Riding Shotgun (44 page)

A rattled Grace met Cig at the country club. A small stone room, used only occasionally for small parties, provided them with privacy.

“I’m so glad you called me.” Grace started sniveling.

“I had to call from the barn. I ripped the phones out at the house.”

Grace’s eyebrows raised. “Cig, what’s happening to you?” She paused. “What’s happening to me?”

“You first.”

Grace lingered over the decision to go first, then plunged in. “I don’t want to hurt Will. He’s devastated.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I never thought he felt that much for me. Oh”—she exhaled violently—“the truth is, I never thought about anyone but me.”

“Can you try to work it out with him?”

“If we can both stop crying. I almost brought him along but he asked Bill Dominquez to come over. He said he needs to talk to another man. Cig, I’ve been blind. He does love me.”

“Women need to feel loved and men need to feel needed.”

“Mom used to say that.” Grace removed a Belgian handkerchief from her Botega Veneta purse.

“Make him feel needed again. Talk to him. If you want this marriage to work—it will.”

“How can I live with him? How can I face him every day after what I’ve done—and him knowing?”

“That’s love.”

Grace buried her face in her hands. “I’m so ashamed.”

“You’re ashamed and vain.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s your vanity that doesn’t want to face Will. If you commit yourself to him you’ve got to surrender your vanity because he’s seen the worst. You know, Grace, loving’s pretty easy. It’s letting someone love you that’s hard.”

Grace bawled some more. “I’m glad Mom’s not alive. I couldn’t face her either.”

“She may not be alive but I bet she’s here.”

“Oh—” Grace cried harder.

“Come on, Sis.”

Blowing her nose, Grace swallowed hard. “I do want my marriage to work.”

Cig opened her hands, palms upward. “Then do it.”

Grace squared her shoulders. “I will. God, I just hope I don’t cry all the time. I can’t stand it.”

Cig shrugged.

Grace continued. “What about you? You’re smashing TVs, tearing out telephones.”

“I didn’t smash the TV. I threw it out.”

“Yes.” Grace’s voice was expectant.

“I hate this century. I hate the constant intrusions on my privacy. I want to go back to something
real
. A simple life.”

“There’s no simple life.” Grace really did understand her sister’s frustrations. She felt them herself sometimes although she’d never consciously expressed it in such a fashion. “Cig, no one has a simple life. All those Deyhles, Chesterfields, and Buckinghams who fought in World War I
and the War Between the States and all those other wars—their lives weren’t simple.”

“They didn’t have TV and telephones,” Cig growled.

“No. And they didn’t have laser surgery and vitamins either.”

“Medical stuff. We traded quiet and understanding for knee surgery.”

“What do you want to do, live like the Amish?”

“It’s not a bad idea.”

“It’s not a good one—they don’t foxhunt.”

“Grace,” Cig exploded, “I’m wrung out!”

“So am I—for different reasons. You told me I couldn’t escape—well, number one sister, neither can you.”

“I don’t know if I can take one more day at Cartwell and McShane. I’ll plunge us into poverty if I quit but I feel like I’ll lose what’s left of my mind if I stay.”

“What would you like to do—if money weren’t an object?”

“Work hard at the stable. Make it a real show barn. I love horses. It’s the only thing I do well. Grace, I am just not cut out for business, at least, not the real estate business. Neither one of us was raised to seriously think about a career—I’m lost.”

Grace pondered that. “I guess we weren’t. We weren’t discouraged from it but we weren’t encouraged either. There was always going to be some man to take care of us.”

“Yeah, and mine died—I had no idea how strung out he was.”

“I know. I know.”

“Grace, I have to work. But I’m unprepared. I don’t like the way men do business—at least Max. Maybe other men are better.”

“It’s the difference between selling and another profession. Will doesn’t think like that.”

Cig fought back the tears. “I don’t know what to do. I think the grief filled me up, you know, but now that it’s passing I can look at my life. I’m totally lost.”

