Steal the North: A Novel (26 page)

“What does smart have to do with it?”

“Everything. I want more for you, for myself, for my kids. You saw the towns on the rez. Do you know how many Indian girls drop out of high school pregnant?”

“But you’d never leave me like the men left your sister. Or like Jamie left my mom.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

“Then?”

“Where would we live?” he asked. “Shit, Emmy. Grow up.” I looked at my hands. That hurt. He didn’t backtrack.

“Mom will make me leave.” I started to cry. “Wait and see. You’ll be sorry.”

“I won’t be sorry. I’d rather break every promise than ruin your life.”

“
Ruin
my life?” My voice pitched. “My life is
over
when I leave here!”

He grabbed my arms. “Don’t say that.”

“Don’t you see? My mother is going to rip me away from you!” And I knew, though I didn’t say, that losing Aunt Beth
and
Reuben might destroy me.

“She can’t.” He tightened his grip. “You’re part of me.” He said something in his native language. “You’re part of this land.”

“You don’t know her, Reuben. She’s a force. Look what she did to her sister.”

“I’m going to talk to her. I’m not scared.”

But he held me the rest of the night as if he were terrified.

Spencer

I wish to God I’d been walking by the Sacramento Greyhound station the day Kate stepped off the bus with Emmy on her hip. I like to think I could’ve saved them both a lot of heartache. I know I would’ve fallen as hard for Kate then, at only twenty years old, as I did the day we bumped into each other at a gas station by the coffee counter. Actually I bumped into her and her paper cup tipped. I apologized. A splash of coffee burned her hand. “Sorry,” I said again when I realized. She barely glanced at me. Most women give me one good look, if not two.

“No biggie,” she said, cleaning up the mess on the counter.

“Can I see your hand?” I set down my stainless steel travel mug.

“Oh, I’m fine. I used to waitress. I’ve been burned worse than this before.”

“Let me make it up to you.” I’d already noticed her sexy legs.

She finally looked at me. Christ, her eyes. “What, over coffee?”

I laughed. “How about dinner?”

We moved to the cash register. She wasn’t a lingerer. “It would have to be lunch. I have a kid.” I tried to pay. It was the least I could do. She refused, stubbornly putting her quarters on the counter.

“Dinner,” I said, “and bring your kid.” We were outside. She said she was running late for work. Her brown hair blazed in the sunlight. Normally I didn’t find redheads attractive, but her red looked as if it would be warm to the touch. “But first I need your number.”

“First,
I
need your name.”

“Spencer Hensley.”

“Nice to meet you,
Spencer Hensley
.” Why did she say it like that? She offered me her hand and a slight smile. “I’m Kate.” She was kind of a smart-ass. “You have a pen?” she asked.

“I’ll remember your number,
Kate
.”

She gave it to me rather quickly

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t catch your last name.”

“If you actually call my number, I’ll give you my last name.”

Fair enough.

She got into a junky Honda, probably still from her waitressing days, and drove away.

I called the number on four different occasions before someone finally picked up: a girl, real quiet, who said her mom was in the shower. I asked her to write down my number and have her mom call me back. Kate never did. I returned to the same gas station on the same day of the week and at the same time. She didn’t appear. Then I remembered she’d said she was late. I showed up extra early the following week. I did paperwork in my truck. She pulled up and went inside. I gave her a minute, then followed. She was getting coffee. “Kate,” I said.

She jumped, but luckily no spills. “Damn,” she said. “You scared me, Mr. Hensley. I didn’t think anyone around here knew my name.”

“I called your number.”

“Can we talk outside?” Again she refused to let me pay for her coffee, and somehow she managed to pay for mine.

“The teacher lady already took care of it,” the Punjabi cashier said with a smirk.

“I’m a thirty-year-old single mom who works a lot,” Kate said.

“What’s your point? I’m thirty-one and
I
work a lot.”

“I just thought we should cut through the bullshit.”

“Are you free right now, Miss—? I’m sorry, I still didn’t catch your last name.”

“Ms. Nolan.” She presented me her hand again and the same slight smile. “I teach class until twelve. Sorry, Mr. Hensley.”

“Spencer.”

“And then I have another class at three.”

I gave her my business card. The fact that I own a custom home-building company impresses most women. She stuck the card in her pocket as if I’d given her my number scribbled on a matchbook. I named a Mexican restaurant by the college where she taught and asked her to meet me there at twelve-thirty. I’m pretty sure she nodded. But she sure as hell didn’t show.

I found her junky Honda—with the faded
CLINTON 92
bumper sticker—in the staff parking lot the next week at noon and waited with two coffees. “You stood me up,” I said. “I guess there’s more bullshit to cut through.”

