Fire and Rain

by Diane Chamberlain

  Suddenly, Rick turned around, and Carmen knew she’d been spotted. Jeff stood on the flatbed of his truck, one hand on his hip, the other holding the radio. Obviously, he and Rick were discussing her presence. In another minute, Rick jumped off the back of his truck and started walking up the canyon toward her, working his way through the thick, leathery chaparral. She was glad it was Rick she would have to deal with and not Jeff.

  The News Nine van arrived on the road behind her just as Rick neared the crest. Jake Carney and Toby Wells sauntered lazily out of the van, laughing.

  “They only sent two of you?” she asked, disappointed. No one was taking this very seriously.

  “Right,” Jake said, opening the rear of the van for his equipment. He stopped to wipe his forehead with a red bandana pulled from his pocket. “Christ, it’s hotter than blazes out here already.”

  “Well, come on,” Carmen said. “We’re going to have to try to get closer.”

  “You can’t.” Rick skirted a withered scrub oak on the ridge and came to a stop in front of her. He was winded. Sweat matted his blond hair to his forehead. “Jeff says for you to keep your distance.”

  “What exactly are you doing?” Carmen asked.

  Rick looked across the grove at Jeff, as though wondering how much the older man would want him to say. “It’s an experiment.” He spoke with cautious apprehension, but the boyish excitement in his eyes was unmistakable.

  “I’d like the cameras to get a little closer, please,” Carmen said. “We need a better look at the trucks.”

  “No,” Rick said with some force in his voice. “You can’t come any closer than this. It’ll interfere, okay? This is delicate stuff.” He started walking back toward the canyon.

  “What if one of the cameramen came down on foot?” Carmen called after him.

  Rick faced her again with a groan and an exaggerated slump of his shoulders. He said something into the radio, then took a few steps toward her, holding the little box in front of him. “He wants to talk to you,” he said.

  She took the device from Rick’s hand and held it to her ear. She looked to the north, where Jeff stood facing her from the truck. “Hello?” she said.

  “Do you want to see rain fall over Valle Rosa, Carmen?” Jeff’s voice crackled in her ear.

  She thought she could actually feel his eyes locking with hers across the expanse of the grove.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then stay right where you are. No closer. All right?”

  “All right,” she said, defeated.

  Rick took the radio from her hand, and as he made his way back into the canyon, Carmen turned to Jake and Toby.

  “We’ll film it from here,” she said.

  “Film what from here?” Toby asked.

  “Typical Valle Rosa footage,” Jake said, sitting down on the crest. “Blue sky, yellow sun, dead avocado trees.” He pulled the red bandana from his pocket again and wiped it across his forehead.

  An hour later, Jake and Toby were sprawled on the dusty earth, sweating profusely and drinking orange soda out of cans. Carmen had refused their offers of something to drink, although she was very hot. Her blouse was stuck to her back with sweat; she wished she could roll up the long sleeves. Walking back and forth along the rim of the canyon, she watched as Rick and Jeff fiddled with their equipment, spoke into their radios, and gestured to one another with broad sweeps of their arms.

  “Nice little wild goose chase, Carmo,” Jake said, yawning. The van radio sputtered behind them, and Toby slowly got to his feet. He paced back to the van, and a few minutes later came to stand next to Carmen.

  “We’re wanted in Escondido,” he said. “Four alarm fire and they—”

  “Shh!” Carmen held her hand up to stop him. She raised her chin, turned her head, struggling to hear… what? Something different, something very faint. A high-pitched hum. Soft, but growing louder, so loud that Jake got up off the ground to join them on the ridge, staring in the direction of the trucks.

  And then it happened. At first it was a mere hint of gray in the sky over the grove. Carmen thought it was her imagination, but then the gray deepened—and spread. Rick spoke into his radio, and he and Jeff knelt next to their black boxes, pressing buttons, turning knobs, as the blue of the sky between the two trucks gradually gave way to the thickening gray shadow.

  “Holy shit,” said Toby.

