IT HAD BEEN six days since Becca fled Dry Hills and she was still searching for her stride. She practiced leaning into the speed and power of Reno’s bike, closing her eyes for long stretches of road, feeling the engine rumble through her bones. She wanted to absorb the machine’s power, to reach that mechanical Zen state in which she and the bike were one. But most of the time, she was bored and in pain. And still in Kansas. She perked up when a sign welcomed them to Colorado. But the landscape still looked like Kansas and smelled like Kansas and felt like Kansas, so little had changed, and Becca was convinced that she was going out of her mind.
As they headed deeper into the state, Becca realized that they were nearing her mother. Not that they were exactly close; Hands of God Church was at least a hundred miles away from the bikes’ location. But Jeanine did not come home for holidays and made excuses whenever her daughter suggested a visit. Becca grimaced, thinking how happy her mother would be to discover that she’d left Ben. This outcome was more or less what the woman had predicted from the beginning. But since the men had no reason to visit Jeanine, her mother would be deprived of the pleasure of issuing a well-deserved “I told you so.”
Two Easters before, Becca had gone home to tell her mother about the proposal in person. Ben had wanted to come with her, but the situation was delicate, so she went alone. As soon as she’d walked into the house, though, she knew something was off. Her mother was no housekeeper, but the house was clean. Streaks from the vacuum cleaner ran like jet trails through the sky-blue family-room carpet. Upstairs, she found her mother packing. Trash bags full of clothes were lined up against the wall, and a suitcase sat open on the bed.
“The college girl has arrived,” Jeanine said with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. She kissed Becca on the cheek, her breath thick with cigarettes. Becca asked what was going on. Jeanine sat down on the bed and folded her hands in her lap. “I can’t be a good enough Christian in Dry Hills,” her mother had said. “I need to take my faith to the next level.”
“You’re a Christian, not an aerobics instructor,” Becca said.
Jeanine frowned and began explaining her newfound sense of purpose. She told Becca she’d be leaving Dry Hills for good the next day, right after church. “I need to await the Resurrection with my fellow faithful,” she said, as though salvation were coming any day now. Maybe even tomorrow, and if she waited too long before driving to Hands of God, she’d miss it. “It would be ungodly for me to stay any longer.”
Ungodly to spend Easter with her only child whom she had raised alone?
Not knowing what else to do, Becca went for the jugular. In one brusque sentence, she spat out the engagement, Ben’s current job, the fact that he’d already served a tour in Iraq and was heading back the very next week. Oh, and they planned to get married as soon as he returned, in about fifteen months.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened. “What’s his name?” Jeanine said.
“Ben. Benjamin Thompson. He grew up in Kentucky. He’s twenty-four.”
“You foolish girl,” Jeanine replied, turning away. “Go yoke your life to the army. You do that.”
“The army isn’t going to be the rest of our lives,” Becca said.
Jeanine slammed the dresser door. “Your father didn’t make a career in the army, Becca. He enlisted to avoid the draft and went for a year, and it ruined the rest of his life. It ruined ours—his and mine, yours and mine!” She stomped to the bed and shoved socks into her suitcase. “Are you stupid? No, you can’t be. You’re a college girl.”
“Ben’s unlike anyone I’ve ever known. He loves me. I mean, really loves me.” Only after Becca spoke did she realize how this sounded. “I didn’t m-mean—” she stammered, but her mother’s face closed up. She turned toward a statuette of Jesus on the dresser.
“I wonder,” Jeanine said, appearing to address the statue, “has my daughter taken up with this man in order to spite me? For all the love I didn’t give her?”
“Mom,” Becca pleaded.
Jeanine whipped back around. “Don’t throw your happiness away because you think I’ve wronged you!”
Becca had never seen her mother so frantic or heard her voice strain a full octave above its usual husky pitch, but she was too hurt to care much about Jeanine’s distress. “You don’t even love me enough to stick around for Easter lunch!”
