Palomino

16

On Valentine's Day she got a card from Charlie Peterson from her office that made reference to her empty office. For the first time she thought of the job waiting for her in New York. She told Tate about it that night as she lay in his arms. It was a nightly ritual now. She was there each night no later than nine o'clock, after eating dinner with Aunt Caro and then taking a bath.

“What's he like?” Tate watched her with interest as she flung herself on the couch with a happy grin.

“Charlie?” She narrowed her eyes at the man who now felt like her husband. “Are you jealous?”

“Should I be?” His voice was even.

“Hell no!” The words were blended with a shout of laughter. “He and I have never been involved, besides he has a wife and three sons and she's pregnant again. I just love him like a brother, you know, kind of like my best buddy. We've worked together for years.”

He nodded. And then, “Sam, don't you miss your job?”

She was silent and pensive for a moment before answering and then shook her head. “You know, the amazing thing is that I don't. Caroline says it was that way for her too. When she left her old life, she just left it. And she never had any desire to go back. I feel that way too, I miss it less and less every day.”

“But you miss it some?” He had trapped her, and she rolled over on her stomach now and looked into his eyes as she lay on the couch and he sat near her with his back to the fire.

“Sure, I miss some of it. Like sometimes I miss my apartment, or some of my books, or my things. But I don't miss my life there. Or my job. Most of the things that I do miss are all the things that I could bring here if I wanted to. But the job… it's so strange, I spent all that time working so hard, and trying so damn hard to become important, and now…” She shrugged at him and looked like a very young, very blond sprite. “I just don't give a damn about that anymore. All I care about is if the steers are rounded up, if there's work to be done, if Navajo needs new shoes, if the fence in the north pasture is down. I don't know, Tate, it's as though something happened. As though I became a different person when I left New York.”

“But somewhere in you, Sam, is still that old person. That person who wanted to write prize-winning commercials and be important in your line of work. You're going to miss that one day.”

“How do you know that?” She looked suddenly angry. “Why do you keep pushing me to be what I don't want to be anymore? Why? Do you want me to go back? Are you scared of the commitment, Tate, of what it might mean?”

“Maybe. I have a right to be scared, Sam, you're a hell of a woman.” He knew that she wasn't willing to keep their life together a secret forever, that she wanted their love out in the open. That was something that worried him a great deal.

“Well, don't push me. Right now I don't want to go back. And if I do, I'll tell you.”

“I hope so.” But they both knew that her leave of absence had only six more weeks to run. She had promised herself that she would make a decision by mid-March. She still had a month. But only two weeks later, as they rode slowly back from the secret cabin where they still spent idyllic Sundays, he looked mischievous and told her that he had a surprise.

“What kind of surprise?”

“You'll see when we get home.” He leaned over toward her from where he sat on his pinto and kissed her full on the lips.

“Let's see… what could it be…?” She managed to look both naughty and pensive, and also very young, at the same time. She had her long blond hair in two pigtails tied with red ribbons, and she was wearing a brand-new pair of red snakeskin cowboy boots. Tate had teased her horribly about them, telling her that they were even worse than Caro's green ones, but with the Blass and Ralph Lauren and Halston wardrobe cast off since she'd arrived at the ranch, they had been her only whimsical purchase in three months. “You bought me another pair of boots? Violet ones this time?”

“Oh, no…” he groaned as they rode slowly home.

“Pink?”

“I think I'm going to throw up.”

“All right, something else. Let's see… a waffle iron?” He shook his head. “A new toaster?” She grinned, she had set fire to theirs only last week. “A puppy?” She looked hopeful and he smiled but once again shook his head. “A turtle? A snake? A giraffe? A hippopotamus?” She laughed and so did he. “Hell, I don't know. What is it?”

“You'll see.”

As it turned out, it was a brand-new color television, which he had just bought through Josh's brother-in-law in the nearest town. Josh had promised to drop it off at Tate's place on Sunday. And Tate had told him to leave it inside while he was out. And when he and Samantha came through the door, he pointed with an expression of pride mixed with glee.

“Tate! Babe, this is great!” But she was a lot less excited than she knew he was. She had been perfectly happy without one. And then she pouted coyly. “Does this mean the honeymoon is over?”

