In Fort Stockton he had an impulse to stop and call her but he knew if he stopped Clara would wake up and he didn’t want to try and explain a call. He drove for two more hours, wishing he could hear Patsy’s voice and be with her again. It seemed to him he had not meant to leave. Bad luck of various kinds had forced them apart. But then it occurred to him that she probably wouldn’t want him back, that his leaving had been something final, and he simply felt lonely and confused. Clara woke up, a little puffy, still silent, and she made him feel no better.
“How much farther to El Paso?”
“Two hours.”
It seemed a week, but they finally got there and into a motel. They were too tired to ball. The inclination had left them. Jim thought for long stretches about calling Patsy but he didn’t, not until the next day, when they were stopped in Phoenix.
“Is Davey okay?” he asked.
Patsy’s voice sounded strained. “That’s a fatuous thing to ask, under the circumstances,” she said bitterly. “Nothing’s wrong. We’re both making out fine.”
“You don’t have to sound so tough,” he said, and then they argued about the last visit. They got nowhere. He was in a phone booth and a woman stood outside waiting impatiently. He hoped Patsy would ask him when he intended to come home, but she didn’t and they didn’t mention Clara.
That night they made Yuma, both of them silent and despondent. They had looked forward to the trip as an adventure, and it had turned out to be merely a hard drive. It had seemed lovely in prospect; in fact it was merely tiring. If they had been deeply involved they might have fought, but as it was they were not at all angry with each other. They were in separate depressions. They knew well enough that they were not deeply involved. They didn’t think it likely that they would stay with each other forever, or even for long, but their states were such that they would have been lonelier apart than they were together.
“Well, screw the desert,” Clara said. “It’s ugly, isn’t it?”
“Most of it.”
Then Jim recalled that he had a buddy in Los Angeles, a college chum from Dallas who worked for IBM. “Maybe we ought to see him when we go through. He could probably get me a job. Imagine me at IBM.”
“Maybe he can get me one too,” Clara said. “Imagine me at IBM.”
The next morning their spirits lifted. Patsy began to slip out of Jim’s mind for longer and longer stretches. It was so far back to Texas that it was ludicrous to think of returning until he had actually seen California. They crossed the mountains and drove into San Diego, and Clara’s spirits rose higher and higher as they approached the coast. She became more girlish; her sober driving mood gave way to a mood more whimsical. It was a fine sunny day. “Hey, there’s a great zoo here,” she said. “Let’s go see it. You took me to a zoo, now I’ll take you to one.” So they spent two hours wandering the San Diego zoo and then drove up the coast toward L.A., listening to a wild soul station. The music no longer seemed out of tune with the country.
“God, I’m glad you came with me,” Clara said suddenly. “It’s so much better to come home with somebody. I can show you some really good places.”
“Just show me how to get through L.A.,” Jim said. He had meant to stop and call his friend, and also perhaps Sonny Shanks, who had an apartment in L.A., but it began to seem too complicated and they decided to go straight on to Santa Barbara.
As they drew nearer to Los Angeles, the freeway widened; soon they were moving in a wide current of cars. Jim was used to freeways, but he had never seen so many cars. It was growing dark and the cars were beginning to turn their lights on. There were thousands of taillights in front of him, thousands of headlights behind him. Clara was swinging her hands with the music. All the cars were moving fast, seventy, seventy-five. The freeway widened again and was still full. After three days of desert, the great emptiness that had stretched for half a continent, the suddenness and speed of the cars in their thousands was unnerving. It was only as the great current of traffic swept them into L.A. that Jim began to relax a little. He began to feel secure in his spot, in his lane, and the spectacle of the river of cars was astonishing, almost majestic. After years on the tributaries he had finally reached the Father of Waters, where traffic was concerned. From every entrance cars poured into the freeway. Jim was in a strange, tired, trancelike state and for a few miles he enjoyed the flood of cars. It was as if the whole country was emptying itself into the freeways of Los Angeles—cars from all over America, leaving garages, creeping down country roads, moving out of little towns, swarming out of suburbs, millions of them flowing toward the river he was in, leaving the long regions of the country empty again, not even Indians to disturb it, not even buffaloes. Everyone had come to California, or if not, they were on their way.
With Clara’s expert help he made it through Los Angeles and followed a thinner flow on north, out of the Los Angeles basin and into Santa Barbara. When they got there Clara decided she didn’t feel up to her folks just then. It had been a long day, the third long day in a row. “Let’s arrive about noon tomorrow,” she said, so once again they got a motel, went to bed, and watched TV.
9
WHEN JIM HAD BEEN GONE three days Patsy finally got around to grappling with the problem of Christmas cards. She had the cards picked out and the envelopes addressed but the problem was how to sign the cards. Jim’s one call had been very unsatisfactory, and as the silence lengthened, the colder and bitterer she felt toward him. Yet, alternating with the bitterness, she had periods of worry. She even reproached herself for letting him go. She could have stopped him if she had really cared to, and it seemed to her that going to California with Clara Clark was a folly he ought not to have been permitted. He was probably very unhappy; she kept feeling that she ought to think of some way to get him out of the stupid mess he was in. She ought to make him come back home, and she ought to really try to make the marriage work.
