The Wilder Sisters (33 page)

potted promise, and with Mami’s nurturing efforts, grown into lush green paddles. In this very chair Lily remembered debating her parents over why she should be allowed to study medical engineer- ing, which was exciting, versus languages, which, granted, she had a flair for but bored her witless. Politics, religion, how to drive; nine times out of ten in these discussions Lily emerged the victor. She had reduced her mother to tears on more occasions than she could count. There was nothing she could do to take those times back. Her insatiable need to win every argument might not qualify as her most commendable quality, but it had driven her to career success. She wondered how much of her bullheaded personality had turned Rose into a doormat. The thing was, what Lily knew about Philip dogged her ten times a day. She imagined the inevitable scenario—and why not have it take place here, at the dinner table, where so much bad news had been delivered—
Rose, listen to me for a minute, and try not to kill the messenger. Philip wasn’t the saint you think he was. Let me tell you why, and with who
.

Oh, it was pointless. Some truths didn’t set a person free at all. She pulled a yellowing paddle off the cactus and threw it in the sink. Mami fed her houseplants like she did her greyhounds, weird herbal concoctions, she talked to them, played encouraging music, practically took them for walks. Lily put away the three bags’ worth of groceries she’d bought with ATM money, whistling again and again for Buddy Guy. The food was more of a gesture than anything; she’d also brought Mami cash. When she leaned over the sink and looked out the window, she glimpsed the back of Tres’s head and part of his denim jacket, frayed at the collar so that the red flannel lining showed. How safe it had felt to bury her face there and breathe deep, just wrap herself around that man. She wondered what he and Shep were chatting about as they stood by the fence, the showy Appaloosa between them. Whatever it was, nobody looked bored.

When Lily went to put away the grocery bags in the pantry, she heard a whimper. “Buddy?”

The blue heeler had dug a cave for himself beneath the back hall stairway, where Mami kept her mucking boots and the recycling bins. As Lily peered in she saw that Buddy, curled up tight, nose tucked under his hind end, had amassed quite a collection of chew toys. Among various items liberated from the greyhounds, there was also a pair of her panties, the expensive kind,
naturalmente
, or what was left

of the thong portion. Also a metal food dish she recognized as be- longing to Jody Jr., a ratty old pair of reins from her gymkhana days, and several uneaten dog treats. When she reached her hand out to pet him, Buddy growled but tempered the display by wagging his tail.

“You crazy nut,” Lily said, as she sat down cross-legged on the kitchen floor. “Get over here and give Mama some dingo love.”

The blue heeler’s ears remained flat against his head. His lips were drawn up in twin “fake-out snarls,” which was Lily’s pet name for how his mouth sometimes accidentally curled up over his fangs. It made him look vicious but was actually nothing more than a result of saliva deprivation. When he was relaxed enough to let her, she loved to pull his lips way down over the fangs, which resulted in making the cattle dog resemble a bloodhound. This facial expression she called a “shamus.”

Lily touched the breast pocket of Tres’s shirt, which she was still wearing, inching the giant dog biscuit she’d bought in the gourmet section of the market upward so its rounded end was visible. “Now how did that get in there?” she said. “Maybe I’d better have a teensy taste, just to make sure it’s not poison.” She removed the bone- shaped confection from her pocket. Handmade by some hippie company in Dixon, the biscuit cost four dollars, which Tres told her was insane. Lily didn’t care to snap at him so recently after the
serious
talk in bed, but however much she spent on her puppy was her own damn business. “Buddy’s man’s best friend, or in this case, wo- man’s,” she informed him. “I bet you’d spend four bucks on fishing tackle and not even blink.” She bit a chunk off the end of the surpris- ingly soft, peanut-butter-flavored cookie. “Whoa, those hippies could be onto something,” she said, studying the ingredient list on the cellophane wrapper. “This tastes way too good to be dog food.”

In his heart, Buddy knew this was wrong, absolutely incorrect on every level.
He
was supposed to crave the people food, not the other way around. He cocked his head and studied her as she took a second bite, chewed and swallowed. Slowly he began to creep for- ward on his front paws.

Meanwhile Lily licked her fingers.

