Fairy Tale Blues Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  A CONVERSATION WITH TINA WELLING

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  Praise for Crybaby Ranch

  “Suzannah’s happy ending is a well-earned one that readers of inspirational fiction will appreciate. —Publishers Weekly

  “Twists and dances like a bouncing bronco, but beneath the humor beats a strong foundation of heart.”

  —Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling

  author of The Midnight Twins

  “Crybaby Ranch follows the up-and-down and all-around adventures of a brave woman who’s willing to ask questions we’ve all asked ourselves. The writing is vivid and will hold you through to the end—bringing home fresh answers to old questions about strength and weakness.”

  —Clyde Edgerton, author of The Bible Salesman

  “A more winning heroine than Suzannah…would be hard to imagine. From page one, we are in love with this wry, insightful, funny survivor of the Sandwich Generation, squeezed between her mother’s Alzheimer’s and her husband’s detachment. In reflections both luminous and humorous, she charts her way to love and independence.” —Sarah Bird, author of How Perfect Is That

  “Women and men are suddenly revealed in Crybaby Ranch, an illuminating arc-of-life writing that unfolds in a rich detail of simple and complex feelings.”

  —Craig Johnson, author of The Cold Dish

  and Death Without Company

  “Like a cliff diver, Tina Welling’s fiction flies, tucks, and slices into the dark depths of her characters. She writes with insight, humor, and complete control. If they ever make compassion an Olympic sport, Tina will have a room full of gold.” —Tim Sandlin, author of Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty

  Written by today’s freshest new talents and selected by New American Library, NAL Accent novels touch on subjects close to a woman’s heart, from friendship to family to finding our place in the world. The Conversation Guides included in each book are intended to enrich the individual reading experience, as well as encourage us to explore these topics together—because books, and life, are meant for sharing.

  Visit us online at www.penguin.com.

  Also by Tina Welling

  Crybaby Ranch

  NAL Accent

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, March 2009

  Copyright © Tina Welling, 2009

  Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Welling, Tina.

  Fairy tale blues/Tina Welling.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-01960-3

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For John Buhler,

  who gave me the best line in this book.

  And now I give it back to him.

  Acknowledgments

  It adds a special pleasure to the creative process for a writer to have readers in mind as they work. I had very special readers in mind when I wrote this novel: my sister and brother and their mates. Both in-laws and outlaws take openhearted pleasure in my work. It’s only fair that they take something, because I take so much from them: their stories, funny lines, and unique perspectives and experiences. Thank you, Gayle Caston, Tom Welling, Debbie Welling and Bob Caston.

  My sons and daughters-in-law contributed to this project, and I am grateful to them: Trevor Buhler, Amy Buhler, Toby Buhler, Amber Buhler.

  I feel profoundly privileged to have John Travis as my teacher. Going on meditation retreats in Jackson Hole and in India with him has enhanced my life with meaning and joy. The fictional retreat leader in the novel is a mere shadow of him.

  Ellen Edwards is a perceptive editor with a strong sense of ethics, a clear vision of story and mastery over language. I feel immensely fortunate to work with her. Thank you, Ellen.

  My husband, John Buhler, offers support in every way from his heartfelt happiness over my pleasure in the writing life to creating delicious ragouts and pasta sauces for our dinners together. And always he is my first reader.

  My gratitude goes to Susan Marsh and Patti Sherlock, two exceptional writers, who offered steady support as readers of my manuscript—a considerable gift. Gratitude also to my agent, Charlotte Sheedy, for her expertise over the years. Through the
professional assistance of Rebecca Vinter and Meredith Kaffel, my writing life is smoothed and eased. Susan Wasson, Judy Johnson, Eric Boss and Judy Boss, thank you once again for your generous spirits.

  For financial support my thanks goes to Pursue Balance, a non-profit organization in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that offers Growth Grants to individuals who are pursuing personal or environmental balance through adventure, study, the arts. I also offer thanks to the Wyoming Arts Council for personal support and statewide support of writers.

