Isabel's Daughter

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  Then Boyd said, “Oh, forget it, Rainey. She doesn’t even like guys.”

  “Huh?”

  Boyd looked disgusted. “That’s why they sent her here. She got all bent out of shape when her lesbo girlfriend got pregnant and they sent—”

  What happened in the next few minutes is flattened to one dimension in my memory, everything taking place in a certain order, and yet all taking place at once. Me, running at Boyd Stiles, head down. And when he’s on the floor, leaping on his chest like a bobcat, clawing at his face, pounding his head, him trying to push me off, and all the time I’m thinking where did he hear this? How did he even know Lee-Ann existed? And at the same time as I’m wondering, I know of course the only way he could know was from hearing Sharon and Jim talking about it. Somebody’s pulling on the back of my shirt, choking me, and there are headlights sweeping across the wall, people yelling at me, and finally Jim just picks me up off of Boyd, who’s sobbing and cursing and flailing his arms and saying I tried to kill him. Sharon’s eyes are round with disbelief.

  “What in the name of heaven is going on here?” she says.

  The next morning, she brought me my breakfast in the bedroom and told me I could use the bathroom but that I had to come back to my room and wait for Elena from Children’s Services.

  Sharon acted like I was going on a vacation. She was all chatty, asked me if I wanted help packing. Since my stuff didn’t even fill one suitcase, I thought that was pretty stupid. Anyway, I hated her. I’d never forgive her for talking about Lee-Ann in front of Shit-for-Brains Boyd. When Elena came that afternoon to pick me up, Sharon stood out on the front porch, smiling.

  “Bye, Avery. God bless you. You’re going to be just fine. You’re a good girl at heart.”

  I brushed past her. “And you’re a lying hypocrite.”

  “Avery!” Elena’s voice was angry.

  “It’s okay,” Sharon said. Ever the good Christian, she turned the other cheek. I guess she forgot that if you do that, you get hit on the other side, too.

  There was a new counselor at Carson. Named Melissa something.

  They gave her the job of telling me about Esperanza. She said it was very peaceful, she didn’t suffer or anything. I heard from Charlie Elvin that her son found her in her bed, looking surprised but pleased to see the angels.

  I thought I was getting sick. Pounding head, trouble swallowing, eyes burning. I sleepwalked through the day, aching for the dusty smell of dried chiles that was Esperanza’s perfume.

  Melissa came up to sit beside me while everyone was at dinner. I laid on my bed, stared at the ceiling. I missed Esperanza, but there was nothing I could do about that. What haunted me was Lee-Ann’s letter—every minute of the day I wondered what she might have written to me that I didn’t even read. At night I dreamed that I somehow retrieved it, that the letter would miraculously turn up at the bottom of a trash bin. Somebody would find it and bring it to me. It would be wrinkled and dirty, but it would still have her cinnamon smell. Please God. What if she told me where she was going so I could write to her? So we could be together someday.

  “It’s only natural to be sad, Avery,” she said. “It’s okay to feel angry that she left.”

  Silence.

  “I just want you to know that you don’t have to go through this alone.”

  Why should this be any different than everything else?

  “There’s a special doctor coming Wednesday. His name is Dr. Luchkov. He’s coming all the way from Denver especially to see you.”

  I turned my face away.

  “But in the next few days, if you feel like talking you can call me. I put my card on your shelf. See? It’s right there. It has my home phone on it, too. You can call me any time. Day or night.” She got up. Her face hovered over me like a ghost, short pale wisps of hair floating around it. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow. Don’t forget now. Call me anytime.”

  I woke up suddenly in the night, not knowing if I yelled or just dreamed that I did. I strained to hear something. There were always sounds—breath, voices, a truck grinding gears out on the highway. But not now. Silence folded around me.

  I thought about calling Melissa. That was my intention when my feet first touched the cold floor, but instead I found myself silently pulling on jeans, a T-shirt, sweatshirt. Removing the case from my pillow and stuffing it with clothes, my hairbrush, one book—I didn’t even know what it was—and my baby undershirt. I wadded up my money, all eight dollars and twelve cents, pushing it down deep in my right front pocket.

