“Just water, thanks.”
Rose poured a wineglass full of water for Gen, told the thirty-something woman and her boyfriend about the origins of the port they were about to enjoy, and then came back to Gen.
“So? How was the date?”
“Ugh,” Gen said, and her upper body slumped down onto the counter.
“That bad? Oh, sweetie. I’m surprised. I had high hopes for Ryan.”
“No. Not bad. Good. Earth-shakingly good. So good that the angels in the heavens wept with joy.”
“That’s a good date,” the woman to Gen’s right said as she sipped her port.
“I’ll say,” Rose agreed. “So what’s the problem?”
“He’s rich.”
“Horrors!” Rose said.
“I’m serious, Rose.” Gen pulled herself up off the bar and took a drink of her water. “He’s really, really rich. Not just kind of rich, but … you know. Filthy.”
“Well, this is getting interesting,” the tourist said.
“I think I heard something about that.” Rose leaned against the bar. “About him being filthy rich.”
“And you didn’t say anything?! Jeez! Lacy knew, too. You two are supposed to be my friends. You’d think somebody would have mentioned that the guy I’m dating is some kind of goddamned Bill Gates!”
“I think Bill Gates has more,” Rose mused. “Quite a bit more.”
“That’s not the point!”
Rose crossed her arms over her chest. A tattoo of a rose peeked out from beneath the cap sleeve of her T-shirt. “Then what is the point?”
“The point is …” Gen hesitated, because even she wasn’t sure. “The point is, now I’m that woman!”
“What woman?”
“That woman who dates a guy because he’s rich! God! Are you not following the conversation?”
The tourist leaned toward Gen, wineglass in hand. She came off as a natural, granola-eating type with her flowing sundress and her long, straight hair. “But you started dating him before you knew.”
“Right. Right. But people won’t know that.”
“But the guy knows that, right?” The tourist’s boyfriend, a guy in his early forties wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans, was getting into the conversation.
“Yeah. He does. But what if he thinks I’m only staying in it because of the money? What if … What if he thinks that, yeah, I started seeing him when I thought he was just a guy, but I kept seeing him because … because …”
“Because he’s Bill Gates,” the woman said.
“Right!”
“He’s not going to think that,” Rose said. “And who cares what other people think? If they have a problem with it, it’s jealousy, pure and simple. I mean, what woman wouldn’t want to snag a hot, rich cowboy? It’s every girl’s fantasy from the time we hit puberty.”
“A cowboy?” the woman tourist said. “A real one? Ooh.”
“See?” Rose pointed at the woman, who had just proven her point. “What are you going to do? Give up the fantasy because somebody might gossip?”
“It does sound kind of stupid when you put it that way,” Gen said.
The man who’d come in with the hippie chick looked glumly into his wine. “I don’t see what’s such a big deal about a cowboy. Guy probably stinks, shoveling cow shit all day.”
“Well, that’s just sour grapes,” Rose said. She looked at the wine bottle in her hand, and at the grape displays all over the store. “So to speak.”
“You’re right,” the hippie chick said sarcastically. “Bank teller is a much sexier job than cowboy.” She rolled her eyes.
“Hey. My job has good benefits,” the man said, his tone heating up.
“Here. Try this port. It’s one of our best,” Rose said, pouring miniscule servings of the syrupy wine to forestall any further arguments.
“You’re right,” Gen said when the tourists had been tended to. “I’m not going to stop seeing Ryan just because of the money, and what people will say. It’s just freaking me out, is all.”
“That’s because you’re a good person,” Rose assured her. “If you weren’t, you’d be out looking at designer wedding dresses right about now.”
“I guess.”
“Donna Karan,” the hippie chick said.
“What?” Gen asked.
“If I were going to marry a gazillionaire cowboy, that’s what I’d wear. Donna Karan.”
“Huh,” Gen said. It was something to keep in mind, if it ever came to that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kendrick moved his easel outside a couple of weeks later. The move followed an intense period of work inside the old barn, during which he splattered paint on canvases, discarded them, and then later covered them over to reuse later. To Gen’s eye, he was furiously doing a whole lot of nothing. But the lack of a completed painting was only part of the story. The other part was the fact that he was getting up early and working every day with an enthusiasm she hadn’t previously seen from him. And he wasn’t drinking.
Maybe Gen couldn’t see any progress in whatever it was Kendrick was doing, but she knew from his demeanor that Kendrick could see it, and so she felt a giddy optimism that he was on the verge of something good. And moving outside—that would be part of it, whatever this thing turned out to be. Going out into nature, into the fresh air, was a new ingredient in the blender, and it was what she’d envisioned for him all along.
“Hey. Did you see Kendrick out there by the creek?” Gen asked Ryan as she approached him outside of the main house one day in mid-July. She was walking up the driveway, and he was replacing an aging railing on the front porch. He smiled when he saw her.
“Yeah. He was already there when I passed by that way early this morning.” He got up from where he’d been squatting on the porch and wiped his hands on a rag he’d pulled from his toolbox.
“That’s got to be good, right?” Gen said.
“I dunno. You tell me. You’re the art expert.” He came down the stairs and onto the driveway, striding toward her.
“I think it’s got to be good.”
“Then it probably is.”
When he got to her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him with a swiftness that left her breathless. They’d been dating for a few weeks now. He’d slept at her house a number of times, and they’d revisited the barn as well as making some choice new memories at some of the more picturesque spots at the ranch. But still, after all that, his touch made all thoughts fly out of her head like birds heading south.
“My question is,” Ryan said, grinning at her with amusement, “what’s Kendrick doing out there looking at the trees and the rocks and the creek, when his paintings are just splotches on a canvas?”
“It’s all inspiration,” Gen said. “He can be inspired by the creek and the trees and the rocks, even if he’s not actually painting those things.” She thought it was a pretty good answer, given the fact that she couldn’t think straight with him holding her.
“I guess that makes sense.” He kissed her then, so thoroughly that she felt her knees grow soft and watery, and after that all thoughts of Kendrick were forgotten.
“Well,” she said, her voice weak and breathy. “I’m glad I stopped by.”