And so it had gone, for almost fifty years. Despite the ups and downs of staggeringly small-time university politics, she taught, trekked the Rocky Mountains, quietly wrote poetry. She fished for trout, planted gardens, invested in land around Jackson Hole and Aspen, took vacations in warm places. In 1964 she hired Maude Stark to put her life in order, and it stayed in order until her death. She inherited a sizeable sum after her father died in 1966, and she became, finally, almost a part of the landscape. She never married.
The oral history interview revealed a little bit more.
As Meg had told Edna, by the 1960s, a new generation of degree-wielding academics took over most faculty positions. In their eyes, Meg appeared as a remnant of a simple time when college professors hadn’t really been qualified for their jobs. One young upstart historian named Byron Bosworth, railing in the faculty senate about “standards,” tried to get her fired.
That bastard Boz. At least, Sally thought, you had to give him credit for consistency.
The prodigal daughter returned home to fifty years of more or less placid life in the high country, occasionally venturing to go public with a poem or two so good that editors must have clamored for more. A couple of little press volumes of her work. Then, after she died, the torrent of brilliance, Rocks and Rage.
And all that money. What was it all about? Sally looked up, saw the four sets of deft hands on black and white keys, shut her eyes, and covered her face with her own hands. She would open the boxes; she would see.
Chapter 11
The Dinner Party
Edna McCaffrey was a great fan of the artist Judy Chicago, who had turned women’s history into the monumental art installation, “The Dinner Party.” Edna knew she could never create great works of art, but she figured that at least she could damn well make dinner. To her, every dinner party was a performance piece. The right mix of guests was the crucial ingredient. She had been somewhat annoyed (no—truly pissed) when Tom had said to her that Saturday morning, “Oh yeah—I met this guy playing basketball, very cool guy, invited him for dinner tonight, hope that’s okay with you.” This guy. What was he thinking?
But then one of her guests had called to cancel, and “this guy” turned out to be Dr. Josiah Green, a new geology professor she’d met briefly during his interview trip to campus last winter. Intelligent smile, decent manners, good credentials, and the science types acted like he was going to bring in big bucks. He was good-looking, a ponytailed post-hippie about Sally’s age—maybe they’d hit it off. Edna was hardheaded mostly, but she wasn’t above a little matchmaking.
Hawk Green had spent the day moving into his new Eighth Street house. He wouldn’t actually own it until next month sometime, when all the paperwork cleared, but the sellers were happy enough to have him pay on their mortgage until then. Saturday morning, Sheila Czerny had handed him a key and a bottle of cold duck. When he opened the refrigerator to deposit the bottle of sweet bubbly stuff, he found a sixpack of Budweiser with a note that said, let ’er buck—nattie. In spite of himself, he grinned.
It didn’t take him long to unpack what he had. He stuck his ghetto-blaster out the kitchen window and snapped in a Jerry Jeff Walker tape. Now, in the late afternoon sun, he sat in his backyard in a folding lawn chair that had lived in his truck for years, drinking a beer and looking at the Snowies. He appreciated having a dinner invitation that night. Considered whether he could take the cold duck as his contribution, and decided against it. Tom Youngblood was married to Edna McCaffrey, his new dean. Hawk had met her last winter, and she’d impressed him as not the cold duck type. He wondered if Laramie had become a place where you could get a bottle of wine that didn’t have a screw cap.
The sight of the Snowies did him good. Soon he would be showing geology students places he’d loved a long time, explaining why rocks were mysterious and beautiful. The mountains gleamed silver-blue and cool across the plains. Jerry Jeff sang about how it was when the world felt just right, and Hawk thought he knew exactly what ol’ Jerry Jeff meant.
Sally also had a six-pack of Budweiser in her refrigerator, and when she finished work for the day she went downstairs and got herself a beer. Then she filled Meg’s big tub and took a bath long enough to read fifty pages of a mystery novel. Still warm and damp, she put on her robe and walked around the house in the afternoon light, feeling empty but peaceful. She decided she needed to hear some music. She stuck one of those mixed-up tapes into the deck and hit play. Jerry Jeff Walker in mid-song, something about a feeling he couldn’t explain. Anticipation so strong, it was almost like being in a moment you were waiting for.
