by Alma Boykin
“Cheers.” She let the cocoa cool a little before sipping. “That’s good, sir. I wasn’t sure about the hot pepper.” She had more. “Um, is this a good time to ask about me staying longer?”
He washed the pan. “How much longer, Miss Salazar?”
She cradled the hot mug in her hands. “Um, I’m not sure. Until spring?”
“Spring.” He turned his back to her and drank his cocoa.
The snow hissed past the old house. It sounded cold out, like an ice blizzard, and she drank a little more cocoa to try and warm up.
After several minutes he said, “You have done more than your share of helping get ready for winter, so I foresee no difficulties with your remaining. However.”
Alicia hunched down inside the thick sweater and looked up at him. He wagged one crooked finger. “You will have to learn how to shoot a pistol and rifle, and how to work the generator. And how to thaw pipes without recreating either Noah’s flood or the Fourth of July display at Ft. Carson. And how to play billiards, although not for money. And how to use the fireplace in the library.”
“Do I need to learn how to play poker, too?”
“No, because it would corrupt your morals and scandalize your parents, especially after you clean out the house at the Arapahoe casino.” He sounded completely serious, and it took a moment for her to realize that he was teasing. “And you will need better winter clothes, because we will have to dig ourselves out at least once.”
She covered her face with her hands and groaned. And stopped abruptly as a sense of wrong washed over her. “What’s that? What’s going on?”
“Trouble in the pasture. Stay here.” He pulled on a heavy vest and coat. After picking up the rifle that he’d stashed behind the shovels, Mr. Mills disappeared out the back door and into the storm.
Two hours later he came in, half frozen. He laid the rifle on the table and admonished. “I’ll need to clean that. Feral dogs. God damn it but people need to keep their animals under control.” In his anger and frustration he forgot himself and removed his burnoose along with his hat, heavy coat, and layers of gloves.
She didn’t blink. You know, he doesn’t look as bad as some of the pictures I’ve seen of the soldiers. Alicia’d given herself nightmares after searching the ‘Net for information about burns. She also made triple certain to keep the lamps and candles far, far away from fabric and paper, and had sworn that if she ever started smoking, she’d never smoke in bed.
“You sensed the dogs, didn’t you.” He put the burnoose back on and adjusted it.
She nodded. “Not that they were dogs, just trouble, outside the house.” She thought back. “Maybe that way?” Alicia pointed.
“Correct.” He started to say something more, and yawned. “I apologize, Miss Salazar, I assure it is not your scintillating company.”
She yawned, too. “Sorry.” He pointed to the hallway. She smiled and went up to her room. The staircase seemed longer and steeper than she remembered. Alicia turned the tap on to a trickle, just in case, and fell into bed.
Four: Winter into Spring into the Fire
“Where has the winter gone?” Alicia demanded of the mud and green surrounding the house.
It had passed in shooting lessons, caring for the generator, shoveling, dragging a sledge to the road to meet Teddy so he didn’t have to brave the drive, and selling jewelry. And learning how to play billiards, although she lost far more than she won. Getting a truly great fire remained an elusive art form, but she no longer smoked herself out of the library. And she understood why Fabian had strung ropes to the well house and around the corner to the root cellar. Speaking of which … She took a firm grip on the top of her wellingtons and squelched through the morass. She’d lost boots in the muck twice and it was not going to happen again! Fabian had laughed at her as she teetered, one sock-foot in mid air, the boot firmly stuck ankle-deep. “It’s not funny!”
“Not to you, perhaps, but I find it delightfully amusing.” Although he’d helped her get sorted out. After he finished laughing.
Once safely in the root cellar, Alicia found some potatoes and the last apples, tucking them into her basket. She clipped three onions from the closest braid, then squeezed a fourth. “Ick.” Two more felt as soft, and she cut them out as well, heaving them as far as her arm could throw once she returned to the sunlit world. The rot had missed the rest so she added a fourth to her basket. She checked the potatoes, apples, beets, and carrots, but nothing else seemed bad, so she closed the top of the basket and clomped up the bare steps, shut the door, and squelched back to the back door.
