by Larry Watson
“And what was your mother’s objection to him?”
“She thought he wasn’t good enough for me. She finally let it slip. ‘You can do better than some Indian,’ she said. So when I brought Norman home to meet her, she all but fell to her knees and bowed down to that white boy.”
“How was it,” Edie says, “that neither of us had a mother who was on our side?”
“It was pretty simple with my mother. She didn’t like herself, so she didn’t like Indians.”
“And now Dennis is back . . . How do we like his chances this time around?”
Rita nods thoughtfully. “I believe he’ll fare very well. Very well. How about you? Would you like me to see if he has a friend?”
“I’ll pass,” Edie says.
“Wouldn’t you just like some male company from time to time? Someone to go to a movie with?”
“You know what? I order these movies from Netflix, and most of the time I return them unwatched.”
Rita leans closer to Edie. “Okay. I can see I’m being too subtle. Go to a movie is a euphemism. I mean sex. Wouldn’t you like someone to have sex with? Don’t you miss sex?”
Edie wrinkles her nose. “Kissing? Would kissing have to be involved?”
“I think you’d get to call the shots on that one. But physical contact, for sure. No sex without physical contact.”
Edie laughs. “What I think I miss is having someone in my life I’d want to have sex with. I’m not sure about the act itself.”
“You want someone to love.”
“Do I?”
“But maybe you should start with sex. And don’t give me that shit we’re too old. When I’m too old for that you can just kick some dirt on me.”
Edie says, “When I was young I wanted love but sex is what I got. Later, when I wanted sex, I got love. It kept going back and forth like that . . . I kept believing one had to lead to the other, that they were two streams that had to merge into one river. And maybe at times they did. Maybe I was wrong to want both, maybe I was wrong to think of them as separate. Men didn’t seem to much care about the difference.”
“I’ll go you one better,” Rita says. “Norman could tell me he loved me when he had his hands around my throat and his cock inside me. I swear to God, he was never more tender than when he was kissing a bruise he’d given me just an hour before.”
“You win,” says Edie. “But I didn’t think we were competing.”
“We’re not.” Rita lifts her glass to her lips and drinks. “So that’s what you used to want. What about now?”
“I’m not sure,” Edie says. “Maybe not to want at all.”
“How’s that working for you?”
“You know, at lunch this week I had a little outburst. I told Dr. Hackett I was sick of how men kept turning out to be the subject of every conversation the three of us—she and Bonnie and I—had. And now here we are. Talking about men.”
Rita reaches across the space separating them and takes Edie’s hand. “Honey, we’re not talking about men. We’re talking about us.”
They both turn back toward the west. The sun has set and the horizon is smudged with violet. The trail of a jet, a gold streak against the depthless blue, dissipates like a watercolor brushstroke.
“And how,” Rita says, “did the sightseeing tour go?”
“Well, I don’t know how it was for Lauren, but it surprised the hell out of me. We were in Gladstone today but I kept seeing Gladstone then.”
“It’s your hometown. It’s your history. What did you expect to see?”
“I guess I thought the past was dead and gone.”
“You better ask me to come along next time you contemplate an excursion like that. I can give you a few lessons in then and now.”
The door behind them slides open, and George Real Bird steps onto the balcony. He’s dressed in his usual attire—snug gray T-shirt, khaki cargo shorts—but tonight he’s wearing his artificial leg. And that smooth, pink attachment with its chrome steel joints practically glows in the waning light of evening. With stiff steps he walks over to lean on the balcony rail closest to Edie. He reaches into the pocket of his shorts and pulls out a crumpled pack of Marlboros and a Zippo lighter. He raises a cigarette to his lips and lights it. Then he flicks his wrist, and the Zippo closes with a clank.
“Just waiting for it to get dark, huh?” he says.
“Like a couple of vampires,” his mother replies.
“How’s your leg doing, George?” Edie asks him.
“Feels like shit,” he says. “But I thought maybe if I try it just an hour or two a day, I’ll eventually get used to it.”
