McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (60 page)

 
          
 
I guess my worry showed. Jean set her plate on
the TV and came back into my arms. I couldn't think of what to say next. We
held hands for a while.

 
          
 
"I like the thought of you being out
there, you know," she said. "Off in odd states, where I've never
been, finding things at flea markets. I think that's your life. I know it's
charming to wake up in this lovely bedroom, with my delightful daughters piled
on top of you. No doubt the three of us could keep you amused by one means or
another for quite a while. But I just don't think it's your life. You're just
getting scared of being lonely or something, so you think you want it to
be."

 
          
 
"But my life is such a peculiar
life," I said. "All I do is
buy
things. I
spend all my time at flea markets or in junk shops or at auctions. Don't you
think I'm capable of a more normal existence?"

 
          
 
"I think you're just getting lonely,"
she said. "You're leading a more interesting life than you think. You just
don't realize it's interesting."

 
          
 
She gave me a quick kiss.

 
          
 
"I think you're romanticizing all this
middle-class domesticity we've got around here," she said.

 
          
 
"But I don't even know if I still like
scouting," I said. "The part that's beginning to depress me is seeing
all the hope people invest in those objects."

 
          
 
Jean grew a little somber. "That's
true," she said. "It's mainly all those women, hoping it'll be better
if they can just find the right thing to buy. I used to do that myself."

 
          
 
"Such as the day I took the icon away
from you?" I asked. "You must have been pinning a lot of hopes on
that icon."

 
          
 
Jean nodded. "I did," she said.
"I thought about it for a whole week. It took my mind off everything else.
But it's good that you got it. The thrill would only have lasted a day or so
and then I would have felt guilty about spending the money. My life wouldn't
really have become any different."

 
          
 
"Although"—she paused—"this
bedroom would be different. I was gonna put it on that wall, over my dower
chest."

 
          
 
She jumped out of bed and whipped a sheet off
the dower chest. It was indeed a wonderful chest. German rococo, decorated with
nymphs and cherubs and still with its original paint, which was cracking, but
cracking nicely.

 
          
 
Jean jumped back in bed. "Isn't it
great?" she said. "God I love that chest."

 
          
 
She had a fine eye. The chest and the icon
were nothing alike, but on her wall they would combine beautifully.

 
          
 
"I'm giving you the icon now," I
said. "It belongs on that wall."

 
          
 
She looked me over for a moment.
"Okay," she said.

 
          
 
Then she grinned. "I knew right away I'd
get it from you," she said.

 
          
 
She looked out the window.

 
          
 
"Being a scout was sort of my dream once,
before I got these girls," she said. "But I would never have been as
good at it as you are. I'm too half-assed, plus I don't have any money and I'm
not brave enough to drive all over
America
by myself. Besides, I was just basically
lookin' to have myself a couple of girls."

 
          
 
"Okay," I said. "What I've got
is the opportunity to drive about one hundred thousand miles a year in order to
buy forty or fifty really nice things. Who are you to tell me that should be my
life?"

 
          
 
"The woman who's not going to marry
you," she said. "You really find wonderful things. It's a kind of
art. You shouldn't give that up just because you've met a woman with a couple
of cute kids."

 
          
 
"That's exactly what Beulah told me I
ought to do," I said.

 
          
 
I told Jean about Beulah and the Valentino
hubcaps, about her increasingly miserable yard sales, about the vodka and
Kool-Aid, about the phone-book table. The story about the phone-book table
touched Jean so that she couldn't speak. Tears came into her eyes, she fell into
my arms, and we made love again.

 
          
 
"That's a terrible story," she said
later, rubbing my shoulder. "That's probably how I'll end up."

 
          
 
"No it isn't," I said. "You'll
end up with lots of nice grandkids."

 
          
 
Jean sighed. "Well,
it's
how I would have ended up if I had been true to my vision of my calling. You
better see
it's
how you end up. I should really admire
you if you ended up that way."

 
          
 
"Why are we talking about ending
up?"

 
          
 
She shrugged. "We're not kids," she
said. "The years will pass, and both of us will end up. I think it's an
important thing to think about."

 
          
 
I thought of Goat Goslin, a man who had
certainly been true to his vision of his calling to the end.

