As Good As Gone (9781616206000) (19 page)

“Seven o'clock,” Kitty says as she spins off her stool.

Kitty's departure is so abrupt, Ann is left staring at the cowboy. Yes, she supposes he does qualify as cute, even if she isn't interested in him. At least not as a boyfriend.

What if she hired this out-­of-­work cowboy to be her escort, her protector? He needn't come any closer than he is right now, but that would be near enough to discourage anyone who might want to bother her. Wouldn't he be perfect for such a role? Aren't cowboys supposed to be both gallant and tough, quick to pull out a lady's chair and quick with their fists? Ann allows herself a peek at the width of the young man's shoulders and the bands of muscles twining up and down his forearms. Yes, he would no doubt be capable of defending her. But though a cowboy is willing to work for low wages, he still expects to be paid, and Ann is fairly certain what payment he would expect from her. She'll just have to continue to take care of herself—don't Montanans believe in that as well?

TWENTY-­THREE

Everyone has been waiting for the dry spell to break, and when it finally does Beverly Lodge is probably the only person in town over the age of twelve who's not pleased about it. But the downpour catches her out in the open, blocks from home and without a raincoat, umbrella, or even a hat. Within minutes she's soaked to the skin, and she has to bend over her bag of groceries so the paper won't get wet and tear from the weight of two cans of cream of mushroom soup, a cantaloupe, a box of Post Toasties, and a box of Cheer.

It's the Cheer that put her in this situation. She went downstairs that morning to wash clothes, and only when the washer was already filling did she realize she was out of detergent. Adam wasn't home; he had risen early and driven out of town in order to do “research” for his novel. He was going to look for a site where an Indian battle was supposed to have taken place. And he had taken her car because his was almost out of gas. Yes, yes, she could have driven Adam's car and hoped there was enough fuel to reach the Mobil station, but then she would have been not only paying for his gas but also getting the gas for him. She's willing to do the former; she draws the line at the latter.

Yet Beverly didn't have to walk to the store. The laundry could have waited. Or she could have borrowed detergent from a neighbor. But she was angry at her son for taking her car and—why not admit it?—she was angry at Calvin. She had cooked for him the day before, dressed up for him, accompanied him on his expedition to Brenda Cady's, and then once they returned to their neighborhood, he went off to his house without a word to her. He might have thanked her or talked to her about what had happened during the day—to say nothing of the night before—or he might have asked to see her later in the evening. Instead, she got nothing but his back as he walked away.

So it had been anger at those two men that sent her out of her home on a day when the skies looked dark enough to keep most people indoors, but by the time she returned from the store, she was mostly angry at herself. She—not Calvin or Adam—was the one she had punished with her impulsive behavior. And now to make matters worse, she has to slow her gait—every time she takes too long a stride her drenched canvas shoes threaten to slip from her feet. Oh well, she can't get any wetter.

She's still berating herself when she turns up her walkway and sees Calvin standing under the shelter of her front porch, smoking a cigarette and squinting through the rain at her as she approaches.

With the hand that's been holding the bottom of the grocery bag, Beverly, in a little gesture of vanity, pulls her wet hair from her face. But without her hand's support, the bag tears open, and its contents tumble at her feet. The soup cans roll down the sidewalk, and Beverly runs to retrieve them. One can makes it almost to the street, and by the time she catches up to it and makes it back to her porch steps, the spilled detergent—a corner of the Cheer box has split open—has had time to bubble up a little puddle of suds. She picks up the box carefully so more powder doesn't spill out, kicks what's left of the grocery bag toward the window well, and looks around for her cantaloupe.

Calvin has picked it up from where it rolled into the grass, and he holds it out to her.

“Could you hold on to it for a moment?” she says. “As you can see, I'm a little short of hands.”

“I've been waiting for you,” he announces solemnly. “I'd like a word with you, if I may.”

“Help me get these inside, and I'll listen to more than one word, if you like.”

In the kitchen, Beverly dumps everything on the cupboard and then shakes rain from her hands and hair. “I'll tell you what. If you should ever find yourself waiting for me in the rain again, why don't you search somewhere other than my porch. If you would've headed out in your truck to find me, maybe I might have been spared dragging home looking like a drenched dog.”

