Isabel's Daughter

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  With Mary and Joseph leading the way and the musicians right behind them, everyone else fell into line and began to walk slowly down the narrow blacktop, singing. The night was clear and moonless, so the stars winked overhead like thousands of eyes. I forgot about being cold and hungry as I fell into the swaying rhythm of the guitars and voices.

  We stopped at four or five houses, each time the guitarists stepping up on the portal and singing the posada song, which began, “En nombre del cielo, os pido posada.” In the name of heaven, I ask of you shelter. The door would open a bit, and from inside other voices answered, “Aquí no es mesón. Sigan adelante.” This is not an inn. Move along, you. And we would move along, now joined by at least some of the people from that house.

  Finally we came up to the community center building across from Lupe’s Coin Laundry, and this time when the singers asked for shelter, the doors opened wide and those inside sang, “Entren santos peregrinos!” Enter, holy pilgrims.

  As I stood with Cassie and Amalia waiting for the crowd to funnel through the narrow door, I heard a snort behind me. I turned around.

  Stacey Lord shook her long blond hair and whispered, “Hey, look out. It’s the witch’s daughter.”

  Randi Klein said, “I didn’t know they let witch girls in church.”

  Giggles all around. “Don’t piss her off, Klein. She’ll make your hair fall out.”

  Cassie was seemingly in the middle of talking to Amalia, so I don’t know how she could possibly have heard them, but she suddenly wheeled, her long shawl flying, and fixed them with her fiercest old lady stare. No words were necessary. They eased themselves out of line and disappeared while I bit my tongue so as not to laugh.

  No wonder they thought she was a witch.

  Every available surface in the huge room was decked out with sweet smelling evergreens and red plastic bows. At one end a fire burned in a fireplace big enough to stand up in. On the opposite wall, tables sagged under the weight of the feast prepared by the parish women—pots of posole and green chile stew, pans of tamales, enchiladas smothered in white and yellow cheese, beef with hot red chile, platters of ham and roasted chickens, baskets of tortillas and bread, washtub-sized bowls of salad. One whole table was covered with desserts—capirotada and bizcochitos, puffy buñuelos drifting in sticky brown syrup, chocolate cake, raisin and walnut pie, cookies covered with colored sugar.

  The priest was invited to begin and everyone else lined up behind him, holding their plates out to be filled, then finding seats somewhere among the rows of long tables with benches and folding chairs. Between us—Cassie and me, Amalia, Juanita and Rafael, and the five kids—we took up a whole table. I was glad that I didn’t have to sit with anyone I didn’t know.

  As people warmed up, shed their coats, and filled their stomachs, their voices got louder and more expansive. Pretty soon you couldn’t have heard a gunshot in the room. Children ran around playing tag, screaming and laughing, wound up like tightly coiled springs with the excitement of Christmas and the sugary desserts. I was dimly aware that the guitarists were playing again, and around them people were dancing.

  Amalia and Juanita and Cassie were gossiping about people in town; Rafael had gone outside to smoke (and probably drink) with his compadres; the kids were off with their friends. Suddenly the noise and the heat and the loneliness hit me all at once. I stood up and pushed my way through the crowd and out into the cold night.

  When the door banged shut behind me, it all vanished like it had been sucked out of the atmosphere by some monster vacuum cleaner. All I could hear was the low voices of men gathered near their trucks. I drew in a lungful of the crisp air, scented with wood smoke, and pulled my coat around me. Down at the end of the building in a circle of white rocks was an old buckboard wagon. There was a metal marker on the ground, but I couldn’t read it in the dark. It probably said STAY OFF THE WAGON. I climbed up and settled myself on the wide wooden seat.

  This would be my last Christmas in Florales. It would be hard to leave Cassie, but I felt like I had no choice if I ever wanted to make any kind of life for myself. If I stayed here, I’d always be the witch girl. In a city as big as Albuquerque, no one would care that I didn’t know who my mother was. People would be too busy with their own problems to worry that my eyes didn’t match.

  “Avery, hi.” I turned abruptly. It was Will Cameron. “What are you doing here?”

  “Cassie wanted to come,” I said.

  He held out his hand, full of bizcochitos, and I took one. It was warm and damp from his hand. “You want some punch or something?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Where’s JJ?”

  I looked at him sharply. “He’s a Navajo. What would he be doing at a posada?”

  He dusted off his hands and thrust them down into the pockets of his jeans. “I guess I’m just used to seeing him wherever you are.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “He really likes you, I guess.”

  “I’m the only person in school that treats him like a human being.”

  He rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, then back on his heels. “You ever been to one of these things before?”

  “No.”

  The shadow of his Stetson falling across his face made him look handsome and slightly mysterious. “We’ve been every year since I can remember. We used to come with my grandparents. When I was a little twirp.” He hesitated. “My grandma was Spanish.”

  Since I had no family stories to share, I didn’t say anything. He stood beside the wagon awkwardly. The crunching of the cookie between my teeth sounded like gravel under car wheels.

  “You cold?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re kind of a funny girl,” he said.

  “So why aren’t you laughing?”