The air smelled green. Alicia stopped, closed her eyes, and basked in the afternoon sun. I am so tired of being cold. I missed Tia Manuela’s funeral because of a blizzard. I’m tired of the snow and ice and I want fresh produce. Well, they’d have that soon enough. Cold frames covered part of the garden, shielding lettuces, broccoli, kale, and other early plants from winter’s last gasps. And no zucchini this year. Man cannot live on zucchini alone, no matter how you try to hide it.
Her eyes sprang open. I’m assuming I’ll be here to worry about a zucchini overload. Her Papa’s latest e-mail had assured her that their landlord had almost finished the repairs on the old house and that she could come back in May. Her eyes filled with tears. I don’t want to go back. This is home. She wiped her sleeve across her face, sniffed hard, and gently rocked one boot, easing it out of the mud. She rocked the other boot loose as well and walked to the foot of the back steps. Alicia used the bootjack built into the bottom step to get the wellingtons off and changed into sneakers, then swapped them for her house-shoes once she’d reached the mudroom.
“Mud stays in the mudroom,” Fabian had informed her grandly. And he’d then tracked globs of it across the floor as far as the kitchen telephone one afternoon. She’d found him scrubbing the floor. “Your mirth is not appreciated,” he’d sniffed as she leaned against the doorframe, laughing and pointing at him.
Alicia left the produce in the kitchen and returned to her workroom. She needed to finish one more necklace. She’d almost mastered the technique of making Byzantine chains, and she’d decided to risk making one in dull brass and silver, with beads of pale green, and cream. Not only would it be tricky work just with the jump-rings and beads, but the proportions had to be correct or else. Now a quarter of the way through the project, she wondered what she’d been smoking when she thought it was a good idea. Probably some of that crap Cousin ‘Sto’s selling, she growled, then shoved the latest family mess out of her mind.
She folded back two of the rings at the end of the length and added a second pair, these with pale green beads already on them. The pattern consisted of twisting the rings to make double knots, then a flat single pair that looked like one ring, and another knot. She’d secured the end of the piece to her table so she could keep it in light tension and keep the pattern in mind. Alicia began working more steadily as her hands mastered the pattern. She added the pendant she’d made to go with the piece, and continued working. The colors made her think of the green scent in the air, and she began imagining what it felt like outdoors. She’d driven past a burned pasture two days before and the lush new grass covering the black ground had reminded her of deep green velvet. The trees along the drive sported tiny leaves and the wind whispered instead of screaming. Alicia reached for another ring and the tip of her pliers clinked against the bottom of the now-empty plate. She blinked. A finished chain lay in her hand. Alicia fitted the clasp to the end and unpinned the starting loop.
She’d done it again. The necklace looked like spring felt. She laid it on the flocked necklace stand, smoothing out the pendent. “Fini,” she told the air.
“Good, because supper is finished,” Fabian informed her. “And you have mail, and in the highly unlikely event that you are not suffering hand cramps, I demand to learn your secret.”
She started to get up from her chair. The room swirled around and she heard something sliding across the floor. T
hen hands caught her under her arms, steadying her. “No hand cramps, not this time,” she managed. Alicia closed tired eyes, counted to five, and opened them again. The floor, walls, and ceiling returned to their proper positions. “I’m OK. Should have moved around more. Um, and drunk less. ‘Scuze me.” He let go and got out of the way of her mad dash for the door.
Embarrassed, Alicia washed her hands and then went to the kitchen, following the scent of fresh peas and tomatoes, hot potatoes and something bar-b-que-y. She served herself and dug into the food. The tomatoes came from a hydroponic project at the college in Ft. Collins, as did the peas. She liked the tomatoes better. The peas tasted bland, as if growing in water weakened the flavor. The more she ate, the faster her brain seemed to work. “Anything interesting in the mail?”
