Casanova Cowboy (A Morgan Mallory Story) (3 page)

“Mom
, I need to call Max,” I whispered. “How bad is the Blazer?”

As she
gently helped me strip the hospital gown off and put my dress back on, the tears started again. I looked into her eyes and saw the hurt she felt for me. The blood had dried and the fabric was stiff in the front. I could smell the rusty aroma as she pulled it on over my head. I couldn’t wait to get home and get it off.

“I’ve already called him
,” she said, her voice shaking. “He’s going to meet us at the house. I think the Blazer is pretty bad, but I haven’t seen it. Don’t worry about that right now. I don’t give a shit about the car. I’m just thankful you’re all right.”

I let go of the
bed and tried to balance, but I swayed back and forth. Mom saw it and she put her arm around me and helped me walk out into the hall.

“Oh, no, no,” a nurse called.
“Let me get a wheelchair.”

“I’m ok
ay,” I said.

“It’s policy,” she said
, racing past me.

She wheeled me out of the
hospital and to the car. Mom helped me get in. Dad didn’t say much on the drive home. I could tell that his initial relief that I was all right had turned to frustration at my recklessness. There was no excuse and I knew it.

Once we got to the house
, Mom walked me back to the bathroom closest to my room. I stared at my face in the mirror. There were hundreds of tiny nicks all over it with the biggest concentration on my forehead. I leaned toward the mirror and touched my hairline. I took in a deep breath feeling the anger at myself again tear through my body. I caught my mom’s expression in the mirror, as she looked at the back of my head, her lips taunt, forehead wrinkled.

“Apparently
, when you hit the telephone pole, you and Randy went into the windshield. When the car stopped and you were forced back, you ripped the rear view mirror off with your head. The adjustment arm on the back of the mirror is what tore your head open,” Mom said.

“Does Randy’s face look this bad?”
I asked.

She looked into the mirror at my reflection.

“He has some cuts, but not as many as you. He took the brunt of it here,” Mom said, drawing a line with her finger above her eyebrow. “About twenty-five stitches, I think.”

She helped
me to my bedroom and pulled a T-shirt out of my drawer for me. I winced as I took the dress off and put the T-shirt on, the muscles in my arms and neck suddenly feeling very sore. The sheets felt cool and soft when I slipped into the bed, comforting, but unable to soothe the pain, physically or mentally. Mom picked the dress up off the end of the bed and held it up to inspect it. I could see the blood from Randy on the front and my own blood on the back.

“Toss it
,” I said gloomily. “I wouldn’t wear it again even if you could get it out.”

Randy’s eyes, his concerned look in the ambulance, filled my head along with flashback’s of thoughts I’d had at the reception that I should leave.

“Yes, I think it’s a goner,” Mom said. “A lot of blood, Morgan, I’m so sorry baby.”

I felt responsible for her dismay
and it tugged at my heart.

“I had clean underwear on
,” I said, trying to lighten the moment.

She smiled
at me. I could see the sadness in her eyes.

“
Does your head hurt?” she asked.

It hadn’t stopped
hurting since the ambulance, in fact was getting progressively worse.

“Yeah
, feels like someone is hitting it with a hammer.”

“Nothing like it’s going to.
Dad said the doctor told him that the concussion on top of the injury would be very painful. I’m going to get you some aspirin,” she said.

As
Mom left the room, I could see Max coming down the hall. I would have to deal with his disappointment and anger too. Out of anger, I stole his car, and now I’d wrecked it.
Morgan and another bad decision
I thought to myself.

“Hi
, Patty,” he said apprehensively, as he passed by her in the hall.

“I’m going to get her some aspir
in. Be gentle, her head hurts,” she said.

He came and knelt
next to the bed and took my hand. His blue eyes searched mine.

“Let’s see
,” he said.

I turned so he could see the
wound.

“Ouch
,” he said tenderly.

“I’
m sorry I took the Blazer. I’ll pay for it, I promise,” I said as I turned to face him my voice trembling.

“I know you will,” he said.
“Why did you take it?”

“Because I was mad,” I said.

He thought about this a minute and didn’t comment.

“Why was Randy with you?” he asked.

“Here,” Mom interrupted as she came into the room.

She leaned down
, opening her hand, which held the aspirin and handed me a glass of water. I took the pills from her and tossed them back. My head was really starting to pound, that motion in itself was enough to make me dizzy. I saw little stars before my eyes. I didn’t want to explain about Randy right now.

