I never had any choice about what to do with the truth Doña Carlota gave me. Tomás was an addiction. I craved him at a cellular level. I was a junkie who’d been clean for months only because I didn’t have money. The instant I had the means to procure my drug, I set about trying to make a connection. Doña Carlota’s truth was my means. I now had what Tomás desired most: proof of his authenticity.
But I wanted more. I wanted Tomás’s entire story. Names, dates, places. I called the old lady repeatedly. Each time Teófilo answered and said he would ask La Doña if she felt up to speaking on the phone. Sometimes he would return to inform me that she was under the weather and would return my call when she felt better. Other times, he would not come back at all. I drove up to Santa Fe twice and knocked on the door guarded by Santiago but no one answered. I wanted more, but I had enough, enough of the story to accomplish what needed accomplishing.
Up until the moment when Doña Carlota told me her secret, I had been dreading the high point of the New Mexico flamenco calendar, the Flamenco Festival Internacional. Instead of a celebration the festival that year would present only limitless humiliation. Everyone would know that I was the pathetic third leg of a triangle, the one who’d been abandoned by her lover, betrayed by her best friend. Armed with Doña Carlota’s secret, I had reason to endure the festival. She had given me another chance with Tomás. But only if I learned enough to be able to make full use of what information I did have, and the festival was nothing if not a place to learn. I was bolstered further when Alma informed me that I had been selected as one of the few locals to teach at that year’s festival. That honor would deflect some of the pity certain to rain down on me.
In the weeks leading up to the festival, I prepared myself as best I could. Once again I told Leslie that I would be too busy to keep our regular therapy appointment. She answered that with the festival coming up I needed to see her more, not less, or all the work we had done would be lost. I told her I would think about it. Instead, I stopped taking the pills she’d prescribed, stopped returning her calls, and threw myself into preparing for the classes I would be teaching.
A week before the festival started, the fires that had been raging out of control in southern Colorado started creeping farther south. The smell of scorched newspaper hung in the air. Four firefighters had already been killed and still the fires moved down. On the morning of the opening, the Archbishop of Santa Fe announced that he would say a novena to lead all the citizens of New Mexico in prayers for the rain needed to save our state. I prayed for the strength to face the flamenco community. Then, that night, armed with the power of my secret, the history that only I knew, I marched across campus toward Rodey Theater, where the Carmen Amaya documentary was to be shown. As I neared the theater, I slowed my pace. I dawdled in the shadows until everyone had entered and the lights dimmed. After the film started, I slipped in unnoticed and found a seat near the back.
Carmen Amaya in motion was the revelation and exultation I had expected. Then came the revelation I had not expected, the bomb that blew me out of the theater and into the grip of memory: Didi was coming home. I fled the theater and spent the rest of the night driving Route 66. I hurtled west to east. From the future to the past. From the moment that would define my future—when I learned Didi was returning—all the way back to the moment that had defined my past—that day in the oncologist’s office when I’d first met her.
The new day was leaching the brilliance from the neon lights along Albuquerque’s stretch of Route 66 when I realized I had figured nothing out. It was only a few hours until I taught my first class and I was already exhausted.