Monday, Monday: A Novel (40 page)

And yet now it was the milky moonlight that gave her a glimpse of Wyatt making his way up the road from the cabin. Carlotta studied him. He was tall, although he appeared smaller with the moon angled above him. He walked against the wind. He didn’t look left or right, but walked with purpose. An eddy of dust swirled on the road before him. Carlotta watched him climb the slope of the narrow road in the wide landscape under the clear sky.

48

WAITING FOR CARLOTTA

Shelly had washed the dishes, turned the kitchen television on and then off, walked outside and paced around in the windy driveway, only to come back in to sit at the kitchen table with the lights off and listen anxiously for any noise on the stairs.

What she heard was the squeak of the screen door in the front hall, and then Wyatt came in.

“It’s breezy out there,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Nothing yet?”

“They’re still upstairs.”

“Did you have any dinner?”

“No. Did you?”

“Lasagna.” He opened the refrigerator, the bright interior light throwing his shadow backward across the planks of the floor. “I’ll make you something.”

“There’s no possible way I could eat.”

“How about tuna salad? There’s some here. And fruit salad.”

“No thanks.”

“Have you eaten at all today?”

“A sandwich.”

“I could make you a milk shake.”

“I really don’t want anything.”

“Then how about just a glass of wine?”

“I don’t drink anymore.”

He looked at her. “Ever?”

“I was drinking too much after Dan died, so I gave it up. Now and then I have a glass of wine, but tonight isn’t the night.”

He served himself a bowl of ice cream and carried it to the table. Watching the way he held the spoon reminded her of watching him paint. His presence still felt strongly illicit.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m not sure if I’m more worried about Carlotta or Madeline.”

“How are
you
, Shelly?”

She shook her head. “Scared to death of what they’ll think of me after tonight. And still ashamed … on a number of levels … I guess. Which seems unnecessary after all these years, but it’s the case. I’m not sure I’ll be able to look anyone in the eye.”

“You can look me in the eye.”

She did so for a second, but the intensity of her feelings unnerved her, and she looked away.

“And you can probably look Ranger in the eye,” he said. “His behavior is worse than yours ever was.”

She laughed.

“I feel I can look Ranger in the eye myself,” he added.

Her laughter slid away, and she touched his hand on the table. “Not that it matters … with things as they are. But I have missed you.”

He took hold of her hand. The light from the chandelier in the hall shone in his eyes, partly obscuring her in the shadows as he watched her, her shirt wrinkled, the cuffs unbuttoned. Her hair had fallen into her face, reminding him of the windy day at Port Aransas and how she had watched the sandpipers dart in and out of the water and leave their teasing prints in the sand.

For forty years, he had dreamed of her, and now he marveled at the subtle changes. Her eyelids sagged a little, and her mouth dropped at the corners, ever so slightly. But she was beautifully familiar. Age had softened, not coarsened her. The small dip in her clavicle created a shadowed hollow. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “when I left you that day in Lockhart, at your parents’ house, I didn’t believe it was over. Not that I held out real hope, but … I’ve never believed it was over.”

“It was over,” she said gently. “If it hadn’t been, I couldn’t have married Dan.”

“Of course.” That was as it should be. But her statement saddened him, because he would have liked to believe she had always belonged to him in some way. With her truthfulness, she had taken herself back.

She let go of his hand reluctantly and they spoke in low voices about their lives, their children, how generous and good Jack and Delia had been. They talked about Elaine’s cancer and how strong the marriage had become in spite of everything, and how agonized Wyatt was at the thought of telling Elaine the truth now. Shelly told him how much she missed Dan, and Wyatt asked her if she thought she would ever remarry. She said she didn’t think so. “But I’ve stopped ever trying to predict anything,” she said. They shared memories and talked about the choices they had made and not made, and Shelly thought of how Wyatt had rescued her, only to break her heart, and how the rain had tumbled out of the sky when she sat in the station wagon and told him she was pregnant. She remembered how in Lockhart he had turned and left her. “After you were gone, sometimes I felt like I had made the whole thing up. The way it ended so suddenly, without even a phone call after that … It didn’t just take away what we had; it took away what we’d been through.”

