The Lives of Edie Pritchard

by Larry Watson

  “Oh my God! No, don’t tell me!” Lauren stands so swiftly that the chair tips over.

  “Jesse got him to agree he wouldn’t be in the room—”

  “Jesse?”

  “He’d be like outside the door. Or we could do a movie—”

  “And who’s going to hold the camera? Like I don’t know the answer to that!”

  “We could do it ourselves, I bet.”

  Lauren gives him the finger and walks away.

  ONCE THE FULL moon gains some height, it’s like a yellow spotlight trying to fix its beam on the farmyard, plenty of light for Jesse to cross the yard and find Lauren, sitting in the lawn chair. She’s drinking a beer, and she’s still wearing her sunglasses.

  “There you are,” Jesse says.

  “Like it’s a big secret.”

  “Mosquitoes will eat you alive out here.”

  Jesse walks around in front of Lauren. He grabs ahold of a low branch of one of the oaks and pulls on it as if he’s trying to determine whether it will support his weight. “The moonlight too bright for you?”

  “What?”

  “The shades. Or maybe you’re going for the movie star look.”

  Lauren doesn’t say anything.

  “Marilyn and the girls are going into town. I think I’ll ride along. You want to come?”

  “Not really.”

  “Suit yourself. You need anything?”

  “Kind of late to go shopping, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, that’s Marilyn. Takes her a long time to get organized.” Jesse is still hanging on to that branch, and now he lifts his feet off the ground and gently swings back and forth. “You’re okay staying here with the menfolk?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “A joke, kid. I was making a joke.” He lets go of the branch and drops to the ground. “Billy said he talked to you about Garth.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he said you weren’t too keen on the idea.”

  “That’s a fucking understatement.”

  “Hey, you don’t want to, nobody’s going to force you. I get it. I really do. Only . . .”

  “Only what?”

  “Nothing, nothing. It’s your decision. Totally. It doesn’t matter. Forget it.”

  “What?” Lauren asks. “What doesn’t matter?”

  “There’s a little more to it. I mean, more than Billy knows.”

  “You mean like you’re going to prison if I say no?” Her voice drips with scorn.

  Jesse laughs. “What the hell did he say to you anyway? Jesus. No.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I know Garth wants to come off as this jolly old hippie who doesn’t give a shit about anything but smoking weed and blasting his music so fucking loud it makes your ears bleed, but I’m pretty sure he’s having a problem getting it up. So that means he’s worried about Marilyn too because they’ve always acted like they’re both free to, you know. Get it wherever they can find it.”

  “He told you all this?”

  “Sort of. But I kind of got the rest from Marilyn.”

  “And watching somebody fuck is going to help him get it up? Why doesn’t he watch porn like everybody else on the fucking planet? Or take a pill like any other old man with a limp dick.”

  “Jesus, Laure. That’s icy. Besides . . .”

  “What? What?”

  “I don’t think it’s watching just anybody fuck. It’s you. Hey, you know you have this . . . effect. You can’t blame the guy.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I can.”

  “Okay,” Jesse says and holds up his hands. “Not another word about it. You said no. That’s the end of it.”

  “Except now I don’t want to be like even in the same room with him.”

  “Well, don’t say anything to him. Or to Marilyn. They’re letting us crash here.” Jesse slaps at his arm. “Fucking mosquitoes. Okay. I’m going. And you don’t want anything from town?”

  “No.”

  Jesse starts toward the house. He has almost outpaced the reach of the moonlight when Lauren calls after him.

  “Hey, you know what you sounded like before? Trying to talk all sweet and reasonable? Like a fucking pimp.”

  Jesse laughs.

  LAUREN ENTERS THE house through the back door and blinks in the kitchen’s bright overhead light. She walks to the refrigerator, opens it, and takes out another beer.

  Standing over the kitchen table, measuring ingredients into a stainless steel mixing bowl is Garth. He’s the size of an NFL lineman. His long salt-and-pepper hair is tied back in a ponytail. His beard is long enough to cover his throat.

