“Avery.”
My head jerked around to Amalia, standing in the doorway, ugly purple shawl wrapped around her shoulders. “I am sorry, pobrecita.”
I scrambled to my feet, shrugged off her embrace. Except for the shawl, she was dressed in black.
“How did you know?” I asked.
She reached back, shutting the door behind her. “You don’ remember?”
“Remember what?”
“You come to my dream, Avery.”
“What?”
“You come to my dream last night. You tell me, Cassie she is dead tomorrow.”
“Stop it. You’re giving me the creeps. Look at that.” I showed her one goosebump-covered arm, but she just dabbed at her eyes with the shawl.
Between us, we got her laid out properly on the couch, eyes closed, hands folded over her stomach. I lit some sage and carried it to the corners of the room, trailing the smoke for purification, the way Cassie taught me. Then I laid the bundle on a plate and let it smolder while I ran water into the coffeepot and lit the burner.
We sat at the table with our chipped cups full of coffee and Cassie stretched out dead on the couch. Amalia looked so sad, I felt awful that I wasn’t crying or something. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel bad. Cassie was about as close to family as I was ever going to get. I guess I just kind of expected it. After this last time she got sick. When she forgot who I was.
“I send Juanita and Rafael. They make her ready for—”
“She wouldn’t want a mass or any of that stuff. In fact I want to bury her in the garden.”
“I know, niña, sure. We bury her nice. Put big rocks on top to stop los coyotes from dig up the grave.”
“Oh…”
“You come to my house, Avery. You stay with me.”
The thought of living with Amalia and her daughter and son-in-law and five grandchildren put me in mind of a kitten in a burlap sack.
“Thanks, but I want to stay here.” I leaned across the table. “You can’t tell anyone she’s dead, Amalia. They’ll come and put me in a home because I’m not eighteen.”
“I not telling. Juanita and Rafael, they not telling.” One tear rolled down her cheek, unnoticed, splashed on the table. “She want to see you graduate. She is so proud.”
“She’ll know.” I didn’t really believe that, but it seemed to make Amalia feel better.
“And now where you go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Albuquerque.”
A spitting noise. “Too big, Albuquerque. Why you don’t stay here? You can go to Señora Jaramilla. Learn from her—”
“Amalia, I can’t be a curandera.” I said it emphatically, hoping she’d listen this time.
She put her rough brown hands over mine. “You listen to me, niña. You have the gift. And someday you will have need—it will come to you.”
She tilted the cup back, draining the last of her coffee, pushed away from the table. She made the sign of the cross over Cassie and kissed her forehead and left me alone.
About noon Juanita and Rafael showed up. They wrapped Cassie in a blanket and Juanita sat by the couch murmuring her rosary while Rafael and I attacked the ground with shovel and pick. The earth was already baked hard, so we were both grateful that she was pretty small. We didn’t need much of a hole.
Cassie and I grew most of our food out here for the last four years, and who knows how long she worked it before I came. With the sudden notion that we were planting Cassie in her own garden, a weird laugh bubbled in my throat, and I had to bite my tongue to stop it from coming. I knew Rafael wouldn’t understand.
I’d only been in her bedroom a few times in the whole time I lived here—just to leave her clean clothes on the bed. Or to take her a cup of álamo tea when her arthritis was so bad she couldn’t get up in the morning. It occurred to me now that I didn’t even know how old she was. I asked her once and she sidestepped it, just like she did all my questions that she didn’t want to answer. In that way, we were pretty much alike, Cassie and me. We lived together four years and then some without really knowing much about each other. I guess we knew what we needed to know.
Her bed was covered with a patchwork quilt so old that all the colors had faded to a pale blue. There was a tall chest that she called a highboy, made of some fancy wood, and it had brass drawer pulls. I figured it belonged to her precious momma.
