by Anna Jeffrey
Setting the Coke and a straw in front of her neighbor, Marisa took a second look and saw that she was still wearing yesterday’s makeup. “Are you sick?”
Tanya looked up at her, tears glistening in her mascara-smudged eyes. “Jake told me to get out.” A tear leaked from one eye and trailed down the side her nose. “I’ve got to get home and get packed.”
“You’re kidding,” Marisa said, but she could see that Tanya’s statement was no joke.
She knew little of Tanya and Jake’s history. The most she had ever heard Tanya say was they met in a honky-tonk on Friday night, got married on Saturday and Jake moved her to Agua Dulce on Sunday. Still, Jake throwing her out was the last thing Marisa would have ever expected. And Tanya’s reaction was even more surprising. Marisa had thought it was Jake who needed Tanya, not vise versa. Had she been wrong all along about their marriage? Had that pesky but usually accurate intuition failed her? “Wait a second. Where do you think you’re going?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve gotta be gone before he gets home.”
As far as Marisa knew, for family, Tanya had one brother. He was in the army, stationed in Alaska. Her mother was deceased and her estranged father had remarried and moved to Florida. Marisa rounded the end of the lunch counter and took a seat beside the hairdresser. “What’s going on with you two? And what about your shops?”
Tanya used the end of her cigarette to light another.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Marisa scolded. “It’s bad for you.”
“BFD.” Tanya looked up and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “Jake doesn’t really love me, you know.”
“I thought it was the opposite. I thought you didn’t love him.”
She shook her head and made a deep sniff. “I don’t know if I do, but I did think we were used to each other.”
“Look, Tanya, Jake’s a good guy. I’ll bet y’all could make up and put things back together and—”
“Marisa,” she said, her lips tightly drawn, “he doesn’t need me. He’s like every other fucking cowboy I’ve ever met. They don’t need a damn living, breathing, thing but their horses and their dogs.”
Marisa’s eyes squinted involuntarily. Other than a stray, she couldn’t remember seeing a dog around Agua Dulce. “When did y’all get a dog?”
“We didn’t get a dog. That’s what I mean. Jake’s even worse than most. He doesn’t even need a dog.”
Marisa cocked her head and arched her brow. Good assessment of most of the cowboys she knew. She had never doubted that men who chose cowboying for a living had to have done so for deep, mysterious reasons, because a cowboy’s life was far from easy and the pay was awful. “You’ve been together a long time. That has to count for something.”
Tanya stared at the posters pinned on the wall behind the back counter. “Yeah, we have. Nearly ten years. It hasn’t exactly been heaven, though. I mean, look at this place. It’d be hard enough living here if you were hooked up with somebody who liked to talk and who liked to do something once in a while. Hell, before you came, me and your mother were the only women in town. When she started losing it, I didn’t have anybody to talk to.”
Marisa stared out the display windows at the sun-drenched emptiness that ran on until it crashed into a bunch of purple mountains that were probably in Arizona. She remembered what Ben had said about the lack of coping skills in Lanny’s deceased wife. Marisa survived life in Agua Dulce herself because her every waking moment was filled with something that demanded doing.
“I might as well be living by myself,” Tanya said. “I still like fucking, but Jake doesn’t even like that anymore.”
There it was. Tanya’s ever-present bluntness about something most people kept private. Marisa felt the corner of her mouth quirk. “Well, there’s that.”
“I’ve never cheated on him.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“No, but you think it. Everybody thinks it.”
“Why does he want you out?”
“He thinks ‘cause I don’t want to go to Arizona I’ve just used him all these years. He thinks I married him just to get out of that topless joint in Odessa.”
“What topless joint? I thought he met you in a honky—in a night club in Odessa.”
When Tanya didn’t reply, Marisa’s suspicion mushroomed. “I thought you were a hairdresser when you met him.”
Tanya glanced over her shoulder and her green eyes zeroed in on Marisa’s. “I am, now. But I wasn’t.”
