The Secret of Everything

by O'Neal, Barbara

  Given how much she had yet to make peace with, Sam decided on the gamble of keeping what he knew about her childhood to himself for now. She might get to Los Ladrones, poke around a little, get tired of it, and come back to California without discovering a single thing.

  He would protect her as best he could, as he had always done. When—if—that seemed like it oughta change, he could always tell the truth later.

  For now, he’d let it be.

  TWO

  The flight from San Francisco to Albuquerque was only a couple of hours, and Tessa arrived at midday. The air was clear and dry, the forecast predicting much of the same for the rest of the week, with a peppering of afternoon thunderstorms.

  She rented a decent-size passenger car and drove up through the heavy traffic on I-25 toward Santa Fe and, eventually, through the mountains toward Los Ladrones.

  It took a little getting used to, driving with a cast, but it was good to be on her own again. Good to be doing something. She fixed her iPod to the dock and turned it to her “happy track,” a playlist filled with every upbeat, sing-alongable song she could find—Kirsty MacColl and Cat Stevens and the Beatles and a lot of Top 40 hits from many decades, much to her father’s despair. But hipness, in her opinion, seemed to always be at the opposite end of the spectrum from cheeriness. Who wore pink to look hip, for example? And nobody went to see a happy love story at the movies to be cool. She found comfort in pop songs and pink T-shirts and romantic comedies.

  On the seat beside her was her camera bag, the camera within it a brand-new digital beauty she’d purchased yesterday. Hard to believe she had not shot a single photo in more than three months, but she had not. This morning she’d nearly taken a picture of her father, glowering in pirate dourness, but he said, “You’ve got a million photos of me. Why don’t you wait until you have something that excites your eye?”

  Already there was so much. So much! How had she managed to skip New Mexico in all of her travels? She’d been in Colorado and Arizona and Utah, but somehow never here. Not since youngest childhood, anyway.

  It was a visual feast. Once she left the slight haze hanging over the Albuquerque Valley, it seemed every object was alive with color—a pine tree pointing a dark arrow into a rubbery blue sky; an old man leaning in sleep against a stucco wall, his hat tipped down on his face; a roadside stand with piles of red and yellow apples spread over a Mexican blanket; and a white dog snapping at flies, his fur pristine against the red earth. She stopped for the dog, who let her fire off a dozen shots, posing as perfectly as a boy on a runway with his paws crossed neatly in front of him. Her dad would like that it was her first shot. She’d send it tonight from her room and her new laptop—another bit of equipment she carried with her, a new generation beauty that weighed less than a hardcover book.

  She stopped in a village—not much more than a gas station and a café—for lunch, then headed up through the high mountains. It was uninhabited land for the most part, a two-lane road broken every now and then by a small village or a couple of houses crouched at the side of the road.

  The views were spectacular—high blue mountains, craggy and empty. A deer dashed across the road, and when she pulled into a rest stop, a pair of raccoons sat on top of a picnic table, snacking on apple cores. Unalarmed, they let her shoot a couple of photos, then trundled off, as fat and sassy as house pets.

  When she emerged from the latrine, however, she saw that there were clouds building in the west. Deep-purply clouds, heavy with rain. A skitter of fear ran over her ribs, the first, tingling warning of a panic attack, and she willed herself to take a long, slow deep breath. And another. Rain would not hurt her. It was never rain that had caused her troubles. Her throat felt tight and the edges of her ears prickled, and she bent over, bracing her cold cast against her knee.

  Breathe.

  After a few minutes, she felt the panic ebb and headed back to the car. Still, she consulted the map and checked the distance to Los Ladrones. Not as far as she thought—just under thirty miles. No problem. She’d be there in a half hour, check into her hotel, and find some supper.

  A sense of accomplishment filled her at the thought. This was the first day she’d actually lived her life since she landed in Santa Cruz, wrecked and exhausted, on June 4, two weeks after the accident. To commemorate the moment, she found Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” on the iPod and sang along. Loudly.

