The Tooth of Time

by Sue Henry

  FIVE

  I DROVE AND PAT DIRECTED US TO LUNCH AT THE APPLE Tree, a charming historic restaurant in a Victorian house on Bent Street, near downtown. I carefully chose a parking space under a huge tree so Stretch could be left in the car with a window cracked and his water bowl handy. I doubted he would be welcome in the restaurant, but he’d be fine, for it was cool there in the shade.

  “I think you’ll like this place,” Pat told me as we walked down the street. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  Halfway to the restaurant, the street made a dogleg to the right.

  “Is the crook in it the reason it’s called Bent Street?” I asked Pat.

  She laughed and shook her head.

  “I guess it might as well be,” she said. “But I’m sure it’s really named after the first governor of New Mexico, Charles Bent, who lived on it—and died on it during a Hispanic and Indian uprising in the mid-eighteen hundreds. That’s his house over there.” She pointed to an adobe across the street. “It’s a museum and gallery now.”

  Almost in the dogleg, the Apple Tree occupied a two-story building with boxes full of flowers under the first-floor windows. A second-story balcony shaded the front door and was painted a white that almost gleamed against the tan adobe color of the exterior.

  We were greeted warmly—Pat was obviously a regular—and were escorted through to a table in one corner of a shady outdoor patio, which pleased me. One of the things I like best is being out of doors, especially when the weather is agreeable, as it was that day. Nestled as it is against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the north and west, Taos is cooler than communities in flatter country, southern Texas or Arizona for instance. Except for the dryness of desert country, I found its temperatures very similar to those in Homer, Alaska, where I have lived all my life. If the previous evening had been an indication, though, it would be cool enough after the sun set to make me grateful to toss a sweater around my shoulders.

  Even in our Alaskan winters I take Stretch out for an everyday walk or two unless the temperature drops to an extreme or there’s a blizzard howling, which happens seldom along the southwestern coast. The exercise is good for us both, and it is simply a matter of dressing for the weather. He has his own red plaid coat, and in icy weather I have been known to put booties on his feet like those worn by sled dogs.

  The Apple Tree was clearly popular, for most tables on the patio were occupied. Appealing food scents and sounds filtered out of the kitchen, and the waitresses and waiters who bustled back and forth efficiently were friendly and helpful. When we had ordered lunch and been served glasses of a pleasant house wine, Pat settled back with a sigh and visibly relaxed a bit.

  “I’m sorry you were subjected to Connie’s tirade,” she apologized. Pausing, she shrugged, then gave me a resigned half-smile. “It wasn’t a very pleasant welcome to either Weaving Southwest or Taos. But I bet you know people like her, who thrive on gossip and don’t know, or care, about the trouble they cause.”

  “I do, but it’s not something I encourage. Why did Connie come to you? Is Shirley a particular friend of yours?”

  “Not really. She showed up in March from somewhere in California. Not long after that she came in and said she wanted to learn to weave, so we started a class for her. We teach individuals as well as group classes—whichever is appropriate. I know she stayed in a hotel for almost a month before she found that duplex she rented, and it didn’t come cheap, so I think she has money.”

  I really didn’t want to be involved in something that wasn’t my business, concerning someone I hadn’t even met. But Pat seemed to want to talk about it, so I did what a friend does in that kind of situation—asked enough questions to let her know it was okay to continue.

  “What do you know about her? Did she seem to have personal problems—the kind that might lead to suicide? What’s she like?”

  Pat considered the questions for a minute, staring thoughtfully into her wineglass before she shook her head, sighed again, and gave me an answer.

  “I’ve been asking myself that. I wouldn’t have thought so. But how do you tell? She didn’t share much about herself. She did tell me that she lost her husband over a year ago. When she got here she seemed fragile about it, sort of lost without a man in her life, you know, the kind who needs one to take care of—or, more likely, one to take care of her. She seemed unused to making her own decisions sometimes. But lately, from the way she’s been acting, I think maybe she’s met someone—a guy I saw her with a couple of times.”

