The Wilder Sisters (21 page)

“Didn’t exactly work out like that for Rose, did it?”

“No. And I guess if I end up an old maid that’s your fault, too.”

He touched her cheek. “Everybody makes choices, Lily. You give up one adventure to take on another. You put yourself exactly where it is you want to be. Whatever your sister does has to come from her. She has to believe it’s her idea. If you insist on worrying, worry about yourself.”

Lily looked at her dog, and as if he understood the cloak she kept pulled tight around her heart, Buddy sighed, too. “I took a leave from work because I needed to see my hometown.”

Her father set his mug down on the table. One of the logs made a loud pop in the fireplace. “Floralee’s pretty in autumn.”

Lily rubbed Buddy’s ears, which were velvety soft and spotted with blue and gray hair. She hugged him close and nuzzled his face. Instead of his usual dog breath, she could detect a faint odor of cookies, which meant Buddy Guy Lock Picker had probably figured out how to open the pantry door. “You don’t know what it’s like out there, Pop. Sometimes I think I should quit this job and go work in a coffee shop. Nobody tells you that in order to make the big bucks you have to pay with your spirit.”

“That bad?”

“Sometimes it is. And this last guy I dated? He put on a great show for a couple of months. He wowed me in bed. Then one day I woke up, and here was this cold-blooded snake lying next to me and scales all over the damn pillow. First thing I did was check my ankle for a tattoo.”

Her father laughed and Lily joined him. “Anyway, crap like that, I can handle. Not Rose.”

“You’re both strong, intelligent women. That puts you at some- what of a disadvantage, but not out of the game entirely. Somewhere out there, I know it, there’s a man sitting with his head in his hands, wondering where the hell our Rose Ann is, and would she please hurry up and fill his life with her down-home cooking and generous loving and her gentle way with horses. He might be Austin Donavan, or he might turn out to be somebody else. When it’s time, she’ll find him.”

Again the fire crackled, and one of the logs slipped in the grate, sending off a shower of sparks. When they had burned out, Lily snuggled up close to her father. In time she felt his strong hand gently close around her shoulder. “I thought you didn’t hug.”

“Only when absolutely necessary.”

Buddy woofed, and Pop thought that was pretty funny. “Are we going to talk some details about your job?”

“Pop, when I can say two words without crying, you’ll be the first to know.”

They sat silently looking into the fire, and for the first time in a long while, Lily felt sleepy without needing any wine.

Rose took off before any of them got up. Lily awoke to the sound of the Bronco’s tires on the gravel and the horses whinnying a protest over one of their own leaving the corral. She knelt on the bed and parted the curtain so she could peer out the dormer window. Rose’s old trailer was hitched up to the Bronco. Max’s tail hung over the door. Rose had bound it with Vet Wrap so the long hairs wouldn’t catch on anything. She’d done everything herself even though Shep or Pop would have been glad to help. Lily squinted, watching her sister’s car slowly move out of her field of vision.
Well, fine, then
, she thought.
Go already. I’ll catch up with you later
. She fell back into the sheets to sleep another hour. All the way down to her bones she felt tired. As she drifted off, she wondered if she was getting sick. Then it occurred to her that this was what
not
working like a crazy person did to her. It made her appreciate old, soft worn sheets from when she was a kid, and clean air coming in a window she could leave open all night and still feel safe. It made her feel all those simple but necessary pleasures that had been absent from her crowded Califor- nia life, even in a bed designed to fit only one person.

Lily stood on the porch still wearing her sleep shirt, clutching her second mug of coffee, feeling completely without ambition. She couldn’t get started today. In the arena Shep turned horses out to exercise. She noticed the mounting blocks in the center of the arena and pointed.

“What are those for? Are you giving riding lessons?”

He continued to move horses without looking over at her. “Little Miss Have to Know Everything.”

“I asked a simple question.”

“No, I’m not giving riding lessons. I’m an old man. Seems reason- able to me that at this stage of my life I can get a permanent leg-up without having to explain why to you.”

Sheepskin on his saddle and having to use the mounting blocks—Shep must have been so ashamed.
Sometimes
, Lily thought,
my mouth should not be allowed out in public
. “Sorry.”

“Come on over here,” Shep said. “Got something I want to show you.”

