McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (54 page)

 
          
 
"Okay," I said.

 
          
 
"I don't even know why I consented,"
Jean said, and went in her house.

 
          
 
I drove around
Wheaton
until I found a decent street with big
trees, parked at the curb in the shade of the big trees, and made my car seat
recline so I could take a nap. My car seats are more comfortable than most
beds. It was not a pleasant sleep, though, because I had a vivid dream of
Coffee, sitting on the steps of our house in
Houston
and sobbing because she couldn't get her
hippopotamus chair in her car. It was practically the one time she had cried,
during our marriage, and I dreamed about it often. It seemed to symbolize all
failure, but particularly mine. If only I had behaved better and been less
obsessed with antiques and nK
)re
tolerant of Coffee's
bad taste in modem furniture I might never have brought her to that pass.

 
          
 
It hadn't been, in the end, such an awful
pass. I borrowed a pickup from a junk dealer I knew and hauled the chair to
Austin
for her. Even that hadn't cheered Coffee
up: She had wanted to make a clean break, and what was clean about my hauling
her chair to
Austin
? She may have been right, too.
If I hadn't done that
maybe we would have made a clean break.
Instead we had spent several
years talking on the phone twenty hours a week.

 
          
 
The dream was so vivid that it woke me up.
Naturally I called Coffee.

 
          
 
"Hello," she said, not very happily.
She had a little gulp in her voice when she said it, as if she had not really
wanted to speak but was compelled to by politeness.

 
          
 
"Are you okay?” I asked. "I just
dreamed about you and the chair."

 
          
 
"Well," Coffee said, "it's
awfully early for you to call. I just got to the office."

 
          
 
"I keep forgetting there's a time
difference," I said.

 
          
 
"I wish you'd stop dreaming about
me," Coffee said. "It's not very nice of you."

 
          
 
"What do you mean?" I said. "I
can't help what I dream about. Nobody can. Don't you ever dream about me?"

 
          
 
"I don't have dreams," Coffee said.
"I just sleep."

 
          
 
'That's nonsense. Everybody dreams. You have
to. You'd get sick if you didn't."

 
          
 
"Well, I'm not sick and I don't!” Coffee
said. She was as dogmatic as Belinda.

 
          
 
"I guess you just don't remember
them," I said, which was a mistake. Coffee's terrible memory had been a
source of trouble ever since I'd known her. She really had almost no memory at
all. Once she forgot what butter was, for example. Naturally she was extremely
sensitive about her memory, and denied that it was bad.

 
          
 
"I want you to stop dreaming about
me," she said

 
          
 
"But Coffee," I said. "You
can't control dreams. They just happen."

 
          
 
"Am I naked or what?" she asked,
surprising me.

 
          
 
"No," I said. "You were just
trying to get the hippo chair in the car."

 
          
 
"Well, am I ever naked?" she asked.
"That's what worries me.

 
          
 
"Worries you how? It's my dream, not
yours."

 
          
 
"Yeah, but I'm involved with Emilio
now," she said. "If he knew you were dreaming about me naked, he'd
have a fit I told you how jealous he is."

 
          
 
"Coffee, would you be sensible?" I
said. "Emilio can't possibly know what I dream unless you tell him, and
there's no reason why you should tell him."

 
          
 
"He knows we talk," Coffee said.
"He's always asking what we talk about"

 
          
 
That was interesting.

 
          
 
"What do you tell him?"

 
          
 
"Well, I sure don't tell him you dream
about me naked," Coffee said.

 
          
 
"I don't dream about you naked," I
said.

 
          
 
"You used to," she said. "You
mentioned it once."

 
          
 
"When?"

 
          
 
"Once," she said.

 
          
 
It had begun to seem that if any woman made
two remarks to me the second remark would be a complete non sequitur, bearing
no relation to what we had been talking about, or to whatever might be
happening in their lives. Often enough, nothing was happening in our lives
anyway.

 
          
 
"Why did you gulp when you said hello?"
I asked.

 
          
 
"Don't change the subject," Coffee
said. "Just cut out dreaming about me naked. That way I won't have to tell
Emilio."

