100 Days (13 page)

Afterward, when my father was no longer there, we held on to Cherokee as long as we could. That period of time turned out to be not very long at all. Hay was expensive, and a pony wasn't an expense we could justify, especially once Mom stopped teaching. We couldn't afford Diablo, either, to tell the truth, but Mom couldn't stand the thought of selling him. I was sad to see Cherokee go. When the new owner, another trainer who'd also taken on a bunch of Mom's students, loaded the pony into her trailer and pulled away down the driveway, Diablo went ballistic. He galloped back and forth along the paddock fence line, shoving the wooden rails with his chest. I was afraid he might actually break through. The tears that sprang into my eyes at the sight of Diablo losing his only friend enraged me.

Even now, nearly two years later, the memory of Cherokee being hauled away makes my jaw tighten and my teeth grind. I throw a flake of hay into Diablo's feed tub, pat the horse on the shoulder, and head back inside the house.

 

35

MOIRA

DAY 66: APRIL 20

I haven't heard from Boone in days. He's rushed and pissed-off looking all the time lately. He has perma-bags under his eyes, and he barely says two words to me or Agnes in the hallways. No doubt it's because he's embarrassed to be seen with us. Or with me, anyway. And who could blame him? I should have taken the hint when he jumped out of my car as fast as he could the day I gave him a ride back to his place. He probably figured he'd already done his duty by being nice to me in exchange for my setting him up with some paid work at my house. He'd used the “real women have curves” line. He'd humored the fat chick. As far as he was no doubt concerned, we were even.

And if that's the way he feels, then good riddance.

Still. I look down and behold my elephantine thighs, which he must have noticed jiggling as we drove out to his place. And what about my chin—or should I say
chins
? Every time he turned to say something to me during that drive he must have felt like he was addressing Jabba the Hutt.

I cringe at the fact that I'm worried yet again about how he sees me. Long ago, I vowed to stop caring about what other people think, and I refuse to break that promise to myself now. With that thought, the walls that came down when Boone was nice to me start going right back up again. Brick by brick by brick.

 

36

AGNES

DAY 65: APRIL 21

Moira is wearing her Cramps T-shirt on Thursday, the one with the psychopathic zombie smiling on the front that always gives me nightmares. She put on her makeup extra thick this morning, too, which is how I always know something's not right. For now, I'm letting it go. I can tell she's in no mood to talk. I'd ask Boone what he thinks might be going on with her, but lately he's been acting as funky as she has. I don't know what's happening. For a while there, it seemed like everything was pretty much perfect.

Moira did volunteer to drive me to my appointment today when Mom found out she wouldn't be able to leave her sub job early enough, so that was nice. But now I wonder if accepting Moira's offer might have been a mistake. It's pretty clear most of the senior center residents are afraid of her. I can't really blame them, since Moira looks like she's ready to start snacking on people's faces at any second. Even the receptionist looks at her sideways until my friend Kitty, the elderly ex-socialite, comes up to the desk and gives both of us big hugs.

“I'd know you anywhere,” Kitty says. “You're Moira, aren't you?”

Moira nods, looks away.

“Agnes told me you were beautiful. A
presence
, she said. And she was right.”

Moira glances at Kitty briefly. “Thank you,” she mutters with a fake smile on her face.

“How are you?” I ask Kitty.

She shakes her head. “Not so good. Harold passed away last week.”

“Harold?”

Kitty looks around before leaning closer to us and whispering, “My boyfriend. I have to be careful saying it because some people here don't believe in … having relations outside of wedlock.” Even Moira is caught off guard by this. She blinks in confusion as Kitty looks pointedly at another resident, a white-haired woman in a housedress who's sitting on a couch by one of the big windows, working on an afghan. The crochet hook pauses in midair as she purses her lips at the three of us and shakes her head slowly back and forth.

“See?” Kitty says. “I'm a widow, for crying out loud. Harold was a widower. Where's the harm?”

“I'm really sorry,” I tell her. Next to me, Moira takes a long, deep breath and then slowly lets it out. I can tell she's doing it to keep from laughing. At least it's good to finally see some lightness in her expression.

