In coming to Amarillo she had known there would be a problem, but she had supposed it would be Joe Percy. Instead, it was Jim Carpenter. She had all but forgotten him and was surprised the night of her arrival to see him approaching with Sonny. She remembered then how attracted he had been to her in Phoenix, and it was evident before the night was over that her attraction had not dimmed. He put himself out conversationally, and it was obviously for her benefit. He immediately made something of a fool of himself by attacking the Vietnam war in a company that was conservative in the extreme. Jim apparently assumed that she shared his liberalism, which she didn’t, but she liked him for the way he defended it. His boyish attempts to dazzle her had their charm and their appeal, all the more so because he was young and romantic and idealistic in a company that might almost have personified cynicism. The company consisted of half a dozen Panhandle aristocrats, cattle and oil barons and their fattening wives, people who were just polished enough to have remained naïve about the ruthlessness of their own motives, but who took for granted the ruthlessness of everyone else’s. They all, men and women alike, admired Sonny—he was most of the things the men would rather have been than what they were, and one of the people the women would rather have had than who they had—so it was a great evening for him. Nothing made his ego shine like the admiration of people who were wealthier than him. At first it puzzled her that he had brought Jim along, but then she saw that Jim was as awed by him as everyone else, and that explained it. Sonny loved to awe.
Later, the party over, they chatted casually about Jim. Eleanor was undressing and Sonny was sitting on the bed in his briefs wiggling his ankle and frowning.
“I think your young friend is going to turn up with a crush on me,” she said.
“Jimbo? He’s had a crush on you ever since Phoenix. One of the reasons I hired him. I thought if I kept him around to admire you, you might stay and visit awhile.”
“I don’t think I’m quite that vain,” she said. “Why don’t you do your own admiring?”
He looked at her shrewdly and lifted an eyebrow, and Eleanor felt annoyed, for she was in very good shape. She had been strict with herself for months, had exercised and ridden and dieted and had just spent a week in a very expensive beauty spa. She was feeling splendid and felt she was looking splendid and she wanted him to say so.
“You are right shapely,” he said, but with mock gallantry. “All these Hollywooders will be trying to zap you the minute they see you. That’s what they call it now. About all we do all day is sit around and bullshit about zapping.
“You brought enough clothes,” he remarked, watching her hang up her dress. “You didn’t used to carry around so many clothes.”
“I didn’t use to be forty-four, either,” she said. “I find they do more for me all the time.”
Sonny snorted with amusement and she looked around at him, but he didn’t explain. He had been thinking precisely what she just said—she had reached the age where he liked her better with her clothes on. That evening at dinner she had been just the way he wanted her. Every man at the table had felt a little more male because she was there, and had envied him for being the one to bring her. The way her presence worked on the men had been a real pleasure to him. But watching her cross the room in her slip didn’t make him feel anything, and when she took the slip off she didn’t seem quite such a prize. Her calves were a little thin, her thighs a little slack, her behind slightly too broad, and with her hair undone and her makeup off, it all told.
“Zap sounds like something you do with a ray gun,” she said.
“Naw, that ain’t what they use,” he said. He didn’t mention that on several occasions he had zapped Catherine Dunne, whose twenty-three-year-old thighs, breasts, midriff, bottom, and face were perfect and twenty-one years fresher than Eleanor’s. Nor did he tell her that his steady zapping for the past month had been with a girl named Angie Miracle, who had a very small part in the film. Angie lacked Catherine Dunne’s perfect face, but she was only twenty-one and her body was the color of a nicely turned French fry. He had never zapped anyone with such a perfect tan, and it was consistent right down into her pubic hair. She had spent five years on the beaches of Southern California and could surf and could dance and was, so far as he could remember, the limberest girl he had ever zapped. Angie had been annoyed when she heard Eleanor was coming, and had moodily arranged to get herself zapped by a young cameraman.
Eleanor’s tan did not compare and her legs did not compare, and it irked him, watching her prepare for bed, that she could not hold what she had had at the dinner party. She came to bed more eager for him than he was for her. Her body had ceased to interest him, whether temporarily or for good he didn’t know.
Often, in the days that followed, he felt like kicking hell out of the young cameraman. Angie Miracle knew how such things should be handled, and she never said a word about Eleanor or went out of her way to talk to Sonny. She passed him on the set as indifferently as if he were a statue. One day in a flash of anger he attempted to trip her, so she would have to acknowledge him, but she avoided his foot as gracefully as if she were doing a dance step and went on her way without speaking. Sonny was not used to being walked past, nor was he used to any of the things he was doing. For the first time in many years he was in a situation that inhibited him at every turn. Every day he grew tighter, more irritable, and more exhausted. When he had decided to do the movie he had merely assumed that acting would suit him, particularly simple acting. Numerous people in Hollywood told him there was nothing to it. When the shooting began and he discovered it wasn’t so simple as he had supposed, he was not immediately worried. He would catch on to it quickly, he assumed. Everyone on the set was patient with him; no one treated him like the fool he felt himself to be, and he kept his presence off camera even when he lost it on.
