by Theresa Weir
Reeves peered over his glasses. “Your mother? Not Rose Bernali?”
Luke grinned. “Yeah.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Do you have any of her work?” Reeves asked urgently, the rug in his lap forgotten. “I have a collector willing to pay almost anything you’d ask for them.”
“Some, I guess,” Luke said with a perplexed frown. “I don’t know how I’d feel about selling them. Who is this guy?”
Reeves leaned forward and pressed a button on his desk. “Janet, bring me the Bernali file, will you please?” He leaned back in his chair and gave Luke an expansive smile. “I’ve been dealing in Indian goods most of my life, and there’s probably not a weaver you could name I won’t recognize. My grandfather started this business in 1902, when the rich were coming here in droves for the sanitariums.” He leaned back and took off his glasses. “Every so often you see something special, a kind of magic or genius no one can ever pinpoint, but everyone agrees it’s there. Your mother was one of them.”
Luke leaned forward. “Who is the collector?”
“A Denver lawyer. Name’s Garcia.” Reeves flipped open the file. “He found the first ones at a flea market in Albuquerque, I believe, about ten years ago, and tracked down a few others through a reservation trader. He came to me four or five years ago, and I’ve helped him locate a couple of others. If I’d known she still had family here, I would have contacted you sooner. Would you be interested in talking with him?”
Luke glanced at Jessie. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I have a daughter now. That’s her only legacy.”
“I understand,” Reeves replied. “Perhaps she’ll inherit the gift.” There was no rancor in his tone, and he took the rugs in his hands again. “Shall we discuss terms, then, for these?”
“Mr. Reeves, you need to understand why we’re here,” Luke said.
Reeves waved a hand. “I know. All the gallery owners know. You want a better price for the weavings or you’ll open your own galleries. Am I correct? I support the project,” he told them. “I’m willing to do what I can to talk to some of the others around, as well, but you may not have much luck. They will call your bluff, so I’d advise following through on the leases for galleries of your own by summer.”
“We’re willing to deal with studios who will go along with our requests,” Jessie said.
He smiled at her. “I’m counting on it. Why don’t you leave an invoice with my secretary for these weavings, and I’ll look it over.”
Jessie felt a little nonplussed at the speed of his agreement, and she glanced at Luke for clues as to what should happen next. He seemed at ease as he got to his feet and held out a hand. “Thank you, Mr. Reeves. We appreciate your support.”
“You let me know if you ever change your mind about letting some of your mother’s work go, you hear?”
Luke smiled noncommittally.
Jessie added her thanks and collected her bag. As they turned to go, Reeves cleared his throat. “Let me offer a friendly warning, folks.”
They both turned back.
“Most of the gallery owners are not taking kindly to this. There are some rumors—” he frowned “—that someone may have hired some thugs to harass members of the project.”
Luke touched Jessie’s shoulder, as if in protection. It surprised her. “Thanks,” he said. “We guessed that might be the case.”
“Take care then.”
It was as they stepped into the cold from the gallery that Jessie was seized with a wisp of a vision. One moment, she was thinking of the very real danger she had now placed herself and her daughter in. The next moment, her eyes caught on the deep blue of the mountains below their adornment of gray cloud, and she was lost, seeing against that backdrop a clear, compelling picture of a woman.
She narrowed her eyes, still walking with Luke toward the car, but what she saw was Luke’s mother bent over her loom. She had Luke’s hair, that thick glossy mass, impossibly black and full of light. The face belonged to Marcia and Giselle.
Jessie had seen several pictures of Rose, always looking severely into the camera as if it were an ill-mannered and unfriendly intruder. In those pictures, Jessie always thought of Rose as a mother, then as Giselle’s grandmother—a woman from such a different lifestyle as to be nearly alien.
What she saw against the mountains was Rose as a woman, an artist like Jessie herself, working in the strong Southwestern light of northern Arizona, uncovering a twist in a weft string that had become her trademark.
