laura ann mullane

CRACKED EARTH

In the weeks since Shelia left, Javier’s days had grown steadily more formless. He’d wake around six in the morning, take a piss, during which he’d watch his urine arc into the toilet and tell himself he should go for a run. Instead, he’d go back to bed and not wake up again until nine. He’d make himself coffee and eat a bowl of cereal, then read the Washington Post online. He’d will himself to pay attention to the national and world news, but his cursor would inevitably drift toward the link to the sports section, where he’d read pretty much every article. He even found himself once reading a story about bowling, for god’s sake. By then, it was eleven. This was the most productive hour of his day. He’d usually have three to five emails from his political consulting clients asking him to come to a meeting in Santa Fe, or to make a phone call, or wanting to know what he thought about the chances for some piece of legislation. Honestly, Javier never knew what the chances were, but he’d Google the issue, write a few sentences that sounded like he knew what he was talking about (“Salazar is pretty dead-set against it. Unless you can get support from the Speaker, I think the issue is probably dead in the water.”), and then his work for the day was done.

Next, he’d eat lunch while he stared out the window over the kitchen sink (it troubled him when he discovered that he did no more than that: he simply stared), sometimes drinking a beer or two, after telling himself he would only drink water. After lunch, he’d take a nap. It was amazing how exhausting a day of doing nothing could be. He’d wake up a couple hours later and tell himself he was going to go for a walk and then start reading that biography on Teddy Roosevelt his aunt gave him for Christmas two years ago. But instead he’d sit on the couch and turn on ESPN. He’d decide that he wouldn’t have another beer until dinner, but around three he usually found himself at the refrigerator again, trying to ignore the fact that he was already half way through a six pack. Sometimes, he’d doze off again. Sometimes, he’d go on Facebook and look at pictures of people he didn’t really know hiking in mountains or standing on beaches or holding their newborn babies (#blessed) and it would make him want to slit his wrists, so he’d shut his laptop and turn back to the TV.

By the time he would look at the clock again, it would be five. He’d pull a tamale from the freezer, wrap it in a paper towel and heat it in the microwave. Again, he’d drink a beer, and again, he’d stare out the window over the kitchen sink while he ate. That’s when he’d see Joe’s pickup truck grumbling up the driveway to the barn, so when he was done with the tamale, he’d wipe his face with the chile-stained paper towel he’d heated it in, and walk out to talk to him.

But today was different. Allie was starting work today and that gave him an extra boost of energy. When he got up at six to pee, he still went back to bed, but only for an hour, not the usual three. When he woke, he decided against reading the sports page and instead checked his email. Something from the director of Casa de Niños, the non-profit that helped underprivileged kids that Javier sat on the board for and wrote checks to when asked. Another from a client wanting to meet him in Santa Fe for lunch. “Swamped today,” he replied. “Can we make it Thursday?”

         In truth, Javier wasn’t swamped. He’s not sure if he’d ever been swamped. He had no real reason to delay lunch. Most of his business meetings were more like social calls anyway. His clients were, more often than not, friends of his or friends of his family. They hired Javier because his grandfather had once been governor of New Mexico and his father, Sterling Hawley, had been attorney general. His name still carried some weight, or so he was told. So politicians hired him to fundraise, which usually meant hosting a party or making a few phone calls to some well-heeled friends, and companies hired him to set up meetings with those politicians. It was an easy job that paid well, yet Javier still always felt resentful when these clients actually demanded some of his time.

         And he really wanted to see Allie work with the horses. He had barely seen or talked to her since she’d arrived that weekend. He’d heard her leave the guesthouse early Sunday morning—right at dawn. He got out of bed to watch her through his bedroom window. She didn’t walk toward the barn, as he’d expected, but instead headed towards the river, with her dog bounding in front of her. She’d done the same thing this morning, too. Taking a walk, Javier figured. But he had to admit that, since his conversation with Cam, he found himself feeling more paranoid. He really knew next to nothing about her. Joe told him the name of the barn where she’d worked in Galisteo, and Javier called asking for a reference (never mind that he’d already hired her). The owner sang Allie’s praises—“very competent, hard-working, good rider.” When Javier asked if she was easy to get along with, she said, “I guess so. She’s not much of a talker. She kind of keeps her head down and does her work.”

