Free Black Angus by Newton Thornburg Page A

see her again. “Where will you go?” he asked. “Still California?”
    â€œOr Vegas. Someplace warm anyway, with lots of lights and men with razor haircuts and tanned foreheads.”
    â€œYou don’t ask for much.”
    â€œWould it do any good if I did?”
    He glanced at her, expecting her customary sardonic look.Instead there was the new thing, the vulnerability. He rose on his elbow to kiss her, but she rolled away. He pushed down the sheet and ran his lips along the beguiling curve of her hip and waist. He put his arm around her, squeezing her breasts. But she was not to be aroused. Without ceremony, she pulled the sheet up over her, at the same time breaking his embrace.
    â€œYou think I’m pretty dumb, don’t you?” she said.
    â€œNot at all.”
    â€œYes, you do. But more than dumb. I mean—” She rummaged for the right word. “Silly. Not serious. You know.”
    â€œFrivolous?” he said.
    â€œYeah. Just a good-time girl.”
    â€œWell, you’re no farmer’s wife.”
    â€œAnd you put me down for that, don’t you? I mean secretly. Oh, you like me, I know. Here in bed anyway. But deep down, you really don’t respect me, do you?”
    â€œAs a matter of fact, I do,” he said. “More than you think.”
    â€œBut you figure me wanting California—nightlife and swimming pools and all that—you think it’s not worthwhile. Not important. Not like raising some goddamn calves.”
    â€œFor me it isn’t.”
    She smiled again, with disbelief. “I just can’t figure that. I can’t figure why messing with those dirty ugly things is so important. You know what you’re gonna wind up doing?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re gonna lose all your money. You’re gonna lose your wife and kid, and probably your pride too. It usually goes with the money.”
    Blanchard said nothing for a time. It was a heavy indictment and not all that far from his own thinking lately.
    â€œWhat’s the alternative?” he asked. “Carry a briefcase the rest of my days?”
    She shrugged. “Why not? Or you could do what Shea says—bail out. Be free. Why, you could even come to Californiawith me. I think maybe I could take you with a razor cut and a tan forehead. For a while anyway.”
    â€œHow can I resist?”
    She was on her hands and knees now, about to crawl over him, out of bed. But she hesitated a few moments, dangling above him like some incredible assortment of ripe fruit, and his hands rose helplessly to pluck.
    â€œHow can you resist? I really don’t know,” she said, with unexpected mischievousness. “I’ll throw in a moonlit beach—with a blow-job you’ll remember the rest of your natural life.”
    Blanchard tried to drag her back down, but she slipped on out of bed and headed for the kitchen.
    â€œYou want coffee?” she called back.
    Groaning, he got out of bed and put on his shorts and pants. Down the long corridor of the trailer he watched her slipping into her robe, a floor-length electric-blue polyester concoction resembling lamb’s wool, such junk covering such finery, and he questioned his sanity. In the back of his mind the picture still burned, the two of them on a California beach at night. Shaking his head, he went on through the kitchen and dining area to the living room, reluctantly, for it was an oppressively ugly place, a veritable citrus grove of off-green, lemon and lime and chartreuse burgeoning in the shag carpet, in the crenellated draperies and the furniture, all the fancy little pieces of overstuffed fake satin and velvet. To Ronda, however, it was a handsome room—“kind of classy, don’t you think?” as she had said to him one night. It was also the location of her stereo, the closest thing to a religious artifact in her life. So he was not surprised to find her kneeling before it