The Wilder Sisters (18 page)

A wave of calm cloaked her shoulders as she shut the door behind her. She closed her eyes and inhaled the reassuring bouquet of in- cense, beeswax, and history. Commingled with all of that, and im- possible to isolate, was the scent of human beings rendered humble enough to kneel and ask for guidance. By the etched windows at the south side of the church she dipped her fingertips into the holy water font and crossed herself. Philip’s memorial service had been held in a mortuary. Floralee’s church was small, nothing as fancy as the cathedral, but Philip wasn’t Catholic, and Rose knew that any formal religious fussing would have made him angry. As soon as Shep dug the grave, Philip was buried on her father’s property, ad- jacent to Grandpop and Grandma. You could do that in parts of New Mexico, just dig a hole and throw your relatives in. Afterward Mami held a reception—coffee and biscuits was all Rose could re- member. It seemed that everyone in town showed up to tell her they were sorry. When their friends and coworkers shook her hand, Rose could see in their eyes just how relieved they were it had happened to her and not to them. In all the shock Rose still couldn’t compre- hend why he’d ended up in Taos when he said he was going to Colorado.

She opened her purse and took her olivewood rosary out of its cloth drawstring bag. Rubbing the crucifix between her thumb and forefinger, she thought of her children, her father, her mother, her sister, and then Austin, Paloma, and all the animals and people she’d loved in her life, past and present. She asked for enough water to go around so that people and animals wouldn’t go thirsty, and the trees, grasses, and perfumy sagebrush would continue to thrive. She knew it was selfish hoping for the Bronco to endure another winter but sent her appeal up anyway. She bent her neck so that her fore- head touched her fingers, interwoven with the beads, and recited the rosary beginning with the Our Father, then three Hail Marys, another Our Father, followed by ten Hail Marys. Then she said the Glory Be, and her favorite, Hail Holy Queen. It wasn’t a by-the-book recitation, but she was pretty sure God didn’t mind. She kissed both sides of her crucifix and sat back in the wooden pew. The cathedral was named for Saint Francis of Assisi, who had embraced lepers, lived in poverty, and made

peace treaties with wolves. The lives of the saints made every option seem unlimited. The realm of possibility was boundless. Rose felt that her own life had come to a place where
many
things were pos- sible, but day by day those options narrowed.

To the left of the main altar was a nave bearing a carved wooden gilt
retablo
. Above the crucifix stood a statue of the Virgin. Rose left the pew and wandered over, knelt by the bank of votive candles burning in glass cups nestled inside an iron frame. Only a few were lit, their wicks flickering low in the shallow pools of wax. She stuffed a dollar in the collection box and lit four candles. She made the sign of the cross, then left the church to meet her sister, passing by the confessional, a part of the Catholic religion she had jettisoned along with the church’s absurdly out-of-date views on birth control. Here they were letting all manner of divorced people annul marriages with children, and they couldn’t accept condoms or the pill. Maybe the pope needed that silver charm, “Stand Up and Look Over the River.”

Lily stood outside the church in the shade of a tree. She tapped her foot while she talked on her cell phone. “Because I don’t want to drive all that way. Why can’t you just rent a car? Hold on a second.” She held her palm over the mouthpiece. “It’s Pop. He wants us to come pick him up at the Albuquerque airport. How am I sup- posed to fit his luggage in my Lexus? Tie it on the roof? Plus I’m still a little buzzed from those drinks.”

Rose took the phone from her sister. She could hear the weird background static that meant Pop was calling from an airplane. “Lily has a point, Pop.”

“Listen to me, Rose Ann. This has been a long couple of weeks, I’m tired, and I don’t relish arguing over a one-way rental with those brainless counter folk at Avis. Besides, seeing you two in the car to- gether is a sight I cannot miss. Come on down here and fetch your old man. He’ll spring for a steak dinner at the establishment of your choice.” He told her the flight number and then said adios.

Rose handed the phone back to Lily. “Let me drive. I’m sober.” Lily tossed her the keys.

Passing through town and leaving behind the crowds and traffic, Rose was shocked at how responsive the Lexus was compared to her Bronco. She set the cruise control. At the freeway exit for the town of La

Cienega, she could keep quiet no longer and fronted her question with a request. “Don’t be a smart aleck and don’t tease me, okay? Just tell me what you thought of her. Your basic impression. That’s all I want to know.”