  I was meant to leave. If not, someone would have sat up in bed and called my name. It was like angels sat by them, putting hands over their eyes, filling their ears with night breath so they wouldn’t see me, couldn’t hear me tiptoeing down the stairs.

  The doors all had alarms on at night, so that if they opened, a bell would ring at the night duty station. Only I knew the one in the kitchen was broken—at least I hoped it still was. I sat in the rickety chair by the stove, lacing up my tennis shoes, saying good-bye to Esperanza. Then I let myself out, made my way down San Juan Avenue toward the highway. Should I go north to Denver? No, that’s what they’d expect.

  Albuquerque. The name blossomed in my mind like a night-blooming flower. I didn’t know anything about it. But it was a big city. I could get a job. Cooking. I could disappear.

  I inhaled the cold night and slung the pillowcase over my shoulder. My legs refused to walk; they wanted to run. So I ran along the curbless edge of the dark streets, slipping in the soft earth, till Alamitos was behind me. I tried to recall the things I’d heard about hitchhiking. Put your bag between you and the driver. Notice where the door handle and locks are. Don’t fall asleep. Try to stop a truckdriver.

  The first few cars that passed me slowed down to look but kept going. I didn’t stick out my thumb. I wasn’t scared, I just had to work up to it. When I was ready, I turned around, walking backward so I could see whatever was bearing down on me.

  I saw the lights, high off the ground, and heard the purr of the big diesel at the same time. A semi. I started waving my white pillowcase before he was even close, and when I realized he was slowing down, my heart rose in my chest like one of those hot-air balloons slipping into the sky.

  four

  Rita likes to say that we were predestined to be roommates because we wear the same size clothes—6 petite. That’s where the similarities come to a screeching halt. She’s three years older, and even though she can be incredibly naïve at times, she’s taught me all the urban survival skills.

  We met waiting tables at Pete’s Diner when I first went to Albuquerque to go to the university. Before I met her, I’d never even had a checking account. I was living in a house with four other people—an arrangement I hated, but it was cheap and close to campus and I didn’t have a car. I didn’t even know how to drive. That’s one of the first things she taught me.

  “Honey, you can’t survive in this town without wheels,” she said the first day we met. Calling everyone “honey” is one of those little tics of hers that used to irritate the shit out of me, but I finally learned how to tune it out.

  She proceeded to bundle me into her rickety blue Plymouth Duster every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon after work and take me to the big parking lot next to Lobo Stadium where I drove in circles, clockwise, counterclockwise. She made me back up with my body twisted over the back of the seat. I was fine with angle parking, but I never really got the hang of parallel parking. I practiced stopping slow and stopping fast, making U-turns and three-point turns. She showed me where the blind spots were in the rearview mirrors. After graduation from the Rita Harmon school of driver ed, the MVD driving test was a piece of cake.

  She took me to the hospital supply store to buy surgical scrub pants, which are cool and lightweight and absolutely the only thing to wear in Albuquerque in the summer. She showed me how to use makeup without looking like a hooker, and she talked me into cutting my hair, which was almost down to my
waist by then, dark and thick and straight. When Rita’s hairdresser lopped it off at my shoulders, it suddenly had body and a nice way of curling under at the ends.

  Rita’s from Sundown, Texas. When I asked her where that was, she said the nearest big town was Levelland. She’s tried really hard to lose her accent, even going so far as to take speech therapy in college. Partly because New Mexicans aren’t exactly fond of Texas, and partly because she’s got it in her head that a west Texas drawl is somehow uncool. It only surfaces when she’s upset or when she talks to her family on the phone.

  I’ve heard so much about her family over the years that I feel like I know them. Her father’s a rancher named Cade Harmon, which sounds like a character out of a Larry McMurtry novel, and her mother, who she calls Momma Jen, is a rancher’s wife and stay-at-home mom. They still live in the house where Rita and her two sisters grew up. Rita’s the oldest, and the only one who’s left Texas.

