Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
It was good to get out of the hotel. Good to see the town. Mustang River was adorable. A little bit wild West, a little bit modern hipster. The buildings had both old-fashioned charm and some mid-century flair, depending on when they were built.
There was a western outfitter at the end of the block that was painted green with gold flashes and had a statue of a cowboy on one end of the building, and a saloon girl at the other.
There was a kitchen supply store with all kinds of specialty oils and a furniture store with everything made out of solid wood, hand-carved.
The prices in there made Marlowe’s eyebrows about fall off her face.
Things were closing up as she and Cara wandered through town, heading slowly toward the restaurant at the end of the street that had come highly recommended.
By Cara, who had been looking at reviews online.
There was a giant, old west restaurant at the center of town called the Wagon Wheel, that served smoked meat and barbecue, but she had decided they should save that for another time.
They were going to an Italian restaurant called La Befana, which had a lot of rave reviews but was unassuming, tucked into a small brick building at the end of the block.
It was such an interesting patchwork of a town.
Marlowe was the kind of person who had to read up on every little detail about a place before she went, particularly when she was going to move there, which meant that she had done a lot of reading on the history of Mustang River.
It had originally caught some spillover from the gold rush back in the late 1800s, though it hadn’t been as populated as some of the places further west.
It had started out as a stopping point for people headed toward the Willamette Valley and then had become a place in its own right. The main street had burned down no less than three times, and after that, they had built more buildings out of brick.
The wooden buildings on the main street that were there now were reproductions of the buildings from the 1800s, while the brick buildings were original. Off that main street, you had the more modern places. Now art galleries and boutiques, all angular lines and expensive windows.
It had a unique flavor to it. And even after everything, she didn’t regret that she had decided to come here.
They walked into the building and were ushered quickly to a table by a perky young woman at the front of the restaurant, dressed all in black.
The wait staff was more than attentive, and she wondered if this was the kind of job that was competitive in a town like this, which was relatively small but had high tourist traffic.
She imagined it paid much better than other sorts of jobs younger people could get. So, it made sense that everyone who came into contact with their table was attentive and almost too friendly.
By the time they were finishing their main course and ordering dessert, they knew exactly what their waiter had studied in college, and he knew that they were working out at the Painted Ridge Ranch.
“The guy who used to own it was so rich. And nobody thought he had any kids. But then it turned out he did,” the young guy said, gesturing broadly with his hands.
Marlowe looked down surreptitiously and read his name tag.
Chris.
“Really?” She was interested because it was another perspective on the Grayson family, and Cody in particular, even though she would like to pretend that she didn’t care all that much about Cody. The reality was, she did.
“Yeah. It surprised everybody. I think they felt the property would go up for auction. But then it turned out that Cody Grayson was his son. Well, and obviously Walker and Lila.”
It was interesting because he clearly expected her to know who Cody was. “Was that surprising?”
“Well, Cody’s pretty famous around here. He won the bull riding championships ten years ago, and he really made a name for himself in the sport. I’m not that into it. Well, I’m into the cowboys, but not… You know,” Chris said, laughing.
“I get it. I feel like that would be the extent of my interest in the rodeo, too.”
“I don’t really know him, he’s way older than me.
” That made Marlowe feel like her bones were returning to dust. But, probably, Chris was nineteen or twenty, and so she supposed that would make Cody seem somewhat ancient to him.
“But my mom kind of knew who he was, anyway, she said they were from a pretty trailer trash family.” He put his hand over his mouth like he just realized that what he had said might be somewhat offensive.
“That’s what she said. I didn’t really think that.
I mean, I only know him as being kind of a famous guy, actually. ”
“I see.”
“I’ll get you your desserts. More wine?”
“Yes,” both Cara and Marlowe said.
They could walk to Cara’s house from the restaurant, and they had parked their cars there. That way, nobody had to be the designated driver, though they would have to be able to walk in a straight line so they could get home.
