The Desert Rose

by Larry McMurtry

  For herself she didn’t worry too much, she still loved being in the show, plus there was a lot to like about life if you could make a little effort and look on the bright side. Even a nice morning was a form of happiness, plus having a sweet guy around for a while was another form, a major form actually, major even if usually sort of brief in her experience.

  She and Jessie agreed that one reason Gary was so pessimistic at times was that his own sex life seemed to be kind of a blank, though certainly he had a million friends. Even Jessie had somebody, if only Monroe, no great lover Jessie was frank to say but at least he was not mean and he did own his own business, Monroe’s Muffler Shop, out on the north edge of town. In the course of time he had put three mufflers on the Buick, since Myrtle would kind of drive at breakneck speed whether it was a terrible road or not if she was trying to beat the crowd to a garage sale she was always knocking holes in her mufflers and had gotten if anything more reckless since she knew Monroe would give her a good price on a new one.

  But listening to Gary’s end of the world spiel had contributed to making her late so she started cooking breakfast without stopping to take her makeup off, which caused Pepper to make a face when she came dawdling in.

  “Pepper, why did you make that face, I’m just trying to hurry,” Harmony said, not particularly offended, it just always seemed Pepper made a face if she caught her with her makeup on.

  Pepper yawned and sat down at the table. She had the blank look of a child who was still sleepy, and was wearing a T-shirt Harmony had been given one time when she was in a bicycle race just for showgirls down at the Sands. She had come in about ninetieth, she was a little afraid of bicycles and just tried to keep on the outside and not wobble into the path of one of the French girls, all of whom were sort of like demons once they got in a bicycle race, not that they were always totally polite even in the dressing room but there was no doubt that they became very competitive if you stuck them on a bicycle.

  Pepper was just so totally beautiful, Harmony stopped to look at her for a second and almost burned the toast, she had a face that made every photographer want to take a picture of her. Even Denny had taken quite a few pictures of her—a number of them were stuck on the wall over the table, Pepper practicing dance steps mostly. It hurt Harmony that there had never been the slightest bit of love lost between Pepper and Denny, but how could you make two people like one another if they just didn’t?

  Denny was quite a good photographer, much too good for the job he had, which was just taking pictures of houses that were for sale, for a real estate company. That seemed a waste, considering the wonderful pictures he took of Pepper despite saying constantly she was such a little bitch.

  Every time he said it Harmony said okay, move out, she wasn’t going to live with a man who would say such things about her child, although to be fair Pepper said even worse things about him, maybe because Gary had not been all that discreet and had informed Pepper about the trouble Denny had gotten into when he was a lifeguard at Caesars Palace, it was a tragedy Denny would have to live with all his life, because a child had drowned while he was screwing a woman in the towel room.

  Pepper hadn’t needed to know that but Gary had told her. Sometimes Harmony suspected that Gary wasn’t totally and absolutely gay, at least there were times when he did things that made it seem like maybe he was just a little bit jealous in some way. There were times, thinking about Gary and Denny and Pepper and how complicated life could get when Harmony would feel a sinking, she would start getting low and then it was like something was falling, like she couldn’t keep a high heart anymore no matter how much she tried, and she would end up out under the umbrella, usually in the heart of the day, pitching little handfuls of corn to the peacocks and not even being able to see them because of her tears.

  At times even before he totaled the car she almost wished Denny would go because for the life of her she couldn’t understand what it was with Denny and Pepper, after all she loved them both and yet they said such tearing things about one another, Denny said terrible things and Pepper just totally ignored him, treated him as if he wasn’t there.

  “I wish you wouldn’t cook eggs in that makeup, it’s grotesque, you know,” Pepper said, after another yawn. Pepper’s hair was coal black and cut very short, which she felt was the height of fashion just then, also it was handy, three strokes of a brush and she was ready for school or whatever. She stretched out a leg and flexed it a time or two. Her legs were so much like Harmony’s that every time Harmony noticed she thought well that stuff about genes has to be true, she’s even got my kneecaps. Only since Ross had been kind of a shrimp maybe Pepper wouldn’t get quite so tall, which would mean she had a chance to really go somewhere as a dancer, Madonna, her teacher, had already let everybody know that Pepper was the most talented young dancer in Las Vegas.

  “Well, the car konked out and Wendell was fixing a flat for somebody and didn’t know exactly what time he could make it with the tow truck,” Harmony said. “I wanted to hurry up breakfast in case you have to hitch.”

  “Forget it, I’m not hitching,” Pepper said, without changing expression. She had such a crisp voice, sometimes it startled Harmony, she just delivered her statements with such authority it seemed there could be no denying them.

  “Pepper, you can’t just not go to school because the car konked out,” Harmony said. “Life has to go on, even if we don’t have a car right now.”

  “Who said anything about life?” Pepper said, looking at her in that way she had which was so cool Harmony often felt a little unnerved, just at the thought that her own daughter could be that cool.

