When the music from the ranch house abruptly stopped, jarring me from my thoughts, other sounds reasserted themselves; the distinct tip-tip of a downy woodpecker, the sucking noise of Trixie’s hooves on the soggy March soil, the chatter of crickets. A sharp, cold wind circled around us, swooping over the hills from the Pacific Ocean. I shivered inside my denim jacket. Like Scout, I lifted my head and sniffed the briny air. Rain was coming.
I studied the gray sedan parked in the driveway. It had been there when I crested the rise. How long? The vehicle’s make was nondescript, at least to me. If it wasn’t a truck, they all looked the same. Was the person who owned the car buying the land? Did they plan on living there? Alone or with a family? This person was walking through the original ranch house. Had he or she already inspected the newer one where Wade, Sandra and their children had lived with Jack’s widowed mother? It was more attractive and definitely bigger, but I always felt it had less history, less soul.
The thought of another family living in what had been my and Jack’s first home made me anxious, a little angry. For some reason that bothered me more than when it was rumored that both houses might be razed and wine grapes planted. I could watch them be destroyed, but I didn’t want anyone else to live in what had been my first home as a married woman. Unreasonable, but it was how I felt. I selfishly didn’t want someone else’s memories supplanting my own.
A rumble came from Scout’s throat. I glanced down at his square, tense body. In that second, the front door of the ranch house opened and someone stepped out. Tall, thin, wearing blue jeans, a dark knit watch cap, sunglasses and a heavy jacket. From my distance, it wasn’t apparent if the person was male or female. If I’d only remembered to bring binoculars. The person carried a radio or tape player, the source of the music. I watched the vehicle move away, braking occasionally on the rough gravel driveway. One red taillight was burned out. I watched the gray car until it turned the corner and headed for the highway. An uneasy feeling pressed down on my chest; the air seemed to grow heavy, like the drop in barometric pressure before a storm.
I was tempted to ride down to see if this person left any physical evidence, but I wanted to beat the rain home. I turned Trixie around, clicking softly. It was probably nothing.
“Let’s go,” I called to Scout. “We’ve got chores to do.”
CHAPTER 2
“SOMEBODY’S POKING AROUND THE HARPER PLACE,” I SAID, walking into Dove’s red and yellow kitchen. Daddy was pouring himself a cup of coffee.
Outside, the rain that had threatened the whole ride back started an Irish river dance on the roof. Trixie, Scout and I made it back with seconds to spare.
“Hide me, pumpkin.” My father’s craggy, sun-browned face was desperate; his pale blue Australian shepherd eyes flashed white. “Someplace where the girls can’t find me for the next hundred thirteen days.”
Lord forgive me, I laughed.
“It isn’t funny,” Daddy said sharply. A sheen of perspiration glowed on his upper lip. “They’re threatening to sign me up for some kind of nutty computer dating service.” He shuddered beneath his blue plaid cowboy shirt. “It’s this whole Memory Festival business. Got them all in a lather. They keep saying that I’m living in the past. They claim I need to make new memories. Benni girl, I like the memories I got. I don’t want new ones. And I certainly don’t want to date nobody off no dang computer.”
I opened the refrigerator. “Meat loaf! It’s almost noon. Want me to make you a sandwich? Is Isaac around?”
“Sure. Put on some of that wasabi mustard. It’s pretty darn good.” He sat at the breakfast bar, his work-scarred hands wrapped around a chunky tan coffee mug. “I think Isaac went to town. Said something about a new camera.”
“He’s been waiting for that for weeks. It’s the latest thing. I think they call it digital. Doesn’t even use film. Apparently you can see the photo on a little picture screen before you take it, then delete the photo if you don’t like it. Crazy, huh? There aren’t even any negatives. All the pictures go on a computer.”
Daddy frowned at the word. “Computers are going to ruin this world. I don’t want to go to dinner or anywhere else with no computer woman.”