Jeanine rushed from the room, leaving Becca alone with the suitcase and trash bags. When her mother didn’t come back after a few minutes, Becca crept into the hallway. To her horror, she could hear sobbing on the other side of the bathroom door.
The next morning Becca helped load the trash bags into the car. Then she watched her mother light a cigarette and pull away. When the car was gone, she looked up at the house. She’d never given the tiny structure much thought. It was just her home, nothing special. Now it was the only part of her family that she had left.
By nightfall, they reached Alamosa in south-central Colorado and headed to a bar on the outskirts of town. The men parked in a lot that was overstuffed with motorcycles. With considerable relief, Becca climbed off Reno’s bike and followed the trio to a long line of bikers who were waiting to enter a tented pavilion beside the bar. A large sign read Motorcycle Mountain Festival Fundraiser.
“You’re in for a treat,” Reno said as they drifted slowly toward the entrance. “You’ve never been to a party like this before.”
“I bet,” Becca said, her teeth chattering with cold. Ever since it had gotten dark out, she’d been freezing. Now her entire body felt numb.
“Might consider getting yourself a leather jacket in there,” Reno said. “You’d be warmer. And you’d be less at risk of getting skinned if anything were to happen on the road—not,” he added quickly, “that I’d let anything happen.”
It was true, Becca realized, that Reno was a responsible driver. Despite his penchant for unnecessary revving, he wore his helmet, even in the states that did not require it, and, unlike Bull, he avoided lane splitting. “I trust you,” she said and noted Reno’s surprise at the compliment.
The entire motorcycling population of southern Colorado appeared to have congregated at Motorcycle Mountain. They were like nocturnal critters who’d crawled out from their logs and up from their holes. They swarmed and buzzed, and for the first time in days, King smiled. Becca was shocked; her father hated crowds.
They moved through the tent, full of people eating and drinking, and then passed out into the night, where fields full of camping tents rolled gently into the dark. Among kiosks peddling biker paraphernalia, Becca fingered the leather vests and bras and Daisy Dukes that were hung up like the decor of an S&M dungeon. There was an entire stand of accessories to keep long hair from tangling in the wind, which, amusingly, was less of a problem for her than it was for most of the men.
Bull arrived with beers. As Becca drank, he held up a suede demi-bra dotted with rhinestones. “You should try something on,” he said. “Leather could be your look. As long as they carry extra-small.”
“Fuck you,” Becca said.
“I’m just playing, Rebecca. Can’t a college girl take a joke?”
“As long as we’re talking extra-small, Bull, I think I see a child-size helmet that’ll fit you like a glove.”
It wasn’t King who came to her defense but Reno. Only a few days ago, he’d been the one accusing her of a weak sense of humor. He was growing on her, and she didn’t like it.
“Listen,” he said to her now. “You’re not riding safe. We need to get you fitted out.” He leaned over the counter and spoke to the biker chick manning the register. She disappeared among the racks and returned with a leather jacket and a pair of gloves. “I think these’ll fit,” she said with a smile and passed the items to Becca.
The jacket was heavy and stiff. “I feel like I’m holding an animal carcass.”
“That’s because you are,” said Bull.
“Go on.” Reno nodded. So Becca put on the jacket and zipped it. She felt constrained, almost corseted. “I know it seems uncomfortable at first. But once you wear it in, you’ll never take it off.”
Becca looked at the price tag. “Two hundred dollars? Forget it.”
“Your life isn’t worth two hundred bucks?” Reno asked. “And at the very least, this jacket will keep you warm. Jesus, girl, you were shivering so much tonight, you made me feel cold.”
“I’ll throw in the gloves for free,” said the cashier. She leaned over the counter and motioned for Becca to come closer. “You look pretty tough in that jacket,” she whispered. “Seriously. If you don’t want anyone to mess with you—just suit up.”
Becca looked around for her father to get his opinion, but King had disappeared.
“Come on.” Reno nudged her affectionately. “Become one of us.”
