Part 2
8.
Ollie
“The thing is,” Ryan was saying, “when a horse gets like that, there really isn’t much hope for it.” We were leaning on the corral fence, watching Ditto watch us with great trepidation. “I’d told Garrett I’d give it a shot, but the horse just doesn’t trust anyone. Which is a shame, because he sure is a nice-looking animal.”
I’d seen much worse, as far as horses distrusting humans, but I didn’t say anything. Ryan seemed the sort of guy that didn’t do well with someone opposing what he thought, and I didn’t feel like starting any shit with him. Ryan had decent enough horsemanship, but he wasn’t quite the yahoo that he believed himself to be.
Not that it mattered. I was doing just what Garrett had suggested that day he picked me up—keeping my head down and my nose clean. The season still wasn’t in full swing yet, so there were only a handful of guests staying at the ranch right now, but if they asked me a question, I answered the best I could and then hurried off. Before, I would’ve stuck around and chatted.
“You goin’ to the barbecue tonight?” Ryan asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Why? What else do you have going on?” His tone was almost accusatory.
“I don’t have anything else going on.”
“Then why in hell wouldn’t you go? I know this is your first season working here and everything, so let me give you a little piece of advice: Garrett likes his employees to be sociable. That’s why they’re putting on this barbecue to begin with, sort of as a way to start the season off right.”
If Ryan wanted to think this was my first season here, I’d let him. “I’ll try to make it,” I said.
He nodded. “Good. Don’t be afraid to be sociable. Don’t be afraid to open up and let people know who you are. You got a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. Don’t take offense to that or nothin’, you just seem like the sort who keeps to himself.”
“Simpler that way.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m single right now, but that’s only ‘cause I managed to break it off with my girlfriend last year. She was talking marriage and all that, and I just wasn’t ready for that sort of thing. At least not with her. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to play the field, see what’s out there. You should invite someone to the barbecue! I did.”
How in hell did this conversation go from training horses to inviting girls to barbecues? “It’s a little short notice,” I said. “Probably not going to find a girl to invite in the next five hours or so.”
Ryan turned from the fence and patted me on the shoulder. “If you want to, you will,” he said. He felt bad for me, I realized. “Look,” he said, the expression on his face relaxing a little, “I know you’re not from around here. So, it can be a little hard to integrate at first.”
“How do you know I’m not
from around here?”
“I can just tell, I’m good like that. But I’m not from around here, either. I
grew up on a horse farm in Upstate New York. Dressage and jumpers, mostly,
which I have about zero interest in. Spent half my childhood begging my parents
to get me a Quarter Horse instead of that ridiculous little Welsh pony they
wanted me to ride. Took fifty bucks out of my dad’s wallet and bought this
western saddle I saw in the window at one of the antique shops in town, and
would ride the Welsh pony with that, even though it sure as hell didn’t fit
right. I’ve been spending summers working various ranches for five years now.
Someday I’d like to have my own. A place like this though, a real working
ranch, not just some dude ranch.” He patted me on the shoulder again. “But I
can tell you, when I first came out here, there was a little adjusting to be
done. It wasn’t all smooth-sailing. Which is why I’m encouraging you to find a
lady and come on down to the barbecue tonight. You don’t have to slink around
here like an abused dog that’s afraid it’s about to get its ass kicked. Don’t
be afraid to be social. You must have some skills, otherwise Garrett wouldn’t
be putting you in charge of this horse here.”
I knew he was just trying to help out, in his own way, so I smiled and nodded. “I’ll give it a shot,” I said, though I wasn’t exactly sure what I was referring to. I’d let him think what he wanted of it.
“Good man,” he said.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me . . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence but pushed back from the railing and walked off.
Ditto jerked his head up at the movement and stamped his hooves, but he didn’t
try anything. I watched him for a few more minutes, and then I decided to go
back to my cabin. The blisters on my heels were almost completely gone, but
there was one that was still a bit raw and the Band-Aid I’d put on this morning
had fallen off and had worked its way up under the arch of my foot.
There was someone sitting on the porch of my little cabin as I approached, a woman, I could tell, though I didn’t recognize her. Not at first, but as I got closer, close enough that it would be too late to turn around and walk away, I realized who it was.
Carolyn.
“Ollie,” she said, standing up. I watched the expression on her face as she took in what I looked like now, seven years since the last time she’d seen me. I never had gotten around to breaking up with her. She’d come to Reynolds several times that first year I was incarcerated, but I hadn’t come out to see anyone. Eventually, she stopped trying to see me. She walked over and stopped right in front of me, just a few inches separating us. I took a step back without thinking about it. “My sister said she saw you getting coffee the other day. I almost didn’t believe her. I didn’t figure that you’d be coming back here.”
Carolyn looked a little older, but she still looked good. In high school, she’d been one of the popular girls, the girl that the other girls wanted to be like, to be friends with. Her hair was cut shorter now, and there were fine lines at the corners of her eyes, but the years had been kind to her.
“Yeah,” I said. “That was me. And I wasn’t sure if I’d be coming back here either, but where else would I have gone?”
“Becca said you were with
an older woman.”
“Just a friend.” I’d have to get back over there to see Paula at some point.
“How have you been?”
“Been all right.” She reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and the sunlight glinted off the gold band she wore on her left ring finger.
