Valentine(52)

Hello, Mrs. Shepard, he says. Girl of my dreams.

For the first time all day, maybe the first time in weeks, Corrine’s face breaks into a wide grin. Hello, Mr. Shepard.

After a quiet supper of fried chicken and beer, they continue north. Night has come all the way in, but natural gas flares burn on both sides of the highway. Potter says that some nights the companies flare off so much gas a person can drive all the way from Odessa to El Paso without once turning on his headlights. They are dependable as West Texas sunshine, he says.

Wish they smelled better, Corrine says. Wish I knew what was in there.

When they turn off the highway and start toward the peaks, he switches off the headlamps and they drive along a dirt road in the dark. Flares flicker in the distance. He glances at his wife. Her eyes shine in the gaslight, a freckle on her cheek turns gold, and he begins to sing quietly. Frankie was a good girl, everybody knows. She paid one hundred dollars for Albert’s suit of clothes. He’s her man, and he did her wrong. When he reaches across the cab and touches his wife on the knee, she jumps. They have not touched each other, not so much as a pat, since they handed the baby off to her father hours earlier.

Corrine lays her hand on top of his and gently rubs his knuckle. Are you trying to flirt with me?

Potter laughs. Yeah, maybe, a little bit.

Well, she breathes deeply. All right.

Abruptly, he turns onto another dirt road and heads for open desert. They bump along for a few minutes, their heads like fishing bobbers, as Potter peers down access roads on either side of them that are barely wider than the truck. Corrine leans forward and looks through the windshield. Where are we going?

I used to know a little rise up this way. Good place to watch the moon and stars come out. You want to stop and get out of the truck for a little bit?

All right.

A few minutes later, he pulls up next to a mesquite forest. This looks like a good place.

They sit on the tailgate for a few minutes, feet dangling while they smoke and watch a few stars come out. A smiling moon hangs just above the earth’s edge, and they can see the Burlington Northern rolling across the desert, though it is too far away for the train’s whistle to be louder than a moan. Potter jumps up and reaches through the passenger window, and Corrine hears him open the glove box. We going to shoot each other? she says.

Ha, ha. Funny lady. He returns with the bourbon and leans next to her on the tailgate, the bottle wedged between his thighs. He kicks at some dirt. There are a dozen things Potter might say to Corrine right now, and she thinks, not for the first time, that maybe she should have married Walter Hendrickson, the local boy who grew up to write country songs, and get paid to do it.

I wish you could be happy staying at home, Potter says.

Corrine stands up and takes several long strides away from the truck. When she turns, her face is a fury. Well fuck you, Potter.

Potter looks as if he’d like to take off running into the scrub. Maybe she’ll get lucky and he’ll fall into an abandoned well, or a rattlesnake den.

I’m going to tell you something, Potter. The only thing I hate more than being home with Alice all day long is feeling guilty about not wanting to do it. Corrine’s voice breaks and she pushes her fist against her mouth. She is trying not to cry, and this makes her even angrier.

He unscrews the cap on the bourbon and takes a long swallow, then another. Somewhere in the brush a bobwhite begins to sing. Bob White! Not quiet! Come again, some other night. Another answers, Bob White, Bob White. Hooey, hooey, hooey. Falling stars tumble across the sky—there, then quickly gone. He holds the bottle out to her, but Corrine shakes her head and lights another cigarette. He watches her smoke for a few minutes and then stands up and sets the bottle down on the tailgate. He takes his wife by the shoulders. Corrine is a tall, curvy lady, but she is still almost a foot shorter than her husband. He ducks down and looks directly into her beautiful eyes. Corrine, I’m sorry.

If he had just declared himself a Soviet spy, she could not have been more surprised. She never says she’s sorry to anybody for anything, it’s one of her character flaws, but Potter doesn’t exactly fall over himself dishing out apologies either.

Corrine touches his face, her hand large and warm against his cheek. It has been months since she’s touched him like this.

Potter, when you were flying planes over Japan, I taught English all day and then I drove out to the fields with a bunch of other women and helped load cattle onto freight trains. I was worn out every night—and I mean tired, Potter, all the way down to the bone. Even my tits hurt at the end of the day. But I also felt strong. And then all you men came home and we were just supposed to get knocked up as soon as possible and slink back into the kitchen like a bunch of old cows headed back to the barn. And maybe that’s all right. I guess plenty of women are just pleased as punch by the whole arrangement, or maybe they just bitch less than I do. Corrine pushes herself off the tailgate and takes a few steps into the desert. She turns and faces her husband. I love Alice. She’s the best thing you and me ever did together. But hear me, Potter. I am losing my everloving mind.

She walks back over to him, and they stand side by side next to the tailgate. Some of the gas flares have gone out and the sky has again filled with stars. Corrine stands stiffly next to her husband. Her back is straight as always, but her hands are trembling.

As soon as we get home, he says, we’ll start looking for somebody to watch Alice, one of those oil-field widows you can’t stop reminding me about.