by J. A. Jance
“Scissors,” Jessie echoed. “What are you going to do?”
“Cut it off.”
“You can’t do that,” Jessie protested. “Your hair’s so long and pretty . . .”
“Yes, I can,” Lani told her friend determinedly. “And I will. It’s my hair.”
In the end Jessica helped wield the scissors. She cut the hair off in what was supposed to be a straight line, right at the base of Lani’s neck.
“How does it look?” Lani asked as Jessica stepped back to eye her handiwork.
Jessie made a face. “Not that good,” she admitted. “It’s still a little crooked.”
“That’s all right,” Lani said. “It’ll grow out.”
“So will mine,” Jessie said, handing Lani the scissors.
For a moment, Lani didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“Cut mine, too. People tease us about being twins. This way, we still will be.”
“But what will your mother say?” Lani asked.
“The same thing yours does,” Jessica returned.
Fifteen minutes later, Jessie Carpenter’s hair was the same ragged length as Lani’s. Before they left the bathroom, Lani gathered up all the cuttings into a plastic trash bag. Instead of putting the bag in the garbage, however, she loaded it into her backpack along with her books.
“What are you doing?” Jessica asked.
“I’m going to take it home and use it to make a basket.”
“Really? Out of hair?”
Lani nodded. “Nana Dahd showed me once how to make horsehair baskets. This will be an o’othham wopo hashda—people-hair basket.”
Hair had been the main topic of conversation that night at both the Walker household and at the Carpenters’ just up the road.
“Whatever happened to your hair?” Brandon Walker demanded. “It looks like you got it caught in the paper cutter at school.”
“It was too long,” Lani answered quietly. “I decided to cut it off. Jessie cut hers, too.”
“You cut it yourself?”
Lani shrugged. “Jessie cut mine and I cut hers.”
Silenced by a reproving look from Diana, Brandon shook his head and let the subject drop, subsiding into a gloomy silence.
The next day was Saturday. With the enthusiastic approval of Rochelle Carpenter, Jessie’s mother, Diana collected both girls and took them to her beauty shop in town to repair the damage.
“You both look much better now,” Diana had told them on the way back home. “What I don’t understand is why, if you both wanted haircuts, you didn’t say something in the first place instead of cutting it off yourselves.”
Jessie kept quiet, waiting to see how Lani would answer. “We just decided to, that’s all,” she said.
Since Lani didn’t explain anything more about the fight on the bus, neither did Jessie. As for Diana, she was so accustomed to the vagaries of teenagers that she let the matter drop.
Several weeks later, Lani emerged from her bedroom carrying a small flat disk of a basket about the size of a silver dollar. Diana Ladd had spent thirty years on and around the reservation. Over those years she had become something of an expert on Tohono O’othham basketry and she recognized that her daughter, Rita Antone’s star pupil, was especially skilled. As soon as Diana saw this new miniature basket, she immediately recognized the quality of the workmanship in the delicate pale-yellow Papago maze set against a jet-black background.
“I didn’t know you ever made baskets like this,” Diana said, examining the piece. “Where did you get the horsehair?”
“It’s not horsehair,” Lani answered. “It’s made from Jessie’s hair and from mine. I’m making two of them, one for each of us to wear. I’m going to give Jessie hers for her birthday.”
Diana looked at her daughter. “Is that why you cut your hair, to make the baskets?”
Lani laughed and shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’m making the baskets because we cut our hair.”
“Oh,” Diana said, although she still wasn’t entirely sure what Lani meant.
It was another month before Jessie’s maze was finished as well. Each of the baskets had a tiny golden safety pin fastened to the back side. Lani strung a leather thong through each of the pins, tied her necklace around her neck, and then went to Jessica’s house carrying the other basket in a tiny white jeweler’s box she had begged from Diana.
“It’s beautiful,” Jessie said, staring down at the necklace. “What does it mean?”
“It means that we’re friends,” Lani answered. “I made the two baskets just alike so we can still be twins whenever we wear them.”
