Finding Casey (26 page)

Out they went into a Santa Fe winter morning that already seemed as if it was turning dark. Tired and grateful, Joseph settled into the pace and passed the homes of his neighbors, admiring trees in winter, trees in general, remembering how not so many years ago he'd created that photo album of the giant trees of California, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream inspired by Solomon's Oak. Imagine, a childhood desire led him to his wife and daughters and into this astonishing life that had seemed forever out of his reach.
Thank you
, he whispered.

Glory couldn't find a movie worth craning her neck to watch, and how uncomfortable could it be to read a book lying sideways? Unbelievably uncomfortable, it turned out. She pulled open her bedside table to see what was in there, lamenting her inability to keep the drawer neat. Inside were a broken book lamp, its cord in tangles; three nearly empty ChapSticks; a glove designed for wearing to bed to soften rough skin, but not its mate; forty-eight cents (one of the dimes was a Mercury head, silver); Moon Drops, some kind of herbal mints designed to ease an insomniac into the land of Nod that she'd been talked into by a sales clerk at Herbs, Etc. and that didn't work; a cherry cough drop still in its wrapper; crumpled tissues she was too
lazy to put in the trash; and, would you look at that: There it was. The blue ribbon from the pot Juniper had bought for them on their anniversary.

The day she found it would forever be etched in her mind, because it was a trifecta of life-changing events: Indian Market, her birthday, and the day she'd discovered she was pregnant.

Glory held the blue ribbon in her hand, remembering the moment she and Joe discovered it inside the pot. Stamped in gold onto the satin indigo background were the words FIRST PREMIUM, TAOS COUNTY FAIR and the New Mexico state seal dated 1912. All micaceous pots required seasoning before their first use, an arduous process of rubbing the clay with olive oil and even heating it to condition the clay before cooking in it. Joseph picked up the pot, inverted it, and out fell the ribbon. They had marveled at the surprise, and then Joseph had put his hand inside the pot to check for anything else. “Uh-oh,” he said, and looked at her. “I hope Juniper didn't pay a lot of money for this.”

“Why? It seemed like a nice piece.”

“Oh, I'm not saying it's ugly, just that it isn't authentic, Indian made.”

Joseph held the pot out for Glory to put her hand inside.

“Feel the ridges? How even they are?”

“Yes, what about them?”

“That means it was thrown on a potter's wheel, not built by hand. Indians use the coil building method.”

“Don't say anything to Juniper,” Glory urged. “She was so proud of buying it for us.”

“No worries, my lips are sealed,” he said. “Besides, I can still cook in it.” He continued with the oiling and Glory sat down at the counter, playing with the ribbon. Suspended from the ribbon was a gold thread with a white entry tag from the fair, No. 9278. It read:

The area for the phone number and address was torn and had clearly suffered water damage at some point. But when Joseph had looked at the bottom of the pot, the maker's incised signature definitely read “Laurel,” followed by something that started with the letter S—they couldn't make out the surname, but it didn't look like Cata. They decided the judge must have put the ribbon in the wrong pot, and chuckled a little at the surprise of that. Later they told Juniper about the ribbon, but not about the pot's dubious background. She rarely cooked anything beyond microwave popcorn, so they assumed she'd never notice, but, as Glory remembered now, flat on her side and unable to do anything about it, at Thanksgiving Juniper had taken that pot back to school with her, intending to connect with the potter on the Pueblo she was assigned to study. Well, the matter was out of their hands now. No stress, she reminded herself.

Glory had intended to track down the owner and send back the ribbon, but autumn was the busiest time of year at the feed
store. People were stocking up for winter, and her pregnancy nausea pretty much drained her energy for anything else. But stuck in bed, this was the perfect opportunity to remedy that. Maybe it was a small matter, winning a first-place ribbon, but Glory would have been proud if it were hers. To her way of thinking, an award like that belonged in a family album, even if the pot was long gone. It had the potential for such a great family story—remember when Auntie Laurel won the County Fair in 2006?

