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  I felt myself smiling, saw him grin in return. “It must have been hard to get the bees to follow along … to make the honey, I mean.”

  “We tied little strings to their feet.” Pinching his fingers together, he mimicked the motion of tying a tiny bow.

  “I bet they didn’t like that very much.”

  His warm brown eyes sparked with a hint of appreciation for the fact that I was playing along. “The trick is to roll them over and scratch their little abdomens. They enjoy that.”

  “No doubt. I guess you’d have to turn them loose to go collect nectar, though.”

  “Only a few at a time. The rest have to hang around and fan the soap trays and pat out the bubbles with their tiny feet.”

  “Wow.” I could understand now why he was a writer. He almost had me picturing the gypsy wagon with the soap molds in the back. “Sounds like a business I need to look into. The bees do all the work.”

  Nate nodded. “My mother was always in favor of someone else doing the work.” Even though he tried to make it sound like a joke, a part of the story, there was a flash of emotion that told me that bit was real. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I wanted to know more, but something told me I shouldn’t ask.

  We stood suspended in awkward silence for a moment before he motioned toward the serving tent. “Looks like lunch is on its way.”

  Imagene was headed our direction. Carrying a shallow box, she chatted with Miss Beedie, who was ferrying two drinks with a pie pan balanced on top.

  At the sight of Miss Beedie, something painful slammed my ribs, then constricted. I couldn’t breathe. My mind raced ahead, imagining what I might say when, for the first time in two years, I was face-to-face with the mother of the man who was dead because of Danny and me. When Pastor Harve and Miss Beedie buried their son, Harvard Jr., I was in the hospital in Austin, in a quiet, medically induced sleep. I should have gone to them when I was finally back on my feet. I should have told them Danny didn’t drive into the water accidentally. He did it because we were arguing, and I told him to go around the long way, and he wanted to prove he didn’t have to.

  When I woke up in the hospital, my father said no one blamed us for what had happened. It was dark. It was raining. The water over the road was hard to see. It was an accident. Some sad, guilty part of me felt relief. It seemed like it would be easier for everyone not to know that Harvard had died because of a stupid, careless mistake, an immature, childish argument that was one of a long string of arguments.

  I couldn’t make myself call Harvard’s family and tell the truth, but I couldn’t call them and lie, so I just didn’t call. I sent a card, a tree to be planted at Caney Creek Church, and a plaque. I let time go by.

  I’d created a chasm for which there seemed to be no easy bridge. Miss Beedie was crossing it in her slow bowlegged shuffle with two glasses of iced tea and a pie pan, her mocha-colored skin warm in the midday light. She and Imagene were busy talking, seemingly unaware that they were closing a gap I’d worked hard to maintain.

  “I … left something,” I muttered to Nate, then turned and hurried toward the barn.

  Chapter 14

  Nathaniel Heath

  Lunch turned out to be a quiet affair. By the time Lauren reemerged from the barn, Imagene and her helper, Miss Beedie, had delivered the food and then left in a hurry to finish serving pie to the workers. They asked where Lauren was, and I said I didn’t know exactly. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she was avoiding someone or something having to do with lunch. When I was new in LA, I dated a game show model with an off-and-on eating disorder, so the vanishing mealtime companion wasn’t completely unfamiliar. For a minute, I thought the farm dogs and I would be divvying up Lauren’s plate.

  When she came out of the barn, she was hungry, though, and we ate in a hurry before The Shay and crew returned to proceed with the horsemanship lessons. I was curious about our disappearing horse trainer, but I didn’t ask. Sometimes it’s more productive to study things, gather information until you can draw your own conclusions, or at least know the right questions to ask. If Lauren were a character onscreen, she would have been the gorgeous yet wounded and vulnerable small-town prodigal hiding some deep, dark secret beneath a pragmatic exterior. This place, these people, the family gatherings and funny childhood anecdotes seemed to fit her like a comfortable old pair of shoes. Yet I got a sense that she was limping, carefully feeling her way through every step, afraid that sooner or later she’d come down on something sharp.