“
Max, keep her awake about another forty-five minutes,” she said, looking at her watch. “Then she can go to sleep if she wants. The doctor didn’t want her to go to sleep right away.”

“Got you
,” he said.

I watched her leave
, knowing I had to answer his question, in some form or another. I clutched the sheet in my hands.

“
We went to a wedding reception, that friend of Tom’s,
Chris
I think his name is. A bunch of people were going. I gave him a ride, Max, that’s it. Nothing happened. I mean, except the accident. Have you seen the Blazer yet?” I asked, changing the subject.

“No
, I’m headed to the impound yard tomorrow to check out the damage,” he said.

He was glad I was goin
g to be all right, but I could sense his underlying anger about the Blazer and about me being with Randy. The fact that I blatantly defied him in driving the Blazer was puzzling to him.

“What’s happened to
you, Morgan? It’s like you’re trying to make me angry. You take my truck and then give Randy a ride. You know how I feel about him; he’s not one of my favorite people,” Max said, the sympathy now gone.

I thought about his lie from this morning and decided against bringing it up.
Did I want to make him angry?
It was my anger, at him, that made me do it.
How did he always turn things around to be about him?
I thought about how Randy made me feel: wanted and desired.
Were Max and I at a juncture of
so
comfortable, that those feelings had gone away?
I was too young to not feel those things. It was like Max and I had settled into some routine like my parents: coexisting.

“Do you still love me?” I asked
, searching his eyes.

Eyes I had once found to be everything I wanted.

“What a silly question,” he answered quickly dropping his eyes.

“Really?
When we first started dating, you pursued me. You took me to dinner, bought me flowers, and were honest with me,” I threw in. “It’s like something has changed, but I don’t know what, and you act like I’m crazy when I want to talk about it. I can’t put my finger on it, Max, but something has changed.”

I felt my cheeks get hot and a shooting pain through my head.

“Morgan, you have a concussion. You’re not thinking clearly,” he said, turning away from me.

“Maybe I am thinking clearly
, Max, and it scares me. It’s like I’m standing on the edge of a fast-moving river, and I can see the other side, but I don’t know what’s there. Feeling like whatever is there might be exactly what I need, but the river is moving too fast, and I can’t get there from here.”

“Ok
ay, you’ve lost it, you’re hallucinating,” he said in a frustrated tone.

“I’m not hallucinating,”
I said calmly.

I realized in my analogy that something needed to change, had to change.
For the first time, I was questioning our relationship.
Was this really what it was supposed to be like?
I found it curious he hadn’t said something like “of course I still love you” when I asked the question. Instead he called it a silly question.
Was this what love looked like?

Chapter 2

Over the next few months, I questioned everything about my life. My brain kept trying to dig into the real meaning of things, my relationship with Max, what love meant, my feelings. I spent time dissecting past relationships, one in particular, Mathew, my first love. In many ways, it made me more confused. More than once I wished I could stop the thoughts. I was spending a lot more time at my parents’ house, and to my surprise, Max didn’t like it. Didn’t like me not staying at his place. More confusion. Being at home at least I had a sounding board in my mom.

I s
eemed to be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. My questioning thoughts and conformity was bugging me now. I had always done things as expected, was a pretty good kid, did well in school, graduated with honors and went to college. Had an all American boyfriend. While I struggled with my feelings the summer flew by and I started back to junior college in September, and it helped distract me.

“Hey
, Mom,” I said as I came into the house through the back door.

“Hi
,” she said, surprised. “What brings you by?”

“Missed you
,” I said, walking up and kissing her.

I hadn’t been home for several days
and it was obvious she really missed me when I stayed away. I felt torn at times on where I wanted to stay: Mom liked my being around, but if I stayed home too much, Max complained. It was almost like, when I pulled away; he wanted to pull me back.

“That’s so sweet
,” she said. “But really?”

She was dressed in white shorts and a loose pale blue blouse standing at the kitchen table folding clothes.
She looked relaxed and pretty. Cool air filtered in through the screen doors.

“Really
,” I said, jumping up on one of the barstools. “Max is going out with Dave tonight, so I thought it was better to hang here than wait for him at his place. I wanted to see you anyway, so you get the pleasure of my company instead.”

“Of course I don’t
mind. I love your company,” she said with a laugh.

I loved her laugh, a real one, no
tee-hee
or holding back; she let go with real emotion.

