Magnolia City (12 page)

Nella stood across the table and beamed at her daughter. Her eyes twinkled with sparks from the hoard down below. “Now these jewels you may keep, since you’re practically engaged.”

“Practically,” Hetty said, trying on the watch. It looked smashing on her wrist. She resisted picking up the ring, knowing she’d be undone forever.

Kirb came over and stood beside his daughter. “Now that’s what I like to see,” he said, finishing off his brandy and smacking his lips. “An old-fashioned courtship.”

Later, Lina helped Hetty move the three bouquets into her room. She wanted one beside her bed, one on her dresser where the roses would be reflected in her mirror, and one on the Chinese table, where she kept her brocade boxes of crystallized ginger. Using the white ribbons, Hetty hung the gifts among the blossoms because the diamonds looked so resplendent against the crimson petals. Gentle aromas began to pervade the room.

She sighed. “Lamar’s campaign of jewels and roses. How can I resist it?”

Lina scowled at her. “We have saying . . .” she muttered. Just as Lina always carried a dust cloth in her apron pocket, so she always had a Mexican proverb she could pull out and apply to the big important questions of life. Tonight’s was:
Amor con amor se paga:
“Love has to be paid with love.”

“You’re so wise, Lina,” Hetty said, taking her hands and kissing her on the forehead.

“Not wise enough, sometimes,” she answered, and Hetty felt something cold being dropped into her palm. She ran her fingers over a metal object. It was the big iron key to the
postigos
.

As soon as Charlotte and Nella were finished in the bathroom the next morning, Hetty drew herself a hot bath and soaked for a long time in the steamy air. She wanted to wash the dark side of her moon away and scrub the smell of bitterness off her skin. Once she felt clean enough, she attacked her closet to find the right dress to wear—something that would make her look available but not eager, enticing but not whorish. She chose a vine of deep purple and blue flowers with long sleeves. She slipped it on over purple silk stockings and lit her face with a little silver eye shadow and vermilion lipstick. The woman gazing back at her through the roses she had placed in front of her mirror looked cool and radiant, ready to face a man wanting her to elope.

She heard his footsteps first, echoing down the long hall outside Lina’s room. The door was right there. She could slip into it, lock it behind her, and never see him again. This was the moment. Her feet wanted to run, but then she saw him and was smitten all over again. He looked even better than she remembered, dressed in his usual wildcatter’s rig—the tall sexy boots, the rugged leather jacket, a snap of a hat. She could see herself on the arm of such a man, walking out of the hotel in front of everyone.

He didn’t come right up to her but stopped a couple of feet away. Neither said anything. Under the brim of his Panama, his blue eyes found hers and filled with the cold color of his loneliness. She wanted to go to him with every fiber of her being but held back, not sure how he would react to what she was about to reveal.

Then she was in his arms. He took off his hat and buried his face in her neck, almost lifting her off her feet by the strength of his embrace. Once Hetty smelled him, she couldn’t hold back any longer. It was always the smell that got her, that forbidden spice of male musk. She hugged him back, opened her mouth to his tongue. His kisses were deep and urgent, as if he were trying to make up for all the petting he’d missed in the last week.

After a few moments, she forced herself to pull away and whisper—“Quiet! ”—as she opened the back door of the apartment and pushed him through.

On the way to the
postigos,
Hetty stopped in her room to get the big iron key. Garret spotted the roses and the jewels draped among the petals. She warned him not to read the three cards, but he couldn’t resist.
He might as well see it all,
she thought,
so he knows what I’m giving up for him.

Then they made their way down the hall, past her father’s secluded study and the master bedroom, to the portal of Nella’s quarters. Hetty inserted the key and turned it. With a click, one of the heavy colonial doors shuddered open. As she pushed it back, the ancient iron hinges groaned, revealing Nella’s secret room. Hetty led Garret in and let him look around. It wasn’t like the rest of the apartment at all. The walls here bore the color of sun-drenched marigolds or fiery red chilies. Mayan crosses stood atop a Mexican
armario,
whose crudely carved cedar had weathered to the color of old leather. Quarter-moon chairs sat at a hacienda table where Nella worked at her embroideries.

At one end of the room rose the altar, the very fount, of Nella’s practiced femininity: a
bureau de dame
in black lacquered wood with little ivory compartments stepped like an Aztec pyramid down the back. A drawer had been left partway open, and geometrical jewelry spilled out, flashing enameled facets: triangles of onyx and amazonite, sunbursts of sapphire, coral, and gold.

At the other end of the room sat a four-spindle church pew; above it hung painted masks of goats or devils. There was an altar table, some candles. The most noticeable things on the walls, though, were not the brightly painted masks but a series of black-and-white photographs of an old plaza town in Mexico and its dark-skinned inhabitants. Some were family portraits taken in formal parlors. Others were shots of old men telling stories at sunset on the massive stone benches in the plaza. One was a wedding picture: A dusky bride wore a shawl as a headdress, cinched in her hair with a Spanish comb. Her husband was blond and fair. He looked out of place amid all the bronze faces, stiff and frowning. These family photos were surrounded by strange close-ups of grave markers and gargoyles and spirals carved on the lintels of old stone houses.

Hetty noticed Garret studying a lace fan that had been framed and labeled:
Guerrero, sin recurso.
Then he looked at her, puzzled. “I don’t understand. Who are all these Mexicans?”

“My ancestors. That bride is my grandmother, Liliana Ardra Herrera de Beckman. Her husband was a German from the Hill Country.”

