“No, nothing like that. I hit him with a lamp. But I felt like that motorcycle had given me special powers. The lamp, by the way, was an antique my mother had left me. The metal base must have weighed twenty pounds. He took it right in the chest. It was like a kick from a samurai or something—only it was a lamp!” Elaine shook her head, as if even now she couldn’t believe it.
Elaine said she hadn’t looked back, had just jumped on her bike and gotten the hell out of there. “I might have killed him for all I know,” she said. This was over a decade ago. She’d met King at a motorcycle rally back in 2002. She was there with a motorcycle club called the Biker Bitches. “Biker Bitches!” she said gleefully. “I don’t have my vest on tonight or I’d show you our patch. It’s a motorcycle with pink headlights. Some of the gals think it’s silly, but I love it. Anyway, I spotted your daddy in the crowd and I just had to talk to him. Everything he’s been through, it boggles the mind. He wasn’t sober yet, but he was trying. And I knew I could help him. I could be his rock.” Elaine raised her beer to her lips only to discover that she’d already finished it.
“Wow” was all Becca could say. Beneath her astonishment at Elaine’s story, she felt the itch of jealousy. Was she the only person on earth who didn’t know anything about her father’s life? She wanted to hate Elaine. The woman seemed less a rock than a swamp of emotion. But King was doing okay and if Elaine had played any role in helping him, then who was Becca to judge. Also, unlike Jeanine, Elaine gushed understanding.
“So what about you, honey? I bet you and I have plenty in common.”
Becca wondered what Elaine knew. Did the woman hope to bond over their both having fled their men in the middle of the night?
“You know, I get this sense about you,” Elaine continued. “You can take care of yourself. Not many women these days really do that. They don’t have the—the wherewithal. Now, you don’t have to thank me for the compliment,” she added quickly. “I’m guessing that compliments make you uncomfortable. Same as your daddy.”
Becca blushed. Maybe she was warming to Elaine. Or maybe the sudden tenderness she felt for her was from a more calculating impulse: Elaine could provide information about the enigma that was Kleos.
“Now, let me see what you’ve got under that bandage.”
Becca hesitated. “I’m supposed to keep it covered.”
“Oh, just a quick peek!”
Slowly, she unwrapped the gauze.
“Is that not the dearest thing!” Elaine turned Becca’s wrist this way and that, evaluating the design like it was an intricate work of art. “I’m going to give your daddy a talking-to. He’d better understand how lucky he is to have a daughter like you.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “Sorry for the display. Menopause. Makes me batty. More beer?” She stood up and was back in a flurry with two more Coronas.
“Elaine,” Becca said, after they’d sipped for a while. “I was wondering. My dad is so quiet. Not like . . .”
“Not like me.” Elaine nodded. “Oh, don’t I know it.”
“But then how do you—I mean, does he show you—” Affection, emotion, love? Do the two of you communicate? These were the questions Becca wanted to ask.
“I love your daddy more than I’ve ever loved any man, Becca. And I know I love him so much because I’m still with him. We’ve had to work hard to get where we are.”
“He was willing to work?” Becca said. Willing with you, she thought, but not me.
“I spotted him at that rally and I went to him, Becca. I almost always go to him. You know what I mean?”
Becca picked at the beer label. “And that doesn’t bother you? Don’t you want things to be equal?”
“Our relationship isn’t about equality. Not for me, anyway.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Love,” Elaine said, as though this were obvious. “And perseverance. That’s what your daddy and I are all about.” Elaine laughed and added, “We also live a couple of states apart, which I guess helps us get along.”
Later, Elaine took Becca back to the dance floor. Drunk, the woman turned belly dancer, all undulating hips and snaking arms, even during the hair-band songs. It was a strange way of moving, but Becca found it oddly beautiful. She wanted to try it, but even with the alcohol working through her, she felt shy. She did not like making a display of herself. But why not let loose a little? Why not try on someone else’s way of doing things for a couple of hours?
