The days that followed were not what Monica had expected. They were quiet days, but they did not drag. And they were spiced with the small pleasant discoveries that new friendships always seem to provide. The days that followed were not what Monica had expected. They were quiet days, but they did not drag. And they were spiced with the small pleasant discoveries that new friendships always seem to provide.
Late that first afternoon, she walked up to the house with the potted marigolds to tell Toni the good news about El Pintor. Inside the house, the shades were drawn to darken the rooms. Señora Almayo had another of her migraine headaches. When Monica learned that Toni was going to walk to the drugstore to pick up her mother’s pain pills, she offered to drive her. On the way back they were so busy discussing the morning’s happenings that they almost missed the fact that Rob’s blue pickup had been following them closely for some time.
When they pulled up at the curb in front of Monica’s house, Rob’s pickup gently nuzzled up against the BMW’s bumper. He jumped out of the cab and ran around the back toward where the two girls stood on the sidewalk.
“Hey, you two,” he called, his eyes mainly on Monica, “what’s up?”
“Not much,” Monica said with a straight face, “unless you call El Pintor’s getting back his memory something.”
Rob whooped, took her hands, spun her around a couple of times, then held her out at arm’s length and shouted, “Tell me!”
So, with Toni nodding eagerly beside her, Monica repeated once more the story of all that had happened that day. Rob’s face glowed. “Cool, cool,” he kept saying as she talked. And when she finished he said, “As soon as I’m out of these paint-spattered clothes and have some dinner, I’ll be down to see him.”
Monica watched Toni scramble into the cab of the pickup along with Rob and then she went inside to find Laurita.
That evening when Rob left the studio, he knocked on Monica’s door. “I hoped you’d come over,” she said. “How’d it go?”
“Good,” Rob answered. “Better than good. I tried not to push him into remembering. But he came up with some memories on his own, like when we decided to paint his front door purple. He’s going to be fine.” He jiggled the screen door. “All right if I hang out for a while?”
“Sure,” Monica said, trying to sound casual. “Let’s go outside.”
They sat on the porch chairs. It was really nice, Monica thought, sitting here with Rob. The day had been hot, but the evening air was cool, and the sounds of the street—the singing, the laughter, and the clang of dishes being washed—were not loud. It was nice, too, to share the joy they both felt about El Pintor.
The following day, Tuesday, all the Callahans, except for Katy and Mr. Callahan, paid a surprise visit to El Pintor. When Monica saw them, she wondered if El Pintor would have trouble placing them in the right time frame. If he did have trouble, he didn’t show it. The only one who had difficulty of any kind was Annie. She had trouble saying ‘Mr. Mead,’ and half of the time called El Pintor ‘Mr. Good-mead.’
Mrs. Callahan bubbled with pleasure at El Pintor’s progress. But she was still concerned about the injury to his head. She asked several times about headaches and was finally reassured by El Pintor that they had disappeared. After that she walked enthusiastically around the studio, gazing at everything with bright eyes, filling the air with the light flower scent of her perfume.
While the two little girls entertained themselves with crayons and sketch paper, Mrs. Callahan and her serious redheaded son examined El Pintor’s paintings. “I think some of these are remarkable,” Mrs. Callahan said as they were leaving, “but, of course, I’m no expert.” It was clear that El Pintor was pleased at her comments; it was also clear that he was very tired when the troop of Callahans finally said their goodbyes.
“We’ll be back soon,” Mrs. Callahan called over her shoulder as she herded the kids into the car.
“Real soon,” Annie shouted. “Maybe even tomorrow.”
Just after supper that evening, Monica’s father came home. A yellow cab made a U-turn by their house and came to an abrupt stop at the curb by the studio. In two houses across the street, faces appeared at the doors and windows, staring openly to see who would emerge from the taxi.
Monica heard the cab and raced to the door. Her father, looking handsome and sharp in a light gray suit and her favorite gray tie, was just stepping out of the taxi. “Dad!” she cried as she flew down the steps to the sidewalk. “Dad, you’re back!”
“So I am.” He grinned at her, paid the driver, and turned back to give her a big hug. “Well, you look great,” he said as he let her go. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. But, oh, how I’ve missed you. I have so much to tell you.”
