Finding Casey: A Novel

by Jo-Ann Mapson

  She straightened her pages and listened as he told Betsy and Eduardo they needed to go back to the library and get more background before they headed out. He fawned all over Hugo and Ricardo about how they had done such a spectacular job, and Juniper thought, Duh, they got San Ildefonso—of course, it’s freaking amazing pottery. It wasn’t her fault the Ohkay Owingeh favored simpler designs. At least they used micaceous clay. It photographed like it was filled with ground-up stars, and she had taken total advantage of that, using her 35mm camera to take the pictures. Digital was great, but the camera she wanted was out of her reach, financially. Daddy Joe had helped her with the f-stops and had even come all the way down to Albuquerque to introduce her to the curator at the museum, another relative on his banyan of a family tree. She’d put her photos and scans up against Hugo and Ricardo’s any day of the week. Her mom had proofread the essay for her, and not one comma was out of place. It was a slam dunk, except for Anna being absent.

  When Chico arrived at her table, he sat down in Anna’s chair and clicked his ballpoint pen so he could jot notes on his grade book or whatever. Why he didn’t just use a laptop, standard use for TAs as well as profs, she couldn’t imagine. A lock of greasy black hair fell over his eyebrow and the sides were shaggy, covering the tops of his ears. Juniper wanted to tell him to get a decent haircut, for crying out loud; they were only thirteen dollars at Supercuts. Or grow it out. The in-between thing made him look like a vagrant. From time to time, she imagined him with a long black braid. That would work, so long as he ditched the tweed jacket. Skinny guys like him should wear long-sleeved T-shirts, earth tones, and a beaded belt. If he gained forty pounds, he could pass for Benicio del Toro, because he had the forehead-wrinkling frown down pat. His eyebrows were bushy, his eyes black and piercing.

  Chico cleared his throat and said, “I suppose you’re stuck with me as your partner today. Bring me up to date on your project.”

  Juniper separated the parts of the report, laying them out in stacks. “This is our factual background and research. These are the interview questions. And these are the photos.”

  “Nice pictures,” Chico said, flipping pages of her report until he came to her bibliography. “But come on, Juniper? Failure to cite your sources is an automatic fail. That’s something every lower-division college student is expected to know.”

  She was not a lower-division student; she was a year from graduating with her B.S., but she let him finish, ignoring the ire that rose inside her chest and made her whole body heat up. She planned out everything she was going to say. Daddy Joe had taught her that speaking respectfully and calmly went a long way in cases like this. When Chico was all done trashing her bib, she took a breath and then began. “Thank you for reminding me about that essential information, Chico. You’re absolutely right. Ordinarily, no one without a bachelor’s degree should be sitting in a 600-level class, but then again, I’m not your ordinary student. I’m here by Dr. Carey’s invitation, and I think we both agree he’s brilliant and hasn’t made any mistakes to make us think otherwise. Nevertheless, a mistake like not citing sources does deserve to fail. It’s vital to get the details right. I actually learned that before I even went to college, and what a valuable lesson it was. The reason I didn’t cite the photographic images or attain permission to use them is because it just so happens that the photos are mine. I took them. I thought I’d wait and ask you how to properly cite them so that I didn’t make a mistake before I turned the project in to be graded.”

  He was Spanish, dark-skinned like Daddy Joe, but she could see a definite color change in his face as he realized he was the one who had stepped in the pile of manure, not her. Then he said, “Really,” as if he could not believe she knew how to use a camera. Had he forgotten the sherds? He looked through the photos and back up at her. “Some of these older pots look like museum pieces.”

  “That’s because they are.”

  “I hope you didn’t use a flash.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “So how did you get them? Take them when the guard was out of the room?”

  Oh, wait for it, she thought. “Actually, I asked the curator’s permission.”

  He had absolutely no reaction to that comment. He flipped through each photo, matching the text in the report to the pot as if he were looking for mistakes now. “They’re quality,” he said, as if it were C work.

  When he set down the photos she picked up one he’d missed. “This pot happens to belong to my parents. It won a blue ribbon at the Taos County Fair. I bought it at Indian Market and the potter is Louella Cata, one of the best in the Ohkay Owingeh nation. I made an appointment to talk to her at her studio. If it’s all right with her, I thought I’d make a podcast of our interview. Post it on the school’s website. And I plan to seek print publication of my interview, with the potter’s permission, of course.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while. He frowned that frown he was so good at. So close to Benicio and yet so far, she thought. “I see what you’re saying,” he said, “and I applaud the idea, but not if it’s at the expense of your project. You don’t think a commercial market might edit your work into blandness?”

  “What if it does? The podcast reflects well on the department; even an edited print publication benefits the potter and delivers information in a way more general readers will be exposed to.”

  Was he deliberately trying to make her nervous?

  “Here’s my concern,” he said, putting down his pen and grade book. “This assignment was a collaboration. Without Anna’s input, this could turn into your project. Is it fair to have such commercial goals for something you did together?”

