Rainey thought: He loved Mama. For certain he did.
Then he asked, “How’s Winston doin’?”
A little surprised, she said, “He’s okay. Misses Mom.” She didn’t suppose she needed to mention that the widow Mildred Covington was taking up the slack.
The old man nodded, coughed hard into his hand and pulled out a package of cigarettes. Quite suddenly the look on his face was very sad. Probably he was thinking about Mama being dead, and how old he himself was and that he could go any minute.
Maybe she had gotten the facts wrong, Rainey thought. Maybe her real father had not been an oil geologist. She wished her mother would have said a name. She should have asked, but it had not seemed the thing to do at the time, to grab her dying mother and yell: “Tell me!”
Harry had sat back up straight. He watched the cutting but kept glancing at her. She didn’t want him to know she was upset. It was silly of her to be upset. She watched the horse and rider cutting and commented that the horse had trouble turning left.
“That horse ain’t never gonna be able to turn left,” Mr. Longstreet commented.
Rainey wondered about Mr. Longstreet and her mother. Men had all the time been in love with her mama, she knew. She felt as if her breath was squeezing out of her lungs, as if she might at any minute jump up and demand that the man tell her about his relationship with her mother.
She got so afraid she might do this that she touched Harry’s leg and told him she was going to get Lulu. “I need to work her for tonight,” she said, striving to act perfectly normal while she practically jumped to her feet.
“Okay.” He started to get up.
“You go ahead and stay here,” she said, touching his shoulder. “There isn’t anything you can do.” She looked at the old man. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Longstreet.” Her voice croaked.
Mr. Longstreet nodded, his eyes intent on her for a second, before she turned to make her way down the bleachers. She had to pay close attention not to step on any hands or trip over someone, and not to shake, which she had begun doing. She had not realized her mental state was so strained.
She also didn’t realize until she reached the bottom that Harry had followed her. She wished he hadn’t. She felt really funny, not herself at all. She didn’t trust herself around people right that minute.
“You didn’t need to come with me,” she said to Harry, more sharply than she had intended. “I’m just goin’ to exercise Lulu, and you’ll be bored.”
“I can watch,” he said calmly. Right that minute his calmness annoyed her.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” she said and ducked into the ladies’ room.
She stared at herself for a minute in the mirror. Her eyes were golden-green. Sort of hot looking, she thought. She thought that she looked exactly like Mama, not whoever was her father. She knew that Mr. Longstreet had cared for her mother. She wondered if her mother had cared for Mr. Longstreet. She wondered if she’d known her mother at all.
Turning on the water, she wet a towel and then wiped beneath her eyes, to get any mascara smudges. She couldn’t tolerate mascara smudges. Then she noticed one of her fingernails had a bad chip. She dug a bottle of polish from her purse, quickly touching up her nails, thinking that she might ask Mr. Longstreet about his relationship with her mother. She could do that. She could find a gentle way to do it, so as not to embarrass Mr. Longstreet. She wouldn’t do it around Harry, though. He would think she was a mess, if he didn’t already.
She was standing there, waving her hands to dry her fingernail, when the most startling thing happened: her cousin Leanne came bursting through the door.
Leanne glanced at Rainey and kept on going without a word, into a stall and slamming the door.
Rainey, as amazed as could be, stood there, her hands frozen in the air. She had not seen her cousin in a year, maybe two. She certainly would not have expected to see Leanne show up at this rodeo; Leanne was a professional barrel racer so successful that she mainly kept to high-stakes barrel racing futurities and the major championship rodeos.
With a burst of motion, Rainey threw her cosmetics back into her purse, intending to slip out the door. Such action was a little low, but apparently Leanne hadn’t recognized her, so she wouldn’t know. Leanne had a personality that wore Rainey out, and right then she did not feel at all up to her cousin.
Just then Leanne called from the stall, “Rainey? Good golly, girl, is that you?”
In a flash Rainey considered just not answering and leaving, but she also thought about Leanne being her cousin, flesh and blood. She said, “Well, is that you, Leanne?”
