by Susan Slater
Or, would her love life take off and…and what? Somewhere along the line reality had to set in. Just because she was drawn to some man she’d just met…but there were the roses. And he didn’t seem to be the type to send roses to just everyone…. And she knew his sister. Had counted her a good friend at one time.
This was making her crazy. If she closed her eyes, she saw a tall man with a head full of graying brown hair, handsome in a casual khaki sweater and jeans, with eyes that creased almost shut when he smiled and, yes, twinkled. There Jude Deveraux, his eyes twinkled. God, she was being stupid. Maybe, if she dwelt on his ears being a little too large, the faint smattering of pock marks on one cheek, some badge earned in puberty, or the cologne that made her sneeze and think of margaritas….
She gathered the roses, placed them back in their box and locked the door behind her. She needed to wire Matthew some money before three, do laundry, pick up some wine, return a shirt…and keep her mind off of what might not be.
***
He’d traded in the rental Tercel for a red Jeep Cherokee and instantly felt better. He simply noted “need all-terrain vehicle” on his expense report. He doubted that it would be questioned. His boss thought he was at the end of the earth anyway.
When he’d called Billy Roland that morning, he’d gotten an invite to a polo game in San Patricio. One-thirty, picnic lunch provided. He needed to hand over the report on Cisco Kid anyway, might as well enjoy the afternoon to boot.
The drive took a little over an hour. It was some of his favorite New Mexico scenery, rolling hills, old farm houses, stone fences, apple orchards so ancient that the exact names of their fruit were lost—Smokehouse reds, Rallin’s greens. He used to like to visit Carolyn in the fall and take a box or two of those oldtimers back to Chicago.
The village of San Patricio was timeless, beyond old with its hand-plastered gray-white adobe walls, and well-swept dirt courtyards, set below the highway, its tin roofs clustered together. He angled the Jeep down the steep incline and drove between the Catholic mission church and school then followed a winding dirt road back toward the Rio Hondo. The river was more like a stream this time of year, but he knew the water was cold and clear.
The polo field was in front of the Hurd Gallery. Pricey oils and water colors by Peter and William hung side by side with those of Henrietta Wyeth. Oils a little pricey for him but he did have a nice collection of prints, many signed. The two-story adobe building backed up against a wooded area separated by a garden of perennials, mostly roses, some free standing, some espaliered against the gallery, others tumbling over each other along the fences. But all in brilliant bloom in shades of pink.
Horse trailers were parked near the road and the cars of spectators—an ample sprinkling of Jaguars, Mercedes, and Lincolns—lined the single lane that led to the announcer’s stand and covered viewing area. He parked the Cherokee and walked toward the pavilion, a blue and white striped canvas-topped tent open on three sides. Picnic wasn’t exactly the word he’d use to describe it, but he did see a number of rattan baskets sitting on a back table.
The game, it appeared, hadn’t begun. Two groups of mounted players, sticks in hand, huddled at opposite ends of the field. Strategy time, Dan guessed. The wraps on the legs of the horses matched the color of their rider’s uniform. This wasn’t just a bunch of guys who got together once in awhile on weekends, this had the look of professionals.
“You’re my date for lunch.” He hadn’t seen Iris slip into a folding chair beside him, but there was no mistaking that breathy little-girl voice.
“Lucky me.” He tried to sound convincing.
“Luckier than you know.” With lips parted she leaned close, the wide brim of her straw hat keeping her a discreet two feet away. Hat matched dress, and shoes matched hat, everything black and white in combinations of dots and stripes. The same outfit would look just fine at the Kentucky Derby, Dan thought. Out here it just seemed overkill. But he noticed as he looked around, the other women were wearing Derby finery, too.
“Wine cooler?” She handed him a glass that contained something pink with a sprig of mint. He’d thought he would chase down a beer, but took the glass anyway.
“Do you like polo?” He was stretched for conversation topics with Iris and never felt exactly comfortable with her.
