The Desert Rose

by Larry McMurtry

  “How come you never flirt with me, Harmony, you flirt with everybody else?” Leon wanted to know. It was true she had known him for ten years and never flirted with him, he was a short guy and pudgy, though that wasn’t the reason, a lot of guys were short, including several she had developed attachments too, Ross for example and Gary too for that matter.

  “Oh, Leon, I’m just saving you,” she said, giving him a smile. Leon didn’t really care. He had just been making conversation, maybe even trying to cheer her up a little.

  “That’s awful about Jessie,” he said. “Some people are accident-prone. I remember once she twisted her ankle just getting off a barstool.”

  That was true, if there was any way to pick up an injury Jessie would find it. Dave was taking a while, it seemed to her twenty minutes was up and he wasn’t there. She was beginning to wish she had just decided to flirt with Leon for a while, after all he was an old friend whereas Dave was sort of an unknown quantity. Good-looking, she liked the streak of gray in his hair, it sort of made him look dignified, but still an unknown quantity.

  Then just when she was trying to decide if maybe she should just vanish and pretend she had got an emergency phone call from the hospital or something, the last person in the world she wanted to see, namely Bonventre, wandered out of the casino and sat down by her. She felt like Pac-Man had made it through the maze and selected her as the next person to eat, as usual Bonventre looked full of energy though it was nearly dawn.

  “Harmony, don’t you ever go home?” he said, making it sound like she owed him rent for the barstool or something.

  “Jessie’s ankle was shattered, I’m just having a few drinks to calm down,” she said, she was hoping he wouldn’t mention Pepper but of course it was the next thing he mentioned.

  “Fine, hang around another couple of hours and I’ll have someone drive you down to the sheriff’s office so you can sign the work consent form,” Bonventre said. “We don’t want to neglect that little piece of business. I want Pepper to get started learning the routines.”

  “Jackie, can’t you just forget it, Pepper needs to finish high school,” she said.

  Bonventre just snorted and took the Scotch and soda Leon handed him, at which point Harmony noticed Dave. He had been on his way but had sort of stalled at the sight of Bonventre, he was hanging back pretending to be interested in the keno.

  “Harmony, you know better than to argue with me,” Bonventre said, stirring his drink with his finger. Then he licked the finger. It was one of his habits, she had seen him do it a million times.

  Harmony suddenly felt pretty depressed at the thought that she didn’t have anyone strong to stand up for her. There was no use pretending she herself was strong. A million people had pointed it out to her that she wasn’t and they were right, she spent large amounts of time doing what someone wanted her to do, such as twenty years doing what Bonventre had wanted her to do on stage. If he wanted Pepper for the understudy he would get her probably. Besides, if Pepper wanted to understudy she would do it no matter what anybody said, even Gary’s opinion probably wouldn’t stop her, so what was the point of the argument?

  Pepper and Bonventre were both sort of like bulldozers when it came to going where they wanted to go, the difference being that Bonventre sort of looked like a bulldozer whereas Pepper looked like a beautiful young girl. Pepper just happened to have a will of iron, whereas she herself had a will of Cream of Wheat, as Gary put it when he was in one of his witty moods. It was hard to be a good mother if you happened to have a child with a will of iron, maybe Jessie was lucky just to have a pet. Definitely motherhood had been more fun when Pepper was younger and would sit on her lap and let her do her hair, that was before she developed a mind of her own about clothes and hairstyles and stuff.

  “Oh Jackie, why do you want her?” she said. She felt sort of a sinking and wished Dave hadn’t stopped to watch keno, at least he could have sat down by her.

  “I want her because she’s got star quality and besides she can dance,” Bonventre said. “Thirty percent empty seats last night, I hate figures like that. Every conventioneer in America has seen Monique by now, it’s time she started a cooking school or something.

  Well, you could get rid of Murdo, he is the worst ventriloquist in Las Vegas, Harmony thought but she didn’t bother saying it, why make life difficult for Murdo? She finished her drink and paid Leon, there was no point in staying and getting more depressed. As she was picking up her change Bonventre tapped her on the wrist.

