3
ONE YEAR LATER
So am I no longer a wife, Irene wondered as she pulled into the parking lot of the liquor store just within the city limits of Cody, Wyoming. She’d stopped buying whiskey from the place closest to her ranch because she didn’t want everyone else knowing what she didn’t want to admit: that she was now an alcoholic—or pretty darned close.
“Hey, Irene,” came a voice from behind her as she slammed the door of her Ford pickup and was hurrying toward the liquor store.
She stopped in her tracks and almost cringed as she tightened her buttcheeks and turned. She recognized the voice, and she was already bright red by the time she forced herself to turn. “Hey, Carl,” she said awkwardly. “What’re you doing all the way up here?”
Carl grinned, showing tobacco-stained teeth that were yellower than her horse’s. Carl owned the liquor store closest to Irene . . . you know, the one Irene had stopped patronizing out of concern for what the locals might think.
“My supplier messed up this week and came up short on some stuff,” said Carl, still grinning, like he was thrilled that he’d “caught” Irene. Yup, this pretty much confirmed that she was an alcoholic, Irene thought. “But the more in’eresting question is why in hell is you all the way here? My whiskey ain’t good enough for you no more?”
Irene smiled, crossing her arms over her breasts when she noticed how Carl was staring right at them. She’d put on more weight over the past year, and even the looser blouses were now tight on her. She didn’t fit into her jeans no more, and had taken to wearing the same long wraparound denim skirt over and over again because it was the only thing that seemed to contain her curves these days. Of course, she could simply make the switch to sweatpants, but she didn’t want to take that step yet.
“Your whiskey is plenty good, Carl,” she said sweetly. “But lately I’ve developed a taste for white wine, and I don’t think you carry my brand.”
“Hell, I’ll carry any brand if someone’s buyin’ it,” said Carl. “Come on, you just show me what you’re sweet on, and I’ll make sure you’re always set. Tell ya what, lemme buy a case or two of it right now, since I’m up here. That way you don’t need to drive all the way to town the rest of this week. Come on, Cowgirl.”
He stepped up and grabbed her arm, and Irene recoiled at his touch. But she was too polite to push him away, and so she walked into the liquor store along with him. She remembered Carl from middle school—he was a pig and a bully then, and he was a pig and a bully now. She hadn’t been the only girl who’d been relieved when Carl had dropped out because his mom died and his dad needed help at the liquor store.
“I ain’t seen you out riding much these days,” Carl said as she led him towards the wine section, trying not to look longingly at the whiskey she knew she couldn’t buy now that she’d made herself out to be a wine connoisseur. “What gives? You still torn up about Dan? Real tragic. Everyone feels for you. But life goes on, honey. Life sucks sometimes, but it goes on. Hell, my ma, she died when I was thirteen, and I ain’t never complained. I just handled it like a real man.”
You’re the furthest thing from a real man, Irene wanted to say. She remembered that thirteen-year-old Carl and his asshole friends. Thanks to the liquor store, Carl always had cigarettes and booze on him, and that made him top dog with his crew. They’d smoke in the bathroom, sneak whiskey at their lockers, and slap girls’ asses anytime they damn well wanted. Back then in Wyoming the words sexual harassment didn’t even fit together in a sentence, and Irene still remembered how her female teacher had smiled and shrugged when Irene complained that Carl had pinched her ass so hard there was a bruise.
“Boys will be boys,” the teacher had said. Then, with a coy smile that Irene had found sickening even back then, added: “Trust me, honey, some girls would kill for the attention you get from those boys.”
The teacher had glanced at Irene’s thirteen-year-old boobs almost accusingly, and for some reason that all came back to her right now as she hastily grabbed an expensive white wine from the shelf and held it up so Carl could clearly see the price. Perhaps he’d balk at buying an entire case of it up front, she hoped.
Sure enough, “real man” Carl muttered something about having to see about his order with the owner and slipped away as Irene exhaled hard. She’d been all wound up, she realized as she felt herself relax. It wasn’t so much that she was threatened by Carl—hell, like all bullies he was a coward, and the years of smoking and drinking had taken its toll on the man. They were the same age, but Carl looked almost ten years older, with deep wrinkles and a light gray hue to his weather-beaten skin.
Shit, this was the closest she’d been to a man in over a year, it occurred to Irene as she dallied in the wine section, waiting for Carl to finish up and hopefully slink away before he was forced to make good on his promise to buy a case of some pretentious California pinot. Was that why she’d tensed up around Carl? As far from a real man as the guy was, he was still male. And she was female. The body wants what it wants.
She almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of the thought. She wasn’t attracted to Carl in the least, but there was no denying that her body had reacted when he grabbed her bare arm out in the parking lot. It was an unconscious reaction, but it was real and undeniable. Shit, she needed a man, she thought as she peeked out from behind a pyramid of Wild Turkey and watched Carl finish up and hastily head out the front door, presumably to pull his truck around back to load up.
She glanced around the store, surreptitiously checking out the other men, feeling somewhat mortified but also excited. She was no longer a wife, she reminded herself. She’d grieved for Dan, and perhaps she’d always grieve for him. But even that bonehead Carl was right about one thing: Life might suck, but it goes on.
She hiccuped and smiled when she got the aroma of the three shots of whiskey she’d downed with breakfast. She shouldn’t be driving, but she knew the roads and she knew herself. She was the widow of an American hero, wasn’t she? What’s a little drunk driving when you’ve sacrificed so much for your country?!
“Would you have an overweight American widow?” she whispered to herself as she watched an attractive man in tight blue jeans and a sleeveless black t-shirt walk up to the counter and ask for a pack of smokes. The guy was maybe ten years younger than her, but what the hell. Guys these days were into older women—at least that’s what all the glamour magazines were saying. And the flip side of “boys will be boys” was that any woman could get laid whenever she wanted, that much she knew.
Maybe I get pregnant, she fantasized as she watched Mister Blue Jeans put his wallet back into his pants after paying. Yeah, I have my fun, get pregnant, sell the ranch, move to Arizona or something. Just me and my baby. The two of us. Goddammit, Dan! One damned thing I ask of you, and you die without delivering. Is that what a real man does? Nope. A real man keeps his promises, Dan. A real man keeps his goddamn promises.