He waited as it rang and then was answered. It was the man who had called. “Yeah,” said Lucien. “I got you an answer on Suzanne Taylor’s return to work. She’ll get there when she gets there. Okay? She’ll get there when she gets there.”
“I think this is very sad for you,” the man said. “I’d hate to be in your position.”
18
Things at the spring grew very busy without warning. The Elks booked two luncheons, which on top of the built-in traffic made things burdensome. Nor was Henchcliff taking it as well as he might have. “Lucien,” he said after the second day of this, “we had a very specific conversation about what was expected of me and what was expected of me the way I saw it was high-grade, high-priced cooking, which cannot be done at the same rate as franks and beans. I don’t see this as an eatery.”
“I know that. But bear with us, we’re in business here. We’ve got to take it as it comes.”
“You have to take it as it comes. I’m a cook, I’m an artist.”
“No,” said Lucien. “Cooks are not artists. Somebody should have explained that to you.”
Henchcliff pushed his hands deep into his pockets and bucked his elbows in close to his ribs: heavy weather ahead. “You want to spend a couple days with me in front of that oven?”
“I pay you to do that. Plus I’m the wrong guy to be having this conversation. I don’t give a shit what people put in their goddamn mouths. In fact, long conversations about what people put in their mouths bore the hell out of me. I’ve got plenty of problems of my own right now, Hench. It’s not like I’m interested in trying yours on for size. Why don’t you quit crying and go to work?”
Antoinette, on the other hand, was booking them hand over fist. She really thrived on pressure. If it slacked off, she went creative, and that’s where trouble began. Now, seeing her bent grimly at her ledger, Lucien felt a flood of warmth that watching loyalty produces. He of course knew it was illusory, but what wasn’t. He leaned over and gave her a serious hug.
He checked the linen carts and occupancy list; there was a Billings car in staff parking and he had it towed. He had Shane paint out the graffiti in the bar men’s room and he checked the liquor inventory against the bartender’s sheet. The olives were down. The tar had firmed up in the parking lot, so he took down the rope and flags that cordoned it off. There were three trucks with whitewater rafts slung up in their beds waiting to park, and he waved to the drivers as they moved onto the new tar with an adhesive sound. He filled the bird-feeders and did up the wire ties on the garbage bags behind the kitchen. He ran a stick up into the mouths of the six drainspouts and dislodged leaves and sculch. Four of the six ran copious water though it was a sunny day. Seamless gutters. He threw a tarp over the log-splitter and pulled the rolling doors shut in the front of the tractor shed. He had all the fiery cheer of a man with a family business.
He skipped his dinner and worked until dark. His muscles ached and he took a long shower to feel better. That night Suzanne let him stay. The clean, painted white walls of the room made their shadows vivid; and beyond the door he could see James sound asleep on the daybed with true stories of the American West piled by his side.
“James, what are you interested in?” Lucien had the willows bent down and he was trying to dislodge James’s trout fly. James put his fly in the brush more than he put it in the water.
“A lot of things.”
“What are you best at?”
“What?”
“What do you do the best?”
“Aren’t I going to find out from you?” asked James.
The stream wound through brush in open country. There were antelope off near the limits of visibility, and rising and settling clouds of blackbirds. The pools were sandy and the trout hovered in small schools like fish in the ocean.
The next day a small thing happened which Lucien took to be a sign, a good sign. He went to town ostensibly to do some banking but really because the luncheon special at the Part Time Bar was split-pea soup, Lucien’s favorite. All municipal matters were being settled in the booths and along the counter. The poker machines had until Friday to get out of town, and most people seemed glad to see them go. Two cowboys were disputing whether or not Tom Horn really shot the kid, and withal, there was an atmosphere of time arrested for an appropriate review period or just a decorous tableau. But the sign actually was Dee, Lucien’s old squeeze, with a booth of her own. Lucien sat down. She was wearing her jeans and a pink sleeveless sweater. She was attractive. No wonder I was always sticking my dick in her, thought Lucien.
“Guess what?”
“I can’t,” said Lucien.
“I’m leaving Shit-for-Brains.”
“Hasn’t he been a good husband to you?” Lucien asked, knowing right away that it would have been darned hard to say anything sillier. He ordered the soup.
“You’ll also be delighted to hear I’m leaving town.”
“I’m not delighted to hear that.”
“We found ways of passing the time,” she said. “Me and you.”
“We certainly did.”
“My sister’s a florist in Salt Lake,” she said. “They’ve got a video dish. I can stay with them until I learn the ropes. I don’t know squat about flowers. But then, what did you know about hot springs?”
“Nothing,” agreed Lucien quickly.
“You just fucked the right murderer.”
“Ha ha ha.”
“What’s funny? With me it was a gutter salesman. But I can’t take it anymore. Wednesday he got one of these electric garage doors, and we haven’t been able to get the car out for three days. I walked downtown. So that’s it for me. I don’t care how many Mormons Salt Lake’s got. I’ve had a picture of that seagull since sixth grade and I knew someday I’d go. Also, Shit-for-Brains is about to receive news of foreclosure and I don’t want to be standing there when that one hits. It’s real simple around our place: I want to be somebody and he wants to be nobody. It’s just exactly that black and white. I’m gonna go down to Salt Lake with all those Mormons and sleep my way to the top.”
“It’s hard to think of the right thing to say, Dee.”
“Why say anything? You’ve got it made. But remember this, old Dee was there when you were walking the hoot-owl trail.”
That night Lucien played checkers with James and lost. The little boy sat in a plaid bathrobe and carpet slippers — where did children get carpet slippers these days? — and played to win; Lucien couldn’t stop him. Lucien helped Suzanne put him to bed; she’d bought him a globe during the day and he twirled it slowly as he drifted off murmuring the names of the countries. They made love and Lucien fell asleep thinking about Dee out on that highway; she probably took a few pills to get the trip behind her.
Sometime late, in the middle of the night, Suzanne got up and said she could hear the brindle dog drinking out of the pool. Lucien asked what difference it made. “I guess none,” said Suzanne. “Doesn’t anyone own him?” Lucien threw his head back on the pillow because somehow Suzanne had made it seem such a despairing question. “I thought if I chased him away from our pool he’d go home. But that doesn’t necessarily follow if he has no home.”
“Suzanne, please stop this.”
“I will. I’m going on and on, aren’t I?”
“A little.”
“Am I okay to make love with?” Suzanne asked.
“What do you think?”
“Well, you were never like this with me before. I think you want me.”
“I do,” said Lucien.
“I mean, more than before.”
“Something was the matter with me before,” said Lucien.