The Wilder Sisters (30 page)

cosmic sense. Larger powers are at work. It’s going to happen. You should give in,
mija
. Surrender.”

Rose ran her finger across the framed pictures on her desk. It was on purpose she didn’t have one of her mother. The woman could drive her bats within five minutes. “Honestly, Mami, whenever you want to make your point you fish out some archaic Catholic saint, a Navajo legend nobody’s ever heard of, or a Spanish cure that does the opposite of what you ask, and when all that fails, you blame it on star charts. How is it that none of your beliefs ever cancel each other out?”

“What I know is you and Austin were meant to be together.” “Don’t you have a dog to fly somewhere?”

Her mother rattled off something in a language that sounded so much like the
curandera’s
speech that the hair on Rose’s arms stood up. Returning to English, she said, “I would move the earth to make my daughters happy. Rose Ann, you always fight what I am telling you. You know it hurts my heart, so why do you do it?”

Rose held the receiver away from her ear. “I really couldn’t tell you. Maybe I’m just rotten to the core.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’re a wonderful girl.” “Mami, I’m forty years old.”

“You know, I’ve never been to a gay rodeo, and neither has your father. Maybe we’ll show up.”

“Pop probably has a million other things to do.”

“We could take you and Austin to dinner afterward. I know this darling restaurant a friend of mine runs.”

“Does it serve kangaroo?”

“
Descúlpame
! They served other dishes. Nobody was forced to order the wallaby.”

Rose had scored one point. Time to get out of the game before she lost any ground. “I have to go, Mami. I have another call waiting.”

“
Adios
, then. Maybe we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sure.”
But please God not
. Rose hung up the phone and laid her head down on her desk blotter. There was no other call waiting. She picked at one edge of the heavy green paper until it began to fray. Across the hall she could hear Austin bumping around in his office, then the sound of the shower running. All night she’d fret over the possibility of his intercranial bleeding, which was what had killed Philip. His other injuries were major, clearly, but who knows, maybe

they could have been repaired. So he wouldn’t bleed to death they had removed his spleen before she got to the hospital. He had any- way, inside his skull. Not even Lily’s fancy medical equipment could fix that. An echoey whistle sounded from the shower. After a grueling day’s work and a kick in the head, Austin still possessed the energy to whistle.

Rose couldn’t help but picture him soaping up every inch of his skinny body. There was barely enough space for one in that tiny shower stall. If two people tried to fit in there, they would be pressed together, unable to make anything but a mutually agreed upon move. She wondered what kind of soap he was using. Probably the disinfectant he washed his hands with in the exam rooms; men didn’t care what they put on their bodies. Eventually he’d rinse off, step naked and wet across the tiles, his arm outstretched, blindly seeking wherever he’d left his towel, fumbling for his glasses which would be all fogged up with steam. Out of nowhere, a memory came to her of the last time Philip had returned home from a five-day business trip. Without kissing her hello, her husband had headed straight for the shower. Rose was busy in the kitchen. After she finished scraping the carrots or wrapping the potatoes in foil, whatever task she was doing, she had opened the bathroom door and scooped up his dirty clothes to take them to the washing machine, an action performed a million times, done out of pure habit. It hadn’t been her imagination that his shirt smelled like a woman’s perfume, or that his under- shorts, oh no, this was too awful to remember, too sad to think about. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, sighing deeply. There was no other way to put it, they had smelled like sex. In a shock that rendered her robotic, Rose had stuffed his clothes into the machine and poured in the detergent. That night in bed she waited. After twenty years of marriage, these things sometimes happened. Philip would confess, ask her to forgive him because it was her he was married to, her he truly loved. She knew that. Really she did. Mature people dealt with infidelity, spackled up the holes and clung to the good in their union, treasured the companionship, the mutual support. They moved on from mistakes maybe a little sorrowful from what they’d learned, but always the wiser for it. Philip hadn’t said a single word. Rose waited for him to reach for her. As if reclaiming his territory, whenever he got home from business trips, Philip usually wanted to make love. If he had put so much as a finger-

