The All You Can Dream Buffet (5 page)

In the soft purple time before dawn, Ginny and her dog, Willow, padded silently back and forth between the trailer and the Jeep she’d finally bought. They loaded up the last of their things, Willow’s soft dog bed for the cargo area, Ginny’s sweater, and a pile of snacks and treats and the spare leash for potty breaks.

It had been a fitful night. Ginny had awakened at 11:45 and 1:32 and 3:10. Finally, when she woke up again at 4:02, wondering what in the
world
she was doing, she slid as silently as possible out of bed and went downstairs to start the coffeepot. While it brewed, she fired up the laptop she was taking with her, the private machine she didn’t share with anybody. She dashed off an email to the Foodie Four, knowing that no one would see it until later. She was a notoriously early riser, and only Valerie was in a time zone behind her, in Ohio.

In the quiet darkness, she sipped her coffee and read the comments on her blog. This morning there were already eighty-nine comments, all wishing her luck, some extending more invitations, some offering tidbits of advice, like a good roadside café in Frisco on her way through the Rocky Mountains.

The comments made her feel better. She had accepted the invitations of two different backbloggers in different places along the road. The knowledge that they were out there, waiting, friendly, made it easier.

In some ways, the community she’d discovered in the blog was more real to her than her own family. They were certainly a lot more encouraging.

She posted a cheery response:
Getting dressed now! Can’t wait!
Then she headed upstairs, Willow trailing behind.

Her traveling clothes were laid out in the spare bedroom, clean and pressed and ready to go: a pair of khaki capris with plenty of pockets—Lavender had pointed her to a hiking website for quick-dry travel clothes—a simple red sleeveless blouse that made her eyes look much bluer, and, her old standby, tennis shoes with ankle socks. Willow lay in the doorway, paws neatly stretched out in front of her, and her tongue lolled out in an easy pant. She watched Ginny with her bright gold eyes, curious and alert, knowing that something was up and she was a part of it.

Ginny knelt and kissed the dog’s nose. “I’m so glad we met,” she whispered, mindful of Matthew sleeping in the other room. He had not been thrilled with the puppy Ginny brought home from Walmart four years ago. A rescue group had been trying to find homes for the animals, and Ginny had spied Willow sitting in tidy puppy sweetness near the back, her ears up. When Ginny asked to see her, the girl hesitated. “I was thinking of keeping her.”

“Oh,” Ginny said, weirdly embarrassed. “I’m sorry! I thought they were all for adoption.”

A woman turned and gave the girl a hard look. “They are, honey, don’t you worry.” She picked up the pup and placed her squarely in Ginny’s arms. Willow sighed against Ginny’s chest, and her fur was as soft and thick as a bear pelt. Ginny bent her nose into the puppy’s fur and smelled sunshine and grass. She was lost.

“Hello!” she said quietly.

Willow licked her chin, a thoughtful, unslobbery greeting. Her golden eyes studied Ginny’s face. This was a dog who took her responsibilities seriously, something Ginny could relate to.

Ginny took her home. Matthew had thrown a fit, but Ginny pretty much ignored him. It wasn’t that she was unfeeling, just that she needed some company now that she’d quit her job and worked on the blog from home.

“Let’s get you some breakfast,” Ginny said now, and they went downstairs, where Ginny opened a can and poured the contents into the ceramic dish she’d ordered online. There were, she discovered, a lot of high-end items for dogs these days. As Willow ate, Ginny drank coffee and watched more light leak into the sky. Her stomach leapt again, right up under her ribs.

She was really going to do this!

Her plan had been to fix Matthew some breakfast and then head out afterward. But he’d been so irritable at the party last night that she had decided to simply give him a kiss and be on her way.

On her way!
Bubbles of giddiness fizzed right below her skull as she headed up the stairs. In the doorway, she stopped, a buzz bolting down her spine.

Matthew was sitting on the bed, fully dressed in knee-length cargo shorts and a camp shirt and his always too-white tennis shoes, a suitcase at his feet.

“I’m coming with you,” he said.

For one long minute, she stared at him. The buzz spread over her jaw and into her ears. His feet were settled side by side, exactly even, his white socks pulled to the exact same height on each side.

In a whirl, she thought of the Foodie Four, of Valerie, who
had lost so much, and Ruby, who was young and intrepid, and Lavender, who had spent her whole life without a husband and seemed just fine without one.

“No,” she heard herself say. “I’m going alone.”

The words shocked her, but saying them aloud made her draw her spine up tall, as if she were Lavender, five foot ten in her bare feet.

Some men might have gone mulish or bossy. That was never Matthew’s way. “It’s ridiculous that you’re driving that far when you’ve never even left the state,” he said.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, but the words stirred up some worry, pulling it out of the dark pot of accumulated insecurities. “I have Triple A, and I’ve practiced driving all over with the trailer. It’s not that hard.”

“Not on Kansas roads, but what about the mountains? How are you going to drive in the mountains? You’re a Kansas girl.”

Again, the splash of acidic worry. “I’ll be fine,” she repeated.

Now he glared. “No, you won’t. You’ll be crying and lonely in two days flat. I know you, Ginny. You’re not the kind of woman who goes out there on her own.”

Tears pricked her eyelids, but she blinked hard. No way he’d see those tears. “Why are you being so mean at the last minute? We’ve had lots of time to talk about it.”

“Maybe I didn’t really think you’d go.”

“It’s only three weeks, Matthew. Maybe a month at the most. I’ll be with friends—”

“Friends? Friends are the people who’ve been there for you your whole life, people who’d bring you a casserole if I died or who’ll help you out when you’re old.” The skin beneath his left eye quivered. “You don’t even know those women. And you’re not in their class, anyway.”

