one here, and I have to stay and man the phones. I'll send someone down as soon as I can, though."

"Okay. Thanks very much, Elder Eby."

I hung up. I was still in jail, if you stretch the meaning of the word to include not being able to get to where you want to be.

I had no idea how long it would be until someone came for me, and I didn't dare take a bus to the office because I might not get there until someone had already left to come and get me. To kill time, I walked down the street and bought a copy of the Calgary Herald, which I took back to the lobby of the Remand Center to read.

Photo from the front page of the Calgary Herald City Section, February 24, 1987. Click for more.

There it was, on the front page of the Herald's City section—a huge color photo of a jetliner sitting on a runway at the Calgary Airport. It was nearing sunset in the picture; a ruddy radiance bathed the long line of fire engines and police cars parked behind the plane. There wasn't a full story with the photo, just a lengthy caption, which read as follows:

Bomb threat sends crews into action
Emergency vehicles lined up behind a ... plane which was delayed 1½ hours at Calgary International Airport Monday night because of a bomb threat. The flight, with 118 passengers listed, was bound for the U.S. No bomb was found in a police search. Donald William Shunn, 19, of the 3100 block of Heritage Dr. S.E., was charged with public mischief in the incident.

I was stunned. I was outraged. I was frightened. What business did the papers have printing my address? What if some psycho who'd been on the plane decided to track me down and exact vengeance for the delayed flight?

	Article from Calgary Sun, February 24, 1987. Click for more.

I went back out to the newspaper machines and bought a copy of the Calgary Sun, the city's other daily. The Herald was a respectable paper. The Sun was little better than a tabloid, with breathless, exclamatory headlines and a girl in skimpy lingerie every day on page three (in full color on Sundays). I found my story—"Bomb threat a hoax"—back on the seventh or eighth page. The Sun article gave my exact address.

Disgusted, I sat in the lobby fuming for the better part of an hour, until Elder Eby wandered through the front doors looking bewildered and rather lost.

Elder Eby drove me back to the mission office in his big tan sedan. He was a thin, white-haired old man in a polyester suit, and he seemed to wear a permanent expression of bemused perplexity. In fact, he resembled nothing so much as a slightly shorter version of Lloyd Bridges. We made small talk during the ride. Eby seemed somewhat unsure of how to treat me—a missionary who had just spent the night in jail.

Back at the deserted office, I was quite happy to let Elder Eby go back to his puttering around—excuse me, I meant his duties—while I retired to the meeting room, where I tried to relax by noodling around on the same piano I'd been playing when Elder Hardy tried to talk me into staying on my mission the previous December.

I was playing an original number of mine called "Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" (named after the Samuel R. Delany novel) when Elders Fearing and Hardy—the apes—wandered into the meeting room. They were the first ones to return from the leadership conference. They waited until I finished my song—Elder Fearing was a fan of that particular number—and then after assuring themselves that I was all right and clapping me on the back and hugging me and all that guy stuff, they asked me what jail had been like.

"Pretty weird," I said. "Pretty scary. Lots of really scary people."

"Did you teach 'em any D's?" they asked. (See what I meant back in Chapter 15?)

"Almost," I said. "I was just starting the first D with this guy in my holding cell when the guards came and moved him to another cell."

"Bummer," they said, giving me high-fives nonetheless. ("A" for effort. Missionaries are very supportive of each other's efforts. Helps to tighten those invisible community chains—um, I mean bonds.)

"The worst thing about jail, though, is not knowing what time it is," I said.

"Didn't you have your watch?" asked Elder Fearing.

"No, they took it from me," I said.

"No way."

"Yes way. They took my tie and my belt and my name tag, too."

"You're kidding," said Elder Hardy. "Did you get fingerprinted and stuff?"

"Sure," I said, beginning to revel in their obvious amazement and admiration. "They took my fingerprints and my mug shots, and they strip-searched me, too."

"No way!" said Fearing. "You mean they . . ."

I nodded, and when the apes asked for clarification, I proceeded to pantomime the entire strip-search process—from running my hands through the hair on my head right down to . . . well, having the cop yell at me and slapping my hands on my ass and spreading my cheeks.

Fearing and Hardy thought this was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen. They didn't stop laughing for what seemed like hours.

After sobering up, Elder Fearing said, "You know, Elder Shunn, everyone's been awfully worried about you. In fact, Sister Tuttle had planned a great big breakfast for us at the leadership conference this morning, but everyone voted to skip it and fast for you instead, so you could get out of jail. A lot of people here love you."

I was touched. Fasting is a serious business, not to be undertaken lightly. The fact that a few dozen ravenous young missionaries had voted to fast for my deliverance from bondage meant a whole lot to me. A whole lot.

Of course, it probably had nothing to do with my release, but I was still touched.

Elder Snow showed up before much longer, partnered with Runaway McKay. I was very happy to see him, and he to see me. We exchanged manly hugs, and Snow asked me the requisite question: "Teach any D's in jail?"

Before I could answer, though, the apes, barely able to conceal their excitement, said, "Shunn, you've got to do the strip-search thing for McKay and Snow!"

