Chapter Fifteen

That night Monica had a dream, a dream in which Rob and she walked hand in hand up Chimney Hill past the stone columns, on to stepping stones that led through a brilliant mass of low-growing flowers to a wide front door. The rest of the house was obscured by clouds that billowed and swirled restlessly just above their heads. They knocked on the massive door, and it was thrown open by El Pintor. Standing behind him in an entryway lighted by a blazing chandelier was the dark-haired woman from the painting. The same little half smile came and went on her lips as she beckoned to them and said, “Come in, come in. We’ve been waiting for you.” As she spoke, the hovering clouds surged through the doorway, taking the house, El Pintor, and the lady in white away with them in a burst of dizzying energy and leaving Rob and Monica alone in a cold gray mist on the crest of Chimney Hill.

Finally, Monica was awake enough to realize that the sadness, the emptiness she felt, was leftover from the dream. She sat up, punched her goose-feather pillow into a more comfortable shape and, with pleasant thoughts of Rob and chocolate cake, went back to sleep.

The dream was quickly forgotten the next morning when Licha, true to her word, or maybe that of her father, arrived promptly at nine. She was dressed more somberly than before: blue denim shorts and a white T-shirt. Her garish sandals were replaced by well-worn white sneakers that hid the black varnish of her toenails.

Monica looked at her with suspicion. Maybe, she thought, Licha has toned down her clothes to impress her father only. Not that I blame her. But we’ll see if her attitude matches them. Laurita had put Licha to work on the side yard with an old broom and a rake. And, although Licha did what she was asked with no word of complaint, Monica could see that her eyes were filled with resentment.

Monica was feeling resentment, too. She was uncomfortable about the whole thing. If Licha’s father wanted his daughter to make amends, well, then he should be seeing to it. I know Licha owes us something. I know she needs to make up for the mess Josie and she made, and the worse mess that they might have made, but … but no way should we be in charge of her punishment. After half an hour of moving restlessly from room to room, peeking through the windows at Licha’s determined, though listless, progress, Monica felt worse. There ought to be something we can do, she thought, and went looking for Laurita.

When she couldn’t find her in the house, she went to the front door to see if her VW was still there. Could she have gone somewhere and not told her? She opened the door and looked through the screen. The little car was there. Well, then, where was Laurita? Feeling more annoyed than perplexed, she pushed open the screen door and stepped outside. Immediately, she heard voices. They came from the side yard.

“It looked like a flower to me.” Licha was speaking. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s a flower.” That was El Pintor. “A little volunteer from the—from my garden. An impatiens.”

“It’s too pretty for such a funny name,” Licha said.

Monica hurried down the steps and turned the corner of the house. As she did, Laurita appeared from the backyard, a hoe and a spade in her hands. She went directly to El Pintor.

“I borrowed these from your shed, Señor Mead,” she said. “I thought I’d give Licha a hand.”

“Me, too,” Monica called and suddenly felt better.

“Well,” El Pintor said, adjusting the white cap on his head, “I also need a bit of exercise, so it looks as if this young lady will have a lot of help.”

Licha rubbed her hands on her denim shorts and turned to look, not at El Pintor, but at Laurita. Her expression showed surprise, then disbelief. Finally, her eyes narrowed, and her forehead furrowed into lines of suspicion. “What’re you gonna do?” she muttered, her eyes going from face to face. “Gang up on me?”

“Oh, sh—,” Monica started, caught herself and said, “Oh, flip! Don’t you ever think of anything but gangs?” She knew that the annoyance of the morning was slipping through in her words, but she didn’t care. “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that there are people who like to be good to each other? Like El Pintor? Like Laurita? Maybe even me.” She walked over to Laurita and held out her hand. “Okay, okay,” she said, “give me that spade. We’re here to garden, aren’t we? Let’s get on with it.”

Laurita smiled widely. “Not so fast,” she said, hanging on to the spade. “We have to talk about what we’re going to do. We don’t want to do anything your father would object to.” She turned to speak to El Pintor, but said nothing as her smile changed into a puzzled frown.