That one landed, right in her solar plexus. It was true—Ruby’s
father was an inventor and millionaire, while Valerie had once been a famous dancer, married to a pilot. Only Lavender, living on her farm, had a life Ginny understood, and even she had been a stewardess for years and years, flying around the world until they stuck her in an office and she returned to the farm.

Ginny was nothing but a college dropout who’d been a supermarket baker. The others probably liked her only because they’d never actually
met
her.

What was she doing?

But something rose in her heart, gently, as she stood there stinging. She remembered evening after evening sorting through Internet sites of Airstreams. Remembered the exact instant Lavender had sent her the link to Coco, her trailer.
You and me,
the trailer said, opening doors and windows to let Ginny come in.

“I’m going,” she said to Matthew. “And I’m going alone. There’s a fresh pot of coffee, and I’ll have my cell phone so you can call me.”

He stared hard at her, visibly trembling. “If you walk out that door, Ginny, don’t come back.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

“Oh, I mean it. You’ve made me a laughingstock in this town. Mr. Cake. The husband of the famous blogger. I’ve been patient, but this is going too far. Not one of my friends can understand why I’m letting you go.”

“You’re not
letting
me, because I don’t have to ask permission! We’ve never had that kind of a marriage.”

He stared at her for a long time. That quivering spot under his left eye intensified. Between them were all the conversations she’d tried to have, all the things she’d tried to get out in the open—why aren’t we having sex? Are you gay? Are you having an affair? What?

All at once, he seemed to hear those conversations. “Is this about the sex, Ginny?”

She sighed. “Not all of it.”

“I don’t understand why you keep making such a big deal out of it. It’s not like we’re kids. We have a good marriage.”

Carefully, she softened her voice. “I came in to give you a kiss goodbye. I need to get going.”

“I don’t want a kiss. Just go.”

It stung more than she expected, but Ginny turned on her heel, whistled for Willow, and headed outside, sure that Matthew would follow. The sun was coming up, pink and gold, and it burnished the top of the Airstream, as if promising good things ahead. Ginny opened the door to the backseat to let Willow inside. The dog settled down on her bed, ears alert.

Ginny glanced back at the house. It already looked like a place she used to live, a long time ago. One deep-red peony was blooming. Ginny walked over, pinched it off, and put it in her hair.

Then she climbed into the driver’s seat, put a hand over the butterflies in her belly, and turned the ignition. The iPod was set to the playlist Christie had made for her, and as she pulled out of the driveway, Ginny turned it on.

“Born to Be Wild” blasted into the car, and Ginny cracked up. Leave it to Christie to set exactly the right tone. Heartened, she sent a mental tip of the hat toward her daughter and pointed the car in the direction of the highway. She decided to name the fizzing in her blood and somersaults in her tummy “exhilaration.”

It was only as she looked in the rearview mirror that she thought to wonder:
Am I leaving my husband?

Sunday afternoon

She made it to Rocky Ford, Home of the World’s Best Melons, by just after three. One of her readers, a backblogger who commented almost every day, had invited Ginny to stop in and have tea with her and some friends when she came through.

It had sounded like fun, finally meeting some of the people she had been talking to online for years, but shyness swamped her now. Tina had directed Ginny to drive to the Tastee Freez and park in the vacant lot behind it, and she managed to do that much without any fanfare. She turned off the car and sat in her seat, holding her phone.

What if she didn’t make the call but drove on to what was supposed to be her first stop—Manitou Springs, which she had wanted to visit since she was nine and Marnie had brought back copper bracelets and candy rocks from there—and made some excuse? Would Tina really mind that much? Ginny was probably overestimating her own importance, imagining that some stranger was eager to meet her just because she had some dumb blog. And everybody said blogs were dying anyway. And—

She took a breath. Blew it out.

What would Lavender say?
Get your butt outta that car, girl, and find some adventure.

Ginny dialed the number Tina had given her. A bright voice answered, much younger and more cultured than Ginny had expected. “Hello, Ginny!” the girl/woman said. “I’ve been waiting on pins and needles for your call. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

And she hung up before Ginny had a chance to say much of anything. She tucked her phone into her pocket and got out of the car, smiling in spite of herself. Leashing Willow, she walked toward a stand of tall old elm trees, where Willow squatted in relief, then sniffed along the weeds.

It was a pretty little nothing town. The Tastee Freez was busy, with both tourists and locals in shorts and ponytails. A small downtown area built of stone in a style popular around the turn of the twentieth century housed a clothing shop and a couple of diners and a hardware store. Just like Dead Gulch.

A woman drove a newish black pickup truck into the lot, waving madly at Ginny. She was slight and thirty-something, and she jumped out, slamming the heavy door behind her, and put her big round mod sunglasses on her head. “Ginny?” Her teeth sparkled.

Ginny was suddenly self-conscious of her travel clothes, her ordinary hair. Tina wore a crisp red and white polka-dot blouse and white capris and wedges that tied around her slender ankles. Her hair was expensively cut and streaked, with auburn highlights woven into the long dark mass.

Her mother always told her to focus on others when she was feeling shy, so that’s what she did now, putting a big smile on her face. “Tina? You are so young! And beautiful!”

“Oh, no, I’m not.” She laughed and hugged Ginny. “What a thrill it is to meet you! My friends and I have a big spread for
you over at my house, so let’s get you over there. Your trailer and car will be fine here for a little bit—my cousin owns it and I told him you’d be coming, so just lock up and let’s go. You must be famished and exhausted! How far did you drive?” Without waiting for an answer, she squatted in a somehow ladylike, pinup-girl way and greeted Willow. “You’re a beauty, aren’t you? I’ve got goodies for you, too, and you can have a nice run out in the backyard to stretch your legs.” She opened the door to let Willow into the narrow backseat in the cab. “Go on, I’ll get the air conditioner on.”