Chapter 40
Cecily
I grew up in small-town Arizona, but this?
It's night and day different. With an olive grove and a thoroughbred farm, Olive Township is a charming town with a decidedly Spanish flair.
Sierra Grande is as cowboy as it gets, especially this bar we're in.
The Chute has neon bar signs, a wooden dance floor, and an outdoor bull riding arena.
A full band plays on a stage, with a crooning country singer.
It smells of beer and barbecue, leather and cologne. I love it here.
We've finished dinner, and now we're on our third round of margaritas.
Except for Rainbow. She's sipping soda water with an orange slice.
She frowned when my grandma accepted a margarita, but said nothing.
Secretly, I was hoping Rainbow would attempt to tell my grandma not to have a drink.
Listening to Savage Grandma tell Rainbow what to do with her disapproval would've been superb entertainment.
"What do you think, Grandma?" I yell over the lively song. Bodies crowd the dance floor, everybody in cowboy boots, a cowboy hat atop every man's head.
"This place is fucking fabulous," she yells back. Her eyes are twinkling, and she shimmies her shoulders. Tonight she's wearing her signature caftan, but this one is turquoise and fringed. She wears three strands of silver bead necklaces, and chandelier earrings that catch the light.
How can she be so sick? Look at her. Vibrant, smiling. Sipping a margarita. She turns to chat with my mom, and Kerrigan pulls me up to dance.
"I know your toes were tapping," Kerrigan says as we weave closer to the dance floor. "You love to dance."
"Busted," I trill.
Kerrigan and I find a little corner of the dance floor and plant a flag in it. It's not the same music, or even close to the same venue, but it reminds me of that night in Vegas with Dom. My hands holding onto his shoulders, the way he gripped me as we danced.
Kerrigan's questions from earlier come back to me. What does life look like for you and Dom once this is over?
I don't know what's possible for us. Dom lives across the country. A different life awaits him, a career, a clock that will never read the same time as mine.
"Hey, pretty lady," a deep voice says, too close to my ear.
I stop dancing, and so does Kerrigan. Cowboys stand on either side of us. The man beside Kerrigan offers her a hand, asking if she wants to dance. I nod at her, telling her to go for it if she wants to. She places her hand in his waiting palm, and he pulls her deeper onto the dance floor.
"I think I'll sit this one out," I say to the cowboy still standing there, eyes on me.
"Come on, sugar. It's just a dance."
"I'm married."
"An empty ring finger on your left hand says otherwise."
I glance down at my hand. "I forgot to wear it tonight."
"Forgot," the cowboy says, making air quotes.
I'm out of what little patience I had for this guy.
"Bye," I say, pivoting on my heel. I'm brought up short by a sound at the bar.
A yell, but more of a screech. The protest of barstools scraping the floor.
More yelling. Pushing, now. Adrenaline slips through me.
Will I get to watch my first bar fight tonight?
I take a step toward our table, ready to pick up my margarita and pull up a chair, but I'm frozen in place when I see the blonde bob in the middle of the fray.
My mother.
Her forearms lift to protect her face, and she tries to shoulder her way out of the bodies. There are too many, the crowd is too thick, outliers being pulled into the scuffle by wayward arms and elbows.
I hurry that direction, prepared to extract my mom. But then a woman pushes her, two-handed while she does nothing but try to protect herself.
Is someone seriously trying to rough up my sixty-year-old mom?
Looks like tonight will be the first bar fight I've ever witnessed, and joined.
I charge in, head ducked, flattened palms held above my eyes like the bill of a hat. Someone knocks into me, and I stumble but remain upright. In the middle of it all, my mother shakes like a leaf.
And that bitch who pushed her once? She does it again.
I wind up and throw my first punch. Closed fist, follow through. It catches her in the jaw. My aim could use some work, but it gets the job done. The woman stumbles back against the bar, laid out but looking at me. I'm on her again, pressing my finger into her chest.
"Don't touch my mom," I yell in her face. Then I add an extra thwap to the top of her head. She deserves it. Grabbing my mom's hand, I tell her, "Keep your head down."
We duck low, sliding parallel to the bar.
The fight has moved away from the stools, out into the center of the room.
Two men wearing tight Security T-shirts and built like brick walls rush in from the arena behind the building.
The fight is as good as over, but the second we're back at our table, I tell Rainbow and Grandma it's time to leave. Kerrigan shows up, too, eyes bright.
"I kicked someone," Kerrigan says breathlessly. "Right in the babymaker. It was easy to hit the target because his jeans were so damn tight. Can't miss what's on display."
We grab our purses and march out the door. We're only a few feet from the entrance when it opens and two women walk out. One is older, and holds tight to the upper arm of a girl who cannot be more than eighteen years old.
The woman looks ready to fly off the handle. She passes a few feet away from us, and I catch her mid-sentence "...showing a fake ID in this town? I'm not sure you can be more of an idiot. Everybody knows who you are, Peyton."
"Aunt Jessie, please don't tell my dad."
"I'll tell your dad what I damn well please."
And then they're gone, swallowed up by the night. A minute later I hear the roar of a truck engine, and the rig passes under a parking lot lamp, a decal on the driver's door that says HCC.
"The hotel van is on its way to pick us up," Grandma says. "I called them the second I watched Cecily jump into the fight."
Kerrigan smacks my arm. "You jumped into the fight?"
My adrenaline still flows at top speed, blood pounding in my ears. "Didn't you? You said you kicked somebody."
"Yeah, that stupid cowboy who wouldn't stop grabbing my ass."
"She saved me," my mom says, leaning back against the front wall of the bar. Her hands are on her knees as she catches her breath. "I thought for sure I was going to end up in a heap on the sticky floor."
