Finding Casey

by Jo-Ann Mapson

  A year later, her mother took an overdose of sleeping pills and Juniper figured that she went to wherever Casey was and she hoped that made her happy, if you got to be happy after you died. Juniper moved into her dad’s apartment, but then one day he didn’t come home. He basically left her at the curb like some ratty old couch. That was the start of being homeless, followed by foster and group homes. A frozen turkey dinner and instant mashed potatoes with something that was the color of gravy, but tasted like snot.

  Then along came Glory.

  What a miracle she and Daddy Joe were. “Am I ungrateful to think about these things?” she asked Dodge, who was considering chasing a squirrel that existed only in his mind—she could just tell. “Knock it off,” she said, and his ears flattened in shame. She picked up the pace so he would have to concentrate.

  She’d given up on finding Casey. So was it too much to ask for a little peace on the subject? The Kübler-Ross model said there were five stages of grief, but Juniper knew that was bullshit. Early in the first year Casey was missing, she realized the sorrow would last her lifetime, and what do you know, she was right. That was some hellacious backpack to carry around, but there was no law that said you had to talk about it.

  She’d passed her GED at sixteen, and then Joe had pulled strings to get her into college here in New Mexico. She had a 4.0 average, volunteered twice a month at the women’s shelter in Albuquerque for extra credit, and planned on graduating with the most academic bling possible. That would be a start on paying back Joe and Glory for giving her the opportunity to leave that miserable old life behind and start a new one. She forced herself to stop thinking about it by remembering how Topher kissed, which was strong and gentle at the same time, and how just being around him made her heart feel as if it had big old dragon wings, impervious to fire, scraping the sky, gathering in all the stars as if they were jewelry meant for her heart alone.

  In the master bathroom with the talavera sink barely big enough to cup your hands in, Glory paused in brushing her teeth to sneeze into a tissue. She hoped she wasn’t catching a cold. Obviously that would not be good for the pregnancy, but it would also ruin Thanksgiving. She wanted things to go well, because in addition to Juniper’s first serious boyfriend’s visit, her mother, Halle, and Bart were coming to Santa Fe for the long weekend. This would be their first stay at their house, now sufficiently remodeled to accommodate houseguests. She leaned in to turn on the shower and the baby kicked hard. Of course, as soon as she pressed her hand on her belly to feel it, she stopped. Eddie sat on the bathroom rug and looked up at her.

  “Will you stop worrying about me?” she asked the Italian greyhound. From the day she first felt nauseated to the present, Eddie had followed her from room to room as if he was personally responsible for her safety. He sat on the bed while she dressed, and then preceded her into the kitchen as if she needed him to show her the way.

  “Joseph?” she called out.

  “In here,” he said, coming out of the pantry with a box of Mexican cocoa. “I made you eggs, bacon, sausage, and Mami’s torrejas.”

  She groaned. “That sounds so good. I’d love to eat all of that, but I think I’ll just have eggs. Dr. M says I need to eat more protein. It’s supposed to help with my blood pressure.” Recently her blood pressure had soared into unhealthy numbers, forcing her to take early maternity leave—unpaid.

  Joseph handed her a plate with two perfectly fried eggs and a side of steaming green chile from his dad’s farm in Hatch. Then he set a platter of bacon and a bowl of torrejas on the table. “In case you change your mind,” he said.

  “Joseph, I’m turning into a blimp.”

  “You are not. You’re gorgeous.” He pushed the torrejas closer to her. “Just try one bite. I have to get the recipe perfect for the cookbook.”

  “All right,” she said, knowing she couldn’t resist the Mexican version of French toast, made with authentic piloncillos (brown sugar cones), cinnamon, cloves, and bolillos, a kind of Mexican bread roll fried in a mix of eggs and butter. “What’s different about this version?”

  “I used the Madagascar vanilla beans I stored in sugar for six months. I scraped out their innards and put the pods back into the sugar. I’m done with bottled extracts. Too much variation. You can’t count on them. And I cut out two-thirds of the piloncillos when I made the syrup, but I cooked it nearly to the candy stage. Look at the surface where it’s hardened. Perfect for cracking open with a spoon, and it keeps the syrup warm.”

