When I walk back to the kitchen, I feel Paul’s eyes on me all the way down the hall.
After dessert and coffee, the party adjourns to the living room for brandy. Juana, Patrice, and I clear the dining room, extinguish all the candles, load the dishwasher, handwash and dry the crystal and silver. I hand out the checks.
Patrice kisses hers. “Hey, I’m going to quit the Hombres and come to work for you.”
“I don’t think you can live on one party a year.”
“No, but there’s going to be more.” She gives me a knowing look. “You really wowed ’em, Avery. They’ll be knocking on your door now. You should start your own company.”
“Wouldn’t the old hombres just eat their tails?” Juana giggles. “Ooh, ooh! I’ve got the perfect name for you, too. Listen to this—Nacho Mama’s Cookin’. Get it? Not Yo—”
Patrice screams with laughter. “I love it! I want to work for Nacho Mama!”
“This town doesn’t need one more caterer.”
“But honey, you’d blow ’em all out of the water,” Patrice says, wiping her eyes with the dish towel.
“Look at you,” Juana scolds. “You musta been raised in a barn. Now you got your stupid mascara all over the nice white towel.”
If I laugh, it will only encourage them. “Will you two take your money and get the hell out of here?”
“What about the pots and pans?” Juana says.
“I’m letting them soak over night,” I tell her. “They’re too gunked up to wash now.”
“Okay, chica. You don’t have to tell me twice.” She’s out the kitchen door, hollering for Jesús, with Patrice trailing in her wake.
“’Night, Nacho Mama.”
It’s almost two A.M.
The backs of my legs feel like I’ve been whipped with a rubber hose, and I dig my knuckles into that muscle just below my right shoulder blade that’s been in spasm for the last hour. I turn off the overhead lights, leaving only the under-cabinet lamps on.
I pour myself a glass of Champagne from the open bottle in the big Sub-Zero, and sink into a chair, extending my legs in front of me and letting out an involuntary groan. Twenty-five—no, twenty-six—years old and I sound like Cassie. I take a sip of the Pol Roger and hold it in my mouth. God, I love this stuff.
I think this is where I’m supposed to feel like I’ve finally arrived. If only—fill in the blank—could see me now. If only who? Rita? Yeah, she’d probably think it was pretty exciting. Cassie? I doubt she’d be impressed.
Then there’s all those morons in Florales. Like Kevin—who thinks Champagne is something you pour over your head after you win the football game. Oh, you can drink it? Randi and Stacey would probably be jealous—except they’d rather be eating the dinner than cooking it. Will Cameron—don’t go down that road.
I prefer to think of Andy Ross, chasing me around the Plaza, not to tell me I broke his door, but begging me to come cook for him.
And what about Isabel?
“Avery? What are you doing sitting here in the dark?” Paul’s voice snaps the spell. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Is everyone gone?” I ask.
“Yes. Stuffed and happy.” He nods at my glass. “Shall we finish off that Champagne, or are you too tired?”
“You’re not going to give me any more presents, are you?”
He laughs. “No, I promise. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
I smile. “Like New Year’s Eve?”
He doesn’t answer.
I follow him into the living room, where the fire has died down to glowing logs that radiate a delicious, enveloping warmth. The fragrance of the Christmas fir is laced with piñon smoke. He refills our glasses. I take a meringue from the little plate on the coffee table and nibble at it. The sweet crunch vanishes into nothing.
“Dinner was wonderful. I think if you want a career as a caterer in this town, you could easily build on tonight…if that’s what you want.”
I relax onto the sofa, ease off my boots, and pull my feet up, tucking the skirt over them. “How are you supposed to know what you want?” I say lightly.
He pulls open the fire screen, lights a piece of fatwood, thrusts it among the smoldering logs. In seconds the whole thing bursts into flame and he stands there watching it.
“Maybe it’s more a matter of knowing what you don’t want.”
His eyes drift restlessly from the fire to the tree, to the three miniature landscapes in their gilt frames beside the door. Finally to me. “That dress. It’s beautiful on you. I love the one-shoulder effect.”