But he had never been a foolishly conceited man. He was a shrewd judge of ability, his own and other people’s, and he knew quite well that he knew less about what he was doing than anyone in the cast. He could feel his own stiffness, his own awkwardness, and it infuriated him. His confidence was so natural that he had long since ceased to be conscious of it, but he was conscious that it deserted him the minute he went under the cameras. He was at a loss as to what to do, and his frustration carried over into his leisure hours. Ordinarily he would have given Angie Miracle a good shaking and gone right on zapping her when he felt like it. And ordinarily he would have insulted Eleanor and got rid of her. She was proud and brooked very little insulting, and would have gone home on ten minutes’ notice if he had rubbed her wrong. But he kept her there and didn’t make love to her, and he put up with Angie’s snubs and didn’t approach her. He became a little more short-tempered with the menials of the crew, and he kept Jim Carpenter in his company more and more, bringing him to the hotel almost every evening to eat with him and Eleanor.
At first, none of it registered on Eleanor. All spring she had been in a mood to make crucial decisions, but in the end she had made no decisions at all. She felt herself at a crossroads. She had to decide whether to marry, but she couldn’t; it was too abstract a decision. She knew no one she wanted to marry, and yet she felt the urge to be married. She felt she was at an age when she must marry if she was ever going to. If she didn’t, her life from then on until she died would be the ranch and traveling, and traveling and the ranch. That she could marry well, find someone attractive, someone likable, someone she might even love, she didn’t doubt. It would only be a matter of putting herself out a little, letting herself be found. She would only have to stay for a time in places where there were good potential husbands. But she didn’t go to any such place, nor ever came close to going.
From time to time she heard from Sonny. Sometimes she saw him, often she thought about him. It seemed to her that it was time she made a decision about him. It had been a long time since he had taken her away in his hearse to Oak Cliff and brought her into womanhood. She had few regrets, but one regret she
did have was that both of them had fought so long against the notion of marriage. She had been almost forty before she got around to admitting to herself that he was, for better or worse, the only man in her life, and by then they had buffeted each other so long and so strangely that neither of them thought a marriage possible. They had something strong—no doubt of that—something essential, but it brought her no peace and could not be exchanged for peace or transformed into peace, and she had begun to want something more like peace. She thought of giving him up, shutting him out, but she never got around to it, and when he asked her to come to Amarillo she was no nearer a decision about him than she had ever been. The ranch was settling into its summer lethargy and she had idly considered and put off a trip to Scandinavia. When he called her the fourth time to demand that she come to Amarillo she acquiesced in five minutes. Peace was not so all-important, after all, and crucial decisions could be made in the fall, or during another spring.
She was a little surprised, after a few days, to discover him so listless. Listlessness was something she had never seen in Sonny. Usually they came together at times when they were both whetted for each other, but Sonny was not whetted at all. He was not even eating much. He had always taken meals as he had taken her, sometimes leisurely, sometimes quickly, but always with a relish that communicated itself at once. Yet in Amarillo he seemed to have lost both appetites, and it worried her.
Jim Carpenter didn’t worry her, not even when it became obvious that the crush he had on her was going to be a serious crush. His infatuation was as obvious to Sonny as it was to her. Sonny took it so for granted that it irked her a little. It was as if he had deliberately procured Jim to pay her courtesies and gallantries and small attentions so that he himself would not have to bother with her at all. Jim’s pleasure in her company was quite genuine, of course, but the fact didn’t lessen her irritation with Sonny.
When Sonny came in from Borger, not long after midnight, he was, as she had expected, more like his old self than he had been since her arrival. Rodeo was his world, and he was the biggest name in it. In Borger he had only to ride a horse into the arena to get a standing ovation; that and a couple of hours standing around the chutes talking to cowgirls and absorbing the adulation of young contestants had restored him. His official function had been to crown the rodeo queen, something he did with aplomb. The kiss he gave her was one of the high points of the young woman’s adolescence. He left the arena feeling good and whirled the hearse back over the plains, the wind whipping his shirt sleeves. When he came into the hotel suite, Eleanor was still sitting on the balcony watching the clouds. He emptied his bladder and pulled a chair up beside her. He crossed his feet on the stone railing and put his hand on the back of her neck.
“You’d have a balcony if you was to live in China,” he said.
“Lots of balconies in China,” she said. “I’ve been there. Did you crown the queen?”
“Yep. Tried to get old Jim a date with her but he wouldn’t have one. At least he got to see the sights of Borger.” He put his hand under her robe and rubbed her leg, squeezing occasionally so that she felt the strength of his fingers. “I think the only reason he went was because he thought you might go. He was talking about how depressed he was that he had to go in and call his wife. Can’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to talk to her, either. Sharp-talking little bitch. If he had slapped her down three or four times when they was first married she might have cut that out.”
“Slapping’s your method, is it?” she said. “Do you think my tongue is properly dulled?”
“Duller than Patsy Carpenter’s,” he said.
