Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo (30 page)

He poured thick red wine, dark as paint, into three tumblers. “Sangu has a cell phone,” Harry said. “Two cell phones. She's phoned up. But the house is phone-free. You need me, you send me a fax.” He pointed to the hallway, and for a moment Maya thought she would be ordered to get out of her seat and lay eyes on Harry Sprague's fax machine. Maya heard the metronomic beep of a machine ready to receive news of Harry Sprague having sold in Hindi and Finnish. That's why there wasn't a phone. Harry Sprague was rich enough not to have one.

The author lifted his glass. His good eye crinkled. “So what is it you want with them?”

Maya stared out the window, where the day was moving resolutely toward darkness. “Our son misbehaves,” she said. “Maybe they would know why. He was normal,” she rushed to add, as if persuading an authority. “It's only recently that he . . .” She cursed herself—she was making no sense.

The author regarded her. “This calls for something stronger,” he said. He opened a new cupboard and peered at a crowd of bottles. “I've got admirers placed around the drinking capitals of the
world. There's a young fellow in Burgundy who sends me a case every time I write a book. He's half the reason I write. Where are you from?”

“New Jersey,” Maya said.

“Oh,” Harry said.

“Russia,” Maya elaborated.

“I knew a pair of Russian legs once,” Harry said. He stopped and looked over his shoulder in mischief. “We'll drink vodka, then.”

Alex looked at his wife and cut in: “Could you tell us what you know? Please. We drove a very long way.”

Harry turned back from the bottles and they saw his face lose its play. “I'm yakking, but it's not really a celebratory situation, is it,” he said. He put thimbles in front of Maya and Alex, but Alex held up his hand; he was driving. Maya, however, downed hers and slid her glass forward for more. Harry flashed her an approving look.

“About ten years ago, the young people you're talking about got some kind of a windfall,” Harry said, pouring. “Well, I guess you were the windfall. They got the money to buy something better than the shit can outside. I bought it from them. From the junkyard.”

“But why?” Alex said.

“My dad's old car. It must have been one of their dads that he sold it to, I don't know which one. I got a call one day from Hoyt at the junkyard. He said, ‘You ain't gonna believe what rolled in here today.' Hoyt will remember a car from thirty years ago.”

“I don't understand,” Maya said.

“I don't know where they are,” Harry said. “I never even laid eyes on 'em. I can ask for you. My friend's still there. He'll die there. But I think he said they went off in a big way. I hope I'm remembering that wrong. They got their fancy new car and drove the hell away.”

Maya and Alex stared at him dumbly. The sounds of a house at rest rushed into the silence: a ticking clock, the dogs readjusting
their flanks, branches swinging outside. Maya placed her hand on Alex's forearm, a silent plea not to look at her.

Alex exhaled painfully and his shoulders slumped. He braided his hands and looked at his thumbs. “I don't understand this kind of person,” he said finally. “To give up a child.” His disinterest in brandishing his triumph frightened Maya; she wished for the old Alex, the brandishing Alex. Alex looked at Harry, but in defeat, without aggrievement. “We couldn't have children,” Alex said. “They could, and gave him up.”

“But then you wouldn't have gotten the boy,” Harry said, trying to correct his earlier levity.

“I wanted us to come here because I thought he would see where he was born and something would happen,” Maya said. “But nothing's happened. Max wants to go home.” She looked over at Alex—she had meant the concession for him.

“So that's something,” Harry said.

“By accident,” Alex said.