I felt like a robber going through her stuff, but there was no one else to do it—at least no one I knew about. I opened the drawer that was waist high on me. It smelled like old paper and the osha she used to repel moths. It was her underwear drawer—five pairs of those white things she wore that look like men’s boxers except with no weenie flap in front. She got them out of some catalog from back east. Three sleeveless undershirts. Cassie hated bras, and even when I first came, she couldn’t reach behind her back to fasten them anyway.
The next drawer down held two pairs of baggy jeans, a crocheted black sweater, and some floppy slippers with holes worn in the bottoms. I thought I should give her clothes to Amalia.
When I opened the bottom drawer, I smelled it—faint, but definitely the same flowery perfume I smelled in the living room. The liner paper had pictures of pale flowers in clusters almost like grapes. The only thing in this drawer was a wooden cigar box. I flipped the top open.
Right on top was a blue satin ribbon wound into a neat coil. Under that there was a handkerchief that probably used to be white, but now was all motley yellow. It had a bunch of flowers embroidered in one corner and the words.
When this you see,
Remember me.
In the bottom of the box were three photographs, brown and brittle, corners crumbling off. I lifted them out carefully. The first was a wedding picture. I don’t know how I knew this, because the couple wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion. The woman was pretty—delicate and dreamy, blond hair pulled back tight, lots of little ringlet curls on her forehead and by her ears. She was wearing a light-colored dress with embroidery on the front. The man was obviously an Indian—dark skinned, his black hair in two braids. He wore a plain, round-collared white shirt. Cassie’s parents. They didn’t look very happy for newlyweds. Maybe they knew what life had in store for them.
The second picture was a child about five years old, dark curls all over her head. Wearing a very dirty white dress. Probably Cassie, but all kids looked alike to me. There were no names or dates on the pictures.
The last one was a guy. Good looking as all get-out, dressed like a cowboy in chaps and a dark shirt, a bandana knotted around his neck. His white cowboy hat was pushed back sort of cocky on his head. He wasn’t smiling, just looking pleased with himself. This had to be Martin. Martin who wasn’t worth talking about, but whose picture she kept till her dying day. Martin who may or may not have married Cassie, but who for sure broke her heart. The snake.
I was about to lay everything back in the box, when I saw one more thing scrunched into a corner. A necklace. A disc of pink gold no bigger than the tip of my little finger, on a chain black with tarnish. You could just barely see a flower engraved on one side. I held it between my thumb and index finger, rubbed it a bit to wipe off the grime.
A sound reached me, not exactly an echo, but barely loud enough to hear over the wind. A woman crying.
I dropped the necklace like I’d been electrocuted. I threw everything in the drawer, slammed it closed, and ran outside.
It was about ninety in the shade and I stood there sweating through my goosebumps.
On Monday morning I went straight to the office before class. I sure as hell didn’t need anybody coming out to look for me. Miss Huerfano, the secretary, smiled like she did at everyone, even me.
“Avery, hi. We were worried about you Friday. Were you sick?”
“No, ma’am. Cassie had a touch of flu or something. I stayed home to take care of her.” Tripped off my tongue like the truth.
“Did she give you a note?”
“No, ma’am. You kn
ow, her hands are so bad now, I would’ve had to write it myself anyway.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” She traced the outline of her lips with one finger. “Mr. Meyer, though, he’s going to want a note.”
“Okay, I’ll bring it in tomorrow.”
“That’s fine. You just write it and have her mark her initials at the bottom.” She smiled again and I went back to breathing. “And you tell Cassie I hope she’s feeling better. Flu is nothing to fool around with, especially at her age.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll tell her.”
Will had been absent for two days, but that was nothing new. It was always something to do with the ranch. He’d been trying hard not to miss school now, though, because graduation was so close and there were tests and papers and projects due—something almost every day.
I wanted to see him, but I was dreading it, too. I still hadn’t decided whether to tell him about Cassie. I didn’t want him getting all protective, and I was afraid he might tell his parents and try to talk them into letting me live over there.