  An enormous part of my pleasure in this work is the weaving of chance remarks, stories or shared events that find their way into my creative process. In this project I thank Coulter Buhler, Libby Vallee, MacKenzie Caston and Elaine Mansfield. Inspiration and support for my subject came from two books in particular: Medea’s Folly by Tanya Wilkinson (PageMill Press, 1998) and The Light Inside the Dark by John Tarrant (HarperCollins, 1998).

  One

  Annie

  It seemed longer than just twelve hours ago that I walked out on my husband during our anniversary dinner. This morning after a shower, I smoothed lotion supplied by the hotel over my body, nose to toes. Not that my skin needed it in the humid warmth of Florida like it did back home in the dry cold of Wyoming, but this old habit grounded me. And besides the clothes I had been wearing, old habits were all I’d brought along.

  We were celebrating at the Granary, a restaurant high atop Gros Ventre Butte, the lights of Jackson Hole glittering below. Surely Jess had caught on by now that I wasn’t returning, yet I still pictured him sitting where I’d left him, watching champagne bubbles spiral up his glass.

  Before Jess left for work yesterday morning, I had sneaked a gift bag filled with his favorite chocolate-covered raisins into his backpack with a mushy card and the time and place of our dinner reservation. Last night, once we had ordered our champagne at the Granary, Jess slid a package across the table to me. I recognized the gift wrapping from the goldsmith’s on the town square. I read his note written on the back of our store’s business card.

  I love you for a hundred raisins.

  I dissolved into a teary laugh at his silly note, and a surge of love for Jess flooded my heart. My fingers tugged on the ribbon to loosen the bow. I paused and looked into his eyes, aware of the difficulty I’d been experiencing with him lately. Yet aware, too, that we had shared a deep and resilient love during our twenty-six years together. Though Jess’ note exposed the fact that he had likely shopped for his gift after being prompted by my gift to him that morning, I instantly forgave him.

  I read the note again, out loud this time. “I love you for a hundred raisins.”

  My voice softened into a whisper near the end. I reached across the table with both hands and looped the ribbon around my husband’s shoulders. “I love you, too,” I said.

  He held one of my hands and grinned at how touched I was by his card. When Jess directed his attention my way, he knew just how to reach me, and he could always make me laugh. For the past two and a half years, though, his attention had often felt tucked away, unavailable to me. To be fair, since our sons, Cam and Saddler, had left for college, I may have expected more in the way of intimacy from Jess than I had before the house became ours alone. Perhaps starting tonight things would improve. Inside of me, a party balloon floated with hope.

  “Go ahead, open it up,” Jess said, releasing my hand and leaning forward to watch.

  I unwrapped the package. Inside glimmered blue topaz ear studs. Topaz was my birthstone and blue my favorite color.

  I looked up, eyebrows lifted, my smile still in place, assuming he was teasing me. Jess smiled back at me, looking open and at ease.

  “To match your beautiful eyes, AnnieLaurie,” he said. They were the same words he had said last Valentine’s Day when he presented me with this exact gift. A pair of topaz ear studs, same starry blue. Which at that moment I was wearing. In fact, hadn’t removed since he’d given them to me eleven months before.

  It all came rushing in. How Jess lived in perpetual unawareness, like a second grader who came to school wide-eyed that he was late, wearing unmatched socks, having forgotten his lunch. Jess walked through his life and our marriage with this same benign look of happy innocence. Yet until now I had never been conscious of this as a source of our trouble. Or felt quite so angry.

  I could barely breathe. I felt as if a geyser churned in my chest, and at any moment it would explode noisily into scalding tears.

  “I’m going to the restroom,” I said when I could speak. I grabbed my purse and the satiny gift box. I passed the waiter bringing our bottle of champagne down the wide staircase from the lounge above. The Granary was built on the side of the butte, full of windows full of Tetons, though on this January evening I only saw myself reflected in the window glass, long rippling velvet skirt and silky shirt, standing at the banister.

