Crybaby Ranch (8 page)

Violet says, “Now tell us all about
your
clothes, and you, too, Mr. Donnell.”

“I'll bet they paid full price, sister,” Aunt Maizie says.

Oh God, they're fun. And now I see they must like me.

Bo's head darts into view at the kitchen window, and he charges out the back door to intercept the roasting.

“Dickie, you drove.” Bo wipes his hand on a dish towel before extending it to Dickie. “We were looking for you to drop down from the sky.”

“Good to see you, Bo.” Dickie accepts Bo's handshake. “But that word
drop
makes us chopper pilots nervous.”

Behind the Donnells, the hiss of tobacco spit as it meets with burning coals introduces the presence of Bo's grandfather, whom I met earlier. Both Caro and Dickie abruptly spin around at the sound, as if their shirttails were sizzling.

Bo introduces his grandfather. “O. C. Garrett, initials for Owen Charles.”

“A name I don't never use,” Bo's grandfather warns. He spits another gob into the flames of the cooker, wipes his right hand across his mouth, then onto the thigh of his Wranglers, before offering it in a handshake with Dickie.

I watch to see if Dickie sneaks a chance to wipe his hand on his own pants afterward; he doesn't, but he holds the hand stiffly away from the rest of his body.

“Grandma always said O.C. stood for
Old Coot
,” Bo tells us. “Mr. Donnell,” says Violet, “I believe you're wearing Luc-chese boots.”

“And I'll bet he paid just loads for them, sister,” says Maizie.

Dickie stares at his feet undecided about how to react to the aunts. Finally, he just asks them to please call him Dickie and he moves away.

I look to see if Bo's sorry about this idea of a cookout yet, but he's fine, enjoying his own party. He appears not to be absorbing his family's antics as a reflection on himself.

The Garretts' old family doctor forms a circle with Bo's vet and both their wives over on the lawn. Mick Farlow, the lawyer who appeared at the bank for the closing of my cabin, joins them along with his date, a woman I've seen shopping at the bookstore, Tam Randall. She's a mental-health therapist, Tessa says. I've noticed she reads heavily from the women's studies section and new fiction, my own favorite areas.

Caro follows Bo into the kitchen to help carry out the pitcher of margaritas and the plates of nachos. I'm going to be hostess in name only, I see. I approach Tam, glad for the chance to get to know her better.

Some time later the aunts come out of the house carrying a large photo album between them. “You must let sister and me show all of you our pictures of little Bartholomew,” Violet announces to the group. She turns to Maizie. “He was a darling child—wasn't he, sister?” The sisters become caught up in each other. I've noticed today that they begin addressing the group, then lose awareness of us. Signals bounce rhythmically between the two sisters as they trigger memories in each other, almost operating as a synaptosome, a nerve ending isolated from surrounding tissue. If they hold to pattern, it will be some time before they will recall the rest of us and again transmit messages to the body of the gathering here on Bo's deck.

Off to the edge of the mowed yard, another fire burns. This one, in a hole dug in the ground, is set up with a spit for meat. I trail over to join the crowd watching Bo paint a beef roast with red sauce.

“My favorites,” says Maizie in a burst of delight, still holding half the photo album. “Suzannah!” she calls to me. “Come see darling Bartholomew.”

The sisters and I meet halfway across the yard.

Even at four he was all masculinity. Stances of Bo, thumb and forefinger cocked low on each hip challenged the camera. Bo hanging beneath his pony at five, standing in the saddle about to shoot the photographer at seven. Bo with his first elk at eight, driving a pickup at ten. Beside a baler at twelve, tossing that summer's straw cowboy hat into the final bale. Which, the sisters tell me, is the custom at the end of haying season. Flipping to the front of the album, Violet coos at a photo of Bo as a newborn being bathed in a kitchen sink.

“He had large private parts, didn't he, sister?” Maizie says.