  An hour later, she was creeping along the high mountain road, hands clenched so tight around the wheel that her palms sweated and the knuckles stuck up in rigid white mountains. The clouds had moved in fast, and just as fast they split open so violently it was as if someone had knifed a hole in a canvas. It was monsoonal. Rain so heavy she could barely see even with the windshield wipers at full blast.

  But she couldn’t pull over, either, since there was precious little shoulder. Every time a car came in the opposite direction, it sent hers rocking. Aloud she chanted, “Be cool, be cool, be cool.”

  Finally she spied a road sign that said, LOS LADRONES, 4 MILES.

  Four miles. She could drive four more miles. Even with shoulders cramped as tight as winches. It didn’t take long to get to the outskirts of town, and, as if to welcome her, the rain began to ease. Her shoulders relaxed—

  Until she spied a big blue truck coming toward her, with water sluicing from the tires in a ten-foot wave. She hit the wipers to supercrank and slowed down, bracing herself.

  Which was how she managed to miss hitting an enormous rabbit that leapt out of the forest from the left. It dashed across the path of the truck, in front of her own car, and disappeared into the forest. She slammed the brakes. Hard.

  Thank God. Because behind the rabbit came a big dog, running in exuberant pursuit, tongue lolling, ears flopping. The scene unfolded in excruciating, elaborate, horrific detail—the truck hit the dog and sent him flying into the grass at the side of the road.

  The truck roared by, oblivious or evil. Tessa slammed to a stop, flung the car into park, and ran into the pouring rain.

  “Oh, no, oh, no!” she panted, kneeling beside the big dog. He was fluffy white with caramel patches and black-tipped ears. Blue eyes trained on her wildly. Alive, anyway. He had a little gash on his hip, and she murmured softly, holding out one hand for the dog to smell, the other stretching out to the cut before she even knew she would. “It’s okay, honey,” she said.

  He was too big to pick up. She began to sing some old song that surfaced, a ballad with low minor notes that would help calm him, and although he was panting hard, he rested his head in a pile of wet leaves while Tessa put her hand over the wound, gauging the depth. Rain poured down, soaking her hair and the shoulders of her blouse, the creamy softness of the dog’s thick fur. What kind of dog could he be? Akita maybe, mixed with shepherd or maybe husky. His paws had black spats.

  She sang:

  “There are suitors at my door,

  o le le o bahia

  Six or eight or maybe more,

  o le le o bahia

  And my father wants me wed,

  o le le o bahia

  Or at least that’s what he said, o le le o bahia.”

  She kept singing, running her hands over his ribs, his legs. His legs did not look good. She touched them lightly, and the dog whined. Her cell phone was in the car, but she was loath to leave him long enough to get it. If someone else stopped in a minute or two, she would ask them to call a vet.

  The bleeding slowed, and the dog lifted his head and licked her wrist. A moment after that, he leapt to his feet suddenly, stared at Tessa for the space of a few seconds, and then ran, apparently unhurt, into the woods.

  Tessa sank back onto her heels, shaking. Rain poured down on her, but she barely noticed. Her lungs felt squashed, and her hands ached, and from behind she heard a car swish by on the wet road. It did not stop. She must make an odd picture, kneeling in the mud, getting drenched.

  After a long moment, she rose on shaky legs and walked back to the car.
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  Hotel. She needed her hotel. Shaken, exhausted, she headed into town.

  The main part of town was arranged around a central plaza. Tessa’s notes said that it had been built that way to defend against the Comanches who bedeviled the early Spaniards. Because she was shivering with cold, Tessa noted only that it was a much larger area than she would have imagined the word “plaza” would indicate. It was as large as a small park, surrounded by buildings on all four sides. Some were two stories, all were adobe. She was grateful for the deep porch that ran all the way around, its roof sheltering her from the rain.

  The hotel opened off the plaza, too. It was an elegantly old Spanish colonial within, with heavy carved wood and vigas, but by the time she made it to the check-in desk, all Tessa cared about was a warm bath and a bed. The girl behind the desk, tidy in a black suit jacket, her long eyes sharpened with dark eyeliner, said, “We’ll send up some tea, ma’am, in just a few minutes. Or would you prefer coffee?”

  “Tea is great, if the water is good and hot.”