“I know that we’re friends,” Jessie giggled. “But the design. What does that mean?”
“It’s a sacred symbol,” Lani explained. “The man in the maze is I’itoi—Elder Brother. He comes from the center of the earth. The maze spreads out from the center in each of the four directions.”
In the years since then, the black-and-gold disk had become something of a talisman for Lani Walker. She called it her kushpo ho’oma—her hair charm. The original leather thong had been replaced several times over. Now when she wore it, the basket dangled from a slender gold chain Lani’s parents had given her on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday.
The people-hair charm served as a reminder that some people were good and some were bad. Lani didn’t wear it every day, only on special occasions—only when she needed to. There were times when she was nervous or worried about something—as on the day she went to the museum to apply for the job, for instance—that she made sure the necklace went with her.
Having the basket dangling around her neck seemed to give her luck. Every once in a while, she would run her fingertips across the finely woven face of the maze. Just touching the smooth texture seemed to calm her somehow. In a way Lani couldn’t quite explain, the tiny basket made her feel more secure—almost as if it summoned Nana Dahd’s spirit back and brought the old basket maker close to her once more.
Coming out of the bathroom with her hair sleek and dry, Lani looked at the clothing she had laid out on a chair the night before—the lushly flowered Western shirt with pearl-covered snaps, a fairly new pair of jeans, shiny boots, and a fawn-colored cowboy hat. Walking past the chair, Lani went to her dresser and opened her jewelry box. She smiled as the first few bars of “When You Wish Upon a Star” tinkled into the room.
Taking her treasured maze necklace from its place of honor, she fastened it around her throat.
Mr. Vega—that was the name the artist had signed in the bottom right-hand corner of the sketch, (M. Vega)—had asked her to wear something Indian. Of all the things Lani Walker owned, her o’othham wopo hashda—people-hair basket—was more purely “Indian” than anything else.
Mr. Vega might not know that, but Lani did, and that’s what counted.
David Ladd was still reeling from the effects of yet another panic attack that Saturday morning as he finished packing his things into his new Jeep Cherokee for the long road trip back to Arizona. Even though it was a bald-faced lie, he had told his grandmother, Astrid Ladd, that he wanted to get an early start that morning.
As expected, Astrid came out of the main house to watch the loading process. She stood in the driveway between the main house and the carriage house, leaning on her cane and shaking her head as he closed the rear hatch on his carefully packed load.
“All done?”
Davy nodded. “I should probably hit the road pretty soon.”
“This early?” Astrid objected. “You can’t do that. I wanted to take you to the club one last time before you go. Not only that, if you’re going to be driving all that way by yourself, it’s important for you to keep up your strength. You should start out with a decent breakfast under your belt.”
What David knew but didn’t mention to Astrid right then was that on the first day of his trip he would be driving only as far as downtown Chicago. There, just off North Michigan Avenue on Pearson, he and Canda
ce Waverly—his girlfriend of six months’ standing—planned to spend their farewell night ensconced in a deluxe suite at the Ritz Carlton. It was a graduation gift from Candace to Davy, compliments of the Gold AmEx card Richard Waverly provided for his darling daughter.
“Sure, Grandma,” David said, accepting his grandmother’s invitation gracefully, as he had known in advance that he would. “I suppose I can stay long enough to have breakfast,” he added.
Evanston, the town, is dry. Evanston, the golf club—across the line in Skokie—is definitely wet. That was the other thing David Ladd was both smart and discreet enough not to mention. The reason Astrid Ladd wanted to have breakfast at the golf club—which she did several times a week—had less to do with the quality of the food than it did with the inevitable Bloody Mary or two that would accompany her order of eggs Benedict.