  They don’t call each other a lot, and I only recall Rita going home for a visit once, years ago when her sister Rhonda had her first baby. I personally think she’s afraid that if she ever goes back, she might never escape again.

  Mostly the Harmon girls communicate with cards. The family could probably keep Hallmark in business all by themselves. They send cards for every holiday on the calendar, and I’m not talking about just Christmas and Easter. I’m talking about Halloween and Columbus Day and St. Patrick’s Day and Easter and everyone’s birthday. And of course, everyone’s wedding anniversary, and those always serve to remind Rita that her family thinks it’s real sad that she hasn’t found Mr. Right yet.

  If there’s an argument they send apology cards. If Rhonda has a problem with her husband, she gets a “coping” card. When her parents’ old dachshund died, Rita sent a pet sympathy card. And when there’s no other reason, there’s always a “thinking of you” card. If the postal service goes bankrupt, it won’t be because the Harmons aren’t doing their share.

  Two weeks after I met Rita she sent me a “thanks for being my friend” card.

  My contribution to our household has always been cooking. Rita’s idea of fixing dinner is to open some cans, mix the contents together, and serve it over pasta. And apparently green vegetables don’t show up on the menu in west Texas—at least not until they’ve been deep fried into crunchy anonymous nuggets or spent several hours boiling in the company of a hunk of bacon.

  When I first moved in with her we alternated weeks of cooking dinner, but I could never eat the stuff she put on the table, and a lot of times, she couldn’t either. We made a bargain early on that I’d do all the cooking and she’d do all the cleaning.

  The other thing I do is treat all our minor illnesses—colds, flu, upset stomach, headaches, and hangovers—with herbal remedies. Most of them are in an old book that I’ve carried around with me for years. The spine is cracked and the pages are made out of some kind of paper that no one uses anymore—instead of getting dry and brittle, they get softer and fuzzy—like old cloth. Some of the corners are so soft, they’ve almost disintegrated. Over time I’ve tried some variations on most of them, so they’ve sort of evolved into my own personal recipes.

  Rita’s hands-down favorite remedy is the women’s tea. With a little shot of whiskey, it works wonders for cramps. Straight up it’s good for PMS. The recipe says it’s good for whatever ails a woman, that it keeps your female plumbing in good repair. Plus it tastes good, as opposed to most of the stuff you find in health food stores. Rita takes a cup every night the week before her period because she swears it keeps her from bloating up and feeling like “a bitch with her tail caught in a La-Z-Boy.” She calls it UMS tea—UMS meaning Ugly Mood Swings. She’s gotten to be sort of a walking advertisement for the stuff, and at one time or another, I’ve ended up supplying it to most of the women who drift in and out of our lives.

  In Santa Fe the best jobs never make it into the classifieds or employment agencies. They get passed along by word of mouth, through family or friends, over a cup of coffee or a beer, across a bin of apples at the market or walking the dog down by the acequia. I don’t make friends, so it was probably good that Rita decided to come with me when I left Albuquerque.

  After leaving Pete’s Diner, Rita wanted nothing whatsoever to do with food. She said she was tired of smelling like deep-fryer grease and chiles. She wanted to work in a gallery or upscale boutique where she could meet what she called “a better class of people.” Meaning men who had enough money to take her out for something more than a beer and line dancing. Men with long-term potential. After all, she was pushing thirty with a very short stick.

  As it turned out, the combination of her blond china-doll looks and unabashed friendliness got her the job of her dreams—sales associate at SunDogs, an upscale jewelry boutique on Don Gaspar. Her knowledge of jewelry could be summed up in three words: “I love it.” But the owner took a shine to her and apparently decided her presence was worth the trouble of educating her.

