As the sweet sound of the last note faded in the air, I opened my eyes and saw not just Jacinto, mouth agape as he stared at me, but his big brother, Javier, standing in the doorway behind him. “That was…beautiful,” Javier said, his brown eyes warm with wonder.
We stared at each other for a moment.
“Jacinto, to bed,” he commanded, and the boy set aside the game and scampered off without complaint, obviously glad that I was distracting his brother, keeping him out of more serious trouble for being up at this hour.
Javier sat down on a stool a few feet away from me and swept off his hat. “When I came in and heard the music…I couldn’t believe it. It…sounded like…”
“Like something your papá played?” I asked gently.
He nodded once, laid the hat on the corner of the settee behind him, and rubbed his hair. The curls bobbed around his face, partially covering one eye, but he shook it aside. “Where did a woman such as you learn to play?” His eyes slipped down to my bare shoulder, and I lifted the shawl higher up. His eyes moved down to my skirt and bare feet, and I quickly tucked my toes beneath the hem.
I didn’t feel like explaining my old clothes. I hoped he wouldn’t ask.
“I’ve always played,” I said, hoping to distract him.
“Your papá taught you? A girl?”
Again, with the girl-thing. “Uh, no. My neighbor.”
“So you recall your neighbor?”
I saw where he was headed. “I recall it was he who taught me.”
“Do you remember his name? His house? What village it was called?”
I swallowed hard and shook my head, rising to set the guitar back on the rack.
“No,” he said, lifting his hands in alarm. “Forgive me. It’s late and clearly you are not in the mood for more questions. But please…would you play me another song? I—it would be a blessing to me, this night. I have not heard that guitar played in a very long time.”
I paused, looking down into his face, suddenly childlike with need, and slowly sank back to my stool. He leaned forward, chin on hands, waiting.
He was so handsome, so dang electric, he was like interference. My mind went blank for a minute. I knew a good twenty songs by heart, but could I think of another in that instant? Not so much.
He gave me a puzzled look, his lips relaxing into a slight smile. “Do you know ‘By the Water in Seville’?”
I shook my head, but the city name jogged a song loose in my head. “Not that one, but this…” And I set my fingers confidently upon the strings and began picking it out, more gradually dissolving into the music now—with him present—than I had last time.
I closed my eyes, imagining flamenco dancers moving in their magical way as I played, as my neighbor had taught me to do. “If you imagine dancers before you, your fingers will dance too,” he’d coached.
I knew Javier was watching me, absorbing every inch of my face and body and movement, almost viscerally pulling me to him. And I shared the song, fully, not holding back, finding that here, in this way, I could be open to him, bridging the gap between us.
But when the song ended, I blinked once, twice, trying to get my bearings again and yet captivated by his sober stare.
“It is a gift you have, Zara,” he said softly. “My father never played like that, and he was fairly accomplished. I have heard such fine music only in Mexico, when I was at university.”
“Thank you,” I said, reaching for my cup of disgusting creamy milk, suddenly desperate for distraction. Anything but to look into those chocolate eyes…
“Would you play me another?”
“I…uh, it’s quite late,” I said. “Perhaps tomorrow?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Forgive me, making you tarry at this hour.”
We both rose at once, coming closer together. “No, it’s all right,” I said. “I obviously couldn’t sleep. But now…” Now I need to get away from you. Before this is something I can’t control…
“Here. Allow me.” He reached for the guitar and I gave it to him. Our fingers touched, sending shivers up through my elbow, my shoulder, my neck. I swiftly turned and moved toward the door, only slowing when I was a safe distance from him. “Good night, Javier.”
“Good night, Zara,” he returned, eyes thoughtful as they rested on me.
And then I pulled away, realizing only partway down the hall that I had no lantern. But there was no way I was going back in there. I’d fumble my way up the stairs and to my room in the near-dark, using only the scant moonlight streaming through a few windows.
Because deep down, I knew I had to stay away from Javier, as far away as possible, until I could find my way back home.