“It still counts,” Harry said. “Sangu's first husband died of leukemia. At forty. He was a doctor, a handsome Indian man, certainly more handsome than the one-eyed wonder she ended up with. His loss was my gain. We lived with him for the first three years of our marriage. It was Sangu, Harry, and Amar. I wondered during those years about this special humiliation I had earned, to share a bed with a dead man. Sangu wailed into the night. I said, ‘Why did you marry me?' And she would say things like, ‘Because you asked.' Or: ‘Because I love you.' I would ask how it was possible to love two men at once, and she would look at me like a wolf, like no one who had to ask that question deserved an answer. So I shut up—not my favorite setting. I shot a real wolf around that time. I was breaking the law but I felt anger inside me. As I aimed at him, I was aiming at Sangu. I got him down with one shot and then I raced home because I was convinced that she would be dead in the kitchen. But she was alive, reading, wearing those big glasses of hers. I covered her with kisses. And I waited. And now I am the luckiest man in the world.”

Alex nodded. “We should go,” he said. “It's an hour, Maya. He'll be waiting.”

Maya looked up at Harry. “Can I ask you for something?”

“You can't have the car,” Harry said. “That car's been sold for the last time.”

“I don't want the car,” Maya said. “I want to sit inside it. For five minutes.”

“Knock yourself out,” Harry said. “It's open. Hasn't had gas since 2005. If you see a five-foot-one Indian lady in a Prius pull up, just say Harry's inside, polishing china.”

They rose heavily, Maya unsteady after two drinks.

“Look,” Harry said. “I'm sorry.”

Outside, the passenger door of the Datsun gave way with an anguished squeal. Maya's heart decelerated—for a moment, she thought she had damaged Harry Sprague's patrimony. But the author did not seem concerned with the vehicle's presentation. The faded-blue seats were ripped, the roof lining was cantilevered over the rear seat, and the air was heavy with must and decay.

Maya climbed into Laurel's seat and looked out the window. This is what Laurel saw. After a minute, Maya cranked open the door—at first it wouldn't give, filling her with dread—and moved over to the driver's side, Alex watching from the Escape. This is what Tim saw. She switched to the rear. She could barely slide in, so narrow the space there, and her pants raised a storm of dust as she slid across the shredded upholstery. This is what Max saw. She felt nothing—they were not here to be found, or she lacked whatever it was that would have made them feel present. Her imagination was not strong enough—she was not her mother's equal.

From the backseat, she saw, though it had eluded her when she was in front of it, that the glove compartment was so full of papers it wouldn't close. She returned to the front passenger seat and pried it open. There was a pocket notebook whose corners looked chewed by a dog, filled with notations and figures in a hand so minuscule Maya could not make out any of it; a receipt for a block
of rosin; a page torn from the phone book (Ra-Re) with an addition scrawled over it; a fridge magnet with the calendar for 2004. Next, she pulled out a postcard—on one side was an antelope leaned into a gallop, on the other a picture of Laurel and a picture of Tim, glued to opposite ends of the card. They looked even younger than they had in 2004—they were yearbook pictures. Laurel was as pretty as Maya remembered, the yellow hair drawn in the middle. Tim, clean-shaven, looked embarrassed to be wearing a suit, its fit obviously clumsy even though only the shoulders were visible; the photographer had gotten him with his eyes just off the camera; they were piercingly blue even in the black-and-white photo.

There was an arrow drawn between the two pictures. Beneath had been written:

                                            
Most likely to be

                                            
Joyous and free

                                            
Especially

                                            
If you marry me.

Maya ran her fingertips over the photos. Perhaps Laurel was already pregnant with Max, only didn't know it. But don't all women know, even if they don't know? Maya didn't know. She studied Laurel's eyes. She was smiling—carelessly, widely, and freely. She had a beautiful smile. Maya did not get to see it when the two young parents came to deliver their child.

Maya returned everything she had pulled out save for the postcard. She looked at Alex, at the entryway to the house. Then she folded the postcard, wedged it into a pocket of her jeans, and stepped out of the Datsun.

“I'm glad I'm drunk,” Maya said. “I wish you were, too.” Alex started the car, but they idled. “I'm glad we came,” she said. “I know you're not, but I am. I'm sorry.”

“I don't know what I thought they could tell us,” Alex said. “It was a stupid idea.”

“You were scared,” she ventured.

He shrugged. “I'm sorry,” he said.

