If Wishes Were Horses (3 page)

Getting dressed turned out to be not so difficult a task, after all, with Latrice helping to shove Etta’s clothes on. “Turn around and let me fasten your bra. Yes, you have to wear panties, it’s cold out there. Here’s two matchin’ stockin's . . . oh, here, let me do it.”

Etta’s feet were almost too swollen to fit into her black patent leather heels.

“How can my legs be so skinny and my feet get fat?” Etta said, struggling to get the shoe on her foot.

“It’s all that Co-Cola you’ve been drinkin’.”

“Well, I can’t drink hardly anything else—and I don’t know how it can be the cola. I keep peein’ it all out.”

“Salt,” Latrice said, jamming on the other shoe. She would not allow Etta to wear her black dressy sandals instead, as she pronounced them too flashy.

Then Etta was standing before the mirror, and Latrice was saying of the dress, “It looks right nice.”

“It looks like a tow sack died black.”

Latrice made a scolding sound and brought out the string of pearls Roy had given Etta as a present on their wedding day. The pearls did help the dress.

“I look a lot like Mama,” Etta said in a small voice.

At that moment, she saw the stark resemblance to her mother’s exotic elegant looks. Roy had always said Etta drew him with her elegance. “You have the kind of class that’s born in, Precious,” he’d say so very proudly.

Latrice said, “Here . . . let me comb your hair.”

Etta sat on the vanity stool and closed her eyes, enjoying the sensuous tugs on her scalp, and felt a child again, took refuge in the feeling. Latrice hummed “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You,” with a blues tone.

Etta fingered the pearls, felt their cool smoothness, saw Roy’s eager joy when he had given them to her. She recalled his smile, his frown, him sleeping, him eating, all of the pictures coming over her in quick waves, making an ache in her chest that hurt so badly she felt she could very well die right there. A lump in her throat, she quickly twisted, looking up at Latrice and trying to hold on.

“Oh, Lord, Latrice . . . I just keep wishin’ things had been different. I think if I had not lost the baby right at first, or if I could have gotten pregnant again right away, we would have made it. Roy really wanted a child. I know that would have made a difference.”

She wished she hadn’t said some things that she had to him, either. Wished she had not let other things go unsaid. Wished for a second chance with all she had learned. Wished to turn back the clock, and herself.

“Regrets and guilt are natural to grievin’,” Latrice said.

Etta, still fingering the pearls, gazed again into the mirror. “Remember what Mama used to say? If wishes were horses, we’d all ride. Remember her sayin’ that? I’d say, ‘Mama, I wish I could have red cowgirl boots,’ or ‘I wish we could have an indoor toilet,’ or ‘I wish Santa Claus would bring me my own pinto pony,’ and she’d say, ‘Honey, if wishes were horses, we’d all ride.’”

She recalled her mother’s faraway eyes and flat, hopeless tone of voice that cut through Etta’s heart and made her feel guilty for every want she’d ever had.

“Miz Ria had some clear thoughts sometimes,” Latrice said quietly, and then added, “It was just that they didn’t much tend to run together.”

Etta sighed, feeling the tense pain ebb. “No, they didn’t.” She gazed into the mirror, thought bleakly of her mother, and of how all of life seemed made up of wishes strung together.

Latrice was bringing the black hat with the sweeping brim when the doorbell rang. “That’ll be Maveen, I expect,” she said with a heavy sigh. The mention of Miz Ria, whom Latrice had both loved and hated, had brought her down, and she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Maveen coming to attend the house during the funeral, either. Maveen was a young second cousin who in the past had jumped at the chance to come to the Rivers home to help with heavy cleaning in order to get a look at the house and its fine contents. She was exceedingly clumsy and broke something every time she came.

“Well, I’d best go get Maveen busy . . . try to keep her from breakin’ anything.” She laid the hat on the edge of the bed and glanced at her watch. “Mr. Alvin will be here with the limo in about twenty minutes. Don’t forget the hat,” she added firmly before she left.

Listening to her heels strike the hallway, Etta thought that Latrice would be bossing her when both of them were rocking on the front porch of the old-folks home. It was a comforting thought. She knew quite starkly in that moment that she could go on living without Roy, but she did not think she could live without Latrice. Roy had known this, and it had hurt him.

