I Cannot Get You Close Enough (15 page)

“Maybe you aren't doing it right,” Kayo said. “If it don't make her want you.”

“It isn't that. She just goes off and forgets it. She's calling the shots on me, that's how it is. She always says she's studying. Then she comes over here.”

“Well, that's women,” Kayo had answered. “Stick to horses is my advice.”

Bobby Tree was sitting on a fence talking to Kayo when Olivia came riding up. “Here she comes,” Kayo said. “Hold on to your heart.”

“Hello, princess,” Bobby said. “Long time no see.” She reined the horse up to the fence.

“I started to jump her but I was afraid to do it. She's got bad teeth. You can't even use the rein.”

“You ought to shoot her,” Kayo said. “Or turn her out. She's too old to ride.”

“She likes me to ride her as long as I stay away from her teeth.”

“Well, come on,” Bobby said. “I'll get you a real horse.”

“Can I leave her here? You got anything in this pasture?”

“Nothing that would do her any harm. You want to see Solomon go through his paces?”

“No, I just want to ride. There're two hours of daylight. You want to ride with me?”

“If Kayo says I can. Can we take off, boss?”

“Sure, go on. But get the horses back by dark.” Olivia dismounted and took the saddle and bridle off Chaney and she and Bobby walked toward the stables.

“So what you been doing?” Bobby said. “I been missing you.”

“I've been taking care of my future. I'm trying to get my dad to come and see me.”

“That's still going on? Well, he'll show up. I know he will. You want to ride the Arabians? They need a workout.”

“Sure. Let's do it.” They walked down the open space between the stalls and found the Arabians and began to saddle them, calling to each other from stall to stall.

“He'll come see you. He'll go crazy when he sees how nice you are.”

“Yeah, he might. I don't even care anymore. I just want to make sure he pays for my college.” She tightened the cinch on the saddle and led the Arabian out of the stall. He was prancing, getting itchy. She could hear Bobby behind her. Now they would go riding. Now they would ride. “Don't talk about it,” she said. “Let's get out of here.”

“Where do you want to go?” he asked. “You want to go to the place on the river?” He was beside her now, shoving open the gate. She moved in front of him, keeping a short rein on the gelding, as the horse was jittery from being kept in a stall. “Sure,” she said. “Let's go. I've been missing you too.” She allowed the horse to prance, then gave him his rein and let him run. The great muscles stretched out beneath her thighs.

Kayo watched them from the office door. “Hot stuff,” he said to his assistant. “Shit, I'd give anything to be that age again.”

Olivia led the way for a while, back across the meadow and down into a pasture of winter wheat. Bobby was behind her, reining in, letting her get in front of him. When she stopped at the far side of the field he turned his horse loose and rode to her side. “You lead now,” she said. “I don't know the turns of the path.” He moved out in front of her and led his horse to the entrance to the woods. A bridle path opened before them, a path Bobby had groomed the week before. He had spent five days cutting the low branches and digging roots and making a manicured path that the owner of Baron Ford would probably never even see. The whole time he was working Bobby had thought of Olivia riding there. “I cleared this,” he called back over his shoulder, and she nodded her head but didn't seem to hear. “I cleared this goddamn path,” he called again. “I worked my ass off. Say you think it looks great.”

“It looks great,” she called back. “I knew you did it. It looks like you.”

He stopped beneath an oak tree. “What do you mean, it looks like me? What's that supposed to mean?”

“It looks nice, like you did it right.” She moved nearer to him. The flanks of their horses touched. He leaned out of the saddle and kissed her on the mouth. “There're some things I want to do to you,” he said. “Goddamn, I think about you all the time. Do you know that?”

“I know. Okay,” she added. “Let's go do it then. If I get knocked up you have to pay for the abortion.”

“If you get knocked up I will.”

They rode through the woods until the path came out at the bottom of a hill that led upward to where a modern house stood on a rise overlooking the river. It wasn't the main house. It was a river house so the owner of Baron Ford could see the sunset on the river in case he ever came to Tahlequah and got tired of staying in the main house. Bobby had made himself a key from one Kayo had lent him when he helped out cutting bushes on the lawn. He had it on a key ring in his pocket.

