“No, mommy,” Lily interjected seriously, a look of consternation on her face. “I don’t want to be a baw-wee-na. I want to be a prayee-princess.”
“A prairie princess?” Diana frowned.
“Fairy princess,” Victoria corrected.
“Yeth, mommy! A prayee-princess!” the little girl squealed, delighted she had been understood.
“And do fairy princesses dance?” asked Victoria, her hand unable to resist the bubbling brown curls which bounced with the child’s enthusiasm.
“Yeth. An they can flies, too!” the girl returned earnestly, eyes wide with innocent amazement.
“Well, maybe I can teach you to dance like a fairy princess. Would you like that?”
The child nodded and giggled with excitement. “Can you teach me to fly, too?”
Victoria stroked a petal-soft cheek with the back of her hand. “Well, I don’t know about that, sweetie. But, I will try my very best, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, her face flowering as she scrambled off to tell her siblings.
“Well, that was easy,” Diana laughed. “I didn’t know you were teaching, Vic. That’s wonderful! Where’s your studio?”
“Uh . . . I, uh . . . I don’t have one, yet. But, I will pretty soon. Bobby and I were just discussing that on the way into town. I was thinking maybe I could rent that empty space beside—”
“Hey, I have an idea,” Diana beamed enthusiastically. “What about the ballroom at the hotel? It never gets used. Might need a few repairs, but I’m sure Bobby could help you with that.”
“Hmm. Maybe. It’s a good idea, but I doubt if Pearl would agree to a reasonable rent.”
“Well,” Diana looked at her fingers for a moment, mentally counting up figures. “Look. Pearl owes us some money I’m sure we’ll never see, so how about this? I’ll talk to her about letting you use the ballroom and maybe you can teach my girls for free? Does that sound fair?” Not used to handling business negotiations, she looked at Victoria uncertainly.
“That sounds fantastic, Diana. Do you really think you can get Pearl to agree to that?”
“I think so. She’s not really so bad underneath it all, Vic. Oh-oh. Got to run. I’ll phone you later to let you know how it goes, okay?” Diana said, already hurrying off in the direction of a loud and rather ominous crash.
Victoria’s mind swung between excitement and trepidation. She hadn’t intended for things to materialize so fast. She wasn’t even sure she had really intended them to materialize at all. In calling Bobby’s bluff, she’d inadvertently called her own. And now she’d promised sweet little Lily she would teach her how to dance. She couldn’t bear the thought of being the one to paint disappointment onto that angelic face. She had no idea how she was going to do it, but she did know she was at least going to try.
Benson Ferguson and his brother-in-law bade Victoria a quick hello as she met them on the sidewalk, relinquishing their perpetual debate just long enough to pass her by, then resumed, each empowered with a renewed vigor after the temporary cease-fire. Both retired farmers with little to do, they’d learned to make sport out of argument, and if one said it was a fine day, the other would set off to prove unequivocally that it most certainly was anything but. She walked behind them, found herself listening not to their words but to the inflection of their voices, the variances of their speech. It could have been anyone who’d phoned her. Anyone. Suddenly the whole town was under her suspicion, every male voice that drifted by her as she walked caught her attention, and she found her pace slowed several times as she tried to superimpose static and disguise over them. She waved at those who waved to her, but she also tried to catch their eye, see if any secret was hidden there. She felt exposed.
Glad when she finally gained the smooth plank stairs of the feed store, she double-stepped up them and slipped into the comforting aroma of grain and straw and the peachy-sweet smoke of Mr. Miller’s pipe. A brass cowbell clanged overhead as she shut the door, summoning no one and leaving her waiting in its echo. She walked to the counter, picked through a magazine on sheep and then examined the names on the delinquent checks taped to the cash register. Eventually two voices emerged from the back where the stacks of feed were stored, joined together in a hushed giggle and subsided. She couldn’t be sure but one had sounded like a girl’s, and it wasn’t long afterward that she saw Benny Olson’s third-youngest daughter slip across the loading dock and disappear down the street.
A good-looking kid sauntered rather than walked in through the back door, flashing her with smirking green eyes and a kick-ass smile.
“Help you, ma’am?”
A grimy white telephone attached to a wooden post beside the cash register rang shrilly over her reply. She jerked back awkwardly, her gaze darting back and forth as she waited for him to silence it. Instead, he casually roved freely over her face with his eyes.
“Go ahead,” she offered, gesturing toward the telephone.
“Thanks,” he grinned as he picked up the receiver, dropped it back down to disconnect the call then let the handle dangle loosely down the post.
Victoria stared at it. The plaintive tone of the severed line reached back to her.
“Don’t worry about it, ma’am. They’ll call back. What can I get ya?”
Her attention was fixated on the dangling telephone, ears straining for the sounds of static, mind tumbling with why he’d been so reluctant to answer that call.
“Umm, I need to get some grain, Mark,” she stammered. “Bobby will pick it up later. And I want to talk to Mr. Miller about my laying hens. Is he in?”
“Nope. What’s wrong with them?” he asked, but his concerns were clearly already elsewhere, appraising her up and down.
“You know about chickens?”
He swaggered out in front of the counter and leaned against it, crossing arms grown massive from chucking fifty-pound bags and eighty-pound bales and winked her a challenge.
“Try me.”
She smiled back, middle-aged respectful as if she hadn’t caught his brazen, double-edged invitation. A piece of flattened gold straw fell from his shoulder, and she noticed more trapped in the glossy black curls escaping from under his red cap.
“Um, okay,” she stammered dryly. “Well, they used to lay fine. Up until a couple months ago.”
“Ya? What happened a couple months ago?”
“Nothing.”
“Hmm. Something must have.” He helped himself to an overt sampling of her reflection in the store window. “You try amping up their light?”
