The Wilder Sisters (29 page)
“Don’t forget shamans.”
“Yeah, but usually they’re the real thing.”
They lay down and looked out the window, neither of them talking for a long while. Lily watched the pine boughs sway in the wind. Somewhere far up the mountain, snow crystals were forming, flaking down onto the higher elevations, settling into the cracks between rocks, covering up anything that could grow in that thin air. “I want to quit my job,” she said.
“And do what?”
“I don’t know. I could waitress. I have a great ass. Truck drivers will shower me with tips.”
“You’d last a week, Lily. You’re too smart not to do what you do.” Lily ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair. “But Tres, think of what I’d get in return: Clean air, no traffic, seasons. A chance to
be with you.”
He studied her face. “Let’s go down the mountain today. I’d like to see your family. I want to meet your dog.”
She shook her head no. “Let’s just have this be about you and me.”
“We can’t do that. People come with attachments.” “Like food processors? Chop, dice, puree?”
“Yes. In my case, Leah. In yours the Don, Mama Greyhound, Sister Rose, and Buddy.”
“Sounds like a band from the sixties. Pop’s cool with whatever I do. I have him wrapped around my little finger. I always have.”
“He’s still your father, Lily. Men have rituals. It has to do with honor. I compliment him on his horses, he decides to overlook the fact that I’m banging his daughter bowlegged. We shake hands, talk basket-ball, and all is copacetic.”
Take all this out in the world? Share it? Allow Mami to see that Lily had lost her toughness? What would Rose say? What if the moment the real world touched what they had, the whole thing disintegrated? “Tres, I spent all my mother’s grocery money, and Buddy Guy probably thinks I dropped off the face of the earth. He’s made me feel safe the last five years. I owe him some kind of explan- ation. I’ll go. You stay here and work on your stuff.”
“How about before Buddy came on board? How did you feel then?”
“Out of my mind twenty-four hours a day. I’m telling you, I have to leave California.”
“It means driving three hours to catch a movie. Could you trade in your fancy car for something with four-wheel drive? Live through mud season?”
“I was getting tired of it anyway. Plus some
culo
broke my wind- shield wiper. It’s a Lexus. The dealer will charge me a thousand dollars just to look at it. I’ll check the terms of my lease. Maybe I can just turn the son of a bitch in and take a loss.”
“A hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year isn’t pocket change.” She thought for a long while before answering. Tres was right. She’d have to make do with so much less, maybe never even buy designer labels again. She took a breath and said what was in her heart. “I’m tired of corporate America. Outrageous car phone bills, being tethered to that annoying pager, conferences, expense reports, not to mention pantyhose. I want to take a five-year nap, Tres. And
I’d like take it with you.”
When she located the courage to look over and see how that news set with him, Lily saw that he’d fallen asleep. Despite the unsettled feeling in her belly, she nestled into the crook of his shoulder and aimed herself toward that last precious pocket of calm. Soon enough, she knew, they’d drive down the mountain, into the consequences.
ake Paloma,” Rose said, without looking up from the dead files in the storeroom. “She knows how to give shots.”
“So do you.”
“Paloma’s got her Animal Health Technician certificate. I have a high school diploma and really poor judgment in men.”
“Dammit, Rose.” Austin shut the door behind him. “What’s it going to take to move us past that kiss?”
His bootheels struck the creaky planks as he crossed the floor. The veterinarian smelled of a day’s worth of hard work. Rose typed his schedule; she knew he’d spent the last eight hours performing a vaccination clinic at the Floralee Equestrian Stables. Clinics were exhausting work: horse after horse, dozens of injections, threading lengths of plastic tubing down uncooperative animals’ nostrils, pouring worming medication through the funnel, then having to blow hard on the tube’s end to make sure all of the medicine went where it was supposed to and not all over his shirt, fifty-fifty odds at best. Whenever he came back from a stint like that, Austin was a little woozy and definitely parasite-proof. During previous clinics she had helped him float teeth, filing quickly inside a horse’s mouth, both of them fancy stepping to avoid getting kicked to death, and there were always a handful of horse owners who, since the vet was already there and they didn’t have to pay for the call-out, couldn’t resist asking for a little free medical advice on various problems. Austin had to be about to drop from exhaustion. In his shoes Rose wouldn’t have wanted to work a rodeo tomorrow, gay or straight. However, that didn’t mean she was going to fall for the
poor-me routine. Downstairs that sneaky Paloma probably held a stethoscope to the ceiling, listening to their every word.
