Kissing in America (16 page)

T
hat night, we reached Calypso, Texas. The bus station wasn't even a station, but a 7-Eleven with a bench beside it. The sky was inky, full of stars.

Two young men in white straw cowboy hats, clean pressed button-down shirts, jeans, and cowboy boots stood in a halo of lamplight, leaning against the 7-Eleven window.

Destry and Ewing.

Holy holy holy shit.

I'd never met a cowboy in real life. The only cowboys I'd ever seen before were the gay guys who donned leather chaps and ten-gallon hats for the Halloween parade in the West Village.

We headed out the bus door. The cowboys approached us. They nodded, took their hats off, and said hello.

“Miss Janet? Miss Annie and Miss Eva?” the dark-haired one asked. The other was blond and taller, with a sharp-looking face.

We nodded.

“Mrs. Irma Steele sent us—she's real sorry she couldn't come get you herself.”

I'd forgotten that Larry's mother's last name was Steele. Larry called her a chameleon—her second husband was a Buddhist, so she became a JewBu. Her third husband was Irish Catholic, so she converted and bought a giant Virgin Mary statue for their yard. And now, her fourth husband, Clint Steele, was a Texan and a Baptist. On Larry's birthday, Irma sent him an ashtray in the shape of Texas (though he didn't smoke), a Texas star–adorned teapot (he didn't drink tea), and a Lone Star Bible (Larry was still Jewish).

We shook hands with the cowboys and introduced ourselves. Chance and Trent. Chance had the dark hair. Janet didn't shake hands; she waved hello, probably fearing cowboy germs.

“Mrs. Steele is at a meeting, and Mr. Steele's in Fort Worth at a cattle auction, so all we have is the pickup tonight. There's room for two up front, but two of you, plus Trent, will have to be in the back row,” Chance said.

“The back?” Janet eyed the second row of the truck. “Are there seat belts?” She opened the door and peeked inside. It looked like a wild animal had died in there—there were black and brown stains on the seats, bits of hay all over the place, and fluff peeking out from the torn seat cover. The floor had nails and screws rolling around, dirty straw, empty tobacco tins, caked mud, and a big Styrofoam cup filled with what appeared to be liquid dirt.

“Seat belt's broken,” Trent, the tall blond one, said. “Quick drive, though.”

Janet turned pink. I wondered if she'd squirt sanitizer over the whole thing or if it was too far gone for her to even try.

“I'll ride in the back row,” I volunteered. It wasn't a big deal to me. Annie offered to also.

Janet shook her head. “No. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you girls, riding without a seat belt. I don't like this, but I guess we don't have a choice, do we?” She asked if there were taxi companies out here. They said no. Our options were to ride in the truck or walk ten miles. Janet contemplated this, shifting in her loafers.

“It'll be fine,” I urged her. She finally relented. We let Annie have the front seat beside Chance.

They placed our luggage in the truck bed, and Trent climbed into the back row first. His long legs barely fit, even with his knees scrunched together. Janet and I squeezed in beside him. I'd never seen her face so furrowed. I smelled something unfamiliar, and it took me a moment to figure out what it was—
horse
.

Chance turned on the ignition. Janet closed her eyes as we barreled down the road. The windows were open, and my hair flew around my face. The lights from the 7-Eleven disappeared; a crescent moon hovered above, and the warm night air spun around us.

I peeked at Trent on the other side of Janet. He picked up the cup of liquid dirt and spat something into it.

Janet mumbled something that sounded like
shmegegge
, a
Yiddish word for
idiot
that my grandmother used to use.

Trent caught me staring at him and smiled. I turned away. He had a shy smile, his mouth curling ever so slightly, as if he wanted to laugh but stopped himself before he did.

The truck hit a bump. Janet placed her hand on her forehead, looking like she wanted to teleport back to Cleveland.

We turned onto a road next to a sign:

WELCOME TO CALYPSO, TEXAS

POPULATION 1,242

More people lived on my block. We bounced down dirt roads and gravel roads until we reached Larry's family's property. We drove past the trailers where the ranch hands lived, and stables and barns, and finally stopped in front of a sprawling house with a massive metal star on the front.

We climbed out of the truck. Trent and Chance lifted our bags as if they were light as pillows.

They showed us the house, which Brooklyn-born Irma had decorated. The living room: a wooden coffee table in the shape of Texas. Cowhide lamps. Texas stars on the fireplace grate. A Texas-shaped clock. A cross made from the tops of cowboy boots. “Howdy” spelled out in welded horseshoes. The bedrooms were named after heroes from Texas history: the Sam Houston Room, the Stephen F. Austin Room, the J. Frank Dobie Room.

“There you are!” Irma found us upstairs. “I'm so sorry I couldn't pick you up myself—I've had meeting after meeting for the Miss Rodeo committee and I just couldn't miss this one.” She hugged us like we were old friends. Irma thanked the boys and squeezed Trent's cheek. Apparently there was a little bit of Jewish grandmother left in her yet.

“Anything else we can do to help, ma'am?” Chance asked her.

