by Cyndi Myers
“You had no right,” Frannie said.
“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” I said. “And Alice is my friend. She won’t tell anyone else. I didn’t tell her everything,” I said. There were some things I couldn’t bring myself to say. Things I wasn’t sure I could ever let out in the open.
“Make sure you don’t,” Frannie said, sounding somewhat mollified.
“It will be fine,” I reassured her. “I just wanted to call and tell you about Cocoa.”
“I’ll make an appointment with my vet and my groomer for you,” she said. “They’ll take good care of her. And you’ll need to have her spayed as soon as possible.”
Part of me resented her making these decisions for me, but I knew this was Frannie’s way of making peace. She couldn’t express her feelings with words, so she showed them by “taking care” of me. “We’ll talk about it when I get home,” I said. “Thanks.”
I tucked the phone away and Cocoa and I did another turn around the edges of the lot. There was more activity now—people going in and out of the office, big rigs warming up, extra traffic on the highway out front.
When we got back to the room, Alice walked out to meet me with a cup of coffee. “How are you feeling this morning?” she asked.
“Better.” I looked down at Cocoa, who was sniffing the corner of a planter, her tail sweeping back and forth like a metronome. “The dog was a good idea. I’m glad you talked me into keeping her.”
“No problem. I’m good at solving everyone’s problems but my own.”
The bitterness in her voice surprised me. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I’ll be fine once I’ve had breakfast and we’re on the road again.”
I sometimes forgot that the whole purpose of this trip was to move Alice to a new home. “I bet you’re anxious to get to California and be settled,” I said.
“Not really.” She drained her cup and tossed it into a trash can. “But I suppose I have to get there eventually, so we might as well get going.”
I drove most of the day. Alice slumped against the passenger window, quieter than usual. I didn’t know what to do, so I kept quiet. The way I see it, everyone’s entitled to a bad mood now and then. Eventually it would pass and Alice would be back to her lively self.
When we pulled into Grand Junction, Colorado, that evening, she said, “I can’t face sitting around a hotel room one more evening. Let’s go out somewhere.”
“What about Cocoa?” I looked at the pup, who had proved to be a good traveler. She’d spent the day alternately napping on the bench seat between us and sitting up gazing intently out the windshield.
“We’ll put her in the bathroom with a blanket and a bowl of food and she’ll be fine. She’ll probably go right to sleep.”
Which is what I felt like doing after the rough night I’d had previously. But I wanted to help Alice the way she’d helped me. If going out would cheer her up, then I was all for it.
We set out on foot from the motel, down what looked to be the main drag of the town. “Where are we going?” I asked as we crossed the street.
“We’re out West, right?”
“Right.”
“Then let’s find some cowboys.” She nodded toward a neon sign a half block away. Next to a well-lit, oversize cowboy boot were the words The Silver Spur.
Despite the bright lights outside, The Silver Spur was a dim paneled room with a mirror-backed bar along one wall and pool tables at the rear. Country music from the jukebox competed with the laughter from the pool players. Everyone I saw was dressed alike, regardless of their sex—colorful shirts, jeans, boots and cowboy hats.
I felt as out of place as a dandelion in a wedding bouquet. As we walked in, at least a dozen Stetson-covered heads swiveled in our direction. I watched, amazed, as Alice turned up the wattage on her smile, exaggerated the sway of her hips and developed a drawl I’d never heard before. “Howdy, fellas,” she said. “Anybody care to buy a couple of new gals in town a drink?”
The shuffle of booted feet on the hardwood floor was so loud I shrank back, half-afraid they were all going to run over us on their way out the door. I don’t know why I was worried, though. Within seconds we were seated at a large round table, with a pitcher of beer and a quartet of admirers. None of them were movie-star handsome, but they made up for any physical shortcomings with an avid appreciation that was enough to make me more light-headed than a whole pitcher of beer.
I couldn’t get over the transformation in Alice. The woman who had sat silently in the truck all day was now positively effervescent. She laughed and flirted, eyes sparkling and cheeks flushed in a way that made her seem ten years younger.
The four men ranged in age from late twenties to closing in on fifty. They had the weathered skin and calloused hands of men who spend a lot of time outdoors, though for all I knew they coached football or ran landscaping businesses rather than working on ranches. Not that that mattered to me. They were clean and nice-looking and decidedly masculine.
One in particular, a rangy, dark-haired man named Tom, paid particular attention to Alice. He had a wide smile and a hint of gray at his temples and a charming manner that made him easy to be around. Alice turned toward him and kept her eyes locked to his, reaching out every so often to touch his arm or his hand.
After a while, two others gave up and drifted away, while the fourth man turned his attention to me. His name was Gary, and he was the oldest of the group, with kind blue eyes and a large white hat I suspected covered a balding head. He talked about his job as a county road supervisor and asked me about the floral business. From there we moved on to the weather and baseball. The conversation flowed smoothly, but it was clear neither one of us was strongly attracted to the other. I got the sense Gary was playing wingman—keeping me occupied while Alice and Tom got to know each other better.