  The part about losing a husband caught my attention. Having lost two of my own, I remembered the shock of being suddenly alone very well and with sympathy.

  When my Joe’s boat sank and he drowned I was forty-four, with two young, confused, and heartbroken children who needed both parents. We had been married for just over ten years, and it had never occurred to me that we might not grow old together. He had cheerfully anticipated the two of us in rocking chairs on the porch when it came near time for our sunset. The abruptness of his absence was devastating to me, and I went into a state of denial so deep that it took my mother to shake and scold me out of it—to make me realize that I had a life to paste back together for all three of us. But it took a long time before I really accepted it.

  Our lunch arrived and I enjoyed a terrific mango-chicken enchilada dish with green chiles while Pat had soup and half a Caesar salad. It was several minutes before I returned to the subject at hand with a question.

  “When you said Shirley lost her husband, did you mean that he died?”

  Pat shook her head. “No, and it might have been better for her if he had. Evidently, from the little she said, he left her for a younger woman. I hate that kind of thing,” she said, scowling angrily. “He was some kind of executive for an investment company and pretty well off. I suspect he just wanted some young bimbo on his arm and decided Shirley was disposable. She said he married again almost immediately and the new wife was half his age.”

  “How old is Shirley?”

  “In her fifties, I’d guess. But it’s hard to tell. She bleaches her hair and tries to look younger than she is. I think she’s had a face-lift—maybe more.”

  I thought about that, remembering when I first noticed that my laugh lines were becoming definite wrinkles and circles made their appearance under my eyes. Smoothing them out by stretching the skin with my fingers, I had stared resentfully into the mirror and contemplated the possibility of having something done surgically, as I think most women do. But it didn’t take long for me to decide against it, though for some it may be a welcome, albeit temporary, solution—an escape from that tooth of time.

  To me there is a certain dignity in accepting what you are, and are becoming, however age sculpts you. I can understand the impulse to look as young as possible for as long as possible, especially if your appearance is important to how you make your living, like those in the movie industry, for instance, or to the kind of entertaining required of someone like Shirley in support of her husband’s professional socializing. Maybe I’m just too casual about my appearance, or too stubbornly set in my ways, but to me the value of anyone is more in the kind of person he or she is than in looks.

  I looked up to see Pat regarding me with a reflective smile of understanding. “You’ve thought of it too, haven’t you?”

  “Sure,” I told her, remembering that confrontation with the mirror. “Don’t we all at one time or another? I decided against it for my own reasons. Then an acquaintance of mine had something go wrong with a lift that left her with an irreparable droop to one eyelid. She was devastated and it was enough to add a fear factor to the decision I had already made. I think that major efforts to defeat time are not that simple or, sometimes, wise.”

  “Or that inexpensive,” Pat suggested with a grin and raised her wineglass. “Here’s to leaving plastic surgery to the Barbie wannabes of the world and growing old the way we are—comfortable, if a bit wrinkled and fluffy.”

  “
Agreed.”

  We clinked glasses and laughed together as we toasted that mutual resolution.

  “Something to celebrate?” a male voice questioned from behind me.

  “Hey, Ford. I expected you at the shop this morning.”

  Pat looked up and gave a welcoming smile to a friendly-looking man of about fifty, wearing jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and desert boots, who stepped around to the end of the table and included me with a cordial nod.

  “I got a late start,” he told her. “Sorry.”

  “Did you bring in your rug? I saved you a good space on the north wall.”

  “It’s in the van. I just stopped in here to pick up a sandwich before heading on over to hang it.”

  So Ford was another weaver, I gathered.

  “Join us, eat here, and I’ll catch a ride back with you,” Pat invited, motioning him to a seat at the table, which he took.

  “Why not?” he said, turning to me and reaching across to shake my hand politely over my now cooling enchiladas. “Hi. I’m Ford Whitaker.”

