Return to Oakpin(103)

            They’d been standing in the back hallway beside the kitchen and could hear the crowd in the main barroom. “I believe I’ll use the house drum kit,” Craig said. “No sense showing everybody what Larry did to my snare way back when.”

            “This is going to require a drink,” Mason said. He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes to live. This is going to require two.”

            As he stepped toward the barroom, Kathleen took his elbow. “I’ll go with,” she said.

            “Hey, Kathleen,” Frank said to his ex-wife.

            “Hey, Frank. Sonny.”

            “Can you believe we’re here, we’re going to do this?”

            “I have no trouble believing anything, Frank. My credibility has been tested.”

            “You sour bitch,” Sonny said. It was crowded in the passageway, and everybody stood still.

            Kathleen stopped and smiled. “I know,” she said. “But I’m working on it, Sonny. It’s not permanent.” She touched the young woman’s wrist. “Listen, I just said your name.”

            Craig and Marci were already at the bar when Mason and Kathleen came up. There was no place to sit or stand, but Marci had winnowed between two guys and got an elbow in and was talking to the bartender. The cowboy she’d leaned over looked to Craig and said, “She act this way at home?”

            She turned to the man and rubbed his cheek with the back of her knuckles, smiling. “I’m only going to be a minute, darlin’.” Craig liked this side of her, the cowgirl, although she’d hidden it for some time now. He hadn’t heard her say darlin’ for years. It had been too long since he’d done anything with Marci except go over the household accounts or call her parents. He was having fun—it was a road trip. This day was crazy, and then he was going to build a guesthouse in town.

            Marci handed back beers to the men and lifted two white wines to her group, one for Kathleen.

            The Pronghorn had been a little tavern three miles south of Gillette, a place the roughnecks could stop on the way back to town. Over the years it had grown, first with a room on one side for four pool tables and then a large quonset in the rear with a hardwood floor for dancing. This area was lined with tables behind a low wooden corral. There were neon beer signs everywhere, red and blue and green, so the general glow added to the odd effect of having three ceilings of different heights in the gerrymandered room. Tonight all the tables were full, two and three pitchers of beer on each, four, and the dance floor too was packed with a fluid, partisan crowd, groups of people churning forward, cheering their friends, under a glacial slip of cigarette smoke that drifted toward the high center.

            Marci was lit, feeling her nerves ebb and flow as a physical thing. Ever since her long flirtation with Stewart, she’d been out of her life, beside it, and everything seemed simplified. She could easily shed one life and pick up another; there were times every day when it felt she already had. She could leave tomorrow. Craig was strong enough for any new thing, and she’d finished her work with Larry. He was a good kid and had been self-reliant for these last two years. There were times when she felt Craig would understand—she had to move on. And there were times some nights when she started awake in bed, seized by a terror that made her put her teeth into her lip. What was she doing?

            Now, as they weaved though the tight throng toward their table, her face burned. She felt a charge she couldn’t contain. This was better than being numb, she guessed, but god. She kept looking at Craig for a clue. If he gave her an opening, she’d tell him, but she was out of sync, and people knew it. On the way up she’d been silent in the car, afraid that if she spoke, her sentences would go right off the edge.

            As they’d been packing the lunch, Kathleen had asked her what was the matter. Marci wanted to say that the matter was that she was in love. There were times, when she was alone in her car driving home from the museum, when she said that aloud, “I’m in love.” It sounded good, and it felt good to say, but later she’d look at Craig when he came in or when they were watching television, and all the rush was gone. She wasn’t in love; that was something from a cheap refrain. Stewart would have leaned her against his desk, closing his eyes as he did, and pulled at her needfully, whispering, “I want all of this. When I can I have all of this?” They burrowed against each other. It thrilled her and repelled her and ultimately made her tentative, and she’d straighten until they both stood and adjusted their clothing. She felt brave and stupid. It was too late to be doing this; it was never too late. In the Pronghorn, she ducked under the rope where the bands had their tables and sat down with Larry. The others were just arriving too, and Craig was already on the stage. She looked at her son. “You’re not drinking, are you?” she asked.