“It was going to be a surprise.”
“And Nina drove all the way to Reno with Bottom’s head on?”
“Of course not,” Emily said. “Nina isn’t crazy. She couldn’t see well enough to drive with it on. She realized that after we turned onto the main road and ended up in a ditch. Lucky for us, the ditch was shallow so we were able to drive out of it. I pushed.”
“Lucky, yes,” I said. “Go on.”
They’d stopped first by a liquor store, then parked the Pierce-Arrow by the river and started drinking. I was relieved to hear they hadn’t been quite as irresponsible as I’d thought. More like a couple of giggly, boneheaded teenagers who’d taken in a lot of alcohol, too fast, without eating dinner first. Rookie mistake, like the kids say now. Still, I assumed Nina had done enough dissipating to know how to go about it better. I guess I had misjudged her.
Emily wrapped up her account with, “I left the top down so the schnapps in the upholstery would have time to dry out before we drove home.”
“Schnapps!” I said. They really were like teenagers.
“It tasted like mouthwash,” she said. “Peppermint flavored.”
That explained the flavor of Nina’s kiss. “And who, exactly, was going to drive home, since neither of you was in any shape to?” I asked.
“You were,” Emily said. “We meant to steal you away. Well, not steal, not exactly. Nina says we have dibs on you for as long as we’re on the ranch.”
“Is that so?”
“She said Margaret told her we could take you whenever we wanted.”
“I see,” I said. “I guess I should be flattered that you two think I’m worth taking. Speaking of things worth taking, did it occur to you that leaving the keys in the ignition was an open invitation for somebody to steal the car?”
“Nina left them there because she was afraid she’d lose them.”
“I can understand that, since birthday suits don’t come with pockets,” I said. “I thought she didn’t know how to drive.”
“I taught her,” Emily said. “We had lessons almost every night.”
“Because everybody knows the best time to learn how to drive is between midnight and two a.m.”
“The car has headlights,” Emily said.
“Yes. I remember.”
She laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand.
“Go ahead. Laugh,” I said. “I’m glad you thought that was funny.”
“I think I may be sick again,” Emily said.
“Oh,” I said. “In that case, close your eyes and put your head between your knees until it passes.”
The two of us sat there, listening to the music the Washoe zephyr delivered to us from the dance hall while Nina sawed logs in the back seat. You wouldn’t have thought it, but her percussive snoring made a nice duet with the Johnny Mercer ditty they started playing, “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.” Emily picked her head up when she heard that one and started humming along. Then she groaned and collapsed back against the seat. “Take me home, Ward. If we wait until I feel better, we might be here all night.”
“You’re the boss,” I said. I put the car in gear and pulled away from the river. In the back seat, Nina shifted and stopped snoring. Emily tipped the mirror down to see if she was still asleep. When she tipped it up again, she said, “That’s part of Nina’s charm, you know.”
“Her snoring?” I asked.
“How she believes that anything worth doing is worth overdoing. She says that’s what she wants engraved on her tombstone. Do you know what she thinks will be carved on mine?”
“What?”
“‘I told you that was dangerous!’” She laughed. It was oddly silvery, given how gruff her speaking voice was. Then she groaned and put her head between her knees again.
Chapter Eleven
Nina slept splayed across the back seat all the way back to the ranch. Once I got the Pierce-Arrow backed inside the shed, I roused her, pulled her upright, and asked, “Stilts, do you think you can walk into the house under your own steam?”
“Nope.” She raised her arms like a small child and commanded, “Up.” I slid my arms under her knees and carried her into the ranch house. Without the donkey head she was a lot easier to manage.
I toted my tablecloth-wrapped bundle into the library and settled Nina on the couch while Emily scrounged a couple of paisley pillows from the armchair by the library table. When I peeled Nina’s arm free of my neck her eyes fluttered open, she whispered “Cash,” touched the cleft in my chin, said, “Looks like a baby’s rump,” and kissed me on the lips again. When Emily tucked pillows under her head, Nina kissed her on the lips as well, then said, “Nighty-night,” and promptly started snoring again. Emily covered her feet with a throw and draped another over her bare shoulders. We watched her for a minute to be sure she was settled in.