But he didn’t call, and it made her cold and sad and ate at what hope she had for them. He could call. If he didn’t, there was nothing she could do.
She had planned to sign the cards “Patsy, Jim, and Davey,” but his absence made that seem wrong. She could sign them “The Carpenters,” but she didn’t like that. She could sign them “Patsy and Davey,” but she liked that even less. One morning she sat at what had been Jim’s desk desultorily signing them “Patsy, Jim and Davey,” on the grounds that they might all be together again, when there was a knock at the door and a delivery boy handed her a box with a dozen long-stemmed roses in it. She was amazed. She could not remember when anyone had given her flowers. Since her marriage she had always bought them for herself. There was no card with them and she puzzled about it while she arranged them. Bits of the ferns they were packed with dropped to the floor, and Davey, who was at his usual station at her elbow, picked the bits off the kitchen floor, surveyed them, and tasted them.
They were not likely to be from Hank. He had not called again, either, and would not send flowers, because he didn’t know that Jim was gone. That being the case, they were more likely to be from Jim. Either he had sent them out of pure guilt, or in a moment of fondness, or as a means of preparing the way for his homecoming. On the whole Patsy suspected the latter. It had probably blown up with Clara. He was probably driving back and had sent the roses to soften her up.
For a while the possibility perked her up. Whether she wanted him back for good was one question, but it would be nice to have him back at least temporarily in order to settle that question. Nothing could be much sloppier than the situation as it stood.
Her spirits rose, and while they were high the phone rang. She was prepared for Jim—for his nicest apologetic voice. Instead she got the voice of Sonny Shanks.
“Mornin’,” he said.
“Oh, mornin’ yourself,” she said. “You sound like Gary Cooper.”
“Wish I did. How’s Texas?”
“Fine. Where are you?”
“I’m one block from the famous
Sunset Strip, in Los Angeles. Far enough to suit you?”
“Perfect. Why are you calling, if I may ask?”
“To see if you got them flowers I sent you,” he said.
“Oh, shit,” she said, her spirits taking an immediate downcurve.
“You’re welcome,” Sonny said blithely.
“Oh, hush. I didn’t say thank you. I’m most ungrateful. They’re very nice roses, but really.”
“Really what?”
Patsy wanted to cry. If he had sent them it meant the situation was as sloppy as ever.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m upset. Why did you send me roses, now of all times?”
“I thought you might be blue. Your wanderin’ husband called last night from Santa Barbara. Wants me to get him a job in pictures.”
“I see,” she said. “So you’re pouncing, are you? When will I have to chase you off my doorstep?”
“Uh, not before late February, I guess,” Sonny said. “That’s when the rodeo comes to Houston. I ain’t in pictures no more, so I’ll probably be there. I sent you the flowers because I thought you might be blue, like I said.”
“Well, you were right, I’m blue,” she said, chastened. “Thank you, Sonny.”
“No time of year for you to be down in the mouth,” he said.
“I am, anyway. How did he sound?”
“Just like Jim.”
“Did he have any plans, beyond a career in pictures?”
“I think he just mostly wanted to know if I was around. I imagine if he comes to L.A. I’ll be gettin’ to see a lot of him.”
“Well, you deserve to. If you hadn’t given him that tacky job last summer he would never have left and about a hundred bad things might not have happened. You ought to have to take care of him for a while.”
“I can barely take care of myself.”
“The hell you can’t,” she said. “You can take care of yourself. You should leave babes in the woods like us alone. Did he mention a girl?”
“Yeah. He sort of drew me a picture.”
“I wish the bastard would draw me one. I’m sick of the picture I’m looking at.”
“You ought to come out and join the fun. I gotta go to Las Vegas tomorrow. Be glad to have you along.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I’d just spoil the fun. Thank you again for the roses.”
“Sure. Stay beautiful like you are.”
“My looks are wrecked,” she said. “Probably if you could see me you wouldn’t bother sending me flowers. Could I ask you a favor? It doesn’t seem like he intends to call and let me know what he’s doing. If you learn of any serious plans I wish you’d let me know. Do it collect.”
“Sure,” he said. “Maybe I’ll pay you a visit in February.”
“Why not? I’ll have a house then. If you’ll promise to be very proper you can come and I’ll serve you tea.”
“I always act proper in Texas. It’s crazy places like L.A. that stir me up.”
“Thanks for calling,” she said. “Have fun in Las Vegas.”
She fixed the roses and finished the Christmas cards and went out and got a tiny tree big enough for a small corner table she had. While she was cooking supper Jim called from a phone booth in Santa Barbara.
“I don’t believe it,” she said. “She let you out of her sight long enough for you to call.”
“Don’t bitch at me,” he said. “I called twice and you were out.”
“Does your friend bitch at you?”
“If you just want to fight I’m going to hang up,” Jim said.