tip to her body, Rose was going to bring up the clothes, force him to explain, but he hadn’t done that either. The husband she thought she knew so well turned onto his side, away from her unspoken questions, and went to sleep. The next morning the phone rang early. When he hung up he said there was some crisis with his northern territory, and after hastily repacking his bag and kissing her cheek, he was on the road again. She had been sitting in this very chair when the phone call came about the accident. She’d pulled on her coat and driven to the hospital to identify his body. Somebody—prob- ably Paloma, she’d never asked—had called Rancho Costa Plente, and by the time Rose arrived at the hospital, Shep was there. She could tell from his fiercely set jaw, the brown eyes that refused to look away, that Philip was dead. Before she could break down crying, Shep had taken hold of her shoulders.
Rose Ann, much as you don’t want to, you need to go in there and say good-bye. He don’t much look like the man you married, but take it from me, unless you see for yourself that he’s gone, you won’t find any peace. Go on, now. I’m right behind you
. Shep was right. She’d taken her time saying farewell to the battered body that no longer contained her husband’s spirit. She held his cooling hand and told him private things no one else would under- stand.
Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Second Chance takes that remedial English class this summer. And I’ll cancel your health club membership. But, oh Phil, what will I do about Amanda
? No answers came to her except that it was going to be impossible to fill the gap.
Thank you for the gift of being my husband
, she said, and Shep took her hand, made her leave the room. Later, in the reception area where there were papers the doctor needed her to sign, she remembered feeling her knees buckle. Shep held her up and whispered in her ear,
God don’t ever close a door without opening a window
. How peculiar she’d forgotten that incident with the clothes until just now. Put it out of her mind entirely. The depth of her husband’s betrayal came flooding over her, howling inside her like a gale-force storm.
Face it, Rose, the last time your husband had sex it wasn’t with his wife
. Why was it that the voice of her conscience sounded so much like Lily?

“Stop this right now,” she scolded herself out loud, scrubbing at tears that had welled up in the corners of her eyes. She looked up to see Austin standing in the doorway. He was wearing a pair of sweat pants and rubbing his hair dry. He stood there silent, the towel pressed

against his swollen cheek. Rose pushed past him and fled down the stairway.

Grand Entry began just before eleven
A.M.
with a drill team exhibi- tion. A hundred riders maneuvered their horses through a practiced routine of figure eights and side passes at a collective gait that stayed remarkably in sync, save for one redheaded girl on a rearing black Friesian. The sheen of well-groomed horseflesh and polished tack was breathtaking, especially when the single rider on the paint horse carrying in the red-and-gold New Mexico state flag broke formation and cantered the oval arena alone. Rose was reminded of her child- hood gymkhanas, where Lily, determined to shine, took the majority of the blue ribbons. Early on, Rose learned she’d never be the pretty kind of rider her sister was. Rose had to work at her equitation, which she had done, but to her riding was strictly for fun. Horses had never disappointed her. Sometimes they colicked, and always they died too soon, but a woman could count on them in every other way. Lately she ended her workdays by having long chats with Max, who at least seemed to listen attentively. When the king and queen of the rodeo, decked out in faux leopard and spangles, respectively, broke from the long line of riders to make a pass around the posse arena, Rose climbed the arena fence and clung there, watching. “Austin, you have to come look at this,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s like Mardi Gras and prom night all wrapped up into one.”

Austin finished rolling Vet Wrap bandages on a quarter horse’s front legs. “Invest in leg wraps before you go jumping him over fences again,” he told the cowboy. “Horse that nice, you got no business riding without some kind of protection.”

“These days protection is the name of the game, isn’t it?” the cowboy said.

Austin looked up. “In a lot of ways, I suppose.”

“Then how come your cheek looks like you forgot to follow your own advice?” The cowboy laughed, legged his horse into a trot, and rode away.

Austin muttered something Rose couldn’t hear and slammed shut the supply drawer in the bed of his truck. He walked over and watched the grand entry exhibition for a few minutes. “I have a king-hell headache already. I don’t see how I’m going to make it through this day without a beer.”

