Large Animals in Everyday Life by Wendy Brenner Page B

small fit of remembering: Dale flexing his wrists like a weight lifter just before he took my face in his hands to kiss me; the lazy, satisfied way he stepped from my shower stall, male pride itself. “Don’t give me any more coffee,” Claire said. “My heart’s about to explode. I just stopped in to ask a favor for Dale.”
    Favor
, I thought, means she probably doesn’t know, whatever
that
means. There were going to be rules now, and I was sure I didn’t know them.
    â€œNeeds you to drive him to pick up his truck, if you’re feeling up to it,” she said.
    â€œOh, fine, fine,” I said.
    â€œWell,” she said. She was in no hurry. She bent her long legs and sat in my armchair. I tried to think of what to say.
    â€œSo, do horses ever bite you?” I said.
    â€œThat ugly pony we had bit a baby,” she said. “But that was because he knew we were trying to get rid of him. Or maybe the baby told him something terrible, I don’t know. I do believe animals sense things, though. You know how they lie down on the ground when an earthquake is coming? I have a book about it. There was a chrysanthemum that could start a car! You can borrow that book if you want. Do you have a boyfriend?”
    I had been wondering if she was trying to tell me in a veiled way that the chestnut had crushed me on purpose, perhaps for wanting Dale, for being a coward, or for something worse which only she and the horse were sensitive enough to see.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Claire said. She looked sorry. She divided a Danish the size of her face into two parts and offered me one. “I don’t mean to give you a hard time,” she said, “but I think he likes you. He may ask you out. He’s been very touchy. The last time he liked someone he punched me.”
    â€œHe punched you?” I repeated.
    â€œI told him his sweetheart Gabrielle was a spoiled brat,” she said. “She was born without sweat glands. She was a big star on the horse show circuit and her mother followed her around with ice packs all the time. All I said was that he could do a lot better.”
    â€œWas she pretty?” I said. I was encouraged, thinking that with her birth defect she couldn’t have been beautiful, at least not hopelessly so. The punching still loomed, but it was secondary. “Could you tell what was wrong with her?”
    â€œWell, she was thin, but that could have been anything,” Claire said. “And then her eyes looked wrong, like her lids were inside out, and then she had scaly arms and scaly patches on her face.”
    â€œActual scales?” I said.
    â€œHey, maybe that’s why he was so crazy for her,” Claire said. “Like a snake—ha!” We both laughed, but I thought she herself looked like a snake—a happy snake, with her wide, pretty mouth, her eyes narrowed against the morning sun. I told her I found it hard to believe Dale would punch her.
    â€œWell, he didn’t actually hit me,” she said. “But he wanted to, I could see it. He was right up in my face. I said, ‘Dale, what difference does my opinion make?’ He said, ‘You just don’t understand her. You don’t understand anyone who hasn’t had it easy.’ I said, ‘Dale, tell me one thing that hasn’t come easy for you. Name one thing.’” She stopped there and shook her head. I waited to hear Dale’s answer, but she just sat there in the light, chewing herDanish, giving away nothing. When she left my place, she warned me that he might ask me “for a date,” and she spoke to my Hondecoeter with what could only be innocence. She touched her finger to the fallen crow as if it were some cute calendar puppy. “Bye, birdies,” she said.
    That same day I had to take my cartons in to the warehouse, and the traffic and scenery on the way were suddenly extraordinary, unpredictable. I passed what I