funny because his face is round and he looks like a boy, so all in all he looks like he’s caught in a whole bunch of stages of life.
Miguel and I look at the car clock at the same time. It takes twenty minutes to get to town from here and I’ve only got four more minutes till I’m late, plus I gotta drop off Miguel, so I speed up to eighty-five. The wind’s whipping in the car and the noise of it vibrates around my head from a thousand different directions. Some day I’m gonna have a car with air conditioning, mostly so that I can just drive in silence.
Pastureland spreads in all directions, burnt yellow with the sun, and from here it seems like maybe the whole world might be made up of flat land and sky. Everybody’s sold off their herds so there’s a lot less cows, but every once in a while there’s a bunch around a windmill and stock-tank.
I pass a car loaded down with immigrant workers, who are probably heading to some job, and I feel sorry for them, because it’s going to take them a long-ass time to get there in that piece of junk station wagon. Then I pass Mrs. Tribble, who probably shouldn’t be driving anymore, because she goes about fifteen miles an hour down the highway and weaves back and forth across the center line and everyone around here knows to look out for her but outsiders and semi-truck drivers don’t. Then I swerve around a dead cat that’s been left on the highway, and then the road is clear again and it’s just us, zooming through the middle of nowhere.
Miguel is looking out the window too, and keeps on looking while he says, “Stupid Shawny. I can’t do this all alone.”
I glance over at him, at the angle of his face I can see. “I’m pissed at her too, you know.”
“No. You’re not angry like I am.” Then he nods at the building ahead, though I know that’s where he works. It’s right alongside the highway, a low stucco building that’s been about a million things but is currently Lupe’s Diner. The parking lot is gravel and pitted with huge potholes, which I swerve around as I get him to the front door.
“Gracias por el ride,” he says as he gets out. “Juan asks for you. He’s got an opinion on everything these days. He was throwing a temper tantrum because the moon was the wrong shape—he wanted it full instead of crescent. He doesn’t get what he wants and he says, ‘Rompiste mi corazón. You broke my heart.’ As if it’s my fault. I’m not in charge of the moon, man. I wasn’t in charge of his mom’s life.”
I start to say something and then stop. “Tell him I’ll bring him some cookies, cookies with lots of sprinkles.” Then I add, “With moons. Moons that are both shapes.”
Miguel leans over and looks in the window at me. He nods and smiles, like he’s considering something that he wants to say, and he takes a breath and does it. “We’re the ones left behind. To work our asses off, no? Maybe we should have just taken off too, but now we can’t.” His voice isn’t angry, though, it’s just tired. “You know what we got left with? Hope. I don’t know how to get rid of it. I don’t even know what the fuck I’m hoping for. Shawny’s gone. But still, I keep hoping for something. And even now, I look up at the sky and say, ‘Shawny, rompiste mi corazón, rompiste mi corazón.’ And you, you’re going to miss Tess. I know how close you were. I don’t even think she deserved your love, but she got it anyway, because that’s the way it happens. I know you’re going to miss her, and you’re going to keep hoping.” He shrugs at me, and he looks genuinely confused, and that’s the face that stays in my head, even though time moves on, even though I catch my breath and then keep on breathing, and even though I nod, and then shift into gear and leave him behind.
Frank ought to give me hell. I wish he would, in fact, so I wouldn’t feel so shitty for always being late to such a good job. But no, as soon as I park he walks out of the store with a big wave and smile, picks up a box sitting on the curb, and brings it to my car. I open up the trunk and watch him come in his usual bowlegged walk, box balanced on his round tummy and his smile half hidden by his big, bushy, western-style mustache.
“Sarah Price brought the swing—her baby doesn’t need it anymore. And Betty Zigler wants to know if you want a toddler bed, because she’s got one she’s looking to get rid of, though I told her that was years off. She’s the one who brought this box of baby clothes. I bet any storage space you and Kay had is already used up by now.”
“That’s true. You know, people don’t have to—”
“Stuff’s expensive, everybody likes to help. So, I heard Tess left.” He winks as he twists the box into the car. “Word’s already gotten around. Kay called, asking if I knew anything about this Clark fellow.”
We walk back to the store to pick up another load. There’s a bunch of baby clothes in the box I’m carrying, and Frank has three bags of diapers. “Really? That surprises me,” I say. “That Kay bothered to call.”
“Told her I didn’t know him. I know most everybody out this way, but I suppose some escape my notice. I’ll do some checking, though. Just happened to run into Chet Sanders, who knows a big, dark-haired Clark that works in Lamar, and he says he’s a quiet fellow, hauls hay, works as a mechanic. I’ll see if I can find out more.”
“It’s not like he kidnapped her or anything,” I say. “She wanted to go. She asked him for a ride. I’m sure he’s fine, she’s fine. Everybody’s fine.”
“Well, doesn’t hurt to check. With the baby and all, I thought she might stay. I guess I figured she had reason enough to stick around. But before that, I knew she’d be one of the ones who’d go. I can just tell about people. They either love this place or they don’t. And most of you young kids don’t.”
I almost say, Nobody does, Frank, it’s the middle of Nowhere, Colorado. It’s just a matter of whether or not folks figure out how to leave.
I must be making a face that shows all this, because Frank says, “Now, Libby. This place has some real advantages, and you’ll come to appreciate them more now that you’re raising a kid. It’s safe. It’s small. And people look out for each other.” At this, he swings his arm at the pile of stuff in front of us. “If you ask me, it’s the last fine place to be.”
I’d like to say something about how even I’m smart enough to see that it all depends on your perspective, because maybe he doesn’t see it but all my old schoolmates are either doing drugs or working minimum wage or in jail, and for sure they’re all bored as hell, hanging around and letting their lives go by, including stupid fucking me, and anyway, none of my daydreams are here, in this place, and isn’t that my brain’s way of telling me something?
Frank says, “Remind me to call around to see who’s going to supply night crawlers to the store this year. Everyone’s asking.”
“Okay.”
“And Ed Mongers wants to know if anyone with an alfalfa field would be willing to let him keep his bees nearby, because blooming alfalfa apparently makes good pollen, good honey—something like that. I don’t know, I can never figure out what that guy’s talking about. I told him to talk to Baxter or your mom.”
“Okay.”
“Let me know if you need anything.”
“Okay.”
“You got a picture of Amber for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. And put one in the back, too, and I suppose Arlene will want one. So, you were out working cows, huh? Kay told me to take it easy on you because you look about as shell-shocked as she remembers feeling, although you’ll never say as much, and that you’re going to need some time to absorb it all.”
“Kay said that?”
“Your mom has a kind heart. She just doesn’t like to show it.” Then he adds, “I been there once, so shell-shocked I felt blasted to bits.” As he says this, his eyes drift away from mine, toward the faint blue outline of mountains, and his eyes hang there long enough that he doesn’t see the surprise in mine, although