  Without looking up at Lauren he asks, “Find what you’re looking for?”

  “Yeah.” She deftly twists the cap off the bottle. “You want one, Garth?”

  “Not while I’m working.” He picks up a half-teaspoon measure and dips it delicately into the baking soda, which he drops into the bowl. “By the way,” he says, “both your boys went with Marilyn.”

  “Billy went?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She looks from one corner of the room to another. “Randy?”

  “He’s in the living room. Watching Finding Nemo for about the eleven thousandth time.”

  She walks over to the doorway where she can see for herself.

  Garth wipes his hands on his jeans and says to Lauren, “How many beers are left in there?”

  “Three, I think. Yeah. Three.”

  “Let’s check, shall we?” He walks to the refrigerator, opens the door, and peers inside. “One, two, three. Right you are, Miss Keller.” He closes the refrigerator and with a smile asks, “And how many people are living in this house?”

  “Counting Jesse and Billy and me?”

  He spreads his arms expansively. “Why not?”

  Lauren’s forehead puckers with concentration. “Eight?”

  “Eight. That’s very good. And when Matt returns, which could be at any time, nine. Now then. Marilyn’s girls don’t drink. Randy—obviously not. Marilyn likes her wine, so she rarely drinks beer. Still, hot weather—she’ll crack a beer. So that’s five of us. And three beers left? Who’s going without?”

  There’s nothing threatening about Garth, nothing except his size, but perhaps that’s enough. Lauren starts to back away from him. But then stops and stands firm.

  “Well, Miss Keller? Who?”

  Lauren shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “And who put those beers in the refrigerator?”

  “I don’t know. Marilyn?”

  “Marilyn. That’s right. Marilyn. And when she comes back tonight, she’ll put some more in there. And who gave Marilyn the money to buy the beer? Or the food you see in there? You’re catching my drift here, aren’t you? And those muffins I’m making for everyone’s breakfast—who bought the ingredients? Who’s doing the baking? Now, I don’t want to go all Little Red Hen on you, but if you want to drink the fucking beer and eat the fucking muffins maybe you should give some thought to how you can make a contribution around here.”

  Lauren walks back to the refrigerator, opens its door, and puts her opened bottle of beer back inside. Then she slams the door so hard that its contents clink and rattle.

  “Your muffins suck,” she says and steps out the back door.

  Lauren walks around to the front of the house and then continues down the dirt driveway until she arrives at the blacktop county road that runs past the farm. She looks up and down the highway, but there’s nothing but darkness in either direction. She steps out into the road and stands right in the middle. The only terrestrial light comes from a farmhouse in a far-off fold of hills. How far away? A mile? Two? Three? Distances are as difficult to gauge out here as the light from stars.

  She reaches into her back pocket and takes out her phone, the light from its screen so bright out here in the darkness it seems as though the phone is looking back at her. Then she punches in a number.

  WHEN THE WIND blows hard from a certain direction�
��west by northwest—the window in Edie’s bedroom hums and whistles in its frame. And though this usually occurs in the fall or winter, Edie wakes up and looks toward that window. Then the phone buzzes and vibrates again on her bedside table, and she comes fully alert. She opens its shell.

  “Grandma?”

  “Lauren? What is it, honey? Where are you?”

  “Do you think I could come and stay with you, Grandma?”

  “Is something wrong, Lauren?”

  Her granddaughter doesn’t answer.

  “Where are you? Can you tell me that?”

  “I just thought . . . I don’t know. I thought it would be different.”

  “Of course you can come here. Of course you can. You can come here.”

  “The thing is, I don’t have any way to get there.”

  “What’s going on there, honey? You can’t get a ride here?”

  “No, no . . .”

  “Could you take the bus? Would that be possible?”

  “I don’t really have any money. Or a way to . . .”

  “Lauren. Are you all right? Listen to me. Are you okay?”

  “Oh sure. It’s just that—”

  “And you’re not in trouble?”