He shook his head. “The property tax assessment arrived, in the unlikely event that you consider municipal larceny interesting. Oh, and Polar Bear Press has, in their gracious and infinite generosity, deigned to return unto me that which is mine. Their legal department must be on vacation, because an attack of common sense wafted through their building and they’ve returned the rights to the ‘Comet Hunter’ series.” He waved a page with pale blue borders, stopped, looked at it, and grabbed a different page to wave.
“That’s good.” Alicia carried her plate to the sink, returned to the table and sorted through her mail. She found two invitations to subscribe to magazines she’d never heard of, a reminder to renew her driver’s license, two checks, and a notice that her quarterly taxes would be due at the end of the month. She heaved a sigh. “Taxes,” and she waved her paper.
“You have my deepest sympathy.”
Alicia also found an invitation to have a booth at the Littleton Craft Show. Because she’d won awards at Golden, she had an automatic, free, spot at the Littleton spring show. “Mr. Mills, will it be safe to travel to Littleton in mid-April, do you think?” His eyes had a quizzical expression in them, and she clarified, “In general, nothing specific. Roughly when does the weather switch from blizzard to hail, in other words.”
“Oh, yes, statistically the date of last massive, world stopping snowstorm is April fifteenth. The first tornado and flash flood generally arrives whenever someone begins to brag about how lovely Front Range weather is in spring.” He opened the envelope from the tax assessor, read the statement, and sighed, leaning back in his chair and pressing the back of one hand against his forehead, like the heroine in an appallingly bad romance novel. “Miss Salazar, should you ever decide to purchase a domicile, I strongly, nay, emphatically suggest you hit yourself in the head with a large rock until the urge subsides.”
Alicia fought to stifle her giggle. She kept her tone grave. “I shall most certainly take your recommendation under advisement, good sir.”
“Thank you.”
Instead of taking the bus all the way, Alicia rented a car from the junker dealer in Ft. Collins. She renewed her driver’s license, then set out for Littleton, taking the long route around Denver instead of cutting through it. She needed the extra space in the car for her display materials. She also, well, something told her that she needed to be able to get away on her own schedule. She’d been very lucky in the fall, getting out ahead of the storm.
The spring necklace attracted attention from the moment she set it out. The pendant resembled a small green shoot with delicate beaded leaves growing out of the necklace. The earrings featured the leaf pattern, with dots of cream and pale purple around the edges. As she’d hoped the beads and rings worked together instead of looking cluttered and busy. Several of the men and women selling jewelry walked away from Alicia’s booth grumbling, and one woman shrugged. “No point in entering anything with that to compete against.”
For her part, Alicia almost swooned over the beaded lace chokers and cuffs sold three booths down from her display. The lady at the booth had dressed in full Edwardian costume, complete with an enormous cream-colored hat with pink and lavender feathers. There is no way I can do anything like these, Alicia moaned. I’ve never seen beads that small sewn onto anything. The lace under the beads looked hand made. “Excuse me, ma’am. Did you make the lace?”
The lady laughed. “No, I don’t have the patience. My husband makes it. He’s a neurosurgeon and makes needle and bobbin lace as a way to relax while keeping his fingers limber. He also knits.”
“Please tell him his work is lovely. Thank you,” and Alicia got out of the way of another booth-snooper.
That evening featured a pre-sale preview, open to anyone who bought a ticket. A steady stream of people passed by Alicia’s booth and she answered questions and took a few orders for “like those, but in red,” and the like. She’d crouched behind the table skirt to tuck a handful of order-forms out of the way when a familiar voice snipped, “So you can’t be bothered to come to my dear mother’s funeral, but you can come to sell trinkets.”
Alicia stood up. Ernesto smoothed his tiny mustache and smirked at her. He wore another bright blue suit with a black shirt and white tie, the Latin Masters-15 gang colors. “Good evening, Mr. De La Vega.” She kept her tone polite, in case any potential customers might be near.
“So cold! You should be nicer to your potential marriage partners, Miss Salazar.” The smirk turned into a frown, “Especially when they come with offers of interest from prominent businessmen.”
