Saige

by Jessie Haas

  When I got back outside, I saw that Luis had joined Gabi and Picasso in the corral. He helped us fasten the sketchpad to the fence. Then Gabi set up a card table in front of it and put out an old brush for painting window sashes.

  Picasso’s eyes brightened when he saw the setup. Some new game? he must have wondered. He pushed the brush around with his nose and then picked it up by the bristle end. It was sort of what we wanted, so Gabi clicked.

  Picasso did it again, and again. But he wouldn’t touch the brush handle—only the bristles.

  “Okay, I taught him the wrong thing,” Gabi said. “We have to stop clicking him for that, even though he’s trying.”

  That was difficult for all of us. Picasso bit the brush. He flapped it around by the bristles, harder and harder. “Should we stop?” I asked.

  “Wait,” said Gabi.

  That was Gabi’s solution to every training problem. It seemed easy for her, but Picasso and I were getting frustrated.

  Click!

  “What was that for?” I asked Gabi.

  “He touched the handle with his lip,” she said. “Watch him.”

  Picasso’s silver-white whiskers hovered near the bristle end of the brush. I saw his ears swivel. Then his mouth opened, and he very deliberately bit the handle.

  Click!

  “Yay, Picasso!” said Gabi, feeding him a huge handful of carrots. She put the brush back on the table, and Picasso seized it with his mouth.

  “Picasso, you’re a genius,” I said. “You too, Gabi. This is going to work!”

  Once Picasso would hold the brush, Gabi gave him the cue to nod. That swished the brush up and down the paper, which promptly wrinkled and tore.

  By now, Gabi and I were getting pretty good at problem solving. A clamp at the bottom of the sketchpad was the answer.

  Next, it was time for paint. I brought out the finger paints Mimi had gotten for me when I was little. They’re super-duper child-safe, made with vegetable dyes. We dipped the brush in the blue paint and laid it on the table.

  Picasso flared his nostrils and followed the paint smell to the bristle end of the brush, getting a huge blue smudge on his nose.

  We washed him off and had him practice grabbing the right end of the brush a few more times, loaded the brush with paint again, and waited.

  Confidently, Picasso seized the handle. He lifted the brush and swept it across the canvas, making a bold blue streak.

  Click! Gabi reached for the brush as Picasso dropped it, handed him a carrot, and dipped another brush—in yellow paint. This time Picasso made a wispy zigzag. I offered him an orange-loaded brush, and he painted with that as well.

  When I took the brush away, Picasso lifted his muzzle and sniffed his painting thoughtfully. He twitched his lip across the blue streak, making a smudge on it and giving himself a blue mustache again.

  Gabi collapsed, giggling. Picasso looked at us and lifted his blue lip in a laugh, which sent me into hysterics, too. When I could catch my breath, I washed off Picasso’s muzzle and then carefully tore his painting off the sketchpad.

  “How did he do?” asked Luis from beyond the fence.

  I showed him the painting. “It’s a Picasso original,” I said proudly. “A true masterpiece.”

  I didn’t plan to tell Mimi about Picasso’s painting just yet. I was hoping more than anything that she’d somehow be able to come to the fiesta, and I wanted to surprise her there with Picasso’s painting trick. But Mimi’s recovery seemed to be moving slowly. She had been quiet all week.

  “Just tired,” she said Sunday, when I asked how she felt. “It’s a lot of therapy.” The corners of her mouth curved down. She looked sad and lined, and she was losing her tan.

  “How’s therapy going?” I asked, and then, “Will you be able to make it to the fiesta?” I hoped that talking about the fiesta would perk her up.

  Mimi didn’t answer. I took that for a no, and my stomach sank. Gabi and I had worked so hard on the Professor Picasso Show, but it hardly seemed worth doing if Mimi couldn’t come.

  I wanted to plead with Mimi, Try! Try harder! But I could tell by her face that she didn’t want to talk, so we sat in silence. I wished Dad hadn’t left the room. He’d gone to straighten something out about Mimi’s insurance, and now the minutes passed like hours.

  I tried again. “Well, how do they say you’re doing?” I asked brightly.

