Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo

by Boris Fishman

  He nodded at the dance floor. “Some other time.”

  “Marion,” she said. Marion, Marion, Marion. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t,” he said. “I’m heartless for trying.”

  “No . . .” she started. “You must know . . .” She couldn’t get out what she wanted to say in the pitiless amount of time before Alex became confused and came back inside.

  “You go first,” he said. “I’ll settle your bill. Go.”

  She didn’t move. “That I can’t manage to either.”

  “Go, Maya,” he said. “Go.”

  She walked away like a ghost.

  The meal at the Dundee stretched interminably. Max exhibited the first signs of life since leaving New Jersey. He wanted the flank steak, though he ate only the part that flapped over the plate. Maya would have said no to such a large meal, but she felt too guilty. Alex finished it in addition to his own shepherd’s pie. Maya’s hands shook and she drank water even though she had no taste for it. Incredibly, Max asked for dessert. Max never asked for dessert. Even as Maya welled with relief at seeing her son recover his appetite and a measure of energy, it meant the protraction of her misery, more time until she could bury her head in a pillow and make herself fall asleep. She pleaded for tonight to be a night when, because of misery, she fell asleep instead of stayed up. Once upon a time, she had slept soundly, like her son when he was an infant. Could he have got that from her, in some osmotic way? Or was it a coincidence, and actually he owed it to something about his genes? Maybe Alex had been more right than wrong about that. She was condemned to ask herself questions like this for the rest of her life. Perhaps she should drink not water, but more alcohol. Obliterate herself to make sure she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. She would pay for it the next day, but that was the next day. She was willing to spend her birthday in pieces if it only meant this day would end.

  Maya and Alex watched Max go at a sundae. He managed only a fraction. Maya was relieved, but Alex took on leftovers again, and they waited while he worked.

  “She does okay, Wilma,” Alex said, looking up from the empty plate and wiping his mouth. Misery made him hungry. Maybe he wasn’t miserable. He was going home tomorrow.

  The proprietress refused to take money. “That potato gratin went over like hotcakes,” she said. “Things are usually slowing down this time, but I had my busiest night of the month. I had two fellows from up near Worth who ate their meals and then ordered second sides of the gratin on top.”

  Maya left a twenty-dollar tip on the table. She did not want to owe anyone anything. Alex looked at her disapprovingly, but did not interfere.

  Maya felt vile undressing in the light, as if her betrayal was painted all over her. Max had been put to sleep in a little alcove next to the main room. It was just her and Alex, without the protection and distraction of Max. Alex seemed as if he had forgotten all about Laurel and Tim. So had she. That was Marion’s gift. She’d never asked him about the paint flecks on his wrist. Was he a painter? A housepainter? She didn’t even know what he did for a living. How could you come so close with someone without knowing what they did for a living?

  “Maya,” her husband called to her again. He had already climbed into bed.

  She looked down at him vacantly.

  “Are you thinking of them?” he said. He was trying to be thoughtful, and she tried to be grateful.

  “Yes,” she said. “What is it?”

  “Switch off the light. I forgot the light.”

  In minutes, Alex was wheezing into his pillow as if he were at home. She lay next to him silently. She envied his comfort—and he was the one who had insisted it was uncomfortable here. She had been wrong—it would not be a night when she would drop into sleep. To avoid waking Alex, she tried to avoid moving. She was an odd prisoner, no bars but she couldn’t move. So she lay, incarcerated in position, and wept silently at the ceiling.

  The clock was past two A.M. when she allowed herself to slip from the bed. She tiptoed to the bathroom. The ventilator’s rattle was shocking after the silence of the bedroom, and she closed the door too loudly. Heart beating, she listened to make out whether she had woken anyone, but no sound came. To get rid of the noise, she had to switch off the light, and was plunged into darkness.

  She thought about climbing into the bathtub and letting hot water run over her, but the darkness of the room was so complete that she would make new noise. So she sat on the closed toilet in the darkness and stared at the wall. She was out of tears, and just stared.