I don’t want anything to do with any marriage or business you might have a hand in, ‘Sto. Scram. “I don’t believe I have received any such offers, Mr. De La Vega, and I am not in a position yet to act on any such.” She tried to sound like Fabian.
‘Sto leaned over the table at her. “My employer, Mr. Alvarez, has heard about you, Rosita, and likes what he hears. He will give you a shop in Denver, and a home. All you need to do is allow him to conduct business at the same address.”
She squared her shoulders and kept her voice steady, pitching it so other people could hear her. “Mr. De La Vega, I am sorry, but there are no sales this evening. If you wish to pre-order you are most welcome to do so,” and she pointed to the stack of forms.
He shook a finger at her, hissing, “Mr. Alvarez gets what he wants, and he wants your business and your company, Rosita. He can make things very uncomfortable for your father if he chooses.”
She picked up the order pad, as if offering it to him. “No, there are no sales tonight. Please place an order or return after the show opens tomorrow, sir.”
A larger Hispanic gentleman passing by happened to overhear the conversation. “Excuse me, but is there a problem?” He wore a show official’s badge and carried a large metal clipboard along with a black radio.
Ernesto looked from Alicia to the official and back. “No problem, just an unfortunate misunderstanding. I’ll be back Rosita, to have your answer.” He stalked off under the official’s watchful gaze. The man pulled the walki-talki off his belt and said something that sounded to Alicia as if he were alerting security.
“Miss Salazar, if he threatened you I will have his money refunded and security will escort him out.”
Should she? No, that might open a very large can of worms for the show. “Thank you very much, sir, but I doubt he’ll be back now that I’ve refused to sell.”
“Give me his name, just in case, please. At least one of the sellers has asked for a little additional security, and he may be the person she’s concerned about.” His tone suggested that she’d be wise to agree.
That sounds like ‘Sto. “Ernesto de la Vega, of the Cherry Hill de la Vegas.”
His expression hardened as he wrote. “That’s him. He won’t be bothering you again, Miss Salazar, not during the show. I recommend you stay well away from him, although it seems you got the idea already.”
“Yes, sir.”
The official tucked his clipboard under his arm. “On a happier note, Miss Salazar, do you think you could do something like this,” he pointed to a simple necklace, “with larger beads, in primary colors? I have a granddaughter who’s almost
ready for her first ‘real’ jewelry.”
“I think so, yes, sir. If you’ll come back at the end of the show, I can have a sketch for you to look at.”
“Perfect.” His radio squawked and he pulled off his belt and began walking to the far end of the gallery, talking quickly.
The show’s three days passed in a whirling blur. As she’d suspected, Alicia’s spring necklace came in second to the beaded lace in the jewelry category. However, the necklace and earrings placed third in the overall competition. The necklace set sold for three hundred dollars and Alicia kicked herself after the new owner gushed, “I feel like I’m stealing! I thought it would be at least five.” She decided right then that the next one would be five hundred dollars, if she did another one. Her lower-end pieces moved more slowly, but she’d expected something like that, since Littleton attracted a wealthier crowd than the Golden show did. Two of the security guards bought some of the less expensive earrings and broaches, though. And the head of security liked her necklace design so much that he ordered two, one in reds and the other in yellows, for his granddaughters. She gave him a ten percent discount, in part to say ‘thanks’ for his chasing ‘Sto off, and in part because she gave all the show employees a discount.
Word had spread after the Golden show about some pick-pockets who had targeted the vendors, prompting a flurry of phone calls and e-mails among the Colorado craft community. As a precaution, Alicia had added an extra button-flap inside the pockets on her skirts, and a false pocket to her purse, with the real one below and secured by a buttoned flap and a zipper. There’s something to be said for a cheap lining, she’d thought as she pulled out the stitches and replaced the thin fabric. I wonder if they’re also stalking us when we leave the show? I’d better plan ahead. Her precautions paid off twice.