South of Elfrida (21 page)

Sheila's apartment, a two-bedroom, made it easy for her to move the unopened boxes—a testament to her inability to commit to a place—from her room to the spare bedroom. When that was done, she drove into Tucson and bought a cot and some sheets for it. The cot-sized sheets weren't very nice sheets; she found them at Ross, and the colour of the top and bottom didn't quite match. But it wouldn't matter. She would be in the spare bedroom on the cot, and he, the English bachelor named Earl, would have the master bedroom with its expensive, queen-sized bed, solid mesquite. It had been outrageous to spend so much on a bed, but she'd thought that she would find a new man, a new life. Daunting to realize how hopeful she'd been. The cot, now that she had it, seemed sensible.

She'd driven into Tucson to meet Earl at the airport, taking the I-19 to the Valencia cut-off. She was picking him up because Amanda and Vincent were occupied by baby worries—a little diarrhea that was soon corrected. And Sheila was willing. She had recognized Earl right away, based on advance description. He was a short man, the sturdy type Sheila liked, squarely built and nearly bald. She could imagine him in a kilt; his legs were bandy and strong. She wore the emerald green silk scarf that went nicely with her curly red hair. They shook hands in the arrivals level and waited at the luggage carousel, each intent on spotting his checked bag. From the freeway, as they drove past the Indian reservation, he admired the San Xavier mission.

In her living room—she thought it best if he brought his things inside before going over to spend time with Amanda and Vincent—Earl presented her with two slim cans of Marks & Spencer gin and tonic. “I wouldn't normally bring such a wee token for my host or hostess,” he said, “but this is so good—and not available here, I gather—and they told me you're fond of
G&T
s. As I am myself.”

At that moment she was out of Gordon's gin—she saw herself flying to Safeway to get a big bottle even as she blushed. In Australia, a sheila refers to a girl or young woman, and while Sheila was neither—she was in her fifties, her prime—she still flushed when flustered.

“It's delightful of you.” She reached for his hand. He was confused by the gesture—she hadn't known what she was thinking, either, so they shook hands again before she ducked onto the balcony. From there she showed him how to get to his nephew's house. She pointed out the entrance, just beyond the lowest branch of the too-tall eucalyptus.

Later, watching the candlelight in her neighbours' window, she sits with her Gordon's and Schweppes tonic (more British, she thinks, than Canada Dry), tucked farther back on her balcony than usual so she can't be seen. A full moon is just rising over the flat-topped buildings to the east and shines through the branches of the eucalyptus, its leaves rattling in the wind. It has been dry; no rain for too long. The radio in the room behind her is turned low, to Delilah's show. A girl with a sweet voice, a young mother with a live-in boyfriend, phones Delilah and says, “I just love him with everything I am.”

Though Sheila can't say she's actually experienced loving someone with everything she is, she's sure she would know were it to happen.

Delilah deftly moves in on the sweet girl like a coyote to a kill. “You're grateful because he's living with you? Has he asked you to marry him? He's living with you and not willing to make the commitment to you and your two-year-old daughter? What kind of example do you think this is for your little girl? She takes him into her heart and life with no guarantee he'll always be there for her?” The sweet-voiced mother collapses in tears. She hadn't thought about her boyfriend in that way before.

Now Delilah softens and murmurs to the girl, “Sometimes we don't always make good choices,” and then plays “My Prayer” by The Platters. The tender old song causes Sheila's eyes to smart.

She can't help but notice that Amanda and Vincent seem to be having a party. Some people she recognizes—gallery and restaurant owners—arrive by foot. She sips her drink and listens to the wind and the rattle of the eucalyptus leaves as the moon climbs. Someone strums a guitar.

She puts down her
G&T
to photograph the moon, a long exposure. She's recently bought a tripod for her digital camera and is thinking of joining a local photography group.