  “I think I just gained five pounds listening to all that.”

  He ignored the comment. “Tell me truthfully, is it better? If I don’t get the cookbook to the printers on Monday it won’t be ready for Christmas.”

  She cut a piece with her fork and examined it. The crunchy crust was perfectly browned. The bread floated in the sea of syrup like a sleepy canoe. Once cracked open, that sea revealed a mouthwatering amber caramel beneath the surface. It was funny how pregnancy changed the taste of food. Glory had always favored sour tastes, like pickles and cabbage, but now she craved sugary foods like hot cocoa and marshmallows. The first bite made her smile. The second bite made her groan. After the third bite, she said, “You have to make this for Halle and Bart, Joe. They’ll love it.”

  “Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air, and the wooden spoon in his hand dripped syrup, which Eddie immediately intercepted. “Excellent. Now I can finish up the cookbook.”

  “I’ll miss tasting a new recipe every week. What ever are you going to do with yourself?”

  “Oh, this is only volume one, my love. There will be others. I have to take a break from writing for a little while. Actually, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to talk to you about something that happened at Candela.”

  Joseph was on the board of directors of the innovative women’s shelter. Unlike other facilities, which offered brief sanctuary from domestic violence, Candela held classes in parenting, self-defense, and job training through the community-college outreach. “Tell me.”

  “I’ve been offered a paying position. They want me to take over running the education program. It’s forty hours a week.”

  Which meant more like sixty, Glory figured. “Are you going to take it?”

  “I’m thinking about it. Of course, I wanted to talk to you. I don’t have to decide right this minute.”

  “Good,” she said. Glory set her fork down and took a sip of cocoa. Joseph had retired with full disability from the Albuquerque Police Department, where he’d worked first as a cop and then later in the crime lab as a tech and photographer. The lawsuit on his behalf due to his injuries during a meth-lab bust had made him a wealthy man, although the injuries he suffered left him in considerable pain. The money allowed Joseph to contribute to community programs that needed support, but the shooting left him with serious back problems, and after four surgeries, he now walked with a cane. Having lived with him for five years, Glory could read the signs when he needed to rest. His face got a pinched expression, he became very quiet, and worst of all, he had this ridiculous notion that pain meant he needed to exercise even harder, so he’d lift weights or go for a strenuous walk and only make things worse. Joseph had a full life already: He was a guardian ad litem in custody cases in which divorcing parents couldn’t agree on sharing custody, and he was on the board of directors at three different nonprofits including Candela. Lately it seemed he was at the shelter more often than the once-monthly administrative meetings.

  What with the cookbook and the baby coming, their life seemed ready to burst at the seams. But his injuries had shut so many doors; this job offer had to be important to him if he was considering taking it. She cut into the torrejas, deciding to finish the bowl, which she suspected was his evil plan all along. “Tell me about it,” she said and took another bite.

  He sat down at the table across from her. “Administrative work is one thing, and I enjoy planning the budgets, fundraising, but how do I say this? The counselors they employ are all femal
e. Nothing wrong with that, but I started to wonder what if a man—”

  Glory set down her fork and smiled at her husband. The thick black hair he kept cut military short, skin the color of café au lait, and his angled cheekbones added up to one handsome man. He was so unaware of how beautiful he was that it melted her heart. “An extraordinarily decent man.”

  “Well, I like to think of myself that way, but I’m only human. I’m thinking, what does it take to help a battered woman learn to trust again? A patient man. Estupido?”

  “On the contrary, Joe. I think it’s a brilliant idea. If you want to go for it, you have my permission. Right now, though, I need you to do something very important for me.”

  “What?” he said, standing up from his chair and coming to her side as she turned in her chair to face him. “Oh, my gosh, was the food too much? You need me to call the doctor?”

  She stood up, took his hand, and placed it on her belly. “Feel your daughter kicking? I swear she’s going to play rugby.”

