by Cindy Brown
I put that line in just for Chance. “Then by whose authority do you act?” I said.
He pointed the gun at me. “Smith and Wesson’s.”
I raised my rifle too.
“Come on, pretty thing. Put down that gun. Women like you are made for lovin’, not for fightin.’”
“I ain’t afraid to love a man,” I said. “I ain’t afraid to shoot him either.” Ha. Annie Oakley really said that.
“But here’s the problem. I ain’t afraid of no gal with a gun. You know why?”
I shook my head.
“Everything I can do,” he began.
“Louder,” I said in my director voice “And don’t talk, sing. You know the tune.” I’d sent Chance a YouTube link of the original song.
He sang: “Everything I can do, you do much badder. Everything you do is badder than me.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.” I aimed at the bell hanging from the saloon porch.
“Yes, it—”
Bam! Clang! The saloon bell rang right on cue. It really did look like I shot it.
Chance lowered his gun. “Where in the world did that come from?”
“Nathan pulled the fishing line attached to the bell.”
“I know that. The song.”
“Annie Get Your Gun. It’s that song, ‘Anything I Can Do.’”
“I know that, but ‘badder’? Is that a word?”
“It is now. And we’re moving on, people,” I yelled. I loved being a director.
The rest of the gunfight went smoothly. Even Nathan seemed impressed when the flour sack blew up. At first. “Are we going to need a new flour sack every show?” he grumbled.
“Just every other show. You can turn the sack around and use the other side.”
After the gunfight, the rehearsal for the melodrama seemed tame. Frank held up the signs for the audience, practiced leading the boos and hisses and applause, and helped me change my costumes. He also agreed to wear a miner’s outfit, said he had something that fit the bill.
When rehearsal was over, I changed back into street clothes and left by the stage door, the last one out of the opera house. Chance was waiting for me, holding the keys. He waited until I cleared the door, then locked the theater behind me.
“Hey, Chance,” I said. “You ever hear anything about Mongo and a business deal?” Maybe Billie had mentioned something.
“Mongo? No way.” He snorted. “Didn’t have the brains for business.”
“That’s what I thought. Somebody told me he was about as bright as that Blazing Saddles character.” No one really did, but maybe I’d get more out of Chance if he thought we were both down on Mongo.
I waited. Nope. Nothing more.
Still, I’d created an opening for my next line of questioning. “Mongo was a nickname, right? Not a stage name, I mean, since he wasn’t really an actor. Chance Keeler is a way better stage name.”
“It’s my real name.” Chance began walking down the road to the parking lot. I had to do double-time to keep up with him.
“Come on, actor to actor. My real name is Olive Ziegwart.” To show him what a casual conversation this was, I added, “It means ‘victory nipple’ in German.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“What?” My dad had been telling us that all our lives.
“It means guardian of victory. Well, I guess it could mean victory nipple. ‘Sieg’ does mean a victor, and German for nipple is ‘brustwarz.’ Breast-wart.”
“Breast-wart? Wow, even better.”
“It is?” Chance was a literal kind of guy.
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
A look of panic flashed across Chance’s face at my innocuous question. Huh. He hurriedly composed himself, but picked up his pace. I could barely keep up. “Wagner,” he said, using the Germanic pronunciation.
“Wagner?”
“I studied opera.”
“In Wyoming?”
I swear I saw that panicked look again, just briefly, before Chance scowled. “I am an actor, you know. We studied the classics. And when we studied opera, we learned some German and Italian. Didn’t you?”
I had only attended community college (money issues), and I had never studied opera, so I kept quiet. The fact did not escape Chance.
Chance gave a little “I knew it” snort. “So the girl from Arizona should not make fun of the man from Wyoming. Especially since we study shooting there too.”
I tried to keep up with Chance as we walked to the parking lot, but soon gave up. By the time I reached the lot, the only sign he’d been there was the cloud of dust his Jeep left behind.