“Is it all right to leave her here?” Emily whispered.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she had to sleep down here before,” I said. “No menfolk are allowed upstairs after dinner, so if she got this pickled when she stayed with us before she probably ended up here. It happens. If you want to carry her upstairs yourself, be my guest.”
“Oh. Never mind.”
I switched off the lamp on the library table.
“I can’t remember the last time Portia kissed me good night,” Emily said. “Not even on the cheek.”
“Come on,” I said, and touched her hand. “We’d better clear out before the others get back and start asking questions you’re too tired to answer.”
Emily twined her fingers with mine and let me lead her out into the hall. “I am tired,” she said. “I’m too old for this.”
“You aren’t old,” I said.
“Easy for you to say. All this overdoing is exhausting.” She looked at the stairs as if they were Mount Everest. “Where are my fairy wings when I really need them? I wish you could carry me up to bed and tuck me in.”
I was reminded of that conversation many decades later, when I stood at the bottom of the stairs in the house my father had built for my mother when they married. I realized that night that, much as I loved the place, the steps had become an almost insurmountable obstacle. I felt like I was spending half my days descending them, clinging for dear life to the railing, and the other half hauling myself upstairs again to go to bed. Where were my fairy wings when I really needed them? I should have considered sleeping in the guest room on the first floor, I know, but that would have meant admitting I’d been bested by old age. So I hung on, making my painful way up and down that cursed flight until I had a fall. It’s a wonder it didn’t kill me. Sometimes I wish it had.
Oh, you’re kind to say that. Yes, I bought the old homestead back as soon as I was able, and still own it. I can give you the address if you want to drive by. It’s locked up, all the furniture under sheets. I just can’t bear to let it go. I understand now how my mother felt when she was crying into that tea towel when my parents lost the place. The current undertaker in Whistler has been after me to sell it to him. Fellow’s name is Barrymore, can you believe it? As if he were a character out of Dickens. You ever noticed how the loveliest old houses in small towns end up as funeral homes? I suppose that’s who’s willing to buy smack in the middle of town now. Proximity to local business is not the boon it used to be in the days before the automobile, when people walked to stores and carried their purchases. Like as not the beautiful homes of yesteryear that haven’t been pulled down for “progress” are now sandwiched between a Kentucky Fried Chicken and the parking lot for Kroger.
That night at the bottom of the ranch house stairs Emily said, “I remember the last time I carried Portia up to bed. She’d fallen asleep in my lap in front of the fire. She was five or six, and had gotten so big. I struggled all the way to the top with her and when I got there I knew I’d never be able to carry her upstairs again. I thought my heart would break. I had no idea when she was little how much heartbreak having children lets you i
n for. How much joy.”
“Get some sleep,” I said. “Take some aspirin and drink a lot of water. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
About the time she disappeared upstairs I heard the sound of tires crunching in the drive and decided to disappear myself. I slipped out through the kitchen and kept to the shadows of trees and outbuildings on my way to the bunkhouse. As I passed the barn, what looked like a white rag blew across my path. Caterwaul, I realized, on the prowl.
The next morning, Sam and I shuttled back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, laying out the morning buffet. Zep, an early riser, had planted herself squarely in our path, chattering about the night before, until Margaret shooed her off. I was about to ask Sam if any of the ladies had noticed I’d gone missing from the masquerade when Zep’s voice drifted in from the library. “Oh, look, Sam,” she called out. “Here’s the tablecloth! Hallelujah! I thought I’d lost it.”
“Uh-oh,” I said, and put down the platter of bacon I was carrying.
