Good Time Girl

by Candace Schuler

  “I don’t think he likes me,” Roxanne whispered as the boy headed toward the truck with the saddle slung over his shoulder.

  “He’s just leery around people he doesn’t know,” Tom said. “Give him a few days, and he’ll be talking your ear off.”

  He certainly talked Tom’s ear off, filling him on the situation as they drove to the hospital. “He was out in the corral with that little sorrel mare, Magpie. You know the one with the freckled nose? She’d snagged her left hock on a nail and he was out there doctorin’ her up when he suddenly just keeled over, right there in the corral. He just up and keeled over,” Augie said. “Scared the bejesus out of the new kid, Jared. He came runnin’ into the barn, all kinda white in the eyes like a horse on loco weed, and said the Padre was havin’ some kind of fit, and somebody better call 9-1-1. The ambulance got there right quick and the paramedics used those electric shock things on him. It’d been kinda cool to see if it hadn’t been the Padre they were doing it to.”

  By the time they pulled into the parking lot of the Bowie Community Hospital, Roxanne knew all about the Padre’s condition, but nothing about who the Padre was or, more importantly, who he was to Tom.

  TOM SAT WITH HIS FOREARMS balanced on his widespread knees, a cup of vending-machine coffee dangling between his hands. He’d just spent twenty grueling minutes with the surgeon, getting the lowdown on the upcoming by-pass operation, and another heart-wrenching ten holding the unresponsive hand of the elderly man who would be undergoing it. He was bone-tired and scared shitless.

  Not knowing what else to do, how much he would let her do, Roxanne reached over and rubbed his back lightly. “Talk to me,” she said softly, her voice low in deference to Augie, who sat slumped sideways in his chair on the other side of Tom, sleeping off the long night of worry while they waited for the Padre to come out of surgery. “Let me help.”

  “His name is Hector Menendez,” Tom said as if she’d asked. “Everybody calls him Padre, though, because he studied for the priesthood when he was younger.” He picked at the rim of the coffee cup with his thumb. “He runs the Second Chance Ranch.”

  “I thought the Second Chance was your place.”

  “No. The Second Chance belongs to the Padre. It’s where I grew up. Or mostly, anyway.” His gaze flickered up to her face and away. “It’s a home for delinquent and abandoned boys.”

  Roxanne’s eyes widened. “You were an abandoned child?”

  “I was a delinquent child,” he corrected. “My mother was barely fifteen when I was born. Unwed. Mostly uneducated. She did her best by me, but—” he shrugged “—her best wasn’t very good back then. By the time I was ten, I was already getting into trouble with the police.”

  “What kind of trouble can a ten-year-old get into with the police?” Roxanne asked, her tone skeptical and disbelieving.

  Which proved, he thought, how little experience she’d had with the seamier side of life. “Shoplifting. Vandalism. Truancy. All petty stuff, but the way I was going, I would have been a hardened felon by the time I was twelve if she hadn’t turned me over to the Padre.”

  “She abandoned you?’

  “She saved me,” he said. “I was too much for her to handle and she knew it. The Padre gave me the kind of structured environment I needed. He gave me chores, taught me self-discipline and self-control, made sure I did my homework and went to school. If it weren’t for him, I’d’ve ended up riding broncs at the Huntsville prison rodeo. Instead, I went on to college, became a teacher, made a decent life for myself.”

  “And your mother? What happened to her?”

  “She moved to Dallas and got a job. Went to night school and got a better job. She’s a nurse at Presbyterian Hospital now,” he said, pride evident under the weariness in his tone. “Works in ER.”

  “Did you ever live with her again?”

  Tom shook his head. “By the time she got herself together and could’ve made a home for the both of us, I was already in college.”

  “And your father? Where is he?”

  “The Padre is all the father I’ve ever had. All the father I’ve ever needed,” he said, and found himself suddenly fighting tears. He blinked them back, refusing to let them fall. Cowboys didn’t cry, no matter how much it hurt.

  Saying nothing, Roxanne placed her hand over the back of his. Without a word, Tom turned his palm up, twined his fingers with hers, and held on tight.

