by Cora Brent
But how it ended was sad and so terribly painful. I haven’t seen him since then and I don’t know where he is.
Two years ago I scrounged up enough cash to hire a cheap private detective who worked out of a hotel room. Oscar has good reason to hate me and I had no intention of showing up in his life to ruin whatever peace of mind he’s managed to find, but I wanted to know that he was all right. The detective was unable to find any trace of him.
Of course I wasn’t really surprised.
Oscar was always the most independent person I’ve ever known. If he wanted to shed his name and disappear he could have. And apparently he did.
Rash has returned the camera to my face. I set the car in park and notice that I am already being watched stealthily from yet another lens. My grandmother was wrong, very wrong. Every second those mechanical eyes are trained on me, I will know it.
“Welcome!” hails a woman. She’s a bottle blond and has obviously been under the knife a few times. I’d guess her to be around forty but she’s been smoothed out so much it’s tough to tell. This is Cate Camp, the so-called ‘right hand’ of Gary Vogel. I’ve talked to her before and it usually leaves me feeling tired. Luckily, for now she backs off after a quick greeting.
I scan the scene for my brothers and sisters. Of course Brigitte is easy to spot. She’s about twenty yards away, leaning against a rotting wooden horse post. She’s deliberately failing to notice my arrival, lost in her own vision of herself flipping her red hair behind one shoulder and gazing pensively in the direction of the stubby Harquehala Mountains as the hot wind lifts the hem of her skirt. It’s the sort of pose one might see on the cover of a romance novel. I have no doubt that’s exactly her intention.
“Ren!”
Ava bounds out of the house. She moves pretty quickly considering she’s balanced on ridiculous heels with a toddler on her hip. I catch Bree shooting a quick frown of annoyance that her calculated non-greeting has been disturbed.
Ava sets the little boy down and tries to nudge him forward but he balks and clings to her legs. I wouldn’t expect him to come to me. He turned two this past March and I hadn’t seen him since December.
My sister looks tired, older than her twenty-one years would indicate. That wasn’t always the case. Years of hard partying, a bad relationship and unexpected early motherhood have taken a toll. She is still pretty, always pretty. Her face holds the round contours and wide eyes of innocence. The blonde hair doesn’t suit her complexion though. It never did. She smiles at me and opens her arms. I hug her and pat my nephew, Alden, on the head. For the first time I am happy that I agreed to this lunacy.
Our younger sister abandons her thoughtful perch. She pauses long enough to allow a faint breeze to ripple through her short dress and then careens toward us as if it’s been a decade since our last encounter.
“Loren!” Bree shouts and then collides in a whirlwind of limbs and hair. She manages to produce a few tears, overkill even for her. Still, for a moment I clutch my sisters without a care for cameras or spectators.
“Where are the boys?” I ask as Bree fusses at her hair and Ava hoists the baby back onto her hip.
“Boys,” answers Brigitte with a sigh. She flounces ten feet in the opposite direction and peers toward the mountains, shading her eyes, clucking her tongue. She talks more loudly than she needs to. “I’ve scarcely seen our wayward brothers at all.”
“Spence is out riding,” Ava explains. Little Alden squats her at feet before tipping over as he pokes a curious finger into the dust.
“Figures.” My bare arms prickle in the heat and I absently run my fingertips across my skin. The cameras are watching. Silently, morbidly. That’s how things will be now. Even movements so inconsequential as swatting an insect away and answering my sister become something of interest to be captured, broadcasted, dissected. I’m not complaining. After all, I’m not here against my will. But I’d grown used to a blissful lack of attention. I feel it shattering by the second.
“Spence never minded the heat. Don’t you remember? Keeping him indoors was always kind of like caging a coyote.” Ava says this with a smile.
She and Spence are twins but as different as fire and water. Yet somewhere in the forgotten era of floating side by side in dense amniotic fluid, they formed a resolute bond. Spence had always been strangely hell bent on keeping Atlantis, either because of his own love of the place or as a posthumous honor to our father. But he is as proud as he is steadfast. Even though I do not expect to hear the words from him, I’m sure Ava’s hardships have something to do with his decision to play along with this show.