“We’re miles past the kiss,” she said. “I’m still not going to the rodeo.”
“Paloma’s got some big family whoop-de-do going down in Po- joaque all weekend. Nacio’s cooking all the food, and apparently every last one of her relatives from Spain will be there.”
“I’m your bookkeeper, Austin. That’s all I am.”
He stood close enough to her that she could feel the heat from his body, and smell the faintly sweet odor of horse manure caught in the treads of his boots. “You’re my right arm. What is it you’re doing over there, anyway?”
“Filing.” She looked up at him for the first time since he’d walked into the room. A good-size bruise in the shape of a
C
marked his left cheekbone. “What is God’s name happened to your face?”
“Arab horse took a dislike to it. Are you wearing a different per- fume than usual?”
“I don’t wear perfume, Austin. Did you get an X ray?” “It must be your soap.”
She pursed her lips, entirely irritated. “You want me to drive you to the hospital? You might have a hairline fracture.”
“I’ve got a hard head. I’ll be fine.”
“Any double vision? Are your pupils the same size?”
He shook his head. “Tastes a little like blood when I swallow, but that’ll go away. Whatever brand soap it is you use, it smells real nice.”
Rose tossed the file folders back into the cardboard box. A cloud of dust rose up, and she sneezed, loud and healthy, the same way her sister Lily did. Every time either of them cut loose with a robust
a-choo
, Pop always made a smart remark, as if they weren’t feminine.
There go my girls, sneezing like the horses they are
.
“Bless you.”
“Thanks.” She was too concerned about his cheek to give him the drop-dead look she wanted to. “I think I liked you better when you were mean to me.”
“Please come with me, Rose.”
“Why should I? You’re the one who drove drunk and got sen- tenced to community service. It’s a rodeo, for Pete’s sake. You’ve vetted dozens
of them. What is there to do besides stand around and wait for some idiot to run his horse into a wall?”
He lowered his voice. “Don’t leave me stranded out there in gay America. What do I do if some nancy boy takes a liking to me?”
And the sad fact was, it wasn’t a cliché: The male ego truly knew no bounds. “Oh, my gosh, what if they’re just a bunch of ordinary people grateful to have a vet to look after the animals?”
“Hell, maybe I should blow it off, see if Eloy will let me work this off in weekend jail.” He held out his hand, trembling visibly. “Look at me. I’ve got the shakes so bad somebody ought to lock me up.”
“Don’t try to make me feel guilty, Austin. Won’t work. Will not, cannot, did not. You think I give a damn if you go to jail? I don’t care if you have a concussion. Ruin your practice, develop brain damage, just leave me out of it.”
She tried to pull away when he put his arm around her shoulders, but as thin as Austin was, he was stronger and taller. He knuckled the top of her head and messed up her hair. When he brushed her cheek with his lips Rose could feel the heat emanating from his in- jured cheek. He should be lying down with an icepack against it. It needed to be x-rayed, two complete views, because head injuries weren’t anything to fool around with. Doctors could give you new corneas, a replacement liver, a heart and lungs at the same time, but the brain was still a mystery. Rose pushed him away, but his touch and the kiss had already succeeded in reminding her of what had happened inside her Bronco that night in Taos.
“Pick me up at nine on Saturday morning. Dress casual.” “I said I wasn’t going.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t mean it.”
“I have plans, Austin. I’m going riding. Then I’m washing my hair. I might dye it.”
Austin reached out to touch her, but she ducked away. “I like your hair the way it is.” He dug into his pocket for his keys, and she watched the denim pull tight across his groin. “Here’s the keys to my truck. Already fed my animals. Figure I’ll spend the night here. Tomorrow morning, all you have to do is honk. If you don’t show up, I’ll use my extra set and hope no cops stop me. Now I’m going to go read
A Farewell to Arms
. Ernie’s happy-go-lucky outlook always cheers me up.”
