“Iced tea,” I said. “Unsweetened.”
She chuckled. “You have come through the South, I think. Here in northern New Mexico the iced tea will always be left for you to sweeten.”
“That’s a relief,” I said, sharing her laughter. “Sweetened tea tastes like some peculiar species of flat soda.”
“To me, too,” she agreed.
I noticed a discreet sign indicating a rest room and motioned toward it. “If I might?”
“Of course. I will get the tea. Then I will pull the paperwork for your house.”
After using the ladies’ room, I followed Mrs. Morales into a side room furnished with a round table, and set about with square-bodied chairs that looked hand-carved. A few pieces of handmade Indian pottery were set in niches on one wall. Framed, limited-edition prints of sunset-tinted mountainscapes hung on the wall. I took my seat, reveling in this break from office superstore furnishings—especially after spending so many nights in the sort of generic motel rooms that had been within my budget.
I hoped the taste shown in the decorating boded well for the care given to my house. As it happens, I was right in this, but I was also seeing what I would learn was a fairly common aspect of New Mexican culture. In even the most pedestrian middle-class homes, you’ll often find a taste for art or fine handmade goods. It may not be good taste, but at least it reflects something other than the taste of the buyer for the local home-furnishings warehouse.
“Now,” Mrs. Morales said, “here are the records of our custodianship of Phineas House.”
I blinked. I hadn’t known the house had a name. In Uncle Stan’s files, it had simply been referred to by its address.
Suddenly, the stack of file folders reminded me all too acutely of Uncle Stan’s methodical records. I was overwhelmed by grief and confusion, as if my twenty-one-year-old self stood side by side with this me of thirty years later. I covered my disorientation by taking a swallow of my iced tea. It wasn’t bad, and the caffeine in it seemed to go directly into my tired brain.
By the time we finished reviewing the paperwork, I felt a whole lot better. In contrast, Mrs. Morales seemed increasingly edgy. I wondered at this. Certainly, based on these records, neither she nor her company had anything to worry about. Maintenance had been done systematically, and the house hadn’t suffered anything like the vandalism one would expect for a property so long vacant.
“Would you like me to take you over to the house?” Mrs. Morales asked. “The town may have changed a bit since your last visit.”
“I’m sure it has,” I said. “I haven’t been here since I was nine. I’d appreciate a local guide.”
“Let me call Domingo Navidad, first,” she said. “He’s the caretaker. He can lend you a hand with things.”
“You mean like getting the power and water turned on?” I asked. “I figured I’d just make a few phone calls from my motel.”
“I mean like getting the shutters down and the door open,” Mrs. Morales said, phone already to her ear, her expression the glazed one people acquire when they’re listening to two things at once. “Even in this dry climate wood can get stubborn.”
I nodded. Apparently, Mr. Navidad answered the call, for Mrs. Morales began chattering in a fluid, easy Spanish that was nothing like what I’d learned in school.
“Domingo says he can meet us in an hour or so,” Mrs. Morales said. “Would you like to go to lunch first?”
I nodded, though I felt ridiculously impatient at the delay. After all these years, what did another hour mean? Was it that I sensed Mrs. Morales was deliberately stalling, reluctant to go over to the house without Mr. Navidad?
I decided I was being ridiculous. “Lunch sounds wonderful. Can you recommend a motel where I can stay until I move into the house? Someplace not too expensive, but not a roach motel, either.”
Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Morales knew a hotel perfect for my needs. Moreover, she fished out a handful of discount coupons for the hotel, then insisted on buying me lunch at a nice if unpretentious place that served both mainstream American and New Mexican food.
“After all,” she said, the warmth in her smile free from her earlier tension, “you have been a client for over forty years. We can at least give you lunch.”
“I suppose I have been,” I agreed. “Okay.”
I was prepared to be daring at lunch—after all, this was my first real New Mexican meal—but Mrs. Morales advised me that it was best to order chile on the side until I adjusted to the heat.
“Chile?” I asked. “That’s different from what we’d call chile in Ohio, isn’t it?”
“I think there you would be talking about chile con carne,” Mrs. Morales said. “Here chile is a hot-pepper sauce—different wherever you go, so it’s not easy to say how spicy it will be.”
“Like salsa,” I said.
She smiled, but shook her head. “If you are thinking of what you can get in the grocery store … well … yes and no. Most salsas, like you would put on chips, also have in them tomatoes and onions and other things. What we call chile is usually just the peppers, cooked with maybe a bit of pork for flavoring, red or green according to the ripeness of the peppers.”
“Which is hotter?” I asked.
She gave an eloquent shrug. “It depends on the year and the peppers. If you order ‘Christmas’ you can try both. Let me do this for you.”
I agreed, and was glad for her suggestion. I hadn’t considered myself the stereotypical Midwesterner. Both travel and the art world had expanded my horizons far beyond the norm, but when the food arrived I was glad to be able to spoon on just enough chile to suit my taste.