Becca couldn’t believe she was letting herself be talked into this, but she handed over her credit card.
“Hallelujah!” Reno exclaimed.
Becca downed her beer as though trying to dull the pain of her extravagant purchase. “Time for another,” she said.
On their way to get drinks, Reno, Bull, and Becca paused outside a small tent advertising tattoos. “My diabolical plan to convert you from human being to biker chick is nearly complete!” Reno rippled the tips of his fingers together like a cartoon villain. “Tattoo to seal the deal?”
He was only joking but Becca looked him dead in the eye. “Fine,” she said and pushed inside without looking back. She didn’t want to lose her nerve.
Becca had a terrible fear of needles, but she wasn’t going to back out now. She was so determined, she didn’t even realize that she’d cut the line and planted herself in an empty chair. The bikers who’d been waiting were so amused that they only laughed.
“You sure you’re old enough for this?” one of them said.
“Your mama know where you are?” said another.
“I thought this jacket was supposed to make me look tough,” Becca complained, and the men laughed harder.
“Becca, you really want to do this?” Reno had made his way through the crowd to her. It was the first time he’d used her actual name—called her something other than girl—and she understood that in a moment, she’d be changed for good. A jacket could come on and off; a tattoo was a commitment.
“What’s it gonna be?” The tattoo artist looked utterly uninterested, like a diner waitress snapping her gum. What’s it gonna be? But this was serious. Like the biker vets with their U.S. Marine Corps crests and American flags, Becca was taking a stand. She was making her own political statement. “What hurts the least?”
“It all hurts,” Reno said.
“You want a soft area,” her soon-to-be-tormentor advised. “But you don’t seem to have any of those.” She took her own tattooed hand and pinched Becca’s upper arm. “Solid as a rock, this one. Unlike them.” She nodded at the paunchy bikers. “How visible do you want it? If I do your back, you can hide it, but you’d have to sleep on your stomach for a while.”
Becca did not want the tattoo anywhere near Ben’s bruises.
“Inner wrist,” Reno said, and Becca could tell he’d been giving the question serious thought. “It’s visible but not too visible, but it’ll hurt like a mother.” Reno flashed his gold-toothed smile, and there he was—the Reno from King’s kitchen, the man Becca despised, reveling in her discomfort. Which was all she needed to be convinced. She offered up her left arm. “I want it to say King in black. Cursive but not too fancy.”
“No heart with an arrow through it?” Reno laughed. But Becca ignored him. The tattoo artist swabbed Becca’s wrist with alcohol and already she felt like passing out. “You need to bite on something?” Reno said.
There was a pressure on her arm and she flinched. This time, it was only the woman making the outline. Reno shook his head. “You don’t look so great.” Now he seemed truly worried about her.
“This good?” the tattoo artist asked. Becca looked at her father’s name, inked across her wrist, soon to be permanent.
Reno shook his head. “Your daddy isn’t gonna like this one bit.”
“You said to make an effort,” Becca snapped. “Let’s get this over with.”
And then pain. Specific and brutal pain, the nature of which she’d never felt in her life; it was like a hive of hornets had landed on her arm or like a blunt knife was sawing her hand off.
“Well, look at you, Rebecca.” This was Bull. He seemed to have materialized specifically to bait her, but then she saw that he was carrying another beer.
“No alcohol allowed in here,” the tattoo artist said, barely looking up.
“Give it,” Becca snarled. She grabbed the cup with her free hand and gulped it down like water. “Get me another one,” she demanded.
The tattoo artist shook her head, but she kept on working.
“Get the girl a double shot of whiskey.” Reno handed Bull some money. “You seen King out there?”
“He’s over with Elaine. Should I . . . ?”
“Just get the poor woman her drink.”
“Yes, sir.” Bull saluted and ducked out of the tent.
“Who’s Elaine?” Becca huffed, grimacing, feeling the urge to scream. But she was not going to let that happen. She was going to take this. She was going to suck it up.
