by Larry Watson
As Jennifer drives slowly down the street that the county highway has turned into, her mother says, “Just turn around. We can find someplace else to stop.”
“I’m really thirsty,” Jennifer says. “And I really have to pee.”
Edie says, “Go back to the gas station then. We’ll get something there.”
Jennifer pulls into the side lot of the gas station. Edie hands her daughter a ten-dollar bill.
“And don’t dawdle.”
“Dawdle? God, Mom, you’re turning into Grandma Dunn.”
“Do you think Mickey needs to get out?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll walk him around while you go in. And please—don’t give anyone the finger.”
On her way into the gas station Jennifer pivots and, walking backward and holding her hand close to her chest, smiles and raises her middle finger to her mother.
Edie snaps the leash on Mickey’s collar. “Let’s go, big guy.” She lifts the cat out of the car and carries him toward the weedy edge of the lot. She sets him down in the dust and gravel. “Okay,” she says. “Do your thing.”
Nothing in the surrounding landscape suggests that rain has fallen here in days, possibly weeks, yet the lot is dotted with small pools of water. Immediately Mickey strains at the leash, trying to get to one of those puddles.
A man walks up behind Edie and says, “Careful, Miss. You don’t want her drinking out of them puddles. That there is poison to cats.”
Edie turns around. A long-haired middle-aged man is approaching. He’s tall and his Allman Brothers T-shirt has the sleeves cut off to reveal his weightlifter’s musculature. He stops advancing when Edie faces him, but he’s the kind of man who can’t conceal the intent of his gaze. Eye fucker.
“But it won’t do humans no harm,” he says. His smile is wide and his dimples deep.
She scoops Mickey up and starts back toward the car.
“Hey,” the man says, “she didn’t do her business.”
His boots crunching on the gravel tell Edie that he’s following her. “I got cats myself,” he says. “They generally don’t like to do their business out in the open.”
Edie keeps moving toward the Volkswagen.
He hurries alongside her. “Let me carry her for you.”
“It’s a he,” Edie says and winces at her own remark.
He steps ahead of Edie to open the car door for her.
Edie sets Mickey inside on the floor and climbs in after him. She keeps her hold on the leash, but the cat shows no inclination to leave the car. Edie shuts the door, but her window is still open.
“Holy shit,” he says. “That’s some bad-looking wrist you got there.”
“It’s nothing.”
“The hell. That ain’t nothing. I seen a lot of nothing in my time, and that there ain’t nothing like nothing.”
Jennifer is walking out of the gas station, her arms laden with bags of potato chips, cans of Coke, and candy bars, and when she sees the man standing at the car, she starts to run toward it.
The man steps away from the car door in a move that seems almost courtly. “Who do we have here?” He bends down and looks at Edie and then back at Jennifer. “You two sisters?”
“Come on, Jen,” Edie says.
Jennifer walks around to the driver’s side and opens the door. “Here, Mom,” she says and hands her purchases in to her mother.
“Couple glamour girls is what we got here,” he says. “You two in the movies? Or TV maybe?”
Jennifer climbs in behind the wheel and puts the key in the ignition.
“Are you maybe in that show about the cops?” he asks. “The lady cops?”
“We have to go,” Edie says and rolls up the window. “Start the car, Jen.”
Jennifer turns the key and the engine grumbles like a man trying to gather his thoughts, but the car doesn’t start. She tries again but the engine won’t turn over.
The man signals for one of them to roll down a window.
Edie says, “Press the gas pedal all the way to the floor and hold it there for a few seconds. Don’t pump it.”
Now he has walked to the front of the car. “Pop the hood!” he shouts. “Let me take a look.”
“That’ll flood it,” Jennifer says.
“Do it,” says Edie. “Right to the floor.”
Jennifer obeys her mother.
“Try it now.”
The engine coughs again, but then it catches and roars to life. The man takes a step back but he’s still standing in front of the car.
“Go,” Edie commands her daughter.
“Mom, he’s right there—” Jennifer puts the Volkswagen in gear but keeps her foot on the brake.
“Go. He’ll move.”
Move he does, stepping to the side and making a passable imitation of a matador waving his cape as the car accelerates within two feet of him on its way out.
Not until all of Locklin will fit in the rearview mirror does either Jennifer or her mother speak.
“God, Mom. What was that all about? Who was he?”
“I’m sorry,” says Edie. “I should have been the one driving.”
“So you could run him over?”
“That’s right,” Edie says, still turned in her seat and watching the highway behind them. “So I could do it.”
THE ODORS OF gasoline, combustion, and sun-heated plastic now become as familiar as the smells of home. Edie and Jennifer have their food and drink—open bags of potato chips and sweating cans of icy soda in their hands. The landscape repeats itself like the songs on the radio.
And then here it comes. Stevie Wonder. “I just called to say . . .”
A mile passes before Edie notices Jennifer wiping at the tears that have already streaked a trail down her cheeks.
“Jen? What is it? What’s wrong?”
She sniffs hard and replies, “Nothing.”
“Come on, honey. Tell me.”
Now it’s an actual sob Jennifer must swallow. “That song. It was kind of Patrick’s and my song. I know it’s stupid but when I hear it . . .”
