by Mary Morris
He handed her a mug of coffee, pale with a swirl of milk. She took it black; she always had. She thought of saying something, but decided against it. “I’ll just let it cool,” she said, putting the mug by the bedstand. She watched as he pulled on his parka, his boots. He gave her a little wave. Then he was gone.
When he left, it began to turn colder. The light rain that had started to fall was turning to sleet. Ice would cover everything by morning. Ice would glaze the trees, the houses, the fences, the roads. It would be a winter wonderland. Paul would be on the mountain, trying to patch the trails that had turned to ice. Emily drifted in and out of sleep until she heard the crying.
It was coming from right outside the window. She was sure if she opened the window a hand would reach for her. Many nights she had been tempted to open the window when she heard the crying, but she never had. Now she wanted to. It seemed like the right thing to do. She knew that the hand that was waiting for her would be cold.
I’d never seen him at the laundromat before. If I had, I would’ve remembered because Blue Mesa where we live is a small town and not that many newcomers use the laundromat, even though it’s a nice place to do your clothes. Lots of big cream-colored machines that go around, bright neon lights overhead. I like this laundromat because it has big wire baskets where you can stick your clothes as you move them from washing machine to dryer and because they’ve got big tables where you can fold. I love to fold. I love to take hot towels or even Scott’s jeans and wrap my arms in them and smell how clean they are and let the warmth rush over me while I fold.
He was blond and taut and stood just outside the door smoking when I came back in after talking to Patti on the phone. Patti is my girlhood friend. I drop my kids off at Patti’s or she drops hers off at my place when we’ve got things to do, but usually once we get somewhere we just call each other on the phone so it seems silly to go any place since we could just sit at the kitchen table and talk at home. From the laundromat phone, that’s right beside the gas pump, I talked to Patti for a while about Ross, her husband, who was coming home later and later, and when I got off the phone, the blond man was standing there, smoking.
I probably wouldn’t have even noticed him if I hadn’t come back and seen that the wash in my dryer wasn’t mine. I knew it wasn’t mine the minute I looked in and saw. Because I never mix my whites with my colors, not even to dry. I always keep them nice and separate so the dark lint doesn’t get on the baby’s things or mix in with Scott’s shirts. Not that Scott would care. He hardly ever wears a white shirt unless it’s a Sunday and maybe we go to church, if he’s up in time. But it’s a point of pride with me, to do my wash this way.
But that day I looked in and saw how a green sock was floating with white underwear, the Jockey, not the boxer kind, and jeans mixed in with white T-shirts and so I knew that wash was not mine. At first I thought mine had been stolen, which happens sometimes with drifters coming through, but then I saw it piled in one of the wire baskets. Scott’s jeans weren’t even dry. I picked them up and pressed them to my cheek. They still had that wet feel along the seams that Scott would notice right away if he put them on.
Scott’s jeans always took so long to wash. There was all that horse hair and stench. Always a bad smell I couldn’t quite get out. But everything seemed to smell that way to me. Sometimes I’d lay in bed at night and just smell the rooms around me. The smell of children, of talc and urine and sweat, the smells of the dogs and cats who wandered in and out of rooms, the smell of clover and wheat, of horse and hay, the sweet, stale smell that got into all Scott’s clothes, into his hair, into his nails, that got into my body when he made love to me. And when he lay on top of me, after making love, I could smell the horses as if they were right there in the room.
When I saw that the clothes in the dryer weren’t mine and mine were sitting still damp in a wire basket, that was when I looked at him. It was the first I saw him really and he was looking at me and so I said, “Excuse me, but did you take my wash out of the dryer?”
“It had stopped,” he said, looking at me with very sharp eyes like a weasel.
“It wasn’t dry.”
“It was just sitting there,” he said, taking a drag.
I fumbled through my things, starting to sort them. I would have put them back in, but all the dryers were full. “I’m missing a red sock,” I said, holding up a mateless one. The blond man looked at me dumbly. “I said I’m missing a sock.”