“It’s a good thing your daddy doesn’t have a longer name,” Reno said.
Becca forced a smile. She felt cold, then hot. She was going to vomit. Her head swam in a nauseated blackness. The minutes passed. Bull seemed to have forgotten about her drink. Reno stood by, chatting with a couple of vets. He hadn’t told her who Elaine was, but who cared? How long had she been sitting here? How much longer was this going to last? Time seemed to have slowed; it was like entire minutes had been packed into seconds.
“What in the hell are you doing to my daughter?”
The whole tent seemed to look up at once. King stood in the doorway, as menacing as a madman. He pushed his way through the line, leaving the other bikers mumbling in his wake.
“Looks like Bull took a detour on the way to the bar.” Reno laughed. “Hiya, King!” He gave an exaggerated wave.
“Get outta that chair!” King lumbered forward, and the tattoo artist held her hands up like there was a gun in her face.
“All of a sudden you care what I’m doing?” Becca snapped, puffing through the pain, which continued to bite through her arm even though the pen wasn’t touching her.
“It’s your name she’s putting there,” Reno said and Becca held her wrist up. The tattoo artist had finished only three letters, so the tattoo read KIN; next to it was the g, much fainter, in pen.
“King,” Becca said. “It’s going to say King.”
King stopped his advance. His eyes were deep gray and glowering, like gathering clouds. His jowls quivered.
“You make that lady stop now,” Reno said, “and people will look at your kid and think, That’s one lonely girl who’s got to write Kin on her own arm.”
Reno was only trying to lighten the mood, but his words were like a kick in the chest. Becca was all on her own. She was all the family she had. “Finish it,” she told the woman. “Please.” The tattoo artist lowered the needle and Becca winced as the tip bit in. She kept her eyes fixed on King’s reddened face, staring him down as her body screamed.
“Branded!” Reno announced. And they left the tent with Becca’s wrist wrapped in a bandage.
King didn’t look angry anymore. More like resigned.
“She chose your name for her body. And she doesn’t take kindly to needles,” Reno said.
“You’re going to regret that, Becca,” King said, shaking his head. “It’s expensive to get those things removed.”
“I’m not getting it removed.” She turned from her father and beelined to the bar, wondering what in the hell she’d just done to herself.
Becca was drinking and watching the crowd dance to hair-band covers and rockabilly when a hand floated into her field of vision. She was confused at first—what was somebody’s upturned palm doing so close to her nose? But then she saw that the hand was attached to a wrist and that the wrist was attached to a forearm and that the arm was connected to a shoulder. The man standing before her looked Hispanic, possibly Mexican. He was stocky and thick around the stomach, with a glossy head of black hair. He flashed a large, toothy smile. He nodded at his palm.
Becca looked around, confused. “He wants to dance with you!” somebody shouted. She looked dubiously at the stranger but decided to get up. The next moment, she was in the crush of bodies on the dance floor. Her partner—who was hardly taller than she was—twisted and turned her with ease. He was keeping his distance and Becca could tell he must be making a huge effort at politeness, because around them, almost all of the dancers were pressed together, their hands squeezing each other’s asses. It was a baffling scene: gnarled bikers, many of them vets, so stiff and silent in their daily lives now out on the floor swinging their biker ladies easily by their waists.
Becca spotted Reno dancing with some townie with an exposed midriff and tight jeans. He looked downright elated, his gold caps flashing. A slow song came on and all the couples who weren’t already pressed close collapsed together. Becca was suddenly pulled against her suitor.
“You’re a good dancer,” he said into her ear. He smelled of cologne, the kind that was advertised as having the power to make women lose control of their faculties.
“No, I’m not.”
“Can’t a guy give a pretty girl a compliment?”
She didn’t answer. As uncomfortable as she felt in his meaty arms, she wanted to let the moment play out.