After class Wednesday he was waiting for me in the Bronco. He didn’t get out and come to meet me, and when I climbed in, he turned his face to me, pale gray beneath the perpetual tan. His eyes were raw edged and puffy.
“It’s my dad.” His voice cracked. “He had a stroke.”
I knew then that if there was a God, I was probably damned to all eternity, because my very first thought was for myself. That it was over. Asa Cameron was a vegetable, and his wife hated me. There was no one on my side now but Will, and he was no match for his mother.
“Oh, Will, I’m so—sorry. Oh, God.” I took his hand and held it between both of mine. “Is he—I mean, will he—”
“They don’t know yet. He’s still in the hospital in Darby.” He dashed at his eyes, embarrassed.
“When did he—”
“Sunday night. He went down to the big barn after supper to check on Juniper’s leg, and we were all sitting around watching TV when Corey came running in yelling that Dad fell down. We don’t…” He swallowed hard. “We aren’t even sure how long he was laying there before Corey found him.”
Two kids walking by waved at him and then peered in the car, when he didn’t wave back. Suddenly he turned the key in the ignition and backed into the street. “I’ve gotta get out of here. I don’t want to talk to anyone else.”
He drove out one of the county roads, hatched with cattle guards. Here and there a white cross poked out of a tangle of plastic flowers, in memory of someone who ended a Saturday night by wrapping their car around a utility pole or rolling their pickup into a ditch. We passed the little village of San Seferino, and I remembered the night of the posada. Only six months ago and everything was changed beyond recognition. Cassie was gone, which I hadn’t told anyone, including Will. Now, less than a week later Asa was in some strange place between alive and dead, like what the Catholics call limbo.
In science class we learned that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. At Carson they taught us that for every sin there is a punishment. In my mind it worked out to something like this: for every good thing that happens, a bad thing happens. For everything you are given, something will be taken away.
And if, by some chance you ever got something really great—sooner or later you’d lose everything.
He stopped abruptly under the canopy of an ancient, twisted cottonwood. The tears had dried, leaving barely visible silvery tracks to prove that he had cried. For a few minutes we sat there watching the wind chase dust across the fields. I thought about how Cassie said that New Mexico was just the place that Arizona blew through on its way to Texas.
“I had this idea,” he said abruptly. “He was going to let me break a horse my own way. I wanted to try riding him bareback first, instead of putting a saddle on him. I thought, you know, that if you could get the horse to trust you first, then the saddle and bridle would be a piece of cake. Of course, Chuck says I’m crazy. He says you’ve gotta show the horse who’s boss. Make him submit to the saddle and bridle and then he’ll accept you as the rider…”
His voice floated away. He was waiting for me to say something, do something, and I was totally useless. In my seventeen years, nobody had ever looked to get comfort from me.
“The last time I talked to my dad, that’s what I told him. He always listened to me. He always tried to understand what I was saying. Now we don’t know if he’s ever going to listen or talk or think…or walk. Or even if…”
Finally I reached over to touch his face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
With one swift motion, he released both of our seat belts, pulled me halfway across the console, and kissed me. His mouth was hot and dry, and he tugged at the buttons of my shirt like some psycho rapist.
“Stop it, Will.” I squirmed out of his grasp. In a movement that was more reflex than plan, I opened the Bronco door and jumped down.
“Avery, wait.” He jumped out and ran around to my side. “Don’t look at me like that. I’d never do anything you didn’t want me to. You know that, don’t you?” His hands were on my shoulders, pressing me against the car.
“Then stop hurting me.”
That backed him up. “I’m sorry. I’m just—” His eyes were brimming again, and I felt like dog meat for being scared, for acting so stupid. This is Will and he’s in pain and what do I do? Run away.
I looped my arms around his waist, laid my head on his shirt, and felt him relax against me with a shuddering sigh. I listened to the thudding of his heart and stared over his shoulder into the long, blue twilight while he buried his face in my hair and cried like a little boy.