  Two and a half hours later, the surgeon stepped into the waiting room. Tom shot to his feet, dragging Roxanne with him, jostling Augie who sat up and blinked like a sleepy toddler.

  “He came through like a champ,” the doctor said, answering the question before anyone could ask it. “And no, you can’t see him yet,” he added, anticipating the next one. “He’s still in recovery. He’s going to be there for the next little while, until the anesthesia wears off, then we’ll take him back to his room. You could probably see him for a few minutes then, but he’s still going to be mostly out of it and won’t remember whether you were there of not. I’d suggest you all go on home, get some sleep yourselves and come back tonight after supper. He’ll be ready for company then.”

  SEVERAL MILES from the hospital, they turned off the two-lane blacktop onto a long graveled road that was marked only by the tall, gateless arch that spanned its width. The top of the arch bore the same insignia—the Roman numeral II superimposed over a capital C—that decorated the side of the blue pickup. At the end of the road, a quarter mile distance or more, as far as Roxanne could tell, was a copse of trees and what appeared to be several buildings. As they neared the end of the road, Roxanne was able to make out a barn—the largest of the structures—and two smaller buildings, perhaps a bunkhouse and a henhouse or toolshed, she thought. They were set to the side and slightly behind the stand of cottonwoods and oaks that sheltered the ranch house itself.

  It was weathered old Victorian, white clapboard with slate-blue shutters. A wide covered porch wrapped around the entire first level. There were dormer windows on the third level—the attic, Roxanne decided—and a pair of rocking chairs on the porch on either side of the front door. A small picket fence enclosed the front door and one side of the house, protecting a struggling green patch of lawn and a thriving vegetable garden from rambunctious boys and livestock. Roxanne thought it could have used a few touches, a new coat of paint on the front door and shutters, some colorful hanging plants on the porch, maybe a flowerbed to soften the foundation, but all in all, it was warm, inviting and utterly charming.

  “By Texas standards, it’s not all that big a spread,” Tom said as they got out of the truck. “But it’s home.”

  It was also as chaotic as Tom had predicted it would be. Nearly a dozen young boys, from ages six to sixteen, came running toward the truck as it rolled down the long driveway and came to a stop in the yard between the gleaming forest-green pickup and the late-model Chevy sedan that sat in the driveway next to the house. All of them were talking a mile a minute, all of them were clamoring for news and attention. The littlest one, tears running down his face, attached himself to Tom’s legs and demanded to know if it was true that the Padre was dead.

  Tom stooped, snagging the child under his rear end with one arm, and lifted him on to his hip. Placing the thumb and index finger of his free hand against his front teeth, he gave a piercing whistle to settle the rest of them down.

  “The Padre is going to be fine,” he said into the ensuing silence. “The by-pass operation is over and the doctor said he’s resting comfortably.”

  “Does that mean he’s not dead?” blubbered the little boy.

  “Yes, Petie, that means he’s not dead.” He wiped at the little child’s cheek with the pad of his thumb in a gesture so natural and tender it made Roxanne’s heart turn over in her chest. “After supper tonight, I’ll take you to the hospital so you can see for yourself, okay?”

  “Can we go, too?” said one of the other boys.

  “Not everybody all at once.” Tom b
ent to set Petie back on his own two feet. “That’d be too much for him to handle just yet, and the hospital wouldn’t allow so many visitors at one time, anyway. We’ll have to go in shifts. A few tonight, a few tomorrow morning, a few more tomorrow night, and so on until it’s time for him to come home, That way, we won’t tire him out and he’ll have plenty of visitors to look forward to while he’s there.”

  “How long’s he gonna be there?” another child wanted to know.

  “Yeah, Tom, when’s he comin’ home?’

  “He’ll be home in a week. Maybe less if he heals up real fast.” He swept his gaze over the anxious, eager faces upturned to his, looking for one in particular. “Where’s Jared?” he said, when he didn’t find it.

