If Wishes Were Horses (6 page)

The maid and Etta stared at each other, and then Etta said, “I’ll wait.”

She was prepared to sit in a chair in the hallway, but the maid said, “I’ll show you to the study.”

Following behind the woman, Etta glanced around. She had been in this house a number of times with Roy, but she always felt then and still felt now like the poor white trash walking through the big shot’s big house. She felt that way because that’s exactly how things were, she thought, and told herself to breathe. It would definitely be in poor taste to pass out from lack of oxygen and sprawl across the rose-patterned runner.

The maid politely told her to make herself comfortable and then closed the door. Etta, pressing her arms ever tighter to her sides, slowly, hesitantly moved into the room.

She had caught a couple of glimpses of this room in the past, when they came for dinner parties, as Roy would disappear into here to talk with Wilford Salyer and other men, leaving Etta alone with Corinne and her mother Amy and other women with whom she had had nothing at all in common. Mostly she had remained shyly quiet, and mostly they had rudely ignored her. This had been hurtful at first, but gradually Etta had realized their rudeness and had grown confident that she could by her presence annoy them. It had become something of a game, one she had never mentioned to Roy. These people were his friends. His people, she thought of them.

The room was fairly small, with quite a bit crammed into it. There were two floor-to-ceiling shelves of books and a desk, a fancy little drink cart, and leather chairs, and beside one of these was a standing ashtray and a small, well-used table. A wadded-up newspaper was shoved in the corner of the cushion of this chair.

Etta sat down in the chair without the newspaper, then got up and walked around, then sat down again and shook her arms loose from her sides. Her spirit had begun to sink. She popped to her feet again, reminding herself that she had a few things to say to Corinne Salyer, things she should have said long ago.

So, what did she intend to say to Corinne, her husband’s lover?

It struck Etta sudden and hard that she really had no idea of what she intended to say. In the fervent picture in her mind she had given forth witty and cutting truths that ripped the pride right off the woman, making her grow smaller and dimmer, while Etta grew bigger and shinier. But she had not actually heard any of these witty and cutting truths.

Oh, dear.

Etta closed her eyes, and thought of yelling at the woman:
Slut, tramp, you ruined my life and my child’s life . . .Did he die in the middle of it?
The image of her husband pumping atop Corinne made her eyes pop open and her mouth go dry.

She abruptly decided she would leave . . . through the garden door. That was the best solution, most especially as she had suddenly realized that she had to go to the bathroom. This was not good. How could she be strong and confident, and tell Corinne whatever it was she needed to tell her, when her bladder was about to burst?

Just then she realized her fingers played with the compact in her pocket. She pulled it out and gazed at it.

She would leave it on the desk, she thought. Leave it like a calling card of sorts, and let Corinne wonder about her coming and leaving it. That seemed a viable alternative to staying—a rather romantic, mysterious act. Corinne would wonder. And if she wanted to know more, she would have to come to Etta. It was not perfect, not much at all, but Etta thought it would do.     

Just as she was about to bring the compact out of her pocket, however, as if all of fate conspired to heap coals upon her head, the door creaked and swung open and Corinne appeared, standing there in the opening like an unpleasant vision.

Etta felt herself shrivel. She wrestled the feeling, pulling herself back and facing the woman squarely, making herself stand as tall as she could. Corinne was a full head taller than Etta and five years older and had been to the Oklahoma College of Women while Etta was still going to the two-room rural schoolhouse along Elm Creek.

Corinne carefully closed the door and said, “You wanted to see me?”

For a moment she was in deep shadow where Etta couldn’t clearly see her face. Then she was coming forward across the floor in a slim-skirted black dress that shushed with every step. She floated, Etta saw—and none too steadily—right on past Etta in a whiff of expensive fragrance and glory and on to the shiny drink cart.

“Didn’t Mary offer to fix you a drink? That was inhospitable of her. What may I fix you? We have some excellent brandy.” She turned and smiled crookedly. “I’m sure drinks will help us over this awkward conversation.”

Etta was struck hard. Corinne’s black curly hair was windblown and her mascara was smeared, and someone must have hit her hand while she was putting on her lipstick, a bright cherry-red color that looked tacky as hell. Etta’s spirits rose with the observations.