"There's no way I would ever let that happen, Mom."
Mom pushes off the wall, steps in front of me, and wraps me in a hug. At first I'm too stunned to move, but then I thaw. I let her hold me in a way she hasn't in years.
"Thank you," she whispers against my head.
"You're welcome," I whisper back.
Headlights swing into the parking lot. It's the van, come to return us to the hotel.
It's a loud ride, everyone telling their version of what they saw.
"Cecily went in there like a bowling ball," Grandma says.
"Your aura was red," Rainbow adds.
"I didn't see any of the good stuff," Kerrigan whines. "I was too busy fending off the cowboy with arms like an octopus."
"Does this mean you're officially over your fixation with cowboys?"
"Don't be silly," Kerrigan responds tartly. "I refuse to let one bad apple ruin the whole bunch."
When we arrive at the hotel, we find my dad, Duke, and Dom in the bar. Three longneck beers sweat on coasters, a basket of chips with a salsa trio on the bar top.
Dad and Duke are seated, but Dom stands, a forearm on the bar. He sees us first, and a smile lights up his face.
I float into his side, tucking myself there. It's like there's a blank space my exact shape and size waiting to be filled against him.
Mom, with unfettered pride, announces, "Cecily punched someone for me."
Dom jerks in surprise, leaning back so he can look down at me. "Closed fist, follow through?"
"Obviously," I say with a smile, accepting a glass of water from the bartender. My mom and Kerrigan order margaritas.
"Before you get to regaling everybody with your story," Grandma interrupts. "I'm going to call it a night." She sends us a wave and air kisses, and Rainbow assists her from the room. I don't know how much assisting Rainbow's doing, but she's there in case Grandma needs her.
"What happened?" my dad asks my mom.
"I was at the bar getting another round for us when people around me started fighting.
I don't know their reason, but suddenly it was a group of people, and some woman pushed me.
Twice. Cecily saw it happen, and she rushed in and punched the lady.
Then she yelled at her. Don't touch my mom.
" Mom reenacts it, leaning over a phantom person at the bar, finger pressing hard the way mine did.
It's the most animated I've seen her since I can't remember when.
"Did anybody know who you were?" Duke asks, alarm and worry creasing his tone. Always thinking about the family image, like my dad when we were young.
I frown at my smart-yet-dumb brother. "We're not famous, asshat."
"Don't make her mad," my mom warns, swiping a chip through the salsa. "She can throw a punch."
Duke looks at me with, say it isn't so, a morsel of respect. He offers me a fist bump. "Good work defending Mom. Didn't know you had it in you."
I bristle. "Did you think I would leave her to fight it out herself?"
Duke picks up his beer, closing his eyes briefly like he's trying to get control of his emotions. "No, Cecily, that is not what I thought."
"You just said that you didn't know I had it in me to defend Mom."
"I meant I didn't know you had it in you to fight. Of course you would defend Mom."
"Oh." I really read that one incorrectly. "Ok. Thanks."
Duke offers the bottom of his beer, clinking it against the bottom of my water glass in a reconciliatory way. I return the gesture with a small smile.
The bartender drops off the margaritas and another round of beers.
Mom takes a healthy sip of her margarita. "You should have seen Cecily," she says, drink aloft. "Everyone in that bar was afraid of her."
This couldn't be more untrue, but I don't correct her because she's doing something new. Bragging. About me. Not openly complaining about how I'm argumentative, or ungrateful, or disinterested in our family. She's saying something complimentary.
"I'm sure the security guards who came rushing in at the end were not afraid of me, but I wasn't sticking around to see.
" I grab a chip and drag it through the brightest of the salsas.
"Holy—" I press a hand to my mouth as fire consumes my tongue.
"What is that?" I ask, pointing at the orange-colored salsa.
"Habanero," Dom answers, pushing my water into my hand.
"Your husband has been eating it all night," Duke says. "Apparently he is impervious to spicy food."
Beer poised at his lips, Dom says, "I like spice." His fingers, splayed against my lower back, dip a half inch into the waistband of my denim skirt. He drags them back and forth across my skin, lighting a fire in my belly as hot as the residual burning across my mouth.
The family makes small talk, asking Dom about a day in the life of a literary agent, and I bide my time, waiting for Dom to finish his beer. I want to get out of here, now. I want Dom in our hotel room.
With only a few sips remaining in his beer, I turn my face into Dom's chest and murmur, "Let's go."
I hear it in my voice. The sex. The desire. The need. Consummating this marriage is starting to look like an eventuality.
Kerrigan's questions from earlier this evening pound in my head, a drumbeat.
What does life look like for you and Dom once this is over?
Is it an annulment and you two return to opposite sides of the country?
Or do you think you might have a shot at something great?
"Well," Dom says, pushing his empty beer to the far edge of the bar. "Cecily and I are going to hit the hay."
"Is that what the kids are calling it?" Kerrigan asks.
My dad groans. "We get it, Kerrigan. They're newlyweds. They're...active."
Kerrigan grins at me and sips her drink.
We say good night and step away, and I'm just about to walk through the bar and into the hotel lobby when my dad says my name. I pivot, and Dom walks to the elevator bank to wait for me.
"Yeah, Dad?"
He shifts uncomfortably, an uncharacteristic move. "I want to say thank you for how you protected your mother tonight. She's not bar-fight material." He chuckles to himself. "Not like you."
"I'm not sure if that was a compliment, but I think I'll take it as one."
"It was a compliment, Cecily. You're tough. You always have been."
You make it difficult to love you.
I hate it, but it's all I hear.
Even now, as he tries to compliment me, I only hear the most damaging sentence he's ever spoken to me.
"Thanks, Dad." I step away. "Good night."