by Tina Welling
Caro’s ruby Buick glides soundlessly into my side yard. Bo seems irked to see her here and doesn’t go to the door to welcome her with me. Instead, he leans against the kitchen sink and watches Caro and me blunder through stiff greetings to each other. Caro is dressed in black English riding pants tucked into shiny boots with a silky man-styled shirt blousing from her belted waist. The purple shirt looks good with her long auburn hair and argent eyes. She is taller than I am but smaller-boned or maybe just thinner. I feel solid and grounded beside her, as if her bones were hollow, like a bird’s.
I finish packing my beads to get it all out of sight quickly as I can, but she is asking the dreaded questions anyway: What are you making? Is this your hobby? She picks up my container of Balinese silver bead spacers.
“I never wear anything but gold. Do you?”
Because of the way she stands looking around my kitchen, at the black gummy spots rubbed through on the linoleum, and the way Bo observes the two of us as if he’s bought a ticket for this show and has no responsibility for its success, I answer her question rudely.
“I don’t like to support gold mines, like the one trying to destroy Yellowstone up in Cooke City.” I’ve become an instant environmentalist. If she’s read more than the single article I’ve read in the local weekly, I’m in big trouble.
I scoop up the last of my beads and watch Caro think how she’d like to tell me that I’m obviously too poor to buy gold. I know right off I’m outside the curve of Caro’s lens. She is here because Bo is, and the refracted light rays of her focus do not converge on my image. Like Tolly the cat, she is merely wondering what use or hindrance I might be.
Behind a thumb pressing against his lower lip, Bo smiles at my answer, but doesn’t look directly at either Caro or me.
I carry my bead case into the other room. I’m not usually bold enough to be rude. I have always needed approval too much. But something has shifted in me lately. As if I’m discovering some inner family of friends who will take the place of those lately dropped by the roadside: my mother; my husband; my stepson off at school; my father, whose narrow vision and dark negativity has become narrower and darker witnessing my mother’s slow, unstoppable fade.
I pause before the woodstove, warm my hands, and realize that somewhere along the way I have inwardly acknowledged that my mother has indeed begun an irreversible decline, if for no other reason than once begun she has not the personal power or will to alter much of anything. Never has. To be honest, she began to back out of life years ago. That’s what alcoholism is all about.
I return to the kitchen and see Caro sauntering around it. Several times she reaches out to touch things of mine, but repeatedly draws her hand back, as if she’s fearful mites will jump out on her. The kitchen looks great, if you ask me. It’s the one room I feel at home in. I sit at the table on a bench I found weathering behind my shed, and I read by the pin-up lamp on the wall, hung just below the shelf that holds my books and the bird’s nest and a jar of wildflowers. I write in my journal at this table and sip my coffee.
But my contentment with this cozy log room isn’t entrenched firmly enough to be safe from someone’s disapproval. I struggle against the vision of this room flipping from my cocky celebration of color and the outdoors brought inside to the shabbiness Caro sees. It seems that if I key my look before me to the watery colors of the table and chairs and on toward the red geranium on the windowsill over the sink, it stays mine. If I focus on the bleak green coverings of the floor and the countertops or the once-white refrigerator now yellowing, the chrome flaking off the door handle, it becomes the room she sees.
“So”—Caro looks for a place to sit—“I guess I should have brought something to drink.”
“Oh.” I jump to action. “I’ve made some lemon bread. We can have tea.” I dart around for the tea bags and cups, I reach for the bread, still cooling in the pan, leaping from one task before it’s completed to the other. Tossing over my shoulder to Caroline that she should have a seat.
Bo takes the bread pan from me. “You fix the tea, Suz,” he says. He misinterprets my look of panic. “—Zannah,” he finishes.
Caroline brushes nonexistent crumbs or dust from a kitchen chair.
I calm myself while water runs into the kettle. I remember to be grateful that I have something to offer a guest. Bo cooks—he fixed scalloped potatoes and Mexican pea soup from the leftover ham—but says he never bakes, so I figured that could be my contribution. And I love baking breads and desserts. I take a deep breath. The kitchen aromas are a good mix of warm lemon bread and pine boughs from the open window.
