The cottonwood had just sprouted new green leaves. I wrapped my arms around its trunk. In the distance on the ridge, I saw Cassandra on Sugarfoot, her five cats and eleven dogs following her into eternity. I liked Taos again. Brooklyn was another world.
Then it dawned on me of course I knew what to do today. I didn’t need to start trouble with Gauguin. I could paint! Why had it taken me so long to figure that out? I suddenly felt sure and confident. The cottonwood gave me courage—I felt it in my body—and the sage and the mud and the rain breaking open the sky all told me I could paint. Paint something good and finish it.
I ran almost all the way back to my car through Kit Carson Park, down Bent Street. I was breathless, gulping for air, my open jacket flying behind me. I passed Blue’s truck in the parking lot, and I saw Happiness across the street in front of the Taos Inn. She waved—at least I think it was her—and I waved back, but I couldn’t stop to talk. I wanted to hold what I was feeling inside. I wanted to pour it all out into a painting.
When I got home, I could hear Gauguin in the other room, practicing scales. I didn’t poke my head in because I didn’t want to bother him and I didn’t want him to bother me. I pulled out my acrylics, but before I used them I took a piece of charcoal and drew a fat mountain, an upside down V, just like a kid would do, right in the center of the thick paper. Then I drew a star on the left and a quarter moon, low so it looked like it was receding in the distance, on the right side of the mountain. I sketched a few crooked rocks down below the moon but nearer to the mountain, and I drew a few birds in the sky. The birds were V’s, too, but right-side up, also like kids do. And as I worked, I felt things. Drawing first let me get ready for painting. I felt space inside me and the majesty of space beyond—almost as though space were time and the painting would be ancient, would have distance, going all the way back to the dinosaurs. I drew some ridges, jagged and irregular, back between the moon and the mountain and then on the other side, too, below the star. Then I added more stars.
I wet my brush and worked quickly, squeezing paint onto the palette and sometimes directly from the tube right onto the paper and then spreading the paint with the brush.
Gray on the mountain. Then purple. Then some blue. And green tinged at the base. A yellow sky the color of ripe pears. Then I made the yellow a bit brighter. The moon was gold and the stars were silver. There was a rich blue-black at the top of the ridges and a gray-black wash in the center of them. I painted the flight of the birds, the space around them, almost eggshell blue with a darker blue for the actual V’s. And at the edge where the ridges touched the yellow sky there was a thin line of flaming orange.
I hesitated with the rocks, closed my eyes, and my hand found pure shocking pink. I splashed that color on the rocks.
The painting was happening! It was alive—I was alive. I stepped back and I almost loved it. It needed a title. I grabbed a thin black pen and in tiny letters in the corner wrote, “After Rain,” and then I loved it all the way. It was complete. I was so excited I wanted to run and get Gauguin. No. I wanted to wait. I flopped on the bed. I gripped my hands behind my head and lay on my back looking at it leaning up against the back of a chair.
I heard Gauguin open his door. “Nell?” he called. “You home?” He appeared at the bedroom door.
“Look.” I pointed with glee.
He turned his head. “Hey.” He paused and stepped over in front of it. “Hey.” He reached for it.
“Don’t touch it!” I jerked up. “It’s still wet.”
Gauguin pulled his hand back and made a low whistle sound of admiration. He turned to me with a slow smile. “It’s nice, real nice.”
My heart felt like it was going to break out of my body. “ ‘Nice’? That’s too Midwestern. In New York we’d say ‘gorgeous.’ ”
“How did you do it?” he asked.
“Fast,” I said.
He grabbed me and hoisted me onto a chair, then pointed up at me. “Banana Rose Schwartz, ladies and gentlemen. Look out, world, here she comes!”
I bowed like a prima donna from my elevated position, then stood there on the chair, smiling.
The next day, I woke up early. I wanted to start painting right away, but as I walked through the kitchen, I thought of making huevos rancheros to surprise Gauguin. I checked the refrigerator. We had blue corn tortillas. I was glad. I loved that color against the yellow of the fried egg and the red of the chile. Then I thought of adding fried potatoes—they’d be good—and baking corn muffins. Pretty soon it was ten in the morning, and Neon was at the door.
“Do you want to eat with us?” Gauguin offered.
“What a question.” Neon smiled and slipped into the chair at the side of the table.
I placed the hot muffin tin on the wooden table, and Gauguin whistled. “Wow, this, too, Nell?”
Neon shook his head. “You’re sure lucky to be with her.”
Gauguin split open a muffin and its steam rose up. He smoothed apricot jam over it. I could tell he was thinking. “Neon, why don’t you go out with Blue?”
“She wouldn’t have me,” he said, biting into a potato.
“Maybe if you’d wash more often,” I said bluntly, sniffing exaggeratedly at the air.
We all laughed. Neon hit my knee. “C’mon, Banana.”
After breakfast the three of us went out to the river and didn’t return until almost dark. It was too late to paint then, and besides, I was too tired anyway.
7
“HEY, NELL, WHERE are you going?” Gauguin yelled after me.
