Me, Frida, and the Secret of the Peacock Ring

by Angela Cervantes

  “I totally hope I can buy a ring before we leave, but I’d like a unique ring,” Paloma said, handing the box back to the Fortune-Teller.

  The Fortune-Teller reached to take the box of rings from her. “What sort of ring? Flower? Leaf? Maybe a silver ring with your birthstone?”

  “A peacock ring,” Paloma blurted.

  “¿Cómo? What kind of ring did you say?” the Fortune-Teller asked, almost dropping the box and spilling the rings on her lap. “That—that is a very unusual ring request. Very unusual …” she stammered, and steadied the small box. She looked over her rings and closed it. “Have you ever seen one before?”

  “We don’t have money for fancy rings, Paloma. Let’s get moving, little bird,” Paloma’s mom jumped in. “A churro is calling our names. That, I can afford.”

  Paloma frowned. Her mom was ruining her detective work. She stood up reluctantly. “I’ll be back,” Paloma said as her mom grabbed her by the sleeve. The Fortune-Teller responded with a tight-lipped smile.

  As Paloma’s mom guided her toward the churros stand, Paloma looked back. The Fortune-Teller was on her cell phone. Who was she talking to? Even the sweet smell of fried dough drifting in the air couldn’t get Paloma’s mind off the Fortune-Teller’s reaction to the mention of a peacock ring. Lulu Pennywhistle was super right when she said that sometimes she had nothing to go by but a “gut feeling.” Right now, Paloma’s gut told her that there was something suspicious about that Fortune-Teller.

  She had to talk to Gael. Fortunately, she spotted him easily. He was sitting on a bench, pencil in hand, his head buried in a sketchbook. Lizzie was nowhere to be seen. Paloma was glad, considering the mood Lizzie had been in when she left the house. Gael looked up and saw Paloma. He closed his sketchbook and tucked it under his arm. She smiled at him, hoping he wasn’t upset at how they’d left things.

  “Paloma!” Gael stood and rushed over to her. “You came to try a churro?”

  Paloma nodded and gazed over the fried golden pastries. “I’ve never had one, but they smell yummy, like funnel cakes back home.” Behind the cart, an older woman handed her mom a small sack filled with churros sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Paloma snatched a churro from the sack.

  “Funnel cakes? I’ll have to remember that one,” Gael said, handing Paloma a napkin. He leaned closer to her and whispered in her ear, “Does this mean what I think it means?”

  “Yes,” Paloma whispered back. She gave a side glance to her mom, who was busy talking to the woman selling churros. “I will help you and Lizzie find the peacock ring. And I think we should keep an eye on that Fortune-Teller.”

  “Why do you think the Fortune-Teller is involved?” Gael asked as the two walked to Casa Azul. Paloma was shocked by how easy it had been to persuade her mom to let them go to Casa Azul that afternoon while her mom returned home to work. Paloma knew now that whenever she wanted to go somewhere or do something, she’d have Gael ask. Her mom seemed incapable of saying no to cute Gael.

  It was Paloma’s idea to start the quest for the peacock ring at Casa Azul. Lulu always went to the source of the mystery. Plus, it was the first place Paloma had seen the Fortune-Teller. Paloma wasn’t sure, but there could be a connection.

  “I can’t explain why, except that the Fortune-Teller totally freaked out when I mentioned the peacock ring to her,” Paloma explained. “She nearly dropped her box of special rings! And then she was all like, ‘What an unusual request.’”

  Gael shook his head and chuckled at her exaggerated deep fortune-teller voice.

  “Now that I think of it …” Gael said. “The Fortune-Teller just showed up in the last few weeks.”

  Paloma stopped and pulled out a note card and pen. “Tell me more.”

  “I’m always helping my aunt out with her churro stand …” Gael scratched his head. “I hadn’t realized it before and it’s weird, no? She shows up around the same time Lizzie and I start looking for the ring?”

  “The plot thickens!” Paloma clicked her pen and scribbled down Gael’s comments. Once she was done, they started walking again.

