Tiny House on the Road

by Celia Bonaduce

  “Gordo was a donkey?” Vivien asked.

  “A mean, ornery, fat donkey,” Priscilla said. “Gordo means ‘fatso’ and he lived up to his name.”

  Vivien’s romantic notion of Emilio, riding the plains on a mighty steed, disintegrated.

  “He rode a donkey in Texas?” Vivien said.

  “My poor grandfather was a dreamer,” Priscilla said. “By the time he got to Texas in 1925, it wasn’t the Wild West any longer. Sure, there were still some ranches where the work was done on horseback or, on the smaller spreads, on mules and donkeys. But trucks were taking over day by day. As a matter of fact, that’s how he got Gordo. Emilio won him in a game of poker, but it turned out his opponent threw the game just to get rid of the donkey.”

  “Oh, snap!” Vivien said.

  “What was that, dear?” Priscilla asked, confused.

  “Nothing,” Vivien said, reminding herself not to use any idioms that might have entered the lexicon after 1960. “Go on.”

  “Well, Grandfather was determined to see his dream to the end,” Priscilla said. “He got on Gordo and headed out for New Mexico, which was still a sleepy little place compared to Texas.”

  “So he became a cowboy here?”

  “No. He really just missed the boat on that one,” Priscilla said matter-of-factly. “But as he rode into town on Gordo, he passed by a two-story house. A girl was combing her hair—shiny black and two feet long—out the second-story window. That girl was my grandmother, Michaelina. He married her six months later.

  “In the wedding dress we saw upstairs!”

  “Exactly. I remember my grandmother would take the dress out every year on their anniversary and just run her hands over the embroidery. I wasn’t supposed to touch it, but I knew where she kept it and I’d try it on when nobody was home. My grandmother had wanted my mother to wear it on her wedding day, but of course it was hopelessly outdated by the 1940s.”

  “Was your grandmother upset?”

  “I’m sure she was disappointed, but then she pinned her hopes on me. For all the good that did her.”

  Vivien could sense a sadness settling over Priscilla.

  “If your grandfather didn’t become a cowboy, what did he do?” Vivien asked, changing the subject. “I mean, he was clearly successful at something.”

  “He went back to masonry…this time taking up adobe. His work became famous throughout the entire area.”

  “That’s amazing,” Vivien said, anxious to start digging in the attic again for hints of this life that now seemed so real to her.

  “When Grandfather proposed, he promised to build her a house on any land she liked,” Priscilla said. “She picked this property, which belonged to Marco’s great-grandfather, Domingo.”

  “Wow,” Vivien said. “Your families do go way back!”

  “Yes, they do,” Priscilla said. “Legend has it that my grandfather and Domingo were both in love with Michaelina. Domingo needed money to start the store and… Well, my grandfather ended up with my grandmother and the land.”

  “That’s very romantic,” Vivien said.

  “For our side of the family, anyway,” Priscilla said. “But my grandfather always said, ‘what could I do? I promised to build her this house.’”

  “House of Promises,” Vivien said. “Of course.”

  * * * *

  Attics were known to be rough-going sometimes. Vivien was grateful that this room was not the hot, stuffy space with a sloped ceiling she feared it might be. The storage wing was cool, the ceilings high and mercifully level. There was also plenty of light. In her other jobs, she couldn’t count the number of times she had to use her cell phone flashlight to determine what she was seeing.

  Along one wall, Vivien uncovered a homemade bookcase made from two-by-twelve-inch boards and sturdy cement blocks. She gasped at the beautiful clay sculptures that ran the length of two rows of boards. The sculptures were of fantasy beings, but instead of having the heroic attitudes you might expect to see in comic books, these creatures were in postures of defeat—wings folded in, heads and horns bowed, tails curved around them like protective armor. Each one was breathtaking—so delicate, they looked as if they might fly away, now that Vivien had discovered them. Vivien felt as if she’d stumbled upon something deeply personal—although to whom, she wasn’t sure. Was there a frustrated sculpture among Priscilla’s ancestors? Or maybe even Priscilla herself. After all, Priscilla was an amazing painter. Why not sculpture, too? Vivien covered them back up. She marked them as “To Be Determined,” deciding to leave that mystery for another day.