He wanted to stand and pull her into his arms. “You have no idea how many times I had my hand on the phone,” he said, and she pictured herself, pregnant, watching
Petticoat Junction
and
The Newlywed Game
on Aileen’s couch and wishing the phone would ring.

But those memories were a world she didn’t want to return to. Madeline and Carlotta were what mattered now, and she longed for Carlotta to come downstairs so the waiting would be over.

“She’ll get through this,” Wyatt assured her. “She’s like you. She’s resilient.”

“She’s never let things upset her too much,” Shelly said. “She gets pensive and restless, but she tends to see the bright side. Honestly, I’m most worried about Madeline. She’s especially vulnerable right now because of the problems with Andy. Carlotta will have gained something from tonight, even if it’s just answers, and Madeline will have lost faith in me at the exact time she needs somebody to trust. Before Dan’s death she was jealous of my relationship with Carlotta, and Dan thought we should tell her the truth. We were going to talk with Jack and Delia about it, and then see if Jack would talk to you. But then after what happened, I just couldn’t do that to her. I guess you know that the reason we were coming to Alpine that weekend was the opening of Carlotta’s store.”

Wyatt nodded.

“Madeline hasn’t forgotten that.”

“You couldn’t have known what would happen, Shelly.”

“I’ve had that conversation with myself—plenty of times. It never sinks in totally. Anyway, that’s too painful to talk about right now. I should be telling you what a spectacular teacher Madeline is. She teaches fourth grade, and the kids love her. She’s dogmatic in the way she imposes order, but they flock around her.”

Wyatt listened while she continued to talk about Madeline. “There’s something I’m curious about,” he said. “Why you gave her the portrait.”

“How did you know I gave it to her?”

“I asked Jack why it was in the closet out at the cabin and he said Madeline must have brought it.”

“It’s in the cabin?”

“It was last night. When I looked again this afternoon, it wasn’t.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. I can’t see why she would bring it with her.”

“I noticed it was damaged.”

“Damaged?”

She apparently hadn’t known this, so he was sorry he had mentioned it. “Not badly. Some of the paint looks like it got slightly damp. It can be fixed.”

“What does it look like?”

“Just some of the paint has a little damage. It’s not serious.”

“Damage, where? Which part?”

“Some of the paint that was less stable.”

“But which part?”

“The part that was added,” he finally said.

It dawned on her. “The blouse?”

“Just part of it.”

“How much of it?”

“Not a lot.”

“Can you see—what’s underneath it?”

“No, not unless you were really looking.”

“Madeline
would
be looking.” Agitated, she got up and walked to the refrigerator and began searching the shelves.

“What are you looking for?”

She didn’t know. “Something to drink.” The refrigerator was crowded. She removed a jug of milk that blocked her view and set it on the floor, then removed a plastic container of cherry tomatoes, a bag of miniature carrots. She was looking into the back, but all she could see in her mind was the portrait.

Wyatt stood up. “Shelly?” She let the door swing closed, sweeping away the interior light, and then was aware that the yellow light from the hallway had shifted and blinked away. Turning, she saw Carlotta in the doorway, her curls an orange halo.

She stood for a moment without saying anything. No one said a word. Then, haltingly, Carlotta said, “Mom and Dad told me. It’s a little bit of a shock. I want you to know I’m happy, but … it’s kind of hard to think of you as my parents … because you’ve both always been someone else to me. It’s not like I’m starting from scratch to get to know you.”

Shelly forgot the portrait, and Madeline, and Wyatt, and all the events of the day, and almost all the events of four decades. They vanished, leaving only Carlotta, silhouetted by the light.

Shelly managed to say, “If there’s anything you would like to ask … something you want us to explain—”

Carlotta said, a little flatly, “So you were in love, and you were pregnant, and Wyatt was married. And you believed it was best to give me up.”

“I hoped it was best. I wasn’t sure what I believed.”

Carlotta fell quiet, looking at her, and then said, “Then why don’t we start with Beeville.”

The jug of milk was still at Shelly’s feet. The cherry tomatoes. Wyatt stood by the table. “I went to Beeville to stay with my mother’s aunt, Aileen.”

