Around the World in 80 Dates (23 page)

“Oh, I was just about to call you,” Sandy said as soon as she heard my voice. Apparently, the date was off. “Cleete's recovering from surgery,” she told me apologetically. “It's an occupational hazard when you ride those bulls. He punctured a lung and broke his back in seven places.”

I murmured my sympathy; clearly Cleete had thrown himself into rodeo in every sense of the word.

“He's been quite depressed,” she continued in a motherly tone, as if explaining why little Billy couldn't come out and play football, “and really isn't up to dating at the moment.”

Reassuring Sandy that I understood (which I did; why he would choose to do something so dangerous was what I was struggling with), I noted her suggestion to visit Bill and Ramona Holt. They ran a rodeo museum on their ranch out of town and had been in the business themselves for over forty years.

 

The Holt Heritage Museum housed a huge and fascinating collection of wagons, saddles, and folk art from the Nez Perce Indians (who developed the Appaloosa horse) and the cowboy ranchers who settled here alongside them. It also celebrated rodeo riding, a sport with a following as big and fanatical in the western States as soccer in the U.K.

For years Bill Holt was one of the sport's top announcers and Ramona Holt, his wife, one of the country's leading barrel racers (where tiny women hurtle at breakneck speed on horse-back around a course of barrels).

Ramona let me inspect the wagons, rescued and restored from the turn of the twentieth century. Cowboy life looked organized but hard: Families were isolated and forced to be self-sufficient (noting my squeamish reaction to hearing that people sewed up their own wounds, Ramona told me she'd sewn up all her children's wounds: “When you live in the country, that's just how things are,” she said with a shrug).

Cowboy ranching—close-knit families tending cattle on horseback—was at the heart of rodeo. Like ranching, rodeo was a family affair. Rodeo riders weren't contracted to a team; they mostly came from ranching families, the parents and wives acting as their support units (driving the horses across the country, maintaining the equipment, etcetera).

Rodeo was divided into five major events: steer wrestling, team roping, tie-down roping, barrel racing, and bull riding. Showing me around a barn full of intricately tooled leather saddles, Bill told me rodeo was a serious business. “It's a professional sport and the competitors are professional athletes,” he said gravely.

Bill stressed that the sport had standards. A heritage, too. “It's the only sport that's grown out of an industry,” he said proudly. “The cattle industry. Rodeo represents ranching and the Old West.”

It made sense that rodeo had evolved from ranching. Like being a turn-of-the-century-cowboy's wife, life with a rodeo rider sounded like a hard, extremely full-time job. I doubted that I—riding skills limited to cycling to Starbucks every morning; animal-wrangling skills limited to a pet hamster when I was eight—would be a natural fit. I explained to Bill I'd been due to date a ranch cowboy, but he'd been too damaged (something I generally didn't discover until the date) to make it.

“When you say he had a punctured lung,” Bill said, waving his hand dismissively and snorting with contempt, “well, he wasn't wearing a protective vest. You're telling me straightaway he's not a professional.” Like a father comforting his stood-up daughter on prom night, he patted my arm reassuringly. “I'm sure he's a wonderful guy, but, sweetie, he's just an amateur.”

Amateur date promptly dismissed, Bill and Ramona showed me around their collection of cowboy boots.

It was fabulous: a vast array of boot couture featuring the cream of C & W instep royalty, from John Wayne, Johnny Cash, and Clint Eastwood to Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, and Loretta Lynn. I teased Bill when he showed me Tom Selleck's boots. Shiny and showy, they were the cowboy boot equivalent of a Porsche.

“They're surprisingly small,” I taunted mischievously.

“No, ma'am,” Bill replied firmly, without hesitation, “I think you'll find you're wrong there.”

I left the ranch in no doubt that—from head to toe—rodeo men were Real Men.

 

As I walked into the hotel lobby, one of the receptionists called me over. “Ms. Cox, you have a visitor. He's waiting outside on the terrace.”

A visitor?
My heart sank.
Oh, please, don't let it be Cam.

With a huge sense of dread and trepidation, I walked through the side doors onto the terrace that looked out across the river. But I didn't recognize the man sitting quietly on the bench, his eyes closed as if asleep. He wore a cowboy hat and leather chaps. He also wore an extremely uncomfortable-looking corset, which reached from his waist up to his neck, holding him in a rigid upright position.

Oh, no. This had to be Cleete, the rodeo rider.

As he heard my feet on the path, Cleete turned awkwardly, winced, tried to stand up, winced again, and miserably eased himself back into a sitting position on the bench.

“Oh, my God, Cleete, is that you?” I asked, sitting carefully next to him, fearing he'd try to stand up again.

“Yes, ma'am, it is,” Cleete replied through gritted teeth, sweat trickling down his face, either from the heat of the corset or the pain of his injuries.

“Cleete, whatever are you doing here? Sandy said you were recovering from surgery,” I asked, horrified.

Unable to turn, Cleete wiggled the fingers on his left hand, as if they were doing the talking. “Couldn't have no Enger-lish lady thinkin' rodeo riders let a little biddy bit o' pain git in the way o' their datin',” he wheezed, clearly in agony.

This was crazy.

“Cleete, how did you get here? Did Sandy bring you?” He wiggled his fingers. I took that to mean yes. “Is she here now?” Again he wiggled his fingers. Asking Cleete to excuse me, I ran into reception, borrowing their phone, and called Sandy on her cell.

She answered straight away. “I know, I know, Jennifer,” she told me in a fluster. “But he just wouldn't listen to reason. He insisted on coming to meet you.”