Lily minced her way barefooted across the gravel to the fence. She watched Shep place an old stock saddle on the ground, whistle her dog over, then praise Buddy Guy when he agreed to sit on it. He shooed the dog away, lifted the saddle to the fence, steadied it, then when he patted the seat, the dog leapt up. The blue heeler remained seated, even when Shep kicked the bottom rail of the fence and set it wobbling.

“Impressive,” Lily said. “At home, if there’s so much as a sonic boom, he hides under my bed.”

“Hang on, I ain’t done yet.” Shep told the dog to get down, then moved the saddle to the swayback of Pablo, one of the oldest horses in her father’s stable. Pablo was too old even to ride, but Chance had a soft spot for the last remaining horse from his father’s era, so he got hand-fed and babied, and would until the day he died. Shep patted the saddle seat a second time. Buddy ran a lap around the arena, then jumped up on the saddle. Lily stood there open-mouthed. Buddy didn’t know horses from hat racks, but with soothing words and a horseman’s patience, Shep had somehow convinced the dog that riding Pablo was safe. “What did you feed him? Steak?”

“Didn’t feed him at all. I don’t cotton to bribery.” “Get out. Without bait, I can hardly get Buddy to sit.”

“That’s because you hold stock in the reward instead of the animal. Your dog wants to please you so bad he buys into your foolish thinking.”

Foolish thinking. Lily thought of the money she’d spent on dog training and wished she’d given it to Shep instead. Every time the dog got the urge to leap off the slow-moving gelding, he looked to the old cowboy for reassurance. A barely perceptible nod was all it took, and Buddy returned to cowboying. All his life he’d been searching for a man he could trust. Of course, so had Lily. Buddy didn’t intend to bite whoever she brought home, he simply wanted to protect her from those evil boys who were always wanting to jump her bones. From Buddy’s point of view, orgasm probably sounded like an SOS. It had been so long since she’d had one, Lily decided, hell, maybe it
was
kind of a distress call.

While the old horseman spat tobacco juice into the dirt, Buddy calmly rode the horse around the arena. No doubt life aboard Pablo

beat having the ranch dogs bare their fangs every time he walked by, not to mention the endless butt sniffing. Lily was so fond of the old horseman she couldn’t imagine life without him. But doctors didn’t exactly rip prostates out for the fun of it. Still, that kind of cancer had a pretty high cure rate. Surely if they hadn’t got it all Pop would’ve told her. He was just getting old. Poor man. For as long as she’d known him, Shep had reveled in the company of ladies. He always had one or two telephoning him, and rarely spent weekends at the ranch. Lily wondered what sex must be like for him now, if he was okay with having a penis that was only good for peeing.

“I can’t believe you got him to do this in three days. And he never bit you?”

“The thought never even crossed his mind.”

“I wish I had my camera. Make him do one more lap, Shep.”

The old man clucked and Pablo, reacting to the decades of training echoing inside his brain, picked up the pace to a jog almost slower than his walk.

Lily thought of the one time she’d seen Buddy Guy, the musician, in person, at the Long Beach Blues Festival. Up on stage, the black man’s eyes were shut and his large-toothed grin open wide as he picked an electric guitar painted with polka dots to match his gaudy shirt. Buddy Guy was the link between the masters, guys like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker. He’d played with Hendrix. The late great Stevie Ray Vaughn had learned his licks from Buddy Guy. She loved how sometimes in the middle of a song he cussed his own playing, stopped, and started over again.
Here’s how Stevie would have played it
, he’d say. Maybe he wasn’t a share- cropper making history on three strings, but he was humble enough to bow to larger talent. He played his heart out. “Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues!” Lily had envisioned the same eagerness in Buddy the pup. He came from her father’s best stock, memorable dogs like Jody Jr. and Maromero, but he wasn’t going to do anything greater in his lifetime than ride this horse.

“Rides a damn sight better than that one-trick Lassie,” Shep told Lily, who stood at the fence rail wiping tears from her eyes. “All he needed was to get out of that crazy state and run on real dirt. He’s looking right smitten with old Pablo. Got a feeling from now on you’re going to have a hard time convincing him to walk anywhere.”

“I bet you’re right. Shep?” “What?”

“Rose and I saw Mami in town. Did she come home last night?” Shep pursed his lips, shook his head no.

“Any idea why?”