Finally seated, Caroline says, “Tea?” As in “I don’t think so.”
I look. She is smiling benevolently. “Blackberry,” I announce, trying to arouse interest.
“I’ll just have…water, I guess.”
I bring her a glass of water. “Ice cubes,” she reminds me quietly, as if I’m a maid who has forgotten her training.
I don’t have any ice cubes. Water comes out of the tap cold enough to hurt your teeth. I use the tiny freezer for Eskimo Bars and a bag of frozen baby limas.
“Bo?” Caro says.
Bo looks at me. “I’ll just run to the house and get some Scotch for Caro. Be back before your water boils.”
Oh God, he’s leaving me alone with her. “No,” I say, “I’ll get the Scotch. You tell me where.”
I’m acting silly. I’ve never even been to Bo’s house. But Bo doesn’t point that out. He simply says I’ll find the liquor in the cupboard above the sink and thanks me, as if I’m saving him from an ordeal. On my way out the door, car keys in hand, I realize I may be painting a picture of neighborliness that will cause unease for him with Caroline. I’m beginning to wonder what exactly is going on between them. So I ask if he lives in the house I’ve seen from the hill or the trailer beside it.
“The house,” he answers. He hands me a plastic bag. “Get some ice cubes, too.”
On the short drive over, I have to admit more than the fear of being alone with Caroline propelled me out of the house. I feel off-balance wondering about their possible involvement. All she says is Bo? and he knows what she wants. I practice out loud in the car. “Bo?” Haughtier. “Bo?” And the really irksome part: He jumps to meet her desires.
I pull my Subaru into the drive and go in the back door. Bo’s kitchen looks immaculate. I’m impressed. But then he’s been busy the past few days making mine a mess, not his. The real test would be the bathroom, but I’m not going to snoop around. In situations like this, I act as though cameras are aimed at me, tape recorders are counting footfalls. I do exactly what I’m sent to do and barely let myself see anything between back door and liquor cupboard.
On the drive back to my cabin I reprimand myself for feeling threatened by Caroline. Maybe she stopped by to get to know me, just as Bo said. After all, she’s new in the valley, too. Why did I get so defensive about my cabin and my jewelry? Why did I get as slitty eyed as a high school girl about a competitor for Bo’s attentions?
The fact is I need to ease up on the time Bo and I spend together. Though I savor his attention and care, I’m sending the wrong signals by accepting both. I’ve lived here little more than a week, and we’ve eaten half our dinners together. It just happens without my noticing. We’re also sharing his post-office box—he got a second key for me—because the waiting list is so long. Last night, as we walked up the butte again after dinner, I wondered out loud why Lower Valley Power and Light said I didn’t need to make a deposit for electricity like everybody else does and learned from Bo that the cabin’s electricity is included in his bill.
“It is? What’s that mean?”
“It means I haven’t gotten around to separating the two places into having their own meters.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I don’t know about this.”
“We’re wired together,” he joked. “And you can’t get wired to any other man until I cut you loose first.”
“You’re flirting with me again,” I warned.
“Damn right and I’m sorry as hell.” He was grinning hugely.
“How come you don’t ask me about my divorce?”
“How come you don’t talk to me about it?”
“Not ready yet, I guess.”
“That’s why I don’t ask.”
And then there’s that deal about Bo letting me borrow his appliances. Unless I’ve got that wrong and he’s really borrowing mine. To make matters worse, his washer and dryer don’t work, so he’s bringing laundry over one of these days—at my invitation.
When I return with the Scotch, Caroline rises to get something from her car. Bo fixes her drink and one for himself. I stick with tea. Caroline returns with a fancy gift bag, silky ribbons streaming from its handles, and presents it to me.
“Welcome to the valley,” she says. “I hope we can be friends.”