  “Not that kind of funny. Not funny at all, really.” He put one boot up on the metal step and climbed in beside me, easing himself down on the bench. “Just different.”

  “I’m the witch girl.”

  “Why are you so scared to be with anybody?” His voice was quiet.

  I looked up at the stars that gleamed like chips of ice. “I’m not scared. I just don’t like people, that’s all.”

  “Nobody?” The bench creaked as his weight shifted slightly.

  “Nobody.”

  “Even me?”

  I turned, angry. “Why don’t you quit making fun of me? Leave me alone or I’ll put a spell on you.”

  His look was aimed right into my eyes, and it stole the breath out of me. “I think you already did that.” I looked away first. “If you want me to leave, I will.”

  I did want him to leave. Why couldn’t I say it?

  “But I’d rather stay here and talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  He laughed. “I don’t know. Nothing special. I just like being around you—”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re smart. And strong. And brave.” He turned a little more toward me, ignoring the fact that I refused to look at him. “I remember the first time I saw you. Standing in the middle of the street giving Kevin hell for teasing Jimmie John.” He smiled. “You looked so little next to him and all those guys—”

  I glared at him. “Somebody needed to stop them. I didn’t see you doing anything.”

  “I was in the truck.”

  “But you saw them.”

  Silence. Then, “I didn’t like what they were doing. I wasn’t doing it. I just didn’t know how to stop it.”

  “You didn’t even try,” I said.

  He exhaled. “No. I didn’t. You did what I should have done. I never forgot that.” A slow grin spread across his face. “I did save your bacon, though. Didn’t I?”

  I had to smile just a little. “Yes. You did.”

  “When you smile like that, you look so pretty.”

  Suddenly my teeth were chattering.

  “Sure you’re not cold?”

  I shook my head.
My heart felt so big in my chest that I could hardly breathe. He reached over and hooked my hair behind my ear, then ran his fingertips along my cheek.

  “What are you doing?” My voice came out a whisper.

  “What I’m doing is, unless you stop me pretty quick here, I’m going to kiss you.” And that’s what he did, turning my chin with one finger. The brim of his hat grazed my forehead.

  Forked lightning ran down the ridge of my spine. He took off his hat and he kissed me again, barely touching my mouth with his. I knew that I shouldn’t be doing this, but I never wanted to stop.

  “Will, what are you—?”

  I jumped like a rabbit. We both turned to the tall woman silhouetted against the open doorway, blond hair a halo in the yellow light. Nora Cameron was beautiful.

  “The Kleins had to leave early. Randi’s mother’s sick.” She talked only to him; I was beneath her radar. “I told them it was silly to make Randi miss the party, so I said you’d bring her home. Aren’t you cold out here without—”

  He stepped out of the wagon. “Mom, this is Avery James. Avery, my mother.”

  I mumbled something that came out like nice to meet you.

  She smiled with her mouth closed, a small, pained, grudging smile that barely crinkled her face. “Nice to meet you…Avery, you said? What an…interesting name. Is it a family name?”

  My face was so hot I thought it must glow in the dark. “No,” I said. “It’s not.”

  Silence.

  “Well, it’s chilly, isn’t it? Don’t stay out here too long, Willis.”

  “I won’t.”

  I got up and stepped out of the wagon, brushing crumbs off my jacket. “See you later. Willis.”

  “Avery, wait a second—” His hand touched the scar on my arm from the rattlesnake bite, making it ache.

  “What’s the point?”

  “The point is I like you. And I think you like me, even if you’d rather walk barefoot in a cholla patch than admit it. That’s about all the point I need.”

  “It’s not going to work.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m a witch, remember? I can see the future.”

  “Avery, cut the crap. Just for a minute.”

  The door opened again.

  “Son.”

  “Ah, shit.” Will said it under his breath.

  Asa Cameron stepped outside, tall and narrow hipped. He closed the door behind him, shutting off the yellow light and the sounds of music and voices. “Evening, Miss James.” He didn’t smile. “I do hope you’ll excuse the interruption, but I need to talk with Willis.” He continued without a pause. “Son, your mother asked you to come inside. She needs you to do something for her.”

  I was already walking away.

  After Christmas, Jimmie John got sick. He seemed to always have a runny nose or a cough, but this time it was more serious. His grandmother had brought in a hand trembler to try to figure out what was wrong. He was diagnosed and a sing was held, but still he didn’t get well. Finally they took him to the biliga’ana clinic where the white doctor said he had pneumonia and promptly clapped him in the hospital in Darby.

  That’s why I was eating lunch by myself that day at a table in the back of the cafeteria—by the kitchen where it was warm and humid from the steam table and the dishwasher, and where everyone who bought lunch had to bring their tray back when they finished. I had my nose in a book, oblivious to the shadows of kids who passed my table on the way to bus their dishes. So I didn’t notice at first that one of the shadows had stopped and was hovering a few feet away.

  “Hi.”

  I looked up cautiously.

  “Are you busy?” Will smiled at me. We hadn’t said more than hi since the posada.