Marisa picked up her cup and swallowed a large gulp of Coke. “Okay, so you were a dancer. What’s wrong with that?”
“I wasn’t just a dancer, either.”
“Okay, so you were a—a...well, what the hell were you?”
For the first time since she came in, Tanya laughed, but it reminded Marisa of one of those clowns whose face is painted in a big grin but who’s crying inside. Tanya’s head shook. “Oh, Marisa, you are so naïve. That’s what I’ve always liked about you. You take everything to be just like you see it.”
Tanya couldn’t be more wrong about that. Marisa didn’t take anything as it appeared on the surface. It was the underlying layers that left her either stunned and dismayed or thrilled and overjoyed. She sat staring at Tanya for a few minutes. Now, a lot about her made more sense—her enviable ease with men, her great body, her total lack of modesty, her frankness about most things sexual.
Tanya sighed, put down her mug and stood up. “Ben told me I could crash at his place. Maybe I’ll take him up on that ’til I can figure some things out.”
“But you don’t like Ben.”
“I know. But I’m liking him better since he took up for me.”
“Ben? Our cantankerous Ben? What did he do?”
“He heard me and Jake yelling. Jake called me some real bad names. Ben came over to our trailer and told Jake a man shouldn’t ever call a woman names like that. Jake told him I was nothing but a damn whore and Ben said it didn’t matter what I was. What was important was that I had been loyal to him and I loved him.”
Shocked that Ben would insert himself into an argument between Tanya and her husband, and even more shocked that Ben would step up in Tanya’s defense, Marisa sat there speechless. But then, even snockered, Ben had always respected women.
“Do you think Ben’s too old for me?” Tanya asked.
Horror was Marisa’s first reaction. Then her thoughts flew to Lanny. “Tanya, after all that’s happened in the last few weeks, I don’t have opinions on questions like that.”
“Do you think he can still do anything? I mean, some men his age can and some can’t. ‘Course, even if he wasn’t an old guy, he drinks so much he probably can’t get it up.”
I’m fifty-five, but I think I can still...
Marisa stopped her wandering thoughts before they took her into even darker territory. She braced her elbows on the counter and rubbed her temples, wishing she could erase the present conversation. “Lord, who knows?”
Tanya’s mouth curved into a sweet smile. “He was awful nice to me last night. I’d fuck him, you know, if he wanted to. God knows I’ve fucked worse.”
Marisa forced herself to her feet before Tanya started spouting again. A conversation about a budding affair between Ben and Tanya was more than any woman with as many problems as Marisa had should have to analyze, much less endure. “I have to finish cleaning up the kitchen. In case someone comes in to eat supper.”
Tanya gathered her cigarettes and lighter. “I’m going to Ben’s.”
Chapter 20
Tanya’s story left Marisa saddened. All around her lives were falling apart. A serious case of the blues assailed her, so after the started the dishwasher, she took her feather duster and tackled the wares in the flea market, keeping her hands busy with making everything shine.
But her mind stewed. She should have known better than to put stock in marrying a man she didn’t love for the sake of security. Hadn’t she learned that compromising your principle
s caused more problems than it solved? Instead of relying on someone else to take care of her, she had to figure out how to take care of herself. And Mama.
Her foot might be nailed to the floor for the present, but she had an opportunity to direct her own future. She could finish her cookbook, maybe get it published. Someday Mama would pass on—Marisa had already faced the fact—then she could go back to Dallas and finish school, really get that job as a sous chef.
Late in the afternoon, several men came in for supper. She recognized them as the Fort Worth surveying crew working for Terry Ledger. Having been in before, they were friendly and joked and told her how much they had thought about her home-cooked meals while they had been away. From them she learned Terry had returned and now things were going to start moving faster.
After hearing that tidbit of news, she felt panic set in again, accompanied by even deeper depression.
She fed Mama and put her to bed, then sauntered outside, her mind darting from the Odessa auctioneer with whom she’d had half a dozen conversations to the reply to her resume from the Midland country club that needed a cook.
