The Wilder Sisters (39 page)

Rose nodded yes. “It’d be a relief to hear he’s okay.”

Lily uncorked the bottle and poured. “Second Chance is fine. You’d hear if he wasn’t. The only time either of them calls me is when they’re in trouble. An auntie with a wallet is a favored relat- ive.”

Rose laughed the dry, polite laugh again. She was good enough at it to have fooled someone else.

“Cry, Rose,” Lily urged her. “Just get it over with. Kick a brick out of the dam, and let the flooding begin.”

Her sister covered her face with her hands. “I have a selfish heart,” she said. “I don’t want him to be with her, even if that’s what it takes to makes him sober and happy. Someday I’ll have to stand before God and confess to that.”

Lily pulled her sister’s hands away from her face. “God gets burned all the time. He’s used to it. Austin’s the one who should be worried. If

he can make love to you one day and the next go back to Leah, the man is a cold-blooded reptile.”

Rose looked at her. “Is that how you feel about Tres?”

“Trust me,” Lily said, pouring more crème de menthe into her tea. “You do not want to get me started on that subject.”

With the amount of energy we spend on seeking “closure,” women could light up the whole damn state
, Lily decided as she drove to her parents’ ranch the next morning. She’d spent the night at Rose’s, sleeping in Amanda’s old room, which still had shelves of Breyer horses and posters of teen idols plastered on the walls. She’d called the airline and booked a later flight, packed her suit in her carry-on luggage and borrowed jodhpurs and a canvas barn jacket from Amanda’s closet. They didn’t exactly complement her high heels. “I look like National freaking Velvet, ready for trouble,” she told her sister as she stood in front of the mirror.

“You’re right,” Rose answered honestly. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into mucking the stalls before you go?”

Her sister’s eyes were puffy and red. Lily knew she’d cried herself to sleep, because all night she’d heard her turning in her bed. Lily’s stomach was upset from the liqueur, and she was exhausted from delivering the buck-up speech to Rose. Already this day felt like mud season, miles of road that would just as soon suck her down into the muck as deliver her to her destination. By any stretch of the imagination the jodphurs were too much. She changed back into her suit but kept the barn jacket.

What in the hell is up with us women
? she asked herself as she drove north.
We’re intelligent. We’ve acquired financial independence, yet we remain willing to cook, and for sure we wear better lingerie than Donna Reed ever did. So why do the men we love choose their ex-wives or notebook computers over us? Come to think of it, Martha Stewart isn’t married. Hmm
…

Since her last visit to Rancho Costa Plente, on the empty land near the arena where various horse trailers used to be parked, most of the space had been taken up with portable chain-link dog runs. The runs led to a newly erected metal shed, sporting a long orange ex- tension cord that snaked over the gravel and into the barn. National Public Radio issued forth from the doorway. Lily recognized the program:
All

Things Considered
. A new batch of greyhounds had taken up resid- ence, six or seven of them, it looked like, but she was unable to take an accurate head count because the moment she opened the door of her rental car Jody Jr. leaped onto her, leaving a smear of blood across the front of Lily’s light gray Anne Klein skirt.

“Down!” Lily commanded, but Jody wasn’t listening. The re- mainder of the ranch dogs kept their distance, barking at Lily or the greyhounds, it was hard to be sure when a fifty-pound blue heeler was trying to climb up her like she was a tree. Lily bent down and took hold of the old dog’s front paws. The top of Jody’s head was bloody, and her right ear hung at a funny angle. Automatically one of Mami’s favorite endearments came out of her mouth: “
Pobrecita
. I take Buddy home to California, and they start in on you.”

Jody needed veterinary attention, but Lily could imagine what would happen to the rental car’s interior if she let the dog inside without first cleaning her up. Dragging Jody by the collar, she tied her to the wash rack with one of the old lead ropes hanging there. “Hold still,” Lily said, “I’m doing you a favor.”

She gently inspected the dog’s wound, trickling the hose water over it, of course getting her pumps all wet in the process. It was so cold out that Lily’s bare legs stung. As if Lily were beating her to death, Jody let out a series of pathetic yelps and struggled to get free. Eventually Shep came out of the bunkhouse to see what was happening. As soon as Jody saw the old wrangler she began barking in earnest, shaking her head. Drops of blood flew everywhere.

