The Secret of Everything

by O'Neal, Barbara

  “All right,” she said, and looked up as Vita came over to refill his cup. “I’ll have the oatmeal, please. Plain.”

  Vita grinned. “Whole-wheat toast?”

  “Absolutely. And plenty of butter on the side, please.”

  “You got it, sweetheart.”

  “Oatmeal,” Vince said. “All those beautiful things and you pick oatmeal?”

  “Now, you don’t get to do that. You badgered me into eating. I’m eating. Maybe you don’t love oatmeal, but my dad made it for me every morning.”

  “Fair enough. Next time, though, you’ve gotta try the French toast.”

  For a minute, she looked at him. “Next time.”

  “You in town long enough for a next time?”

  “Maybe. I wish I’d brought a dog, though. All this outdoor living.”

  He nearly nodded off, right into his plate. “I have dogs,” he said, to keep himself awake. “A big mutt who’s a pain in the ass, and a scavenger terrier who lives for whatever scraps might fall into her mouth. Or whatever trash might be left unattended.”

  She grinned with one side of her mouth, and it gave her an impish look. Elfin. Familiarity tickled his brain again. “A little spoiled, are they?”

  “Uh, yeah, slightly. Sasha is the terrier. She’s fifteen and getting pretty deaf.”

  “And the other one?”

  “Pedro doesn’t mean to be bad. He’s just a wild man—an escape artist and rodent killer and garden destroyer and crotch sniffer.” He winced. “Sorry.”

  “Sounds like a character.”

  “That’s one word for it.” He took another bite. Hot orange and vanilla, syrup and raisins and cinnamon filled his mouth, his throat. “You like dogs?”

  “Love ‘em. Just can’t have one with my lifestyle. I visit my dad’s. He has three. He believes they are the same three dogs he’s had his whole life.”

  “Come again?”

  She laughed. “Exactly—he thinks they reincarnate, over and over. That dogs are sent by God to be our companions.”

  “Like angels?”

  “I suppose so.” She sipped her tea. “Speaking of characters, that would be my dad, too.”

  “Sounds like it. Renaissance festivals and reincarnated dogs.”

  “He’s also a surfer and runs a drinks shack on the beach that’s called Margaritaville.”

  Her voice really was peaceful, he thought in his sleepy way. Not hot chocolate now but something soft and silvery, like a rain cloud. He wanted to lie down in it, let it carry him away. He jerked awake again. “Damn. No reflection on your conversation, but I don’t think I’m gonna make it. Gotta get home and get some sleep.”

  “No offense taken.”

  “You’re not driving like that, are you?” Vita said, and looked around the room. “Alex!” she called to one of the mountain bikers. “I need you to drive our firefighter home.”

  “Absolutely,” the youth said, jumping up. He slapped Vince on the back. “C’mon, man.”

  Vince looked at the woman. “I can’t remember your name,” he said gruffly.

  “It’s Tessa,” she said, holding out her hand.

  He took it, fine-boned and brown, in his giant paw. “I’m Vince.”

  “I remembered.” She smiled and it reached her eyes, and he knew that face. Knew it in his bones. It was not a usual sort of face, with those big tilted eyes and high-bridged nose. Cherokee nose, he thought, and didn’t know why. Not pretty, exactly. Something else.

  Vita pushed his boxed food over the counter. “Nice to meet you,” he said, and stumbled out. Alex drove him to the ranch, and he collapsed.

  When her oatmeal came, Tessa gave a happy sigh. It was fresh and not at all porridge-y or gray, which would have completely ruined it. This was hearty oatmeal, grainy, chewy, robust. Carefully, she slivered the butter into very, very fine layers and covered the top of the cereal, then salted the whole lightly. She took a bite and marched right back to childhood, to her father cooking every morning so they could have a hot breakfast together. Butter melted on her tongue like love, and halfway through she added another fine layer. A little bit more salt. Perfect.

  She took her time, focusing entirely on the food. Business grew brisk around her, and she nursed her tea, reading the book she’d brought in with her, a memoir about Kashmir that she’d found in the hotel lobby. When a waitress came by to refill her steel teapot, she asked, “Is this okay? Me sitting here so long?”

  “You sit as long as you like, sweetie.”