  He smiled, and then his mouth changed into an O shape and he said, “Madre de dios! Do you think Sears is open? We have to buy a crib immediately!”

  Chapter 6

  The beat-up Subaru Daddy Joe had bought her handled snow and ice like a champ, Juniper thought as she neared the Plaza around lunchtime. What with the holiday weekend, finding parking would be even more difficult than usual. Topher’s commuter van was due in at 12:45 at La Fonda. Then came a holiday miracle. For once their parking garage wasn’t full. She found a spot right up front and pulled in. Caddy and Dodge were in the backseat, the windows down exactly four inches, allotted snout space. They’d been getting underfoot at home, and Daddy Joe was afraid they might cause Glory to trip and fall. Eddie, on the other hand, seemed to take every step Glory made as his personal business. Which left two choices for Caddy and Dodge: go with her to pick up Topher or get locked in the outside kennel in cold weather, where they’d whine. Loudly. She unfolded a blanket for them to snuggle in. “I need you guys to be very quiet,” she said. “The last thing I need is getting busted for leaving you two in the car. So behave yourselves. Here’s a bully stick for each of you.” She handed out the leathery treats that smelled like barf, and the dogs got down to business. She locked the car and tramped through the lot to the sidewalk that ran alongside the hotel.

  She could have gone in the back way to the hotel, but it was snowing again, big fat flakes, so white and pretty. She leaned her head back and felt them land on her cheeks and nose. For more than four hundred years there had been a hotel on the corner of West San Francisco and Old Santa Fe Trail. La Fonda Hotel, Daddy Joe told her, was a redundant name because it translated to “the inn” or “the hotel.” Santa Fe was like living life inside a history book that was still being written. J. Robert Oppenheimer had stayed at La Fonda, and so had Archbishop Lamy, the subject of Willa Cather’s book Death Comes for the Archbishop, one of Juniper’s all-time favorite novels. Dozens of famous actors, including Jimmy Stewart in the Christmas movie that made Daddy Joe get all weepy, It’s a Wonderful Life, had stayed there, too, and even presidents. Every week the “El Mitote” column in the Santa Fe New Mexican reported on movie stars lunching there, or shopping the expensive boutiques in the same building. Juniper turned the corner and walked into the lobby to get warm while she waited for Topher. The one-way van ride cost twenty-seven dollars and she had paid for it. Nobody besides Topher knew she had to give him the money. So what, she told herself. This was the twenty-first century. Stuff like that didn’t matter.

  The lobby was decorated with strings of tiny white lights, making the cream-colored walls, turquoise molding, and painted murals look like pages in a book of fairy tales. Even on a national holiday, there were tourists. Loads of people spent Thanksgiving in Santa Fe, as mesmerized by the snow on adobe and farolitos glowing atop walls as Juniper was. It felt as if her life in California had happened decades earlier. Now she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but Santa Fe, and she considered Albuquerque only temporary. Topher’s family lived on the East Coast, a place called Long Island, which was close to New York City. He wasn’t going home for Thanksgiving because he had to finish a makeup paper for Western Civ or the prof wouldn’t pass him. He was also on academic probation. At first, that kind of surprised Juniper, because most of those required classes had been easy for her. Topher said the prof didn’t like him.