 
          
 
Jean suddenly looked decisive. She got up and
began to dress. I sat up, too, but I had no sense of what to do next.

 
          
 
"Get out of here," Jean said.
"Hit the road. Find me something wonderful. You can't come back till you
do."

 
          
 
I couldn't think of anything to say. It seemed
like a pointless order. Jean was standing by her dresser, sort of listlessly
brushing her hair. She didn't have a great deal to brush. As I was putting my
boots on she burst into tears. She didn't come over to me. She just stood
there, crying.

 
          
 
"It's hard not to hope for things that
can't really be," she said. "I wouldn't mind marrying you, to tell
the truth."

 
          
 
"It could really be," I pointed out.

 
          
 
"Sure, and you'd end up a fat antique
dealer with five or six fags working for you," she said. Then she went
downstairs, leaving me to dress alone.

 
          
 
When I got downstairs she was standing in her
kitchen, wiping her eyes and making tea.

 
          
 
"It seems a stem fate you've assigned
me," I remarked.

 
          
 
"I didn't assign it," she said, with
a flash of anger. "You chose it. Only now you want to wiggle out of it,
when in fact the thought that
it's
fate is what tempts
me about you."

 
          
 
"I wonder why Belinda didn't get a
stomachache," she said a little later. "We better go pick them
up."

 
          
 
When the girls came out of their nursery
school and climbed in the car Belinda looked anything but sick.

 
          
 
"I hit a boy," she remarked.

 
          
 
"Why?" Jean asked.

 
          
 
"Didn't like him," Belinda said.

 
          
 
"I wish you'd make her behave,"
Beverly
said. "Nobody in her class likes
her."

 
          
 
"Un-uh, some do," Belinda said.

 
          
 
"I can't make her behave," Jean
said, sniffing. She seemed to want to cry some more.

 
          
 
"I can't stop thinking about the woman
with the phone books," she admitted.

 
          
 
On the way back we passed a yard sale, or the
tag end of one. The sale had been going on all day and only dregs were left.
Nonetheless we stopped and looked. The girls contemplated a broken doll and
Jean and I poked through a couple of cardboard boxes filled with battered
kitchen utensils.

 
          
 
"I could use a new blender," Jean
said, though there were no blenders in the boxes. However, I did find a nice
rolling pin, twenties vintage, for 75 cents. There was a woman in
Vashti
,
Texas
, who collected them. 1 could probably get twenty bucks for it if she
didn't have one like it.

 
          
 
"You see," Jean said. "You
can't help yourself. I didn't find anything and you found an appealing rolling
pin."

 
          
 
"We found a doll," Belinda pointed
out.

 
          
 
"Forget it," Jean said. "Let's
go to Baskin-Robbins."

 
          
 
"What?"
Beverly
said.
"Before
supper?"

 
          
 
"I know,
Beverly
," Jean said. "It's a complete
breakdown of discipline. However, it's what I feel like."

 
          
 
We ate ice cream cones, all except Belinda,
who insisted on what she called a banana splut.

 
          
 
"
Split
, split, split,"
Beverly
said. "You always use the wrong
vowel." Belinda ignored her.

 
          
 
When we got back to the house the girls
spotted a couple of chums sitting on the sidewalk a few houses away. They
immediately ran off to join them, leaving Jean and me in the car. We sat and
looked at one another.

 
          
 
"I think you're being too rigid," I
said. "We might get along fine. There's nothing so great about driving
around finding things."

 
          
 
"Listen, we're not talking about
it," she said. "I don't think I'm planning to marry anyway. I'll just
stay the way I
am,
only I'll receive occasional
visitors."

 
          
 
"Jimmy's detective is probably taking
pictures of us right now," I said.

 
          
 
Jean made a face. "Who cares?" she
said. "Jimmy's a jerk."

 
          
 
"I don't know what my role is supposed,
to be now," I said. "Can I at least bring you good antiques to
sell?"

 
          
 
"Yeah, you can do that," Jean said.
"Would you like to take the three of us to Disney World?"

 
          
 
"Of course I would.
When?"

 
          
 
"Maybe in about a month," Jean said.
"I’ve been promising them for about a year, but I don't ever seem to get
the energy. I hear it's awfully crowded. I'd probably just lose one of them.
Belinda runs on her own track, as you know."