Call Me Home (16 page)

Gary just shrugged and gunned the truck down the dirt road.

She lit a cigarette and handed it to him. It endeared him to her, the way he seemed to swing wildly between anger and warmth, happiness, and frustration. There was something childlike about it, and it made her want to protect him.

“Sure.” Gary sucked on the cigarette angrily for a minute and then he turned to her and his face was bright again. She felt a rush of relief. He smiled widely and threw the truck into park. “Let's walk,” he said. “I'll show you what I'm working on.”

He led her down tire tracks in the dirt, pointing out where the new fencing was going to go, where there would be a new irrigation system, where the property line ended. It felt like they had walked forever.

“You're bored,” he said, suddenly.

“No, I'm not.”

“You are.” He reached over and grabbed her hand. “It's okay, I have plans for us.”

When they found the truck again he drove them to the edge of a pond and parked. The water was a wide, perfect circle of blue. “I thought you might want to swim.”

Her blouse was damp through. She'd been pressing her arms to her sides, trying to hide the wet spots. “I don't have a swimsuit.”

Gary raised his eyebrows. “Well …” he said. “Neither do I.”

The beer was making her brave. The grass around the pond was thick and green, gaining color as it sloped down to the water. She opened the door of the cab. “Well, then, I guess we're swimming,” she said. Before she could reconsider, she unbuttoned her blouse and left it on the front seat. She stepped out of her shorts and ran toward the water in her underwear. She was a little drunk. The water was deep from the start and she fell forward, laughing. “Come on!” she yelled.

Gary tripped down the slope to the pond and sat in the grass, unlacing his shoes. “You're slow,” she said.

He took off his shirt and jeans and waded to her, opening his arms. She put her cheek against his chest and he lifted her head and kissed her. “This is beautiful,” she said.

“It's a goddamn cow tank,” he said, and laughed.

IT WAS WELL
into the afternoon when she followed Gary up to the truck, drying off with a thin blanket that he pulled out of the back of the cab. The sun was deep orange and low in the sky. She sat on the ground and used the blanket to dry her hair. She didn't want to worry her mother, to have her call Scott's uncle and try to track down Scott. “I should go home,” she said.

“It would be a crime,” he said, “to make me drive you out of here without promising me you'll let me take you to dinner tomorrow.” He crawled on top of her, pinning her to the ground, and she
started to laugh. He kissed her. The grass was rough against her bare arms and legs. His mouth was warm. It tasted like salt and beer.

She forgot to worry about being late. She was trying to remember each thing, even as it was happening. Gary's hand between her legs, the rough feeling of his chin against her cheek. His fingers were fumbling and then pushing inside her, hard and quick, and the other hand was on her shoulder, pressing her down. It hurt and she felt tears spring to her eyes. He pulled back and watched her, breathing heavily, and even as his hand was hurting her, she liked watching him want her.

He let go of her shoulder and pushed himself up over her. He pulled down his wet underwear with one hand and she struggled up to help, to see what was happening, but then he was inside her. She pressed her eyes closed. No one had told her, she thought. It was different than they made it sound. All the lies about roses and softness. This was more like hard need, the rocky dirt and Gary's rough breathing, her bruised hips and his sharp, painful want.

When it was over, she lay beside him not talking, shivering, and letting the sun warm her all at once. It was the first time she knew that her life had been lonely. That it had ached. And no one had told her, she thought again, how anything was supposed to be.

IN SEPTEMBER, WHEN
she'd been seeing Gary for three weeks, he lifted himself over her, his strong arms on either side of her head. They were lying on a blanket by the San Marcos river, up from the waterline and hidden from sight by tall grass and a stand of sweetgum trees. He was deathly serious. “Amy, what would you say if I said we should go somewhere?” She thought he meant Port A, which was three hours away. She thought he meant calamari and po' boys.