As I glance around I notice that the barn has been renovated. Knowing Spencer, he probably did most of the work himself. The unpainted wood is appropriately rustic and although not large, the low-roofed structure appears serviceable for at least a half dozen animals. Beyond it I can see the sturdy metal posts of the corral to the east.
During our family’s life in Atlantis the only horse on the grounds was an old mare named Pet that August had acquired from a local rescue organization. She was a bad-tempered animal with no patience for anyone other than Spence. And perhaps old Pet was perceptive enough to pick up on the tension between her loyal caregiver and his older brother. She tossed Monty like a ragdoll any time he tried to sit on her.
“What about Monty?” I ask suddenly. “I thought he was supposed to be here already.”
“He’s here,” frowns Ava and then bends over to prevent Alden from ingesting a sizeable rock.
Brigitte has had enough of staring pensively at the distant mountains. She flicks her lion’s mane of startling red hair over one shoulder and sashays up to me.
“Monty is being antisocial,” she says airily and tosses a glance of disdain toward the brothel, which looks more woeful and neglected than it did the last time I saw it. Spence must have thought restoring the brothel was of little practical value. Tucked behind the fading building is the cozy former caretaker’s quarters where my brothers used to sleep.
“He’s in there?” I ask.
“Yup.”
“Is he alone?”
“I guess. See that semi-hot cameraman checking out the stable? He and Montgomery haven’t really hit it off. Elton, that’s the camera guy’s name, got a little too close early this morning when Monty was bidding farewell to yesterday night’s entertainment.”
The incident doesn’t sound unlike Monty but I’m still a little startled. “He brought a woman out here with him?”
“No. He drove to Consequences last night and somewhere along the way found some sorry little piece of low self-esteem to keep him company for a few hours. You know Monty, he’s not above using the Savage name to get something he wants. For all I know he promised her a starring role.” Bree makes a sweeping gesture. “Anyway, he pushed her into a cab this morning and she was kind of upset about it. Monty and his notorious impatience were already on edge and poor Elton trying to do his job didn’t improve matters.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It wasn’t. Luckily Elton knows when to stay quiet or he might have gotten his head clubbed.”
A groan escapes me as all the misgivings I’ve nursed about this project bubble to the surface. Montgomery and his defiant volatility. No matter what the reward is, how the hell is he going to make it through several months of being observed and recorded like an Animal Planet subject? How will any of us make it?
Careful. They are listening. They are watching.
I am acutely aware of the tiny microphone taped to my skin just above my left breast. It feels foreign, unwelcome. I have the urge to rip it off no matter who is watching.
Brigitte is still complaining about Monty. “He wouldn’t even consider living in the big house even though that building over there is a wreck. They had to bring in two generators just to pump electricity in because all the wiring is shot to hell.”
Ava isn’t saying a word. The look on her face is one I recognize. It’s the wor
ried uncertainty that has been her companion her entire life. That’s partly Lita’s fault; Ava had too tender a nature to be the captivating sex kitten our mother envisioned as her destiny.
I give my sister a small nod of reassurance and her face relaxes.
“Rocks!” squawks Alden as he holds a saliva-glazed object aloft.” “Rocks!”
Indeed, it’s another rock. Plus, while he was drooling all over everything, my nephew managed to acquire a moustache of Arizona soil.
“Oh, honey, no. Icky yuck.” Ava bends over and wipes the desert dust from her son’s face.
As I kneel down and remove the rock from his chubby grip he beams at me. I turn the rock over in my palm. “This looks tasty. Mind if I keep it for myself?”
Alden laughs and allows his mother to gather him onto her hip. He’s a sweet child. He takes after his mother.
“Where are you going?” Brigitte calls after me because I’ve walked away without a word.
“Just saying hello to my big brother.”