  “Sorry.” Pat apologized for her lack of manners. “This is Maxie McNabb from Alaska. Ford has a piece in the new show.”

  “Alaska!” he said, leaning forward with interest. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”

  You and half the world, I thought.

  Everyone always wants to know about my home state and means to visit sometime—or already has. We talked about it for a minute or two, with me answering questions and thinking to myself that he was a charmingly natural sort with real, not polite or casual, interest. He had almost colorless gray eyes under heavy brows, thick hair as dark as my own and similarly streaked with silver, especially at the temples. It was receding into a high forehead that gave him a clean and open look. But his most attractive features to me were the creases around his mouth and eyes that affirmed a usually pleasant expression. No plastic surgery for this guy.

  Interesting, isn’t it, how as we grow older our faces give us away by exhibiting our most habitual attitudes for all who care to look? It made me wonder just what Shirley’s face would show the world, even after the face-lift she had probably had done.

  Almost immediately, as if I had offered the question aloud, her name came up as Ford turned to Pat.

  “I’ve got some bad news about Shirley Morgan,” he said seriously.

  “We already know,” she told him. “Typically, Connie showed up at the shop an hour ago to give us what she considers—with great glee, I might add—the latest scandal.”

  He shrugged as if ridding himself of a bothersome insect crawling on his skin, frowned in distaste, and asked, “How the hell does she find out anything and everything in town that’s negative or sensational? The woman’s a walking National Enquirer, but she never gets all her facts right—just passes on the bad parts. So you know Shirley’s in the hospital?”

  Pat nodded.

  “Did you know she’s asked to see you?”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Well, she doesn’t have any family here. We have an exercise class together three times a week, but she’s been skipping it lately and I’ve wondered why. A nurse called this morning to say Shirley was asking if I could visit, so I went over. My name and yours were the only two on her list and she wanted me to let you know she’d like to see you too.”

  “How long will she be there?”

  “She said they’d probably let her go home tomorrow morning. I offered to pick her up, but she asked for you. Maybe she’d feel better with another woman.”

  Pat frowned, then nodded. “That might make sense. Did she say anything about what happened? Did she really intend to kill herself?”

  Ford shook his head. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk about it. But she seemed pretty upset and confused.”

  “Then I’d better go as soon as we’re through here,” she said and turned to me. “My car’s at the shop. Would you drive me?” she asked.

  Of course I said I would.

  Ford stayed and ate his lunch while we talked of other things and finished ours. Then Pat and I walked back to my car—where Stretch was happy to see us both—and headed for the hospital.

  SIX

  IN THE TOWN OF TAOS NOTHING IS REALLY FAR FROM anything else. Holy Cross Hospital was, I found, no exception. It was quite close to the Taos Valley RV Park, where I had left my Winnebago. We were soon pulling into the parking lot of a low, modern building with hints of regional architecture in its adobe color and the long, roofed but open-sided walkway that led to the entrance.

  While Pat went in to see Shirley, I put Stretch on his leash and stepped into the lobby to pick up a brochure or two before going back out to take him for a short walk in the parking lot. It never hurts to know what kind of medical assistance is available, and where, just in case you need it, especially when you’re a traveling senior citizen, as I am. I don’t intend to get sick or fall off the perch—as Daniel would put it—anytime soon, but you never know, do you?

  Though the hospital was obviously a new facility, I learned from one brochure that it had a history that went back to 1936, when Mabel Dodge Luhan had built a house there for her son and his wife. When the young couple decided to leave Taos, she offered it to Taos to use as a hospital. Her gift was accepted and the hospital was run by a group of nuns until 1970 and thereafter by other medical services as it grew with the community and a new building was finally called for.