  “Get the cameras!” Carmen ordered, and in a minute the phenomenon was being caught on film. The cloud spread across the sky, slowly, like syrup, its color now an opaque, ominous near-black. There was a churning at its core, a slow-moving, dark tumble of mist, suspended directly above the center of the grove. The churning spread as the ends of the roiling cloud reached toward the trucks, and the grove was blanketed in thick, cool shadow.

  And then the rain began. Not a mist, not a shower, but a pelting, teeming rain that beat against the dying leaves of the avocado trees, while Carmen and Jake and Toby stood awestruck on the sunlit ridge of the canyon.

  Carmen told Toby to film her as she took a few steps into the canyon. When she’d reached the rain, she turned to face the camera, laughing out loud, holding her arms out to her sides, palms up.

  “This is Carmen Perez,” she said to the camera. “I’m standing on the rim of Cinnamon Canyon, where a small miracle is taking place.” She brushed a thick, wet strand of hair from her cheek. “On what is otherwise a typically dry, sunny southern California day, rain is falling over this heat-ravaged avocado grove behind me. In an experimental test of their rainmaking technology, Valle Rosa’s mystery man, Jeff Cabrio, and his assistant, Rick Smythe, have succeeded in producing rain. So don’t believe whatever weather reports you heard this morning. It’s pouring in Valle Rosa!”

  CHRIS LEFT HIS OFFICE around eleven the morning after the experiment, a stack of phone messages for Jeff in his shirt pocket. He had fielded most of them, thanking the callers for their congratulations, putting off those who wanted to know how they could get in touch with Jeff. Could he come to their drought-worn town next? Could he teach others to do what he was doing in Valle Rosa? Chris explained to each of them that, for now, Jeff was working only for Valle Rosa, but he assured them he would pass along their messages.

  Even Sam Braga had called with a guarded apology. “I’ll hold my fire until I see what else Cabrio can do,” he said.

  Chris was glad Carmen had followed Jeff and Rick out to the avocado grove the day before, glad she had gotten that mesmerizing footage of the mini-rainstorm, because if he had heard about it only from Jeff himself, he wasn’t at all sure he would have believed it.

  As he drove through one of the residential tracts of Valle Rosa, he spotted the first umbrella. It was bright yellow, open, and it hung upside down from a mailbox next to the street. He thought little of it until he saw the second, this one blue, hanging from the limb of a manzanita tree in the yard of the house next door. There were three umbrellas hanging in the third yard, and a huge red-and-white striped umbrella hanging from the porch of the fourth. Chris felt a chill up his spine. Somehow this symbol of hope had taken hold of Valle Rosa overnight, as though everyone had awakened this morning after dreaming the same dream.

  News vans lined the street across from the warehouse, and Chris had to park around the corner. A group of children and a few adults sat on the retaining wall by the side of the warehouse, probably hoping to steal a glimpse of the rainmaker. A couple of young men were trying to peek in the high windows, but even standing on one another’s shoulders, they couldn’t get a good look inside.

  An alert cameraman must have recognized him, because he started his camera rolling as Chris walked quickly toward the front door of the warehouse.

  “All right, Mayor Garrett!” someone called out, and a smattering of applause broke out among the spectators.

  Chris let himself in with his own key. Inside, he gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light before walking toward the rear. Rick was on one of the trucks, Jef
f at the computer. He looked up as Chris neared him and smiled.

  “How did you like our little squall yesterday?” he asked.

  Chris shook his head as he sat down across the table from him. “Incredible,” he said.

  “We made friggin’ history.” Rick leaned against one of the vats on the truck.

  “And everybody wants a part of it.” Chris pulled the stack of phone messages from his pocket and set them on the table. “Fifty calls this morning from people who want to interview you, or pick your brain, or have you come to their town next.”

  Jeff lifted the top message and read it, his face sober.

  “And there are umbrellas hanging from mailboxes and tree limbs. Everyone’s caught up in what you’re doing. Everyone believes you can do it.” Chris pursed his lips together in something of an apology. “And I’m afraid the vultures are outside.”