  Juniper was going to kill Anna for bailing out at the eleventh hour. She took a breath. “You’re familiar with J. J. Brody’s seminal essay, right? Anna began with that text’s approach as our structural blueprint. My contribution was analysis of Stephen Trimble’s photos in Talking with the Clay. Half the articles we studied were all about the ‘respect of tradition, the joy of innovation’—not my words, I’m paraphrasing an article from the New York Times—but that’s ignoring the story behind each potter’s life. In the end it comes down to a human story, Louella Cata’s story. I’m taping everything today, so Anna can look at it and we’ll finalize the project together.”

  Oh, for crying out loud, why wasn’t Dr. Carey here today? She was reciting a bunch of stupid tangents, not how it all came together. She cleared her throat. “Ohkay Owingeh pottery is more about function, day-to-day use, and utility than it is art. Theories can overlap, right? When they become polythetic instead of deconstructed, there’s like this whole other realm to examine. So the interview is actually the most important part of the project. Yes, it’s more work for me because Anna isn’t here today, but since the interview will shift everything, it doesn’t really doom the project if I do this part by myself since Anna and I will finalize it together.”

  Chico frowned again.

  He was probably jealous that Juniper thought of publishing it before he did, because this interview was going to be totally publishable. She was planning on sending it to Wolf Schneider, who was editing next summer’s two-hundred-page Indian Market magazine. When she graduated she planned to wear so much academic bling around her neck that she’d need a chiropractor.

  He took his time reading over the interview questions she and Anna had created. He hadn’t taken that much time with anyone else’s. “I still see a problem when I’m supposed to grade your joint efforts.”

  “Maybe,” Juniper said, “you could look at it this way. If Anna were here, and we went to do the interview and then suddenly she was called away because of an emergency, I’d finish by myself. I’m sure if Anna had to miss this trip it was due to something serious. She did half the background report and she edited my photos. We wrote the questions together, so it hardly matters who asks them so long as we both do equal work on the rewrite of the paper. In the end it will demonstrate totally equal effort and therefore be
easy to grade.”

  Chico looked at her without saying anything for so long it was starting to freak her out. Finally, she said, “What is so fascinating about my face? Do I have egg on it or what?” Then it hit her, he was staring at her tattoo. “You know, Mr. Villarreal, lots of people have tattoos and not all of them are bikers and criminals. It’s practically the same thing as wearing a necklace.”

  “Sorry,” he said, looking away. “I didn’t mean to stare. Sometimes when I have a problem to work out I stare into the middle distance. Actually, I was just thinking about the breadth of your effort. I have no problem with that. The problem with you going alone is that you’re not going to have an observer, just an interviewer. Observation is nearly as important. And you’re young, and I don’t think it’s wise to send you off alone. I’ll accompany you today. That means I’ll need to rearrange a few things. So excuse me, please. Where’s your car?”

  Seriously? She was going to have to spend three days with Chico? “My car’s in the parking lot.” Duh, she wanted to say, but refrained.

  “Color?”

  “Primer-gray-and-silver Subaru Outback. There’s an Obama sticker on the bumper.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. Don’t leave without me.” He got up and walked away.

  Great, Juniper thought. Just great. She picked up her phone and sent Anna a text. OMG, where R U? I’m dying here.

  The morning after her emergency-room visit, Dr. Montano released Glory with orders that she stay in bed. After a week of total bed rest, she’d see her in the office and they’d reevaluate, but chances were she’d be on her left side until she delivered. Joseph could tell it was quite a blow to her, what with Halle arriving any day now and all the work in the nursery to be done. The contractions had stopped once she was hydrated, and her headache was gone, but Dr. Montano stressed that Glory needed to take and record her blood pressure throughout the day, push fluids, eat more protein, and work on having no tension or stress whatsoever.

  “Try telling that to the dogs,” Glory had said, and Joseph knew she was right.

  “Hire a dog walker or send them to dog day care,” the doctor said.

  “Caddy and Dodge might go for that, but not Eddie,” she said. “He looks too much like a dog toy to handle other dogs. He’d spend the day running and hiding, and probably have a seizure from the stress.”

  “I bet our neighbor Mrs. Yearwood would be happy to dogsit,” Joseph assured the doctor.

  Glory had slept, but Joseph was wiped out, unable to rest due to the hospital noise and lights and, though he’d never let on, fear that the baby would come early. When they got home, he put some eggs on to hard-boil and plotted out high-protein snacks to purchase at the market. Then he made a phone call to Elena Gonzales. She’d set up a meeting with Ardith Clemmons, a psychologist on staff at Española’s Presbyterian hospital, who was interested in doing some pro bono work for Candela. He hated to have to reschedule, but there was no way he was rested enough to drive to Española.

  “Elena,” he said when she answered her phone. “I’m afraid I can’t leave my wife alone just now,” and he explained Glory’s situation. “Any chance you can meet with Mrs. Clemmons alone, or can we postpone the meeting until next week?”

  The moment he said the words, it occurred to him that in two and a half weeks, it was going to be Christmas, and he hadn’t even put in his order for a fresh turkey.

  “I’ll get in touch with her and call you back,” Elena said. “Shall I call you at Candela or at home?”