Though tempted, I knew better than to argue with him. Actually, I’d read an article in the San Celina Tribune a few weeks ago about computer dating and it insisted that, if you’re careful, it could be helpful in connecting people with common interests. Much more reliable than barhopping, not that Daddy would consider either option. My dad had been alone a long time, though he’d never given any indication he was lonely. But, no doubt my gramma and her baby sister knew things about my father’s life that I didn’t. After all, they lived with him.
“Where are the sisters?” I sliced thick hunks of Aunt Garnet’s spicy meat loaf and arranged them on slices of wheat bread. Plain yellow mustard for me. Scout bumped my shin with his nose, angling for a taste.
“Just a smidgen,” I said, tossing him a piece of meat loaf that was onion-free. “You need to maintain that svelte figure.”
I placed the sandwich with a scoop of potato salad and two pickle spears on a plate and slipped it in front of my dad. “It might do you good to enjoy yourself a little. You work really hard.”
“I enjoy myself just fine,” he said, picking up his sandwich. “I enjoy myself by working.”
“Okay, then.” Having done my due diligence in regards to his social life, I sat down across from him with my own sandwich. “So, I just rode out to the Harper ranch and saw somebody walking through my and Jack’s old house. By the way, I think Trixie’s going to be a good cow horse. She has a tendency to be a little impatient, though.”
He shook his head, bit into his sandwich. “Shame how that place has just sat there empty all these years. Haven’t heard anything about it since that fiasco with those big-city investors. Bill down at the Farm Supply said when their fancy winery fell through, they lost a bundle.” He chuckled, their misfortune like a touchdown for his team.
“I wonder if someone is thinking about buying it.”
“I’ll ask around, see what’s what. What’re you doing with the rest of your day?”
“That’s why I’m looking for Isaac. I forgot to ask him yesterday about whether he had appointments set up for us this week. I’m trying to get everything coordinated for the Memory Festival this Saturday. Only six more days.”
“Don’t this county have enough festivals?”
To Daddy, the only gatherings worthy of attendance were the World Ag Expo in Tulare, the Mid-State Fair, the Snaffle Bit Futurity in Reno, the Parkfield Ranch Rodeo and, if a person felt like really whooping it up, the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. He just didn’t get why people needed to congregate to celebrate things like flowers or wine or quilts or memories.
I set down my half-eaten sandwich. “At first I thought it was kind of pushing it to concoct a fair around something as ambiguous as memories. But it’s turning out to be really interesting.”
Daddy grunted, pushing the potato salad around on his plate. “You remember things or you don’t. Seems pretty cut-and-dried to me.”
I sipped my Coke before answering. “You wouldn’t believe how many booths we’ve got. Did I tell you the city agreed to close off three blocks of downtown, just like with the Thursday night farmers’ market? Took me some wheeling, dealing and whining to get that accomplished. But it enables us to have more booths than if we were just using the mission courtyard.”
I pulled a list out of my leather backpack. “There’ll be a story booth for kids and adults. An oral history booth where people can record family stories. The VFW has its own booth to record military memories. There are a couple of scrapbooking booths and a photo booth sponsored by Zack’s Photo Shak where people can get a photo of themselves with something or someone they want to remember. Cal Poly’s history department has booths for each decade starting with 1900, for people to record what they remember about that time. I’m not sure where the information
is going, but it sounds fascinating. The historical society has a booth promoting San Celina history. The Farm Supply and a couple of local nurseries are giving seminars and selling plants for memory gardens. There are going to be booths for memory stones, flag cases, condolence lamps, pet headstones and urns, cremation jewelry . . .”
“What in tarnation is cremation jewelry?”
I laughed and took a bite of my pickle. “Apparently there are companies that can make your loved one’s remains into a diamond that you can make into a lovely dinner ring or necklace or even . . .”
Daddy held up his hand, his expression pained. “I get the picture, and it ain’t a pretty one. Leave me out of this.”