“Cookie,” I say quickly. “It was her idea.”
It’s so quiet I imagine I can hear the bubbles rising in my glass.
Suddenly the room is close and stifling, the dress feels too tight. He sits down beside me. Close enough that I feel the slight breeze on my shoulder when he leans back.
It’s not like he’s never touched me before. I distinctly recall his hand at my elbow, or resting in the small of my back as we stepped off a curb. We shook hands once. I remember him kissing my forehead, his lips smooth and dry.
And sometimes in the kitchen, I can feel him watching me. The way his eyes follow my hands when I work, as if he’s wondering how my fingertips might feel on his skin. The way he looks up and smiles when I bring his breakfast into the office. It’s not my imagination that his hand occasionally brushes my arm for no reason. No reason except that he wants to touch me.
But tonight is something else; there’s so much electricity between us the air is almost crackling.
Surely to God he knows. It’s all right here. In my eyes, in the way my body leans toward him. I feel transparent as water. He could see my thoughts like stones on the bottom of a clear pool. I have a nearly unbearable urge to close my eyes and trace his profile with my fingers, from his hairline down his forehead, the long straight nose, his mouth and chin. I want to rub my thumb across his lower lip, follow it with my tongue. I want him to hold me.
Just now I have the oddest sensation of sailing—or at least the way I’ve always imagined sailing must feel—like being pushed by the wind. I’m not sure, but maybe my hand is already moving toward him when he says,
“I’m thinking of going away for a while.”
Everything stops. The room stills—the fire, our breath. My eyes lock on his face. All I can say is, “Where?” As if that mattered.
He stretches his feet out, resting them carefully on the coffee table. His black loafers look soft, like the leather was buffed to a muted glow by some butler, but I’m sure he did it himself. He puts his hands up behind his head, not looking at me.
“Maybe Mexico for a while. Then I thought perhaps New Zealand. I have a friend in Auckland who collects Maori art. It’s quite interesting. It would make a nice change for me—”
I can’t listen; I can hardly breathe. I mean to ask when, but somehow it comes out of my mouth as, “Why?” And I’m mortified by the bleating sound of it.
He keeps looking at the fire. “You’re welcome to stay on in the guesthouse, of course. In fact, I’d like it if you would. I always feel better knowing someone’s around when I’m gone for extended—”
“Someone?” My face burns like the fire. I don’t recall getting to my feet, but that’s where I am. “That’s how you think of me? Someone to stay in your guesthouse while you’re gone?”
When I reach down for my boots, he puts his hand on my arm. I jerk away, but I have to go around the coffee table to get out of the room, and by the time I do, he’s in front of me.
“Avery, I’m sorry. Let me—”
“Get away from me.” I push past him, heading down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Please let me explain.” He’s right behind me, moving practically in my footsteps.
“It’s not necessary,” I hiss through clenched teeth. When he touches my shoulder, I start to run. “Leave me alone.”
His legs are longer, and he’s keeping up w
ithout any trouble. “Please don’t do this. Just let me—”
“I don’t care,” I shout at him. By now I’m in the kitchen. I circle the work island, grab the back door knob and jerk it open. I scoot through just as he lunges for me, stepping on the little rug in front of the sink. It slips on the tile and I hear a grunt and a slapping sound as he goes down hard, but that’s not what stops me.
What freezes me, one foot on the back step, one in the cold gravel—stuns me into silence and makes every hair on my scalp rise—is the way he shouts,
“Isabel!”
Desperation rasps in his throat, and the sound of it hangs in the air like a physical presence.
I’ve lost the sense of minutes passing, but eventually, I move back into the kitchen, shut the door behind me. He’s lying on the floor, motionless, white as paste under the ski tan. For a second I panic, thinking he’s hit his head, but his eyes open and he looks up at me, not moving, his cheek pressed to the Saltillo tiles.
I kneel down next to him. “Are you all right?” My voice is unsteady.
He exhales and it’s a weary, defeated sound. “Yes,” he says.
