The Pioneer Woman (4 page)

Marlboro Man answered, “Hello?” He must have been almost asleep.

“Um…um…hi,” I said, squinting in shame.

“Hey there,” he replied.

“This is Ree,” I said. I just wanted to make sure he knew.

“Yeah…I know,” he said.

“Um, funniest thing happened,” I continued, my hands in a death grip on the steering wheel. “Seems I got a little turned around and I'm kinda sorta maybe perhaps a little tiny bit lost.”

He chuckled. “Where are you?”

“Um, well, that's just it,” I replied, looking around the utter darkness for any ounce of remaining pride. “I don't really know.”

Marlboro Man assumed control, telling me to drive until I found an intersection, then read him the numbers on the small green county road signs, numbers that meant absolutely nothing to me, considering I'd never even heard the term “county road” before, but that would help Marlboro Man pin-point exactly where on earth I was. “Okay, here we go,” I called out. “It says, um…CR 4521.”

“Hang tight,” he said. “I'll be right there.”

Marlboro Man
was
right there, in less than five minutes. Once I determined the white pickup pulling beside my car was his and not that of Jason Voorhees, I rolled down my window. Marlboro Man did the same and said, with a huge smile, “Having trouble?” He was enjoying this, in the exact same way he'd enjoyed waking me from a sound sleep when he'd called at seven a few days earlier. I was having no trouble establishing myself as the clueless pansy-ass of our rapidly developing relationship.

“Follow me,” he said. I did.
I'll follow you anywhere,
I thought as I drove in the dust trail behind his pickup. Within minutes we were back at the highway and I heaved a sigh of relief that I was going to survive. Humiliated and wanting to get out of his hair, I intended to give him a nice, simple wave and drive away in shame. Instead, I saw Marlboro Man walking toward my car. Staring at his Wranglers, I rolled down my window again so I could hear what he had to say.

He didn't say anything at all. He opened my car door, pulled me out of the car, and kissed me as I'd never been kissed before.

And there we were. Making out wildly at the intersection of a county road and a rural highway, dust particles in the air mixing with the glow of my headlights to create a cattle ranch version of London fog.

It would have made the perfect cover of a romance novel had it not been for the fact that my car phone, suddenly, began ringing loudly.

 

Y
OUR PHONE'S
ringing,” Marlboro Man said, his mouth a mere centimeter from mine. I kept my eyes closed and pulled him tighter, if that was even possible, trying to drown out the clanging cymbal of the car phone by stirring up even more passion between us. It was a beautiful moment; the dark, rural setting had made it so easy to pretend we were in another time and place, in another world. Aside from the ringing of the phone and the headlights from our vehicles, we could have been any two people in the whole history of time.

But the ringing wasn't going away, and ignoring it became impossible. “Who is that?” Marlboro Man asked. “It's a little late, isn't it?” His strong embrace loosened just enough for me to notice.

It was a little late, yes—just after midnight. Way too late for a mom or a brother or most casual friends.

It was also too late for J. We'd been together so long, and he'd never felt
compelled to assert his love and affection like this before—only now, when he realized I was out the door, when he saw that my mind was made up, was he finally mustering up the wherewithal to make his true feelings known. And, of course, it had to be now, when I was standing in the arms of a man I was falling more in love with every day. It was way too late for J. Too late for anyone except Marlboro Man.

Finally the ringing stopped, hallelujah, and the kissing resumed. Marlboro Man's grip tightened, and I was swept away, once again, to that other time and place. Then the ringing began again, and I was thrown back into reality.

“Do you need to get that?” he asked.

I wanted to answer. I wanted to explain that in all our great conversations over the previous week, I'd managed to omit the fact that I was fresh out—barely out—of a four-year relationship. That I'd been slowly breaking it off over the past few weeks and that it had come to a head in the past day or two. That he was at the airport two hours from here, wanting to see me in person. That I'd refused him…because the only thing on my mind was coming here.