  While light was not the problem, Vivien still had a hard time identifying many of the objects she found. On the opposite wall from the sculptures, she cleared out a sturdy-looking, old carved cabinet that was missing its doors. Every time she had an item that refused to reveal its function, onto a shelf it went. Her goal was to research as much as she could, rather than present Priscilla with a mile-long list of “I know I sold myself as an oracle, but I can’t even guess at this…”

  She was staring at a plank of wood with what was once a razor-sharp edge, when a whisper of a knock made her turn around. Priscilla was standing in the doorway.

  “I just thought I’d pop my head in and see how you were coming along,” Priscilla said.

  Vivien noticed Priscilla putting on a thin pair of rubber gloves. Priscilla walked around the attic, absently examining the stacks and piles Vivien had assembled.

  “Every day I find more interesting stuff,” Vivien said.

  She hoped her hard work showed, but perhaps to the untrained eye, it just looked like the mess had been moved around.

  “What do you have there?” Priscilla asked, taking a few steps into the attic.

  Vivien cursed the good lighting under her breath.

  “I’m not sure, exactly,” Vivien said.

  Priscilla put out her hand and took the plank for Vivien.

  “Be careful,” Vivien said. “It has a sharp edge.”

  “Oh, I know it does,” Priscilla said as she perched on an old trunk. She examined the plank. “I’d forgotten all about this. It was my grandmother’s.”

  Vivien waited. Priscilla turned the board over and over in her hands. Vivien was hoping for some explanation—“it was my grandmother’s treasured plank with a rusty blade”—but Priscilla seemed lost in thought.

  Suddenly, she burst out in a girlish giggle.

  “When my father came home from the war—” Priscilla began.

  “The war?”

  “Yes. World War II.”

  “Oh.” Vivien nodded. “Right.”

  “He’d been stationed in England, and was impressed with their victory gardens,” Priscilla said. “All the beautiful vegetables growing in any available piece of land—from railway edges to requisitioned golf courses. It really sparked his imagination. Of course, as soon as the war was over, people lost interest in the whole concept over here. But try telling that to my father.”

  Vivien sat down on a sheet-covered chair, listening. It appeared Priscilla’s father had inherited his father’s romantic nature.

  “Anyway, he decided that he should try growing vegetables,” Priscilla said, a faraway look in her eye. “But you may have noticed, our climate is a far cry from England’s.

  Priscilla laughed and shook her head at her father’s foolhardy notion. Vivien wasn’t sure if she should say anything. Priscilla seemed as if she were sharing this memory with someone who was no longer there.

  “He had a devil of a time. He tried peas. He tried carrots. He tried Swiss chard! Nobody here had even heard of Swiss chard back then,” Priscilla said. “But finally, he found his vegetable—cabbage. Why couldn’t it have been tomatoes? I wasn’t even born when he started, but every year, he grew cabbage. And of course, you can only force so much cabbage on your family and friends
. But nothing would stop him.

  “I remember when the cabbage was ripe, and my father would start bringing in the heads by the armload,” Priscilla continued. “First my mother would make sauerkraut. That would go on for days. It was delicious, but the whole house smelled like a skunk had moved in. This was still a small town back then and everybody got a jar. But the heads kept rolling in.”

  “My father had a deal with Marco’s grandfather, Manny, down at the store. After years of the families being estranged—things were never the same after Grandfather purchased the land from Domingo—my father and Manny were war buddies and had a deep, deep bond,” Priscilla said. “Of course, that was years ago. Before Jose decided he needed to modernize the store.”

  “Jose?”

  “Manny’s son,” Priscilla said. “Marco’s father. He has big aspirations for the store—bigger than his wallet.”

  Is that Marco’s angle? Get Priscilla to fork over the cash for a remodel?

  Vivien tried to focus on Priscilla’s story.

