Tiny House on the Road

by Celia Bonaduce

  “So you know Marco?” Vivien asked. She corrected herself. “Of course you do—you work here. And he’s the assistant manager. So he’s your…boss?”

  “If he tries to pull ‘I’m the boss’ on me, I’ll kick his ass,” Rosa said hotly.

  Clay looked stunned and ran behind an equally stunned Vivien. This was not what she’d expected.

  “Sorry,” Rosa continued in a rush. “It’s just that he’s my brother and it just pisses me off that dad made him the assistant manager.”

  “He’s your brother?” Vivien almost gasped.

  “My little brother,” Rosa spat. “I’ve worked here longer—and I’ve worked harder. He’d rather be out doing odd jobs for the neighbors. But, you know, this place is called Marquez and Son. You’d think we were some fancy royalty, passing the crown from male heir to male heir.”

  Vivien thought pointing out that in English royalty, arguably the fanciest of the monarchies, there had been seven queens was probably not the best idea.

  Rosa looked around the store, outrage seeping out of every pore. She turned back to Vivien.

  “Sorry,” Rosa said. “TMI?”

  Hardly.

  Vivien drove home with two bags of groceries. As soon as she and Clay got in the truck, she realized she’d bought too much. Where was she going to put all this? The learning curve for living tiny was huge.

  The trip into Sandstone had certainly been enlightening. From staying at Casa de Promesas, Vivien knew Priscilla was a loner, but after her conversation with Rosa, she wondered if Priscilla was an actual hermit. Or might she be agoraphobic? Was it any business of Vivien’s? Her heart went out to the lonely woman. Vivien would try to be more of a friend…if Priscilla would let her.

  Then there was the Marco drama. She wasn’t proud of the pinch of delight she took in hearing the less-than-sterling sibling review of his character. Rosa’s portrait of her younger brother as an entitled, spoiled brat certainly added a new wrinkle. The fact that he was out doing “odd jobs” throughout the neighborhood was also interesting. Maybe he had a whole slew of women he was duping. Now, more than ever, she would watch him.

  Vivien kept an eye out for the evil dip in the road. When it appeared, she took it carefully and popped out the other side with no problem.

  “We did it,” she said, putting up her hand to high five Clay.

  The dog put up his paw in return. Vivien laughed and drove on.

  Clay seemed happy to be home, bounding out of the truck and heading to Priscilla’s as soon as Vivien stopped the truck. Back at Shrimpfork, Vivien quickly unloaded the groceries—half of which needed to be stored in the loft for lack of space—then returned to the main house with the leash. She looked around for Priscilla, but nothing stirred in the house. A quick glance at the kitchen clock let her know she needed to get back to the attic for her self-imposed afternoon shift.

  Working in the attic was like eating a salad. You could chew lettuce leaf after lettuce leaf and still not feel like you were making any progress. Every time you looked down, the bowl still seemed full of greens. She wondered if she might uncover some details about the intersection of the Workman and Marquez clans.

  Vivien was surprised to hear the attic door creak open. She turned to see Priscilla standing timidly in the doorway. Vivien found it touching that in her own home, Priscilla always acted as if she were the intruder.

  “May I come in?” Priscilla asked as Clay shoved past her. Priscilla almost reprimanded the dog, but just sighed. “I give up. That dog! May we both come in?”

  “Of course!” Vivien said.

  “I didn’t want to disturb your concentration,” Priscilla said.

  “No worries,” Vivien said, as she tried to keep Clay out of her neatly sorted piles. “Come on in!”

  “Did you have a nice trip into town?” Priscilla asked as she perched on an old brightly carved chair.

  “Very nice,” Vivien said, glad for the chance to discuss her trip to Sandstone. “I met Rosa, Marco’s—”

  “Sister,” Priscilla said. “I haven’t seen her in a very long time. She was a beautiful child.”

  “She’s still beautiful,” Vivien said.

  Vivien saw Priscilla slipping on her rubber gloves. Priscilla walked around the attic, absently examining the stacks and piles Vivien had assembled.