Eleanor moved her leg away from his hand. “Pawing’s your method too. That was a stupid thing you just said. Go back to your rodeo queen.”
He reached for her leg again but she scooted her chair out of reach.
“What I meant was that you ain’t ordinarily as mad at me as she is, day in and day out. I know you’re both smart as hell. You both got tongues like razor blades.”
“I don’t like to be compared to her,” she said. “Why is she mad at you, day in and day out? I didn’t know you saw her that often.”
“Ain’t seen her since February.” He scooted over so that he could put his hand on her neck again. She tried to pull away but he tightened his fingers and she couldn’t. She relaxed and he began to rub her gently behind the ears. It was enjoyable, but she was still irritated.
“What did you do to make her mad when you saw her in February?” she asked.
“Well, I never screwed her,” he said, “so why don’t you shut up about it. I came out here to enjoy the breeze, not to argue about her.”
“Fine,” she said, getting up suddenly. “You enjoy it. I’m going to bed. I obviously don’t interest you, anyway. Who have you been screwing, if not her?”
He looked away without answering, his expression a little sullen, and she went angrily into the bedroom and yanked the spread down on the bed. The thought of Patsy filled her with fury. She tried to imagine what could have taken place in February—a tussle of some kind, she imagined. She heard him get up from his chair and come into the room behind her, but she didn’t turn around.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, catching her shoulder. She shrugged loose and turned on him.
“You’re what’s the matter with me,” she said. “I just realized it. Who do you think I am?”
“A goddamn silly woman,” he said, growing angry but still trying to treat it lightly.
“Don’t call me silly,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing in the same county with you, much less the same bedroom. I didn’t come up here to sit on a balcony for a week while you cavort around with starlets and rodeo queens. You’ve hardly even looked at me since I’ve been here. I’m going home. I’m sick of you.”
“Shut up,” he said. “I didn’t come out here to start any fight. You’re too old to be acting this way.”
Eleanor’s arms were shaking. “I’m forty-four,” she said. “Forty-four. And I’ve wasted fifteen good years letting you push me around, just because you got to me at the right time, in the right way. Well, so long, buster, you’ve had me. Maybe it’s time I started on young men, since you’re so good with young women—starlets and bitchy young wives and the like. Maybe I’ll find me someone young.”
“Maybe you’ll get your goddamn teeth knocked out first,” he said, no longer trying to hide his anger.
“Cheap talk,” she said. “Go try and scare somebody else. You don’t have any guts, all you’ve got are big muscles and a big ego and a big mouth. Your heart’s the size of a knuckle and I don’t even think you have a brain. Well? My teeth are still clicking and my razor-sharp tongue is still slicing. I don’t see you doing anything about it.”
They stood quivering, two yards apart, neither moving. Both were filled with such uncertain rage that they couldn’t act. Eleanor was not sure whether to slap him or to run—for all her talk, he frightened her. Every time his arm moved she expected to be hit. For seconds they simply stood.
“I wouldn’t talk to a dog the way you talk to me,” Sonny said. “You call me gutless again and I’ll break your goddamn neck. Wasn’t for me, you never would have been screwed. None of them fairies you was brought up with had the guts to kiss you, much less do nothin’ else.”
“Thanks very much,” she said. “Thanks for fifteen years of your splendid charity. Now why don’t you get out and go help some other poor creature with her womanly troubles? I can get by on my own from now on, thank you.”
“Go on, then,” he said, turning away as if he meant to drop it. “Go back to your ranch and let Lucy get you fat. I guess you’ve worn everything out but your goddamn tongue, anyway.”
“You bastard!” she said, tears suddenly streaking her face. A purse of hers lay in a chair nearby. It had a long shoulder strap and as he turned away she grabbed the strap and swung the purse at his head as hard as she could. He had taken his eyes off her for a second and
the purse caught him on the neck, but his reflexes were very quick and before she could swing it again he grabbed the strap and yanked her toward him. She tried to cling to the purse but Sonny easily twisted it out of her hands. He whirled and threw it out the door and off the balcony. She tried to slap him but before she could swing her hand, he punched her on one shoulder so hard that she was knocked backwards and fell against the endboard of the bed. After the minutes of quivering, unsupported tension the shock of the hard bedboard against her back was almost a relief. Sonny reached down and caught her by the shoulder, meaning to pull her up, but she writhed and kicked at him and managed to scoot away. “Get out, you bastard,” she said. “I wish I’d broken your neck.” And she did. The whop of the purse against his head had been very satisfying. Undignified as it was to be crouched on the floor glaring at him, her shoulder slightly numb and her side aching, still she felt good, felt she had won. He had said the unforgivable, finally, and she had struck back as hard as she could, and she was sure, for a moment, that that did it, finished it, made it over. After that remark he would never be able to reach her again. She looked him in the face, not at all scared, indeed triumphant, proud that finally she had outdone him, berated him into a mistake that he could not undo. Her lips curled. For a second in the battle she was enjoying herself.
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