They drove without talking, the nine miles to Adelaide now drawing the opposite desire from Maya: She wished to get back sooner, recover her son, as if the nonpresence of Laurel and Tim would somehow lead to his nonpresence also; it had been well over an hour, full darkness. There was no true darkness in Acrewood. Here, the darkness swallowed not only the road, but the mountains. The mountains blotted out Laurel and Tim, but the darkness blotted out the mountains. And Laurel and Tim blotted out the darkness. The Escape was like a dinghy sailing on a sliver of moonlight. Thin white flakes swirled in the beam of the headlights. She took reassurance from the steady rev of the engine, the night's only sound.

At the Dundee, their son was maneuvering between tables, in his hands a plate half as large as his torso, and the skirt steak in it even larger—the tips flopped over the edges. On this Wilma Gund did not skimp.

“Your son's earned you a free meal,” she said as she dashed out of the kitchen. “I hope you don't mind,” she said, meaning his conscription into table service. “We're slammed on Saturday nights.” Max didn't seem to mind. He deposited the flank steak at a
corner table, his shoulders rising after being relieved of the weight, and had his hair ruffled by the man who was about to consume it. Seeing his parents, Max waved. Maya walked quickly toward him and embraced him, the man at the table hesitant to cut into his steak while, next to him, a mother embraced her son as if he had been lost. Ovals of gratinéed potato were dominoed next to the steak—Max's doing. The sight of the food made her nauseous, but she was grateful for the din.

“Sit?” Wilma shouted from across the room. “I'll get you soon as I can.”

“I'm not hungry,” Maya whispered to no one. She took Max and walked back to the front of the restaurant. “It's my birthday tomorrow,” she told Wilma.

“Can't offer much more than a free meal, honey,” the proprietress said, wiping her forehead with a sleeve.

“Is there a Mr. Gund?” Maya asked. “Do you run everything by yourself?”

“I'd love to stay and chat,” Wilma said. “You staying tomorrow as well? I forget. You can claim your meal then if you want.”

“Which of your bars do you recommend?” Maya said.

“Why, this one,” she said. “What're you looking for?”

“Music,” Maya said. “Isn't there music?”

They were sent to the jukebox at the Stockman. Alex attempted to object on the grounds that it was no place for an eight-year-old, but the Stockman turned out to be as full of cowboy-hatted ranch men drinking steadily at the bar as children dashing between tables.

Thundering out of the jukebox was a pop song by a girl who was never going to love again that was on the radio out east. When it ended, the male half of another family of tourists shyly approached the jukebox and selected country music. The singer warbled as if through a mouthful of liquor, but his message was the same—he was done loving. How much were these promises worth?

They settled at a table and watched the dance floor fill with the tourists and an older couple, these eighty apiece. The tourists
danced too much and the old ones too little, their hips limited. A waitress whose breasts were insignificantly penned by a halter top brought Maya a vodka neat, Alex a ginger ale, and another ginger ale for the cutie pie. Max swung his legs up and down—his stool was too high for him—but without his earlier anomie.

“I'm hungry,” he said, adding to Maya's guilt about dragging the two of them to do what she wanted. And did she really want it? She wanted only to keep distracting herself. Tomorrow, she would think about the conversation with Harry—tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. It was her birthday, after all. She would celebrate it by facing the truth. But there were hours and hours till then, an almost-endless collection of fifteen-minute increments. She was grateful to the booze for making it possible not to think of Laurel and Tim, and she was grateful to Laurel and Tim for the way they would push Marion out of her mind tomorrow. She had rigged it up ably.

“We'll just have this one and go,” Maya said. “It's bedtime for you, soon.”

“Happy birthday, Mama,” Max said.

Stifling tears, she kissed his hair.

“Are you and Mama going to dance?” Max asked his father.

“Your papa isn't a very good dancer,” Alex said. “And this is special music. You have to know how to dance to this music.”

