Sky Bridge

by Laura Pritchett

  Miguel smiles. “Kay’s right, for once.”

  “Naw. I mean, I’ll save money and all. But I can buy Amber an outfit or two. Or pictures, which is another thing Kay got all worked up about. At the hospital, I got the most expensive portrait package and she yelled at me for an hour. She said, ‘Libby, who are all these pictures for?’ and I said, ‘Lots of people,’ and she said, ‘Libby, there are about four people on this earth that care that this baby was born,’ and I said, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ Because Amber’s only a newborn baby once, you know. I got some extra pictures if you want one.”

  “Sure, okay.”

  “One of these days I’m going to get an apartment of my own and I won’t have to put up with Kay hollering at me all the time. Besides, I don’t know if she’s the best person to be taking care of Amber, but I guess it will be okay until I figure something else out.”

  “You’re gonna need her. I’d stay on her good side.”

  “There is no good side.”

  “Then whatever side that gets you through the day.” He tilts his head and scratches at his hair. Miguel is not that much older than me, but already he’s graying near the temples and his eyes are steady and look like they’ve seen a lot, or like maybe he’s lived a long time before in some other life, but it’s funny because his face is round and he looks like a boy, so all in all he looks like he’s caught in a whole bunch of stages of life.

  Miguel and I look at the car clock at the same time. It takes twenty minutes to get to town from here and I’ve only got four more minutes till I’m late, plus I gotta drop off Miguel, so I speed up to eighty-five. The wind’s whipping in the car and the noise of it vibrates around my head from a thousand different directions. Some day I’m gonna have a car with air conditioning, mostly so that I can just drive in silence.

  Pastureland spreads in all directions, burnt yellow with the sun, and from here it seems like maybe the whole world might be made up of flat land and sky. Everybody’s sold off their herds so there’s a lot less cows, but every once in a while there’s a bunch around a windmill and stock-tank.

  I pass a car loaded down with immigrant workers, who are probably heading to some job, and I feel sorry for them, because it’s going to take them a long-ass time to get there in that piece of junk station wagon. Then I pass Mrs. Tribble, who probably shouldn’t be driving anymore, because she goes about fifteen miles an hour down the highway and weaves back and forth across the center line and everyone around here knows to look out for her but outsiders and semi-truck drivers don’t. Then I swerve around a dead cat that’s been left on the highway, and then the road is clear again and it’s just us, zooming through the middle of nowhere.

  Miguel is looking out the window too, and keeps on looking while he says, “Stupid Shawny. I can’t do this all alone.”

  I glance over at him, at the angle of his face I can see. “I’m pissed at her too, you know.”

  “No. You’re not angry like I am.” Then he nods at the building ahead, though I know that’s where he works. It’s right alongside the highway, a low stucco building that’s been about a million things but is currently Lupe’s Diner. The parking lot is gravel and pitted with huge potholes, which I swerve around as I get him to the front door.

  “Gracias por el ride,” he says as he gets out. “Juan asks for you. He’s got an opinion on everything these days. He was throwing a temper tantrum because the moon was the wrong shape—he wanted it full instead of crescent. He doesn’t get what he wants and he says, ‘Rompiste mi corazón. You broke my heart.’ As if it’s my fault. I’m not in charge of the moon, man. I wasn’t in charge of his mom’s life.”

  I start to say something and then stop. “Tell him I’ll bring him some cookies, cookies with lots of sprinkles.” Then I add, “With moons. Moons that are both shapes.”

  Miguel leans over and looks in the window at me. He nods and smiles, like he’s considering something that he wants to say, and he takes a breath and does it. “We’re the ones left behind. To work our asses off, no? Maybe we should have just taken off too, but now we can’t.” His voice isn’t angry, though, it’s just tired. “You know what we got left with? Hope. I don’t know how to get rid of it. I don’t even know what the fuck I’m hoping for. Shawny’s gone. But still, I keep hoping for something. And even now, I look up at the sky and say, ‘Shawny, rompiste mi corazón, rompiste mi corazón.’ And you, you’re going to miss Tess. I know how close you were. I don’t even think she deserved your love, but she got it anyway, because that’s the way it happens. I know you’re going to miss her, and you’re going to keep hoping.” He shrugs at me, and he looks genuinely confused, and that’s the face that stays in my head, even though time moves on, even though I catch my breath and then keep on breathing, and even though I nod, and then shift into gear and leave him behind.

