“I’M THINKING OF going backpacking alone in the Pecos,” I told Blue to her back. She was bent over, picking spinach from our garden.
She stood up. “Look at this, will ya?” She held up green leaves. “Right here on our own little ol’ dry land. Come, I’ll make you something fancy—eggs Florentine. Got them fresh from Henry.” She took my hand.
I sat in the window seat of her small adobe while she cooked the eggs over her fireplace. “So you’re going to the woods all by your lonesome.”
I nodded, but she couldn’t see me nodding.
“Banana, go to Heart Lake. Not the Pecos. The Pecos is too rough. This is a journey you’re going on. Go to the heart.” She turned her head from stirring the eggs.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I know.” She put the eggs in two bowls and handed me one. The yellow of the yolk stared up at me from the bed of sauteed spinach, sprinkled with orange cheese. This was Blue’s style of being gourmet. It was good, but I knew it wasn’t eggs Florentine.
“You want something, Nell Rose. It’s written all over you. You have to go find it, sugar.” She rubbed my knee. “But you have to go to the right place to find it.”
“What do I want?” I asked her.
“You tell me.” She smiled.
“I want to be a painter, Blue,” I confessed.
She nodded. “And you’re afraid. No one in your family ever did anything like that. All your mother ever told you was to get married.”
“How did you know that?” I asked.
“And you’re afraid you’ll be no good.” She paused. “I don’t sit in the fireplace all day for nothin’, honey lamb.” She tickled my arm. “My family is rich and respectable and Southern. When I was five, Elsie, the cook, smeared black soot across my forehead and said, ‘Chile, you not made fur this here world. You get out someday.’ I thought she meant I’d have to shoot myself with my granddaddy’s pistol. Then much later I heard her tell Sonny, her boyfriend, one night when he picked her up after dinner, ‘That chile’s a mystic. Mark my words.’ I didn’t know what that meant except my mother wore Mystic Blue perfume. So all that spring I walked around smelling the magnolias and the azaleas, everything that bloomed, so I could figure out how I was like perfume. Old Elsie knew a thing or two, and she gave it to me.”
I nodded. “Blue, do you think I could really become a painter?”
“If you want to,” she said, taking a spoonful of her eggs Florentine.
I went to Heart Lake near Questa, as Blue instructed. It was an eight-mile hike. I carried a red frame pack on my back and walked through sunlight and shade on a narrow dirt path. Along the way, wild strawberries grew close to the ground. I bent and picked the bittersweet red dots that hung from the dark green plants. A stream rippled nearby. I stopped several times to sit on the white flat rocks that bordered it. About halfway to the lake I took off my shoes and socks, and while the stream ran over my bare feet, I broke open an eight-ounce Nestle’s bar. It had almonds. The sugar pact that I’d made with Gauguin had gone to hell over and over again. It was a lot like meditation, I surmised. No matter how many times your mind wandered, you brought it back to the breath. No matter how many times I bit into chocolate, I remade the nonsugar vow between bites.
As I neared Heart Lake, the trail became steep and I walked almost on my toes, placing one foot directly in front of the other to go up the incline. When I reached the top, I saw a perfectly still green lake with rock cliffs at the far end, just as Blue had described. No one else was there.
I leaned my backpack against a birch by the lake’s edge and began to collect firewood. Blue had told me it rained a lot this high up, and I wanted to find dry wood before it became dark. I collected a pile of twigs and dead branches. Some were wet and green, but I figured if I got the fire going strong enough, it would dry out the damp ones. I unzipped the back pocket of the pack, took out some folded newspaper, and balled it up to start the fire. I placed small twigs and bigger pieces of wood over the paper. The wind picked up. The ground itself was wet. It probably had rained up here earlier in the day. The paper burned some, but the fire went out when it touched the twigs. The twigs were wetter than I wanted to believe. I lit ten matches and still the fire didn’t catch. I crumbled more paper. Eventually, the twigs dried out just from the heat of burning paper.
The sun was setting and night began to crawl down my back. It was cold. The twigs and then the branches finally caught with the last match of the book. I stood up and looked around. I hadn’t had one thought in my head the whole time I’d worked to light the fire.
