"The Flamenco Academy" (48 page)

I drove home to the house on the river,
knowing that Tomás would never return to it. I’d made a deal long
ago to do anything it took to get him. I just forgot to specify for
how long. The opiate that had been plugged into my brain the night
I first heard Tomás play was ripped out. The withdrawal was,
literally, physical. I felt the way I had after Daddy died: like I
was perched on the edge of a cliff about to fall. Didi had pulled
me back then. Now there was no one to rescue me.

At the end of the first week, I called
HomeTown and told each succeeding person who answered and informed
me that congregants weren’t allowed to take unauthorized calls that
I was going to kill myself if they didn’t let me speak to my
mother. I was lying, but it was the lie that occurred to me.

Finally, she was put on.

“Mom, it’s me. Cyndi Rae.”

“Cyndi Rae, what’s wrong? Are you
crying?”

“Yeah, Mom, I’m crying. Mom, could you
come?”

“There? To Albuquerque? Cyndi Rae, I work,
you know I work. We just got an order in from a boutique hotel to
do all their quilts. It’s the biggest account we’ve ever gotten.
I’m Team Mom and half of my girls are down with the carpal tunnel.
Even if no one takes off a minute from now till Easter, we’ll
barely get the order done. And I can’t fly. You know I can’t
fly.”

“I know, Mom.”

“I would if I could. You know that. I’m your
mother. I’d do anything for you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, Mom.” My tears stopped. “It’s fine.
I’ll be fine.”

“Well, okay, Cyndi Rae. I’m glad you’re
fine. They need me. The hotel specified mauve and cream. They won’t
accept the order if it’s anything other than mauve and cream. I
have to get back.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay, Mom.”

“I pray for you, Cyndi Rae. Every
night.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Brother Ed needs the phone now, I’m going
to have to go. Call me if you need anything else. I’ll do anything
I can for you. Just don’t ask me to do things you know I
can’t.”

“Okay, Mom. I won’t. Bye, Mom.”

I hung up and didn’t let myself think, just
drove Tomás’s truck into town and went to see Mrs. Steinberg. I
knocked on the front door. After a long time, I heard shuffling. My
heart seized up. Didi was there. She was home and, from the heavy,
slow tread, it sounded as if she might be sick. A muscular teenage
boy wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves torn off opened the
door.

“Uh, hello. Is Mrs. Steinberg here?”

“She moved.”

“She moved? Where?”

He shrugged. The heavy bulk of his shoulders
rose and fell. “Dunno. Malta or something. My mom’ll be home later.
You can ask her.”

“Manila?”

“Yeah, that’s it, Manila. Hey, are you
gay?”

“Gay?”

“Your name. Are you Gay?”

“Rae. I’m Rae.”

“Oh, cool. This weird chick came over and
left some shit for you. She paid us to hang on to it. Said you’d be
coming by. But shit, that was like a year ago or something. We
almost tossed it.”

The footlocker was too heavy for me to
carry. The guy helped me haul it out and lift it into the bed of
the truck. Back at the house by the river, I had no one to help me
unload the heavy trunk so I left it where it was and opened it
there. The inside of the lid was covered with numbers printed so
meticulously they looked like a pattern. Neatly packed inside were
my best skirts and tops, my favorite shoes. Everything I’d left
behind when I’d walked out with Tomás a year ago. There was a note
from Didi on top.

One Month After That Goddamn Audition

Rae-rae, Hey-hey,

If you’re reading this, it means there’s still hope.
It means you came to find me. I guess you found out that Catwoman
finally did it. Finally moved back to Manila. So we’re both orphans
now, right? Don’t stop reading! I know that last statement just
pissed you off.

She was right and that made me even
angrier.

I tried to find you until I realized you truly did
not want to be found. I don’t know what you think happened at the
audition, but it wasn’t enough for you to disappear: Jesus, you
won, right? Talk about a sore winner. Hah!

Rae, you were astonishing at the audition. But,
before you were astonishing, you froze. Whatever I did, whatever
you THINK I did, I did to thaw you out. Obviously, he picked you,
you’re with him. I miss you sosososo much. Fuck, Rae, he’s not even
my type. He’s a BOY for God’s sake and I am so over boys! GRRLZ
4Ever 4Me.

