A Black Place and a White Place

by Patrice Greenwood

  I went back to the main room, where the walls were covered with historic photos of various buildings around the ranch and of Arthur and Phoebe Pack, early owners who had made Ghost Ranch a successful dude ranch and eventually left it to the Presbyterian Church. I did not read all of the captions, but those I read enlightened me somewhat.

  The Packs were not the first owners. In fact, the first people to live on the ranch land were the Archuleta brothers, who had built the adobe house I was standing in, and who had been notorious for rustling cattle.

  Charming.

  I glanced at the other captions, looking for an explanation of the Ghost House’s name, but didn’t find one. I decided this was enough history for now. I wanted my tea.

  Emerging, I looked eastward across the courtyard wall, toward the big, open field. If there had been many children here I would have expected to see them playing there, but Lisette’s boy was the only child I had seen at the ranch. I wondered if he liked football.

  The Superbowl was coming up, wasn’t it? So the games this month would be exciting and important to enthusiasts. Of whom my fiancé was apparently one.

  Beyond the field were two long, single-story buildings that I recognized. The one on the north end was the Staff House, where Tony and I had found the trailhead for our hike. As I looked at it, a man in cowboy duds came out of the building. He was not the red-headed cowboy; he was a little shorter, a little more barrel-chested. I couldn’t tell at that distance, but something about his shape made me think he was the redhead's partner. He started toward me, which made me nervous until I remembered the map, which showed the stables west of the welcome center.

  Welcome center, yes. I hastened up the path, and saw that it branched. One side continued up to a small parking lot surrounded by several casitas, each with more than one door. I followed the other branch to the left and along the hilltop to the main building.

  The snack bar was closed, and I saw no sign of lemon there. In the dining area, which had some wrought-iron patio furniture, was a widescreen TV against the wall, playing a video about Ghost Ranch for an absent audience.

  The trading post was open, staffed by a solitary cashier—an older man in a plaid shirt and jeans, bored and maybe a little sulky at having to work during The Game, which was playing without volume on a small TV by the register. The shop’s only other occupant was Lisette Roan, standing in front of a rack of chips and candy, staring blankly at the array.

  5

  I joined her. “Looking for an energy boost?”

  She looked at me, surprised, then embarrassed. “Oh. Well, I wanted to get something for my son.”

  I nodded. She seemed uncomfortable, so I stepped away toward a refrigerated case filled with drinks. There were half-pints of chocolate milk, and a solitary plain milk. I snagged it, figuring buying it would be quicker than walking back to the dining hall.

  Lisette was still staring numbly at the carbohydrates. I gave a little cough.

  “I’m about to make some tea, if you’d like some.”

  “Oh, I—” She started to shake her head, and brushed at her cheek. “Th-that’s nice of you.”

  “You’d be doing me a favor,” I added, only slightly exaggerating. “I’d love some company. My fiancé’s gone off to watch a football game.”

  Lisette winced, then her jaw stiffened and she drew herself up like a queen. “Yes, well. Thank you, a cup of tea would be lovely.”

  I remembered that I had only one mug in the room, so I picked out a souvenir mug with O’Keeffe’s cow-skull design and paid for it and the milk. Leading Lisette back to my room, I set an easy pace, since her wedge-heeled sandals were more fashionable than practical and the footing on the path was uneven. I didn’t make conversation, figuring that she could use some quiet to regain her composure. By the time we reached the Ghost House, she seemed calmer.

  I opened the door to our room and held it for her. She glanced around the room before stepping in. A cautious habit? Worthy of Tony, I thought. Glad that I’d insisted on making the bed, I led her through to the Room of Many Chairs.

  “Make yourself at home,” I said, turning on the light and picking up my kettle. “Choose your favorite chair. Do you prefer Darjeeling or Assam?”

  Standing in the middle of all the chairs, looking slightly bewildered, she glanced at me over her shoulder.

  “Darjeeling, I guess.”

