Riding Lessons

  "Oh, I'm sorry, Annemarie," says Dan, taking a dish towel from a drawer and trying to dab my rear end. I spin violently and snatch the towel from his hand.

  He stands looking helpless. "My faucet leaks a little, and it always collects right there. I'm sorry. I should have warned you."

  "It's fine, don't worry about it," I snap, twisting like a dog chasing its tail, wiping myself with the towel. Oh God, I'm making it worse.

  "Do you want something to change into?"

  "No," I say quickly. Wearing one of Dan's tee-shirts is not part of my vision. Neither is wearing a stained dress, really, but there you are. I close my eyes and collect myself. Breathe deeply, I tell myself. And again.

  I open my eyes, equilibrium restored, and sidle up to Dan. "I'm fine," I say, handing him the towel. "Really."

  "You sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  And then I return to the counter, suck down another mouthful of wine, and get started.

  The problem is, Dan couldn't be more in the way. I guess he's just interested in what I'm doing, but it really feels like every time I turn around, he's right there, peering over my shoulder. Which I don't suppose I'd mind if I actually knew what I was doing and thought I was being impressive, but I don't, so all he's doing is frazzling me beyond belief.

  When it becomes clear that every single one of my stupid corpse-pale crepes is going to stick hopelessly to the bottom of the pan and need to be scraped and peeled off with a variety of instruments, I turn around and bark at him.

  "Do you think you could wait in the living room?"

  Silence, stillness, as though the world has stopped. In the background, a single drop of water falls into the sink.

  "Yeah. Sure. Sorry," he says, looking hurt. "I didn't mean to be in the way."

  "You're not," I say, utterly miserable. I brush a piece of loose hair away from my face, and then poke tentatively at the rest of my hair to see whether it's all coming down. It's loose, but more or less still up. I resist the urge to go fix it, because I'm starting to despair of ever getting dinner on the table.

  Dan retreats to the living room, and I return to the dinner. From there, it all goes downhill.

  I poach the pears until they're mushy blobs at the bottom of the pan, and when I try to retrieve them with the shiny slotted spoon I brought along for that purpose, they disintegrate on contact, leaving empty skins swimming in a liquid that is admittedly fragrant, but murky and entirely unusable for my salad. I forget about the roasting goat cheese until it melts into a terrible, smelly black goo that is melded to the bottom and edges of the cookie sheet, and when I throw it into the sink and run water on it to stop it from smoking, it hisses and sputters and releases a violent rush of putrid steam.

  "Um, is everything okay in there?" calls Dan, who is sitting obediently on the couch in the living room. Area. Whatever.

  "Fine, fine," I chirp.

  Right. There has to be some way to save this. Okay. The gateau des crepes is baked, so it doesn't really matter if they're a little bit ripped. Or a complete tattered mess, really. As for the crepes suzette later, well, I can check if he has ice cream in his freezer and just put the sauce on that instead. That could be quite good. And the salad--so we forego the pears and goat cheese. It will be simple. Elegant. Understated.

  I take a deep breath and reach for the wine bottle.

  "Are you going to want any more of that?" Dan asks. "I've got another bottle I can put in the freezer."

  "Might be a good idea," I say, draining the last of the bottle into my glass. I should really refuse, because I'm already feeling a bit high, but what the hell. I'll just have to be careful. Or else eat something soon.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dan rise from the couch.

  "Stay there!"

  He freezes, startled.

  "Tell me where it is and I'll get it," I say quickly, because I can't stand the thought of him seeing the mess I've made.

  He looks perplexed. "You sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  "Okay, it's in the cupboard under the sink. To the left."

  And so it is, right by the Drano. I put it in the freezer, noting with dismay the lack of ice cream, and then stand staring at the kitchen. My God, I've absolutely destroyed it, and so far, I haven't successfully completed any part of the dinner.

  By the time I set the kitchen on fire, I realize it's hopeless. When Dan figures out what's going on, he rushes in and shoves me aside. I stand coughing and waving my hands in front of my face as he rips one thing after another out of the cupboard until he comes up with a huge, heavy pot lid. He holds it above the flaming frying pan and drops it into place, containing the fire completely.

