Sweet Water by Anna Jeffrey Page B

with that arrogant asshole was a subject Marisa didn’t discuss. Where Clyde Campbell was concerned, she felt the same as her Aunt Rosemary. The jerk had dropped dead from a heart attack five years earlier. “Well, we won’t worry about Clyde. I heard he’s out of town and won’t be back for a while.”
    “He’d better be careful going off without telling me. I just might take up with Lanny.”
    With that, Mama left the kitchen. Marisa exhaled a great breath. Today was going to be another one of those days.
    Marisa followed her charge into the bedroom. It made her too sad to return from the café and see Mama with her clothes on backward, so she said, “Let me help you get dressed.”
    She took a pair of clean slacks and a blouse from the closet and helped Mama out of her nightgown, exposing her pale skin and shriveled breasts. “Bob had guests in the motel last night,” Marisa said, stretching underpants for her mother to step into. “They might want breakfast. Soon as we eat, I need to get over to the café to be ready.” She picked up her mother’s bra.
    “Have They come yet?” Mama held out her arms so Marisa could slide the bra on.
    They again. There was no telling how many hundred off-the-wall conversations Mama and Bob Nichols had had over the years about Area 51 up by Roswell and government secrets and aliens from outer space.
    “Any day now,” Marisa said, turning her mother around and hooking the bra.
    “That Bob. He’s sweet on me. He’s going to take me to meet Them when They come. He’s been on one of Their ships.”
    Marisa rolled her eyes to the ceiling. God, she needed to get away, just for a few hours, an afternoon. What she wouldn’t give for an afternoon in the mall in Midland where people seemed to be rational and function normally.
    ****
    Tanya Shepherd sat the lunch counter, a be-ringed finger hooked into the handle of a mug of Cowboy Breakfast Blend. “Things always happen when I’m out of town,” she said. “If Jake hadn’t run into Gordon Tubbs, I wouldn’t even have known the town got sold.”
    “Goes to show you should stay home,” Marisa said.
    “I wonder what it’ll mean to my shops.”
    The question resounded like an echo of the one that had been going on in Marisa’s head for nearly a week. “Hell if I know,” she replied.
    The shops in question--a beauty salon called Tanya’s Tangles and a gift shop named Art of the West Museum--shared the building with Pecos Belle’s. The beauty shop did a decent business during vacation season when campers stopped off at Sweet Water RV & Mobile Home Village. In addition to the traveling drop-ins, Tanya advertised herself as a “color specialist” and a few patrons drove all the way from Odessa to have her color and cut their hair.
    In Art of the West Museum Tanya sold beautiful Southwest-style jewelry she designed and made herself from semi-precious stones. She also displayed her own drawings and oil paintings of the area landscape.
    Now, Marisa examined a pair of beaded leather mules Tanya had brought Mama from Ruidoso. The hairdresser never failed to think of Mama. “These should fit,” Marisa said.
    Tanya took a drag off a long, slim cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. “How’s Raylene doing?”
      “About the same,” Marisa said. “A few days ago, I overslept and she toasted a whole loaf of bread.”
    “That’s not good.” Tanya’s head slowly shook as she tapped ash from the end of her cigarette. “I miss how Raylene used to be. She was always there for me. She helped me a lot.” Tanya and Mama had had a relationship for years before Marisa’s return. Knowing Mama, she had treated Tanya like a daughter.
    “I know. That’s the way she was before...” Marisa stopped herself. Nothing more needed to be said to someone who had watched Mama’s mind drift away for years. “Did y’all win any money in the casino?”
    “Nah. I mostly went shopping and toured the art galleries.”
    “Oh? You took