It’s the least I can do for them, after all they’ve done for me.
Pearl is running like a champ again. Warner was correct. It was the fuel pump.
The sun has almost disappeared by the time I reach Sierra Grande. The GPS sends me around the town, so I don’t get to see the details. From here, I see a lot of lights. Not headlights or brake lights, like I’m used to seeing, but streetlights. Lights from stores and houses.
Already I feel my pulse slowing, my anxiety ebbing. Everything about this place screams slower pace. Air swirls around me as I drive, and even that feels different from LA. I take a deep breath, trapping the oxygen in my throat, before I breathe it out slowly and loudly. Whenever I take a deep breath in LA, I’m left with tension and ambition. Here, all I feel now is calm.
The house my GPS directs me to is two stories and sits a couple hundred feet back from a riverbank. It’s painted white, with light blue shutters and a red front door. It’s obviously old, but maintained. From the outside, anyway.
My stomach rumbles as I pull up and park. I feel supremely grateful my assistant, Gretchen, asked the scout who found this house and rented it to stock the kitchen before he moved on to the next city.
Gretchen emailed me before I left my parents’ house this morning and assured me there was food waiting for me, and she also promised cold beer for when I finish my “cowgirl” lessons.
When my parents got the brilliant idea to use this film to save them from economic death, and the inevitable collapse of their social lives, I reminded them that I’ve never stepped foot on a ranch. My experience around a horse was limited to a single riding lesson when I was ten, and when it became painfully clear I would never be a skilled equestrienne, I quit. Which was fine, because that same day I got a callback for a commercial, and nothing made my mom or dad happier than to see me follow in their footsteps.
The solution to my lack of ranch knowledge was a teacher. A real cowboy who would show me how to rope and ride, teach me about the inner workings of a ranch.
Cary the Cowboy will be here promptly at nine tomorrow morning to begin lessons. Which means I need to get inside this house, eat, shower, unpack, and find a bed.
There’s a lockbox on the door, and I use the code Gretchen included in this morning’s email to open it and retrieve the key. Normally Gretchen travels with me, but her dad is undergoing chemotherapy and we both agreed it was more important she be there with him for his treatment. Besides, with this being my last film for the foreseeable future, I’m more than ready to be on my own.
I unlock the red door and use my knee to push it open, then shove my biggest suitcase over the threshold, followed by my two medium-size suitcases. Shouldering two duffels and holding my purse, I step inside and use the same foot to close the door behind me.
Gretchen said this house has been available for rent for a year, but it doesn’t show. It has been freshly cleaned, judging by the aseptic scent in the air. I make a note to get a scented candle and drop the duffels so I can move freely through the house.
The first place I go is the kitchen. In the fridge I find everything I need to make a sandwich. There’s also my favorite brand of sparkling water, so I grab one and walk through the house, alternating between bites of my sandwich and sips of lime soda water. It’s fully furnished, but based on the outdated decor, my guess is that it came this way. Fine by me.
I keep waiting to miss my house. My bed. The skyline I’m so used to.
So far, it hasn’t happened. All I can really think about is how relieved I am to be away from it. Because for a while, my house was also Tate’s house. My bed was Tate’s bed. In Sierra Grande, Tate doesn’t even exist.
I finish my sandwich, find the master bedroom, and haul my stuff into the room. I text my parents to let them know I made it, ignore my mother’s response that I should’ve texted her hours ago because there’s zero chance I’m telling her about my car trouble, and send the same message to Morgan.
A light layer of dirt coats my skin, no doubt the result of hours of driving through dusty desert air. I take a long, hot shower and crawl into the bed. A large window faces out toward the river, the water visible in the light from the full moon. I’m going to regret it in the morning when the sun’s rising, but I leave the curtains open. The stars are plentiful, twinkling like someone blew fairy dust across the sky.
My last thought before I fall asleep is how a man like Warner, and a man like Tate, can exist under the same sky.
* * *
“Broken pelvis.”
I drop my spoon in my chia pudding. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Gretchen stretches out, reaching for something I can’t see. She straightens up and looks back at her phone screen. “Cary’s wife called and said he fell from a horse yesterday and won’t be available to teach you all the things.”
“But… but…” My spoon flips over, sending chia pudding into the air. It lands on the kitchen table in an unappetizing clump. I lift my hands to my face, smoothing out my eyebrows with the pads of my pointer fingers, then keep the fingers pressed to my temples. “Okay. What are our options?” What I really mean to say is,This cannot delay filming. Being late costs money. Each day has a monetary value attached to it.
“I’ve already put in a call to the mayor of Sierra Grande and asked him for help. The largest cattle ranch in Arizona is in that town, there must be cowboys crawling all over the place.”
I feel relieved enough to make a joke. “I don’t think cowboys crawl.”
Gretchen gathers her black hair over one shoulder. “Ridingall over, then.”
“Is Cary in a hospital nearby? Maybe I could visit him?” I’ve never met the man, haven’t even spoken to him on the phone, but I feel like a visit would be a nice gesture.
“His wife said they’d had to drive two hours to the hospital, so I don’t know what that means. I’m not sure if he was at home when it happened, or if he was somewhere else, like on a trail ride or something.”
My eyebrows lift. “A trail ride?”