“So no one would know about me?”

“Yes.”

“And you gave birth to me there in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

Carlotta turned to Wyatt. “And you saw me … later?”

“When you were a month old. I was living in Provincetown. I came to stay with your parents in Austin.”

She blinked. She looked at Shelly again. “When I was born, did you hold me?”

The memory came to her—the little pink bundle that the nurse had carried away. “Yes.”

“You held me?”

“I held you. For a few days.”

“Oh,” Carlotta whispered.

The memories were too clear for Shelly—the blue, blue eyes, and delicate ears, the fierce grip of the little hands, the round clock on the wall stealing the hours by seconds.

“And Mom and Dad came to get me?”

She recalled how she had run in her gown through the lobby, even the useless breast dripping milk. Delia had worn a green dress. Delia had embraced her, so that both of them at once were holding the baby. She remembered the red coat her mother had brought her, and getting into the station wagon, and how she had wanted to scream and open the door and throw herself out into the street. She put her hands to her eyes and squeezed her eyes shut to stop the flood of tears and all the grief from coming. She felt her chest heave. “I wasn’t supposed to love you,” she cried.

49

THE END OF THE RODEO

The announcer’s voice echoed loudly through the arena: “She’s a fighter! We got ourselves a fighter! Get aholt of her tail!”

Wedged between Nicholas and Emmett, Madeline stood in the crowd at the rail, watching a man on a piebald horse lean back in his saddle and tug hard at a rope with a horned cow at the other end, the noise and hammer of hooves shaking the rail under Madeline’s palms. The man was trying to stop the cow before she slammed into the bucking chutes. Three cowboys on foot chased after her, while George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning” blared from the loudspeakers and wind tugged at the tin roof.

Nicholas stood on the middle rung of the rail, having retrieved his boot from the scramble and now wearing both boots again. Clay, on the far side of his father, leaned out toward the arena, watching the heifer buck and strain at the rope.

Emmett said, “Not my favorite event. Kind of hard on man and beast.”

The rider dismounted, digging his boot heels into the dirt as the cow hauled him forward. The running cowboys closed in and trapped the cow between them, securing her in a headlock. Two of them twisted her head while the third grabbed hold of her tail but was kicked away by her hind leg. Finally they managed to tug the rope off and hold the cow in place for long enough to get a bottle under her udder and a few squirts of milk. The skinniest ran with the bottle to a circle drawn in the dirt, and the audience cheered.

Clay leaned over to Nicholas. “Want to go look at the broncos?”

“Can I?” Nicholas asked his mother.

“He’ll be fine if he’s with Clay,” Emmett assured her.

“Okay,” she said. “Go tell your father where you’ll be, and ask him to keep an eye on you.”

She turned around and watched him climb into the stands and talk to Andy. In a minute, Andy came down. “I’m going to go with him to look at the broncos. Don’t you want to come?”

“I think Clay’s going to show you where they are,” she said. “And I want to watch this milking event. I’ll find you in a minute.”

Andy hesitated.

“Follow me,” Clay said. “This way.”

Nicholas hurried behind him, and Andy followed, glancing back at Madeline and Emmett.

Another team positioned themselves in the arena while a handler opened a gate and a black cow burst through. The cow pitched and moved in circles when she was roped, plunging toward the rail. Emmett took hold of Madeline’s arm and pulled her back just as the cow crashed into the rail in front of them. One of the cowboys had hold of the tail; another had hold of the rope. Two others tried to drag her head to the ground, but she charged at them and they fled. She wheeled around to confront them, planting her hooves, and swayed her head from side to side, puffing her nostrils. The cowboy still holding the rope approached and pulled her head to the ground while another ran up, shoved the bottle under her udder, and started to milk her.

But the cow sank to her knees.

“Gotta milk her standing up!” the announcer shouted. “Get her up! It’s a rule! Get her goin’! Get her movin’!”

The heaviest of the four team members took hold of her horns and attempted to pull her up as the cow rolled onto her side. The others shoved at her, one of them flapping his hat at her face, but she showed no more life than a boulder. The cowboys stood shaking their heads. The shortest one turned and shrugged his shoulders at the announcer.