  I smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

  I washed the new mug in the bathroom sink, filled the kettle, and returned to set it heating. Lisette had chosen a sturdy chair with a carved wooden back and a padded seat. I took a nearby chair, leaving one between us for a table.

  “I’ve also got some Lapsang Souchong, if you’d like that,” I said.

  “No, thanks. Too heavy.”

  I nodded. “I only drink it occasionally, myself, but my office manager loves it.”

  That evoked a curious glance. “Office manager? You’re an entrepreneur?”

  “Yes. I own a restaurant. Well, a tearoom, actually.”

  “A tearoom! No wonder you brought your own.”

  I smiled. “I’m afraid I’m a bit of a tea snob.”

  That got a laugh out of her, and the first smile I’d seen from her since the studio tour. “If you’re a tea snob, may I join your club?”

  “Absolutely. It’s open to all.”

  The kettle was emitting some steam. I checked, and it was just short of boiling, perfect for Darjeeling. I poured the steaming water over the leaves, then set the teapot’s lid on top of the infuser while it steeped.

  “Do you take milk?” I asked.

  “No, but I’m glad you do,” Lisette said, with the first smile I’d seen from her since the tour. “Or you wouldn’t have come to the trading post, would you? Oh, and I forgot to get Jeremy a treat!”

  “Jeremy? Is that your son?”

  “Yes. He’s off with his father, watching football.”

  Lucky Tony. Maybe they’d be engrossed in the game.

  “How old is he?” I asked.

  “Eleven.”

  “Do you have other children?”

  She shook her head, and something—sadness, anger?—tightened her face before the finishing-school calm returned. No more family questions, then.

  My timer went off. I offered sugar and milk, which Lisette declined. I put a dollop of milk into my mug and handed the souvenir mug to her. Sipping carefully, I leaned back in my chair.

  Ah, tea. A nice hot cuppa after a busy day.

  Lisette echoed my contentment with a small sigh. “Thank you. This is lovely.”

  “Have you been a tea enthusiast for long?”

  The smile returned. “My Auntie Rachelle always had tea in the afternoon. A proper tea with something to eat, even if it was only bread and butter. In the summer she’d make iced tea for me, but she always had hers hot.”

  I wondered if Auntie Rachelle was behind Lisette’s polish. “Where was this?”

  “Houston.”

  “Is that still home?”

  She nodded. “All my life, except for college.”

  “Where’d you go for that?” I asked.

  “Tulane for my bachelor’s, and then I got a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago.”

  “So you’re an artist?”

  “Yes.”

  And that was why the family was here. O’Keeffe had spent some time at the Art Institute of Chicago, according to the biography I was reading. Doubtless a talented, strong-willed woman like Lisette would be drawn to her example.

  “How did you like the studio tour?” I asked.

  Her eyes lit with delight. “It was wonderful, don’t you think? That workroom, with those views! What a glorious place to live and work!”

  “Glorious and isolated,” I mused.

  “Even better.”

  She took a sip of tea. The sadness had crept back.

  “I guess all artists need a lot of alone time,” I said. “I need it myself, and I’m no artist.�
��

  “I haven’t painted since I got married.”

  Whoa. Unable to think of a response, I held still. Lisette turned her mug in her hands, then took a deep swallow, not a ladylike sip.

  “I thought I’d made a great bargain. Wesley has money, you see. Lots of money.” She glanced at me, then drank again. “I thought I’d be free to make art, and he’d support me. I mean really support me—be my advocate. But he doesn’t care about art. He just wanted a pretty wife.”

  I swallowed. What could I say? What would Miss Manners say? Holy moly!

  “You saw how he treated Jeremy. And he loves that child.” Her tone was unmistakably bitter.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Is there anything . . . ?”

  She shook her head, straightened in the chair, and finished her tea. “I shouldn’t have bothered you with it. Nothing anyone can do.”