Kitty shrugs, but her eyes are dewy. “What is there to do? He was a good man. Loved his wife when she was alive. Loved his kids. Maybe even loved me a little.”

“I'm sure he did,” I say. “What's not to love?”

“Right?” she says, brightening. “That's what I was always telling him. Anyway, he's dead now. And I know I'm supposed to be grief stricken, but the truth is I see death as a promotion. I've had too many experiences with it in this life to think otherwise. Besides, at my age, what's the point in worrying? Silver lining, glass half-full, and all that.”

“That sounds like a good attitude,” I tell her.

Kitty nods. “Put it this way: nowadays, I only wear bright colors to funerals. As far as I'm concerned, it's all A-okay.” She makes a little circle with her thumb and forefinger and then leads us over to some plush chairs arranged around a card table. “This life is just a stop on the way to wherever it is we're all going,” she continues. “It's a sideshow, if you will.”

“And I'm the freak,” I say.

Moira and Kitty both stare at me.

“Oh, honey,” Kitty says. “I didn't mean it like that.”

“It's okay,” I tell her, embarrassed by my weird outburst. “I don't even know where that came from, to tell you the truth.”

When it's time for me to follow a nurse back into the exam room, Moira asks if she should come, too. She looks concerned.

“Stay here,” I tell her. “It's just a routine checkup. Plus, it will give you ladies a chance to get to know each other.”

“Suits me,” Kitty says. “My dance card's pretty empty today.”

Moira doesn't look so sure until I whisper that I'm going to have to get naked. “Yeah, I'll just go ahead and hang here, then,” she says.

After stepping on the hallway scale and standing with my back to the measuring stick so the nurse can get my stats, I change into the gown that's been set out for me in the exam room. In reality, I'm not at all sure today's checkup is going to be routine. I've been having more and more issues lately, and my joints seem to be stuck in a rut of constant achiness. Even hydrotherapy sessions in the big heated pool at the Y haven't been helping as much as they used to. I choose a magazine from the rack near the door and settle in on the exam table to wait for Dr. Caslow.

Before long, he knocks and comes in, giving me a high five as usual. “No parent today?”

“Mom had to work late,” I tell him. “My friend Moira drove me here.”

“Ah,” the doctor says, checking my chart. “Looks like you've lost a little weight since our last appointment. Are you drinking your breakfast drinks?”

“Unfortunately,” I say, making a face. The drinks he's referring to are a concoction of vitamins and protein and calories in the form of watery, faux-chocolate or faux-vanilla breakfast gruel. I gag just thinking about the foul, evil cans of stuff that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, if I had one. Tragically, the drinks seem to be the most efficient way for my body to get as many calories as possible. Mom has tried masking the taste with real vanilla, cinnamon, syrups, you name it, but nothing works. I still feel like a baby eating food I'd rather fling onto the walls.

The nurse comes back into the exam room, and Dr. Caslow gives me the usual once-over. When I tell him about some of the stuff that's been going on, he says he's going to move my next appointment up a few weeks so he can keep better track of my symptoms. “It could just be leftover aches from winter,” he says, “but let's not mess around with them, okay? Also, I want your mom or dad here for our next visit.”

Out in the waiting room, Kitty is teaching Moira to play blackjack. The two of them hardly notice as I approach the table and snap a quick picture. I do it more from habit than anything, since my heart's not really in it this time. Still, the shot should turn out okay.

“Oh, hey,” Moira says, looking up. “Check me out. I'm totally planning to clean up in Vegas someday.”

I smile, but it's a weak one. Moira notices and gets up from the table.

“What's wrong, honey?” Kitty asks me.

“Nothing. I think I'm just tired. Can we go, Em?”

Moira starts organizing the cards into a neat pile, but Kitty stops her. “I'll take care of this,” she says.

During the drive home, I stare out the window without really noticing what I'm seeing.

“You okay?” Moira asks.