And they were definitely getting to know each other. By nine o’clock they’d progressed from occasional hand touches to clinging to each other on the bar’s tiny dance floor. When the song ended, they exchanged a long, passionate kiss that had me looking away in embarrassment.
When they returned to the table, I stood. “It’s getting late. I think I’d better call it a night,” I said.
“So soon?” Gary said, without much enthusiasm.
I smiled at him. “Thanks for the drinks. It’s been great talking to you.”
“You don’t have to run off now,” Tom said. He was holding Alice’s hand as if to keep her from fleeing, as well.
“I need to use the little girl’s room,” Alice announced. She slipped out of Tom’s grasp and grabbed my arm. “You come with me.”
When we were alone behind the doors of the ladies’ room, Alice released me. “Will you be okay walking back to the motel by yourself?” she asked.
“I guess so.” I frowned at her. “What are you going to do?”
She studied her reflection in the mirror, then pulled out a lipstick and began carefully applying it. “Tom and I are going to get a room, so you can have ours to yourself tonight.”
I stared at her. “You can’t be serious. I mean…you just met the man. You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know I think he’s sexy, and he makes me feel sexy.” She glanced at me. “I told him about the mastectomy. He says he doesn’t care.”
I think I was as shocked that she’d told a stranger about her cancer as I was that she’d have sex with a man she barely knew. “Are you sure?” I asked.
She nodded and fluffed her hair with her fingers. “Gary really likes you, you know. He probably wouldn’t say no if you invited him back to our room.”
“I couldn’t do that!” The idea made me feel shaky.
“Why not?” She turned to face me, hands on her hips. “It’s just sex. It doesn’t always have to mean something.”
“Maybe to me it does.”
The look she gave me made me feel small. “Maybe tha
t’s why you’re alone. I don’t feel like being alone tonight.” She pushed past me out of the ladies’ room.
I slumped against the sink, fighting a sense of…I don’t know…betrayal? It wasn’t as if Alice owed me anything. She was a grown woman, free to do whatever she wanted. She wasn’t even kicking me out of our room.
Was I making too big a thing of this? After all, this was the twenty-first century. Women could be as free with their sexuality as men. If I asked Gary back to my room, would that make me a more fulfilled, liberated woman?
I shook my head. No. I wasn’t like Alice. I’d spent so many years longing for real intimacy with a man, unable to break out of my shell enough to find it. Now that that protective shield I’d built was cracking, I wasn’t willing to settle for less than my dreams of real love.
Maybe that made me foolish; I didn’t care.
I washed my hands, brushed my hair, then squared my shoulders and left the ladies’ room.
I was surprised to find Gary waiting outside the door. “Can I walk you back to your motel?” he asked.
“Oh. I…well, I’m really pretty tired,” I stammered.
“I know. It’s okay. But you shouldn’t walk by yourself this time of night.”
His concern touched me. “Thanks. I…I’d appreciate that.”
We didn’t say anything on the walk back. True to his word, he left me at the door to my room with a tip of his hat. I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d met under different circumstances if things would have ended differently.
Inside the room, Cocoa greeted me with gratifying enthusiasm. She ran in circles around the room, leaping on the beds and skidding to a halt in front of me, her entire body wagging. I dropped to the carpet and rubbed her belly. After a moment, she grew still and fell into a half doze. I smiled, a contentment I recognized as love filling me.
Love for a furry puppy. Not much by some standards, but I considered it a good start.
I thought about Alice and what she might be doing right now. What I could be doing if I’d invited Gary in. That led to thoughts of Martin. I checked the clock. It was after ten in Kansas. Late, but I hoped not too late.
He answered on the fourth ring. “I hope I didn’t wake you,” I said.
“No, I was watching the news.” The voices behind him silenced. He must have shut off the TV. “Is everything okay there?” he asked.
“Fine. Why do you ask?”
“You sound a little sad.”
I was amazed he’d picked up on that. “Yeah, well…” I combed my fingers through Cocoa’s hair. “I’m a little down, I guess.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” I wasn’t ready yet to tell Martin about my father or my screwed-up childhood. I didn’t trust him to see that side of me just yet; I settled for a simpler truth. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“I’m happy to oblige. Where are you?”
“Grand Junction, Colorado. I’m at the hotel. With a dog Alice and I picked up on the side of the road.”
“That’s kind of you. Where’s Alice?”
“We went to a bar and she picked up some cowboy and went home with him. Or somewhere.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean? Ah?”
“Are you ticked off that she abandoned you or jealous that she’s with someone and you’re not?”
The directness of the question caught me off guard. “I’m not jealous,” I said. “I’m not interested in sex with a stranger.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “I never thought you were the kind of girl who would give her affections easily. And I mean that as a compliment.”
“Sometimes I wish I did find it easier to be comfortable with people,” I confessed.
“You’re comfortable with me, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” As comfortable as I was with anyone, but there was still so much of me holding back. “Tell me what you did today,” I said. “What arrangements you put together.” Talking about flowers was safe and familiar, not too personal.
