tall, unattractive woman with sunburned, peeling skin and a mouth that was too big, and eyes that seemed to have drunk all the color God allotted her.
“I need to get to work,” he said. “It’s already so goddamn hot I can’t breathe.”
Elsa stared after him, thinking, Look back, smile, but he didn’t, and finally she stopped waiting and headed in to start the laundry.
* * *
THE FIRST PIONEER DAYS celebration had taken place in 1905, back in the days when Lonesome Tree was a vast plain of blue-green buffalo grass and the XIT Ranch employed a thousand cowboys. Homesteaders had been drawn to this land by brochures that promised they could grow cabbages the size of baby carriages, and wheat. All without irrigation. Dry farming, it was called, and it was promised to them here.
Indeed.
Loreda was pretty sure the party was really about men celebrating themselves.
“You look beautiful,” Mom said, coming into Loreda’s bedroom without even knocking. Loreda felt a rush of irritation at the intrusion. She bit back an angry remark about privacy.
Mom came up behind her; for a moment their faces were reflected together in the mirror above Loreda’s washstand. Beside Loreda’s tanned skin and blunt-cut black hair, Mom’s pallor was remarkable. How was it that Mom’s skin never tanned, just burned and peeled? She hadn’t even bothered to do anything with her hair beyond braiding it in a coronet. Stella’s mom always wore cosmetics and had her hair pinned and curled, even in these hard times.
Mom didn’t even try to look good. The dress she wore—a floral flour-sack housedress with a button-up bodice—was at least a size too big and just exaggerated how tall and thin she was.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make you a new dress or at least buy you some socks. Next year. When it rains.”
Loreda couldn’t imagine how her mother could even say those words anymore. Loreda pulled away, smoothing the waves she’d coaxed into her chin-length hair and ruffling her bangs. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s hitching up the wagon.”
Loreda turned. “Can Stella spend the night after?”
“Sure,” Mom said. “But you’ll have to do your chores in the morning.”
Loreda was so happy, she actually hugged her mother, but Mom ruined it by hanging on too long and squeezing too hard.
Loreda yanked free.
Mom looked sad. “Go downstairs,” she said. “Help Grandma pack up the food.”
Loreda bolted out of the bedroom and hurried down to the kitchen, where Grandma was already busy packing up the pot of minestrone soup. A plateful of her cannoli with sweetened ricotta filling waited on the table. Both of which only the other Italian families would eat.
Loreda covered the tray of desserts with a dish towel and carried it out to the wagon. She climbed up into the back and sat close to her father, who put his arm around her and held her close. Grandma and Grandpa took their places up front. Mom was the last one to climb up into the back of the wagon.
Ant tucked in close to Mom and talked constantly, his high-pitched voice rising in excitement as they neared the town. Daddy, she noticed, was uncharacteristically quiet.
Lonesome Tree appeared on the horizon, a meager town squatted on a table-flat plain, surrounded by nothing.
Only the water tower stood tall against the cloudless blue sky.
Once, patriotism had run high in town. Loreda remembered how the old men used to talk about the Great War at every community gathering. Who fought, who died, and who grew the wheat to feed the troops. Back then, Pioneer Days had been an expression of the farmers’ pride in themselves and a celebration of their hard work. Americans! Prosperous! They’d draped the stores of Main Street in red, white, and blue bunting and planted American flags in the flowerpots and painted patriotic slogans on the windows. The men had gathered to drink and smoke and congratulate each other on winning the war and turning grazing land into farmland. They drank homemade hooch and played music on their fiddles and guitars while the women did all the work.
Or that was how Loreda saw it. In the week leading up to the celebration, Mom and Grandma Rose cooked more, made more homemade macaroni, did more laundry, and had to darn or repair every scrap of clothing that was to be worn. No matter how dire times were, how tight money was, Mom wanted her children to look presentable.
Today there was no bunting (too hot to put up, she figured, or else some woman finally said, Why bother?),