  “Harmony, don’t get stubborn,” he said. “Pepper doesn’t need high school and if I don’t hire her somebody else will. You should be proud to have such a talented daughter.”

  Harmony couldn’t think of any words to say, Bonventre was probably right, actually she was proud of it, it was just a shock to think that she and Pepper would be on the same stage.

  Bonventre didn’t bother to say anything else, he knew perfectly well he’d get his way and was not interested in a lengthy discussion. Harmony thought maybe he’d have something to say about Jessie, after all she’d worked for him quite a few years too, but Bonventre wasn’t thinking about Jessie, he was thinking thoughts of his own and stirring his second Scotch and soda.

  Dave had gotten kind of nervous from being taken off hold so quickly, he didn’t have a lot to say, also he was not quite as reassuring as he had seemed when she and Cherri were at the craps table. Harmony felt hungry, it had been quite a while since her taco between shows. She asked Dave if he felt like hitting the Waffle House but he seemed to think that was kind of extravagant, he said they could have breakfast in his apartment.

  Harmony was agreeable, she loved getting a look at a guy’s apartment. Seeing what kind of decorations they had could be interesting, only in the case of Dave’s apartment interesting was not quite the right word, horrible would have been more like it. As Dave himself explained, he got his apartment for practically no rent in return for managing the other five apartments in a little green apartment building on Charleston Avenue. He candidly admitted that cheap rent was the one good thing about it. Harmony definitely agreed it would have to be that if anything, it was at the back of the building next to a garbage collection center. There was no garbage there but the trucks that hauled it were parked right next to Dave’s kitchen window and smelled about as bad as if they were garbage themselves.

  Dave said he hoped the smell didn’t bother her, he couldn’t lower the window because he didn’t have air conditioning, he didn’t believe in it, his theory was that it sort of weakened you and his years in the Marines had convinced him it didn’t do to get weak. One of his kitchen walls was covered with pictures of mercenaries holding machine guns of various kinds or hand grenades or something. Evidently Dave’s reading consisted mostly of magazines for mercenaries because his kitchen table was covered with them.

  Harmony definitely began to get the sense that she hadn’t made the best choice in the world. The fact that Dave had been nice enough to show up at the craps table every night just when she had her break could have been a misleading fact. Still, he was sort of trying to be sweet and hadn’t put any rush on her or anything, probably she could just be a good sport and have breakfast. Dave seemed pretty nervous—probably some bacon and eggs would make them both feel better.

  But when she opened the icebox there was nothing there but beer, at which point Davd said, “I hope you like K rations.” It turned out that his cabinet had no normal food in it at all, just shelf after shelf of K rations, it was sort of an amazing sight. Dave explained that because of his Marine background he had grown to like K rations and had just sort of stopped eating normal food or anything else, after all they were cheap and there was quite a variety.

  Her philosophy of being a good sport was soon put to the test since to be gallant Dave opened three different kinds of K rations. For him it was a big deal, sort of like taking her to a fancy restaurant or something, usually he just restricted himself to one kind at a time. The su
n was just beginning to come up, which made Harmony wish she had just gone on home and put on her sleep goggles, at least she would have been able to feed the peacocks and make Pepper breakfast. Why was she sitting around smelling garbage trucks when she could have been smelling the desert and feeding her own beautiful child and beautiful birds? Plus she had to eat at least a few bites of the K rations, variety or no variety they were not exactly what a normal person would choose for breakfast.

  Dave didn’t have any liquids available except beer so she drank quite a bit in order to wash down the K rations. The smell of the K rations made her a little nauseous. She thought this is a disaster I’ve walked into, what am I doing in this kitchen? This is something Jessie would get herself into, how come it’s me this time? To make matters worse Dave began to get his feelings hurt when he noticed she was just sort of picking at the K rations, he had obviously made a special effort by opening three different kinds. He started making remarks like waste not want not, trying to make out like it was joke although it was definitely no joke, nothing about the occasion was what she would call a joke. She felt she was probably going to vomit every time she put a bite in her mouth, her only hope was to immediately wash it down with a lot of beer, but the beer didn’t mix too well at all with the vodka tonics. They might not have had an effect but they were there. She got the feeling she was going to be very lucky not to get sick, although she could usually eat anything, it had just been quite a while since she had given her stomach that much of a test.

