Santa Fe Mourning

by Amanda Allen

  Juanita sat down in the chair across the table from Maddie, her shoulders slumped. “Who knows? I hear whispers—maybe a place on lower San Francisco Street.”

  “Really?” Maddie said sharply. She had never been down in that part of town herself. No lady, not even a bohemian artist like herself, had been. That was the territory of the brothels and the rougher sorts of speakeasies, not the bars where regular people went to dance and sneak a cocktail. Tomas had never seemed like that sort to her, but then again he was awfully quiet. Secretive. Not every man was like her Pete, sunny and open as a summer day.

  She shook her head, feeling the familiar pang of sadness that was always there when she thought of Pete. “I’m sure he isn’t going down there,” she said, but she was afraid she didn’t sound convincing, even to herself.

  Juanita laughed. “He’s done things like that before, when we were younger, but he always came back. This time feels—different.”

  “Different how?”

  “I don’t know.” Juanita reached for the teapot and absently polished it with her cloth. “He’s angry, even with the children. It’s actually a relief when he’s not around. He scares the girls.”

  Maddie propped her chin in her hand, her thoughts racing. “Is that why you want to send them to school?”

  Juanita reached up to touch the small silver cross pendant around her neck. “They’ll be safer with the sisters. They’ll learn how to be ladies. Father Malone says he can help me find a place for them there.”

  But they could never learn to be white ladies. That truth hung between them, unspoken. Maddie had met some of the sisters, despite her own New York Episcopalian upbringing, and found them fair and kind, if strict. Their school was a good one, teaching math and science as well as literature, history, and ladylike things such as needlework and music. Pearl and Ruby would receive a fine education there. But how would they really fare? Would they feel as strange and awkward as Maddie herself always had as a girl at Miss Spence’s School for Young Ladies? Except in art class. She had never felt strange there.

  In art class, she could be entirely herself, could see people and nature and life in a way beyond the canvas. Maybe it would be the same for the twins.

  “I can help you with the girls, if that’s what you want, Juanita,” Maddie said. “But are you sending them to school to protect them from their father? The bruise on Eddie’s cheek . . .”

  “I’m sure that wasn’t from Tomas. I told you—Eddie has been running with the wrong friends,” Juanita snapped. She jumped up and stirred furiously at the stew. “Tomas just isn’t happy that Eddie’s been getting into trouble.”

  Maybe getting into trouble with the same sort of people Tomas himself met on San Francisco Street? Maddie remembered Oscar’s warnings on the train, that the bootleggers had been getting more out of control lately. “Could Eddie go to the boys’ school if the girls go to Loretto? He might be a bit older than the average student, but I’m sure he would catch up fast.”

  Juanita shook her head. “Tomas would never let that happen. He never cared so much about the girls, but his son . . .”

  “Eddie says he misses his relatives at the pueblo. Maybe if your brothers are still there, they could help too?”

  “No, no,” Juanita said vehemently. “That’s in the past. There’s nothing there for Eddie. Education, the church, the new ways—he has to find his way in this world.”

  Maddie felt the cold touch of sadness. They all had to find their way in a new, strange, often ugly world after the war, but Eddie and the girls seemed so young for such a burden. “If I can help . . .”

  Juanita’s expression softened, and she nodded. “You help plenty, Señora Maddie.”

  “You help me too. More than you can know.” Maddie remembered when she first arrived in Santa Fe, sunk in her grief, hoping a journey across the country would heal her. Juanita had helped her make this house a true home, been a friend to her when she most needed it. “You’re like my family, and if you have troubles . . .”

  Juanita smiled. “Our troubles always pass, one way or another. Eddie will settle down, and Tomas will—well, do as Tomas does. Men are just like that.”

  “Men are like that,” Maddie murmured. She thought of Pete, of his uncomplicated humor and easy presence. Somehow the memory of his smile changed into the doctor she had met on the train, the shadows in his beautiful blue eyes.

