Paint the Wind (3 page)

M
AYA TOOK A DEEP BREATH, SEETHING WITH RESENTMENT
. She unlocked and opened the narrow French doors that led from her room to the balcony overlooking the side garden. Stepping onto the landing, she looked toward the far reaches of the backyard, knowing that her horses lay just beyond the great white block wall. How could she ever get them with Morgana and Grandmother on constant watch? And hadn't Grandmother always complained about transients who wandered in the alley and rummaged through the garbage? What if someone took the horses for their own children before Maya could reclaim them?

She turned back into her room, took the crisp, clean blouse that Morgana had readied for school tomorrow
off the hanger, and returned to the balcony. She wadded the blouse into a tight ball, stepped on it, and mopped the deck.

As she stood in the almost dark, holding the now dirty and wrinkled blouse, the house next door began to illuminate as someone turned on lights, room by room. The people had just moved in and had not yet draped their windows. The upstairs bedroom opposite Maya's turned bright. A woman and a young girl entered. Maya felt riveted. The girl sat on the floor with a towel around her shoulders, and the woman sat behind her on the bed, combing out her tangled wet hair. The daughter chatted and the mother smiled. Even after the girl's hair looked sleek and straight, the mother kept combing, stroking, and listening.

Muffled voices broke Maya's reverie. Downstairs, Grandmother had begun her nightly inspection of the
house to examine each room for hints of disorder. Morgana would follow, making notes on the housekeeper's clipboard for tomorrow's cleaning. Maya's bedroom was last on the schedule. She backed into her bedroom and shut and locked the French doors. She hung the blouse back on the hanger and crawled into bed, pretending to sleep.

Grandmother's and Morgana's voices became louder as they climbed the stairs. Doors opened and shut. Footsteps began and paused. Closer now, Grandmother's voice rose and fell with audible directives.

The bedroom door swung wide and the hall light flooded the room. Grandmother's cane tapped as she walked toward the closet.

Maya heard the closet light click on, and she waited for the discovery.

“Morgana! What is this? I asked you to wash and iron
Maya's blouse for school tomorrow. She cannot appear in public in that fashion. Do it tonight or I'll call the agency.…”

“But … I …” Morgana paused. “Yes, Mrs. Menetti.” With clipped steps, Morgana walked toward the closet and then out of the room.

Under her blanket, Maya's face wrinkled with disappointment. Morgana had not even been flustered! After the door shut and Grandmother's footsteps subsided, Maya turned onto her back and stared at the honeycomb shadows on the ceiling. Tomorrow she would try another tactic. Maybe she could tell Grandmother that she'd overheard Morgana talking to the new neighbors next door about employment. That lie had worked one time before. Maya's thoughts drifted back to the woman
and her daughter. What had the girl been telling her mother? she wondered.

If she had the chance, Maya knew exactly what she'd tell her own mother. She would tell her frivolous things. How Mrs. Webster had turned off all the lights in the classroom and let them rest their heads on their desks while she finished reading
King of the Wind
by Marguerite Henry, and how the entire class had clapped at the end of the story. And that Jeremiah Boswell had pushed a first grader and made him spill his lunch tray in the middle of the cafeteria. Jeremiah laughed so hard that he slipped and fell on the floor and his face landed smack in the creamed turkey and mashed potatoes. She would tell her mother about ice-cream trucks, bicycles, and foolishness of any kind.

Sunday afternoon, Maya squirmed on the plastic slipcover on the living room couch, trying not to slide off. At the same time, she struggled to hold a large photo album open on her lap.

Grandmother sat opposite her in a wingback chair, studying the estimate left by the painting contractor for the patio and lawn furniture. She flipped through a multitude of possible color samples.

Maya shook her head. Why did Grandmother even bother? She always chose the same color.

“Where are you now?” asked Grandmother.

“Tenth album. Fifth grade. Summer.”

Every Sunday, Grandmother insisted they revisit several of the numbered albums that chronicled each year of her father's life.

“Yes, that was …”

Maya whispered “Big Bear Lake” in unison with Grandmother. She could recite the events by heart. In third grade he had fallen from his bicycle and had broken his arm. He received a trumpet for his eleventh birthday. In high school he was on the chess and tennis teams. He collected stamps, was allergic to cats, and loved to travel by train. He had wanted to be an artist, but Grandmother had discouraged his folly in favor of a respectable job in accounting instead. She didn't mind if he dabbled in art because, until he went to Wyoming and started painting horses, it had been simply harmless recreation. Maya had never seen any of his paintings and never would. Grandmother had destroyed all the painful reminders of that “unfortunate time.”

Maya replaced the album in the long cupboard and removed another, farther down the row. She took it to
the couch, opened it, and came across a photo in which Grandmother had clipped out her mother's image, leaving Maya intact, floating in the middle of the picture, as if no one had been holding her. A familiar anger bit her like a tick. Maya traced around the edge of the picture now in the shape of a puzzle piece, showing only a portion of her mother's hand and a wisp of her hair. The desire for revenge engorged. She knew that the one connection to her mother had also been cut from her life and was now in the trash.