She turns around, and there's Calvin, staring at her as if he has never seen her or her species before. And perhaps he hasn't. Her wet slacks cling to her as if they've been painted on, and her white blouse has turned transparent. He can see not only the lace pattern of her brassiere but the pale pink of her flesh. She starts to pull the fabric away from her skin so it isn't quite so revealing, but he steps forward and brushes her hand away just to replace it with his own, though his hand pushes the cloth against her once again. In his attempts to put his lips to her neck, he has to fight through a tangle of wet hair.

He yanks her blouse out of her slacks, but when jamming his hand up her blouse creates too tight a fit, he tries a different approach. He brings his hand out and tries the buttons.

A neighbor coming to the back door might peer through the veil of rain and see Beverly and Calvin plastered to each other. Adam might walk in at any moment. She has to tell Calvin to stop, she
has to
, yet she lets her lips scrape across the stubble of his beard until she finds his mouth and there she fastens herself so that even if she could resolve the struggle between what she wants to say and what she should say speech would not be possible.

Let this be passion. Let this be her own long-­suppressed lust. Let this be love. But please God, Beverly silently prays, whatever force is swiftly sweeping her past any capacity she might have to say no or wait, please let it not be mere vanity!

He has trouble with her buttons because the wet fabric keeps twisting and slipping in his fingers, so she opens up just enough space between them so she can unbutton herself. She has barely let the blouse land on the floor when he's trying to pull up the cups of her brassiere. The wet fabric sticks to her, and his urgent efforts to get at her skin cause her bra to twist and bind, and once again she has to push his hands away. She shrugs out of the bra and can't help but critique her own dark and shriveled nipples, but his hands cover her so quickly she doesn't have to contemplate her appearance for long. He wants her out of her slacks as well, so she tugs down her zipper and wriggles out of her pants, pulling the underpants down with them.

Could the rain have penetrated her completely, found its way not only through her clothes but through all her body's membranes? How else to explain her wetness in a woman of her age? When Calvin, having lifted her onto the cupboard, enters her, he slides in with an ease that's almost frightening. When he pushes so hard he seems to have struck bone, she lets out a gasping cry unlike any sound she has made in her life.
Who is this woman
?

IF SOMEONE CAME TO
the door or peered through Beverly's window, he or she would witness a scene so typically domestic that there would be nothing remarkable—much less scandalous—in it. At the kitchen table a man and woman sit across from each other, and the steam rising from their cups probably means the coffee was just poured. He smokes, careful not to exhale in her direction. She wears a bathrobe and a towel turban. Although they seem pleased to be in each other's company, neither can resist glancing out the window at the steady rain that parched Montana needs so badly. And with that thought a strange competition suggests itself to Beverly: Both needs have now been met, but which was greater—Montana's for precipitation or a widow's for touch?

“You said you wanted to speak to me,” she says to Calvin. “Or was that a euphemism? You've barely said a word.”

He crushes out his cigarette. “I talked to Bill last night. Marjorie's not doing well.”

“Oh no! What's wrong?”

“She had the surgery, but she never came out of the anesthetic. Sounds to me like she's in a coma.”

“My God. How are the kids taking it?”

He shakes his head. “They don't know. Bill didn't say anything to them, and neither did I.”

“What's the point of that? They have a right to know what's going on with their mother.”

Calvin rises from the table but continues to stare out the window. “Do they? They'll be happier without that knowledge. As far as they're concerned, their mother is doing fine, and they'll be seeing her soon. Why not let them believe that as long as they can?”

“I can't agree—”

“When Pauline died I stayed up all night trying to think of the right words to break the news to Jeanette and Bill. And just about the time I realized there were no right words, it occurred to me that I didn't have to tell them at all. I could just say their mother decided not to return from France. They might have hated her for that but she would have remained alive for them. In the end, I decided the truth is always the right course. So I gave it to them straight. And I watched them crumble under that news like I'd just put a thousand pounds on their shoulders.”

The mother in Beverly thinks but does not say, But you might have stayed around and helped them carry that weight. “It's never easy,” she says instead.

He scowls in her direction at her little platitude.