Lily had her bare feet planted on the dashboard. She was admiring Buddy’s collar, which she’d looped around her wrist several times, turning it various ways so the silver caught the sunlight. It positively shimmered. “The ex-wife? Your basic supermodel material, unfor- tunately. Who gives a damn if they’re divorced?”

“Austin must,” Rose said. “At least once a month they tangle, after which he falls down drunk.”

Lily yawned. She looked out the window, then back at her sister. “There’s no point in wasting your time until he’s finished with her. Trust me, Rose, I know from experience. She looks great in clothes, but is there a brain in her head?”

“Probably. Austin would never marry a stupid woman. He reads all this literature and stuff.”

“Renaissance men,” Lily said, “are the most difficult breed.” They drove along for several miles, not speaking. Lily offered a

PR bar to Rose, who declined. Lily ate the bar herself and threw the wrapper in the backseat. She shut her eyes. The nearer they got to Albuquerque, the more prominent the red dirt and rocks became, until the sparse trees and green brush nearly disappeared. Rose thought of the time she and Philip had camped high up in the mountains without the kids. Amanda was enrolled in a summer horseback-riding program that had cost more than Rose thought they could afford; Second Chance, eager to earn money, was working on her father’s ranch. Rose sat alongside her husband while he fished a stream that in the middle of summer still ran icy from snowmelt. She recalled listening to the wind move through the trees, not mo- tivated enough to read the book she’d packed. At night she pan-fried Philip’s catch rolled in bread crumbs and butter, assembled a salad from greens she’d brought to the campsite inside a cooler. She’d convinced herself that one of the best things about a long-term marriage was a couple’s ability to spend long, quiet hours together without asking each other a million questions. They’d stayed out three days, time enough to recharge Philip’s batteries before he left on another weeklong sales jaunt. In her mind’s eye, Rose visualized the starkness of her husband’s

profile by the light of their campfire. Philip rarely shaved when they were camping, so his chin was grizzled with whiskers. He looked stern, but she was sure he had been thinking of nothing more com- plex than which bait had proved itself useful. Had she the luxury of living that moment over gain, she would have pushed her shoulder into the quiet, forcing the night to move in a different dir- ection. Instead of being satisfied with the companionable crackle of the fire and basking in the stars of the night sky, Rose would have asked her husband straight out to tell her what was in his heart. She wouldn’t have let him rest that night until he told her. Then, at that moment, she had been so sure she knew him. Now, years later, she only knew for certain that she had been terribly mistaken.

“I’ll tell you one thing about Philip,” Rose said to her sister. “What’s that?”

“To him, smart never mattered. What he really found threatening was imagination.”

“Imagination? What makes you think that?”

Rose took one hand from the steering wheel and bit her thumbnail, considering. Lily thought things out before she spoke. Too often the truth came bubbling up from Rose’s gut, and after she’d spoken she had to analyze what she’d said in order to understand it. “I don’t know, except that I know it’s true. Do you mind if I open the sunroof? I never drove a car with a sunroof.”

Lily pressed the button, and the panel retracted. A warm breeze above them blew lightly through their hair. “Did you love him, Rose?”

“Of course I did.”

“Did he love you back?”

They were near enough to the airport now that Rose took the car off cruise control. When her foot hit the gas pedal, the car lurched forward. “He married me.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Well, do you think Tres felt as strongly about you as you did about him, way back when?”

Lily pressed the button for the CD player. Lyle Lovett’s “Good- bye to Carolina” boomed out of the speakers. “I love everything about that song,” Lily said, “except for the part about leaving the puppies behind. A woman singer would never let a lyric like that go by without rewriting it so it had a happier ending.”

Rose set her turn signal indicator for the airport exit. Read between the lines, and the answer to both questions was exactly the same.

“Rose,” Lily said, when her sister pulled into a parking space. “I have to ask you something. Did you and Philip ever socialize with the vet and his wife when they were still a couple?”

“Floralee isn’t exactly a metropolis. Between church functions, Mami’s parties, sure, I guess we bumped into each other from time to time. Leah’s father was one of Philip’s customers. He sold him saw blades and adhesives for their furniture shops. They have one in Taos now, as well as Santa Fe.”