Irma asked us, “Anything you need, girls?”

To have them tell us their names were Destry and Ewing and they were whisking us away on their stallions?

We shook our heads.

“Good night, Mrs. Steele. Miss Janet. Miss Annie, Miss Eva.”

We watched them leave; they walked slowly, with a man-swagger. Did they teach strutting classes at cowboy school?

Irma set out towels imprinted with spurs and saddles, and we gave her the box of chocolates that my mom and Larry had picked out—pecan and caramel turtles from a midtown shop I'd never heard of called Betty's Cocoa.

“Oh, aren't you sweetie pies,” Irma said, and immediately ate three. “My favorite.”

Janet went into her room, out of earshot; I pulled Irma aside. “Did any letters arrive for me?” I asked quietly. I'd hoped one might be waiting for me here.

She shook her head. “No. No letters, I'm sorry.”

A minute later, Janet emerged from her room. “Does your house have an alarm system?” she asked Irma.

Irma pointed across the hallway railing toward the open living room, at the shotgun hanging above the fireplace.

Janet nodded. “I see.”

It was late, and we were exhausted from traveling; we said good night to Irma and Janet and got into our pajamas. Annie and I lay side by side in the twin beds, gazing at the fan on the ceiling, the Texas star swirling at its center. Annie curled her arm around Quarky, her stuffed subatomic particle.

“
Cowboys
,” I said. If you wanted to escape your dark thoughts and worries,
being
in a cowboy novel was even better than reading one.

Annie lowered her voice. “Don't get any ideas. I don't want to see you out there on horseback, shouting ‘Ride me, cowboy!' or whatever they say in that series.”

“Nobody ever says ‘Ride me, cowboy.' And my mom already warned me not to ride a horse.” I adjusted my pillow. “I can't believe they actually wear those hats and boots and it's
not a costume
.”

She laughed. “Don't tell Will.”

“He'd think it's funny. He wouldn't mind if I'm ogling cowboys,” I said, though I wondered if that was true. Hopefully he would mind. I could overnight another letter to him:
Please stay in LA, or I might run off with a cowboy.
Obviously that was a foolproof plan.

I checked my phone. It still displayed its ever-present
Searching . . .
Weren't we all, I wanted to tell it.

I switched off the cowhide lamp, closed my eyes, and returned to the roof garden again.

In the middle of the night, I'd asked Will, “Why did you keep coming to tutoring every week? Even after you finished your college essay and took the AP?”

I wanted him to tell me that he loved me, that he'd loved me all along, just as I loved him.

His fingers stroked my hair. “Because I talked about things then that I can't talk about with anyone else.”

“Books and writing, you mean?”

“And my messed-up family.”

“I think mine is even more messed up.” I said it into his arms. He kissed my hair. The trees rustled overhead.

I loved thinking of those hours on the roof now, even more than when they were happening—I could smell the fresh grass sprouting between the paving stones and feel the warmth of the stone table from the late afternoon sun. It had been almost too much pleasure to absorb at once. I loved replaying each moment slowly now, making sense of things alone.

Will had changed me. Being with him had made me feel strong and secure and took away the loneliness. I loved how Annie and Will didn't worry all the time. They didn't think about plane crashes and muggers and germs. They didn't tiptoe through life afraid the worst thing was going to happen
to them or the people they loved. I could see my mom in a way now that I'd never been able to see her before, like pulling back after staring at the dots of a newspaper photo close up. My dad had been the one who calmed us—he was strong and optimistic and believed everything would be okay. I'd believed that too, before he died. I wished I could believe it again.

Now I pulled up the covers and stared at the ceiling. Being in a cowboy novel didn't let you escape all your anxieties, after all—they were still there, surrounding everything, like the darkness.

Annie yawned. “Good night, Mary Sue,” she said.

“Good night, Miss Sage.” I was glad she was here with me. She kept my stomach from turning to lead.

“You know, I think Chance likes you,” I told her. “He kept staring at you.”

“Probably because he's never seen an Asian person before.” She yawned. “So, in your cowboy books, do the guys kind of smell like a barnyard?”

I shook my head. “They never mention that.”

W
e woke up to the smell of frying bacon. Irma bustled around the breakfast table; she popped open a tube of biscuit dough and arranged the white blobs on a cookie sheet.

“Hope you girls had a good night's sleep.” She set the table with place mats that said
GIDDYUP! I'M A TEXAS COWGIRL!
and
PUT YOUR BIG GIRL PANTIES ON AND DEAL WITH IT.
“Listen, I'm so sorry to tell you this. I planned to spend the whole day with you, but Lily Jackson just called and she needs help this afternoon with the Miss Rodeo Princess tea—Honor Travis canceled on her, so she begged me. I'm going to show you around the property this morning, but I asked the boys to take care of you this afternoon. Then I'll meet you at the rodeo. Your first rodeo! It's a small one, not like the ones in the big cities, but I think it's even better. I told Larry, ‘After I take these girls to the rodeo, they're never going to want to leave.'”