  So she read and sipped tea and watched the flow of people and service all around. It wasn’t a particularly large café. Booths lined the long windows in front, and the dining room drove toward the back with four-tops and two-tops along the wall. The counter was the best part, however—a horseshoe facing the pass-out bar, with a view of the kitchen over a stainless-steel counter. Watching the kitchen staff was like watching a waltz—they moved instinctively around one another, Vita in the middle, on the side, out in front, carrying plates, taking orders, cooking, making fresh pots of coffee. Whatever. She was the puppetmaster, making sure the waltz went smoothly.

  When the restaurant hit a bit of a lull, Tessa pulled out another of her business cards. “Excuse me,” she said to Vita. “May I speak with you for a minute?”

  Vita looked suspicious as she came forward. “Yes?”

  “I’m Tessa Harlow,” she said. “I’m with a travel company, and I’d like to talk to you about some possibilities if I can.”

  “Possibilities?”

  “We’re thinking of active tours—some hiking, some food, some history, that kind of thing. I’d like to talk to you about your café but also about the area, get your reading on it.”

  “I’d be open to that.” Over her shoulder, Vita spied something in the kitchen. She held up one finger toward Tessa and went to the pass-out bar. “Donald, wash that by hand, kiddo. It won’t fit in the dishwasher.” She shook her head on her way back. “Weekends are bad, but how about early next week?”

  “Great.” Tessa could see a woman waving at Vita from the kitchen. “I’ll let you go. See you soon.”

  Noticing the slight congestion beginning at the door, Tessa reluctantly gathered her things and settled her bill, tucking a dollar down the back of her cast for the moment.

  The minute she stepped outside, she smelled roasting chiles and stopped dead to suck the aroma drunkenly into her lungs. Deep. It was a smoky scent, thick and hot and spicy, as powerful in its way as coffee brewing. She was convinced it had healing properties, that, even as she breathed, her arm was knitting together more quickly, her fingernails grew faster, and all the shredded places on her heart were smoothed.

  At least a little bit.

  While she’d been lazing through her breakfast, the market had sprung to life. White tents poked up like little mountain ranges in rows throughout the plaza, the monstrous arms of the cottonwood tree offering shade to everything below it. It was barely eight-thirty, but already the aisles milled with shoppers.

  Everywhere around the world there were open-air markets like this. In Morocco and London and Asia and Tasmania. Everywhere she shot them. Everywhere she loved them.

  Here on this August Saturday, Tessa waded in, shooting everything—tomatoes as big as her fist stacked in juicy rows, red and yellow, striped and black and mottled green; piles of melons and corn; and acres of peaches, one of the crops the Spanish had brought that had then thrived in the high valley. She bought a yellow tomato, three peaches nearly the size of her head, and wandered on.

  Despite the slight awkwardness of her cast, she photographed everything, in an artistic binge. She captured the wrinkled, weathered faces of old Latino farmers, and their gnarled hands and scuffed boots; spent a long time shooting a Native American woman of an age impossible to determine, blackest hair streaked with silver caught in two braids that fell over her breasts. Strings of turquoise looped around her neck, looking too heavy for her fragile upper torso.

  There
were plenty of Anglos, too—ranchers and farmers alike, with outback and cowboy hats shading eyes that had squinted a long time into the sun, and women with leathered skin. There were well-tended matrons in expensive jeans and the odd purse dog poking a curious nose out of a bag; masters of the universe masquerading as the little people, their exquisitely expensive sunglasses and watches giving them away. Tessa shot them, too, discreetly.

  She finally found the Green Gate Organic Farms booth at the far end of the market, taking up four lengths of tent. Here was a mix of nations, ages, colors, sexes. A young African American man with a big Afro weighed beans. Hippie twenty-somethings in blond and red dreadlocks kept an eye on the chile roaster. And, of course, there were the older ones, people who had probably been with the farm since it had been a commune, settled in the late sixties by a bunch of California hippies fleeing the scene on the coast. Including Sam, of course.

  As Tessa walked slowly among the overflowing tables of tomatoes and chiles, corn and radishes, onions and potatoes and beans, she glanced at the people manning the stand. Aside from the young ones, no one here really looked particularly counterculture, although one man had long gray hair he’d tied back from his lean, handsome face, and a couple of women wore a lot of bracelets and long earrings.