“It’s not stupid. It’s not stupid at all. But I thought . . . Do you want to pull over?”
Jennifer waves her hand in front of her face. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? Maybe I should drive awhile.”
“Why? Did you see someone you want to run over?”
Edie laughs. But she reaches toward the radio.
“That’s okay,” Jennifer says. “You can leave it on. It’s a good song. And I have to be able to listen to it without blubbering.”
“So maybe,” Edie says, “it’s not over between you and Patrick?”
Jennifer laughs derisively. “Oh, it’s over! It’s just that . . .”
“Jen. Please pull over.”
“Of all the guys he was the one who did it for me, you know? It was like the two of us—oh, crap. I don’t know. He did it for me, that’s all.”
“I know, honey. I know. But you have to let me drive now.”
Jennifer shakes her head but pulls over and stops the car. Without saying a word, mother and daughter get out and change places.
Jennifer has stopped crying. She’s watching her mother closely now, her gaze settling finally on her mother’s hands gripping the steering wheel.
“Did Dad do that?” she says abruptly. “To your wrist?” She asks those questions with a cool detachment.
“He reached out for me and I twisted away. He didn’t mean to.”
“But you’re leaving him, right? Over that?” Now the detachment in Jennifer’s voice has given way to judgment.
“We’re going to Gladstone,” says Edie. “To see someone who’s very sick.”
“The way we’re packed? You don’t plan to go back! Ever! Whatever’s between you and Dad, it isn’t fair to take it out on me! I didn’t want to leave at all! You didn’t even ask me. And now you’re trying to take me away for good, away from my friends and school . . . and
from . . . from . . .”
“Is this about Patrick?”
“He wants us to get back together. That’s what he told Helen.”
“He cheated on you, Jen.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You know I try not to interfere in your life. And I don’t give you advice unless you ask for it. Which you never do. But that’s a separate issue. If Patrick cheated on you once, he’ll do it again. Cheaters cheat.”
Jennifer slumps in her seat. She turns away from her mother and leans her head against the window.
Edie keeps her eyes focused on the highway, though she can’t help but see her daughter.
After all these hours in the car, the bruise on Edie’s backside has begun to throb, its cadence nearly matching that of the car’s engine. Or her own heart. Their rhythms are very close.
SOMEWHERE UP THERE is a moon almost full, and Roy Linderman blows a lungful of smoke in its direction and damns the clouds that won’t get out of the way. The view won’t be any better on the other side of his mother’s trailer, but he walks around back anyway. Gladstone has grown, yet open prairie still surrounds it on two sides. From the alkali flats that run all the way to the foothills a mile away comes a smell like someone pissed on a hot rock. Roy flicks his cigarette toward the sky and sparks pinwheel off it.
He walks through the front door and into the living room. Every light is on as well as the television. Cagney & Lacey is playing, though no one is in the room. He walks down the narrow hallway that leads toward the trailer’s two bedrooms. He tilts from side to side as if the trailer were in motion, but this is simply the limp he’s had for two decades.
A light is on in one of the bedrooms, its door open a few inches. Through that gap Roy asks softly, “How we doing in there?”
“Sleeping,” his mother says and steps out of the bedroom.
Roy remains in the doorway. His brother is propped up on pillows, his eyes closed and his arms at his sides. But his hands are open, and the palms are turned up, as though he had to let go of something to let sleep come. The room is the only one in the trailer with air-conditioning, a clattering unit balanced precariously in the window. Despite the room’s chill, Dean is wearing nothing but a pair of gray gym shorts. He’s always been thin, but now his arms and legs look like knotted rope. Roy pulls the door closed and backs away.
Before he leaves the trailer he says to his mother, “Call me if anything—”
Without looking away from the television, she waves him on his way with the back of her hand.
ON A QUIET tree-lined street, Carla sits in the dark on a creaking porch swing. She’s drinking a glass of wine, and in her white shorts and white polo shirt she looks as if she just stepped off the tennis court. While she’s staring off into the night, a car comes fast down the street, and then it slows and the engine growls amiably. The car pulls into the driveway, and the engine shuts down but for another moment the driver leaves the headlights on, and their beams shining on the garage door look like underwater light. Then the lights go dark, the car door opens, and Roy Linderman climbs out. He stands still for a moment and looks up again into the summer sky. Still no moon or stars.
Carla watches Roy as impassively as she might a stranger driving by. When he steps onto the porch, he points at her wineglass and says, “Wine? In this heat?”
“A fine cabernet,” she replies and raises the glass to him. “There’s half a bottle left in there if you care to join me.”
“Maybe a beer,” he says, but neither of them makes a move to fetch it. “Are you drunk?” he asks her.
“Quite possibly,” she says. “How’s your brother this fine evening?”
“About the same.” Roy takes a pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket, shakes loose a cigarette, raises it to his lips, and lights it.
“You didn’t smoke in the trailer, did you?”
“Jesus, Carla. Give me a little credit.”
“A simple question,” she says. “And a simple yes or no would do.”