  “Well, school is part of life,” Harmony said, feeling it wasn’t entirely an adequate remark as she sat a nice plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of Pepper. She had already squeezed the oranges and was pleased to see there was nothing at all wrong with Pepper’s appetite. She killed the orange juice in about four swallows and started eating the scrambled eggs, despite the fact that Harmony had cooked them with her makeup on.

  “Make Denny pay for a taxi if you want me to go to school,” Pepper said between bites. “He did ruin a perfectly good car that wasn’t his in the first place.”

  “It wasn’t perfectly good,” Harmony said, wishing she had got to the point where she could stop taking up for Denny, he didn’t deserve it, the fact was he had probably totaled the car on purpose just because he was mad at her for refusing to call in sick the afternoon he wanted to go to the lake and do cocaine. Before he had come to Las Vegas he had done stunt driving in L.A. and had bragged any number of times that he could total a car and walk away without a scratch should the mood strike him, which it had and which was exactly what he did.

  “Look, it ran and I could have taken my driver’s test in it if your fucking idiot of a boyfriend hadn’t destroyed it,” Pepper said. “I could have taken it in Myrtle’s car only now you tell me you’ve ruined that one too.”

  “It’s not ruined, Wendell just needs to work on it a little,” Harmony said, trying to be reasonable. Pepper had the advantage of being able to sound more reasonable than anybody else, even Gary got defensive once in a while when Pepper chose to really challenge one of his theories or something.

  “Anyway, it’s a station wagon and you know how hard they are to parallel park,” Harmony said.

  Pepper finished the eggs and sort of cleaned out her jaw with her tongue before she took on that comment.

  “You’re the one who’s paranoid about parallel parking,” she pointed out. “I can parallel park the Buick perfectly well.”

  It was true—the test would undoubtedly be a pushover for Pepper, who had been driving her boyfriends’ cars since she had begun dating at about age eleven. She just had absolute confidence behind the wheel, it was another facet Harmony envied, she herself got nervous driving sometimes but not Pepper, she would instantly honk at people if they made what she considered a driving error.

  As for her own problems about
parallel parking it had resulted from hearing a horrible story on the radio many years before about a little baby who had gotten squashed by a woman who was parallel parking. The mother had just stepped into a store to buy something leaving her little boy to watch the baby which was in a stroller and the little boy got distracted and let the stroller roll off the curb and a woman who was parallel parking ran over it.

  For years the story kept coming back into her mind and upsetting her, the thought of a helpless little baby being squashed, and all the anguish it must have left in all those lives, the mother feeling guilty and the woman who was driving feeling guilty and then the little boy growing up and feeling guilty too. Harmony just knew she would never have been able to live with herself if she had been involved in a tragedy of that kind, which she easily could have been, it happened not three blocks from the Stardust and except for luck she could have been backing into that parking space. For two or three years it kept coming back into her mind, before that she had not been a worrier particularly or an overprotective mother, but once in a while the thought of the helpless baby would come back to her and she would almost feel dizzy for a second just from realizing how it could be such a near miss that kept you from being in a tragedy. And it had had a permanent effect on her parallel parking, she just would not back into a space without getting out of the car and checking to be sure there was nothing alive in it that she could run over—it often made people behind her pretty angry, along the Strip people did expect you to get on with the business of parallel parking.

  “Maybe we could rent a car for you to take the driver’s test in,” Harmony said. “Budget’s right there and they have real nice cars.”

  The minute she said it she realized that wouldn’t work either, they had canceled her Visa card and there was no way anymore to get a rent car without one. Denny had been supposed to get a raise and had talked her into letting him put six hundred dollars’ worth of scuba-diving equipment on her Visa, it was when they were spending a lot of time at the lake so she did it, and when the big Visa bill came and she tried to get him to at least pay part of it he had acted quite brash, the way he always did if you actually asked him for something, he told her he had considered the scuba-diving equipment a present, which flabbergasted Harmony, six hundred dollars was nearly two weeks’ wages. So she ended up losing her Visa, which was a big inconvenience.

  Pepper knew all about the trouble with Visa, she didn’t even bother to destroy the suggestion about the rent car.

  “Bonventre told me when he took his driver’s test he stole a car to take it in and the cops didn’t even catch him,” Pepper said. “Maybe I’ll just do that.”

  “Oh, Pepper,” Harmony said. “Now why did he tell you that? Bonventre’s my age.”

  “So? He still did it,” Pepper said.

  “Yeah but that was before they had computers,” Harmony said. “It’s easier to catch people now. Anyway, what were you talking to him for?”

  “He was at Madonna’s the other day,” Pepper said.

  “Well, he and Madonna used to be involved, when she was lead dancer at the Trop,” Harmony said. “Maybe they’ll get back together.

  Pepper curled her lip at that suggestion. She had a beautiful lip too, but Harmony would have rather she didn’t curl it quite so often.

  “He told her she had an ass like a prune, so I don’t guess they’ll get back together, Momma,” Pepper said. “How come you’re such a dreamer?”

  Harmony didn’t know, you were or you weren’t so far as that went, the prune remark was nothing but typical Bonventre, he was known throughout Nevada for his horrible comparisons. Personally Harmony thought Madonna had a great ass, considering she had to be pushing sixty, though Bonventre would naturally be the last person to give her any credit.