  “Do you ... have a place you can go? I mean—”

  “Auntie Rachelle’s. Wesley’s afraid of her. She’s getting old, but she can still give him what for.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sometimes I say she’s sick and I have to take care of her for a few days. But really it’s the other way around.” Her voice broke on the last word and she wiped at her eyes with one elegant hand.

  “I wish I could help,” I said.

  “Thanks.” She drew an unsteady breath, and flashed a brave smile. “You have. Thanks for listening. I know I can rely on your discretion.”

  “I’m not sure how you know that, but thank you.”

  “You’re a kind person. And you have discerning taste.” She raised her mug with a wry smile.

  Mine was also empty. “I think we need another round, yes?” I said, standing.

  “Yes, please.”

  She held out her mug. I filled it from the teapot, which left half a mug for me. Lisette stood and walked over to the south window, pushed back the curtain to look out.

  How soon had she discovered her mistake? I wondered. Before her son was born?

  “Why is this called the ‘Ghost House’?” she asked.

  “I wish I knew. The brochure doesn’t explain, and the people I’ve asked didn’t know or wouldn’t say. Either the story is unsavory, or it’s shrouded in the mists of time.”

  She laughed softly and let the curtain fall. “Or it’s a fabrication, for marketing purposes.”

  I tilted my head. “I don’t know. Ghost Ranch has been the name of this place for a long time. There’s probably something behind it.”

  “Does it make you afraid to stay here?” she asked, gesturing to the room.

  Surprised by the question, I said, “Ah—no.”

  “You’re brave.”

  “Well, my tearoom has a resident ghost. A very nice one, fortunately.”

  She turned to me, eyes wide. “A ghost? Really?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, now I have to bring Jeremy. He would love to see a ghost!”

  “Actually, nobody’s seen him. Not even me. He likes to turn on lights, play the piano, that sort of thing.”

  Lisette blinked. “Well, that’s still pretty good. Where is your tearoom?”

  “Santa Fe.”

  “Oh! We’re going there after this weekend. I insisted we should see either Taos or Santa Fe on this trip.”

  She came back to her chair. I sipped my tea.

  “Why not both?”

  “I wanted both, but Wesley drew the line at one or the other. So I opted for Santa Fe and Canyon Road.”

  “Good choice,” I said. “But I’m biased, of course.”

  That drew a chuckle from her. She seemed to be regaining her balance.

  “It’s more cosmopolitan, too, and that’s better for Wesley,” she said. “I haven’t been to Taos, but I heard it’s mostly whites and Mexicans.”

  I paused, then decided she hadn’t meant to be offensive. “And Puebloans,” I added, feeling culturally sensitive.

  “'Damn Indians,’ Wesley calls them.”

  I couldn’t help giving her a shocked look. “Um, they were there first.”

  “Sorry. That’s what Wesley says—it’s not how I feel. I’ve never met an Indian.”

  I gazed at her, wondering how such a sophisticated woman could have such big blind spots. But then, we all have them. We just don’t know about them until we’re confronted with them. I thought back ruefully to my first encounters with Tony—still less than a year ago—which had been far from pleasant. He and I had both learned a lot from each other—and no doubt would learn more—about tolerance and acceptance. And I’d had rather a shock in coming to grips with the privileges I had taken for granted all my life.

  Maybe Lisette had a little of that going on. Perhaps she had a blind spot about Indians purely due to lack of exposure. One might think that being black would make her more sensitive to injustice, but I didn’t know her whole background. If she had grown up with money, she might have huge blind spots. If she hadn’t—then maybe her marriage had been a decision to lower her expectations in exchange for security. And maybe lowered expectations had come with unpleasant attitudes.

  Bargains. We made bargains all the time—with ourselves, with each other, with life.

  Lisette was from Houston. Texas had plenty of Hispanics, most of whom were technically Chicanos (mostly Mexican Indian rather than the pureblood Spanish implied by the term Hispanic). It was the same in New Mexico, but cultural pride insisted on Hispanic as the preferred term, and I wasn’t one to flout cultural pride. I wondered how Lisette felt about Hispanics, or Mexicans as she’d called them. If I introduced her to Tony, how would she react?