CHAPTER 10
Doña Elena didn’t ask me again about the lamp, either in the morning or in the afternoon. Thankfully, she was distracted by the upcoming gathering near Santa Barbara and whipped the entire household into a frenzy of preparation—baking, cooking, washing, mending, sewing. According to the girls, we would all leave early the following morning to arrive late the day after, and there would be a rodeo and festivities for two full days.
“Jacinto,” I called to the boy scampering down the hall.
He paused at the top of the stairs and grinned at me. “Yes, Señorita?”
I walked closer to him, not wanting anyone else to hear. “How are we to get to Santa Barbara?”
He squinted at me, confused. “By horse and wagon, of course!” he said, the thought of it making his eyes go wide with excitement.
“But…but isn’t Santa Barbara very far?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding.
“So…we will ride all day?”
“All day for two whole days!” he said, as if this was the best news he could possibly deliver.
I, on the other hand, felt a little sick. Two whole days on the saddle? Santo cielo, how was my backside going to handle that? I got saddle-sore after an hour or two. Maybe there’d be space in a wagon as well, what with all the food…
I glanced up and saw Francesca at the top of the stairs, hand around a ceiling-high post. She was watching me intently, and it was clear she’d heard my interchange with Jacinto and that she’d witnessed my displeasure over the news. “You don’t wish to go to Santa Barbara?” she asked. “There will be so much to enjoy there! The events of the charreada and dancing, food like you’ve never seen before.”
“Oh, yes. I look forward to seeing it. It’s just that…it’s an awfully long way to travel in the saddle.”
A confused smile drew one side of her lips upward. “How else would we get there?”
“I…I don’t know. No, of course. Never mind. It’s just that I don’t remember ever traveling that far on a horse. An hour’s ride, maybe two. But farther?” I gave her a rueful smile. “How does one walk after more than a couple of hours in the saddle?”
“Javier has had one of our saddlers working over an old one of Mama’s for you. It should be ready by tomorrow. It’s a good saddle—I think you’ll find it quite comfortable. But we ladies will travel part of each day in the wagons, of course.”
“Oh,” I breathed in relief. “Right.” I thought it touching that Javier had thought about my needs. In my whole life, it felt like the only one who watched out for me, took care of me in such a manner, was Abuela. I blinked back sudden tears and moved away from Francesca, down the stairs, not wanting her to see. “I think I’ll go and help in the kitchen, if I might,” I muttered.
I heard her sputtering a response. I realized it wasn’t The Thing around here, but with the hustle and bustle all about and the thought of Abuela, all I wanted to do right now was to work in the kitchen. I didn’t care what anyone thought. I needed it.
I heard the singing and chatter and laughter ahead of me and moved through the dining room, down the hall, past a vast pantry full of dishes, and through two swinging doors into a sprawling kitchen. At the back were two stoves and maids stocking them with more wood. I could smell seared meat, and my mouth watered.
Four Indian women were rolling out tortillas on the long stone island, tossing them in succession to a catcher, beside two women manning the stovetop. Two others were kneading dough at the end of the island beside me. In the corner, on the ground, two others appeared to be grinding corn in a mortar. At the farther end, two women were chopping onions, and in another corner, a man appeared to be butchering half a cow hanging from a hook beside a metal table. Gradually, everyone came to a standstill, staring at me, until the only sound was the crackling of wood in the fire, the sizzle of oil in pans, and the burble of boiling water.
I smiled at them all and took a fresh handkerchief from the pile nearby, pulling back my hair from my face, and then slipped on an apron. “I have cooked all my life,” I said to them. “I need to cook today. How can I help you?”
They all continued to look at me, horrified. Finally, one round-faced, slit-eyed woman, who I thought might be the head cook, stepped forward. “Señorita, if Doña Elena finds you here, she will not be pleased,” she said in labored Spanish, her tone pinched with fear.
“I will tell Doña Elena that I insisted on being here. I beg you,” I said, reaching out to touch her wrist. “Please. Put me to work, just for a little while. I can make tortillas, or I can chop. Whatever would be most helpful. What is your name?”