I’m leaving too. Really no reason for me to hang
around Bookay anymore.

Let’s face it, you are what I have in this life and
I am what you have,

Didi

Call me. You have my new number

The pattern on the lid of the footlocker was
Didi’s cell number written thousands of times. Underneath my skirts
and shoes was her old cassette tape of AC/DC. I dug through the
trunk, reaching back through the geological strata of our
friendship while Didi’s signature song played in my mind, the one
about dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

Everything Didi had rescued from the Lair
was stored in ziplock bags and marked as carefully as if it all had
come from an archaeological dig: A shard of the Temple of Dionysus
we’d constructed together and she’d covered with a mosaic of glass
from broken liquor bottles. A copy of one of her dad’s
DownBeat
magazines. A Puppy Taco take-out menu. “McKinley
and the Tariff of 1890,” the American history paper I’d written for
her. A black basaltic rock from the West Mesa.

Didi had cataloged every tick of our
friendship. What I had assumed was service she’d taken for granted
had been noticed, appreciated. Snow began to fall, sifting feathery
flakes across the bags. The slippery pile of ziplocks was as much
as I could claim of a record of my time on earth. It was the baby
book my mother had jettisoned for Jesus. I swept the flakes away,
closed the lid, and, with more strength than I thought I had,
dragged the trunk inside.

The drug lord’s palace was freezing. I paced
for an hour, fighting the desire to call her. I counted how many
times she’d written her number on the lid of the trunk nearly a
year ago. When I reached three thousand, I dialed. My fingers were
stiff with cold and nerves. Each number I punched in, though,
warmed me. She was right. I
had
frozen at the audition. And
I was frozen now. Didi would thaw me. Didi would help me out of the
hole. It was only then, with her phone just starting to ring, with
the hope of rescue forming, that I could admit how much I needed
rescue. It would be all right now. Didi had my back. She answered
my call as if she’d spent the past year sitting by the phone
waiting for it.

“
Mi amor, mi amor, mi amor!
Why
didn’t you call sooner?”

I was overcome at the sound of her voice. My
throat tightened against the sob of relief that rose from my chest.
And then it hit me: the number she was responding to with such love
was Tomás’s.

“Are you there? What’s wrong? Can you not
talk? Is she in the room? Why are you calling from the river house?
You said you were never going back there.
Mi amor
,
what’s—”

I clapped the receiver down before she could
finish asking what was wrong. Asking her “
amor
” Tomás what
was wrong.

That week a cold front blew down from the
Arctic and broke records that had stood for a century. I lay awake
all night beneath mountains of covers and watched my breath freeze
into a halo above the round bed. Some of the oldest cottonwoods
froze so hard that they cracked open, the explosions as loud as
thunder. One giant fell on the power lines, cutting out the heat
and light. I used all the firewood.

When I went to bed the only thing I was sick
with was betrayal and longing so intense my entire body ached as if
I had the flu. And then I did have the flu. It was a relief to
slide into physical pain strong enough to blot out thought, to have
a real reason to hurt as much as I did. The most I could handle in
the way of taking care of myself was to fill a glass with water,
drink part of it, then stagger back to bed. Soon, I couldn’t even
manage that. Didn’t want to manage that.

I wouldn’t have actively done anything to
cause myself to die, but I was no longer concerned about it
happening on its own. Shortly after I stopped getting up for
glasses of water, pulling the blankets up to cover myself became
more than I could handle. The cold air felt good on my hot skin.
Sleeping felt good. Dreaming felt good. The nights came and went. I
lost track of them.

Then Tomás came back. He was banging on the
door. Pounding and yelling. Didi was with him. I was sorry that
they were too late, that I didn’t have the strength anymore to wake
up and unlock the door. Somehow he got in and carried me into the
living room where he had built a fire, not of piñon, but of
branches splintered from the frozen cottonwoods. They burned
quickly, warming the house. He and Didi pushed the couch where I
lay close to the fire and tacked up blankets around the couch like
mosquito netting to keep out the drafts. Didi put a cup against my
lips and filled my mouth with apple juice. Tomás placed a tea
kettle on the fire and it puffed clouds of steam scented with the
eucalyptus smell of Vicks into the Arctic-dry air. The steam filled
the tent around the couch with tropical air that made me dream
about Austin. About diving into icy spring water that turned into
air thick and dense enough to swim through until the moment when it
evaporated and I was falling. I tried to scream, but my throat had
rusted shut.

