Crybaby Ranch (22 page)

Abruptly, I throw the magazine in the air and scoot down lower on the bed.

 

The band rehearses for another hour this afternoon; then Deak and I will drive into town for an early dinner. Meanwhile, I sit at the bar sipping apple juice while Delta sits next to me talking about her work as a florist back in Louisville. She says someday she and Don, the bass player, are going back to Kentucky to get married and open their own flower shop. I had hoped to write in my journal during the wait; instead I am hearing so many details about flower arranging, I feel as if I'm being trained as a future employee. As O.C. said about one of the aunts: “She talks so much she gets chin splints.”

“Always use odd numbers of flowers when they're the same kind or color,” Delta says.

I check the Bud Dry clock above the bar.
STAGGER UP FOR ANOTHER
. How can the company's conscience allow that kind of promotion? Beyond Delta two construction workers tell a third about the house they're working on. “You could set up six yurts in the living room.”

“Darker colors below and bigger blossoms below. Little blossoms or buds at the top, along with your lighter shades.” Delta's hands describe a bouffant spray that she imagines takes up the width of the bar top.

On the other side of me, at the end of the bar, two old ranchers are sitting with beers, talking about a friend hospitalized down in Denver. “They cut into him and found something the size of a melon in there.”

“It's all them doughnuts Harold ate ever morning. You know he had himself two, three ever'day over at the Sip 'N' Dunk. What they found in there was a dough ball.”

“Sixty years of eating them doughnuts sure would make a good-sized dough ball. He don't weigh but a hundred and ninety or so now.”

“Must have been the dough ball. He sure weighed more than that before he headed to Denver.”

“Lots of greens in the vase,” says Delta, “then stick in flowers. Flowers should be, oh, about two and a half times taller than the container.”

“I better hold back on the doughnuts myself. I don't need
me
no dough ball.”

“You want your roses to bloom, take the guard petals off. And always make fresh cuts on the stems.”

Finally, Deak finishes with the group. We push through the gloom of the bar and climb into my Subaru. Soon we are acting giddy as schoolkids released into sunshine. Deak is slumped low in the passenger seat as we approach a full view of the Tetons. “They're big,” he says.

“Yep,” I agree. “And majestic. That's what they could have named them instead of the Tetons. The Majestics.”

Deak says, “That's already been taken. It's the name of a rock group.”

“That's what this is, a rock group.”

We laugh.

I'm tired of always smelling cigarette smoke in my clothes and my hair; I roll down the window partway in hopes of getting rid of it. As a matter of fact, I'm tired of the bar. Period. The smells, the aimlessness of the people, the stupid talk. That reminds me of my afternoon eavesdropping, and I tell Deak about the dough ball.

Dirty piles of snow are exposed along the roadside like winter's discarded long underwear. Like diapers sopping up the runoff. The thaw begins.

Though skiing felt like trying to maneuver in mashed potatoes, I toured alone to the hot springs this morning and spotted the first signs of spring. Spotty patches of snow and brown melted areas made the slopes beside the trail look like the rumps of Appaloosa ponies. Swans floated like feathered chunks of ice between the snowy banks of a pond.

I start to tell Deak, but I see that he's fallen asleep.

A cliff rose several stories high beside the pond, and a ram, curled horns sketching commas in the stretch of blue sky behind him, surveyed the rocky drop below. I stabbed my poles into the snow, stopping to watch the bighorn, and suddenly we locked eyes. His awareness of me was a vibrating line of attention between us. I felt as though I was in the presence of a good listener, one whose full reception of me mirrored back a greater actuality of myself, as when I'm talking to Bo. The ram and I stared at each other long moments. I felt like Bambi in the presence of the Great Stag of the Forest: “He stopped and looked at me.”

While I drive I recall the applause of the river rock as snowmelt rushed shallowly in the creek bed. A flock of geese flew over, sounding like a pack of bloodhounds treeing the sun. Spring, by Rocky Mountain standards, is almost here.

“It's time you call Bo.”

“What? My God, I thought you were sleeping.” I don't know what made me jump the most: the sound of Deak's voice or the sound of Bo's name.

“I'm leaving in a couple days now.”

“I know.”

“Well, you better patch things up with him before I go.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I mean it, Suzannah. You miss him, don't you?”

“I like being with you.”

“I know that. But call him.”

MAY 15-21

T
his morning another truck loaded with logs chugged past my cabin. I felt an urge to chase after it, barking gleefully at its rear tires like an excited dog. Just a short hike along the butte, through the sage and aspens, I can see stacks of new lumber glistening in view of the main ranch house and barns. Often during the past two weeks, since my farewell dinner with Deak, I sat high on a slope and watched smoke curl out of Bo's studio chimney down below, as if I were reading a coded message from the Vatican. Except this smoke doesn't announce the naming of a pope, but rather announces the presence of an artist at work. Something has shifted with Bo, and I long to participate in the pump of energy I feel emanating from him now.

