by Sarah Bird
“The twins,” Tomás said, pointing to two small graves, side by side, guarded over by a granite lamb. “Efren and Jacobo. They were my tío Ernesto’s cousins. They died when he was six, back in the twenties. They were all out playing when a storm rolled in over the mountains. Efren and Jacobo took shelter under a cottonwood. There was no thunder. Barely even any clouds. The two little boys were waving at him to come, get under the tree with them, when the lightning struck. He said everyone laughs at him, but when the lightning struck, he saw every bone in the boys’ bodies. He hated El Día de los Muertos. All those grinning skeletons, they reminded him of his cousins.
“Mi tío Ernesto.” We stood next to his great-uncle’s grave. “He introduced me to everyone in this plot. He told me that it didn’t matter that my parents weren’t Anayas; everyone buried here was my family. All the Anayas had come from ancestors who’d come from Spain. That made me an Anaya. And he made me Anaya. It didn’t matter what blood I had running in my veins. We’re all just bones in the end and my bones would end up here, next to his.
“He had that carved before he died.” Tomás pointed to the headstone. In the middle of the stone was chiseled ERNESTO TIBURCITO ANAYA. On one side was Doña Carlota’s name with the inscription BELOVED WIFE. On the other was Tomás’s name with the inscription BELOVED SON.
His long hair fell forward, covering his face. I would never have known he was crying if a cold wind had not lofted the dark strands away. I put my arm around him. After all the ways we had touched, at that moment when he needed the animal comfort of another human the most, he turned from me and walked back to his car. We drove in silence to the inelegant south side of town, past an empty lot humped with mounds made by prairie dogs, now hibernating in their burrows. We turned onto a street where no grass grew. All the small, square houses had lawns of round rocks. A semi cab was parked on the street. Tomás stopped in front of a house that looked like all the others and handed me his keys.
“Take the truck. Do whatever you want with it. I’ve got to go north. Spend some time at the cabin.” He didn’t reveal to me the name of the village that Guitos had said was his true home, where his heart was.
“I’ll drive you up there,” I said, but meant, Let me in. Give me a chance. Let me see the world I should have reshaped myself to fit.
“No, thanks. My cousin Chucho lives here. He’ll drive me.”
“When will you be back?”
“I don’t know, Rae. I need to think. Then I’ve got a tour coming up. They want me in Spain again. The biennale.”
“Will you come back before you leave?”
“Rae, I—I don’t know. Maybe. Don’t expect me. Don’t count on me. Okay? That would be best. Just don’t count on me.”
“That’s all? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“Rae, we... I... I’m sorry. Stay at the river house for as long as you want. I’ll send money. The bills are taken care of. I’m... I’ll call, okay?” He grabbed his jacket and his guitar and backed quickly away from the truck, his boots crunching over the gravel on the front yard. I didn’t see who opened the front door and let him in.
I drove home to the house on the river, knowing that Tomás would never return to it. I’d made a deal long ago to do anything it took to get him. I just forgot to specify for how long. The opiate that had been plugged into my brain the night I first heard Tomás play was ripped out. The withdrawal was, literally, physical. I felt the way I had after Daddy died: like I was perched on the edge of a cliff about to fall. Didi had pulled me back then. Now there was no one to rescue me.
At the end of the first week, I called HomeTown and told each succeeding person who answered and informed me that congregants weren’t allowed to take unauthorized calls that I was going to kill myself if they didn’t let me speak to my mother. I was lying, but it was the lie that occurred to me.
Finally, she was put on.
“Mom, it’s me. Cyndi Rae.”
“Cyndi Rae, what’s wrong? Are you crying?”
“Yeah, Mom, I’m crying. Mom, could you come?”
“There? To Albuquerque? Cyndi Rae, I work, you know I work. We just got an order in from a boutique hotel to do all their quilts. It’s the biggest account we’ve ever gotten. I’m Team Mom and half of my girls are down with the carpal tunnel. Even if no one takes off a minute from now till Easter, we’ll barely get the order done. And I can’t fly. You know I can’t fly.”
