Chapter 8

I was wrong. She did not emerged until time for the final check She wore long jeans, a fully-buttoned blouse, and as angry a look as I'd ever seen. Her red eyes avoided me as she stormed into the kitchen for an apple, quartered it, and took it to the front door without a word. I listened to the door open, then close.

I returned to the novel I was reading. Eventually I heard the door again. She started up the stairs without a word.

"Good night," I said.

She slowed long enough to say, "The horses are fine. I'll fix my own breakfast tomorrow," and then resumed her hasty climb. Moments later her door slammed.

I noted the elapsed time. Was I ever wrong. She was more like Mandy than I'd suspected.

The house was quiet as I came down the staircase, quiet enough for me to hear the washer in the basement. Except for a blue plaid blouse instead of the red floral one she'd worn the night before, Cheryl looked the same. She sat at the kitchen table, a slice of cinnamon toast in one hand as she read the label on the bottle of hair bleach in the other. She was wearing enough eye makeup for a chorus line.

"Good morning!" I said. Note to self: holding a bottle of hair bleach in your hand causes temporary deafness.

I was certain that the only reason I had coffee waiting was because I'd set Mister Coffee's timer the night before. "I'm in the mood for oatmeal. Would you like me to fix you some, too?"

In retrospect, I realize it was foolish of me to ask a question while she was still holding the temporary deafener. I nuked some instant oatmeal in the microwave and ate most of it in silence before she rose from her chair and started for the basement. That was when I realized the washer sounds had stopped. Since her hand was now empty, meaning she was no longer deaf, I waited until she reached the basement door, then said, "Mandy?"

She whirled around much like a tornado, except that tornadoes look far more friendly than my angry niece did at that moment. "I'M CHERYL, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

"I'm sorry. I had trouble telling you apart because Cheryl's usually the one who uses her head and thinks, while Mandy is the one who usually doesn't think and acts on pure emotion. I'm sure you can see how I was confused."

She slammed the basement door hard enough to tilt one of the pictures on that wall. I finished my breakfast, fed the dishwasher, straightened the picture, and took the newspaper to the couch. Obviously Cheryl had already checked the horses and had brought the paper in.

I wasn't aware that my washer could hold so much laundry that it would take almost twenty minutes to move it to the dryer.

I wanted to check the horses, but I was afraid that doing so might be misinterpreted as not trusting her ability to do that chore. Sure, she'd spent a lot of time with Blaze while we checked them, but she had accompanied me while I checked the others and knew what had to be done. I knew she was responsible enough to do the check without my presence and that she was conscientious enough to do so because she loved the animals as much as I did.

I decided I'd have one more cup of coffee, and then if she was still in the basement, I'd go out to the barns. Maybe go see if Ricky was in trouble with Penny again. I was returning to the couch when the basement door opened. She stood there, all round-shouldered and pitiful, much of her eye makeup reduced to stains down her cheeks. She shuffled over to me, head down, and sniffed. I waited.

"Uncle Randy?"

"Yes, my favorite niece?"

"I was wrong."

"I won't tell anyone."

Her head came up, eyes hardening. "What?"

"I don't like it when people tell others about my mistakes, especially someone we have in common. I try to return the courtesy. If you want any others to know, you'll have to be the one to tell them, not me. It's your business, not mine."

"Oh." Her head sagged again. "Are you mad at me?"

"Of course not."

"Disappointed?" Her voice cracked on that word.

"Why would I be? You figured it out for yourself."

"Not until you shoved my nose in it."

"All I did was speed up your thinking process because I missed the real you. I didn't want to wait a few hours more while the answer came to you. I was getting too lonely."

"Can I sit beside you?"

"If you sat anywhere else, then I would be disappointed." I put the paper and coffee cup on the end table and took middle of the couch. She sat and leaned against me. "Do you know why I didn't tell you Mandy was wrong?"

She took a deep breath and let it out. "At first I thought you wanted me to keep believing you were queer because you wanted me to keep ... that you wanted to be able to keep looking at me naked."

"That's what Ricky thinks."

She straightened. "Why?"

"That's what I told him."

Her sudden frown was caused by puzzlement, not anger. "Why would you tell him that?"

"You tell me."

She thought about it. "I don't know," she said after a minute.

"It's because that's the only answer he'd believe. It's the reason he wouldn't tell you if he were in my place, so it must be the reason I wouldn't tell you. Any other answer and I'd still be trying to explain it to him. Does that remind you of anyone you know?"

"Yeah." I'd just described her mother's thought process. She leaned against me again and thought for a moment. "Uncle Randy, if you're straight, why does Mom think you're a fag?"

I squeezed her shoulders with an arm. "Billy Munro was on the wrestling team in high school. He lost a match to a sophomore from McKinney. After he described the hold, I said he should have been able to break it. He finally gave up arguing and showed me that I couldn't break it. He had my head trapped between his legs when Mandy barged into the room and decided I was blowing him.

"Why didn't you tell everyone what had really happened?"

I shrugged. "She kept saying that I was lying. 'I saw Billy's willy, ' she said, over and over. Actually, she sang it more than she said it. What she actually saw, I think, was a brief glimpse of one of my hands wedged between his legs as I tried to force them apart. I gave up trying to explain because everyone chose to believe her when she said that, like she'd never gotten any story wrong before.

"Uncle Tom forgot about the time she 'saw' him break Mom's crystal candy dish when one of the dogs actually did it. Aunt Debbie forgot about the time your mom heard one side of a telephone conversation. Mandy told everyone that Debbie was 'running around' on Duke. Fortunately, it was Duke himself on the other end of the phone, so he knew Mandy's story was wrong when she told him, and he eventually married Debbie. But they chose to believe Mandy about me anyway. I realized I couldn't win, and I quit caring."

She giggled, then apologized. "I shouldn't laugh because she does the same thing to me."

"Then you," I said, squeezing her shoulders again, "are authorized to laugh because you've paid your dues, too."

Her laughter faded to silence that lasted half a minute. "Uncle Randy? I wasn't snooping. I was just looking for more pictures to compare posing and lighting techniques. Honest."

"I know you weren't snooping, honey. I'm sorry I didn't relock the drawer, but I just didn't think. I expected you to put all the clues together any day now and realize the truth. I was waiting for you to ask, and then I was going to tell you. I'd have told you at the airport if you'd just asked."

She sagged again. "Yeah. You would. I was too angry with Mom to ask, though."

"Been there."

"Yeah."

Another half-minute of silence.

"Uncle Randy?"

"Yes, Niece Cheryl?"

"I learned one other thing from all this."

"And that would be?"

"That I was right. You have one totally awesome boner."

"Ready to take a break?" I asked at the end of the shoot.

"Yeah. This is a lot like work," Cheryl said. "It gets hot under those lights."

"I told you glamor model work was work and not glamor. I also told you..."

" ... you wouldn't lie to me. I know." She slipped off the blouse she was wearing for the glamor portrait. Naturally she wore nothing beneath. "I think I'll hang this up, make room for something cold to drink, and grab another Seven-Up. You want something?"

I lifted my large insulated mug, estimating its contents by weight. "No, I'm good. What next?"

She licked her lips. "You ready for some nude shots?"

"Depends on which one of us is getting nude."

She blinked. Twice. "God, I hate you."

"Let's start with neutral backgrounds. Black, first, I think." I had about two dozen large seamless backgrounds on rollers like giant window blinds. "We'll do total nudes and solid backgrounds for figure studies and use props—hats, shawls, robes, hand-held items—for artistic nudes. Since we're alone today, we can also do some exterior nudes if you want."

She looked like I'd just named another foal after her. "Sure!" She stuck the blouse on a hanger and put it in the closet, then scampered off in nothing but shorts to see Noah about a flood. That last was one of Dad's sayings that Junior had appropriated and that I use once or twice a year. I had positioned the black backdrop and was adjusting the lights when I heard a prolonged loud noise. It was muffled by the closed bathroom door, but I was sure that it was something that could embarrass a drunken sailor.

I heard the john flushing as the door slammed open and the scurrying of Cheryl's bare feet toward the stairs. A few minutes later she appeared wearing a western-style blouse with the tails tied at her waist and denim shorts. "I decided I didn't want to do nudes today," she said in a way that told me I didn't want to ask any questions. "Maybe in a few days I'll change my mind."

Now I understood what the cussing was all about. I tried to keep a straight face and said, "Okay. Would you like to practice making portrait shots of me? Or would you rather do some other shots? Or just call it quits for the day?"

She looked relieved when she realized I wasn't going to ask any questions. She didn't seem to grasp that I have known many women in my life, including having two sisters, and understood the nature of her problem. Or maybe she was afraid I'd tease her about it, the way high school boys liked to do.

She looked hesitantly at the clock. "Can I do portraits of you for a half-hour and then let's watch a movie?"

"Your wish is my command, M'Lady."

She smiled then. "Cool."

Cheryl shifted into park, killed the ignition, unlatched her seat belt, and looked expectantly at me. "Well?"

She was doing better. My heart rate hadn't climbed above three hundred beats per minute this time. "Mandy's going to be pissed."

"Yeah?" That perked her up like I'd said she could take Blaze home with her. "Why?"

"She's eventually going to give in and let you apply for a driver's permit. You'll have to take driver's ed. She's going to think she'll have two semesters before you can finally get the permit."

"Yeah? Why?"

"She'll expect you to fail it the first time, too."

"Mom?" she squealed

I held up a finger in warning. "I didn't tell you that. If you know what's good for you, you won't even think about it within a hundred feet of her. But, yeah. In fact, she also failed the driving test three times, too. You keep improving at this rate and you won't have much trouble graduating near the top of your class. Or getting your permit and license the first time, too."

The rest of my little motivational speech was forgotten when she lunged across the seat and kissed me. Hard. I released my death grip on the armrest and hugged her in return. I vaguely noticed Ricky and Jake leaning against the corral fence and looking toward us. At first I wasn't sure whether they could see us through the glare on the windshield. Then I recognized the look on Ricky's face. He could.

When she finally pulled back she said, "I'd like to go riding with you after lunch, if it's okay. Shoot some nature pictures over in the east treeline. Those ... squirrels. Birds. Whatever's over there."

It was Saturday. It would be our first ride this week. Which would be followed by the first leg massage in six nights. Which would be followed by the first pre-breakfast floor show in six mornings.

"Honey, I'd love to, but I have that meeting with a horse buyer at three, remember? I have to give Diego a hand with the horses and then get ready for that."

She slumped. "Oh. Yeah. I forgot."

"We can go for a ride after he's gone, though."

She eyed me like a coyote sizing up a rabbit for lunch. "Yeah?"

"And next week you'll be ready to take Misty for rides around the ranch by yourself."

"Cool. Hey, can I, like, do some studio photography practice while you're busy? I need to work on forced perspective."

"The studio is yours. Just don't sell any of the equipment because I'll need it Monday. Not unless you can get a hell of a good price."

For some reason that earned me another kiss. As she pulled back, she said, "You know, you can forget to lock that bottom drawer again if you want to."

I got out of leaving the bottom drawer open by explaining that the horse client was a new one and might want to see the photo studio, too. He wouldn't be pleased to find those albums lying about. I was mighty pleased with my ingenuity.