McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (40 page)

 
          
 
"Okay," she said. "I can accept
that if you'll just promise not to see her again. I can't stand being
rejected."

 
          
 
"Are you going to stop seeing Spud?"
I asked.

 
          
 
Cindy looked shocked. "Why would I stop
seeing him?" she asked. "I've never had sex that good before. I could
still feel it two hours later, while I was at the shop."

 
          
 
"Oh," I said. "Then what am I
supposed to do?"

 
          
 
"Be my best friend," she said.
"I told you he made me feel scared. Anyway, he won't leave his wife."

 
          
 
"This is getting pretty odd," I
said.

 
          
 
"I know," she said, "but it's
just the way things are now. Actually I like a lot of things about you. If you
were my best friend I'd probably be all right."

 
          
 
"Am I ever supposed to get to fuck
anybody?" I asked.

 
          
 
She was silent for a while. "I just don't
want to think about that right now," she said. "I feel rejected
enough."

 
          
 
"Are you sleepy?" I asked.

 
          
 
"No," she said. "I'm
wide-awake."

 
          
 
So was I—zingy with wakefulness, in fact.

 
          
 
"Do you want to just head for
New Mexico
?" I asked. "We were going in the
morning, anyway."

 
          
 
Cindy looked surprised. "Oh yeah,"
she said. "We were going to get those boots. You really want to go right
now?"

 
          
 
"I don't see any reason not to," I
said.

 
          
 
"I guess there isn't any reason not
to," Cindy said. She switched on the bedlight. The thought that there was
no reason not to leave seemed to strike her as sad.

 
          
 
"I don't know. Jack," she said,
looking at me. "You didn't even promise not to see that hippie
again."

 
          
 
It was true. I had evaded the issue.

 
          
 
"It's too complicated to talk about right
now," I said. "Let's just go."

 
          
 
Cindy was a supremely quick packer. In fifteen
minutes we were in the car and across the
Potomac
. It was a clear night. The
Washington
monument shone very white as we crossed the
river. Cindy was lost in thought. In twenty minutes
Washington
was behind us. We passed the dark
Manassas
battlefield. Cindy's worries were soon
absorbed by her healthy body—she slumped against the door of the Cadillac, peacefully
asleep, as I drove on toward the west.

 
          
 
Two hours later, as I was crossing the
Blue Ridge
in a heavy white ground fog, Cindy got
tired of sleeping against the door. She curled up in the seat, her cheek
against my thigh, and reached for my hand. But holding hands was difficult,
since I kept changing hands to drive, so eventually she stuffed one hand under
my crotch, in a way that evidently made her feel safe.

 
          
 
I just drove. Soon I hit 1-81 and had to
contend with small convoys of trucks. Time sped as I sped. In Christiansburg I
stopped and got gas and when I came back to the car Cindy was sitting up,
looking as blank and puzzled as a sleepy child. I doubt she had the slightest
idea what she was doing out in the middle of
America
, in the middle of the night. I asked her
three times if she needed to go to the bathroom, but she didn't say a word. The
minute we left the station she curled up again and stuffed her hand back under
my crotch.

 
          
 
Despite a lot of experience, I am always underestimating
the vast resources of doubt and insecurity that can lurk beneath the surface of
even the most vibrant women. I had just done it with Cindy, and when I tried to
think of what I might do to bring her confidence back my mind went blank. I just
drove, conducting a quiet mano with the streams of trucks. I zipped along at a
steady ninety, passing them in bunches. Once I got to
Tennessee
, where the cops are more tolerant, I upped
it to ninety-five, shooting past the trucks so fast that the truckers hardly
even had time to get annoyed.

 
          
 
As the sun was coming up I pulled into a gas
station in
Nashville
. More than eight hours had passed, and yet
I had no sense of having been gone from
Washington
more than a few minutes.

 
          
 
During the last eighty miles or so, Cindy had
shown signs of restlessness.

 
          
 
"Jesus, I need to pee," she said,
sitting up suddenly and looking with no comprehension at the
Nashville
skyline.

 
          
 
I had noticed already, in my few nights with
her, that she had the rare ability to wake up looking perfect, or as close to
perfect as human flesh can get. When she stepped out of the Cadillac and
strolled across the dirty concrete to the John, the two sleepy, cynical gas
station attendants, used to an all-night stream of argumentative travelers from
Michigan
,
New York
, and
California
, stopped moving and looked at her with open
wonder, as if a true American Venus had stepped out of my pearl-shell Cadillac.

 
          
 
When she emerged, having done no more than
splash a little water on her face, they practically stood at attention. She was
wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and sandals, and she looked wonderful. The two guys
would have probably given us the gas if Cindy had asked for it, but in fact she
got back in the car without even noticing them.

 
          
 
"Jesus, this place is ugly," she
said, looking around her. It was true. A strong wind was blowing and
Nashville
looked particularly gritty. Little waves of
dust sailed down the empty streets.

 
          
 
Cindy stared at the town in surprise, faintly
indignant that she had been exposed to such ugliness so early in the morning.
It's not easy for people brought up in
Santa Barbara
to accustom themselves to the rest of
America
.

 
          
 
"Yuk," she said, as we sped out of
town. For a time that was all she said.

 
          
 
I knew an excellent little country cafe, about
an hour down the road, and since we were both starving we stopped and ate huge
breakfasts. Everyone in the cafe, male and female
alike,
stared at Cindy the whole time we were eating. The cafe was full of truckers,
mechanics, and local farmers trying to put off having to go out and farm—none
of them had probably ever seen a woman as beautiful as Cindy.

