by Eric Walters
“Funny, that’s funny. It will get even funnier as this night develops.”
Oh, that was bad. “You’re not actually going to take me to a rodeo another day, are you?”
“No rodeo, I promise, but if we did go to one, we’d get another opportunity to wear cowboy hats,” she said. “I think I look fantastic in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and boot-cut jeans.”
“Where did you even get these hats and boots?”
“It’s amazing what connections social can make. The same person who suggested and arranged this different also got us the clothing. Come on.”
We walked toward the bar. It was called the Electric Cowboy and featured a gigantic neon image of a cowboy leaning against a fence. The lights changed back and forth to show him taking off his hat. I’d never been to the place, but the sign was sort of a landmark in our city.
Circling around to the front of the bar, I saw there was a big lineup snaking all the way across the front of the building to the door. There must have been a hundred people waiting to get in.
“We’re not going to get in for hours,” I said.
“We won’t have to wait.”
Ella walked down the line. I followed along, staying close and trying not to look at the people waiting. I hesitated and then stopped as she detoured around the people at the head of the line. She was getting a lot of nasty looks as she “excused” herself until she was standing right at the door, which was being guarded by a very large, menacing-looking cowboy. He had to be the bouncer. He bent down—way down—to talk to Ella. Did she really think she could talk her way inside? She could be charming, but there was no way—
The big cowboy shot me a smile and gestured for me to come over.
I “excused” my way through the people at the front of the line. I got some glares and some snide remarks that I couldn’t make out.
“Soph, this is Stretch,” Ella said.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Stretch said. He tipped his hat.
“Glad to meet you as well.”
“You two sure ’nough are pretty little fillies,” he said in a cowboy drawl.
“Thanks, pardner,” Ella offered.
“You look as pretty as on your profiles,” he added.
“Our profiles. Do you follow me? Are you a Facebook friend?” I thought I would have remembered a Stretch, but I friended everybody who asked, and the requests just kept coming.
“I am. Nice picture of your parents’ wedding.”
“Thanks. It’s my favorite.”
“And it’s nice of you to honor them that way. I was starting to think you two weren’t going to be coming tonight,” he said.
“You knew we were coming?”
“Of course I did, little lady,” he said.
“This was all arranged by Stretch,” Ella said. “He’s the one who contacted me with the idea and even got us the clothes.”
“That was so kind of you.” I probably should have waited to say that until I knew what he had arranged.
“It’s my pleasure,” he said and gave a little bow.
“I really like your accent,” Ella said. “Where are you from?”
“New Jersey.”
“New Jersey?” Ella and I both asked in unison.
“The Jersey Shore.”
“But your accent,” I said. “You sound like you’re from somewhere down south.”
“The Jersey Shore is the south part of the state,” he said, suddenly speaking in a clear Jersey accent. “My name is Tony “Stretch” Greco, so my background is even farther south, in Italy. You girls never heard of a spaghetti western?”
Ella and I both burst into laughter, and he flashed a gigantic smile.
“Now I want you to remember our deal,” Stretch said.
“What deal?” I asked.
“Because we’re underage, they had to make special arrangements for us to be here, and we have to promise not to order alcoholic drinks,” Ella explained.
I turned to Stretch. “Believe me, that’s the last thing I’d do.”
“Good. You go on inside, and I’ll get another bouncer to work the door so I can join you in a while,” he said, switching back to his cowboy twang. He held the door open for us, and a swell of sound from a steel guitar came flowing out.
“How come they get to go in first?” some guy yelled out from behind us in the line.
I cringed as we all turned around.
“We’ve been waiting a long time,” the man yelled, and his buddy nodded.
“And you’re gonna be waiting a whole lot longer, partner,” Stretch drawled, “’cause where I come from, we treat women with a little more respect.”
Not in any of the reality TV episodes I’d seen, but I didn’t say that.
The guy made another negative comment, and Stretch let go of the door and walked toward him. Ella grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. The door shut behind us before we could see what was going to happen, and the country music enveloped us.
The place was just packed. We weaved through the tables and chairs and the people standing four deep at the bar. It was a sea of cowboy hats, cowboy boots, jeans, checkered shirts and women with big hair and tight skimpy tops. I felt overdressed and under-haired.
The music was really loud. I’d never been a real fan of the music part of country music, but I found the words interesting. They always seemed to tell a story. It might be a story about going to prison, or a cheatin’ man, or a pickup truck breaking down, or a girlfriend who left the guy, but there was always a story.
I remembered a joke I’d once heard, that if you play a country song backward, you get back your girlfriend, your dog is no longer dead, and your brother is released from prison.
There were a lot of smiles and friendly conversations and hooting and hollering. We stopped at the edge of the dance floor. It was crammed with people doing a complicated, coordinated line dance. I’d seen it done on TV and in movies, and it did look like fun. If learning to line-dance was the different for tonight, then the scariest thing that could happen was some guy in cowboy boots putting his heel down on my toes.