  “No.” I closed the book on my index finger to mark my place. “I was just…reading some…” Did I really want to tell him I was reading ahead in English because I didn’t have anything else to do?

  “Is it okay if I sit down?”

  “If you want.”

  He pulled out a chair, turned it around, and straddled it.

  “Why do guys always do that?” I said.

  “Do what?”

  “Sit like that. Like they’re on a horse.”

  He grinned. “I don’t know. I’ve just always done it.”

  I watched people’s heads turn as they passed—surprised to see anyone talking to the witch girl. More surprised when they saw who it was.

  “How’s your arm?” he asked. “Where the rattler bit you.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t even think about it anymore.”

  He scuffed one cowboy boot along the mud-streaked linoleum. “How was your Christmas?”

  “Pretty tame. Cassie doesn’t celebrate Christian holidays.” My eyes swept the room, catching and holding on the table where Stacey Lord, Randi Klein, and all their hangers-on sat staring at us. I opened my book and looked down at the blurred page. “I need to finish this,” I said.

  “What is it?” He reached for the book, but I pulled it back.

  “Will, I can’t be your friend.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too much trouble. For both of us.”

  He turned in the chair, his eyes moved unerringly to the table where the girls sat. He smiled at them, waved, and they burst into collective giggles. I wanted to disappear.

  “Please stop it.”

  He turned back to me. “What the hell do you care what they think? Bunch of silly bowheads.”

  “What’s a bowhead?”

  “I’ll tell you if you come to Mami’s with me after school tomorrow.”

  “I can’t.” It was automatic.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t date.”

  He ran a hand through his short brown hair. “It’s not a date.”

  “Is too.”

  “Is not. In fact you don’t even have to come with me. I’ll meet you there. You can just be minding your own business having coffee, and I’ll come in and sit down and pester you.” His grin spread. “I’ll even let you pay for your own coffee if it makes you feel better.”

  “Will—”

  “Please.” His smile disappeared. “I just want to talk. That’s all. No harm in that, is there?”

  So that’s how it started. A January afternoon at Mami’s, sitting in a red plastic booth by a window that fogged with our breath as the words poured out and the coffee sat cooling in thick white mugs and the early winter darkness closed in. We talked slowly at first, then faster, words tripping and stumbling over other words, rushing to say everything we could.

  Suddenly the clock over the pass-through window to the kitchen said five thirty. I grabbed up my jacket and scarf from the seat beside me. “Oh, God, I’ve got to go! Cassie’ll think something’s wrong.”

  “I’ll drive you,” he said.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll—”

  “Avery, come on. It’s colder than a witch’s—” We laughed in tandem. “Let me drive you. I’ll worry about you walking in the dark.”

  So there I sat, buckled into the passenger seat of his white Bronco, wondering how this had happened and how much the Bronco cost and if I’d said too much and if I’d ever talk like that again in the rest of my life and harboring a dark suspicion that he’d be laughing about me to his friends later.

  We were silent all the way to Cassie’s except for me giving directions and him saying “okay” or “turn here?” When we got to the top of the arroyo, I said, “You can just let me off here.”

  “No, I’ll take you all the way home. I want her to know you were with me.”

  He stopped the car a ways back from the house, the way I’d learned was backcountry etiquette, and turned off the engine. I unbuckled the seat belt and picked up my books, reaching for the door handle.

  “Avery,” he said. When I looked over, he kissed me. A no-nonsense kiss, awkward because of car seats, console, and steering wheel. But even I, who had no experience at all of kissing, could s
ense the current that ran between us like a promise. “I want to talk to you again. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The windows of the little house glowed amber from the kerosene lamplight and piñon smoke puffed cheerfully out of the metal chimney. I opened the door and we went in.

  Cassie was sitting at the kitchen table, which was set for dinner with two bowls, two spoons, and two glasses. Whatever kind of soup she had on the stove filled the room with a haze of garlic and chiles. Her expression didn’t change when she saw him standing behind me.

  “I was about to start worryin’, child.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “We were studying for a test and it got pretty late, so he drove me—I’m sorry, Cassie, this is—”

  “I know who he is. Hello, Will Cameron.” I watched her eyeballs move under their nearly transparent lids, and I was suddenly aware of how old she was.

  “Evening, Miz Robert. I apologize for bringing Avery home so late.”

  “No harm done. Will you stay to supper?”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Some other time. I need to be getting home myself. ’Night.”

  And just like that, he was gone.

  ten

  We started meeting at Mami’s on Wednesdays after school. That was his one day off from his chores at the ranch, and I was just as glad it was only once a week. I tried not to let it change my routine too much. I was already steeling myself against the day when I would sit in the booth waiting till darkness fell and he wouldn’t come.

  The third time there, he asked me to go to a party on Saturday at somebody’s house. I tried to make him understand why I couldn’t. I said that the other kids at school didn’t like me and it made me uncomfortable. I told him Cassie would be upset, which wasn’t true.

  What I couldn’t say was, I only wanted to see him as he was with me. I was afraid that if I saw him around all those kids and he acted like one of them, it would spoil everything. I wondered if he’d ask someone else, but I didn’t really want to know.