  "You okay?" he says, pausing briefly to look at me. Then he goes to the sink and bangs the window above it, trying to force it open.

  I nod miserably, looking at the wall above his stove. From the bottom edge all the way up to where it meets the ceiling, it's streaked with black soot. A spot on the ceiling, almost a foot across, completes the effect. Just then, the smoke detector starts to shriek. So do I.

  "Why don't you wait outside until the smoke clears," Dan yells over the din, waving the dish towel up and down. I guess he's trying to coax the smoke toward the window, but he looks absurd, like the matador from Bugs Bunny.

  Shaking and on the verge of tears, I go outside and sit on a smelly, wet stump. In the background, the smoke detector continues to shriek its protest.

  Chapter 11

  There are some men who would let that be the end of the evening. But Dan is not just any man, I reflect as I gaze across at him in the flickering candlelight.

  It's two hours later, and we're sitting at a picnic table in Gil's Crab Shack. I'm wearing one of Dan's tee-shirts and a pair of his boxers--fancy ones, they look almost like shorts--and the ambience of the place is such that we fit right in.

  The floors are concrete, and dotted with spilt paint. Fishing nets hang from the walls, with plastic crustaceans threaded into them. An enormous orca pool-floatie dangles from the ceiling, more or less inviting a poke from a lit cigarette, and the shortsclad waitresses wear tee-shirts that say GOT CRABS?

  At the end of the patio is a sandy play area, fenced in so that the only exit is past the diners, and squealing, barefoot children fly past like greased piglets.

  It is, in other words, perfect.

  I breathe deeply as Dan pours the rest of the chardonnay into my glass, watching how far his fingers reach around the bottle. His hands are beautiful, and it occurs to me that I've never noticed them before. They're shapely and strong, with just the right amount of hair. They're perfect--there's not a thing about them that isn't exactly right. Not like Roger's hands. His are lawyer's hands, soft and hairless, with foreshortened, tapered fingers.

  Dan sets the bottle down and leans forward, resting his elbows on the table.

  "Do you know, Annemarie Zimmer," he says, lifting his glass and leaving his words to dangle languidly.

  I smile at my plate of ravaged crab shell, waiting.

  "I've never seen you look more beautiful in all my life," he finishes.

  I gasp audibly, because someone has stolen all the air. And then I see myself in the glass of the candleholder. It swells out toward me, so my nose is enormous, but the rest is accurate--the wet hair, combed hastily and left to air dry; my face, free of soot but also of makeup; my clothes, a man's extra-large tee-shirt that fits like a potato sack, with sleeves that reach to the crook of my elbows. I may look better than I did before my emergency shower, but beautiful?

  I laugh so hard wine comes out my nose, and as I grab my napkin off my lap and press it to my face, I catch sight of Dan's expression. And then I stop, because he's staring at me with incredible intensity.

  Then it hits me. It hits me like a ton of bricks, or a freight train, or a spotlight in the dark. It hits me like every hackneyed cliche you can think of--

  I love this man. I love him, and I have always loved him. The veil has finally lif
ted, and the colors beneath it are so brilliant I'm not sure I can stand to look. But at the same time, I'm incapable of looking away.

  It's almost midnight before we get back to the farm. As we drive around to the back of the house, I see the curtain in the dining room shift. Unbelievable. I'm thirty-eight, and my mother still waits up for me. I look instinctively at Eva's window, wondering if she's awake too.

  Dan pulls in beside Mutti's van. Strange how I've come to think of it as Mutti's van. Pappa is still alive, but I'm already discounting his existence, already writing him off the page.

  "So," says Dan. He shuts off the engine, winds down the window, and puts his hands back on the steering wheel.

  "So," I say shyly, looking into my lap.

  We sit for a moment, listening to the crickets. Then he reaches over and takes my hand.

  His hand is warm, and covers mine entirely. There are calluses on his palm and fingertips, and they feel wonderful. For a moment, I forget to breathe.

  I can't believe he's here with me. I can't believe I'm here with him. It's as though the last twenty years never happened--someone just lined up the edges and stitched the intervening span into an invisible hem.

  In this light, he looks just as he did back then. If anything, he looks even better. Maybe it's because I know what I'm looking at now.