“I would say yes,” she said, and she meant it. The hours without him seemed empty, as though she couldn't imagine that she had spent eighteen years without this – that she hadn't felt hungry.
But she had. Take me to Port A, she thought. Take me to Dallas. Let's go to New Orleans.

“I want to marry you first,” he said. “I want to marry you, Amy, and I want us to move to Seattle.”

She felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her and suddenly she wanted Gary to get off of her. She shifted but he didn't move.

“Say yes,” he said.

“Gary –” She pushed at him and finally he rolled off her. “Gary, wait.”

He was looking at her and his eyes were full of tears.

She did want to marry him. She wanted it more than anything. But Seattle – her mother, and Sam. Maybe it was silly, but she couldn't stand to leave Sam. When she thought about her old dog, her chest tightened. Sam loved South Texas. She couldn't imagine taking him away from this land, the only world he'd ever known. And how long did he have, anyway? A year? Six months? And her father. Even if no one had expected her to stay,
she
had expected she would. This was Fannin, Texas. This was what she was supposed to do. The person she should be.

“Gary,” she said. “I want to marry you. Yes. Yes.” She held his face, kissed his wet eyelids. “I want that so much,” she said. “But Seattle – just give me a little time. My mother – and Sam. I just need to get used to the idea – and get my mother used to it. And Sam –” She was crying too, now. “I just need to wait until Sam goes,” she said. “He's too old. I can't drag him across the country. He loves it here.” It sounded silly, she thought, but it was true. Sam knew every path through town, every inch of the house, every smell. She felt like taking him away would break his heart.

“Baby,” Gary said. He gathered her to him. “Baby.” She breathed into his neck. Please, she thought. Please understand. “We'll wait,” he said. “However long you need. Tomorrow, ten years, take your whole life, I'll be here.” He reached above her and straightened the blanket they were lying on, made sure it was
under her head. She pressed herself against him, touching his skin, his hair. “All of my life,” he said softly. “This is what I want.”

The sweetgum trees flashed the silvery undersides of their leaves in the dry wind. Her chest, her heart, felt ocean-full.

AT THE LEGION
the next day, Jennifer squeezed both of Amy's hands in her own, in the gnarl of her silver rings. “You can't be serious,” she said.

“I am,” Amy said. “I love him. I want to marry him.”

“But it's been like a month! You don't even know him. I mean, who is this guy?”

“What are you talking about? Scott's the one who knew him in the first place.”

“He knows him, but he doesn't
know him
know him,” Jennifer said. “They're like, acquaintances. They met like twice.” She poured tomato juice into the mouth of her beer can. “It's not like I'm not happy for you, Ames,” she said. “It's just, wow.”

“Come on, Jen. He's perfect. I didn't even know guys like Gary existed.”

“Amy –” Jennifer stopped.

“What?”

“I don't know – just – that night, he gave me a weird feeling. He seemed, like – I don't know, like anti-social or something. He kept you outside all night – I don't know. He gave me a weird look.”

Amy pushed back a hurt feeling. Jennifer didn't know Gary, she reminded herself. “We were talking outside,” she said. “And everyone was drunk anyway.”

Jennifer reached for the saltshaker and salted the top of her beer can. She smiled. “All right, he is cute. Way cuter than Scott.”

“How can you drink that?”

“It's like a Bloody Mary. Whatever, you eat pork rinds.”

“Scott's cute.”

Jennifer made a face. “Scott's got a pencil dick.”

“Don't forget his monkey face.”

“And he's hairy. What an asshole.” Jennifer sighed. “Okay.
You're right. You totally 100 percent deserve to be happy. And to get out of this town.” She drank from her beer. “Just don't go yet, okay? Wait a few months, maybe? I can't believe you're going to leave me here alone with
Scott.
”

Walking home through the scrub grass and smell of oil, she tried the words: “I'm getting married,” she said to herself. “I am going to be Gary's wife.” Would it feel different, she wondered. She wanted to feel more of herself, more substantial. Significant to someone besides herself.