  No sense pondering. Better to invite her to expand her horizons.

  “There’s a musician from Taos Pueblo playing a concert here tonight,” I said. “Are you going?”

  “I hadn’t planned to, but ... Wesley will be watching football.”

  “Come to the concert, then,” I said.

  “Maybe I will.”

  I’d finished my tea. I put my mug on the chair between us.

  “Don’t answer this if it’s too nosy,” I said, “but how did you convince your husband to come here?”

  She sighed. “I talked him into it because of the trail ride. Jeremy loves horses.”

  “Oh. Did you enjoy that?”

  She sipped her tea. “Haven’t done it yet. We’re going tomorrow morning.”

  Oh, joy. A trail ride with Football Fan.

  “We’re taking the same tour again, then,” I said, making sure to smile. “Should be fun.”

  “Do you like riding horses?” she asked.

  “Haven’t been in the saddle since summer camp, but I loved it then.”

  Summer camp, up in the mountains. Rich white kids from Texas, with their shiny black riding boots and black velvet helmets. Me with my scruffy cowboy boots and straw cowboy hat. In my embarrassment, I’d failed to perceive my own privilege. There were no black kids at that camp. Maybe no Hispanics, either. I frowned, trying to remember.

  The African American population of New Mexico had never been high, for various reasons, including the fact that slavery had never been legal here. There were more blacks since Katrina, when we had an influx of refugees from New Orleans, but even so they were less than five percent of the state’s population. And the animosity between blacks and Hispanics in New Mexico was legendary. I wondered if that had inspired Lisette’s remark about whites and Mexicans, and her husband’s rudeness to Tony.

  “I’ve only been riding a couple of times,” Lisette said. “I’m not good at it. And Wesley’s never been, but he’s too stubborn to admit it. He wants to impress Jeremy.”

  I smiled. “Don’t worry. Tours like this, the horses are very gentle, and the guides keep an eye out. You’ll be fine.”

  “I’d rather go on the bus, to be honest. But the trail ride’s what got me here.” She sighed. “I thought seeing O’Keeffe’s country—the places she painted—would give me a jump start.”

  I
tilted my head. “There are pastels and colored pencils in that trading post, you know. And drawing paper. Watercolors, too, I think.”

  “I paint in oils,” Lisette said haughtily.

  I shrugged. “Maybe a little sketching would be a good warm-up.”

  She looked at me, then at her mug. “Sorry. I guess I’m in a funk.”

  “It’s OK.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I watched Lisette, wondering how she had decided on her particular bargain. Was Wesley the best she could do?

  I would probably never know the answers.

  “I should go,” she said, setting down her empty mug. “Thank you again—and I’m terribly sorry, but would you remind me of your name?”

  I smiled. “It’s Ellen. Don’t worry, I’m pretty sad at remembering names, too.”

  “Ellen. Thank you, for the tea, and for your patience.”

  “My pleasure,” I said, standing and going over to the table chair. “I made you up a couple of tea bags, for later.” I held them out to her. “And this is my card. If you have time when you get to Santa Fe, look me up and I’ll treat you to afternoon tea.”

  “Thank you!” She smiled as she examined my card. “Wisteria Tearoom. Auntie Rachelle has a wisteria vine on her porch!”

  “They’re wonderful aren’t they?”

  “Yes. And I will look you up, but we’ll pay for our tea.” She gave me a wry grin. “Wesley can afford it!”

  “Will he enjoy it?” I asked doubtfully.

  “Probably not, but I will. And it’ll be good for Jeremy.”

  “You’re a good mom, giving him new experiences.”

  She surprised me with a fierce look. “He’s going to have better prospects than his father. I’m making sure of that.”

  I walked with her to the door. “See you later at the concert?”

  “Maybe. If I’m not busy.” She straightened her shoulders. “I’m going to go back to that trading post and get some pastels.”