That the country club referred to the job as “cook” disturbed her. She might not be a bona fide “chef,” but she was no mere “cook,” either. She had been cooking and selling the results for as long as she could remember. She was a food artist, a baker, with a little formal training and a lifetime of experience and self-education. She could write books on food and cooking, even on nutrition.
Returning to Agua Dulce, where she had a free hand in how and what she cooked every day, had spoiled her. She could no longer see herself slopping out a daily ration of frozen, pre-prepared entrees and maintaining a steam table of canned foods cooked to the point of being mush. She had done that enough already. If the country club’s attitude was that all they needed was a “cook,” perhaps she would be just as well off waiting for another opportunity where her ability might be more appreciated.
Yeah, right.
Sitting in the low light of day turning to night, an old Tammy Wynette broken-heart song playing in the background and a home behind her that not only didn’t belong to Mama but could be hooked onto the back of a truck and hauled away, the truth bore down on her. Refusing to consider the job in Midland wasn’t an option.
Restless and troubled by the melee going on in her head, she returned to the café. In the farthest back corner of the refrigerator was a six-pack of Budweiser. She had bought it once for Ben, but had never told him it was there. She didn’t like beer much, but she cracked a can and took a long bitter swallow. “Teetotaler Marisa falls of the wagon,” she mumbled to the quiet room.
She turned up the volume on the radio, listening to Toby Keith singing about a couple falling in love on the dance floor. She closed her eyes and swayed to the music in the empty café’s dim light, taken in by the romance in the song’s story. When the music ended, she kicked herself for indulging in self-pity and marched to the kitchen.
She opened a second beer, then dragged out ingredients—sugar, flour, rolled oats, butter—and set about making chocolate chip cookies from the supposedly stolen Neiman Marcus recipe. One of those urban legends. She had never really believed it was stolen from the famous department store’s bistro.
As she mixed up a triple batch of cookies, she finished the beer and opened another. Baking and drinking, she thought about making a living from selling cookies, like Mrs. Fields. “Mrs. Rutherford’s Famous Stolen Chocolate Chip Cookies,” she muttered.
Well, the Mrs. part was a ruse, but who knew? Maybe Mrs. Fields wasn’t married, either.
Married. Well, she had come close for a few days. And to a man as good as he was rich. She could be proud of that much and she would always be grateful to Lanny for asking her.
The cookies multiplied from a dozen to golden piles heaped on three plates. As the last tray baked she sat down at the lunch counter with a fourth beer and a book of crossword puzzles. As she struggled to focus her vision on the black and white squares on the page and pondered a word for “a German sea goddess,” she heard tapping on the front door.
A tiny ping of anxiety darted through her. In the back of her mind, she was constantly aware of the isolation of her location and the fact that the nearest law enforcement was at least thirty minutes away. At night she didn’t open the front door to anyone, usually didn’t even acknowledge a knock. She left the lunch counter stool and eased back to the kitchen, where she could peek out without being seen.
Terry Ledger. What could he want at this time of night?
Leaning against the refrigerator, uncertain if he had seen her, she bit down on her lower lip and debated not going to the door. In the end, she wiped her hands on her greasy apron, then pulled it over her head and flung it on the lunch counter.
Key in hand, she made her way to the front door, stumbling and banging only one table and knocking it’s contents to the floor. When she opened up, he said, “Hi.”
She felt a grin tip one side of her mouth as a happy dance went on inside her. “Hey, stranger. Long time no see. It’s ten o’clock. Does your mama know you’re out?” Her voice sounded too loud.
He frowned and tucked back his chin, then shot a glance at the locomotive clock. “I was hoping you had some pie left over.” He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets, the muscles in his forearms flexing. “To go, of course.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the plates of cookies sitting on the end of the lunch counter. “How about a chocolate chip cookie? They’re stolen.”
“Stolen?”