“Bartholomew was of good size.” They agree with each other that this is of importance to a man and again shut the rest of us out. A few minutes later Violet speaks across the yard to Bo. “Darling, are you still rather well-endowed? Sister and I wondered because your feet also grew fast and then stopped in your adolescence. Your feet are not of unusual size, though adequate.”

“My penis is of unusual size, Aunt Violet. My feet stopped growing. My brain and penis just surged on to astounding dimensions.” Bo paints more sauce on his beef, and his friends laugh.

Caro likes the public talk about Bo's penis. From her private smile, I decide she is aching to report, but settles for looking knowingly as if she has an opinion she'll attempt to keep to herself—but makes no promises. Dickie watches her. Poor Dickie. He knows.

Poor me. Now I know, too. But maybe it's ending.

“Women like the large ones,” Aunt Maizie offers to those of us still listening. “But, oh, one can do nicely with any size.”

By necessity, Bo would have had to move private territory far inward, growing up around these two creatures. I could stand to take a lesson from him, I think, while helping him and Caro carry food to a long table on the deck. He has given his family members back over to themselves. They cannot embarrass him; they do not reflect on him. They are their own zany selves, and Bo figures everyone around has the job of dealing with this on their own. Unlike me,
he
doesn't have shoulder pains from the tenseness of making this gathering work for each person. Don't ask me why I feel responsible. Bo seems to feel his responsibility only includes offering palatable food and drink—not the weather, not the fact that his girlfriend's husband is present or that the owner of a New York gallery is joining us soon, or that his crazy aunts insist on monopolizing the talk with penis judgments. Though I could wonder if this would be different were the aunts to go on about the
smallness
of Bo's penis. Still, I doubt it would. Yep, Aunt Vi, Bo might say, so dinky I can't find it in the dark without lighting a match first.

To get everyone started in line, I fill my plate, then find a place to sit where I can further study the guests.

With the pain my imagination projects onto Dickie, I almost miss the quirk of a smile on his lips as he watches Caro smear a cracker with Brie and hand it to Bo.

I'm confused.

Dickie knows now they're having an affair or are about to—I'm certain of it—yet he appears to be…flattered. It's pride and pleasure I see on Dickie's face. You can lust after her, even meet her in motel rooms, but the woman is licensed to me. The smile of a man inviting another man—someone he really aches to impress—to drive his Lamborghini. See? She handles even better than she looks.

Aunt Violet and Aunt Maizie slide onto the bench where I'm speculating about the guests, one aunt to each side of me. We sit with our buffet plates on our laps, our glasses at our feet, juggling extra silverware and napkins.

“Now there's a man proud of his belongings,” Violet says, tipping a speared melon ball toward Dickie.

“Is that it then?” I say with sudden surprise at having my inner musings confirmed.

“That,” Aunt Maizie says, “and a fascination with Bartholomew that would make our little boy squirm in his sleep if he knew.” Along with her silverware, napkin, glass, and plate, she has the added problem of finding a place to set the salt shaker she's brought. She solves this by passing it to me.

“What?”
I say, accepting the salt.

“That's my take,” says Maizie.

Violet says, “She's right.”

The aunts sound more than sane just now—they strike me as extremely perceptive. Their words shock me. To keep myself from staring at Dickie, I scrutinize the aunts. The two have good taste in clothes, if you like expensive Western wear. Outfits straight out of the window of the Wild Turkey Saloon. Swingy skirts, woven vests, cowboy boots. Heavy Navajo jewelry in silver and turquoise parades around their necks and their wrists and dangles from their ears. Violet is pale in coloring, a bit taller than her sister and less effusive. Maizie, I would guess, took the lead in letting her hips and tummy soften and spread. Violet, perhaps once even lanky, has followed suit and settled into a comfort with her middle-aged padding. The aunts must be about sixty-three and sixty-four now. Violet, I know, is the older. They exhibit a certain glamour. They are definitely flirts. Much of that penis talk earlier was directed toward Mick Farlow's recently widowed father, I believe now. Jem Farlow has been targeted with saucy looks from them both.

