The magnificance of a Summer's day, the smell of the open sea, the muffled sounds of a community waking to another morning of barter and tender...garbled voices converged into the atmosphere of Pebble Beach.
Betrayal, insanity and small miracles, Paula Pruitt's wedding day ironically foretold of such events. For the moment, her destiny seemed in her own hands. She was betrothed to Leland Strout, a studious young man of nineteen, a college boy who labored on Pebble Beach as a bus boy in one of the Beach resort restaurants.
In the small chapel at the very end of the beach, away from the milling crowd, organ music played and a choir lifted their voices to the strains of OH PROMISE ME. The windows of the church flung wide, a refreshingly cool breeze entered the chapel. June, the month of weddings, Paula Pruitt fit every bit the ideal of a beautiful young bride. It was Sunday morning and vacationers bustled to and from breakfast and looked toward sunning on the sand and swimming in the cold Atlantic Ocean waters.
The daughter of a minister, Paula's parents owned and operated a house on Pebble Beach where the Pruitt family had lived for generations. They took in lodgers. Paula had been the town brat in adolescence, scurrying along the beach, collecting rediculous souvenirs which she paid one dollar for, and during her spare time she helped with chores in her parent's lodging house in off season and summer months. She had met Leland Strout the previous summer when he had come East to subsidize his way through the nearby college.
The chapel silent, at last Paula's dad, the minister, performed the wedding ceremony. Her brother-in-law, George Russell, walked her down the aisle. Leland waited, with a proud smile on his youthful face. They seemed the perfect couple. Paula extended her left hand for Leland's wedding ring, her bouquet of violets passed to her older sister, Betsy Russell, her matron of honor. With a burst of organ music, the ceremony ended, and after a brief wedding reception, the couple left for a ten day cruise to the Bahamas.
"How exciting, Leland," Paula said. "My first experience flying. Mom and dad are the best parents a girl could ever hope for." Paula and Leland, now Mr. & Mrs. Strout, held hands tightly as the jet liner leveled off high above the earth.
"I'll repay your dad...I mean Reverend Pruitt, for our honeymoon trip," Leland said with sincerity.
"Please, Leland, call him dad. He's very down-to-earth. Really! And the honeymoon trip is a wedding gift from my parents."
"As soon as I graduate college, I'll support you in the way you've been used to."
"Will we have many children, Leland?" Paula asked. "I want at least one boy and one girl."
"You're still pretty young, honey. Let's wait until we're really settled."
"God will decide. It's his decision."
"I'm just his instrument," Leland said with a trace of defiance.
Paula laughed. "You are an old stick, Leland. Be happy. We're on our honeymoon." They drew closer in their seats, a boy and a girl still in their teens embarking on a new life together.
The first few years of their marriage were uneventful with the exception of the birth of their daughter, Kimberly. Leland continued his studies at the University twenty miles away from Pebble Beach. The Strout family of three lived with Reverend and Mrs. Pruitt, Paula's parents. When not attending University, Leland overseered the Pruitt's enormous lodging house. Reverend Pruitt considered him a valued employee as well as a beloved son-in-law. Not discussed was Leland's atheism. Reverend Pruitt chose not to press the issue, his daughter's happiness of utmost importance to him. A Christian marriage ceremony had been performed primarily to please Paula, whom Leland loved very much. He wanted a marriage which would be legal and binding. He had no illusions about the law. He wasn't sold on it, but he obeyed it when it suited his purposes.