Absently, Jessie opened the car door, but paused to peer a little longer at the sudden painting in her mind. Half of her saw the brush strokes she would use, saw her hands mixing the oils to form a perfect sienna for the weaver’s skin, a color like the wood of a living pine tree, pale brown with hints of warm red blood below.
Luke’s voice, quiet as the forest she stared at so intently, swirled into the vision. “What do you see?”
Jessie answered without thinking. “A yellow fire and a baby sleeping…”
It was only then she realized she had allowed herself to drift so far. Before she could retreat, however, Luke smiled. “A painting.”
She met his eyes. “Yes.”
“Good,” was all he said before he ducked into the car. Jessie climbed in beside him, smiling to herself. As she settled into her seat, she bumped his arm and he playfully pushed back. “This car is too small for me.”
She looked at him, only inches away in the cold car, and felt an odd thrill. It was Luke sitting next to her, her lost, beloved Luke, sober and calm and mature and still so achingly beautiful, he made her dizzy.
Without knowing she would, she leaned forward to kiss him, full on the mouth. She didn’t close her eyes, and Luke didn’t, either. For a full minute, she pressed her mouth to his and met the dark velvet of his eyes. Jessie felt all the scattered pieces of herself whirl together as she drifted there, lost in his eyes. Lightly, gently, their lips moved together.
His face was grave when she pulled away, and he caught her hand. “Jessie, you were right last night.” He swallowed, touching her fingernails with his thumb. “We have to find a way to just be friends. There’s too much between us.”
She turned her face away, appalled and embarrassed that she’d kissed him so boldly, without any invitation on his part at all, and now he was rejecting the overture.
He tugged on her hand. “I’ve worked hard to keep things even in my life, Jessie. It’s not always easy for me to stay on the wagon, you know?” He paused. “I don’t want to lose Giselle the way I lost you.”
“I understand,” Jessie said, meeting his gaze with as much honesty as she could muster. She squeezed his fingers. “I really do.”
He didn’t let her go, and Jessie made no move to start the car. They simply sat there, holding hands in the cold. “I’m really glad to see you again, Jessie. I’m glad that through Giselle, there’s always gonna be something strong between us, that you won’t go away again.” He smiled a little sadly. “You were the best friend I ever had.”
The admission pierced her and she reached over to hug him. “Oh, me, too, Luke.” He hugged her back, fiercely. She bent her head into the shoulder of his jacket. “I can’t be sorry any of this has happened.”
“No,” he whispered, and tightened his arms almost painfully.
After a minute, they parted. Jessie started the car and drove back to Luke’s house.
Marcia was on the phone when they came in. Spying Luke and Jessie, she spoke quickly in Navajo, too fast for Jessie to pick up what she said, then hung up.
Luke tossed his coat over a chair. “Was that Daniel?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Marcia folded her arms. “How did it go with Reeves?”
“He was great,” Jessie said. Shedding her shawl, she found her bag of art supplies and dug out a big sketchpad and a thick-tipped charcoal pencil. Settling on the couch, she added, “He’s willing to do whatever it takes to get the project moving.”
“Oh, that’
s great!” Marcia bustled in and sat next to Giselle, who strung beads from a multicolored jumble in a bowl. “That means four galleries that are willing to negotiate at the higher prices.” From another shallow dish, Marcia carefully extracted a woven cluster of beads, probably an earring, Jessie thought.
Luke touched Giselle’s necklace. “Pretty,” he said.
“Marcia told me she has a little beading loom I can have.” She lifted the strung beads and held them against her chest. “I like ’em all mixed up like this, don’t you?”
His eyes tilted upward with his smile. “Yeah, I do. Will you make me a bracelet to wear?”
Jessie watched as Giselle looked at him a little warily, then wrapped the slender string around his brown wrist. The tiny beads looked fragile against the strong tendons. Jessie felt a deep tug at her heart. “It isn’t long enough yet,” Giselle said.
Marcia leaned forward. “You have to make sure you leave enough room for it to go over his hand, too. I’ll show you how to tie it off when you’re ready.”