  But then, Tessa wore a lot of bracelets herself. Right this minute, she had a silver cuff she’d bought in Tasmania, at a market very like this one. The memory brought Glenn’s face to her, and she pushed it away. She had enough to think about without adding a big wallow over the Aussie who’d broken her heart. It had been almost two years, after all.

  And yet she had to admit that a part of her still wished for his company, wished he was here with her now, running his acerbic commentary on everything from the heartiness of beans to the tarot readers turning cards for patrons. She remembered reading once that a person had to grieve for half the length of the relationship itself. She’d lived with Glenn for nearly four years. Surely she must be close to finished by now.

  Enough. Deliberately, she shifted her attention to the bounty in front of her, gathering another breath of chile-scented air. There, in the back of the booth, was the woman with long blond hair that she’d seen last night at Las Golindrinas, the hostile woman who still wore the same floaty purple skirt. And still hadn’t brushed her hair.

  Tessa had expected more people like her. Instead, most of them had the look of the prosperous lazing around for the day, good haircuts and clean jaws and tidy jeans.

  It was odd to imagine that some of them might have known her father. And her mother, whom she couldn’t remember except in the barest fragments. What would they say if she introduced herself, made conversation about her father living at the commune?

  Weirdly, she found herself feeling a lot of anxiety over that thought. Was it possible she wanted to let sleeping dogs lie?

  Maybe.

  She wandered down the tables, smelling a cantaloupe, thumping a watermelon. A woman with her hair hidden beneath a big scarf said, “What can I tempt you with?”

  A frisson of memory skated over Tessa’s nerves. Startling. The voice was familiar, she thought, though the face didn’t seem to trigger anything.

  Or maybe—more likely—she was expecting to recognize someone here. “I’m not sure,” she said, peering into the woman’s face for a possible clue. She had no eyebrows, and Tessa realized she must be a chemo patient. “I’m really only in town for a couple of days. Can’t cook anything.”

  “Fresh food, then. Peaches? Cantaloupe?”

  Tessa raised her blue arm, with the bag slung over her casted wrist. “Peaches were already irresistible. But, yes, cantaloupe should be easy enough.”

  “And it’s very, very good for you. Lots of antioxidants.”

  Tessa nodded. “Do you have any literature or background on the farm?”

  “We ran out this morning, actually,” she said, “but if you come over to the farm during the week, we have a little cottage devoted to all that stuff.” She gave Tessa the enormous cantaloupe she’d picked out for her and picked up a card from the table. “It’s all right there. You can find us on the Web.”

  “Thanks.” Tessa tucked the card away.

  Now the aisles were growing very crowded. People attired in costly casual clothes and sleek coifs and the fragrance of big money joined the housewives and young families and teenagers huddling around the edges, trading giggles or gossip, depending. Tessa saw an LA type, a woman who had to be well over forty with hips no larger than the young teens nearby. It always startled her, that perfection. What did it take? A glass of chardonnay and a vitamin every day, hold the food? What kind of life could that possibly be?

  Then again, she wasn’t married to a billionaire. Maybe it would be worth it.

  Shaking her head, she stepped out of the flow nearby the retaining wall around the tree, pushing her sunglasses up so she could check some of the photos she’d captured thus far.

  Something slammed into her legs, and Tessa staggered sideways. “Hey!”

  A big white dog twirled in that particularly endearing circle of happiness, head down, tail swirling with him, mouth and tongue smiling all the way to his black-tipped ears. He wiggled up to her legs, and Tessa realized that it was the dog who’d been hit by the truck yesterday.

  “Oh, baby!” she cried, kneeling. She put her camera in the bag for safety and reached for the mutt. He danced, wiggling all over. “Hi, honey! I’m so glad to see you. How are you?” She rubbed her hands over his fluffy neck, his shoulders. He half-moaned, half-yelped in ecstasy and licked her face with no apology whatsoever. “Yes, thank you. I’m glad to see you, too. You look good.”

  “That’s our dog, you know.”