I tied a tarp to the low tree branches and rolled my sleeping bag out under the tarp. I sat back on a rock and pulled some garlic, a small bottle of oil, an onion, a pot, some wheat bulgur, and cheese out of my pack. I peeled the onion with the jackknife I had borrowed from Blue. I threw the brown onion skins into the fire. They burned slowly. They too were wet inside. I’d always been afraid to be alone in the woods. Now that I was here, there was nothing to be afraid of.
After I ate and stared into the fire for a long time, I got into my bag and let the fire die by itself. All night the wind blew hard and the tarp rippled and jerked against its ropes. I slept intermittently, dreaming of my grandmother. She came to the woods to visit me. She had on her plaid apron, and her hands were brushed with flour. She was making a cake. “Come, mamala, don’t sleep in these woods. It’s not nice. You should sleep in a bed.”
I said, “Please, Grandma, I’m okay.”
She shook her head. “Jewish children are never safe.” She turned around and carved a heart out of the tree bark and handed it to me. “We all suffer,” she said, and nodded. Her face was kind, and I knew she meant no harm. I woke abruptly. “Grandma,” I called out. I wanted to ask her my question. She was gone. There were only the woods and me in my bag.
I was glad when the sky turned gray. I’d been alone now for twenty-four hours. As it grew paler, I sat up in my bag. I thought I’d meditate with my eyes closed.
After a few moments I opened my eyes and saw an ant crawl over a pebble. I breathed out slow. No enlightenment. The air smelled good. I breathed in. Last night making the fire I had had no thoughts. There had only been the match rubbed across rough paper, the twigs, the dirt, the newsprint. Where had Nell gone or Banana Rose? I leaned against a tree and began to cry. I didn’t know why I cried. I wanted to run home and see Gauguin. I blew my nose in my hand.
After I made breakfast I walked around the lake. Then I came back to my campsite and made a lunch of peanut butter and crackers. Then I finished my Nestle’s bar. Then I didn’t know what to do. I took off all my clothes and sunbathed, reading Man Who Killed a Deer by Frank Waters. It was a good book and I read for a long time. The shadows crossed me and I was chilly. I put on my long underwear. My clothes, hands, hair all smelled of fire smoke. It was still too early for dinner. I wandered into the woods, looking for more wood and keeping my eyes out for good rocks. I wanted to bring one back to Blue. Not a big one, just one that would fit real well in her hand. I imagined her hand. It was a worn hand with a small gold antique ring on her middle finger. A mystic? It figured. Blue didn’t seem to have any ambition, but she wasn’t lazy. Of course, you couldn’t be a mystic and be ambitious. A mystic’s job was to sit around and do nothing. I scratched my head. I’d better watch out for wood ticks. Blue, a mystic. I repeated it over and over to myself, as though I were rolling a rough stone around in my mouth. Yeah, it fit. I wanted to be something, too.
I threw an armful of small branches and a dead limb down by the campsite. Then I saw a small piece of pink quartz, the shape of a heart. I put it in my pocket for Blue and went to look for more wood.
I remembered the question I’d wanted to ask my grandmother in my dream. So, Grandma, how do you become a painter? I picked my nose. I really got into it. There was no one around to stop me.
It’s beautiful around here, I thought. I saw a grove of aspens. To be a painter—I got that fa
r, and then my mind wandered to dinner. I could make brown rice, fry it in oil, and add an onion, a carrot, and two eggs I had brought. A little tamari. Hmmm. I wish I’d brought more chocolate. I planned to stay until noon tomorrow.
I sat down below a tree I liked, leaning my back against it. I didn’t want to read anymore. I was quiet. I didn’t fiddle around, and I wasn’t trying to meditate. So here I am, I thought. A chipmunk dodged in and out of the tree’s shadow. Then a second one joined the first.
The next morning, I woke early. The sky was lightening, and I could see soft pink above me. This was my second morning alone at Heart Lake. I took in a deep breath, pulled my arms out of the sleeping bag, and put them behind my head. The pink above me became a darker pink, then the sky turned steel blue and felt far away, way above the tree tops.