“Never mind!” I screamed, and slammed the screen door and dove into my car.
It was the middle of May. I looked out the sideview mirror and saw Gauguin standing at our front door, trumpet in hand, wearing a pair of old khaki cutoffs, naked from the waist up.
There was orange still on my hands and it smeared on the steering wheel. I’d left the palette out with chunks of paint on it. They could dry, and I’d take them off with a razor later. What a waste of materials, I thought. What a waste of time, too. I hadn’t been able to get anything right since that one Saturday a month and a half ago. Now I hated painting again. All my pictures were either ugly or I didn’t finish them.
I gunned the car faster, spewing up a cloud of dust behind me on the winding dirt road. I was heading to town and then north past town. This was the third time I’d gone there this week, each time after trying to paint.
I made a right at the blinking light and then took the first left. I got out near the canyon rim and began to walk the ridge line. Down below I could see the town of Valdez. I had the feeling that with the right wind my feet would leave the ground, that I would float in currents with the ravens, who drifted above the small adobe houses huddled below in fields. I wanted to fly. I visualized magpies and hawks, but I couldn’t feel the essential motion of a bird. My heart wanted to soar, but I couldn’t lift my body. How do I feel as free as I did that one day out behind the Luhan house? I couldn’t go back to the cottonwood. It had already given me its gift. I told Gauguin to fuck off when he said I wasn’t disciplined about painting. I told him it was none of his business, it wasn’t my style to practice scales like he did. But what was my style?
I was concentrating on how to fly. The sky was an intense blue—deeper than blue—it was heaven and it was calling me. My legs were hanging out my red shorts, and in my mind they were lifting.
Just then I saw someone walking in the opposite direction on the ridge. We came upon each other face to face. She was the tallest human being I had ever met. I arched my head, like a finch to a stork, and the first words I said to her were, “How tall are you?”
“I am six foot one in my bare feet.” She stared back at me hard. She had deep gray eyes, short blond hair that seemed to be chopped instead of cut, and an almost perfectly heart-shaped face. Her eyebrows were so light, they seemed not to be there at all, and I noticed she held one shoulder higher than the other. On that Thursday she was wearing a red, black, a
nd white plaid button-down, short-sleeve shirt and blue jeans. She was barefoot. The next thing she said to me was, “You’re not big enough to be a raven. Maybe a sparrow.” Then she walked around me and kept going along the ridge.
First my head twisted and then my whole body, so I could follow her with my eyes. She had a book stuffed in her back pocket. I squinted. I could see The Ballad of the Sad...
“Hey—” I ran after her. “Are you reading Carson McCullers?” She turned, pulled the book out of her pocket, and flashed me the cover. “I read it in tenth grade. I loved it,” I said.
“I’ve read it about eight times. Have you read it since tenth grade?” she asked.
“No.” I looked down. “Do you live around here?” I asked, changing the subject.
She nodded and pointed to a small adobe on the other side of the road.
“How did you know I was pretending to be a bird?” I asked.
“Because I do that, and I could tell.”
“I’m Nell.” I held out my hand.
“I’m Anna.” She had big hands, too.
“Do you live alone?”
“Yes.” She paused. “Do you want to come in for tea?”
“Sure, I’m a little tired from flying right now, anyway.” I was trying to be charming, but it came out sounding corny.
We walked through a wooden gate and down a narrow dirt path. The back door was open, and the screen slammed behind me. There was only one big room with a blue sofa bed—a white sheet hung out below the cushion—in the corner, a hot plate on the red kitchen table in front of the window that faced the ridge. The desk was actually a door on some cinder blocks. There were books everywhere. Anna cleared three from the kitchen table when she brought over the green teapot.
“Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams.” I read the book spines. “You like Southern authors?”
“Yes. They have so much of America in them,” she answered.
“I loved Gone with the Wind.” I could see this didn’t impress her. She pursed her lips. I wanted to impress her. There was a wine-red overstuffed chair with carved feet by the wood stove. “Where do you come from?” I asked, changing the subject again.
“I was brought up in Nebraska, but I went to school in Colorado.” She poured mint tea into two purple cups, using a strainer to catch the leaves. She had long fingers.
“Hey, did you ever read Willa Cather? I just read a book by her. Let’s see, what was it called?” I snapped my fingers. “My Antonia, that’s it, all about Nebraska.”
“Yeah, we read her in high school.”
“Well, did you like her?”
“I dunno.” Anna pushed a piece of hair from her face.
Hmmm. Willa Cather didn’t impress her either. “How old are you?” I asked. I was curious about her. “Do you like living alone?”
“Yes, I like it a lot. I’ve always lived alone. I’m writing a novel.”
“What about?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m not sure. It takes place on a Nebraska farm. The woman on the farm is so lonely, she communes with the cows, and when the cows are sold for meat, she goes crazy,” she answered.
“Gee.” I scratched my ear.
“It takes place in the 1800s,” Anna said.
“How long have you been in Taos?” I was asking so many questions, I felt like Agatha Christie, searching out facts for a new mystery.