  The little girl was maybe seven or eight, a bit plump. Fine blond hair was barely captured in a ponytail high on the back of her head. Wisps and locks escaped all around her face. She wore blue glasses. “He’s beautiful,” Tessa said.

  “He’s an Akita. They’re very smart.”

  “I’ve heard that.” The dog leaned hard against Tessa and she couldn’t help giving him a hug. “Is he—”

  Another girl, maybe a little younger, as tidy as her sister was unkempt, approached, “He isn’t a purebred Akita, Natalie,” she said with superiority. “He’s only half. We don’t know what the rest is.” To Tessa, she said, “He gets in a lot of trouble.”

  “He’s still our dog,” said Natalie.

  “I was just petting him,” Tessa said, chuckling. “I would never steal him or anything.”

  “Girls!” a tall, sturdy-looking woman called. She held a blond moppet in her arms, all big eyes and soft red mouth. “Get the damned dog and come on, will you? I’ve gotta get you home and go to work.”

  “Grandma! You swore!” the first girl said, but she grabbed the dog’s leash and yanked. He got up willingly enough and trotted after her, looking over his shoulder as if to wink at Tessa. She grinned.

  “Goodbye,” said the second little girl.

  “Bye. Thanks for letting me pet your dog.”

  Natalie had a quarter in her pocket. She could actually feel it against her thigh, a round hot spot she needed to get rid of. When Grandma wanted to stop at the grocery story on the way home, Natalie was so relieved she almost cried. They left Pedro in the car with his head sticking out, and all trooped into the Safeway Jade danced ahead, as usual, and grabbed the shopping cart. “I’ll push it,” she said with a sidelong look at Natalie.

  It was Natalie’s turn and Jade knew it, but that coin was burning her, so Natalie let it go. They went to the produce section first, where the apples were coming in now in giant piles. On the Food Network, a chef said to look for all different kinds of apples and try something new, like a Pink Lady, and Natalie thought it sounded so enchanting, like an apple in a fairy tale, that she was dying to try one.

  Not really dying, like Snow White and her poisoned apple, but, anyway …

  Carefully, she read the names of the apples. Delicious and Fuji, gree
n Granny Smiths, and Braeburn. A pile of small yellow and pink apples caught her eye. “Pink Ladies!” she cried, pointing. “Grandma, can I have one?”

  “No, not today.” She briskly piled onions in a bag.

  “Please? Just one. It’s a Pink Lady. I heard about Pink—”

  “I said no, Natalie.”

  “I have a—”

  “No.”

  Crushed, Natalie turned away. The apples, softly streaked with palest green and threads of yellow, as round as cherries, seemed almost to be laughing. Not at her, of course, but just laughing, happy. Bright and pretty, like a Pink Lady.

  “I have a quarter,” she said. “I’m going to the tattoos.”

  “No candy,” Grandma said. “You’ve had plenty to eat this morning.”

  “A tattoo.”

  “That’s fine. I’m just going to get a few things to take to your daddy, so stay right there and don’t go wandering all over the store.”

  “I can find you,” Natalie said with a scowl. There were only seven aisles in the whole store, for heaven’s sake. Not like Denver, where they used to live. Before. The stores there had so many aisles a person really could get lost.

  “I said stay by the machines, Nat. Or come with us now.”

  Jade, swinging her body back and forth on one foot so that her hair swirled out around her like a shiny cape, smirked. Natalie resisted the urge to pinch her and headed for the machines.

  She took her time deciding. There were two rows of machines up against the wall next to the machine horse. Gumballs and jawbreakers and the fruit-shaped sweets Nat loved, cherry hearts and yellow bananas and tiny green limes with hard candy outsides and melting sugar insides. Who would know? She glanced over her shoulder, but Grandma was long gone. She could eat them before anybody got back.

  The quarter burned her fingers even at the thought. No. Bad enough that she’d stolen the coin right out of her grandmother’s wallet, from the little envelope that held nickels and dimes and plenty of quarters. She never took one if it might be noticed.

  Next to the fruit candies were the tattoos. Before she could add the sin of lying to stealing and the list of other bad things she would have to ask forgiveness for in her prayers tonight, she plunked the quarter in the slot and turned it. A plastic ball fell into the mouth and Nat took it out, pulling the container apart to see which tattoo she had.