Confessed

by Nicola Rendell

  “Really?”

  “Don’t I look like I read?” He’s only half joking. He’s soft about things like this, I’ve learned. What he looks like versus what he is. The brute and the artist.

  Looks, I’m finding, are very, very deceiving. “You just don’t look like a Hunter S. Thompson fan.”

  He snorts. “I look like more of a…”

  I think about it. I think about my dad’s library where I stole the cash, where he’s got leather-bound books on all the shelves—but behind the leather-bounds, a second row of the really good stuff. The delicious, pulpy, hilarity of American fiction. I size him up. “I’d say you’re more of an Elmore Leonard guy.”

  He closes his eyes. He shakes his head and reaches out to me. “You’re not wrong about that.”

  I buy Fear and Loathing for a dollar. And thus begins my small but delightful stint as an audiobook narrator. As I read, we pass oil derricks that remind me of grasshoppers. I read to him about cops in Bermuda shorts and plastic sandals, watch him laugh so hard he cries until he has to pull off the side of the road and wipe the tears from those dreamy eyes, leaning his head back on the headrest and shaking with happiness.

  “You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning,” Thompson says.

  I am happy. He is happy. Thompson is right. Life is ours. And we are winning together.

  But we’re not winning for long because just as we cross into Texas and just as Dr. Gonzo hangs Christmas lights in the bathroom in Las Vegas, Vince says, “We got trouble, Peaches.”

  I look up from the book. There is a cop behind us, flashing his brights to tell us to pull over. “Shit, oh shit,” I say. I toss the book in the back seat and grip my thighs. “What do we do? What’s he driving? A Ford? We can totally outrun him.” I glance in the mirror. “Totally! Floor it!”

  Slowly, painfully slowly, Vince turns to me at exactly the same time he puts his foot to the brake and eases the BMW to a stop on the shoulder. “Outrun a cop?”

  Sensible. But still…“I was thinking, you know, some kind of Bonnie and Clyde thing.”

  “Play it cool,” Vince says. “Don’t babble. And one thing. Where’d that name Helen come from….”

  I stare at him. “My mom.”

  “Christ,” he mutters. “Just follow my lead. And you’re not Helen anymore.”

  I fumble for my lipstick and put on a fresh coat of Berry Ripple. I press my lips together and slide back into the seat, trying to look calm. I’m sure I don’t. I’m sure I look about as in-my-element as my dad in that portrait next to Caesar.

  The cop appears at the window. He’s a big stocky military sort of guy, and he looks at Vince in a way that makes me want to reach out the window and strangle him.

  “Officer,” Vince says.

  The cop says exactly nothing. His nametag says, LT. J. HELLMANN. I think about making some crack about mayonnaise, but keep it to myself.

  “Hi there,” I say, and smile. The cop’s eye’s pop up to mine. He looks me up and down. He glances at the rearview, and scans the cab.

  “Plates are expired,” the cop says.

  Vince groans and lets his head fall back onto the headrest. “Damn it, sweetheart,” he says. “Didn’t you go to the DMV? I asked you to go, didn’t I? Twice,” he turns to me. He looks pissed. Like he did actually tell me to go to the DMV and I forgot.

  I don’t even have to pretend my outrage as I follow his lead. “Oh, you think I have four hours to waste in line? You said you were going to go after work. Remember? That day I burned the banana bread?”

  “Which time?”

  Shifting my jaw to the side I shake my head, in mock-annoyance, and put my feet up on the dash. “Not this again. If you’d get me a better oven…”

  Vince looks out of the windshield and rolls his eyes. Then he says to the cop, “Sorry. I thought we had it straight. But…”

  I see the cop make a tiny, almost man-to-man shrug. As if to say, Wives!

  I huff. Husbands!

  “You just get it straight as soon as you can,” the cop says, “They get picky about stuff like that around here.”

  Vince gives a deferential nod. This is a guy who knows how to deal with cops, clearly. “Appreciate it.”

  “Especially because there’s an APB on this make and model,” the cop says, “Just came out over the radio.”