She imitated Elaine, tentatively, and Elaine smiled wide; Becca understood that if a movement made her feel happy, it was perfect. Her head began to feel like a giant wineglass, with the wine swirling round and round. She had not been so drunk in a long while. At one point, she’d tried to calculate her alcohol intake. A bunch of beers before Elaine, a double shot of whiskey, then the beers Elaine bought her. A random biker had presented Becca with a hard lemonade, claiming to know what “girls” liked. Becca was about to throw it in his face when Elaine fixed her stare on the offending hunk of leather and said, “Girl? This here’s a woman.” At that, they’d both burst out laughing. Were there more drinks after that? Possibly. There were certainly more men. Generally, when Becca consumed this much alcohol, she’d planned ahead. Ate a big dinner, at least. But tonight there was no plan.
A man who was not King started dancing with Elaine, and the Mexican appeared again and started dancing with Becca. This time she let him pull her in so that they were pressed together and she could smell his beery breath and cologne and feel her hand warm in his hand and his other hand on her lower back, slipping lower to rest not quite on her ass. Then the Mexican moved away, as though the music were a rope pulling him backward. And there before her was Reno, dancing with her, smiling as if to say, Fancy meeting you here. He offered her his hand and she took it without really thinking too much, just noticing a faraway voice that said, Be careful, and she’d laughed at this voice because for the first time in weeks, she just didn’t care.
Becca felt like she owned Motorcycle Mountain. She felt as though she were the Queen of these bikers, Queen of this music, Queen of her destiny.
The music slowed. Elaine was dancing with King, and Bull was grinding with some townie. But Becca wasn’t on the floor anymore. She was leaning against a picnic table under the sky, and there was another beer in her hand, and a group of men and a couple of ladies, none of whom she knew, were standing around, and they were all laughing about something. Someone was pointing at the sky, which was bursting with stars. The music was close but also distant. And for a second, the tent was a big top, and King and Elaine and the other dancers were circus performers, and Becca was in the audience watching them. But that picture faded when she felt someone lift the beer from her hand. Then that someone took her hand in his own and she saw that it was Reno, and there was that voice again saying, Careful now, and her brain saying, Shut up, which she must have spoken out loud because Reno said, “Huh?”
“Nothing,” Becca replied. So Reno led her to a patch of grass just a few yards away and now they were dancing to a slow song together. Nobody else was there and nobody came by to bother them and the music floated out of the tent and over them and it felt like they were in a small room made of sound. And then, out of nowhere, she was thinking about Ben and the wedding and how they’d stood at either end of the aisle listening to the fiddles play. The fiddles had formed a kind of invisible room around them the way the music did now, bringing them together, and neither of them could quit smiling.
Becca started to tear up, but she didn’t want Reno to see, so she pushed the memory away. Reno turned her slowly and led her in this careful way, because they were both painfully drunk. He turned her out and then he pulled her to him with his hand firm on her back. The way Reno was hugging her felt strange. She felt a sense of needing in his hug, something basic, like he was afraid and she was this person he could cling to—maybe the only person. And so that’s what he was doing, clinging. And Becca’s heart was pounding,
because she didn’t really understand what was happening or why she was having this effect on Reno and she was starting to cry again. This time, she didn’t know why.
Later, Becca followed Reno into the maze of tents. There were campfires and music but no fiddles. Becca imagined this place as an army encampment filled with soldiers readying for battle. But who were they fighting, and why? Becca and Reno arrived at a campfire where Elaine sat with some others, warming her hands. King was nowhere to be seen, but Bull was there. People were talking and drinking and watching the flames, women sitting in the laps of their men, their eyes glazed with firelight. And now anxiety began to penetrate the haze of Becca’s intoxication. How would she find her way back to Reno’s bike to get her tent? She felt a stab of panic when Elaine said good night and disappeared. But then Reno came over and sat down beside her. As he chatted with friends in the circle, he ran his hand from the top of her head to the nape of her neck and then back up. And she started to feel her worry slip away. His hand smelled like cigars and it felt so good and it was making her shiver and she thought about the two of them dancing earlier and her heart was beating rapidly again. Then Reno took his hand away and her neck felt cold.