“Sandy, you've got to come and pick him up,” I told her sternly. “The man should be on anti-inflammatories and pain killers, not on a date.”

“I'm just pulling into the parking lot now,” she said, sounding more harassed than ever. “I'll be with you in two minutes.”

Four minutes later, Sandy and I were loading Cleete into her truck.

“Don't be leavin' on my account.” Cleete winced as Sandy gently buckled the seat belt over his surgical corset.

“It's not you, it's me,” I lied, wanting him to get home but with his pride intact. “I have a bit of a headache.”

Rigid with pain, Cleete was clearly having trouble focusing. He stared vaguely from the backseat as if a hundred miles away. “Ma'am, I sure am sorry to hear that,” he mumbled politely. “I have some pills here that'll git rid of that problem for you real fast.”

But Sandy had started the truck and was shouting her goodbyes. I thanked Cleete for coming to see me and waved them off.

That poor man: If bull riding was helping him forget the pain of a broken heart, his heart had clearly taken quite a thrashing.

 

Back in my hotel room, and still no message from Garry. Like a plate, I couldn't spin forever; my resolve not to call wobbled precariously.

I mean, it was fine: I knew he would call and it was still only 5 p.m. But in the meantime, waiting for the call was like needing to go to the toilet really badly: Until it had happened, it was impossible to do or think about anything else.

I turned on my laptop hoping to distract myself with Date Traffic. I thought Ted and Jason might have got back to me. I felt curiously guilty: almost as if by meeting Garry I'd cheated on them. I wanted to check that they were okay with my change in date status and that their feelings weren't hurt.

Scrolling down the emails, I caught up with the news from my world around the world. Things were calmer (for now) between Jo and Ryan; Cath had just got back from Antarctica; Belinda's baby daughter Maya was walking; my Thai date was happy I'd met someone but still wanted to go ahead with our date. I opened an email from a woman whose name I half-recognized:

My heart started to beat really fast as I read the email. I felt my mouth go dry and I put my hand up to it, as if fearing my heart was going to leap right out.

Kelly had a girlfriend.

 

You never know how much you're really over your ex, until you hear he has another girlfriend. Yes, I know I was dating stacks of people, I had met Garry, and I know it was now nearly a year and a half since Kelly and I had split up. But the shock of someone casually talking to me about him and his girlfriend was still immense.

I forgot to turn the computer off; I just scooped up my sunglasses, grabbed my bag, and went straight out into the smoke-hazed, late afternoon heat. In a daze, I got on the bike and cycled across town to the Iron Horse microbrewery. I needed a drink.

I found a table in the corner of the terrace and sat staring out across the other drinkers without noticing a single one of them.

Kelly had a girlfriend.

I hated that it hurt so much. And the fact that it did took me by surprise. For me, he was an appalling boyfriend; I was glad we weren't together anymore AND I'd just met the most amazing man ever. So why did it hurt that Kelly was with someone else? I thought I'd got him completely out of my system; why was there still undigested Kelly clogging up my emotional colon?

All these thoughts jostled around my head, fighting to be the one that made me feel the worst. I took a sip of my honey ale and pushed my sunglasses up my nose to hide the tears that were threatening to spill over my lower lashes.

Not wanting to cry in front of anyone made me more aware of the people at the tables around me. Two women in their late twenties sat close by. Both had huge manes of bleached blond hair, billowing magnificently out like breaking waves sculpted from cotton candy. They leaned close together, talking and smoking furiously.

They had boyfriend problems. The woman on the left stubbed her cigarette out, keeping on stubbing long after the glow was extinguished and the cigarette crumpled into the filter. “…I mean, I was only out of town for a week,” she said bitterly, “it really pisses me off.”

My heart sank further as I eavesdropped. Comparing their cheating boyfriends' misdemeanors, they complained it was hard to be a woman, yet both were standing by their man.

Two more women singing in Tammy's choir.

Was this the course of all relationships: starting out thrilled that you'd found your Soul Mate; ending up hating yourself for being a doormat? And if that was the case, did I really want to be in another relationship? Was Garry going to turn into another Kelly? Could I trust him, or would I always be bracing myself, waiting for the telltale signs it had all gone wrong?

I took a long sip of my drink and thought hard. Suddenly I felt a surge of irritation with myself for being so melodramatic.
Oh, get over it, Jenny,
I told myself crossly.

If I'd come all this way only to get cold feet, well, I didn't deserve the support of my friends, let alone to meet someone as lovely as Garry. Not everyone was a cheater. I mean, I'd cheated on poor Peter with Philip when I went to Australia, but I'd never been unfaithful again.

Let Kelly have a girlfriend (poor woman); I didn't want him back. I didn't want to keep looking back, either. I wanted a better boyfriend, and I could stay here and keep brooding about it, or go and find out if I'd just met him.

Jumping up and resisting the temptation to tell the women to dump their loser boyfriends, I headed for the door. Bugger being cool: I was going to the hotel to call Garry.

 

I cycled across town like a maniac, weaving in and out of traffic. I shot through two lights that stayed red far too long. Dumping my bike in the hotel reception, I paced agitatedly as a crowd of new arrivals slowly tried to work out the best way to fit all their luggage into the lift. Too impatient to wait any longer, I ran up three flights of stairs to my floor.

Hurtling into my room, the first thing I saw was the message light flashing on the console.

YES!

Snatching up the phone, I dialed into the answering service. An automated voice thanked me for calling and gave me the news that: