Women Drinking Benedictine Read Online Free PDF Page B

Winnie interrupted. “What’s the problem? Go be a cowboy.”
    â€œEven cowboys get the blues,” he said.
    Winnie put her hand on her hip and waited for him to continue. It took her a minute to understand that he had finished telling her what he wanted her to hear.
    â€œMy mother,” he said when he saw her look of incomprehension.
    Winnie was surprised. She had not been expecting a mother in his story.
    His mother, it turned out, lived three blocks off Walnut Street. According to her son, she was sitting at home darning the socks of her long-dead husband. She was a rich woman who had promised her son his inheritance once he got married.
    â€œSo where’s your wife?” Winnie asked.
    â€œIt’s not easy to be married to a cowboy,” the man said, and Winnie immediately understood the problem.
    â€œEspecially one who doesn’t have any money,” Winnie agreed.
    â€œI’m bringing back my wife from Las Vegas to meet her. It turns out it’s you.”
    â€œMe?” Winnie asked. Once again she was lost.
    â€œIf you want the job,” the man said and held out his hand for her to shake. “There’ll be something in it for you.”
    Winnie hesitated.
    â€œI’m desperate. I wouldn’t have come back to Pittsburgh if I wasn’t desperate.”
    Winnie, well versed in desperation, agreed to help him. She would do it for half an hour only. She did not want to be paid.
    He was not wearing a wedding ring, and Winnie asked if maybe they shouldn’t stop at the toy store and buy fake diamonds or gold bands.
    â€œThe woman I marry,” the man told her, “won’t need rings or jewelry to know that I love her.”
    â€œShe might not need it, but she might like it,” Winnie said.
    The woman lived in a brick house surrounded by red and pink geraniums. Her living room was filled with cuttings from her flower beds. The pink of the geraniums matched the pink trim of the throw pillows. Winnie accepted a cup of tea.
    Winnie, who was supposed to be from Vegas, had changed into a pair of leather pants. Size twelve—they were tight across her behind. The smell of new leather was fierce and she did what she could to ignore it. She had accessorized with a bolo tie with a sterling-silver lizard at the neck that kept bobbing up and hitting her under the chin.
    The woman smiled at Winnie, then poured herself a glass of single malt scotch whiskey. She swirled the amber liquid around the three ice cubes, then lifted her glass into the air. “Bottoms up,” she said determinedly. Winnie recognized this woman. She was obviously someone who was used to toasting and drinking to herself.
    Winnie had half a mind to join her. She finished the tepid tea in two swallows and held out her cup for the mother to fill.
    The son kneaded Winnie in the ribs and whispered for her to act like a wife from Las Vegas. Winnie forced her thoughts toward cactus and slot machines. She tried to look as empty as the desert air.
    But hell, Las Vegas. They drank like fish in Las Vegas.
    And she was from Vegas. She should drink.
    â€œMight as well do me too with that magic,” Winnie said.
    Winnie praised the woody taste of the scotch.
    â€œTo good health,” the mother said.
    â€œAnd long lives,” Winnie agreed.
    Winnie asked to see photographs of the man when he was a young boy. The mother smiled as if praising Winnie’s effort. She made no move to bring out her photo albums.
    Winnie would have liked the opportunity to tell the mother about her own son. He lived three miles away, yet never called. She knew almost nothing about what he did in his life. His weekly visits were painful, the bother evident in his strained conversations. He often turned on the television and pretended to be interested in the local news, though she knew he hated everything about living in Pittsburgh.
    Winnie had been at the Arts and Crafts Show in Mellon Park last spring when