They sat in silence.

“I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Want one? I’m parched.” Grace stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

Returning in ten minutes with two cups of coffee, Grace handed one to Cig.

“Thanks.”

“I called Will. I asked him to forgive me. He said he did. He said he was in this marriage, too, and he needed to get out of his bubble, as he put it. Said Bill helped him see his part in this.”

“That’s good news.”

“Bill’s still there with him.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

“Boy, you sure don’t know it until you need them. You’d be my friend even if you weren’t my sister.”

“Yeah, I think so, too. You’re the expressive one. I’m the quiet one. We’ve got a good balance. When we were kids I let you do the talking.”

“Well, I let you do the thinking.” Grace stirred in the cream. “I love that color.” She indicated the rich tan of coffee with cream. “Do you think you could feed yourself and get the kids through college if you had your hunter barn?”

“No way. The mortgage is taking me down. You know that.”

“Cig, there are different kinds of responsibility. I asked Will. He agrees with me for all the right reasons. I can never pay up emotionally… but I can pay up. We’re going to pay off your mortgage.”

“What!” Cig had to put down her coffee cup or she would have spilled it.

“My reparations.”

“I can’t let you do that. I can’t let will do that.”

“It’s my money, too, remember? Sure, he’s the doctor but who runs the house, writes the checks, organizes the social calendar, the wife stuff—ever think about what a man would have to pay if he hired for that labor?”

“No.”

“Plenty. We’re married. The money is our money. We’re paying off your mortgage.”

“No.”

“Cig, wasn’t it you who just said to me that loving someone is easier than letting them love you?” When Cig nodded Grace saluted her with her coffee cup. “Prepare to be loved.”

“Love isn’t money.”

“Sometimes it is.”

“I need to think about this.”

“No, you don’t. Abandon yourself to it. Just let it go and kick up your heels and—” She stopped. “Oh, Cig.” She put down her cup, wrapping her arms around Cig’s broad, heaving shoulders. She hadn’t seen her sister cry like that since Blackie died.

At seven thirty, the contestants had assembled at the huge 358-year-old white oak tree for which Oak Ridge was named. The temperature hovered at a crisp forty-five degrees, although by nine it would climb to the mid-fifties for sure.

The high-pressure system created startling blue skies and air so clean it was a pleasure to breathe. The fall colors radiated at their peak.

Grace, Harleyetta, and Binky were not speaking to one another. Laura seethed at the sight of her aunt. Grace attempted to speak to her, but Laura made a big show of turning her back and walking away. Everyone noticed, but they were too polite to act as though they had. Cig grabbed Laura by the scruff of the neck, marched her to the trailer tackroom and read her the riot act. Laura was smart enough to wring a concession from her, which was that Parry could spend the night. Cig promised to really get to know Parry, and Laura promised obedience.

The low buzz at the trailers when everyone was tacking
up was proof enough that everyone was sharing the scoop, commenting on the scene.

Contestants lined up at a pine picnic table where they received their square white numbers, which they tied around their waists. David Wheeler returned with Jefferson Hunt contestants’ numbers. The organizers were frantic. There were so many people. Contestants would arrive throughout the morning, since teams would go out at five-minute intervals as they were ready. Cig liked to ride a pace before the course was torn up. It meant she couldn’t follow other hoofprints if she got lost, but she felt it was worth the risk.

Harleyetta and Binky shared a trailer and the truck. Unless one shot the other with a .38, they would have to continue to share until settlement, which would take six months if they were lucky. In the state of Virginia one could get a divorce in six months if no children were involved. There were no provisions about adults acting like children.

Binky, nervous about the situation and the competition, backed Whiskey off the trailer. Harleyetta watched.

“You could help me, Binky. You know Gypsy gets hyper if she’s left alone on the trailer.”

“Hey, you want to live without me, you can figure out your own goddamned way to get Gypsy off. I’m changing the locks in the barn and house, you bitch. You can live somewhere else if I’m not good enough for you.”

