Based on a True Story (20 page)

thirty-seven

Augusta’s eyes were closed when they pulled into a Chevron station on the outskirts of Ventura. She did not hear Frances get out of the car and close the door as gently as possible. She woke only when Frances returned, slamming the door and throwing herself into the driver’s seat. The girl slapped the steering wheel with open palms.

“They took my goddamn credit card.”

Augusta struggled to remember where she was. The air smelled of petrol and chewing gum. A bright light bathed the car, but beyond the pool of light was nothing but darkness and the sound of motorway traffic.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Was it a stick-up?”

Frances turned to look at her, and Augusta was pleased to see that she had not, as of yet, started crying.

“They confiscated my card, Augusta.” Her hand flapped at the little shop, glowing in the dark. “The girl took it . . . she saw some message on the display, and she snatched it right back out of my hands. Like I was a criminal.” Augusta saw an ominous glint in the corner of Frances’s eye. “She couldn’t have been more than eighteen, and here she is taking away my credit card.”

Augusta considered the gravity of this disaster. She said, “Did you at least get my cigarettes?”

A pack of Benson & Hedges landed in her lap.

“I think the kid felt sorry for me,” Frances said. “Which is terrific. A girl wearing braces who works in a Ventura gas station feels sorry for me.” She turned to Augusta. “You’re sure you didn’t bring a credit card?”

“No, darling, I told you. My credit cards are in a safe-deposit box in Zurich along with my diamonds and bullion.” Augusta rolled down the window and threw the cigarette wrapping out. “We can do without at this stage, surely? We’re flying home tomorrow evening. We can sleep in the car if need be. There is always the business lounge at the airport if we need sustenance. I shall tutor you in the dark arts.”

Frances was silent, her gaze lost in the distance.

“Frances?”

“There’s a fee for changing our flights home,” she said. “$150 each. We have to pay at the airport before they’ll let us on the flight. I was going to charge it.”

Augusta undid her seat belt, which suddenly felt constricting. Her dream in reach, now floating away.

“I have to get home,” she said. “I need to get that script from David for the audition.”

“Yes,” said Frances absently. She was silent for a moment. “There is something we could do.”

“Return to that lovely motel in Hollywood and offer to perform sex acts on the local citizenry? I nominate you, darling. Your joints are much more flexible.”

Frances’s eyes were cool in the dim light of the car. “We could return the computer to Deller. I’ll bet he’d happily lend us a few hundred bucks if we gave it back.”

Augusta shrank back in her seat. She pulled the laptop close to her chest. “I much prefer my plan.”

thirty-eight

“There!” Augusta shouted. “Pull over, for God’s sake.”

“Augusta,” said Frances, knuckles pale on the wheel, “there are six lanes of traffic preventing me from pulling over. You cannot bend the freeway to your will.”

But of course she could. A mile later Frances found an exit, circled, and took the first northbound ramp. They drove back up the Ventura Freeway. After a few minutes, Augusta gestured frantically at the neon sign and they pulled into a parking lot filled almost entirely with pickup trucks.

“The Lonely Heifer,” said Augusta, as she stepped out of the car. “One lonely heifer calling to another. Kismet, don’t you think?”

Frances looked at the bar in front of them. A honky-tonk, her mother would have called it. A pair of ox horns hung over the front door, and a sign in the window showed the cartoon of an angry bull’s face next to the words,
TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS. BEAT JERRY AND WIN BIG!
Their rental car sat dwarfed between two Dodge Rams. One of them had a bumper sticker, its message nearly obscured by mud:
DRIVER ONLY CARRIES $20 WORTH OF AMMUNITION.

“Nice place,” said Frances.

Augusta was already dragging her toward the door. “We need to regroup, darling. A winning strategy is always aided by a few drinks. So said Churchill.”

“There’s the small matter of us having zero money.”

Augusta regarded her with pity. “Have I taught you nothing in all this time?”

“I’m driving, Augusta.”

“No, you’re whinging.” Augusta pushed her back an arm’s length and stared at her in the parking lot’s halogen glow. “Trust me, self-pity does nothing for your complexion.”

Frances was working on a retort when Augusta pulled her through the doors. It was dark inside, the gloom cut by the light of a dozen neon beer signs. Faith Hill was singing that love was merely an illusion. A line of men stood at the bar, watching a car race on a giant television. Almost as one, they turned when the door opened.

The fellow nearest the door was a giant in pressed jeans, his head a granite slab under a greying crew cut. He saw Augusta and the rock of his face split in a wide smile.