“Isn’t there always?” Her arms were too full of books to take the coffee. “I didn’t
exactly
agree to meet you.”

“Do you agree to lunch right now?”

We wound up at my place in bed. I’m not
exactly
sure how that happened. Who cares? And I missed an appointment with a county inspector. Same thing the next week and twice the next. The sex was fantastic, but I felt bad that I still hadn’t bought her lunch. Single at thirty-one, I’d had a lot of women. Kate hadn’t had a lot of men, or at least not a lot who knew how to touch her. She didn’t have to tell me this. Her body was supersensitive, which was a major turn-on and contrasted nicely with her stubbornness. I couldn’t keep my hands out of her hair. I found her vulnerability in bed incredibly sexy, but it left me unguarded. It wasn’t the vulnerability of a young girl. No, thanks. But of someone who desperately wanted to open herself up. She had this way of putting her arms above her head—not just when we fucked in my bed but in my kitchen or elsewhere—as if totally surrendering. It drove me nuts. I’d think about her body all day at work. But as soon as she got her clothes back on, she was all about her job and picking up her daughter from school and telling me “no, no, no” about hooking up over the weekend, maybe taking in a movie with her kid.

Months later, when I finally met her twelve-year-old kid, I fell just as hard, but obviously in a completely different way. I had the same strong urge to take care of Emmy as Kate. We had dinner in a restaurant in Old Sacramento with a view of the river. Kate and Emmy sat on one side of the table, and I sat across from them. Emmy looked like her mom, but not as much as I’d anticipated. She had lighter hair and a better smile than Kate. But Kate’s eyes were larger and more intense. Emmy kept whispering things to her mom. Kate would mouth to me, “I’m sorry,” but it didn’t bother me. Emmy wasn’t being rude or snotty. Painfully shy, she blushed easily. A curious girl, though. When she thought I wouldn’t notice, she’d glance at me. She watched all the families around us with interest. She watched the river. So did Kate. I watched the two of them watching the river.

I tried to act relaxed so Emmy would relax. It was easy, actually. I asked her a few questions about school. She answered politely. When Kate went to use the restroom, I could tell Emmy wanted desperately to follow her. But she didn’t. She shrank down in her seat, as if hoping I wouldn’t notice she was still there. It was cute. I asked about her best friend.

She twisted her cloth napkin. “I don’t really have one,
yet
.”

“Your mom maybe?” I suggested.

She smiled. “Yeah.”

“I was close to my dad at your age,” I told her. Silence. One more question, and then I’d leave her alone. Poor girl was beet red. “If you had a puppy, what would you name it?” I realize now this was more a question for a four-year-old than a twelve-year-old. “I know you can’t have pets at your apartment. But if you could?”

She didn’t even have to think. “Tangles.”

I wanted to take them walking down on the docks. When I mentioned it, Emmy seemed excited, but Kate insisted they had to get home. They both had homework.

“Bye, girls,” I said at their apartment, more to tease Kate than anything. She objected to grown women being referred to as girls. Kate had yet to invite me inside to her apartment. I wanted in.

Four years and two marriage proposals later, the lady is finally wearing my ring.

“Shit, Spencer, you finally got the balls to propose to her again,” my little brother said when he took me for a beer to celebrate. “Did she let you show her the ring this time?”

“Not exactly.” I shifted on the barstool. “I left it on her coffee table.”

“Never mind, then, bro, about your balls.”

Our parents built the company from scratch. Dad taught my brother and me how to take pride in the trade and, maybe more important, how not to be afraid of hard work. He also warned us never to marry a woman who was afraid of hard work or she could negate everything. What Dad didn’t make clear is how difficult it can be to love a hardworking woman. In the beginning Kate Nolan’s lack of interest in my money was refreshing. And I greatly admired her self-reliance. In the beginning. But Jesus Christ, that woman. The first time I saw her cry was because her teeth, her wisdom teeth, were hurting. She had nice teeth in front. But her wisdom teeth were impacted. In fact, it was the first time I spent the night at her apartment. She called me late at night. I hurried over there. She quietly escorted me into her bedroom so as not to wake Emmy. There were books everywhere in her apartment. The place was a bit of a dive—it was clean but run down.

“Will you rub my back?” she asked.

“Of course, baby.” She was in serious pain. “Let me take you to the emergency room.” She told me she didn’t have medical or dental insurance as a part-time teacher. She worked part time at three different colleges, rather than full time at just one. According to my calculations, that meant she worked time and a half. “I’ll pay,” I offered, and I meant it. She refused. “I can’t handle seeing you in this much pain.” She told me I could leave. I stayed.