“Hell no!” He was quick to prove it, but afterward he turned on the TV. The Sunday news report was on. It was a special weekly wrap-up usually done by someone else, but tonight for some reason John Taylor was handling it, and as Sam saw him she suddenly stopped and stared at him, as though she was seeing him for the first time. It had been almost three months since she'd seen his face on TV, five since she'd seen him in person, and she realized now that she didn't care anymore. All that terrible hurt and pain had faded and all that was left now was a vague feeling of disbelief. Was this truly the man she had once lived with? Had she really loved that man for eleven years? Now as she watched him she thought he looked plastic and pompous, and suddenly the clear realization of how totally self-centered he was came to her for the first time and she wondered why she had never seen it before. “You like him, Sam?” Tate was watching her with interest, his angular rugged countenance in complete contrast to the baby-smooth golden boy looks of the younger man on the TV screen. And with an odd little smile Sam slowly shook her head, and then turned to face Tate.

“No, I don't.”

“You're sure watching him pretty close.” And then Tate grinned. “Go on, you can tell the truth. Does he turn you on?”

This time it was Samantha who grinned. She smiled with a look of freedom and relief and suddenly, finally, she knew it was over. She no longer had any tie whatsoever to John Taylor. She was her own woman now, and it was Tate Jordan whom she loved. In fact she didn't even give a damn if they'd had their baby, and she didn't care if she never saw either John or Liz again. But Tate was persistent as he watched her, sprawled out in the bed he had bought to accommodate their loving, with the soft blue blanket held to her chest.

“Come on, Sam, does he?”

“Nope,” she finally answered with a note of triumph. She kissed Tate playfully on the neck then. “But you do.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Are you kidding?” She whooped with laughter. “After what we just did all day you can doubt that you turn me on? Tate Jordan, you are craaaaaazzyyyy!”

“I don't mean that, silly. I mean about him. Look… look at that pretty blond newsman.” He was teasing her and Sam was laughing. “Look how pretty he is. Don't you want him?”

“Why? Can you get me a special deal? He probably sleeps in a hair net, and he's sixty years old and has had two face-lifts.” For the first time in her life she was enjoying making fun of John. He had always taken himself so damn seriously, and she had let him. The face and body and image and life and happiness of John Robert Taylor had been of prime importance to both of them. But what about her? When had Sam really mattered, if ever? Certainly not at the end when he ran off with Liz. Her face grew serious again as she remembered.

“I think you like him and you're too chicken to admit it.”

“Nope. You're wrong, Tate. I don't like him at all.” But she said it with such an air of conviction that he turned his head to look at her again, this time with a look of serious inquiry that hadn't been there before.

“Do you know him?” She nodded, but she looked neither moved nor amused. Mostly she looked indifferent, as though they were talking about a plant or a used car. “Do you know him well?”

“I used to.” She could see Tate bridle, and she wanted to tease him just a little. She placed a hand on his powerful naked chest and then smiled. “Don't get yourself excited, sweetheart. It was nothing. We were married for seven years.” For a moment everything seemed to stop in the little room. She could feel Tate's whole body tense beside her, and he sat up in the bed next to her and stared down at her with a look of dismay.

“Are you putting me on, Sam?”

“No.” She looked at him matter-of-factly, unnerved by his reaction, but not sure what it meant. It was probably just shock.

“He was your husband?”

She nodded again. “Yes.” And then she decided that the occasion needed further explanation. It wasn't every day that one saw the ex-husband of one's current lover on the television screen as one went to bed at night. She told him everything.

“But the funny thing is that I was just thinking as I watched him that I really don't give a damn anymore. When I was in New York, every night I used to watch that damn broadcast. I'd watch both of them, John and Liz, doing their cutesy little routine and talking about their precious baby as though the whole world cared that she was pregnant, and it used to turn me inside out. Once when I came in, Caro was watching it, and I almost felt sick. And you know what happened tonight when that plastic face came on the screen?” She looked at Tate expectantly but got no answer. “Absolutely nothing happened. Nothing. I didn't feel a damn thing. Not sick, not nervous, not pissed off, not left out. Nothing.” She smiled broadly. “I just don't care.”