  He leans toward me, and I feel giddy. Somewhere over the middle seat belt, our lips touch. Just graze, really, but it's enough to take my breath away. I don't even care about the seat-belt buckle that's digging into my thigh. His lips are warm and full, and they set off a string of electric shocks that run up the back of my neck.

  I want those lips back. I want to taste them, to suck them into my mouth, to run my tongue between the smooth hardness of his teeth and the tender flesh of his inner lips. I want to roll them between mine and feel the darting of his tongue. I want. I want. I want.

  A moment later, I realize I am frozen there, leaning forward with my eyes closed. I open them. Dan's face is a foot from mine. He looks concerned.

  "Are you okay?" he asks.

  I nod.

  "Because I don't want to rush you..."

  I close my eyes and shake my head.

  "Hey," he says gently, guiding my face so that I'm looking at him. His hand lingers, and then he traces the line of my jaw with his fingertips. "We can take this as slow as you want."

  If I were on my feet, my knees would buckle. Part of me wants to scream, No! No! I don't want to take it slowly! Take me to the tack room now! But I don't.

  He kisses me again, and then lets his hand slide behind my head until he's cupping the base of my neck. It feels so good I don't know if I can stand it. It's as though a stream of effervescence trails his every movement.

  "I guess this means I'm going to have to make up with your daughter," he says.

  "I guess it does."

  "How should we go about it?"

  "I really don't know," I say. I pause for a moment, considering the possibilities. "I guess we could start by all having dinner together. Do you want to come here?"

  "I don't know. Are you cooking?"

  My eyes snap open. He laughs, and wraps his arms around me. The seat belt digs further into my leg, but I still don't care.

  "I'd love to," he says. "Even if you are cooking." My face is pressed against his chest, and his voice rumbles through me. Maybe if I'm still, I can hear his heart. I take a deep breath, holding it in.

  "Sorry about your house," I mumble.

  "Don't give it another thought," he says.

  It occurs to me that if I hadn't set his house on fire, we would have ended the evening there. Oh, I would have loved to end the evening there. But that's okay. This is not going to be our last opportunity. Of this, I am sure.

  I enter the house quietly, leaving the light off and trying to close the door gently. I know Mutti saw me come home, so I'm guessing she's asleep by now.

  I guess wrong. Seconds later, the hall light comes on and Mutti appears in the doorway, her turquoise housecoat zipped up to the soft wattle of her throat. She flicks the kitchen light on, and stands squinting at me.

  "Oh, it's you," she says.

  "Of course it's me. Who else could it be?" I say, hanging my purse on a hook by the door. And then I freeze.

  "Oh no," Mutti says slowly, her eyes hardening. "Oh, don't tell me. She said she'd asked you."

  "She did. I said no." I spin on my heels. "Oh God. I'm going to kill her."

  "Schatzlein, Schatzlein, Schatzlein."

  "I am. I'm going to kill her. I gave her life, and now I'm going to take it back."

  Almost on cue, we hear gravel crunching under tires. Mutti and I lock eyes. A second later, a car door slams.

  "Do you want me to handle this?" says Mutti.

  "Why? You think I can't handle my daughter?"

  "Actually, I was offering to be the ogre."

  I turn to her, seeing for the first time the gray semicircles beneath both eyes. I stare at her until I hear the door creaking inward on its hinges.

  Eva sees us and freezes. Her eyes dart from me to Mutti and back to me, and then land on Dan's boxer shorts.

  Suffice it to say that, once again, Eva is not speaking to me. Actually, I believe the exact phrase was "I hope you drop dead," but that translates roughly into not speaking to me. Of course, this business of not speaking to me didn't begin until she was finished calling me a racist, fascist, bigot, and hypocrite, along with all sorts of other more colorful, if somewhat less inventive, terms.

  She's also not speaking to Mutti, who stood physically and figuratively beside me, much to Eva's surprise. After the tattoo, I think she'd come to expect an automatic ally, although how she thought she was going to explain an outright lie is beyond me.

