And suddenly she remembered standing in this very spot.
The memory slammed her like a gust of wind. A pair of red cowboy boots on her feet, a woman with long blond hair, angry. Another child nearby. A brother? A sister? A hand her own size squeezed Tessa’s tightly.
“You are so stupid!” the woman said. The children were afraid of her.
That was it. Tessa opened her eyes and blinked once, feeling the slight disorientation of seeing things as they were in this day and time, though she couldn’t have said what was so different.
Her stomach growled and she put the camera away in its bag, awkwardly tipping it in with her stiff left arm. She would check out The 100 Breakfasts Café this morning, get a feel for the vibe before she made arrangements to interview the owner.
By the time Vince half-staggered, half-crawled into Vita’s, it wasn’t quite seven. He’d been up all night and smelled of soot and cave dust, and ought to go shower, but all they’d had to eat were Clif Bars and Gatorade. He needed real food. Vita’s food. Breakfast.
The well-lit quiet smelled of freshly brewing coffee and ham. Only a small handful of customers had straggled in so early in the morning. An older couple, likely marooned in town by the gully-washer yesterday, read the newspaper and drank coffee peaceably in a booth. Derek Trueblood, who drove a wrecker for the state of New Mexico, propped his Popeye forearms on the counter and glowered at somebody in the kitchen. A pair of uniformed state patrolmen waved at Vince as he sat heavily on a stool at the counter and stripped off his jacket.
A few stools down sat the woman from the cantina last night. It was her turquoise cast, painted with a scene of mountains and trees, that caught his eye first. She was bent over a thick sheaf of notes, her hair pulled back haphazardly in a scrunchie. The sight of her nape, delicate and vulnerable, caught him right in the midsection.
Bizarre. He rubbed a hand over his face.
She glanced up. “Hey. You’re the guy from last night.”
“So I am.”
“How did it go?”
“Badly.” They’d been too late to save a climber who’d fallen more than a hundred feet down a ravine. “Badly,” he said again.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He nodded. Last night he kept thinking there was something familiar about her, and again he tried to place what it was.
Who
she was. It slipped away, elusive. Maybe she was an actress or something. They’d all learned not to ask around here these days. Learned to give famous faces the space of a dinner conversation or a stroll in the plaza uninterrupted by requests for autographs or staring fans.
No, not an actress. He remembered she was a tour guide.
Vita herself came out of the kitchen, bearing a full pot of coffee. A sixty-something woman with the ropy physique of a
marathon runner and severely cropped silver hair, she asked, “How you doing there, soldier?” Even as she spoke, she pulled a heavy ceramic mug from the stack by the machine, set it down in front of him, and poured coffee into it. She also poured him a big glass of ice water. Vince picked it up and drank deeply.
“Bad news?”
He nodded. Took another gulp of cold water and ordered the French toast. And scrambled eggs with chiles and potatoes. And bacon. The room seemed surreal and echoey because he was so exhausted.
Vita brought him a glass of orange juice. “It’ll bring your blood sugar up a little bit. You’re white around the mouth, sweetheart.”
“Thanks.” He went to the bathroom to wash his hands and face. When he came back, the woman on the other stool gave him a small smile. She was deeply tanned, with a thick tumble of streaky hair falling down her back. Too young for him, but great eyes, big and fish-shaped, like a girl in an anime film.
Familiar, he thought again. Somebody’s granddaughter or cousin up from Albuquerque. “You in town for a while?”
“A little while.” Her voice was low. Rich. He thought of hot chocolate laced with cream. It almost felt as if it touched him, his neck, his brow. “Listen, I can see you’re totally wiped out,” she said. “You don’t have to talk. Just eat your breakfast.” She pulled a card out of her pocket and wrote something on it. “Call me when you feel better.”
He took the card. Tucked it in his pocket.
A knot of mountain bikers in gear came in. Vigorous and eager, filling the room with a scent of testosterone, they made him feel in the area of twelve thousand years old. He watched them jostling one another, feeling his achy knees, his lower back. It had been more than a decade, but he still missed it.
He’d made his fortune in endorsements earned through the sport, until a final wreck demolished his left knee and ended his career for good.
“Don’t tell me,” the woman said. “You’re a mountain biker, too, aren’t you?”
“Was.” He eyed her. Lean arms and legs, but too much chest for a serious runner or cyclist. “You don’t approve?”