Rose turned her face to his, slyly checking his pupils, which ap- peared normal in size, the brown eyes the same ones she always saw behind the lenses. “Have a Coke.”

“Already did.” “Have another.”

The bleachers were only half full because the rough stock events didn’t begin until late afternoon. By then the stands would be packed because everyone, gay or straight, enjoyed watching bull riders full of themselves get humbled with a mouthful of dirt. Garth Brooks clones sauntered by, followed by model-handsome boys who re- minded her a little of Second Chance. She wondered where her son was today, and if he might come home for Thanksgiving. She hoped he would. She wanted to hug him and feed him, see for herself he was all in one piece. Since the grocery money incident, she didn’t think Amanda would be by any time soon, but with Second Chance one could never tell. He liked surprises. The parade of bodies strut- ting by looked no different than people who frequented the ¡Andale!, a Floralee watering hole that hosted a live band on weekends. Back and forth everybody walked, searching, hoping that what Pop always said would prove true:
For every pot in this world there’s a lid that’ll fit it
. But it wasn’t only men. A contingent of tough-looking ranch wo- men and their girlfriends sat talking, admiring each other’s babies, standing up to cheer when various riders entered the arena. So far as Rose could tell, the only difference between this and a straight rodeo was the occasional same-sex embrace, or advertisements like the woman’s T-shirt that read
ONLY MY TEETH ARE STRAIGHT
.

Behind her Austin had pulled his hat low over his forehead. He hadn’t recovered from the announcer’s enthusiastic introduction this morning, when he had to walk into the arena and receive ap- plause for donating his veterinary services. The exchange with the cowboy wouldn’t sit well, either. Odds that he’d suffered a concus- sion dwindled by the minute, and Rose was grateful even if he was not. His nervousness amused her. She’d never imagined that being in the presence of a crowd of homosexual men would so rattle his sense of masculinity.

The woman with the thought-provoking T-shirt walked by again. Rose smiled because the slogan was funny, and the woman stopped to light a cigarette. She snapped her lighter shut and regarded Rose for a

good long time. “You her with anybody?” she asked, and Rose felt her mouth go bone dry.

Austin’s arm came up over Rose’s shoulder. “Sorry. This one’s all mine,” he said, moving in closer, his hand coming to rest on the back of Rose’s belt.

“Can’t blame me for asking,” the woman said. She and her T-shirt moved into the crowd.

Austin let go. “How did you like that, Rose? I notice you weren’t too snappy with the comebacks.”

She shrugged off his arm. “Actually, it’s kind of flattering to dis- cover that somebody finds me attractive, even if it is another wo- man.”

Austin sighed. “I knew you were going to say that. You’re attract- ive. You’re also unforgiving. You demand a level of honesty that men can’t deliver.”

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one level of honesty, Aus- tin—total.”

“Then you’re going to be lonely the rest of your life.”

“Fine. So what if I am? Why should I settle for less just because men are weak?”

“Never said you should.”

“You implied it. That’s the same thing as saying it.”

They stared at each other stubbornly. Rose wondered what Mami’s star charts might have to say about that. The whole argument was pointless since she was determined not to want him anymore. But if she looked away first, it meant that Austin had won.

“Look,” he said finally. “How about I buy you lunch? That is, if you think the food’s safe. I won’t end up with a sudden desire to wear a skirt?”

Rose stepped away from the fence. “If you do, I’ve got a closetful that are just about your size.”

“How generous, Mrs. Flynn.”

“I know. Generosity is one of my major faults.”

They sat on a bench and ate hamburgers, sharing a bag of tortilla chips. Rose ate half her hamburger and fed the rest to a passing dog. Austin drank his Coke and then asked if Rose was going to finish hers. “Take it,” she said, and watched him tip the red can back and drain it dry. The arch of his neck was sleek and clean-shaven. He looked more fit than he had in months. She looked away before he could tell she was watching him.

“I can smell your perfume again,” he said, crushing the can and throwing it into a nearby recycling bin.

Her phantom perfume. “Really. What’s it smell like?”

“I finally figured it out. Those purple flower vines that grow down by Agua Fria Creek.”

“Clematis?”