  Frank ought to give me hell. I wish he would, in fact, so I wouldn’t feel so shitty for always being late to such a good job. But no, as soon as I park he walks out of the store with a big wave and smile, picks up a box sitting on the curb, and brings it to my car. I open up the trunk and watch him come in his usual bowlegged walk, box balanced on his round tummy and his smile half hidden by his big, bushy, western-style mustache.

  “Sarah Price brought the swing—her baby doesn’t need it anymore. And Betty Zigler wants to know if you want a toddler bed, because she’s got one she’s looking to get rid of, though I told her that was years off. She’s the one who brought this box of baby clothes. I bet any storage space you and Kay had is already used up by now.”

  “That’s true. You know, people don’t have to—”

  “Stuff’s expensive, everybody likes to help. So, I heard Tess left.” He winks as he twists the box into the car. “Word’s already gotten around. Kay called, asking if I knew anything about this Clark fellow.”

  We walk back to the store to pick up another load. There’s a bunch of baby clothes in the box I’m carrying, and Frank has three bags of diapers. “Really? That surprises me,” I say. “That Kay bothered to call.”

  “Told her I didn’t know him. I know most everybody out this way, but I suppose some escape my notice. I’ll do some checking, though. Just happened to run into Chet Sanders, who knows a big, dark-haired Clark that works in Lamar, and he says he’s a quiet fellow, hauls hay, works as a mechanic. I’ll see if I can find out more.”

  “It’s not like he kidnapped her or anything,” I say. “She wanted to go. She asked him for a ride. I’m sure he’s fine, she’s fine. Everybody’s fine.”

  “Well, doesn’t hurt to check. With the baby and all, I thought she might stay. I guess I figured she had reason enough to stick around. But before that, I knew she’d be one of the ones who’d go. I can just tell about people. They either love this place or they don’t. And most of you young kids don’t.”

  I almost say, Nobody does, Frank, it’s the middle of Nowhere, Colorado. It’s just a matter of whether or not folks figure out how to leave.

  I must be making a face that shows all this, because Frank says, “Now, Libby. This place has some real advantages, and you’ll come to appreciate them more now that you’re raising a kid. It’s safe. It’s small. And people look out for each other.” At this, he swings his arm at the pile of stuff in front of us. “If you ask me, it’s the last fine place to be.”

  I’d like to say something about how even I’m smart enough to see that it all depends on your perspective, because maybe he doesn’t see it but all my old schoolmates are either doing drugs or working minimum wage or in jail, and for sure they’re all bored as hell, hanging around and letting their lives go by, including stupid fucking me, and anyway, none of my daydreams are here, in this place, and isn’t that my brain’s way of telling me something?

  Frank says, “Remind me to call around to see who’s going to supply night crawlers to the store this year. Everyone’s asking.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Ed Mongers wants to know if anyone with an alfa
lfa field would be willing to let him keep his bees nearby, because blooming alfalfa apparently makes good pollen, good honey—something like that. I don’t know, I can never figure out what that guy’s talking about. I told him to talk to Baxter or your mom.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “You got a picture of Amber for me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. And put one in the back, too, and I suppose Arlene will want one. So, you were out working cows, huh? Kay told me to take it easy on you because you look about as shell-shocked as she remembers feeling, although you’ll never say as much, and that you’re going to need some time to absorb it all.”

  “Kay said that?”