“Then you lost it, lady, before I got here.”
At first I thought he might be a cowpuncher on the rodeo circuit since they sometimes came in and out of town in the summer when the season was on, but there was something too neat about him, too clean, and he had that look that I’d seen in the eyes of the college kids, a look like he had some place to go and it wasn’t here. And then when I walked by him, dragging my basket in a huff, there wasn’t any smell to him at all and his hands looked soft so I knew he’d never held a rope and that he was just passing through on his way somewhere else.
He’s the kind of guy they have over at the college—clean-cut and trim, everything just right—and I would’ve thought he was from there, if the college was in session. Then it occurred to me he’s too old to be a student. There was something a little knowing about his eyes like someone who’s already been out in the world. But he’s got that wired look so I decide he’s the new track and field coach, the one they were advertising for last year.
I’ve got my own plans to travel. I have a Maxwell House coffee can in the kitchen where I keep the money I’ve saved, not much, but enough to get me to San Diego someday, maybe Disneyland. I have this longing to see the sea. I’ve always been on Mountain Time. I’ve only heard about this place where the water meets the land or seen the way the surf comes crashing into the shore at the start of One Life to Live. I’ll be lucky to make it to Montrose or Grand Junction, but I’m saving to get to San Diego and see the sea.
That night Scott comes home and does what he always does. Gives me a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the rear. His mustache tickles my ear and I pull a little bit away. Then he pops a beer and takes the kids out to the corral for a pony ride. I’m left standing at the sink, snipping the stems off the beans, and then I stop.
From the sink I can see out to the corral, out towards the mountains across Blue Mesa. I look out across this place where I’ve lived my entire life, and I see the mountains and the sky. I see my husband who I’ve been with since I am fifteen years old, and my three children, going around on the spotted pony. Scott takes a sip from his Coors but he is careful not to let Stephanie fall. Stephanie is the baby, the one who didn’t come out right, and we have to watch her all the time. The other two are all right, except Scott Junior doesn’t always go to school. And Nicole is going to drive herself crazy, always trying to do everything right. I watch this scene, the same one I see every night, and try to think about what will happen after the children are grown. What will I see from this window?
I close my eyes, trying to imagine, and what I see is the blond man from the laundromat. This surprises me because all my life I’ve been with Scott and I’ve never even thought of myself with another man. But suddenly I see this long drink of water, skinny blond guy and our clothes all neat and folded by the side of a bed, sweet smelling, and I think of his soft hands and his doeskin flesh. I close my eyes and for an instant shut out what I’ve always known.
When I open them, everyone is there and they want dinner on the table. Stephanie talks as best she can and tries to tell me what she’d like, her body bobbing back and forth as she stammers, and Scott Junior takes a Coke, even though I tell him not to, while Nicole, the only one who really helps me so it’s hard to fault her, sets the table, but I can see she’s not happy about having pot roast again. Then, just before dinner, Patti calls. She says Ross isn’t home yet and she’s locking him out. She says that any man who isn’t home by seven o’clock doesn’t deserve to eat. She’s going to put his dinner on the por
ch and put the bolt across the door. She says, “Do you think my husband is seeing another woman? Do you think there’s someone else in his life?”
The rodeo was opening at the fairgrounds Friday night and on Sunday I went to watch the carnival being set up. It’s something I like to do each year. I like watching it get set up and taken down. I like thinking about where it’s been and where it’s going, how it never stays in any place too long.
It always takes them so long to set up, a week maybe or more, and so before the carnival even opens, I’ve got a week when I go and just watch. Usually I take the girls because what else am I going to do with them. We go and sit in the car and watch the lights being set up or the Ferris wheel get put together. I make them all kinds of promises I can actually keep like that I’ll buy them cotton candy or let them jump until they drop on the Kiddie Kastle. Or if Scott Junior comes along I tease him about the last time he went on the Tilt-o-Whirl. But mostly I like to just sit and watch the men as they raise the canvas and the poles, or the bright lights of the Ferris wheel as it begins to spin.