“You got a husband, huh,” the man said. Becca could smell the beer on his breath, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. She glanced down at her wedding band and the engagement ring with the small square ruby. She didn’t answer this question either, which the man seemed to take as a good sign. He squeezed his hands tighter around her back and she noticed that the bruises were hurting less. They looked grotesque, were fading to a greeny yellow, but the ache was now a quiet pulse, much less painful than the frigid motorcycle wind or the sting of the tattoo needle.
It felt odd to have this stranger’s hands on her. They were different than Ben’s hands. Shorter, thicker fingers.
“You’re sexy,” the man said, and instead of feeling offended, Becca smiled. Why shouldn’t a man call her sexy? The hands began a descent down her lower back and onto the back pockets of her jeans. She let them linger there for a moment, then changed her mind and moved them back up. “Don’t push it,” she said, and the man laughed.
They danced in silence for a second slow song and she let her partner pull her even closer, his belly ballooned against her torso. Moving in and out, his stomach and chest felt uncomfortably alive. How strange, she thought, to feel the inner workings of a person whose name you didn’t know.
A fast rockabilly number came on and Reno cut in. She hesitated, but he just shook his head. “Come on, girl, you’ve had a couple beers, gotten a tattoo. You could do worse than dance with ol’ Reno.”
Every time he twirled her out, she felt like she was about to crash into the other couples, but just at the brink of disaster, he’d pull her back, safe.
“Watch the hand!” she shouted, worried that Reno was going to grab her wrist right over the fresh tattoo.
“I gotcha!” he called, as though she were dangling over a cliff, her feet kicking into the abyss. She thought she might throw up, but then Reno put one hand firmly on her back and they danced more calmly. Gradually, the world stopped spinning.
“I like you better like this,” he said.
“Like what?”
“A little drunk and without a damn pole stuck—well, you know.”
Reno was only slightly taller than Becca, and dancing with him, she could see his face up close in a way she hadn’t before. His skin was burlap tan and the furrows around his quick eyes made him look older than he appeared from a distance. He couldn’t have been much younger than her father.
“I like you better when you’re not a total hard-ass,” Becca said.
“That really is what you think about me,” he said, turning her slowly.
“You never gave me reason to think otherwise.”
“You know what I think, Becca?” She stiffened, her easy feeling fading. “I think you set your mind against most people and refuse to budge.”
She started to protest, but Reno shook his head. “I get it, okay? I know why you do it.”
He rocked them both, left, then right. He turned her in a slow circle, still swaying to the music.
“It’s not true,” she said.
Reno looked at her in a joshing way that said, Lies—after all we’ve been through? She looked back at him as though to say, You may be right, but you’ll never hear me admit it out loud.
The song ended. “Thank you for the dance, Miss Becca,” Reno said and gave a little bow.
Becca felt, suddenly, a swelling in her heart. It was sadness and uncertainty all mixed together. “Reno, what was in Kath’s letter?” She knew she must have looked awfully weak to him right then, but she didn’t care.
Reno fixed his eyes on hers, and Becca believed that he was finally going to tell her everything. But then his eyes shifted to something over her shoulder. “Brace yourself,” he said.
Becca turned to see a tsunami of frosted bangs rushing at them, led by a bosom that looked ready to burst from its denim halter.
“Becca!” The woman squealed like a teenager. “I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you!” Becca shrank back, afraid she’d be knocked over. Instead, the woman grabbed her shoulder and pulled her into an embrace. It felt more like a throttle. The bruises screamed.
“King, she’s the cutest thing. I mean, she’s perfection.”
“Perfection,” Reno mimicked.
Set free, Becca looked around for her father. He was hiding behind Bull as though cowering from this explosion of feminine excitement. Who was this person?
“Oh, I envy your shoulders, Becca,” the woman said. “So narrow! Those are model shoulders.”
Becca had never once thought about her shoulders. “Thanks?” she offered.
“I mean, just look at these hunks of flesh! I look like a linebacker.”
“Elaine, you haven’t even introduced yourself,” Reno said.