Buddy didn’t take his eyes off her. By the time he reached her knees, he was once again besotted with love for his skinny princess magician with the remarkable hands that could scratch his back where he could not, open a fridge to reveal all manner of edible riches, and

best of all, operate a can opener. He rolled over and showed her his spotted belly. Lily rewarded him with what was left of the biscuit. Delicately he grasped it in his teeth while she rubbed his chest. All around his treasured foodstuff, he groaned with pleasure. Pretty soon his lips fell back, exposing his weird pink-and-black speckled gums and his tartar-stained fangs. There wasn’t a nickname for that besides overdue dental cleaning.

Lily knew she was supposed to brush his teeth every day. Getting Buddy in for regular dental attention was difficult because the mo- ment he smelled a veterinary office he went ballistic. This was the perfect opportunity! She could check out the object of her sister’s infatuation while simultaneously delivering the dog test. In Lily’s estimation dogs were far superior to women when it came to spotting bad guys.

“Lily?” She heard Tres calling out her name.

“In the kitchen,” she answered, and there he was, standing in the doorway, this walking, talking Hallmark card of a man who made her heart go as soft as her morning cereal.

She took hold of Buddy’s front paws. “Meet the one, the only Buddy Guy. Buddy, say hi to Tres.”

The blue heeler flipped his body upright and planted all four feet solidly on the floor. He let out a low growl, and his hackles lifted. The expression on his face was not fake-out anything. Buddy’s intro- duction to Tres was starting out just like that time Buddy’d bitten one of Lily’s dates. Out of fear of lawsuits, she’d had to date that particular loser for three solid months. “Buddy,” she warned. “Be nice.”

Tres stood still, not moving a muscle. “I don’t get it. Dogs usually love me.”

“Me either,” Lily said. “He’s probably feeling protective. “He doesn’t like it when I travel. Actually, he goes mental when I drag out a suitcase.”

Tres took a half step toward the table and Buddy lunged for his shin.

Lily grabbed her dog by the collar and got dragged toward the table in the process. “Buddy! Knock it off!” She looked up at Tres. “Maybe if you sat down or something.”

“I’ll wait for you outside.”

He backed out of the room, and Lily heard the screen door creak shut. “Buddy. What in the hell’s the matter with you?”

By way of answer, her dog began to perform the doomed heli- copter dance of happiness. Mami’s remaining greyhound peered in the kitchen doorway while Buddy demonstrated his vaudeville act. He seemed not at all threatened by the presence of the blue dog, in fact, the moment she walked into the room he abandoned Lily in favor of her.

She looks like an indoor deer
, Lily thought.
I wonder why Buddy doesn’t try to kill her
. Buddy raced circles around the greyhound, then rolled over to show
her
his belly. Finally Lily got it: Her dog was in love, which no doubt explained his behavior toward Tres. In that fevered, mine-all-mine state, one could hardly be responsible for one’s beha- vior. The greyhound tolerated his affections for a few minutes, then resumed her state of majestic aloofness. Buddy slunk away. Poor old Buddy Guy. He didn’t seem to fit in anywhere except here with her. Lily dragged her nervous doggie into her lap and kissed the top of his rattlesnake-shaped head. “Buddy,” she whispered, “Pal-o- mine. I love you best and I always will. There’s no man in the world who could take your place. But I really, really, really like Tres. Work on finding a way to be good with that, please?”

Buddy looked up at her adoringly. He pawed at her breasts and lapped her face with a hot, eager tongue. Overdoing it on the phys- ical affection, making promises too good to be true, throw in a little jealously that bordered on the insane: On Lily’s bookshelf at home entire shelves were devoted to self-help, bestsellers that explained men were from other planets, how not to love the wrong kind of guy too much, too often, or too frequently. After the veterinarian drive-by, Lily intended to drop by Collected Works and pick up the newest book on dog training, something like that
Monks of New Skete
.

Tres clasped his hands over hers as Lily came up behind him and gave him a hug. “Relax, I left the dog inside. He’ll be better the next time you meet, Tres. Sometimes Buddy’s a little weird around men. Pretty soon he’ll love you—” She bit her tongue before she was tempted to further embroider the sentence. “Let’s saddle up Ansel and Georgia. I bet if we galloped a few miles we could catch up with Pop.”

“Sounds great,” Tres said, turning to face her. “But don’t you think it’s kind of late in the day to start out on trail?”

She didn’t like that half smile on his face. “We could take flash- lights.”

“I need to pick up some things in town; then I really should get back up the mountain. I’m already a week behind where I want to be on the carving.”

“All that sex I forced you to endure kept you from your chisels.” Tres sighed. “Lily, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“I could grab some clean clothes and come with you.” “Let’s give each other a little breathing room.”