With that, Tate got up, stalked across the room, and turned off the set. “I think that's wonderful. You used to be married to one of America's best-looking young heroes, clean-cut preppie John Taylor of television fame, and he leaves you and you find yourself a tired old cowboy, some ten or twelve years older than our hero, without a goddamn dime to his name, shoveling shit on a ranch, and you're trying to tell me that this is bliss? Not only is this bliss, but it's permanent bliss. Is that it, Samantha?” He was steaming, and Samantha felt helpless as she watched. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“Why? What difference does it make? Besides, he is not nearly as well known or successful as you seem to think he is.” But that wasn't quite true.

“Bullshit. You want to see my bank account, baby, and compare it to his? What does he make every year? A hundred grand? Two? Three? You know what I make, Samantha? You want to know? Eighteen thousand before taxes, and that was a big raise for me because I'm the assistant foreman. I'm forty-three years old, for chrissake, and compared to him, I don't make shit.”

“So what? Who gives a damn?” She was suddenly shouting as loud as he was, but she realized that it was because she was scared. Something had just happened to Tate when he learned that she and John had been married, and it frightened her. She didn't expect him to take it this hard. “The point is…” She made a conscious effort to lower her voice as she smoothed the blanket over her legs. By now Tate was pacing the room. “The point is what happened between us, what kind of people we were, what we were like to each other, what happened at the end, why he left me, how I felt about him and Liz and their baby. That's what matters, not how much money he makes or the fact that they're on TV. Besides, they're on television, Tate, I'm not. What difference does it make? Even if you're jealous of him, just look at him, dammit, he's a fool. He's a plastic little preppie that made good. He got lucky, that's all, he's got blond hair and a pretty face and the ladies around America like that. So what? What does that have to do with you and me? If you want to know what I think, I think it has absolutely nothing to do with us. And I don't give a shit about John Taylor. I love you.”

“So how come you didn't tell me who you were married to?” He sounded suspicious of her now, and she lay back in the bed and tugged at her hair, trying not to scream before she sat up to face him again, which she did with a look in her eye almost as ferocious as the look in his.

“Because I didn't think it was important.”

“Bullshit. You thought I'd feel like two cents, and you know something, sister?” He walked across the room and started to pull on his pants. “You were right. I do.”

“Then you're crazy.” She was shouting at him openly now, trying to fight his illusions with the truth. “Because you're worth fifty, a hundred, John Taylors. He's a selfish little son of a bitch who hurt me, for chrissake. You're a grown man, and a smart one, and a good one, and you've done nothing but be good to me since we met.” She looked around the room where they had spent all their evening hours for three months, and saw the paintings he had bought her to cheer the place up, the comfortable bed he had bought, even the color TV now to amuse her, the pretty sheets they made love on, the books he thought she'd like. She saw the flowers that he picked her whenever he thought no one was looking, the fruit he had brought just for her from the orchards, the sketch of her he had done one Sunday at the lake. She thought of the moments and the hours and the gestures, the rolls of film they had taken and the secrets they had shared and she knew once again, for the hundredth time, that John Taylor wasn't fit to lick Tate Jordan's boots. There were tears in her eyes when she spoke again and her voice was suddenly husky and deep. “I don't compare you to him, Tate. I love you. I don't love him anymore. That's all that means anything. Please try to understand that. That's all that matters to me.” She reached out to him but he kept his distance, and after a few minutes she let her hand drop to her side as she knelt naked on the bed with tears rolling slowly down her face.

“And you think all of that will mean something to you in five years? Oh, lady, don't be so naive. Five years from now I'll be just another cowboy, and he'll still be one of the most important people on television in this country. You think you won't stare at the set every night while you wash dishes and ask yourself how you wound up with me? This isn't playacting, you know. This is real life. Ranch life. Hard work. No money. This isn't a commercial you're making, lady, this is real.” She began to cry harder now at the fierceness of his words.

“Don't you think it's real to me?”

“How could it be, for chrissake? How could it be, Sam? Look at what you come from and how I live. What's your apartment in New York like? A penthouse on Fifth Avenue? Some fancy-schmancy number with a doorman and a French poodle and marble floors?”

“No, it's a top floor in a town house, a walk-up, if that makes you feel any better.”

“And it's filled with antiques.”

“I have some.”

“They ought to look real cute here.” He said it with feeling and turned away from her to put on his shoes.

“Why the hell are you so angry?” She was shouting again and crying at the same time. “I'm sorry if I didn't tell you I was married to John Taylor. As it so happens, you're much more impressed with him than I am. I just didn't think it mattered as much as you seem to think.”