“Oh!” The woman’s eyes widened beneath eyelashes that looked coated in tar. “Well, I’m Elaine. Your daddy’s woman.”
King has a girlfriend? Becca was too stunned to feel hurt for being kept in the dark.
“You’re about as dainty as they come,” Bull assured Elaine, and Becca saw her father blush deeply. It wasn’t exactly true—the woman’s halter exposed skin that had clearly wrinkled beneath unnatural UV light. Her arms were more or less skinny for a woman in her fifties, though she’d deftly hidden her stomach paunch with high-waisted jeans. Her belt, Becca noticed, was stamped leather. Clearly, a present from King.
“We have so much to catch up on!” Elaine winked at Becca. “But first, your daddy’s promised me a dance.”
No way, Becca thought and then watched in astonishment as her father followed Elaine to the dance floor. He just went, like dancing was simply something you did at a party where a band was playing. Which it was—for normal people. To be fair, what King was doing now could not be called dancing, exactly. His body jerked and folded and stretched and there was this expression of intense concentration on his face, like the activity was extremely complicated. Periodically, Elaine took his hand and tried to pull him into a rhythm. It never worked. They’d fall out of step, trip over each other, and then separate until Elaine coaxed him back into line. She smiled and didn’t seem to mind the mess that was King on the dance floor.
“Horrible, ain’t he,” Reno said. Becca nodded dumbly.
The song ended and Elaine returned. “Let’s get to know each other,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about you.” I’ve heard zip about you, Becca thought but she followed Elaine anyway. “Truthfully, it’s good to have girlfriends to drink with, since, you know, I’d never drink with King,” Elaine said as they walked toward the bar. “He says he doesn’t mind, but I prefer not to have a beer when he’s around. It doesn’t seem fair. Don’t you agree?”
For the next thirty minutes, while they sat at a picnic table drinking Coronas, Elaine talked about herself. She was a nail technician in town but was studying acupuncture. She’d been riding motorcycles for nearly twenty-five years, ever since her husband—now ex-husband—informed her that women “weren’t fit” to ride. Elaine was living outside Flagstaff, Arizona, at the time, and the very next day, she’d gone to the DMV for her motorcycle license. Then she put her entire savings—all forty-two hundred dollars of it—toward a bike. “A beautiful bike,” she said wistfully. Her husband had gone ballistic over the purchase. “He was a red-necked, dimwitted brute,” she said and explained that the man had beaten her for years. Through all of this, Becca noticed that Elaine’s voice sounded cheerful, as though she were discussing a great movie she’d seen and not the tragedy of her marriage. “Of course he tried to stop me,” she said. “But things had changed. I had the bike!”
“You ran him over?” Becca asked, incredulous. She wasn’t sure that she liked Elaine, but the woman was certainly impressive.
“No, nothing like that. I hit him with a lamp. But I felt like that motorcycle had given me special powers. The lamp, by the way, was an antique my mother had left me. The metal base must have weighed twenty pounds. He took it right in the chest. It was like a kick from a samurai or something—only it was a lamp!” Elaine shook her head, as if even now she couldn’t believe it.
Elaine said she hadn’t looked back, had just jumped on her bike and gotten the hell out of there. “I might have killed him for all I know,” she said. This was over a decade ago. She’d met King at a motorcycle rally back in 2002. She was there with a motorcycle club called the Biker Bitches. “Biker Bitches!” she said gleefully. “I don’t have my vest on tonight or I’d show you our patch. It’s a motorcycle with pink headlights. Some of the gals think it’s silly, but I love it. Anyway, I spotted your daddy in the crowd and I just had to talk to him. Everything he’s been through, it boggles the mind. He wasn’t sober yet, but he was trying. And I knew I could help him. I could be his rock.” Elaine raised her beer to her lips only to discover that she’d already finished it.