  Her mother had told her a story: Her own father had walked into the bathroom one night to relieve himself. He didn’t like to turn on lights. But when he relieved himself, he relieved himself all over his wife, because she had had the same idea and then fallen asleep on the toilet. Maya stifled a mirthless laugh. The story was ludicrous.

  It was not one of her mother’s inventions; it was from life. And yet, the story seemed impossible, contrived, whereas the stories her mother told and invented felt true. Maya had been taken from her mother too soon to tell the difference well, though her mother hadn’t helped; she hadn’t drawn the line well. The natural relation between Maya and her mother, between children and parents, had been terminated by Maya’s love affair with Alex. This was the true curse of the way she had emigrated, a curse Alex would never experience. At that moment, Maya was a child who wanted her mother.

  Time had lost its shape. She rose—why now? why not ten minutes before? if she was not outside herself, she was not inside herself either—and maneuvered open the door. In the room, she stared at her clothes, hung neatly on the back of a chair, as if she could correct for the betrayal in her heart by being neat outside of it. She began dressing. The keys to the Escape were on Alex’s nightstand. He had repurposed a small dish from the bathroom to double for the wicker basket at home, and her heart squirmed at fishing the keys out of the dish. Now she made noise. Now she wanted to be caught. But he slept.

  Walking downstairs, she marveled again at the power of greater predicaments to diminish the lesser: She would have to drive herself down snow-flecked roads in the night, and yet she felt no fear, only numbness. It was useful. Sometimes numbness was useful. She was stunned to discover Wilma napping in a soft chair behind the reception desk. She stirred on hearing Maya’s footfalls.

  “You do all of it,” Maya said in disbelief.

  Wilma rubbed her eyes and stared at the clock. “I do all of it,” she repeated drowsily and yawned. “Mr. Gund hasn’t been with us for a number of years. What in God’s name has you up at three thirty?”

  “Where is Sheff City?” Maya asked.

  “Sheff City? What do you want with Sheff City at this hour? Is everything all right?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Maya said, holding back tears. She hoped Wilma would understand and not press.

  “I see,” Wilma said. “It’s fifteen miles down the road. That way.” She stuck out a chafed finger. It was raw with cooking, dishwashing, laundry.

  “Is there only one hotel there, like here?” Maya said.

  “Did you have a fight? I have other rooms. I’ll give you one for free. No need to drive in the night.”

  “It’s not that,” Maya shook her head.

  “There’s three,” Wilma said. “The Hansen place, Overlook, and Fish and Fawn. Sheff City’s on the river there, so they got the angler business. Wait a minute—did your husband’s brother find you? I just thought of that.”

  “It’s him I’m going to see,” Maya said.

  Wilma gave her a long look. “I better not ask any more questions,” she said. “You don’t know his hotel?”

  “He said only Sheff City.”

  “You sure he wants to be found?”

  Maya shrugged helplessly.

  “Well, he’s probably at the Hansen. By the look of him, he’s probably at the Hansen.”

  “Why the look of him?”

  “Fish and Fawn is for the yuppie folks from California.
The Overlook—that’s a frat party. So I’d say the Hansen.”

  Maya remained in place, midway down the runner to the front door. “I admire you,” she said finally.

  Wilma waved her away.

  “I’m sorry,” Maya slurred. “It’s hard for me to find the right words. I meant only that—if I lived here . . . I would enjoy seeing you.”

  Wilma gave her a wondering look. “Well, at least one of you can have a job in my kitchen whenever he wants. Now get out there, get your drive over with. It’s getting cold.”

  “I’m sorry for waking you,” Maya said.

  Wilma waved her away once again.

  Sheff City was in the direction of Laurel and Tim’s home. Harry Sprague’s home. Maya would not be allowed to forget. But she didn’t wish to forget. She climbed behind the wheel, and, after a tottering start because she had pressed the gas too firmly, slid onto the road. There was not one car on the low-lit street; soon the streets ended and she was in pure, rural darkness. But the headlights were powerful and lit the way clearly. She pulled over carefully, tinkered with the controls by the wheel until she found the beams, and pulled back out, fingering the lever from time to time so she knew where to flick if a car was oncoming. But no cars were oncoming.

