Whatever you got’ll be fine.
She took down a variety from the cupboard. Red containers and little square boxes decorated with pictures and round canisters of loose tea. What would you care for? she said.
Oh. Just something regular.
I’ve got green tea and black tea and all of these herbal kinds.
It don’t matter. You pick it out.
But I don’t know what you want. You have to decide.
Just one of them. I don’t hardly drink much tea.
I could make you instant coffee.
No, ma’am, tea’s fine.
Now don’t start calling me that again, she said.
The kettle started whistling and she poured boiling water into a large brown mug and put in a bag of black tea. He watched her at the counter, her back to him. She made herself a cup of green tea and put spoons in the mugs and brought them to the table. Do you use sugar?
I don’t believe so.
You sound so tentative. She sat down across from him.
No. I don’t reckon I’m too tentative.
But is something wrong?
Raymond looked around and fixed on the window over the sink. I just never been in a woman’s kitchen before. Only my mother’s.
Haven’t you?
Not that I can recall. And I believe I’d recall it too.
Well. You just have to relax. It’s okay, you know. You’ve done me a great favor. This is the least I can do.
He stirred the tea with his spoon though he had put nothing in it, then put the spoon on the table and sipped at the mug. The tea bag came up and burned his mouth so he fished it out with his spoon and put the spoon back on the table. He sipped again and looked at it and set the mug down.
She was watching him. You don’t like it, she said.
No, ma’am, he said. I’m just going to let it cool a little. He looked at the pictures displayed on one of the walls, there was a young girl standing beside an oak tree. Who’s that you got captured in the picture there?
That one?
Yes.
Well, that’s my daughter. Rebecca.
Oh. I didn’t know. You never mentioned a daughter before.
Oh yes. That’s one of my favorite photographs of her. It was taken when she was much younger. We don’t talk much anymore. She doesn’t approve of me.
Doesn’t approve of you. How do you mean?
Oh, it was something between us back in Cedar Rapids. After her father left.
Did you two have a fight?
You mean with Rebecca?
Yes, ma’am.
Sort of. Anyway she left the house and wouldn’t come back. That was two years ago. I don’t think about it much lately. She laughed sadly. Not too much anyhow.
Is that how come you to move out here?
That, and other things. Are you sure you don’t want me to make some instant coffee? You’re not drinking your tea.
No. But thanks just the same. This here’s fine. He drank some of the tea and set the mug down and wiped at his mouth. He looked out the window and then at her. I don’t believe Victoria and me’s ever had a fight. I don’t know what we’d have to fight about.
She’s a lovely girl.
Yes. She is.
But you’ve only just gotten started with her, haven’t you.
How do you mean?
We’ll, she’s only been with you for a short time, isn’t that right?
She come out to us two years ago. About two and a half years ago now. We had a little bit of a rough time at first but things have worked out. At least I think so on my side. I can’t speak for her.
She’s very lucky to have you.
If she is, Raymond said, it goes both ways.
She smiled at him, then stood and carried the tea mugs to the sink and dropped the tea bags into the trash.
I’m afraid I’m keeping you, he said.
I would offer you supper. But I’ve got to get ready for work.
This is one of your work nights.
Yes.
I better get on towards home anyway.
He stood and walked to the counter and picked up his hat and looked inside the crown, then glanced at her and started toward the front door. She followed behind. As he passed through he looked about the rooms once more. In the front hall he put on his hat. You want me to shut off your car when I get out there?
Yes, if you would. I forgot all about it.
I’ll just leave the keys on the seat.
Thank you again, she said. Thank you so much.
Yes, ma’am. You’re welcome.
He cut off the ignition in the car and set the keys on the seat, then climbed into his pickup and drove around the block onto Date Street and turned south toward the highway. It was growing dark now, the early darkening of a short winter’s day, the sky fading out, the night coming down. The streetlamps had flickered on at the street corners. When he came to the highway he sat for a moment at the stop sign. There was no one behind him. He was trying to decide. He knew what awaited him at home.
He turned right and drove to Shattuck’s Café at the west edge of Holt and went in and sat at a little table by himself at the window, watching the big grain trucks and the cars going by on US 34, their headlights switched on in the evening dark, the exhaust trailing off in the cold air.
When the high-school girl came to take his order, he said he’d take a hot roast beef sandwich and mashed potatoes and a cup of black coffee.
Don’t you want anything else? she said.
Not that I can get here.
Pardon?
Nothing, he said. I was just thinking out loud. Bring me a slice of apple pie. And some ice cream on the side too, vanilla if you got it.
31
VALENTINE’S FELL ON A SATURDAY AND HOYT WORKED from six in the morning until six in the evening at the feedlot east of town, riding pens in the blowing dirt and cold and doctoring cattle in the sick pen next to the barn, where a blackbaldy steer with bloody scours kicked him in the knee, then loosed itself on his jeans while he was trying to push it into the chute. At the end of the day he caught a ride into town with Elton Chatfield in Elton’s old pickup.
They decided to stop for a beer at the Triple M out on the highway to wash the dust out of their throats, and an hour later they were invited to sit in on a game of ten-point pitch at the card table in the back room. In the following two hours the four old men playing at the table managed to take from Hoyt twenty-five dollars and from Elton nearly fifteen, and afterward bought them each a shot of whiskey out of their own money.
In the meantime Laverne Griffith had been waiting for Hoyt since five-thirty, and she had passed through a number of emotions by the time he arrived at home. She had been sad and blue, and for a while she had worried something might have happened to him, but for much of the time she had simply felt sorry for herself, so by nine o’clock she was mad. She was waiting in the kitchen, drinking gin with the lights off, when she heard him climb the outside stairs and open the front door.
Laverne, you ready, girl? he called.
You son of a bitch, where have you been?
Where are you? How come you haven’t turned any lights on?
I’m out here in the kitchen. For all you care.
He walked back to the kitchen in the dark and felt for the light switch, then looked at her. She was sitting at the table already dressed in her party clothes, a black blouse and white jeans, and her face was rouged and her eyes were made up thickly with mascara. The glass of gin sat before her.
Damn, girl, Hoyt said, you’re looking good. He leaned over and kissed her on the side of the face.
Well, you’re not, she said. And you stink of cow shit.
A steer emptied on me this morning while I was trying to head him. I’ll just grab a shower, then I’ll be ready.