  The more time I spent around her, the more interested I was. One of the drawbacks of a screenwriter’s mind is that such characters fascinate you. You feel compelled to figure them out, understand their motivation.

  Beyond that, the whole cowgirl thing was hot. My interest wasn’t completely academic.

  I caught myself losing track of everything else and just watching her as the afternoon wore on with little discernible progress in the horse whispering department, as far as The Shay was concerned.

  I had to give Lauren credit for tenacity. She was trying, but Justin’s patience was minimal and his relationship-building skills were so thin even the horse could see right through them.

  Our crowd of onlookers at the fence dwindled as the day grew hot and muggy. Amber had to leave for an interview with a radio station in Austin. Mimi got a headache from the heat and the dust, and Frederico secretly confided that he was allergic to both horses and hay. He and Mimi caught a ride back to town with Donetta. Even the barnyard dogs got bored with the activity and wandered off to lie in the shade, while Willie Wardlaw, Lauren’s father, and I watched Lucky Strike pace the same twenty feet of ground, looking for a way out of the corral.

  By the end of the day, gains were limited, but Justin had learned that every time he lost his temper and threw his hat in the dirt, it took a half hour to settle the horse down to a walk again. Animals don’t react as understandingly to anger management issues as do grips, studio interns, and paid personal assistants.

  Before calling the day a wrap, Lauren caught the horse and forced it to stand still while Justin petted it. By then, Justin was tired, frustrated, dust encrusted, and uncharacteristically defeated. He didn’t like the horse very much and he was afraid of it. As Lauren led it away to the barn, Willie tried to console The Shay with the fatherly assurance that no ordinary man ever became a horseman in one day, and anything worth doing was worth working at. He gave Justin credit for grit. Willie had worked a lot of movie sets over the years, he said, and he was glad to see Justin was a man’s man, not a little “snot-nosed, cotton-tailed wimp like most of ’em.”

  Justin was pleased. Bracing his hands on the undoubtedly sore abs Frederico had been helping him tone for months, he stretched his back and nodded, saying that he took commitment seriously, and he wouldn’t let Willie down.

  “I know you won’t, son. When a cowboy takes on a job, he’ll either git’r done or die tryin’.” Willie slapped an arm over The Shay’s shoulders, and they stood around engaging in horse chat and other cowboy talk with Frank and one of the barnyard dogs.

  Frank eventually suggested they go back to his ranch, relax, have a glass of tea, and catch up with Mimi before heading over to Donetta’s for supper.

  Justin checked his pocket and said he’d probably better drop by the hotel a minute to shower and put on some clean clothes. I knew what he was looking for in the pocket. The little packet of Vicodin he normally kept with him was in the duffle bag back at the hotel. Before we left in the morning, he’d tucked it into his jeans, pulled it back out, put it in again, then finally tossed it in the suitcase with a look of disgust and walked out the door. By now, he was probably cramping up and had a raging headache, and he wanted the Baggie.

  “You comin’, Nate?” Justin glanced back at me, as if the pills and I were somehow connected in his mind. Maybe he wanted me to be there to tell him it was a prescription, after all. It’s not like he was actually using something illegal. Or maybe he wanted me to
be there to flush his little Baggie down the toilet and tell him no—the way Stephanie used to back when they were together. Stephanie had spent most of her time searching for hidden stashes, flushing Baggies, and pouring flasks of vodka down the drain. She was always afraid the kids would get into the pills and eat them. When the older boy, just a preschooler then, finally did, that was that. Stephanie was gone. She didn’t even come back to the house for her things—just went straight from the hospital to a new life. The family court judge had no problem terminating Justin’s parental rights when he learned Justin was stopped for driving under the influence shortly thereafter. Justin didn’t fight the ruling, really. Even through the haze, he realized that life with him was a sort of poison, and he couldn’t control where the drops would fall, or who they’d hurt.