  She stole looks at the odometer. When 8.9 miles turned to 9, she gazed off in the direction of Harry Sprague’s house. There, shrouded in darkness, was the car that had delivered her son eight years before. That spot—all that remained of Laurel and Tim—would vibrate in her heart. Every time she saw a map, she would think of the distance to that spot. She did not have to be physically present for that to transpire. But it couldn’t have without her seeing the place. That was the trick of it, at least for her—she had to see it to know.

  She drove into the night, a driver at last. It turned out to be easy, the car sensible, wanting to be driven; she felt proud of herself. All this time she had feared the unnecessary. She had preferred to fear. Her fear of the idea had been so large that she had not bothered to wonder if the practical fear behind it was great; she took for granted it was. Alex occasionally groaned at having to drive her, but never pressed her to learn. Was this a kindness or unkindness? Both. But it was from him, in the afternoon, that she had got her first real lesson. She said thanks to him.

  She thought about Laurel. Driving was like washing dishes, like weeding a garden—it busied your hands and gave your mind recess, like the parent expert at keeping a child distracted. And so Maya allowed herself to drift off. She allowed herself to imagine, finally, lights up ahead, coming. They were festive: What other person had business on this road at this abandoned, desolate hour? A secret meeting in the night, while everyone slept. As the cars neared each other—Maya slowed down to be careful; her heart was beating too fast and she was paying attention to too much at once—the other car came to a standstill and switched off its lights. It sat in the road strangely, like an animal killed in an unnatural place. Maya jammed the brake. She wasn’t smooth with it, the car bucked, and she jumped a little in her seat. She stopped well ahead of the other car. Then, embarrassed to be shown for a novice, she crawled forward until the hoods were even. She turned off her headlights, killed the ignition, and waited in a ticking silence as the cold moon lit up the road. It was less dark with the lights off.

  When Laurel got out of the other car, Maya scrambled out of the Escape. Laurel’s car looked like the Rubins’ Corolla, one of those sedans—Maxima, Altima, Sentra—whose name ended in a vowel and to Maya said: family. Laurel wore what the waitress from the diner wore when she went to the bank for the afternoon shift: a black skirt, a crisp white shirt, a black jacket. Panty hose, and heels with a strap: not fashionable, not dowdy. The hair was pulled up in a bun. It was the unblemished face eight years later—with some blemishes. They stood in the moonlight, staring at each other.

  “It’s you,” Maya said like a fool.

  “Is it?” Laurel touched her own face carefully, as if it were a mask. “The face cream I go through.”

  Maya’s fingertips came up near Laurel’s cheek, seeking permission. The younger woman nodded. Her skin felt puffy but smooth. Maya let go and closed her fingers, trying to hold the feel of Laurel inside them, but it was instantly gone.

  “Won’t you help me,” Maya said.

  Laurel cleared a strand of hair from one eye. “Do you know what my dad said once when I was little? I don’t remember what kind of competition it was—shooting or riding. I was six? seven? You know how little girls get with their dads. God and Santa Claus rolled into one. He said, ‘All these moms and dads saying ‘good luck, honey,’ ‘good luck, honey.’ Well, I ain’t gonna wish you luck. You know why? ’Cause you’re good luck yourself.’ I didn’t know what he meant. But I felt very special. Like a horse, for some reason. Isn’t that funny? As sleek and strong and beautiful as a horse. Must have been riding, then. Anyway—I get it now. I use it back on him. He hasn’t spoken to me in eight years and sometimes I talk to him in my head, and I say, ‘I don’t need you to answer—I’m all the luck that I need. I’m going to talk to you anyway.’”

  “My father ever gave me only one piece of advice,” Maya said. “‘Ignore absolutely everything I say. Listen only to your mother.’”

  They shared a small laugh.

  “I am so much older than you,” Maya said, “but I feel the opposite. Why is that? Maybe coming to America should count as zero? I would be twenty-five then. If I count from the year I met Alex, it’s twenty. This is a good game. You can keep going until you explain why you don’t know anything.”