“I expect all that noise translates to ‘Save me,’” Shep said.

“Look at her,” Lily said. “What kind of dogs attack their own mother?”

The wrangler carefully peeled the torn ear back from Jody’s hide. Lily noticed that Jody Jr. sat still for
him
. “Pissed-off ones, I reckon. Got a needle and thread in the tack shed if you want me to sew that up.”

Lily turned off the hose. “That’s okay, but you can fetch me a towel.”

“Yeah, we could probably skip the stitches. Might heal a little bent, but hell, it ain’t like she’s a show dog.”

“Shep, Jody Jr. deserves upright ears as much as you or me. Be- sides, I know just the doctor for the job.”

Shep handed over an old bath towel that had seen better days. “Lily

Adrienne, don’t you go sticking your nose into your sister’s business. Let Rose fight her own battles. I mean what I say,” he tacked on, as if she hadn’t been listening.

Which was more advice than Shep had ever delivered at one time previously. Lily squatted down and rubbed Jody’s coat dry. The ear wasn’t bleeding anymore, but the cut was deep enough that Lily could see beyond the fascia. It really did need a vet. She didn’t see why she couldn’t get the dog repaired and at the same time smack the veterinarian with her lunchbox. “It’s impossible to kick someone in the balls when he doesn’t have any,” she said, and then, given Shep’s prostate situation, regretted her words.

“Oh, sweet Lord Jesus.”

Lily threw Shep the wet towel. “Sweet Lord Jesus what?”

He shook the towel out, draping it over the fenceline where it might dry if the day warmed up. “You Wilder women ought to come with a warning label.”

She kissed his cheek. “Don’t worry about the fire until you see the smoke. Bye, Sheppy.” Lily dragged Jody to the rental car and shoved her into the passenger seat. Buddy loved riding shotgun, but Jody, used to pickup truck beds, cowered and shook as if she were on her way to the gallows.

“It
is
an emergency,” Lily said when Paloma tried to stop her from opening the door that led to the exam rooms. “Don’t I hear your phone ringing?”

By the time she’d located Austin in the lab, where he was examin- ing something under a microscope, Paloma had given up trying to stop her. When the vet looked up, Lily asked, “What are you looking at so intently?”

He pushed his glasses up his nose. “A canine fecal smear I’m checking for parasites. Want to take a look?”

“Sure.” Lily pulled Jody Jr. to her side and looked through the eyepiece. At once she recognized the distinctive shape of ascarids. Dogs who spent time around horses eventually picked up the roundworm. In horses the larvae traveled through the gut wall, then by way of the bloodstream, entered major organs, including the heart. Via the lungs, they migrated up the trachea to the pharynx, where they were swallowed and developed to maturity in the small intestine. Turning the

fine focus adjustment, Lily said, “I despise the life cycle of the roundworm.”

“Hey,” Austin said. “Unless he’s had a sex change, that’s not Buddy with you.”

“Nope, it’s one of my pop’s dogs. Think you can fix her ear?” “What happened to it?”

“Her own offspring turned on her. Can you imagine?”

“That can happen. Let’s put her in exam room one,” he said, taking the leash from Lily. She followed him, staring at his Dan Post boots, the leather toes worn but polished clean.

He examined Jody, beginning with the injured ear, then moving along, taking vital signs and noting them in a new chart. “Any idea why your sister hasn’t shown up for work today? Paloma called but didn’t get an answer.”

Lily boosted herself up to sit on the counter next to a Sharps con- tainer for contaminated needles. “Any reason she should show up for work?”

Austin looked up from the dog. “How about it’s her job?” “What did you think she’d do when she saw you with Leah in the

¡Andale!? Throw you two a bridal shower?”

Austin retrieved needle and thread from the supply drawer, set them on sterile gauze, and readied a syringe. “We weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Listen, I spent last night and part of this morning scraping my sister off her kitchen floor. Don’t you tell me you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Austin sighed. “Fine. Take out an ad in the
Facts
and tell the world I’m a son of a bitch. I didn’t do anything wrong, and she until she gives me notice, your sister has responsibilities to this office.”

Lily gave the needle container a thump with her index finger. “Who’s the lucky stiff who draws the job of emptying this thing?”