  I freeze. Vince shifts one millimeter in his seat. His finger hovers over the ignition switch, but then his hand retracts into a fist. “That right?”

  The cop nods. “Belongs to that Burchett girl. The E. Coli Princess.”

  Fuck!

  Vince rubs his nose. “That isn’t us.”

  “We’ve got 99 problems, but bad ham isn’t one,” I manage to say, sweet as pie.

  For one instant, I swear, I see that dimple on Vince’s cheek.

  The cop leans in just a little and focuses in on me. For a second, I think we’re blown. But then he says, “Have a nice afternoon, you two.”

  “You too, Officer,” Vince says.

  Crunch, crunch, crunch, goes the cop down the shoulder. I slump back into my seat and stare up through the sun roof at a vulture circling in the sky.

  I watch Vince’s chest deflate. That’s the only sign he gives of the utter relief that happens to be hitting me like the Ice Bucket Challenge. “That was close,” I whisper. “You’re really good at that.”

  “Thanks, Peaches.”

  I lean over the console and plant a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll never burn your banana bread, FYI.”

  Vince laughs and slips his arm around me. He pulls my face tight to his and gives me an almost angry kiss. I feel it, the adrenaline. I nip his lip and come back in for more.

  “Fuck Bonnie and Clyde,” he growls. “You and me? We’re the real deal.”

  Heading north on I-25 at Albuquerque, we move through the desert, and I watch the landscape go from gray to sage green. North and farther north. Until, 75 miles from the Colorado border, we head into a massive purple thunderstorm and pass a sign that says:

  WELCOME TO MORA COUNTY

  POPULATION 4,702

  As we pass it, I watch Vince get easier in his body than I’ve ever seen him before, and he’s a guy who knows how to fill out his skin. He glances over at me—he’s driving, I’m on CD duty—and he smiles. A great, big, wide smile, while that old band America sings about how in the desert, you can remember your name.

  “So, remember I said I’ve got somewhere we can lie low?”

  I stare at him. I know he can see me, but he doesn’t turn his head. Just smiles and shows off those dimples. I love those tiny, hardly-there wrinkles near his eyes.

  “Are we there yet?” I’ve only asked him about seven hundred times.

  “Yep.” He ripples his fingers over the wheel. I look out of the windshield. Outside, the landscape starts to open up into strange big vistas, all dusty and gorgeous, while the purple turns to black in the storm.

  “What? Here?” In front of us is nothing but highway and tumbleweed. A big clump cartwheels across the highway, narrowly missing us.

  “Fine. Not just yet. We’re close.”

  My heart pitter patters. Literally. I feel a pit-ter in my chest. Then a pat-ter.

  He signals and exits the highway. We get on a frontage county road, and then he makes a left. “In the meantime,’ he glances in the rearview, “tell me more about this ranch idea of yours.

  I feel a hard pound in my heart—this is no pitter—and then a pinch. Even just thinking about the word horse, I hurt for Peanut. I can smell her. I can hear the hay rustling on the stable floor.

  I stare off at a faraway mesa with a big bloom of clouds over the top. “I’d like to take in abused horses, maybe. Just a few at first. And then also run a therapy ranch. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to one, but they’re amazing places.”

  “Yeah?” he says. He seems distracted by the roads, which are unmarked a
nd bleached-out brown. “Where are you going to do it?”

  That’s a very good question, I think to myself. “I don’t…” I trail off. “I don’t know. It’s just a dream. A silly dream now.” I clear my throat. I look off at the far horizon. It’s stunningly beautiful here, but also somehow sad. Empty. Not in a bad way, but it just feels somehow unloved. There’s an old, rickety fence running alongside the road.

  “So, I haven’t told you everything about me, exactly. I’ve been…” He hesitates. “A little selective in my biography.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re some notorious criminal and I’m about to end up on a Dateline special,” I tease him.

  “Peaches, give yourself some credit.” He lifts one hand off the wheel. “With you in the equation? We’d make it to 60 Minutes, no doubt.” A laugh shoots out of my nose. He reaches over and squeezes my leg.

  “No,” he goes on. “When we met? Is that the word?”

