Suncatchers (54 page)

The essay hadn't been long, but if he remembered correctly, it had been packed with colorful details she had read about things a cowboy did—branding cattle, driving the herd to the railway, busting broncos, and fighting off Indians. Dinah had wanted to do it all. The essay had ended abruptly. “I want to ride the range in the hot sun and wear a red bandanna around my neck.”

During his phone call on her birthday, she never once mentioned the little book he had mailed. He had held his breath the whole time, hoping she'd say something about it, yet dreading it, too. Would she laugh scornfully at the things he had written? Would she take issue with him about some minor point he had tucked away in a dependent clause somewhere? Would she complain about his writing it all instead of saying it? Or would she soften and thank him for the time and energy he had put into it? But she hadn't said a word about any of it, and he hadn't dared bring it up.

It hadn't been until several weeks later, when she had answered the phone one Sunday night at his regular calling time, that she had let it slip that she had received the book—and read it. But maybe it wasn't a slip after all. Maybe it was carefully calculated. Whatever it was, before handing the phone to Troy that night, she had said, “By the way, that flirty guy in my philosophy class you wrote about—the one you said you always hated—was named Rick, not Rich.”

When Troy had gotten on the phone a few seconds later, Perry had asked him, first, if Dinah had left the room. When Troy said she had, Perry asked him how she was feeling these days. Okay, Troy guessed. Did she seem happy? Most of the time, Troy said, except sometimes. Sometimes, what? Well, sometimes he thought he heard her crying at night after he was in bed. Did she ever go out with . . . uh, friends or other people? Yeah, she and Rebekah had gone to a movie once not long ago. Anyone else? Yeah, she and Joan drove to Chicago one Saturday and let him stay with Grandma. Did any . . .
men
ever come over? A man came and fixed something on the stove one day. Did she ever talk about
him
—Perry? “Yeah, oh, I guess so. I don't know,” Troy had said crossly. “Why don't you ask her all these questions yourself?”

There were a lot of questions Perry wished he had the nerve to ask Dinah. Like why she cried at night and if it had anything to do with him. Like whether she ever wished he were there to put his arms around her. Like what she felt when she thought about their divorce becoming final. Their year of separation would be over in February, and Dinah would finally be legally free of him. Was she looking forward to that day? Perry couldn't imagine how he would live through the experience of opening an envelope someday and reading that his marriage was now officially terminated. He knew the only way he could possibly survive would be not to open the envelope, to put it directly into the trash can and pretend it had never come.

Dry Gulch Western Outfitters was located thirty miles away in a string of outlet stores outside Greenwood. Perry pulled in and parked. Inside the double glass doors was a small vestibule, then swinging wooden saloon-type doors leading into the store. On his way through the swinging doors, Perry met a huge man with a finely groomed handlebar mustache. The man wore a leather jacket that jiggled with fringe, tight jeans, and a pair of brown lizard boots with pointed toes.

“Howdy,” the man said brusquely, striding past Perry. His boots made a clopping sound against the wooden floor. Perry felt light-headed, almost giddy. What would the man do if he responded mockingly, “Howdy,
pardner
”?

Inside, Perry was taken aback by an enormous splash of color. Everywhere he looked were vibrant reds and splatters of turquoise, orange, and purple. Beside the cash register stood a clear acrylic mannequin wearing a full-skirted yellow dress the color of Marvin Gardens. The points of the collar were tipped with shiny metallic silver, and small silver stars studded the belt. Down both sides of the bodice were stitched brilliant green cacti, outlined with silver thread. At first thought all the colors seemed incongruous to Perry with the life of a cowboy—all those cattle, the dusty trails, the bunkhouses and corrals, the rattlesnakes. But then, too, there were those magnificent western sunsets. And perhaps the colors were more symbolic than literal—representative of a lifestyle of exciting hazards.

It took a moment after the visual assault to realize there was music playing over the intercom—cowboy songs, of course—the warm, mellow sound of men's voices with guitar, harmonica, and banjo accompaniment. It was “Good-bye Old Paint” right now, the story of a roving cowboy “off to Montan'” with “my foot in the stirrup, the rein in my hand.”

