A Good Dude (27 page)

“Alright,” Candace said. “If they have guns I’ll kiss you.”

Tino smiled brightly. Candace would kiss those soft lips right now if he wanted.

“What do I get if there are no guns?” she asked. “If they don’t have guns, I’ll have to kiss you.” Candace smiled. “So you get a kiss either way?”

“Not just me. You get something out of it, too.” Candace giggled. “Okay. I’m ready. Let me get my purse.”

She stepped inside, and Tino waited on the porch. When she got back with her purse, he took her hand and stared into her eyes.

“Hey,” he said. “I want you to know that I think you’re beautiful. I know a lot of guys will see you, and they’ll want to be with you based on your looks. But I know you’re a beautiful person on the inside, too. That said, you really look good tonight. No woman we see will be as attractive as you.”

Candace blushed and looked away. “Tino, you’re crazy.” When she met his eyes again, he seemed to be staring into her very soul.

“I’m serious.”

“Those
charros
really have guns?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think they shoot blanks, but the guns are real.”

“Then I’ll concede my bet,” Candace said.

“Great,” Tino said. “You owe me a kiss.”

“Okay,” she said and waited expectantly.

“You mean now?” Tino smiled nervously. “At the beginning of the date? This is weird. This is unnatural. Statistically speaking—”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Candace said, and he did. He put his hands on her waist and pulled her close to him. His fragrance was stronger now. It was pleasant. Candace tilted her head and closed her eyes, and when their lips touched, she felt tingles down her spine. Tino’s lips were moist and warm. His breath was minty. He pecked her lightly, and then kissed her bottom lip more intimately. Candace backed away with his smell still in her nose.

She looked up at him and smiled. He smiled, too, his lips glistening.

“You got lip gloss on,” she said.

He wiped it away and then wiped his forehead. “Whew. I’ve never done that before.”

“Me, neither,” Candace said. “It took some of the edge off, though. Didn’t it? Don’t you feel more comfortable?”

“Yeah,” Tino said. “Except for the heart attack.” Candace laughed. Tino grabbed her hand again and led her down the stairs.

“You know something,” he said halfway down. “I do feel more comfortable now. I think all dates should start with the kiss.”

“All dates with
me
,” Candace said. “If you try that with somebody else, you’ll probably get slapped.”

“I’m not going out with anyone but you,” Tino said, and then caught himself getting sentimental again. “Hey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said when they got to the parking lot.

“What?”

“What the hell happened to your car?”

Candace didn’t know what he was talking about until they rounded the corner of her building. Her Nissan looked pretty plain without the big wheels.

“I’m a simple girl,” she said. “I don’t need all that stuff.”

“I am so glad you said that,” Tino said. “Cause there aren’t too many cars out there uglier than mine.”

He walked her to a two-toned Honda Prelude that was manufactured sometime in the early nineties.

“Yeah,” Candace said with a hand over her mouth. “You’re right about that, Tino.”

* * *

He drove her to the north side of town, where stagecoaches and cattle runs once barreled right down Main Street. Candace didn’t think very much of the Old West had been preserved, but as they got closer, the paved streets gave way to brick and eventually cobblestone.

The buildings changed, too. One minute they were downtown in the brightly lit metropolis, looking up at office buildings that poked the clouds. The next thing Candace knew, they were driving down a road straight from a Wyatt Earp tale.

There were old-timey saloons, wooden sidewalks that creaked, and, yes, horses. The equines were in the middle of the street and on the sidewalks—and none of them were being ridden by police officers. Candace stared out of the window like a child seeing her first snow.

“This is unbelievable,” she gasped.

“This is the best part of the city,” Tino said. “You see all those people?”

Candace did. There were a lot of Hispanics, but most of the cowboys decked out in their best duds were white.

“Most of them are tourists,” Tino said. “People come from all over the world to see this place, but people who live in this city don’t even care about it.”

He found a nice parking spot and came around to open Candace’s door for her. They crossed the cobble
-
stoned street hand in hand. Candace spotted a stagecoach, and immediately dragged Tino to it. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw a horse close up.

Tino offered to pay for a ride, but Candace declined. The driver let her pet the animal, and that was all she wanted. She ran her fingers through the beast’s thick mane and jumped when the horse sneezed suddenly. Tino laughed.

“That’s not funny,” she said, but she was giggling, too.

“Come on,” Tino said. He grabbed her hand and led her away.

“Where are we going?”