  The girl smiled. “Of course. Would you like some soup? I believe it is chicken tortilla today.”

  “Oh, yes, please.” Tessa wanted to weep with happiness. She had not expected this level of service out here, in—the phrase came from the back of her brain—the wilds of New Mexico. But Mick had said the basic rooms were more than $200 a night. For that money, the service damned well better be at least decent.

  She didn’t have a lot with her, but the bellman brought up the small rolling case and her backpack. As always, she carried her camera bag herself.

  Dropping everything on the floor, she stripped off her wet shoes and socks, wrapped her cast in a plastic bag, and ran a tubful of steaming water. After the tea and soup arrived, she sank into the bath with her hot, milky cup. The creeping unease in her limbs faded away, and Tessa relaxed. It would be okay this time. She would have a nap, then wander out and get some supper.

  At the age of four, Tessa had nearly drowned, a story she’d heard so often she thought she remembered it. In fact, she didn’t remember anything except the cold and a sense of panic. Nothing else, really, except weeping and weeping when Sam dragged her out of the river, screaming and fighting. She’d lost something in those waters.

  But the nearly fatal drowning had reset something in her brain. It was as if all the drawers of her memory had been yanked out and the contents flung onto the floor. Her memory wasn’t exactly erased, but the images were so mixed up they never made much sense. She remembered songs. She remembered a black-and-white dog sleeping on her bed. She remembered playing jacks with another child in a room that had windows all around.

  The songs, though, the songs just bobbed up like golf balls from the shattered section of her brain, whole and complete. Old songs. Songs she sang in her strange husky voice, without even thinking. It wasn’t only the old ones, of course. She always had a song playing in her head, and a slightly irritating habit of humming under her breath nearly all the time.

  If she stopped and listened to the song of the moment, it was also running commentary on her life. A soundtrack that could actually be pretty corny, sometimes funny, sometimes piercing.

  When she woke up from her nap after arriving in Los Ladrones, the song in her mind was an old song about a cat, “El Don Gato,” who sat on a high red roof reading letters. It was funny because she was lying in a pool of sunshine with her belly turned up to the light like a fat tabby. The storm had passed. The light poured through the French doors that led to a balcony, and Tessa stretched, put on some dry jeans, and opened the doors.

  The world swirled in. A woman laughing and a dog barking and a swarm of chatter coming from a café or bar or something close by. Long, deep-gold bars of sunlight slanted through the clattery leaves of a massive cottonwood that stood sentry over the plaza. Once it would have been a hanging tree.

  The air smelled of heat and dust and something elusive and familiar she could taste on the roof of her mouth. A wash of hungry, eager happiness poured through her, filling her lungs, her belly. She pressed her hands to her heart, one atop the other like a yogi, to bring the pale green feeling closer to herself, and tipped her face up to the light.

  Here I am, she breathed into the sky, and for once it didn’t matter that she had no idea who she was talking to.

  Then the softly mystical moment passed, and she leaned over the balcony to see where the voices were coming from. Along the front lower level of the hotel was a roped-off area, where an elegantly dressed crowd milled about. White-coated waiters carrying glasses of wine and trays of hors d’oeuvres circled among them unobtrusively. A woman laughed, and there was something in the cast of her head that made Tessa realize she was a well-known character actress.

  Huh. Tessa had been based in LA for the past couple of years, so celebrity sightings were nothing new. It did serve to underscore the point that the town was a lot glitzier than one might expect. She made a mental note to tell Mick.

  She grabbed her camera, a pair of big dark sunglasses, and stuck her thin wallet in the pocket of her jeans. Downstairs at the desk, she stopped to get a stylized hand-drawn map of the plaza, with red feet marching around it to various attractions. The tree. The old jail. The church where Indians once kept their sheep. A trail with an arrow pointing to the pilgrim route up the mountain.

  Later she would explore all of it. For now she just needed to get her bearings.