  “Poor Manny took as much cabbage and sauerkraut as he could, but he finally had to put his foot down,” Priscilla said. “No more cabbage.”

  Vivien sat quietly. If there was a connection between the plank and cabbage, illumination did not appear imminent. She remembered a sales technique from a class she took while still exploring going out on her own. The instructor said, “Don’t jump into the void. People don’t like silences and they’ll fill them. Just wait.”

  Priscilla stared contentedly at the plank, lost in her own thoughts. Vivien wondered if Priscilla had forgotten Vivien was even there. Or perhaps Priscilla had taken a sales course too. Finally, Vivien could stand it no longer.

  “So you use that thing…” she began, nodding toward the mystery board. “…with cabbage?”

  Priscilla looked up, startled.

  “Of course,” Priscilla said, holding the board out to Vivien. “It’s a slaw maker. My grandmother said she bought it in self-defense.”

  “Like…coleslaw?” Vivien asked. “I don’t know anything about making coleslaw.”

  “You’re not missing anything,” Priscilla said. “The sweat to glory ratio is out of kilter.”

  “Sweat to glory?”

  “Yes,” Priscilla said. “It means, how much sweat are you going to put into something compared to how much glory you’re going to reap. It’s a great concept.”

  “It is a great concept,” Vivien said. “I’ll remember that!”

  “Well, don’t let it get around, or there will be no more coleslaw on earth.”

  “How does it work?” Vivien asked.

  “You’d cut the head of cabbage in two,” Priscilla said. “Not easy with a fresh, dense head. My poor grandmother would have to hack away at it until it came apart. Then you shredded it on this.”

  Priscilla moved her hands up and down as if scrubbing a work shirt on a washboard.

  “Oh,” Vivien said. “Like a shredder.”

  “Exactly,” Priscilla said. “That’s what it is.”

  Priscilla studied it and sighed. “Or what it was.”

  Priscilla stood to leave. Vivien wanted to say something, but she wasn’t sure what. Priscilla seemed so happy when they first started revisiting the past, but the now familiar sadness settled over her.

  “You know, it’s not hard to make coleslaw anymore,” Vivien offered. “There are electric shredders and even pre-shredded bags of cabbage now.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Priscilla said at the door. “But I detest coleslaw.”

  Chapter 16

  Vivien stared at the shelf she’d designated as her pantry. There was no denying it. She was going to have to go into town and do some grocery shopping. She had finally gotten up her nerve and unhitched the truck from Shrimpfork and it now seemed as eager to get off the Casa de Promesas grounds as she did.

  Should she drive the extra miles to Taos? That way she could avoid Marco’s smug face, as well as have a better selection of just about everything. She sighed. The reality of the situation was, with only one shelf to call her own, she really didn’t need much of a product range. A selection might bog her down.

  She also wanted to study Marco in his habitat. How much trouble was the store in? To what length would he go to save it?

  She made a list of what she needed to buy—impulse shopping would be a huge mistake given the size of her living space. She looked around Shrimpfork. She couldn’t remember where she’d put her lip gloss—not that Marco deserved lip gloss—but she thought the arid New Mexico air was probably drying her lips. She thought she’d slick some on for good measure.

  One of the surprising downsides of living in sixty-four square feet is that everything needed to be stowed…but not in any logical place. Vivien had been wearing lip gloss since she was fourteen and had always kept it in the bathroom. But this bathroom had no drawers or cabinet space whatsoever (minus a small cut-out in the shower for travel-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner), so toiletries had to find other homes. As much as it grossed her out, her toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash and floss took up precious real estate in the kitchen. Was her lip gloss upstairs in the loft? As she lowered the ladder, she remembered—the lip gloss had taken up permanent residence in her purse—it was really the only place for it. Before the ladder hit the floor, she reversed the remote. The ladder returned to the ceiling before it ever put its feet on the ground.

