GOAT CHEESE AND APPLE TART
FOR THE CRUST
1⅓ cups flour
2 T sugar
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
½ cup butter, chilled and cut into pieces
5 T ice water
Thoroughly mix dry ingredients, then cut in butter using a pastry blender until the dough resembles small peas. Add 5 tablespoons of water and mix quickly, then roll dough out into a round, using a cold surface and chilled rolling pin if possible, then slide into a 10-inch glass pie pan. Partially bake for 8-9 minutes in a 400-degree oven.
FOR THE FILLING
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 large tart apples, cored and thinly sliced
¼ cup butter
8 oz. crumbled goat cheese
½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
½ tsp fresh ground pepper
2-3 green onions, sliced into ¼-inch rounds
4 eggs, beaten with ½ cup cream
Sauté the onion and apples in butter in a heavy skillet until just tender. Place a thin layer of mix on the bottom of the tart, add a layer of goat cheese, and then apples and onions, alternating layers. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, fresh pepper, and green onions, then pour eggs and cream mix over the top. (The pie shell should not be more than ⅔ full to allow for expansion.) Bake in a 375-degree oven for 30 minutes, or until the top is slightly brown. Let stand for ten minutes, then serve.
TWENTY-FIVE
Tessa and Annie walked through the plaza toward the river trail. “Do you remember all of this?” Tessa asked.
“No. I didn’t actually know that Los Ladrones was the town I remembered from those years.”
“So you didn’t come here on purpose?”
“No, they sent me here through the penal system.” She smiled. “Weird, huh?”
Tessa nodded, shot Annie a glance. “I feel kind of shy with you, but I want to know everything about you.”
“Me, too. Exactly.” She pointed at a little apartment block. “I just moved in right there.”
“Really.” Tessa stopped. Pointed toward the cottage she had rented. “I just moved in right there, because I adopted a dog.”
Annie laughed. “I found a cat, and I couldn’t leave her. Her name is Athena.”
Tessa’s mouth opened. “I remember Athena! A white cat, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” She clasped Tessa’s hands. “You’ll end up remembering all of it eventually, I bet.”
“I would like that.”
They walked in silence, and Annie said, “Do you drink coffee?”
“No, I don’t really like the taste. I like tea. How about you?”
“Same! Coffee smells great, but I think it tastes terrible. So bitter! Do you put sugar and milk in your tea?”
“Yes. Two sugars and milk.”
Annie nodded in satisfaction, and Tessa asked a favorite color. Orange, for both. They traded preferences, back and forth. It started to be silly and fun, missing only a few things.
When they got to the river, Tessa stopped. “Have you been down here? Did you know this was the river where we nearly drowned?”
“Is it?” She looked at it dispassionately. “Pretty. I’m not getting any bad feelings about it, though. Does it bother you?”
“No, I’ve been down here several times now.”
Annie said, “What’s with you and the girls’ dad? Are you involved with him?”
“Hmmm. Kind of. We’re sleeping together, but I’m trying not to get too attached. I’m only here to try to set up a tour, and my boss just nixed it.”
Annie stopped and faced Tessa, a sharp New Mexico tsk falling out of her. “You’re leaving? I thought maybe with your dad coming here and all—”
“What would I do for work?”
“I don’t know. What do you like doing?”
“Photography,” she said, surprising herself. “I always wanted to be a photographer, but I got sidetracked.”
Annie laughed. “Of course you did. I’m an artist!”
“What kind of things do you do?”
“Color,” she said. “I’m not that good at it yet, but it makes me happy. You’ll have to show me your photos.” She inclined her head. “Please stay for a little while, so we can get to know each other again.”
Tessa nodded. “I’m here for a month, anyway. We’ll see after that.”
“Okay.”
They walked for a time, talking about nothing and everything, and all the shyness Tessa had been feeling dropped away. She started to feel less and less angry at her father, too, at the world in general.
And then she thought of Natalie. “I have to go back. There’s something I have to do.”
“I need to get a nap!” Annie said. “It’s been such an emotional day!”
Tessa put an arm around her, a head on her shoulder. “In a good way.”
As they came close to town again, in the shadows of the portico Tessa saw the Coyote Man. “Look,” she said. “There’s the man I was telling you about. I keep seeing that man everywhere. Do you know him? He’s staring right at us.”
Annie smiled very softly. “You can see him?”
“Can’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, and took Tessa’s hand. “It’s my husband, Tommy. I killed him when he killed my cat. That’s why I went to jail.”
Tessa stared at her sister. “What?”
“He always said he’d follow me into hell if that’s what it took.” She laughed. “I seem to be his hell.”
Tessa looked back, and even from this distance she could feel the radiating anger, so fierce and terrible. “He doesn’t frighten you?”
Annie shook her head. “No. He’s so angry only because he can’t do anything to me anymore. I think his purgatory is having to watch me being happy. When he makes reparation, he’ll be able to move on.”
Tessa looked back, but he was gone. “Can you still see him?”
“No. Usually no one but me ever sees him. Not so odd that you saw him, I guess, but kind of interesting that Vita did.”