  The girls came running into the kitchen with Maddie’s trunk lugged between them, clamoring to open their presents, Buttercup barking at their heels. Maddie gave them the long white boxes, tied with elaborate pink bows, that she had carefully guarded on the journey. Pearl and Ruby squealed as they opened them to reveal two dolls, one with chestnut curls and one with blonde braids, each dressed in the height of New York fashion in drop-waisted, beaded silk gowns. A whole wardrobe came with them: fur-trimmed coats and feathered hats, chiffon tea frocks and satin ball gowns, velvet opera cloaks, with tiny shoes and parasols and handbags.

  The colorful array looked odd scattered on the old flagstone floor, but the girls shrieked with excitement. “We can put on plays!” Pearl cried.

  “Oh, Señora Maddie, this is too much,” Juanita protested.

  “I had a doll like this when I was their age, and I adored her. When I saw them in the toy store window, I couldn’t resist. They’re as much for me as for them, I promise,” Maddie said. She remembered her doll, Princess Clarissa, with so much fondness. She had been her only friend for a long time. “I got Eddie a new suit too, tailor-made on Madison Avenue, and ties and handkerchiefs.” And a new hat and fur-trimmed coat for Juanita, but that would have to be carefully finessed to get her to accept.

  She owed the Anayas more than she could repay.

  “I can also talk to Eddie, if you like,” she said. “Maybe an Eastern school would work, as a last resort?”

  Juanita wiped at her eyes. “I’ll think about it all. You won’t say anything about this to Tomas?”

  “Of course not.” Maddie popped another cookie into her mouth. “I think I’ll have a bath and change, then go out to the studio for a while.”

  Juanita nodded. “I expect you’ll be glad to get back to work.”

  “Indeed, I will.” Maddie had been itching to paint for days and days, images flooding her mind. There was only time for a few quick sketches in New York and for buying up art supplies to send back to Santa Fe. They were hard to come by in New Mexico.

  “Dinner will be ready when you’re done,” Juanita said briskly, trying to dry her eyes and get back to a normal day. Maddie had the feeling Juanita would much rather be alone for a while, so she made her way to her bedroom at the back of the house. It was a small space, but pretty, with an old Spanish bed hand-painted with roses and ribbons, crowned with a pink-and-white-striped canopy. The same silk draped the windows, blocking out the afternoon sun, and covered her dressing table.

  Behind that was a rare luxury on Canyon Road—a bathroom, with a real tub and water closet with hot and cold running water, laid with blue-and-white tile. Maddie had installed it when she moved in, attracting much curiosity among the locals.

  She turned on the taps and dropped in some lavender salts before she went back to the bedroom, taking off her jacket and silk blouse and unfastening her skirt. It felt so good to get out of the dusty travel suit. Still wearing the shocking satin bralette and tap panties she’d bought at Madame Fleurie’s (along with silk stockings and new satin nightgowns), she dug in her armoire for a plain cotton frock.

  As she laid it out on her bed, a glint of light drifted between the slats of the shutters and shimmered on her diamond wedding ring. She studied it as if she had never seen it before, thinking of the doctor on the train. She had quite forgotten what it was like to think a man was handsome. And to wonder if he thought she was attractive too.

  After Pete died, she had felt cast down into a deep, dark hole for so long. She had lain in bed, not dreaming, not thinking, just hurting. Until the healing light of
New Mexico, she had thought she would never feel a spark of hope again. But through work and friends, she was slowly, slowly climbing up out of that abyss, clutching at that light.

  In New York, the darkness had closed in on her again. But no more. Not now.

  Maddie turned to her dressing table. Her reflection, backed by the sun through the shutters, caught her attention. She usually just glanced in the mirror to be sure her hair was tidy or to slick on a bit of pink lipstick before going out. Now she pulled the pins from her dark, heavy hair and let it tumble down to her shoulders. She wondered if she should get one of those shingled bobs worn by so many of the chic ladies she had seen while having tea at the Plaza. Her mother would be so scandalized, just as she had been when Maddie cast aside her corset for the satin bra!

  The table was cluttered with perfume bottles and silver brushes, with lipsticks and ribbons. At its center was a silver-framed photo of Pete in his uniform, his blond hair shimmering, his funny, crooked smile fading as the photo grew older. How young he looked.