  “Right here.” A young teenager, barely into puberty, stepped away from the rear fender of the pickup where he had been loitering, just outside the circle. Unlike the other boys, who wore cowboy boots and trim Western-cut shirts neatly tucked into their jeans, Jared sported a long-billed baseball cap and a baggy, too large T-shirt that hung over a pair of camouflage pants. His boots looked as if he’d picked them up at an army surplus outlet. He had a little silver ring dangling from the outside corner of his right eyebrow and his attitude was such that Roxanne wouldn’t have been surprised to see him put a cigarette between his lips and light it while they watched. She remembered that Augie had referred to him as “the new kid.”

  Tom smiled and moved toward him through the crowd of kids. “I understand we owe you a real debt of gratitude,” he said, and extended his hand.

  The boy took it automatically. “Huh?”

  “Augie tells me that it’s due to your quick thinking that we still have the Padre with us today.”

  “Huh?”

  “I what?” said Augie.

  “You’re the one who insisted on calling 9-1-1 when the Padre collapsed, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yeah. Sure.” The boy shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Then you’re the hero of the hour,” Tom told him. “The surgeon said that if the paramedics had gotten to the Padre even a few minutes later, he probably wouldn’t have made it. You saved his life.”

  “I did?”

  “He did?” said Augie.

  “You did,” Tom said. “And we all owe you our thanks.” His steely blue gaze touched each boy in turn. “Don’t we?”

  Petie, the youngest and most unselfconscious member of the little group, stepped forward and threw his skinny arms around Jared’s waist in a show of unfettered appreciation. “Thank you, Jared,” he said. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou.”

  Looking slightly panic-stricken, Jared patted the little boy’s shoulder awkwardly. “You’re welcome, Petie.”

  That made the other boys laugh in commiseration—they’d all been the focus of Petie’s unbridled enthusiasm at one time or another—and they surged forward, each eager to shake Jared’s hand. Tom let the congratulations go on for a few minutes, then stepped into the fray before the backslapping and handshakes could descend into roughhousing.

  “Don’t you all have chores that need doing?” he said, neatly dispersing them.

  “That,” Roxanne said, smiling up into his face as the boys hurried off in various directions, “was absolutely masterful. I am in complete and utter awe. You must be a wonderful teacher.”

  He shrugged, looking as uneasy as young Jared had a few moments before. “It weren’t nothin’, ma’am,” he said, parodying both the accent and attitude of the stereotypical bashful cowboy to hide his own embarrassment at her praise.

  “Is she your girlfriend?”

  They turned as one to find Petie staring up at them.

  “Don’t you have chores?” Tom said.

  “I already finished feeding the chickens, and I pulled the weeds, too. Is she?”

  “Is she what?” Tom said, stalling.

  “Is she your girlfriend?’

  “Well…” He shot a quick glance at Roxanne to see how she was taking the question. His gut instinct was to answer in the affirmative, but he didn’t know how she would feel about that. Was she his girlfriend. Did that describe what they were to each other? Or did the word “girlfriend” imply a level of commitment they didn’t share?

  She looked back at him, her expression bland and noncommittal, waiting to hear what he would say.

  “Well…” Tom said again, having found no help there. “She’s a girl and she’s my friend.”

  “Tom has a girlfriend. Tom has a girlfriend,” Petie screeched, and went running off to tell the other boys.

  Tom’s gaze went back to Roxanne’s face. “Should I have told him something else?”

  “I don’t know what it would be,” she said. “I don’t think there’s actually a word for what we are to each other.” The thought that there wasn’t tugged uncomfortably at her heartstrings. The lack of a word to describe their relationship made them seem so…temporary. Which they were, of course, but… She shrugged to show it didn’t matter one way or the other. “Girlfriend works for me if it works for you.”

  “It works for me,’ he said, his voice and demeanor just as carefully casual as hers had been. He reached out, putting his hand on the small of her back. “Let’s get inside. I need to make a couple of phone calls, let Rooster know how things are going,” he said, as he ushered her up the wide steps of the ranch house to the wraparound porch. “I probably ought to call Miz Jensen, too, and—”

  “Would that be Jo Beth Jensen?” Roxanne said with an arch look.

