Crybaby Ranch (7 page)

“I plan on making him famous and showing him how to invest his money properly. Not to mention digging into the gold mine he's sitting on.”

“My sink?” I say. “Oh, good.”

Bo laughs. “She means my ranch.”

“I've told Bo not to let Dickie get his hands on it, but Dickie's idea to build an exclusive resort here is excellent. Bo should do it on his own.”

“What do you think about that?” I ask Bo.

“I'll tell you,” Caro breaks in, looking at Bo while she talks. “He doesn't think much at all of my plan. He's got one of his own. But I'm with your grandfather there. Crybaby Ranch is right. Everybody poor, everybody crying.”

“You've lost me,” I say, wondering if that was the purpose.

Bo says, “Nothing is going to happen here for a while. Got to let the cow patties harden before traipsing a bunch of rich people through the pastures anyway.”

Clearly, Bo does not want his ranch plans up for discussion. I trace beads on the candle with a finger and as my contribution toward changing the subject I say, “I can't imagine where you found such a lovely thing, Caro.”

“The Wild Goose, right, Caro?” Bo says.

I can't decide if these two are showing off their knowledge of each other or including me in their friendship.

“Where's that?”

“It isn't any place,” Caro says. “But I don't like people copying me, so I tell them I bought whatever they're asking about at the Wild Goose and I give them very thorough, very lengthy directions.”

“Ah,” I say, “you send them on a wild-goose chase.”

“Exactly.” Caro abruptly stands and says she can't stay any longer. She hasn't touched my lemon bread and she's left half her drink. I feel dismissed from the room even though Caro is the one heading for the door—with Bo in her wake. Even that snot Tolly is following them out.

Bo waves goodbye. Caro sticks her head back inside. “Creative people are the best to be around. Thanks for this afternoon.” She blows me a kiss.

I say, “Thank you for coming.” And I feel warmed by her.

I carry my cup of tea to the window and watch Bo and Caro exchange a few words before getting into their separate cars. Some local history I'm reading pops into my head. A story about the Countess of Flat Creek. Back in the 1920s Cissy Patterson, a rich and powerful woman, recently divorced from a Polish count, came to Jackson Hole and bought the Flat Creek Ranch. I've read that Cissy, too, had reddish glints to her hair like those catching the sunlight in Caro's right now. Cissy hired Cal Carrington, a known outlaw who used to hide his stolen horses at that ranch, as her hunting guide, then as her foreman at the ranch. Photos show Cal was as tall, strong, and handsome as Bo. Stories say he was the only man Cissy ever really loved or respected, and the two of them carried on a torrid love affair that the whole valley whispered about.

I watch Bo's Suburban follow Caro's Buick out the drive, and I wonder if they will turn in opposite directions—Caro to town and Bo to his ranch—or will they both turn in the same direction. And which direction?

Just as I read about Cissy, Caro exhibits that same ability to offer a sudden and generous warmth that veils a typically chilly and distracted presence. Cissy's money and power and disregard for her reputation allowed her freedoms that made her a dangerous woman, even in Jackson Hole. Since her real home was Washington, D.C., Cissy didn't care what people thought of her here. Caro's real home is a small town in Arkansas.

Caro turns toward town.

The story says Cal stopped stealing horses, bathed regularly, and even accompanied Cissy to society parties back east and on trips abroad when Cissy got brave and invited him. Their love affair lasted decades.

Bo follows Caro toward town.

I
t is a spineless way to create some distance with Bo, but I book airline tickets to Florida and don't tell him. I just leave. Every day another reason pops up for Bo and me to see each other. If he doesn't stop by to show me where the crawl space door is hidden (beneath the dryer), I call him to ask what metal thing just fell out of the pipe to my woodstove (the tin-can lid serving as a damper). We end up pooling our refrigerator contents for dinner, then sit on my front steps with coffee till dark.

My first flight is to Cheyenne to see Beckett. Though a week early, Beck surprises me with a Mother's Day celebration. Sunday morning I am his guest for a lavish buffet at Little America, Cheyenne's largest hotel.

“Beck, you're a student. This is too expensive.” My eyes scan the white-cloth tabletops colorfully displayed with out-of-season fruits, lobster thermidor, platters of shrimp, roasts, frothy desserts.

He ignores me and orders champagne.

“Beck—”

“Su…Mom.” He raises his eyebrows at me to be certain I'm impressed with his fast catch. “I've got extra money. I work part-time at the radio station. Mostly as a gofer, but I'm hoping to do some spots one of these days.”

“Spots?”

“Commercials.”

“Perfect. You have a great voice, smooth, warm, lots of tonal depths to it. You should sing more, too.”

From beneath the jacket he has draped over his arm, Beck produces two gift-wrapped presents. My eyes tear even before I unwrap them.

Beck says, “I knew this was chancy. You've cried over every gift I've given you since day care.” He checks the room to see who might be looking, then smiles at me.