“No. But Billy Roland does.” She pulled her full skirt up above her knees and stretched tanned legs out in front of her.
No nylons, Dan noticed, but then who was looking. Those legs couldn’t hold a candle to Elaine’s. He was seeing Elaine tonight and couldn’t fight down a little surge of excitement. Movie, dinner, good conversation, and if he was lucky….
“Must be a leg-man.”
“What?” Dan was startled out of his reverie.
“These things.” She pulled the skirt even higher. “How’s this? Better look?” God, he must have been staring.
“Do they have restrooms around here? Or do I need to go back to the gallery?” He stood quickly, broke the spell or whatever it was that Iris was trying to set up, and looked around, spotting an elaborate bank of Port-o-Potties beyond the pavilion. “Hold my chair.”
There was a line and he chose to wait over by a group of tables, baked goods offered by the local Presbyterians, ceramics by the Methodists, some sort of knit things, could be animals from the V.F.W. wives, horse jewelry in silver and gold, an elaborate rack of dried flowers, garlic wreaths and herbs directly in front of him, all set up in the shade under a group of old cottonwoods.
“Dona Mari.”
He hadn’t meant to half yell out her name, but he was surprised. He hadn’t expected to see the old crone. He thought Carolyn had said she’d gone home to Chihuahua. But there she was sitting in front of the dried-flower display behind a card table draped with white cloth; a basin of water in the center held a white chrysanthemum that floated lazily around a thick lighted candle. The scent of orange blossoms filled his nostrils. Small leather pouches tied with long strings, amulets holding God knew what potions, surrounded the center piece. It must be good luck charms today and it appeared that business had been brisk.
“Your sister said you was back.” She looked old; even her gypsy finery and jangling bracelets couldn’t hide puckered skin, sunken eyes and the fact that the hair pulled back from her face had turned white. She still pronounced sister with an elongated double “e.”
“Someszing for the love life?” The old eyes still sparkled and the laugh still sounded like the wadding of dry paper. She held up a lavender leather bag with feathers sewn to the sides.
“Don’t think it’s a match with what I’m wearing.” Dan held it against his shirt before handing the pouch back.
“Always ze joker. Someday you find out how smart you aren’t.”
Dan hated her predictions; sometimes, like now, he felt they had already come true. She’d been with Carolyn since he could remember. Visits over the years included finding the withered feet of various animals and small birds on his pillow or feathers and rocks in his shoes. His sister swore by her. Dona Mari could do no wrong. He wished he felt comfortable around her.
“Here, you keep anyway.” She thrust the pouch at him. “You need bad.” He had no idea why his love life should be her concern. And he didn’t like the laugh that followed, but what the hell? He reached for his wallet.
“No. Is gift. You no bad man, maybe head is hiding from the light too much. That is all.”
Could be. More than once someone had suggested he had his head up a part of his anatomy. He thanked her and turned back toward the field; there was still a formidable line in front of the rest rooms. Billy Roland was talking with Iris and someone else was riding his horse. It looked like Hank. He headed over that way.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t bring an appetite. Look at this here spread.” Dan nodded appreciatively and agreed with Billy Roland that everything looked great. Which it did. He’d bet Iris hadn’t gone near the kitchen to prepare it either. They had moved to a tabl
e covered with a checkered cloth. The heaping platter of fried chicken was crowded by the bowls of potato salad and baked beans.
“Don’t be bashful, now. Just dig right in. Iris, honey, you fix him up a plate.”
Dan sat next to Billy Roland and watched the game. Hank was good, an expert horseman. From the cheering and foot stomping, his benefactor agreed. It was probably a young man’s game or an idiot’s. Dan flinched when one of the players was decked by a mallet.
“I’d like to come out in the morning and tour the barns. Would that be a problem?” Dan had handed Billy Roland the test results on the Cisco Kid and watched as he scanned the papers before quickly putting them in his pocket. His expression registered raw pain. Was this some ace acting? Or was the loss of the young bull that traumatic?