“Hiker.” She pointed a thumb back toward her chest. “We’re natural enemies, right?”
“Don’t have to be, if everybody is willing to be thoughtful.”
“In my experience, that usually means the hiker has to listen carefully and get the hell out of the biker’s way.”
There was enough truth in the statement that he didn’t argue. Not today. “Is that all you’re having? Coffee?”
She looked at the cup as if it had the answer. “It’s tea. But yes, so far.”
“No, no, no. Not here. This place is famous for the breakfast. You have to try something.” From the small steel clip on the edge of the counter, he tugged a menu and folded it open in front of her. “Just take a peek. There’s gotta be something you’d like.” Was he flirting with her again? Like there wasn’t enough going on in his world. “I wouldn’t push it so much, but, seriously, Vita is famous. World famous.”
Her mouth turned a tiny bit upward. “Ah!
World
famous.” Her fingers touched the print.
“I’m betting you’re a pancakes kind of woman.”
“Not so much, honestly.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a yogurt head.”
She laughed. It made her eyes crinkle, and he realized she was older than he originally thought. “And what would be wrong with that?”
“Eat yogurt somewhere else. Here, the beauty is in the big
breakfast.” His food came, and he gestured to the steaming, fragrant mass. “Look at this. Homemade raisin bread French toast with orange. Who wouldn’t like that?”
The woman—he could
not
remember her name—looked at Vita dispensing coffee, carrying plates, hustling around the kitchen, visible through the pass-out bar. “That’s Vita?”
He nodded. “She’s had this place since the late seventies, I reckon.” He picked up his fork and gave a moment of reverence to the food, then took a bite. Let it explode. “Jesus, that’s good.”
“All right,” she said, and looked up as Vita came over to refill his cup. “I’ll have the oatmeal, please. Plain.”
Vita grinned. “Whole-wheat toast?”
“Absolutely. And plenty of butter on the side, please.”
“You got it, sweetheart.”
“Oatmeal,” Vince said. “All those beautiful things and you pick oatmeal?”
“Now, you don’t get to do that. You badgered me into eating. I’m eating. Maybe
you
don’t love oatmeal, but my dad made it for me every morning.”
“Fair enough. Next time, though, you’ve gotta try the French toast.”
For a minute, she looked at him. “Next time.”
“You in town long enough for a next time?”
“Maybe. I wish I’d brought a dog, though. All this outdoor living.”
He nearly nodded off, right into his plate. “I have dogs,” he said, to keep himself awake. “A big mutt who’s a pain in the ass, and a scavenger terrier who lives for whatever scraps might fall into her mouth. Or whatever trash might be left unattended.”
She grinned with one side of her mouth, and it gave her an impish look. Elfin. Familiarity tickled his brain again. “A little spoiled, are they?”
“Uh, yeah, slightly. Sasha is the terrier. She’s fifteen and getting pretty deaf.”
“And the other one?”
“Pedro doesn’t mean to be bad. He’s just a wild man—an escape artist and rodent killer and garden destroyer and crotch sniffer.” He winced. “Sorry.”
“Sounds like a character.”
“That’s one word for it.” He took another bite. Hot orange and vanilla, syrup and raisins and cinnamon filled his mouth, his throat. “You like dogs?”
“Love ‘em. Just can’t have one with my lifestyle. I visit my dad’s. He has three. He believes they are the same three dogs he’s had his whole life.”
“Come again?”
She laughed. “Exactly—he thinks they reincarnate, over and over. That dogs are sent by God to be our companions.”
“Like angels?”
“I suppose so.” She sipped her tea. “Speaking of characters, that would be my dad, too.”
“Sounds like it. Renaissance festivals and reincarnated dogs.”
“He’s also a surfer and runs a drinks shack on the beach that’s called Margaritaville.”
Her voice really was peaceful, he thought in his sleepy way. Not hot chocolate now but something soft and silvery, like a rain cloud. He wanted to lie down in it, let it carry him away. He jerked awake again. “Damn. No reflection on your conversation, but I don’t think I’m gonna make it. Gotta get home and get some sleep.”
“No offense taken.”
“You’re not driving like that, are you?” Vita said, and looked around the room. “Alex!” she called to one of the mountain bikers. “I need you to drive our firefighter home.”
“Absolutely,” the youth said, jumping up. He slapped Vince on the back. “C’mon, man.”
Vince looked at the woman. “I can’t remember your name,” he said gruffly.