He left the storeroom, and Rose sat down hard on the floor in her black jeans, mentally cussing him. The pants were size six Calvins, one full size smaller than what she usually wore. Until this week they’d been tucked into a far corner of the bureau drawer that used to be Philip’s, but she’d lost weight from not eating regular meals, and now they fit her again. She was wearing a new Liz Claiborne shirt, plaid with muted pinks and dove gray, featuring a thin stripe of black that complemented the jeans. Unlike most of her clothes, which were loose and serviceable, this shirt was fitted, the fabric clung close to her breasts, the cut emphasized her waist, and when she looked at herself in the dressing-room mirror she was absolutely shocked at how attractive she looked. The hell with what Lily and Amanda said about the outlet stores, for $19.95, this shirt was a real find. She sniffed the cuff, pulled it back and smelled her wrist. No scent there but her regular old self. Either Austin’s sobriety had heightened his senses or he was lying in order to manipulate her into going to the rodeo. Well, if she went, which would only be to check on his possible concussion, she would remain steadfastly out of reach, her newly developed shields all the way up. After that night with the
polvos
, Rose had decided that love and all its trappings were ridiculous, something for young people who didn’t yet know better, which she certainly did. She put the candles on a shelf in the kitchen pantry in case of electrical failure, tucked the powders into a drawer, and tried to forget the whole embarrassing episode with the
curandera
.
Upstairs in her office she began to tidy up the week’s invoices so she could go home with a clear conscience. Just as she reached for her purse, the phone rang. It was Mami. “Have you heard from your sister?” she asked.
“I thought Lily was at the ranch with you and Pop.”
Mami hedged. “Oh, probably she’s around here somewhere.
Forget I asked. How are you,
mija
? You never call your mother.”
You’re never home
, Rose wanted to say.
You’re either in your Cessna 150 flying track dogs to freedom or you’re gallivanting around in fancy clothes making infomercials. I’m where I always am, nine to five; you know where you can find
me
if you want to talk so badly
. Rose knew full well that this line of attack indicated something was up with Lily. Something not quite right. Mami’s free spirit would never admit to outright alarm, but deep down she was a mother or she wouldn’t have called. “What happened? Did you two have a fight?”
“No. It’s just been a little while since I’ve seen her, so I thought maybe she was with you.”
“How long a while? Did you try calling her pager? Her voice mail?
The house in California?”
“Rose Ann.
Cálmate
. Your sister is fine. She’ll show up when she’s finished with whatever it is she’s doing. That isn’t why I called, so stop trying to distract me.”
Mother of God, deliver me strength
, Rose prayed.
Help me not to reach through the receiver and strangle this woman who gave birth to me
. “What is it, Mami?”
“I was thinking it’s been too long a time since we’ve had a mother- daughter day. Why don’t we go to Ojo Caliente, or Ten Thousand Waves? I love their hour-long botanical facials. Last time I went I met a fellow who gives shiatsu massage; he’s very good. Or we can rent one of the private tubs and just soak in our birthday suits and drink fresh-squeezed juice and feel so healthy. My treat.”
Mami next to her, naked, that sixty-two-year-old body looking better than her own—now there was a stellar idea. Still, the idea of a man’s hands, paid for or not, stroking her back, sounded worth any amount of shame. “I wish I could. Austin’s forcing me to go with him to this rodeo he has to work tomorrow.”
“I thought the Floralee rodeo was in July.”
“It was.” Rose didn’t miss the subtle dig; her mother believed this rodeo talk was a cover for romance, not community service. “It’s a
gay
rodeo, Mami. Austin has to be there all day Saturday since he drove drunk and Judge Trujillo didn’t want to send him to jail. I suppose he wants me to stand around so nobody will hit on him. I have half a mind to paste a rainbow decal on his truck and not show up.”
“Rainbows.” Mami laughed. “Opportunities keep presenting themselves to you, honey. Take advantage. You know what I think. This is fate.”
Rose sighed. “Fate is the stuff of musicals, Mami. I don’t believe in it.”
Her mother made a
tsk
ing noise, and Rose contemplated throwing the phone out the window. “
Enamorada
, it’s all right there in your astrological charts. I can show you. In your past lives, you and Austin were lovers, soul mates. Something unfortunate that wasn’t supposed to happen occurred, and you two were prematurely sep- arated. Now here you are again, being thrown together to make things right in a