“Yeah,
Liz wanted to go out, but I didn’t feel much like being social,” I said as she moved from the clothes to the sink facing me. “What are you fixing tonight?”

“P
ork chops,” she said. “I presume you are staying for dinner then?”

Her face lit up, a smile that made my heart sing.

“If you don’t mind,” I teased.

Mom and I were best friends. When I was young, we didn’t get along very well due to my struggle for teen independence. We had spent a lot of time shouting at each other about various things, mostly trivial. It took us moving to Southern California, leaving everything we knew, to learn to really like each other.

She
had felt as displaced as my brother Pat and me when Dad accepted a job in San Diego. He dragged us, kicking and screaming from San Jose to San Diego the year I turned sixteen. When our whole social circle was ripped out from under us, we became each other’s support system.

T
he journey from strictly mother/daughter to friends started slowly. First with discussions about the kids at school, how hard it was to be the new girl, how much I missed my friends back home. I was a teenager trying to deal with unwelcome changes and feelings. She reciprocated with her feelings about having no one she could talk to.

“So what
’s Max doing tonight?” Mom asked as she went about pulling stuff from the fridge. “You must be getting along.”

I knew she figured that because I hadn’t been home. Hadn’t railed my frustrations at her lately.

“Sort of, but tonight its boys’ night out, leave the girlfriends at home, whatever,” I said sarcastically. “Just Max and Dave hanging out in the bars. Liz and I know that it’s about checking out other girls. It’s not like they’re going for poker night or something, and we think it’s weird they don’t offer to take us with them.”

I
was frustrated with how Max and I would go along pretty good for a while and then for whatever reason we’d get off track.

“Yes that’s a little weird, especially if they really are going to
‘check out’ other girls as you say.”

Liz and I had caught them before, showed up at the same bar unexpected
to find them partying with other girls. Of course they always said it was innocent. The fact that they didn’t want us along didn’t make it feel so innocent.

“I don’t want to talk about them
,” I said. “Let’s talk about you, did you ever look into joining that bridge group you told me about?”

“No.
I can’t seem to get motivated,” she said.

“Mom,” I scolded
, “you promised.”

“I know.”

I could tell by her continuing to do what she was doing she wasn’t really interested in pursuing this conversation. I pushed anyway. I worried about all her alone time, with Dad gone a lot, and Pat and I often off.

“You were so social in San Jose
: all your friends, the parties, and your charities. It’s like when we moved here you just stopped. It’s been five years. The only friend you have is a neighbor,” I said.

“Don’t reprimand me,
” she said, her body stiffening.

She didn’t much like it when I reminded her of San Jose, the things she’d lost with the move.

“I’m not,” I said sadly. “I just wish you were more involved. You loved all that stuff.”

When we
’d first arrived in Escondido, we both missed our old life so much that out of necessity we leaned on each other. As time went on, our conversations became more open. I talked to her about past relationships, sex, drinking, partying, and even drugs. If she was shocked by what I told her, she never said so. She tried to respond like a friend versus a mother, which I knew was not always easy. Her own mother raised her with a lot of Catholic guilt, and she was bound and determined not to do that to me. In addition, her mother hadn’t talked to her about life: things like periods, boys, sex, and nothing about her feelings. She’d learned everything on her own.

San Jose
was much more progressive than Escondido. Most of the girls I knew in San Jose were having sex by fifteen, many much earlier. Drinking and drugs were abundant, and partying was the norm. It was not only a teenage thing, but also a sign of the times; you saw it on the news quite often. The loosening up of morals started in the sixties with the hippies, progressed quite easily into the seventies, and was sliding into the eighties. What started as a rebellion against society, now seemed to be socially acceptable. I didn’t hold much back from my mother anymore.

“So what’s new
with you?” she asked.

“
Same. School, work, and more work. I’m tired. And don’t tell me I look tired,” I warned.

She smiled
trying to hide it.

“I ca
n imagine. You’re a busy girl. Going to school full-time and working part-time seems like too much. I don’t know how, between all that and Max, you even have time to do your homework,” she said.

“
I don’t know, Mom, I just do it,” I said annoyed.

It wasn’t easy
, but Max was already working full-time as an electrician, and I felt that I needed to work at least some. Max had plans to form his own company, was already working on it in fact.

“
So no bridge club, anything else new?” I asked.

“
Same ol’. Cooking, cleaning, you know,” she said.

