by Marta Acosta
The gnome didn’t come forward, but smiled broadly as I approached. “Hello,” I said. “Are you Mr. Nascimento? I’m Milagro De Los Santos.” I wasn’t tall, but he was a few inches shorter than I and small-boned.
“Splendid girl, please call me Don Pedro.” Oversized black-framed glasses magnified his huge brown eyes. “I did not ask for the title, but my students insisted upon bestowing this magnificent honorific on me!”
I was immediately charmed by this little bug’s flamboyant way of speaking. He took my hand in both of his and gripped it firmly. The hair under the hat was silver, but he had a vivacity that made it difficult to determine his age. “It is so good to meet my Milagro! I knew from the moment I heard your name, ‘Miracle of the Saints,’ that you were the right person.” He laughed. “The write person, get it?”
I laughed politely. People always tried to find symbolism in my name. My grandmother had insisted upon the name, believing that it was a miracle I’d emerged sound from my mother Regina’s hostile womb.
Don Pedro said, “Let us ramble amidst the greenery and glory in this day.” We went through the passage that led past the lecture hall and bookstore to the gardens. “I have read the stories you sent me, and I am in awe of your perfection for this assignment. Your academic credentials are unparalleled, and I can feel your potent spiritual connections to the animistic world.”
He made me feel like a Rhodes Scholar, earth goddess, and mystic. “Thank you. I also wrote a screenplay last year on assignment, but nothing came of it.”
“That is the infernal corruption of Hollywood! Above all else, I repudiate phoniness and pretense,” he said sympathetically. “I was acutely touched by your passionate tale about the llama. You understand that the animal spirits are deeply tied to our own spirits.”
I carried the llama story around like a dead albatross, a penance for a too hasty click of my spell-checker, which had changed La Llorona, the mythic wailing woman of Latino folklore, to La Llama. I no longer bothered to explain the mistake. “That story won an award.”
Around us, the first of the spring flowers were blooming. “I love this place,” I said. “My favorite area is the Australian section. All the plants are so strange and wonderful.”
“You sense what the aboriginal people know-the pulsating soul of the plant and animal life. I have been to the Australian outback and taken a walkabout in the desert. I was ravaged by thirst when a lizard spoke to me, directing me to follow the flight of a flock of honeyeaters, and I did and found a crystalline pond. I praised the spirits, then drank fully of the freshwater and bathed my imperfect human body there.”
“Really?” I said as I amended my assessment of him from fairly loony to completely loony.
“I was but a callow personage in an anthropology doctoral program when I had my first out-of-body experience while studying under a shaman in the Amazonian rain forest.”
Absolutely Froot Loops. I wondered why he didn’t use contractions when he spoke and if he was a native speaker of English. “Were you born here?” I asked.
He peered around nervously. “Did you hear that? I thought I heard someone. Or something!”
I heard only the leaves and branches moving in the breeze, and birds and squirrels scratching about. “No, I don’t hear anything.”
He kept peering around and said, “I have studied with the tribes of every continent and sat with quiet ecstasy at the feet of wise elders. May I be satisfied that you will act as my scribe so that I may share the lessons I have learned?”
What a loon. “I’d like that. Are you planning on publishing this memoir yourself?”
“Yes, I will give it as a little gift, un regalito, to my family and friends. I have students who may be interested in my spiritual journey.”
“What do you teach?”
“I lecture on plants used for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. Mira!” He bent over to show me a dandelion growing on the border. “Here it will be violently ripped out and discarded as an unwelcome weed, but it can be boiled and used to treat high blood pressure, urinary complaints, and upset stomach. It makes a tender and piquant salad green, and the flower is the yellow of happiness and childhood.”
“Ray Bradbury wrote a story called ‘Dandelion Wine.’” I admired the cheerful flower. “It’s about a boy’s awakening to his own existence, the magic of everyday life.”
Don Pedro was delighted. “Magic exists in every moment if we only open our eyes to see it.”