“I know, Mom.”
“I would if I could. You know that. I’m your mother. I’d do anything for you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Mom.” My tears stopped. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, okay, Cyndi Rae. I’m glad you’re fine. They need me. The hotel specified mauve and cream. They won’t accept the order if it’s anything other than mauve and cream. I have to get back.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay, Mom.”
“I pray for you, Cyndi Rae. Every night.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Brother Ed needs the phone now, I’m going to have to go. Call me if you need anything else. I’ll do anything I can for you. Just don’t ask me to do things you know I can’t.”
“Okay, Mom. I won’t. Bye, Mom.”
I hung up and didn’t let myself think, just drove Tomás’s truck into town and went to see Mrs. Steinberg. I knocked on the front door. After a long time, I heard shuffling. My heart seized up. Didi was there. She was home and, from the heavy, slow tread, it sounded as if she might be sick. A muscular teenage boy wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves torn off opened the door.
“Uh, hello. Is Mrs. Steinberg here?”
“She moved.”
“She moved? Where?”
He shrugged. The heavy bulk of his shoulders rose and fell. “Dunno. Malta or something. My mom’ll be home later. You can ask her.”
“Manila?”
“Yeah, that’s it, Manila. Hey, are you gay?”
“Gay?”
“Your name. Are you Gay?”
“Rae. I’m Rae.”
“Oh, cool. This weird chick came over and left some shit for you. She paid us to hang on to it. Said you’d be coming by. But shit, that was like a year ago or something. We almost tossed it.”
The footlocker was too heavy for me to carry. The guy helped me haul it out and lift it into the bed of the truck. Back at the house by the river, I had no one to help me unload the heavy trunk so I left it where it was and opened it there. The inside of the lid was covered with numbers printed so meticulously they looked like a pattern. Neatly packed inside were my best skirts and tops, my favorite shoes. Everything I’d left behind when I’d walked out with Tomás a year ago. There was a note from Didi on top.
One Month After That Goddamn Audition
Rae-rae, Hey-hey,
If you’re reading this, it means there’s still hope. It means you came to find me. I guess you found out that Catwoman finally did it. Finally moved back to Manila. So we’re both orphans now, right? Don’t stop reading! I know that last statement just pissed you off.
She was right and that made me even angrier.
I tried to find you until I realized you truly did not want to be found. I don’t know what you think happened at the audition, but it wasn’t enough for you to disappear: Jesus, you won, right? Talk about a sore winner. Hah!
Rae, you were astonishing at the audition. But, before you were astonishing, you froze. Whatever I did, whatever you THINK I did, I did to thaw you out. Obviously, he picked you, you’re with him. I miss you sosososo much. Fuck, Rae, he’s not even my type. He’s a BOY for God’s sake and I am so over boys! GRRLZ 4Ever 4Me.
I’m leaving too. Really no reason for me to hang around Bookay anymore.
Let’s face it, you are what I have in this life and I am what you have,
Didi
Call me. You have my new number
The pattern on the lid of the footlocker was Didi’s cell number written thousands of times. Underneath my
skirts and shoes was her old cassette tape of AC/DC. I dug through the trunk, reaching back through the geological strata of our friendship while Didi’s signature song played in my mind, the one about dirty deeds done dirt cheap.
Everything Didi had rescued from the Lair was stored in ziplock bags and marked as carefully as if it all had come from an archaeological dig: A shard of the Temple of Dionysus we’d constructed together and she’d covered with a mosaic of glass from broken liquor bottles. A copy of one of her dad’s DownBeat magazines. A Puppy Taco take-out menu. “McKinley and the Tariff of 1890,” the American history paper I’d written for her. A black basaltic rock from the West Mesa.