I walked toward my truck, and wow. Mingled with smell of dust was another one. Someone had been smoking a particularly potent type of weed. Couldn’t have been Chance or Frank, since they’d been in rehearsal with me. I guess it could’ve been Nathan, but he didn’t seem like the stoner type.
Probably some kids from Wickenberg decided that this parking lot was a good spot to get high. It was always pretty empty when the Gulch was closed. But wow, this, um, fragrance was worse than Pink’s cigarettes.
The skunky smell got stronger as I neared my pickup. What did they do, sit in the back of my truck and smoke?
Maybe they had. The smell was definitely concentrated around my pickup. So much so that I slowed down and took a good look. No one in the bed of the truck. I peered into the cab. The sun had set, the light fading to gray, but I would have been able to see anyone inside. No one. I opened the door. I decided to lock it from that time forward, because…Whoa. I was nearly bowled over by the smell—and by something else. It ran toward the open door: a tiny, terrified, incredibly cute, and unbelievably smelly baby skunk.
Chapter 54
Romantic relationships were not my forte. Oh, I liked men, and they liked me. I’d had a few boyfriends, even sort of serious ones, but something always seemed to happen. I suspected that something was me.
But even forewarned with this superficial bit of insight into my personality, I still managed to blow any chance I had at happiness with a man. And I was doing it again.
I stood in the corner of the living room, watching the party at Cody’s group home swirl around me. It was an unusual mix of people: college students, guys with cognitive disabilities and their family members, and a few neighbors. They were all celebrating Matt’s upcoming graduation, and I was hiding in a corner.
Cody ran up to me. “Isn’t this great?” Cody loved parties. “I picked out the cake.” The cake crumbs on his blue shirt told me he’d sampled it too. “Why are you over here?” He sniffed the air. “And why do you smell funny?”
I’d done what I could to air out the truck. I’d taken a shower, washed my hair, and changed clothes, but…“There was a skunk in my car.”
“Oh.” Cody considered this information for a minute. I expected him to ask me why, but the mystery of the skunk was not the question he wanted answered. “Okay. But why are you over here?”
“I…have a headache.” I lowered my voice. “Why are you having this party now?” I was a little afraid that Cody or Matt had already told me this too and I’d forgotten, self-involved creature that I was. “Matt doesn’t graduate for another two weeks.”
“Stu will be on vacation with his family.” Stu, a good guy with Down Syndrome, was Cody’s best friend at the group home. “They’re going to England. He’s going to bring me back a rock.” Cody had recently begun collecting rocks. A nice inexpensive hobby, but a heavy one. “Hey, would you get me one from Gold Bug Gulch? Maybe one with gold in it?”
“Even better, you can pick one up yourself. You’re going to come see my show pretty soon, right?” Matt had told me he would
bring him out.
“Right.” He frowned past me at the cake table, which had been set upon by bunch of his roommates. “Uh-oh. I better get a piece of cake for Sarah now.” He ran off, wobbling a bit as he often did when he was excited. Part of his brain injury.
I stayed in my corner.
Two people inside my brain were fighting, circling round and round, and occasionally throwing each other to the mat. One of my little mind wrestlers was a romantic optimist: “Cody’s excited about Matt’s graduation. This is the perfect time to tell him about you and Matt.” The other half of my brain, the security-conscious pessimist said, “No, wait. You’ve got two more weeks. A lot can happen in two weeks. Take that time. Protect everyone.”
Because my mind was deep in its wrestling match, I didn’t notice Matt come up beside me until he touched me on the arm. Sarah stood behind him, smiling shyly over his shoulder. Cody followed her with two plates of cake.
Matt put an arm around my waist. He pulled me close to him, then frowned. “Have you been smoking pot?” he whispered into my ear.
“What? No. Oh,” I said. “Skunk.”
“Much better,” he said, and then…
“He kissed you!” Cody looked at me, wide-eyed.