Suddenly, a bird called across the forest and its sharp sound made me jerk up in my bag. I sat up so quickly—meeting the cold in only my T-shirt, still clinging to my sleep-hot body—that something snapped in me. Out of nowhere, in that moment, I understood how to fly! It wasn’t my arms that were my wings—it was my heart. Of course! The two halves of your heart break open through your chest and carry the whole human body up! The sun cracked through the trees, and I was carried up through those branches, like a human raven, heart first. I landed on the top of an aspen and chirped “Amazing Grace” for the whole forest.
That afternoon I flew down the hill. The pack was light on my back. It didn’t all make sense, and I didn’t want to try and figure it out, but now I knew I could paint. Yes, and I wanted to make pictures, beautiful real pictures. I didn’t have to fight my parents for permission anymore. Trees didn’t ask the sky to be trees. I understood this now. I could be a painter.
12
“HI, NELL.” I TURNED around. It was Anna. I was taking Paul Cézanne’s Letters off the shelf at the Taos Book Store.
“Hi, Anna. I haven’t seen you in a while.” I felt casual about it now, but also happy to see her.
“I was away. I got back three days ago.” She brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Hey, do you want to get a malt at Rexall’s?”
“Okay,” I said. I paid for the book at the counter.
We sat on the swirling blue seats at the drugstore within arm’s reach of the Pepto-Bismol and Ex-Lax. “It’s my treat,” Anna said, and smiled.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked.
“I got your note when I got back. Sorry I missed you. Steve Cordon gave me his cabin near Truchas for ten days. He went east and I thought I’d take advantage of it. I needed to get down on the novel. I ran into Jake at the co-op and he offered to drive me over.” She again brushed some hair out of her eyes. “It’s getting real hard. I’m not sure anymore who Louise is. She’s running away from me.”
I curled the corner of my white paper napkin. “Like you’re running away from me?” I bit my lip. It just came out. I couldn’t help it. I’d felt perfectly happy since my solo journey in the woods and here I was starting trouble.
Anna turned and looked at me. “Nell, did I hurt your feelings? I’m sorry. It was a last-minute thing.”
I continued to curl the napkin. I pressed my lips together. “It’s okay.” I felt completely foolish. That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to tell her I was painting.
The waitress placed two glasses in front of us. Then she brought over two silver containers from the lime green malt machine. With one in each hand, she poured half of the frothy liquid into each glass and left the other half in the containers. Anna got vanilla. I had chocolate. The waitress, who was smacking gum and wore a hair net, gave us each other’s flavors accidentally. Anna and I switched them, tapped our glasses together, and drank. The malt was thick and I asked for a spoon.
“I just remembered! Didn’t you and Gauguin say you weren’t going to eat sugar this summer?” Anna exclaimed as though she had discovered something.
“Yeah. I cheat. He probably doesn’t. He’s very honorable.” I smiled with true satisfaction. The malt was good. “This is a special occasion. He’ll understand.”
We sipped and spooned and didn’t say much. There was a long mirror on the back wall behind the counter. Anna’s and my images were blocked by utensils and milk cartons that were on the cutting board, but we could see a bit of each other. Anna sure looked pretty. When she looked into her malt, you could see her lashes against her cheeks in the mirror’s reflection. I wore a coffee-colored tank top. At one point our eyes caught in the mirror, and we smiled at each other.
I poured the second half of my malt into my glass. It had melted, but I still ate it with the long soda spoon. Anna only finished half of hers and then pushed it away.
“How come you’re not finishing?” I asked, eagerly bent over mine.
“I don’t know. I lost my appetite,” she said.
“I would too if I ordered vanilla.” I shook my head.
She waited for me to finish and then paid for both of us. “Want to walk over to Kit Carson?” Anna asked.
We strolled through a green playing field, past a baseball diamond, and under huge cottonwoods that must have been planted when Kit Carson was alive. We walked over to the small park cemetery where Carson was buried. The grass grew high around the gravestones. It was too much trouble to hand-clip that close, so if the mower didn’t get it, the grass just grew. We sat on the ground, leaning against a tombstone. Neither of us talked. I thought, Uh-oh, we’ve run out of things to say. Then I said, “Anna, I went backpacking by myself while you were gone.”
