The Pioneer Woman

by Ree Drummond

  “Okay, then—fine,” I said, surrendering. “I don’t want to argue. I’ll see you at five.”

  MARLBORO MAN showed up five minutes early, before my second coat of mascara had a chance to dry. He looked gorgeous standing at the front door, his strong, tan arms looking like sculpted masterpieces in his charcoal gray polo shirt. He moved in for a hug, holding me close for a minute and rubbing his hand on my back.

  Climbing into his pickup, we headed toward the ranch for the evening, talking as the road before us grew more rural by the mile. I didn’t mention my parents and did a pretty good job of keeping it shoved into a quiet corner in my mind. But the sting of it lingered, and a tiny cloud of gloom followed us on our trip. Though I knew with every ounce of my being that I was sitting next to the love of my life, I had no idea what the future held for us. I wasn’t even sure what “future” meant at that point. My mind trailed off, and I looked out the window at the approaching prairie.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Marlboro Man said, his hand resting on the back of my head.

  “Am I?” I asked, playing dumb. “I don’t mean to be.”

  “You’re not your usual self,” he responded, his hand finding the back of my neck. A million tingles traveled down my spine.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” I said, trying to appear strong and together. “I think that twenty-mile run got the best of me today.”

  Marlboro Man chuckled. I’d hoped that would happen. “Twenty miles? That’s a mighty big golf course,” he remarked. We both laughed, well aware that I was way too much of a pansy-ass to run such a distance.

  But there was no way I was bringing up what was really troubling me that night. I wasn’t ready to admit it yet, to acknowledge that things in my family weren’t as peachy as I’d always thought. I certainly wasn’t ready to risk that dreaded quivering bottom lip that was always a distinct possibility lately whenever I vocalized something upsetting. I still hadn’t forgiven myself for breaking down in Marlboro Man’s kitchen after running over Puggy Sue. There was no telling what deluge might come if the subject matter turned to my mom and dad. I didn’t think I could handle the humiliation.

  When we pulled up to Marlboro Man’s house, I saw my Camry sitting in his driveway. I didn’t expect it to be there; I figured it was still on Marlboro Man’s parents’ road, sitting all crooked in the ditch where I’d left it the night before. Marlboro Man had already fixed it, fishing it out of the ditch and repairing the mangled tires and probably, knowing him, filling the tank with gas.

  “Oh, thank you so much,” I said as we walked toward the front door. “I thought maybe I’d killed it.”

  “Aw, it’s fine,” he replied. “But you might want to learn to drive before you get in it again.” He flashed his mischievous grin.

  I slugged him in the arm as he laughed. Then he lunged at me, grabbing my arms and using his leg to sweep my supporting leg right out from under me. Within an instant, he had me on the ground, right on the soft, green grass of his front yard. I shrieked and screamed, trying in vain to wrestle my way out of his playful grasp, but my wimpy upper body was no match for his impossible strength. He tickled me, and being the most ticklish human in the Northern Hemisphere, I screamed bloody murder. Afraid I’d wet my pants (it was a valid concern), I fought back the only way I knew how—by grabbing and untucking his shirt from his Wranglers…and running my hand up his back, poking at his rib cage.

  The tickling suddenly stopped. Marlboro Man propped himself on his elbows, holding my face in his hands. He kissed me passionately and seriously, and what started as a playful wrestling match became an impromptu make-out session in his front yard. It was an unlikely place for such an event, and considering it was at the very beginning of our night together, an unlikely time. But it was also strangely perfect. Because sometime during all the laughing and tickling and wrestling and rolling around in the grass, my worry and concern over my parents’ troubles had magically melted away.

  Only when the chiggers began biting did Marlboro Man suggest an alternate plan. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I’m cooking dinner.” Yummy, I thought. That means steak. And as we walked into the house, I smiled contentedly, realizing that the stress of the previous twenty-four hours had all but disappeared from view. And I knew it, even then: Marlboro Man, not only that night but in the months to come, would prove to be my savior, my distraction, my escape in the midst of troubles, my strength in the face of upheaval, my beauty in times of terrible, heartbreaking ugliness. He held my heart entirely in his hands, this cowboy, and for the first time in my life, despite everything I’d ever believed about independence and feminism and emotional autonomy, I knew I’d be utterly incomplete without him.