I haven't acted on my promise to Deak that I would call Bo. An innocence resides in men—men like Deak and Bo anyway—that is both endearing and irksome. Relationships are hardly ever as simple as they'd like to believe. But it is true that with Deak, pleasure rippled through the shallow waters of my body but did not reach the deep places of my heart. I miss Bo.

I have enjoyed my time alone. I've resumed my schedule, caught up on my life, and read new spring releases, which I TROUT from the bookstore—our shorthand for “transferring out” books off the shelves. I haven't called home yet; guilt blunts the urgency I feel to connect with my parents.

I remember Bo answers the phone as if he knows he will like whoever is calling him—not
Hello
as a question with uncertainty in his voice, like I do. Though quite late for making a call, I stand beside the phone daring myself.

I pick up the receiver and dial his number. My chest thuds raucously; if I were wearing beads, they'd rattle. The phone rings and rings again. Then Bo answers.

“Hello,” he says.

I hang up. Arms weak, legs shaky.

He says
Hello
, and I am undone.

Twenty, maybe thirty seconds pass. I'm still standing next to the phone, vibrating with the sound of him in my ear. The phone rings.

“Hello?”

The caller hangs up.

Tears come to my eyes. I picture him standing like me, staring at the phone, a smile spreading across his face. Between us the knowledge of our phone calls zips back and forth, dazzling the night with sparks. I'm unwilling to leave the vicinity of the telephone, to move away from this power spot, where we have just connected so well.

After a few minutes it occurs to me that Bo can't be absolutely certain that I phoned him first. I grab my coat. I want him to know he was right. I run out the door, my head down, fingering buttonholes for my coat buttons, and plow into a canvas jacket.

“Hey.” He catches me with both arms.

“Bo.” I move deeper into the circle of his arms. “Bo, I've missed you.”

“Not half as much as I've missed you, Zann.”

“Could we argue about that tonight?” I say. All the lost pieces of myself and all the newly found ones snuggle into place inside me and call it home. My face is pushing into the warmth of his neck when the muffled ring of my phone interrupts. Who else but Bo would call me this late? I feel a sense of alarm.

Bo's jaw muscles tighten. “Deak?”

“Oh, no. We stopped seeing each other.” The phone still rings, five rings, six. Abruptly, I break away from Bo and dash through the mudroom. I have a terrible image of my mother falling into Bessie Creek. Her balance has gone all to hell this past year. “Bo,” I holler over my shoulder, “come in. It must be an emergency.”

I answer breathlessly, “Hello?”

“Am I all right?”

That voice. “Momma.” Though my mother's well-being leapt immediately to mind when the phone rang, I didn't expect her on the other end of the line. “Momma, it's me, Suzannah.” I haven't heard her voice over the phone late at night for years. And then she was drinking and smoking. Last I heard she had forgotten what to do with a cigarette.

She asks, “Do you know me?” She sounds small and faint, like a lost child with alarm causing a wide place in her eyes. News stories of Alzheimer's patients wandering away from home crowd my thoughts. But no, she must be home, calling from the kitchen phone where my number is on memory dial. How else could she have reached me? It's my father, then. He must be hurt.

“Momma, I know you. And you're just fine.” But she's not fine. Somehow she is alone in the middle of the night. I check the kitchen clock and add two hours: one in the morning on the East Coast.

Bo holds my hand in both of his and watches my eyes.

“Momma,” I say as calmly as I can, “where is Daddy?”

“I can't find my…you know.”

“Momma, holler, ‘Addie.' Like this.” I yell my father's name. “Do that, Momma.”

I hear her call my father's name; then she says into the phone, “Oh,” as if surprised by the strength in her own voice.

A screen door bounces in the background, and my father says, “Lizzie, good God, what are you doing out of bed?” Footsteps approach nearer. “Couldn't you find me? Here, I'll take the phone. Let's tuck you in the sack.”

I sense he is about to hang up and I holler, “Dad.”

The line goes dead.

I can't dial fast enough. At the same time, I say to Bo, “Everything's fine, I guess. I just have to check.” While I wait for the call to go through and my dad to answer, I explain to Bo what seemed to have happened. He removes his coat and sits on the edge of the kitchen table. He takes my free hand back in both of his and holds it in the gap between his legs.

My father's surprised voice answers the phone.

“Dad, it's Suzannah. That was me on the line earlier. Mom called somehow. She couldn't find you.”

“I fell asleep on the porch. I'm just beat. The orange trees are blooming…. Come here, Lizzie. Stay with me…. The whole world smells like your momma's shoulders used to. Isn't that right, Lizzie? We're getting goofy down here, Suzannah. We're running out of steam.”

“I'll come down.” I've never heard my father sound overwhelmed before. I feel panicky, like I need to keep him on the line while at the same time head for the airport.

