“—instead of bread. I know.”
Sam appeared with two translucent plastic cups of beer and handed one to Claire.
“Say,” said Tom, “why don’t you all come over for a beer on Sunday? Marie’s going to be gone—”
“Can’t. I’m driving Claire down to L.A., to the airport,” Sam said after a moment.
“Going back East?”
“Yes,” she said, not looking at Sam, “for a couple of weeks.”
Once the rodeo began in earnest Claire slumped on the bleachers and checked out “Biological Control of Powdery Mildew in Apricots.” It didn’t tell her anything new, and at first she welcomed the frequent interruptions by other rodeo-goers more interested in socializing than in the calf-roping — which included almost all of Sam’s and her colleagues from the Agricultural Experimental Field Station. One by one they trooped by, families in tow, unfazed by Sam’s monosyllabic grunts and unshakable concentration on the arena; he was accepted as something of an eccentric. Claire, however, although by nature also reserved, felt compelled as a newcomer to be cordial, and wore herself out in twenty minutes.
Luckily, at this point there was a break in the action, and while the Western Belle Equestrienne Drill Team executed some convoluted maneuvers that were neither functional nor beautiful, Sam spotted someone he wanted to speak to. He climbed up on the bench, cupped his hands, and bellowed, “Eddie! Eddie Froelich!”
Fifty yards away a figure turned around, scanned the crowd, and waved. In a minute he was standing before them: lean, good-looking, youngish, thinning red hair, his eyes a hot blue under near-white eyebrows. A harassed-looking woman and two towheaded little girls trailed behind.
He and Sam pumped arms and thumped shoulders.
“Hey, buddy,” Eddie said, “it’s been too long!”
“Way too long! How’re things at Westside?” Westside was another Agricultural Field Station way over on the arid western side of the Valley, and Claire concluded that this Eddie person must be a friend from Ag school. Sam suddenly remembered the manners that Claire’s skillful nagging had drilled into him.
“Oh, uh, Eddie, this is Claire Sharpies,” he said, putting his arm around her. “She works down at Citrus Cove, too. She’s a microbiologist.”
“Oh, a real scientist, huh?” Eddie said with a trace of sarcasm that he diffused with a laugh and a friendly, “Pleased to meet you.”
There was a silence, during which all parties anticipated the introduction of Eddie’s wife and daughters — all parties excepting Eddie, whose next words were, “Well, listen, old buddy, what you been up to?” And he and Sam resumed talking.
The woman smiled ruefully. “I’m Mary Jo Froelich,” she said, “and this is Stacey” — resting her hand on the bigger girl’s shoulder — “and Kristin.” She smiled fondly at them.
“They’re adorable,” said Claire, a little mechanically. She was listening with half an ear to the men’s conversation; Sam was being deliberately charming and she wondered why.
“Not riding this year?” he was asking.
“Nope — my bones ain’t made of rubber like they used to be. And neither is my head!”
Sam laughed. “You used to be mighty good, Eddie,” he said, then added casually, “Played any ball lately?”
Claire suppressed a smile. Recruiting for softball; that explained most of these sudden spurts of sociability. She turned her attention back to Mary Jo and the girls.
Suddenly Kristin declared that she wanted a grape Slurpee.
“Not now, honey,” her mother said. “You just had one. Maybe before we go—”
“—I want one NOW!” Kristin wailed in her piercing three-year-old’s voice. Eddie Froelich whirled, his freckled face reddening.
“Kristin,” he said through clenched teeth, “if you don’t shut up I’m going to whomp you into next week!”
The little girl shrank against her mother, and Claire took a step backward, startled by the outburst, whose violence was so disproportionate to the offense. Mary Jo, however, seemed embarrassed but not really disturbed, and Eddie subsided as quickly as he had exploded.
“Kids!” he said with a weak grin. “She’s been ornery all day.”
“We’d better take them back to our seats,” said Mary Jo, casting him a look that said We’ll Talk About This Later. Eddie lingered for a moment.
“Let’s get together soon,” he said almost wistfully. “And I’ll call you about softball. Though I don’t have much free time these days,” he added with a sharp laugh, looking after his wife and daughters.
Sam watched his retreating back. “Used to be the best shortstop in Kaweah County,” he remarked, and after a moment added, “and the luckiest man in the lower San Joaquin Valley. Or unluckiest, depending on who you talk to.”
Claire looked at him curiously.
“Used to be married to Glenda Cannon.”
It rained Monday and again Tuesday. A mass of moist air parked over the Great Basin, just east of the Sierras, was sending these daily downpours, and the customary dry heat of the Valley became oppressively humid.
“A little preparation for Back East,” said Sam as they sat on the front steps of his house on Tuesday evening after the rain. Despite almost a year of cohabitation, Claire still regarded the little cabin high in the foothills as “Sam’s house.”
“Boston’s miserable in the summer,” she agreed, though they both knew she could hardly wait to leave. Bookstores. Seafood. Foreign films. Jazz on the radio. Good friends. She might even drop in on the conference that the Field Station was paying her to attend.
“How do you know Eddie?” she asked as a distraction.
“High school,” Sam replied briefly.
“And Glenda?” she asked after a moment.
“Same.”
“Was she your girlfriend?”
Sam gave a bark of laughter. “Good God, no! I wasn’t in her league. For one thing, the Cannons were rich. Otherwise, no Arabian horse-breeding ranch for little Glenda. It’s an expensive hobby. No, that’s not fair,” he corrected himself scrupulously. “She’s worked real hard at that business.” He paused, then said, “She loves those horses,” in a strangely muffled voice that held an echo of obscene adolescent speculations, Parkerville High boys’ locker room, circa 1966: Just exactly how did Glenda love those horses, anyway?
“Glenda wasn’t really anybody’s girlfriend,” he continued. “She was kind of wild; went out with a lot of guys, Eddie included. He was varsity football and basketball,” he added in irrefutable explanation, “but he really wasn’t good enough for her. Nobody was.
“But when I got back from Thailand, he and Glenda were married. To everybody’s surprise, most of all Eddie’s, I think. And personally, I figure she just needed somebody to help run the ranch. Because she divorced him. In two years. And Eddie didn’t get anything in the settlement, either, because the judge happened to be a golf buddy of Barney Cannon’s, and he ruled that everything had been Glenda’s before the marriage, so under common property Eddie wasn’t entitled to it. Well, Eddie sort of went nuts for a while: lawsuits, threatening letters — he even vandalized the ranch.”
“How do you know all this?” Claire broke in.
“Christ, everybody knew it!” (Stupid question; everybody always knew everything that happened in this county.) “He made a public spectacle of himself,” he said with exasperation, whether at her or at Eddie she couldn’t tell. “Finally settled down; went back to school, remarried, got himself a job at Westside. I guess his degree’s in animal husbandry, ’cause it’s mostly cattle ranching over there.” Silence. Suddenly Claire said, “Debby looks sort of like Glenda, doesn’t she?” Debby was Sam’s ex-wife.