  She did her best to play us off against each other--the old "but Oma said" routine--and then stood astounded as Mutti ripped into her. When I sniffed her hair and breath for evidence of cigarettes and alcohol her torpor turned to grievous tears, and then, when I pointed out that I had recent reason not to trust her, she let loose with the string of insults and wished me dead.

  When she leaves, stomping and blubbering and utterly convinced of the unfairness of it all, Mutti and I are left standing silently, side by side. Then Mutti turns and looks me up and down.

  "What happened to you?"

  "It's a long story," I say. A door crashes shut above us, rattling the glass in the painted cabinet against the wall.

  "I have time," says Mutti, still staring at me.

  "We should get to bed," I say.

  "I don't know about you, but I'm going to need something to help me sleep. Come, Liebchen," she says. She turns and takes two glasses from the cabinet. Then she turns on the baby monitor, tucks it under her arm, and walks down the hall to the living room. She doesn't look back.

  I follow her, although I'm not sure why. It's not that I don't appreciate the thaw, but I'm no fool. I know it's got nothing to do with me and everything to do with Dan. But I follow her anyway. Jagermeister is Jagermeister, after all.

  In the morning, Eva won't answer her door. I know she's in there because it's locked. I decide to leave her alone for now.

  I'm halfway to the stable before I realize I didn't brush my hair, but I can't go back, because Brian is already at the house and I don't want to be there when Pappa emerges from the dining room.

  It's a beautiful bright day, and even at this early hour, the sun beats down on me in its full raging glory. I'm wearing my usual uniform of shorts and tee-shirt. With the addition of long sport socks and short rubber paddock boots, I'm a real fashion statement.

  I pause at Hurrah's pasture and lean up against the fence. He lumbers over and extends his neck, blowing softly onto my hand.

  "Sorry, gorgeous. I forgot your apple," I say as he moves from my hands to my pockets.

  I hear a car behind me, and turn just as an ancient gold Impala--sixteen if it's a day--passes by, carrying Carlos, Manuel, and Fernando. Following i
t is an equally ancient metallic green Monte Carlo carrying P. J. and Luis. The windows are open, and the sounds of laughter and Spanish music spill out. P. J. raises a hand in greeting and I wave back.

  Eva's words return to me, bothering me more than they should. I'm not racist--of course I'm not--although I'm not at all sure that Luis and the rest of the guys wouldn't find my real reasons for objecting to the match equally offensive. Two years is a big age difference when you're fifteen and seventeen. Seventeen-year-old boys have certain expectations, and I'm sure it's worse now than when I was young.

  But the truth is, even if he weren't older than she is, I still wouldn't want her involved with him. It's got nothing to do with his race. It's got to do with his education and prospects, which, considering he's a full-time stable hand at seventeen, equal about nil.

  I believe any parent would feel the same way, but the idea of being called on it makes me squeamish. Frankly, I'm glad to have the age difference to hide behind.

  I consider whether to say something to the stable hands, but can't find the right opportunity. Luis is omnipresent, but if I'm going to talk to anyone, it will be P. J. But calling P. J. into my office would impart more importance to the conversation than I intend--I'm angry at Eva, not them. So in the end I say nothing.

  I'm having trouble concentrating anyway. My brain is occupied by latent thought. It's a mass without form, an ever-changing squall.

  I feel like a bumbling anti-Midas, staggering along leaving a trail of disaster in my wake--my marriage, my daughter, the situation at the stable.

  There's also Pappa's illness, which refuses to be still even though I've pushed it to the back of my head. I've done more than that--I've bound it hand and foot, shoved it under a tarp, and weighted it down with concrete blocks. But still it bumps insistently forward, like a badly weighted washing machine, until I have to look at it just to wrestle it back to its corner.

  I'm also worried about Mutti. This is taking a terrible toll on her, even if I can't pinpoint what. She looks the same, and yet she doesn't. Her hair is pinned into its usual bulletproof coil, but there's something lackluster about it, a dullness that didn't use to be there. Her face, too, is different, in the same indefinable way. It's still lineless--this is a woman, after all, who has spent a lifetime actively avoiding expression--and upon close examination, it appears to be padded in all the same places. But there's something there, a tiredness, almost a resignation, and it frightens me. Mutti is a Valkyrie. Mutti is supposed to be invincible.