  He gave her his cell-phone number. “Probably best to call me here. I don’t want Glory disturbed by the phone.”

  “Give her my best,” Elena said. “I’m sure everything will turn out all right, but I’ll add her name to my prayers.”

  “Always appreciated. Thanks, Elena.”

  He opened cans, and the dogs, having missed dinner last night, went nuts, nails scrabbling against the floor as he measured out dry food and remembered to add Eddie’s phenobarbital. Once the bowls were distributed and everyone was eating, he listened to the messages on their answering machine, and it seemed as if everyone they knew had decided to call last night. Ave, who wanted to complain about Halle. Halle, who wanted to let them know Las Vegas was her new favorite city. The cable TV people wanted to make sure the upgrade package served all his needs, because for forty-nine dollars a month more … He deleted that message before it played out and wasted any more of his time. Credit-card companies were deeply concerned that he hadn’t applied for all manner of new available interest rates. So much for donotcall.gov, he thought. The only person they hadn’t heard from was Juniper, and since Thanksgiving he’d been worried about her and the trip to the Pueblo, if she’d be safe throwing her sleeping bag down on a total stranger’s floor for three days. When he confided this to Glory, she asked him, “If you’re that freaked out about a nearly nineteen-year-old, what is a baby girl going to do to you?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. And the truth was, he didn’t like to think about how overprotective a father he was going to be. He’d become an uncle to Rico’s boys, but they were practically as tall as he was, and besides, boys were different, tougher, and they could not get pregnant. What Glory did not know (and if he had his way, would never find out) was that when he’d taken the trash out to the curb the week after Thanksgiving, he’d found two troubling items: an empty package of Zig-Zag wrapping papers and a torn condom wrapper.

  He’d tried not thinking about it, but sitting in the ER all night with Glory, it was either that or her toxemia and pre-eclampsia, and whether she would carry the baby to term or end up in the PICU with tough decisions facing both of them. He tidied up the kitchen, washed the dog’s bowls with scalding-hot water and soap, set the eggs to cool, and went outside to feed the hens, all the while wishing he could have gone to the meeting in Española. Maybe he should take the job at Candela—it was close to home, and work kept a person occupied. He’d call Juniper later, see how things were going at the Pueblo. Though he wanted to fall into bed and sleep for twelve hours, he decided to walk the dogs first. They needed to burn energy and Glory needed the quiet. Already he could tell it was killing her to be idle. He went to the bookshelves and chose some novels for her to read.

  Glory looked up as he piled the books next to the bed. She’d changed into clean sweats and fuzzy socks, and her hair was damp from the shower, which meant she’d gone ahead and taken one when the doctor had said full bed rest immediately. “I can’t help but think of all the things I could be doing,” she said.

  He unplugged the laptop computer from the dresser and put it next to her on the bed. “You’re from California, go surfing. Promise me you won’t get up the second I leave the house.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “I may give birth to a daughter who’s got a flat head on one side, but I will stay in bed, if you promise to take a nap.”

  “After I walk los perros. Look at them; they’re bouncing off the walls. I’ll find someone to help with them, too.”

  They were racing in and out of the bedroom, doing laps, or as Juniper called it, “the zoomies.”

  Glory agreed. “Tomorrow will you go to the library and get me some movies?”

  “No need. I upgraded our cable so you can watch movies all day long. New releases like Hellboy and what was the other one, Girls in Pants Who Travel?” He waited for her to laugh and wasn’t disappointed.

  “I love you, Joseph.”

  “I love you, too. But I bet you secretly wish my name was Gopher.”

  “Actually, I think ‘Ferret’ suits you better.”

  “You’re a cold woman, Mrs. Vigil.”

  She laughed. “Sorry. Gotta call them like I see them.”

  The dogs looked up expectantly, because if something was funny, they wanted in on it. There were a thousand words for “walk,” and all of them started with happy voices.

  Joseph changed into boots while the dogs paced back and forth. Eddie used the in
terval to gather his favorite toys; the stuffed rabbit that looked alarmingly real, the canvas veterinarian that no longer had a head, and various wounded stuffed toys leaking filling. One by one, he brought them to Glory and wagged his tail before setting them down on her pillow.

  “Thank you so much!” Glory said enthusiastically each time he placed one on her pillow.

  “Why are you saying thank you to an animal that doesn’t speak English?”

  She looked up at Joe. “This is a huge honor in the dog world,” she said. “He’s bringing prey to me for the kill.”

  Joseph smiled and fell in love with her all over again. “Of course he is. Without you, a stuffed rabbit means nada.”

  Glory scratched Eddie’s head. “I love this dog. Do I smell coffee brewing?”

  “Decaf. I’ll bring you a cup. I thought I’d take the dogs before it starts snowing again.”

  “Be careful, it’s icy out there. I thought I heard a message from Halle on the phone.”

  “You did.” Joseph went to the kitchen and filled a cup with crema and a little sugar. He poured the coffee in and stirred, then brought it to Glory. “She said she was in love with Sin City.”

  “Las Vegas?”

  “That’s right. She said she’d be here in a day or two, depending on her luck.”

  “And my mom?”