“I’m not drinking these days,” she said very coolly. The satisfaction she felt in pointing out her pregnancy rode high and fast and echoed, “Ha!” inside her for a glorious moment.

“Oh, that’s right . . .” Corinne turned back to the cart, dropping ice in a glass. “You’re with child, aren’t you.”

Etta watched Corinne splash liquor into two glasses, no matter what had been said. She began to feel her quest for satisfaction was slipping away. Anything Etta had to say would likely bounce right off the woman’s alcohol-swollen skin.

“We should toast the little Rivers that Roy left behind,” Corinne said, languidly turning and bringing up both glasses, extending one toward Etta.

Etta’s arm slashed the air. Her hand connected with the cool glass and sent it flying through the air and against the edge of the desk, hitting with a thud and spewing its contents over half the room.

Etta stared at the dribbles of liquor moving down the desk.

Corinne said, “You really are a little rowdy. I suppose that’s what your kind of trash comes from, though.”

The woman’s words were slurred, pitiful. Etta gathered her fractured wits and said, “I just came here to return somethin’ that belongs to you.” She stepped to the desk and placed the compact there, beside the blotter, where it gleamed against the glossy walnut.

“I found that in Roy’s coat. I thought it should be returned to the woman to whom it belongs. I guess it’s yours because of the initials, although I imagine it could belong to someone else, Roy bein’ Roy.”

Etta felt a great relief, thankfulness at having control of herself, while she watched whatever control Corinne had ever possessed evaporate. She snatched up the compact, saying desperately, “It’s mine.”

Watching the woman, Etta felt as if her blood drained out her toes. It came to her with stark clarity that her mission had been futile from the start. There wasn’t anything to take from this woman. Corinne Salyer had nothing left to take.

Despair falling all over her, Etta pivoted and started for the door.

But then Corinne said, “You caused it all. It never would have happened, if not for you.”

Etta looked around to see Corinne, her face jutting out, the big crimson-painted mouth wide and bitter as her voice rose.

“You took him from me first. Roy was supposed to marry
me
.” She jabbed her chest with a finger. “Everyone knew it. His mother and my mother even had notes for the wedding plans. Oh, Roy was wild, but he would eventually want to settle down and have a family. All men do, and when he was ready, it was
me
he was going to marry. But then his mother died, and he met you. You, the pretty little thing. You were the one to turn his head. You were younger and exciting—different, I suppose, from the class he was used to. Different from his mother, that’s for sure.”

For an instant there, when Corinne was saying
me
, jabbing her chest, and talking about how Roy was to marry her, Etta felt pity so profound she wanted to cry. But then as Corinne continued on, getting haughty, Etta’s pity slipped over into disgust.

“You are pathetic,” Etta said.

Corinne didn’t appear to hear Etta at all. She began to cry and sort of wail. “I kept hopin’ he’d leave you and come to me. But then I knew he never would—not when you managed to get pregnant. Oh, no, he wasn’t gonna leave you then.” She tossed back her head. “You want me to say it? I loved him, and he was crazy for you, but I could not quit lovin’ him.”

“Crazy for me and every woman in the human race,” Etta said. She really wished she could stick to her emotions during this discourse—either pity or disgust. As it was she realized the confrontation was pointless, had been from the start.

Corinne was withering again. “It’s all over town. Before people could only suspect and make a few jokes, but now everybody knows. Oh, it’s okay to have affairs, but get caught and everything changes. Daddy wants to send me away. All my mama ever wanted was for me to marry Roy . . .”

Etta could not believe she was standing there listening, watching Corinne grope for a chair, fall into it, and go on and on, with her mascara running down her elegant face. Etta stood transfixed with the sight, as she might while watching someone stabbing herself over and over.

“Do you know, he even would mention you to me. He would tell me something you did or said that he found so delightful that he couldn’t help but tell. You,” she added with a wave of her hand, as if Etta was not much, while she sobbed morosely. Corinne’s head flopped so far down that Etta could see her crown and several gray hairs there among the glossy dark ones. Seeing that for some reason made a sadness wash over her in a great wave, so heavy that she felt herself being tugged under.