Lily knew Tres was being sensible. He was probably as sick of seeing her ivory panties as she was of washing them out every night. “Well, fine. You have my cell phone number if you get lonely.” She turned toward the house, and Tres pulled her back.

He kissed her forehead, evoking a momentary buzz of pleasure, but already Lily had felt her guard go up. It was going to take more than one kiss to bring it back down. “You’re not upset with me?”

She smiled her seal-a-contract smile, showing just a flash of her chemically bleached teeth. Standing a little off her center of gravity, her hips jutted forward, reminding her that at one time, between the arc of those two bones, a part of each of them had existed, until she had it scraped away. “Good-bye, Tres.”

She stepped deftly out of his reach, lifted her hand, and waved. He got into the truck and started the engine, still looking at her. She stared back, unblinking. As he drove away, Lily wondered if all she’d given Dr. Quintero was another journal entry.

Okay, so maybe he’d gotten to her, a little, enough that she stood there watching his truck until it was out of sight. It had a cracked right tail light, damage not bad enough to repair, but not intact either. Writing, carving, solitude—what made Lily believe she could coexist with that? She needed people, horses, Junior Wells on the juke box, nights at the ¡Andale! where somebody—it might be her—got up on the table and danced. Her eyes welled up with tears.

He’s going to walk into his cabin, and the first thing he’ll see is that unmade bed, the sheets with my scent on them, a stray hair left behind on the pillow. He’ll think about washing the linen, but the Laundromat’s a long ways back into town, so first he’ll sit down at his computer and write
: The approaching snow smells like copper pennies…
he won’t write word one about me
.

Pop and his prospective customer rode into the arena. “Lily,” her

father called out. “Can I get a little help here with the horses while Mr. Lankford and I settle our business?”

“No problem.” She jogged to the arena, opened the gate, and took hold of the reins of both horses. “I’ll brush them out, see to their feet,” she muttered, and her father whisked his buyer indoors.

Alfred stood patiently waiting in the crossties while she tidied Matisse, a dappled gray with stocky legs like all quarter horses used to have, and Rancho Costa Plente’s get still did. “Tomorrow you’re going to a new home,” she whispered to the stallion while she haltered him. “Don’t be afraid. You’re going to spend the rest of your life making gorgeous silver babies. Won’t that be fun?”

Shep appeared with a bucket and a rag. He turned on the hose and filled the bucket. “Is sex all you ever think about?”

“You happened to walk in at the moment I was discussing Ma- tisse’s future, that’s all.”

“Seems like a lot of those moments going around lately.” “Oh, shut up and help me clean these horses.”

They worked side by side, using sweat scrapers and sponges, rubbing the horses dry since the hour was late and the temperature dropping too quickly for baths. “Doctor Quintero sure lit out of here in a hurry,” Shep remarked.

Lily picked Matisse’s hooves and applied thrush medicine as a preventative. “He had to,” Lily replied. “The great snow essay beckoned.”

Shep painted hoof conditioner onto Alfred with practiced strokes. “I’m guessing a first date that lasts five days needs a little recovery time.”

Lily squatted next to the horses, the silver hoof pick in her hand. She stared at the curve of the blunt blade, thinking how it resembled a pirate’s hook. “Probably so. Oh, poop. When’s the last time you fell in love, Shepherd?”

“Fifteen years ago I had a thing for that woman who runs the Catholic church gift shop. She said I was worse than an old goat, and she gave me the gate.”

“So that makes you an expert.”

“Just seems to me you don’t need to be in a hurry, Lily.” He coughed, retrieved a lozenge from his shirt pocket, and stuck it in his mouth. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

“Well, I’ll keep it in mind.” Just as she was about to lead them to their various stalls, Shep tapped her shoulder. “Now what?”

He switched on the arena lights and pointed with the yellow plastic comb. It was snowing. Light flakes glittered in the amber glow of the lights, softly gracing the windshield of the ranch truck Buddy liked to hide beneath. Oh, the simple magic of changing weather. It lifted the spirit, reminded Lily of countless other seasons she’d been too preoccupied to appreciate. She stood out in it for a while, her arms lifted, bare palms up to catch the sting of each flake. Shep told her she was going to catch a cold, but Lily pretended she didn’t hear him. When enough snow had fallen that there was a light crust on the truck’s glass, she used her fingertip to trace the outline of a fat white heart. She stood there watching until the falling snow filled in the edges.