Garret looked at the picture, then back at Hetty, trying to understand.

“I’m mestiza, Garret.”

“Mes—what?”

“Mestiza. Mixed blood. My mother always said the word came from a costume they used to wear in Yucatan that was half white, half black. That’s what my grandmother was like—half Spanish, half Indian, born where the light meets the dark. The town you see there in the pictures—Guerrero, along the border. Her people were stonecutters.”

Garret seemed speechless. He looked at the photographs, then back at Hetty’s face. It was as if he didn’t recognize her anymore. His eyes grew puzzled. She could feel the knots drawing tighter in her stomach, the lump welling in her throat.

“You’re
Mexican?
”

Hetty nodded. She was afraid if she said anything, the tears would start to flow. She sank into one of the quarter-moon chairs, steeling herself for the moment Garret would walk away.

He stammered for a response. “I’m—I’m—” He wouldn’t look at her.

“You don’t have to say anything.” Hetty’s voice quivered. “Just leave, please.” She lowered her eyes to the striped wool rugs on the floor. She didn’t want to watch him walking out, leaving her alone with those ghostly gray faces staring at her from the black-and-white photographs.

“I don’t want to leave. I just want to look at you with new eyes.”
Scornful eyes,
she thought. He came and stood over her, placed his hand on her head. “So that’s where your black hair comes from, your dark eyes . . .” Hetty felt his fingers tightening on her scalp, imagined him tugging her by the hair, insulting her in subtle ways.
Now he’ll feel free to make love to me, do what he wants, take the kind of liberties he wouldn’t dare take before. He’ll see me as fallen,
she thought.
When one of our children is born with darker skin, he’ll blame me. The sin of my color.

“I’ve always loved your black hair. Now I know why.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I should have.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered, you silly girl.” He cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her eyes to his. “I don’t care if your grandmother was an Eskimo. It’s you I love, Hetty. Not your family.”

“Don’t lie to me, Garret. You were shocked. I could tell.”

“It’s just a surprise, that’s all.” He knelt down in front of her. “But I couldn’t really care less. Hell, I’m Black Irish myself. My mother always said we were descended from Spanish sailors. Who knows? What difference does it make?”

“I can see you’re not from Texas. It makes a difference here. That’s why we’ve kept it such a secret. Nella is terrified her society friends will find out and shun her.”

“Who wants friends like that?”

Hetty resisted when he tried to hug her. So much anguish and love was dammed up in her throat, almost choking her, yet she was afraid to let it out.
Nunca me harás llorar
. “I was worried you were going to walk out on me,” she cried. “That you would hate me.”

“Never, never,” he said, and tried to hug her again.

“You really mean that?”

“With all my heart.”

He sounded so sincere, she decided she
could
let him see her weep, after all. She always felt safe with Garret, which was why she loved him so much. She couldn’t carry this cramp in her heart forever. She let her head fall to his chest. She let her feelings come flooding out, staining the leather of his jacket with the bitter juices of rejection and fear. She couldn’t believe he was staying with her. She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight, sobbing.

After a few minutes, she lifted her head and wiped her eyes with the flared sleeve of her dress. “So you really don’t care?”

“No. In fact, I’m relieved. I have a secret, too.”

“You do?”

Garret pulled a quarter-moon chair out from under the table and sat down. He looked at her sheepishly. “I run a little rum on the side.” He watched for her reaction. “But it’s only to raise money for my wildcatting ventures. I don’t plan to do it much longer.”

Hetty’s tears turned into laughter. “I love it. The greaser and the legger. Aren’t we a couple of wild beasts? So modern!”

“So you’ll still go away with me?”

Hetty paused for only a moment. Garret’s confession might have given her pause yesterday, but at this moment she was swept up in such a rapture of deliverance, she didn’t care. This was the kind of intensity she wanted in her life! “Of course I will,” she said, sitting on his lap and kissing him so hard their teeth scraped together.

“Let’s leave now,” he said, urgent and aroused.

“Are you crazy, kiddo? I need time to pack.”

They had to wait three days for their marriage license to come through, three endless days of hellish indecision for Hetty. She spent the long hours packing for her honeymoon, hiding the two suitcases deep in her closet. She was so afraid her mother would discover them or that Charlotte would notice toiletries missing from the bathroom. Hetty couldn’t eat and woke up in a cold sweat at night. “We live in a rainbow of chaos” became more than a quote from Cezanne. It was suddenly her future. She stopped by the bank and made a withdrawal out of her passbook. Ten dollars. She was reluctant to take everything out, worried that the teller might tip off her father. Every time she uncapped her tortoiseshell pen to write Lamar, the midnight blue ink would dry on the tip as she sat there staring at an ecru note card. What if she came to regret the words? Only Garret’s voice on the telephone could comfort her and convince her that she was doing the right thing.

Finally, the eve of her elopement arrived. Hetty stayed in her room during dinner, sending a message with Lina that she wasn’t feeling well. She feared she wouldn’t be able to look her parents in the eye through the maze of tall white candles and crystal wineglasses.

Later, she grew hungry and decided to investigate leftovers in the kitchen. She got out of bed, sheathed her feet in Chinese silk, and cracked the door a little. All looked dark and quiet in the hall. But when she tiptoed into the drawing room, she discovered her mother hidden behind the great Diana screen, drinking in a circle of light. It was almost as if Nella were waiting to ambush her.
Damn mothers and their intuition!