“Nine months. What about you? What do you do?” The tables were turned. She asked the questions now.
“I fly.” I smiled. Maybe she would like me.
“What else?” she asked.
I wanted to tell her I tap-dance, I sail, I drie semis, I’m a short-order cook, I live in a cave, my mother is an antelope, I eat kosher salami, I have no willpower, I get lost on the subway, I have eleven aunts, my cousin is a rocket scientist, a horse once kicked me in the teeth.
“I teach part time in the winter at Red Willow.” I told her the truth instead. “And I’m trying to paint.”
She wasn’t listening. She looked out the window. When she turned back to me, her left eye was turned in toward her nose.
“Anna, are you okay? Your eye’s in.” This was all spooky, and I was nervous.
“I know. I’m okay. It does that sometimes. I’m supposed to do eye exercises to keep the muscle strong. I forgot the last week,” she explained.
“Can you make it go back?” I asked, alarmed.
“Yeah, just give me ten minutes. I guess I can’t cheat on the exercises.” She stood up and went over to the window. Suspended on a string in the middle of the window was a rubber ball. She reached out and swung it. She slowly swayed her body, keeping her eye on the ball. When the ball finally came to a standstill, she did it again.
I watched one and a half swings and then walked over to the bookcase. All of the Beats were there. Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Diane DiPrima. A whole row of Hemingway, and then Anaïs Nin, Colette, Ken Kesey, Alan Watts, Lorca, Pablo Neruda. Then an author named Jane Rule, Djuna Barnes, Jean Rhys. I turned back to look at Anna. She had long arms. I looked beyond her to the kitchen counter and the refrigerator, which shifted into a loud hum. She had electricity. There were three red five-gallon plastic containers on the floor. She hauled water. Gauguin and I had one of those containers. I filled it at the school. Two white dishcloths were hanging over the wood counter.
“Anna?” I broke the silence. “Can I talk while you’re doing these exercises?” I asked.
“Yes, but not fast, because another part of me is concentrating.”
“How old are you?” I asked again.
“I’m twenty-seven,” she answered.
“Who are you friends with around here?”
“Not too many people.”
“Does it get lonely around here?”
“Yeah, some.” She reached out and stopped the ball. “I’m done.” She turned and smiled. Her eyes weren’t cockeyed anymore.
“I ought to be going.” I felt nervous.
“So soon?”
We ended up sitting on an old green torn car seat in the back of her house. We both stretched our legs out long in front of us and leaned back with our faces in the sun.
“If only we had some lemonade with lots of sugar.” She laughed. “My mother used to set me up in the driveway with a Kool-Aid stand. I’d sit and read Freddie the Pig books.” Anna sat up and turned to me. “Have you ever read those books? By Walter R. Brooks. I can’t remember much about them, but I loved them. About a pig.”
“No, never heard of them.” I sure wished I had. I squinted up at her. She looked like rain, that fresh.
“Well, anyway,” Anna continued, “I’d wait for someone to come. I thought I was going to get rich with that little lemonade outfit. No one ever came. We lived on a farm, miles from anything. The horses in the field across the way hung their heads over the fence, only the horses had no money. After what seemed like hours, my mother came out, plopped down a quarter, and bought some.”
I opened my eyes again. My face had been in the sun for a long while. Anna looked yellow. Everything was golden, the tall weeds, the hard, dry dirt. I felt dizzy. “Anna, didn’t you have any brothers or sisters to buy lemonade?”
“Yeah, I have an older brother, Daniel. But we didn’t get along too well when we were young.” A long pause. She was thinking of something. “I once caught him jerking off in the woods near our house. I was eleven. Daniel was thirteen. It was fall. He cracked open a milkweed pod. You ever see one of those?” she asked.
“I think so.” I nodded. I was getting nervous again.
“Well, the seeds are white and real silky. Daniel filled his hands with them and jerked off into them. Must’ve felt good. I was in the shadow of an elm. I was scared, and I made a sound. He caught me before I even had a chance to move and smeared his hand all over my face. It was sticky and the seeds stuck. He hissed at me, ‘Don’t you ever tell anyone.’ He squeezed my arm real tight. I got the message. Hell, there was no one to tell anyway.” Anna sc
ratched her leg. “What about you? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
I put my hands behind my head and leaned back. “I have a younger sister. She wants to be a rock star. Lives in New York. She’s twenty-four and worked for a while as a bartender in a fancy club. She wears silver sneakers and auditions for bands. We don’t see each other much. She was out visiting at Thanksgiving. She thought it was boring here, kept wanting to go to clubs.” I laughed. “I told her the only club here is the Boys’ Club. She went to Safeway at midnight and walked up and down the aisles because it was the only thing open. They were restocking the shelves. Oh, yeah, and that sheepskin place. They stretch skins all night. She even went there. Anything with lights on.” I flicked an ant off my knee. It was getting cooler out, and the shadows were growing longer. “Y’know, I should get going.”
“So soon?” Anna yawned.
I hesitated. “Do you want to come for dinner tomorrow night? You could meet Gauguin,” I said.