“You married?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Well, yes, but that’s going to be ending soon.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be—it’s better
this way. We gave it our best. It’s ending amicably. Although it seems like
most people say that, whether it’s really that way or not.” She smiled
sheepishly. “You’re not even going to believe who I’m about to be divorced
from.”
“Who?”
“Jeff Salter.”
I smiled, maybe the first real smile since I’d gotten out. During high school, Jeff had been one of the “computer kids”—not a nerd, but almost. Despite his father being a sheep rancher, Jeff rarely ever went outside and was mostly glued to a computer monitor.
“I know, I know, have your laugh,” she said. “He’s actually done quite well for himself in the tech industry. We lived out in San Jose for a while but moved back here last year. Hey, you know, I’ve run into your brother a few times.”
“You have?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah. We’d go up to San Francisco a lot, and even though it’s a city, I swear, it’s like a small town too, the way you’d run into the same people. Anyway, we’d gone up to Twin Peaks—the view is amazing—and I saw this guy with a group of his friends, they were riding bikes but had stopped to take a break. And I knew he looked familiar, and I asked Jeff and he said it was Darren. So, I went over and said hi. He asked me how you were doing, but of course I didn’t have anything to tell him.” She looked up at the sky, blinking, and I realized she was trying not to cry. She sniffed. “I told myself I wasn’t going to get upset,” she said, still looking up. “I told myself I was just going to come over here and see if it was really you, make sure you were all right, and then leave. My sister didn’t even think I should do that, but I had to.”
“I appreciate it,” I said softly. If she was trying to make me feel bad, she was doing a hell of a good job.
“Why wouldn’t you see me?” she asked. “All those times I drove out there to the prison. I’d sit at one of the tables in the visitor’s room and wait for you, so sure that this time, you’d come out. You’d see me. But you never did. So, I had to move on, you know? I had to. I didn’t know what you were thinking. I didn’t know what you wanted.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see anyone; it wasn’t just you.”
“But didn’t you miss me?”
Had I missed her? I remembered lying there at night, not wanting to go to
sleep, unable to stop the onslaught of memories about my old life, sometimes
the most mundane shit: brushing my teeth, pouring a cup of coffee at my mom’s
counter, driving over to Carolyn’s to pick her up. Of course, I thought about
the other stuff, too: kissing her, the smell of her hair after she’d just
shampooed it, the fact that I was going to break up with her but hadn’t gotten
the chance, because I killed someone before I was able to.
“I did,” I said. “But I didn’t want anyone to see me like that. I thought it’d be better that way.”
“Better for you, maybe.” She was looking at me again, and it seemed like she wasn’t going to cry anymore. It seemed like maybe she was going to close this distance between the two of us real quick and give me a good slap across the face. Which I deserved, and if she’d done it, I would’ve just stood there and taken it.
“I am sorry I hurt you,” I said. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“I know it wasn’t. But it did all the same.” She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. She started to say something but then stopped.
“What?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Well, we don’t have to talk about it right now. Another time, maybe. Like I said, I didn’t come over here to make you feel bad.”
“I know you didn’t. And it’s good to see you.”
She smiled a little then, and there was something comforting about being around her, maybe because she was familiar, maybe because I knew she was someone that my mother had been so fond of. The silence stretched, with neither of us saying anything, but it wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable. It was, in fact, easy to remember why I had liked—okay, loved—Carolyn in the first place: she was kind and gentle and just easy to be around.
“Hey!” I turned at the sound of the voice, knowing who it was before I saw his face, and I wished that I’d invited Carolyn inside instead of standing out here where anyone could see us.
It was Ryan, who had been heading toward his own cabin, but when he saw me and Carolyn standing there, he veered over. Nothing I could do to stop him.
“Hey there,” he said, big smile on his face. He held out his hand to Carolyn. “I’m Ryan.”
“Carolyn,” she said, shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Now, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I just wanted to make sure that Ollie here had invited you to the ranch barbecue tonight.” Ryan laughed. “It’s funny—Ollie and I were just talking earlier about him having someone to invite, and he said he didn’t think he’d find anybody in time. But here you are! So, it’s perfect. I was trying to tell him when you’re new to some place, you’ve just got to put yourself out there and try to be friendly. I didn’t think he was really listening to what I was saying, but I guess I was wrong!” He clapped me on the shoulder, his grin getting wider, as though he’d just done me a big favor. “I’ll let you two get back to your conversation.”
“He’s rather . . . forthcoming,” Carolyn said once he was out of earshot.
“Yeah, he is.”
“’New to this area?’”
“I didn’t get into the details with him about my past. Just easier to let him think I was new on the scene. In a way, I guess I kind of am.”
“How is it being . . .
being back?”
“Good. Strange. In some ways, it feels like everything’s changed, and in others
it feels like nothing has.”
“You seem like you’re doing all right. Although you were never an easy one to read.”
I knew that last comment was not a compliment. “I wasn’t expecting to be back here. But it’s a good thing. I don’t really know what else I’d be doing if I wasn’t.”
“So, there’s a barbecue tonight?”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me. Looks like you’re invited now, too.”
“Only if you want me to go. I don’t want to go if it’s going to make you uncomfortable. Though any excuse to get out of the house is good. Jeff and I are still living together. Separate bedrooms,” she added quickly.
I thought about it for a few seconds. I didn’t even want to go to this barbecue to begin with, but I wasn’t about to tell Carolyn she shouldn’t go, especially since Ryan had made it sound like I was looking for someone to invite. I figured I owed her at least that much.