Night at the Fiestas: Stories (27 page)

Carmen put the stacked towels in the basket. “You know, Ruben’s real good at fixing stuff.” She glanced around the room, as though looking for items that needed fixing. “You give him an engine, and he can figure out what’s wrong with it in no time. He retiled my whole bathroom. Anything you need done.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Margaret, and wondered if there were some outdoor jobs she could give the boy. Maybe it would encourage him to stay on the right path. She imagined getting to know the family, being invited to their big parties, then caught herself and blushed. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

That afternoon, as she was leaving, Carmen said, “Honey, you don’t need me every day. You don’t make near enough mess.”

“Yes, I do.” Margaret was surprised by the insistence in her voice. “There’s so much that needs to be done. The windows. And the linens need to be rewashed. The van must have been stuffy.”

I
N THE AFTERNOONS,
after Carmen left, Margaret found herself taking frequent stock of the kitchen cupboards, looking for a reason to drive into town and away from her studio, a mission for the day that was both achievable and time-consuming, anything to keep from having to be alone with her painting. There was so much to do, but Margaret didn’t know what, and she couldn’t sit still long enough to let it come. So instead, she organized her supplies, cleaned her brushes, made lists of colors she needed.

One afternoon, on one of these errands, she drove with Daisy to Santa Fe, bought lunch downtown and ate it on a bench on the Plaza. As the shadows of leaves shifted around her, she watched the faces of the other women. Perhaps she would meet someone—for some reason the black and white photographs of Georgia O’Keefe always rose in her mind—with whom she could talk about her art. But they all seemed to be tourists. She wished there weren’t so many people, wished the Five & Dime didn’t just sell disposable cameras and plastic chile ristras and cheap postcards and souvenir scorpion magnets. She would have liked it all to be a little more real, and felt a pang of regret for not having moved out here twenty, thirty years ago.

Two elegantly dressed women her age walked toward her with shopping bags in their hands. They didn’t gaze in shop windows or photograph the Native Americans under the portico of the Palace of the Governors. They walked like they belonged here. One wore a silver squash blossom necklace over a black silk shift.

As they approached, Daisy spied a hot dog wrapper in the path. She strained on her leash, whining.

The squash-blossom woman smiled as she passed. “A beauty! I have two Yorkies of my own.”

Margaret tugged Daisy back sharply, irritated. These women were the kind of people Carmen would despise, the kind of people Margaret might be mistaken for.

W
HEN SHE DID FORCE
herself to pour out linseed oil and squeeze paint onto the palette, Margaret took a great deal of time over the preparations, and for every dab of paint on the canvas, she stepped back and considered. The perspective was off on one of the chair legs, the waves looked sculpted in plasticine, there wasn’t nearly enough contrast. It was so hard to get into her work; she pushed tiny bits of paint across the edge of the canvas, avoiding, avoiding, avoiding. After only twenty or thirty minutes, she wanted to stamp her foot and whine like Charlotte had when she was four and frustrated over her shoelaces:
It’s too hard
.

Early one morning, however—Sunday, Carmen wouldn’t be in today—Margaret awoke thinking of the sandstone formations along the highway to Santa Fe and decided she’d integrate them into her piece. After all, this place had changed her, and
Canute Commands the Tides
should reflect that. Old Canute would not be on the Maine coast, but on a mythical desert-like beach that had never existed, a beach ringed with cliffs and red sandstone balanced like meringue.

Without brushing her teeth or putting in her contacts, Margaret ran to her studio in her nightgown, exhilarated. She stepped out on the cold patio in bare feet to scoop sand, which she drizzled through her fingers onto the palette. Oranges and reds and browns, paint mounded thick. All morning she worked, chilly, yet sweating along her sides and at the back of her neck. Under her feet, sand gritted.

When she stepped back, the euphoria was lost. It’s true her cliffs resembled Camel Rock and the others, but the whole effect was self-consciously mystical, like an image on a new-agey Taroh card. And this kind of textured painting had already been done, and done better.