Before I could intervene I heard a thump and a yelp. When Sam and I got to the library door, Nina was stretched out naked and blinking at the Zeppelin’s feet. “I’m so sorry, Nina,” Zep said, looking aghast and clutching the tablecloth to her bosom. “That pillow over your head and the throws! I didn’t see—Nina, why, I never meant to—”
Nina hauled herself upright with admirable dignity, brushed herself off, patted Zep on the shoulder, and said, “It’s the edge that did you in again. You really have to get Sam to teach you how to do that trick right.”
Then she fingered her pearls, selected a book from the stack on the library table, opened it, and ambled our way. “Gentlemen,” she said, and winked at us as she shouldered past and headed for the stairs.
Zep, still dithering apologies, stood with Sam and me as we watched Nina’s ascent. She took her sweet time about it.
“I used to be just that slim when I was young,” the Zeppelin said once Nina disappeared into the upstairs hall. “I really should have walked around naked more.”
While Sam and I were gathering up the dirty plates after breakfast, he shook his head and started chuckling. As funny as Sam was, it was almost impossible to make that man laugh. If I managed once a year, I felt like I’d accomplished something.
“What?” I asked.
“Old Zep,” he said. “She’s a sly one.”
“How do you mean?”
He pitched his voice an octave higher. “‘Nina! Why, I never!’” He hooted, then dropped back into his usual range. “Zep’s been on the prowl for ways to take Nina down a peg ever since she got here.”
I had no idea what he was talking about at first. Then it hit me. “You mean that business in the library? You think the Zeppelin did that on purpose?”
“Think about it, son,” Sam said. “Zep had to put her back into it to dump Nina off that couch. When she found her rolled up in that tablecloth, out cold, she must of thought, ‘Hot dog! Here’s my chance.’ Nina being buck naked inside it, well, that was the icing on the cake.” Sam shook his head and grinned. “Then dang if Nina didn’t see her bid and raise her one.”
It occurred to me then that maybe Sam was a little bit in love with Nina, too.
As was often the case after a big blowout of an evening, things were quiet at the Flying Leap the following afternoon. Most of our ladies who had made it down for breakfast or lunch had retreated to their bedrooms to sleep through the hot part of the day.
I’d taken advantage of the quiet to help Margaret by hanging the laundry on the line. On days when the sun was fierce and the wind stiff, the first sheets I hung were about ready to be taken down by the time I pinned up the last. I’d just clipped the second corner of the final one in place and was walking down the aisle between the bedclothes to make sure everything was securely attached when a gust snapped a sheet horizontal and revealed Emily, looking square at me. When the wind dropped it again I raised the sheet and asked, “Were you looking for something?”
“Yes,” she said. “You. Margaret said I’d find you here hanging out laundry and I wanted to see it for myself. You certainly do know your way around a clothespin.” She ducked under the clothesline to join me on my side.
“I’d tell you to pull up a chair, except the show’s over now,” I said, dropping the sheet behind her.
Emily was wearing a loose, white, ankle-length shift that looked sort of like a nightgown but might not have been. She was barefoot, though, and her hair was mashed flat on one side. “I could use a chair, after last night,” she said. “I’m still a bit shaky.” Her eyes were squinty and a little bloodshot.
“You aren’t feeling well?” I asked. “Did you remember to take aspirin?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I thought I did, but—” She put two fingertips to each temple and grimaced. “I feel about as rotten as I must look right now.”
“You look all right,” I said. “But if you don’t feel good why don’t you go back to bed? That’s where everybody else is.”
“Nina says the best cure for a hangover is floating in your back on a lake. Apparently there’s one nearby that’s known for its curative waters.”
“Pyramid Lake,” I said. “People do say that about it. So you’re headed there? Sounds like as good an idea as any.”
“Yes! Terrific! Nina said you’d be up for going. I wasn’t sure you would be after what we put you through last night.”
It took longer than it should have for the light to dawn. “Emily, I work for Max and Margaret, not you two hooligans. I can’t just up and go wherever, whenever.”
“Nina’s asking now if they can spare you,” Emily said. “Look! Here she comes.”