Amalia stood in for Cassie at my graduation. I told her not to come, but she showed up anyway. I spotted her purple shawl in the middle of all the metal folding-chaired parents when we marched down the center aisle to “Pomp and Circumstance.” I suddenly remembered how JJ always said he was going to come to my graduation and clap for me. It was just as well. He had a pretty short attention span.
Late sun filtered in through the high windows in the gym. If you sat absolutely motionless, you could feel a half-assed breeze, but it was still hot enough to bake bread in the gym. Why couldn’t they have had the ceremony at night when it would’ve been cooler?
I hated the stifling black gowns and ridiculous hats—mortarboards, what an appropriate name—with these stupid tassels that everyone played with. They said we were supposed to wear the tassel on one side before the ceremony and then flip it over to the other side after we got our diplomas. All I could think of was that the whole thing would’ve been a lot easier if they would’ve just mailed us the damn piece of paper.
Stacey had found out about Kevin and Randi, and the two girls had a hair-pulling, kicking, and screaming fight in the girls’ bathroom on Monday. They hadn’t even looked at each other since, and all their friends had chosen up sides. Kevin was absolutely sure that I told, so I’d spent the last few days of class avoiding him.
They had us segregated now, boys on one side, girls on the other. The girls whispered and giggled about Stacey and Randi, and the guys were all kicking each other’s chairs and pushing each other’s mortarboards crooked, and everyone was drowning in a river of sweat. During the prayer you could hear the programs flapping as people fanned themselves, and one pregnant lady had already fainted.
From where I sat, I could see Will’s back, stiff as a post. He turned once to catch my eye and smile, then he looked at his mother, sitting with Chuck, who was home from A & M, and Amanda Albert sitting primly on the other side of him, her hand looped through his arm.
Next to me, Linda Jaramillo was using her program to swat the flies that kept landing on the chairs in front of us. There was a lot of shifting and squirming going on behind me, where Randi and her friends were sitting, but I tuned it all out, along with the windy speeches about how the world was out there just waiting for us—all us future farmers and truck drivers and waitresses and pregn
ant brides.
Finally. Finally. The diplomas. We were supposed to stand when our row was called and walk up to the stage together. I was so bored that I’d sort of dozed off, when Linda poked me.
“We’re next,” she hissed.
Miss Huerfano was beaming and nodding, the parents were all smiling, and when our row’s time came, I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t move. My gown seemed to be caught in the chair. I rocked forward, managed to jerk myself up, and the chair came with me, hanging on my back like a turtle shell. The whole row behind me busted out laughing, and I knew what had happened. Randi and her friends had somehow fastened the sleeves of my gown to the chair.
A little frenzy of activity erupted, a couple of the teachers came running over, but by that time, I’d unzipped the gown and stepped out of it, letting the whole thing, chair and all, drop with a clatter.
People were trying not to laugh, but you could hear those explosive little snickers breaking out all over like brushfires. I really didn’t care. I didn’t mind standing up there in my jeans and T-shirt between Tammy Irwin and Linda Jaramillo in their gowns. When Miss Huerfano called my name, I clomped across the wooden stage in my old boots, took the diploma from Mr. Meyer. And when he shook my hand and said congratulations, I could fix my tassel now, I just ripped the goddamn thing off my head and threw it like a Frisbee into the audience.
There was a little gasp from the teachers and then some of the kids started cheering and clapping. Like they had any idea what I meant. I just walked down off the stage, clutching my diploma, my ticket out of this shithole, and I walked right past the chairs, out the door under the red EXIT sign, and I hit the highway back to Cassie’s.
The house was dim and silent when I got home. It was weird. Not that we were always having big conversations, but there were just the noises of another person always in the background. The way she scuffled across the wood floors, banging pots and pans, running water, even the way she’d set her coffee cup down with a little thump. And her old lady smell, dry and powdery and grassy like the herbs. The place still smelled a little like that.
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