Perry heard the sharp rat-a-tat of heels coming toward him, but he didn't see the woman until she was almost upon him. Suddenly he was looking down at one of the smallest women he had ever seen. No wonder he hadn't seen her—she was no taller than the clothes racks. She couldn't be much taller than Troy for that matter, and he was sure her feet weren't as big as Troy's. Though her size was childlike, her face was that of a woman about Perry's own age. He tried to keep his eyes on her face and not stare at the rest of her—at the miniature red cowboy boots she wore, at her scrap of a Navajo-print miniskirt, at her short chartreuse blouse with the tails cinched tight across her tiny bare midriff. He couldn't help thinking how chilly such a costume must be at this time of year. But her face gave no sign that she felt the slightest bit underdressed. She wrinkled her button of a nose at him and shook her two shiny brown ponytails saucily. Two little brass horseshoes bobbed from her earlobes.

“How ya' doin', honey?” she asked, smiling up at him. “What can I help you with?” Her voice was squeaky and decidedly deep south, but it might pass for a Texas drawl if customers weren't very discriminating.

Perry had already reviewed his strategy on his way to the store. That was before he knew the salesperson would turn out to be the size of a doll, of course, but he decided to go ahead with what he had planned. “I want to look at four things for my wife,” he said, counting them off on his fingers. “A pair of boots, a belt, a hat, and a bandanna. If you'll show me where they are and let me look by myself, then I'll decide on something and let you know when I'm done.”

The woman laughed, revealing two tiny rows of teeth the size of rice kernels. “Okey-dokey, honey, I can take a hint,” she said. “So you don't like a leechy salesclerk, huh? I don't blame you the least little bit—I'm the same way—and I like a person who speaks his mind.” She pivoted neatly and said, “Follow me, darlin'.” She led him between round racks of clothes, then down a few steps to the back half of the store. “This part down here is where we keep all our accessories,” she said, spiraling an index finger above her head. “Hats along that wall,” she continued, pointing, “belts on this rack over here, ladies' boots on those aisles in the very back, and scarves and bandannas over here on this table. Anything you need help with, just holler.” She gave him another pixieish smile, then turned and left.

Perry saw her approach two scruffy, gangling men in low-slung jeans over by the hats, who grinned at each other when she spoke to them. One of them leaned down, put his hands on his knees, and said, “Well, now, ain't you a cute little thing?” Perry was tempted to walk over and sock the man in the jaw. But the little woman must have been used to such comments. She took a step back, looked up at the man steadily, and replied, “If you need help with the merchandise, mister, just let me know. I might not be very big, but my brain works just fine.” The two men stared as she marched away from them toward the front of the store, where several more customers had just entered. “Little fireball filly, ain't she?” one of them said, and they both laughed coarsely. Perry sincerely wished the roof would cave in right over where they were standing.

He walked back to the boots first and found the size eights. He wondered if Dinah would be surprised, thinking he had remembered her shoe size. Actually, he hadn't. He had cheated a little. When he had left home back in February, he had dumped all his desk supplies—the pens and pencils and paper clips and things—in an old shoebox, which had turned out to be one of Dinah's. Since he had no desk here in Derby, he had kept everything right in the same shoebox all these months, within easy reach on the right-hand side of the shelf board on which his computer sat. Every day he saw the shoebox with its hand-printed masking tape label on both ends:
BLACK PATENT SLINGBACKS
. Dinah was big on keeping her shoes and jewelry organized, although most of her drawers were in constant disarray. So when the idea of buying her a pair of cowboy boots had entered his mind late last night, he had checked the end of the shoebox and had seen
8M
stamped on it.

He saw the pair of boots he wanted almost immediately—a dark rich brown the color of a well-polished saddle, with loops of decorative stitching around the toe. He pulled out a box of eights and headed toward the belts. He didn't know Dinah's exact waist measurement, but he knew it was small. He was relieved to see that most of the ladies' belts were sized in small, medium, or large. There was a case of belt buckles, most of them heavy and ornate, beside the belt rack. Perry bent closer to look at them.

