in that rodeo. Never tossed. I went to watch him as often as I could. The way that man looked riding . . . It wasn’t just his looks, which could set an ice cube on fire. It wasn’t the daring, or trick riding, which they all did. It was the way he and the animals seemed to understand each other, to become one. It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen before a stitch of clothing ever came off.”
“Then he went after you?”
“Nah. Paid no attention to anyone. He was as wild a rider as the rest of them. He also drank like a fish, but he wasn’t mean, like my Pa. Like some of the other boys in that rodeo. He was nice to the other girls waiting tables, and to the shoeblack boy, Eddie, who polished their boots. In those days everyone said Eddie wasn’t quite right in the head, but now I think he’d just be on the spectrum. Rigo was nice to Eddie. Talked slow and easy, and Eddie trusted him. Though he didn’t trust easily.”
Godiva sighed. “Sometimes I snuck out to the corral in the early mornings, while my wash water was on the boil, and most of the rough riders were sleeping off their night’s guzzling. I liked to go pet the noses of the horses, and take them our withered carrots and bits of apple. Sometimes I’d see Rigo there, grooming the animals—no one else seemed to bother looking after them that way—and he smiled at me. Smiles turned to talk. Talk turned to . . . what it usually does.”
“You said he was drinking, too?” Bird asked, wrinkling her nose.
“At first, he drank as much as the rest of ‘em. But like I said, he was never a mean drunk. Still. Between the talking and the kissing, we had ourselves a conversation. I told him right off I liked him fine, but I wouldn’t walk out with any man who was splashing up to the back molars with the diner’s hooch. So he started drying up. At least when I saw him. After a time, that was pretty much every day.”
Godiva paused, and saw sympathy in Bird’s face, and a slight frown on Doris’s forehead.
Godiva took a deep breath. How to shorten this up? “That rodeo wintered over in town, as lodgings were cheap. Sometimes he vanished for a day or two. I couldn’t figure out what was dogging him. But when I saw him again he was sober, so I didn’t hassle him.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Come spring they took off, and it was like the sun had gone out. I spent my hard-earned nickels taking myself to movies and watching them all the way through three times, even the newsreels. But the rodeo was back the next winter, and the moment he walked into the diner, the sun shone again.”
Godiva snorted. “Something was wrong. I could see it. Not just him. In retrospect, that rodeo was probably a shlock outfit. He came to me one day after being gone a week. He had a bruise on his chin, and another on his temple. His knuckles were split. I could see he’d been in a fight. I asked what happened, he said horse trouble. I thought, as you do at that age, if I loved him harder we’d be all right. The inevitable happened—I missed a period. Then two. By the third missed period I’d figured out what was what. He disappeared again for a few days, but then came back really beat up. He walked right into my arms, holding me tight. I told him the news, expecting we’d marry and I would take care of him and our kid, and life would be daisies and butterflies. But he let go of me like I’d grown cactus spines and looked away like I’d whacked him between the eyes with a two-by-four. He wouldn’t even meet my eyes.”
The room was absolutely silent.
Godiva sighed. It felt like swallowing glass to dredge all this crap up—as if anything could be done about it after all this time.
“He said his head was still ringing from the fight and he had to go, though by then there was a full-on thunderstorm outside, hail and all. I, idiot that I was, kissed him and promised him I’d bake him a cheese and tomato pie on the morrow—the only thing I knew how to make at the time. I made that pie, but there was nobody