  I just wanted a job. I’ve always had a touch of paranoia about being out on the street, so I would’ve scrubbed toilets if necessary. Rita to the rescue again. Through someone she met at SunDogs, she heard about a job opening at Dos Hombres, the trendy caterers of the moment. She even had the brass huevos to press for a personal introduction for me from her boss. That’s how I found myself facing the tall, thin, dark-eyed man seated behind a gleaming black desk.

  He picked up a piece of white paper with a few scribbles on it and frowned.

  “I don’t hire students.” Those were Dale’s first words to me.

  If it had been up to him, I know I never would have gotten the job. Something about me rubbed his fur the wrong way from the start, but he’s not the kind of guy who comes out and tells you what’s on his mind.

  Instead he tried to discourage me by telling me I was too young, too small. He said my eyes were “interesting.” He sneered at my experience working at Pete’s Diner. And then he asked if I’d ever had a background check.

  It did make me think back for a minute, if there was anything in the past I wouldn’t want to discuss with an employer. I’ve done some things in my life that I’m not real proud of, but as far as I know, stupidity’s not illegal.

  “We require background checks for all our employees.” He obviously hoped that would scare me off. “We work in the finest homes in Santa Fe. And other venues—that means locations, by the way—”

  “I know what a venue is.” Suddenly I was conscious of the little pills that I’d tried to razor off my black sweater, and that my only good pair of black pants were probably a bit shiny at the knees.

  He leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head. “Would you be available to start Wednesday morning?”

  I held my breath. “Yes.”

  He smiled too happily. “I have a couple of other interviews this afternoon, but we’ll be in touch.” He opened his black leather appointment book as an indication that I was dismissed.

  When I didn’t move, he looked up. “Was there something else?”

  “I don’t think you have my phone number,” I said.

  He scribbled it illegibly on the piece of white paper that I knew was bound for the circular file, and then I was out on the sidewalk.

  I found out later when Kirk called to offer me the job that they had offered it to someone else first who’d gone to work at Bishop’s Lodge.

  I was too relieved to have a job to worry about not being their first choice.

  Rita says that Santa Fe is the third-largest art market in the country.

  While I’ve never thought in terms of “markets,” I’ve always known about the Santa Fe art scene. It’s probably been in the back of my mind for years as a possible starting point if I ever got serious about looking for my mother, although I had no idea how you would go about locating somebody when you didn’t even know their name.

  After living here for almost two years, I can’t help wondering what all the fuss is about. Some of the art is go
od, I guess. To me, a lot of it is bad, and even more is beside the point. Artists might have to struggle for their success, but a lot of them around here look pretty fat and sassy. Dealers and gallery owners and art critics all strike me as navel contemplators who’ve probably never survived for three days on ketchup and saltines and wouldn’t have any idea where to find an eight dollar retread tire.

  It’s kind of interesting walking down Canyon Road, or around the Plaza, looking in the windows, but I rarely go inside a gallery voluntarily. I get more than enough of their conversations about exhibits “inhabiting their space” and “interacting with their environment” just from the jobs we do for these people.

  Of course, here in the third-largest art market in the country, that’s a minority viewpoint.

  It’s Friday, and I can’t believe my luck. First, I’m not working a party. After eight days straight, I figure I’ve earned it. Second, Rita’s not home when I get here. I never know what to expect when I walk into the apartment. Will she be making awkward small talk on the couch with some new guy, her nervous laughter cutting the air like a chainsaw? Or will I open the door to the sounds of Patsy Cline or the New Age stuff she calls jazz that sounds like background music for group therapy?

  Tonight it’s quiet. I take my shoes off, open all the windows, and curl up on the couch with the stack of paperbacks that I just got in trade at Book Mountain. I’m only on page five of the well-used copy of The World According to Garp when Rita blows in.

  “Ave, I’ve got an invitation to a show at Dream Weavers Gallery.”

  I look at her over the book. “Have a good time. And leave your MasterCard here.”

  “Oh, come on, Avery. You’ve been working your butt off. Go with me. It’ll be fun.” She pulls the invitation out of her purse and waves it under my nose. “They have gorgeous stuff—”