you Comanche motherfuckers!”
The tile halted just above its mates. Ron slammed the heel of his cowhide slipper to it as if it were a giant miller moth, cracking it in two.
“What are you doing? Insurance has to see this. They won’t believe this. How can this be happening?”
“We live on an Anasazi burial mound; the ancestors are strikin’ back.”
“Fuck.” Lila swiped at her salt-and-pepper hair, yanked the black ribbon off her ponytail, and tossed it to the floor. Her hair fanned across her shoulders. “This goddamned town. Maybe I can stay married to you—don’t bother lowering your eyebrows—but putting up with Maxine Morgan convincing us to buy this heap of shit? I’m heading back to Fort Worth. I mean it, Ron. I’m not your trophy wife. I’ll drag us through a divorce that’ll flatten you like that toothpaste.”
“Lile, hon—”
“Watch that tile!”
The floor grate rattled as the furnace clicked back on. Lila squinched her eyes and wrinkled her nose at the sour musk.
“I love it when you steam. So does Prince.” Ron pulled his T-shirt out and up to show her the small erection peeking over his testicles.
She brushed her palm across the rayon clinging to her drooping left breast and its ingrown nipple. “Maxine Morgan’s ugly.”
He threw the toothpaste to the counter, sending the box of floss clacking against the wall. “What are you accusin’ me of? Better believe I noticed you smilin’ every time neighbor Barnes mouthed off at the homeowners meetin’ how he loves the way you’ve styled the boulders at the entrance to our compound, how you’ve chosen native I-forget-what—”
“Blue flax and Apache plume.”
“—flax and Apache to plant this spring. I saw you take the chair next to his, babe. I noticed.”
“Fuck you.”
“One finger at me, three back at you. I partner real estate deals with Maxine Morgan for one reason—she hustles.”
Lila snorted.
“Expert on human nature, treats clients like royalty, knows how to close, favors Los Alamos Mortgage. She’ll make us richer than you ever imagined. You married the right cowboy, Lile, followed him here two years ago and you better stay put because when Bush quits diddlin’ and launches this war, you’re gonna see your Tom Mix haul commission checks home so big you can buy yourself and your music-festival galfriends a month of soirées to finger yourselves off listenin’ to Bach or Beethoven or who-the-hell.”
“You through yet?”
“No. I could care less if the tiles upstairs and all the ones downstairs break free and we have to hightail it to a motel while Vic Valdez—he should have stuck with carvin’ santos—or the guy Barnes uses, or whatever Anglo or damned Hispanic we hire comes to glue ‘em back down. Max found you and me and Manny Barnes and his gal these places for a lullaby, a mug a milk. Location, Lile. Views. Within a year we’ll trade up for an acre in Wilderness Gate. Look at me, sweaty as a peccary dogged by hounds.”
Sweat massed under his breasts and in the creases of his belly. Ron fingered his dangling penis and snuffed. “This night was sposed to be romantic. We’ve stuck it out a long time, Lile.”
“Since you groped me in the pinafore Daddy bought for my seventh-grade birthday.”
“Can’t we make tonight work, hon?”
“Do I get my golden shower?”
“You’ll bring me off the way I want?”
“If I can have my shower.”
Ron turned and spat minty saliva into the sink. “I need to come somethin’ awful. That breakfast I’m endurin’ tomorrow involves a tenderfoot from Silicone Valley that Max’s husband set us up with. The guy uses some lone wolf tax advisor in town named Ridley.”
“Helen Ridley’s husband? She helps me with publicity for the music festival.”
“I dunno.”
“Is she going to be there?”
“Ridley’s wife?”
“Not Ridley’s wife.”
“Max isn’t comin’,” he lied.
“Good.”
“Better use a larger towel than last time, babe.”
“I bought a plastic cover and big fluffy flag I thought might turn you on.”
“American flag? I dunno.”
“You want your orgasm?
“Gimme those.” He stepped over the sprung tiles and threw his hands out, trying to reach her breasts. She jerked away.
“Wash that cute thing with soap. And wipe the sweat off your belly. And sprinkle on some aftershave.”
He was upending the bottle of wintergreen when he heard noise crackling from the bedroom’s TV. “What’s that for?” he called, rubbing his palms and slapping his cheeks.
“When I switch on my vibrator.”
“Vibrator?” As he left the bathroom, he saw headlights mow a path of yellow across the blinds. Who up here so late? Frowning at the crunch of tires on the dirt road, he crossed the rug to stand near Lila while she punched channel changes into the remote, after muting the sound.
“Vibrator you bet your butt. Anyhow, Patriots and Tomahawks and helicopter gunships and all this new talk about chemicals help me come.”
He shuffled to the bed and tossed her lace-slipped pillows and stuffed animals to the floor. “Hey,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re goin’ to war to get rid of Saddam’s thugs and nukes and anthrax and sarin gas. We’re goin’ to war to give those twenty-four million sand niggers a shot at democracy. Not so squaws like you can get their rocks off watchin’ the news.”
“You don’t care how we’re staying safe from terrorism?”
“Right now, at this moment?”
“There’s Fox News showing Stealth bombers loading up missiles. Aren’t they beautiful?”
She went to her side of the bed and stooped. “Pull that spread, Ron, and scrunch the blanket back.”
From under the bed frame she hauled up the beach towel, then unfurled its stars and stripes over the sheet.
He knuckled the towel; the plastic underneath gave the sheet a crinkly feel. Pulling his T-shirt over his balding head, he tossed it into a wicker chair. “Light level okay? I dimmed it in the bathroom.”
“Perfecto. Nuts—a mouthwash ad. Lie still so I can play.”
He felt his
