Blue Rodeo

by Jo-Ann Mapson

  Maggie rubbed his arm. “But you left rather than hurt her. That counts for something.”

  And it was also why he’d stayed so close—if there ever was a time he could go back, when he couldn’t stand not seeing her, within a day’s drive, he’d be close enough to get to her. “Say we called it an accident, Maggie. Truth is, the more years that pass, the more of an accident it seems.”

  “Sara’s twenty. She’d understand.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But not everyone’s going to see it that way. Think about that man’s kin. Somebody was his mother. Maybe he had a wife, a baby on the way, brothers, sisters, cousins. In seven years you think they’d be any more likely to excuse what I did by calling it an accident?”

  She lay back down next to him. He could feel the coolness of her flesh from having been out from under the covers so long. He started in stroking her, running his rough hands over her shoulders, down to the slippery skin between her thighs, traveling up to her solid firm breasts, and hugged her to him, this stubborn woman whose Christmas present was saying she loved his sorry carcass. He concentrated on how good it would feel to connect their bodies, but in the wake of their sobering conversation, neither one of the bodies in this bed had enough heart for making love.

  “It’s been a long day. Maybe we should just try and sleep.”

  Maggie turned her head away and he could feel the stiffness in her shoulders. He tucked the blanket up around her neck and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, where to his wide-awake eyes one lone crack in the plaster took on the curve and angle of the Rio Grande.

  When Mag called and invited her to spend the rest of her holiday at the house, Nori checked out of the Holiday Inn as soon as she could stuff her clothes into the Samsonite. Now she followed her sister around the Smith’s Food King in Farmington, picking up whatever hit her fancy: jars of Scottish marmalade, pricey tins of mushroom-and-garlic pâté, fifteen-dollar bottles of wine that sold so infrequently they were caked with dust. At a trot she hurried them into the cart because Mag was shopping at Mach twelve, launching her cart like a missile halfway down one aisle, grabbing boxes of cereal, then piling into the metal cart food she hardly even gave a second glance, including Pop-Tarts for Peter—junk food her sister normally denounced as contributing to society’s breakdown.

  Outside, the snowy parking lot looked grim under the light fixtures. The wind was blowing, too, and the red-and-yellow striped plastic banners that were supposed to make things look festive had tattered themselves to shreds. “You miss California?” Nori asked.

  Mag stood there balancing two cartons of ice cream in her hands: Chocolate Cookies and Cream and Tin Roof Sundae. Nori knew her sister well enough to bet that the addition of chocolate to normally vanilla-based Cookies and Cream would be enough to send her plummeting into depression. Cookies and Cream was Pete’s favorite—one of those sacred mixtures that satisfied a teenager on a primal level. Tin Roof Sundae had chopped nuts—not that many, but ever since he could handle solid food, Pete had pushed aside the nuts. Mag put the Cookies and Cream into the basket, shoved the Tin Roof back into the cold recesses of the freezer compartment with its unsold brothers, and immediately took it back out again to read the label.

  Nori stifled a laugh. “I asked you if you missed California.”

  Mag frowned as if it was the first time she’d heard the question. “Right now I miss their ice cream selection.”

  “Come on. You know what I mean.”

  Nori watched her sister eye the few pints of low-fat frozen yogurt caked with icicles and decide against them, too. Again, she set the ice cream back into the freezer compartment. “Let’s see. Police helicopters, taggers’ graffiti on the storefronts, beachfront gridlock? Get in the car and let’s go back right now.”

  “Come on, Mag. Snow? You don’t have moments when you’d like to put on your shorts, go sit on the deck, drink coffee with Deeter, and discuss the thorny issue of middle-aged angst?”

  Her sister shot her a look that revealed the depth of that sore spot. “Sure I miss that. I miss pretending I had a stable marriage, having a kid with two working ears and a somewhat manageable future ahead of him. And I miss the shit out of having a friend like Deeter.”

  Nori smiled sheepishly. “But I took care of that.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “So when are you going to forgive me? All I did was spend one night with a lonely middle-aged guy who knew he was never going to get the chance he wanted with you.”

  Mag stopped the cart. “What are you talking about? Deeter and I were friends.”