They rode around to the river side and tied the horses to a hitching post near the boat dock. Then they walked up the steps to the house.

“You'll get fired if they catch us,” Olivia said.

“They won't catch us. Kayo knows where we've gone. He won't let me get in trouble.”

“Does he know we do it?”

“He knows I'm in love with you.” He kept on walking, not looking at her as he spoke.

“Why are you in love with me? I don't give you anything you need.”

“Yes, you do. You give me everything.”

“I don't give you anything. I'm just selfish. I only think about myself.”

“You're fine. You're the one I want. The only one I want.” They were at the top of the stairs now, on a wide wooden patio that looked down across acres of deserted land and a winding fork of the Illinois River. The patio was furnished with wooden settees with yellow cushions. Bobby picked up a cushion from a settee and shook the leaves from it and put it back down upon the wooden stand. He wasn't sure where to start. You never knew what to do with Olivia. You never knew where you stood. She might say one thing and do another. She might change her mind. I could pick her up and break her in two, he thought. I could fuck her anytime I wanted to, but she's not scared of me. Well, she doesn't need to be. She's got the pussy and she calls the shots, just like Kayo said. As long as they have the pussy they get to tell us what to do. He hung his head, looked down at the river, waited to see if she'd make a move.

“How come he never comes down here anymore?” she asked. “Why does this just sit here?”

“He's in Chicago doing business. He's a nice guy. He can ride like a son-of-a-bitch when he has time. You ought to see him ride. He's a good guy. He's going to start a polo team. He's sending us some polo ponies.”

“Well, I'd live here if it was mine. I'd have a helicopter and come here and spend the night.”

“You want to go inside?”

“Not yet. I think I'll stay out here.” She walked over to a railing, inspected some moss that was growing up in a groove on a railing board. Bobby walked to her, touched her arm, the skin of her arm made his throat tight, made him tremble. “Oh, baby,” he said. “I think about you all the time.” She turned around to him then and let him take her into his arms. “Uh huh,” she said. “Oh, yes. Yes indeed.”

He took her hand, led her toward the door. They went into the high-ceilinged glass-walled room and moved across the fine blue rugs and found a bedroom and a bed and sat down upon the edge and Bobby began to undo her blouse. Olivia didn't care about any of it now. Didn't care if he wore a rubber. Didn't care if they got caught. Didn't give a damn about a thing in the world but having him inside her and keeping him there.

“Take your clothes off,” she said.

“You take them off.”

“Okay. I will.” Then they made love on the blue silk coverlet of the bed and on the floor and on a straight-backed desk chair. They made love with awkwardness and seriousness and hot young murderous desire. They made love until the sun had left the sky and the blue and lavender lights of evening had completely faded and the moon was riding eastward through the clouds.

“When was your period?” he said. “Are we in trouble?”

“No. It's okay. If I didn't think it was okay I wouldn't have done it. I'm not crazy, you know.”

“You ought to go to Planned Parenthood. I've had enough of this. This is Russian roulette. I don't want you getting pregnant. I don't want some doctor cutting on you.”

“Okay.” She lay back against the blue linen sheets. Stretched her hands across the fine damask-covered down pillows, moved her legs against his own.

“Okay what? Okay, you'll go?”

“Yeah, I'll go.”

“When will you go?”

“I'll go tomorrow. I've been meaning to.”

“You want me to go with you?”

“No. It's okay. Frieda will go with me. She used to work there. She had a job there last year.”

“You're sure?”

“Yeah. I'm sure.” She sat up and began to put her clothes back on. He sat across the room from her, smoking a cigarette. His legs were trembling. She always did that to him. She was the strangest girl he had ever known. She never called him up. Sometimes she wouldn't even talk to him when he called. She acted as if she was twenty-five years old. When she wanted him she came and got him.