“She was abused, a long time ago, remember? Maybe that’s it.” Tessa paused. “She’s not our mother, is she?”
“Now, that I’m sure of. No. She isn’t.” Annie turned. “Give me a hug, Guinnevere.”
Tessa hugged her sister. “Rhiannon. I’m so glad to find you.”
Annie’s mention of reparation gave Tessa an idea. She needed to go see Natalie. That moment of yanking her hand out of Nat’s replayed itself in her head over and over, and she had to try to make it right.
Just as her father, she supposed, was trying to make things right.
Reparation.
As she drove out to Vince’s house—not entirely sure she remembered the way—everything Sam said replayed itself in her mind. It was very difficult to imagine the tidy, productive, and prosperous Green Gate Farms as the place Sam painted for them, but in a way she sort of remembered some of it. Peeing outside. Always scrounging for food from people in this tepee or that cottage.
She made one wrong turn, then managed to find the right dirt road that led to Vince’s house. The clouds were now breaking up over the mountains, and long gold fingers of sun reached toward the land. She got out of the car with her mouth open at the extravagant beauty and grabbed her camera off the seat. It was always hard to capture light effects like this—the mountains deep, deep blue and smeary, the clouds gray and peach and sculpted like batting, and the needles of light poking through the fabric, pointing into the fields as if there were treasures buried in each spot. Pedro barked and came running toward her, and she shot him, too, beautiful dog. Felix whined to get out of the car, and she wavered, then let him.
Vince stood on the porch, thumbs caught on his pockets. “How’re you doing?” he asked.
She focused on him, too, then lowered the camera and approached. “I’m okay.”
He came down the steps a little way, stopped. “I’ve been thinking, Tessa, that maybe this
thing between us is causing trouble. You have your ways and I have mine, and maybe—” He took a breath. “Maybe you were right all along.”
Tessa struggled to keep her face neutral. “Kind of a bad day to tell me this.”
“I know. I’m just worried about Natalie. That she’ll start trying to replace her mom with you and get her heart broken all over again.”
Tessa shrugged, as if she didn’t care. As if it didn’t matter. “It’s Natalie I came to see, actually. Can I talk to her?”
“I don’t think so, Tessa.” He rubbed his face. “She’s emotionally exhausted.”
Tessa gave a short laugh. “I know the feeling,” she said, and her voice was raw. She cleared her throat. “The thing is, I think I know how to help her, Vince. I have an idea.”
“What kind of idea?”
“I want to walk the pilgrimage route with her. Do it right, barefoot, and carry an offering. Atone, and make peace.”
He frowned. “Why would that help?”
“The priest told me that’s why people do a pilgrimage, and that’s why it’s always some test, really long or barefoot or whatever—so you make reparation.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
Anger made her sharp. “Stop being a coward.”
“Look who’s talking.”
Touché. She nodded, held her camera, looked off to the horizon. “You know, Vince, a person doesn’t have to be a permanent fixture to be valuable, to be important.” Her heart was aching on some deep, deep level. Something about the set of his mouth, the burly way he stood in protection of his girls, pierced her. “Life is a mosaic.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
As she headed back to the car, Sasha came from behind the house, moving much more fluidly than she had been. “Hey, Sasha!” Tessa said, and bent to greet the ancient dog. “You should meet my dad’s dog Peaches. The two of you could tell some old-lady stories.”
Sasha barked, and then spied the other two dogs and ran to join them. Tessa stood, smiling.
Behind her, Vince said, “When you met Pedro, did he get hit by a car or something?”
She turned. “Why do you ask?”
“Just asking.”
Tessa nodded. “Yes. That’s why I stopped. But he was okay.” She felt awkward, as if her hands were too big, as if she was wearing a stained blouse. The person she had always been would have shrugged and whistled for her dog, climbed back into her car, and driven away.
Well, no, because she wouldn’t have had a dog, either.
Whatever. She put two fingers to the bridge of her nose, thought of Annie and Vita and her father and everything that had happened in the past couple of weeks, and said, “Vince, I would really like a chance to make this right with Natalie.” She stood her ground, hands on hips. “Please. I know a little bit about betrayal, too, you know.”
He came down the steps, and all the invisible, blistered places on her skin, every single place that he’d kissed, started to burn. Around them, the sky was going orange and purple, those crazy fingers of light dancing across the fields, and she felt utterly disoriented.
“You can’t just play with people,” he said.
She made a noise of exasperation and briefly closed her eyes. “I am not playing. I have been absolutely honest with you from day one.”
He stood five feet away, as if he didn’t dare come any closer. The light flashed over his hair, touched his mouth, as if he were a saint. She raised the camera and shot a photo. It made her belly hurt. She had stored up so many things to tell him, and now she would never be able to.
She waited for him to say something, but he just stood there, his feet bare, his eyes dark and unreadable.
“I guess I’ll go.”
He nodded.
Back at her house, Tessa fell into a deep sleep, as if her mind needed time to sort everything to its proper place. She woke up, made a cup of tea, and thought of the crazy light this afternoon. With excitement, she fired up the laptop, plugged in the camera, and uploaded the shots.