“Yeah. I'm fine.” I just wish I could stop being so tired all the time. I wish I could stop constantly having to see my doctor. And I wish I could stop feeling sorry for myself whenever someone mentions a place like Las Vegas, just one more thing I'll probably never get to see.

 

37

BOONE

DAY 64: APRIL 22

This time, it's the rumble of a diesel engine outside my window that hauls me up from the depths of a dream before my alarm even has a chance to go off. “What the hell?” I groan into my pillow.

“Boone?” Mom's voice is anxious outside the bedroom door.

“I'm on it, Mom.” I sit up in bed and rub a hand down my face before grabbing my jeans from the floor. I know it makes her nervous when unexpected visitors appear. Whoever this is, I'm glad they showed up before I left for the day. Sometimes I wonder what she does when I'm not here to intercept. Probably locks herself in her bedroom and hopes they go away.

That's what happened with her riding students once my dad was gone. They waited a few weeks for her to get over the shock, and then they started showing up at the door, one after another, in their velvet-covered riding helmets and tan breeches, at their regular lesson times. Again and again, I had to tell them it was still too soon, that she wasn't ready, and they should probably call before coming for their next lesson. But the story was always the same over the phone later on. After the landline got disconnected due to lack of payment, and before I bought a pay-as-you-go cell phone, a few of Mom's most dedicated students showed up at the door one final time. They wondered if she was ever planning to get back to teaching, and if so, when. By that point, I had to turn them away with no explanation other than a tired shrug.

Now the unused arena is overgrown with clumps of buffalo grass and rabbit brush. I try to keep rocks picked up in the paddock adjacent to the pasture where Diablo eats and spends the night in the shelter my dad built years ago, the one in constant need of being shored up against the weather. During the winter I'm always afraid the roof is going to collapse right on top of Diablo in the middle of a bad snowstorm.

A one-ton Ford Power Stroke pickup sits idling in our dusty driveway. It's the newest model, top of the line, with chrome trim, sprayed-in bed liner, and a custom winch mounted on the front. Damn, the things I could do with a truck like that. Haul a trailer out into the woods and cut twice as much wood in a single trip, for one. Put the five-hundred-gallon fiberglass tank in the back without worrying about busting an axle with every water-hauling trip to and from town, for another.

The guy standing next to the driver's side door has small, close-set eyes. “Your dad around?”

“No,” I say, tearing my attention away from the truck. “He's … not here right now. Can I help you with something?”

“I'm Jackson Tate, and I've just bought the forty acres adjacent to yours. Need to talk fence line.”

So this was the new neighbor. I'd seen the For Sale sign go up not long after old man Wallace died, and I'd watched from Diablo's paddock as the Realtor took it down only a couple weeks after that. No big surprise. It's prime real estate out here for people who can afford to do country living the way it's advertised in magazines. Wallace lived on that property in his one-bedroom homesteader cabin for longer than anyone around here can remember.

“Gonna build a house?” I ask Jackson Tate.

“Like I said, I need to have a chat with your dad about the fence. Seems the entire south line of his t-posts are driven in about ten feet past my property line.”

“That can't be right.” As far as I know, my grandfather and old man Wallace agreed on that fence line back in the 1970s when my dad was just a kid. Wallace and my grandfather were friends sometimes and foes at others. Those two geezers could fight like a couple of banty roosters, to hear my dad tell it, but one thing they never fought about was the fence line. If it had really been an issue, shotguns would have been drawn, no doubt about it. Not to mention the fact that even the thought of pulling up the entire line of those old-school, heavy-gauge posts is a joke.

“Oh, it's right, all right,” the new neighbor says. “I have the measurements to back me up on how right it is.” Turning toward the Power Stroke, he makes an annoyed, dismissive gesture with one hand, like I'm just some dumbass kid not worth his time. “Have your old man get in touch.”

Of all things, it's a laugh that bubbles up inside me first. At this point, I'm going to be late for school, but I don't even care. I'm dying to see where this conversation might go. “What do you think he's going to do about it?” I'm not necessarily trying to sound disrespectful, but words have a way of leaving my mouth that way whether I want them to or not.