  “Rosa asked about you,” Vivien said.

  “That’s nice,” Priscilla said with a soft smile, as she picked up an ancient hand-embroidered shawl.

  “This must have belonged to one of my ancestors,” Priscilla said. “It’s almost threadbare.”

  “But still beautiful,” Vivien said.

  Priscilla threw the shawl around her shoulders and ran her hands over it lovingly. Vivien waited, hoping Priscilla would ask for more details about town. When she didn’t, Vivien offered her own thoughts.

  “Rosa did mention that Marco was made assistant manager, even though she’s older,” Vivien said, hoping to draw Vivien out.

  “That can happen in traditional families,” Priscilla said. “The idea of a young woman running anything is a much more recent idea than you think.”

  “Rosa seems frustrated,” Vivien said, hoping to keep the conversation going.

  “I don’t doubt it. My parents were artists, so they were as far from traditional as you could get. But Rosa and I both ended up stuck—fifty years apart—but stuck,” Priscilla said. Clay came and put his head in her lap.

  “Was Clay good?” Priscilla asked, patting the dog gently.

  Once again, Priscilla had changed gears with dizzying speed. Clearly, no more history today.

  “He was amazing,” Vivien said. “He high-fived me!”

  “Marco taught him that,” Priscilla said. “I didn’t even know what a high-five was.”

  Vivien opened a trunk she’d been making her way through, so she appeared busy. Maybe her words would sound more casual.

  “Maybe the next time I go into town, you might want to go with me?” Vivien asked.

  “Thank you, dear,” Priscilla said. “But no. I’ve been very happy right here.”

  Vivien wondered what it would take to return this timid little lady to the raucous hippie who was singing her heart out in the living room when she thought she was all alone.

  The dancer on bars.

  Vivien had stashed a few more items on the bookcase. At first, she was unhappy that there were so many things she couldn’t catalogue. Now she knew she’d always be able to use the mystery items as a conversation starter. On one whole shelf, she’d lined up eight small pastel porcelain busts of ladies with small holes at the top of their heads or—in some cases—hats. They were unsettling to look at. Some had false eyelashes, while others had pieces of lace creating ruffles around their necks or gloves. There were blondes, brunettes, and redheads. Most of them were anonymous but one of the busts looked very much like Marilyn Monroe. Whatever their purpose, using Marilyn as a clue, Vivien thought she could pinpoint them to somewhere around the 1950s.

  “You’re so young,” Priscilla said. “Are you bored going through all these old relics?”

  “Not at all,” Vivien said, honestly.

  “I hope you’re not just saying that,” Priscilla said.

  Vivien picked one up of the lady busts and handed it to Priscilla, who took it in her gloved hand.

  “I found a whole bunch of these,” Vivien said, as if to prove her point. “They’re awesome.”

  “Oh my, look at that.” Priscilla lit up. “These are just ridiculous, aren’t they?”

  “Are they?” Vivien said helplessly. “I have no idea what they are. They look like they must be drinking glasses, but that’s too weird.”

  “They’re weird enough without being glasses! They’re vases!” Priscilla said. “They were called Lady Head Vases. My mother was mad for them. She woul
d pick them up at the grocery store or the florist and plant them with cacti. All these delicate little ladies with their thorny coiffed hairdos. We had one planted with a tiny cactus called ‘Old Man of the Andes’—it was horrible. It was tall and looked like it had wispy hair encasing it. It made the poor lady in the vase look like the bride of Frankenstein, poor thing. My mother must have had a dozen or more.”

  Vivien studied the vases more carefully, trying to picture them all over the hacienda.

  “And my parents wondered why I was so rebellious,” Priscilla added.

  Vivien stared into the trunk she’d opened. It was the one where she’d found the Lady Head Vases.

  “The Lady Head Vases were in here,” Vivien said, pointing into the trunk. “But only eight of them. Maybe there are a few more.”