“And I you,” he replied, picking up his suitcases. “But let’s wait till I eat something. I had to give up supper to make this flight.”
Monica couldn’t wait. While he ate the bacon and eggs that Laurita and she prepared for him, she sat across the kitchen table from him, and told him of her part in the search for El Pintor, of their finding him, and how, finally, his memory had begun to return.
Her dad nodded seriously as she spoke, and when she was finished, he said, “That was good deductive thinking, Monica. Pinpointing the timing of those sketches was important. Well, I’ll have to go over and see the old man before I leave.”
“Leave?” Monica asked, sitting upright.
Her dad sighed. “Yes. Tomorrow night.” He looked at Laurita and she nodded.
“I’ll be glad to stay a few more days,” she said, “unless Monica objects.”
“Me object? Not on your life. If Dad has to go, you have to stay—if you will.”
“I will,” Laurita said. “But not tonight. I have some things to take care of at home.”
When Laurita left the kitchen, Monica’s father reached across the table and squeezed his daughter’s hand. “I’m here because I miss you, honey, and because I needed to touch base with you and, very frankly, to pick up some more clothes.”
“I see,” Monica said crisply. Then in a pleading tone she added, “Dad, can’t you stay another day or two?”
“Unfortunately, no. But the next time I return, which should be in a week or so, I’ll be here pretty much for good. At any rate, L.A. will be my base of operations.”
She had been bursting to tell him about the letter from the attic, to ask if she should open it before she showed it to El Pintor, but now she changed her mind. Her father was too involved in his own affairs to concentrate on hers. Sure, she was used to that. That had certainly been the case in Washington. But, as miserable as leaving there had been, there had been one bright side to it: she would get to spend more time with her dad. And where was that bright side now?
When her father spoke, she decided that he must have read her mind because he said, “Relax, honey. As soon as I’ve established the branch office down here, we’ll have some—what do the social workers call it?—quality time together.”
From some hidden place in her mind or heart came the thought: I’m behaving like a brat. He’s struggling to make a living for us, to get out from under the unfair blow that was dealt him, and here I am adding to his load. She swallowed hard and said, “This is quality time. Go for it, Dad! Show them a thing or two in San Francisco!”
He gave her a long, serious look from across the table and said a quiet “Thank you.”
Except for a couple of hours that he was gone on business, Monica and her dad spent all of the next day together. In between his sorting through clothes and papers, they caught up with one another. He told her of the bone-chilling fogs that roll into San Francisco nearly every afternoon and of the interesting people he had met, including the Nicaraguan chambermaid at the hotel with whom he enjoyed speaking Spanish. She told him about seeing “Springtime” and about César’s stowing away on the trip to Parkview Place. Two or three times she started to tell him about the letter she had found, but each time a conviction that El Pintor should see it first stopped her. That conviction grew stronger when her father returned from visiting with El Pintor.
“We had a good long talk,” he said. “He’s fine. His memory is sharp and clear. He certainly was able to place me, although we’ve been in touch only through letters for the last few years.” Her father paused for a moment, then went on. “He’s only lost small fragments of time, such as the trip to the hospital and the first day or two with the Callahans. When I arrived, he was cleaning his brushes and collecting his tubes of paint. I think he’s his old self again.”
Later in the day she watched her dad pack his large suitcase. Then, after a supper of chicken and rice that she helped Laurita to prepare, he was gone.
The next day, Thursday, her father’s visit might have been an illusion, or a minor interruption in the pattern of Monica’s days. Her first thoughts on awakening each day were either for El Pintor or Rob, and in both cases, her reflections held a feeling of expectancy. With El Pintor her thought was, is this the day for the letter, and each time she decided, no, why take a chance on his not remembering it? Also, she wanted to ask why he’d been sketching around Parkview Place, but that, too, she decided, would have to wait. With Rob, her thoughts were unpredictable, sometimes thinking of their first date, sometimes annoyed at herself for falling for him. After all, what did she really know about him? Finally, she would get up, and, no matter what her earlier thoughts had been, her day was always brightened by the thought that she would see Rob that night.