  “Your mom has a kind heart. She just doesn’t like to show it.” Then he adds, “I been there once, so shell-shocked I felt blasted to bits.” As he says this, his eyes drift away from mine, toward the faint blue outline of mountains, and his eyes hang there long enough that he doesn’t see the surprise in mine, although maybe he feels it, because he shakes himself loose from his thoughts and winks at me. He says, “But that’s worlds apart. Because yours involves wonder, and that makes all the difference.”

  Ideal Foods. It’s stitched right there on my blue apron, in white embroidery thread, stitched by Frank himself. Stitched right above Santa Fe Foods, which is what this place used to be called.

  Ideal Foods.

  Santa Fe Foods.

  As Frank likes to tell the out-of-towners, the name of the store is right-on in both cases, because this is the most ideal place to be. And because if you know where to look, you can still see the wagon-wheel ruts of the Santa Fe Trail.

  I think he might be making both parts up. I’ve lived here my whole life and never seen any traces of wagon wheels, though I’ve touched the secret petroglyphs that only the locals know about, mostly because those places are also our party spots. Seems like the earth pulls you to places the same way houses do, and certain spots are just good for hanging out, whether you’re an Indian doing a drawing or a white girl getting drunk.

  But if you ask me, this apron just looks insane: Ideal Foods Santa Fe Foods, like somebody couldn’t make up their mind.

  Sometimes I think that we’re all so wobbly inside, like none of us can make up our minds about stuff, and we spend all this time waffling back and forth, which just confuses everybody. I imagine a whole room of people rocking back and forth, like they’re physically acting out what their minds do all day, and we all look like a bunch of crazies, bumping into each other all because we can’t seem to line up and walk straight, because there’s these other possibilities that must be considered. It makes me a little sad, actually, because I think we’re doing it for the right reasons and it’s hard when you’re trying to do the right thing but you don’t know what it is. And probably it doesn’t matter. People would come in here no matter what the store was named.

  I straighten my Ideal Foods Santa Fe Foods apron and scrape the manure off my shoes before heading out front. I love this job. Mostly because it’s just me and my mind and my daydreams, and time gets filled up, and so does my heart, and even though my life isn’t what I pictured, at least I have this, meaning that if I can’t have the life I want, at least I can have a job where I can daydream about the life I want.

  Always, I start with the ice machine in the back room, where I shovel ice cubes into clear plastic bags that say ENJOY POLAR ICE! They have these pictures of white bears on the plastic and I have a long tradition of talking with them, though I do it in my head so that people don’t think I’m crazy. I tell the first bear, I hope Kay is taking good care of my girl, and probably she’s not, and what should I do about that, you cute thing? I say to one, out of the blue, You’re a fucker. I say to another one, You think Derek’s going to leave me or what? Because Tess said he would. I say to another one, There’s no way Tess can make it out there, she’s just a girl, well, she’s eighteen, but she’s a girl. I say to another one, I’m sorry I called your buddy a fucker. I’m sure you’re all nice enough. I tell one, You’ll end up in a cooler with beer at John Martin Dam. And you, I tell another, you’ll be packed around some newly dead fish. I say to the last one, What? You think I’m crazy? Not everyone talks to pictures of goofy-looking bears on plastic bags?

  After the ice come the milk jugs, which I pull forward so the rows look full and neat. Eggs and butter, pulled forward. Plastic bags and paper bags, restocked. Floor by the cash register, swept. Then I clean the table up front, which is there for people who want a bite to eat in the store. The poker table, it’s called, since that’s what it gets used for, especially when the sheriff comes in with the volunteer EMT guys after a call and they need a game of cards to get whatever crash or drowning or death out of their system. So there’s the poker table, and then I clean the smudges off the glass door, and then more restocking. Then I clean the meat room, which is where Frank grinds hamburger and slices ham. It’s this part that takes so much time—wiping the chunks of bloody meat from the machines, taking the slicer apart and putting it back together, wiping down countertops and cleaning the huge knives in the sink. The chemicals I mix in the water smell so strong that my eyes cry all by themselves and I’m always worried that anyone looking through the window to the meat room will think I’m drowning in sorrow. All this I’ve got to get done before eight, which is when I need to restock and straighten again so that I can start cleaning and mopping at nine, so that everything’s set to go for the morning by the time the store closes at ten.