He halted the horse and lifted Buddy off the gelding’s back. “Go on to your mama now, Bud. I got horses to see to, fences to mend.”

“Dammit all, Shep. You never tell me anything.”

He looked at her over the top of the saddle. Behind them, a huge orange horse transport trailer was pulling into the driveway. In there with a dozen other animals was Pop’s new mare. “I’ll tell you something. Go change out of that ugly nightie and into some riding britches. Then you can help me get that new animal settled in.”

Several hours later, Lily heard the whine of a twin engine plane overhead. She leaned against her rake and watched the amber and white wings of Mami’s plane tilt from side to side as she squared herself for the landing. Shep shaded his eyes against the glare but said nothing. Her father stood in the open corral, watching. To Lily it felt as if their collective will and not her mother’s skill brought the plane down properly on the runway at the eastern boundary of the property. When the plane was safely landed, Shep continued working Rose’s mare on the longe line. Pop dipped a kerchief in the stock tank to clean some of the dirt from his face.

A few minutes later, Mami drove up in the Suburban. The vanity plates on the car read
RSQ GRYS
, and stickers of greyhounds in the back window explained the plates. Lily had finished prepping the stall the new horse would live in after it completed a week of quar- antine. She hung up the rake she’d been using inside the barn. Her father brushed straw from his pants and walked over to greet his wife. Mami got out of the car, opened the rear door, and released two of the greyhounds Lily had seen her posing with in Santa Fe.

Pop let out a groan. “Somehow I thought you might change your mind.”

Mami gathered their leads in her hand and stood tall. To Lily she looked as imperious as Cleopatra. “Chance, I told you they’re going to California as soon as I can get their papers straightened out.”

“They’d better be. First I have to give up my seat on the damn

plane, next thing I know you’re probably going to kick me out of bed.”

Mami made a face. “
Egoísta
. You know that will never happen.” Lily recognized the root of the Spanish word her mother had used.

It translated roughly to “selfish,” but it didn’t accurately capture her father’s stance. If the plane had been a four-seater instead of a two-seater, he still might have opted for a commercial flight to avoid competing with her beloved dogs.

“Come on over here and help me with my luggage,” Mami said. “And while you’re at it, could you kiss me? I missed you. Aren’t you glad to have me home?”

Lily marveled at how the woman could make a pair of worn-out blue jeans and a man’s white shirt look like Chanel. To describe her mother as fit was to gloss over the Martínez heritage, whose strength and solidity rose from generations of roots so deeply crisscrossed they could neither be dug up nor dismissed. Even when she admitted she was wrong, Mami’s resolve did not waver. She swung her long black hair over her shoulder and shone her wide smile on her hus- band. At once his bad mood began to dissolve. Lily observed the grateful way each moved into the other’s embrace. As Pop pressed a hand to the small of her back, Lily bit her lip. All her life she had wanted a man to need her that way, to love her so much that her presence was like the sun coming up, there every morning to warm everything, waking the world from sleep, keep things growing. It struck Lily that maybe she loved people the same way her mother loved the greyhounds, preparing and feeding exquisite meals, making certain to provide top-notch vet care, but it was as if a corner of her heart seemed held in check, as if she believed every situation would turn out to be temporary.

“Hey, Mami,” she said when her parents were finished kissing. “Lily!” Her mother handed the dogs’ leashes to Pop and hurried

over to her daughter. They were exactly the same height. Mami was sixty-two years old and Lily was thirty-five, but of the two, Lily was the one who looked her age. Unconsciously she began to brush the cedar shavings from her sleeves. Mami placed her hands on Lily’s shoulders and kissed both her cheeks. “Look at you all messy with horse dirt. I can’t believe we missed each other in Santa Fe.”

So they were busted. Somehow she and Rose had been found out. “What were you doing there, anyway?”

Poppy Wilder put her arm around her daughter. “Shooting an

infomercial the Greyhound Rescue League is hoping to air on cable television. That took most of the afternoon, and then there was a reception at the Frank Howell Gallery. I had to shake some hands and have a glass of wine, because those people give generously to rescue. I thought about coming home last night, but I don’t like to fly when I’ve had anything to drink. I left the plane at the Santa Fe airport and spent the night at the Inn of the Anasazi. They were very understanding about letting me keep the dogs in my room.”