  She told herself she was never going near that particular craps table again, Gene could pine all he wanted to, it wasn’t worth it. While she was wondering what she’d do on her breaks from then on Dave sprang a surprise. He had just been sitting there reproachfully, watching that she didn’t somehow manage to sneak the rest of the K rations down the Disposall or something, then suddenly he forgot about the K rations and jumped at her, his hand went right between her legs before she could even drop her fork. Maybe it wasn’t a total surprise, she had sort of guessed he was thinking about it, she would just have expected a little more subtlety though, an invitation to inspect the bedroom or something, although there wasn’t really a bedroom, just a little living room with a turquoise rug and a daybed. It was just about the time Dave made his move that the vodka tonics plus the beer finally had an effect.

  She felt sort of disconnected while the big event was happening, not that she tried to stop it, anything was better than eating K rations and anyway, after all, she had been the one who had taken him off hold. Besides, it was a short event, Dave was disappointed in himself and said he was out of practice, it had been quite a while, which made her feel a little sorry for him, so what if he liked K rations? it was just his Marine background. She held him close for a while, after all he had needed her a lot and she did like the gray streak. It was too bad he had such a horrible apartment, Pepper would have some awful things to say if she ever saw that turquoise rug. Dave seemed sort of helpless lying there beside her. She couldn’t help feeling a little love, although she did plan to avoid the two-dollar craps table for a while.

  Then when Dave slept she got dressed and found that besides the K rations there was no phone. She had to use a pay phone across the street at a laundromat to call Pepper and tell her she would have to cook her own breakfast, Jessie’s operation would probably be taking place anytime. Pepper was kind of uncommunicative but that was nothing new. “I guess you spent the night at the Waldorf-Astoria, is that right Mother?” she inquired. Harmony just let it pass, why go into it? At least Pepper promised to tell Myrtle about Jessie’s accident. Myrtle and Wendell worried about Jessie constantly, maybe they would want to send some nice flowers.

  IV

  NO SOONER had her mother hung up than the phone rang again and it was Bonventre, he said he hoped he hadn’t awakened her, obviously he was making a big effort to be super-polite. Nope, I’m up, she said, and waited—she wasn’t going to build his ego by giving him any chatter, chatter was her mother’s department.

  “The reason I’m calling is about the audition,” he said. “We were wondering if you could come this afternoon at about three?”

  “How long will it take?” she asked. For all she knew she could be getting married that afternoon.

  “Oh, about an hour, we just want you to try out a few routines,” he said.

  “How about two-thirty then?” Pepper asked. “My lesson starts at three-thirty and Madonna doesn’t like it if I’m late.”

  “Fine,” Bonventre said. “And if you’re late and she gives you any trouble I’ll just send someone to strangle her.”

  That was the kind of remark he was famous for—Pepper just let it pass.

  “If you like we’ll send a car to get you at school,” he said, he was definitely coming on like Mr. Smooth.

  “It’s okay, I got a car,” she said. “I’ll just show up. Why did you say Madonna had an ass like a prune?”

  She just thought she’d hit him with that, why not? He was surprised, too—there was total silence on the line for quite a few seconds. Then he finally managed a chuckle.

  “Pepper, it was just a lovers’ quarrel, don’t take it seriously,” he said.

  Bullshit, she thought, you’re not Madonna’s lover, but she didn’t say it. He sort of chuckled again, he seemed to find her attitude pretty amusing.

  “How did one like Harmony ever have one like you?” he said. “See you at two-thirty.”