She gave a little squeal, and Felix came over to lick her ankle. “These are amazing, baby! A-maz-ing.” It was the perfect combination of circumstances—the right geography, the right location for the best shots, the right camera, everything—to capture that exquisite, incredible light show. She sent the shots to her Flickr account and saw there was mail in her in-box. First she tagged and labeled the shots, and then she opened the mail.
Dear Tessa,
I’m the administrator of a national photography fellowship, and I would like to invite you to submit your portfolio for consideration. The winning photographer will be asked to shoot a natural environment for a feature in National Geographic next year. I have loved your series in Los Ladrones and highly encourage you to submit your portfolio as soon as possible. The information is below. Please contact me with any questions.
Sincerely,
Matthew Barker
Out of sheer force of habit, Tessa picked up her phone and dialed her father. It was ringing on the other end before she realized she was still mad at him. When he answered, she was about to hang up, and then it seemed so stupid to hold a grudge that she said, “Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, kiddo.”
“I’ve been thinking … want to come to my house for dinner?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good,” she said, and couldn’t help laughing. “I have the most amazing thing to show you.”
“Can’t wait.”
Then she called Vince. He picked up and she said, “Stop being so rigid, will you? We don’t have to be lovers anymore if you don’t want to be, but I’d really like to walk with Natalie.”
“I was going to call you,” he said, and even the sound of his voice rushed through her like a song, like magic, like morning. She closed her eyes, pressing the earpiece closer to her head. “I talked to her counselor, and she seemed to think it might be a really good idea.”
“Good.”
“She has something to say to you.”
Tessa wasn’t sure if he meant the counselor until Natalie came on the line. “Hello?”
“Hi, Nat. You’re going to walk with me?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “But I also want to tell you something.” Her diction was clear and precise.
“I’m listening.”
“You were mean this morning.”
“I know, Natalie. I am so sorry. There’s no excuse. I was thoughtless and I’m very sorry.”
“Okay. I forgive you.”
Tears sprang to Tessa’s eyes, and she blinked. “I’m so glad, sweetie. Your opinion matters to me.”
“Does it?”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
“My grandma said you just found out you have a twin sister. Is that true?”
“It is true. Weird, right?”
“And your sister is Annie at the café?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good,” Natalie said. “You both seem kind of lonely to me.”
Tessa bit her lip. “Thanks, kiddo. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Tessa waited in case Vince came back on, but he didn’t. She frowned, then decided to let it go. For now.
When Sam approached the little house Tessa had directed him to, he felt more than a little exhausted. It had been a day of too many revelations, and he wanted to be somewhere he could let his hair down.
Tessa and Brenna-Felix came to let him in. He was carrying Peaches. The other two dogs sat politely in the courtyard, waiting for instructions. “You want them in or out?”
“Not a lot of room in here. They can stay in the courtyard. It’s safe.” She gestured to Felix. “Go ahead, honey. You can visit. They’ll be nice, I promise.”
Loki bowed at the sight of a new friend and gave a happy bark. Felix edged out warily, but within a few minutes they were romping together. Sam put Peaches down, and she toddled over to the area rug and sat down with a sigh. “She’s doin
g better now she’s got her Tessa back,” he said.
She nodded. Smiled. “Give me a hug, Dad. You ‘came a long way just to explain,’” she said, speaking in music lyrics. He nearly broke down.
He hugged her, hard, and all the Tessas she had been came rushing through him—the little girl, the tomboy, the princess who autocratically ruled the Renaissance festival kids, the teenager dressed in pop fashion who listened to Top 40 radio and loved musicals, the wandering student who found a calling in tourism.
And now, a fully grown woman, who seemed whole here in a way she never had before. “What do you have to show me?” he asked.
She laughed and led him into the room. “This is freaking awesome,” she said, and showed him the note and the photos of the light.
“I’m proud of you, Tessa,” he said.
“Thanks.” She took a breath and folded her hands loosely, leaning forward. “I need you to listen to me for a minute, okay? No interrupting or protesting or anything else.”
Sam nodded.
“I get it that life is not all black and white. I think you did believe you were doing the right thing to take me, and maybe you were, I don’t know. But I also think you’ve got to make amends somehow for the messes you’ve made.”
“Make amends how?”
“I don’t know. That’s up to you. I’m guessing that it will have something to do with Green Gate Farms or maybe with Vita. Whatever it is, it’s yours.”
He didn’t say anything for a long while, then finally he nodded. “I reckon there’s a lot of good sense in that. And if you’re staying here, I guess I am, too.”
“I don’t know if I am.”
Sam smiled to himself. He knew.
It was early morning, and cool, a week later, when Tessa and Natalie took off their shoes at the bottom of the hill. Tessa’s foot still showed the dark scar from her spider bite, but it no longer hurt. She had no illusions about the pilgrimage route—it probably would hurt by the end of the day, but it was worth it.
She and Natalie each had a bottle of water and a small pack over their shoulders. “Do you have everything?” Tessa asked.
Natalie nodded soberly.
The Secret of Everything Page 32