“Yes, honey! I just now realized that was you standin’ there. I bet I looked like a crazy woman racin’ in here, but I’ve had to go for the last hour and Clay wouldn’t stop. He just won’t make pit stops.”
Rainey wondered what this Clay expected a person to do, but she said, “Leanne, hon, I’m glad to see you, but I’ve got someone waitin’ for me. I’ll see you later, though.”
“Wait, Rainey! Give me a dang minute, will ya’?”
“Well, okay.” She felt ashamed of being rude. And she thought Leanne’s voice sounded a little desperate, although this was natural, considering.
A minute later, Leanne came out of the stall, zipping her turquoise jeans. “Whew! I feel better. Clay wanted me to pee in a paper cup.”
“Why didn’t you just make him pull over?”
“Oh…” Leanne gave a vague wave of her hand as she turned the water on in the sink. “It wasn’t any big deal.”
Rainey would have considered it a big deal. But everyone had their own ideas, she guessed.
“I’m goin’ with Clay Lovett now,” Leanne said, drying her hands on a paper towel.
Rainey figured she was supposed to be impressed. “Oh?”
Leanne looked at her. “He’s one of the top bull and bronc riders,” she said. “This is a good rodeo for those men’s timed events. Pete Lucas is here.” Apparently Pete Lucas was someone else she should have heard of, Rainy thought. “Clay and Pete are good buddies. And Clay’s Mr. November on the cowboy calendar this year.”
“I haven’t seen the calendar,” Rainey said.
“Well, Clay and I have been together for almost nine months now, and we’re really serious, but he’s been married before, and there’s all sorts of complications. He’s a little gun-shy.”
Rainey could understand that. She wondered if anyone in the world ever stayed married anymore. She also wondered why Leanne felt the need to speak straightaway these intimate details of her life.
Right that minute, Leanne was bent close to the mirror, inspecting herself. Rainey figured that Leanne must have turned thirty-one over the past summer. She had never married, being very involved with her career in barrel racing. She looked as beautiful as ever, even with smudged mascara and uncombed hair, the way a woman looks when she’s traveled sleeping in a vehicle. Leanne was an Overton, a first cousin by way of her mother, who had been Rainey’s mother’s younger sister. Rainey and Leanne favored greatly, although Leanne’s hair was more brown and she was smaller, more finely built. Rainey always thought Leanne could stand to gain a few pounds, but Leanne said being small was her edge in barrel racing.
“I heard you’ve been runnin’ barrels on your mama’s old horse,” Leanne said, turning to face Rainey.
Rainey nodded. “I guess we’ve been makin’ a stab at it. Havin’ some fun.”
Leanne’s eyes went up and down Rainey, as if comparing herself. Rainey felt a little flat in her blue jeans and blue denim shirt. Leanne wore stylish Western clothing, colorful and sharp. Her expression turned very satisfied.
“You never were the professional horse-show type,” Leanne said flatly. “It’s a lot of work, believe me. It takes a lot of competitive spirit.”
Excuse me? Rainey thought. But that was Leanne. Charlene said you couldn’t take offense at Leanne or you’d be in knots all the time.
And there was tr
uth in what her cousin said. Rainey had never been highly competitive. She wasn’t sure what she was. She always felt that she had one foot in the horse world and the other somewhere else, only she didn’t know where that was.
“Would you have a lipstick?” Leanne asked.
Rainey handed over her flowered cosmetic bag. “Use what you need.”
“I heard that Aunt Coweta left you all her Mary Kay. I used to get a lipstick from her that I loved. A peach color…can’t remember the name right off.”
“I have a peach mocha in there.”
“This isn’t it,” Leanne said, frowning at the lipstick, “but it’ll do.”
Rainey said she would look in the boxes at home. “If I find any other peach ones, I’ll save them for you.”