“To the rodeo. I want to show you some real horses.”

“That wasn’t a real horse?”

“Naw,” Tino said. “The stallions in here will put that lazy thing to shame.”

And he wasn’t kidding. They went into a large auditorium where the night’s festivities were already underway. Candace and Tino found their seat three rows up from ground level. The center ring was huge, about the size of a football field. A string of fifty horses galloped around, making difficult patterns that reminded Candace of a college band performance.

Their riders were dressed to the nines in big hats, floppy chaps, and shiny spurs. They looked like extras from a
Bonanza
rerun. They waved flags, whooped and hollered, and even swung lassos in the air.

Candace watched it all in wide-eyed amazement. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“They’re introducing the riding clubs,” Tino said. “They come from all over the state. Oklahoma, too.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Check out that guy over there.” Tino pointed out one cowboy who had his mighty steed up on its hind legs. The horse held the stance for a long time, while the cowboy yelled and twirled a big lasso over his head.

“Aww, I should have brought my camera,” Candace said.

“I’ll bring you back if you want,” Tino said. “They do this every Friday.”

Candace grinned. “I’d like that.” She studied the buckaroos a little more closely. “Hey, they don’t have guns!”

Tino grinned sheepishly. “You think I would lie to you just to get a kiss? Those are
gringos.
I told you the
charros
had guns.”

“So where are the charros?” Candace asked.

“I don’t know. I hope we didn’t miss them.”

Candace smiled at him skeptically.

“Hey,” Tino said. “If I wanted a kiss, I would just say so.”

“All right,” Candace teased. “We’ll wait.”

And they did.

And once again, Tino was right.

Towards the end of the opening acts, everything went eerily quiet. Candace looked at Tino for an explanation, but he just grinned. The silence was broken by a high-pitched scream evocative of the Latin culture. A lone rider galloped into the ring with a huge Mexican flag held high. His skin was dark like a Mayan warrior. His hair was long like a Cherokee. He wore all black, even his chaps. And, as Tino said, he had a pistol holstered on each hip.

The
vaquero
stopped in the center of the ring and let out a call Candace couldn’t duplicate if she practiced for years. Ten more Mexican riders rushed out, one after another. They waved their flags and shrieked loudly like the first one, and then they whipped out their firearms.

Candace flinched when the first shot went off. Tino put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him and felt quite cozy as the chaos erupted beneath them.

Yeee hah!

Aiiiee!

POP! POP! POP!

Yah! Yah!

POP!

POP!

Eeeee Hyaah!

POP!

POP! POP!

* * *

After the riding teams, things got serious when they got down to the actual rodeo. First came the bareback riding, followed by barrel racing and bull riding. Candace cringed every time a cowboy got tossed, and stood to cheer whenever one made it past the eight-second mark. At one point during the events, she got a little jealous as she eyed the other patrons.

“Why didn’t you tell me to wear something western?” she asked Tino.

“Why?” he said. “You look great just like you are.”

“But I want to look like a cowgirl,” Candace pouted.

“Hold on,” Tino said. He stood and scanned the crowd looking for one of the rodeo’s many vendors. He called one of them over and purchased a souvenir cowboy hat for ten dollars.

He gave it to Candace, and it was a pretty good fit. She beamed like a schoolgirl. “How do I look?”

“You already know what I think,” Tino said.

“Do I look like a cowgirl?”

“The prettiest one in the building.”

They stayed for a while longer, but Candace found the events harder to enjoy once steer wrestling and calf-roping got underway. She wondered where the PETA people were.

“
Ewww
, I can’t watch this,” she said finally.

“I don’t like this part, either,” Tino said. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Once outside, Candace thought the date was over, but Tino didn’t head to his car. Instead he led her through the perfectly refurbished western town. Candace started to feel like she was on a Hollywood movie set. Everything was perfect, the smells, the sights, and the sounds.

They stopped for a minute to listen to a mariachi band posted up on the corner, and then Tino took her to Billy Bob’s, “The World’s Largest Honkytonk,” according to a billboard posted outside. Candace had never seen anything like it. The place was huge. There was a stage for live performances, a ring for bull riding, and dinner tables filled with the city’s most prestigious rednecks.

Billy Bob’s best attraction, in Candace’s opinion, was the mechanical bull. Outside of television, she’d never seen one in real life. She grabbed Tino’s arm and dragged him to the contraption. As they arrived a pasty blonde was unceremoniously bucked off the robot.