 
          
 
"Fine," I said. "Why did you
gulp?"

 
          
 
"I don't know," she said.
"Where are you?"

 
          
 
"
Maryland
," I said, secure in the knowledge that
her grasp of geography was so bad that she would take that to mean I was still
in her part of the world. Coffee clung to the strange theory that the states
were somehow arranged alphabetically. In her mind
Maryland
lay next to
Louisiana
, which was not too far from
Austin
.

 
          
 
"If you'll come we could eat some Mexican
food," she said. "That's one of my problems with Emilio. He hates
Mexican food."

 
          
 
"I'll come, and we'll eat some," I
said.

 
          
 
There was a pause.

 
          
 
"Do you think we'll ever get married
again?" she asked.

 
          
 
"I don't know," I said. "You
didn't like it much the first time, remember."

 
          
 
"Yeah, but maybe I was too young,"
Coffee said. "That's what Momma thinks."

 
          
 
She was silent for a moment.

 
          
 
"If you keep dreaming about me you must
want something," she said. "Anyway, I don't want to talk anymore. Now
every time I talk to you I want to cry."

 
          
 
"I don't see why," I said.

 
          
 
"You don*t want me enough, that's
why," Coffee said wanly. "I always thought you'd be the one person
who always did want me enough. Only now you don't."

 
          
 
It was sort of a terrible accusation. One
reason it was terrible was because it was unanswerable. I was very fond of her,
but I probably didn't want her enough—particulariy since I was not the one who
got to measure enough-ness, the most elusive of all qualities. If
one's wanting
fell one degree short of enoughness the whole
tenor of the relationship was spoiled, it seemed. Enoughness admits of no
subtraction: Either one's desire is enough, or it's a failure.

 
          
 
At that point.
Coffee
hung up. Though it was 1,700 miles to
Austin
I could feel her crying as I started the
car and drove out of
Wheaton
.

 
          
 
I drove to
Georgetown
, where, as if by a miracle, the parking
place in front of Cindy's shop that I had got the day I met her was empty
again. I parked and went up to the gallery, to see if anyone there knew
anything about the boot exhibit. The only person there was a thin young woman
dressed in black. She was beautiful but quite severe-looking. My mere presence
in the gallery seemed to affront her slightly. When I stopped in front of her
she glanced at me over her glasses, but didn't speak.

 
          
 
"I'm Jack," I said "Were you
expecting some boots?"

 
          
 
"We were expecting them yesterday,"
she said, rather cuttingly.

 
          
 
"I don't know why," I said, stung by
her tone.

 
          
 
“You did agree to bring them yesterday, didn't
you?" she said.

 
          
 
"Look, I didn't agree to bring them at
all," I said. "Nothing was said about yesterday, or about any
particular day."

 
          
 
"That's not the impression I was left
with," she said, with a trace of uncertainty in her voice.

 
          
 
"Listen," I said. "The boots
are mine. I haven't spoken to Cindy in three days. She never said for sure that
she wanted them, much less what day she wanted them. There are plenty of other
places I can sell them if she doesn't want them."

 
          
 
She was surprised, but not yet in a yielding
mood.

 
          
 
"Couldn't you just tell me your
name?" I asked.

 
          
 
"Amanda Harisse." she said. She
seemed a little grateful that I had changed the subject.

 
          
 
"Hams' sister?"
I asked.

 
          
 
"Oh no," she said.
''Just a cousin."

 
          
 
"Is Cindy really going to have this
exhibit?" I asked.

 
          
 
"The invitations went out yesterday."
.Amanda said. "That's why I had hoped to have the boots. It's dangerous to
invite important people to an opening until you're sure you have something to
show them."

 
          
 
"I'm surprised you work here," I
said, smiling at her.

 
          
 
Amanda sighed. "That was Harris’
idea," she said. "The only one he's had in ten years."

 
          
 
"Is Harris pretty broken up about being
jilted?" I asked.

 
          
 
Amanda sighed again. I think she found talking
to me a little trying.

 
          
 
"It takes Harris some time to realize
things," she said "Fm not sure he's figured it out yet"

 
          
 
"Does Cindy ever show up around
here?" I asked.