“Yeah?” She was twirling the end of a long weed in her mouth. The golden tassels hung down.
“I meditated up at Heart Lake—ever been there?” She shook her head. I continued. “It’s a good place. During the meditation at one point it came to me that you suffered. You know, over your book and all.” I was nervous. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up. Why wasn’t I telling her about painting instead, and how I learned to fly? I felt stupid. I decided not to say anymore, better to wait and see her response.
She was quiet for what seemed a long time, but in truth, I think it might only have been a moment.
“Nell, I’m into women.” She broke the silence abruptly.
I was confused. I thought we were going to discuss my backpacking trip. “So? So am I. I love women.”
“Nell, you don’t get it. I love them instead of men.” Anna relaxed.
“Oh.” I tried to understand what she was saying. I turned to her, my eyebrows knit together. “Does that mean we can’t be friends?” There was still something I wasn’t getting.
“No. It’s just that there is a whole part of me I was keeping from you. That’s why I might have seemed so distant.” She paused. “Nell, I’m a lesbian.” She said that word. Nothing was blurred now. I wanted to say something, but she had more she wanted to share. “And another thing—I went crazy a while back. Before I moved to Taos.”
I was still digesting the word lesbian and the fact that Anna was one, but instead I asked, “You went crazy? What happened?”
“I was living in a small town in Nebraska. Elgin, Nebraska.” Her voice got higher when she said the name of the town. “After I graduated college in Colorado, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I knew I wanted to write, but what else? I stayed in Fort Collins for a year and worked as a pizza cook. Then my uncle offered to teach me bookkeeping so that I could take over as the bookkeeper for his company. They manufactured fire engines in Elgin, Nebraska. It’s flat there and cold in the winter—I mean real cold. There’s a one-room library, open from 1 to 4 P.M., Tuesdays and Thursdays. A housewife ran the library and filled the place with Betty Crocker cookbooks. So there I was, the only queer in town, trying to write and learning to fill numbers into squares in black books, while my uncle drank Wild Turkey and had an affair with his secretary.”
“God, how long did you stay?” I asked.
“Well, I’m slow. I stayed for three and a half years. I practically ended up running the bu
siness. I know more about engines and public sales than the whole Taos Council did last year when they voted to buy three trucks,” Anna said.
“Didn’t you get lonesome?” I asked.
“You bet.” She paused, twisted her mouth to the left. “Even me, a loner who likes her solitude, I couldn’t take it. There was no one to talk to. I drove down to Omaha on the weekends. There was a dyke bar there. I didn’t know anyone and I’m shy.” Anna brushed hair again from her eyes. “I finally met someone, Clarion.” Anna smiled. “She had red hair and lived on a farm. We went together for six months. She had a husband who beat her, but he got so drunk on weekends, he didn’t realize she was gone.”
“Did you like her? Did you have much in common?” I felt dumb.
“Yeah, we were both lonely, and we wanted each other. Anyway, her husband caught us one night. He shoved her aside—she just cowered and he beat me up. I had a broken nose, a black eye, and couldn’t raise my arm all the way for weeks. I think some ribs were busted.” Anna was animated telling this story. I could tell she was glad to get it all out. “When I got back to Elgin, I told everyone I’d been in a car wreck. When they said, ‘But your car’s okay,’ I told them it was my boyfriend’s car that got wrecked. I told ’em he had a Cadillac.” She shook her head and laughed. “What a coward I was!”
She turned to me. “Are you with me?” she asked. I nodded. “Well, to make short of it, I couldn’t take it anymore. About a month later, I quit my job, but I didn’t have the courage to leave town. I didn’t know where I’d go, and I’d bought the house I was living in. Two stories. White clapboard. I even fixed the roof myself one summer.”
“Yeah, so?” I wanted to know what happened.
“I just hung on. I kept saying I was going to write, but I didn’t, and I started doing speed. Can you imagine? Speed, in that slow town? I got prescriptions from the doc. It was supposed to be for my period cramps. Then I got downers from the pharmacist in the next town. There was no drugstore in Elgin, only a grocery that sold liquor, hardware, and some canned and frozen foods. We all had big gardens. It saved you from constipation.” She laughed.