  Vivien reached in and discovered a slim wooden insert, like a tray, that dividing the top half of the trunk from the bottom.

  “I think I found a hidden compartment,” Vivien said, trying to entice Priscilla.

  But Priscilla did not seem particularly interested. She seemed to take each moment as it came, without visualizing the next. Vivien lifted the tray out and stared down at the next layer.

  “Are these what you’re looking for?” she asked, turning to Priscilla.

  Priscilla got herself off the chair and came to look into the trunk.

  It was full of dolls.

  “I thought I’d never find them,” Priscilla breathed.

  Chapter 17

  Priscilla’s hand shook slightly as she reached in the trunk, extracting one beautiful doll after another. There were baby dolls and rag dolls yellowed with age, but still retaining their beauty. There were elaborate dolls in bridal dresses and what appeared to be a collection of dolls in ornate international costumes. Vivien wanted to stop and admire every doll as it came to light, but Priscilla handed one after another to Vivien without so much as a glance. Finally, she stopped. The trunk was almost empty. Priscilla was blocking Vivien’s view, but Vivien could sense that whatever the older woman was looking for, she had finally found it. Priscilla took a deep breath and reached deep into the trunk. She pulled out a small box, running her hand over it reverently. Vivien tried to guess what was inside. Could it be one of the original Barbie dolls, a plastic beauty with black hair, a wasp waist, long legs, and a black-and-white one-piece bathing suit? Or might it possibly be an antique bisque kewpie doll with its startled eyes and single hand-painted curl? Priscilla carefully opened the lid.

  Vivien found herself staring at the ugliest doll she had ever seen. The doll’s body was a stained canvas and she had an oversized head made of a thin china. The face and hair were dull from age, but even fresh, Vivien could not imagine this doll every being pretty—she looked like a stern portrait of a young George Washington. The doll had eyelids that were closed. Priscilla pulled the doll gently out of the box, and the doll opened her eyes for the first time in at least half a century.

  Vivien gasped. She tried not to recoil.

  The doll only had one eye.

  “It’s her! You found her,” Priscilla breathed, holding the box out to Vivien. “This is Hilda.”

  “Was she your first baby doll?” Vivien asked.

  “Oh, no,” Priscilla said, looking lovingly at the doll. “My parents showered me with beautiful dolls from the moment I was born. But this one… I found her one day, when I was about five. By the side of the road.”

  No wonder she looks like hell.

  “She had already lost her eye,” Priscilla said. “She just looked so lost and unloved. I knew she’d be my friend forever. I stuffed her in my backpack and took her everywhere with me for years. She crossed the country with me when I was a teenager.”

  Vivien tried to imagine rescuing Hilda, but couldn’t.

  “My friends used to make fun of me, especially as I got older,” Priscilla continued. “But Hilda was the first china-headed hippie! It’s a good thing she can’t talk. The stories she could tell!”

  “I’m glad we found her,” Vivien said, staring down at the unlovable doll.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” Priscilla asked. “This doll was my constant companion, and then one day, when I was about twenty, I couldn’t find her. I’ve always suspected my father took her during the night. He used to say—quite seriously—that Hilda was a bad influence.”

  “That seems a little—” Vivien stopped.

  It was not her place to criticize Priscilla’s upbringing. And having a one-eyed doll as a constant companion was a little weird.

  “I looked everywhere for her,” Priscilla said. “My father would not relent, no matter how much I begged. As time went on, I stopped going out—I just didn’t feel right being out on my own.”

  “That’s so sad,” Vivien said.

  “It is what it is.” Priscilla shrugged. “Isn’t that what you young people say? Anyway, somehow she got packed away in this attic. Just tucked away with trash and treasures. I hate to admit it, but I even stopped thinking about her years ago.”

  “I think it happens to a lot of stuff,” Vivien said.

  “I suppose it does,” Priscilla said. “And to people. We get packed away and nobody thinks about us either.”

  Vivien didn’t know how to respond. She sometimes felt very young around Priscilla.

