“You’re kidding, right?” she had asked when he wound down.
He stared into his mug of Tombstone Double IPA. “Maybe. You never know.”
“Never know what?”
“I thought you’d be interested.”
“I was interested, just not persuaded.”
“Not persuaded by me?”
She felt wary, as if she had to be careful or she’d hurt his feelings. “I don’t believe the government is spraying me with chemicals, Ty. And if they are, I don’t think I can do anything about it, so I’m not going to worry about it.”
“Ah.” He had looked for a while longer at the dregs of his beer while she tried unsuccessfully to think of something to say that would change the subject. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and placed a ten-dollar bill on the counter, smoothing it with the side of his hand. “Okay.” He stood and, tucking his shirttail into his belt, gave her shoulder an awkward pat. “Well, I’m off to see my folks. Hope to see you around.”
DT had lumbered down the bar toward the money and pocketed it while pouring Billie another white wine.
“He strike out?” the old man asked her.
She hadn’t answered.
Now in the Depot, sniffing along every aisle, Gulliver toured Ty’s store, tail wagging. Ty leaned against the counter, a pencil balanced on top of his ear, an order pad folded back to a blank page in front of him.
“Can I help you, Billie?” he asked.
“I need some Equine Senior feed.”
“Gotcha.” He never referred to their drink that night. “One? Two?”
“One.” At twenty-five dollars for each sack of grain, a single fifty-pound bag was all she could afford. It wouldn’t last long, a day or two if she was careful about doling it out. All the horses she rescued at the auction had gained weight, but Starship was middle-aged and couldn’t maintain his weight on hay alone. She needed to supplement his diet.
“Nothing else?” Ty asked.
Billie shook her head no, thinking of the long list of things she really did need, oats and fly spray especially. Hashtag had already torn her fly mask, and Billie didn’t want to tell the owner her mare needed a new one. Running up someone’s board bill pretty much guaranteed that the boarder would be taken away and business lost. She would replace the mask herself when she could.
While Ty went to the storage shed to get the sack of senior feed, and Gulliver nosed through a bin of shrink-wrapped trotters, Billie wandered toward the bulletin board at the back of the store to check on the flyers she had put up yesterday. Maybe they would all be gone by now, signaling a rush on her services. And maybe when she got home later, the answering machine would be filled with requests to board horses, dozens of horses, hundreds at her place. They’d ask what she charged and pay her double. Sure.
At least someone was looking at them. The man was just a bit taller than Billie, maybe five foot eight or nine. He was stocky with curly hair streaked with gray that once might have been red. Afternoon stubble speckled his jaw. His shirt looked clean, and he had rolled the cuffs above his elbows. She could tell he needed reading glasses by the way he leaned away from the board and squinted.
“That’s my flyer,” Billie said.
He turned to look at her.
“I board horses.”
“Devoted care,” he read aloud. “Sounds pretty nice.”
“It is nice,” she said. Inane, she thought. I’m an idiot.
“What do you charge?”
Billie quelled an urge to offer him a deal.
“Is that all?” he asked. “Back home board runs two, three times as much.”
“I could charge you more.”
He laughed.
“Where’s home?” she asked.
“Tennessee. But I live here now. I bought a place, other side of the highway.” He offered his hand. “My name’s Richard Collier.”
Billie’s hand felt like it was being undressed and taken to bed. She put it in her pocket as Ty hefted the bag of Equine Senior feed onto the counter and slapped open his receipt pad.
“This is your new neighbor, Billie,” Ty said. “In a distant sense. He’s south of the freeway, you’re north.” He folded the pad’s top sheets underneath and pulled the pencil stub from behind his ear and licked the tip.
“I could use some dog food too,” Billie said, even though she didn’t need any and wouldn’t for another week and shouldn’t be running up the bill. It was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. It kept her from leaving.
“Is that your little dog I saw in here?” Richard asked.
“Gulliver,” Billie said.
The screen door banged hard behind her, and Billie felt Ty’s attention slide past her and get stuck on something.
“Dad?”
She turned to see the blonde girl she had watched riding in the show, dressed today in a blingy pink T-shirt and shorts as small as pot holders. She had long tan legs and slender feet in cheap rubber flip flops. On her, they looked like props for a Vogue magazine shoot. Ty’s eyes were big and bright. Sylvie, Billie remembered the girl’s name from somewhere deep. Yeah, she had won at the horse show. Billie noticed that Richard’s eyes were silvery blue.
“You almost done, Dad? I want to get…home.” Sylvie hesitated before she said home. She looked from her father to Billie. “Oh,” she said as if Billie were a pool of barf on the floor.
“My daughter, Sylvie,” Richard introduced her. “This is our neighbor across the highway, Syl. I’m sorry. I missed your name.” He looked at Billie as if she were the most interesting item on a long and complicated menu.
“Billie Snow. I saw you ride at the show, Sylvie, and win.”
“I saw you, too.” Sylvie’s lips parted in a smile. She had pretty, smooth, young teeth. “So you got those flyers up someplace. Here, right?”
“Right.” Billie wondered where Sylvie’s obnoxious brother was.
“Da-ad?”
“Okay, Sylvie. Going!”
He unfolded a thick pad of bills from a roll and set them on the