Mrs. Morales seemed eager to tell me anything and everything about Las Vegas.
“You are a teacher?” she said. “You will like it here, then. In addition to the grammar and high schools, we have several institutes of higher learning right here in Las Vegas. There is Highlands University, the Luna Vocational Technical Institute, and a campus of the United World College.”
“Then this is a college town?”
Mrs. Morales gave an eloquent shrug, “Not really. Many residents are associated with the schools in one way or another, but ranching is still common. Tourism is important. Many residents work in the arts.”
“You should be on the local tourist board,” I said.
“I am,” she replied with a smile. “Not only because I am in real estate. This town is my home and my family’s home, and I would like to see it thrive.”
Mrs. Morales saw me glance at the wall clock and rose. “I can pay on the way out. I see you are eager to be going.”
A few twists and turns took us from the more modern city into a neighborhood where Victorian-style houses predominated. Some were in excellent condition, newly refurbished and brilliantly painted. Others were lived in, maintained or not according to the resident’s needs. A few were flat-out wrecks.
Mrs. Morales directed me to turn down one street after another until we arrived at a curving cul-de-sac, the centerpiece of which was a house I both did and did not remember.
Probably because of memories of this very house, I had always liked Victorian architecture. When I had bought a home of my own, I had even considered a refurbished Victorian, but all the houses I had looked at seemed somehow lacking. Now, staring through my windshield at the towering structure in front of me, I understood why.
The house was built in the Queen Anne style, but in it the excesses of that already excessive style had been taken to extremes. Phineas House had towers and porches, ornately carved balustrades, latticework, and enough gingerbread to make Hansel and Gretel swear off sweets. Every possible style of window seemed to be represented: bay windows and oriel windows jutted outward at various levels; lancet windows stretched tall and narrow; roundel windows marched round and fat. There didn’t seem to be a single roof built at the same level as any other, and they were shingled in various shapes of cut slate.
Moreover, quite unlike the photo that had been sent t
o me, the entire house was painted in a multiplicity of colors—colors that managed to be harmonious even as this crazy quilt of adornment managed to be harmonious. The dominant shade was a warm evergreen that shouted out in contrast to the brilliant blue of the cloudless New Mexico sky, but every other color in the rainbow was represented as well—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—those and many of the subtle hues that fall between.
“Oh, my,” I said softly, getting out of the truck without looking for possible oncoming cars. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off that amazing front facade. “Oh, my.”
Mrs. Morales got out of the truck as well. After a long, entranced moment, I became aware of her voice and realized she was talking, but not to me.
I shook myself free of my fascination, and found Mrs. Morales was speaking with a lean Hispanic man whose thick, brown-black hair was just starting to show grey. His sun-browned skin was grooved with enough deep lines that I knew he wasn’t young, but he moved with a contained energy that contrasted oddly with the ebullience of the small white dog that danced about his heels. I knew instantly from the mingled expression of pride and apprehension on the man’s face that this must be Domingo Navidad, the caretaker of the house.
He seemed to feel no need for introductions.
“What do you think?” he asked when he saw me looking at him. His accent was much like that of Mrs. Morales.
“Amazing,” I replied, “and like but yet not like what I remember.”
“It was grey,” he said bluntly, “with a little dull pink around the doors. It didn’t like it, so over time I listened, and this is what it wanted to be.”
Now it was Mrs. Morales’s turn to look apprehensive, but I had known too many artists to find such talk at all strange. This was no different than how a sculptor might talk about finding the shape of something within a piece of wood or stone.
“I see,” I replied. “I agree with the house. It looks better this way.”
Both Mrs. Morales and Mr. Navidad relaxed, but they immediately stiffened at my next words.
“I don’t remember the yard being so very large,” I said. “Weren’t there houses on either side?”
“And one around the back,” Mrs. Morales agreed. “Old wood, not too well-maintained, and this is a hot, dry climate.” She gave an eloquent shrug. “Fire takes them quickly.”
“All of them?” I asked astonished, “and this one untouched? And no one bought the land?”
“Not all at once,” Mrs. Morales said. “The fires happened over maybe twenty years, and, no, the land didn’t sell. This neighborhood is even now not the best, and then it was far less desirable.”
“But someone is maintaining the lots,” I said, suddenly aware of the summer heat kicking up from the asphalt and moving toward the shade of one of the towering elms.
“I do,” replied Mr. Navidad. “Did Mrs. Morales not tell you? The land goes with the house now—the way it once did. The entire makes up a piece shaped rather like a fat half-moon. When some past owner sold the lots, the center was kept, but the back and sides were let go.”
I registered this, turning slowly side to side to inspect the property. My first impression had been that Phineas House was the centerpiece of a cul-de-sac. Now I revised it. It was the cul-de-sac, the only house that faced the curving street. All the other structures but one faced onto other streets, and the dissenting structure was one I remembered—the carriage house, which even in my childhood had already been adapted to serve as a garage and storage area.