I am awash with guilt for my suspicions and unfriendliness. I gush over the beautiful wrapping and hope Caroline is disclaiming her first impressions of me as fast as I am disclaiming my first impressions of her. Lime green and purple tissue paper whisper secrets as I rustle around inside the bag. I pull out a fat pillar candle with glittery glass beads and old rhinestone buttons embedded in the ivory wax, spiraled around the candle as if a many-stranded necklace were buried inside.
“Oh, it’s beautiful.” I pull out three balls of soap that match. “Thank you so much. My bathroom will cower in embarrassment at the sight of such elegance.”
Caroline laughs. “Only an artist could picture a bathroom cowering.”
No one has ever called me an artist before. I look to see if she’s being sarcastic. There’s a quality to her voice that lacks warmth, but her smile is a dazzle of beautiful teeth and friendliness. “I envy you, to tell the truth,” she says.
“I can’t imagine why. Unless it’s because I have this beautiful candle and soap.” I lift a ball of soap to my nose. I smell almonds and lilies and beneath that moss.
Bo hasn’t joined us at the table. He’s leaning against the sink, a spectator, sipping his drink.
Caroline says, “I’d love to move to a place of my own and do something creative…but I’d be afraid to.”
“Well, I’ve just gotten out of a long, sad marriage, and I needed a scary adventure to get me back into life. Moving here is as brave as I get.”
I remember back in Ohio, thinking that if I dropped myself into the most exciting situation I could dream of, which to me was a cabin of my own in the Tetons, life would happen to me just as a result of what that act triggered. I look at Bo with this memory and think: fast start. There were a lot of reasons to believe that I would have been better off to move back to Cincinnati, where my family used to live and where Erik and I started out together. Yet I haven’t been sorry so far.
I ask Caroline, “What part would make you afraid?”
“No money,” she says immediately. Then adds, “No man. No…money,” she says again. “I’ve gotten used to things I won’t give up now.”
Caro looks at Bo. “I’m trying to talk Bo into letting me make him rich.” She turns to me. “Don’t you think he’s a wonderful artist?” I agree. I’ve seen some of his work now and I think Bo goes into the best of himself to produce it. His sculpture makes my heart pound with its earthy curves winging into space as if grasping at something in the clouds.
“I plan on making him famous and showing him how to invest his money properly. Not to mention digging into the gold mine he’s sitting on.”
“My sink?” I say. “Oh, good.”
Bo laughs. “She means my ranch.”
“I’ve told Bo not to let Dickie get his hands on it, but Dickie’s idea to build an exclusive resort here is excellent. Bo should do it on his own.”
“What do you think about that?” I ask Bo.
“I’ll tell you,” Caro breaks in, looking at Bo while she talks. “He doesn’t think much at all of my plan. He’s got one of his own. But I’m with your grandfather there. Crybaby Ranch is right. Everybody poor, everybody crying.”
“You’ve lost me,” I say, wondering if that was the purpose.
Bo says, “Nothing is going to happen here for a while. Got to let the cow patties harden before traipsing a bunch of rich people through the pastures anyway.”
Clearly, Bo does not want his ranch plans up for discussion. I trace beads on the candle with a finger and as my contribution toward changing the subject I say, “I can’t imagine where you found such a lovely thing, Caro.”
“The Wild Goose, right, Caro?” Bo says.
I can’t decide if these two are showing off their knowledge of each other or including me in their friendship.
“Where’s that?”
“It isn’t any place,” Caro says. “But I don’t like people copying me, so I tell them I bought whatever they’re asking about at the Wild Goose and I give them very thorough, very lengthy directions.”
“Ah,” I say, “you send them on a wild-goose chase.”
“Exactly.” Caro abruptly stands and says she can’t stay any longer. She hasn’t touched my lemon bread and she’s left half her drink. I feel dismissed from the room even though Caro is the one heading for the door—with Bo in her wake. Even that snot Tolly is following them out.
Bo waves goodbye. Caro sticks her head back inside. “Creative people are the best to be around. Thanks for this afternoon.” She blows me a kiss.
I say, “Thank you for coming.” And I feel warmed by her.