Didi had cataloged every tick of our friendship. What I had assumed was service she’d taken for granted had been noticed, appreciated. Snow began to fall, sifting feathery flakes across the bags. The slippery pile of ziplocks was as much as I could claim of a record of my time on earth. It was the baby book my mother had jettisoned for Jesus. I swept the flakes away, closed the lid, and, with more strength than I thought I had, dragged the trunk inside.
The drug lord’s palace was freezing. I paced for an hour, fighting the desire to call her. I counted how many times she’d written her number on the lid of the trunk nearly a year ago. When I reached three thousand, I dialed. My fingers were stiff with cold and nerves. Each number I punched in, though, warmed me. She was right. I had frozen at the audition. And I was frozen now. Didi would thaw me. Didi would help me out of the hole. It was only then, with her phone just starting to ring, with the hope of rescue forming, that I could admit how much I needed rescue. It would be all right now. Didi had my back. She answered my call as if she’d spent the past year sitting by the phone waiting for it.
“Mi amor, mi amor, mi amor! Why didn’t you call sooner?”
I was overcome at the sound of her voice. My throat tightened against the sob of relief that rose from my chest. And then it hit me: the number she was responding to with such love was Tomás’s.
“Are you there? What’s wrong? Can you not talk? Is she in the room? Why are you calling from the river house? You said you were never going back there. Mi amor, what’s—”
I clapped the receiver down before she could finish asking what was wrong. Asking her “amor” Tomás what was wrong.
Chapter Thirty-four
That week a cold front blew down from the Arctic and broke records that had stood for a century. I lay awake all night beneath mountains of covers and watched my breath freeze into a halo above the round bed. Some of the oldest cottonwoods froze so hard that they cracked open, the explosions as loud as thunder. One giant fell on the power lines, cutting out the heat and light. I used all the firewood.
When I went to bed the only thing I was sick with was betrayal and longing so intense my entire body ached as if I had the flu. And then I did have the flu. It was a relief to slide into physical pain strong enough to blot out thought, to have a real reason to hurt as much as I did. The most I could handle in the way of taking care of myself was to fill a glass with water, drink part of it, then stagger back to bed. Soon, I couldn’t even manage that. Didn’t want to manage that.
I wouldn’t have actively done anything to cause myself to die, but I was no longer concerned about it happening on its own. Shortly after I stopped getting up for glasses of water, pulling the blankets up to cover myself became more than I could handle. The cold air felt good on my hot skin. Sleeping felt good. Dreaming felt good. The nights came and went. I lost track of them.
Then Tomás came back. He was banging on the door. Pounding and yelling. Didi was with him. I was sorry that they were too late, that I didn’t have the strength anymore to wake up and unlock the door. Somehow he got in and carried me into the living room where he had built a fire, not of piñon, but of branches splintered from the frozen cottonwoods. They burned quickly, warming the house. He and Didi pushed the couch where I lay close to the fire and tacked up blankets around the couch like mosquito netting to keep out the drafts. Didi put a cup against my lips and filled my mouth with apple juice. Tomás placed a tea kettle on the fire and it puffed clouds of steam scented with the eucalyptus smell of Vicks into the Arctic-dry air. The steam filled the tent around the couch with tropical air that made me dream about Austin. About diving into icy spring water that turned into air thick and dense enough to swim through until the moment when it evaporated and I was falling. I tried to scream, but my throat had rusted shut.
Then Tomás was holding me. Everything had been explained. He loved me, and Didi was my friend. Everything was fine.
“Rae, wake up! Wake up, mija, you’re having a bad dream! Come on, baby, open your eyes.”
Why, I wondered, was Alma holding me? Why was Blanca standing by with a cup of juice? Why was Will poking wood into the fire?
“Where’s Tomás and Didi?” My voice was a croak. It wasn’t a dream. My throat had rusted shut.
Alma and Blanca looked at each other. Alma answered, “They’re not here, mija. Nobody except Blanca and Will and me have been here. Didi called and told us to check on you.”