At seventy-eight, Astrid Ladd was old enough to still observe the strictures against solitary drinking. According to her long-held beliefs, only problem drinkers drank alone. Astrid and her late husband, Garrison Walther Ladd II, had been part of the fashionable drinking set their whole married life. Living in a dry town, they had done their drinking at home, in other people’s homes or in private clubs. David’s grandfather had been dead for five years now. He had hemorrhaged to death, dying as a result of esophageal varices which were most likely related to all those years of social drinking.
With her husband and best tippling buddy gone, Astrid Ladd still wanted to drink, but she was terrified of being caught in the very unladylike trap of drinking alone. As a consequence, she spent her days plotting a vigorously active social calendar that usually involved suckering some poor unsuspecting chump into driving her out to the club early for her daily ration of grog. Later on, she would prevail on somebody else to chauffeur her home.
On this hazy, and already hot summer morning in early June, David Ladd drove both ways. Leaving behind his upstairs carriage house apartment with its magnificent view of Lake Michigan, he pulled up to the side entrance of his grandmother’s oversized mansion in Astrid’s aging but equally oversized 1988 DeVille. She came out onto the porch and stood waiting, leaning heavily on her cane, while David hustled out of the car and helped her into the rider’s side.
“I can’t believe you’re done with school already,” Astrid said as he eased her into the leather seat. “Three whole years! The time just flew by, didn’t it? I’m going to miss you desperately, Davy. You don’t know how much.”
Actually, Davy did know. The drafty old house was far too big for Astrid. In fact, most of the upstairs and part of the ground floor had been closed off for years, since long before Davy appeared on the scene. Several times during his sojourn at Northwestern, David Ladd had hinted to his grandmother that maybe it was time for her to consider unloading the family home. He suggested that she might enjoy moving into a more reasonably sized condo, one that didn’t require nearly as much upkeep. Astrid had dismissed the idea out of hand, and after the second rejection Davy hadn’t mentioned it again.
“And I’m going to miss that lovely Candace,” Astrid continued. “I probably shouldn’t, but I can’t help thinking of her as a granddaughter.”
That wasn’t news. Astrid Ladd had never been one to keep her feelings or opinions to herself. Her unbridled enthusiasm for Candace Waverly—of the Oak Park Waverlys, as Astrid was fond of adding when introducing Candace and Davy to one of her upscale friends—was also well known.
“I’m going to miss her, too,” David managed.
“How much?”
“What do you mean, how much?”
“You know what I mean,” Astrid said slyly. “Are you or are you not going to give her a ring before you leave town?”
Astrid Ladd had promised her grandson a free ride at Northwestern’s law school if he wanted to go there to study. That “free ride” had included everything—tuition, books, living expenses, food, a place to stay, laundry privileges, and even a car—but it had been far from free. The cost had come in terms of three years spent living his life under Astrid Ladd’s watchful scrutiny, under her eye, ear, and thumb. Astrid’s far too conscientious mothering as well as Chicago’s uncompromising weather—summer and winter both—were the main reasons David Ladd was anxious to go back home to Arizona.
Candace Waverly was the single reason he wanted to stay in Chicago.
“No, Grandma,” he said. “No ring. We’re not ready for that yet.”
“But you told me that you’re . . . what did you call it?”
“Going out,” David supplied. “But that doesn’t mean we’re serious.”
“I wish it did,” Astrid said wistfully. “Because I’m willing to help, you know.”
Davy kept his eyes on the road. “Grandma,” he said patiently, “you already put me through law school. And you just gave me a Jeep Grand Cherokee for graduation. How much more help could you be?”
“You’d be surprised, Davy,” Astrid Ladd said determinedly. “There are one or two more things I could do.”
“Grandma, believe me, you’ve done enough.”
They turned off Sheridan Road onto Dempster. Astrid waited until they stopped for a light. “Hold out your hand,” she commanded.
Sighing, David Ladd obeyed. With a deft twist, Astrid removed a knuckle-sized diamond ring from her finger and dropped it into the palm of her grandson’s hand. “You could give Candace this,” she said.