  “Oh no. Nothing like that. Nothing like you mean. But could you maybe come get me?”

  “Of course I can. You just tell me where you are.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “Well, I mean, Bismarck. We’re in Bismarck. Kind of. We’re on a farm. Kind of a farm. I mean, nobody’s like farming. It used to be a farm.”

  “Okay, okay. That’s fine. But you’ll have to tell me how to get there.”

  A sound comes through the phone that could be the halting breaths of a girl who believed she had reached an age when her tears would finally be under her control. Or it could be nothing but electromagnetic dust, all the particles, beams, waves, and weakening signals that come between what one person’s tongue sends and another person’s ear receives.

  “Lauren? Did you hear me?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll try.”

  “Or could you meet me somewhere?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe . . .”

  “Just tell me where you are, Lauren. I’ll come for you.”

  There’s another silence, long enough for Edie to check whether the connection has been lost.

  “I’ll call you, Grandma. Or I’ll text you. Can you get texts?”

  “I’ll be waiting, honey. But is there anything—”

  “I have to go,” she whispers.

  And this time there can be no doubt. The call is over.

  “HOW MANY TIMES have I told you kids not to play in the road?” Garth shouts.

  Lauren puts her phone back in her pocket.

  “You can’t be out there playing in the traffic!” he says, laughing.

  Lauren takes a last look down the highway. Then she walks back up the driveway. When she’s almost to the porch, Garth holds an opened bottle of beer out to her. “You might as well drink this,” he says. “You can’t just leave an open beer in the fridge. It’ll go flat.”

  She takes the beer, but she doesn’t step onto the porch.

  “You want one of those sucky muffins?” he asks. “First batch is about to come out of the oven.”

  “What kind?”

  “Oat bran. With walnuts and raisins. Guaranteed to lower your cholesterol. Not that you need to worry your pretty little head about that.”

  “Thanks but no thanks,” she says.

  “Suit yourself. There’ll be plenty if you change your mind. No one else likes them either.”

  She looks back at the road. “Did they say when they’d be back?”

  “Nope. Once you let Marilyn loose in Walmart, she’s liable to wander around in there for hours.”

  “Jesse hates Walmart.”

  “Does he now? Well, I’m with him on that. But if you want to understand America, you got to put in your time at Walmart.”

  He turns to go inside but then stops, holding the screen door open for her. “You coming?” he asks.

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay,” Garth says. “Come in if the mosquitoes get bad.”

  As soon as he goes in Lauren steps onto the wide wooden porch. She paces from one creaking end to the other, drinking her beer and staring up and down the highway.

  AN OVERHEAD FLUORESCENT light in Walmart flickers, dims, brightens, then dims again. Marilyn is pushing a cart loaded with toilet paper, Tide laundry detergent, paper towels, and Diet Coke. She says, “They better fix that before someone has a seizure right here.”

  Marilyn is a big woman, tall, heavy breasted, and wide hipped, and she leans on the handle of the cart for support. But even as she lumbers through the aisles, that large body sways in a way that causes both men and women to slow down and watch her approach.

  Jesse walks alongside the cart like a child who has been admonished to stay close to a parent. Marilyn turns to him and says, “So whatever you and Matt have planned, it can’t be anything that people can get strung out on or OD on. So no meth. No speed. No heroin for sure. No crack or coke. If it just makes you feel good, probably yes. If it kills the pain, maybe yes, maybe no.”

  “Doesn’t leave much.”

  “What can I tell you? Garth’s real old school.”

  “How about oxy?” Jesse asks.

  “Borderline. Judgment call.”

  “X?”

  “Probably okay. But in my limited experience, North Dakotans don’t go for it in a super big way. I have no idea why. But no matter what, you have to know if you’re looking to deal something in volume, there just isn’t that big a market here. I mean, the whole goddamn state has fewer people than Minneapolis. And it’s not just a problem of fewer buyers. It’s the wrong ones. Sooner or later you’ll sell to someone you shouldn’t.”