  I lift my hands. “I mean, what else are we going to say? Collided?”

  He tips his head. “Right. When we met, I’d stolen that Dodge because I figured I was going to need one. If I ever got here.” He gestures out at the land. Far in the distance, I see two Pintos.

  “Here? What’s here?” Pitter. Pitter. Patter.

  Vince takes a great big breath and turns to me. The washboard ruts under the wheels make a brrrr noise, but then the road levels out. “It’s mine.”

  I turn my head from side to side. Nothing, in either direction, but vast, vast pasture lands. Horse pasture lands. “Wait, you mean…”

  “My dad left it to me. I never knew him. Never even met him.” I watch his eyes widen. He swallows. “But when he died, he left this place to me.”

  “And now it’s…” I stare off at the grasslands. A thunderbolt cuts through the purple-black. “All yours?”

  He pauses before he answers, sweeping his eyes side to side. “How fucking bizarre, right?”

  Not bizarre. Magnificent. Glorious. “The horses?”

  “They’re mostly wild. Bureau of Land Management grazes the land. But it’s mine to do whatever I want with.”

  I clasp my hands together. “Horses. You can have horses?”

  “Not just that…”

  He drives over a rise in the land and from the ridge. Down below, in a small valley, is a small adobe house, white trim, red roof. Next to that, old rickety stables, once painted white but now peeling. Out in the distance, another house, with a long road leading between the two. There’s a cluster of other outbuildings, scattered here and there. I feel like I have just stepped into the very most perfect thing I’ve ever imagined.

  “Oh my God,” I gasp. “This is yours?”

  Vince brings the BMW to a stop at the top of the rise, overlooking the huge property. In the distance, on a slight hill, I see a horse that looks so much like Peanut, I almost say her name out loud. This place, it’s magnificent. It’s heaven. It’s wide open and free. I can just imagine thundering down over this rise, bareback on my beautiful girl.

  He gets out of the BMW, and slowly, I push open my door. The noise outside? Nothing. Pure, silent, delicate nothing. Except for a rumble of thunder from the coming storm.

  Vince stands next to me and reaches out for my hand.

  “So, Lucy Burchett. How about it?”

  I look out at the expanse.

  “How’s this for that dream?”

  I cannot believe it. But it’s real. As real as he is.

  When I don’t answer, he turns to me. “So? What do you say?”

  And my answer?

  One thousand million times. “Yes.”

  25

  We leave the Beemer behind the stables where it can’t be seen from the road. I grab a couple of old tarps and lay them over the top, anchoring them down with rocks on the roof. The wind is kicking up, and the tarp doesn’t want to cooperate. Lucy helps out, doesn’t ask a single question, like Why are we doing this? She’s got it. I’m not surprised. Her old man might not be a super smooth criminal, but he’s put mischief in her blood. That’s for sure. If she inherits nothing else, that’ll be plenty.

  “So you’ve never been here?” she asks, looking up into the rafters of the barn. There are owl pellets on the ground, and I think I see a pair of golden eyes in the darkness. I hear my mom’s voice telling me that’s good luck. “The very best luck of all, mijito, is an owl watching over you.”

  “Never,” I say.

  “Who’s taking care of the place?” she says.

  “There’s a ranch hand.” I glance at the ground, piled with fresh hay. “My dad, he planned for everything.”

  Lucy stands in the door of the barn and then steps out into the open. The sky above has gotten dark and heavy with rain clouds.

  “Wow,” she says. “Just, wow.”

  The size of it is pretty damned overwhelming. “I want you to be here with me.”

  Her hand finds mine. “And I will. Right here.”

  The thunder cracks above us, and huge drops of rain start splattering onto the dry ground like bullets.

  She looks up into the sky, and the rain falls down on her face. She laughs and then starts running for the main house. Her hand grips mine so tight that not even the downpour gets between us.

  I find a key under a flowerpot full of weeds. Inside, it smells a little dusty, like desert dust. Lucy walks into the kitchen, wiping the rain from her face and running her fingers through her slightly damp hair. Her black shirt is splattered with rain drops, and her makeup got a little smudged. Perfect in her imperfection, as usual.