  In the center of the plaza was the ancient tree. Judging by the circumference of the trunk, it was at least a couple of hundred years old. Roots traveled beneath the pavers of the square, making hills and valleys that could trip the unwary. A pair of young lovers curled up against the trunk, a breeze riffling through the girl’s long hair. A trio of old men, white and Latino, in tidy button-up shirts and cowboy hats, sat on a bench, watching the world go by. An obviously annoyed woman in a red dress and bug sunglasses paced back and forth, talking into a cell phone. Her stilettos clicked on the adobe bricks. Dangerous footwear around here, Tessa thought. Good way to break an ankle.

  But then, her shoe passions ran toward high-end hiking boots and the battered, beloved walking sandals she wore now. Her feet were permanently tanned in a little box across the arch.

  She stood with the map in her hand and faced north to get acclimated. The hotel pinned down the east side of the plaza, with shops and a restaurant on the lower level, two stories of rooms above. On the north end were more shops: a kitchen store and art gallery and an ice cream shop. An old-style movie theater had an Indian head in a feathered bonnet with neon letters lined up vertically to spell CHIEF. It triggered a waft of something, a slight memory, but of course Sam had always been a movie fiend. Surely they had gone to the movies even then.

  On the west was the café that had become so famous in recent years: The 100 Breakfasts Café. It looked unassuming from the outside, made of the same adobe as the rest of the buildings—she thought it was a law here, as in Taos and Santa Fe—with a good sign and tables outside in front. Just now the chairs were stacked up inside the door, and when Tessa peered in the windows, she saw someone working in the back, with a light on.

  From somewhere farther along came classic ranchero music, kindling a powerful, bittersweet burst of yearning. It was corny and old-fashioned, but it didn’t matter—whenever she heard the guitars, the mournful Spanish, it made her ache. Tonight, it hooked her mid-chest and drew her out of the plaza and around the corner into a medieval little warren of alleys. The shops—a bookstore with a Siamese cat in the window, boutiques with clothing and jewelry, and a tiny shop called Le Fleur de Mer, which appeared to be stocked entirely with salt—were closed for the day, but the bars were hopping on a Friday night, each one featuring a different clientele. A spill of young men and women smoking cigarettes and drinking martinis stood outside The Bull Ring; at Las Golindrinas, old hippies in skirts and long hair listened to the blues and drank beers. Tessa lingered a moment. Maybe some of them had been Sam’s friends, once upon a time. />
  A woman in a long purple India cotton skirt leaned on the wall, smoking. Her long blond hair was tangled, as if she had not combed it at all, and she eyed Tessa with faint hostility, drawing in on her cigarette, blowing it out. Her eyes looked hollow. A tongue of cold lapped at Tessa’s throat, and she thought of what her father said about evil spirits walking in Los Ladrones. She hurried on, glancing back over her shoulder. The woman had gone inside.

  The ranchero tunes were coming from a covered patio at the end of the lane. The band was arranged at one side, dressed in crisp white shirts and black slacks and cowboy boots. The woman singing had long red hair and abundant cleavage displayed in a sweetheart neckline. In front of them, couples of all ages danced a lively two-step. Little girls danced on their brothers’ feet, grandmothers were whirled around by grandsons, and young couples showed off their skill. Tessa, snared, watched them and felt a soft breathless sense of expectation.

  Here I am, said that little voice inside her again.

  Tessa sat at a table near the wall and took out her camera. She shot the dancers lit from the west by rosy light, and the ropes of plastic flowers looping around the posts holding up the roof, and a little girl with an aqua dress swinging her feet as she drank a cola.

  Everything in Tessa’s body relaxed, as if she’d come home to her own living room. When a bosomy waitress stopped by the table, she ordered a cheeseburger. “What kind of beer do you have?”

  The woman reeled off a long list. Tessa stopped her. “How about Tecate? With lime.”

  “I can do that.”

  A man dressed in jeans and a dark-blue T-shirt leaned on the wall nearby. Behind him, a dog as thin as a shadow slunk into the patio area, head down, and slipped under Tessa’s legs. The waitress brought Tessa’s beer, along with a glass rimmed with kosher salt. “Gorgeous,” she said happily, squeezed the lime and poured the beer carefully, then took a long swallow. Cold, golden, thirst quenching. Fantastic.