Paradise (5 page)

Dad was different.

“Well, Paisley.” Dad leaned back on the bleacher row. He was younger than most dads, and he kept his hair longer too, like a gladiator in an epic movie. “Sometimes you can get yourself in a movie or whatever that’s no good. Maybe realize you made a bad choice.”

I tugged the little twigs of hair at the base of my neck. I’d have to turn around to see his face, so I just stared hard at the steer wranglers sitting high on their horses and spinning their lassoes above their heads and watched Mother pace on the walkway at the bottom of the bleachers, occasionally sighting in her video camera on the area around the chutes.

Dad rubbed my back. “I’ll tell you like I told Lacey when she was sixteen and starting to go out some. I’ll always come get you girls. No matter where. No matter why.” He stopped rubbing and sat back up. “Just because you make a bad choice doesn’t mean you have to stay there and waller in it. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve got your back.”

I cringed at his slang, but regardless, Dad was my hero.

George Strait blared from the loudspeakers. The girls from Big Bubba’s Pizza rode into the arena in the bed of a fire engine red Chevrolet truck. The girls were at least college age and seemed experienced in the dancing department. They held up signs and wore skimpy white tank tops emblazoned with Big Bubba’s slogan:
THE BEST PIECE IN TOWN.
They wiggled and bounced in the back of that truck, circling the arena several times, throwing T-shirts into the crowd.

Mother stopped her pacing and hollered back at Dad and me. “That’s so tacky!” Mother had on her favorite blue jeans, the pair with the yellow rhinestone star on the back pocket. The jeans clung to her like Spandex bicycle pants and stacked around her ankles, showing off her lemon yellow satin evening shoes.

When the truck came back around with the Best Piece in Town girls, Mother kissed her index finger and pointed to the Lord above—her idea of being a Christian witness. But when the girls looked up, all they saw was arena roof so they went right back to T-shirt tossing.

Dad zinged Mother with popcorn. He threw one piece, and it landed on the yellow star and bounced off.

“Watch this,” he said, landing another.

Mother turned around, brushing her backside.

Dad winked at her. “Nice target, honey.”

She pinched her lips together like she was trying not to smile.

I laughed. Dad took pride in hitting where he aimed. Nerve damage cost him a major-league pitching career, but he continued to throw even if it was just popcorn or horse apples or church league softball. And no matter how annoyed we all got with Mother, he knew the code to softening her up.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer called to everyone. “Direct your attention to the arena and welcome four-time state champion barrel racer, the Angel from Amarillo, the Cowgirl on Comet, Miss Rodeo Texas, Jenny Boggs.”

From the gate at the end of the arena, Miss Rodeo Texas shot out on a horse as dark as midnight. Her black silk shirt shimmered in the lights and the rhinestones on the crown attached to her black hat sparkled like real diamonds. She swept round the arena like a shooting star, holding the reins with one hand and carrying the American flag with the other. Under a center spotlight, she pulled the horse to a sudden stop. The horse reared up on its hind legs, first to one side of the audience then to the other.

Dad and I and the rest of the crowd jumped to our feet clapping and whooping. I watched the face of Miss Rodeo Texas. I wanted that smile, the ear-to-ear grin of a girl living her dream.

Now that the band had found Paradise, by my count, I was less than two months away from wearing that grin.

“Now for your national anthem,” the announcer called.

Everyone stood in complete silence. The place was packed. Miss Rodeo Texas stayed in the center of the arena—high on her horse, holding the flag in her left hand and her right pressed against her heart.

Lacey stood at the gate near the bull chutes in her pink and white cowgirl costume. The heels of her Pepto-Bismol pink boots sunk in the red dirt, and she had the pink cowboy hat with the fake princess crown pulled low. I couldn’t see her eyes. Her blond corkscrew curls poofed under the hat like one of those Halloween masks with the hair attached. When the recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner” started, Lacey didn’t. The bawling from the steers in the pens behind her must’ve thrown her off. She tried to pick up with “by the dawn’s early light,” but she started off-key. Two twin toddlers, sitting a few rows back, cried when she hit the first high note. Lacey continued to sing off-key and out of touch with the recorded melody.