I carry my cup of tea to the window and watch Bo and Caro exchange a few words before getting into their separate cars. Some local history I’m reading pops into my head. A story about the Countess of Flat Creek. Back in the 1920s Cissy Patterson, a rich and powerful woman, recently divorced from a Polish count, came to Jackson Hole and bought the Flat Creek Ranch. I’ve read that Cissy, too, had reddish glints to her hair like those catching the sunlight in Caro’s right now. Cissy hired Cal Carrington, a known outlaw who used to hide his stolen horses at that ranch, as her hunting guide, then as her foreman at the ranch. Photos show Cal was as tall, strong, and handsome as Bo. Stories say he was the only man Cissy ever really loved or respected, and the two of them carried on a torrid love affair that the whole valley whispered about.
I watch Bo’s Suburban follow Caro’s Buick out the drive, and I wonder if they will turn in opposite directions—Caro to town and Bo to his ranch—or will they both turn in the same direction. And which direction?
Just as I read about Cissy, Caro exhibits that same ability to offer a sudden and generous warmth that veils a typically chilly and distracted presence. Cissy’s money and power and disregard for her reputation allowed her freedoms that made her a dangerous woman, even in Jackson Hole. Since her real home was Washington, D.C., Cissy didn’t care what people thought of her here. Caro’s real home is a small town in Arkansas.
Caro turns toward town.
The story says Cal stopped stealing horses, bathed regularly, and even accompanied Cissy to society parties back east and on trips abroad when Cissy got brave and invited him. Their love affair lasted decades.
Bo follows Caro toward town.
ten
It is a spineless way to create some distance with Bo, but I book airline tickets to Florida and don’t tell him. I just leave. Every day another reason pops up for Bo and me to see each other. If he doesn’t stop by to show me where the crawl space door is hidden (beneath the dryer), I call him to ask what metal thing just fell out of the pipe to my woodstove (the tin-can lid serving as a damper). We end up pooling our refrigerator contents for dinner, then sit on my front steps with coffee till dark.
My first flight is to Cheyenne to see Beckett. Though a week early, Beck surprises me with a Mother’s Day celebration. Sunday morning I am his guest for a lavish buffet at Little America, Cheyenne’s largest hotel.
“Beck, you’re a student. This is too expensive.” My eyes scan the white-cloth tabletops colorfully d
isplayed with out-of-season fruits, lobster thermidor, platters of shrimp, roasts, frothy desserts.
He ignores me and orders champagne.
“Beck—”
“Su…Mom.” He raises his eyebrows at me to be certain I’m impressed with his fast catch. “I’ve got extra money. I work part-time at the radio station. Mostly as a gofer, but I’m hoping to do some spots one of these days.”
“Spots?”
“Commercials.”
“Perfect. You have a great voice, smooth, warm, lots of tonal depths to it. You should sing more, too.”
From beneath the jacket he has draped over his arm, Beck produces two gift-wrapped presents. My eyes tear even before I unwrap them.
Beck says, “I knew this was chancy. You’ve cried over every gift I’ve given you since day care.” He checks the room to see who might be looking, then smiles at me.
Pajamas and a book. The pajamas are tailored in lavender silk; the book is an ancient leather-bound copy of Emily Dickinson poetry, corners rubbed nearly round, gilt lettering flaked and faded.
“It will probably fall apart if you open it,” Beck says. “But it looks good. And she’s your favorite.”
I stare at this tall, handsome child with wonder that I raised him, while still a child myself, and that somehow we both came through it all to this moment of deep knowing and appreciation. I’ve said it many times before, but I have to say it again: “Beck, you are the best.”
Tonight, Mom and I sit on the porch together, pushing back and forth on the cushioned glider. The fishing dory bounces against the dock as the brackish water of Bessie Creek laps rhythmically. Like me, Mom went straight from her father’s home to her husband’s. She has always been afraid to sleep alone in the house, and she worries so much about being widowed that she often plans how she’ll survive if she is. This week she has repeated the same plan every evening that we’ve sat together.