“Mickey's got a nice girl,” Maizie says about Bo's lawyer friend. The two reminisce together about Mick's childhood, when he used to spend time with Bo here on the ranch. I hope for Mick's sake there are no nude pictures of him in the photo album.

Twenty years ago, when their mother died, the sisters followed Grandpa Garrett into town. Bo told me the two bought a duplex a few blocks away from their father's trailer; each of them live in one half. Bo says they have men friends, a pool of escorts they share and from which they select particular mates on occasion.

“So now there's Suzannah.” Maizie turns to me conspiratorially. “We've been asking ourselves: ‘Hmm. But where does Suzannah fit into the picture?' Oh, we have our silly hopes, don't we, sister?”

“But we know,” Violet says, “that you have much on your mind these days and we'll have to be patient. We told Bartholomew.”

“What, what did you tell Bo?” My head swings side to side, from one sister to the other, following their sudden inclusion of me in their talk.

“To be patient,” says Maizie from my left.

“That you need to take your time grieving,” Violet adds from the right.

“Grieving?”

“Your mother, your marriage.” From the left.

“Lost youth.” From the right again.

“Oh, now cut that out,” Maizie says to me before I say or do a single thing. “Nobody's been talking about you. Bo just said
depression
and
divorce
and we understood.”

“We're not stupid,” Violet says.

“Sometimes we are,” Maizie says.

“Oh, just for fun.”

“Well, I don't know, sister—”

“She's been listening to O.C.” Violet turns to me. “He says we're senile before our time.”

I want to ask more questions, but I suspect the sisters can maintain attention on subjects outside themselves for only so long. Besides, we are being called to collect dessert, my contribution to the potluck. Chocolate cake, dark, sweet, and moist. The aunts brought Irish whiskey and two flavors of whipped cream, orange and almond, to accompany our coffee.

Later, it's me that sidles up to the aunts. They are talking about Dickie and let me listen.

“Attracted to Bo?” Violet asks herself in a search for words. “These matters are complex. More like…”

Maizie finishes, “If Dickie could, he'd
be
Bo. That is if he could still be wealthy and own things.”

“That's it exactly!” Violet snaps her fingers in the air. “Dickie yearns to be a real rancher, instead of a pretend one with his fancy toys. Even more, he'd like to be as manly and handsome as our Bartholomew.”

I wouldn't mind getting the talk back around to Bo and me and their silly hopes, but Bo is heading our way. He grins hugely as he joins us and flings his arm around my neck. Until today, we haven't seen each other since before I left for Florida. With his fist under my chin, he tips my face up and kisses me lightly on the mouth. “Welcome home,” he says.

I'm surprised and dazzled. My ears heat up.

Bo and his aunts talk, and I miss the entire exchange while my mind replays the smile, the kiss, the happy look afterward. His smile swooping down to meet my smile. My lips sizzle and feel like they might be swelling. Turning neon pink. Glowing in the dark like the forgotten coals in the barbecue pit on the edge of the yard. I am sure these attentions are just for me. Bo is too straightforward to be using me for some message to Dickie or Caro. He never touches me at my house or anytime we're alone. I think he's afraid of scaring me off. He has a solid touch. Well-grounded, strong, and good souled.

After a while Bo releases me and moves aside to include Mitzi Beamer, the New York gallery owner, into our circle of talk. Mitzi is in the valley to fish. Bo was recommended to her as a guide by the sporting-goods store on the square because he could discuss contemporary art as well as fly fishing. All this comes out in Bo's introduction of Mitzi to the group.

A bit later I gather from their talk that Mitzi isn't offering Bo any gallery space even after seeing his work. Instead, she suggests to Bo that he produce brochures of his work, which she offers to mail to architects and interior designers in the East with her strong recommendations. To me this sounds like an opportunity to earn good money and create a steady following. Bo appears unenthusiastic.