El Pintor’s deep blue eyes were fixed on Monica’s face. “Cristina,” he said sharply, “what is this?” He stopped and shook his head as if to dislodge something, then said slowly, painfully, “You’re not Cristina. No. Cristina was not like that. She was timid, not outspoken. But if you’re not Cristina, then who—” He gestured impatiently with unsteady hands, and the question floated unfinished in the soft morning air.

Monica blinked back tears, swallowed hard, and said, “I’m Monica, Mr. Mead, Monica Ramos.” She threw a glance at Laurita, and Laurita returned a quick smile and a nod. “I live here,” Monica added.

El Pintor ran his fingers through his thick white hair. “Yes, I know. Of course. Cristina lives … no, no, Cristina lived there. But …” He looked around at the three of them as if searching for an explanation. “Something happened, didn’t it? Yes. She left here. She married. She married that young lawyer, and then … and then,” he added simply, “she died.”

Laurita’s words were soft but firm. “That was a long time ago, Señor.”

“It was?” There was the hint of an apology in El Pintor’s smile. “I knew that, of course. Something’s dulled my memory. Still, perhaps it’s coming back to me now.”

Monica held her breath. This was it. El Pintor’s memory was returning! Another quick look at him told her that she had jumped too quickly to her happy conclusion. His smile could not hide the haunted look in his eyes.

He took a deep breath, let the air out slowly, and with obvious effort said, “So, young lady, you live next door, do you?”

“Yes. But I just came a few days ago.” She paused, wondering if she should go on, and then because it seemed the right thing to do, she said, “I’m Cristina’s daughter.”

“Well,” he said, nodding slowly, “so that was it.” His expression now was unreadable, but there was a bite of anger in his voice as he added, “And I mistook you for her. Well, and why would I do that?”

“Because I look like her, of course,” Monica said. There was an edge of irritation in her voice, too.

“You’re not alone in that mistake, Señor Mead.” Laurita said. “There are a lot of us who want to call her Cristina. Those of us who knew her mother, that is.” She turned to the girls. “Bueno,” she said crisply, “let’s get on with what we were doing.”

“Yeah,” Licha said, “like we know what. What are we doing, anyway?”

It was clear that for a moment Laurita didn’t know how to take Licha’s remark. Then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she began to laugh. Monica looked at her, wondered what she was laughing at, shrugged, looked at her again, and, without knowing why, began to laugh, too.

Licha’s face grew red.

El Pintor said, “They’re not laughing at you, girl. They’re laughing at themselves. That’s right. It’s time to lighten up. Look. The soil’s nice and damp all the way to the front of the house.” He threw Monica a look that held a touch of mischief, and she knew he was referring to the hosing-down she’d given it the night before. “I’ll help dig it up, and we can plant flowers all along this side of the house. There are more volunteer impatiens, and you can get cuttings from your geraniums.” He took the spade from Laurita. “Go on, go on, girls. Snip the geraniums, and I’ll look for the plants you can dig up.”

Licha mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “crazies,” and followed Laurita into the backyard.

A couple of hours later, the job was essentially done. Everyone had worked hard, snipping the right cuttings from the red geraniums, digging on their knees in the muddy ground, pulling the hose from one spot to the other, but no one worked as hard as El Pintor. He seemed to lose himself in turning over huge spadefuls of moist earth along the full length of the house. His lightened mood had disappeared as he worked in silence, his forehead furrowed in deep concentration.

Licha, who was digging in the ground beside him, kept giving him quick little glances, then turning away guiltily, as if she were eavesdropping on a private conversation.

Laurita, too, glanced at him occasionally, not with curiosity but with concern. Finally, she stepped back from the plantings and said, “I think we’re about done. Don’t you, Señor Mead?” When he nodded absently, she went on, “And wasn’t this a good morning’s work?”

He raised his head, stared at Laurita for a long moment, and said quickly, “Yes, yes, of course.”

“We need something cold to drink” Laurita said. “Vengan, muchachas, help me make some lemonade.”

El Pintor said, “Thank you. None for me. What I need … what I need …” He stopped and brushed the dirt off his hands slowly, almost deliberately. “No, no lemonade. I need to go in now.” He muttered something more that was unintelligible, looked around as if for direction, then nodded and went to the studio’s door.