  Talk about a terrifying moment.

  Part Two

  Chapter Ten

  THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SWEATY

  THE SUMMER months rolled by, marked by hot, humid days and beautiful, romantic evenings. During the day, I’d help my dad convert his antiquated medical bookkeeping system to modernized computers. In the evenings I’d rest in Marlboro Man’s ample arms, grasping them affectionately as we watched old westerns together on his worn leather sofa. We were inseparable, conjoined, together every possible moment…and the passion between us showed no signs of cooling.

  My life had taken such a turn; this was most clear to me as I relaxed in this cowboy’s house on an isolated ranch and watched John Wayne’s swagger on the television screen before me. Just months earlier, living in L.A., I’d found it difficult not to live by plans. I had schedules and meetings and dinner dates with friends…and the colorful cocktails flowed forth as abundantly as the L.A. colloquialisms that poured from my glossy red lips. Some days, I was stoked. Other days I was full-on pumped. I lived in a rad apartment in Marina del Rey, and generally speaking, life was totally awesome. Like, totally.

  I was a ninny of the highest order.

  Somewhere along the way, though, the sushi, the high heels, the 110 and the 405 and the 10 had become nooses around my neck. Daily, the air was being choked from my lungs; I’d begun noticing a brutally slow death of the person inside me. And I might have stayed forever, might have carried on and continued my ambitious quest of sampling every restaurant in Greater Los Angeles and married J, my electrical engineer. I might have settled into an enviable existence as an Orange County housewife with 1.698 kids, a flat stomach, and a three-car garage. Oh, was I well on my way.

  But before my eyes, in a matter of a few short months, sushi had metamorphosed into steak, and nightclubs had changed into the front porch of Marlboro Man’s quiet house in the country. I hadn’t felt the reverb of a thumping club beat in months and months. My nervous system had never known such calm.

  That is, until Marlboro Man called one morning that August with his simple request: “My cousin Kim is getting married next weekend,” he said. “Can you come?”

  An uncomfortable wave washed over my body.

  “You there?” he asked. I’d paused longer than I’d intended.

  “Yeah…I’m here,” I replied. “But, um…will I…will I have to meet anyone?”

  Marlboro Man laughed. The answer, obviously, was yes. Yes, I’d have to meet “anyone.” In fact, I’d have to meet everyone: everyone in his extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends; and his family, by all accounts, was large. We’d talked about our families before, and he knew good and well that I had all of three cousins. Three. He, on the other hand, had fifty. He knew how intimidating a family wedding would be to an outsider, especially when the family is as large as his. He knew this would be way out of my comfort zone. And he was right.

  I turned my focus to clothes, immediately endeavoring to find just the right dress for the occasion. This was huge—my debut as the girlfriend of Marlboro Man—and I shopped with that in mind. Should I go for a sleek, sexy suit? That might seem too confident and brazen. A floral silk skirt? Too obvious for a wedding. A little black dress? Too conservative and safe. The options
pummeled my brain as I browsed the choices on the racks. I tried on dress after dress, suit after suit, outfit after outfit, my frustration growing more acute with each zip of the zipper. I wanted to be a man. Men don’t agonize over what to wear to a wedding. They don’t spend seven hours trying on clothes. They don’t think of wardrobe choices as life-or-death decisions.

  That’s when I found it: a drop-dead gorgeous fitted suit the exact color of a stick of butter. It was snug, with just a slight hint of sexy, but the lovely, pure color made up for it. The fabric was a lightweight wool, but since the wedding would be at night, I knew it would be just fine. I loved the suit—not only would I feel pretty for Marlboro Man, but I’d also appear moderately, but not overly, confident to all his cousins, and appropriate and proper to his elderly grandmothers.