How do you talk to a new love about an old one, especially so early in a relationship? If I'd brought it up earlier in the week, spilled the whole story about J and me, it might have appeared I was being way too open way too soon. Plus, when I was with Marlboro Man, right or wrong, J hardly crossed my mind. I was too busy staring at Marlboro Man's eyes. Memorizing his muscles. Breathing in his masculinity. Getting drunk on its vapors.

But now, standing in the dark and feeling so close to him, I wished I'd told Marlboro Man the whole story. Because as uncomfortable as the truth was, the incessant after-midnight phone calls were worse. For all Marlboro Man knew, it was my next date for the evening—or worse, my sugar daddy, Rocco, wanting to know where I was. The phone calls would have sounded much better if I'd provided more context before they arrived with a vengeance. “Sounds like you need to go,” he said as reality swept away the
beautiful mist. He was right. As little as he knew about the phone calls that kept coming, he knew they were something that had to be dealt with.

What could I possibly say?
Oh, it's just my ex-boyfriend…no big deal
sounded trite and clichéd. And it
was
a big deal—if not to me, then certainly to J. But spilling the whole tale about J flying to see me against my wishes was more drama than I cared to insert into this love scene, especially after my breakdown in Marlboro Man's kitchen earlier in the evening. But silence wasn't appealing, either, as it would have just looked sketchy. I could have lied and said it was my brother Mike, calling for a ride to the fire station. But Mike wouldn't have been up that late. And besides, I didn't want to have to explain why my adult brother would even want to hang out at fire stations. My hands were tied.

So I chose the middle ground. “Yep,” I agreed. “I'd better go. Old boyfriend. Sorry.” My mouth could form no words beyond that.

I expected a sudden change in atmosphere, absolutely certain the words
old boyfriend
would cause a drastic drop in ambient temperature and Marlboro Man would simply say good-bye, get in his pickup, and drive away. And he would have had good reason. After all, he really hadn't known me very long. Beyond some good conversation and a few fiery kisses, he didn't know much about me. It would have been easy for him to put up his guard and step back until he had a little time to assess the situation.

Instead, he wrapped his solid arms around my waist and picked me up off the ground, healing the awkward moment with a warm, reassuring hug. Then, touching his forehead to mine, he said, simply, “Good night.”

I climbed back into my car just in time to watch Marlboro Man drive away. Pulling out onto the highway, I took a deep breath and sighed…then I picked up my still-ringing phone. It was J, calling from a depressing airport hotel to say he was crushed, and that he'd brought a ring—and a marriage proposal—with him.

I'd suspected this. He'd been so urgent about wanting to see me when he arrived earlier that day, I knew he must have had a concrete objective
in mind. In that sense, I was glad I hadn't given in to his requests for me to come to the airport to see him in person. It would have been terrible: an awkward hug, limited eye contact, the presentation of the Last-Ditch Diamond, the uncomfortable silence, the inevitable no, the tears, humiliation, and pain.

“I'm sorry,” I said after spending the next forty-five minutes listening to J say everything he wanted to say. “I really am. I hate that today happened like it did.”

“I just wanted to see you,” J replied. “I think you would have changed your mind.”

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“I think once you saw the ring, you would have realized everything we could have had together.”

I didn't say what I was thinking. That, in fact, I would have seen the ring for what it was: a tangible, albeit expensive, symbol of the panic J felt at the prospect of facing change. We'd been so comfortable with each other for so long. I'd always been so available to him, so easy for him to be with—losing me would mean the end of that source of comfort.

“I'm sorry, J,” I repeated. It was simply all I could say. He hung up without responding.

My phone didn't ring the rest of the night. When I arrived back at my parents' house, I fell onto my bed, collapsing in an exhausted heap. Staring at my dark ceiling, I twiddled my hair and found myself, strangely, unable to sleep. Thoughts raced through my mind—of my beloved Puggy Sue—that she wouldn't be greeting me with a playful bark the next morning. Of J—that he was hurting. Of our relationship, which was finally, after so many years, over for good. Of Chicago and all I had left to do to prepare for my move.

Of Marlboro Man…

Marlboro Man…

Marlboro Man…

I awoke early the next morning to the sound of my phone ringing. My phone had rung so much over the past twenty-four hours, I wasn't sure whether to welcome it or run screaming from my bedroom. Groggy, eyes closed, I felt around in the dark until my hand found the receiver. Rubbing my eyes in an effort to awaken myself, I said, softly and with great trepidation, “Hello?”