  “That’s what you think. He wanted in your bed. Bad.”

  “Contrary to what your estrogen level tells you, not every relationship has to end up there. If that was the case, which I doubt, it was something we could have worked through by ourselves. In any case I didn’t need you to be my surrogate. Your one-night diversion trashed a friendship.”

  “Oh, horseshit.”

  But Nori could see that Mag was gathering steam. “You grew up in Massachusetts, too, right? Snow’s snow. Pretty in November, a pain is the ass in March, but it goes away eventually.”

  “Unlike sisters?”

  Mag turned her face away, but Nori had already seen her expression. “I never said that.”

  Her older sister rolled the cart on, then stopped in front of the juice concentrates. In Mag’s kitchen there was always a pitcher of pulpy Florida squeeze in the fridge. Multivitamins for Pete. Enough canned goods that they could survive a month without going to the store. A bottle of drinkable red and excellent white wine. Nori was home so infrequently she didn’t bother shopping. She hit the four food groups occasionally varying her take-out.

  “Why not? If it’s how you feel, own up.”

  “Nori, for now my life is here. I’m making the best of things so Peter can go to school. Did you know they weren’t going to let him in otherwise?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s true. You got him all fired up to go, then left. I had to go in and bargain or watch my son get let down a third time.”

  “Sorry.”

  Her sister sighed. “I know what you think of me. That I don’t have much of a life. Probably you’re right. I should have finished my degree, had a career I could go back to, but I didn’t. It’s still my life, Nori. Peter and I are speaking, my divorce is ambulatory, and I have somebody in my life I respect.”

  Nori laughed. “The way you put it, it sounds like you two spend all your time discussing great books instead of having sex.”

  “Maybe you have a problem with that in particular.”

  “No, you do. Who you screw should be your own business. Like Deeter was mine.”

  Mag sighed. “Owen Garrett isn’t your trusted friend. I didn’t drop in, hop in his bed, and drive away the next day.”

  “That’s right. Who is he, Mag? What do you really know about him?”

  “That he’s honest and dependable. There for me. That he’s my friend. Mine.” She took a box of microwave popcorn from the highest shelf and put it into the silver cart.

  “You don’t even have a microwave oven anymore!”

  Her sister stared at the box, at Orville Redenbacher’s wholesome assurances of low fat and the minimum of salt—tenets Nori was certain she based her life on. Who could tell what she was thinking? No matter what Mag believed, Owen Garrett wasn’t going to be able to patch over every howling hole in her life. From fathers to smart-ass Indians to the ones who seemed so like Mr. Right you heard bells chime during your orgasm, all men moved on. Mag could go back to California, live on her settlement, slip back into the fold, do all right anywhere. She was like that. When she died, Pete would still be her son, proof she’d done something worthwhile besides pay taxes. Nori reached up and put the popcorn back on the shelf, looked at her sister, then burst into tears.

  “At least we don’t have to worry about the groceries defrosting in the car,” Mag said as they sat drinking cappuccino topped with foamy
drips of hot milk. “We’re probably the only two women in Blue Dog, New Mexico, stupid enough to be sitting in a frozen-yogurt shop drinking coffee when we could be home sitting by the woodstove.”

  Nori agreed. “It’s colder than a witch’s ass out there.”

  “Where did you pick up that little bon mot?”

  Nori stirred sugar into her coffee. “Mr. Joseph Yazzi, Christmas powwow escort service and underwear detective first class.”

  “What?”

  Nori waved her hand in front of her face. “Nothing. A joke.”

  “Joe’s a decent man.”

  “Oh, I know. His only drawback is that he thinks he knows everything. Wonder what he kisses like.”

  “Please don’t try to find out.”

  “God, Mag, you’re so serious you can’t even tell when I’m kidding. Lighten up. I’m swearing off men forever. Since I have such incredible luck with them.”

  As she said the words, she believed them, but the pull to fall into bed, give herself ten minutes’ forgetfulness in the lock of bodies joining, was still there, just as strong. Behind the counter the Indian girl who’d made their coffee was leaning against the counter, focused deep into the pages of a paperback horror novel. Family—what was it? Relatives like herself coming and going, people who tried hard to get their work done, or just a sloppy genus term?