Without my consciously noticing our progress, we had all moved to stand in the shade now, some feet closer to the house.
My gaze had centered again on the front facade, and I had trouble wrenching it free, even though I knew my abstraction must seem rude. My eyes sought among the twists and turns, finding all sorts of carvings among the gingerbread trim. I was sure I saw lions and wolves. A leopard stretched to scratch his claws into a newel post, his long, lean body making a post for the porch rail. Faces peered out of brackets and from the tops of newel posts.
Yet for all these carved eyes, the house seemed blinded. I longed to wrench open the shutters, take down the boarding that protected the doors, but such would need to be done carefully—and probably I should only do it if I planned to take up residence.
I realized the other two were staring at me. I made myself remember what we had been talking about, then voiced a question. “Are you saying that I own the other lots?”
“They were offered at a fire-sale price,” Mrs. Morales said. Her tone tried to make a joke of this, but failed. Whereas Mr. Navidad and I were fascinated with Phineas House, she was clearly uncomfortable with it. “Your trustees allocated money to purchase it, feeling the structure would be best preserved that way. Property taxes here are comparatively low, especially for undeveloped lots.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “The house looks much better this way. I remember it seemed cramped before.”
“So I remember, too,” Mr. Navidad said.
I looked at him squarely for the first time. “Have you lived in this area long, then?”
He smiled. “I have lived in Las Vegas all my life. My father was a groundskeeper here in the days of your mother. I helped him, then took over from him when he retired. Keeping this house has been my life’s work.”
“Where do you live?” I asked, startled by his passion.
Mr. Navidad pointed. “The carriage house is there. After the fires, the trustees wanted someone to live near. I agreed to refurbish the upper storage area into an apartment in return for paying no rent.”
“A good idea, having someone living on the grounds,” I said. Suddenly, that sensation of being two people—this time the woman I was and the child I had been—washed over me. I felt vaguely nauseated. I wanted to believe the feeling had its source in the summer heat or all the driving I had done, or even the unusually spicy meal I had eaten for lunch, but I knew there was something else going on.
“I need to check in to my hotel,” I said, now as eager to be away as I had been to arrive. “Mr. Navidad, may I have your phone number? I will call and arrange to tour the grounds—tomorrow, I think. Right now I am very tired.”
“By all means,” he said. He pulled a business card from his wallet. “Here. My cell phone and my home phone. I do work other than here.”
He looked anxious, as if he thought I might choose to fire him for negligence.
“Fine. Fine.” I said, stuffing the card into my pocket. “I’ll call, maybe tomorrow morning—make an appointment.”
I nearly ran to my truck then, and Mrs. Morales scampered to follow. She insisted on staying with me until I had a room at the hotel, then I dropped her at the real estate office. After our earlier easy affability, we were both strangely silent. It was as if there were things we both knew, but couldn’t discuss.
Back at the hotel, I unloaded what I needed from the truck, then covered my scavengings with an old blanket. I focused singlemindedly on what must be done before businesses closed for the day—arranging for the electricity and water to be turned on, checking what it would take to get phone service reactivated. I decided to wait on the gas until I was sure whether or not I’d be moving into the house. I certainly wouldn’t need heat in summer, and hot water and cooking could wait.
I showered, dined in the hotel restaurant, and went back to my room. I desperately wanted to sleep, but sleep would not come. The television seemed more banal than usual, and although the evening was cooling down nicely, I found I was reluctant to leave the security of my room.
Almost without volition, my hand reached for the volume of Aunt May’s journal I had been reading, and I opened it, letting my bookmark fall unheeded to the floor.
OUTSIDE THE LINES
Since I don’t want Stan to find out what I’m doing, I guess I’m going to need to rely on the mail, but who do I write? If I write the local police will they answer?
Probably not. The investigation isn’t that ol
d. But what if I told them I am Mira’s guardian, and I am interested for her sake?
No. Bad idea. I don’t know who reports to the trustees. Stan would be furious if he thought I was doing anything that would risk our keeping Mira. Be honest with yourself, M., you’d be furious, too.
Okay. No police. Not yet, at least. Who then? Newspapers? Good idea. I’ll find out what the local papers are. Then write asking for appropriate articles. Yes. That will give me some names, maybe. Someone I can write.
But how do I do this without getting people wondering? Represent myself as family? No. They might already know—must know that Colette had no immediate family. Mira told us there were reporters when she left to come Idaho. Okay. Not family. What then?
Doing research. That’s safe. For what? A college paper? Represent myself as a graduate student? Sure. Sociology. Good. I can do that. Would a graduate student use school stationery? Probably not. I can get away with good bond paper. Letters had better be typed. No problem. I can use Stan’s typewriter.
Child of a Rainless Year Page 8