Kirstin Valdez Quade - Night at the Fiestas - Stories

She watched the square of light in the glass. She breathed, and Father Paul breathed, and she felt the babies shift, navigating the tight space inside her.

And then, on the other side of the rectory, the back door opened and slammed shut. Father Leon’s steps crossed the kitchen linoleum. On his way to his study, he would pass Father Paul’s open door. He would see the suitcase, the strewn bottles, the two of them nearly embracing on the bedroom floor.

Father Leon would look from one to the other, his expression shading from perplexed to angry, but his gaze would rest on Crystal, because he would understand that she was guilty of something that she couldn’t deny or put into words.

Crystal considered pulling away. There was still time. She might still hide the evidence, meet Father Leon casually in the hall, dish towel in hand. Beside her, she felt Father Paul tense and push his face into her shoulder.

“You’re fine,” Crystal said. She placed her hand over Father Paul’s, but she was picturing her babies. Sheer skin, warm tangled limbs, tiny blue beating hearts. “You’re fine.”

THE NOYES’S NEW HOUSE WAS ON A REMOTE HILL NORTHEAST of Santa Fe surrounded by piñon and chamisa. The first time they approached, in the real estate agent’s Volvo, Margaret had clutched the armrest. She’d been sure even then that this was it. As Harold, up front, kept pace with the agent’s steady commentary, Margaret gazed out the window and collected in her mind the scenes she would paint: an abandoned blank-eyed adobe near the highway exit, a line of leaning mailboxes foregrounding a purple mesa, two dirty children playing in an old blue truck on blocks. When they finally arrived at the base of the long dirt driveway leading up through squat, dense piñon, Margaret found herself holding her breath. “You’ll want a four-wheel drive,” the agent had advised. From here, it was point-seven miles on the odometer every time. Even now, it gave Margaret pleasure to note it when she returned home.

From the high, wide windows of her studio, Margaret could see for miles: the late summer storms were coming, black clouds packing themselves firmer as they moved across the sky, distant shafts of sunlight breaking through and lighting the pink earth below. This house, with its antique double doors, soft adobe lines, and windows all around, was their retirement home, but Margaret didn’t feel old. She was still slim and upright (except for a bony bump at the back of her neck, which she did her best to hide with scarves), she walked daily, and had never once dyed her hair — had, in fact, been pleased when it faded from a rather nondescript blond to shining silver. And she felt more creatively vibrant than she had in years, full of ideas, ready to buckle down.

The way Harold told it, laughing agreeably with their friends, was that out of the blue Margaret had announced that they were moving to New Mexico. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer!” Harold was still back in his office in Fairfield, surrounded by legal briefs. Margaret had known he was reluctant to retire and couldn’t move right in the middle of a big case, and though she’d made a show of disappointment, she was secretly glad she’d be alone. She insisted she had to leave as soon as possible to get them settled.

Her sister-in-law had offered to accompany her, but Margaret had wanted to drive across the country alone with her dog, Daisy. By the time she arrived, the movers had already unloaded the furniture and boxes and more or less arranged them in rooms according to the diagram Margaret had supplied. Walking through the empty rooms, Daisy close at her heels, Margaret had felt on her bare feet the warm afternoon sunlight and the cool terra-cotta tile, and she thought of their first house in Guilford forty years ago, the furniture from the old apartment spread thinly through the rooms, the bare wood floors, all of it waiting, still and quiet, for the lively clatter of babies.

She spent the first few days seeing the sights. She drove to Tesuque, visited artists’ studios and glass foundries, had brunch at the Market. In Santa Fe, she walked the Plaza and dipped in and out of galleries on Canyon Road. One night she went to the Opera— Rigoletto —though she was exhausted and left at intermission.

On the way home, Margaret stopped at the convenience store five miles down the highway with the idea of asking about anyone in town who might be available for housework and to help her settle in. Margaret thought of it as “town,” but there was no town, not really. Just the convenience store off the exit and a trailer with a sign over the door that said BEAUTY HAIR NAILS.

At the counter, Margaret wrote her name and number, and was about to jot her address, too, when she thought better of it. The heavy Hispanic woman at the register sat on her stool and watched impassively. “If you think of anyone, have her call me. We can meet, see how we like each other.” Margaret thought interview sounded pushy, though of course that’s what it would be.

A Carmen Baca phoned and arrived at the arranged time with a pink plastic tub of rags and cleaning solutions, apparently thinking she’d already been hired. Legs trembling, Daisy barked at Carmen Baca, who paused uncertainly in the door and held her cleaning supplies high.

Margaret scooped up the dog. “Don’t mind Daisy. She thinks she’s a guard dog, but she’s harmless.”

Carmen wore pale jeans and a teal t-shirt snug across her breasts and belly: GOLDEN MESA CASINO: WHERE MORE WINNERS WIN MORE! “I don’t know, but dogs have always made me nervous.” When the woman smiled, her round face creased good-naturedly. “But this one’s cute.” With one finger she gingerly patted Daisy behind an ear, pulling her hand back quickly when the dog licked her. “It’s a puppy?”

“No,” said Margaret, in the pleased, slightly regretful tone she used when people asked this. “She’s eight, a Yorkie. Come sit down!” Margaret gestured to the table in the raised dining area, where she’d set out cups pulled directly from a moving carton and a plate of almond butter cookies. “Tea? Coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot.”

Carmen placed the tub next to her chair and crossed her white sneakers primly. “My, my,” she said, nodding at the cookies.

Margaret wondered if this woman was making fun of her, but Carmen just smiled blandly.

She was in her early forties, no more than five feet tall, hair pulled into a black ponytail that exposed sideburns and a swath of coarse hair growing down the back of her neck. But what Margaret couldn’t stop looking at was the scar: a pink ragged line across Carmen’s brown throat, raised and stretching at least two inches, nearly to her ear.

Carmen surveyed the sunken great room, furniture still wrapped in plastic, wide foyer, the gleaming steel kitchen. “Pretty fancy,” she said.

“It’s bigger than we needed,” Margaret apologized, “but we couldn’t pass it up. We fell in love with the place. I’ve never seen anything like this light.” She thought of some man — boyfriend, husband, stranger — holding Carmen against his chest, his mouth in her thick hair, pressing the blade of the knife against her throat. Margaret circled her own warm neck with her hand.

Carmen twisted in her chair (the scar stretching taut and shiny), nodded at the boxes stacked along the walls. “You got some project here.”

“I’ll say. That’s why I need the help. Harold, my husband, is still in Connecticut. He planned to cut down, work a few weeks at a time back East and spend the rest of the year in New Mexico, but a big case came up.” She was talking too much — because of the scar, she was sure. It made her eyes water. Margaret tried to force her thoughts elsewhere, looked hard at Carmen’s hands as they spooned sugar into a mug. She counted the etched gold rings tight on the fingers: six. “So you grew up around here?”