“Wow” was all Becca could say. Beneath her astonishment at Elaine’s story, she felt the itch of jealousy. Was she the only person on earth who didn’t know anything about her father’s life? She wanted to hate Elaine. The woman seemed less a rock than a swamp of emotion. But King was doing okay and if Elaine had played any role in helping him, then who was Becca to judge. Also, unlike Jeanine, Elaine gushed understanding.
“So what about you, honey? I bet you and I have plenty in common.”
Becca wondered what Elaine knew. Did the woman hope to bond over their both having fled their men in the middle of the night?
“You know, I get this sense about you,” Elaine continued. “You can take care of yourself. Not many women these days really do that. They don’t have the—the wherewithal. Now, you don’t have to thank me for the compliment,” she added quickly. “I’m guessing that compliments make you uncomfortable. Same as your daddy.”
Becca blushed. Maybe she was warming to Elaine. Or maybe the sudden tenderness she felt for her was from a more calculating impulse: Elaine could provide information about the enigma that was Kleos.
“Now, let me see what you’ve got under that bandage.”
Becca hesitated. “I’m supposed to keep it covered.”
“Oh, just a quick peek!”
Slowly, she unwrapped the gauze.
“Is that not the dearest thing!” Elaine turned Becca’s wrist this way and that, evaluating the design like it was an intricate work of art. “I’m going to give your daddy a talking-to. He’d better understand how lucky he is to have a daughter like you.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “Sorry for the display. Menopause. Makes me batty. More beer?” She stood up and was back in a flurry with two more Coronas.
“Elaine,” Becca said, after they’d sipped for a while. “I was wondering. My dad is so quiet. Not like . . .”
“Not like me.” Elaine nodded. “Oh, don’t I know it.”
“But then how do you—I mean, does he show you—” Affection, emotion, love? Do the two of you communicate? These were the questions Becca wanted to ask.
“I love your daddy more than I’ve ever loved any man, Becca. And I know I love him so much because I’m still with him. We’ve had to work hard to get where we are.”
“He was willing to work?” Becca said. Willing with you, she thought, but not me.
“I spotted him at that rally and I went to him, Becca. I almost always go to him. You know what I mean?”
Becca picked at the beer label. “And that doesn’t bother you? Don’t you want things to be equal?”
“Our relationship isn’t about equality. Not for me, anyway.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Love,” Elaine said, as though this were obvious. “And perseverance. That’s what your daddy and I are all about.” Elaine laughed and added, “We also live a couple of states apart, which I guess helps us get along.”
Later, Elaine took Becca back to the dance floor. Drunk, the woman turned belly dancer, all undulating hips and snaking arms, even during the hair-band songs. It was a strange way of moving, but Becca found it oddly beautiful. She wanted to try it, but even with the alcohol working through her, she felt shy. She did not like making a display of herself. But why not let loose a little? Why not try on someone else’s way of doing things for a couple of hours?
She imitated Elaine, tentatively, and Elaine smiled wide; Becca understood that if a movement made her feel happy, it was perfect. Her head began to feel like a giant wineglass, with the wine swirling round and round. She had not been so drunk in a long while. At one point, she’d tried to calculate her alcohol intake. A bunch of beers before Elaine, a double shot of whiskey, then the beers Elaine bought her. A random biker had presented Becca with a hard lemonade, claiming to know what “girls” liked. Becca was about to throw it in his face when Elaine fixed her stare on the offending hunk of leather and said, “Girl? This here’s a woman.” At that, they’d both burst out laughing. Were there more drinks after that? Possibly. There were certainly more men. Generally, when Becca consumed this much alcohol, she’d planned ahead. Ate a big dinner, at least. But tonight there was no plan.
A man who was not King started dancing with Elaine, and the Mexican appeared again and started dancing with Becca. This time she let him pull her in so that they were pressed together and she could smell his beery breath and cologne and feel her hand warm in his hand and his other hand on her lower back, slipping lower to rest not quite on her ass. Then the Mexican moved away, as though the music were a rope pulling him backward. And there before her was Reno, dancing with her, smiling as if to say, Fancy meeting you here. He offered her his hand and she took it without really thinking too much, just noticing a faraway voice that said, Be careful, and she’d laughed at this voice because for the first time in weeks, she just didn’t care.
