PART II
CHAPTER 20
AFTER A THREE-HOUR delay in Dallas caused by thunderstorms, Billie’s plane landed at the Nashville airport just after midnight. She picked up her rental car—a black Ford Focus—at the Nashville airport and drove the hour to Shelbyville. She took a room at the first motel she came to and fell asleep the instant she lay down, oblivious to the scratchy brown bedspread beneath her cheek and the sucking gasp and belch of the window air conditioner.
She woke shivering, her eyes burning with exhaustion. She rolled herself up in the bedspread and tried to drift off again, but there was too much to do. Closing her eyes brought visions of the day ahead, lists of where she wanted to go and who she might meet to interview for the article.
Sitting in bed, she called home. She’d hired Josie and Sam to care for the horses, and paid extra for them to keep Gulliver while she was away.
“All’s good,” Josie told her. “Your little dog’s snuggled up beside Sam in bed. They’re both asleep.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry! I forgot the time difference.”
“I’m up anyway,” Josie said. “I never sleep through a whole night. Old age. Just wait. You’ll have to get up to pee then you can’t get back to sleep. Add a snoring geezer…”
Billie laughed.
“Your horses are fine. I fed them at seven last night, and I’ll feed them at seven this morning. If you don’t hear from me, all is well.”
Billie thanked her, got up, and showered. She did her best with the package of instant coffee in its cheap wicker basket, the skinny packets of sugar and powdered creamer, and the fragile wooden stirrers. The result was weak and cold, as familiar and evocative to her as Proust’s madeleines. She had drunk coffee like this as a child with her parents, in other motels, and the weak flavor took her back to then. She didn’t want to remember now. She wanted to get going, hop into the rental with its new car smell, its odometer hovering around seven hundred miles, its power everything, and the screen that showed what was behind her when she backed up.
The dawn moon hung over the tips of the pines at the far side of the parking lot, and the early Tennessee morning felt thick and sweet as custard. Predawn bird songs melted into each other as Billie stepped out of her motel room onto the sidewalk beneath the second-floor balcony.
She checked her cell phone to see if Richard had called. She knew he hadn’t, but she kept checking. He’ll call later, she told herself. It’s too early for him to visit Alice Dean in the hospital—if that’s where she still is. He’s busy with his horses. She blocked an image of him with his wife. Mother of his children. She was a resident of this very town, Shelbyville, as was Richard, whom she’d grown up with and married, who had now returned after leaving her. So they could take care of Alice Dean. Together.
An image of his ranch, the gate locked, the house and barns empty, flashed in her mind. She had gone back there once after Alice Dean got hurt. There was no one there, not even the horses. When Richard finally called her, it was to say that he was flying to Tennessee with his kids.
“How is Alice Dean?” Billie had asked.
“In pain.”
“Will she be all right?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“I’m so sorry.” It sounded trite, inadequate, but she didn’t know what else to say. She dropped her head into her hands, pressing the phone harder to her ear to catch his every breath. “I’m sorry, Richard.”
“Not your fault, really. I mean really, it’s mine. But we have to stop. I have to be at the hospital.”
“Can we be friends?” she asked. And you’ll still help me with my article? she didn’t ask.
After a pause, he said, “Sure.”
Hot air blasted from the room’s air conditioner behind her, and a steady stream of water spilled down the wall from the unit onto the pavement. She walked away from the building, out into the parking lot edged with magnolias and spongy wood mulch. The still un-risen sun had turned the tarmac and its puddles an oily pink. She heard sparse traffic on the two-lane highway that ran in front of the motel—wheels slipping past, indistinct voices far away, indecipherable words. Somewhere nearby a cow lowed, a horse whinnied, another answered.
In the lobby, a gaggle of teenage girls who each reminded her of Richard’s daughter Sylvie was lined up at the breakfast buffet, loading paper plates with fruit salad, scrambled eggs, bacon, and donuts.
“Excuse me,” Billie said. “Can I get to the coffee, please?”
The line of long smooth legs and shiny hair parted for her. She took her cup to an empty table and sat looking out the picture window at a vast green stretch of lawn.
The girls were talking about a vampire movie they watched last night after they swam in the motel pool, comparing boyfriends to the movie’s lead teen actor, and each other to the heroine. Billie noticed a newspaper discarded on the table behind her and reached for it.
Local trainer expected to plead guilty to multiple counts of animal cruelty, read the headline. A grainy mug shot of Dale bore the caption: Dale Thornton, 71, accused of Horse Protection Act violations just days before the Walking Horse Big Show gets underway.
If Dale or Eudora would talk to her, grant her an interview, this could be a break for her. It was worth a try.
“He didn’t have a choice,” one of the girls said to her friend.
Billie glanced over and saw that they had another copy of the newspaper and were looking at the same headline.
“My daddy says Mr. Thornton