  He talked about places like Greenwich Village and Manhattan and New Haven, Connecticut, as if they were ten times more beautiful than Santa Fe could ever hope to be, which made Juniper feel a touch defensive, because to her Santa Fe was the most beautiful place she’d ever been. She didn’t let on. Topher said everything on the East Coast was bigger and better: art museums, theater, the music scene, clubs. She hoped he’d invite her out for spring break to his family’s condo in Florida, or to their cabin in the Adirondacks in summer. She’d Googled “Adirondacks” when he told her about spending summers there. Such a cool-sounding name had to be Native American, and it was, but what she learned kind of broke her heart. Adirondacks was an Anglicized version of the Mohawk word ratirontaks. It translated to “they eat trees,” a derogatory term referencing the Algonquian Indians. When food was scarce, the Indians ate tree bark, as simple as that. Juniper understood that kind of hungry in a way most people never would, but she had never told Topher about her brief period of homelessness. She had fallen in love with the Adirondacks’ lodge-style architecture, photos of canoes on huge blue lakes, and the idea of seeing a moose in the wild. Here, in Valles Caldera, she’d seen antelope, and elsewhere the usual assortment of coyotes and rabbits, but nothing bigger. With three houses, Topher’s family sounded like they had a ton of money, so she often wondered why it was he was always borrowing from her. The cafeteria is always hiring, she’d told him, seeing nothing wrong with having to get a part-time job to afford college. He’d laughed and told her she was hilarious, and she played along as if that had been her intent all along, but the exchange troubled her. Juniper saved all her money from summer jobs to use during the year, and banked the crazy big checks Aunt Halle and Uncle Bart sent to her on her birthday. She planned to put every dime toward graduate school, because more and more graduate programs were doing away with tuition waivers. Shoot, her favorite prof, Dr. Carey, had only one graduate assistant this year, that annoying Chico de la Rosas Villarreal who was always saying mean things to her, and the previous year he’d had four teaching assistants. Except for loans to Topher and the burritos, Juniper was doing all right budgeting her expenses.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” she told the desk clerk in the lobby.

  He offered her a peppermint from the candy dish on the counter. “Can I can help you with anything, or are you meeting the shuttle?”

  “The shuttle,” she said. “But thanks for asking. Do you have to work all day?”

  “Yeah, but I get time and a half.”

  “That’s awesome.” The guy was Navajo, she could tell, and he had a nice smile. That was another great thing about Santa Fe. People were friendly. She wandered by the display cases in the lobby and wondered who on earth could afford a beaded cowboy-hat headband for only seven hundred dollars. If she had money to burn, she’d buy something nice for Glory, like a spa day at Ten Thousand Waves. Her mom never did things for herself, and the pregnancy had exhausted her. Her dad, she’d buy him a plane ticket to Denmark where spinal surgeons were doing amazing repairs with stem cells. Otherwise she’d stash it in the bank for later on, because if anyone knew things could change in a millisecond, it was Juniper Solomon Vigil.

  In the window of the fossil shop there was a four-foot-tall geode with amethyst crystals that reminded her of a cave out of a George R. R. Martin novel. It was so beautiful she almost wished it was hers, but stuff didn’t give you an awesome life, experiences did. She checked her watch and wondered if the van was running late because of the snow. Was there enough time to go to Starbucks and get them each a venti latte? She hoped the dogs were b
ehaving in the car. The run with Dodge had worn her out, with his constant pulling. She needed coffee if she wanted to make it through to dinner without a nap.

  Finally the van pulled up to the curb. The driver got out to help passengers through the snow. Six people tipped him, picked up their luggage, and went into the hotel. Juniper waited, her heart in her throat, ready to be devastated if Topher didn’t show. He did that sometimes, got so into his writing or jamming with friends that he forgot classes and appointments. Then the driver came around to open the cargo area and she saw a guitar case and exhaled. The driver put his arm inside the eight-seater van and shook it. There he was, hair all messy and dressed in flannel grunge and a sheepskin-lined denim jacket. The driver had to wake him up.

  She bolted out the door and ran to him. He held his guitar case in one hand and with the other pulled her close. “Hey there, pretty lady,” he said. “Did you miss me?”

  She wanted time to stop right then, so that this moment would last forever, because it was the best feeling ever. “You know I did,” she said as they stood on the corner of the sidewalk kissing while snowflakes fell down on them. Oh, my gosh, she thought, imagining in a blur their wedding at the cathedral, Joe giving her away, Glory looking happy that Juniper had found her true love. If her heart beat any faster it would leap out of her chest. “Come on. I parked in the lot. I can’t wait for you to meet my parents. They’re going to love you.”

  Topher kissed the top of her head and squeezed her hand. “Maybe I’ll play some Django for your dad,” he said.