  With brushed hair and cherry-red lips, Vivien headed out to her truck. She wondered if she should let Priscilla know she was going. There didn’t seem to be any protocol for interaction with the older woman, who seemed to want to be alone. As Vivien debated, she saw Priscilla out on the patio, watering her cacti again. Vivien wondered if this was some sort of ploy on Priscilla’s part to keep an eye on the action. Although if action was what Priscilla was hoping for, she was going to be sorely disappointed. Vivien was beginning to feel like a recluse herself.

  Vivien decided she couldn’t very well ignore Priscilla on the patio. She walked over, but Priscilla didn’t seem to notice her.

  She’s going to kill those poor plants.

  “I’m going into town,” Vivien said as Priscilla turned off the water. “Do you need anything?”

  “No, thank you, dear,” Priscilla said. “I keep a list for Marco.”

  Vivien wanted to say she could take over the shopping while she was here, but decided that wasn’t her place.

  “If you change your mind,” Vivien said. “Let me know.”

  Vivien turned to head back to her truck. She had taken less than three steps, when Priscilla called after her.

  “Actually…” Priscilla said.

  “Yes?” Vivien felt hopeful that Priscilla was gaining confidence in her.

  “If you could take Clay with you,” Priscilla asked shyly. “He doesn’t get out much.”

  Clay seemed to understand what was happening. He dashed to the truck and jumped in the back.

  “No, you have to sit up in the cab with me,” Vivien said, after retrieving the leash from Priscilla. “Where I come from, dogs aren’t allowed in the back.”

  As weird as it was driving into town with a dog who was not her own, she felt better about stopping in at the store with the dog in tow. If that egotistical Marco thought she was just stopping in to see him, Clay would somehow legitimize her. Vivien forgot all about the ditch on Priscilla’s private road until she was almost on top of it.

  “Hang on, puppy,” she said, grabbing Clay’s collar as she slammed on the brakes.

  The truck skidded to a stop. Keeping her hand on Clay’s collar, she eased the truck in and out of the dip. Clay looked at her. She knew what he was thinking: You should keep your mind on the road, not on Marco.

  She released his collar, but refused to meet his gaze.

  She was relieved when they got to town with no further
drama. As soon as Vivien opened the passenger door, Clay jumped out of the truck and vaulted toward the store. She raced after him with the leash, catching up with the boxer inside the shop. She found him in the arms of a beautiful woman with long, shining black hair. Clay was showering her with kisses. The woman looked up. Vivien realized the woman was a few years her senior, but still most likely in her twenties.

  “Isn’t this Clay?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Vivien said. “How did you—”

  “I thought it was,” the woman said. She stood up, easing out of the dog’s clutches and added, “But I couldn’t believe it was him. I mean, Priscilla hasn’t been in the store in years.”

  “I’m helping out at Casa de Promesas,” Vivien said. “I’m Vivien.”

  “Vivien?” the woman’s dark eyes grew very round. “The Vivien?”

  “I’m not sure….”

  “Vivien, the fortune teller?” the woman asked. “The prophet? I can’t remember. Something about seeing the future…and closets.”

  “That’s me,” Vivien said, as her cheeks turned pink. “And I’m the Organization Oracle.”

  Why is that so hard for people to remember?

  “Hi, Vivien, I’m Rosa.” She pointed to her nametag and offered her hand. “You’re quite the celebrity around here.”

  “I am?” Vivien said, startled. “Oh, I guess because I came through in the tiny house. That always causes a bit of a scene.”

  “Yes,” Rosa said, scratching Clay between his ears. “And the fact that Priscilla let somebody besides Marco onto her property.”

  “Marco? You mean the delivery…” She was about to say, “delivery boy” but realized Marco was probably older than she was, so she settled for “delivery person.”

  Just hearing Marco’s name unnerved her. Talking about him made him seem more real than actually talking to him.

  “Yes,” Rosa said. “But don’t let him hear you call him that. He prefers being called ‘assistant manager’ these days.”

  Vivien could hear the annoyance in Rosa’s voice when she talked about Marco. Perhaps this woman was a kindred spirit, finding Marco as overbearing as she did. She knew to tread carefully. She tried to think of a way to establish what connection Marco had to Rosa before diving in with criticism.