The house ahead of her seemed squatter than usual. It looked washed out. The screen was torn and the doorframe warped. She went into the kitchen and her mother was there wearing yellow dishwashing gloves and cutting peppers. “Look what Dolores gave me,” she said, waving the knife. “She's got so many this year. I'm making jelly.” She looked at Amy. “Where have you been?”

“Out. I went to the Legion with Jennifer.”

“No Gary today?”

Amy smiled. “I saw him earlier. How's Dad?”

“He's okay. In his chair. So, when do I get to meet him?”

Amy picked up one of the rounds of chopped pepper and touched the edge to her tongue, feeling the burn spread across it. She had already waited too long, she realized. She should have introduced Gary to her mother earlier, given some signal of what was coming. “Soon,” she promised.

“Gary's a Yankee name.”

“Well, he was born here.”

“His parents must be Yankees, then.”

She didn't say anything. She didn't know, actually. She hadn't met his parents, and he didn't talk about them much, except for the occasional outbursts about his father, how controlling he was, how ungrateful. She hadn't seen the ranch house; they spent all of their time together in stolen places, the truck, on blankets spread in patches of sunlight between trees. Gary's work with his father seemed more and more sporadic, and he was often testy
and frustrated. Her mother leaned toward her. “Get my hair out of my eyes, would you?” Amy reached up and brushed the hair back. There was an ache in her chest, as though she were already gone.

THAT FALL FELT
long, nearly interminable. They were married in front of a justice of the peace on the first of October; she wore a cheap party dress from Beall's, and Jennifer signed as the witness. “I don't care if we don't have a place yet. I just want to know that you're my wife.” She looked at Gary, tall and handsome and smart. I'm married, she thought, but it meant nothing, it was just words. She was still living with her mother. The ring was something cheap and she didn't wear it. It was as though they'd made a pact not to say anything. She and Jennifer didn't talk about it either; Jennifer still seemed distrustful of Gary. She'd done the witnessing and then left quickly afterward; Amy felt hurt and angry about it at first, but then she told herself it didn't matter. She and Gary didn't need a celebration; they were special enough just being together. It was their secret how powerful their love was.

Still, it was hard.
Seattle
, Gary kept saying. “In Seattle, God, we'll get a beautiful house, right in the city. Or maybe out by the coast and our kids can walk on the beach.” He was unconcerned about telling his family. “It's my life,” he said. “They're only interested in me if I'm working on the ranch.”

She brought Gary home to dinner one night. My husband, she thought of saying. Meet my husband, Gary, but she didn't. Her mother made a roast, and they all sat at the little table. Gary's manners were good, but his aggressive compliments, his lavish kindness, embarrassed her.

“You're such a wonderful cook,” he said to her mother. “I know that Amy must have inherited that from you.” When had she cooked for him? Her mother eyed both of them suspiciously.

Amy liked the way he looked at her father, though. Her mother was cutting the meat in small pieces, helping him to hold the fork. Gary didn't stare, and he spoke to him like he was any father, and for that she loved him.

Later that night she stood at the screen, calling for Sam.

“I haven't seen him,” her mother said.

She stepped back into the house but kept the screen cracked. “Sam!” she called.

Sam liked to lie in a scratch of dirt outside the tool shed and lazily watch the birds. He'd lift his head and groan, a sad little howl because he was too old and slow to hunt, or maybe to remind them that he was there. His paws like rough stones, his big old head.

She called around the block and no one had seen him. She remembered a time when he was barely older than a puppy and he'd wandered over the highway, all the way to the river. Amy had been five or six, and she'd driven up and down the streets with her mother for hours, her forehead pressed hard to the window, her heart breaking. When they found him, standing up to his hocks in the water, drinking lustily, panting from his journey, she'd stood and cried from the pure relief. It felt as though her life had just come flooding back to her.