The next time her wisdom teeth hurt, I asked her how long they’d been trying to emerge. She said on and off since she was pregnant. So for thirteen fucking years? Mine were extracted in eighth grade. I insisted she take one of the painkillers I got for her from my doctor. When the throbbing subsided and she relaxed a bit, I asked, “What happened to Emmy’s dad?”

“You can’t ask me about him.” She moved away from me in her bed.

“Where’s your family?” I inched closer. She and Emmy were all alone. Too alone. It was beginning to worry me.

“Please don’t, Spencer.” She put her hand out, as if to block me. “I like you.”

I took her hand and held it. “I
love
you, Kate.”

“You haven’t known me long enough to love me.” She pulled her hand away.

“I’ve known you seven months—you exclusively. No other women.”

“Big sacrifice, I realize.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Have you ever been in love before?” she asked.

“I’m not answering any question that you won’t.”

“Well, of course
I
have.” Her speech was beginning to slur. “I had his baby.”

Ouch. “Emmy told me her dad is dead.”

“You asked her about her dad?” She sat up.

“No, Kate. Calm down. I mentioned to Emmy that my old man wasn’t alive. She said her dad wasn’t alive either.”

“Yes. That’s correct.” She lay back down, thanking me again for the pill.

I rubbed her back. Her face was turned. I put my hand in her hair and whispered, “Do you love me, Kate?” I almost hoped she didn’t hear.

She turned and looked at me. Even on pain meds, her gaze was unflinching. “If I could ever love a man again, it would definitely be you, Spencer Hensley.”

“I’m not sure that’s enough.”

“It’s all I got.”

She turned back around. I felt her back tremble as she tried to sob quietly.

She did love me, though. I felt it most when we had sex—made love. When I was inside her, I felt really
inside
her, inside her fears and worries, and her tiredness, inside her joy and calm. She had a great capacity for both. Inside her goodness and strength. But fuck,
not
her past. I preferred to think of it as her “mystery.” Guys like women with a little mystery. Kate had a whole sea of it inside her. I was standing on the shore.

There was something else inside Kate. After a while the way she put her arms above her head began to feel, at times, more than a gesture of surrender. She was pretending to be tied up, I realized, and tried not to be turned on by it. I figured maybe she was just being theatrical. But then Kate’s body began reacting strangely during sex, not every time, by any means, but once in a while. Sometimes it seemed she was detached from her own body and it hovered between us like something beautiful but sharp. I know it sounds crazy. Other times it was like she wanted to hurt her body: to make it ache for more by not allowing herself to orgasm or to ache from too much fucking even for a guy. And then at other times she’d suddenly cower. “I’m here, Kate.” I’d have to remind her. “It’s Spencer.” She’d come back from somewhere—where?—and kiss me so softly, whispering my name and sweet nothings until I’d melt. I don’t know how else to describe it. It wasn’t sadomasochism. I’ll never be into that shit, and I’ve had opportunities. No whips or leather for me, thanks. But it was definitely disquieting and, I almost hate to admit, curiously arousing, especially given her willfulness out of the sack.

In truth, out of the sack, Kate could be a bitch. I don’t just mean the way she kept me at a safe distance, as if she feared I would not only hurt but destroy her. I don’t just mean the way she seemed to slightly mock me and everyone else at times. She had a biting wit that left me shaking my head. No, she was downright cold occasionally. Even to her daughter. The poor girl lived and breathed for her mom. Kate lived for Emmy too, as far as Emmy was her number one priority. But Kate Nolan, in many ways, was a solitary soul. For a while I liked that about her. She was anything but needy or clingy, which I foolishly assumed at first had to do with her being a feminist. She also had no parents or siblings I had to meet right away and try to impress. She didn’t ramble about old boyfriends or cry after sex about childhood woes. What did she have? She had her books. I’d never been out with a woman who read so much. I figured it was because she didn’t have cable television. She watched the news more faithfully than I ever had, which checked me. She claimed she had to keep up with current events to teach rhetoric. But she also had a genuine interest in all politics, world events, geography. Kate also read a lot, I realized, because she didn’t socialize: no girlfriends, old college pals, favorite coworkers. Again, at first, it was a kind of plus—not to sound like a jerk—that I didn’t have to hang with her BFFs. But it was more than that even. She had a deep, almost religious love for literature. Emmy loved books also. Christ, the two of them could spend hours in a bookstore. But Emmy needed friends and the real attention and affection they provide. She was constantly doing homework. Her only social activities were academic competitions and service club work: bake sales, car washes, charity dinners, blood drives. I hinted once to Kate that I would be more than happy to pay for Emmy to go in for some counseling for her shyness. Big mistake. Huge mistake. She made me sorry. I didn’t see her or Emmy for weeks. Kate didn’t have a clue how much that pained me.