Animal Dreams - Barbara Kingsolver [24]
Trish looked indifferent, but she was working hard at being unimpressed, whereas before it came naturally. I took this as a good sign. “Well, I guess it pays good,” she said.
“No, they’re not really paying her, just living expenses is about all, I think. She’s doing it just to do it. She wants to be part of a new society.”
Trish stared. I pretended Hallie was there at the party somewhere, about to walk up behind me. “Six or seven years ago they threw out the dictator and gave all his land to the poor people,” I said. “But they need a lot of help in the farming department now, because these soldiers keep attacking the poor farmers from across the border and burning up their crops.”
Hallie would laugh at “farming department.” She’d laugh at the whole scene, the education of Trish the Cheerleader. She would love me.
“The Communists,” Trish said knowingly. “I heard about that. I heard they’re thinking about sending the Marines down there to stop them from doing that.”
“No, it’s the other way around,” I said patiently. “The Marines aren’t rooting for the new society. The U.S. is paying the contras, the guys that attack the farmers.” Hallie would not laugh now, she would be inflamed. She said we were a nation in love with forgetting the facts. She saved clippings that proved it. When Castro released those prisoners from Mariel: One day the headlines said we’d gotten him to free all these wonderful political prisoners. A month later when they were burning down halfway houses in Miami the papers castigated Fidel for exporting his hooligans and junkies.
Trish fiddled with her bra strap. “Hallie always would just up and do anything under the blue sky,” she said.
“You’re right,” I told Trish. “I wish I were that brave. I’d be scared to death to be where she is.”
“Well, you know, we can’t all be the hero,” she said, jutting her lower jaw to blow smoke up toward the olive branches. If I could have drawn blood, if I’d known how to do that with words instead of a needle, I would have. I wasn’t sure what Hallie craved but I knew it wasn’t glory.
“How’s Doc Homer?” she asked.
I hadn’t yet found the valor to go see him. I feared seeing him in failing condition. And still disapproving of me, on top of it. “Hard to say,” I said.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Loyd, grinning broadly. “Too good to speak to an Indian boy on Main Street?”
The tingle of a blush started behind my ears, and I ignored it. I’d learned since high school that in an emergency shyness can be disguised with a completely fake bravado. “You tried to run me down, Loyd! I ought to turn you in for reckless driving.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “Actually, I didn’t think you’d know who I was.”
“Are you kidding? How many beautiful six-foot-tall women you think we’ve got in this town?”
“Five eleven,” I corrected. “I’m the shorter of the bean-pole sisters.” I felt suddenly drunk, though I wasn’t, chemically speaking. Trish drifted off toward the barbecue pit.
He looked at me for a long time, just looked. Grinning. His left hand was fingering the tip of an olive branch and I expected him to snap it off but he didn’t, he only took in its texture as someone might eat chocolate or inhale a cigarette.
“You want another beer?” he asked.
So that was going to be it, no filling in the last fifteen years. No constructing ourselves for each other—otherwise known as falling in love. “Think you can get over to that ice chest and back before this party is over?” I knew he wouldn’t.
“In case I don’t, I’ve got your phone number.” He winked.
“Don’t you worry. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.