  She runs her hand over the old Talavera-tiled kitchen counter, her fingertip trailing along the rough grout. A lightning bolt makes everything light up at 1000 watts and then go dark again.

  “You didn’t know him?” “My mom said he had another family.”

  She doesn’t seem surprised. She doesn’t seem outraged. She just keeps meandering through, smiling wider and wider. “It’s so lovely here.”

  It is. Even though I’ve known it’s mine for a while now, it hasn’t seemed real. Not until this very moment.

  She puts her hands on the edge of the sink and looks outside. She gets up on her toes and then back down again, in that way she does.

  I imagine her standing there not just right now, but for the long haul. Not in the kitchen, that’s not it… You don’t grow up in New Mexico with women who carry shotguns and kill their own chickens and not get yourself a hardcore respect for women too. But I just mean here. With me. In this place. She turns to face me.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, moving towards her. “I’m better than okay.” I place my hands on her hips and hoist her up on the kitchen counter. She plants her palms and scoots back from the edge a little. I hold her ass in my hands. Now she’s almost eye level with me, and I bring her mouth to mine. I grip the back of her neck with my fingers and brace her back with my arm. Her body eases into mine a little more.

  I run my thumb down her jaw and lick her taste off my lips. “You make me want to tell you things I’ve never told anybody.”

  “Yeah?” she says, all innocent eyes, “Like what?”

  I slide my tongue down the curve of her neck, and she leans away from me, opening up that valley into her shoulder. She runs her hands up my forearms and then loops them around my neck. “What do you want to tell me?” she whispers.

  “I’m falling hard for you.”

  She presses her hand into my palm. “Falling where?” She smiles, and I feel the shift of her muscles against my hand. She hooks her legs around my waist and slides her body to the edge of the countertop.

  “You know.”

  “Maybe I don’t.”

  She’s going to make me say it, but I want to say it too. “In love with you.”

  She brings her finger up my chest, along my neck, and around the edge of my ear. I grip her tighter. Real men don’t shudder.

  Yeah, but fuck I can’t help it. It starts in my gut and
ends at my throat.

  “Me too, Vince Russo.”

  She drags my shirt up a ways and then starts in on my belt. Those tiny fingers working that leather away from the buckle.

  I unzip her jeans and peel them down her legs, kneeling in front of her. I place my lips to that bare thigh, and she runs her hands over my head, gently but also greedily. I gaze up at her, pulling her towards the edge of the counter.

  “We’re gonna go slow this time,” I say, into the soft curve of her abdomen. With my tongue, I explore that place where that one single freckle falls into her belly button. Her stomach tightens, and I kiss up and down those perfect muscles. I lift up the lacy edge of her boy shorts, pink today, and grab her ass. This is all so fucking perfect, it doesn’t feel real. Rain spatters the windows hard and hits the tin roof like buckshot spray. It feels impossible. She feels impossible. But she’s real. That arch of her back against the countertop, that’s real. So fucking real.

  “Are we crazy?” she asks, raspy and sexy.

  “Yeah.” I nod into the bow of her shorts, the place where it comes down to a slight V above her pussy. I press my nose to her skin and inhale. Then, with my cheek to her body, I ask, “Does it matter?”

  “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t.”

  Her nails sink into my shoulders. “Ever.”

  I push her panties aside and dip my tongue into her. Fuck, she tastes so good. Every single time it makes me groan. Holding her panties aside, I feel a pool of wetness on the cotton lining. As I lick up and down her slit, I find myself rubbing my thumb all over that pool, addicted to its feel and smell. I look up the length of her body and watch her pinch her nipples as she works herself closer and closer, me pushing her a little faster than she wants to go.

  “You better get inside me,” she says. I can hear her starting to let go. “I know how you like to feel me.”

  I lick her harder, broader, thicker, deeper. I slide my tongue into her opening and feel the ripples of her pussy give way to me. Her clit begins tensing up a little. Her grip on my shoulders tightens. I’m painfully hard for her. But until I taste her as she comes, I’m going to stay exactly where I am. On my fucking knees.