What the hell should she wear to this Edna thing? She didn’t know who would be there. Should she go for the tight jeans and blazer look? Nice shirt and tailored pants? The pretty summer dress thing? Who would care anyway?
She stood in the big closet of Meg’s elegant bedroom, wishing she were Ginger Rogers in pink silk and marabou, not Sally Alder in slightly moist white waffle-weave cotton. A sleeveless scoop-necked rayon dress, little yellow and white flowers on a black background, fitted on top, longish swirling skirt, called out to her from its hanger: better to err on the side of knocking their eyes out. Black wedgie sandals. Dangly gold earrings and red lipstick, good with her short, wavy, dark hair. Probably wasted on a bunch of pontificating middle-aged academics, but at least the cooking would be killer.
Tom Youngblood knew his way around a grill, so Edna could trust him with the lamb chops. Maude’s squashes had joined some Japanese eggplants in a ratatouille. A creamy potato gratin was starting to bubble in the oven. Edna had goat cheese and roquefort and olives and baguettes she’d baked herself, and wonderful fresh lettuce and spinach from a friend’s garden. Amazingly, you could now get some decent wines, right here in Laramie. Edna took a sip of a tolerable California merlot and placed a couple of marigolds and a sprig of rosemary on the cheese plate.
The doorbell rang. It was 7:05, and here was Sally. Incredible that anyone who had lived in LA would be on time for dinner. In Laramie, people had been known to arrive ten minutes early. The other company, a professor from the English department and his wife, an architect, were coming up the walk behind Sally, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers from their garden. Only Joe Green was missing. Edna hoped he wasn’t the kind who came very late, or forgot dinner invitations altogether. Single men could be so irresponsible. So could some married men, she thought, still a little irritated with Tom.
The house was the way Edna loved it, full of gold light, jazz piano music, wonderful smells. They went into the living room for cocktail hour. Tom was bustling around getting everyone drinks. Sally asked for a glass of the merlot. The doorbell rang again, and Tom went to answer. Sally was about to take the first sip of her wine when Tom walked back into the room, followed by Professor Green, carrying a bottle of chardonnay. Edna saw Sally set down the long-stemmed glass without spilling a drop.
“Uh, Tom,” Sally said, after he made introductions, “I’ve changed my mind. You wouldn’t happen to have any bourbon, would you?”
“That sounds good to me,” said Professor Josiah Hawkins Green, for some reason amused. “I could use a splash of Jim Beam.”
They’d both known the moment was coming. They just hadn’t known it would be so soon. (Soon? How many decades was soon?) When he’d walked in and seen her, Hawk had a fleeting urge to turn and run out the door. He’d walked away before, a dozen times or more, in the nearly three years they’d been crazy for each other. The last time, he’d run, and he hadn’t come back.
But after seventeen years, he’d had plenty of time to reflect on the bitterness. He’d worked it over pretty thoroughly after Mary Langham had sent him the clipping from the Boomerang. Sally Alder wasn’t the last woman in his life, but maybe she had been the one who got to him most. Whose betrayal had been bad enough, but not the worst maybe. Might have hurt the most. Whatever. They’d probably have to talk, sometime.
Just now, he realized, ironically pleased, th
e sight of her turned him on. Goddamn, she looked fine, a little thinner and bonier and harder, more weathered, but still round in the breast and hips and ass. Wearing that sexy dress, holding her back straight, working on not gulping her drink, figuring out how much to look at him, trying, he could tell, not to yell or even to stare. She was a yeller and a starer, but she’d clearly worked at getting it under control. He sat back, tasted his whiskey, let the conversation flow around him and glanced sideways at her, from time to time, conjuring up a challenge, a tease, a diversion.