I didn’t mention that my new eyes could see in the dark.
A small wooden sign read Central American Collection. He gestured for me to sit on a bench nearby and then sat beside me. Don Pedro reached into his leather bag and pulled out a big envelope and a sheaf of papers bound with twine. “Despite all the wisdom I have gathered, I am still only mortal. I have become a viejo who is too proud to admit he needs help writing his memoir. I hope I do not insult you if I ask that you sign a letter of nondisclosure.”
“Nothing to be embarrassed about.” I quickly read the agreement, which said that I would not reveal my connection with the memoir, nor would I have any claims on the final book, beyond the agreed-upon payment. Sam had always told me not to sign things without checking with him first. “Do you mind if I make a quick call to my lawyer to ask about this?”
“If it will give you comfort.”
“I’ll just be a moment.” I walked to the end of a path and called Sam. I described the project to him and read the pertinent paragraphs of the agreement.
“You don’t mind not getting credit for your work?”
I imagined my F.U. creative writing peers howling with laughter if they discovered that I was reduced to penning a vanity book. “I’d like to keep this confidential, too. I’ve got my reputation as a serious literary writer to consider.”
“If you think the payment is reasonable, I see no harm in signing, but I recommend that you consult with your agent.”
“My agent wouldn’t even take a call about a self-published memoir. Thanks, Sam.”
I returned to Don Pedro, and after I signed the agreement, he handed over the papers. They were a collection of handwritten notes, pages torn from wire-bound notebooks, printed essays, and newspaper clippings. He took a check out of his pocket. “Fifty percent now and the balance when you give me the transcendent completed manuscript by deadline.”
I glanced at the check and saw that it was written out to “cash.”
“I’ll do my very best,” I said.
Don Pedro patted my knee. “You are bursting with ripe womanhood. Do you have a boyfriend?”
I flashed my left hand to show him the large engagement ring. “I’m engaged.”
“Ah, perhaps we shall meet on the astral plane of existence when I am not so old and you are not already taken.” He then invited me to listen to him lecture in an hour, but said, “I’m afraid that I will not be able to acknowledge our new friendship. We must maintain secrecy about this project! I have enemies.”
“What kind of enemies?” I asked in a neutral voice.
“There are those who seek to acquire my powerful juju! Those who would do evil with it, instead of good.”
Star Wars fans were everywhere. I’d be sure to add a light saber into the story. I had turned my torso toward him, about to assure him that I would be careful, when I saw the oddest shimmer by the gnarled roots of a Central American banyan. I stared harder and saw the hindquarters of a dog slinking off into the shrubs. I hoped my eyesight wasn’t going through yet another phase of weirdness.
Don Pedro drew my attention back by relating that he had once shape-shifted into a platypus in Tasmania. “I felt very macho with my thick, strong bill and my poisonous ankle spurs.”
I promised to include this fascinating vignette in his memoirs. “Everyone loves a good platypus story.”
“The platypus is an inscrutable and crafty creature,” Don Pedro declaimed. He said he had to meditate before his talk in the lecture hall. “Milagro, I encour
age you to follow your spirit guide when you write my story. I did not hire a journalist. I wanted an artist who could imagine the essential truths in my life story. Will you do that for me?”
I felt like a teenager who’d been given the keys to a Ferrari and told not to worry about the speed limit. “Absolutely.”
three
i’ve got a beef (or don’t have a cow)
W hile I waited for Don Pedro’s lecture to begin, I wandered around the California Native Plants area. Something moved at the periphery of my vision, and for a moment I thought it was an animal. But I turned and saw a man bending over to tie his shoe by a huge gray-leaved shrub.
He straightened up, smiled at me, and said, “Morning.”
“Morning,” I said, admiring the tall man. He wore an olive shirt, jeans, and work boots. He had striking coloring, blue eyes, hair almost as dark as my own, pulled back in a ponytail, and olive skin. The word “hunky” came to mind. I wasn’t prone to seafaring fancies, but I wanted to dress him up in pirate clothes and talk dirty pirate talk with him, full of “yar’s,” “ahoy’s,” and “Avast, here be my booty,” and such. “Nice flannel bush.”