After we finished our lunch, I rinsed off our dishes and put them in the dishwasher. “The Alzheimer’s Association booth is selling the most amazing artwork created by people with memory impairment or dementia.”
Daddy drained his coffee cup. “We need to talk about scheduling roundup.”
I sighed. Normally I enjoyed roundup even with all the work of getting the vaccines ready, finding out whom among our neighbors could help, how many temporary hands we should hire, planning the menu—breakfast, lunch, snacks and the after-roundup barbecue. It was always a very long day that often flowed into two. These days it seemed like every activity in my life was listed under let’s get it done yesterday, just another chore to scratch off my to-do list. I couldn’t remember the last time Gabe and I went out for a leisurely dinner and stargazing in Morro Bay or an afternoon poking around antique stores.
“How many cattle this year?” I asked, leaning back against the sink.
Daddy picked up his dark brown felt Stetson and settled it on his almost pure white hair. When had that happened? It seemed like the last time I looked he was more pepper than salt. “Not as many as last year—two fifty or so. We should be able to do it in a day if people don’t goof around.”
“I’ll talk to Dove, see what’s on her schedule. Maybe we can do it week from Friday?”
He came over and kissed me on top of my head. “I’ll put it in my datebook.”
I gave him a quick hug. “Be sure to leave some room for those other dates that Dove and Aunt Garnet have lined up for you.”
He muttered like an old crow all the way out the door and probably halfway to the barn.
I wiped off the counter and left Dove a note that she was almost out of milk and yellow mustard. I added that Aunt Garnet’s meat loaf was good enough to win first prize at the Mid-State Fair.
In my truck, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my husband’s cell. It rang four times, then went to voice mail.
“Gabe Ortiz. Leave a message.” His police chief voice dared the person to ignore his command.
“Hey, Sergeant Friday,” I said, using the nickname I’d given him when we first met, an attempt to take him down a peg, but that ended up being my version of honey or darling. “Not desperate, but urgent. Need to know what you want to do for dinner. Over and out.”
It was still hard to believe Gabe and I had just celebrated our fifth anniversary. This whole memory fair had started me thinking about my scattered photographs and memorabilia. I had become interested enough in scrapbooking to start going through them, dividing and organizing pictures by year. What a task it was turning out to be. What I was learning was I almost always took too many photos of the same thing and not enough of things that mattered, that is, things that were now gone. Of course, how was I to know back then that they’d disappear? I wished I had more photos of Jack and me when we were teenagers, more photos of Gabe and me when we were dating or of my favorite jeans in high school, the ones I spent hours embroidering. I wished there were photos of Jack’s work boots, of his hands, of the first calf I helped deliver, the first meal I ever cooked for Jack and for Gabe. How I longed for a close-up of my mother’s hands, her earlobes, her feet. I sometimes stared at my own bare feet and wondered if my toes looked like hers.
But what could a person do, mount a camera on her head and record her whole life? Sometimes you just had to make do with the memories in your mind. I suspected those memories, photographed through the cheesecloth of time, might ultimately be more kind.
The steady rain had softened to a mist during my ten-mile drive back to San Celina. The emerald hills spotted with blue lupine and the occasional early patch of California poppies were a photographer’s dreamscape. It was one of those extraordinary Central Coast spring days in a year where we’d been receiving enough rain to turn our normally dun-colored landscape the brilliant green of a Disney cartoon. The beauty of this land—my home—never ceased to amaze me. I might be Arkansas born, but I’d been raised here. Rich, dark California soil flowed through my veins.
After dropping Scout off at home, the California Craftsman bungalow that Gabe and I were slowly remodeling, I headed across town to the Josiah Sinclair Folk Art Museum. Though my job often drove me batty, what with dealing with fussy society patrons, temperamental artists, the kooky and unpredictable public and an ever penny-pinching bureaucracy, I still loved it. Between overseeing the running of the museum and its exhibits and the artists’ co-op affiliated with the museum, the job was never boring, and it even allowed me to utilize my dubiously valuable history degree from Cal Poly.
