Palomino

18

The plane landed at Kennedy Airport on a glowing spring evening, and Samantha looked down at the city with a blank stare. All she could think of as she unfastened her seat belt was the last she had seen of Caroline at the airport, standing tall and proud next to the old foreman, with tears running down her cheeks as she waved good-bye. Bill had said almost nothing to her as she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek in the crowded terminal, and then suddenly he had squeezed her arm and growled fondly, “Go on back to New York, Sam, and take care now.” It was his way of saying that he thought she was doing the right thing. But was she? She wondered as she picked up her tote bag and moved into the aisle. Had she been right to come home so soon? Should she have stayed longer? Would Tate have turned up if she'd just waited another month or two? Of course he still might appear, or call from somewhere. Caroline had promised to continue to ask around, and of course if anyone heard from him, she had promised to call Sam. Other than that there was nothing anyone could do. Sam knew that much herself as she sighed deeply and stepped into the airport.

The crowd around her was almost overwhelming, the noise level, the bodies, the confusion. After five months on the ranch she had forgotten what it was like to deal with that many people, to move as quickly as they were moving. She felt totally devoured by the press of people around her as she made her way to the baggage-claim area, feeling like a tourist in her own town and looking appropriately bewildered. There was of course, not a single available porter, there were hundreds of people waiting for taxis, and when she finally got one, she had to share it with two Japanese tourists and a plastics salesman from Detroit. When he asked her where she had come from, she was almost too tired to answer, but finally murmured something about California.

“You an actress?” He seemed intrigued as he looked her over, taking in the shining blond hair and the deep tan. But Sam was quick to shake her head as she looked absentmindedly out the window.

“No, a ranch hand.”

“A ranch hand?” He stared at her in open disbelief and she turned to look at him with a tired smile. “This your first time in the big city?” He looked hopeful but she shook her head and did whatever she could to discourage the conversation after that. The two Japanese tourists were chatting animatedly in their own language, and the driver spoke only in curses, darting between lanes of traffic. It was an appropriate reentry into her city, and as they crossed the bridge from Queens into Manhattan, she looked at the skyline and suddenly wanted to cry. She didn't want to see the Empire State Building and the U.N. and all the other buildings. She wanted to see the big house, the barn, the beautiful redwood trees, and that vast expanse of blue sky. “Pretty, isn't it?” The perspiring plastics salesman from Detroit moved closer, and Sam only shook her head and edged closer to the door next to where she sat.

“No, not really. Not after what I've seen lately.” She eyed him angrily, as though her return to New York were all his fault. He eyed one of the Japanese girls after that, but she only giggled and went on chattering in Japanese with her friend.

Mercifully the driver dropped Sam off first, and she stood for a long moment on the sidewalk, staring at her house, suddenly afraid to go in, sorry she'd come home, and longing more painfully for Tate than she ever had. What in hell was she doing here in this strange town, all alone, surrounded by all these people, going back to the apartment she had lived in with John? All she wanted was to go back to California, to find Tate, to live and work on the ranch. Why couldn't she have that? Was it so much to ask? She wondered as she unlocked the front door and struggled up the stairs with her bags. No twelve-hour day in the saddle had exhausted her as this one had, with a five-hour plane trip, two meals, a movie, and the emotional shock of coming back to New York. Groaning under the weight of her bags, she dropped them next to her front door on the landing, hunted for her key, fitted it in the lock, and shoved open the front door. The place smelled like the inside of a vacuum cleaner as she'stepped inside. It was all there, where she had left it, looking vacant and unloved, and different somehow, as though while she'd been gone all the furniture had subtly altered, shrunken or grown or only slightly changed color. Nothing looked exactly the same as it had. Yet it was, every bit of it, just as it had been when she and John had lived there. She felt like an intruder now, or a ghost returning to a scene from her past.

“Hello?” She wasn't even sure why she said it, but when no one answered, she closed the front door and sat down on a chair with a sigh, and then as she looked around, the sobs overtook her, her shoulders shook, and she dropped her face into her hands.