  When we arrived at the wedding at Marlboro Man’s grandparents’ house, I gasped. People were absolutely everywhere: scurrying and mingling and sipping champagne and laughing on the lawn. Marlboro Man’s mother was the first person I saw. She was an elegant, statuesque vision in her brown linen dress, and she immediately greeted and welcomed me. “What a pretty suit,” she said as she gave me a warm hug. Score. Success. I felt better about life. After the ceremony, I’d meet Cousin T., Cousin H., Cousin K., Cousin D., and more aunts, uncles, and acquaintances than I ever could have counted. Each family member was more gracious and welcoming than the one before, and it didn’t take long before I felt right at home. This was going well. This was going really, really well.

  It was hot, though, and humid, and suddenly my lightweight wool suit didn’t feel so lightweight anymore. I was deep in conversation with a group of ladies—smiling and laughing and making small talk—when a trickle of perspiration made its way slowly down my back. I tried to ignore it, tried to will the tiny stream of perspiration away, but one trickle soon turned into two, and two turned into four. Concerned, I casually excused myself from the conversation and disappeared into the air-conditioned house. I needed to cool off.

  I found an upstairs bathroom away from the party, and under normal circumstances I would have taken time to admire its charming vintage pedestal sinks and pink hexagonal tile. But the sweat profusely dripping from all pores of my body was too distracting. Soon, I feared, my jacket would be drenched. Seeing no other option, I unbuttoned my jacket and removed it, hanging it on the hook on the back of the bathroom door as I frantically looked around the bathroom for an absorbent towel. None existed. I found the air vent on the ceiling, and stood on the toilet to allow the air-conditioning to blast cool air on my face.

  Come on, Ree, get a grip, I told myself. Something was going on…this was more than simply a reaction to the August humidity. I was having some kind of nervous psycho sweat attack—think Albert Brooks in Broadcast News—and I was being held captive by my perspiration in the upstairs bathroom of Marlboro Man’s grandmother’s house in the middle of his cousin’s wedding reception. I felt the waistband of my skirt stick to my skin. Oh, God…I was in trouble. Desperate, I stripped off my skirt and the stifling control-top panty hose I’d made the mistake of wearing; they peeled off my legs like a soggy banana skin. And there I stood, naked and clammy, my auburn bangs becoming more waterlogged by the minute. So this is it, I thought. This is hell. I was in the throes of a case of diaphoresis the likes of which I’d never known. And it had to be on the night of my grand entrance into Marlboro Man’s family. Of course, it just had to be. I looked in the mirror, shaking my head as anxiety continued to seep from my pores, taking my makeup and perfumed body cream along with it.

  Suddenly, I heard the knock at the bathroom door.

  “Yes? Just a minute…yes?” I scrambled and grabbed my wet control tops.

  “Hey, you…are you all right in there?”

  God help me. It was Marlboro Man.

  BACK IN L.A., I’d remained friends with my freshman-year d boyfriend, Collin, and we’d become even closer after he confided in me one dark and emotional night that he’d finally come to terms with his homosexuality. Around that time, his mother was visiting from Dallas, and Collin invited me to meet them at Hotel Bel Air for brunch. I wore the quintessential early-1990s brunch outfit: a copper-brown silk tank with white, dime-size polka dots and a below-the-knee, swinging skirt to match. A flawless Pretty Woman–Julia Roberts polo match replica. I loved that outfit.

  It was silk, though, and clingy, and the second I sat down at the table I knew I was in trouble. My armpits began to feel cool and wet, and slowly I noticed the fabric around my arms getting damper and damper. By the time our mimosas arrived, the ring of sweat had spread to the level of my third rib; by mealtime, it had reached the waistline of my skirt, and the more I tried to will it away, the worse it got. I wound up eating my Eggs Florentine with my elbows stuck to my hip bones so Collin and his mother wouldn’t see. But copper-brown silk, when wet, is the most unforgiving fabric on the planet. Collin had recently come out to his parents, so I’d later determined I'd experienced some kind of sympathetic nervousness on Collin’s behalf. I never wore that outfit again. Never got the stains out.

  Nor would I ever wear this suit again.

  “Hey…you okay?” Marlboro Man repeated.

  My heart fluttered in horror. I wanted to jump out of the bathroom window, scale down the trellis, and hightail it out of there, forgetting I’d ever met any of these people. Only there wasn’t a trellis. And outside the window, down below, were 150 wedding guests. And I was sweating enough for all of them combined.