“You're not asleep, are you?” Marlboro Man said with his signature chuckle.

I opened my eyes and smiled.

T
HE WEEK
following the grisly driveway death of Puggy Sue, the ill-fated surprise visit from J, and my colossal meltdown in Marlboro Man's kitchen was marked by intermittent
are-you-sure-it's-over
phone calls from J and nightly dates with my new boyfriend. Each moment I spent with him was more wonderful than the one before, and by Day Ten of our new relationship, I was madly, ridiculously, head-spinningly in love, even as the date I'd planned to leave for Chicago was fast approaching.

Chicago had been months in the making, and suddenly I found myself avoiding the subject like the plague. Had I lost my mind? Taken leave of my senses? Whenever I allowed myself to enter into the realm of thinking about it, I felt a terrible, uncomfortable tug. I felt guilty, like I was playing hooky or cheating on myself. Suddenly, a cowboy comes along and I can think of nothing but him. I needed only to hear his voice on the other end of the line, saying good morning or saying good night or teasing me for sleeping past six and chuckling that chuckle that made everything go weak…and Chicago—the entire state of Illinois, for that matter—would simply flitter out of my mind, along with any other lucid thought I ever tried to have in his presence. I was doomed.

Around town I'd field the occasional question about the status of my migration. And I'd always give the same answer:
Yep, I'm headed there in
a couple of weeks
.
I'm just tying up some loose ends.
What I didn't tell them was that the loose ends were rapidly, nightly, winding their way around my waist and my shoulders and my heart. Logically I knew I couldn't possibly allow this new man to derail me from where I really wanted to go in life. But it would take a little more time for me to work up the gumption to put the brakes on our ever-increasing momentum. I simply wasn't finished kissing him yet.

After a few more dates in my town, Marlboro Man invited me, once again, to his house on the ranch. Taking into account how much he'd loved the first meal I'd fixed for him, I confidently offered, “I'll make you dinner again!” Since I'd gone the seafood route before, I decided to honor his ranching heritage by preparing a beef dish. After scouring my formerly vegetarian brain for any beef dishes I remembered eating over the previous twenty-five years, I finally thought of my mom's Marinated Flank Steak, which had remained in my culinary memory even through all the tofu and seaweed I'd consumed in California.

To make it, you marinate a flank steak in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic, fresh ginger, and red wine for twenty-four hours, then grill it quickly to sear the outside. The flavor—with its decidedly Asian edge—is totally out of this world; combined with the tenderness of the rare flank steak, it's a real feast for the palate. To accompany the flank steak, I decided to prepare Tagliarini Quattro Formaggi—my favorite pasta dish from Intermezzo in West Hollywood. Made with angel hair pasta and a delectable mix of Parmesan, Romano, Fontina, and goat cheese, it had been my drug of choice in the L.A. years.

I bought all the ingredients and headed to Marlboro Man's house, choosing to ignore the fact that Marinated Flank Steak actually needs to marinate. Plus, I didn't know how to operate a grill—Los Angeles County apartment buildings had ordinances against them—so I decided to cook it under the broiler. Having not been a meat eater for years and years, I'd forgotten about the vital importance of not overcooking steak; I just assumed
steak was like chicken and simply needed all the pink cooked out of it. I broiled the beautiful, flavorful flank steak to a fine leather.

With all my focus on destroying the main course, I wound up overcooking the angel hair noodles by a good five minutes, so when I stirred in all the cheeses I'd so carefully grated by hand, my Tagliarini Quattro Formaggi resembled a soupy pan of watery cheese grits.
How bad could it possibly be?
I asked myself as I poured it into garlic-rubbed bowls just like they did at Intermezzo. I figured Marlboro Man wouldn't notice. I watched as he dutifully ate my dinner, unaware that, as I later learned, throughout the meal he seriously considered calling one of the cowboys and asking them to start a prairie fire so he'd have an excuse to leave.