“You are drunk.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” she says. She takes a long swallow from her wineglass. “Jay called. He’s bringing the boys back early. So if you have any plans you need to implement before their return, you have until Saturday.”
“Plans? Like what plans?”
“How should I know? Fucking on the dining room table maybe. You always seem to have plans and occasionally you share them with me. And maybe this would be one of those occasions.”
Roy asks, “Why early?”
“Something about Julie’s parents coming for a visit.”
Roy turns away and looks toward the street. A mountain ash has been planted out on the berm, a tree that’s never been healthy, and on this warm, breathless summer night, the tree drops a few leaves that flutter in the light of the streetlight.
“And,” Carla says, “a woman called. She wanted to speak to you.”
“About?”
“She didn’t deign to share with me the reason for her call. But she quite specifically asked for Mr. Roy Linderman.”
“Did she say who it was?”
“No, but then she wouldn’t, would she?”
“Hey, Carla. Do we have to do this? I’m really tired tonight.”
“Perhaps,” Carla says, “the caller was someone interested in buying a car.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. Could be.”
“And to get the best deal, the very best fucking deal, she thought she’d call you at home.”
“You know what? I’m going to call it a night.”
Once again she raises her glass to him. “Sleep well.”
MICKEY HAS LEAPED from the bed onto the dresser and from the dresser to the top of the television set. From there he surveys the motel room: the cheap wood paneling, the black-and-white television, the two sagging beds, the mismatched chairs, the wind-up alarm clock, the framed print of ocean waves breaking on the shore—and this in a town about as far from an ocean as it is from anywhere else in the country. But room 106 in the Rimrock Inn is clean, as the smell of Pine-Sol testifies; the proprietor accepts pets; and the rate is probably as cheap as any they’re likely to find. Despite its name, the Rimrock Inn is nowhere near any of the sandstone and scoria bluffs that look down on Gladstone. It’s in the older center of town and on a street that has as many residences as retail businesses. But Edie had no trouble finding the inn because it’s just where it was when she lived in Gladstone. Which is more astonishing—what’s still there or what’s not?
Light takes its time leaving the summer prairie sky and still lingers on the western horizon in a strip of dark lavender. Moths cluster under the streetlights. The weather forecaster—if she can be heard accurately above the rattle and buzz of the air conditioner—promises that tomorrow will be cooler and the winds calm.
Jennifer is already in bed but shows no interest in sleeping. Mickey curls his paws under his chin and closes his eyes.
Edie is rearranging clothes in one of the suitcases.
“Did you call Dad?” Jennifer asks.
“What do you want to wear tomorrow?” Edie says. “I’ll hang something up for you.”
“A T-shirt. And I don’t care if it’s wrinkled.” She sits up in bed. “I said, ‘Did you call Dad?’”
“I heard you. No, I didn’t.”
“You said you were going to the office to use the phone. So who’d you call?”
“Do you want me to take out a sweatshirt for you?”
“Who did you call?”
“I think I’ll wear jeans,” says Edie. “Since it’s supposed to be cooler . . . You’re sure you won’t need a sweatshirt?”
Jennifer kicks her way free of the sheet and bedspread. She grabs hold of her mother’s shoulders and shakes her the way a parent might shake a child.
“Mom, Mom! Why won’t you talk to me? I ask you questions and it’s like you don’t even hear me.”
For the second time in as many days, Edie Dunn is trapped in the despe
rate grasp of one of her own family members. She waits until Jennifer seems to be done. Then Edie takes a step back.
“I’m sorry, Jen. I should have said something. I tried to call Mr. Linderman.”
“Now it’s Mister Linderman? You already told me—”
“His brother,” Edie says. “Roy. I wanted to let him know we’re in town. He wasn’t home. I suppose I could have talked to his wife. She and I used to be friends. But I doubt she’d remember me.”
“She does I bet,” says Jennifer. “So now what?”
Edie shrugs. “I’ll call again in the morning.”
“Why don’t you just go see him? Dean, I mean. That’s what you came for.”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t know where he is.”
“Maybe he’s in the hospital,” Jennifer suggests. “After you see him can we go home?”
“I can’t say right now.”
“You’re doing it again.”
Edie sighs and sits down on the edge of the bed. “I need some time away from your father.”
“I knew it!” Jennifer says. “I knew it! You and Dad are getting a divorce, and I’m the one who has to leave home! That’s not fair!” Jennifer walks around to the side of the bed opposite her mother and sits down. “I could go home,” Jennifer suggests, “and you could stay here.”
“We’ll talk about it, Jen. But not tonight. Let’s wait and see how Dean’s doing.”
“I could take the bus or something.”
Edie’s shoulders slump a little.
“Are you even thinking about Dad? He’s probably so worried. He doesn’t know where we are.”
“He’ll figure it out,” says Edie.
“Dad needs someone there. And I don’t want to live in this shitty motel.”
“Your father will be fine.”
AS THEY LIE in their beds in the dark, Edie says, “Jen? I’m sorry if what I said about Patrick hurt you.”
Jennifer doesn’t say anything.
“I don’t want to see you hurt. Again. And you said yourself that he . . . Well. You make your own choices, Jen. But I want you to be loved properly.”