She stared at me a moment longer, and I wondered if she would turn me away. Insist I go in order to avoid the Wrath of Elena. But she didn’t. “They call me Juana,” she said. Then she gave me a conspiratorial smile, making her eyes almost disappear. “But my real name is Jalama.” She took a rolling pin from the nearest maid and nodded her away to another task. Then she handed it to me and clapped her hands, nudging the whole group back into production.
Gradually, they all fell back to their tasks, sliding me curious glances as I formed dough into a ball and then rolled it out. The stone was perfect in temperature, the dough never sticking, and in minutes, I was moving nearly as fast as the others, tossing the disks like small Frisbees to the catcher, who placed them on the grill. There were already hundreds in stacks, but I knew it had to take hundreds to feed the entire household and rancho staff each day. And it was clear that their task was to make extra food for our travels to come.
I fell into the rhythm, and it soothed me—oh, how it soothed me—to be at work again. The pin wasn’t all that different from my abuela’s, the dough the same even across the centuries. Masa, water, a touch of lard. To me, it felt like being home, and as the women began to chat and laugh again, gradually accepting me, it was like being in Abuela’s kitchen. There, I’d made tortillas as a kid and eventually graduated to more sophisticated cooking. Ceviche and mole were my specialties.
People came in and out of the kitchen, including servants from outside via the back door, and all cast inquiring glances my way. The others just shrugged or pushed them back out, silently encouraging them to ignore the crazy-weird houseguest who apparently just had to cook. I felt their grudging admiration and growing camaraderie too, as they decided I wasn’t all hat, no cattle. This—this was in my bones.
I’d been at it for a good hour when Javier came into the kitchen. He stood alongside me, watching for a moment, before I realized he was there. “Zara?”
“Yes?” I said, continuing at my task, fearing he’d yank me out of there because I’d crossed clear social boundaries. The other workers slowed, all listening in.
“Why are you here? My sisters are in the library, embroidering. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable with them?”
I almost laughed out loud. I grinned up at him. “Trust me when I say that I am a far better at cooking than needlepoint.”
He smiled back at me, obviously confused. “My mother would prefer you were there with them. And it is cooler.”
“I understand,” I said as I tossed a tortilla down the island and wiped my forehead. I knew I was sweating. I didn’t care. This was where I belonged. I paused and looked at him. “I need this, Javier. Just for the morning. I want to be of some use. I’m not the kind of woman who can just…sit about.” I lifted my hands. “I need to use these.” I shook my head. “And not to embroider a pillow. That would be disastrous.”
“Not the kind of woman to sit about,” he repeated thoughtfully, pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger. “Do as you must,” he said with a shrug. “I will speak to my mother, so she will not vex you.”
“Thank you,” I said. I smiled at that. The last thing I needed was The Vexer in this kitchen.
He smiled quizzically and shook his head as if I were as odd as an ostrich. But then he put on his hat and slipped out the back door, apparently setting out on some chore. I kept smiling for some time after he left and only realized it when a couple of the women rolling tortillas with me nudged each other and cast me knowing glances and whispered things in their own language that weren’t hard to figure out. Just what I need, I thought. A kitchen full of matchmakers.
But it settled me, being among them. Jalama began humming an Indian song, and the others hummed along. It was dissonant and foreign, and yet it was earthily beautiful, like a song rising from the Alta California soil itself. The scent of roasting peppers and chilis filled the air, on top of the constantly sautéing onions and meat over the grill. Back in Abuela’s kitchen, it would have been Spanglish I’d heard, cooks and waitresses bantering back and forth as they carried plate after steaming plate through the metal swinging doors. It made me hungry for the rice and beans that accompanied every dish, the way Abuela cooked and crushed the beans until they were a smooth mash—mixed with a bit of asadero—that you could dip a tortilla chip in and die from happiness.