  Mimi laughed, sounding a little bitter. “Oh, they say I’m a marvel!” she said. “For a woman my age. But maybe they’re just humoring me. I mean, I used to train horses. I ran a ranch. I painted professionally. What if these therapists are just hoping to help me drive a car again or go shopping?”

  Mimi’s dark mood scared me. What should I say? Why couldn’t Dad hurry back?

  But he wasn’t here. I was. So I took a deep breath and tried my best. “It isn’t up to them, Mimi. Right? It’s up to you,” I said, trying to sound more certain than I felt. “I mean, you could try drawing with your left hand. Think about those paralyzed people who paint holding the brush in their teeth or between their toes…”

  Mimi looked up at me with a sad smile. “Thank you, dear,” she said and patted my hand. I felt like I’d been dismissed, as if I were a small, well-meaning child who didn’t understand big, grown-up problems. But Mimi had never treated me that way, even when I was a small child. I felt suddenly as if we were very far apart.

  We fell into a painful silence again until Mimi asked, “How’s your painting coming?”

  My painting? Mimi meant the painting for the auction. “I…haven’t touched it,” I confessed. I just hadn’t felt like painting without Mimi there. And I had been pretty busy.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Mimi said. “Clearly I won’t be finishing anything for the sale, either, so I want you to go through the stack of canvases behind the big chest and pick out something small but nice. One of the saddle still lifes, maybe.”

  “Okay,” I answered, only half-listening. I knew Mimi wanted me to finish my own painting. But how could I? How could I get excited about painting when Mimi wouldn’t be holding a paintbrush beside me?

  Luckily Dad came back just then. He chatted with Mimi for a few minutes, but she hardly answered. Finally Dad looked at his watch. “Sorry, Ma,” he said, “but Saige and I have a lot to do this weekend to prep for the fiesta. We’ll have to cut it short today.”

  I bent to give Mimi a kiss. As I straightened back up, I noticed the brush-pen and pad of paper on Mimi’s bedside table, poking out from under a book and Mimi’s mail. I neatened things up on the table, making sure the pen and pad were on top.

  As Dad and I drove home, I replayed my conversation with Mimi in my mind. I winced, remembering the disappointment I’d heard in her voice when she’d asked about my painting. She was right. I had to finish it for the auction.

  I asked Dad to drop me off at the ranchita on the way home. I checked in with Luis and Carmen, to let them know I was there, and then I fed the chickens, collected eggs, and filled the horses’ water tub. Finally, I walked into the studio, feeling nervous but determined.

  Everything was just as we’d left it, of course: the pink horses on Mimi’s easel and the portrait of Picasso on mine. The paint on my palette had dried. I peeled back the surface, and there was nice, squishy paint underneath. I picked up a brush.

  To do what? I saw what the painting needed, but I didn’t want to touch it. I felt flat inside. There’s a space I go to when I’m painting, a timeless zone. I couldn’t find it now. It wasn’t like the door to that space was locked—it was like there was no door at all.

  I looked over at Mimi’s empty stool. We both get more done when we have company, she had said. She was right.

  After ten discouraging minutes, I carefully cleaned my paintbrush and put it away. A big ball of sadness and anxiety was spinning in my stomach. The fiesta was less than a week away. I had to finish my painting in the next couple of days so that the paint would have time to dry. But I was afraid t
hat if I painted when I was feeling this way, I’d only spoil something I’d put a lot of work into. Maybe I could try again tomorrow.

  I went out to see Picasso. I desperately needed to ride him—to practice the parade gait. What if he wouldn’t do it for me on parade day? But I knew I shouldn’t get on a horse, even Picasso, feeling this way. A rider needs to be calm and thoughtful, and that was so not me right now. I stood there looking at him and biting my nails, which I hadn’t done since the beginning of third grade.

  Monday morning Tessa noticed my ragged nails. Even though we aren’t as close as we used to be, nobody knows me better than Tessa. She sat down beside me at lunch.

  “How’s Mimi?” she asked, looking at my fingernails.

  I hid them in my palms. “Better,” I said, not wanting to tell Tessa the truth about Mimi’s mood. “But I just can’t make myself finish my painting. I promised Mimi I’d have something to put in the silent auction, but I can’t!”