  “So weed, I guess.”

  “Oh, and Garth won’t stand for selling anything on a reservation.”

  “Jesus.”

  “His house,” Marilyn says. “His rules.”

  “The thing is,” Jesse says, “Matt didn’t go up to Canada to shop around. He’s for sure coming back with something. I just don’t know what. Maybe he talked it over with Garth before he left.”

  She shakes her head no. “If he did, honey, I’d know about it.”

  Up ahead Billy is approaching. He waves as though either he or his brother has been lost for days. Behind him are Marilyn’s daughters, Tiffany and Sarah, gangly girls smiling in the heaven of a discount store. They wave too.

  Jesse pulls Billy away from the others. Once they are halfway down the pet care aisle, Jesse says, “The camcorder’s got to have a zoom, okay?”

  Billy nods enthusiastically. “A JVC looks like it’s the easiest,” he says. “Except the guy says it can be a problem in low light. But then he told me a bunch of shit you can do to make it work okay.”

  “But a zoom, right? It’s got to have a zoom.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But it ain’t cheap.”

  “It’ll pay for itself,” Jesse says. He takes out his billfold and hands it to his brother. “Go to a different checkout than the one she goes to.”

  When Jesse walks back to meet Marilyn again, she stops the cart, looks at him, and smiles. “I’ve been thinking on your problem,” she says. “You could always move out. Then you can sell anything you fucking well please.”

  THE CAR TURNS off the highway and up the driveway, its headlights sweeping across the porch and illuminating the girl sitting on the step. She stands up and all but runs down the gravel drive.

  The car has barely come to a stop before Billy gets out and hurries to meet her. “What’s the matter?” he asks her. “Garth?”

  She shakes her head no.

  As they walk toward the farmhouse, Garth turns on the porch light and steps outside. “Need a hand?” he asks.

  “Not while I have my two strapping young centurions here,” Marilyn
says. She pops open the trunk and says to Billy and Jesse, “Just take all that shit to the kitchen.”

  Marilyn and her daughters head toward the porch while Billy, Jesse, and Lauren take the bags and boxes from Walmart and the Bottle Stop Liquor Store around the back of the house.

  As they walk through the dark, Billy asks Lauren, “Why’d you want to stay here with him? I thought—”

  “What? No. I thought you were still here.”

  “He didn’t say anything? Or . . .”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Hey,” Lauren says. “why are you getting mad at me?”

  Jesse has overheard them, and he laughs and says, “Kids, come on now. No fighting. Don’t make me give you a time-out!”

  The two girls go into the living room and sit on the floor with Randy for yet another viewing of Finding Nemo. The adults gather in the kitchen, amid the smell of fresh-baked muffins and under the bright overhead bulb where a few insects now circle and flutter.

  THE RED NUMERALS on the clock on Edie’s nightstand say it’s 11:28. She climbs out of bed and goes out on her balcony. The night is warm and a faintly yeasty aroma travels on the air, the smell perhaps of the bread that bakes while others sleep.

  A voice says, “I don’t want to scare you.” But of course it’s too late.

  Edie startles and turns toward the sound. George Real Bird is sitting on the adjacent balcony in one of the plastic patio chairs. “Sorry,” he says.

  “My God,” she says. “George. What are you doing out here?”

  He holds up his cigarette. “Getting my nicotine ration. You start as late in the day as I do, you got to put in some long hours to get it all in. But I’m out here most nights. What’s your excuse?”

  Edie fans her face with her hand. “I still don’t do well with air-conditioning. It’s too chilly when it’s running, and when it cycles off it’s too stuffy.”

  “You could just open your windows. It’s not going to rain.”

  Edie smiles. “Our own private weatherman.”

  George holds up a finger and corrects her. “Weather advisor. Without the expert training provided by the United States military, the Iraqi weather officers wouldn’t have been able to use the Tactical Meteorological Observation System, which enabled them to predict that it was going to be hot and dry. Followed by more hot and dry.”