Then Tomás was holding me. Everything had
been explained. He loved me, and Didi was my friend. Everything was
fine.

“Rae, wake up! Wake up,
mija
, you’re
having a bad dream! Come on, baby, open your eyes.”

Why, I wondered, was Alma holding me? Why
was Blanca standing by with a cup of juice? Why was Will poking
wood into the fire?

“Where’s Tomás and Didi?” My voice was a
croak. It wasn’t a dream. My throat had rusted shut.

Alma and Blanca looked at each other. Alma
answered, “They’re not here,
mija
. Nobody except Blanca and
Will and me have been here. Didi called and told us to check on
you.”

Blanca stepped forward. “Here, drink this.”
She guided an accordion-pleated bendie straw into my mouth. I
sipped apple juice, then closed my eyes and was asleep before the
sweetness had left my mouth. When I woke again, I was back in the
round bed. The sheets had been changed and the heat and lights were
back on. The house was empty, but there was food in the
refrigerator and a note that read:
When you feel up to it, come
and see me about a job. Alma.

Alma found a little apartment for me near
Nob Hill and paid the first month’s rent. She deducted the loan
from the job she gave me organizing the festival coming up that
summer, then enrolled me for enough independent studies classes
that I was able to finish my degree. As soon as I was registered as
a student, I started seeing Leslie again. I took the pills she
prescribed, and the clenched thing within my brain loosened enough.
Just enough.

When my strength returned, Alma started
using me as a substitute. I turned out to be a good teacher. My
orderly mind, my tendency to see things in black and white, all the
qualities that prevented me from being a reliably extraordinary
performer, made me good in the classroom. I liked teaching. It kept
me occupied, kept me from thinking. Not thinking became my major
goal after I dragged myself off of the round bed. I taught as many
classes as Alma would let mc. I volunteered to keep the festival’s
books and reconciled them every day. I did what I could to repay
her kindness to me. To Blanca, to Will, to the others who had
helped me. Long after my health returned, I felt wobbly around
them. Wobbly and obligated. Obligated to pull myself together.

I took up marathon running. The route I
returned to again and again circled from my apartment near Nob Hill
to Highland High School, on to the Disabled Veterans Thrift Shop,
then over to Route 66. From there I took a right and charged past
the Pup y Taco, the Ace High, the De Anza Coffee Shop, the Aztec
Motel. I always ended up heading west, toward the future.

Spring came and the cottonwoods filled the
air with ghostly seed puffs, haloed filaments that floated on
breezes too gentle to be felt. Cottonwood fluff piled up in the
gutters like drifts of diaphanous snow. In early summer the buds
unfurled into apple green leaves that spangled hearts across the
sky.

I believe that if, even for one spring in
all those years, the cottonwoods had failed to bloom, had not
filled the air with their promises, the sky with their hearts, that
I could have learned to stop loving Tomás Montenegro. But did they?
They did not. I ran, accelerating at increasing speeds past all the
landmarks. I just never got fast enough to escape any of them
entirely. I made a full recovery from my illness, but not from
Tomás. He turned out to be a disease that had just gone into
remission. As soon as I was strong enough, he flared up with a new
virulence. This time, though, I knew that if I didn’t have him I
would die. I needed another secret. And that is how I came to learn
that flamenco was a giant tree with roots over a thousand years
old, still sucking sustenance from India, Spain, Mexico, and New
Mexico, and that my story was nothing but the tiniest heart-shaped
leaf in a vast canopy.

Doña Carlota almost seemed to expect my
call. It was inevitable, probably, that I, the other spurned woman
in Tomás’s life, would eventually find my way to her. On the drive
north to Santa Fe, as the earth lifted toward a sky opening onto
infinity, I remained oblivious to the beauty beyond my window. My
entire concentration was on what I wanted to say and how I would
say it. Of course Doña Carlota knew about me and Tomás. About Tomás
and Didi. Everyone on the flamenco grapevine knew. That embarrassed
me, though not enough to turn back.