“A dozen pink roses for a new mom and a potted fern for a man who fell off a roof and broke his leg.”
“Did you get the white roses you ordered for the wedding this weekend?” I asked.
“Yes. Thanks for giving me that source. The bride thinks I’m a miracle worker now.”
He was working minor miracles with me, making me feel so much better about life and myself. “You’ll have to send me pictures of some of your arrangements. I bet they’re beautiful.”
“I’ll do that. When do you think you’ll be in California?”
“I don’t know. A few days. I’ll probably stay with Alice a little while to help her get settled. I’m worried about her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She seems…depressed. Tired. Not well.”
“Traveling can be tiring, and she’s probably anxious to get to California and her new home.”
“I suppose.” I felt there was something more going on, something related to her first husband and the forgiveness she’d said she was seeking. But I couldn’t tell Martin that without betraying Alice’s confidence. “I’d better let you go. It’s late.”
“You’ll feel better when you’re home again, too,” he said.
“I hope so.” But I was less sure. After the freedom of the open road, I wondered if my little condo wouldn’t feel stifling—if my whole life wouldn’t feel too confining now that I’d stretched the boundaries of my world, met new people and tried new things.
11
I woke early the next morning to the rattle of Alice’s key in the lock. I rolled over and stared at her through bleary eyes. “You okay?” I mumbled.
“Of course I’m okay. I’m great. Go back to sleep.”
So I did, only to open my eyes an hour later, wide-awake. Alice was a lump in the other bed, the faint rise and fall of the covers assuring me she was alive. I dressed quietly and took Cocoa out for her morning walk.
As I passed the rows of pickup trucks and cars nudged up to the curb in front of the rooms, I wondered if one of them belonged to Tom. Or maybe he’d already left. Maybe that was why Alice had returned to our room so early.
When I got back to the room, Alice was in the shower. I fed Cocoa, then began to pack.
Alice emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, another coiled, turbanlike, around her hair. “I’ll be ready in just a minute,” she said.
“No hurry.” I had a million questions I wanted to ask her, but felt I didn’t really have a right to the answers. So I pressed my lips tightly together and hoped she’d volunteer some details about her evening with Tom. Something to help me understand how she’d been able to be so intimate with a man who was a stranger. Was it experience or sophistication or some other quality I lacked that had made last night possible for her?
Instead, I made small talk, something I don’t think I’m particularly good at. “Why is it after only a single night in a hotel room, I end up with my stuff scattered all over?” I asked as I collected a pair of socks from a chair.
“Maybe you’re marking your territory.” Alice tossed aside the towel and began to dress, her back to me.
“You mean like a dog?” I shook my head. “Why would I do that?”
“Not like a dog. More like, I don’t know—maybe those explorers who planted a flag and declared this land belonged to their king. You’re staking a claim.” She turned and watched me stuff a pair of sweatpants into my suitcase.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“What’s what?”
“That.” She came over and pointed into my suitcase. “It looks like a stuffed animal.”
My face burned and I quickly flipped the leg of the sweatpants across the top of the suitcase. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. It’s a lamb.” She reached over and plucked the somewhat dingy stuffed toy from the middle of the suitcase. She studied the lamb, then fixed her gaze on me. “I know there�
��s a story here.”
I snatched the lamb from her and clutched it to my chest, my fingers digging into the familiar knotted wool covering. “It’s a lamb I had as a baby,” I said.
“I can see that. But why do you have it now?”
I searched for some glib remark to explain why a grown woman would have an infant’s stuffed toy in her suitcase, but found none. I opened my hands and looked down at the lamb. One felt eye looked up at me. “My father gave it to me,” I said.
Alice was silent for a moment. When I raised my head I saw she was watching me, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “I don’t understand why you’d want to keep it,” she said softly.
I shrugged and carefully nestled the lamb among my clothes. “He gave it to me when I was a baby. I’ve always had it.” When I was growing up, I kept it hidden in our bedroom dresser so he wouldn’t find it and destroy it, the way he had destroyed so much that meant anything to me. “I guess…I guess I keep it to remind me that he did care about me. Once upon a time.” My own childhood fairy tale. The one without the happy ending.
Alice put her arm around me and neither of us said anything for a long time. Then she returned to the bathroom to put on her makeup. I closed the suitcase and zipped it, shutting the door once more on memories of my father and my own peculiar way of holding on to him.
We were loading the cab of the truck to leave when Tom came out of the motel office and crossed in front of us on the way to his truck. He never even looked up, though Alice stared through the windshield at him, a hopeful expression on her face. All my misgivings about everything that had happened the night before came rushing back, but I could think of nothing to say and Alice volunteered nothing.
The silence between us grew more strained with each passing mile. Alice was driving, and I stared out the window, searching for words to break the ice, my stomach a twisted lump in my middle.
Finally she slammed her hand against the steering wheel and said, “There’s nothing wrong with taking pleasure where you find it.”