Jessie inclined her head and began to sketch the trio of them idly. Three dark heads and three pairs of graceful hands. Between Luke and Marcia, Giselle looked as if she belonged, the way she never quite belonged to Jessie. The knowledge didn’t bring the jealousy she might have expected, but a kind of relief. Jessie had never been Indian, never would be, could never hope to give Giselle more than a cursory pride in being Indian herself.
“So what did Daniel have to say?” Luke asked, taking a chair.
Marcia bent over her shallow dish of beads. “He can’t leave Dallas right now. He’s been trying to set this meeting up for months, and the gallery owners there have finally agreed to talk to him.” Carefully, she speared two beads on her needle and slid them into place. “He wants me to take the meeting in Shiprock, but I’ve got to go back to work tomorrow.” She lifted her eyes. “He wants to know if one of you will go to Shiprock.”
Jessie and Luke answered together. “I can’t.”
Luke gestured for Jessie to go first. She frowned. “Marcia, there’s nothing I can say to those women. I don’t have the right to say anything to them, and I also don’t speak Navajo.”
“Daniel told me you can, but you won’t,” Marcia answered with a grin. “Anyway, Luke does,” she said, delicately shifting the earring in her hand.
“But I don’t know a damned thing about the project,” Luke protested with a scowl. “Surely not enough to lead any kind of meeting with the weavers.”
Before the smile spread over Marcia’s face, Jessie saw how neatly they’d been trapped. “So, you’re going together, eh?”
“No.” Luke stood and stalked into the kitchen.
“Marcia,” Jessie said, glancing after him, “it would be too hard—there’s too much between us.”
“I’m open for suggestions,” Marcia replied, putting down the beads. “If you have another idea, let’s hear it. I just don’t want all this work to go down the tubes. If someone doesn’t get down there and address the fear of the weavers, there won’t be a project left.”
Luke spoke from the archway to the kitchen. “So why don’t you go? Cancel your appointments and take a few days off?”
“Because I have three big recitals coming up this week and I can’t run out on the children. You know that.” Her voice was calm, but Jessie heard the annoyance low in her throat. “Sometimes that violin is the only thing of beauty those children have. I won’t take it away from them.”
Luke sipped his coffee, but Jessie could see the taut way he held his body, could see how the whole idea disturbed him. “I haven’t been to the res since I was sixteen.”
“You don’t have to say anything you don’t believe, Luke. You’re the son of a weaver, you know the language, you know the way these people think. Jessie knows all the details of the project; she’s been working on it since the beginning.”
Giselle, looking from one adult to the next, suddenly stood up and looped the beads around Luke’s wrist. “Can I go, too?”
Jessie saw how the gentle appeal weakened him, and she spoke up. “We aren’t going, Giselle. In fact, we’re going to have to get ready to get home or we’ll be on the road all night.”
“No!” Giselle whirled. “I don’t want to go yet!”
“I know you don’t,” Jessie said, realizing she should have anticipated this resistance. “We’ll work everything out, sweetie. I promise.”
Giselle burst into tears and flung herself into Luke’s lap. “It won’t be the same!” she wailed.
Stung, Jessie stared at Luke, who looked back at her with a tight expression on his mouth. She saw her own guilt reflected in his eyes—they’d been so wrapped up in their own lingering emotions that they hadn’t given enough consideration to the question about Giselle.
He touched the girl’s hair. “You can call me tonight,” he said. “Okay? And I’ll come down and see you next weekend. I promise. Maybe your mom will let you come to my house on your Christmas break, eh? That’s only a few weeks from now.”
“I don’t want to go home,” Giselle whimpered softly. The words were doubly painful in such a mournful, quiet voice.
Marcia stood up and looked at Jessie, cocking her head in the direction of the kitchen. Jessie followed her. Marcia turned and put a hand on Jessie’s arm. “I know this is hard for you. It’s hard to be with Luke again.”
“Marcia, you don’t—”
She lifted a hand. “I do. What I want you to think about is how good it would be for Giselle to go there with you both. You’ve done so well with her, Jessie.” Marcia touched Jessie’s hair, stroked it softly. “She spoke to me in Diné this morning—that’s so good.”