When it had closed behind him, Licha pushed herself off the ground and said, “He’s weird. And, hey, forget the lemonade for me. I told my father I’d work here an hour or so. A couple, max. And it’s way past that now.” She tossed the trowel she had been holding to the ground, and it clanged loudly as it fell against the metal spade. “So I’m through with the program. I’m going now. Okay?”

“Sure,” Monica said and bit her lip to keep from adding, you’re certainly brave when your father’s not around.

When Licha reached the far end of the house, she stopped, stood still for a moment, then suddenly spun around. “I’ll be back and see if the things grow,” she called.

Monica shrugged. “They’ll be sure to grow if Laurita’s still here. But nothing grows for me. Even plastic flowers fade when I look at them.”

“Yeah, I guess they would,” Licha said and hurried around the corner of the house.

Laurita grinned at Monica and spread her arms out in a gesture of defeat. “Let’s go get some lunch,” she said.

Although the lemonade they made was sweet and tart and icy and the tuna sandwiches were crunchy with bits of celery and pickle and rich with mayonnaise, Monica didn’t enjoy them. The problem was El Pintor. She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Twice during the morning he had acted … well, to say the least, strangely. Could the bump on his head have caused more than amnesia?

Laurita, too, ate silently.

Monica swallowed the last gulp of her lemonade and said, “You’re thinking about El Pintor, aren’t you?”

Laurita sighed, then nodded. “Yes, I am. It’s as if you—no, not you—Cristina was his anchor and losing her has left him floating in a boundless sea.”

“I’ve been thinking about him, too.” Monica moved her empty plate carefully to one side and leaned across the table. “But don’t you think that maybe that was just what he needed? You know, like a slap in the face when someone’s going bananas.”

“But maybe this slap was too hard.” Laurita gave her a wicked little grin. “Mashed bananas.” Then she added seriously, “Maybe he shouldn’t have worked so hard in the sun.”

Monica jumped up from the table. “Let’s go see him,” she said. “Do we need an excuse? Well, even if we don’t need one, let’s throw together a tuna sandwich for him and some chips. He might not want enchiladas again. Come on, Laurita, let’s do it. I’m worried about him, too.”

“Bueno, bueno,” Laurita said and stood up. “I guess we should check on him.”

In a matter of minutes, they were knocking on the studio’s back door. As they waited, Monica heard a rustling sound above and behind them. Looking up, she found the cat Sopa poised at the edge of the garage roof. The orange and black patches of her multicolored coat glistened in the midday sunlight. She meowed a greeting and jumped gracefully down to the neighbor’s fence and then to the ground beside them.

“She smells the tuna,” Lauita said.

“Maybe. But maybe what she wants is to see El Pintor, too.”

They knocked again. This time when they got no answer, Monica threw a quick look at Laurita and reached for the doorknob. She turned it firmly and, finding that the door was not locked, pushed it open. She started to step over the threshold but something—her childhood fear of trespassing?—held her back.

“It’s all right,” Laurita whispered and stepped in ahead of her. “Come on.”

Monica closed the door behind her. “Mr. Mead,” she called softly.

A quick scan of the high-ceilinged room showed them that El Pintor was not there. Except for some scattered papers on the worktable, everything was as Monica remembered it: the colorful paintings hung high on the walls; the work in progress on the nearest easel, still in blue and gray outline; the stack of paintings in the corner that held “Springtime.” Both Laurita and she stood absolutely still, as if wondering what their next step should be.

As they hesitated, Sopa sped past them to the closed door in the forward wall. She let out a plaintive meow and when there was no response, crouched close to the floor and nudged the door with her head. It opened a crack and she slithered through it.

Sopa’s done that before, Monica thought with a little shudder. What would Sopa find on the other side of the door? I’m being silly, she told herself, but whether I am or not, we’ve still got to look. “We can’t just stand here,” she whispered to Laurita, “can we? We’ve got to find him.”

Laurita nodded and they started for the door. They were across the room and about to push it open when a voice stopped them. It was El Pintor’s.

“Well, well, Sopa,” he was saying. “Up to your old tricks, are you? Come in, girl, come in. Where have you been? I’ve missed you.”