  “I’m catching a ride with Lauren,” I said, and Justin gave me a confused look that said the name didn’t register. Names were on Justin’s why bother list. Normally, he had Marla or Randall to handle such details. “The horse trainer,” I added.

  The Shay gave me an irritated look because I wasn’t at his heel, like I was supposed to be. Aside from that, the horse trainer was more of an irritant to him than anything else. She had the nerve to tell him he wasn’t doing things right. “Yeah, fine,” he said, as if he’d decided to be magnanimous and let me do my own thing.

  “Whatever.” Turning away, he sagged and rubbed his temples, his silver-toed boots dragging in the gravel as he headed toward the Horsemanmobile.

  Despite my determination to stop being The Shay’s handler, mommy, and part-time enabler, I felt guilty. Now he would probably overmedicate and make an idiot of himself at Donetta’s house.

  A real friend would stop that from happening.

  Wouldn’t he?

  Wouldn’t he?

  I vacillated between babysitting Justin and going through with my plans to hang out with Lauren and the goat, which would probably be fun, and undoubtedly interesting.

  Willie slapped Justin on the back again, and Justin’s head rattled. “Aw, don’t worry about the hotel. Cowboys don’t mind a little soil. A man ought never be ashamed of the dirt from a good day’s work. Besides, I want you to see them deer come out on Frank’s place. On a clear afternoon like this, they wander right up in the backyard, and you can feed ’em out of yer hand.” As Justin fished for his truck keys, Willie went on talking about showing Justin the deer and seeing how Mimi was doing with her headache. Justin seemed effectively distracted. I wondered if Willie knew about the stash at the hotel or if he was just in a hurry to make sure there wasn’t something brewing between his girlfriend and Frederico, which was entirely possible. Fred was known for being good with the ladies.

  I resolved to let Justin go. He was a big boy, after all. You promised yourself, Nate. You promised yourself you wouldn’t get involved the next time he started into one of his random bursts of insanity. But here you are again. You know this horseman thing is going to crash and burn. Let it. It might as well be tonight as later on. …

  Lauren walked out of the barn, and a comic-book-sized superhero hovering by my ear said, She’s worked really hard today. You wouldn’t want her to be disappointed, would you? You wouldn’t want her family to be embarrassed. You should go with The Shay, make sure he doesn’t have anything stashed in the truck.

  The villain hovering by my other ear looked at Lauren and said, Go with the girl. She’s cute.

  By that time, the Horsemanmobile had already roared off down the driveway, followed by Frank’s pickup. I settled for calling Justin’s cell phone while Lauren was busy cleaning fast food containers, junk mail, and file folders out of her SUV passenger seat.

  Surprisingly enough, The Shay answered his phone. “Nate?” his voice was cutting in and out. “That you?”

  “Yeah, of course it’s me. Who’d you think it was?”

  “I was afraid it was Marla,” he said, like the walls had ears.

  “This thing must have been ringing like crazy in the truck all day.

  There’s, like, eighty-seven calls on it from Marla and Randall … ”

  His voice faded, then returned. “ … need me to come back and get you?” He wanted me to say yes. Justin never traveled anywhere solo.

  “No, but listen. Stay off the stuff tonight, okay?”

  “ … can’t hear you, dude. You’re … aking up.”

  Yeah, I’ll bet. “You heard me, Shay. Have you got anything stashed in the truck?” He didn’t answer. I wanted to reach through the phone and grab him by his new bandanna. The connection fuzzed and came back. “Justin.” The word was more of a threat than anything. “You screw this up, and I’m catching the first flight back to LA. You show up stoned tonight, you’re on your own.”

  “Dude, I’m clean. Didn’t you hear Amber? I’m, like, getting religion and stuff.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you were sticking a bag in your pocket this morning.”

  More fuzz, and then, “ … at’s prescription.”

  Somebody please tell me, do I have STUPID tattooed on my forehead? I could have responded with quotes from the family visitation sessions of several rehab stints, but what would have been the point, really? He probably didn’t remember the sessions. He was stoned at the time. “I’m not kidding, dude.”