I don’t know if the girls can hear me or not because a wide dust devil has descended in a whirling funnel of sand.
Mini tornadoes.
That was how I used to think of them until someone told me otherwise. He always knew what he was talking about when it came to things like that. Dust devils. Rocks. Caves. I can hear the gruff timbre of his voice. I can remember how his words would be curiously offset now and again by an unidentifiable accent, a product of his nomadic lifestyle. I don’t believe he was ever aware of it.
I’m still holding Alden’s rock and when I squeeze it the sharp ridges cut painfully into my palm.
Our family should have been able to find another way to survive. People have managed far more with far less.
I drop the rock somewhere as I walk. I have no use for it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
OZ
I remember hearing once that in the United States there is more land where there is nobody than land where there is somebody. As I travel across the flat plains of the nation’s heart, I can believe this is true.
As I inch toward the western edge of Oklahoma, the last of the summer dusk is settling into night. I’ve been this way before, on this very section of the Interstate, traveling in the opposite direction, east instead of west.
Over the last five years I’ve managed to touch most of the major asphalt tongues stretching across the continental U.S. I haven’t left the country since the day I touched down in New York beside Mina Savage. Strange, considering I spent such a large swath of my life overseas. Or maybe not strange. Maybe I’ve just been thirsty to know the country I was away from for so long. I can’t explain it. Maybe on some level it was even because of Ren.
I could keep driving for another six easy hours but suddenly I don’t want to. Roadside signs promise food, gas, lodging in the town of Sayre so I pull off on the next exit. The surrounding land is flat, with scarcely a ripple. No mountains, no shores, no forest, no subterranean palaces. This is the kind of land that holds no surprises. What you see is all there is, miles and miles of it. The simplicity appeals to me. Right now, anyway.
As I’m gassing up the truck, I catch a strong whiff of barbecue and my stomach lurches in response. There’s a free standing restaurant about twenty yards off and it looks like it’s seen better days; the harsh prairie winds have licked the red paint off in places and the sign ‘Aggie’s BBQ’ is slightly askew above the narrow entrance, like it might land on someone’s head one of these days.
A pair of thirty-something women stand in the parking lot sucking on cigarettes and murmuring to one other as they watch my truck swing into a spot only a few feet away from where they stand. I feel their eyes searching me as I head for the door and I point my head down because a conversation isn’t really part of my plans right now.
The restaurant is dark and appropriately smoky for a barbecue joint. I order a rack of ribs with a soda and devour it quickly in a small booth with seats lined in orange vinyl that might have been cool forty years ago.
The shuffling, wheezing fellow who took my order yells something indistinct back to the kitchen and then begins grimly running a greasy rag over an empty table in wide circles. The air conditioning is either non-existent or broken; the heat borders on oppressive.
All in all, Aggie’s BBQ has the feel of a lost part of the universe where time isn’t relevant.
I chew my food as Johnny Cash croons mournfully from somewhere unseen, recognizing Folsom Prison Blues only because August Savage had a penchant for vintage country music. Every time I walked into the big house at Atlantis an antique record player would be belting out music from a corner of the living room. Somehow it was always on, even if there was no one in sight.
All of a sudden I feel a ripple down my spine and a wild gust of wind rocks the building enough to make the walls creak.
The old man wiping the counter pauses long enough to squint out the dirty window. “Nothin’,” he scoffs, “not a storm.”
I don’t know if he’s talking to me or not so I tear off another mouthful of tender rib meat and stay quiet. This area has got to be prime real estate for tornadoes so I would bet the locals are used to looking skyward every time a few clouds decide to hang out together. I’ve seen one of the telltale funnels myself once, tagging along with storm chasers a few years back at the Kansas/Missouri border. The clouds gather and link arms before they animate and whip up a nightmare to send to the ground. It’s horrifying and fascinating, nothing like the harmless compact whirlwinds of dust that dance across the desert.
“No, not a mini tornado. Dust devil. Read about them in one of your father’s books.”