I help him to his feet. We check out his arms and hands, shoulders, hips, knees. He takes a few steps, wincing a little.
“You might have sprained that ankle. I’ll make you a herbal wrap tomorrow.”
He smiles, still a bit shaky. “Is there no end to your talents?”
I smile back. “Actually, no.”
“Avery…” His voice cracks. “I’m so sorry. I’ve made such a—”
I touch my index finger to his mouth. “We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s late. I’ll lock up. Do you need help up the stairs?”
“No. I’m fine.” He pushes the hair off his forehead. “I’m going to watch the fire burn down first, but you go ahead. It’s been a long day. You must be exhausted.” He leans toward me, brushing my forehead with a kiss that I barely feel.
“Sleep well, Avery.”
Outside the frosty air knifes into my lungs. The garden is silent and dark, a patchwork of shadows. The insulating cover floats on the surface of the pool. The white coping and a few escaping wisps of steam make it look like some bubbling black tar pit is hidden underneath.
I can see my breath in the guesthouse. When I jerk the dress off over my head, I hear the scrape of a seam ripping. I roll it up and throw it on the floor, crawl under the down comforter, swimming over the surface of the sheet to warm it up. I reach for the lamp switch and fall back into the dark.
I want to sleep. Preferably for the next two days, but I dread waking up. That’s when reality comes for you and you’re too groggy to outrun it.
The illuminated numbers on the clock say 3:02 A.M. Through the partially open curtain I can see the neat row of electrolitos, still glowing, still marching uniformly across the top of the roof above the kitchen.
What the hell am I doing here? When did I stop resenting Isabel and start trying to be her?
With a sudden wrench, I recall a different Christmas. The posada. Cassie and Amalia—the long, cold walk in the darkness, the music of guitars and voices, candles dripping wax in the church windows, the simple feast in the community center. And the first time Will Cameron kissed me.
With the sound of his name in my head, memories are breaking over me like waves. The smell of Mami’s coffee and grease from the griddle, the feel of the plastic booth on the backs of my legs, the pink valentine I flushed down the toilet, the scent of big sage and his jacket, the feel of his skin against mine, the sun on my back, the calls of swifts echoing down the canyon. I clamp my eyes shut against them.
You didn’t trust me, he said. You still don’t.
One blue plate special order of truth, hold the excuses.
He gave me plenty of chances, plenty of reasons to believe in him. And I didn’t even try. All I knew how to do was run away. First to Albuquerque, now to the nether world presided over by Paul DeGraf. A shade, that’s what Paul reminds me of—one of those beings that isn’t exactly alive, but not quite dead—just existing on some weird plane with his art and his guilt and his memories.
It strikes me now with bone-jarring force that the reason I’m here is because I’m comfortable with that. I’m like him. Not dead, but never fully alive, always letting people get just so close and no closer. From that certain distance I probably looked like a real live person. To Will.
And to Rita. With her Hallmark sentiments and her goofy Christmas presents. How I depended on her and resented her for it. The way I let her do all the hard work of our friendship and then mocked her for doing it.
Even Cassie. Jimmie John. Lee-Ann.
I was always the one who pulled back first. Always stopping the music so I didn’t have to hear the end of the song.
Landscape shifts around me. Santa Fe. Albuquerque. Florales. Carson. Each year dissolving into the one before, nesting inside one another like those wooden dolls. I hug myself, shivering, feeling suddenly sick. I fling off the covers, run for the bathroom, squat down in front of the toilet, tucking my hair out of the way.
A spasm that seems to start in my toes shakes me, but instead of throwing up, I’m crying—huge, heaving sobs, bone dry at first. I grab a towel and hold it over my mouth to muffle the noise because the echoes bouncing off the tile are frightening. Then come the tears, flooding out of some bottomless reservoir.
I just kneel there and empty myself.
twenty-six
When I finally fall asleep, I go way under. No dreams. Not any that I remember, anyway. I wake up in broad daylight with a pounding headache. It’s after nine o’clock. I pull on my gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, throw my jeans jacket on, and walk up to the house.