  Just like I figured, Derek walks in right when I’m in the meat room, right before my break, right when I’m smelling and looking my worst. I wipe my face with the back of my hand and straighten my blue apron as I turn around to see him.

  His face is burnt red and a farmer’s tan shows around the neck and sleeves of his turquoise T-shirt, which reads C.A.T.S. COLORADOANS AGAINST TEXAN SKIERS. Who knows why he bought that shirt, since he never skied in his life, but he has a thing against rich people, and a thing about outsiders moving to Colorado, and I guess he thinks Texans are guilty of both, so he harbors a special resentment against them. Although not really, because Derek never gets worked up about anything; wearing a T-shirt is about as far as he’ll go.

  I can tell he just got off from work at the oil rig—we joke about that, how a guy named Derek works for a rig—because he’s still got on his torn-up jeans and boots and a haze of oily dirt covers his arm hairs and he smells so bad I have to bite my lip to keep from making a face. He looks too skinny, like he’s still a gangly kid or something, waiting to fill in and grow up.

  “Hey, you,” he says, poking his head into the meat room. “Take your break yet?”

  “Nope.”

  He tilts his head toward the door. “Come outside.”

  I look at Frank on my way out, and Frank nods, so I take off my apron and bunch it under my arm as I follow Derek out the glass door. We sit on the sidewalk, our feet on the parking lot. My arms prickle as the air-conditioned cool leaves my skin and the warmth seeps in, and it smells like heat out here, like dust mixed with air that’s burning.

  I reach over to scratch Derek’s back. “Tess left. Last night, just drove off with—”

  “That guy? I knew it. I knew it—”

  “Really? I didn’t know it.”

  “Like, left, or left left?”

  “I don’t know. She had two suitcases. And I don’t know where she got those, I never saw them before.”

  He’s silent for a long time, then he says, “She wasn’t kidding, was she?”

  “She’ll come back. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m not worried.”

  “Wow, she really left you with her baby. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Didn’t want to bug you.”

  “You didn’t want to bug me?”

  “She just needed a bit of vacation. But I wish she would’ve held Amber more. Like at the hospital. I should have given he
r the baby to hold more. And I wish she would’ve told me she was leaving. Well, she kept saying she might, but I never took her serious.”

  He pokes at his work boots with a stick, jabbing off little bits of dirt from the edges. “He’s dealing drugs. They’re dealing drugs.”

  “No way, Derek.”

  “Why else would some guy start stopping by the house of a super-pregnant woman every time he got back from some ‘delivery,’ and why would Tess ask you not to mention him to Kay?”

  “He delivers stuff, Derek. He’s a truck driver. When he came back from trips, he wanted to see her. Tess is beautiful. He was—I bet they’re—You know, after she feels better–”

  “Naw, drugs or wetbacks—”

  “You shouldn’t use that word.”

  “Drugs or wetbacks, I’m telling you.”

  “And you should know better than anyone that it’s best to keep Kay—what’s the word? Uninformed about boyfriends. I tried to keep you apart for as long as I could. And even now, you still don’t like Kay.”

  “Your mom introduces me as your no-good boyfriend. ‘This here is Derek, Libby’s no-good boyfriend.’”

  “See?”

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “She doesn’t like anybody.”

  “They’re dealing drugs.”

  I press my hand to my forehead. “Derek, sometimes you say the dumbest shit. No way would Tess get involved in that.”

  “Then where’d she get that money she left you?”

  “From wherever.”

  “Five hundred bucks? From wherever?”

  “Just drop it.”

  “Libby, I’m sorry to say this, and don’t get all pissed off, but sometimes I think you act stupid because it’s easier. You just refuse to see things so that you don’t have to deal with them.”

  “The whole world does that, Derek. Anyway, I’m never going to use that money, I’m going to pretend I don’t have it. It’s for Amber. I don’t know where Tess got it, but it’s not from drugs.”