“I didn’t do that,” Jessie said, shaking her head. “Daniel has been teaching her to speak Navajo since she was a baby.”
“He told me that you moved to Albuquerque so Giselle would be close to Indian people.”
A little thread of irritation passed through Jessie. “Daniel put you up to this, didn’t he?” She narrowed her eyes. “He knows I don’t like to get involved on this level.”
Marcia evaded her gaze. “He does what’s best. You know that.”
“Best for who?” She flung up a hand. “I don’t understand what game he’s playing here. I usually talk to him at least once or twice when I’m on one of these trips. This time he’s avoiding me.”
“I don’t know about that part, Jessie,” Marcia answered with a shrug. “He seems a little restless when I talk to him, but I don’t really know what’s going on. Maybe he feels guilty for dabbling in your life like this.”
“Maybe.” She sighed.
“So what do you say, Jessie? Will you take the meeting if Luke does the talking?”
“Marcia…” Jessie could think of no protest, except for the fact that she couldn’t bear to be in such close quarters with Luke for so many days. Not without a little breathing room in between. She needed some time to get things into perspective. She closed her eyes. “I can’t think.”
“Jessie, we need you. You’re the only one available who has all the stats for the project. How many trips have you made over the past few months? How many people have you talked to? You can’t just throw it all away.” Marcia took her hands. “Please?”
Jessie looked at her for a long moment. Then she set her mouth and went to the living room. Giselle had curled onto Luke’s lap, her hair spread around her like a silk cocoon. Luke bent his head close to hers and murmured something in a low voice. “Luke,” Jessie said.
He looked up.
“If you’ll come with me, and do the talking, I’ll help you with the stats you need.” She swallowed. “It’ll give us some time to work things out for Giselle, too.”
Luke looked at his daughter. “You want to go?”
He looked back to Jessie “Okay.”
Giselle leapt up and flew across the room. “Thank you, Mommy!” she cried, and burst into tears again as Jessie hugged her.
Holding Giselle cl
ose, Jessie met Luke’s eyes. It had been hard on the pair of them to meet again, but their pain was nothing in comparison to the confusion Giselle felt. Firmly, Jessie picked up her daughter and crossed the room to Luke. Still holding Giselle, she bent and kissed Luke’s glossy head, so Giselle would see her do it. “Thank you,” she said.
Giselle bent from Jessie’s arms and kissed his head in the same spot. “Thanks, Daddy.”
He nodded. “I don’t want to leave till morning. Give me some time to get things together.”
“Fine with me,” Jessie said, and let Giselle climb down.
Chapter 8
Luke removed his tools and cleaned out the back of his truck, then loaded it with pillows, sleeping bags, extra food, cartons of cigarettes and cans of coffee for gifts. He would follow Jessie to Albuquerque, where they’d spend the night, then they’d drive to Shiprock in his truck. His aim was to make the bed of the truck a comfortable, safe place for Giselle to ride. At the last minute, he settled one of Tasha’s favorite blankets in there, too, so Giselle would have some company. A friend had agreed to feed his other pets for a few days and bring in his mail.
He checked the fluids in the engine, the pressure in all four tires and the spare; stashed quarts of oil and transmission fluid under the seat and a five-gallon container of water in the back.
From the back steps, Jessie spoke. “Hey, General, looks as if we’re set. Sure you don’t want to load in some emergency flares and some snowshoes, just in case?”
Luke smiled reluctantly. “Never know what the weather will do this time of year. I don’t want to take chances, especially with Giselle in the car. This way, we could get stranded anywhere and still be okay.”
She lightly descended the steps and peered into the back of the truck, chuckling. “Some things never change,” she teased, and he reveled in the genuine humor in her eyes. “I used to want to kill you for loading my pack so heavy.”
“Made you strong.”
“I guess it did. Are you planning to let Giselle ride back here?”
He nodded. “If you don’t mind. I thought it would be more fun for her. She can take some books and a radio or something. If she needs anything, she can just tap on the window.”