“It isn’t Rose.” Austin swabbed Jody’s ear with disinfectant, and the dog snapped at him. He stopped and petted her until she was calm, then he muzzled the dog and shaved an inch around her ear. He injected the deadening agent into the wound, squirted water on it, swabbed it clean, and began to lay down beautifully even, artful stitches.

Lily was not surprised.
He wants me to say
Nice work.
Well, he can embroider hearts on Jody’s ear if he wants to
.

Austin tied the thread off and snipped it close to the flesh. He filled an amber vial with pills and wrote out instructions on the label. “Amoxicillin for ten days, then the sutures can come out. In the meantime, if you notice any signs of infection, oozing, redness, or if she tears the stitches, bring her back.” He fastened an Elizabethan collar around Jody’s neck, and at once the dog began shimmying, trying to shake it off. He tossed the leash to Lily. “No charge,” he said, and left the room.

Lily slid down off the counter. She pulled Jody toward the door. “
Adios
, Paloma,” she called out to the receptionist and the roomful of waiting clients and various animals. “And hey—you might want to get the janitor in there to clean up because I just stepped in a big pile of bullshit wearing Dan Post boots.”

Lily threw the collar in her backseat. She dropped Jody in the driveway of Rancho Costa Plente, tucked the prescription bottle into the mailbox, and drove directly up the mountain to Tres’s cabin. If he didn’t want to call her, fine, she’d call on him. She turned the stereo up as loud as it would go. The Forrester Sisters were talking about men. They knew whereof they spoke, and they had gone platinum in telling the world about it.

A red Geo Storm was parked alongside Tres’s old truck. The same rental company sticker affixed to Lily’s Oldsmobile graced its bumper. Only women rented teensy little gas savers like that. Probably drove straight from the airport, Lily figured, and wondered just who besides Tres fit in that one-room cabin, and judging from the snow on the car’s hood, how long she’d been there. Lily gathered her resolve, got out of the car, and knocked on the front door.

Leah the stepdaughter opened it. She was dressed in jeans and one of her stepdad’s flannel shirts, thankfully not the one Lily had borrowed. “Can I help you?”

“Well, I’m not selling encyclopedias.”

The girl stepped out of the cabin and pulled the door shut behind her. She hugged her arms around herself against the cold and fixed her eyes on Lily’s bloodstained skirt. Other than whatever spray from the hose had dampened it, Lily hadn’t had time for cleanup. Leah’s lower lip curled in disgust. “My father’s writing. If you want, you can leave a message with me.”

Lily put her hands into the pockets of Amanda’s jacket, then took them out again. “Leah, right? Your dad told me you go to Stanford. That’s a nice school. Do you like it?”

“So far.”

“Good, because college is a long haul. The reason I say this is I was once standing exactly where you are and I remember thinking,
Jeez, this is too much, it’s going to take forever to finish
. There’s a few things I’d handle differently if I had the chance to do it over. One of them is be nicer to my elders. Really, Leah, it’s not sportsmanlike to hate me this early in the game. So do you think you might find it in your heart to tell your father I’m here?”

By then Tres had come outside to investigate. He was wearing a wool sweater with chevron patterns woven into it, faded jeans, and brand-new Ugg boots. When he smiled at her, Lily forced herself to remember to be angry. “Hey, Lily.”

“Hey, yourself.” If Leah were suddenly to evaporate, Lily had a feeling she and Tres would have made tracks for his bed. Instead each stood there waiting for the other to make the first move.

“Leah, honey?” Tres said without taking his eyes off Lily. “Weren’t you going to do some grocery shopping?”

“I thought you said it was going to snow.”

“It is. Which is why you should go now. Here, take my truck.” He tossed her the keys.

“Dad, I don’t know how to work the four-wheel drive. What if I need it?”

“You won’t, but I’ll show you anyway. Excuse me a second.” Tres got her situated in the truck and demonstrated the gear shift.

Lily stamped her feet, trying to stay warm. They waited until the girl had driven away before either one spoke. “What happened to college?”

“She’s not sure if she’s ready for college.” “So she flies to New Mexico to find out?” “Debbie gives her a hefty allowance.”

“How nice for Leah. Did she buy you those boots?”

Tres looked embarrassed. “Yes, she did.” He put his arms around her shoulders and Lily stood there stiffly taking in his scent, aching to put her hands under his sweater, determined to resist the impulse. “You know, I take it personally when I spend a week with a guy and he