Leanne also used Rainey’s powder and blush. She leaned toward the mirror, explaining all about how she probably wouldn’t have come to this rodeo, that it didn’t really pay enough—as if this were okay for Rainey, though—but Clay had wanted to come and do it with his buddy Pete Lucas, and her horse was so great that he could race anywhere and win. Her attitude was pretty much that Rainey should be prepared to lose.
The entire time Leanne talked, Rainey was thinking: Harry probably figures I fell into the toilet or something. He might poke his head in here…or he might have just given up and gone on. Who the hell is Pete Lucas? And Clay-who-won’t-stop-for-his-woman-to-go-to-the-bathroom Lovett? I just don’t keep up, and what’s more, I don’t care. I wonder if Mr. Longstreet is still sittin’ on the bleacher, thinkin’ about Mama. I should have talked to him about her. I let the chance slip right by me. Maybe I’ll get another chance, and I’ll be ready.
Leanne tossed the lipstick back in the bag and zipped it up. “I’m glad to run into you, Rainey,” she said, in an uncharacteristically sincere tone that touched Rainey. “I wanted to tell you that I was sorry about your mama. I apologize for not gettin’ home for the funeral, but I was at a big show out in California and had a couple of expensive horses up for sale.”
“It’s okay,” Rainey said. “Everything was pretty much confusion at the highest.”
Maybe Leanne would stay in the rest room, she thought, maybe comb her hair or something. If she followed Rainey out, Rainey would have to introduce her to Harry…if he hadn’t gotten tired of waiting and gone off.
“It was sure sudden, wasn’t it?” Leanne said. “My mother said about half the town formed the procession to the cemetery.”
“They said it looked like it. I really didn’t think to turn around and look right then.” She was aggravated at Leanne for bringing it all up. It was like the wound had been hit and busted open.
“I really need to go now. I need to get my horse exercised.” She reached for the door, hoping Leanne would stay in the rest room.
“I really miss Coweta,” Leanne said, following Rainey out the door.
Rainey was startled at the tone of her cousin’s voice. She looked over to see her cousin’s eyes tearing up.
Leanne continued, “I used to talk to your mama when she and I met up at different rodeos and shows. It was a lot of fun tellin’ people that she was my aunt. I mean, your mama was really somethin’. Everybody just loved Coweta. She’d come over and sit underneath my awning with me, and she’d always bring me that lipstick I liked, and we’d just talk and talk. Then, after she quit barrel racin’, I’d stop to see her whenever I went home. I could talk to her, and I never could my own mama.” She had folded her arms about herself and rubbed her upper arms.
Rainey felt as if something had been going on behind her back. She had not known about her mother being so close to Leanne.
“Well, she wasn’t your mama,” she pointed out. “It’s different than with your own mother. There’s some things you just can’t tell your own mother.” But Rainey had talked easily to her mother, too.
She pushed through the front doors, and there was Harry, standing to the side. Immediately she thought that she would not tell Leanne that Harry was a doctor. Telling someone like Leanne that a man was a doctor was like waving chocolate right in front of her face.
Harry’s eyes jumped with surprise, moving from her to Leanne, obviously struck by the resemblance.
Rainey made the introductions, and Harry inclined his head and smiled at Leanne, offering a handshake.
“I’m glad to meet you,” he said.
And Leanne said, “I’m very glad to meet you,” in a way that seemed to mean: oh, boy, I’d like to run away with you. “And where did Rainey find you?” Leanne said, bold as could be, and rather as if she were surprised at Rainey knowing someone like Harry.
“She picked me up off the highway,” Harry said.
“Well, she ought to tell me where this highway is,” Leanne said. The talk went along this stupid vein for a few more comments, and then Rainey said she needed to go work her mare.
“I have to see to my Blackie, too,” Leanne said.
She pointed to her trailer. Rainey had already seen it, a fancy aluminum rig with living quarters, the sort that cost as much as a brick house. At that very minute, a man, thick shouldered in a red shirt, came out the door and stood looking in their direction.