“Fremontia californica,” he said. “Or Fremontodendron.”
“Is there a squabble about the name? Because Fremontodendron is too long for such a humble bush.”
“I agree. But botanists love an argument.”
“You must be a botanist, then.”
“A plant biologist, but a horticulturalist, too.” He had a nice grin. He had a lot of nice things. He made me rethink the whole concept of nice. “I’m Joseph Alfred.”
I didn’t know if this was his first name, or his first and last name. “Milagro,” I answered. “I’m here for Pedro Nascimento’s lecture.”
“Are you into his ‘spiritual’ stuff?” he said with a smirk.
“I thought I might learn more about medicinal uses of native plants. Have you heard his shape-shifting stories?”
“Lots of idiots claim to shape-shift, sweetpea.”
“Am I sensing some cynicism in you?”
“If I want crap, I’ll buy a load of chicken manure.”
“So why are you hanging out here if you’re not interested in absorbing Pedro’s wisdom?”
“I was supposed to meet someone, one of Nascimento’s followers, but I guess she stood me up.”
“She must be out of her mind,” I said, flipping back my hair before I remembered that I shouldn’t flirt with every miscellaneous fabulous guy that wandered my way.
“You have no idea.”
We chatted about horticulture, and then he told me he was just visiting the City, too, and was in a “transition stage” with his career. I told him about my garden at the ranch and said that I’d looked into buying the empty nursery near the ranch.
“It’s just the right size to have a variety of stock, and not too much to manage. It’s a great opportunity, but I don’t want to handle the actual business side of a business.”
Before I knew it, I was late for the lecture. “I better get to the lecture.” I reached out to shake hands with him.
His cornflower blue eyes lingered on mine, and he kept hold of my hand. “It’s been a pleasure,” he said, drawing out the word “pleasure,” letting me know that he was ready for more.
In my previous, single life, I would have given him some subtle signal that I thought he was a fabulous specimen of male pulchritude, such as rubbing up against him.
“Bye,” I said, a little disappointed that I’d probably never see him again.
By the time I slipped into the lecture hall, it was packed with hundreds of people. The vast majority of them were wearing colorful “ethnic” clothing without being “ethnic” themselves. They showed an unfortunate fondness for clumsy brown sandals.
Don Pedro yammered ebulliently about his terrestrial adventures with indigenous peoples. Each of these visits could be summarized thus: the Tribes immediately recognized that he possessed extraordinary spiritual depth; they held ceremonies that named him a chief; the most delectable maidens offered themselves to him; everyone enjoyed a meal of foods that had been gathered in the wild; they imbibed/smoked/snorted some natural potion that led to an evening of shape-shifting and mind-blowing revelations.
The audience was more focused than a lobbyist on a drunken politician. Don Pedro’s knowledge of plants was disappointing. He claimed that the Aztecs had used Copelandia cyanescens, or Blue Meanies, to establish a state of communion with their gods. A former F.U. beau, devoted to exploring altered states, had informed me that that particular ’shroom was native to Australia.
I snuck out early, thrilled that I could completely fictionalize Don Pedro’s memoir because there had seemed to be no border between fact and fantasy in the adventures he’d just recounted.
I hied myself over to the closest main thoroughfare to grab a cab. I was surprised to see Joseph Alfred closing the trunk of his car while the traffic zoomed by him. He moved into the street and was about to open the driver’s door.
“Joseph Alfred!” I called, raising my arm.
He looked up, and when he saw me, he walked back around the car at the very same moment that a black sedan raced by, gathering speed as it approached. Joseph Alfred jumped out of the way and onto the hood of the car behind his, setting off a blaring alarm. There was a long painful screech as the black sedan scraped along the side of his car.
In the few short steps it took me to get to him, the black sedan was gone, hidden in the crowd of cars that followed.