Monica and Laurita checked on El Pintor a couple of times a day, trying not to interrupt him, for he had indeed returned to painting. He was working on the already started canvas that Monica had seen on the easel earlier. She wasn’t certain where the grays and blues of that canvas were heading, but there was a sureness to the lines that told her that El Pintor knew, and she wondered if he was working from memory. Once in a while on their visits, she found El Pintor’s eyes on her, studying her. His gaze was not disconcerting; it was too gentle. But she did wonder why. They weren’t the only ones who checked on El Pintor. César came by each day, alone or with one of his ball-playing buddies. Señora Almayo came too, once carrying a large pot that Monica guessed was soup, and she was glad for Sopa’s sake.
One day she and Toni went to nearby Marina del Rey and watched the sailboats and the ducks go by while they ate frozen yogurt on cones. On another, they went to an afternoon movie. It was strange being friends with the sister of a boy you dated. Kind of different. Still, everything on Lucia was different, so why not that?
For instance, there was Licha. She came to Monica’s house both on Wednesday and on Friday to see how the flowers they had planted on Monday were doing. That alone seemed unusual, but on Friday she threw curious glances at the studio. Finally, she asked, “Is the old man still around? How is he?” Both Monica and Laurita stared at her in surprise.
As Licha was leaving, an ancient red sports car, its canvas top missing, squealed to a stop in the center of the street, and Josie rose up in the passenger seat. “Licha!” she yelled. “Licha, come here!”
Licha mumbled something, scrunched her shoulders, and tucked her head between them as if hiding, and kept on walking.
Josie muttered a word or two to the scraggly-haired fellow at the steering wheel and then shouted, “Screw you, Licha! You’re chicken shit from now on!” She threw a fiery look at Monica and shouted, “That goes for you! I’m not through with you, remember!” Then, with a screech from its resisting tires, the red car made a sharp U-turn and raced down Lucia, sending an unwary black cat flying into the uppermost branches of the nearest pepper tree.
“I don’t think she likes me,” Monica said to Laurita with a grin.
“Not that,” Laurita said seriously. “That girl’s problem is that she doesn’t like herself.”
Monica shrugged. Maybe Laurita was right, but Josie certainly didn’t show it. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s see what we can scare up for dinner.”
Laurita nodded, then bent over and pinched a dry twig from a geranium slip, and together, they went into the house.
The days slipped by and it was Sunday once more. With everyone gone, including Toni and Laurita, to church and later to family doings, and Rob working on a hurry-up painting job, Sunday promised to be dull and uneventful for Monica.
Around mid-morning she went outside to water the little plants that so hopefully they had set in the soil. She was heartened by the fact that a couple of the impatiens were no longer drooping. But, no matter what Laurita claimed for them, the geranium slips, as far as she was concerned, were just dried-up sticks. When El Pintor tapped on his kitchen window, she started as if guilty of something, then caught herself and grinned and waved to him. It was strange, she told herself, to be comforted by the thought that El Pintor, at least, was close by.
That comfort was short-lived. An hour or so later she was sitting on one end of the living room couch reading when in a corner of her eye she caught sight of something white flitting by outside the house. A closer look showed her that it was El Pintor with a white painter’s cap on his head and a sketch pad under his arm and that he was heading up Lucia in the direction of Chimney Hill.
She returned to the couch and picked up her book. She read a couple of paragraphs, read them again, then put the book down and went outside. There she stood on the sidewalk and watched El Pintor trudge to the end of the cracked cement sidewalk and then up the slope of Chimney Hill.
It was at that moment that she realized she had already made a decision. Her decision had been waiting for something to catapult it into awareness. And that was just what El Pintor’s white cap and his trek up to Chimney Hill had done. Yes. Her mind was made up. Absolutely. Today was the day to ask El Pintor about the letter.
Back in the house Monica flattened herself on her stomach, reached under her bed, and dragged out the old coffee can. Her breath gave a little quiver of excitement as she removed the rusty lid. Gently, she drew out El Pintor’s yellowed envelope, then placed it in another envelope and sealed a bit of the flap. She knew she was being fussy, but she didn’t want to take a chance on the old letter, which was already torn, tearing some more. Carefully, she slipped the envelope into the back pocket of her jeans, locked the house, and started up the street.