Pajamas and a book. The pajamas are tailored in lavender silk; the book is an ancient leather-bound copy of Emily Dickinson poetry, corners rubbed nearly round, gilt lettering flaked and faded.

“It will probably fall apart if you open it,” Beck says. “But it looks good. And she's your favorite.”

I stare at this tall, handsome child with wonder that I raised him, while still a child myself, and that somehow we both came through it all to this moment of deep knowing and appreciation. I've said it many times before, but I have to say it again: “Beck, you are the best.”

 

Tonight, Mom and I sit on the porch together, pushing back and forth on the cushioned glider. The fishing dory bounces against the dock as the brackish water of Bessie Creek laps rhythmically. Like me, Mom went straight from her father's home to her husband's. She has always been afraid to sleep alone in the house, and she worries so much about being widowed that she often plans how she'll survive if she is. This week she has repeated the same plan every evening that we've sat together.

She says, “I'll have to find a smaller place, one with more people and lights around.”

Just in front of the long, low house, Bessie Creek joins a canal—part of the intercoastal waterway around Stuart—and off the side yard, the creek bleeds into a dark, swampy stretch that separates my parents' home from the golf course. Not one neighbor's porch light can be seen through the knotty growth of mangroves.

“Maybe one of those little apartments by the shopping center,” she says. “I could sit on the balcony at night and watch cars go by on Monterey Boulevard.”

About then we notice that Dad has wandered out to the porch. Embarrassed, Mom allows an awkward silence to settle, and Dad says, “You killing me off again, Lizzie?”

When Dad goes back inside and turns on the lamps and TV, Mom says, “Did Daddy tell you what the doctor said?”

Easy, easy, I warn myself and halt an urge to spill what I know about her depression. She lays these traps, remember. I don't believe in keeping bad news from people about their own health and have been longing to override Dad's orders and talk to her about it. But I say, “You tell me.”

“Dr. Meagher says I have rheumatism in this thumb.” She wiggles her left one in the dim light coming from the living room window. “I wish…you know, that he hadn't told me, just told Addie. I hate worrying.”

Without noticing, I'd stopped the glider. I begin pushing with my foot again. She has always been cunning. Always flirted with truth—the way she just did, asking whether Dad told me—but has always scuttled from it before meeting it head-on. Her fears making her live a cat-and-mouse game, even with me.

“Now I know,” I say, “so I'll do the worrying.” What have I just done? The exact thing I hoped to correct in my relationship with her.

Suddenly, I get it. She has answered my question about whether I should tell her what I know. I glance at her in amazement over how well she has trained me. Telling me she wished she didn't have to know about her thumb is telling me—as directly as she ever addresses anything—that she does not wish to be responsible for
any
health issues.

I want out of these games. The trouble is that her diagnosis forbids me loading her down with more problems. I forget between visits how hard she is to be around.

Mom says, “Hear that music?”

A favorite old song of mine, “Stand by Me,” is playing as background to a public service spot on television.

“I wish they wouldn't talk about that stuff,” Mom says.

I listen a moment. It's a spot for Alzheimer's disease. Dad punches off the TV.

Mom says, “You know what we haven't done for a long time? Play beauty parlor.”

I laugh. I'd forgotten our old game. But she'd remembered. Sometimes, I feel the issue is
my
memory, not hers. I try to recall if I'd ever gotten any turns as the customer or whether I always played the hair stylist.

“Let's do it now. Go get your brush and comb,” I say.

“I don't know where I put them. You look.”

She can act dumb as a doughnut when she wants.

In many ways I am like my mother. With Erik I acted powerless as a way of inviting notice, interacting with him, sharing myself with him—a form of generosity, an offer of friendship. I thought that was what my mother was teaching me: social skills. But I misunderstood; I assumed that to be accessible to others meant I had to invite them to help me in my own thinking processes. So, like Mom has always done, I, too, stood in front of an open refrigerator door and cozily asked, “What am I doing here?” or yelped in alarm, “Oh, no.” My husband should then say, as I have done to my mother all these years, “You want a Coke.” Or rush to see what's wrong, only to learn there are no olives for lunch.

Somewhere along the way Mom learned that helplessness was friendly and self-sufficiency was threatening and passed that information on to me. For a long time it glued my marriage together, even provided the conversation as I checked with Erik over every small decision.

Until this trip, I hadn't realized how manipulative Mom was all my life. Funny how I used to accept the most obvious behavior. She'd wonder out loud, “What's that noise?” when she didn't want to get up and answer the phone. “It's the phone,” I'd shout on the run to grab it. Either Mom has lost skill or I have gained some, because I often catch her delivering some other message than the one she is actually putting words to. Dad says Dr. Meagher wants to schedule some tests.

 

The day after I get home, Bo calls. He's planned a cookout, invited the Donnells, a few other friends and his family. “Introduce you to everybody,” he said. At last, I'll meet the aunts. I've bought an ankle-length gauzy cotton skirt, striped with buttons down the front, for half price because the waistband broke away from the gathered skirt and needs a few stitches. It's worn with stretchy white pants beneath it. A scooped-neck tee and my sandals, buttons on the skirt left mostly undone, and I'll look enough like the hostess/helper Bo asked me to be for this affair.