“Are you all right?” I said.
Joseph Alfred slid off the car’s hood to stand on the sidewalk.
After he finished a long stream of curses he said, “Huh? Yeah, I think so.”
“Damn, that was close. Did you get the license plate number? We can call the police.”
He blinked and said, “Forget about it.”
“You could have been killed!”
“Nah, I don’t think so.” He smiled and said loudly over the car alarm, “I think she just wanted to scare me.”
“She?”
“It was my bitch of an ex-girlfriend,” he said with a shake of his head. “So where you going, cookie?”
“Back to Hotel Croft. I was going to grab a cab.”
“Hop in. I’ll give you a lift.” He went out to the driver’s side and I followed to examine the long, shallow dent. “This is gonna cost me.”
“I can’t believe how blasй you are about this.” We got in his car and he merged into traffic. “You should bring charges against her.”
“No way. She’d love the attention. Look, I don’t feel like dwelling on it right now. Do you want to get some coffee or a drink?”
“I can’t. I’ve got two appointments to interview wedding planners. My fiancй and I are getting married at the end of summer.” “Fiancй” still sounded like a joke word to me, like “fricassee” and “fiduciary.”
“All the sane ones are taken.”
I was flattered that he considered me sane. “So why does your ex hate you so virulently?”
“Because she’s a psycho.” He let out a sharp snort of laughter. “I had to chew my arm off to escape that trap.”
“Everyone has her quirks.” What would he think if he knew about mine? “Was your girlfriend also a plant biologist?”
“She’s in the medical field and was interested in my work on transgenic plants and recombinant DNA. I was checking out her body and missed the crazy behind the eyes.”
“That will teach you to look at a woman’s face.”
“I’m a man. I can only focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes two,” he said with a wolfish grin.
We were discussing bioethics when we arrived at the Croft. I thanked him for the ride, urged him to contact the police, but he just laughed and grabbed my hand, sending a little zing through me. “So when am I gonna see you again?”
“What part of ‘engaged’ didn’t you get?”
“That’s what ma
kes you more…interesting.” He turned his body toward mine and continued grinning. “It’s the chase. The rush of the deer bounding away, trying to escape. You wouldn’t understand what a turn-on that is.”
I looked down at his hand holding mine. Then I took my free hand and took his wrist and squeezed. Not hard enough to crush bone, but hard enough to see the surprise in his pretty blue eyes. “But you see, I’m not prey-I’m a predator. Hasta la vista, Joseph Alfred.”
I hopped out of the car and sashayed merrily to the hotel entrance. The cute new doorman said, “Afternoon, ma’am,” as he pulled open the heavy glass-and-brass door.
Ma’am! I felt a million years away from the impoverished girl who used to come to the hotel bar and nurse one drink for hours while gossiping with her friends.
The thick burgundy carpeting in the lobby was pleasantly squooshy underfoot. I got my room key from the front desk and then entered the elevator. I remembered the first time I’d been upstairs, lured by Oswald on a false premise. He’d wanted information about my sleezoid ex-boyfriend, and I’d convinced myself that he was interested in my writing. Neither of us had been what the other expected.
The mirrored doors of the elevator slid open and I walked to our suite. It was the same one Oswald always reserved, decorated in masculine coffee colors of mocha, latte, and espresso. The outer room had views across the City to the bay, and the bedroom beyond was plush and comfortable.
It was well past lunchtime and I was starving. I kicked off my stilettos and then called room service and ordered cranberry juice and an extra-rare burger. At the ranch we kept animal blood in stock, but rare red meat and red drinks were enough to stave off my cravings for a day or two.
Within seconds, there was a brisk rap at the door. I’d said, “Barely cook the burger,” but this was amazingly fast service.
I opened the door, and Nancy, my best friend from F.U., breezed in. Her blond hair was in loose curls to her shoulders and she wore an apricot blouse with a sea green cotton skirt and flats. Lithe and petite, she looked as full of mischief as a newly paid sailor on shore leave.