“I’ll tell Hank.”
Dan thanked Billy Roland, said good-bye to Iris, and walked toward the Cherokee; he didn’t see Dona Mari. She must have folded her tent and left.
***
Elaine pushed the door open and pointed to the portable phone at her ear.
“Shouldn’t take too long,” she whispered, then waved him to follow her and they walked back into her study. “Go back a page. What was the last thing…Um hmmm…I don’t think it belongs there. Henry, I have a guest…okay, one more page….” Dan felt her tug on his sleeve, and he turned back from the floor to ceiling bookcase, Sheridan to modern day in a thousand, give or take, volumes.
“My boss,” she mouthed then shrugged and covered the mouthpiece. “Can you do me a really big favor?”
“Sure.”
“Take Buddy for a walk.” She handed him a leash.
Obviously, Buddy was a dog. Where was he? Elaine was pointing behind a leather couch. Dan leaned over the back.
The black Lab looked a hundred and ten in dog to human years but shuffled upright and waddled out of his hiding place.
“You’re grayer than I am.”
He thought Buddy gave him an approving once over. This wasn’t how he had imagined the evening starting. He’d have been content to sit back and watch Elaine in action, maybe casually stare at her long legs, tanned, encased in nylons, three-fourths of them showing from where the mini-skirt ended. Instead, he slipped a choke-chain over Buddy’s head and snapped the leash in place.
He found a park about a block from the house and followed Buddy as he sniffed and watered a dozen obviously crucial spots before wanting to head home. Buddy had a wheezing spell on the front steps, his lungs filling and collapsing, forcing air out the sides of his mouth in bubbly puffs that brought Elaine outside in a rush.
“Asthmatic. Has been since a puppy but it still scares me.”
Buddy seemed to recover under slow rhythmic strokes to his head and chest and now just leaned against Dan in a sort of “I like you” form of doggy acceptance, breathing easier, a trail of saliva dripping to Dan’s slacks.
“He likes you.” She seemed impressed.
“Probably smells Simon. The Rottweiler that owns me.”
Dan followed Elaine back in the house. He was faintly sorry she had traded in the mini for a pair of form-fitting Levis, but only faintly.
“Give me five more minutes.”
He would have given her however long she wanted. Strangely, time was no big thing. Not as long as she was sharing it with him. They were going to a standard dinner and movie. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing with subtitles—including the dinner. He didn’t want her to order for him in French or Italian or whatever it was she spoke fluently. He didn’t want to worry about being monolingual, not tonight. He was thinking along the lines of Bar-B-Que and a Bruce Willis, but even that could be modified to a steakhouse and something with Anthony Hopkins.
But the theater was an artsy-fartsy one that brought back oldies but goodies. And played to an elite crowd of university types. Farewell My Concubine caught him off guard. He hadn’t seen it whenever it first came out—just not his type of movie. But he liked it; the subtitles didn’t make him lose track of the action, possibly because three English words seemed to equal a prolonged minute of Chinese.
And dinner? Not steak but whatever that stuff was with artichoke hearts and capers, he’d do again. They shared a white chocolate cream something or other and two cups of cappuccino and talked until the restaurant closed.
He didn’t know he could remember as many fascinating cases as he’d related in four hours. And she seemed to enjoy the stories. Not just pretend-enjoy like the fifth grade teacher, but really get into, ask the right questions, the kind of enjoy that went right to his ego. Something to be said for someone a little older.
It wouldn’t have taken the offer of another cup of coffee to get him back to her house. They both knew it would end up that way. Kid gone, two consenting adults, house to themselves. They stood on the porch as she fumbled for the key, than stepped inside. He put his hand over hers, stopped her from turning on any lights. He hadn’t driven the last two miles with a hard-on to have to spend time with more small-talk. He was taking a chance that she felt the same.
“Matthew left some condoms…” Neat relationship for a kid to be that open, that adult; but he had already thought of safety, and tried not to hear the voice of Pam, the fifth grade teacher, admonishing him to not take chances. New ball game. New ball park. He pulled her to him and kissed her.