  “Still, you shouldn’t have mentioned the ring to her,” Gael said finally. “We can’t let anyone know we’re looking for it. If people find out how valuable it is … they may want to search for it, too, and keep it for themselves. Then it will be lost para siempre. Forever.”

  “My bad.” Paloma shrugged. “I was in a Lulu Pennywhistle zone.”

  “¿Quién? Who is Lulu?”

  “She’s this awesome detective in a book series I read. She solves mysteries, and she’s totally fearless.”

  “She is fictional?” Gael asked, and then raised his hands up to the sky in frustration. “Why are all the bravest people only in stories?”

  “The books are fiction, but to me she’s like a real person. I’ve learned a lot from her.”

  “Good, we will have to be fearless like her.”

  Paloma nodded. She was glad Gael didn’t make fun of her admiration for Lulu Pennywhistle. Kate and Isha had warned her, more than once, that she was starting to sound obsessed when it came to Lulu mysteries.

  “Lizzie won’t be mad that we’re starting the search without her, will she?”

  Gael shrugged. “She’ll understand.”

  “She doesn’t seem like the understanding type. I mean, she was all huffy-puffy when I said I couldn’t help you. And then she stomped off.”

  “That was nada. Nothing. She is a mariachi, you know? Don’t ever make a mariachi trumpet player angry.” Gael nudged her playfully as they reached the entrance to Casa Azul.

  They followed a swarm of tourists through the turnstile and into a large room where several framed portraits hung on the walls. As they entered the room, Paloma noticed a man installing a security camera in the upper corner of the room. Paloma joined Gael in front of a painting titled Portrait of Don Guillermo Kahlo.

  “This was Frida’s father,” Gael said. “He had a magnificent mustache.”

  “Yes, it’s a mega mustache,” Paloma said about the man’s bushy grayish-brown mustache. The man’s thick eyebrows were set over gray eyes that glanced off to the left. Behind him was a large ancient-looking camera. “You know, her name doesn’t sound very Mexican.”

  “That’s because her father was from Germany. He came here, worked as a photographer, fell in love with a Mexican woman, and stayed for the rest of his life.”

  “German father. Mexican mother. Frida is kind of mixed like me.”

  “What does that mean? ‘Kind of mixed’?”

  “I’m half-Mexican and half-German, too. My dad was from Mexico. My mom’s family was originally from Germany. She always says she comes from ‘good Kansas German stock.’”

  “This is the first time you’ve mentioned your dad,” Gael said. “Why wasn’t he at the reception last night? Are your parents divorced?”

  Paloma took a deep breath and folded her arms across her chest. “My father died when I was three years old.”

  Gael stepped back and placed his hand over his heart. “Lo siento, Paloma!” He covered his face with his hands and rattled off a dramatic Spanish apology. None of which Paloma understood, but she got the gist. “¡Qué pena! Perdóname, Paloma. I’m a dork! ¡Perdón!”

  “It’s okay, Gael. You didn’t know.”

  “I am idiota. I don’t know how to say that in English.”

  “It’s almost the same in English, but you’re not an idiot,” Paloma said, and sighed.

  “I think you deserve a hug now—is that okay?”

  “Okay.” Paloma shrugged. Gael took her in a warm, tight hug. He smelled like cinnamon-sweet churros.

  “So sorry that you don’t have your dad,” he whispered before letting her go. Gael removed one of the leather cords from around his neck. He held it out to her. “I want you to have this. It will protect you.”

  “From what?” Paloma dipped her head down to let Gael loop it around her neck. She held the tiny silver medallion in her hands and exam
ined it.

  “It’s an Aztec eagle warrior,” Gael explained. “They were soldiers who defended their people from enemies.”

  Paloma thought about the Aztec calendar medallion that her father wore. Her mom had told her that he wore it all the time. Now Paloma wondered if it had been a gift from a friend, too. Paloma pressed the medallion between her fingers. She hoped to draw out a memory of being a child pulling on her dad’s medallion. She stood there for a second with her eyes closed, but no memory came.

  “Thank you,” she finally said to Gael, who watched her with kind brown eyes.

  She was desperate to change the topic. She didn’t want pity. Paloma pointed back to the painting. Along the bottom part of the portrait were Spanish words written in reddish cursive. “What does it say here?”