My mouth watered, and my stomach rumbled, but we were still a ways away from the noon meal. I went over to the stove, took a hot tortilla from the stack, and lifted an eyebrow to silently ask the cook if I might have one. She looked at me as if I were an idiot—clearly I had access to anything I wanted in the kitchen, as a “lady guest,” as Maria called me.
I hurriedly bit into the soft tortilla and appreciated it anew. It was familiar enough—from dough to finished product—but clearly the effort of drying and grinding their own corn, adding a bit of lime, a bit of lard, a bit of water, all so freshly garnered from the land on which we stood…well, I didn’t think that it was my imagination telling me that these were simply better. It made up for a bit of my longing for Abuela’s rice and beans because it rocked. Totally.
Having heard I was in the kitchen, Maria came and fetched me an hour later, insisting I come upstairs and freshen up. Upstairs I found Maria had drawn a bath for me, and she’d laid out a riding habit for me to try on, in a startling ruby red, with fresh underthings. It all made me want to cry, I was so happy. “Oh,” I mused, the lamest thing I could manage in the moment. They were presumably trying to get me ready for the journey the next day and wanted to see if they had something suitable to fit. But the bath—the bath. Sweaty from the kitchen, with greasy hair after days of no shower, and definitely sporting a killer case of BO, I was suddenly desperate to get into the water.
Maria unbuttoned the back of my dress, batting away my hands as I tried to help her. In another minute, she had it totally undone, and I pulled it over my head as she set out a bar of soap and a towel on the edge. “I’ll be back in an hour to help you with your hair,” she said, nodding, and then she slipped out the door.
I probed the water with a toe and found it the perfect temperature. I clambered into the hammered copper tub, which angled back behind me. It wasn’t long enough for me to submerge my legs too, but blessedly, most of my body was covered, with just my knees bobbing up. I held my breath and dunked below, urging water to reach my oily scalp. Then I emerged and peered at the soap through dripping eyelashes. With no shampoo or conditioner, it appeared the soap was my only option, from head to toe. I did my best to lather up, but it wasn’t anything like modern-day suds with big, beautiful bubbles. Still, it smelled clean—with lavender mixed in—and felt smooth. I didn’t want to think about w
hat kind of fat they might use to make it so. No, I didn’t want to think about that at all. I only wanted to relish the warm water and the sensation of being clean, really clean, for the first time in days.
I remained in the tub until the water grew cool and I’d washed every part of my body from ears to nails to toes. Then I reluctantly stood up, shivering as I wrapped my towel around me. In the distance, through the window, I could see tiny figures on the ridge, vaqueros driving a hundred head of cattle up and over the hills toward us. It was a peaceful, otherworldly scene, so distant that I couldn’t hear the crack of a whip or the lowing of the cows, but the air was so clear and the sun so tangelo-bright—casting them in silhouette—it was as if I were watching them through a director’s camera lens.
Remembering that it would soon be time for the noon meal, I turned toward the bed and slipped on the bloomers and split petticoat that went beneath the split skirt for riding. I was just eying the corset, blouse, and high-necked jacket when Maria knocked softly at my door. I lifted the towel to cover myself and went to the door to let her in, hiding behind it.
She looked from me to the bed. “I can assist you, Señorita, with the corset. I know you don’t favor them, but you must if you are to fit into Doña Elena’s old riding habit. You’re a bit …curvier than the mistress.”
“That’s fine,” I said hurriedly, feeling the burn of a blush. Getting help with such intimacies seemed awkward, but it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to manage the contraption alone. It was true—I’d stashed away the corset in my trunk and Maria had fished it out again today.
In the other dresses, it was possible to go without. But one glance at the tight-fitting jacket, and I knew I’d need every inch-squeezing Spanx-like power I had at my disposal. The last thing you need is to be popping those buttons on the trail, I thought. And since I couldn’t just bop on down to Target for something else for the trip, I really had no options. I lifted the corset, set it across my chest and turned obediently for Maria to do her work. I’d seen enough movies to know the basics of how to proceed.
Three Wishes (River of Time California Book 1) Page 11