Sure enough, Nina scrambled down the trellis and pelted across the barnyard, running straight for the mouth of our corridor of sheets. A large canvas bag swung behind her and she was wearing what looked like the fairy costume minus its wings and mask. “Is this the new clubhouse?” she asked breathlessly when she joined us among the flapping linens. “Club Three Sheets to the Wind?”
“Is that my fairy costume?” Emily asked.
“I found it wadded up on the bedroom floor. Finders keepers.”
Emily tsked. “Look what you’ve done. You snagged the chiffon on the thorns and tore it. Here and here. Oh, Nina. How could you be so careless?”
“Just doing what comes naturally,” she replied, plucking clothespins from the closest sheet, tossing the pins into her bag, then gathering the sheet up and stuffing it in after.
“I’ll have to stitch it up later,” Emily said. “I’m glad I brought along a sewing kit.” This, from a woman who’d buy a new car rather than clean its kittened upholstery.
“Of course you did,” Nina said. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before the others realize we’re going swimming and ask to tag along.” She helped herself to two more sheets and a few towels after feeling several to see which were the closest to being dry.
“Hang on a minute,” I said. “Margaret—”
“Margaret said to help ourselves to whatever we need.”
“And she knows you’re helping yourself to me?” I asked.
“Yes, yes,” Nina said. “Now hurry up. The Zeppelin was just knocking on our door, asking how I was feeling. She thinks we should be friends now, just because she’s seen me naked. As if that were such an exclusive club. Let’s go!”
“What did you say when Zep knocked?” Emily asked.
“I didn’t say anything. I stuffed a tissue in the keyhole and pretended I wasn’t there.” Nina tugged at the neck of the fairy costume. “This thing is choking me. I think I might have it on backward.”
“You do,” Emily said. “The ‘V’ goes in front. Pull your arms in and I’ll turn it around for you.” Nina dropped the canvas bag and did as she was told. Emily fingered the tattered spots in the fabric and shook her head before she spun the dress around. “At least the rips won’t be as noticeable in the back,” she said.
“Let
me run this empty laundry basket back to Margaret and grab my swimsuit,” I said. “If I can remember where I stowed it.”
Nina reinserted her arms in the opposite armholes and shimmied until the costume fell into place around her. That outfit had raked the floor when Emily wore it, but on Nina it was more what you would call tea length. “Margaret said to leave the basket here so she can use it to bring in the sheets,” she said. “As for swimsuits, I have everything we’ll need right here.” She picked up the canvas bag again and patted it.
“You have my bathing suit?” I asked. “Where was it?”
“Speaking of things that have been shredded by wild things, a coyote pulled your swimsuit off the clothesline and ripped it to pieces after you wore it the last time. Alas, it was beyond repair.”
“What?”
“That’s what Margaret said. She didn’t have the heart to tell you when it happened. She feels awful about it, so she’s loaning you Max’s.”
I’d never seen Max in a swimsuit. “Max’s?” I asked. “What does it look like?”
“It has a tank top and pants that go below the knees. Margaret said Max was wearing it when they met on the beach in Atlantic City twenty years ago.”
“Max and Margaret met in Atlantic City twenty years ago?” I was so taken by this tidbit of intimate history that I didn’t ask all the questions I should have.
“Didn’t I just say that? Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Nina grabbed Emily’s hand, raced to the car, and shoved her into the front seat before climbing in behind her. When the Pierce-Arrow was halfway down the driveway I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Margaret in the yard, semaphoring with a kitchen towel. “There’s Margaret,” I said. “I’d better go back and see what she wants.”
Nina turned around and looked. “Keep going. She came out to see us off. That’s all.” Nina waved at Margaret vigorously, blew a few kisses in her direction, and settled into the seat facing forward again.
“It won’t take a minute to—” I tapped the brakes.
“Don’t you trust me, Ward? Fine. Turn around. Ask Margaret if I’m lying. While you’re working all that out, Zep will have plenty of time to round up all the others. Liz. Theresa. Martha. Dopey. Grumpy. Think of what fun our little party will turn into with the Seven Dwarfs along.”
Better Luck Next Time Page 10