There is nothing more beautiful than an Arizona sky, she'd e-mailed friends back in Portland, where she used to live. She made the sky the reason she'd stayed, made the sky worth all the disappointments. She'd joined a walking group that met early every Sunday and went for big breakfasts afterwards. They often chose the Longhorn Café at the Arivaca junction, where you could order the most exotic thing—chilaquiles, eggs scrambled with green chiles and fried tortillas—so scrumptious, they were practically indecent—all that grease! Sometimes the group went south, for huevos rancheros at a Mexican café that smelled like simmering pork. She'd joined a book club at the library because there were widowers around, or so her bridge group told her, all of them married, except for the happy solo player. Then she'd joined the country club to learn to golf—men were golfers in Arizona—but that hadn't worked out; she'd damaged her rotator cuff.

She's still sitting, watching, when she sees Earl leave the neighbours' and make his way back to her. She has the Gordon's in the freezer but wonders if she's made a mistake; being British he might prefer his drink tepid. She opens the door before he has a chance to knock, her drink in hand. “Come sit on the balcony,” she says. “It's windy out, but rather pretty. Quite a wonderful moon. Would you care to join me for a
G&T
?”

He wouldn't; he's had beer and a Caesar salad with too much garlic. He explains the way a Caesar salad should be made—slivered egg, shaved Parmesan, freshly baked croutons. Earl uses his hands as he talks, describing the sort of garlic a good chef uses. He tells her the chef in his hotel is top-notch. She admits to loving perfection in food. He sits a few moments in silence and then checks his watch. He says, “Travel tires one, even short-haul flights, indeed it does. I wish you good night.”

On the cot, Sheila wears earphones to listen to the radio so as not to disturb her guest. Delilah is married for the second time and believes in God. She has a little boy now and a loving husband. She says, “God bless you” when people are in dire straits and she says, “Let's pray” when things are worse than dire. Every night, Delilah speaks comforting words. It's Sheila's second spring in this particular desert, the fulsome season preceding godawful heat and monsoons, a time of grace, the mammals pregnant or nursing, babies birthed; eggs hatched, chicks feeding. There's tranquility in the Sonoran desert, a sense of plenty. But Delilah knows her audience isn't living a natural, seasonal cycle. Tonight she says a variation of her usual: “Some of you are sad over a lost love, someone you thought would be with you forever, and I'm here to help you, ease your hearts, make your evening just a little brighter. Call me with your stories and let me play something special for you and the person you're thinking of.” Around eleven, heading toward midnight, Delilah reminds her audience to love someone tonight.

Sheila turns off the radio and places the earphones on the table. She settles in. Wonders if he snores.

In the morning her guest emerges from the bedroom wearing a satin dressing gown and carrying his own shampoo. “Very comfortable bed,” he says. “Quite good of you to let me use it.”

“My pleasure.” She's making coffee, which he doesn't drink, but tea would be welcome.

“I need no breakfast, thank you. We're going out and then will carry on, spending the day in wine country. Though it is hard to believe that grapes grow in the desert.”

Sheila says, “Oh, yes, they do! Around Elgin and Sonoita there are beautiful wineries. Lovely area! I just so enjoy a day in the high desert.”

The phone rings. Sheila flutters her fingers at her guest. “Excuse me.”

The call is from Amanda. “Hey. Hi. If you'd like to meet us for breakfast, that would be great. You'll have to bring your own car. The Nissan's so small, what with the car seat . . .”

Sheila gives the words a moment.

Amanda says, “We're going to that place near the border that makes the fabulous huevos rancheros. The place you like so much. Then we'll play it by ear, maybe take Earl for a drive.”

Sheila thinks about the party the night before. Thinks about her comment just now to Earl about a day in the high desert. Thinks about how foolish she is. She hesitates, glances at the back of the man in his dressing gown as he shuts the bathroom door, and turns toward the phone. She's effusive with her thanks for the invitation—“Jam-packed day planned,” she says, and, gushing, declines.

