“I’m trying to get by it.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not well.”
With that he was gone.
As I lay in bed, emotions battled inside me. Resentment at the feeling that Ryan had suckered me in. All the asking. Then the striving to keep things light.
Annoyance at Ryan’s cowboy-done-wrong act.
But Ryan had one valid point. Why didn’t I divorce Pete?
I take offense slowly, store insult until the end of time. Ryan is the opposite, affronted quickly, but quickly forgiving. Each of us reads the other well.
Ryan was light-years beyond feeling slighted or piqued. His signals were unmistakable.
So, mostly, I felt sadness. Ryan was pulling away.
A tear slid from the corner of one eye.
“OK, wrangler.” Spoken aloud in my party-of-one bed. “Adios.”
7
H ARRY HAS LIVED IN TEXAS SINCE DROPPING OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL her senior year. Long story. Short marriage. Her concept of phone etiquette goes something like this. I’m up. I want to talk. Dial.
The window shade was oozing toward gray when my cell phone sounded.
“You awake?”
I squinted at the clock. Six-fifteen. Like a pilot whale, Harry needs approximately five hours of sleep nightly.
“I am now.”
My sister once had this motto printed on a T-shirt:
She offered none now.
“I’m going to Canyon Ranch.” Harry is blond, leggy, and trying hard to look thirty. Though that checkpoint was cleared a decade ago, in kind light, in the right clothes, she succeeds.
“That makes how many spas this year?”
“Rump’s dragging, tits are starting to look like thirty-eight longs. Gotta eat sprouts and pump iron. Come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m selling the house.”
The abrupt shift left me off balance. “Oh?”
“Butt-pie was an egregious error.”
I assumed Butt-pie was husband number five. Or was it six? I dug for a name. Donald? Harold? Gave up.
“I think I hinted the man wasn’t a girl’s dream come true.”
“You hinted he was stupid, Tempe. Arnoldo isn’t stupid. Problem is he’s got just one string on his fiddle.”
Harry loves sex. Harry is also easily bored. I didn’t want to hear about Arnoldo’s violin.
“Why sell the house?”
“It’s too big.”
“It was too big when you bought it.”
Husband number something was an oil man. I never quite learned what that meant, but their brief nuptials left my sister well oiled, indeed.
“I need a change. Come help me look at real estate.”
“I really can’t.”
“Working on a juicy one?”
I considered, decided against mentioning the Rimouski skeleton. Once ignited, Harry is nonextinguishable. Besides, there was no evidence of an Evangeline Landry connection.
“It’s my busy season.”
“Need sisterly support?”
Please, God. “You know I love your visits, but right now I’m so slammed we wouldn’t be able to spend time together.”