“On the lips,” said Sarah.
Matt watched me. I knew what I should say. “He’s just excited, a graduation party and all.” That wasn’t what I should’ve said. But it’s what I said.
“I’m done with school in two weeks,” Matt said quietly, giving me another chance. “And I start my new job in a month.”
“I bet the guys are going to miss you.” I was swimming away from the life ring Matt had tossed, but the security wrestler had pinned my romantic optimist to the mat. Nothing I could do. Matt’s arm dropped from my waist.
“I am,” said Cody. “But he’s going to come see me a lot. Right?”
“You bet.” Matt turned to me. “Are you going to miss me?”
What did that mean? Was Matt trying to get me to confess our relationship in front of Cody? Or was he threatening to break up with me?
“There you are.” A short older woman bustled toward us. She had Matt’s curly hair and his gray eyes but none of his relaxed ease. Instead, she looked as tightly wound as a home permanent.
“Hi, Mom.” Matt stepped away from me. “You know Cody.”
“Hi.” Cody stuck out his hand and she shook it gingerly.
“And his girlfriend, Sarah.” Sarah gave a little wave and half hid behind Cody, maybe because she caught the disapproving look that flashed across Matt’s mom’s face.
“And this is Ivy,” Matt said. “Cody’s sister.”
“It’s so nice to meet you.” Matt’s mom pressed my hand. “Interesting perfume, dear. Don’t they call that Mary Jane?” Great, Matt’s mom thought I’d smoked a joint before the party. She turned back to Matt. “That was Daphne who called. She said to tell you that she is so sorry she couldn’t make it, but with the baby so close…”
Matt’s older sister was due in the next few weeks. First grandkid for his folks. Everyone was pretty excited. “That’s the reason I’m here now,” she said to me. “You know, at this party instead of the actual graduation ceremony. Don’t want to miss our new baby boy.” Back to Matt: “And you know Katie was just sick that she couldn’t make it, but she couldn’t leave her folks.” To me: “Katie’s dad has the Alzheimer’s. She moved back home to take care of him and her mom and manage the farm. Of course, she still works too. Her company is letting her telephone-commute—is that what you call it?”
Katie? Matt had just the one sister, Daphne. I glanced at him, but he was focused on his mom. And his jaw was clenched.
“Everyone is so proud she’s doing so well. Did she tell you she got a promotion?” she asked Matt.
“Mom.” The muscles in Matt’s neck stood out like wires.
“In fact, her company is flying her to Paris next month. I’m going to stay with her folks then, because, well, she can’t miss Paris. Oh.” She still smiled at Matt, but her eyes narrowed, a gray-eyed fox. “You’ll have some time off then too. Maybe you could go too, and—”
“Mom.”
“Who’s Katie?” I said brightly, hoping it would look like I was defusing the tension when I really just wanted to know who this annoyingly fabulous Katie was.
“Oh, didn’t you know?” his mom said. “Katie is Matt’s fiancée.”
The pessimist wrestler in my head said, “match over,” but I summoned an enormous amount of willpower and pulled Matt out of the party to a far corner of the backyard. His mom probably thought I needed a hit. “Katie?” I said.
“Ex-fiancée,” Matt said. “Ex.” He stood close, but faced away from me.
“Don’t you think you should have mentioned it?” I said. “Something like, oh, I was supposed to get married once…Wait. When were you supposed to get married?” Matt had dated my friend Candy before me. He never said too much about his romantic life prior to that.
Matt didn’t say anything. This was uncharacteristic.
“When?” I repeated.
“Well, after Candy and I broke up…”
“After?”
“I went home for a week, and…”
“I remember. We were already friends. In fact, I remember you saying something about me being your best friend, which was obviously not true because—”
“Ivy, just shut up for a minute.”
Whoa.
“This is what happened. I went home and reconnected with my high school sweetheart.”