How to capture it? How to convey what the story meant to her, what Canute meant? Margaret looked with despair at all her attempts, lined up around the studio. It wasn’t fair. She tried and she tried, but this rot could be hanging in any motel, except with a yellow kitchen chair dropped in. And now the metaphor was becoming tangled in Margaret’s mind. Was the story about admirable gumption, Canute’s resolve to determine his destiny in the face of mighty, indifferent reality? Or about his foolish, maniacal arrogance? Some sources, insisting on his wisdom, said Canute had actually ordered his throne carried to the sea to prove to his admiring courtiers the absurdity of arguing against God and nature. Perhaps
this
is what her subject should actually be: gracious yielding to the forces that had shaped her life. Or maybe the whole thing was just a joke and the story was about nothing more than plain old defeat.

Angrily, Margaret flung her brush at the canvas. It flipped to the ground, splattering the tile. She dropped to her knees, swiped the floor with her rag of turpentine, but the oil spread across the clay.

I
T HAD NEVER OCCURRED
to Margaret that she might forget what the ocean looked like. She thought she would always see the water clearly in her mind’s eye, having always lived so near it. But now it eluded her. She found herself painting not water, but likenesses of water she had painted before, imitations of other artists’ renditions of water. One night she filled the stainless-steel kitchen sink and tried to make currents in it with her hands, watched the kitchen light waver against the sides.

Outside, only darkness. Margaret leaned over the sink, closer to the window, trying to see past her reflection. Perhaps she should set the chair
here
, among the round hills and piñon woodland. The subject caught her, and for a moment she was pleased with the novelty of her idea, the unlikely twist.

But here there was nothing to threaten the chair, just time and sun and occasional rains. Here mud structures took hundreds of years to wash away. Even the bodies of rabbits and coyotes killed on the highway didn’t rot and rejoin the earth, but shrank and stiffened. Here the problem wasn’t that nothing lasted, but that nothing disappeared.

F
OR THREE WEEKS
Carmen was on time and never missed a day. Then one day she didn’t show. Margaret called her house and left a message. She vacillated between irritation—she’d come to depend on Carmen’s presence—and guilt over her irritation. Maybe something had happened to the diabetic mother.

It was noon before Carmen arrived with her granddaughter Autumn in tow. “Sorry,” she said at the door. “No school today. I hope you don’t mind.” She turned to the girl. “You be good and don’t go touch nothing.” Autumn, wearing lavender platform flip-flops, jeans, and a pink halter-top, stood close to her grandmother. Her hair was pulled back so tightly it tugged the corners of her eyes, and the curls of her ponytail were stiff with gel.

“What a day,” said Carmen. “Ruben’s got my car. His truck’s in the shop, and he has to go down to Albuquerque. But he’ll be back in time to get us.” She was already rummaging under the kitchen sink, pulling out bleach and sponges. “I got Autumn’s lunch here—” she gestured at a bag of Taco Bell on the counter. “She brought her Barbies, and she’ll be happy watching TV.”

“Do you like art?” Margaret asked the girl. “Let’s see if we can’t get you some pastels and good paper. Come with me.”

Autumn didn’t follow, just stood with her backpack on her skinny shoulders. She still hadn’t budged when Margaret returned, arms full of supplies.

“We’ll set you up at the table.”

As though she’d been waiting for permission to move, Autumn walked slowly around the living room, touching each picture frame lightly with one finger. “These are your grandkids?”

“They are. Nine and eleven.”

Autumn bit her lip. “Are they sisters?” Her teeth were small and sharp and slightly bluish, the color of skim milk.

Margaret nodded. “They live far away now. In South Africa, which is a country in the continent of Africa.”

Autumn examined another picture from years ago: Margaret and Charlotte in the kitchen, flour-covered, smiling up from their work of tracing maple leaves into piecrust.

“That’s my daughter, Charlotte. She’s an only child.”

“Like me,” said Autumn.

Autumn spent the morning drawing page after page, frowning earnestly at her work. Margaret showed her how the pastels could be blended; soon Autumn’s fingertips were thick with green-brown waxy smears.

Carmen spread newspapers and brought out the tub of silver polish and rags, then settled at the table next to the child with Margaret’s grandmother’s tea service, which hadn’t been touched in years. “Look at that. She’s gone and used up all your colors.”

“That’s what they’re for.” Margaret wanted to give this child things, lifelike stuffed animals and educational toys. She wished Autumn were her grandchild. Her own were so assertive and articulate now, so at home in the world, absorbing it all—their private school, safaris, school vacations in Thailand and Indonesia—without a flicker of self-doubt. With Autumn she could make a difference.