Becca felt like she owned Motorcycle Mountain. She felt as though she were the Queen of these bikers, Queen of this music, Queen of her destiny.
The music slowed. Elaine was dancing with King, and Bull was grinding with some townie. But Becca wasn’t on the floor anymore. She was leaning against a picnic table under the sky, and there was another beer in her hand, and a group of men and a couple of ladies, none of whom she knew, were standing around, and they were all laughing about something. Someone was pointing at the sky, which was bursting with stars. The music was close but also distant. And for a second, the tent was a big top, and King and Elaine and the other dancers were circus performers, and Becca was in the audience watching them. But that picture faded when she felt someone lift the beer from her hand. Then that someone took her hand in his own and she saw that it was Reno, and there was that voice again saying, Careful now, and her brain saying, Shut up, which she must have spoken out loud because Reno said, “Huh?”
“Nothing,” Becca replied. So Reno led her to a patch of grass just a few yards away and now they were dancing to a slow song together. Nobody else was there and nobody came by to bother them and the music floated out of the tent and over them and it felt like they were in a small room made of sound. And then, out of nowhere, she was thinking about Ben and the wedding and how they’d stood at either end of the aisle listening to the fiddles play. The fiddles had formed a kind of invisible room around them the way the music did now, bringing them together, and neither of them could quit smiling.
Becca started to tear up, but she didn’t want Reno to see, so she pushed the memory away. Reno turned her slowly and led her in this careful way, because they were both painfully drunk. He turned her out and then he pulled her to him with his hand firm on her back. The way Reno was hugging her felt strange. She felt a sense of needing in his hug, something basic, like he was afraid and she was this person he could cling to—maybe the only person. And so that’s what he was doing, clinging. And Becca’s heart was pounding, because she didn’t really understand what was happening or why she was having this effect on Reno and she was starting to cry again. This time, she didn’t know why.
Later, Becca followed Reno into the maze of tents. There were campfires and music but no fiddles. Becca imagined this place as an army encampment filled with soldiers readying for battle. But who were they fighting, and why? Becca and Reno arrived at a campfire where Elaine sat with some others, warming her hands. King was nowhere to be seen, but Bull was there. People were talking and drinking and watching the flames, women sitting in the laps of their men, their eyes glazed with firelight. And now anxiety began to penetrate the haze of Becca’s intoxication. How would she find her way back to Reno’s bike to get her tent? She felt a stab of panic when Elaine said good night and disappeared. But then Reno came over and sat down beside her. As he chatted with friends in the circle, he ran his hand from the top of her head to the nape of her neck and then back up. And she started to feel her worry slip away. His hand smelled like cigars and it felt so good and it was making her shiver and she thought about the two of them dancing earlier and her heart was beating rapidly again. Then Reno took his hand away and her neck felt cold.
Later, when the flames started dying out and almost everybody else had left, Reno stood. He hovered over her so that she was tucked inside his shadow. He offered his hand and she took it, let him pull her up. She followed him from the warmth of the fire into the thick of the tents until they reached his. And then Becca understood what was happening. She realized that she’d understood it for a long time now, even though Reno was almost King’s age and she had hated him and possibly still hated him. But something between them had changed. And now this was going to happen, and it was all right.
Becca stood shivering in the dark as Reno unzipped the tent flap. He held it open and she climbed inside. She waited. Reno knelt down outside the tent door so that they were now face-to-face, Becca on the inside, Reno on the outside. He leaned forward and she closed her eyes.
Reno pressed his lips to her forehead, his touch so much softer than she would ever have expected. She leaned forward slightly, waiting for the next phase to begin, but nothing happened. She opened her eyes. Reno had vanished into the night. The ghost of his lips lingered on her forehead, like a blessing.