  “Why not?” Tessa asked. Her voice was so sympathetic, I found myself telling her everything.

  “I miss Mimi so much,” I said. “We’ve always painted together. My painting brain just won’t turn on when I’m in her studio alone.”

  “So, bring the painting home,” Tessa suggested.

  I mulled that over for a moment. I would rather work in Mimi’s studio, but if I worked on the painting at home, at least I wouldn’t be alone.

  Then another idea occurred to me. “Would you…come out and paint with me tomorrow afternoon?” I asked Tessa hesitantly. “The way you used to?” Gabi couldn’t come to the ranch tomorrow because she had to babysit, and I knew Tessa was free—she didn’t have music lessons on Tuesday. It was the only day that might work.

  For a moment Tessa looked past me, mulling it over. I waited through the silence for her response. I guess Gabi had taught me a thing or two about patience.

  Tessa finally sighed and smiled. “Okay,” she said. “I should be practicing, but I know this is important to you.”

  I almost couldn’t believe it. Tessa had been so fierce about protecting her practice time for the last month, it had started to seem like it was sacred. If Tessa would do this for me, then we were still friends. Good friends—no matter what.

  Slowly, a little shyly, I squinched my face into a cat smile. Tessa cat-smiled back, and I felt better than I had in days.

  The next afternoon, Tessa and I rode the bus to Mimi’s house. I still wasn’t sure this would work. Things with Tessa hadn’t been easy lately. But having her in the studio seemed to loosen me up.

  Tessa sat at the drawing table, doodling, while I peeled the skin off my dried-up oils and stared at my painting. Deepen the background now, those shadows were telling me. Add some purple. And possibly some blue in the top corner?

  I started to paint, listening to the artist’s voice in my head. Dimly, as if far away, I heard gentle notes from Mimi’s guitar. For a moment, I thought Mimi was in the studio beside me. I whirled around to find Tessa sitting on the studio couch, picking out a slow tune on Mimi’s guitar.

  Tessa sang softly while she played—a beautiful, soothing song—and as I listened, my paintbrush moved more easily, too. Art and music hand in hand. Somebody should write a song about that.

  Tessa’s tune changed, and changed again. Eventually I realized that an hour or more had passed. I stepped back and looked at my painting.

  Don’t overwork it, I could imagine Mimi saying. Stop before you think you’re done.

  I put down my brush and took off my smock.

  “Hurray!” Tessa said, strumming a quick fanfare on the guitar. “You did it!”

  “Do you like it?” I asked.

  Tessa came and looked. I waited, feeling my heart patter a little.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said finally. “It doesn’t look like a kid’s picture. You know? It’s…a real painting. Anybody would be glad to have it, not just somebody who loves you.”

  I understood what she meant. When we were little, our moms had put our art on the refrigerator just because it was ours. Now, with this painting, I had moved past that.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Your songs were beautiful, too, Tessa.”

  A car pulled into the driveway, and Tessa looked out the window. “That’s my mom,” she said. “I’ve got to go now.”

  As I watched Tessa leave, I felt a pang of sadness, wondering when we’d hang out together again. Having her at the ranch had felt almost like the old days, but different. She hadn’t painted with me, like she used to, but she’d brought her music into the studio, and that was nice, too. That gave me hope that maybe we could still find ways to do the things we loved—together.

  On Wednesday, Gabi and I rehearsed the Professor Picasso Show—in the rain. Thursday was wet and dreary, too. People think we never have to worry about the weather in Albuquerque, but it does rain. Farmers were happy, but everybody planning the fiesta—including me—was freaking out.

  I was also freaking out about leading the parade on Picasso. After school on Thursday, Luis and I tried to practice the parade gait with Picasso. He would take a few high steps for me, but then he’d fall back into his regular jog. He seemed sluggish and depressed, and by the end of the hour, so was I.

  “Don’t give up on him,” said Luis as we walked Picasso back toward the shed. “He’s a parade horse. When he’s in front of the crowd, he’ll perform—you wait and see.”

  I hoped more than anything that Luis was right.

  That night after dinner, Gabi and Carmen came over to help Mom and me bake some biscochitos for the bake sale. While we rolled out dough and cut out circle shapes, Mom placed the cookies on baking sheets and dusted them with sugar and cinnamon.