 
          
 
The troubles of the day before had somehow
settled in in such a way as to raise her beauty a dimension. Riding through the
night in a state of emotional collapse would have made most women look sort of
blasted, but Cindy had awakened from it so surpassingly beautiful that it was
quite understandable that people stared. The traumas had added an element of
gravity that she had previously lacked. It overlay her normal energy and
health, which of course were still abundant. Three or four truckers at the
counter were as stricken by her beauty as the filling station attendants. They
kept turning cautiously on their stools, toothpicks in their mouths, to stare
at her.

 
          
 
Also, she wore no bra. Though her breasts were
smallish, she had prominent nipples, and bra-less women with prominent nipples
were not an everyday sight in central
Tennessee
. The men stared openly, except for two or
three who were with women. The best those could do was cast an occasional
glance.

 
          
 
"How many states before
New Mexico
?”
Cindy
asked,
when we were on the road again.
Her knowledge of the geography of mid-America was minimal.

 
          
 
At the cafe we had bought both the
Nashville
and
Memphis
papers, and Cindy was indignant that
neither of them contained a thing that she considered news. The front-page
story in both papers was about a bizarre incident in which a
Tennessee
farmer had gone berserk and tried to drive
his tractor into the local courthouse, in order to run over a county agent he
didn't like. The county agent had escaped, but the tractor had got stuck in the
door of the courthouse so firmly that no one could figure how to get it out
without pulling down the courthouse.

 
          
 
It seemed like a funny story to me, but Cindy
was annoyed that such trivia would be given front-page space. There was nothing
more relevant to the world situation in either paper. The one syndicated gossip
column contained gossip that Cindy had known for weeks, which just increased
her indignation.

 
          
 
"I wish you'd stop in the next town, so I
can get the Times and the Post," she said.

 
          
 
"They don't get the Times in the next
town," I said. The next town was Cuba Landing,
Tennessee
. "You'll be lucky if we can find one
in
Memphis
."

 
          
 
Actually we did find one in
Memphis
, but only because I had the forethought to
whip by the airport. Cindy had scarcely said a word since breakfast. She was
looking out the window rather hostilely, and it seemed to me resentment might
be building. After all, I was the one who had brought her to a place where The
New York Times wasn't sold.

 
          
 
Finding one at the
Memphis
airport was a big relief. I could barely
get Cindy to stop reading it long enough to glance at the
Mississippi River
. The Father of Waters made little
impression on her. She read the Times through most of
Arkansas
, obviously reading slower than usual in
order to make the news last. An occasional glance at the dreary
Arkansas
flats probably convinced her she'd be lucky
ever to see another copy of The New York Times.

 
          
 
West of Little Rock I began to tire. I had
driven a thousand miles, not an exceptional drive for me, but long enough.
Also, there was the factor of Cindy. The fact that she was along, and feeling resentful,
affected my mental pacing. Although she had not spoken fifty words, her
presence took a certain amount of dealing with.

 
          
 
"You want to drive?" I asked.

 
          
 
"You could have asked me sooner,"
she replied.

 
          
 
Before she had driven twenty miles I dozed
off, only to be awakened by the sound of a siren. It felt like I had only slept
a few minutes, but when I looked out the window I saw that we were in
Oklahoma
. The grass had changed.

 
          
 
A big, shy young cop was standing by Cindy's
window with a ticket book in his hand, but he didn't seem to be saying
anything. Apparently the sight of Cindy had struck him dumb with awe.

 
          
 
The fact that Cindy had inspired the awe did
not mean that she was prepared to be tolerant of it.

 
          
 
"So what's the deal?" she asked.
"Was I going too fast, or what?"

 
          
 
"Uh, yes ma'am," the cop said.
"You were runnin' along there at about ninety-seven m.p.h."

 
          
 
Cindy said nothing.

 
          
 
"Yes ma'am, you were kinda speedin' along
there," the cop said, sighing heavily. A consciousness of his professional
duty obviously weighed heavily upon him at that moment.

 
          
 
"Well, I had the radio on," Cindy
said, by way of explanation.

 
          
 
"Aw yeah," the cop said, as if he
had been offered a sufficient excuse.

 
          
 
"Anyway, I didn't hit anybody,"
Cindy pointed out.

 
          
 
The patrolman agreed that that, too, was the
truth. Then, unable to think of a next move, he just stood and looked. Cindy
didn't pander to the look—she neither smiled nor made excuses. But she was so
beautiful that the young cop had probably already forgotten that she had been
going ninety-seven. He may even have forgotten that he was a patrolman. He
hadn't so much as asked to see her driver's license. He just stood and looked.

 
          
 
"Listen, we have to get to
New Mexico
today," Cindy said. "Could we
just go?"

 
          
 
"Oh, you sure can," the cop said.
" 'Preciate
it if you could just take it a little
slower."

 
          
 
"Okay, thanks," Cindy said,
immediately pushing the button that raised the window. She was off so quick
that gravel splattered against the officer's pants leg. It did not affect his
decision to exercise leniency. He just stood there watching us go, as
transfixed as the gas station attendants in
Nashville
.

 
          
 
Once we were safely off Cindy gave me a lovely
how-about-that smile, quite aware that her beauty and nothing else had spared
us a trip to the
Muskogee
courthouse.

 
          
 
"I like this," she said. "I’ve
never driven a hundred miles an hour before."