“That sounds like a wonderful plan.”
“Just like it did,” Rita says, “when I suggested it months ago.”
George ignores his mother’s remark and says to Edie, “You promised me you’d go dancing with me if I got this leg working.”
Edie laughs. “I believe I said I’d come to watch you.”
George smiles and wags his finger in her direction. “Well, just be ready.”
“I’d be proud to watch you dance,” says Edie. “Your mother and I both would be. By the way, did Lauren and the boys stop by earlier? I told her you might be interested in going out with them.”
“I passed,” George says. He inhales deeply and then blows a lungful of smoke into the night air. “That Jesse is the kind of trouble I don’t need.”
“Trouble of what sort?” Rita asks.
“Oh, you know. He’s always got the cure for what ails you.”
Rita says, “And what pray tell would that be?”
George shrugs. “This and that.”
“My God,” Rita says. “Can you give me a straight answer?”
“You remember Darryl Whitman? Same deal.”
“That boy.” Rita shakes her head. “Lord. Ended up in Red Lodge and broke his mother’s heart.”
George seems to notice that Edie is trying not to hear this exchange. “So what did I walk in on? What are the two of you plotting out here?”
Rita swirls her wine. “I was telling Edie that I’ve renewed my acquaintance with Dennis Old Coyote. You might recall—”
George interrupts her with his laughter. “Now that Grandma Lou is dead!”
“He’s not my cousin, you know.”
“Yeah, Ma. I know. What’s Cousin Dennis doing with his life now? Is he still on the rez?”
“He’s retired, more or less. And no. He’s living on his sister’s ranch. Helping out since her husband had a stroke. And he’s not—”
George holds up his hand. “‘Retired, more or less’—what’s that mean anyway? I’m retired more or less.”
“I told you. He’s working on the ranch. He worked for Montana-Dakota Utilities for many years, you know.”
“Okay. He’s a pillar of the community. You have my blessing.” He pushes himself away from the balcony rail and heads toward the door. “I’ll let you two vampires get back to it,” he says.
“DON’T, BILLY,” LAUREN whispers. “Don’t.”
Edie lies still on the sofa, feigning sleep, though she can see through the slits of her eyes a dim, shadowy version of what’s going on—the three of them have just returned from their night out.
Lauren twists away from Billy, who’s trying to put a hand down the back of her jeans.
“Just wait,” Lauren says. But then she laughs. And Billy laughs too.
Jesse, following behind them, puts a finger to his lips. “Shh.”
And then Lauren and Billy are gone, down the hallway to the room where Edie has always slept alone. Jesse remains behind. He stares at Edie as though he’s trying to determine if her breathing is a sleeper’s or a pretender’s.
“Are you awake?” he whispers.
Edie neither stirs nor replies.
Then he’s gone too, off to his own bedroom.
The children are home. Edie feels under her pillow to that space between the arm of the sofa and the cushion for the
hammer that she’s been keeping there. With her hand around its handle, she finally drifts toward sleep, but she can’t quite reach its shore. Yes, the children are finally home.
EDIE WAKES UP to the smell of burnt toast and coffee. The sun has not yet risen, but enough light has entered the apartment for objects to acquire their outlines of form and solidity. And birds have already started up. When she sits up on the sofa, she sees Jesse in the kitchen sitting in a chair that allows him to watch her. She reaches immediately for the robe lying on the coffee table and manages to put it on without standing up.
Jesse gives her a little wave. Then he gets up from the chair and, coffee cup in hand, comes into the living room.
“Have a bad dream?” he asks her. He’s shirtless and barefoot and dressed in the same baggy shorts he’s been wearing since he arrived. “You were sort of twitching all over,” he says. “Like a dog chasing rabbits in his sleep.”
“How long have you been up?” Edie asks.
“Never really went to bed. Did you hear my guitar? I was trying to keep it down. Playing helps me sleep sometimes. But not last night. About an hour ago I said hell with it. Made that coffee quiet as I could. Then I got hungry. That’s a for-shit toaster you got, by the way.”