Mother quit videoing. She nervously grabbed at the railing in front of her, twisting her hand around the top bar. Then she slapped at the bar in time with the recording. She waved the video camera high in the air with her other hand, trying to get Lacey’s attention. Even if Lacey could’ve seen through her hair to get on the beat with Mother, she was too deep in the song to turn back.

With my hand already crossing my heart, I prayed for Lacey that somehow the end of the song would be better than the beginning. The last note was all people ever really remembered anyway.

But Lacey’s voice fluttered on every word like the mad beating wings of a butterfly in a jar. I spotted a little boy across the arena flapping his arms. As she sang the emotional run of the song, “Oh-oh say does that star-spangled ba-a-ner-er yet wa-ve,” she pounded her fist against her white jeans, keeping time. When she finally squawked her way to the highest note of “free,” the feedback between the microphone and speakers could’ve pierced the eardrums of every spectator. Folks covered their ears. One old man in a U.S.S.
Missouri
cap yelled, “Be done with it!”

After she belted the last line but before the recording finished, Lacey had disappeared.

Mother turned around to Dad and me. She shrugged then mouthed, “Hick rodeo.”

Dad and I stepped down from the bleachers, pausing so that the Best Piece in Town girls could jiggle into a row. The tropical smell of coconut oil wafted around the unseasonably tan girls. Up close, they were all hair spray, cleavage, and fake eyelashes.

Before we got to the bottom step, Lacey appeared on the walkway. The hat was gone and her hair blew back from her face as she stomped toward Mother.

“I’m NEVER doing that again!” Lacey screamed. At our mother. At the bottom of the bleachers. In front of everyone.

A couple of the Best Piece in Town girls snickered, and it ticked me off. “What?” I flared up. “And you think your momma’s proud?”

Dad squeezed my neck and turned me around. I scooted tightly against him, trying to block Lacey from the view of the crowd.

“NEVER!” Lacey’s mascara dripped down her cheeks. “I’m never singing again.”

One of the Best Piece in Town girls clapped.

Mother looked mad all over. Her French-manicured toes, peeking out from under the yellow strap, curled as if she were hanging on to the floor beneath her. “Lacey Diane Tillery,” Mother hissed in a low voice, through her teeth. “Things go wrong in a performance. That’s the music business. You want me to get you a straw so you can suck it up?”

Dad put his arm around Lacey and pulled her to his chest. “That’s enough,” he said. Dad held her to him and all but carried her out of the arena.

Mother clopped behind them in her fancy shoes and painted-on jeans.

I stood frozen at the bottom of the bleachers. My heart broke for Lacey. Not because she messed up, but because she had to be embarrassed and mad for not being true to herself.

When Mother handed her a microphone, Lacey should’ve grabbed a curling iron and stood her ground. If Lacey’s disaster of a performance did anything good, it sure made me even more convinced that I had to drum. I was born to do it. Come hell or high water I was drumming at Texapalooza. I’d find out if I could hang with the best; then I’d set my course to be the best. Whatever and wherever it took me.

I held on to the railing a minute longer. The youth amateur bull riding was about to begin, and some boy in a black cowboy hat was easing onto a snorting, nasty white bull in the chute.

I watched it bang against the sides of the small chute, just itching for that gate to open. I knew the feeling of wanting to bust out. Let it fly with nothing to lose.

The announcer called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got some local boys ready to ride.”

I watched the bull chute. Bull riding was flat-out dangerous, and I’d known classmates who had more testosterone than sense to get their arms broken or teeth knocked out trying to beat eight seconds. But at the moment, I was pulling for the bull.