  He grinned. “No, that’d be her mama. She’s the one who always gets called when someone here ’bouts needs a neighborly hand. I need to call and let her know I’m here so’s she doesn’t have to be inconvenienced any more than necessary. Then we’ll get you settled in and—”

  There was a young woman standing at the old-fashioned white enamel sink with a plastic ice cube tray in her hands. She was curvy and petite with long, soft brown hair clipped back at the nape of her neck, and big soft brown eyes. She was wearing an apron over her jeans and nice sensible brown leather cowboy boots with modestly high heels. Her blouse was pale pink, with a narrow row of twining leaves and flowers outlining the Western-cut yoke. There was a pot of something savory simmering on the big six-burner stove, and three fruit pies cooling on trivets on the long wooden kitchen table.

  Roxanne suddenly felt like something the cat had dragged in off the street. She’d managed to slip into a bathroom at the hospital and take a few minutes to freshen up, finger-combing her hair into some kind of order and applying a fresh coat of cherry-red lipstick, but she was still wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing all night—the snug red tank top and tight jeans, the high-heeled red boots. Tom’s jacket was still slung over her shoulders. She resisted the urge to pull it together in front so she could hide behind it.

  “I thought that must be you when I heard the truck pull up outside,” the other woman said, smiling at Tom. “I would have been right out, but I had to take my pies out of the oven before they burned. And then I thought I might as well just take a minute and make some more iced tea.” She dumped the ice cubes into a glass pitcher as she spoke. “The boys drank the last of it with their dinner and I know how you like your iced tea when you’ve been outside in the heat.” She set the empty ice cube tray in the sink and dried her hands on her apron. “Hello,” she said, extending her hand to Roxanne as she crossed the width of the kitchen. “I’m Jo Beth. Jo Beth Jensen. And you are…?”

  11

  TOM INTRODUCED HER to Jo Beth as his friend. Not his girlfriend, which they’d both just agreed was as good a designation as any, but simply as his friend. He removed his hand from the small of her back and got all distant and formal and tongue-tied—which she knew damn well he wasn’t!—and acted as if they were nothing more to each other than mere acquaintances. Casual ones, at that.

  Jo Beth was no dummy, of course; Tom wouldn’t have considered marrying a stupid woman. She knew something was up, that there was more to their relations
hip than he was letting on, but she was too polite—or too crafty—to make an issue of it. Instead, she delivered a few instructions about last-minute touches to the pot of chili that was simmering on the stove—“Should I write this down or do you think you can remember it?” she said sweetly to Roxanne—and removed her apron.

  “Will you look at the time,” she said, as she headed toward the door. “I told Dad I’d be home by three and it’s nearly that already. He wants me to go with him to take a look at some breeding stock Matt Thomas—you know, the T Bar ranch just this side of Vashti?—has for sale. He’s probably pacing up and down the front porch by now, cussing me out something fierce.” She laughed lightly, as if the threat of being cussed out by her father was more amusing than anything else, and went up on tiptoe to plant a quick, friendly kiss on Tom’s cheek.

  He stood, stiff and uncomfortable and indisputably guilty, his hands at his sides, and didn’t kiss her back.

  She didn’t seem to notice his lack of response.

  “Tell the Padre that Mom and I will be over to see him in the next couple of days, hear? We’ll sneak him in a piece of cherry pie.” She held her hand out to Roxanne again. “It was very nice to meet you,” she said pleasantly, although it was patently clear—to Roxanne, at least—that it was nothing of the kind. “Do you think you’ll be able to stay long enough for the party?”

  “Party?”

  “Oh, nothing like you’re probably used to,” she trilled, somehow making it seem as if the parties Roxanne was probably used to were along the line of drunken orgies. “Nothing fancy. It’ll just be a quiet, neighborly little get-together to celebrate when the Padre comes home from the hospital. Like the one we had for Dad—remember?” she looked up at Tom “—after he had his by-pass two years ago. And don’t worry—” she patted him on the shoulder “—you don’t have to do a thing. Mom and I have already got everything all planned except for the date.” The screen door squeaked in protest as she opened it. “You ought to squirt a little WD-40 on that before it gets worse,” she said, and then the door closed gently behind her—she didn’t slam it the way Roxanne wanted to—and she was gone.