Lifting the lid on the crystal face powder container, she dusted her face and then dotted on a bit of rouge and carefully applied lipstick. Studying the results, she thought she looked like a peaked woman with red dots on her cheeks. Perhaps she should not expect anything better, being a recently widowed pregnant woman who kept vomiting.

Rising, she slipped into the coat Latrice had laid on the bed. It was a black wool tent style that was popular at the moment. Heloise Gardner had sent it over from the Style Shop. Since marrying Roy and coming up in the world, Etta had gone to buying her clothes there. She settled the black hat with its sweeping brim and volumes of veiling over her head. It was also from Heloise’s shop. She adjusted the veiling down over her face, and then stared at her image in the mirror.

The image was shadowy through the layers of tulle. She was a stranger, elegant, mysterious. Etta gave several poses to the mirror, experimenting, and thinking that Roy would be tickled.

Latrice yelled from the foot of the stairs, “Time’s marchin’ on!”

“I’m comin’.”

Taking a deep breath, she picked up the small black patent leather purse Latrice had left for her on the bed and started down the hallway.

Feeling compelled, she stopped at the open doorway of her and Roy’s room. Heart beating fast, she put her hand to the door frame and looked inside. The scent of Roy— of his expensive cologne and Camel cigarettes and lemon drop candies he loved—came to her.

Then she saw him, over by the window, blond hair rumpled, wearing his brown sport coat, with his hands tucked easily into his trouser pockets.

He whistled low. “Darlin’, you look like one of those women out of that Vogue magazine.” Roy had always been free with compliments.

Etta stared. He appeared so real, as if she could touch him, grinning that sensuous, touching grin, the one that could make a woman take leave of her senses and be glad to do so. Oh, never let it be said that Roy Rivers had only been a taker. He had always given, as well.

His voice came to her again, “Ah, Etta . . . I still love you . . . forgive me . . . I need you, Precious,” and his green eyes were as desperate and pleading as they ever had been.

Seeing them so clearly, Etta’s breath stopped in her throat.

It had all been so complicated between them, something she could never put into words and something most people could never begin to understand. Roy had loved her, and knowing this had held Etta to him. His attentions to other women had had nothing to do with his love of her. She had made a vow to be his wife, until death do them part, and she hadn’t been able to step over that vow. She had not been able to turn her back on him, because she had come to understand him so well, and to know his need of her went as deep and thorough as blood, and that he most assuredly would have gone crazy and died had she left him. She had held on and kept trying to save him, until she was on the brink of dying herself. And she had loved him.

“I can’t help you anymore, Roy,” Etta said flatly to his image that was beginning to fade, his hand stretching toward her. “You’ve just gone too far this time, honey.”

Before the image was completely gone, she turned away and went down the stairs.

Mr. Alvin Leedy himself, the eldest of the three brothers who owned the Leedy Funeral Home, had brought the limousine and stood holding the door open. Etta went carefully down the brick stairs. She was experiencing a growing light-headedness. It was a disconcerting sensation of suffocation, and also of being in a dream, where all objects possessed a gray aura. It vaguely occurred to her that the layers of black veiling could be contributing to these sensations, but she wasn’t about to lift the veil, as she felt more and more comforted, hidden, by it all the time. It was the closest she could get to being in the bed with the covers over her head.

She slid into the backseat. The limousine was warm and smelled musty, closed like a closet, or a coffin. She rolled down the window, hard and fast.

Latrice, with several heavy breaths, slipped into the seat beside her, glanced quickly around, and made a sound of approval. Etta turned her face to the window, trying to catch the air. It poured in as the limousine took off fast enough to press them back into the seat, cruising over the gravel driveway like it was hardtop, tossing up a good puff of white dust behind.

Etta had never in her life ridden in a limousine. She felt as if she were caught in a surreal dream and would at any moment wake up and turn over and there would be Roy, his head on the pillow that was scrunched the way he liked to make it, his green eyes eating her up and his hand slipping onto her breast in the manner of a man intent on having his way. But then he would say, “Are you gonna go get me some breakfast?” like a little cajoling boy, and she would have to laugh.

She clung to these good pictures. The others, the hours of waiting and looking for Roy to come home, the anger and hurt when he finally did, smelling of another woman’s perfume, passed across her mind, but she pushed them aside. Pull the veil, close her eyes, do not see because she could not bear the hurt right now.