  He waited so long to answer that I figured he’d hung up, which was what he usually did when he didn’t like what he was hearing. “Geez, Nate, when did you go and turn all holy? You sound like somebody’s mama.”

  “Just don’t go by the hotel, all right?”

  “Yeah, all … ” The call faded and didn’t come back, which was probably just as well. This way I could leave for the goat wrestling with only a modicum of guilt. The Shay had it all under control.

  I made a conscious effort to switch focus as I joined Lauren. Some things in life are beyond your control, and there’s no point obsessing over those. I learned that on an episode of Dr. Phil when I should have been writing.

  Lauren tossed a few more fast food containers and a stack of notebooks into the back seat as I opened the passenger door of her Durango. “Sorry,” she said, embarrassed by the mess in the car. “It’s usually just me in here.”

  I cataloged that bit of information. Hmm … “Hey, you should see mine,” I offered, and found myself feeling an unexpected comfort level. It was nice to be with a woman who wasn’t afraid to live in her space. My former fiancé, Nicole, was a neat freak, and my car made her so nervous, she couldn’t stand to ride in it without cleaning it up. Every time we went somewhere, she fed her compulsive need for order by picking up loose bits of paper or soda straw wrappers and tucking them into empty cups, or dabbing discarded napkins with bottled water and wiping the dash or the console. “You’re such a slob, Nate,” she’d say. “How in the world can you think in this place?”

  What she didn’t realize was that bits and pieces of thought were attached to the junk in the car—little scraps of memory I’d jotted on napkins, newspaper margins, the backs of sugar packets.

  Ideas I wanted to remember for later, and little human dramas I’d come across on the sidewalk or standing in line at Starbucks—the way a little boy looked when he tugged his mother’s hand and asked for a doughnut and his mom said yes, two college kids sitting under a tree on the lawn at Berkeley, a pair of lovers strolling on the beach, a boy throwing the football with his dad in the park—things I thought I might write about someday, if I had the time. If I jotted those things down, the observations that seemed valuable at the moment, I wouldn’t lose them. They would be waiting when I had time to dredge them up again and examine the meanings.

  When Nicole tossed them out, it seemed like she was probably right. It was all just junk, and letting it rattle around in the car was a bad habit I’d picked up during my mother’s pre-Doug transient years. Back then, the notes in the car were a way of trying to hang on to people and places I’d probably never see again.

  I had the fleeting thought that Lauren would understand that,
if I told her. Then I decided it was stupid. I’d sound like one of those morons on Jerry Springer, whining about my childhood as a way of making excuses for where I’d ended up. Lauren had lived her whole life surrounded by family, safely entrenched in this quiet little town where everybody knew everybody. She wouldn’t be able to relate to living on the road, not knowing where you’d stop next or how long you’d stay.

  A couple mystery objects rolled from under the seat and hit the backs of my feet as we tooled past the last of the construction workers, who were packing it in and heading toward a group of camping trailers on the other side of the house. I leaned over to grab the rolling thing and something metallic that was wedged between my heel and my shoe. I came up with what looked like a thigh bone and a small hand saw. “Something I should know?” I asked. Now, this was an interesting girl. I’d never gone goat wrestling with a girl who carried bones and a saw in her car before.

  Lauren glanced at the bone, flushed red, then took it from my hand and tossed it in the back seat, where it bounced off a cardboard box and landed in an open tote bag. “I teach anatomy.”

  “Oh … good,” I said, using my fingertip to test the sharpness of the saw. “For a minute there, I was thinking serial killer.”

  Lauren laughed. “You’re safe, I promise.”

  “I wasn’t worried. At least not until the bone saw. That’s not your standard everyday under-the-passenger-seat item.”

  She quirked a brow, seeming surprised that I knew what the tool was for. She glanced at my hand on the wooden grip. “Well, now you have me worried. You look like you’ve seen one of those before.”

  “My grandparents had a farm.” I tucked the saw behind the seat, next to a box piled high with file folders and textbooks.