Leanne started edging away. “Clay’s probably ready to go get somethin’ to eat, too. He doesn’t like to be held up when he’s hungry. Y’all come on over later, hear?” She broke into a run for her trailer.
Watching her, Rainey thought there seemed something out of kilter with Leanne.
Then her attention was drawn by Herb Longstreet coming out the door to her left.
“Good luck tonight, gal,” he said.
“Thanks.”
She watched him walk away, thinking that this obviously was not her chance.
Harry’s hand came to the back of her neck, and she looked at him. Suddenly she was so thankful that he was there with her. For just an instant it seemed like he gave her something to hold on to.
Rejecting this foolishness, she turned her head. “I’d better go work Lulu. I’d rather get her worked before Leanne comes over with her horse.”
But she did not step away from Harry. She let herself remain with his hand on her neck, and she leaned toward him, just a little bit.
CHAPTER 18
At the Fair
Harry stood with the puppy at his feet, his forearms resting on the fence rail, and watched her ride Lulu in the outside exercise arena. She thought he looked good in his hat. Good was not exactly the right word, but close. There was something about him in that hat that made Rainey feel like smiling and jumping into his arms. She had to be very careful not to reveal this and make a pure fool of herself.
It was quite trying to keep every blessed impulse to herself. She was supposed to be paying total attention to riding and training Lulu; that was why she had come to the fair, after all, in order to race barrels. And she really needed to pay attention in the practice arena, because it was filled with horses and riders. Because she was so preoccupied with Harry in his hat, she almost had a head-on collision with a big man on a bay horse. It was the big man’s fault—he was too big to even be riding that horse, and he rode right in front of her—but she should have been prepared for his stupidity.
Telling herself to settle down and get to business, she went to riding Lulu in circles, working to limber her neck. The mare had stored up a lot of energy in the confines of the trailer and the stall. For a good ten minutes she loped around with her nose tugging at the tie-down and her tail flying. Rainey let her fly and then pulled her down, let her fly and pulled her down again.
Harry kept standing there watching, and Rainey’s mind kept being drawn away, and every time she sensed Rainey’s concentration slip, Lulu took advantage of it by making slow turns and casting her own attention all over the place.
Finally Rainey rode over to Harry at the fence and asked him to leave. “I can’t concentrate with you watchin’ me like that.”
He looked surprised, of course. “I didn’t mean to distract you.”
>
“I know that. It isn’t your fault. I’m just havin’ a hard time with Lulu today.” And with herself, she thought. “Maybe you’d like to go over and watch the pig races or something.”
He blinked. “Okay…”
“Would you take Fido with you? I don’t want to have to worry about him, either.”
“Fido?”
“The puppy—I’m tryin’ out names. It means faithful.” She thought she might like it. The puppy looked up at her, his face a question mark, as if he might be trying out the name, too.
Harry looked a little perplexed, then he said, “Come on, Roscoe,” and he went off, with the puppy right at his heels.
Rainey worried that she may have hurt his feelings but forced herself to pay attention to the job at hand. She never got her concentration going, however, and felt that both she and Lulu were just very out of rhythm. After another forty minutes, she gave up. She thought then that she really hadn’t come up to the fair to race barrels, but had simply been coming up here for someplace to go. But she hoped she didn’t make a fool of herself, now that Leanne was here.
“Leanne is goin’ to race tonight,” she told the mare, as she led the horse toward the barn and the wash rack. “I’m tellin’ you to get yourself ready. I don’t expect us to kill ourselves to win, but we dang sure don’t want to come in last.”
She looked around for Harry and began to regret asking him to leave. It had not helped, him leaving, and now she wondered if he would return. Maybe he’d gone for good. No…he still had his bag at the truck. But he’d gone off and left his stuff in his Porsche, so likely he wasn’t concerned with stuff like that.
As time passed, she began to get anxious. She washed Lulu and brushed her and brushed her, and he still didn’t come back. She began to really be irritated. He had taken her dog. He had better bring the puppy back before he went off for good.
Lost Highways (A Valentine Novel) Page 16