The phone rang insistently twenty minutes later, and she sniffed and blew her nose in a handkerchief and answered the phone, not even sure why she did. After all this time it was obviously going to be a wrong number, unless it was Harvey or Charlie. They were the only two people in New York who knew that she was coming back.

“Yes?”

“Sam?”

“No.” She gave a half-smile through her tears. “It's a burglar.”

“Burglars don't cry, silly.” It was'Charlie.

“Sure they do. There's ho color TV here to rip off.”

“Come on over to our place, I'll give you mine.”

“I don't want it.” And then slowly the tears began flowing again, she sniffed loudly and closed her eyes as she tried to catch her breath. “Sorry, Charlie. I guess I'm not exactly thrilled to be home.”

“Sounds like it. So? Why'd you come back?” He sounded matter-of-fact as he said it.

“Are you crazy? You and Harvey have been threatening murder and mayhem for the last six weeks, and you want to know why I'm here?”

“Okay, so come help us out with your crazy client and then go back. For good, if that's what you want.” Charlie's approach to life was always so damn practical.

“It's not that simple.”

“Why not? Look, Sam, life is very short and can be very sweet if you let it. You're a big girl, you're free now, you should be able to live wherever you want to. If what you want is to run around with a bunch of horses for the rest of your life, then go do it.”

“That simple, huh?”

“Sure. Why not? Tell you what, why don't you just try it out here for a while, kind of like a tourist, see how it feels to you after a couple of months, and if you're not happy… hell, Sam, you can always split.”

“You make it all sound so easy.”

“That's how it should be. In any case, pretty lady, welcome back. Even if you don't want to be here, we're happy as hell to have you around.”

“Thanks, love. How's Mellie?”

“Fat, but pretty. The baby's due in another two months, and this one's a girl, I just know it.”

“Sure, Charlie, sure. Haven't I heard that at least two other times?” She smiled at the phone and wiped the tears off her face. It was at least nice to be back in the same town with him again. “The truth of it is, Mr. Peterson, you only know how to make boy babies. It's all the basketball games you go to, something in the air there gets into your genes.”

“All right, so maybe what I need to do more of in future is go to strip joints. That makes sense…” They chuckled together as Sam looked around her at the depressing apartment.

“I thought you were going to water my plants, Charlie.” There was more laughter than reproach in her voice as she gazed at the long-gone wisps of brownish green.

“For five months? You must be kidding. I'll buy you new ones.”

“Don't bother. I love you anyway. Tell me, by the way, how bad things really are in the office, now that you've got me home.”

“Bad.”

“Terrible-bad or just medium-bad?”

“Excruciatingly bad. Another two days and I'd have had an ulcer or killed Harvey. That son of a bitch has been driving me nuts for weeks. The client hasn't liked a single storyboard we've shown them, they think it all looks too prissy, too sissy, too clean.”

“Didn't you use my horse theme?”

“Hell yes, we've seen every horsey model there is this side of the Mississippi, auditioned every female jockey, every trainer, every-”

“No, no, for chrissake, Charlie. They're right if that's what you're doing. I meant horses. Cowboys. You know, macho, sunsets, as in riding into the sunset on a big beautiful stallion…” As she said it her mind went instantly to Black Beauty and, of course, Tate. “That's what you need for those cars. You're not selling a little woman's car, you're selling a low-cost sports car, and they want to give an impression of power and speed.”

“And you don't think a racehorse can do that?”

“Hell no.” She sounded adamant, and at” his end he grinned.

“I guess that's why this one's your baby.”

“I'll take a look at what you've got tomorrow.”

“See you then, kid.”

“Give my love to Mellie, Charlie, and thanks for calling.” She hung up and looked around again and sighed, whispering to herself, “Oh, Tate-why?”

Bit by bit she unpacked her suitcase, dusted things off, tidied up, looked around, and tried to convince herself that this was her home. At ten o'clock she was grateful to climb into bed with a notepad and some memos from Harvey. She wanted to get a head start on what she had to do the next day. It was after twelve o'clock when she set down the notepad, turned off the light, and tried to go to sleep. In the end it took her another two hours, as she lay thinking of the ranch and waiting to hear the familiar sounds that never came.