It was a beautiful spring night, and we adjourned to the porch after dinner and sat side by side on two patio chairs. Taking my hand in his, Marlboro Man propped his cowboy boots on the porch railing and rested his head against the chair. It was quiet. Cattle were mooing in the distance, and an occasional coyote would howl.

Suddenly, inexplicably, in the black of this impossibly starry night, with no action movie or other distractions playing in the background, I began thinking about Chicago.
I should be packing,
I thought.
But I'm not. I'm here. With this man. In this place.

During my months back home, I'd realized more than ever how much I'd missed living in a city: the culture, the anonymity, the action, the pace. It had made me feel happy and alive and whole. That I was even sitting on a cowboy's porch at this point in my life was strange enough; that I actually felt comfortable, at peace, and at home there was surreal.

I felt a chill, the air getting crisper by the minute. I shivered noticeably, unable to keep my teeth from chattering. Still holding my hand, Marlboro Man pulled me toward him until I was sitting on his lap. Enveloping my upper body in his arms, he hugged me tightly as my head rested on his strong shoulder. “Mmmm…,” he said, even as the same sound came from my own mouth. It was so warm, so perfect, such a fit. We stayed that
way forever, kissing occasionally, then retreating back to the “Mmmm…” position in each other's arms. We didn't speak, and the cool night air was so still, it was intoxicating.

With no sounds save for the thumping of my own heart inside my chest, I was left to swim around in my thoughts.
I've got to get going. This will only get harder. I don't belong here. I belong in the city. God, his arms feel good. What am I doing here? I need to get that apartment before it goes. I'm calling in the morning. This has been wonderful, but it isn't reality. It isn't smart. I love the smell of his shirt. I'll miss the smell of his shirt. I'll miss this. I'll miss him….

I was half asleep—tipsy on his musky fumes—when I felt Marlboro Man gently nuzzle his face toward my ear. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled, his chest falling—the words
I love you
escaping from his mouth so quietly, I wasn't sure whether I'd dreamed it.

 

I'
D KNOWN
him just ten days, and it had just left his mouth in an unexpected whisper. It had been purely instinctive, it seemed—something entirely unplanned. He clearly hadn't planned to say those words to me that night; that wasn't the way he operated. He was a man who had a thought and acted on it immediately, as evidenced by his sweet, whispery phone calls right after our dates. He spent no time at all calculating moves; he had better things to do with his time. When we held each other on that chilly spring night and his feelings had come rushing to the surface, he'd felt no need to slap a filter over his mouth. It had come out in a breath:
I love you
. It was as if he had to say it, in the same way air has to escape a person's lungs. It was involuntary. Necessary. Natural.

But as beautiful and warm a moment as it was, I froze on the spot. Once I realized it had been real—that he'd actually said the words—it seemed too late to respond; the window had closed, the shutters had clapped shut. I responded in the only way my cowardice would allow: by holding him
tighter, burying my face deeper into his neck, feeling equal parts stupid and awkward.
What is your problem?
I asked myself. I was in the midst of what was possibly the most romantic, emotionally charged moment of my life, in the embrace of a man who embodied not only everything I'd ever understood about the textbook definition of lust, but everything I'd ever dreamed about in a man. He was a specimen—tall, strong, masculine, quiet. But it was much more than that. He was honest. Real. And affectionate and accessible, quite unlike J and most of the men I'd casually dated since I'd returned home from Los Angeles months earlier. I was in a foreign land. I didn't know what to do.

I love you.
He'd said it. And I knew his words had been sincere. I knew, because I felt it, too, even though I couldn't say it. Marlboro Man continued to hold me tightly on that patio chair, undeterred by my silence, likely resting easily in the knowledge that at least he'd been able to say what he felt.

“I'd better go home,” I whispered, suddenly feeling pulled away by some imaginary force. Marlboro Man nodded, helping me to my feet. Holding hands, we walked around his house to my car, where we stopped for a final hug and a kiss or two. Or eight. “Thanks for having me over,” I managed.

Man, I was smooth.