Another thing I love about the carnival is how Scott will watch the kids while I go on every ride. It’s almost the only time I’m ever really alone and get to just be with myself. Scott won’t go on the big rides because he gets sick, but he’ll watch me from the wings as I ride the Sizzlers, the Salt and Pepper Shakers, and the Around the World. I like Around the World best because it doesn’t tip you or spin you or make you twirl. It just hurls you out with its arms and you feel as if you can just keep going; how if it released you, nothing would keep you down.
I sit until dusk with the girls in the backseat, as the concessions go up, the lights turning on, all shimmering against the pale pink Colorado sky even though Nicole keeps saying, “Mommy, can’t we go home” and I have to shush her. I just sit and stare until finally it gets dark and I have to take everybody home.
Scott and Ross are watching a game, drinking beer, as we walk in. The phone’s ringing off the hook. I know it’s Patti, ready to skin Ross alive. Any minute her car will swing in the drive and I’ll have to stand between the two of them. Suddenly I feel tired and wish I could just go to bed. I think of the carnival lights. How beautiful they are against the sky.
I know a methodical person when I meet one and I think this guy’s that way so if he’s still in town, he’ll be doing his wash on Tuesday. On Tuesday I go back to the laundromat, same time. Patti doesn’t want to take the kids but I say it’s something I just have to do. Then I put on a tight pair of jeans and some lipstick and go just at the time I think he’ll show up, but he’s not there. I start to do my wash, separating the clothes very slowly. I think how noisy this place is with all the machines going around. I’m starting my spin cycle when he arrives, dragging a big brown laundry bag behind him. He speaks to me first. He says, “Did you find your sock?”
“Yes, it was caught up in the legs of a pair of jeans.”
“I told you,” he says, “I don’t leave anything behind.”
We do our wash in machines across from one another. I watch as he puts fabric softener in, measuring out just the right amount. Later I see him put a Bounce in his dryer and I’m impressed. I think to myself maybe I don’t need to separate my whites and colors in the dryer. Maybe he knows something I don’t know. “You’re not from around here,” I say.
And he smiles and says, “No, I’m sure not. I’m from California.” He says it in such a way I can tell he’s proud. I think how he’s someone who comes from the place where I want to be.
“What’s it like there?” I ask.
“Oh, you know, ocean, beach, freeways, same old stuff.”
“Yeah,” I say, “I know.” I’m afraid he’ll ask me what I know, so I turn back to the work I have to do.
“And you?”
“I’m from around here.”
He’s starting to fold. “Seems like a nice place to be from.”
“You going to be here long?”
He shakes his head. “I travel for business,” he says.
“Rodeo?” I ask. Scott used to do the circuit before Scott Junior was born. He did cattle roping and broncos until one day a horse tossed him twenty feet, then stomped on his ribs. In the hospital I told him he had to stop. I said it was rodeo or me. But the blond man just laughs, shaking his head. “Now, do I look like that kind of a guy?” When he says this, he leans against the folding table in my direction, his elbows resting on his warm T-shirts and towels. His face is only inches from mine. I feel his breath against my face, hot and steamy like the air from the machines.
Even though I promised Patti I’d be back by five, I stop at the carnival on the way home and see that it’s mostly up. They’ve got their lights on and the music is playing. The Ferris wheel is already going around. I stand there until the sky darkens and the lights are bright against the sky. Patti’s in a huff when I pick up the kids. She looks me up and down, clicking her tongue inside her mouth. “I’ve never known you to have that much wash to do.”
When I get home, Scott’s sitting in front of the baseball game, beer in hand. “The carnival’s up,” I say. “Maybe we can go later.”
“We’ll go Friday,” Scott says, “I wanta watch the game.”
“So, Friday,” I say.