  Jeff raised wide eyes to his. “What do you mean?”

  “Reporters,” Chris said. “Fans. The excited citizenry of Valle Rosa. They’re all waiting for a glimpse of you.”

  Jeff groaned and leaned back in his chair. “You’ve got to help me, Chris. Please. Do whatever you can to keep them away from me.” He pushed the stack of messages back across rhe table. “And is there anything you can do to get your ex-wife off my back?”

  Chris remembered Carmen on TV the evening before, for the first time in many years, the undisputed star of News Nine. He’d felt a mixture of relief and profound joy as he watched her shine. He had nearly forgotten that her success was at the expense of the man sitting across the table from him.

  “She’s on a roll now,” he said. “I’ll talk to her, but I doubt there’s much I can do to stop her.”

  “I’m afraid she might stop me.” Jeff stood up and stretched. “I need another month,” he said. “I’ll move in here if I have to to avoid the press, and I’ll send Rick out for food.”

  Chris shook his head. “No. I’ll hire some security.” He had made that decision earlier that morning. “The equipment should be watched when you’re not here anyway.” Chris took a small notepad from his shirt pocket and set it on the table. “What more do you need in the way of supplies?”

  Jeff studied the map on the back of the bookcase. “One more truck should do it.”

  “That’s all?” Chris was almost disappointed. “I mean, you only covered a tiny area with the two.”

  Jeff smiled again. “Did you hear that Rick?”

  Rick laughed. “You better fill him in on the facts.”

  Jeff turned from the map to face him. “We were only using about two percent of our power, Chris,” he said. “You’d better make sure your flood insurance is paid up.”

  29

  WHEN THE KNOCK CAME on her door very early in the morning, Mia expected it to be Jeff. She’d been up for hours already, doing her laundry in the bathtub and working on the sculpture. But she wasn’t yet dressed. She wiped her hands on the clay-stained rag and loosened the folds of her blue robe across her chest to make the absence of her breast as unnoticeable as possible.

  When she opened the door, though, it wasn’t Jeff, but Carmen who stood on her front porch. Behind her, Sugarbush lay spread out in breathless beauty, the dry earth rose-colored in the fire-charged air of the sunrise. She wore an off-white pants suit, and the rose color glowed on one side of her face and body. For a moment, Mia simply drank in the scene with the rapture of an artist viewing a lure.

  “May I come in for a minute, please?” Carmen asked.

  Mia took a step backward to let her in, reflexively raising her hand to her neck, covering the left part of her chest with her forearm.

  Carmen closed the door behind her. The warm, pink sunlight poured through the windows, illuminating the shadows and lines on her face and shimmering in the gray streak of her hair.

  Yet there was no denying Carmen’s beauty—a tired sort of beauty, somehow made even more extraordinary by its gentle aging.

  Carmen glanced at the plastic on the floor and at the terra cotta sculpture taking shape on the stool. “You’re working,” she said. “I’ll only take a minute of your time.”

  Mia folded her arms across her chest, a stiffness to her body that was beginning to feel all too natural. She remembered Jeff saying she was protective of herself physically, that she was careful to keep others out of her personal space. He was right. Perhaps this cool rigidity had become so much a part of her that she would never be able to lose it, not even once her body was whole again. She would remain forever tense and hyper-alert, always turning away, trying to hide herself from the eyes of others.

  Right now, though, her tension was only partially related to her body. She felt nervous having Carmen see how she had transformed the cottage. She had moved the furniture around and covered the floor with plastic. The laundry she’d done that morning hung on lines stretched across the hallway. It looked like a community of ghosts. Would Carmen mind? Would she feel Mia had taken undue liberties with a space she was merely renting?

  “That was something else yesterday, wasn’t it?” Carmen walked across the living room and leaned against the arm of the sofa. “The rain?”

  “Yes,” Mia said. The owner of the avocado grove had sent Chris a bouquet of flowers. Suddenly, Chris was being viewed as some sort of hero.