  “For a man who’s not exactly the best-looking I ever saw he certainly feels free to criticize,” Harmony said.

  “Well, he’s in the body business, that’s the way he describes it,” Pepper said. “It’s his show, there’s no reason he should have people in it who look bad.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Pepper, I’ve known Bonventre a lot longer than you have,” Harmony said, sitting down at the table to have her coffee.

  “That doesn’t mean you know all about him,” Pepper remarked, stretching out her leg and curling her toes.

  “It wouldn’t kill him to say something nice to Madonna,” Harmony said.

  “He just came by to see my lesson, Momma,” Pepper said, standing up and stretching. Even when she was being catty, it was hard not to be proud that your child was so beautiful, she had a nice little bust and basically looked wonderful, even just in the T-shirt.

  The peacocks knew Harmony was there and were pecking impatiently at the back screen, they wanted their breakfast too.

  “Of course Bonventre’s not handsome enough for you, we all know what terrific taste in men you have,” Pepper said.

  “Why’d he come to your lesson?” Harmony asked. Bonventre was not one to drop in on ballet classes unless he had something in mind.

  Pepper shrugged. “Wants me to audition,” she said.

  “Audition?” Harmony said. “Audition for what?”

  “To be Monique’s understudy,” Pepper said, setting her plate in the sink.

  Harmony was so stunned by that one that she left her coffee and got up and walked right out the back door, not even noticing the peacocks. All of a sudden she had too many different feelings working in her to even try to sort them out. She had known Bonventre for over twenty years, he was her boss, she saw him every day, what did he mean by trying to audition her daughter to be Monique’s understudy without even saying a word about it to her? As if it were none of her business?

  Harmony went and stood by the back fence, feeling more anger than anything. Bonventre just never stopped, the very first words he had said to her the day she met him had been a lie. He claimed to be a producer when in fact he was just one of Didier’s assistants, he didn’t even care if you found out about his lies five seconds later, he would just look you in the eye and pretend you couldn’t understand plain English or something. And if there was the slightest ground for criticizing someone for physical flaws Bonventre would spot it instantly. For two years after she had had Pepper he told her practically every day that her breasts didn’t match anymore, it was true they didn’t one hundred percent but even Gary who had a good eye for such things said it was something you would only notice if you happened to be looking from a very peculiar angle, like you would have to be in the light booth or somewhere to even notice, it was just Bonventre reminding you that if you worked for him your body was his to condemn.

  While Harmony was standing by the back fence trying not to feel so upset she noticed the tow truck down the road, at least Wendell had come. She started to go back and tell Pepper but before she could Pepper came out the door, she was wearing jeans and a black blouse and had her books and was off down the road without saying goodbye. Of course she had to hurry if she wanted to catch a ride, Wendell was such an expert at towing the Buick that he could latch onto it in about half a minute, but it didn’t help Harmony’s confusion that Pepper had left before she could ask a few questions about Bonventre, maybe he had just been teasing?

  The peacocks could tell she was upset, they tipped around her nervously, bending their long necks this way and that and not making too much fuss about the fact that she hadn’t fed them, though one did reach through the fence and peck one of the brown goats that Myrtle kept in the backyard month after month, hardly paying them any attention at all.

  The reason she had them was because she loved animal acts probably more than anyone alive and had once had the idea she could work up a goat act and in no time be making the kind of money Bobby Berosini made with his orangutan act up at the Grand. But in fact all that had happened was that Myrtle fell totally in love with Maude and developed total apathy toward the other three goats, who had never learned a single trick, although goats
could be trained. Once there had been a rather sweet Hungarian who did a goat act at the Trop, Harmony had even gone with him a time or two, kind of a wistful guy with yearnings that he couldn’t talk about in English, which meant that Harmony never got to find out about them exactly, though some of them turned out to be for a boy who left to go to work at Harrah’s, where the guy eventually took his goat act, too.

  The sun was well up and beginning to get hot, Harmony suddenly felt an urge to get her makeup off. She didn’t really have the falling feeling that came before crying, she just felt confused and angry at Bonventre for not at least mentioning it if he thought he had plans for Pepper. Anyway Pepper was contemptuous of practically all the dancing in Las Vegas, Madonna had assured her that she could probably get a scholarship or be apprenticed to some regional ballet. It was absurd for Bonventre to suddenly audition her for a show her own mother had kind of been a star in for twelve years, not that she was a dancer, she had always just been a showgirl, but still she was at least as well known as Monique, except maybe strictly in dancing circles. It would certainly be a big move for Pepper, whose only job so far was taking orders for fried chicken at the Gino’s down the road.

  By the time she got her makeup off she had decided it was probably a joke, she had more serious things to worry about, such as whether the insurance check was ever going to come so she could get some kind of car and get to work without having to call Gary and make him go several miles out of his way. Also she was tired, the fatigue had begun to hit her. It was already too hot to sit on the back steps and let the peacocks eat out of her hand, she just scattered some food in their tray and put it under the little shade that Wendell had been nice enough to build for her so the birds wouldn’t die of the heat.