Driving that night down through Yuma and into the Laguna Mountains on a spontaneous visit to San Diego—she will keep driving west until the road runs out—she discovers there's more to Delilah than she knew. In fact, there is another Delilah entirely. This woman's voice is a little huskier. This new Delilah speaks the same words, and she, too, wants to help. This Delilah says, “I know you're a little tired, and I know you've had a long day today, and that's why I'm here.”

Sheila is more than a little tired. She left a key in an envelope with Earl's name on it, on the welcome mat, and has been driving for nine hours, dealing with bouts of weeping along the way. It was idiotic to set out at the time of day she did, but she couldn't stand the sight of her neighbours' empty house and the silence in her own. Now she's tearing along in the dark at seventy miles an hour on a deserted highway, clinging to the murmuring predictability of Delilah and the emotional wrench of desolation that she expects will well up at the next song. Delilah, she thinks, is as addictive as Facebook and just about as productive. Sheila's heart is not eased when she listens to Delilah: the romantic dirges she plays make Sheila want to send out flares—“Over here! Over here!” Dance like crazy or sink into simplistic self-pity.

That's it. That's precisely it. Simplistic self-pity.

She asks herself, speaking out loud, “Are you tired of it?” Her foot eases on the pedal. Yes, I am tired of it, she answers. Would you have wanted to spend a whole day in the heat, tight in the back seat with Earl and a fussy baby? Heavens no. But the next time someone asks her for breakfast, she might just take that person up on the offer because it is, after all, breakfast, not her life. She has her life—she's a woman in pursuit of a partner. But what if she were a woman in pursuit of adventure? Like now, for instance, the adventure of driving into the mountains in the dark, not sure where she'll stay on the other side? What if she isn't running from anything or running at all? What if she secretly enjoys the freedom of being a single person, acting on a whim to see what happens next?

She slows, opens the window to the rushing wind that embraces her skin, blows her hair, brings with it the refreshing fragrance of pine. And she sees a star. The star—why not—sees her, a driver working her way through the mountains to the sea. All the while, like a whisper in the back of her mind, the radio aches on and on. She listens longingly for a few minutes more, and then, in a surprise move, her hand reaches out, pushes the button. The antenna recedes. She closes the window. Her tears dry. She's all right; there's nothing terrible or sad up ahead. Her headlights know the road.

Then, due to faulty neurons, inept parenting, and a psychiatric condition that requires consistent management, it starts again: Roz is lost between the kitchen and the bedroom, afraid to move or duck out of sight because dogs the size of pit bulls whine and snarl in the shadows, and anything can happen next—shrapnel might fall from the sky. The dogs have wide, slavering jaws, strong, able teeth. They are dirt brown with yellow footpads and claws like old ivory. They do not care much for people. You can cloy up to them and perhaps curry their favour, curry them, curry up, eat curry.

“Don't go to crazy town, my girl,” Roz says out loud. She makes a fist, knocks herself in the jaw, blinks, and shakes her head. Listens as the dogs scuttle away, back to their invisible hiding places. She looks at her fist. In it she's crumpled a page from a newspaper. The news is bad.

She makes it to the bedroom where the newspapers she collects are carefully stacked against the walls. The stacks are ramparts, surrounding and protecting her mattress on the floor in the middle of the room. In a cardboard box at the foot of her bed she stores her favourite news articles, and among these articles is the years-long story of Margaret Drummond and her little grandson, Brian. Once Cousin Duke asked Roz, “What the hell makes you so fanatic about an old woman and some kid?” Duke is ten years her senior, her only relative, forty-six and divorced. Certain mysteries in life are not fathomable, and the mind, the human mind, is one of them, Roz replied, speaking only to herself. What she might have said out loud to Duke was, “The human mind is a swamp o' misery,” making a play on words and imitating his accent. Did Duke appreciate her humour? She can't remember; sometimes he is as volatile as a wind off the ocean, letting kites soar, then suddenly letting them down, leaving them up-ended in the sand.