I DROVE RITA to the bus station the morning after Thanksgiving. It was early and shadows were long. It hadn’t snowed yet, but it felt like it would soon. Rita was still groggy. We were late, so there was no time for her to make coffee at the house.
“You should have planned and gotten up earlier,” I told her as I gassed it around the curve.
“Oh, Nell, don’t start,” she whined.
“I’m afraid you’ll miss your bus,” I said.
“I’m not missing that bus. Maybe there’s a coffee machine at the station. Great! I can have leaky brown piss.”
“Or you can just go back to sleep on the bus,” I suggested.
She groaned. “All the way to New York with no java. Nell, get me some!
The bus was late. She got her coffee. After a fast hug, I watched her climb the bus steps. My eye caught her leg—she was wearing a short, tight skirt and black tights, and her calf was thick and chunky. It had always been that way. She was a great runner. My sister! A flood of feeling rushed through me. Then the bus pulled away and she waved from the back seat.
I walked across the plaza. No one was around. I felt a little melancholy, but I cheered up when I entered Señor Murphy’s Candy Shoppe. I chose a piñon crunch there. If I had gotten an almond crunch it would have been cheaper, but the piñon ones tasted better. Also, piñon nuts were local.
“Isn’t it awfully early to eat candy?” The old woman behind the counter smiled at me.
“No, it seems a perfect time and perfect that you’re open,” I teased back.
I reached for the square held in tissue paper and walked out the door. Strips of bells were hung on it for Christmas, and they jingled uproariously as I left. My sister was gone.
I drove back to Talpa slowly, savoring my candy, looking at Taos spread out to my right. I felt the relaxation of having the whole weekend free before me. I’d gotten through my time with her. That’s the most I could say. Rita never did see my paintings, and I don’t think she cared. I doubt I had imparted any wisdom to her either, as my mother would have liked. Hell, I laughed to myself, I think my wild and crazy sister ended up being freaked out by the place. I suddenly realized my mother would have felt the same way. I got a sweet revenge from that thought, and then it was tinged by an emptiness.
When I got to my house, I pulled out my paints. Yellow, I thought. I have to make a painting that color and I want the feeling of a rooster in it. I squeezed lemon yellow onto the palette and then a dab of green, orange, and for some reason black. Then black led me to squeezing on vermilion, which led to a very dull olive. I felt suddenly as though something were pulling me down someplace far away from my original rooster.
“Hey, Banana, come quick! There’s someone at the door,” Happiness yelled into my room.
Why can’t she just go answer it herself? I thought, but I carefully placed my palette on the nearby table and headed through the kitchen.
It was Gauguin! He was tanned, a pack on his back, his arms stretched out toward me.
“I missed you, Rose.” He grabbed me as he closed his eyes. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Gauguin—” Stunned, I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Then I stepped back, so I could see that it was really him. Yes, there was that wide nose, the red eyebrows, the scar across his chin, and those glasses—I reached for them. “Still didn’t get them fixed, huh?”
He became shy. “Yeah, and I’m running out of masking tape.”
We laughed.
“I missed you, too.” I finally got it out. “Missed you a lot.”
We were back in each other’s arms. His glasses dangled down his back in my right hand.
Gauguin stepped away and looked at my face. He was nervous. “I missed you the whole time. I got to Machu Picchu and stood on my head, and all I could think was, ‘Nell, Nell, Banana Rose, Rose, Nell, Banana.’ I had to go all the way to the Andes to realize what I wanted. I wanted you.”
I nodded. When we kissed, I saw those stars again, the ones I saw when I stepped on the rake way back when I first met him, and I felt water, all kinds—rivers, streams, oceans—run through me.