Augusta whispered, “My God, you grow them large in this country. That one’s the size of a fridge. No, he’s the size of the box the fridge came in.”

She tossed her hair back as if the stage manager had just called her entrance, and strode to the bar.

“Fine! I’m going to the ladies,’” Frances called after her. She spoke to empty air.

Sighing, she headed for a sign on the wall that said
HEIFERS.
She passed an empty dance floor, and a corral next to it where a mechanical bull sat, still and riderless, under a spotlight. A cluster of foam mattresses were piled under the bull, their covers worn with hard use. On the wooden fence separating the bull from the bar was another sign:
CAN YOU BEAT JERRY? WIN $200. NO BULL!

There was a chair in the restroom and Frances collapsed into it. The latest indignity was too much to bear. To be without a credit card — to have it repossessed, as if she were a criminal — it felt as though the ground had given way beneath her. Why had she never appreciated the sweet, sweet sound of the cash-dispensing machine when she’d had a chance? The click of the money-gate opening, the swish of bills sliding through. A quotidian act of magic, taken for granted.

Every day with Augusta had felt like the end of the road, and yet there always seemed to be more road taking them into the unknown. Frances looked at herself in the mirror. She was tired of being a thing at the end of a string, jerked and pulled this way and that. She could take control of this one moment. The journey back to self-respect could begin with one small step. For Augusta’s sake, and her own, there was only one thing she could do.

With shaking hands, Frances reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. She scrolled to her sent messages, and found the address and phone number Augusta had sent from Mr. Romance’s house. She typed a message quickly and, before she could think twice, hit Send.

Mr Deller u can find us Lonely Heifer, Ventura Frway. We have whats yours

At the bar, she found Augusta cementing her friendship with the giant. Ross — Frances thought he was called Ross, but it might have been Hoss, or even Boss — was a divorced building contractor. He was also missing a finger on his left hand.

Augusta appeared to be enjoying Ross’s courtliness, and not paying for her drinks. She did not even seem to mind the beefy four-pronged hand at the small of her back, or that he was inhaling her cloud of hair.

A trio of drinks appeared on the bar in front of them. Ross cupped the tequila glass, brought it to his mouth, and slammed it empty on the bar.

“Now you,” he said to Augusta. “If you think you can take it.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Do I look like a woman who’s having her first shooter?” She raised her drink to him. “Up your auntie.” And with one smooth motion she tipped it into her mouth and slid the glass across the bar for a refill.

The big man clapped Augusta on the shoulder and nearly sent her flying. Kenny Chesney was singing about wanting to quit women and whisky, and Augusta raised her voice over the music: “What terrible accident befell your hand?”

Ross leaned closer, slid a hand down Augusta’s back: “What’s that, honey?”

“You appear to be short a digit,” Augusta yelled.

“Oh,” he said, taking a long pull from his beer. “Wedding ring. Didn’t notice it was caught in the gate of my truck. Slammed it shut. Goodbye finger.”

“Did you hear that?” Augusta said to Frances, sliding a shooter toward her. “Marriage is hazardous to the health. As I have always said. But no one listens.”

In the light of the Miller High Life signs on the wall, Augusta was savage and beautiful. She glowed with the success of her nine-fingered conquest. The men in the bar, even the young ones, watched her over the tops of their beer. Frances, on the other hand, felt green and queasy, and not because of the tequilas that Ross and his friends kept buying. She had done a very bad thing.

Or perhaps it was a very good thing, but it was too soon to tell. They were in the eye of the storm, the period before chaos descended, and only Frances saw it coming. Augusta was oblivious, and fond of their new friends.

Frances spun her stool away and nearly slid off. Too much tequila, too many nerves. In the mechanical bull’s enclosure, one of the bar staff was checking the saddle, pulling on the cinch that kept it in place. The saddle’s horn was shiny with use, its stirrups scuffed and peeling.

“You gonna give old Jerry a try?”

Frances spun back around to face the bar. “I beg your pardon?”

The bartender had a wide, friendly face, square teeth set in a square jaw. An American face. “Contest starts in twenty minutes. Every Friday night, all these boys try to beat Jerry. Stay on his back two minutes, win two hundred bucks.”

“I could use two hundred bucks.”

The bartender laughed. “Get in line, sweetheart.” He poured a tequila; the shot glass was dwarfed in his wide brown hands. Sliding it across the bar, he said, “This is on Ross’s tab.”

Frances stared at it. One more drink and she’d be under the table, but she wanted to be oblivious for what was to come. She whispered, “I’ve done a very bad thing.”