Now that she was stuck in bed, Glory could find the address and mail it back. Joseph's laptop was sitting right there. She opened it, and typed into the search engine: “Taos County Fair, 2006, Arts & Crafts, blue ribbon, Laurel S.” Everything that came up was about the upcoming year's fair, which category to enter, deadlines and forms to fill in.

She tried the County Fair website. There was a cute newspaper story about a 4-H girl's prize pig getting loose and how it took fifteen minutes to catch it. There were a couple shots of prizewinning floral displays, but not much else. Maybe they hadn't posted the results online, but a first-place winner? Surely that was in a newspaper archive, or something. For an hour she narrowed her terms and searched, but didn't find anything. She returned to the upcoming fair site and downloaded the pdf file for categories. There it was: Traditional Arts/Native American, and four categories for pottery. She tried searching the artist's name, Louella Cata. Immediately up came Pueblo Pottery, Ms. Cata's studio, an address and the artist's résumé, and, along with her e-mail, a phone number. Maybe she would know how the mix-up happened, and if not, at least she'd have her blue ribbon back. It was kind of unsettling to find such personal information that quickly. Glory wondered what would happen if she
searched Juniper's name. A click of the keys and there were links to Juniper's MySpace page, her student ID at UNM, and then a dozen pop-ups claiming to be able to erase such information for a fee. Who falls for that, Glory wondered. It isn't even logical. The Internet was creepy. She had to admit it worked both ways; she'd found the potter's name and phone number. She dialed it on her phone, but a recording came on, saying the number had been disconnected.

I'll put it in the good old U.S. Mail that's struggling so hard to stay alive in our digital age, she thought. If it comes back, there's nothing lost. She looked for a pen to write the address down, but of course there wasn't one nearby, and she couldn't write with ChapStick. She settled for typing it into an e-mail she sent to herself, and then wanted to face-palm herself for being so dense. Send an e-mail to Louella Cata! Her address is right there. She typed, pressed send, and of course the computer beeped, giving her a low-battery warning, and the plug-in cord was all the way across the room. Suddenly exhausted, she shut it off and decided to take a nap. At least she had vivid dreams to look forward to, another side effect of pregnancy.

When Chico got into Juniper's Subaru his knees were up around his face. “Let's go,” he said.

“Get out,” Juniper said. “Let me move the stuff in the cargo area around so you can push the seat back. How tall are you?”

“Six foot five and three-quarter inches,” he said.

“Wow. You might be the tallest person I know. I suppose people make cracks all day, like ‘How's the weather up there?' and ‘Why aren't you playing NBA basketball,' right?”

“Unfortunately. And I've never been good at sports.”

This all felt so strange. She wasn't used to anyone in that seat besides Topher, who was normal height, or her suitemates when they needed a ride to the store. She and Anna had had this whole day planned out. In the back of the car Juniper had her photography equipment, latex gloves in case they were allowed to inspect antique pots, her laundry basket, embarrassingly full of dirty clothes (which Anna might not have minded, being a mother and all), cross-country skis Topher had talked her into renting from the student union (they were planning a trip as soon as the quarter ended that involved him teaching her how to ski, and staying at a motel she was paying for), a pile of library books, her project, the pot she gave her parents wrapped in bubble wrap, a case of Diet Coke Vanilla, twenty bags of beef jerky from Trader Joe's, a bag of McIntosh apples (they stayed fresher in the car than in her dorm room), a five-pound container of almonds from Costco, and a brick of cheddar cheese. And dog hair. Lots of dog hair. There were blankets covered with dog hair, and her sleeping bag and backpack, which always bore a fine coat of border collie and cattle-dog hair. It stuck to everything. She was convinced it was barbed.

She could feel Chico's eyes boring into everything. Anthropologists were trained to look at artifacts, to use inductive reasoning, to build a culture from specific objects left behind. Well, she hated to think what he made of her car. She shoved everything except the pot to the driver's side of the cargo area and moved Chico's seat all the way back. “There,” she said, handing him the pot. “You can hold this in your lap, because if anything happens to it my dad will freak. It's like his favorite cooking pot.”