Blanca stepped forward. “Here, drink this.” She guided an accordion-pleated bendie straw into my mouth. I sipped apple juice, then closed my eyes and was asleep before the sweetness had left my mouth. When I woke again, I was back in the round bed. The sheets had been changed and the heat and lights were back on. The house was empty, but there was food in the refrigerator and a note that read: When you feel up to it, come and see me about a job. Alma.
Alma found a little apartment for me near Nob Hill and paid the first month’s rent. She deducted the loan from the job she gave me organizing the festival coming up that summer, then enrolled me for enough independent studies classes that I was able to finish my degree. As soon as I was registered as a student, I started seeing Leslie again. I took the pills she prescribed, and the clenched thing within my brain loosened enough. Just enough.
When my strength returned, Alma started using me as a substitute. I turned out to be a good teacher. My orderly mind, my tendency to see things in black and white, all the qualities that prevented me from being a reliably extraordinary performer, made me good in the classroom. I liked teaching. It kept me occupied, kept me from thinking. Not thinking became my major goal after I dragged myself off of the round bed. I taught as many classes as Alma would let mc. I volunteered to keep the festival’s books and reconciled them every day. I did what I could to repay her kindness to me. To Blanca, to Will, to the others who had helped me. Long after my health returned, I felt wobbly around them. Wobbly and obligated. Obligated to pull myself together.
I took up marathon running. The route I returned to again and again circled from my apartment near Nob Hill to Highland High School, on to the Disabled Veterans Thrift Shop, then over to Route 66. From there I took a right and charged past the Pup y Taco, the Ace High, the De Anza Coffee Shop, the Aztec Motel. I always ended up heading west, toward the future.
Spring came and the cottonwoods filled the air with ghostly seed puffs, haloed filaments that floated on breezes too gentle to be felt. Cottonwood fluff piled up in the gutters like drifts of diaphanous snow. In early summer the buds unfurled into apple green leaves that spangled hearts across the sky.
I believe that if, even for one spring in all those years, the cottonwoods had failed to bloom, had not filled the air with their promises, the sky with their hearts, that I could have learned to stop loving Tomás Montenegro. But did they? They did not. I ran, accelerating at increasing speeds past all the landmarks. I just never got fast enough to escape any of them entirely. I made a full recovery from my illness, but not from Tomás. He turned out to be a disease that had just gone into remission. As soon as I was strong enough, he flared up with a new virulence. This time, though, I knew that if I didn’t have him I would die. I needed another secret. And that is how I came to learn that flamenco was a giant tree with roots over a thousand years old, still sucking sustenance from India, Spain, Mexico, and New
Mexico, and that my story was nothing but the tiniest heart-shaped leaf in a vast canopy.
Chapter Thirty-five
Doña Carlota almost seemed to expect my call. It was inevitable, probably, that I, the other spurned woman in Tomás’s life, would eventually find my way to her. On the drive north to Santa Fe, as the earth lifted toward a sky opening onto infinity, I remained oblivious to the beauty beyond my window. My entire concentration was on what I wanted to say and how I would say it. Of course Doña Carlota knew about me and Tomás. About Tomás and Didi. Everyone on the flamenco grapevine knew. That embarrassed me, though not enough to turn back.
The cottonwoods in Santa Fe, a few weeks behind their sisters to the south, had piled drifts of fluff at the base of the coyote fence made of saplings lashed together that ringed the Anaya compound. The gate was unlocked. A Black Forest of untended spruce and pines surrounded the house, casting it into deep shadows rare in the sun-blasted city. Old snow surviving in the shade glittered dully. The vintage Buick used to drive Doña Carlota to class was parked beside the house. Where the houses nearby turned faces brightened with ristras of scarlet chiles and turquoise blue lintels to passersby, Doña Carlota’s house was devoid of such public Land of Enchantment adornments. Unadorned, unkempt even, it turned in on itself, showing a blank facade to the outside world.