“That’s your engagement ring, Grandma,” Davy protested. “I can’t take that.” He tried returning it to her. Astrid took it, but instead of keeping it, she leaned over and dropped it into his shirt pocket.
“Why not?” she returned. “Who else is there? You’re my grandson and my only living heir. Who else would I leave it to but you? That’s why I don’t want to sell the house, either. I plan to give it to you and Candace as a wedding present, you see.”
Her voice broke. She sounded close to tears. With a lump in his own throat, David almost drove the DeVille into a passing truck. “You can’t be serious, Grandma,” he protested.
“I’m serious as can be, Davy. If you pass the bar in Illinois and go into practice, in five years, you’ll make partner, especially with Richard Waverly’s connections. You and Candace will need an address like mine to help establish your place in the community. You’ll need to fix it up some, decorate it to suit you and all that, but that’ll be a lot less expensive than buying new.”
“Grandmother,” David Ladd said carefully, wanting to be firm, but not wanting to hurt her feelings. “I don’t want to practice law here. I want to go home, to Arizona.”
Astrid tossed her head. “I can’t imagine why,” she said crossly. “I don’t know how regular people can tolerate living in that godforsaken place. I remember when your grandfather Garrison and I went out there for your father’s memorial service—it wasn’t even a funeral, mind you. It was so ungodly hot. I don’t know when I’ve ever been more miserable.”
It would have been simple to talk about the weather. David Ladd was an expert on that. He had suffered more from both heat and cold during his three years in Illinois than he could ever remember enduring in the desert back home. Although this was only the second week of June, Chicago was already soldiering through the first real heat wave of summer.
During the previous week, afternoon daytime temperatures had hovered in the mid-nineties with humidity much the same—mid-nineties. And although the humidity was that high, the weather forecasts held no hope of rain or relief. Davy was looking forward to Arizona. At least there, the heat was honest. When the summer rainstorms came, evening temperatures could drop as much as twenty degrees in a matter of minutes. In Chicago, the sweltering, smothering heat never let up. And rain, when it came, seemed to make things worse, not better.
At that moment, however, David Ladd couldn’t afford the luxury of a digression into weather. His grandmother had issued a serious challenge, one that had to be met head-on.
“It’s a wonderful offer, Grandma,” he sa
id at last. “It really is, and it’s a wonderful house. But I can’t see myself living there.”
“You can’t?” She sounded shocked. “Why not?”
“Because it wouldn’t ever be really mine,” David answered. “I wouldn’t feel like I had earned it.”
“That’s not it,” Astrid said sharply. “It’s because of your mother, isn’t it? Diana has always resented me, and now she’s turned you against me, too.”
“That’s not true, Grandmother. Not at all.”
David turned into the club entrance and then stopped at the front door to let Astrid out. The place wasn’t all that full, so there were plenty of parking places. Even so, by the time he made it into the dining room, Astrid had already finished her first Bloody Mary and had started on the second.
David Ladd sighed. For a farewell celebration, it was not an auspicious beginning.
Lani Walker left a note for her parents on the kitchen table. “Have fun at the banquet. Remember, Jess and I are going to that dueling bands concert at the Community Center tonight. Her parents are giving us a ride both to and from. I shouldn’t be too late, but don’t wake me for breakfast. Tomorrow’s my day off.”
The Tucson Mountains loomed in deep shadows against a rosy sky when Lani rode her bike up to Mr. Vega’s parking place. She had worried overnight that maybe he wouldn’t show up, but he was there with his easel already set up by the time she braked the mountain bike next to his station wagon.
“Nice hat,” he said. “And nice shirt, too, but you’re right. Those clothes make you look more like a cowgirl than an Indian.”
“Hardly anybody wears feathers anymore,” Lani told him. “And most of the people who go around in leather ride motorcycles.”
“Point taken,” he said, with a mock salute. “I think maybe I’ll have you sit over here on this rock with the saguaro in the background. By the way, do you want anything to drink before we get started? I brought along orange juice just in case you didn’t have time for breakfast.”