I think of my mother and her rules while I dress for the party: Never wear white after Labor Day or before Memorial Day. Same for straw purses and sandals. Officially, I'm on the edge of the good-taste plateau on two counts. I look in the cabinet mirror above the bathroom sink and worry whether Bo will think I'm pretty today. I heard my mother say to my father during my visit last week, “She's got nice…you know…these things.” My mother poked herself gently in the eye, then blinked in surprise.

She seemed fine all day while Dad was gone or busy in his office, but from dinnertime on odd things occurred. Dad and I were involved in one of our impassioned discussions. This time about the absurdity of the golf course next door claiming they were a bird sanctuary. I maintained that the chemical runoff from the heavy use of fertilizers and weed killers poisoned the drainage ponds and made the idea a joke.

In a whisper and tugging Dad's sleeve, Mom interrupted, “Addie, Addie, who's that pretty girl?”

I turned to look at my mother, and she smiled formally to me and pretended not to have said a thing. How does she remember her manners and not her child? She made no attempt to join the conversation, yet repeatedly tried to distract Dad from our talk. When I was little, three or four years old, she used to scowl at me if I monopolized Dad's attention when he came home from work.

Dad brushed off Mom's question and told a story about a golfer claiming he scored a birdie when he killed a heron on the green with one of his drives. Dad hated golfers and made Mom quit taking lessons when they moved to Florida.

Mom asked who I was once again, and Dad, acting as if she were merely a pesky six-year-old, wrote my name on a piece of cardboard that came from his dry-cleaned shirts. Big letters in blue ink: SUZANNAH. He propped it above the TV. I didn't follow his reasoning at all. If she couldn't remember what she'd named her only daughter, how was she supposed to remember to look at the sign?

In fact, this worked against my father. Now my mother had
two
repetitious questions to ask. “What's her name?” and “What's that paper doing there?” Neither was Dad accepting that perhaps Mom couldn't always read. When I found a way to break the news to him later in the week, he promptly began to teach her. “Ssss. Go, ‘ssss.' Then, ‘oooo-zannah.' Watch my mouth. ‘Ssss…'”

When Dad pulled that stunt, Mom slid her eyes over to me and lifted her brows in the old family look of “Should I call for the straitjacket or will you?” Once, we used to make a lot of
crazy
jokes in my family. Now we pretend there isn't such a word.

I roll my own eyes and lift my brows at myself in the mirror. I grab my backpack and potluck dish and head for the party. Perfect for Bo's plans, the day has settled into a dazzling brightness, calm and warm. Earlier this morning, grasses on the butte were flattened into long, shiny streaks by the wind. They caught the flash of sun and shadow when clouds, like whipped mounds of meringue, slid across the sky as if on a cool blue plate. Now the temperature has covered its typical forty-degree span for late May and is holding at seventy-eight. By counting the number of cars passing my cabin, I time my arrival at Bo's so I don't have to meet too many strangers at once.

As soon as I pull up Bo's drive, two colorfully dressed woman pounce on my car door. One spreads her arms lightly around me in a hug, the other unburdens me of my backpack and potluck dish.

“We're Bo's aunts. I'm Maizie, this is Violet and you are Suzannah. We knew it right away, didn't we, sister?”

Violet agrees. “Bo said you had piles of curly light brown hair and was smiley as the Flying Nun.”

The aunts lead me to the kitchen and present me to Bo as if I am their own special gift to him. Bo is relieved to see me. He's fallen behind schedule and sets me to work mashing avocados. Two by two, guests enter the kitchen and hand me their potluck dishes and introduce themselves. The last to arrive, Caro and Dickie, pick their way across the weedy side yard to Bo's grassy patch behind his house. I carry the guacamole outside and see that Caro's wearing strappy shoes with thin heels about three inches high, the dope. First thing, when she steps onto Bo's rough-board deck, her heels both sink into a gap between the boards, and when she pulls her shoes out, leaning on Dickie for support, the leather is scraped down to curls that wag off the ends of her heels.

She says, “Fucking shit.” Not too loud, but everybody hears these first words of hers before she even gets introduced.

“What did she say, sister?” Bo's aunt Maizie asks.

“‘Fucking shit.' She said, ‘Fucking shit,' dear.” Aunt Violet answers in a tone slightly louder than her normal one, as if Maizie were hard of hearing, which she isn't.

Caro balances each foot to one board of decking and stands with legs not quite wide enough apart to look casual, not quite close enough to appear normal. In fact, she looks the way a horse does from behind while it's urinating. She says to me before even greeting any of the others, “Who's the designer of your skirt, Suzannah?” I don't know, of course. “Well…where did you get it? Was it on sale?” She wants to turn me around and read my label, which she instructs me—as if I don't know—is always sewn into the back of garments. But I distract her with introductions. I feel the aunts vibrating to get at Caro, so I start with them.