Later, when the flames started dying out and almost everybody else had left, Reno stood. He hovered over her so that she was tucked inside his shadow. He offered his hand and she took it, let him pull her up. She followed him from the warmth of the fire into the thick of the tents until they reached his. And then Becca understood what was happening. She realized that she’d understood it for a long time now, even though Reno was almost King’s age and she had hated him and possibly still hated him. But something between them had changed. And now this was going to happen, and it was all right.
Becca stood shivering in the dark as Reno unzipped the tent flap. He held it open and she climbed inside. She waited. Reno knelt down outside the tent door so that they were now face-to-face, Becca on the inside, Reno on the outside. He leaned forward and she closed her eyes.
Reno pressed his lips to her forehead, his touch so much softer than she would ever have expected. She leaned forward slightly, waiting for the next phase to begin, but nothing happened. She opened her eyes. Reno had vanished into the night. The ghost of his lips lingered on her forehead, like a blessing.
16
THAT NIGHT, CURLED inside Reno’s sleeping bag, Becca dreamed about the Old Moon. She and Ben had been together a month, and he’d driven down from Fort Campbell to take her to the bar. It was to be her introduction to his coterie of fellow musicians. “These are my people,” he’d told her. “They’re going to love you.”
“Even though I don’t play an instrument?” she’d asked, and Ben frowned at her, like she should know better.
The bar was beery and dark and their shoes squelched against the sticky floors. As they looked for a free table, they passed a trio of musicians who attacked their instruments, oblivious to the fact that another band played on the stage just yards away. Meanwhile, people kept stopping Ben, giving him exaggerated salutes and making inside jokes. Becca trailed behind, a smile gelled on her face. It was too loud to catch people’s names and nobody seemed particularly interested in her anyway.
As soon as they sat down, Ben stood up again. “Forgot the fiddle! Don’t move!” He kissed Becca atop her head and then he was hurrying back through the bar. The band finished its set and music swelled from the floor, instruments appearing around bar tables as though from thin air. With nothing to hold but her beer, she felt strangely exposed.
“Hey there!” said a voice. “You must be Becca.”
Becca looked up. The band’s lead singer stood over her, holding a mandolin under her arm. She had Nashville hair and wore a mix of cotton, silk, and studs. Becca felt the plainness of her own T-shirt. “I’m Katie Jacobson,” the singer said. “I’m with the Sexy Fiddles.” She nodded at the others onstage. “We’ve all been eager to meet you. Where’s Ben?” Katie sat down as though the table belonged to her.
“Getting his fiddle.”
Katie nodded, though she didn’t really seem to be listening. “Heeey!” she called loud and twangy to someone across the room.
Becca knew she should feel proud that Ben was talking her up to his friends, but she didn’t like this woman in her showy outfit.
“There’s my boy!” Katie exclaimed suddenly, bounding over to kiss Ben on the cheek.
“So you’ve made each other’s acquaintance.” Ben put his hand on Becca’s shoulder. This made her feel moderately better, but the next moment, his hand was gone and unlatching the fiddle case.
“You’re up in five, Benny.” Katie winked and returned to the stage, her hair lashing whiplike against her back.
“An old friend?” Becca asked.
“A friend,” Ben said.
“A girlfriend.”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Are you jealous, Chicken?” He grinned. Becca didn’t smile back. There was so much they still didn’t know about each other, wide gulfs of information. All she wanted, she realized then, was to reach a point when they’d lived more of their lives together than apart.
Becca made to say something about this, but Ben was distracted, wiping down the fiddle’s exterior with a white cloth, fastening on the shoulder rest, rosining the bow, and turning the pegs. The instrument seemed like a toy in his large hands.
Up on the stage, Katie Jacobson laughed with her banjo player, their voices like bright major chords and too loud. If only Ben would stay put through a round of drinks. He was supposed to be a Southern gentleman, and gentlemen should not hop up onstage with other women. But the other woman was calling.
