Free Pipeline by Brenda Adcock Page A

I'm Jo Carlisle's woman."
    I
had to laugh at the idea of the old-timers around Kerrville gossiping about me
and Lena. Most of them hadn't seen me since I was eighteen and went off to
college, although I liked to think I'd left one or two broken hearts behind
when I left.
    "No
one believes that, Lena. You're too much woman for me," I said.
    "You
fuckin' right 'bout that."
    She
crammed the cigarette between her lips, picked up her coffee cup, and waddled
into the laundry room behind the kitchen. As I left the kitchen, I could hear
her singing to herself and water running into the washing machine. Lena was a
good woman who had developed an unsavory reputation when she was younger and
never bothered to set the record straight. She had never married and had no
children. Most people regarded her as easy, and I had heard plenty of men
bragging about being with her, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to believe
everything I'd heard.
    Half
an hour later I was ready to go out the door. Lena was vacuuming the living
room as I came down the stairs. She was wearing headphones and had a cheap
cassette player clipped to the waistband of her polyester pants. In between
pushes and pulls on the vacuum she undulated to whatever she was listening to.
Watching her, I couldn't begin to imagine what kind of music could possibly
inspire those particular movements. When I tapped her on the shoulder, she
jumped nearly a foot, ripping the headphones off.
    "You
tryin' to give me a fuckin' heart attack, you stupid bitch! You shouldn't sneak
up on a body like that."
    "Didn't
mean to scare you. I'm taking Jack out for a while. I'll be back in an hour or
so."
    "You
think I give a damn where you go? Ain't like nobody ever calls or comes out
here. You live like some kinda hermit anyway, like you 'fraid of folks. If you
die, nobody know or care."
    She
pulled another cigarette out of her pocket. As I was going out the door, I
glanced back and saw she had resumed her dance with the vacuum cleaner.
    When
I moved back to the ranch, I sold off all the livestock except Jack. He still
had some fight left in him but was reliable, and like me, getting too old to
care about very much. We hadn't gotten off to a great start, and I doubted that
a friendship would ever develop between us because we were both too accustomed
to having our own way. But over the last year and a half, I came to admire his
independent nature while he tolerated my stubbornness.
    After
lunch, I locked myself in the darkroom to develop some film I'd shot before I
went to San Antonio on my Good Samaritan mission. I was in the middle of
developing the first roll when Lena banged on the darkroom door.
    "Jo!
You got company!" she hollered through the door.
    "Who
the hell is it?" I yelled back.
    "'Nother
woman. You really be robbin' the cradle with this chica."
    "I'll
be out in a minute."
    "Don't
take all day. I ain't no hostess here."
    Damn!
The road to my house was turning into a tourist attraction. The advantage to
living away from town was supposed to be that no one wanted to drive all that
way just to visit.
    No
one was in the living room six or seven minutes later when I left the darkroom,
and I thought maybe whoever it was had already left. As I entered the kitchen,
Sarita Ramirez was sitting at the kitchen table with Lena, looking a little
uncomfortable as she twisted a glass of tea in front of her. She stood up
quickly when I came into the room.
    "How
are you, Miss Ramirez?" I said, going to the refrigerator and grabbing the
pitcher of tea.
    "Sarita,
please. I'm sorry to intrude on you, Ms. Carlisle, but I really have to speak
to you," she said.
    "About
what? Refill?" I asked, taking a glass from the cabinet next to the sink.
    "No,
thank you. I've spoken to Kyle's mother, and she told me she had asked you to
help him. I wanted to tell you that I appreciated that. He's very stubborn, but
he does need someone's help even if he doesn't want to admit it."
    "I've
done everything I can without knowing