“Doesn’t look devilish to me, Oscar. Looks happy. Playful.”
Funny how scraps of conversation can revisit out of nowhere, things you might not even realize your mind knows until something else triggers the dormant memory.
Just like that I’m no longer in a stifling barbecue joint somewhere on the Oklahoma prairie. Instead I’m standing beneath a scalding desert sun and beside an incomparable girl, a girl I was never supposed to have and swore I wouldn’t take but did anyway. I don’t even need to close my eyes to remember how she shaded her face with her palm and squinted at the frisky dust tunnel in the foreground of the Harquehala Mountains.
Playful, she’d called it, and then her sweet, full mouth tilted up as she glanced at me sideways. I hadn’t kissed her yet and I didn’t kiss her then. But in that glance she told me she understood what I’d already accepted.
It was only a matter of time.
I would kiss her. I would push all barriers aside and I would get inside of her every which way. We would say fuck the consequences together and then suffer the mortal wounds of our own stupidity when we learned that reality is far messier.
In reality, consequences fuck you.
“Hey, buddy.” The shapeless, rasping old man who took my order is looming over me with a grimace. He puts a hand to his back and I realize the sour look isn’t for me. He’s a man who spends his days walking through pain and the fact has permanently wrenched his face into a scowl.
“You forgot your drink,” he grumbles and sets a plastic-lidded cup next to my plate before he trundles off with a dirty dishtowel slung over a drooping shoulder.
After hastily finishing my meal, I toss the trash and nod a farewell to the proprietor. I don’t imagine Sayre is a real hotbed of tourist activity, particularly not at the onset of summer, so there are probably limited lodging options.
I could sleep in my truck, of course. I’d done it many times. But tonight I don’t feel like risking any attention from local busybodies.
It doesn’t take long to find a place with a flashing vacancy sign. It’s called The Oklahoman and its mid century paint peels from its face but it looks non-threatening enough. There is a malarial-looking woman behind the pressed wood desk in the lobby. She frowns when I tell her I don’t have a credit card but cheers right up again when ten twenty dollar bills land in fr
ont of her nose. She touches the money with a ragged fingernail, glances around and then tosses me a card key.
“Room Eighteen. It’s right over my head so keep it down.”
“No problem,” I tell her and flash a smile because she seems like the kind of woman who doesn’t get rewarded with smiles every day. Her lips twitch but she merely stands there and observes me with caution as I head back to the car.
I’d packed haphazardly, with the bulk of my clothes shoved into two black plastic bags and stuffed beneath the passenger seat. In the end I decide I don’t feel like picking through my crap in the dark front seat so I grab it all and head upstairs.
There’s a couple engaged in a tense standoff on the opposite end of the upper balcony. They exchange hissing murmurs which sounded complicated and then abruptly the man scoffs, “Fuck this shit,” before lumbering down the spindly staircase.
Meanwhile, his woman leans over the wrought iron side and whisper screams “Wayne! WAYYYYYNE!”
I’ve had enough of people today so I get indoors and toss my bags in a corner. It’s early and I’m not tired at all.
There’s a ‘How goes it?’ text from Brock so I tap out an answer and then switch the thing off. Unlike virtually every other member of my generation, I don’t wear my phone like an arm. I feel better when I’m not connected.
I really wish I’d packed a few books. It’s rare for me to be without a book. Maybe I ought to pick up one of those e-reader things so I can just click on whatever catches my attention.
The television only offers a handful of channels and two of them are showing World War II movies. Another one seems to be some sort of public access outlet where a group of women sit around a chipped tile table and mispronounce the names of expensive wines.
I’m about to give up and pass a few minutes beating off when I flip to the last channel and notice it’s one of those celebrity shows featuring news about people with gummy grins and collagen lips. Not that I care two pubes about whether Ark Deveroux abandoned his pregnant wife for his nineteen-year-old costar, but I happen to catch a few words of the marquee traveling in slow motion across the bottom of the screen.