“According to the law, that’s my place, too, and I can do whatever I like.”

“You sure can, and you can fuck yourself, too.” He flashed his standard, stay-pressed smile as Gypsy pitched a fit in the trailer.

“You impotent toad!” she screamed.

“Impotent! How the hell would you know, Harleyetta? You never gave me a hard-on in your life.” He pushed her onto the ground. Gypsy thought this was an excellent opportunity to dash off, which she did after realizing Harleyetta had unsnapped her tie in the trailer.

“Hunter!” Cig called to her son who immediately mounted up, taking off after Gypsy. His first task was to
head her away from the road, Route 653. He’d try to grab the reins later.

Grace peeled off to help her nephew, which irritated Laura, who started to go as well.

“Laura, you stay right here with me.”

“Mom!”

This lament instantly changed to gratitude as Laura and the rest of the early contestants witnessed Harleyetta rising to her feet and with one powerful kick of her booted foot laying into Binky’s parts. He doubled over with a moan.

“I’d kick you in the balls if you had any.” Harley dusted off her hands, turned her back on him and walked away.

That was her second mistake because once he had staggered to his feet he ran after her, laid both his hands on her shoulders and threw her hard to the ground, tumbling on top of her.

“I’ll fix you right now, you walleyed—” He wrapped his hands around her throat, choking her.

Harleyetta, no wimp, couldn’t get a knee up, couldn’t roll him over. She was losing oxygen fast.

Cig unfurled her hunting whip, cracking it over Binky’s head. It sounded like gunfire. He was so obsessed he paid no mind. She twirled the long thong with the green cracker end behind her then flicked it out, catching Binky hard on the side of the face. A big red welt appeared with a twinge of blood. He released his grip, and that fast Harleyetta rolled away, gasping, fighting for breath.

From the other side of his horse van David Wheeler emerged to tackle Binky, scrambling after Harley again. Slight though Binky was, his adrenaline level shot over the sun. Bill Dominquez gave David an assist tackle.

Roberta, appalled, hurried over to Harleyetta, whose throat showed a nifty set of fingerprints.

Hunter and Grace returned with Gypsy, stopping at the havoc. Neither one knew what to do with the horse or the humans.

“Binky, you are invited to leave,” Cig commanded him.

“You goddamned women stick together. You even stick
by your slut of a sister.” He sniggered. “You know the
Lusitania
went down in eighteen minutes. Grace can do it in five.”

“How would you know, Binky?” Grace coolly remarked.

“Because Blackie bragged you could suck the taillights off a Chevy. Said you had more suction than a jet engine.”

No one said a word, but everyone looked at Cig then to Grace and back to Cig again.

Hunter dismounted, handing his reins to Grace, calmly walked up to Binky and then pasted him away with one right cross. Binky crumpled like a used Dixie cup. Then, just as calmly, Hunter returned to Tabasco, taking the reins from an amazed Grace.

David Wheeler, disgusted with Binky, took his hunting flask out of his pocket and poured the booze onto Binky’s face. “Always said this whiskey wasn’t fit to pour on a dog.”

Binky blinked, licked his lips, opened his eyes. “Am I dead?”

“Only from the neck up,” Grace told him.

He propped up on his elbows. “You know what’s wrong with all of you? You take everything too seriously.” He licked as much whiskey off his face as his tongue could reach. He was in his element. “So I give my soon-to-be-ex-wife-but-not-soon-enough a little push. Big deal. So I lose my temper. She loses hers. Big fucking deal. You all pretend like no one has any emotions, it’s wrong to have them.”

Harleyetta, voice hoarse, throat hurting, said, “It’s not the having them, it’s the showing them.”

“Same difference,” he grumbled, and unsteadily swayed to his feet. “I gave you some good times, Harley, gave you some rocks for your fingers, too.”

“Binky, go home and get a grip on yourself. This is neither the time nor the place for this kind of thing.” Cig kept her whip unfurled.