The bartender looked at her for a minute, and the concern in his eyes might have been professional, or it might not. “You and me and everyone in this place.”

The bartender moved on to serve another customer. Augusta loudly regaled Ross and his friends with a story about a famous action star whose wig had fallen off mid-coitus. How long did it take to drive from Los Angeles to Ventura? There was still time to make a confession and escape. Closing her eyes, Frances poured the drink down her throat. It was vile, and wonderful.

thirty-nine

The bearded man whipsawed off the back of Jerry the bull, sailed through the air and landed with a thud that shook the entire bar.

“Dear God,” said Augusta, thrilled. “That was like watching the Leaning Tower of Pisa fall.”

Ross hooted. “Tower of Pizza, more like.”

Frances slid from her stool and stumbled over to the fence surrounding Jerry’s corral. The bearded man lay on his back on a battered foam mattress, unmoving. She leaned closer: the white lettering on his T-shirt (“Free Moustache Rides”) was definitely quivering; a slight movement, but movement nonetheless.

She turned back to the bar and shouted, “He’s alive!”

“’Course he’s alive,” said the bartender, whose name, she had learned, was Kyle. “That boy comes in here and falls off every week, regular as clockwork. He’s got Kentucky-fried brains.” Behind her, the fallen contestant groaned and rolled to his side.

Frances made her way carefully back to the bar. It had been ninety minutes since she’d sent the text, plenty of time to get from West L.A. to Ventura. Perhaps he wasn’t coming. Perhaps he couldn’t care less.

“Augusta,” she said, as she slipped back onto her stool. “I should tell you something.”

Ross had his face buried in Augusta’s neck but she shrugged him off.

“Are you all right, darling?” She leaned in closer to peer at Frances. “Are you going to be sick? Shall I take you outside?”

There was worry in her voice, and Frances felt a pang of remorse at the betrayal she had just set in motion. “No, I’m fine. It’s just —”

“That’s good,” said Augusta. “Because I want you to see me squeeze the life out of that bull.”

Frances shook her head to clear the tequila from her ears. “I thought I just heard you say —”

“That I’m going to ride the bull. Yes.” Augusta tipped a shot of tequila into her mouth and squeezed a lime in after. She seemed at once incredibly drunk and remarkably sober, an ancient sea captain who no longer feels the force of the waves.

This was more chaos than Frances was prepared to handle. “Augusta,” she said, “that’s insane.”

But Augusta was already standing. “You worry too much,” she said. “I once played a witch on an episode of
Hammer House of Horror
, and I was required to ride a horse.” She paused. “Though it might have been a donkey.”

“That thing,” Frances pointed at the bull, now riderless. “That thing will kill you.”

“Ridiculous. Do we or do we not need two hundred dollars?”

Frances felt defeat settle on her. “We do.”

“Well, then. You’re just worried I’ll end up crippled and you’ll have to change my catheter. Which may be a valid fear.” She brushed the hair from Frances’s forehead, a disturbingly maternal gesture. “If I break my neck, I bequeath you everything I don’t own.”

Ross, swaying, turned to the bar: “This little English girl’s gonna ride Jerry! Show you ladies how it’s done.” A chorus of jeers greeted this announcement.

It seemed imperative to Frances that she stop this madness. There must be a brake somewhere. Hysteria would only act as a goad. So she counted slowly to ten, though she missed seven and had to go back.

She took Augusta’s arm, careful not to seem desperate, and said, “Look, I understand that you think we need the cash. But we don’t. I can call my parents in the morning, they’ll transfer the money to my account. We’re fine.”

Augusta put her hand on Frances’s and squeezed. The beam from the fly-speckled light above had shrunk the bar so it was just the two of them, a pair of actors oblivious to their audience. Augusta held the girl’s eyes.

“Is that what you want, to ask your mother for help? I believe you turned her down once already. I don’t want you to sell your independence for me.” Frances didn’t know what to say. Slowly, Augusta peeled the girl’s hand from her shoulder. “You’ve done so much already, Frances. Don’t think I don’t know. Let me do this. For us.”

Augusta slid off her stool, suddenly the clearest head in the room. She blazed with purpose, and her light fell across Frances’s clouded brain, illuminating something that had always been there.
She’s happy because she’s going to perform
, Frances thought.
Even if she dies, it’ll be fine because she’s dying on stage.

She reached for Augusta’s arm but her hand flailed at empty air. Augusta had dropped her purse on the floor, the computer landing with a crack that echoed above the sound system’s steel guitars. She strode toward the bull as if she were making an entrance on opening night.