“They don't look like they know,” Max said, nodding at the tourist couple, who clutched each other and swung back and forth.

Even though he came in and out of view due to the back-and-forth of the dancers, Maya knew she was looking at Marion Hostetler on the other side of the bar. Her expectations had been wrong every step of the way—no Laurel and Tim, nothing from Max—but of this she was plainly and brutally certain. Trying to do the right thing, she struck out, but the wrong—it was hers with ease and precision.

Maya looked quickly at Alex; he hadn't seen him.

“I don't want this,” Maya said at her drink, nearly full. She saw
Marion looking at them from across the room. She made herself look away. “Max needs to get fed. Let's go.”

Alex looked at her, puzzled. “You want to go back to the restaurant? Let's just get something here.”

“Please, Alex,” she said. “This noise is too much. I'm getting a migraine. Let's go.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “I'll flag her and pay.”

“No, I'll pay,” Maya said. “Please wait outside.”

Alex stared, baffled.

“Alex, please, just go outside with Max. Right now, please.”

Alex shrugged—it was no time to try to make sense of his wife. He slid off his stool and held out his hand for their son. Max gulped the ginger ale, hitting bottom before mother and father could get him to stop. He burped. Then he took his father's hand and they went outside. When the door closed behind them, Maya sprang out of her seat and crossed the bar.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“I don't know,” Marion said.

“In front of my husband and son,” she said.

“Now it's a problem?” Marion said.

“Marion,” she said coldly.

“I didn't know how else to find you.”

“So don't find me.”

He glared at her. Then he set down his drink on the warped wood of the bar. It wobbled, and they both reached for it, but it held. “I'll go,” he said.

“Wait,” she held up one hand as she covered her eyes with the other. “I'm sorry, wait. How did you find us?”

“There's only one hotel in town,” Marion said.

“Wilma? What did you say?”

“I said I wanted to surprise my brother for his birthday.”

“Oh, hon, you're here now,” the waitress winked at Maya. “One more vodka neat? Gentleman paying?”

Maya shook her head. Her palms were wet; the last drink had
taken her from a manageable looseness to unstable feet. She asked for water. She wanted to be clear for this. She shivered as if she were cold, though the bar was steamy with laughter and music. It seemed like a nice place to hide out when the weather finally got around to delivering. There were more couples on the dance floor now. She felt for Marion's arm to steady herself. He was still wearing the plaid that was on her shoulders during the night.

“The girls?” she asked absentmindedly.

“We were going our separate ways anyway. They have school. They're just being polite to their dad—their mind's on schoolwork and boys. I turned toward home and then I drove past it. And kept driving. And driving. You shouldn't have told me what town.”

“I shouldn't have,” she said. “I did, though.” She turned pale: “Are you staying at the hotel?”

“No, I wouldn't do that,” he said. “I have a room in Sheff City. It's fifteen miles down the road.” He smiled sadly, his eyes narrowing and then opening again, but a touch slower, as if he needed rest. “It's too cold to camp tonight. It's going to snow tomorrow.”

”Marion,” she said, but had nothing to add.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “I'll leave.” He swallowed down the last of his drink.

“Impressive work,” the waitress nodded at the glass, but they all knew what she was talking about.

“You must be new,” he said, and put a ten-dollar bill into the glass, the edge soaking up the final bit of the drink. “You'll buy some discretion with the change.” The waitress's eyes got big and Maya felt vindication.

“Don't know why Wilma sent you to the Stockman,” Marion said.

“You've been here,” Maya said. “You've been everywhere.”

“I spent the summers near here when I was fifteen through eighteen. They've always been rude at the Stockman.”

“I told Wilma I wanted music,” Maya said.

He nodded at the dance floor. “Some other time.”

“Marion,” she said. Marion, Marion, Marion. “I can't.”

“You can't,” he said. “I'm heartless for trying.”

“No . . .” she started. “You must know . . .” She couldn't get out what she wanted to say in the pitiless amount of time before Alex became confused and came back inside.