  “I’m still angry with you, Nori. I’m trying to get over it.”

  “Because of Deeter?”

  “Deeter’s history. Much as I hate it, I suppose I can afford to lose a friend. But not my son. You steered him away from me when I needed most to be his mother.”

  This shocked her. “Are you serious? How can you be mad at me when Riverwall’s turned out great?”

  “I’m not denying that. Peter’s different now. He even studies I’m almost afraid to say anything, to jinx it.”

  “So be mad at me? That doesn’t make sense.”

  Mag took a measured breath. “Nori, when he got meningitis, Peter could have died. He went to sleep and almost didn’t wake up. When he did, he was deaf. And his parents were still getting a divorce. There was a lot of repair work we needed to do, and we needed to work on it together. I’m not saying he was my only anchor, but I am his mother. Going to Riverwall should have been a group decision. Peter looks at you and sees this free spirit, this intrepid, shrewd world traveler, incapable of failure. You used that. Took how much he adored you, trounced blithely over what was left of my family, and made all the choices for everyone.”

  Nori stirred the frothy milk into her cooling coffee and shoved the cup into the saucer. It wasn’t fair. First Indian Joe, now Mag. She wasn’t being selfish, she was just offering a sensible perspective on a difficult problem. Why couldn’t Mag see that she had everyone’s best interests at heart? “Well, what do you want? Me to say I’m sorry so you can feel superior?”

  Mag’s expression was pained. All over her face, that why-do-I-bother? mouth pursed in judgment. Hadn’t it been that way their whole lives? Nori creating shitstorms, Mag soldiering her way through, Nori labeled the bitch.

  New Year’s Eve, Rabbott’s Hardware was making a profit selling plastic champagne glasses, corkscrews, and a few plastic chip-and-dip sets to town ladies planning parties. The shoppers were passing on the cocktail napkins, which Owen attributed to a basic flaw of design. Who wanted to pay ninety-nine cents for a hundred napkins featuring a wizened Father Time on one side, his weathered body ready for the bone pile, and that obese, too-cheerful diapered baby on the other? It wasn’t a holiday he minded working. Too much time to think if he stayed home. Dave Rabbott, gone to Albuquerque for the duration, had left him the keys and a pad full of instructions: Here’s the order of lock-up, the combination to the safe—not that I expect any great haul after the holidays, but put the take in the green zippered bag and we’ll worry about depositing it come Tuesday when the banks are back in business. Open the store for me and I’ll see you around lunchtime, unless Enid gets into a shopping frenzy over to Dillard’s….

  Owen cut some plywood for a fellow who’d had bad luck with guests at his motel and needed to patch a window until the glass people could come replace it. He sold the complete inner workings to a toilet to a young man who said, “Christmas. You can tell anyone who might possibly be interested that contrary to popular belief, Legos do not flush.” And he kidded a sour old woman who wanted to know what was “on sale.”

  “Everything but me,” he answered, but she wasn’t having any of Owen Garrett’s holiday cheer while she was seeking bargains. Minnie Youngcloud stared rapt into her Sony Watchman at the register, one of her Christmas presents to herself. Owen wandered over and stood by her. It’d been a year or so since he’d seen anything more than a night of motel TV, and he wondered if during that period it had changed any for the better. “What’s on?” he asked.

  “‘Unsolved Mysteries.’ It’s a show where people try and solve crimes the cops give up on. They call in and give tips. You get a big reward if they arrest somebody. Sounds like easy money.”

  “Sounds like making a buck off misery, if you ask me.”

  “Well, no one asked you. Shh. I’m trying to see if I recognize anybody. Then I can quit this job, move to sunny California.”

  He stepped back from the counter and started sweeping the floor. He didn’t want to know—if they made a television show out of that sort of thing, there truly was no place a man could hide—and that was a terrible thought. He abandoned the broom and went to the back room to begin the process of shutting up the store. Hope was asleep under Dave Rabbott’s chair and lifted his head when Owen walked into the office.