  Some women say they could live through anything but the loss of a child. But, for me, just as unbearable would be the loss of my mate. I stood on the steps, watching my husband follow the beads of champagne as they spilled into the glasses. I was forty-six years old, married to Jess for more than half my life. And I felt then as if I had lost him just as surely as if he hadn’t shown up for our anniversary dinner at all.

  Jess didn’t look toward the staircase, though by then the waiter was glancing my way, as were a few other diners, so I continued up the steps. In the coatroom I wrapped my handwoven scarf around my neck, removed my coat from the hanger, found my fringed leather gloves and stepped out into the whipping snow to the car.

  The switchbacks down the butte were iced and treacherous, and I gripped the steering wheel and negotiated the steep, curving road in four-wheel drive. This road always made me uneasy, but this January night my thoughts scared me more. I was heading for the airport.

  I caught a shuttle to Denver, then another flight to Orlando, rented a car and headed straight for the Atlantic Ocean, a place where I’d always found comfort. I arrived a couple hours before dawn. Now wrapped in a hotel towel, I stood before the sliding-glass doors that led to a balcony overlooking the beach, undecided about what to do next. I barely noticed my lack of sleep; instead, I felt stunned by a sense of loss. I realized that I had been working hard on a marriage in which my partner worked very little. Resentment, built from years of keeping this fact from myself, finally toppled like a many-storied building, burying me beneath it. For two hours I had been tossing and turning in a hotel bed far from home, as if trying to wriggle out from under the rubble.

  Now I realized it would take more than a few sleepless nights to tidy up this mess. Yet I didn’t have any notion of what it would take. All I knew was that once my marriage had been a romance full of laughter, sweetness and spirit, and that Jess and I had met every tough time with the determination to work it out, while couples around us broke apart, switched partners, sued each other for custody of kids, cutting horses and golden retrievers.

  I checked the clock beside the bed—seven a.m.—and subtracted two hours for Mountain Time. I should phone Jess, report my whereabouts.

  I didn’t look forward to the call. Jess’ first response would be to construct a story to excuse his actions; his second would be to diminish the issue. This time, I’d refuse to get entangled in his defenses. For once—despite how unreasonable it was to flee three thousand miles without notice—I had taken action and not just talked about my trouble while following Jess around the house, trying to hold his attention.

  As I hovered near the phone, I pictured Jess’ expression when I opened the earrings and I realized the guy was so intent on shedding responsibility that he turned innocence into a vice. He wore it like a mask, peering at the world through a pair of blue eyes as clear and faultless as those topaz stones he had given me.

  See? Already distance on my marriage was offering insight.

  Two

  Jess

  I will never forget looking up the staircase at the Granary in time to glimpse the vanishing hem of A
nnieLaurie’s black velvet skirt. Why the hell was she going to the restroom? That girl had a bladder the size of a rain barrel. Her mother had taught her to never use the public restrooms at school, and so she had trained herself at age five to wait all day until she got home to use her own bathroom. Something else rang off-key that night. A kind of déjà vu floated around while I watched her open the box holding the earrings.

  After she went upstairs, I sat there and sat there until our waiter approached and said, “Sir.” I looked at him with a kind of wariness. As if he were going to tell me something more upsetting than that the chef was out of food for the night. Something about Annie. But what could go wrong in a ladies’ restroom, I encouraged myself, besides falling into the toilet?

  “Sir, would you like to order now, since the lady has left?”

  “The lady left? What lady?” I asked stupidly.

  The waiter gestured to AnnieLaurie’s glass of champagne, tiredly sending up a bubble now and then.

  “What do you mean she left?”

  “She took her coat . . . and drove away.” The guy looked miserable. “They told me upstairs.”

  “In my car? Our car?”

  “A Tahoe.”

  I knew it. During that long wait I had stared out the window, my mind deliberately blank. I mean, my brain had removed its own batteries. Now I spoke to the waiter in a voice I’d use asking a doctor, It’s cancer, isn’t it? I said, “Black and red?”

  “Yes, sir.”