         “How long did she work for you?”

         “Not long. She started early fall last year, so—what?—six or seven months. She answered an ad. Came from somewhere up in Colorado, if I remember right. But you’d have to talk to the head trainer, Patrick. He’d know more about that.”

         “No, that’s okay,” Javier said. “I think you’ve told me what I need to know.”

         Javier wasn’t sure that was true, but he also didn’t know how to ask her the questions he really wanted to ask: Do you think she could be a murderer hiding out from the police? Is she crazy? Does she have a boyfriend? But at least he knew she’d worked somewhere for a while and was good at what she did. That counted for something.

         He stood up from his desk and walked into the kitchen, grabbing the box of cereal from the cabinet. Shelia had always teased him about eating cereal for breakfast. “What, are you a three-year-old?” she’d asked, nudging him. Shelia was all about protein shakes and salads and lean meats. When she first moved in, Javier dropped ten pounds in a month. But it didn’t stick. He missed carbs and refined sugars and packaged foods. Within six months he was back to his old habits—which Javier didn’t think were that terrible. It’s not like he was overweight, after all. He had a little paunch, but what man in his mid-thirties didn’t have a little paunch? Still, Shelia never got over her disappointment. Her teasing turned to genuine disgust when he’d shred some cheese onto a tortilla and stick it in the microwave. “Do you want to die of a heart attack at sixty, like your dad?” she’d ask.

         “My dad smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for forty-five years. I think that’s what did him in. Not the tortillas.”

         “They didn’t help, that’s for sure.”

         When Javier would remember these exchanges, he was amazed they had lasted as long as they did. Still, he was surprised when she left. When she told him she was moving out, he thought for a minute she was joking.

         “Seriously? Why?” Javier had asked when it was clear this was as far from a joke as you could get.

         “You really don’t see it do you?” she’d replied.

         “See what?”

         “That we’ve been miserably unhappy for the last six months—if not the last year. I mean, Javier, this is not a happy relationship.”

         He thought “miserably unhappy” was an overstatement. He knew things weren’t great. He knew they got on each other’s nerves more and had sex less frequently, but he figured that was just the nature of a long-term relationship. “I’ve been happy,” he said, although he wasn’t sure if he believed it.

         “Really? Because I don’t see a man who’s happy. I see a man who’s comfortable.”

         What was so wrong with being comfortable? He wanted to ask her, but didn’t.

         “I see a man who’s content to just float along and not grow or change.”

         Why were women so obsessed with change? They were always changing something—their hair or the furniture or their clothes. The status quo was never good enough for them. As Javier saw it, why fix something that wasn’t broken? He liked being comfortable. And he liked to eat cereal for breakfast.

         Javier stood over the kitchen sink, eating his cereal, looking at the barn. Joe’s truck was there; no doubt he was cleaning stalls. Soon he saw Allie walk out of the barn, leading a horse to the arena. It was the gray one. The horse was on the lunge line that Shelia always used. Allie stood in the middle of the arena and the horse began to trot in circles around her. Javier watched her, realizing that the only time Allie looked up was when she was looking at the horses. Javier wondered if he should go out now and talk to her—ask her what she was doing. But he didn’t want to seem nosy. He’d basically told her to do whatever the hell she wanted with the horses. If he started asking a bunch of questions, it might seem like he didn’t trust her. Better to wait a little while. Let her get comfortable.

         He placed the empty cereal bowl in the sink and walked back to his desk, opened his email and tapped out another reply to his client: “I shuffled some stuff around. I can make lunch today. See you at noon.”