  Carmen folded her own arms beneath her breasts. “Did you know all along that he’d succeed? Did you have some sixth sense?”

  Mia smiled. “I was probably every bit as astonished as you were.” She’d cried when she saw the footage of that remarkable rain. She’d cried from happiness for Jeff and for his success and his vindication. And she’d cried from the realization that he was nearing his goal, nearing the time he would leave Valle Rosa.

  Carmen looked down at the sketch pad on the sofa, idly running her fingertips across the drawing Jeff had made of the fountain. “You’ve become good friends with him,” she said. It was almost an accusation.

  Mia sat down behind the stool. She knew now what Carmen was after this morning, and she felt suddenly powerful, suddenly superior. She had something Carmen wanted, and she also had the integrity to keep it from her.

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re friends.”

  “So, what is he like?” Carmen lowered herself to the sofa. “I can’t get near him. All he does is bark at me. What has he told you about himself?”

  “Nothing. And I don’t question him, either.”

  Carmen’s eyes suddenly fell on the bulletin board propped up against the coffee table. “Oh!” she said, reaching over to lift the board to her knees. She studied the layer of photographs. “These were taken inside the warehouse!”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you have them?” She glanced at the sculpture on the stool in front of Mia. “You’re sculpting him!” She rested the bulletin board against the back of the sofa and stood up, circling the stool, studying the emerging sculpture. It didn’t yet resemble anyone in particular. The pose was in place—a man standing, shirt open, one hand raised to draw back a curtain that didn’t yet exist—but he lacked identifying features, and the bas-relief of the window was still wrapped in plastic on the coffee table. Carmen continued to walk around the stool, and Mia thought of a hungry wolf circling its prey.

  “You’re working from the pictures?” Carmen asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll pay you for those pictures, Mia.” Carmen gestured toward the bulletin board. “A month’s free rent.”

  Mia laughed, shaking her head.

  “Just one picture, then. You can pick which one.” Carmen returned to the sofa and plucked one of the pictures—Jeff and Rick poring over the computer—from the board. She frowned at it. “What’s it like inside? What are they doing in there?”

  “Honestly, Carmen, I don’t have the vaguest idea.” She must have conveyed some annoyance in her voice, because Carmen’s shoulders suddenly drooped and she bit her lip.

  “I know I’m intruding,” she said. “I know I’m being unf
air, but I need to learn more about him.”

  “I doubt I know any more than you do. Even if I did, he’s my friend.”

  Carmen nodded, the look on her face one of resignation as she handed the photograph over to Mia. “Well,” she said, “he’s lucky to have you.” She sighed and glanced around the room again, her eyes falling on the laundry hanging in the hallway. “Oh, Mia, you poor thing!” She walked toward the hall with its crisscrossed lines of underwear and over-sized T-shirts. “This is ridiculous. You can’t even walk down the hall. And how are you washing it—in the sink?” She peered into the bathroom, and Mia tried to imagine what she was seeing: towels hung from the shower curtain rod, buckets of clay-laced water in the tub, the prosthesis on the edge of the sink.

  Carmen disappeared into the bathroom. Mia took a deep breath and followed her in, clutching her robe tightly around her. Carmen was tapping a loose wall tile into place above the tub.

  “From now on,” she said, standing straight again, “you’re using my washer and dryer. Any time, okay? The spare key is under the potted lemon tree on the patio.”

  Mia must have looked suspicious of her motives, because Carmen said, “No obligation, Mia. Really.” She pointed toward the damp laundry in the hallway. “This is crazy.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Mia took a step into the hall, hoping to lure Carmen out of the bathroom, out of the cottage, but the older woman’s eyes had fallen on the sink.

  “What’s that?” she asked. “Some sort of—?” She stopped short, and Mia saw the realization dawning on her.

  “It’s a breast prosthesis,” Mia said, with a sense of doom. Carmen was a woman capable of using people to her own gain, a woman always on the lookout for other people’s secrets. For a panicky moment, Mia thought of offering her Jeff’s pictures in exchange for her silence.