  The stupid peacocks were pecking at the screen door, they were pissed that their momma hadn’t come home to scatter them some corn. Their momma had sounded pretty drunk, in fact, no doubt she had met some criminal on the order of Denny and had popped right in bed with him, that was totally par for the course. Pepper threw a few handfuls of bird feed out in the yard, at least it would keep them from pecking a hole in the screen. She got a bowl of cereal and some orange juice and went to see if Myrtle had survived the night or if Wendell had got the Buick fixed or what.

  Myrtle was already outside in her bathing suit. Once in a while when the garage sale scene had gone totally dead she got on a sunbathing kick and would sit around in her bathing suit rubbing oil on herself. It was grotesque since she was a total mass of freckles anyway. The tow truck and the Buick were there, only the Buick hadn’t been disconnected from the tow truck, probably Wendell had been too tired when he got home.

  Myrtle had already oiled herself good, which annoyed Maude—she didn’t like the smell. Maude was the world’s most spoiled goat, all right. She immediately came over and began to butt Pepper’s shins a little, she was hoping for some of the cereal.

  “Get away from her, you little bitch!” Myrtle said. She was hung over and not in a fantastic mood. Maude totally ignored her, she sort of acted like she was starving so Pepper let her clean out the cereal bowl once she had eaten all she wanted.

  “Hey, can I use the Buick if you’re going to sunbathe?” Pepper asked, why let it go to waste?

  “I thought you had a Jap driver now,” Myrtle said.

  Actually, why go to school? Pepper was thinking, maybe she’d just wake up Woods and they’d skip it and hit the arcades, maybe it was time to reveal that she was going to be his godmother-in-law. Or they could drive out to the lake or something, it didn’t seem like a day for classes.

  “Where’s Harmony, them peacocks have been having a fit,” Myrtle said.

  “I don’t know, except she’s drunk, she just called,” Pepper said. “Jessie’s stupid disc broke and she shattered her ankle. I think they’re operating on it this morning,”

  “Oh lord, Wendell will die,” Myrtle said. “He thinks that Jessie hung the moon.”

  “So is he ever going to take the Buick off the tow truck or what?” Pepper asked. So far as she could see the one unusual thing about Jessie was that she was the only one in town who consistently got worse boyfriends than her mother. Of course her intentions were good. She had given Pepper a stuffed animal for every single birthday and Christmas that she
could remember. Pepper had the feeling that when she was sixty-five or so she would still be getting two stuffed animals a year from Jessie. Quite a few of them had got practically eaten by Maude, who liked stuffed animals even better than Cheerios. Jessie was always checking on them on her visits and looking real distressed if they happened to have a couple of limbs chewed off or something.

  “Jessie’s never been strong,” Myrtle said, she was more upset than she wanted to admit. The next thing she did was kick over her bottle of suntan oil, so that pretty soon a little stream of suntan oil had trickled all the way down the driveway to the road.

  “She’s not going to die, she just broke her ankle,” Pepper pointed out. About that time Wendell came out of the door barefooted, in his pants and undershirt, and stopped and looked sort of puzzled when Myrtle told him the bad news. “My goodness,” he said. That was about all he ever said, but he did go down and unhook the Buick from the tow truck. When Pepper saw that she cut back in the house and got dressed, meaning to get out of there before Myrtle thought of a garage sale she wanted to recheck, in which case she would take the car.

  She wanted to call Woods but decided that might arouse suspicion, she just got the Buick and took off and intercepted him just as he got off the school bus. His parents insisted that he ride the bus because they didn’t want him spoiled by money. Woods was one of the few kids around who didn’t have his own car. His mother was a paranoid about car wrecks and just wouldn’t allow it.

  Woods was sort of proper in some ways, he wasn’t wild about missing school but on the other hand he was hers to command and when she said it’s hooky day, let’s hit the arcades, he just got in and pretended to vomit at the sight of all the goat hair. “We ought to sell this car to a mohair company, we’d make a fortune,” he said. Still, he considered himself an eccentric and sort of enjoyed riding in the car of a true eccentric like Myrtle.