And for all this talk of withholding information, Beverly thinks, you came here to share the news with me—what should I make of that?

She asks, “How's Bill doing?”

“He's pretty shook up.”

“Next to the death of a child, having your spouse die is about as bad as it gets. As we both know.” He doesn't move from the window, but Beverly has already had sufficient experience with Calvin to know that her last remark was the sort to send him out of the room.

She stands and walks over next to him. “You don't have anything to say to that?” He doesn't turn to her, so she studies his profile. His jaw clenches, relaxes, and then clenches again. Pulling tighter the knot, Beverly thinks, that ties back the words.

“I didn't think it called for a response,” he finally says.

“I just meant the memory of our own sorrow makes us feel especially bad for Bill and what he's going through.”

“I know what you meant.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you believe you've got the market on grief cornered.”

“I've never said that.”

What is it about this man that seems to alter the climate around him? Not long ago it was heat, but now the air has acquired a chill. She wraps her robe tighter around herself. “Not in so many words you haven't.”

“There's no way to say a thing but in words.”

Was there a time in Beverly's life when she had too much pride to do what she's about to do? Probably. She grew up like other girls—like other women—wary of any hurt, accidental or intended, and Beverly slammed her share of doors, shed her portion of tears, and wore down the heels on more than a few shoes by spinning and walking away. But if the years have taught her anything, it's that pride of that sort is a luxury no one can afford, not if they expect to find any happiness in the company of others. She wedges her way into the narrow space between Calvin and the window, and when he doesn't back away but puts an arm around her, she doesn't care if he does it grudgingly or not.

“You don't think I'm saying something now?” she asks.

“Sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento et rapida scriber oportet aqua.”

“Mr. Sidey, maybe you're trying to impress me, but I don't know if that's an insult or sweet talk.”

“ ‘What a woman says to her man ought to be written in wind and running water.' Something like that.”

“And I still don't know.” She shakes her head and lets the furled towel fall to the floor. “Does it strike you as odd that while Bill and Marjorie are going through their miseries you and I are—well, what are you and I doing? Shall I be crude about it—going at it like a couple of rutting rabbits?” Although she doubts it will happen, Beverly hopes he'll correct her and apply a more romantic term to their activities.

“You can call it what you like,” Calvin says. “I haven't let it get in the way of what Bill asked me to come here to do.”

“Did Bill want you to come to town and threaten to shoot your neighbor's dog and scare the wits out of a little boy?” And, she thinks but does not say, fuck the woman next door.

In response to her question, his arm drops from her shoulder, and he steps back from her embrace. As suddenly as the space opens between them comes Beverly's insight: Calvin Sidey is always ready to run, and it doesn't take much to set him in motion. As a young man, he ran from this block, from Gladstone, from Montana, from this country. From his family and the family business. He ran from sadness, and he ran from responsibility. If the gossip was true, he ran from the law. And if Beverly doesn't set up an obstacle or a reason for him to stay now, Calvin Sidey will go, and anytime he goes it could be for good.

“Wait—I'm sorry!” As she grabs for his hand, her robe falls open. Her desperation, however, quickens her mind, and she makes it seem as though her sudden exposure is planned. She catches his hand in hers, brings it to her breast, and holds it there. And he doesn't pull it away.

“I've spent too many years in the company of children,” she says. “I can't seem to break the habit of thinking anyone can be teased out of any mood.”

“Teasing,” he says. “Is that what you call it? And what do you think I need to be jollied out of?”

The calluses on his palm are rough, and Beverly feels as though her breast is being caressed by a hand made of splintered wood.

“You know—that trying-­to-­see-­past-­the-­rain mood.”

The door between the kitchen and the garage creaks. Adam—why didn't she hear him drive in! Why didn't she consider that the rain would bring him home early! Then Beverly does exactly what she does not want Calvin Sidey to do to her—she pushes away from him and tries to cover herself before her son enters the house.

Adam startles when he walks into the kitchen, suddenly confronted by his mother and Calvin Sidey staring at him as if he's a teenager sneaking in past his curfew. But Adam recovers quickly. “Hello!” he says in a too-­loud voice. “Am I interrupting something?”