Olivia watched him. She loved it when he trembled. He was beautiful, sitting in the dark room, smoking and looking at her. He's so pretty, she was thinking. I can't help wanting to do it with him. I can't help it because he's so good-looking and so tough and he never makes mistakes with the horses.

Outside, the Arabians were neighing, stamping their hooves. They had been making unhappy noises for half an hour but Olivia and Bobby hadn't heard them.

“They want to go,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, they're tired of being tied up. We'd better go.”

“Yeah, I guess we had.”

They walked down together to where the horses were tied. The moon was moving through a line of cirrus clouds. The moon was very full. “It's a perfect night,” Bobby said. “Everything's always perfect with you.”

“You just think that. I didn't make the moon.”

“Maybe you did. I might not know it was there if you weren't here. I might be playing cards or something, shooting pool.”

“You shouldn't waste so much time. You ought to go back to school.”

“I don't like school. I don't like to be inside.” He was close beside her. Their arms touched as they walked. Nothing they said mattered now. Now words didn't matter. For a while words could not harm or part them. The smell of the river was in the air, moonlight and river and honeysuckle and pine trees, night smells and sounds and the beautiful Arabian horses, stamping and waiting to be ridden.

They untied the horses and walked them to the path, then mounted and rode through the woods. The trees cast elaborate shadows on the ground. The horses were subdued by the moonlight, cautious and quiet, remembering panthers and coyotes and bears. Olivia and Bobby were quiet also. They came to the pasture and galloped the rest of the way to the stables. Then Bobby unsaddled the horses and led them into their stalls.

“Horses shouldn't be penned up,” Olivia said. “If I was rich I'd buy this place and turn all the horses loose.”

“No one knows what they would do if they get rich. I had a friend who married a rich girl in Tulsa. He went crazy being rich.”

“Who was that?”

“A guy I played ball with in high school. He married Ellie Baumgarten. They own a lot of land in Tulsa.”

“I don't need to get rich. I just want to get out of here and get somewhere where something's happening.”

“Things happen here. Things happened tonight.”

“Yeah, I know. I better not get knocked up, that's all I can say.”

“You're going to go to Planned Parenthood, aren't you? You said you would.”

“I'm going tomorrow. Or Monday. I'll call Frieda and go on Monday.”

An hour later Bobby delivered Olivia to her door. They had left Chaney in a pasture and he had driven her home. “You going to be in trouble?” he asked.

“Not if I was with you. They think you're the hottest thing since sliced bread. Well, it was great.” She took his arm and they walked toward the steps to the kitchen. “I'll come over and get Chaney this weekend. I might come tomorrow.”

“I'll take care of her. I'll put her in a barn.”

“Well, it's been great. Thanks for letting me ride the Arabian.”

“I hope those guys come see you. Your dad and your aunt and all of them. Shit, I can't imagine they don't want to know you. You're the greatest.”

“Well, you think so anyway.”

“Olivia.” It was Mary Lily standing in the door in her bathrobe. “You and Bobby come on in here. It's ten o'clock at night.”

“I got to go,” Bobby said, and backed down the path. “Hi, Mary Lily. Thanks for letting her go riding. She's a hotshot. She's a pistol.”

“Hi, Bobby,” Mary Lily said, and held open the door. Olivia climbed the wooden stairs and went on in. “I rode an Arabian,” she said to her aunt. “They're really something. Listen, they're going to get some polo ponies. Mr. Shibuta's starting a polo team.”

“What have you and Bobby been doing all this time?” Mary Lily folded her hands into her nightgown, searched Olivia's face.

“Nothing. We went riding. Then we had to groom the horses. Well, I'm dead. I'm going to bed. I'm about to fall asleep standing here.”

8

The next day was Saturday. Olivia woke up thinking about Bobby. She pulled her knees up to her stomach and rubbed her hips with her hands. She was getting horny again just thinking about it. I guess I'll go back over there today and get Chaney, she decided. I guess we might as well make a weekend of it. I couldn't get pregnant four days after I stopped bleeding. I don't care if I do. If I do we'll go to Tulsa and get an abortion. He's making plenty of money. We could do it.