“It’s Tessa,” she said, holding out her hand.
He took it, fine-boned and brown, in his giant paw. “I’m Vince.”
“
I
remembered.” She smiled and it reached her eyes, and he
knew
that face. Knew it in his bones. It was not a usual sort of face, with those big tilted eyes and high-bridged nose. Cherokee nose, he thought, and didn’t know why. Not pretty, exactly. Something else.
Vita pushed his boxed food over the counter. “Nice to meet you,” he said, and stumbled out. Alex drove him to the ranch, and he collapsed.
When her oatmeal came, Tessa gave a happy sigh. It was fresh and not at all porridge-y or gray, which would have completely ruined it. This was hearty oatmeal, grainy, chewy, robust. Carefully, she slivered the butter into very, very fine layers and covered the top of the cereal, then salted the whole lightly. She took a bite and marched right back to childhood, to her father cooking every morning so they could have a hot breakfast together. Butter melted on her tongue like love, and halfway through she added another fine layer. A little bit more salt. Perfect.
She took her time, focusing entirely on the food. Business grew brisk around her, and she nursed her tea, reading the book she’d brought in with her, a memoir about Kashmir that she’d found in the hotel lobby. When a waitress came by to refill her steel teapot, she asked, “Is this okay? Me sitting here so long?”
“You sit as long as you like, sweetie.”
So she read and sipped tea and watched the flow of people and service all around. It wasn’t a particularly large café. Booths lined the long windows in front, and the dining room drove toward the back with four-tops and two-tops along the wall. The counter was the best part, however—a horseshoe facing the pass-out bar, with a view of the kitchen over a stainless-steel counter. Watching the kitchen staff was like watching a waltz—they moved instinctively around one another, Vita in the middle, on the side, out in front, carrying plates, taking orders, cooking, making fresh pots of coffee. Whatever. She was the puppetmaster, making sure the waltz went smoothly.
When the restaurant hit a bit of a lull, Tessa pulled out another of her business cards. “Excuse me,” she said to Vita. “May I speak with you for a minute?”
Vita looked suspicious as she came forward. “Yes?”
“I’m Tessa Harlow,” she said. “I’m with a travel company, and I’d like to talk to you about some possibilities if I can.”
“Possibilities?”
“We’re thinking of active tours—some hiking, some food, some history, that kind of thing. I’d like to talk to you about your café but also about the area, get your reading on it.”
“I’d be open to that.” Over her shoulder, Vita spied something in the kitchen. She held up one finger toward Tessa and went to the pass-out bar. “Donald, wash that by hand, kiddo. It won’t fit in the dishwasher.” She shook her head on her way back. “Weekends are bad, but how about early next week?”
“Great.” Tessa could see a woman waving at Vita from the kitchen. “I’ll let you go. See you soon.”
Noticing the slight congestion beginning at the door, Tessa reluctantly gathered her things and settled her bill, tucking a dollar down the back of her cast for the moment.
The minute she stepped outside, she smelled roasting chiles and stopped dead to suck the aroma drunkenly into her lungs. Deep. It was a smoky scent, thick and hot and spicy, as powerful in its way as coffee brewing. She was convinced it had healing properties, that, even as she breathed, her arm was knitting together more quickly, her fingernails grew faster, and all the shredded places on her heart were smoothed.
At least a little bit.
While she’d been lazing through her breakfast, the market had sprung to life. White tents poked up like little mountain ranges in rows throughout the plaza, the monstrous arms of the cottonwood tree offering shade to everything below it. It was barely eight-thirty, but already the aisles milled with shoppers.
Everywhere around the world there were open-air markets like this. In Morocco and London and Asia and Tasmania. Everywhere she shot them. Everywhere she loved them.
Here on this August Saturday, Tessa waded in, shooting everything—tomatoes as big as her fist stacked in juicy rows, red and yellow, striped and black and mottled green; piles of melons and corn; and acres of peaches, one of the crops the Spanish had brought that had then thrived in the high valley. She bought a yellow tomato, three peaches nearly the size of her head, and wandered on.
Despite the slight awkwardness of her cast, she photographed everything, in an artistic binge. She captured the wrinkled, weathered faces of old Latino farmers, and their gnarled hands and scuffed boots; spent a long time shooting a Native American woman of an age impossible to determine, blackest hair streaked with silver caught in two braids that fell over her breasts. Strings of turquoise looped around her neck, looking too heavy for her fragile upper torso.