“Is line dancing the different?”
“I didn’t bring you here for that. Your different is on the other side of the dance floor.”
I looked through the dancers. There was a big red rubber thing. It looked like an inflatable swimming pool. Was I supposed to go swimming—no, wait, didn’t they do mud wrestling at bars like this? That would be awful, terrible, embarrassing. And then I saw what was in the middle of the “pool,” and I suddenly thought that mud wrestling wouldn’t have been that bad.
Stretch—Tony—walked awkwardly across the circular arena, his feet sinking into the soft rubber surface. Thank goodness it was soft.
“You ready?” he asked.
“As ready as I’m ever going to be,” I said from my perch atop the mechanical bull.
“So this is your first time, right?”
“First time.”
“There’s nothing to it. Hardly anybody gets hurt.”
“Hardly anybody?”
He shrugged. “An occasional sprain, a couple of separated shoulders—there’s only been one broken wrist that I can remember in all the years we’ve had it.”
“I guess that’s reassuring.”
“It’ll start slowly, a little bit of spinning and a bit of bucking, but nothing to worry about. Do you have a tight grip?”
I nodded. I’d wrapped the little rope around my hand so tightly that it was starting to cut off the circulation in my fingers.
“Use your free hand and arm as a counterweight. Throw it back as you get thrown forward. You’re gonna end up with a fair crowd,” Stretch said. “People like to watch a pretty girl up here.”
It didn’t really matter much to me. Eventually my audience was going to be a lot bigger than the people surrounding the ring. Ella would
be taking pictures for me to put up.
“Okay, let me get out of here, and you can signal the man at the controls to start,” Stretch said. “Who knows? You could be a real bull rider.”
That was not exactly how I’d ever thought of myself. I just felt scared and exposed and worried that I’d embarrass or hurt myself in front of everybody.
Stretch bounced away across the rubberized floor, leaving me alone in the middle of the ring. Well, me and the mechanical bull. It was brown and black, with big, pointy horns. They looked sharp and painful.
I gave the signal to start.
The bull started vibrating and humming, and then it began moving. It did a little dip, then a little bit of a turn. It started to go faster. More dips, more spins and more abrupt changes in direction. But still nothing I couldn’t withstand. I had thought this was going to be much worse.
People surrounding the ring started to clap and cheer. I caught a quick glimpse of Ella, who was front row, her cowboy hat in hand, waving it and whooping for me. She wasn’t the only one. Like Stretch had predicted, a crowd was gathering. Part of me would have preferred to be completely alone, but another part liked the idea of people watching me successfully ride the bull. I wasn’t doing badly for a “little filly.”
The bull spun around again, faster, and I caught another quick glimpse of Ella. Then she disappeared as I twirled away. I couldn’t even try to look at her anymore. I had to focus on the bull. It spun around quickly, jerking me a bit to the side, and for a split second I thought I was going to be thrown before I regained my balance. The bull picked up steam, dipping, spinning and bucking all at once. I threw my arm back as I was bucked forward, trying desperately to hold on with my legs as I felt myself rising up into the air, and then there was another jerk, and I was flying through the air!
Everything seemed to slow down as I soared upward, spinning, the crowd roaring in reaction, and then hit the rubber floor face first. I tried to push myself up, but before I could do anything I was pulled to my feet by strong hands. It was Stretch, and Ella was with him.
“Are you all right?” Ella asked.
“I’m fine…good.” I turned to Stretch. “Was that a good ride? Did I last very long?”
“You done good!”
“Can I go again?”
“You don’t have to,” Ella said. “Your different is done.”
“I don’t have to. I want to. So can I try it again, Stretch?”
“You can ride that bull another half a dozen times, if you want.”
“I think a couple more would be nice.” I paused. “And then Ella’s climbing aboard, right?”
“Count me in.”
The pictures had generated a lot of likes and comments. My absolute favorite was Ella and me posed on the bull together, waving our cowboy hats. I’d also posted pictures of us on the dance floor. Those were favorites too.
After riding the bull we’d learned how to line-dance. I found out that line dancing didn’t just look like fun but was fun. We spent almost the whole night out there, dancing along with everybody else. When we made mistakes—and we made many of them—we were just offered help and encouragement. I’d found out that cowboys and cowgirls were just about the most friendly and nice people in the world. I’d also found out that almost none of them lived on farms or were from the country. They were just people like Ella and me. We’d decided we’d go back to dance again—Stretch said he’d get us another special invitation. I might just get back up on that bull as well.
It was a great night, and it made for three new differents—cowboy nightclub, bull riding and line dancing. I was on a roll of different.
DAY 59
“I’m just glad it isn’t broken,” my father said.
“So am I. The doctor said it’s just a sprained wrist, and not even a bad one. He said I just have to leave it in the sling for a day or two and it will be fine. And thanks for getting me.”