Lily’s face hadn’t changed expression. She fastened Buddy’s new collar around her neck and admired herself in the rearview mirror. She pressed no further, but Rose had an uneasy feeling that her an- swer had only given Lily more questions.

The rating of men in airports was a Wilder woman tradition. Both Lily and Rose had spent considerable time in this terminal, waiting for Pop to come in from horse country. Sometimes it was Virginia, other times Kentucky, but more often than not it was Texas. He had a special fondness for a breeder down in Austin, and had bought several mares from him over the years. One time he had flown home with a horse in tow. They had to meet a cargo plane, then calm the animal enough so they could trailer it home. Pop took the wheel and Lily rode shotgun. Rose was ready with the syringe of sedative in case the already anxious horse got antsy. After that nerve-racking ride, Pop had settled for ground transport, even though it meant waiting the better part of a week, and patience wasn’t his long suit. In the terminal’s leather seats, the sisters slouched and read the
Cosmo
they bought, quizzing each other on “How Sexy Are You?” or “Fifteen Ways to Drive Your Man Wild in Bed.” Lily read their horoscopes aloud. Despite her outwardly calm demeanor, Rose was an Aries, fiery at the marrow. Lily was a Leo, the fiercest of cats, and it was true that if you fought with her, she left marks. October promised to be memorable for them both. Then, bored with printed matter, like so many times in the past, they took to watching men.

Over the years this male-gazing had led organically to the rating of them.

They tracked a man in an off-the-rack business suit with a red

striped tie strangling his pale, slightly double-chinned neck. He carried a brown leather briefcase, a notebook computer, and, under one arm,
USA Today
. On his feet he wore those incredibly expensive walking shoes, and he was eating a Big Mac as he made his way from one gate to another. “Could be generous in bed,” Rose said, beginning the game. “Since his feet don’t hurt.”

“Ha. Could also mean incipient bunions,” Lily countered. “Plus, way ugly suit. He’s what, fifty? By that age, every man should be able to afford one really nice Brooks Brothers, or if he has an ounce of class, a DKNY or even an Armani. I think he’s cheap. The shoes were a gift from his wife. She thought they might loosen him up, make him amenable to trying new sexual positions, but no such luck.”

“Maybe he saves his money for his wife. Buys her really nice negligees and jewelry instead of suits that no matter whose label you stitch on them essentially all look the same. Why buy a good suit if he got this far without it? He’s ten years from retirement. He wants to spend his money on their mountain cabin. He put a whirl- pool tub in the bathroom like she always wanted.”

Lily sighed. “Rose. Did you
look
at this guy? He’s carrying a newspaper you can read cover to cover before you finish half a Big Mac. He’s dull and couldn’t find a clitoris with a compass.”

Rose laughed, even though she thought Lily could have said something besides clitoris and still made her point. They turned their attention to an Indian guy coming down the jetway. Early forties, maybe, though it was hard to tell because he had such terrific skin. He was dressed in a tight, faded blue T-shirt that showed off his pecs. He wore Wranglers the color of lake water, and expensive snakeskin cowboy boots. Over his shoulder he carried a round cardboard tube with a makeshift handle attached to either end, and on top of his waist-length braids sat a black felt cowboy hat with a cattleman’s crease.

“Be still my heart,” Lily said. “Whatever is inside that tube is worth money. He’s coming to Santa Fe to chat up a gallery owner or drop off new work. Nicely worn clothing, totally casual, which indicates a level of comfort and self-assuredness.”

“No suit,” Rose chided.

“He’s got it in his carry-on should he need it. And if the gallery owner doesn’t like his stuff, five other places are dying to show him. And as I know from vast experience, and my sister only from hearing

secondhand, this is definitely a man to invite to eat crackers in your bed. Nothing fancy, but you’ll go to sleep with a smile on your face. Let’s ditch Pop and introduce ourselves.”

“You’re the one who needs glasses,” Rose said. “The hat is straight off the rack, and the crease is embarrassing. But I can forgive him the hat if only for the boots. They’re Lucchese, Lily. He knows where a girl’s magic button is. It’s the first thing he looks for. And he knows all those Indian tricks like the Kickapoo twist and so forth. If I were in the market, that’s the style I’d pick.”