  Laurel’s mouth fluted into a look of impatience, setting off apprehension in Maya. “Did you call me here because you wanted to berate yourself in front of an audience?” Laurel said. The wind gusted between them, rattling their shoulders. Laurel drew her palms up her forearms—slowly, deliberately, like someone who knew how her body worked. She shivered. “I forgot this cold real quick once we moved.”

  “Tell me where you are,” Maya said.

  “Not here,” Laurel said.

  “Please,” Maya said.

  “We’re okay. It’s a little town near a big town that lost lots of jobs, so they made it real easy for young couples to settle. We were welcomed. Tim coaches track. Little gimpy for a track coach but the kids love him. We’ve got a nice house. If my parents knew what I made . . . they’d disown me all over again.”

  “You mean so little?”

  “No—so much.”

  Maya nodded fervidly to cover her embarrassment at all the things the Rubins had allowed themselves to think about Laurel and Tim. “So you and Tim are together,” she said.

  “Why wouldn’t we be? Didn’t we give up enough?”

  “I’m sorry,” Maya said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Won’t you stop apologizing?”

  Maya raked her fingernails across her chest, as if that would scrape off the unease there.

  “Why was that, by the way, Mrs. Rubin?” Laurel said. “I brought you the child—I brought you Max—but you kept apologizing to me. What had you done wrong?”

  “I’ll talk with you about anything—only don’t call me Mrs. Rubin.”

  Laurel gave a soft nod.

  “I don’t know,” Maya said, falling back against the Escape. It was warm from the miles it had driven. She placed both palms on the frame. The car purred into her hands; it was glad to be held, and she didn’t want to let go. For a moment, she forgot Laurel and stared at the dim outline of the peaks rising by the side of the road. She turned back to Laurel. “Did you ever . . .” she said, hoping she would be understood.

  “Two,” Laurel said. “A boy and girl.”

  Maya took a knuckle in her mouth. Laurel could give one up and still come out ahead. “Tell me,” Maya said. “Please.”

  “Grant and Adelaide. Six and three. Against every odds, they get along. Tim named one, I named the other.”

  “Why ‘against every odds’?” Maya said hopefully. She resented the family�
��s fortune and relished the news of an obstacle.

  “Because they’re a boy and a girl. At six and three it’s like sixty and thirty.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Maya said, defeated once more.

  “You know other things.”

  “How much time do I have with you?”

  “I don’t have any of the answers you want,” Laurel said.

  “This will make you angry with me—but it sounds like you don’t think of him.”

  “I think of him. All the time. As your son.”

  “I’ll find you. He needs to know you. Something about him can’t rest until he knows about you. What is that called? There’s a name for it.”

  “You’re thinking of purgatory. Tim and I are Lutherans—we don’t believe in that. Not that it matters. You didn’t put us in purgatory. What Tim and I did—it either brings you closer to God, or it takes you away. For good.”

  “Then Max is the one lost.”

  “So find him.”

  Maya held her lips tight. Laurel took her by the forearms. “Now, will you let me go? It took so long to get out of here. I thought it was rodeo, or my dad, that made me want to so bad. And the whole time it was probably weather.” Her eyes lit up with the small joke.

  Maya listened to Max’s mother’s heels click the pavement. Then the sedan started up, a resolved, confident sound. Maya held up a palm in good-bye. The window rolled down.

  “It’s you who can’t rest,” Laurel said. “He sees you and can’t rest.”

  “That’s what my husband says,” Maya said. “How do I switch it off?”

  “You think that’s what you ought to do?”

  Maya heard the gearshift lurch inside Laurel’s hand. It was easy to imagine her executing whatever duties required her to wear such an outfit, and draw the paycheck she did. Why did Maya feel like a fool next to Laurel? That evening eight years before, Laurel had been rock-faced with Tim, indifferent to Alex and Mishkin. Even Max had failed to move her when she walked past him for the last time. Because of this, in the years since, Maya imagined Laurel as some kind of adult who couldn’t be pleased. But the girl had been only eighteen. If she hadn’t turned herself to stone before crossing Maya’s threshold, she would have gone up in flames with bereavement. But now Laurel was not playing at strength. Now she was—grown and strong.