“You know my evil disposition. Your friend Sonny Shanks called this morning. He also sent me flowers. I understand you’ve spread the word about us.”
“I didn’t see any reason not to tell him.”
“I suppose there isn’t any. I also understand you’re hoping to get into movies.”
“I was just inquiring. I might stay out here awhile if I could get some kind of job.”
Patsy ceased to feel hard. She felt hurt. “I don’t understand you,” she said. “Did I not know you all that time? Haven’t you missed us at all?”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “God, yes. But if I come right back you know we’ll just fight and fight and fight over all this.”
“Fighting’s better than nothingness,” she said. “What about our house?”
“It doesn’t seem central. It’s nice, but what’s the good of living together if we just do nothing but fight? A house wouldn’t make that much difference.”
“Okay,” she said. “It seems central to me. How do you know how we’d be in a house?”
“We’d be the same people, wherever we were.”
Patsy gave up. The more she said, the more humiliated she felt. He asked about Davey; she told him what little there was to tell. He said he would call again Christmas and she said she would probably be in Dallas. When he hung up she felt desperately low and called Hank. She got his aunt. He was in Lubbock, looking for a job, and was not expected back for two or three days. Patsy left word for him to call her whenever he arrived, and she felt a little better. After she had cried her depression out she felt it was just as well Hank hadn’t been there. She would have been unable to resist asking him to come back at once, and it was still too soon for that. Besides, she didn’t love him, she only missed him; it would just make things messier. Jim had sounded very uncertain beneath his assurance. He could still make any number of unforeseen moves.
The following evening, just after she had had a long and harrowing telephone conversation with her mother, in which she had agreed to come to Dallas for Christmas, a knock came at the door and Pete Tatum stood on the landing. For a moment she was dumfounded.
“Good evenin’,” he said. “Tried to call but your line was busy.”
“You cowboys,” she said. “Peewee’s at the zoo, Sonny calls—you had to be next. Where’s Boots?”
She held the door open and Pete came in. He looked heavier than he had; his face was too fleshy. When she looked at him closely she saw that he didn’t look well. He went straight over to Davey, who had stopped in mid-crawl when he saw a strange man enter. Pete squatted down and said hello to him. Davey was as dumfounded as his mother had been, and he looked to her for reassurance.
“No Boots?” she asked again.
“No,” he said. “She’s in Fort Worth, pregnant as hell. We may get the stork this year instead of Santy Claus.”
“Oh, good,” Patsy said, delighted. “Will it really be that soon?”
“It may be sooner. I just hope I get home in time. Where’s old Jim?”
“Well, it’s a long story,” she said. “If I can keep your mind off the stork long enough to feed you, let me go fix some dinner and I’ll tell you while we eat.”
“Okay,” he said. “While you’re cooking I’ll get acquainted with your son.”
As she cooked, she heard the low sounds of Pete’s voice talking to Davey. She had not been eating much and her larder was not too well stocked, but she decided against running out to replenish it. She had canned soup, a green salad, and sandwiches of peppered beef and cheese. Fixing the meal brought her spirits up. She didn’t like to cook just for herself and it was not yet possible to cook for Davey. Jim and the whole situation slipped out of her mind and she hummed as she set the table.
Once Davey accepted someone, he accepted them without reservations, and he had accepted Pete. It was difficult to talk during supper, he accepted him so well. He kept banging spoons and spluttering and otherwise trying to keep Pete’s attention. Patsy didn’t try to tell the long story; they chatted. She felt cheerful, but it was not the blind cheerfulness she had once been prone to, and watching Pete across the table troubled her. Though he had kept his presence and his small ironic smile, he was not quite the same man. The heaviness of his face bespoke a sadness, a disappointment, and it was particularly evident when he dropped into silence for a moment. He told her he had quit clowning, or almost quit. Although he was returni
ng to Fort Worth from working a rodeo in Harlingen, it was the only show he had worked in three months. He had finally accepted a job as a car salesman for his father-in-law in Fort Worth.
“It was about my best out,” he said. “Traveling wasn’t no fun for Boots, once she got big, and she don’t like for me to go off and leave her. I wasn’t making enough money at it, anyway, not really.”
“I’m glad you quit,” Patsy said. “It was a ridiculous profession, anyway, and you know it. It’s okay for a nut like Sonny who’s got no dependents. He sent me those flowers in the living room when he heard Jim left me. It was high time you quit rodeo.”
But part of her could not believe her own words, not when she looked at him. He was dressed as she had always seen him dressed, in Levi’s and a faded Western shirt. It was hard to imagine him in a white shirt, a tie and a cheap suit, standing on a windy car lot in Fort Worth. It would only be dull for him, and empty, and the dullness and emptiness were already settling in his face.
“Still, I guess you miss it,” she said, remembering the night he had taken her so firmly by the arm to lead her in to her unconscious husband. And the day they stopped to eat breakfast together on the drive to Laramie. And the time they had held hands in the park in Cheyenne. And he and Boots leaving Amarillo, with Boots in tears because Joe Percy had given her a box of candy.
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