Sugar Daddy (Travis Family #1)(32)

Carrington smelled like baby shampoo and diaper cream. She smelled like innocence. Her small body conformed to mine exactly, and she patted my hand as I held the bottle for

her. Her blue-green eyes stared into mine. I rocked in the languid motion she liked best. With each soft forward pitch, the tightness in my chest and throat and head disintegrated until tears began to leak from the outward corners of my eyes. No one on earth, not Mama. not even Hardy, could have consoled me as Carrington did. Grateful for the relief of tears. I continued to cry silently as I fed and burped the baby.

Instead of putting Carrington back in her crib, I took her in bed with me, putting her on the side against the wall. It was something Miss Marva had advised me never to do. She had said the baby would never willingly go back in her crib alone again.

As usual, Miss Marva was right. From that night on Carrington insisted on sleeping with me, erupting in coyote howls if I ever tried to ignore her upraised arms. And the truth was. I loved sleeping with her, the two of us snuggled together beneath the rose-patterned duvet. I fieured if I needed her. and she needed me. it was our right as sisters to comfort each other.

CHAPTER 9

Luke and I did not sleep together often, both from lack of opportunity—neither of us had our own place—and because it was obvious that no matter how I pretended to enjoy it, I didn't. We never discussed the situation directly. Whenever we did go to bed together, Luke would try this or that, but nothing he did seemed to matter. I couldn't explain to him or myself why I was a failure in bed.

"Funny," Luke commented one afternoon, lying with me in his bedroom after school. His parents had gone to San Antonio for the day, and the house was empty. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever been with, and the sexiest. I don't understand why you can't..." He paused, cupping his hand over my na**d hip.

I knew what he meant.

"That's what you get for dating a Mexican Baptist," I said. His chest moved beneath my ear as he chuckled.

I had confided my problem to Lucy: who had recently broken up with her boyfriend and was now going with the assistant manager at the cafeteria. "You need to date older boys," she had told me authoritatively. "High school boys have no idea what they're doing. You know why I broke up with Tommy?...He always twirled my ni**les like he was trying to find a good radio station. Talk about bad in bed! Tell Luke you want to start seeing other people."

"I won't have to. He's leaving for Baylor in two weeks." Luke and I had both agreed that it would be impractical to continue dating exclusively while he was at college. It wasn't a breakup exactly—we had agreed that he could come see me when he was home on break.

I had mixed feelings about Luke's departure. Part of me looked forward to the freedom I would regain. The weekends would belong to me again, and there would be no more necessity of sleeping with him. But I would be lonely without him too.

I decided I was going to pour all my attention and energy into Carrington. and into my schoolwork. I was going to be the best sister, daughter, friend, student, the perfect example of a responsible young woman.

Labor Day was humid, the afternoon sky pale with visible steam rising from the broiled earth. But the heat didn't hinder the turnout at the annual Redneck Roundup, the county rodeo and livestock show. The fairgrounds were filled to capacity, with a kaleidoscope of arts and crafts booths and tables of guns and knives for sale. There were pony rides, horse

pulls, tractor exhibits, and endless rows of food stalls. The rodeo would be held at eight in an open arena.

Mama and Carrington and I arrived at seven. We planned to have dinner and visit Miss Marva, who had rented a booth to sell her work. As I pushed the stroller across the dusty broken ground. I laughed at the way Carrington's head swiveled from side to side, her gaze following the strings of colored lights that webbed the interior of the central food court.

The fairgoers were dressed in jeans and heavy belts, and Western shirts with barrel cuffs, flap pockets, and plackets of mother-of-pearl snaps running down the front. At least half the men wore hats of white or black straw, beautiful Stetsons and Millers and Resistols. Women wore tight-fitting denim, or crinkly broomstick skirts, and embroidered boots. Mama and I had both opted for jeans. We had dressed Carrington in a pair of denim shorts that snapped down the insides of the legs. I had found her a little pink felt cowgirl hat with a ribbon that tied under the chin, but she kept pulling it off so she could clamp her gums on the brim.

Interesting smells floated through the air, the flurry of bodily odors and cologne, cigarette smoke, beer, hot fried food, animals, damp hay, dust, and machinery'.

Pushing the stroller through the food court, Mama and I decided on deep-fried corn, pork-chop-on-a-stick, and fried potato shavings. Other booths offered deep-fried pickles, deep-fried jalapenos, and even strips of battered deep-fried bacon. It does not occur to Texans that some things just aren't meant to be put on a stick and deep-fried.

I fed Carrington applesauce from a jar I had packed in the diaper bag. For dessert, Mama bought a deep-fried Twinkie, which was made by dipping a frozen cake in tempura batter and dropping it in crackling-hot oil until the inside was soft and melting.

"This must be a million calories," Mama said, biting into the golden crust. She laughed as the filling squished out. and lifted a napkin to her chin.

After we finished, we scrubbed our hands with baby wipes and went to find Miss Marva. Her crimson hair was as bright as a torch in the gathering evening. She was doing a slow but steady business in bluebonnet candles and hand-painted birdhouses. We waited, in no hurry, for her to finish making change for a customer.