“Maya, you look flushed,” said Grandmother. “You'll stay home from school tomorrow until your color improves.”

Maya shook her head and pleaded, “No. I feel fine!” She sometimes had to miss school for weeks because of
Grandmother's random and bizarre notions that she might be getting sick.

“Nevertheless. It's safer here.”

Maya crossed her arms on her chest and glowered at Grandmother, knowing there would be no use in arguing. She couldn't go to school. She couldn't go to the library. Her horses were in the trash along with the only picture of her mother.
A journey about to begin?
That was ridiculous. She wasn't going anywhere.

Maya continued to stare at Grandmother, who pretended to be concerned with the paint samples. Suddenly, Maya not only wanted to get rid of Morgana, but she felt an overwhelming desire to punish Grandmother, too.

Grandmother found the color she wanted and wrote her decision on the clipboard. “There. I'll tell Morgana
to call first thing in the morning and to have the painters come on Tuesday.” She excused herself and left the clipboard and pen on the coffee table.

Maya stared at the clipboard. She leaned forward and twisted her head in order to read Grandmother's writing.

Maya's eyes darted around the room. She listened for footsteps. Hearing none, she flipped through the samples and found number 34, the inevitable eggshell white, then continued until she found another. She picked up the pen. With quick and careful precision, she made a teensy adjustment to Grandmother's writing. It now said:

Satisfied, Maya stood and walked from the room, pausing every few steps. With deliberate fervor, she
dragged the edge of her shoe across the immaculate tile, leaving long black scuff marks.

On Tuesday, when Grandmother woke from her nap, she called Maya to her bedroom. “Come here, child, and look out this window. I seem to be having trouble with my vision.” She removed her glasses, cleaned them, repositioned the lenses on her face, then squinted as she looked through the pane and into the backyard. “It must be an odd reflection of the sun. Do you see it, too?”

Maya peered into the backyard and bit her lip to contain her smile. “I see the painters, Grandmother. And the furniture you wanted painted. But … didn't you tell Morgana that you wanted the furniture to be white?”

Grandmother blinked hard and leaned closer to the window. She stared bug-eyed at the yard. Her lips
trembled. She grabbed her cane and stormed downstairs, through the house, and into the yard, huffing like a locomotive.

Maya followed, skipping.

The bewildered painters displayed their work order.

Three tables, twelve chairs, four lawn chaises, and any number of assorted plant stands had been sprayed a stunning pink, which closely resembled the color of liquid stomach medication. It now looked as if a flock of giant and garish wrought-iron flamingos had landed on the lawn in a circus of contortions.

Within the hour, Morgana had been relieved of her duties and another housekeeper had been enlisted from the agency. She would arrive tomorrow. After the trauma of the afternoon, Grandmother retired to her bedroom and reclined. While she recuperated with
a cool towel on her forehead, Maya raced to the backyard.

She opened the large wooden gate in the white block wall, stepped into the alley, and lifted the lid of the trash can. Smells accosted her: citrus from the recently pruned orange tree, soured garbage, and fermented grass cuttings. She pillaged beneath a pile of newspapers until she spied the box. Although the cardboard was a bit damp from chamomile tea bags, the horses and the photo of her mother had stayed dry and clean.

Maya hugged the shoe box to her chest. “I will keep you safe,” she whispered. “I promise.”

Insistent whispers invaded Maya's early morning dreams. “Maya, wake up!”

She squinted through half sleep.

Valentina, the new employee, hovered above her. Her forehead crinkled and her brown eyes pleaded with desperation. “I need help. Your grandmother … she is very unusual this morning … very confused about many little things. Nothing I am doing is right, but I am doing everything the same. I took her morning tea on the tray, but she is calling me a different name, Monica, and she says I am to cook my special eggs, Eggs Monica? I do not know what is Eggs Monica.”

Perplexed, Maya sat up. Although Valentina had only been with them for a few days, Grandmother had never mistaken one housekeeper for another. She searched her memory for someone named Monica and remembered. “She worked here two years ago and made scrambled eggs with cream … and, I think, cheddar cheese.”

Valentina rubbed her face with both hands. She looked much too weary for so early in the morning.

Maya had seen that look before and felt sorry for Valentina. She seemed nice but the nice ones always collapsed the easiest. “I'll show you. The recipes are in a little box.” Maya flung off her covers and quickly dressed.

In the kitchen, Maya read the instructions as Valentina cooked the eggs, and then coached her on the position of the mandatory two pieces of toast on the plate, cut diagonally.

Maya looked at the clock and eased into the dining room. Grandmother's place was already set with a saucer displaying half of a grapefruit with a cherry eye.