“Folks, you’re in for a real treat,” the announcer said. “Strapping on to White Lightning is a grandson of Colombian cowboy country. New to the area, hailing from the Granados Ranch in Paradise, Texas. Give it up for Gabriela Cordova Granados.”

I ran down the walkway toward the chute end of the arena.
No way
, I thought.
It can’t be him.

The chute flew open and the bull sailed out in midair, spinning its tail end, then stomping its hind legs into the red dirt. Paradise held the rope with one hand, his other in the air. The bull threw him forward and back.

I grabbed the railing, jerking with every slinging move White Lightning had, willing Paradise a safe ride. Then the bull went into a death spin—turning like a crank.

The eight-second buzzer sounded just as Paradise began to slide off, his left wrist caught in the rope. But the buzzer meant nothing to White Lightning. He continued to swing his back end, violently twisting, as Paradise dangled by one arm at the end of the rope. The bull reared and stomped and dragged Paradise halfway across the arena, banging him around like a chew toy.

By the time the rope fell and freed his arm, Paradise lay still as death, facedown in the arena in a dusty fog of red dirt.

I grabbed my stomach. My jaws tingled and I thought I might puke. If Paradise hurt himself, he hurt the band.

A rodeo clown in patched-up overalls and a polka-dot blouse distracted White Lightning, luring him out of the arena. Two wranglers knelt down by Paradise.

The crowd, so loud and impressed with his ride, stood in prayerful silence. A few cowboys removed their hats.

Finally, Paradise rolled to his back. The wranglers helped him to his feet. Whistles and relieved clapping erupted as Paradise stood.

The idiot actually got up smiling, that little dimple teasingly creased. With his one good arm, he picked up his hat and waved it in big circles to the crowd.

I wanted to take the hat and smack him with it. The nut. He could’ve killed himself or broken an arm. Furthermore, if he did mess up his arm he probably messed up my chance at Texapalooza right along with it.

I made a beeline for the parking area behind the arena, forgetting about Lacey and my ride to the Tucker Barn. All I could think about was giving Paradise a piece of my mind.

6

THE PIECE-OF-MY-MIND GIRL

Behind the rodeo arena, rows of cars and trucks—some pulling horse trailers—turned the usually wildflower-covered field into a parking lot. I spotted Paradise’s baby blue Bronco, the red-tipped petals of an Indian paintbrush barely escaping his front tire.

Paradise faced his Bronco. His one good hand pressed onto the hood. His legs were spread as one of the Best Piece in Town girls slapped the dust off the backside of his jeans.

She was the only thing keeping me from planting my boot square on his butt.

“Nice ride, Paradise.” I stared at the rusty red rope burn on his right wrist, fighting the urge to kick him. “Unless you’re in a band. Then it would be
stupid
ride, right?”

The girl looked back at me. Her black hair swirled in the wind like one of those shampoo models on TV. She was older, probably a student at the community college and probably thinking I was his little sister or something. She took one look at my minidress and boots and backed away from him as if to remove herself from a family squabble.

Paradise turned around. His hat was on. His shirt was off. His pants hung on his hips just below his chiseled waist. He leaned against the Bronco’s grill stretching both arms across the hood.

“It’s all good, Paisley.” He made a fist and flexed his right wrist. “And it
was
a nice ride.” He lay back on the hood, and hollered some ridiculous man howl. “OU-OOOOO!”

The Best Piece in Town girl twisted her long, silky hair into a rope and clutched it against her chest with both hands. “We’ll talk later, Gabriela.” She rolled her eyes at him then smiled as she passed me on her way back toward the rodeo arena.

Paradise seemed as unconcerned with her leaving as he was with the bull riding. His lackadaisical attitude toward life was just not going to fly with me.

“You need to understand a couple of things.” I wanted to point at him, but the wind had really kicked up. I had to hold my dress down to keep it from flying above my head. “I risk a lot of family drama to be in the Waylon Slider Band. Playing at Texapalooza is it for me.”