  She turned away from his smile, the smile that had always made her feel so warm and happy and safe. That safety was only an illusion in the end, and she ended up alone, cast out into the ice and snow without that smile. Art was all she could rely on. Art and herself. It had been a hard lesson, but a valuable one.

  Surely Juanita had learned that lesson too, that a woman could only rely on herself in the end.

  Maddie dropped her pearl earrings and turquoise bracelets into her jewelry box, but she kept on her ring. She couldn’t take it off, not quite yet. She shed her fancy new lingerie and went to slide deep into the warm bath, so deep her head went under and she floated.

  How strange the world was from under there, she thought. The hammered tin ceiling above the tub was distorted, stretched into strange creatures, the painted blue trim shifting color like the sea. Yet maybe it was the world above the waves that was really upside down and crazy.

  CHAPTER 3

  An hour later, freshly bathed and dressed in her simple cotton frock and a pair of old cowboy boots a man on the plaza had once given her, Maddie made her way across the garden to her studio. Like her bath, the garden was a haven of beauty, created of towering old horse chestnut trees and one ancient salt cedar and laid out with flower beds and winding paths. Soon, it would burst into color and scent with honeysuckle climbing the walls, along with white and yellow roses, white daisies, pink peonies as large as dinner plates, and bushes of fragrant lavender and rosemary.

  Tomas had helped her create it, working alongside her, digging into the dirt and sketching out pathways. She wondered what had happened to him now, where that man she knew then had gone.

  She slicked back the still-damp strands of her hair into her hairpins, determined to get that bob soon, and wrapped a silk scarf around her forehead. Just behind the house was the guesthouse where the Anayas lived. In the back corner of the garden was her studio, a small, separate adobe building with tall windows and skylights. She pulled open the creaking door and slipped inside.

  After the brilliance of the blue-and-gold afternoon light, the shuttered dimness of the studio blinded her. She blinked until finally she could see again, to find the one place she missed most of all when she was gone.

  It was a small space that had once been a toolshed, but she had enlarged it a bit, adding the skylight and more windows, shelves for supplies and a sliding cabinet to store finished canvases. Her easel sat at the far end, with a table for her palette and paint box, and a dais in front for models. Photos and postcards were tucked on corkboards for inspiration. The air was warm and dusty, heavy with the scents of oil paints and linseed.

  The most delicious perfume in the world.

  Maddie drew back all the window shutters, letting in a flood of light. This was the one place where Juanita never cleaned, so the shelves were dusty and the old blue rug on the floor needed a beating. A few half-finished paintings were propped along the walls, and sketchbooks were piled everywhere.

  She smiled and felt herself settling down once again. She took a deep breath and pulled away the cloth over the work in progress on her easel. After weeks away, she realized it was not half-bad. When she was in the middle of a painting, it always drove her mad, as if the scene was never going to come out right, never match the perfect vision in her head.

  It never did, of course. Nothing could. Paintings took on a life of their own, just like the breathing, living desert and mountains around her, and she had to flow with them. Sometimes, something even better than what she had imagined emerged. And sometimes they ended up on the bonfire.

  She didn’t think this one was fodder for the flames, though. It was a portrait of Pearl and Ruby, just begun before she left. They sat on the dais, dressed in their white frocks and pink hair ribbons like proper young ladies, their arms linked, but there was the glint of mischief in their eyes. There was the sense that they would leap up and run away at any moment. Behind them were banks of flowers, just barely sketched in. The brilliant colors would offset the white dresses and dark hair so wonderfully.

  She would have to get them to sit again soon, and that would be a challenge. Perhaps she should have held off on the dolls, she wondered, like a bribe? At least she could keep them in her studio and give Juanita a little rest.