“Looks like you wrapped it up well enough to make it through nuclear war.”

“Ha ha,” she said. He was pathetic in the social-skills department. Had he ever gone on a date? Kissed a girl? She imagined him twenty years down the line, his black hair turning silver, that same stupid sport jacket, or by then would it be one with suede elbow patches? He'd wear thicker glasses by then, wireframe glasses with Coke-bottle lenses, and he'd look like a great grey owl standing there in front of the classroom telling someone else their project was “decent.” Finally, an hour after her planned departure time, they were on their way. Juniper was driving the speed limit and Chico was looking out the window, saying nothing.

“Mind if I turn the radio on?” she asked.

“Let me do it,” he said. “NPR or classical? Or how about a CD?”

Classical? That didn't surprise her. “Of course,” she said. “Why, did you bring some music?”

“Even better,” he said, smiling with that geeky set of super-white teeth that seemed too big for his mouth. To be fair, she did have to concede he had Benicio's smile. He reached over the pot and opened the backpack at his feet. Soon he held up an audio CD,
Before the Dawn: Recovering Our Lost Ancestors
.

Juniper's jaw dropped.

His smile wilted. “I should have known you'd already read it. I also have
Guns, Germs, and Steel
. It's really good. Unless—you've probably read that, too.”

She laughed. “
Before the Dawn
is on my Christmas list. I haven't read it. But I have read
Guns, Germs, and Steel
, twice, and I'd read it again if we weren't in the middle of finals. I can't believe you picked those books. That is freaking awesome.”

“One of the perks of being Dr. Carey's TA is that he gives me all the stuff publishers send him that he doesn't have time to
read or review. I have a fairly extensive library. You're welcome to borrow anything.”

“Wow,” Juniper said. “I'll take you up on that since I drive to Santa Fe just about every weekend. Listen, I have some apples and cheese in the grocery bag behind my seat if you're hungry.”

“Thanks. I'll take an apple. I didn't have anything in the fridge for breakfast. This time of year I'm kind of broke.”

“I thought TAs got a free ride and get paid a stipend.”

He laughed. “They do, which allows you to exist at the poverty level. Every dime goes to rent, and my utility bill is way up there in winter. I could've had free housing on campus, but I'm over sharing bathrooms and listening to roommates party at three A.M. I eat a lot of Top Ramen.”

“Top Ramen is great except for the noodles,” she said. “Too many carbs. You should try some of my dad's menudo. He makes it by the gallon for me. I have some in my freezer.”

“Stop,” he said. “You're making me homesick.”

“Thank goodness it's almost holiday break.”

“Actually, I can't afford to go home for the holiday break.”

“That's too bad. Where's home?”

“Chicago.”

“Wow, that's kind of far away. Why didn't you go to graduate school there, or on the East Coast?”

“I went to Yale for my undergrad. Then I wanted to study with Dr. Carey. And my great-grandmother's family came from Pojoaque. They spelled their name V-i-l-l-i-r-e-a-l back then. They were one of the original land-grant families in the 1930s. My dad was born there.”

“What made your parents move to the Midwest?”

He peeled the organic sticker off his apple. “It wasn't their choice. They died when I was still a kid, so I got sent to live
with the nearest relative, my auntie Isa in Chicago. It was a big change for me, but everyone treated me right. So should we listen to
Before the Dawn
, or will that spoil your Christmas?”

He had told her more in ten minutes than in the three years she'd been at UNM. Maybe he was human after all. “No way. When I like a book, I read it over and over. I love reading, don't you?”

“Sure. So long as it's not term papers or essays written by—”

Juniper held up a hand. “You should probably stop right there, it being thirty-five degrees out and me having to kick you out of the car if you diss my work.”

He smiled. “I was going to say ‘freshmen.' Your essays are really good. You have tremendous insight.”

Normally he would have added, “for someone so young,” but she could tell he was trying to act human. “Stop it,” she said. “Aren't I the one who's supposed to be buttering you up for a good grade? You're probably immune to that.”