“Any time,” he replied, locking his arms around my waist during the final kiss. This was the stuff that dreams were made of. I was glad my eyes were closed, because they were rolled all the way into the back of my head. It wouldn't have been an attractive sight.

He opened the door to my car, and I climbed inside. As I backed out of his driveway, he walked toward his front door and turned around, giving me his characteristic wave in his characteristic Wranglers. Driving away, I felt strange, flushed, tingly. Burdened. Confused. Tortured. Thirty minutes into my drive home, he called. I'd almost grown to need it.

“Hey,” he said. His voice. Help me.

“Oh, hi,” I replied, pretending to be surprised. Even though I wasn't.

“Hey, I…,” Marlboro Man began. “I really don't want you to go.”

I giggled. How cute. “Well…I'm already halfway home!” I replied, a playful lilt to my voice.

A long pause followed.

Then, his voice serious, he continued, “That's not what I'm talking about.”

 

H
E MEANT
business; I could hear it in his voice.

Marlboro Man was talking about Chicago, about my imminent move. I'd told him my plans the first time we'd ever spoken on the phone, and he'd mentioned it once or twice during our two wonderful weeks together. But the more time we'd spent together, the less it had come up. Leaving was the last thing I wanted to talk about while I was with him.

I couldn't respond. I had no idea what to say.

“You there?” Marlboro Man asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm here.” That was all I could manage.

“Well…I just wanted to say good night,” he said quietly.

“I'm glad you did,” I replied. I was an idiot.

“Good night,” he whispered.

“Good night.”

I woke up the next morning with puffy, swollen eyes. I'd slept like a rock, having dreamed about Marlboro Man all night long. They'd been vivid dreams, crazy dreams, dreams of us talking and playing chess and shooting each other with Silly String. He'd already become such a permanent fixture in my consciousness, I dreamed about him nightly…effortlessly.

We went to dinner that night and ordered steak and talked our usual dreamy talk, intentionally avoiding the larger, looming subject. When he brought me home, it was late, and the air was so perfect that I was unaware
of the temperature. We stood outside my parents' house, the same place we'd stood two weeks earlier, before the Linguine with Clam Sauce and J's surprise visit; before the overcooked flank steak and my realization that I was hopelessly in love. The same place I'd almost wiped out on the sidewalk; the same place he'd kissed me for the first time and set my heart afire.

Marlboro Man moved in for the kill. We stood there and kissed as if it was our last chance ever. Then we hugged tightly, burying our faces in each other's necks.

“What are you trying to do to me?” I asked rhetorically.

He chuckled and touched his forehead to mine. “What do you mean?”

Of course, I wasn't able to answer.

Marlboro Man took my hand.

Then he took the reins. “So, what about Chicago?”

I hugged him tighter. “Ugh,” I groaned. “I don't know.”

“Well…when are you going?” He hugged me tighter. “
Are
you going?”

I hugged him even tighter, wondering how long we could keep this up and continue breathing. “I…I…ugh, I don't know,” I said. Ms. Eloquence again. “I just don't know.”

He reached behind my head, cradling it in his hands. “Don't…,” he whispered in my ear. He wasn't beating around the bush.

Don't.
What did that mean? How did this work? It was too early for plans, too early for promises. Way too early for a lasting commitment from either of us. Too early for anything but a plaintive, emotional appeal:
Don't. Don't go. Don't leave. Don't let it end. Don't move to Chicago
.

I didn't know what to say. We'd been together every single day for the past two weeks. I'd fallen completely and unexpectedly in love with a cowboy. I'd ended a long-term relationship. I'd eaten beef. And I'd begun rethinking my months-long plans to move to Chicago. I was a little speechless.

We kissed one more time, and when our lips finally parted, he said, softly, “Good night.”

“Good night,” I answered as I opened the door and went inside.

I walked into my bedroom, eyeing the mound of boxes and suitcases that sat by the door, and plopped down on my bed. Sleep eluded me that night. What if I just postponed my move to Chicago by, say, a month or so? Postponed, not canceled. A month surely wouldn't hurt, would it? By then, I reasoned, I'd surely have him out of my system; I'd surely have gotten my fill. A month would give me all the time I needed to wrap up this whole silly business.