“Even if you win it’s not enough money,” Frances yelled. The words formed a slurry cake in her mouth.

Augusta ignored her. She had reached the fence. The hooting in the bar reached a deafening pitch, and Ross was howling like a coyote. An assistant opened the gate and Augusta strode toward the mechanical bull, her hair a torch under the overhead light.

Frances wished she could remember the words to Hail Mary, which her friend Katie had taught her in ninth grade, when it appeared Katie might be pregnant and destined for an overseas convent school. In the corral, Augusta kicked off her heels and held one bare foot out to the bull wrangler.

“Ready for mounting.”

“You are bloody well not!”

The voice cut through the babble, drowning out Luke Bryan on the jukebox. Frances knew exactly who it was before she turned to the door and saw the tall man she’d met at Fantasmagoria™. She recognized his dark suit and broken nose, if not the lurid purple bruise on his temple. His mouth was set in a hard, bitter line. In Deller’s shadow stood Charles, the boy from the bookstore. Augusta’s son. Frances felt her stomach lurch. She hadn’t expected the boy.

Augusta was immobile under the harsh lights, one hand on the saddle, her mouth a black cave of surprise. In a second, though, she made her decision: stepping hard on the assistant’s cupped hands, she swung herself into the saddle.

Kenneth moved quickly across the bar, shoving people out of the way with both hands.

“Get down,” he barked.

“Piss off,” Augusta responded, and flung a thumb up at the assistant. He moved over to the controls, and the bull began a slow gyration, gently tipping forward and back.

“Augusta,” Ken called. “You’re no good to me dead.” He plunged toward the corral, but Ross pulled him up short.

“Hey,” said the contractor, “I don’t know where you come from, but this is a free country. Let the lady ride.”

Frances heard an echoing murmur: “Let ’er ride.” Ken removed Ross’s hands and shoved him away, roughly. Ross shoved back. Charles suddenly bobbed up between them, a puppy between two mastiffs.

“Get out of my way,” Kenneth snarled.

Ross leaned in, pumped with the courage of Sauza Gold: “Who the hell are you, the king of England?”

Kenneth grabbed a handful of Ross’s shirt: “We don’t have a king, you imbecile.”

Suddenly a shriek sliced through the bar. Charles whirled away from the two men and ran toward the corral.
I don’t want to look
, Frances thought,
I don’t want to look.
But she did.

Augusta’s hair whipped behind her as her head snapped up and down, side to side. Jerry heaved and bucked, but she stayed on. Improbably, against the odds, she was beating the bull.

At the side of the ring, the assistant grimaced. He pulled a lever toward him and suddenly the bull’s movements became frenzied. It whipped this way and that, pitching and rearing like a boat caught in a hurricane swell. Augusta’s face was white with concentration. The bull gave one diabolical twist and Frances heard, from beside her, a strangled shout: “Mum!”

Augusta must have heard it too because she looked up and in that moment when her attention strayed her hand slipped from the saddle. They watched as she arced gracefully through the air and plummeted toward the earth.

The ambulance doors shut. It turned out of the parking lot onto the freeway, lights flashing. “I’ll meet you at the hospital, Frances,” Kenneth said. “Charles, are you coming?”

The boy stood next to Frances, shivering in the night air. He wore only a T-shirt and Frances wondered, absurdly, if anyone had ever told him to put on a sweater when he went outside. Charles shook his head. Ken seemed to want to say something, but he merely nodded and gripped the young man’s shoulder.

“2002,” said the boy, his eyes on the ambulance as it disappeared into traffic.

They both turned to look at him. “Easter, 2002.”

“Dear God, yes.” Kenneth began to laugh, caught himself, sputtered to a stop. “We had to pack your mother into an ambulance then, too.”

“She said she’d taken too many antihistamines. For an allergy I’d never heard of until that moment,” Charles said. “I never asked her how many antihistamines you had to take before you passed out in the gravy.”

Ken reached over to pull the boy close, but Charles remained stiff in his arms. Frances caught the edge of a whisper: “— you will try to come?” Augusta’s son remained impassive, and Kenneth sighed. He took out his wallet, removed some cash, put it in Charles’s hand. With a nod to Frances, he got in his car.

Frances looked over at Charles, who seemed to have aged ten years. She wished she had a jacket to lend him.

“This has been an exceptionally odd day,” she said.

“Not really,” Charles said. “It’s my childhood all over again.”