  “Do you have plans for her?” Vivien asked brightly, trying to change the subject. “You guys have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “I was thinking…” Priscilla sounded shy, almost girlish. “Well, I was going to keep this a secret, but I guess I should come clean. I was thinking, if by some miracle, you were able to find Hilda, that when the Colonel comes to Taos, I might show her to him.”

  Vivien blinked. Priscilla hired her just to find the ugliest doll on earth? Vivien really didn’t know much about dolls, or antiques, but the doll was in such wretched shape that she couldn’t image it was worth anything. She didn’t want to dash Priscilla’s hopes about taking the doll to the Colonel, but she didn’t want the woman to make a fool of herself in front of that wretched man. She tried to think of something to say.

  “I’m sure the Colonel has never seen anything like it on the show before,” Vivien said.

  “I have no interest on being on the show,” Priscilla said. “I just want to show it to him. I wasn’t sure you’d find it before he came to town. Thank you.”

  “Then what?” Vivien asked, confused.

  “I just want to show her to him.”

  Vivien felt sorry for Priscilla. Vivien could not imagine the awful host of This Old Thing? humoring a lonely old lady when he had an audience to entertain. He might even be cruel to her. Vivien couldn’t think of anything to say. Colonel Cornwall Abbott coming to Taos might have been a dream for many people in the town, but Vivien feared it would turn into a nightmare for gentle Priscilla and her ugly-ass doll.

  It occurred to Vivien that her job might be over, now that Hilda had surfaced.

  Thundering on the steps distracted her.

  Marco threw open the attic door. He stared at the two women, not even glancing at the doll. He looked stricken.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” Priscilla asked.

  “It’s all over the internet,” Marco said.

  “What is?” Vivien asked.

  “The Colonel….” Marco said.

  “What about him?” Priscilla asked, clumsily handing the box with Hilda in it to Vivien.

  “He’s not coming to Taos,” Marco said.

  Chapter 18

  Priscilla peered anxiously over Marco’s shoulder as he searched every social media avenue he could find.

  “I don’t understand why the Colonel isn’t coming to Taos,” Priscilla said.

  “I’m not really finding anything,” Marco said.

  “Keep looking.”

  “I don’t understand,” M
arco said. “The reality is: he’s not coming. Does it matter why?”

  “It matters to me,” Priscilla said softly, almost to herself.

  “Okay, here’s a tweet. It’s from a staffer on the show. He says the venue fell through, and they’re going to go straight to San Diego.”

  “The venue in Taos fell through? What venue? Can we find out and call them?”

  “I’m not sure we could persuade them to change their minds.”

  “We could try.”

  “Nobody is going to listen to us.”

  Priscilla’s shoulders slumped. Marco felt badly for speaking so harshly.

  “It’s not the end of the world,” Marco said. “Maybe he’ll come next year.”

  Priscilla was unusually quiet for the next few days. She walked around the property as if in a daze. She stopped visiting Vivien in the attic and was never in the kitchen when Marco showed up to take Clay for a run.

  Marco could smell chili wafting from Priscilla’s kitchen. He took that as a good sign that Priscilla was out of her funk. He let himself and Clay into the house, both panting from exertion from a strenuous hike. Priscilla was at the stove, a long wooden spoon in her hand. She turned and smiled at Marco.

  He did not like the look in her unnaturally bright eyes.

  “Everything okay, Priscilla?” he asked.

  “Everything is wonderful!”

  A knock on Shrimpfork’s door made Vivien jump. She hadn’t heard anyone approaching. She was making herself a tuna sandwich for dinner and dancing to some K-Pop she’d discovered on her travels through the States. Maybe the music was too loud? There was no way Priscilla could hear it from Casa de Promesas’s living room, but from the kitchen?

  She turned down the volume on her way to the door.

  “Sorry, Priscilla,” Vivien said as she swung open the door. She stopped. It was Marco standing in doorway. “Oh. It’s you.”

  “Priscilla wants to see you,” Marco asked, looking grim.