  “Frida writes: ‘I painted my father, Wilhelm Kahlo, of Hungarian-German origin, artist-photographer, in a way that shows his character as intelligent, generous, and valiant because he suffered from an illness called epilepsia’—I’m not sure how to say that in English, but it’s an illness that—”

  Paloma looked closer at the words. “I think it means ‘epilepsy.’ He had epilepsy.”

  Gael nodded. “Yes, that’s it. Anyway, it says that he also fought against Hitler. She signs it, ‘with adoration,’” Gael continued. “She loved him very much. You can tell by how she painted him that she truly loved him.”

  Paloma’s gaze moved away from the painting of Frida’s father to a blank spot on the wall. In that empty white space, she imagined a canvas. And on the canvas, she’d paint her own father. First, she’d sketch him. He would be sitting upright, very formally like Frida’s father. But Paloma’s father would be smiling, showing off his perfect white teeth. Then she’d fill in his face with paint the hue of caramel candy. She’d use the darkest black color she could find for his short hair. In the portrait, she’d paint him in a blue button-down shirt with the silver Aztec calendar necklace around his neck. Her mom had said he’d worn it every day. This was important to him, so it should be in the portrait, too, Paloma thought. In the background, she’d paint the sun pyramid from the photograph her mom framed.

  If she painted this portrait, would people know that she also loved him? Would they know, by just looking at it, how much she missed him?

  “Paloma?” Gael put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  Paloma let the portrait fade away. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m fine. I was just thinking about how we’re going to find this ring. Where do we even start?”

  Gael narrowed his eyes at her, unconvinced. “I can give you another hug. I think I’ve upset you about your father.”

  “No more time for hugs. We have a mystery to solve,” she said, ignoring his rejected look. “Show me where the locked room was found. Lulu always starts with the obvious.”

  “It’s upstairs, near Frida’s studio,” Gael answered.

  Paloma took one more look around the gallery. It was just four white walls, but long ago it had been Frida’s living room. She lived here with her sisters and parents, and later with her husband. Now the walls were covered with family portraits. In those paintings, Paloma could see the love Frida had for her family and the family tree that connected her to Europe and Mexico forever. Paloma only had her mom and her mom’s family in Kansas. And although she knew that she was loved, Paloma couldn’t help but believe there was a whole other side of her family tree that she didn’t know anything about. If her dad had lived, would she have cousins, uncles, and aunts in Mexico? Would she feel connected to the spirit of this place the way Frida did?

  “Ready to find some clues, Paloma?” Gael asked.

  Paloma nodded. “Finding clues is my specialty!”

  “It’s. A. Bathroom,” Paloma said, shaking her head in disbelief. She and Gael stared into the small tiled bathroom, guarded only by a knee-high wire strung along the doorway to keep visitors from entering.

  “It’s a secret room,” Gael said. “This is where Diego hid many of her things.”

  “It’s. A. Bathroom.”

  “Stop saying that,” Gael whispered. “This room is important. Everything was found here.” A few tourists passed by, barely giving the small bathroom a glance.

  “No one even cares that it’s here,” Paloma said.

  “Exacto,” Gael said with sudden urgency. “They have no clue what this room contained, but we do.”

  Paloma’s eyes strayed to a framed sign posted next to the bathroom. “What does that say?”

  Gael leaned in. “It says that over three hundred pieces of Frida’s personal items were discovered here. It also says that many of the items are on display in the exhibition space.”

  “Exhibition space?” Paloma said. “That sounds promising.”

  “It was open last night,” Gael scoffed. “You probably didn’t see it because you were too busy making googly eyes at Tavo Farill.”

  Paloma’s mouth dropped open. Gael laughed.

  “Googly eyes? Who taught you that?” Paloma asked. Suddenly, a loud swarm of tourists rushed past Paloma and Gael down the narrow hallway, knocking Paloma into the wire. Gael grabbed her arm, helping her to get her balance. “Sheesh!” Paloma said. “Share the road, people.”

  “It’s a tour group,” Gael said. “French, I bet. They love Frida.”