  The name of the donor caught my attention. Mabel Dodge Luhan had been a wealthy heiress and socialite from Buffalo, familiar with many New York intellectuals and activists, who had come to Taos in 1918, where she met and married a Taos Pueblo Indian, Tony Luhan. They built a large home with numerous guest rooms, to which flocked celebrated thinkers, writers, and artists of the day, including D. H. Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, Walter Lippmann, Ansel Adams, Margaret Sanger, Willa Cather, Greta Garbo, Robinson Jeffers, Thomas Wolfe, and others.

  The history of a place always makes it come alive for me. So I put Mabel and Tony’s house, now used as an inn and conference center, on my list of things to see during my visit and was interested to know that the hospital was linked to Mabel’s historical presence in the area, though the house she had given as a hospital was, of course, long gone in favor of these modern facilities. There was, however, a picture of that original house, which I was examining when the hospital’s automatically opening doors swung wide and Pat showed up again—with company.

  She looked at me over the head of the occupant of the wheelchair she was pushing, rolled her eyes, and shrugged a don’t-ask-me, letting me know that this was Shirley and that springing the woman from the hospital against doctor’s orders was not her idea, or that of the frowning nurse who was trailing unhappily along behind them.

  They came to a stop in front of me.

  “Maxie,” Pat said, “Shirley’s decided she wants to go home—ah—now. I told her you wouldn’t mind giving her a ride. Is that okay with you?”

  With Pat nodding encouragement and the nurse shaking her head in opposition, my reaction to the request was a feeling of ambiguity and dubiousness at its wisdom. I folded the brochure with the picture of Mabel’s son’s house, slipped it into the pocket of my skirt, and gave Shirley a long look of assessment.

  She was wearing a wraparound hospital gown—the kind that has no particular front or back and flaps flimsily open above your knees, leaving you to choose which you’d rather have exposed, front or rear. Shirley had solved the problem by tying hers in front, over another just like it that obviously opened in back.

  A slight woman, thin of face and body, she looked to be the sort who has spent years automatically calculating the calories in every mouthful of food she allowed to pass her lips. Her hair was not the platinum I had mentally assumed when Pat had told me it was bleached blond, but a softer, warmer color that avoided sharp, artificial contrast, though I could see from a fraction of an inch of darker roots that her natural color was a medium brown. I could see why Pat thought she m
ight have had a face-lift, for the skin around her eyes appeared a bit tightly smooth and there were none of the beginning signs of wrinkles that I would normally associate with the look of someone in their fifties. Without makeup, she appeared pale and tired, but who wouldn’t after being almost asphyxiated and spending even a single night in a hospital?

  As I hesitated, she looked up, blinking in the brightness of the midday sunlight, and gave me a quick, questioning glance that returned my assessment. Then she raised herself up out of the wheelchair and stepped close enough to offer her hand with poise and a smile. It was an attitude with which she could almost have made a hospital gown and paper slippers acceptable for a cocktail or garden party.

  “I’m Shirley Morgan,” she said in a polite tone of voice, “and you, Pat tells me, are Maxie McNabb.”

  I nodded, a little surprised at the strength of the rather lengthy pressure she was applying to my fingers. Then she swayed a little and I realized that she was not as steady on her feet as I had first assumed.

  “Please,” she continued pleasantly, maintaining her grip on my hand. “I realize we’ve never met, but I’d be grateful if you’d take me home. These people seem to think I’m some kind of neurotic idiot, but I did not try to kill myself, whatever they say. I hate hospitals and do not wish to remain in this one, so one way or another I am leaving. May I presume on your generosity, or should I call a taxi?”

  “Really, Mrs. Morgan, you can’t do that,” the nurse said, coming around Pat to lay a hand on Shirley’s shoulder. “You must come back to your room until the doctor releases you—maybe tomorrow. It’s not a good idea to—”

  “I can and will,” Shirley interrupted her with a stubborn hint of temper, casting an entreating look at me.

  Seeing Pat’s encouraging expression and the suggestion of amusement that twitched her lips, I suddenly knew that, given the situation and Shirley’s resolve, there was little else I could do, or wanted to.

  I agreed.