Just then the limousine came to a stop, hard and jarring, causing Etta to put one hand out to catch herself. Latrice let out a “My land!”

A light blue pickup truck, a recent model but well used, with a wooden rack in the back for hauling stock, was stopped right in the entry from the highway. The driver—a cowboy sort wearing a dark hat—stared at them through a dirty windshield, and Mr. Leedy, Etta, and Latrice stared back. Then the driver of the pickup leaned out his window and hollered something that didn’t quite reach them in the backseat of the limousine.

“Who is that?” Latrice asked Etta in an aggravated voice.

“I don’t know.”

Latrice stared at her, and Etta turned her head to gaze out the window, stubbornly willing herself out that window and back to the house and into bed with the covers over her head.

The limousine did not move. Mr. Leedy appeared to have taken the view that his was the bigger and grander vehicle and wasn’t about to budge.

Etta felt Latrice lean forward. “Mr. Leedy,” she said, “it would probably be easier for us to back up than for the pickup to do so. And it seems the gentleman wants to speak to us.”

Mr. Alvin nodded and said, “Yes’m, Miss Latrice,” probably before he realized.

Etta felt the limousine jerk as it was thrown into reverse. She breathed deeply, and the veiling tickled her face. Then the pickup was pulling alongside. Mr. Leedy rolled down his window, so now both windows on that side were down and the wind was whipping in, cold and sharp.

The driver of the pickup again leaned out his window and touched the brim of his hat. Right there in front of her face, Etta had to look at him, although she knew he could not clearly see her through the veiling over her face. He looked familiar. He looked like a thousand other drifter cowboy types Etta had seen in her life, and she saw the battered saddle hanging over the top of the wooden slats of the stock rack in the back of his truck as the damning proof.

“Good mornin’, sir . . . ladies,” he said, peering curiously at Etta for a second before swinging his gaze and grin back to Mr. Leedy. “I’m lookin’ for Mr. Roy Rivers. Is this his place?”

His breezy manner and easy drawl went clear through Etta. He’s from Texas, she thought, suddenly finding that a high offense. His dark hair lit by sunshine, the life of him there framed in that truck window was suddenly intolerable to her, as was his speaking Roy’s name. Roy who was dead, and if this man didn’t know that, he should have.

Mr. Leedy had already started to speak when Etta said, “I’m sorry, but Roy Rivers is dead.” The stranger’s startled eyes returned to her, but she looked forward and said smartly, “Please go on, Mr. Leedy. We’re goin’ to be late.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mr. Leedy was a man set to please. Immediately the limousine started forward, pressing Etta and Latrice back in their seats again and leaving the Texan and his pickup behind in a cloud of dust. Mr. Leedy rolled up his window, but Etta insisted on leaving hers down.

“I can’t breathe,” she said and then sank back into silence and the dark veiling as she would into a dark hole had anyone shown her the courtesy of allowing her to do so.

Etta thought silence was the best way to go. If she held on to silence, she wouldn’t scream at Mr. Leedy for driving like an idiot and making her stomach want to come inside out. She wouldn’t say aloud that the funeral home had a mildewy smell, and that Mrs. Leedy just had to redo Roy’s hair and get that perfectness out of it. Keeping silent, she wouldn’t ask for a comb to do it herself. She furtively used her fingers.

Then she slapped his cold face.

Latrice grabbed her hand, pulled it down, and led her over to sit down. Etta stared at the coffin, thinking that no breath, no life force came from the body. That was not Roy lying there on that satin.

She looked at those around her and wanted to say, “Well, y’all can go home now. Roy isn’t here. He’s over at Corinne Salyer’s . . . or he’s down at Beetle’s playin’ pool . . . or he’s back in his bed, waitin’ for me to bring him a cup of coffee,” which of course would have given everyone a good start. She felt herself coming to pieces, about like a red rose whose velvet petals were drying black and falling one by one.

People came up to her. “My condolences, Miz Rivers.” Or “Fine man . . . we’ll miss him.” Or “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Etta thought that when a person died, he immediately assumed an exalted position. It was true that Roy had aggravated people all the time with his antics, yet they had still loved him. A person could not help but love Roy.