“Here goes nothin’,” Ben said and then Becca was alone again.
Hard-driving bluegrass burst out from the band. These weren’t the quiet murder ballads and fiddle tunes that Ben had played on the college green. This was music that demanded to be the center of attention. His eyes were closed and he seemed far away. Where was he, Becca wondered, and how could she get there? Could she even get there? Katie had her eyes fixed on Ben as she stomped her foot in time. Did everyone see that stomp for what it was? A beat that shouted, Mine, mine, mine! Becca folded her arms across her chest in protest.
Then Ben took a solo. A few measures in, his fiddle began to pull at her, like it could physically pry her arms apart. And soon, her feeling toward the music shifted. The sounds seemed to lift the roof clear off the bar, laying out the world plainly before her, possibilities multiplying infinitely, like reflecting mirrors. If you played, you could have all of this, the music said. But you don’t, so you can’t.
Ben opened his eyes and looked directly at her; his expression caused a physical jolt. Becca felt herself lifted upward toward the gigantic hole where the roof of the Old Moon bar had been before the music blasted it away. She gazed at the Kentucky fields and far beyond them, the million lives she and Ben were going to live. She saw that she could take her time living those lives. She need not rush, because the slower she walked toward the future, the more time she and Ben would have together. This whole time, she realized, he’d been playing for her.
Dawn brought a terrible hangover. Becca unzipped the tent and turned her face to the air, letting its dampness soothe her aching head. She spotted Reno sitting on a nearby log, his head hunched over his knees. A thin line of smoke curled from his cigar into the air. Becca climbed out of the tent and sat down beside him.
“You’ve been here all night?” she said. “Keeping watch or something?”
It was a moment before Reno responded. “Keeping watch, sure.” She opened her mouth to speak, but Reno preempted her. “I hope you’re not upset with me.” He turned his head to glance at her, briefly, then looked back at the ground.
“Not at all.” It occurred to her that she should feel horribly embarrassed for mistaking the nature of Reno’s affection. And for the fact that she’d been open to it, maybe even wanted it.
�
�You’re . . .” He looked at her steadily and she saw that his eyes were ringed red. “Oh, Becca.” He sighed her name in a long breath, almost like he was invoking the name of somebody years dead.
“Reno,” she said. “The letter?” She hadn’t intended to ask him about it just now, but the request barreled out of her.
“Quit bothering me about that,” he snapped and stubbed out the cigar on his boot. Then he walked to his tent, climbed inside, and zipped the flap shut.
Becca dug her heels in the dirt. How stupid could she be? Thinking that she and Reno had come to a kind of understanding. Over and over, she was wrong about people. She had misread her father on so many levels. And Ben! The most colossal misreading of all. She turned her wrist over and unwrapped the bandages. She should have stopped after the letter n. She was her only kin.
17
FROM THE SCENIC overlook, Lucy had given Ben a single direction—“South”—so south he went. Almost instantly, he regretted his decision to bring her along. He didn’t like having a child watching him while he drove, and Lucy’s phone wouldn’t quit ringing. After the eighth or ninth call, she made to throw it against the windshield. Ben flung his hand out to stop her. “Just turn it off!” he snapped.
Lucy obeyed and stuffed the phone into her pocket. She looked down at her lap and started sniffing—a sure sign of tears.
Ben cursed himself. “So, do you live around here?” he asked, trying to make things better.
Lucy shook her head and wiped her nose. “Window Rock. We came up here on the powwow circuit.”
“You mean dances and feathers? Those things still happen?”
Lucy frowned and shook her head, like Ben was a hopeless case. “We’re frybread champions, Ricky and me. We’ve won awards, been written up in the Navajo Times. We could do big things, you know? Open a restaurant. Have a TV show on the Food Network. But these last few years, all he wants to do is perform magic tricks with our money. He snaps his fingers and suddenly the cash turns into beer. But I guess you know all about that,” Lucy continued and nodded at the Breathalyzer. “Seriously. I got into the car, saw that thing, and almost got right out again.”
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