Sally tuned out the conversation, hearing only, for the moment, McCoy Tyner on the stereo, like a soundtrack for a movie scene. The burning memory of the last time they’d seen each other walked through her mind. Hawk had been prospecting in the Mojave that winter. She was going to fly down to meet him in Tucson at spring break, and they were going to drive down into Mexico, to the desert and the beach. Things between them were strained, with him living on the road and her spending so much time in bars, drinking for a living and singing torch songs to horny cowhands and drillers and drifters and college boys.
As sometimes happened, he’d gotten laid off that February. She was always after him to spend more time with her, to make some kind of commitment. He must have decided to surprise her by driving up to Laramie and spending the month there, then heading south with her. Hawk had a key to her apartment. It was snowing, blowing, bone-chilling when he let himself in about midnight. Walked straight into her bedroom without even taking off his coat and found her sitting up, big-eyed, clutching a quilt around her naked body. Sam Branch was sitting right next to her, apparently just as naked but a lot more composed. “Well, Hawk,” Sam had said, with that asshole grin, “out of work again?”
Hawk had uttered not a word, just turned right around. She hadn’t said anything either: What could she say?
But that was a teenager’s lifetime ago. Now here sat Hawk, lean and long-haired and long-legged and seamed in the face and perfectly gorgeously older, eating fancy French olives, evidently willing to be in the same room with her. Hawk—a.k.a “Joe”—hadn’t let on to anyone else that he knew her. Edna couldn’t possibly have known that this Joe Green was Sally’s old Hawk. In fact, he’d said nothing at all. Typical. Everyone else made chitchat while Sally thought about what might come out when she finally opened her own mouth.
Look at him, lounging there on Edna’s velvet couch, acting like he wasn’t giving her the eye. She had expected their first encounter to be hideous, or at the very least, awkward and brief. Seeing him come through the doorway had made her think for a second that she ought to get the hell out, but that thought had passed as soon as it came. Much to her amazement, she was panting inwardly at the nearness of him. It made her want to rise, make some excuse. Drag him the five blocks to her bedroom and rip his clothes off. Obviously that wasn’t an option. She spared him a glance and her heart rate about doubled. What’s your game, baby?
“So you’re new to Laramie, Joe?” asked the English professor, trying to include Hawk in the conversation.
“Well, I’ve just joined the University,” Hawk answered, taking a small sip, measuring his choices and licking his lips. “But I’ve . . . spent time here before.”
“Really, Joe?” Sally cooed, sensing the play. “Me, too.”
“Yeah, Joe told me he’d prospected for uranium in this country in the seventies,” Tom put in, spreading cheese on bread. He was playing the host now, while Edna fussed in the kitchen.
“I did. Had some prospects around Rawlins and Saratoga, did a lot of work in the Sierra Madre out of Encampment. Came to Laramie for fun, sometimes, on the weekends.”
Sally squirmed a little in her chair.
“So you lived here back then, too, Sally?” Tom asked, clueless.
“Yeah, I moved here in 1977. I just drove east on 80 from Berkeley. I spent a few years gigging around playing music in the bars, then went back to school to study history.” She rolled a little Jim Beam around in her mouth. “I had some good times.” She gave Hawk the big brown eyes, all innocence.
The architect joined in. “Good times? You’ve got to be kidding. We moved here from Cambridge in eighty-five for his job. I was unemployed, bored, miserable, and freezing—God, I thought I’d gone straight to hell!” she exclaimed, swallowing some merlot. “Laramie’s idea of a foreign movie was anything starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. But finally I managed to get a couple of commissions restoring commercial properties downtown, and now I’m mostly doing historic building restoration. I’ve been working a lot with Delice Langham—we’ve been talking about doing an application for the Dunwoodie house. She tells me you’re old friends, Sally.”
“Yeah, Delice and I raised a lot of hell together,” Sally said, chuckling, “but now that we’re so old, we’ll probably have to stick to heck.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Sally,” Hawk interjected cordially, his face bland. “You don’t look like the heck type to me.”