Even as I say it, I think of the man from the laundromat. I think how Friday is three days away and he does his wash on Tuesday, and how that means another week until I see him again, but I’ve got the carnival to look forward to on Friday. I’ve already made up my mind what I’m going to do when I see him again. I’m going to ask him for his address. I’m going to tell him that I expect to be visiting California soon and I’d like to look him up. I’ll tell him how I don’t know anyone there and how it would be nice to have someone to call. I think how that won’t seem forward or out of place. Maybe he’ll give me a business card with his home number scribbled on the back. And I’m sure I can call him at home. But I’ll ask politely, “Would your wife mind if I call?” but of course there’s no wife because why would he be on the road, doing his laundry on his own.
That night in bed Scott lays beside me and I think how he has been with me for fifteen years, been my husband for the last ten. And I don’t know what he thinks about as he lays in bed. I have no idea what’s on his mind. I decide to ask him. I say, “Honey, what are you thinking about?” And he replies, “I’m thinking about the cattle I have to move off the mountain next week.” What more can I say? After a man says something like that to a woman, what is there to say?
The kids are ready at six sharp on Friday, but Scott hasn’t walked in the door. Stephanie is already starting to bawl and bob back and forth and Scott Junior says to hell with it, he isn’t going, but then Scott comes in with no time to shower. I say, “Aren’t you going to change at least? Aren’t you going to wear other clothes,” but the kids are all fighting by this time, so we get in the van and leave.
When we get to the carnival, it is all lit up, a bright pink and green and yellow against a purple sky. It is as if a spaceship had landed right in the middle of Blue Mesa where we live. The minute the kids see it, they scream with delight. Stephanie bobs as fast as I’ve ever seen her and Nicole has to put her hands on her sister to hold her back. Scott Junior is out of the car in a flash, heading for the baseball throw. Nicole takes Stephanie by the hand and Scott puts his arm around me as together we walk among the concessions and rides.
Stephanie wants to go jumping on Kiddie Kastle and Nicole takes her there while Scott and Scott Junior go off to toss some rings and balls. Then I take the girls to the merry-go-round and watch them go around, Stephanie with her head thrust back, laughing all the way, and Nicole, holding on to her, sweet as can be. I stand there, watching them, holding on to one another, and I know how I could never leave them really, but if I could just go away for a little while, just step out of my life into someone else’s, I’d be better; I’d be fine.
When Scott comes back, he’s won a picture of Elvis in a w
ooden frame and a giant roadrunner stuffed animal. He scoops Stephanie into his arm and says I could go on some rides and he’ll watch the kids. First I do the Tilt-o-Whirl with Scott Junior, but then I want to go on the bigger rides, the ones I know he doesn’t like because he is a tough kid with a weak stomach and with him it’s all show. He wouldn’t set foot on the Sizzler or the Hot Tamale. So I do those rides first.
Then I look at the Around the World. The ride just sits there, like a wilted plant, but I know what will happen when it starts up soon. I pay my ticket and get into my little cab. As the ride starts up its arms begin to extend like the tentacles of an octopus. My cab begins to rise and I see my family on the ground. Scott with the portrait of Elvis in one hand and Stephanie in the other. In his cowboy boots and hat, I can’t see his face and he reminds me of one of those faceless guys they used to have in the Dick Tracy comics.
The ride starts up, slowly at first, then faster and faster, gathering speed. I see them beneath me, waving as the ride spins me away. Soon I am parallel to the ground and can’t see them anymore. All I see is mountains, mere shadows in the distance, as I rise above the carnival lights and press my head back, gazing into the night sky. I imagine myself on a mission hurtling through space. I go around and around and feel as if I could just keep on going. Then the ride begins to slow down. I feel it losing momentum, feel myself dropping back to earth. As it begins to slow, it seems as if my stomach has been left behind. Slowly my family comes into view and they are waving, as if I have been away for a long time, and I wave back, as if I have.
Scott helps me down and Nicole and Stephanie cling to my arms. I am wobbly as a newborn calf. The night sky is beautiful and the Milky Way runs overhead as if painted in yellow Day-Glo. Scott takes me by the arm, seeing I am breathless, and puts his hand to my forehead. “You’re red. Are you all right?”