“You didn’t bother me,” Edie says.
“Didn’t seem like I did.” He sits down in the rocking chair and nods in the direction of Edie’s bedroom. “I’d like to get those two up so we can hit the road early but they’ll be so pissy they’ll be miserable company. So let ’em sleep, I decided.”
“Any place you need to be by any particular time?”
“Nope. Free as birds, we are.”
“Must be nice,” Edie says and stands up and begins to fold the bedding.
“Were your ears burning last night?” Jesse asks. “Because we were talking about you. Lauren says you’ve had some rough luck in your life. A husband who died on you. Another one who walked out. But I guess a true Montanan like yourself is tough enough to stand up to the hard times.”
Edie stops folding and sits down on the sofa. She shakes her head slowly. “That girl,” she says. “I don’t know how she can get so many things so wrong. For the record, Dean Linderman died of cancer some twenty years after we were divorced. As for Lauren’s grandfather walking out, it was plain either he’d have to get out or I would. As it turned out, we both did.”
“And you came back here. Lauren says you’re none too happy in Gladstone.”
“She has that wrong too.”
Jesse nods. “Sure,” he says. “Sure. You got yourself a nice little life here. But you ain’t got all you want.”
“And what is it that I don’t have?” Edie asks.
Jesse smiles slyly. “You tell me.”
Edie smooths a few of the sheet’s wrinkles as it lies across her lap. “As for being a ‘true Montanan,’” she says, “I’m not even sure what that means.”
“We love our freedom,” Jesse says. “Simple as that.”
“Is there a place where they don’t?”
“And we like to do things our own way. Without someone in an office a hundred or a thousand miles away telling us different.”
Edie doesn’t say anything in reply. She stands now, she has to in order to finish with the sheet. And once it’s in a folded package as tight and compact as a flag that might have covered a serviceman’s coffin, she hugs it to her bosom. “But I’ve lived enough years in the West,” she says, “to understand something about young men like you. I’ve seen them in bars and on street corners and in their cars and trucks. You love your freedom all right. Free to be some sort of outlaw. If I could pry my granddaughter loose from you and your brother, I would.”
“Well, Granny, you can let go of that dream. She’s ours.”
THE BLAZER IS packed, the back section of the vehicle heaped with nylon packs and bags and Lauren’s graduation suitcase. Jesse’s black guitar case has been propped upright in the back seat like the family dog that has to see out all the windows. A few of the doughnuts left over from those Edie bought this morning at Albertsons are in a white bag on the center console. Billy is behind the wheel; Lauren is in the seat across from him; and Jesse is in the back seat, looking for all the world like their child, his fingers already busy with his chirping Game Boy.
The thank-yous and good-byes have been said, grandmother and granddaughter have embraced, and now Edie stands back from the car, her arms folded as if there were a chill in this summer morning. Lauren’s window is down, and Edie says to her, “Will you call me when you get where you’re going?”
Lauren laughs. “How can I when I don’t know where that is?”
ON HER RECEPTIONIST’S desk, Edie has an index card with over a week’s worth of dates written down. Next to each date are penciled check marks, no fewer than five marks for a date and as many as ten for the day before, a Monday.
When Kenneth Aldinger walks past Hackett Dental Care for the third time this morning—it’s not yet ten o’clock—Edie marks his appearance with a check. But then she jumps up from her desk, goes outside, and runs down the sidewalk. She catches up to him in front of McFarland’s Ace Hardware, and when she steps in front of him and spreads her arms wide, he has no choice but to stop.
“Mr. Aldinger,” Edie says. “Stop. Just stop. What are you doing?”
He gestures vaguely in a direction past Edie. “I was just . . . I was going to—”
“No.” Edie shakes her head. “No, you weren’t going anywhere. You were walking past my door. You’ve been doing it over and over, day after day. Do you think I can’t see you?”