  I was naked and alone, enduring the flop sweat attack of my life. It figured. It was usually the times I felt and looked my absolute best when I wound up being humbled in some colossally bizarre way. There was the time I traveled to my godmother’s son’s senior prom in a distant city and partied for an hour before realizing the back of my dress was stuck inside my panty hose. And the time I entered the after-party for my final Nutcracker performance and tripped on a rug, falling on one of the guest per-formers and knocking an older lady’s wineglass out of her frail arms. You’d think I would have come to expect this kind of humiliation on occasions when it seemed like everything should be going my way.

  “You need anything?” Marlboro Man continued. A drop of sweat trickled down my upper lip.

  “Oh, no…I’m fine!” I answered. “I’ll be right out! You go on back to the party!” Go on, now. Run along. Please. I beg you.

  “I’ll be out here,” he replied. Dammit. I heard his boots travel a few steps down the hall and stop. I had to get dressed; this was getting ridiculous. Then, as I stuck my big toe into the drenched leg of my panty hose, I heard what I recognized as Marlboro Man’s brother Tim’s voice.

  “What’s she doing in there?” Tim whispered loudly, placing particularly uncomfortable emphasis on “doing.” I closed my eyes and prayed fervently. Lord, please take me now. I no longer want to be here. I want to be in Heaven with you, where there’s zero humidity and people aren’t punished for their poor fabric choices.

  “I’m not sure,” Marlboro Man answered. The geyser began spraying again.

  I had no choice but to surge on, to get dressed, to face the music in all my drippy, salty glory. It was better than staying in the upstairs bathroom of his grandmother’s house all night. God forbid Marlboro Man or Tim start to think I had some kind of feminine problem, or even worse, constipation or diarrhea! I’d sooner move to another country and never return than to have them think such thoughts about me.

  Working quickly, I pulled on my panty hose and stepped into the skirt of my godforsaken butter yellow lightweight wool suit. Then, with a wad of toilet paper, I dabbed the sweat from my chin, the back of my neck, my armpits, and my lower back. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and mouthed loser to the sweaty freak looking back at me. I slipped on my jacket, buttoned it up, and opened my purse, working quickly to salvage what little makeup remained on my face. I didn’t look pretty. I didn’t look pretty at all. The outer corners of my eyes were caked with melted mascara, and th
e taupe shimmer eye shadow I’d painstakingly applied to my lids was now adorning both my cheeks. It wasn’t a good look.

  But it didn’t matter anymore. I was doing much more damage holing up in the bathroom by myself than this new streaky, splotchy complexion ever could. So I combed my damp, sticky bangs, slung my handbag over my shoulder, and walked out of the bathroom to face the sharks.

  Marlboro Man and Tim were standing in the hall, not seven steps from the bathroom door. “There she is,” Tim remarked as I walked up to them and stood. I smiled nervously.

  Marlboro Man put his hand on my lower back, caressing it gently with his thumb. “You all right?” he asked. A valid question, considering I’d been in the bathroom for over twenty minutes.

  “Oh yeah…I’m fine,” I answered, looking away. I wanted Tim to disappear.

  Instead, the three of us made small talk before Marlboro Man asked, “Do you want something to drink?” He started toward the stairs.

  Gatorade. I wanted Gatorade. Ice-cold, electrolyte-replacing Gatorade. That, and vodka. “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  Marlboro Man and I grabbed ourselves a drink and wound up in the backyard, sitting on an ornate concrete bench by ourselves. Miraculously, my nervous system had suddenly grown tired of sending signals to my sweat glands, and the dreadful perspiration spell seemed to have reached its end. And the sun had set outside, which helped my appearance a little. I felt like a circus act.

  I finished my screwdriver in four seconds, and both the vitamin C and the vodka went to work almost instantly. Normally, I’d know better than to replace bodily fluids with alcohol, but this was a special case. At that point, I needed nothing more than to self-medicate.

  “So, did you get sick or something?” Marlboro Man asked. “You okay?” He touched his hand to my knee.