Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(59)

If Sally’s sun-weathered skin could blush, then that it did. “I . . . uhhh . . . have been . . . uhh . . . keeping company, so to speak, with someone. Someone totally unsuitable for me. I want to know if there is a chance in hell of us making a go of it?”

Us? Who was the other half of us? Remembering how her mum worked her clients, Romy put out feelers with some apprehension of Sally’s answer. The horsewoman had already shared, despite her father’s hope for a union, that she felt she and Duke were unsuited. Not only in temperament but also in the community’s gauge of affluence.

“This ‘us’, is there anything you feel you two have in common?”

“Horses. Ranching.”

Christ Almighty! Then, it was Duke? “Mmmm,” Romy murmured, filling in the awful, debilitating silence. She flipped over the card on the underbelly of each of the three piles Sally had cut.

Blimey! The High Priestess, the Magician, and the Emperor again – showing up in the Bicycle deck as the Queen of Clubs, King of Diamonds, and King of Clubs. In Romy’s admittedly mixed-up mind the Magician was the shyster Gideon, and the Emperor that damned Duke, ruling the empire of his run-down, flea-bitten cattle ranch.

But who the hell had been the High Priestess all this time? Sally?

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Romy had thought she could never feel so devalued as much as she had when standing before the impersonal Nazi doctors. But to think of Duke and Sally as a couple, coupling . . . now, after . . . after succumbing to her own lust for the rancher . . . .

“Uhhh, I don’t believe ye shuffled, did ye, Sally?”

The horsewoman’s hazel eyes narrowed. “That makes a difference? I cut the cards.”

“Aye,” she said, quickly collecting the piles and passing the deck to Sally. “Tis the energy swirling about ye that changes the cards’ meanings.” That sounded plausible, even to herself.

Sally shuffled an inordinately long time, as if to impart that so-called important energy to the cards, then carefully and precisely cut the deck into three piles once again. All the while, Romy was ruminating.

This time the chatterbox Jack of Hearts was the first card she turned up

“That was in the spread you laid out for me at Christmas,” Sally noted, surprised and not nearly so doubtful now.

“So, it was,” she said, although she truly did not remember who got what cards that day. “Uhhh, I see a cowboy.” Safe enough. Sally had mentioned ranches and horses. But Romy knew her own mind was preoccupied with what was the epitome of the Wild West, at least, for her – the cowboy who had gunned her down last night.

She flipped over the next card.

Sally leaned forward, tapping the Queen of Spades. “Is that me?”

“Aye.” The last card was the Seven of Hearts. “Lovesickness,” she ventured, given the desperation and despair in Sally’s eyes. The same despair she herself was feeling.

“You are amazing,” Sally breathed.

“Err, why do you think this relationship won’t work?”

“That’s why I’m here,” Sally snapped. You’re supposed to tell me.” Then, rubbing her temples, “Gee whiz, I’m sorry, Romy. It’s just so . . . unreal. Bizarre. Texas is about as bad as Germany when it comes to racism. My father finds out I am sleeping with a Mexican, and he’ll kill him and most likely me, too.”

Romy recalled the conjoined silhouettes of Sally and Arturo in the barn, observing the pregnant Cactus Jane. An unlikely couple, she would have thought. But just maybe they met, complemented, each other’s needs.

Relief was an instant medication for her jealousy pangs. She dealt out the rest of the deck, four or five cards at a time, in clusters. Her gaze swept over them, trying to see if she could come up with some pattern out of which to spin a plausible story.

“This partner for ye, he be all male, pure hombre, so sometimes he will not understand ye, ye see?” Her eye caught on the adjacent Bicycle card box. “Tis like at times you two cannot ride the bicycle built for two. But, his easy going ways will balance out, like the bicycle, yuir hard pedaling ways. For sure, there be some rough riding at spots in the road, but all will be well.”

And, if it was not, Romy figured she’d be long gone by then.





§ CHAPTER FIFTEEN §




“Aye?” Romy answered, holding the telephone’s jump rope-like end to her right ear and standing on tiptoe to speak into the mouth piece.

With a clicking sound, Mamie plugged over at the switchboard, and Gideon’s voice came through. “Listen, Romy – it’s Gideon. I have leveraged another engagement for you.”

All her life she had been performing in one way or another in order to stay alive – whether it was before the public or the Nazis. But what else was there for her?

Unemployment was once again skyrocketing. In this time of global financial chaos, the most menial jobs were snapped up. The job of ranch cook was a blessing from heaven, yet in one foolhardy, wistful night she had let her lust for Duke McClellan jeopardize all hope for security.

“Where?”

“It’s next month. At another one of Austin’s German beer gardens, but they’re impressed by word of mouth from Dessau.”

She did not want to take the risk of running into Moe in Austin. Still, she would be grateful if the engagement could help her tuck away pin money for Ireland. “Does it pay anything?”