“Well, I mean the reshi”—she rolled her eyes and licked her lips—“the rec-i-pe’s stolen.”
“You stole a recipe?”
“Never mind.”
“Still got some coffee?” He grinned and dug a wad of bills from his pocket. “I’ve got cash.”
She couldn’t keep from grinning, too. The fool was just too fucking charming, as Tanya would say. “I can probably make some.”
He came inside and clumped along behind her in cowboy boots, back to the lunch counter. She assembled the small coffeepot she used to make the exotic stuff and threw in some of Tanya’s favorite, Cowboy Breakfast Blend. Then she took the tray of cookies from the oven and placed a dozen hot cookies on a plate.
When she set them on the counter in front of him, he made an exaggerated show of inhaling. “Man, do those smell good. Is it safe to eat ‘em?”
She cocked her head and stared into his eyes. “Why not? Im a really good baker.”
“But you said they’re stolen.”
“Just eat.” She set the plate on the counter in front of him with a clack, then picked up her nearby can and took a long swig. As a non-drinker, she was more than slightly lightheaded after four beers.
His eyes, his gorgeous, sexy, laser blue, Mel Gibson eyes narrowed to a squint. “You’re drinking?”
“I drink.” She leveled a hard, if unfocused, look at him.
He chuckled and chomped down on half a cookie. “How many beers have you had?”
“Who cares?” She glared at him through a squint. “Did anyone ever tell you you look like Mel Gibson?”
He grinned, reaching for another cookie. “Once or twice. But I’m bigger. And younger.” He stood up, rounded the end of the lunch counter and helped himself to a mug of the brewed coffee just like he was at home. “Those cookies are delicious. Who’s taking care of your mom?”
“She’s asleep. Out cold.” She finished off the beer with one long swallow. Turning her back on him, she opened the trash can’s lid just a crack with the foot pedal and slipped the empty can inside. No way did she want him to see the three cans she had already emptied.
“So who’s gonna eat all these cookies?” he asked.
“I might feed them to the roadrunners. “Wildlife needs cookies, too.”
“If this is a party, we need some music.” He sauntered over to the old jukebox and plugged it in. She heard the clatter of dropping coins and Patsy Cline�
�s clear voice filled the room with “Sweet Dreams.” He walked back to where she stood by the lunch counter and motioned to her with his finger. “C’mon.”
She stayed glued in place, determined not to be ordered around by the man who had made her heart ache for weeks now.
He grasped her wrist and pulled her forward. “Let’s dance.”
Her boot toe caught on the edge of the lunch counter and she fell forward. He caught her with one strong arm and pressed her body against his. He grinned again and closed her right hand into his left. Heat. The desert temperature was hot enough. She didn’t need additional heat. She pushed against him a little. “I don’t want to dance.”
He resisted her push and turned her in a circle. “I think we’ve done this before. You must be having man trouble again. So tell me what it’s all about this time. Lanny’s family?”
What right did he have to pry? “No,” she said sharply as the room tipped to the left.
“Ben told me what happened.”
“You know, he really should mind his own damn business. He’s worse than any old maid I ever saw.”
“Shh-shh. It wouldn’t work, Marisa.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Because I know you. You’re one of those honest women.”
“Well, so what? You say that like it’s a bad thing....And you don’t know me.”
“I know you better than you think. Reading people’s part of my trade. Honesty’s the thing I admire most about you.” She looked up, into his face, and he smiled. “That is, besides you being so pretty and having a great body.”
She smiled, too. A girl couldn’t afford to turn down a compliment. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. You feel good, too.” He kept looking at her intently as they moved around the tile floor, as if he were seeing inside her and she kept looking back, glad he was holding on to her. She felt vulnerable and naked and didn’t even care. Finally she ducked his gaze and placed her cheek against his neck, felt a quick intake of his breath.
As if the scent of warm man and Safari were Gilead’s balm, the knot inside her seemed to untie and the tension of the past weeks and her many dark thoughts drifted away. She turned to butter in his arms.