After a certain amount of embarrassed resistance, I caved in to pressure. I did the pantomime again, narrating it in as entertaining a manner as possible. More elders filtered in as I was doing it, returning from the leadership conference, and before long I had a huge audience, all hooting and laughing and applauding with great relish.

Thinking back on things, it seems almost as if I did nothing all that afternoon but repeatedly run through the strip-search routine. It was a big hit.

Now, you must understand that missionaries are great appreciaters of anything that smacks of good, clean vulgarity. I'm not talking about downright raunchiness—well, maybe a bit of that—or about anything pornographic. But you have to remember that elders are, for the most part, still boys, living in an artificially "pure" environment. Anything the slightest bit blue (or brown, to be brutally frank) provides a welcome bit of relief from the pressure of their white-bread, button-down, Book-of-Mormon-thumping image. A simple fart, timed correctly, has the power to reduce any room full of missionaries to masses of jelly quivering in disabling paroxysms of laughter. Thus the perennial popularity of my strip-search pantomime.

But more on that later. Much later.

Having learned that I was out of jail and in one piece, Sisters Roper, Steed, and Herzog hurried over to the mission office to greet me. As soon as they saw me, they started to cry—so much in unison that it seemed their waterworks must have been tied together with invisible piping. They would have hugged me nearly to death—had hugging me actually been permitted.

"Oh, Elder Shunn," said Doper—er, Roper. "We're so sorry. This is all our fault. If only we hadn't . . ."

"No, no, sisters," I said, trying to quiet them. "It wasn't your fault at all. You were just trying to help. The bomb threat was all my idea."

Of course, I did blame them for at least part of my predicament, but I wasn't about to say so. After all, I had something of a crush on Sister Roper, and something more than a crush on Sister Herzog. No fool I. (Yeah, right.)

After they had calmed down and inquired about whether or not I had taught any D's in jail, someone spilled the beans about the strip search. I was forced to go through the whole thing again for the benefit of the sisters. Very self-consciously, I might add. With the guys, it was one thing, but with the sisters . . . (Ah, well. A steppingstone along the path of enlightenment in chauvinistic matters.)

Of course, it was right then, at the conclusion of the pantomime, that President Tuttle showed up and summoned me to his office.

Fortunately, the president hadn't caught any part of my strip show. He only wanted to discuss some procedural matters with me—and when that was done he had a couple of surprises to spring on me.

"President Harvey has been working hard on getting things expedited, Elder," Tuttle told me. "Your trial is going to start tomorrow."

Well, knock me over with an oxygen molecule. Talk about swift justice!

But that wasn't the half of it. "I've already talked to your parents about the situation," Tuttle went on, "and I'm wondering if it might not be a good idea to have one or both of them here during the trial."

Now, that blindsided me. One of the rules of mission life is that friends and family from home can never come to visit you in the field. Such visits are a good way to make a missionary trunky and ruin his effectiveness.

I assured the president that I thought it was a good idea.

Now, I have to admit here that I'm not terribly close to either of my parents. I've always regretted that, and I'm a good deal closer to my mother than to my father, but it's been years and years since things were really good—since years and years before my mission. But if I was going to go through something like this, there really wasn't anyone besides my parents whose presence could project some illusory veneer of comfort and hope over the whole proceedings. (Well, maybe Katrina—but it was a sure bet the Church would never fly my girlfriend to Canada to be with me!) Thus my ready agreement.

President Tuttle called my father and explained his proposal while I listened in on an extension. My father agreed to fly up to Calgary that night, but he thought it would be best if my mother remained at home. "She's distraught enough as it is," he said. "Trying to last through an entire trial would be way too much strain on her."

Well, that was decided. With the phone conversation concluded, there remained the matter of figuring out what to do with me until my father arrived—in other words, what lucky fellow was going to have me for a companion for the rest of the day?

The problem was, my work visa was suspended due to my arrest. It was illegal for me to do any proselytizing. This meant that whomever I was partnered with would be unable to proselytize either. The solution was to partner me with the apes, who spent all day long working on administrative chores in the mission office. That way my presence wouldn't force some poor elder—or pair thereof—into an unproductive period of downtime.

So it was that I spent the rest of that afternoon toiling away at clerical tasks. At around five-thirty, I returned with the apes to their apartment for dinner. (And on a first date, too!)

After dinner, however, the three of us went out proselytizing. Okay, so technically I was breaking the law, but the apes are expected to proselytize during the evening hours, and they had a teaching appointment that night that they couldn't in good conscience break. (Here we go with that "higher law" thing again—but I suppose this infraction was pretty minor compared to the one I'd perpetrated the day before.)

The three of us drove over to the home of a couple that I judged to be in their late fifties or early sixties. I don't recall their names—are you surprised?—so I'll refer to them here as Brother and Sister Y. Sister Y was a member of the Church. Brother Y was not, but he was going through the discussions for what was apparently the fifth or sixth time in the past ten or so years.

Brother Y was what missionaries call an "eternal investigator." Often, eternal investigators are more interested in socializing than they are in learning—and that night was no exception. All Brother Y wanted to talk about was "that poor missionary on the news who got himself in trouble." Meaning me, of course.