“Anything else you didn't tell me? Your father is the. president of General Motors, you grew up in the White House, you're an heiress?” He looked at her with hostility, and stark naked, she sprang from his bed like a long, lithe cat.

“No, I'm an epileptic and you're about to give me a fit.” But he didn't even smile at her attempt to tease him out of his mood. He simply went into the bathroom and closed the door, while Sam waited, and when he came out, he glanced at her impatiently.

“Come on, put on your clothes.”

“Why? I don't want to.” She felt terror creep into her heart. “I'm not leaving.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I'm not.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Not until we hash this thing out. I want you to know once and for all that that man doesn't mean anything to me and that I love you. Do you think you can get that through your fat head?”

“What difference does it make?”

“It makes a big difference to me. Because I love you, you big dummy.” She lowered her voice and smiled gently at him, but he didn't return the smile. Instead he looked at her pointedly and picked up a cigar, but he only played with it, he didn't light it.

“You should go back to New York.”

“Why? To chase after a husband I don't want? We're divorced. Remember that? I like it that way now. I'm in love with you.”

“What about your job? You're going to give that up for ranch life too?”

“As a matter of fact…” She took a deep breath and almost trembled. What she was about to say now was the biggest step of all, and she knew that she hadn't yet completely thought it through, but it was the time to say it, tonight. She didn't have more time to think it out. “… that's exactly what I've been thinking of doing. Quitting my job and staying here for good.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Why?”

“You don't belong here.” He sounded exhausted as he said the words. “You belong there, in your apartment, working at your high-powered job, getting involved with some man in that world. You don't belong with a cowboy, living in a one-room cabin, shoveling horse shit, and roping steer. Besides, for chrissake, you're a lady.”

“You make it sound very romantic.” She tried to sound sarcastic again but tears stung her eyes.

“It isn't romantic, Sam. Not a bit. That's the whole point. You think it's a fantasy and it's not. Neither am I. I happen to be real.”

“So am I. And that's the issue. You refuse to believe that I'm real too, that I have real needs and am a real person and can exist away from New York and my apartment and my job. You refuse to believe that I might want to change my life-style, that maybe New York doesn't suit me anymore, that this is better and it's what I want.”

“So buy yourself a ranch, like Caroline.”

“And then what? You'll believe I'm for real?”

“Maybe you can give me a job.”

“Go to hell.”

“Why not? And then I could sneak in and out of your bedroom for the next twenty years. Is that what you want, Sam? To end up like them, with a secret cabin you're too old and tired to go to, and all you've got left are secret dreams? You deserve a lot better, and if you're not smart enough to know that, then I am.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” She eyed him with terror, but he would not meet her eyes.

“Nothing. It just means put your clothes on. I'm taking you home.”

“To New York?” She tried to sound flip and failed.

“Never mind the smart shit, just put on your clothes.”

“Why? What if I don't want to?” She looked like a frightened belligerent child, and he walked over to where she had dropped her clothes in a pile when they made love earlier that evening; he scooped them all up and dumped them in her lap.

“I don't care what you want. This is what I want. Get dressed. I seem to be the only grown-up here.”

“Like hell you are!” She jumped to her feet and dropped the pile of clothes to the floor. “You're just locked into your old-fashioned ideas about ranchers and ranch hands, and I won't listen to that bullshit anymore! It's a cop-out and you're wrong and it's stupid.” She was sobbing as she stooped to the floor, picked up her clothes piece by piece, and began to dress. If he was going to be like this, she would go back to the big house. Let him stew in his own juice overnight.

Five minutes later she was dressed and he stood looking at her, with despair and disbelief, as though tonight he had discovered a side of her he had never known, as though she were suddenly a different person. She stood staring at him unhappily and then walked slowly toward the door.

“Do you want me to walk you home?”

For a moment she almost relented, but then she decided not to. “No, thanks, I can manage.” She tried to calm herself as she stood in the doorway. “You're wrong, you know, Tate.” And then she couldn't help whispering softly, “I love you.” As tears filled her eyes she closed the door and ran home, grateful that once again Caroline was away at a nearby ranch. She did that often on Sundays, and tonight Samantha didn't want to see her as she came through the front door, her face streaked with tears.