Victoria nodded uncomfortably. She could feel the heat of his body beside her. Smell the rut of his sweat. “Ya. Didn’t seem to help.”
“Maybe they’re just too old.” He smirked down at her.
“They’re not that old,” she quickly defended.
“Got a rooster?”
“Ya.”
“In with them?”
She shook her head impatiently.
“Why not?”
“Well, because I don’t want the eggs fertilized.”
Mark threw his arms up in an exaggerated gesture. “Well, that’s your problem, then.”
“What is?”
She eased backward as he leaned toward her, ran a slow search over her body then fixed her with an audacious stare.
“Ain’t no fun happening in your hen house, ma’am. Hens no different than chicks. You want ’em to give up the goods, they’re gonna want a little something in exchange. Right?”
“Uh . . . I. . . Um . . . maybe. Maybe I should call back when Mr. Miller’s here.”
“Whatever cranks ya.”
Winking, he took a step closer to her and for a moment she thought he was going to slap her ass. But his hand fell to a feed sack behind her and he hoisted it onto his shoulder like it was lightly stuffed with cotton. She tried desperately to scramble her memory backward over his words, feeling for similarities, convinced for a moment she’d found her anonymous caller. But something about it didn’t make sense. He was so brazen, so comfortable with himself. He hardly struck her as the type to hide behind a blank wall of static.
“Anything else I can help you with?” He smiled, knowing full well he’d successfully seen her undone.
“No. Yes, yes, I mean. My grain. I didn’t order my grain.”
“Oh, right. What do you want, same as usual?”
She nodded even though she had planned to try something different. But she needed more advice for that, and she sure as hell wasn’t anxious to begin over again from where they’d left off.
“How many bags? Five do you?”
She nodded, fumbling her purse open as he scribbled some figures onto a pad. Pressing the bills into his thick hand, she was careful not to make contact, but he curled his fingers up around hers brushing them softly, deposited her change with a firm touch then wished her a good day.
“Been a pleasure, ma’am.” He tossed her another wink, obviously pleased with his performance.
Walking back down the stairs she retroactively felt offended. The smart ass, who did he think he was, parading around like a virile young bull? Feeling drained, she stopped on the bottom step and leaned briefly against the peeling white post that held up the feedstore’s sign. No wonder Diana was having trouble with him. Hollywood looks, a testosterone-inflated ego and muscles to pump it up with. The perfect heartbreaking combination: deadly not only to young girls but to his distressed mother as well. And she had to admit, at least to herself, that his self-assured cockiness had gotten to her in no small degree.
The telephone shrilled incessantly and Victoria hurried down the hall, her fingers working dexterously with the clasp of her bra, hoping to have one hand free by the time she got to it. Twice she’d almost had the bra fastened before it sprung loose again. She cursed mildly as she debated missing the call altogether or sacrificing her breasts to a few more moments of freedom. Choosing the latter, she let them fall free as she grabbed for the phone. She’d been rushing for it all week, waiting for Diana to call to say whether Pearl had agreed to let them use the ballroom for a dance studio. Ragged bits of static greeted her breathless hello.
Jolted, she just barely stopped herself from slamming the receiver back down. Watching it carefully, as if it might suddenly come alive in her hand, she slowly inched the handset up toward her ear. She shot a glance through the porch window to make sure Bobby’s truck was still gone. Holding her breath, she listened. Fear began to palpitate her heart as her mind raced with images of who might be breathing into the other end of the line. But, slowly, as she returned her thoughts back over the delicious memory she held of the previous call, her anxiety began to transform into anticipation. Really, there had been no harm done. He had not been crude or frightening, although the strangeness of the call, coming when she was stranded all alone out at the trailer had unnerved her. Maybe Rose was right. Maybe, she should just hang on for a bit. What would be wrong with just listening to what he had to say? Inching a chair toward her she slid into place.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate her senses into the line. Focusing deeply, she attempted to listen through the erratic pop of static to glean any wayward background noise, which might inadvertently offer a clue to the caller’s identity. Soon tiring of this, she resorted to more obvious attempts to draw him out.
“So, did you call to talk to me or not?”
Silence.
“I have to go pretty soon, you know. Did you have something you wanted to say to me?”
She waited briefly, growing irritated at the noisy silence that crackled in her ear, then decided to beat him at his own game. Two could sit in silence just as easy as one. He was the one who had called her, let him work up the courage to speak. She pulled her knees up onto her chair and began to work the telephone cord through her bare toes like a curly black snake. It was a silly little standoff; she knew that. As immature and petty as those that spice the earliest interactions between young lovers and young love. But it gave her an almost sexual pleasure to imagine his attraction to her could be so strong that her silence could actually coax him out beyond his anonymous security. As the two of them sat silently stalemated in their cat-and-mouse game, a smile played lightly on her lips. She imagined him to be doing the same: imagined his mouth—full, generous and responsive—framed by features worn into being by the wind and waves rather than the sharp, steady chip of a sculpture’s tool. Craggy rather than chiseled.
“I think you’re really beautiful,” the voice cut forcefully through the line, penetrating her thoughts so deeply it was as if he had stood right inside her.
“Oh! What? No, I’m not. I’m not. I’m just me. Just me.” And then, prodded by the habit of good manners, flustered, “But thank you anyhow for saying so.”
Suddenly she became aware of the coolness of air against her breasts and, grabbing Bobby’s jacket up from where he had hung it on the floor, she wrapped it around her shoulders. It was as if the image of the caller that she had created in her mind were so real it suddenly seemed possible he also might have the ability to imagine her sitting there, curled up on a chair missing half her clothes. The thought was erotic and ridiculous at the same time, yet for some reason she could not push it away. She rolled the cold, black telephone cord tight across her breasts, pleased as the nipples sprang back up like hungry brown hatchlings.