It smells stale—like old ashes and empty wine bottles, dirty pots and pans soaking in cold, greasy water. My stomach lurches.
Paul is curled up on the couch, asleep, without any blanket or pillow, and the house is freezing. The lights on the Christmas tree are still twinkling with determined cheer. When I bend down to switch them off, he stirs, then sits up abruptly, like he’s wide awake. We look at each other.
Somehow, “Good morning” doesn’t seem appropriate. “Merry Christmas” doesn’t sound right either. So I just say, “I’ll make some coffee.”
“Thank you.”
While I scrape the slimy remains of dinner out of the pans, then wash, dry, and put them away, he goes upstairs to shower and change. By the time he limps into the kitchen, wearing jeans and a red sweater, the coffee is brewed and the milk is hot. I fill his cup.
“How’s your ankle?”
He takes a sip of his café au lait. “Not so bad.”
“You should RICE it today.” When he looks puzzled, I add, “Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. I thought all you jocks knew that term.”
He tries to smile. “Did you sleep well?”
“Amazingly well, all things considered. I’m not even going to ask you.”
“I’m surprised I could sleep at all,” he says.
I fix his usual breakfast—tartine, three-minute egg, orange juice—and pour myself a bowl of cereal. We sit on the stools, side by side, eating in silence. He watches me clean up, sipping moodily at his coffee.
“What would you like for dinner?” I’m hoping to nudge the day toward a semblance of normalcy.
“I don’t know. I may go out.”
I look for some expression, some emotion, but there’s nothing. “Okay. Whatever.” I dry my hands and take off the white apron, hang it on the hook by the pantry, and start for the back door.
“Avery.”
I turn around.
“I’d like to talk to you. If you don’t mind. There are some things I should—”
I follow him into the living room, where he goes through the motions of building a fire.
“I think I’m having déjà vu.” My attempt at levity falls flat in the silence.
When he’s satisfied with the fire, he dusts his hands off and comes over to sit ne
xt to me. He picks up his coffee cup.
“I’ve always wondered what happened to it. The dress.”
“When I went to The Good Earth that Saturday after Thanksgiving, Cookie gave me a—some of Isabel’s things.”
“It’s lovely on you,” he says. “Quite lovely.” But he’s not looking at me, just staring into the fire. “You know what I thought, of course.”
“About what?”
“About you.” Now he turns his face just enough to see me. “It was idiotic. Thinking that you and I—that if I had another chance, I could make up for—”
A hard little knot is forming in my throat. “Paul—”
“It doesn’t work that way, of course.” The cup goes to his mouth, but he doesn’t drink.
“She was moving out, wasn’t she?”
He nods, turning back to the fire.
“Is that what you were arguing about that night?”
He moves to the edge of the couch, like he’s going to get up, but instead, he rests his elbows on his knees and looks over at me. Firelight glints on the plain silver band on his left ring finger.
“When I was working at Christie’s in Paris, we used Tom a lot to repair and restore paintings and artifacts that needed a little touch-up before they were sold. His work was quite remarkable. Is quite remarkable,” he corrects himself.
“He could fix water damage or fading from too much light or heat. A rip in canvas or a gouge…whatever. He could not only repair things, but he could blend his work so seamlessly in with the original that even our appraisers could barely see it.”
“Which is where you got the idea.”
“What idea?”
I fold my arms. “The idea of having him copy things—”
He runs his index finger along the side of his neck just inside the collar of his shirt. “You know?”
“I’ve heard rumors. And when I was up at his studio I saw things that didn’t look like his stuff. A retablo—”
“The whole thing started almost as a joke.”
“A joke?”
“I had an Indian ceremonial mask that Tom admired. He asked me if I’d lend it to him. To use in a still life. When he brought it back to me, he brought me two. They were virtually identical. I was angry at first—not so much at him, but at myself, because I honestly couldn’t tell which was mine. He gave me back the original, and I hung it in the hallway just by the front door.
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