“Yes, do that. Your mother would like to see you real soon.”

“Day after tomorrow. They'll need notice at work.”

“You hear that, Elizabeth Taylor? Your little girl is coming. We get tired of eating alone, don't we, Lizzie? One more night and Suzannah will join us.” I know how he feels. I count the nights I have to eat dinner alone with Mom when he goes on one of his trips, though I've never had to count higher than seven.

When at last I hang up, I feel both exhausted and anxious to start leaving. I say to Bo, “He needs me.” Though in his typical manner Dad attributed his need to Mom, instead of himself. I look at Bo. That's what I've been accusing him of doing—dumping his unclaimed emotions on me. Instead of feeling irritated by that as usual, I feel competent to deal with it. In a way it makes Bo more familiar. And I'll just learn to hand his stuff back. I say to him, “I have to get down there right away.”

“I'm coming with you.”

“But you and I are a mess,” I wail. “We have so much to clear up. My parents are a mess. I'm a mess.”

“We can't wait on this, Zannah.”

“But we don't know what's going on with us.”

“We know exactly what's going on with us. Besides, I'm in remission on putting things off, Zann. I don't want to do that.” Bo cups the side of my head and looks me in the eyes. “We'll sit on the plane and neck and argue until we see ocean below our wings. I'll come with you to Florida to meet your parents. Then later you'll come with me to Ireland to meet my father.”

That sounds wonderful, and I give a laugh from the pure joy of it. Then I cry.

Bo releases me reluctantly when I pull away to get a Kleenex from the bathroom.

My father will not rejoice over Bo coming with me. I can't even picture his response. I blow my nose. He was always rude to my boyfriends and not very chummy with Erik. I splash handfuls of warm water over my face. Suddenly I register the rest of what Bo said. I step out of the bathroom. “You know who your father is?”

“I know how to find him.”

“We have a lot of catching up to do.” I return to the bathroom and dry my face with the hand towel.

One night this past week, I dreamed I walked in a meadow where a poppy grew all alone. I picked the flower and skies darkened and the whole earth shuddered. Sounds of the planet breaking up roared around me. Shaken, I woke. I feared that if I took what I wanted the world would shudder to an end.

“Okay.” I return to the kitchen and to Bo's arms. “Let's go to Florida together.” Bo and I hold each other.

Somewhere inside a voice exults, “It begins, it begins.”

Bo smoothes back all the fine hairs from around my face. “I'll help you pack. Where are your suitcases?”

“Under the bed.” I lead the way to my bedroom; I open a drawer and begin making little piles of panties and bras and socks. I try to picture Bo in Florida with me.

My mother, if she were well, would adore Bo. She would monopolize the conversation. She would drink too much and show a bit of extra thigh while crossing her legs in the hope that I might report later that Bo had said, “Your mother sure has good legs for a woman her age.” Despite all that, Bo would be charmed. People were always charmed.

I feel a bit crazy, thinking about my mother and wondering how much worse she has gotten since I saw her last. And all the while my heart tries to catch up to its abrupt fullness with the presence of Bo. My brain is working like a Hitchcock movie in which the camera swings suddenly to the commonplace as a reprieve from tension buildup. Abruptly, I open my closet door and get into a welcome snit about what to wear on the plane.

I tuck my pants into my cowboy boots and button a big, warm nubby shirt over my turtleneck and belt the whole business with wide leather. I pose for Bo. “Do I look like a Cossack?” My father's term for my fashion sense.

Bo is dusting off my suitcases with a dirty sock he also found under my bed. “No,” he says, checking me out. “You look more like a hassock.”

Laughter quickens my body, head to foot, like fast wet licks. I have missed how Bo sneaks inside my head with humor and triggers a coupling between us. He's quite knowing of that trigger's location and sensitivity.

We stand grinning on opposite sides of my bed. Bo's eyes seem to adore me for accepting his joke. So many times we have stood, kitchen linoleum spread like a patterned sheet between us, and reached across it with our words and laughter like a conjugal embrace.

“Meet you halfway,” I say and nod toward my bed.

We begin our lovemaking with laughter, and later, much later, we end with soft, exhausted smiles. I feel as though Bo's hands have redesigned my body, that alterations occurred beneath his touch. My nipples elongated, moisture gathered, lips swelled. I am more beautiful now.

Bo lies flat on his back beside me, staring up at the ceiling. He says, “This is the thing I've been suspecting.”

“What's that?”

“That falling in love makes a person disappear.”

“You feel gone?” I'm surprised. “I feel so here.”

“I got so here that I fizzed up and am gone.”

I shift up on an elbow and look at him. “Is that bad?”

“I can't tell yet if it's bad, it feels too good.”

I start to laugh and soon Bo joins me.

He turns sideways and looks at me. “I wouldn't go through this for anybody but you.”

“I feel like you're equating love with a root canal.”

“A root canal with laughing gas,” Bo says.