They were somewhere in the hall between a bathroom and a bedroom. He was surprised and aroused by her eagerness. Not a lot of fancy teasing moves but just plain old “I want you inside me” which was what she whispered before sinking to the floor after slipping out of jeans and blouse. He found this openness blindly stimulating even on the floor in the hallway. Screw his knees which had gone out the second year of college varsity. He swallowed the pain, kicked free from the last of his underwear, made the Guinness Book of World Records for getting the condom on, and rocked forward as she guided him in.
It had been a long time since he’d seen rockets, maybe even heard them—and this over the pain in his knees. It didn’t last long enough. But the feeling of softness, the scent of floral, the muskiness of bodies slick with sweat lingered. He was too old to ask if it had been good. He already knew the answer to that. He rolled to one side, propped on an elbow, then said, “Is that offer still good for coffee?” They convulsed laughing. And then she seemed embarrassed. Too aware that she’d tripped him to the floor in the hall. Had let her guard down, had let him see her wanting…her eagerness.
They were both quiet as they gathered up clothes. She pointed out the bathroom and disappeared into one of the bedrooms at the end of the hall. He reached the kitchen first, found the canister marked decaf, and started the coffee maker. He got milk out of the fridge, two mugs from the glassed-in cupboard above the sink, and sat at the kitchen table to wait. He’d just carried his cup of coffee into the study when she appeared.
“Hi.” She looked sheepish but freshly scrubbed beautiful with her hair wildly loose around her face.
“Coffee’s ready.”
When she came back he held a framed picture of Elaine, what was probably her son at about age ten, and a strikingly handsome man. The three were posed in front of some cathedral that looked familiar. The vacationing American family in Europe.
“Handsome family.”
“Thanks.” She reached out to take the picture and he watched as she put it face down on the mantle. “Someday, I’ve got to put these little reminders away.”
“How long ago did your husband die?” He had asked it idly, not wanting to pry but assuming the years must have taken the edge off of her grief.
“Three weeks.”
Dan hoped he hadn’t overreacted. But he was sitting up straighter and had kept the coffee from sloshing onto his crotch. “I didn’t realize it had been so recent.”
“We’d been separated for seven years. I had filed for divorce. The death thing was a little anti-climactic. Our life together had been dead for some time.”
She pulled a package of cigarettes out
of the desk drawer, tapped one out and lighted it.
“I only do this when I’m nervous.”
Dan waved aside the invitation to join her; this was his ninth year without smoking and it had almost stopped bothering him. Almost.
“How did he die?” It wasn’t that he wanted to prolong a discussion that was painful for her, but curiosity had kicked in.
“You won’t believe this. A flash flood. The car Eric was riding in was washed away when a bridge collapsed somewhere to the north of Tatum.”
Dan didn’t hear the last part. Eric Linden. He had just boffed the wife of the man whose body he’d helped hunt for, the man who had some pretty lousy friends. Ones who would shoot at him and help themselves to his money. Or the two million might have found its way into the accounts of the beautiful wife.…Dan was pretty certain that someone had wanted Mr. Linden dead.
“Is there something wrong?” She sat beside him on the sofa. “I guess I thought that Carolyn would have told you. It was pretty scandalous when Eric first got caught.” She stubbed the cigarette out and pulling a leg under her, turned to face him.
“What did he do?”
Why was he asking? If he had any smarts, he’d just get up, walk to the door, offer some thank-you for the evening, and get the hell out of there. Not run any risk of a complication. The wife of a felon was not his idea of the ideal date.
“This bothers you, doesn’t it?” She was staring at him now, then broke eye contact and got up and reached for another cigarette, not waiting for him to answer. “Eric was greedy. I should have seen the depth of it, that anything to keep up with his friends attitude, the world owed him….” She stopped with her back to him fumbling with the pack of cigarettes and didn’t continue.