An intercom speaker was mounted on the wall right above his head. A plaintive song was playing now—something about the “curtains of night.” A cowboy was lying out on the prairie looking up at the moon and thinking about his sweetheart back home. Stop whining, Perry wanted to say. If you love her so much, hop on your horse and go get her. It was exactly at that moment that his eyes lighted on an oval sterling silver belt buckle with a brass inset of a cowboy riding a galloping horse. Another one of those odd coincidences that didn't necessarily mean anything, but it took Perry by surprise.
If you love her so much, hop on your horse and go get her
. Wasn't he in a fine position to be giving such advice? He bent down closer, his nose almost touching the glass case. The oval belt buckle looked lighter and more delicate than the others. Maybe it would work for a woman's belt. He could buy one of the plain leather belts and add the buckle.

He slid the door of the case back and removed the buckle, holding it in his palm to test its weight. When he read the price tag of $129.99, he almost put it back, but he took another look at the finely beaten silver and the plucky brass horseman and decided he couldn't. An old phrase of Dinah's sprang to his mind. Whenever she brought home something new that she thought cost too much, she would say, “I couldn't help it. The two of us
bonded
in the store.”

Okay, soul mate, you're mine, Perry thought, setting the buckle gently on top of the boot box. He chose a soft brown belt then headed to the hat racks. The other two men had left by now, but Perry thought he could still smell something tainted in the air.

Size would have to be a guess here. He picked up a suede, buff-colored hat with a rawhide chin strap that he thought looked about right. It was too small for him but not much. Around the brim was a slender beaded band of turquoise, red, and yellow. He could see Dinah wearing it, her pretty features shaded from the sun by its wide brim.

As he set the hat on top of the boot box and turned to the display of scarves and bandannas, another song began playing over the intercom. The tune was familiar—“My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”—but the words were different. Perry tried to focus on the scarves laid out before him in neatly folded triangles, overlapping each other in a huge circle around the edge of the round table, but they all blurred together. Only the words of the song were clear. It was another cowboy dreaming under the night sky, but this one was thinking of eternity and mortality, wondering if he would go to heaven when he died. Now, why did they have to go and put such a serious song right in the middle of the others about favorite horses and girlfriends?

Around and around the bandanna display Perry's eyes traveled as the song continued. In the second verse the cowboy singer developed an amazing religious allegory in which he spoke of another stock owner who always made room for the straying sinner, never forgot his own herd, even knew their every thought and action. Perry felt slightly dizzy after the last line of the stanza, which cautioned the listener to “get branded” so his name would be in the “big tally book.” This was incredible. Here he was in Dry Gulch Western Outfitters thirty miles from the Church of the Open Door, and what was happening? He was getting preached at by means of a cowboy song over the intercom. He looked around, half-expecting to see the whole church congregated behind him, pointing their fingers at him. But all he saw was the diminutive saleswoman, standing on the top step of the upper level, her hands on her hips, like little wings on either side, her head tilted to the side like a curious sparrow's.

Perry looked back at the table of scarves, gently pulled out a large red bandanna, and set it down on top of the boot box beside the hat. Picking up his stack of purchases, he turned and walked toward the saleswoman, smiling. “I'm ready,” he said, and her tiny red boots tapped smartly as she walked over to stand behind the cash register.

“You don't waste any time making up your mind, do you, darlin'?” the woman said. “That's great. My husband could never do this. He can't even decide what kind of milk to get when I send him to the grocery store.” It hadn't occurred to Perry that she might be married. He wondered if her husband was a midget, too. He wondered if she had ever borne children. “And, great day in the mornin',” she was saying now, “look at all the nice things you picked out! You're gonna have yourself one happy wife come Christmas, honey. If any of it doesn't fit, just keep your receipt and bring her back to try another size, okay?”

Perry noticed a small revolving display of earrings beside the cash register. He quickly removed one pair—two little pearl-handled revolvers, each one dangling from a large turquoise bead. “These, too,” he said, handing them to the saleswoman.