They had another drink, and the architect talked about downtown Laramie. All eight blocks of it. A lot of great buildings were being reconditioned and refurbished and recycled. Delice had been a dynamo getting places on the National Register. Rumor had it her cousin Burt was going to be opening up some kind of fancy California-style restaurant in one of the town’s oldest buildings, an airy corner spot on Ivinson Avenue with a mint-condition stenciled tin ceiling. They all agreed it was no competition for the Wrangler, though Hasta la Pasta! might have some problems. Then they all agreed that Hasta la Pasta! already did.
Tom had gone to tend the grill, and Edna went to put the finishing touches on the rest of the dinner as he came in the back door, into the kitchen.
“Hey,” he said, putting the platter of sizzling lamb chops down on a counter and giving her a squeeze. “I’m sorry about the surprise dinner guest. But it looks like Joe and Sally are hitting it off, huh?”
He was sweet, warm, and extremely attractive, but was it possible that Tom was a typical blockhead male when it came to catching somebody else’s sexual drift? “Hitting it off? Are you kidding? The way they’re smirking at each other and making little remarks, you’d think they’d spent the day road-testing Meg Dunwoodie’s mattress. Jesus, Tom.” She took the potatoes out of the oven. “The temperature in the living room went up ten degrees when he walked in.”
“You’re having a hot flash, honey, sit down,” he said, fanning her with a dish towel and earning a poke in the ribs. “But now that you mention it, I wonder . . . do you think maybe they had something going way back when? He was in Laramie when she was doing the bar thing, right? So who was she zoomin’ in those days?”
“Very delicately put,” Edna retorted. “The thing is, I only knew her in her on-campus feminist banshee mode. We hung out a fair amount, but I had kids, and she was still singing with bands. For a while she had some boyfriend with a funny nickname who lived on the road and camped out in her apartment now and then, but he kind of disappeared. Then she swore off men in general, and sex with men in particular, and she got into that early -eighties, women-are-better-than-men, sisterhood-isbeautiful thing.”
“Classic symptoms of one variant of 1970s sex overdose,” said Tom, crossing his arms and lowering his head, squinting his green eyes at her. “I know all the signs.”
“I bet you do,” Edna told him. “It’s a good thing that in your case, the toxic effects wore off and the treatments could be resumed.”
Dinner was well lit, well lubricated, and delicious. The conversation was mostly about the future of the University, which was bleak. As newcomers, Sally and Hawk weren’t obliged to do much more than murmur sounds of concern, which was just fine with them, because they were very glad to eat and drink and bask in each others’ pheromone fields. According to the English professor, the legislature was contemplating abolishing tenure, establishing sixty virtual branch campuses in cyberspace, closing the library, and doubling the athletic budget, all with the enthusiastic backing of the trustees.
Sally considered her answer. She’d expected somebody to ask, but had been happy enough to let the conversation wallow in the usual academic quagmire of self-pity and dark forecasts, while she tried to figure out how to take Hawk home with her. “Coming? I’ve just gotten started. Not much to report at this point, but I’m excited about the prospects.” Time to deflect further inquiry. “Did you know Meg?” she asked the professor.
“I knew who she was, of course. By my time she was long retired, but she kept an office in the department. She’d come in from time to time, shuffle papers around, talk to a student or two. It shocked the hell out of everyone when one of her poems showed up in The New Yorker— when was it? Nineteen seventy-six?”
“I’d have to check,” Sally said.
“Yeah, I think it was seventy-six—it was ‘Homecoming’— the one where the Prodigal Son is named Cowboy Joe and plays college football.”
“I loved that poem,” the architect said, chortling. “She rhymed ‘Home on the Range’ with ‘Red Grange’! She sure didn’t have any use for American pieties.”
“But some of her poetry celebrates Americans, or some Americans anyway. Like ‘Sanctuary,’ the one about the outlaw Arizona nuns who helped Guatemalan refugees get away from the death squads,” Hawk put in unexpectedly.
Brown-Eyed Girl Page 9
