ANNA CAME FOR DINNER at the time of rose sunset. She entered the house through that soft light and sat down at the kitchen table. I served enchiladas with sour cream and chopped green onions spooned on top after the tortillas, onions, chiles, and cheese had bubbled together in the oven. They were my specialty. I wanted to make a good impression on Anna.
She picked at them and asked for a beer. We didn’t have any beer in the house. Gauguin and Anna seemed to like each other, but it was clear that she was going to be my friend. Gauguin excused himself after dinner and went in the back room to practice. We could hear him chopping out a song on his guitar, the instrument he used whenever he tried out something new. Ping. Ping. Long pause. Ping. Ping. Ping. Short pause. A full strum. After a while we didn’t hear him, though he continued to play.
“Did you bring your novel?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she answered, and brushed a chunk of hair from her face.
“Read me some,” I said.
“Do you have any wine?” Anna asked.
“Yeah, I think we might have some leftover stuff in the fridge.” I got up, cleared the dishes, and put two glasses down on the table. I poured white wine out of a green bottle and settled back in my seat. “Okay, go ahead.” I nodded.
“I’m nervous. I don’t know what to read to you.” Anna looked into her glass of wine and then up at me.
“Were you born in Nebraska?” I asked, changing the subject.
“No, my parents met in Connecticut. My father was from Nebraska, and when I was in the third grade, he wanted to move back. Have you ever been to Nebraska?” she asked.
“I’ve driven through. My sister was busted in Kearney. She spent two weeks in jail there,” I replied.
“What’d she do?” Anna asked.
“She was driving along with a bunch of friends at 3 A.M., and they were all high on Quaaludes. They were headed for California, and they stopped in a café. The owner took one look at them and called the cops. Rita’s hair was out like Jimi Hendrix, and she was wearing her silver sneakers. You could just see it. Five stoned freaks from New York stop in Kearney for juice.” I laughed. I tried to imitate the way Rita said it.
“She’s lucky she got out,” Anna said, and took another sip of wine.
“Yeah, I think the judge made fun of her last name. Schwartz.” I took a sip of my wine, too.
“It’s amazing he even knew it was Jewish. Most people out there don’t know what a Jew is.” Anna brushed some more hair out of her eye.
“Are you going to read?” I asked, getting back to her novel.
Anna sat with her back to the stove. Over her left shoulder was the window and beyond that the night. “I’ll read you the part about Louise and the cows on Christmas,” Anna replied.
“Okay, shoot.” I leaned back with my arm stretched in front of me on the table. I held the wineglass.
Anna took another gulp of wine and began to read in a shaky voice.
I tilted my head to the right as though to listen better. I really didn’t know much about Anna. She had finished her glass of wine, and I filled it again. She read without pausing and without looking up.
...White and brown, bronze, black. Cows of every color came. They knocked down the barbed wire fences, as though they did not exist. Those boundaries that kept them in their place most days, this night nothing contained them.
And the wolves too. The wolves were bad that winter and everyone knew it. Yet when Louise heard the first wolf-cry, she was not alarmed. The first howls were taken up and echoed with quickening repetitions. A black drove came up over the hill, but Louise and the cows were unafraid. The wolves looked no bigger than dogs, and they ran like streaks of shadows. There might have been one hundred of them. They came to the center with the cattle.
Birds too. Sparrows, looking smaller on the backs of cows, few down from tree branches. Louise thought the moon had risen, because at the center of the animals golden light emanated. She looked up. There were only stars. She got up, and like the prairie dogs, who were coming now too, she moved toward the center. A warm breeze blew gently across the winter night. As though responding to some silent signal, all the animals at once kneeled, bending their front legs.
At this point Anna looked up. “Should I go on? Is it beginning to sound corny?” She rubbed her cheek with her hand.
“No, keep going. I’m into it.” I smiled and nodded.
The sparrows bowed their heads. In unison, all the animals began to moo and howl and bark and screech. It sounded like a holy choir. It began low and it ended high. It was broken by a sudden, complete silence for about two minutes.
Louise looked around. She wanted to be nearer to the cows, but she didn’t dare move. Then it was over. The cows at the center turned slowly, causing all the other animals to break the circle. The wolves shot back, dark and swift, across the fields. Then the prairie dogs. The sparrows lifted off the cows’ backs. Louise backed herself against another oak tree with her hands behind her and watched. Her heart was very open as though it had taken in the golden light at the center. She wondered what that golden light had been.
Anna looked up. She licked her bottom lip. I could see her left eye was moving in a bit.
“Well?” she asked.
“Are you Louise?” I took a leap.
“Some. And some not. What’d you think? Did you like it?” Anna asked nervously.
“You know, I swear it sounds like Willa Cather a little bit,” I said, and then paused. “I can’t believe you don’t like her.”
“Are you selling Willa Cather books?” She laughed, but I could tell she was annoyed. “I never read my writing aloud to anyone.” Our eyes met. I noticed her right front tooth was crooked. I knew she wanted more from me, but I didn’t know what else to say.
Just then Gauguin walked in from the other room. He had his shirt off. You could see a little of his small belly, because his belt was low. His whole chest was covered with red freckles, and he had about five red burly hairs at each nipple. Anna seemed to get uncomfortable.
“Gauguin”—I didn’t move from my seat—“Anna just read to me from her novel.”
“Hey.” He smiled and put on his glasses. “Great, I’d like to hear it sometime.”
Anna bent over her folder. I could tell Gauguin understood she was reticent about her writing. He turned his head. “Can I have some wine?” he asked, seeing the bottle on the table.
“What’s left of it.” I pushed the bottle toward him.
He went across the room to get a glass from the cabinet. “I think there’s more down below.” He pulled up another half finished bottle and uncorked it.
Anna was relaxed now. “Nell tells me you write songs.”
“Yeah, love songs about Nell. ‘Nell has a belly. She doesn’t let me near her when my feet are smelly,’ ” he sang.
“Gauguin, why don’t you sing us a real one?” I asked enthusiastically.
“Maybe later. I thought we could go for a walk,” he said.
“Okay.” I nodded. I looked at Anna. “Do you want to go? Then I’ll drive you home.”
“You can stay the night if you want.” Gauguin looked at Anna.
We left the wine on the counter and walked out into the cool night. There was no moon, but the stars gave enough light for us to see where we walked.
We followed the narrow footpath up by the reservoir, past two rusted junk cars, and stood under some Russian olives, watching the lights of Taos in the distance. Gauguin took my hand. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and I wondered how much he could see. Both Gauguin and Anna began yawning. I told them they had both drunk too much wine and that’s why they were sleepy.
Later, I was too tired to drive Anna home. She stayed overnight. She slept in my green sleeping bag, the one with the red flannel lining. The next morning I was pleased that she was there. Gauguin made us toast and fried potatoes with green chiles. I sat at the breakfast table grunting and making wolf sounds, trying to get them to join in. They wouldn’t. I looked from Gauguin, pouring hot water into the one-cup coffee filter, to Anna, sitting in her T-shirt at the other end of the table. There was something similar about them, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Some thing about them both being from the Midwest, which meant they were both dumb as crickets and slow as tractors. They weren’t going to become wolves, magpies, or hyenas at the breakfast table with me. I howled alone, and they chewed at their toast.