“Re-connected. Huh. Is that a euphemism for—?”
“Ivy.”
I shut my mouth, but I finally understood those cartoons where steam came out people’s ears. I thought it literally might.
“We talked a lot, about old times, about our families, about how we used to think we’d get married and…” I heard him swallow, even from two feet away. “She got the wrong idea.”
“That sounds like wishful thinking, not an ex-fiancée.”
“Yeah, well, things went a little further than they should have before I broke it off.”
“How far?”
“Katie said something to my mom, who was so excited she gave her my grandma’s engagement ring.”
“Your mom gave Katie a ring?”
“She always wanted Katie and me to get together. Now even more, since she thinks it might bring me back home to Grand Island.” He made a frustrated noise deep in his throat. “You’d have to know my mom.”
“I guess, so, because this sounds like some pretty fancy sidestepping, mister.”
“Fancy sidestepping?”
“Don’t try to distract me. You know what I mean.” I walked away from him. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” That dang mental wrestler said, “Told you to protect yourself,” then he whispered something else. “Wait,” I said. “Why does your mom think you’re still engaged?”
“Well…”
I waited. Not long, but as long as I could. “Why, Matt?”
“Katie still has the ring.”
“What?”
“I told her to give the ring back, but Mom wouldn’t take it and…you’d have to know my mom.”
“Fine. Let’s go get to know her.” I stared walking toward the house. “And you can tell her you’re not engaged anymore.”
“And tell her about us?”
I stopped walking. I didn’t mean to. And it was just for a second.
But it was a second too long.
Chapter 55
It was way too early in the morning. I was nursing a “fight with my boyfriend” hangover (and maybe a little one from the beers I drank afterward). I hadn’t heard a peep from Arizona Center Stage. I was tromping through the desert outside Sunnydale searching for a dog I loved who had probably been eaten by a
coyote or died of dehydration or run over by a car. In short, I was a little depressed.
So when my phone rang, I nearly didn’t pick up. It was Arnie, and I didn’t want to tell him about my lack of news about Lassie or the feeling I was beginning to have about Gold Bug: that someone was sabotaging his newest venture. But my mother did raise me to be polite, and that means answering my phone when it rings. I picked up.
“And how are you this fine morning?” Arnie chortled. Glad someone was in a good mood. “Guess what? I hacked into Nathan’s computer.”
“You what?” Arnie was no computer whiz. Maybe he bought a new gadget. I should find out what it was, might come in handy.
“Hacked?” Marge was on the other line. “He means he looked at Nathan’s laptop when he left the room to take a leak.”
“Same difference,” said Arnie.
“Anyway…” I said.
“Anyway, I found the employee records. Chance’s real name is Gun. Great name for a cowboy, right?”
“Gun? Someone named their kid Gun?”
“No,” said Marge. “They named him Gunther. Somebody put a nickel in Arnie’s slot this morning, is all.”
Arnie chuckled.
“Wow,” I said. “Gunther seems almost as unlikely. Must have been teased like crazy, growing up in Wyoming.”
“Wyoming?” said Arnie. “No. I saw something about a visa.”
“A visa? For Chance—I mean Gunther?”
“Yeah,” said Arnie. “Gunther Schmidt is from Munich. Hey, you want to come over for breakfast?”
After I picked up donuts (which was what Arnie was really angling for), I went to Marge and Arnie’s house, where we had a nice breakfast, and I drank about a gallon of Marge’s good coffee. I didn’t offer any information about Lassie, and they didn’t ask.
“So Nathan said you’re gonna do the gunfight.” Arnie propped his walking cast on an ottoman and put his after-breakfast cigar in his mouth. As usual, he didn’t light it. I think it was more of a tasty prop than anything else.
“As Annie Oakley. I thought we’d tie it in to the melodrama. Maybe we’ll draw a bigger crowd.” The gunfight was free to watch. The melodrama cost ten bucks (five for kids).