I pulled my purple Ford Ranger pickup into the museum’s half-full parking lot. The old Sinclair Hacienda (donated by our first and most dependable patron, Constance Sinclair) looked sparkling today. The white adobe walls looked freshly painted though likely it was the rain that contributed to their clean surfaces. The double front door had been recently stained and the black hardware painted. The red tiled Spanish roof had a small amount of green algae, but D-Daddy would take care of it before it became a problem. Delbar “D-Daddy” Boudreaux was my dynamite assistant whom I’d just promoted to property manager (along with a well-deserved raise) despite the fact that he and I were the museum’s only paid employees. He cared for these buildings with the same love he’d no doubt lavished on the commercial fishing boat he’d owned in Louisiana before retiring in San Celina.
I pulled open the heavy front door and entered the museum’s lobby gift shop. The products for sale in the glass cases—cards, hand-painted scrapbooks, colorful signature wall quilts, memory lockets—reflected both the Memory Festival coming this Saturday and our corresponding exhibits.
The main exhibit downstairs was called I Remember When—Quilts as Personal History. It displayed a variety of story quilts that celebrated everything from a sixty-six-year marriage to a winning Little League tournament to celebrating ten years of sobriety to a Cambodian family’s first year in the United States. There were twenty-five quilts accepted for the exhibit, the most we could comfortably show, and I worked hard at choosing quilts that represented a cross section of human experience.
In our smaller upstairs gallery, we presented a more controversial exhibit called Moving On: Celebrating Those Who Have Left. It also had a memory theme, but to qualify, the subject of the art piece had to have passed on from this earth. D-Daddy started calling it my “dead folks exhibit,” though I pointed out we had two collages that celebrated the death of a police dog and a pet pig. This exhibit, with its centerpiece Graveyard quilt, had earned us the most publicity.
“You thought up this crazy exhibit just to rattle people’s cages,” my cousin Emory said a few weeks ago when he helped me hang the pieces on a slow Monday afternoon. Elvia, his wife and my best friend, and their ten-month-old daughter, Sophie, were at a Mommy and Me Books & Lemonade event she was hosting at her bookstore downtown, Blind Harry’s. “Not to mention getting lots of free publicity.”
“Not really,” I insisted, “though you know we’ll gladly accept any kind of free publicity.” I ran a lint roller over the Graveyard quilt. It had been designed and made by the quilt guild the artists’ co-op sponsored at the Oak Terrace Retirement Home. “The ladies of the Coffin Star Quilt Guild have been working on this quilt for a long time, and I really wanted to display
it at the museum. This Memory Festival was the perfect venue. Then someone in the artist’s co-op asked if they could display a collage they’d made about their father’s death in the Korean War, and before I knew it, we had a themed exhibit.”
Emory brushed back a lock of shiny honey-blond hair that had fallen across his forehead. Even working sixty hours a week running his smoked chicken business (his father, Uncle Boone, had moved out to California last summer and promptly became addicted to golf, thus semiretiring), becoming a husband and father and active as a community volunteer hadn’t diminished his rakish, college-boy look. Even wearing old corduroy jeans and a faded red Arkansas Razorbacks sweatshirt he could have posed for an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.
He stepped back to gaze at the double bed–size quilt. It was made with brown, black, rust and tan calico squares interspersed with squares of the eight-pointed Lemoyne Star pattern. The middle of the quilt was a large muslin square depicting rows of coffin-shaped pieces of fabric embroidered with tiny words. “What’s the story behind this thing?”
I stood next to him. “It’s loosely based on a famous old graveyard quilt by Elizabeth Roseberry Mitchell. They copied the general pattern of her graveyard quilt, but after realizing it might creep out their kids, instead of putting family names on the coffins like Elizabeth did, they agreed to ‘lay to rest’ things from their lives. It’s kind of a cool idea, really.”
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