Turning, following what seemed to be the voice of common sense—which sounded like Latrice saying, “Get ahold of yourself"—Etta went to the door. When she opened it, the maid, who had obviously been pressing her ear to the door, jerked back in startled surprise.

Etta said, “I think you had better get Miss Salyer up to her room and maybe call the doctor.”

The maid stared at her for a moment and then hurried past into the room.

With quick footsteps, Etta went down the hallway to the door at the back, out it and down the steps and along the walk. She saw the cowboy had waited, and until that moment it didn’t occur to her that he might not have. He was napping, his head back and his face hidden beneath his dust- and sweat-stained hat. When she opened the passenger door, he shot up, sending his hat and a book in the air, and looked around, blinking.

Etta got up into the seat, slammed the door closed, and said, “I’m ready to go.”

She felt the cowboy stare at her. She looked downward and twisted her wedding rings, seeing the broken woman inside the house and Roy lying in his coffin. She saw him naked, his penis white and shriveled.

The cowboy said, “Well now . . . yes, ma’am.” He started up and headed the truck down the alley.

Etta braced her arm against the door, realizing then that she had to go to the bathroom really badly. Her situation was not helped at all by the cowboy seeming to hit every bump. When he came out on the street, she directed him toward the main road out of town, and when she saw the red flying horse on the Mobil sign, she said, “Pull in here!”

Responding immediately to the gal’s urgent tone of voice and hand jabbing the air—he was already highly concerned with her pasty coloring—Johnny immediately jerked the steering wheel to the right and pulled swiftly into the gas station. The truck hadn’t come to a full stop before the gal was swinging out the door and hit the ground running.

Johnny didn’t think she should be running like that. He watched her disappear around the corner of the building and worried that maybe he should go after her. Uncertainty and a natural aversion to intimacy held him in his seat. He was, after all, a total stranger to her and couldn’t quite throw himself into chasing after her to the ladies’ room.

Taking in a deep breath, he cut the engine. His heart was beating fast, having been startled awake like he had been. He had always been a deep sleeper, and being faced with the sight of the woman who appeared on the verge of flying to pieces and made to drive on down the road, only to be yelled at to stop, had served to jar him hard as a wild bronc.

A teenage boy came over and asked, “Fill ‘er up, mister?”

Only then did Johnny realize he had automatically pulled up beside the pumps. He shook his head. “You might wash my windows, I guess. I’m just waitin’ for the lady.”

“We don’t wash windows, ‘less you buy gas,” the boy said, which really annoyed Johnny. He considered it inhospitable behavior.

"I guess you don’t wash these windows, then.”

“Okay, but you don’t need to block the pumps for payin’ customers.”

“I don’t see a line just buzzin’ in here,” Johnny said and sat where he was.

After a minute he pulled the whiskey out of the glove box, slammed the door, twice as it bounced back open, sat back, and took several bracing swallows, thinking as he did so that his contact with pregnant women was really limited; he wasn’t at all certain of what was normal. Mrs. Rivers had looked to be more in a state than ever. He sure hoped she was okay. He felt he was in some way responsible for her welfare, since he had been driving her around in his pickup.

A car, a brand spanking new red and white Ford, driving in on the opposite side of the pumps drew his attention from his worries. He noticed the car and then he noticed the yellow-haired gal driving. She had ruby-red lips that smiled at him the minute she put her window down. Women tended to like Johnny, and while he could be shy, when one smiled at him like this one did now, he took it easy.

“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said and gave her his most charming grin.

“Good afternoon,” she said politely, but her eyes were sparkling and saying things Johnny imagined to be something on the order of:
Yessir, I’d like to get my arms around you,
and he was making his eyes say about the same thing while the little pipsqueak boy came over and filled her tank.

Just then the passenger door of his truck opened, and Mrs. Rivers was back, getting into the truck. Johnny felt a little embarrassed, because he saw the blond jerk her head forward and roll-up her window. All thoughts of her vanished, however, as he studied Mrs. Rivers. She appeared to have regained at least some control of herself. Her coloring was a lot better. She looked wrung out, but not about to fly to pieces anymore.