  She flipped through a pile of sketchbooks and found the very first one she used in New Mexico. She hadn’t been meant to stop there at all. Gwendolen Astor, a cousin, had been going to visit friends in California and asked Maddie to join her on the journey. Everyone hoped it would help bring her out of her grief, and so it had, but not in the way they thought. When they arrived in Santa Fe, Gwen just hoped to see a few “real Indians” and buy some of their jewelry, but something in Maddie had stood up and paid attention again, after so long in that darkness. When Gwen left, Maddie stayed on. She stayed in the hotel at La Fonda while her new house was finished and then moved in.

  Thank the sky gods of Santa Fe for that two-day stop, she thought as she studied those first tentative sketches of mountains and the curves of adobe buildings. She found a scene she thought might be a good start for a new landscape, a small, old cottage set amid the willows near a river, backed by reddish-brown cliffs.

  She turned back to study the twins’ portrait, considering the colors she needed to find in the new supplies she had brought back. Some rose madder for their cheeks, certainly. A bit of blue to catch the highlights of their hair. Plenty of flake white for the dresses, and a hint of pale blue and pink.

  “Maddie! Yoo-hoo, my darling, are you in there? No use pretending you aren’t; I can see that awful schmatta you’re wearing. How many times have I told you to burn it? No more hiding your light under a bushel.”

  Maddie laughed and ran outside to find her neighbor and friend, Gunther Ryder, hanging over the picket fence that separated their property. He never hid his light under a bushel but was always immaculately dressed in stylish suits and brightly colored cravats, a straw hat on his curling red hair. But then he was a writer, not an artist, and the only mess he made was a bit of ink on his manicured fingers.

  “Gunther, how I’ve missed you!” she cried, dashing over to hug him.

  “Dearest, be careful or you’ll spill!” he said, holding up two cocktail glasses. He kissed her on her cheek, laughing, and left a trail of his lily-of-the-valley cologne behind. “I have missed you too. It’s much too quiet at this end of the road with you gone. You must never go away again.”

  “I think I can safely promise that.”

  “New York as ghastly as you feared?”

  “Worse! But I did get some new clothes, you will be happy to hear.”

  “Thank God, darling. I could never bear to go out with you in that old black gown again.”

  Maddie laughed and drew back to look at him better. He was not much older than her, but his green, catlike eyes always seemed full of a hidden sadness, a life she couldn’t imagine. He had traveled all over the world, especially to the Middle Eas
t, before settling in Santa Fe and always told wild, fascinating tales of his adventures. But Maddie was sure there was even more he did not tell. Maybe one day he would confide in her, but for the moment she was glad of his steady friendship and his amusing stories. Her mother would have hated the fact that he was her best friend now—Gunther (whose real name was Geoffrey) was a Jew and a man who liked other men. He was perfect in Maddie’s eyes.

  “Come, sit down, let me have that cocktail,” she said, opening the gate between their gardens. “I want to hear everything that’s been happening.”

  “Oh, my dearest, it would take all night to tell you. Here, let me add a bit more orange juice to that drink.”

  Maddie had already taken a sip, and she choked on the potent, searing liquid sliding down her throat. “Pojoaque Lightning?”

  “Only the best, darling. There’s a new man in town, you know, with a bar over on Palace Street. He brings it in for ten dollars a barrel, so no more driving out to Pojoaque. He’s quite fabulous.”

  “Hmm.” Maddie took a careful sip after he added more juice and found it palatable. It was doing its warming, delicious work, spreading to her fingers and toes like the sunshine. “What happened to Bertie?”

  Gunther sighed and took out his silver cigarette case. He lit up a Gauloise and exhaled a stream of silvery smoke into the air. “Oh, dearest, he left for California, as they always do. And I’m afraid the new gorgeous bootlegger likes the ladies too much. But never fear—my true love will come along.”

  Maddie laughed. “I hope so.” And maybe one for her too? That seemed like too much to hope for.

  He took another drag on his cigarette and gave her a narrow-eyed look. “How was New York really, darling?”

  “Oh, you know. The usual sort of stuff. Tea at the Plaza with Mother’s friends, a dance at the Ritz. I did see the funniest play, Madame Says Maybe. It just opened there from London. Mother thought it was horrid, so I loved it, of course. I met a gallery owner or two, and they liked my sketches, so it wasn’t all wasted time.”