M
om was a housewife. She hated that title and once put
Person
on an application under “Occupation”, which I found very clever. She had a sharp wit and could be very funny. Since the move, she was unable, or unwilling, to replace her circle of friends and instead filled her time with things around the house and the yard.

“How is Max anyway?”

She was digging, wasn’t going to let the Max conversation go. I didn’t much like that conversation these days as I was still struggling with my thoughts and feelings.

“Fine
,” I answered superficially “Max.”

She looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. I could tell my answer distressed her.

“Why do you look at me like that?
He’s Max. You know. He likes things his way. If they don’t go his way, he manipulates or pouts, like most men,” I said truthfully.

She sighed and turned away
before she suddenly turned back, smiling, her face lit up, and I didn’t understand the sudden change of mood.

“Oh
, I almost forgot. Melanie is getting married. I just got the invitation, I’m so excited,” she said as she quickly washed her hands and dried them on a kitchen towel.

She threw the terry towel on the counter and
walked around towards me to the desk. I watched as she rummaged through a stack of papers searching for it.

“Here
,” she said pulling it out, and then handing it to me.

I
took the white and gold invitation and read it.

“Y
ou’re going, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Come hell or high water
,” she said firmly.

“Well, I would hope
, she’s only the daughter of one of your best friends,” I said happily.

Although I knew she was excited about the wedding
, the real excitement came from the thought of going back for a visit with her friends in San Jose. A party or wedding with all of them was just a bonus. Her obvious excitement made me feel sad for her.

“Mom, it’s a we
dding, a visit. You’re not moving back,” I reminded her.

Her shoulders slumped visibly.

“I know. Let me be excited for a minute,” she said dejectedly. “I can look into a bridge group when I get back.”

We both knew she was placating me
, in a snarky way. In our years in Escondido I’d been forced to start to live again, unlike her. I didn’t have a choice when we’d arrived, I had to go to school, so I had learned to make new friends and move on. She, on the other hand, could stay in the house and not venture out, and sadly it was what she’d chosen to do.

“You’re going to go
too, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Mom
, I can’t afford it. I need to save every cent I make to get Max’s Blazer fixed.”

Mom
now hated the Blazer, hated that everything I made went into fixing it. She didn’t say it straight out, but she thought Max should have taken some responsibility for not having insurance on it. If he had they would have totaled the truck.

“Dad and I
will pay for your ticket. We planned on taking you and Pat. The whole gang should be there,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

I thought about the
gang—seven families with twenty or more of us kids, all in the same general age group. Certainly enough of us to be able to find trouble on all those summer trips we took to Santa Cruz, the winters skiing in Tahoe and Mammoth, and numerous get-togethers. Suddenly I could smell the cotton candy on the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, hear the rides, us screaming on the roller coaster. I pictured Mathew and Bobby walking towards me, Mathew’s blond hair gleaming in the sun. Mom stared at me blankly.

“
Oh, flashbacks, sorry,” I said the images vanishing. “If you’re paying, I’m sure I can go.”

“
Mathew should be there,” she said out of the blue, with a smile.

“No
doubt with some girl on his arm,” I said sarcastically.

“You don’t know that,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said, dismissing her suggestion that I still cared.

Mathew
. He and I were still friends; we had met when we were twelve—his family was part of the gang. His mother was Mom’s best friend. I’d loved him from the day I met him. Unfortunately for me, he hadn’t returned the feeling, although I think he thoroughly enjoyed playing with my emotions. I could remember the frustration I’d felt from his teasing. He claimed to not want me, but the sexual tension between the two of us was undeniable. Mathew had confused me for a long time, a really long time.

“I like the answer
, but I don’t believe it,” she teased.

“Oh
, Mom, it’s been years,” I said, brushing her off.

“
Oh, Mom, it’s been years,” she mimicked me. “Look who’s telling tales now. I know I was too busy back then with my own agenda, but you’ve told me how much you loved him. I could feel how much you loved him. You’ve told me about the summers you two were lovers. The back-and-forth you endured, the crazy hold he had on your heart, so don’t
oh Mom
me.”

For
years after we moved, I had traveled back to San Jose every summer to visit my friends. Mathew always became a part of my visits in one way or another. I considered it a convoluted form of dating; we always ended up together. We didn’t talk about his love life—or my nonexistent one—when we saw each other during those summer romances. Mathew loved the ladies, however, so it wasn’t always easy, even when he was trying to pay attention to me. He had charisma, and my heart, and he was always able to pull me back to him with little effort. Again I thought about what love really looked like.