  “You know,” Gabi said thoughtfully, “when we had a bake sale for the animal shelter, we got more money if we said the food was ‘free with a donation.’”

  “Really?” Carmen asked.

  “Sure,” Gabi said. “If you say a cookie is fifty cents, that’s what people give you. If you ask for a donation, lots of times they give more.”

  I turned to Mom. “Should we try that?” I asked.

  “I’ll see what the other PTA members think,” Mom said, “but it sounds like a very smart idea.”

  While the cookies baked in the oven, we helped Dad with the balloon-ticket booth. It took lots of hands to stretch the bright, colorful silk over the wires. It looked great when it was done, like a miniature hot-air balloon.

  Staring at that beautiful balloon, I felt my hopes for the fiesta lift off the ground. We had worked so hard. The fiesta was going to be a success—it had to be!

  But that night, I lay awake listening to the wind in the cottonwoods outside my window. It still sounded like rain. With each passing moment, another “What if?” crossed my mind. What if it rains on Saturday? What if no one comes out for the fiesta? What if everyone comes out, but I can’t get Picasso to do the parade gait? What if I embarrass myself in front of everybody? And worse yet, What if I let Mimi down?

  It didn’t rain on Saturday. After a restless sleep, I woke to pale dawn light at my window. I leaped out of bed and ran to look out. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Hurrah!

  Mom made me eat breakfast, even though I wasn’t hungry. Then we packed up the truck and set off toward the park, where Luis and Picasso were already waiting. Picasso was eating hay from a net hung on the outside of the horse trailer.

  As soon as I saw Picasso, I felt a swell of panic. The parade was just minutes away, and I would be leading it—on a horse who didn’t want to do his parade gait for me. I suddenly felt sick.

  Luckily, there was a lot going on to distract me. We were surrounded by other horses, mules, burros, and an enormous team of oxen pulling a huge carreta, or cart with wooden wheels. I could hear a band practicing, and I caught sight of Tessa and her music friends unrolling a banner that read Music Rocks! Mimi’s friend Celeste, who was in charge of the fiesta, bustled around telling everyone what to do.

&nb
sp; As I brushed Picasso’s long silver forelock, my nerves spiraled out of control again. “Are you going to help me make Mimi proud today?” I asked him. “Please?”

  Picasso just looked back at me, his eyes perfectly calm. Was he too calm?

  I decided to warm him up a little. I saddled, bridled, and mounted him and then rode around the parking lot near where Luis was working. Picasso’s strides were long and smooth—lovely to ride, but nothing like his parade gait. Before I could practice that, I heard Celeste call everyone to attention.

  “Line up,” she bellowed. “Line up!”

  As Picasso and I rode to the head of the parade line, butterflies took flight in my stomach. I glanced toward Luis, who gave me a nod and an encouraging smile. Slowly the other horses and riders, oxen, and marchers lined up behind us. Finally, Celeste waved me forward.

  Okay, how do I do this again? an anxious little voice asked in my head. I made myself tall, sat deep in the saddle, and gave Tessa’s earrings a tiny shake to make them jingle. But Picasso simply jogged.

  Please, Picasso, I begged him silently. Please do it for Mimi.

  Nothing happened. For a moment, time stood still, and all I could see was Mimi’s face—tan and vibrant, the way she’d looked in the ring the day she taught me how to parade ride.

  Lift the reins, I could almost hear Mimi saying.

  I brought the reins up to mid-chest level, letting my free hand hang at my side. That brought my body into that magical alignment, and I felt Picasso change beneath me. A gasp came from someone in the crowd as Picasso arched his neck and began prancing. He was doing it!

  We led the parade out of the parking lot and down the blocked-off street. People lined the sidewalks, cheering when we came into sight. That made Picasso prance even more.

  Fire and feather.

  I could tell how impressive Picasso was. He seemed so powerful and high-spirited, some people edged back as we passed. Only I could tell how calm he was underneath it all. He was loving this! And I was, too.

  Ahead of us the bright sun gleamed off the chrome of a wheelchair. Wait, it couldn’t be…