As Janet came down the stairs, my eyes nearly jumped out of my head: she wore jeans. With a yellow blouse and
yellow necklace—but still.
Jeans
. They actually fit her body, as opposed to the voluminous broccoli, eggplant, cauliflower, and potato pants she'd worn before. She devoured a biscuit and scowled at the bacon.

“Do you keep kosher?” Irma asked her. “That would be hard to do on the road.”

“I do my best,” Janet said, and shrugged. “I'm not strict when I'm away from home. I avoid pork and shellfish, of course. But sometimes you just have to make do.”

“I enjoy it even more knowing it's
trayf
,” Irma said with a grin, grabbing a slice of bacon barehanded.

Janet raised her eyebrows. I was afraid she might have a PowerPoint presentation on her iPad about pork products, but thankfully she didn't say anything.

After breakfast, Irma toured us around the ranch. The property stretched on for miles. The fields were dried out and yellow, and the trees were shorter than the ones we had back east—cedar, pecan, scrub oak, Irma said; they rarely grew as tall here since the land was so hot and parched. The heat was so intense that even though I wore only a T-shirt and shorts, and the air conditioning was on in the car, I was still sweating.

As Irma drove, she told us tales of how she met Clint, her rancher husband, at a blackjack table in Las Vegas; how she'd lived all over the country but her heart had found its true home in Texas; and how although she'd never ridden until she
was fifty-nine, she had an inborn gift for horsemanship. Irma was sorry we wouldn't get to meet Clint, since he was away at a cattle auction in Fort Worth.

She dropped us off at the gray maintenance building. “Now I have to run. The boys'll take good care of you. I'll see you tonight.”

When Irma was out of earshot, Janet said, “Four marriages,” and made a scoffing noise. She and Irma had treated each other pleasantly—Irma seemed to like everybody—but now Janet couldn't wait to comment. “Meeting her gives me even more doubts about Larry,” she said.

“Irma seems happy, though,” Annie said. “Maybe this time she picked the right guy.”

Janet gave us a
You are so young and know nothing
look. “She told me last night her husband's barely ever around. Maybe that's the secret to a happy marriage.” She grinned.

I often thought Janet would be happy if she could round up all boys and men and corral them into a man zoo, where they'd be caged, allowed few visitors, and have scraps of meat flung at them every few hours.

The door to the maintenance building was open. We entered a room filled with hulking machines I didn't know the purpose of, and boxes of metal parts. In the main room was a long wooden table strewn with magazines and catalogs—
The Horse Gazette
,
Livestock Weekly
,
The Cattleman
,
Welsco Building Supply
, and
Western Horseman
. I stared at the
tools hanging off the pegboard walls.

“I feel like we're on another planet,” Annie whispered to me.

Trent, Chance, and a round-faced man sat at the table drinking coffee. They wore jeans, work boots, and T-shirts, and all three stood up when we entered. Trent ran a hand through his blond hair. He was so tall he hovered over everyone.

“Howdy,” the round-faced man said. “You must be the ladies I've heard so much about.” His name was Farley, and he was the ranch manager. He shook our hands. “Irma told me all about you,” he said to Janet. “I have a safety consulting business myself.”

“He invented a safety vest for bull riders,” Chance said. “People all over the country wear it.”

Janet squinted. “I can't see bull riding being considered safe under any circumstances.”

Farley laughed. “You've got a point.” He told her he was speaking at an event for teachers that afternoon, sponsored by the rodeo; he hoped Janet would join him. She didn't have any appointments until the next day in Dallas, and agreed to go with him, though she seemed wary of leaving us at first—she eyed the boys, probably wondering whether they had festering sores under their clothes. Eventually, Farley convinced her it would be a good networking opportunity for her.

“Be safe,” Janet told us before she left. “Be careful.”

“We'll be fine,” I told her.

After they left, Trent hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. “We're just getting ready to start some chores, if you don't mind coming along.”

“What chores?” I asked. I expected him to say branding, calf roping, or the other things they did in books, but Trent smiled and put down his coffee.

“Chance's overseeing insemination,” he said. “And I'm feeding the cattle.”

Insemination? Was that romance-novel code, like
thundersticks
and
flaming javelins
?

Chance must have seen my expression. He quickly explained that since they were primarily a breeding ranch, today he was assisting with the artificial insemination of one of their mares. “We breed mares here, stand stallions at stud, and we ship frozen horse semen all over the world.”

The words
frozen horse semen
were not what I wanted to hear right after breakfast. Of course Annie, animal-obsessed scientist that she was, lit up immediately.

“What cryopreservation techniques do you use?” She spoke casually, as if frozen horse spewage was something we discussed every morning.

Chance mentioned liquid nitrogen vapors and proprietary fluids, and then he and Annie launched into a debate about heat indexes, dissipation, and several other things I barely understood. Chance had a kind, serious face, and nodded as he spoke.

“Annie's a science genius. She studies animal behavior,” I explained to Trent, lest he think my friend had an unnaturally perky interest in their horses' manly urges.

“You're welcome to join them today,” he told me. “Or you can come with me.”

“I'll feed the cows,” I said.