But the apes and I didn't let on to my secret criminal identity. I had been told by President Tuttle to keep a low profile. If I were out and about drawing a lot of attention to myself, his reasoning went, it would take the focus of our work away from the Restored Gospel and place it in on me—something that would be quite counterproductive from a proselytizing standpoint.

So while Brother Y snapped his fingers and looked at the ceiling and said, "What was that young fellow's name? I heard it on the news. I know I did"—why, Elder Fearing and Elder Hardy and I did nothing to help jog his memory.

It wasn't quite the same as lying . . .

But Brother Y peered suddenly at my name tag and said, "Elder Shunn! That was it, wasn't it? I'm sure it was!"

"No, that wasn't it," said Elder Fearing.

"Are you sure?" Brother Y asked.

"Of course," said Elder Fearing.

It was pretty hard to keep a straight face, but I did. Couldn't blow my cover.

With that bit of dishonesty out of the way, the discussion went fairly smoothly. The apes drove me over to the mission home when we were finished. Sister Tuttle was there alone. She told us that President Tuttle had gone to the airport to pick up my father. The apes stayed at the house and to wait with me. I played the glossy black baby grand in the living room to pass the time.

I was a little on edge waiting for my father. I suppose it was back when I began the glidepath into my teenage years that he and I had started growing apart, and neither one of us had really understood the other in the time intervening. (Still don't.) I mean, I guess loved my father—or rather, I loved the occasionally visible father of my early childhood—but I didn't care to be around him very much. He was always overly critical of me—didn't openly approve of anything I did, no matter how well I did it—and in return I was overly critical of him. Two entirely different wavelengths, broadcasting signals that interfered without ever harmonizing.

When he arrived at the mission home, however, it was actually good to see him—though we didn't make much conversation. The Tuttles put us in the guest rooms in the basement. Before we retired to bed, my father dug a sealed envelope from out of his luggage. I recognized the handwriting on the front, and my heart rate started in on an upward spiral.

"Katrina brought this over before I left for the airport," he said, in that abrupt manner of his that meant he was uncomfortable with the subject he had been forced to bring up.

"Thanks," I said, trying not to prolong his discomfort.

"I don't think she's taking all this very seriously," he said without looking at me.

I shrugged, we said goodnight, and I went to my room.

My parents, you see, did not approve of Katrina. My father actively disliked her. Part of it had to do with a "feeling" of his that a marriage between her and me would never last. Part of it, I'm sure, had to do with jealousy.

Allow me to explain.

The previous September, my family had come to see me off at the Salt Lake International Airport when my fellow greenies and I were leaving the M.T.C. to fly to Canada. Katrina also came. Now, an obscure rule in the White Bible states that families coming to the airport to visit their departing loved ones can only do so up until thirty minutes before takeoff. (Why this rule exists, I have no idea. Maybe because lingering goodbyes have caused some elders to miss their flights?) Anyway, I told my family they had to leave at thirty minutes to flight time—which of course they did, since they wanted to help me keep the rules—and when they were gone, Katrina sneaked back to spend the remaining time before the flight alone with me.

I don't feel terribly bad about having done that. What I feel bad about is having told my parents about it later.

But I digress.

I took Katrina's letter to my room and got ready for bed. (I always savored the idea of her letters for a while before reading them.) When I was nice and comfortable, I slit the envelope and found, predictably, a Boynton greeting card within. In the note penned inside, Katrina told me how funny she thought the whole situation was, and how she didn't understand why my father was so stressed out about it. After all, she said, God doesn't let bad things happen to missionaries. She told me that she knew I'd be safe, and she repeated a couple of times that only someone like me could have gotten himself into such a crazy situation. She said she loved me and signed her name.

In point of fact, Katrina was wrong. Not about loving me, but about bad things happening to missionaries. In real life, bad things happen to missionaries all the time. I heard of a Mormon missionary in Spain who was accidentally shot and killed by a security guard. I heard of a missionary in England was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by a deranged woman. (I guess this was a bad thing.) A missionary I knew in British Columbia, through no fault of his own, lost control of his car on an icy road at only twenty miles per hour and struck and killed an old woman. A companion of mine, much later in my mission, was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and sent home. My sister Seletha was shot at and kidnapped on separate occasions on her mission in the Dominican Republic. Two missionaries in the Midwest were killed in a car accident a couple of years ago. More than one Mormon missionary has been murdered by (genuine) terrorists in South America. Sometimes missionaries stay safe. Sometimes they don't.

But hey, I don't blame her for thinking that way. She was trying very hard to be a good Mormon girl and think positive Mormon thoughts. And later she would come to the realization (far sooner than I did, in fact) that those positive Mormon thoughts were nothing but a cloud of aromatic smoke.

But again I digress.

For that night, I was glad to know that Katrina was so confident of my safety. I went to sleep with a head full of romantic imaginings, clutching the little plush Opus doll that Katrina had given me as a parting gift that bygone September day at the airport—scented with the Anaïs Anaïs she used to wear.

If I imagined hard enough, the fragrance made it almost seem as if she were there.