“It’s no problem. It’s not the first time I’ve had to go to the emergency department for one of my children, and it probably won’t be the last.”
“Ella drove me, but she had to go. She had a date,” I explained.
“I thought you two were taking a summer vacation from boys.”
“Only I am.”
“I knew you two were going to a rock-climbing gym, but what happened?”
“I did a little rock falling. I was halfway up the wall, and I slipped.”
“Weren’t you wearing a harness?”
“I was harnessed, and I was wearing a helmet. I didn’t fall. I lost my grip and swung forward and banged into the wall hard on my wrist. Not hard enough to break, thank goodness, but hard enough to hurt.”
The instructor had said I’d “frozen,” and that was what had gotten me in trouble. I had frozen, but he could have at least said he was sorry or tried to be nicer about it. It was like he was angry with me for getting hurt.
Ella hadn’t been much better. We’d tried to get hold of my father, but when we couldn’t reach him, she had to take me to the hospital. She said she was tight for time, so she dropped me off at the ER and then went home to get ready for her date. I don’t think I would have just left her even if I had a date.
“I guess we should at least be grateful that it’s your left wrist,” he said.
We pulled into the driveway, and Oliver was waiting at the front door. He came running down the drive and was at my side almost before I could get out of the car.
“Are you okay?” he asked. He sounded worried.
“Just a sprained wrist.”
“So you didn’t break your crown?” he asked.
“My crown? What does that mean?”
“That’s what Ella tweeted. That you broke your crown.”
Had she really tweeted that? I reached into my purse and pulled out my phone. I’d turned it off in the hospital like the signs said to do and hadn’t turned it back on. I pushed the button, and the phone came to life with a rapid series of pings, bongs and red symbols and numbers. I had dozens, no hundreds, of notifications from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I did a quick scroll. People were concerned, asking if I was all right and how badly I’d been hurt.
Ella had posted a picture, and it had been retweeted and re-Instagrammed dozens of times. It showed me on the gym floor, holding my wrist, the instructor standing over me. He looked angry, and I looked like I was about to cry. Under the picture was a caption—The princess fell down and broke her crown. Why would Ella say something like that? I felt more like crying now than I had when I got hurt.
My father had asked me to take some time and think things through before I called Ella. So I had waited, sitting alone in my room, trying to make sense of it all. I’d had time to look through all the notifications and even answer some of the comments. It was slower with only one good hand. People were mostly kind and supportive and worried about me. Ella hadn’t been any of those things. She hadn’t called or even texted to see if I was all right. It was time to contact her.
I hit her name, the phone dialed, and it started ringing. What was I going to say to her? It rang, but she didn’t answer. Maybe it was buried in her purse or had run out of power. Or was she just ignoring me? I sent her a text.
Can we talk?
I waited for a reply. If her phone was dead or tucked away, she wouldn’t hear the sound of an incoming text either. I figured I’d just have to wait. There was a ping. It could have been a message from anybody. It was a reply from Ella.
Busy. Talk tomorrow. Hope your wrist is good.
I guessed it would have to wait until the next day. Right now the part of me that hurt the most wasn’t my wrist.
DAY 60
Ella bounced into my room like nothing was wrong. Maybe nothing was wrong. No, just because she was happy about everything didn’t mean that I was happy.
“So how’s the wrist?”
“Sprained.”
“But not broken?”
“No, only a sprain.”
“The instructor told you it wasn’t broken. I told you it wasn’t broken. You should have listened to Dr. Ella, and you wouldn’t have had to go and waste your time at the hospital.”
“I wanted to hear it from a doctor instead of you and the rock-climber guy.”
She shook her head. “How predictable—you need to have everything checked out. The doctor probably told you what a wonderful patient you were.”
“Excuse me if I wanted to know I was all right. And what do you mean, a wonderful patient?”
“You probably waited patiently in the waiting room, did what you were told, said please and thank you to the nurses and doctors. You know what I mean.”
“What did you expect me to do, throw furniture at people, swear at the doctor and punch a nurse?”
“That would have at least been interesting and would have made for a tweet worthy of being retweeted.”
My head was spinning, but I had my intro. I just had to say what was on my mind and—
“And are you angry about the tweet I put up?” she asked. “Some people who read it said I was being insensitive. I was just making a joke. Maybe it wasn’t a good joke, but really, come on, are you going to be upset about that?”
“It’s just that it felt like you were laughing at me.”
“It wasn’t like you were really hurt.”
“I was hurt, and when you took the picture, when you tweeted it, you didn’t know my wrist wasn’t broken.”
“Even if it was broken, come on—people break things.”
“I’ve never broken anything.”
“That is rather regal, don’t you think?”
“Regal, like calling me a princess?”
“You shouldn’t take things so seriously. We both know that.”
“I guess I do.”
“Part of your doing differents is being able to realize you don’t have to be the best. You don’t have to always be up on a pedestal, up there on your throne.”
“Throne? The place where a princess would sit?”