It was relaxing to watch the child work. Autumn tilted her head, considered, then bent back over the page. Her shoulder and whole arm moved with her hand. Soon the table was strewn with lush green landscapes that had nothing to do with New Mexico.

“Autumn is lovely,” Margaret told Carmen.

Carmen nodded, scouring the sugar bowl with her rag. “She’s my blessing.” At the sound of her grandmother’s voice, Autumn stood and put her hand on her grandmother’s knee, looked up at Margaret gravely. The child’s expression struck Margaret as one less of affection than allegiance.

Margaret felt a sudden jealousy. She remembered holding Charlotte when she was tiny and asleep, that trusting limp weight against her chest, how she’d bend her neck over Charlotte’s, bury her face in the warm skin, wanting so much to merge with her again.

B
Y SIX O
’
CLOCK
, Ruben still hadn’t arrived. Carmen tried calling. “He must not got his cell with him.”

“No problem, I can drive you.”

“I’m sure he’ll be here,” Carmen said doubtfully. “I hope he’s okay.”

Autumn rolled her eyes. “Daddy always forgets.”

“I know—you and Autumn could stay here tonight! If you want. I have extra toothbrushes, anything you could need. We’ll have a girls’ night, eat pizza, do masks. Autumn, I can set up a real canvas for you in the studio.” Margaret’s pulse throbbed in her neck, and she could feel her head warming. With Autumn here, the day already had a holiday feel to it. They’d stay up late, drinking wine and laughing. She looked at Carmen. “If you want.”

Carmen shook her head. “We couldn’t.” Her voice was uneasy.

Autumn pulled on her grandmother’s shirt. “Yes! Yes!”

“It’s just one night. At least have dinner. If you change your mind I can drive you guys home before bed.”

While Margaret cooked, they listened to Autumn’s CD on the stereo—pop music sung by some blond girl in a tube top—and the three of them danced around the house. In the studio, Margaret had set up a new canvas and adjusted the easel so it was Autumn’s height. Soon Carmen seemed to relax. They stood around talking and laughing, drinking wine, while Autumn squeezed the bright acrylics onto a fresh palette—too much, but Margaret didn’t stop her.

After dinner, Carmen dug through her purse for a bottle of pink nail polish. She propped her feet on the coffee table and buffed and painted her toenails. “Here,” she said, waving the bottle at Margaret. “I’ll do you.”

Margaret sipped her wine and shook her head. “No. My toes look terrible. I’d hate for anyone to touch them.” She thought of her feet, long and pale, the skin thin and dry. An old woman’s feet.

“You’re sure? I used to do hair and nails professionally.”

Margaret hesitated, nearly changed her mind. Autumn was stretched on the carpet with Margaret’s oversized sketchpad, drawing intricate lines with a pencil.

“If you wanted, you could do something with my hair,” Margaret said shyly.

Carmen nodded. “Sit.”

Autumn glanced up. “She’s really good.”

Margaret sat on the floor between Carmen’s knees, and Carmen began to rake her fingers across her scalp. Autumn’s pencil scratched. After a moment Margaret allowed herself to relax against the couch, her whole body warm and electric with Carmen’s touch. She was drunker than she thought.

“You’ve got good curl. I used to love giving permanents.”

She remembered her friends at Mount Holyoke, winding each other’s hair in curlers at night, the smuggled bottles of rum they mixed with pineapple juice from large cans and drank out of their coffee mugs. It wasn’t the nights they snuck out with boys from Amherst or UMass that she missed; it was the nights they spent in, intending to read, that instead unfolded in wonderful laughter and silliness.

In college Margaret had slept with three boys: two boyfriends, the other the visiting brother of her roommate. Margaret liked sex, liked the intrigue, the playacting, the real passion that invariably caught her by surprise. She also liked the ultimate safety of it, orchestrated and anticipated and reviewed as it was with her friends. It was this intimacy, the intimacy with women, that had really mattered.

Margaret shifted ever so slightly, leaned her shoulder into Carmen’s thigh.

“What happened?” Margaret murmured.

“Oh, I got away from it, and six years ago Reina Sanchez opened the salon by the gas station. Anymore, I have a heck of a time getting the energy to do my own hair.”