  “Hello there, son.” The dog stood up, ever ready to accompany his master down whatever path he might choose. He was a good dog, smarter than most, and comfort on cold nights when what you needed most was to hear the sound of your own voice, no response necessary, just the kinds of foolish utterings that convinced you you were still tethered to the planet. With his three legs, Hopeful was distinctive, but not all that unusual. In farming and ranching country, what with tractors and baling accidents, more than one three-legged dog could be found, and blue heelers abounded. Summer or winter, a medium-size dog was easily transportable. Not so with Red. Selling a horse legally left a paper trail. If you gave that good a horse away, you had to make certain it was to folks who would look after him proper. He could give him to Joe. But pills or not, Joe had that crazy streak—he might up and one day sell the horse for a meal at Embers on enchilada night, or turn him loose in the badlands when he got off on one of those Indian guilt-and-history jags he sometimes fell into.

  “Owen?” Minnie said from the office door, holding her Watchman like a spaceman’s pocketbook. “It’s six o’clock. I’m heading home, unless you need help.”

  He shook his head no, wished her Happy New Year, shut down the store lights, counted the bills, separated paper and coin, and put the checks into the plastic envelope. He noticed there was more cash in the wall safe and set his envelopes on top of it. The quiet store felt like a cave. Its dark corners could easily have been filled with bats as merchandise. Running away from Colorado, sharing a cave with some enterprising bats, he’d discovered he didn’t care for the animal. Half bird, half bug, despite their reputed intelligence and necessary link to the food chain, he’d just as soon never see a cloud of them moving around his head again. But for his panic at their numbers and the resulting sleeplessness, that cave had kept him warm.

  He and Hope stopped at the Texaco on the way home. Joe Yazzi was there, outside the convenience store cash register area with two of his Navajo buddies, silent men who were bundled not too effectively against the cold, drinking what looked like Cokes. Owen wondered how his friend had gotten from the farmhouse downtown, and furthermore, what the heck he was doing—it wasn’t a Coke in his hand, it was a Coors bottle. “Hey, Joe,” Owen said as he laid his ten-dollar bill on the counter for the clerk. Half a tank of gas beat none. “What happened to Step One? �
�Admitted we were powerless over the booze’?”

  Joe gave him a distracted look and started in on eagles and bears, the way things used to be in the animal world before the white man killed everything off. True as the basic issue was, it was crazy talk. In Owen’s marrow, alarm bells started ringing.

  He tried kidding him. “Now don’t go blaming me,” Owen said. “I never ate bear in my life.”

  But Joe was acting as if he didn’t even know who he was. Owen mentally tallied off who he might call to help as he went back out to his truck, opened the hood, and checked the oil, which was only down a quart. Dave was out of town, it was getting late, and the ugly way things were proceeding, he didn’t want Maggie involved.

  Alongside him a shiny red Ford dual-axle pulled up, its bed full up with cages containing silver-and-black-tipped huskies, show dogs by the look of them. “Nice-looking animals you got there,” Owen said.

  The driver slammed his door and lit a cigarette. “Yeah, well, if I get them to California by the end of the week, I pocket five hundred bucks and have time to watch a dirty hotel movie before I got to head back. Good thing they come with fur coats. Looks like it might snow again.”

  Both men looked up, automatically checking the sky for clues.

  “You’re probably right.”

  The man went inside to take care of his bill as Joe Yazzi threw his empty beer bottle into the Dumpster, where Owen heard it shatter. He watched him stop at the Ford and eye the dogs. Owen said, “Why don’t you hop in my truck, Joe? I’d be glad to give you a ride home, or you can come along and drink coffee at my place. We could even grab a bag of enchiladas and take them on over to Maggie’s, play some cards. Don’t throw away your hard-earned sobriety. You worked to rack up those years.”

  Joe reached in the bars of the cage nearest him, letting the dog sniff his fingers. His face grew wistful, as if he were communing with the memory of his own lost dog, and Owen felt for him. He added the quart of oil he was down and fumbled with the latch on the hood, trying to urge the slightly askew hinges to shut properly. When he next looked up, Joe had set three of the four caged dogs free and they were running around the station—elated, confused, and headed for the only place they could go, the highway.