Page 45 of Born to be Wilder

I looked at the man controlling it, lifted my hand like the cowboys did at the rodeo, and gave him a sharp nod.

The bull lurched. I gripped the handle like it was the hand of the Lord.

And in approximately one and a half seconds, I was screaming through the air, landing in an awkward heap with my face smooshed into the mat, my legs up over my head, and my little pink boots kicking in the air as I tried to right myself.

But I didn’t care I’d been tossed from the bull so fast I didn’t even think we’d made a half spin. I rolled over and laughed so hard I thought my ribs might crack, tears pouring down my cheeks.

Three faces appeared above me.

“Doris! Are you hurt?” Sylvie dropped beside me.

I couldn’t answer. I was struggling to breathe from the silent laughter wracking my body.

“Is she paralyzed? Oh my God! She’s not getting up! She’s paralyzed!” Alice paced frantically beside me.

Finally, I inhaled a full gasp, and that huge breath came out in hysterical laughter.

“Wait a friggin’ minute.” Marge leaned close enough I could smell the tequila on her breath. “She’s not crying… She’s laughing!”

I couldn’t stop the laughter rolling from my body. At the ridiculousness that I’d hopped onto a mechanical bull. At the even bigger ridiculousness that I’d thought I would do so well people would tell me I should bull ride for real, and soon I’d head home to hop on El Diablo and show Axel my amazing bull-riding skills. Then I laughed even harder at how spectacularly I had failed and how much I didn’t care.

“She’s okay?” Alice’s face squished in with Sylvie’s and Marge’s. “She’s really okay?”

“I’m okay!” I finally managed between hysterics. “I’m better than okay! I did it! I rode the bull! I stopped worrying so much.”

They pulled me to sitting, and I sat there on those mats grinning like a fool.

“All I do is worry. Worry, worry, worry. And for what? What has it ever gotten me? I’m done worrying! And I want to try again!”

I leaped up and hopped back onto that bull to the roar of the crowd.

“One more time!” I called to the controller.

He smiled and tipped his cowboy hat, then hit the button to start the whole thing over.

The widows stepped back, their faces filled with awe and pride as I grabbed that bull and gave it everything I had.

And two seconds later, I was screaming through the air, once again landing in a tangled heap of limbs.

“I did it! I made it a whole turn!” I screamed with pride as I climbed to my feet.

The young crowd, the ones with their whole lives still stretched ahead of them, all clapped and cheered as I climbed off those mats. If only I could tell them all not to spend their whole lives worrying. That they needed to live every second of this life with the gusto like any day could be their last, because… it could.

That swell of sadness filled me again as I looked at Alice. We weren’t young. None of us were, and death would come for us eventually. I couldn’t imagine the pain of saying goodbye to each other one by one until only one of us was left… alone. But instead of letting it haunt me like it usually did, I shoved it back down, opened my arms, and crashed into the three of them as I crushed them with a hug.

They were here now. Alice was here now. And good Lord willing, we still had decades of trouble to cause here on this earth before He welcomed us all home.

“You were incredible!” Sylvie beamed as she put my Viking hat on after it had flown off during one of my falls. “So brave, Doris!”

“And now it’s your turn to be brave. Go get ’em, Sylvie!”

She shook her head, sighing with a laugh as she went next. Sylvie made it four seconds before flying off.

“Well, I tried.” She shrugged, then tapped Alice on the shoulder. “You’re up!”

Alice didn’t flinch. She strode up to that bull with the same confidence she had stepping into any room—like she owned it. She hopped up, and her long legs pressed tight against it as she settled. She gave a simple, sinister smile to the controller, then winked and nodded as if saying, Do your worst.

He did.