“You go first,” he said. “I'll settle your bill. Go.”

She didn't move. “That I can't manage to either.”

“Go, Maya,” he said. “Go.”

She walked away like a ghost.

The meal at the Dundee stretched interminably. Max exhibited the first signs of life since leaving New Jersey. He wanted the flank steak, though he ate only the part that flapped over the plate. Maya would have said no to such a large meal, but she felt too guilty. Alex finished it in addition to his own shepherd's pie. Maya's hands shook and she drank water even though she had no taste for it. Incredibly, Max asked for dessert. Max never asked for dessert. Even as Maya welled with relief at seeing her son recover his appetite and a measure of energy, it meant the protraction of her misery, more time until she could bury her head in a pillow and make herself fall asleep. She pleaded for tonight to be a night when, because of misery, she fell asleep instead of stayed up. Once upon a time, she had slept soundly, like her son when he was an infant. Could he have got that from her, in some osmotic way? Or was it a coincidence, and actually he owed it to something about his genes? Maybe Alex had been more right than wrong about that. She was condemned to ask herself questions like this for the rest of her life. Perhaps she should drink not water, but more alcohol. Obliterate herself to make sure she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. She would pay for it the next day, but that was the next day. She was willing to spend her birthday in pieces if it only meant this day would end.

Maya and Alex watched Max go at a sundae. He managed only a fraction. Maya was relieved, but Alex took on leftovers again, and they waited while he worked.

“She does okay, Wilma,” Alex said, looking up from the empty plate and wiping his mouth. Misery made him hungry. Maybe he wasn't miserable. He was going home tomorrow.

The proprietress refused to take money. “That potato gratin went over like hotcakes,” she said. “Things are usually slowing down this time, but I had my busiest night of the month. I had two fellows from up near Worth who ate their meals and then ordered second sides of the gratin on top.”

Maya left a twenty-dollar tip on the table. She did not want to owe anyone anything. Alex looked at her disapprovingly, but did not interfere.

Maya felt vile undressing in the light, as if her betrayal was painted all over her. Max had been put to sleep in a little alcove next to the main room. It was just her and Alex, without the protection and distraction of Max. Alex seemed as if he had forgotten all about Laurel and Tim. So had she. That was Marion's gift. She'd never asked him about the paint flecks on his wrist. Was he a painter? A housepainter? She didn't even know what he did for a living. How could you come so close with someone without knowing what they did for a living?

“Maya,” her husband called to her again. He had already climbed into bed.

She looked down at him vacantly.

“Are you thinking of them?” he said. He was trying to be thoughtful, and she tried to be grateful.

“Yes,” she said. “What is it?”

“Switch off the light. I forgot the light.”

In minutes, Alex was wheezing into his pillow as if he were at home. She lay next to him silently. She envied his comfort—and he was the one who had insisted it was uncomfortable here. She had been wrong—it would not be a night when she would drop into sleep. To avoid waking Alex, she tried to avoid moving. She was an odd prisoner, no bars but she couldn't move. So she lay, incarcerated in position, and wept silently at the ceiling.

The clock was past two
A.M.
when she allowed herself to slip from the bed. She tiptoed to the bathroom. The ventilator's rattle was shocking after the silence of the bedroom, and she closed the door too loudly. Heart beating, she listened to make out whether she had woken anyone, but no sound came. To get rid of the noise, she had to switch off the light, and was plunged into darkness.

She thought about climbing into the bathtub and letting hot water run over her, but the darkness of the room was so complete that she would make new noise. So she sat on the closed toilet in the darkness and stared at the wall. She was out of tears, and just stared.

Her mother had told her a story: Her own father had walked into the bathroom one night to relieve himself. He didn't like to turn on lights. But when he relieved himself, he relieved himself all over his wife, because she had had the same idea and then fallen asleep on the toilet. Maya stifled a mirthless laugh. The story was ludicrous.