“It’s interesting to get the friendly small-town experience,” Cara said. “The general populace back home can be so insular.”
“I think that’s the difference between a tourist town and just a small town,” she said.
“It also seems to be that people in the Pacific Northwest are kind of chatty.”
“That’s true. Remember, we passed through that coffee stand a couple of hours from here, and it was like they wanted to hear our whole life story.”
“True.” Cara looked down into her wine glass. “So, have you talked to Aiden at all?”
“Not at all,” Marlowe said, practically grinding the back of her teeth together.
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know. What is there to say? He betrayed me, and I feel like I never really knew him.”
“That’s fair,” Cara said. “But shouldn’t you talk to him about logistics and things? Money and all of that kind of stuff?”
“We didn’t really…” She was about to say they didn’t really have money, and they didn’t own very much, except they had all the money that they were supposed to use to buy the car, and she had been avoiding dealing with that. Because she knew. Deep down, she knew.
“The only money we have is for the car. The one we were going to buy when we got out here.” She bent down, reached into her purse, and took her phone out. Then, she opened up her banking app. Her fingers were shaking. “I haven’t looked.”
“At what?”
“I haven’t looked at the bank balance, because I’m afraid. Because I’m afraid that…”
She opened up the account, the one that they shared, and her stomach bottomed out.
He had taken all of the money they had saved for a car, except for a thousand dollars.
She kind of wished he had just drained it.
This was like a weird sop for his conscience, and it still wasn’t enough.
All of this was the strangest behavior. Like he had been body snatched.
“He took the money,” she whispered.
“What?”
When the waiter came back with their desserts, Cara waved her hand. “Can we box these up? And can I buy the bottle of wine from you?”
“Sure,” he said.
Chris brought the bill, and the chocolate cakes boxed up, and Cara quickly paid for dinner without hearing any objection from Marlowe and tipped their waiter generously.
Then they gathered up their belongings and headed back out onto the street. Marlowe tightened her coat around herself because now it was dark, and it was quite cold.
“I can’t believe he would do this,” Cara said.
“Well, neither can I, so… Is this some kind of psychotic break that he’s having?”
“The alternative is scarier,” Cara said. “Because it means that he’s just not the person that he pretended to be for all this time.”
The streetlights cast a gold glow onto the sidewalk, and Marlowe looked around. It was so quaint and quiet at this time of night. There were cars parked along every stretch of the sidewalk, and the two different bars on the main street were full. The parking lot for the Wagon Wheel was also full.
So right now, outside was quiet, but only because the revelers weren’t spilling out into the streets, headed for their beds just yet.
They were in a window between times. Heading home early. She had never been a big partier. That was one reason it was funny that they had run a bar for a while.
She wasn’t the type to keep those sorts of hours. There was nothing stopping her from walking into a bar now, though.
She could do whatever she wanted.
She could grab a random man and drag him to bed if she wanted to. She could engage in whatever kind of reckless behavior she wanted to.
She wasn’t married anymore. Not in any way that mattered. Sure, they were going to have to eventually file the legal paperwork to get rid of the marriage, but the minute that he had betrayed her like this, the minute that he had touched another woman, their marriage vows hadn’t meant anything.
She had been tied to him since high school.
And yes, they took a break in college. She had always assumed that it meant that he had dated other women, but she had never asked.
She had never wanted to know. And as for her…
She had never wanted anybody else. She had wanted to create a love story, a life that was so different than the one that she had lived, and that meant that she had cut herself off from all kinds of experiences.
“Maybe I should go into that bar and hook up with somebody.”
“You’re drunk,” Cara said, wrapping her arm around Marlowe’s shoulder. “And we have wine and cake, so let’s just go have that.”
“I’m not drunk,” she said, even though her head was a little bit dizzy.
“I am all for you going out and getting your freak on. Whatever you need to do to deal with this, but I just don’t want you to do it while you’re impaired. Who knows what kind of weird decision you might make?”