  “Let’s follow them. Maybe they’re going to the exhibit space, too.”

  Paloma and Gael quickly joined the French-speaking tour group. The group moved through Frida’s dayroom, where skeleton marionettes dangled from Frida’s small bed, and small porcelain dolls sat on a shelf. The tour continued into another small room at the farthest end of Frida’s home. Paloma glanced inside. Another twin-size bed, covered with a lacy white blanket and pillow, was positioned to the side of the room. She tugged at Gael’s sleeve.

  “Why did Frida have two bedrooms?” she asked, stepping through the doorway. Gael followed her. The room had no windows. It was dark but was illuminated by a few lamps. “I want two bedrooms.”

  “Careful what you ask for, Paloma,” Gael whispered. “Frida needed two bedrooms. I thought I heard Tavo tell you last night about the bus accident she was in, no?”

  Paloma nodded, resisting the urge to call him an eavesdropper.

  “After the accident, she had many surgeries. She couldn’t leave her bed, so that was when she began to paint. She had one room where she could lie down and paint. The other room was for sleeping. In the end, she died in her sleep,” Gael said.

  “She died here?” Paloma asked. Gael nodded and gestured to a headless frog-shaped sculpture atop a wood dresser.

  “Her ashes are inside that urn,” Gael said.

  Paloma gave Gael a look of disbelief and pointed at the urn. “Are you telling me that Frida’s ashes are inside that ugly frog thingy?”

  Gael nodded.

  The frog urn was the color of red clay and was no larger than the vase Paloma’s mom had just used for calla lilies back at home. Paloma stepped aside and let a few tourists slip past her to take a photo of the urn. Their cameras clicked and flashed a dozen times. She gazed around the room, and waited for the tourists to leave. Once they had the room to themselves, Paloma rummaged through her bag for note cards and a pen.

  “That. Is. A. Major. Detail. Why didn’t you tell me about her urn before?”

  “Sorry, Miss Lupe Purplewhistle,” Gael joked. “I didn’t realize it was a major detail.”

  Paloma growled. “It’s Lulu Pennywhistle,” she corrected him. She leaned against another wire barrier to get as close to the urn as she could, and raised her phone to take a couple of pictures. But then she stopped. Through the phone screen, she saw the red clay sculpture with its little frog hands and skinny frog legs and felt strangely ashamed. She lowered her phone.

  “What’s wrong, Paloma? ¿Qué pasa? You look sad.” Gael took her hand.

  “This is Frida’s final resting place,” Paloma said softly. “She’s inside that ugl
y sculpture. I just feel like … it’s dumb, I guess, but I feel like I should say a little prayer or something.”

  Gael nodded. “What do you do when you visit your dad’s grave?”

  Paloma was stunned by the question, but realized Gael had a point. This urn was like Frida’s gravestone. “I—I,” she stammered. She and her mom visited her dad’s gravestone three times a year: on his birthday, the anniversary of his death, and on Father’s Day. She suspected her mom went more often, though. Sometimes her mom would leave Paloma with friends or family and return in a quiet mood with a special treat, as if she felt guilty for something. “I say a prayer, and then I just talk to him about things.”

  “¿Cómo? Like what?”

  “School, my friends, and stuff like that.” Paloma shrugged. “Sometimes, I even tell him about the latest Lulu Pennywhistle book I’m reading.”

  “You should do that,” Gael said. “Talk to her.”

  Paloma looked around the room one more time to make sure they were still alone.

  “Hola, Frida …” Paloma started. “I really like your home. It—” She stopped, looked over at Gael. She was unsure of what else to say.

  Gael gave Paloma an encouraging nod. “You’re doing awesome.”

  Paloma faced the urn again.

  “It means a lot to be here because you were one of my dad’s favorite artists. I don’t know if he ever visited Coyoacán, but I think he would have liked it. I like it. Anyway, I hope you know that you’re very popular. People even take pictures of your urn. It’s a big hit. Congrats on that,” Paloma said. “I want you to also know that I’m sorry that your peacock ring is missing. Don’t worry, we’re going to find it for you.”

  Paloma stepped back from the urn. “Rest in peace, Frida.”