He turns and points in the other direction. “My office,” he says, “my office is right over—”
Edie says, “No. N-O. There’s nothing you do in or out of your office that requires you to walk up and down this street. I know what you’re doing, Mr. Aldinger. You’re after me or something. I can see you, you know. Every time you walk by. Every day.”
No doubt with the intention of getting past Edie, Kenneth Aldinger steps quickly to the side, toward the bags of grass seed and fertilizer stacked for display in wheelbarrows outside McFarland’s. She’s too quick for him however, and with both hands she grabs his arm.
He looks down at her hands encircling his upper arm. The dark wool of his suit wrinkles in her grasp, but he makes no attempt to pull away. Edie Pritchard is touching him, and though there is nothing approaching affection in her grasp, here they are. Here they are.
Edie detects a shift in this moment, some flex or twitch in the muscle of the arm she holds, some gleam in his eye, something that she recognizes as the first stirring men feel when a woman stands close to them. She lets go and steps away.
“Your teeth, Mr. Aldinger, are fine. You don’t need to come into the office again. Not for a very long time. And you need to find yourself a different street to walk up and down.”
Kenneth Aldinger takes a moment to compose himself, to become once again the successful businessman, the civic leader, the church deacon. Then he turns and walks away from Edie Pritchard, crossing the street with a stiff-backed bearing that doesn’t allow him to look anywhere but straight ahead.
LAUREN AND BILLY are conducting their quarrel behind a two-story farmhouse badly in need of paint and repair, a shelter wanting shelter. Because the yard is more dirt than grass, and the uncut weedy grass is almost as tall as the surrounding fescue, the farmyard is barely distinguishable from the prairie. A small stand of scrub oak marks the end of the property line, but none of its shade reaches Lauren and Billy where they sit in the glare of the midday sun, she in a flimsy aluminum lawn chair and Billy cross-legged at her feet.
“Jesus, Laure. We’re not talking about you fucking somebody else. This is just you and me. We’re going to fuck anyway, right? The only thing that’s different is somebody’s going to pay to watch us. So instead of doing it for nothing, we’ll be doing it for money. Get it? We’ll be getting paid to fuck. If you can come up with a better goddamn deal
than that, I’d like to know what it’d be.”
“Whose idea was this? Jesse’s, right?”
“Nah, nah. He said it’s totally up to you.”
“And I said no.”
“But he did say we’ll have to find some way to make money. He’s thinking probably selling pills. Matt is bringing a shit-ton back from Canada. Jesse said we’d help him move it.”
“We?”
“Well, him and me.” Billy turns his palms up. “But you know what happens if he gets caught dealing. That’s prison.”
Lauren is wearing sunglasses, and she tilts the glasses up on top of her head so she can turn the full force of her glower at Billy. “Boo-fucking-hoo,” she says.
“I got to do my part too,” says Billy. “How would you feel about visiting both of us in the slammer?”
“‘The slammer.’ Ooh, listen to you.”
“I’m just saying, you know. You got to go into it with your eyes open. Now, if we go the other route”—Billy begins to draw circles inside circles in the dust—“we let Garth watch us, we get maybe fifty bucks every time.”
“Fifty dollars. A fuck of a lot of good that’ll do us.”
“I don’t know what your problem is. You know you look good. You didn’t have a problem letting me have those pictures. Or those you took yourself. I mean, come on. What are you getting all modest for now?”
Lauren springs forward in her chair. “Did you show those to anyone? Did you?”
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“You swear?”
“Do I swear? Okay. What the hell. Yeah. I swear I didn’t.”
“Not even Jesse?”
Billy laughs. “Especially not Jesse.”
She leans back in the chair and lowers her sunglasses. After a long moment she says, “So . . . Garth, huh?”
“What can I say? He’s nothing but an old horndog.”
“Does Marilyn know?”
“How should I know?” Now, instead of circles in the dust, Billy makes slashing diagonal lines. Lightning bolts.
“What did he say? When he asked—”
“He didn’t ask me.”