The Secret of Everything (8 page)

Feeling mellow, she turned on the computer to edit the photos she’d uploaded before coming downstairs. The raccoons made her laugh, looking straight into the camera with an expression of
What? You never saw anybody eat before?
She sent the picture to her father, along with the shots of the white dog in the red dust. One of them was particularly good—the dog’s white fur contrasting with the turquoise sky and brick-red earth, and she uploaded it to her Flickr account, which she’d been keeping for years now. Several times she’d taken a photo that showed up on the
Most Interesting List
, and her photos routinely garnered dozens of stars and favorites and invitations to post to groups.

She titled the photo
A variation on red white and blue. This is America, too
.

It was the first time she’d been lost in her photo world for ages, and it was remarkably peaceful, a pursuit without much thought, playing with color, with shadow and light, with composition and balance, with the exact mix to bring focus on what the eye should see. The shots of the old farmers at the market this morning were fantastic. She loved their hands, their crisp shirts, the sharp line of hair above their collars.

There were more. A few other shots of the farmers’ market that burst with color and shape and vibrancy; a shot of the ancient cottonwood; one of the lane last night, narrow and ending in the cantina.

As a teenager, Tessa had written an essay declaring the goals for her life. There were three: She wanted to see the world, buy her dad a house, and have a photo published in
National Geographic
. On the first one, she’d made fairly decent progress—she’d been to thirty-seven countries and actually lived in four. The second had been achieved when she helped her father buy
the little bungalow in Santa Cruz seven years ago. She’d given up the idea of getting a photo published in
National Geographic
, but she still loved photography as part of her job—really, her avocation.

By the time she’d edited the photos she’d uploaded since arriving in Los Ladrones, she was starving and ordered a casual supper of soup and bread. While she waited, she surreptitiously watched a pair of lovers—she a vision of cascading hair, he much older and smitten and wealthy.

On the table, her phone flashed and spun around in a vibration dance. Tessa picked it up. “Hi, Dad,” she answered, turning away from the other diners and lowering her voice to be polite. “I just sent you a picture you will love.”

“In the mail?”

“No,” she said with the exaggerated patience she used for his computer allergy. “To your email address. It’s totally free.”

“It won’t be free when I have to pay the guy at the Internet café.”

“You know the answer. A computer of your very own!”

He made a dismissive noise. Honestly, she thought with a smile, it seemed like the most computer-resistant population was in Sam’s demographic: ex-hippies and Vietnam vets suspicious of “the man.” “You having a good time?”

“Ran into some rain on the way in, which was freaky, but other than that, it’s great. Did we go to movies at the Chief Theater?”

“Probably. I don’t remember. Look familiar?”

“Yes.”

“Learning anything?”

She drank a long swallow of beer. “Not really, not yet. I’m in the main hotel, on the plaza, and I went to the farmers’ market
this morning and ate at the famous café, where,” she said, smiling, “I had the
best
oatmeal. In your honor.”

“That’s sweet.” He told her about his surfing on great waves stirred up by a front, and hearing his voice made her miss him a little. There was no one like Sam.

What, she wondered, had he been like when he first arrived in Los Ladrones? He’d gone to Vietnam and come back furious, dropped out, and traveled the country on a motorcycle. More than one of his endless store of adventures involved brushes with the police and not a few actual arrests for petty trespasses—fighting, drinking, the usual.

That had all stopped when Tessa was born, and although he’d still pursued an unconventional career, he’d been sober and straightforward and never in trouble.

“Do you have any pictures of yourself when you were at the commune, Dad?”

“Maybe, somewhere. Why do you want them?”

“Just curious, really. I’m thinking about the past, thinking about you, what you looked like then.”

“Handsome,” he said.

“Of course.”

“You know, Tessa, there are times in a person’s life that aren’t worth remembering. I’ve tried to forget about the commune days. I understand why you’re there, but it wasn’t the best time in my life, you know?”

“Right. Sorry.”

“No apology necessary, kiddo. I’m just not all that crazy about revisiting the whole thing myself.”

“Understood.” The waiter brought her soup, and Tessa straightened. “My supper just got here. I’m going to let you go, all right? Kiss Peaches for me.”

“Will do. Give yourself a hug from your dad.”

“Go look at the pictures I sent!”

“I will.”

Tessa clipped the phone closed and buttered her bread, wondering why the conversation had left her feeling so uneasy.

   W
hen she was released from prison, Annie Veracruz had rented an efficiency apartment above the drugstore, right on the plaza. It was small and, to be honest, slightly grimy. The couch was brown with itchy specks in it, and there was a recliner that listed to the left and would only actually recline if you reached down and pulled on the foot part. An old-school television that had a good strong picture and a box to bring in basic cable was shoved against the wall. The kitchen was just a fridge, a sink, a skinny battered old stove, and six inches of counter, but there was a big window that looked over the mountains and a red table with red vinyl chairs.

She loved that table. Yesterday, she’d gone out specifically to collect yellow flowers to put in a water glass with blue and yellow stripes. Now, as she walked into the room to get ready for work, there they were, glowing, mostly sunflowers but a few other wildflowers she didn’t know how to name. It was beautiful. The whole time she was making her breakfast—pouring Cheerios into a bowl and slicing a banana into it, and smelling the tea in the air—she was sliding glances toward that glassful of yellow against the red table and plain wall. Sunshine started
to edge into the room from the east, and in a few minutes it would all blaze. Annie was ready.

And when it happened, she was sitting at her table with a bowl of her favorite cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios—not just the plain ones, which sometimes they did give you in jail, and the perfect arrangement of bananas, just like on the box, and a cup of milky tea. Then the music of the light moved right over the petals of the flowers, setting them afire, and Annie took a bite of cereal, her own heart blazing with joy.

Free. She was free. There was a thick bracelet around her ankle that she’d have to wear for a year, but the jail time was done, and, even better, her time with Tommy was done.

Free. And she didn’t intend to waste a single second of it. She celebrated with yellow flowers and Cheerios and tea made just as she liked it.

Free.

Church bells rang exuberantly, welcoming the faithful to Mass. They clanged Tessa awake on Sunday morning. Turning over, she tossed the wilted covers off her body—and slammed right into the black hole that had been living in the middle of her chest for three months.

She did not believe in wallowing and lacked patience for navel-gazing dramas. And yet here she was, stuck in this airless-ness, struggling to breathe while the black hole sucked her down.

It was a dark place, created equally from genuine sorrow, searing regret, and bitter self-recrimination. Because Tessa had not done her job, a woman was dead. How, exactly, did you ever make that right?

She was as good as a man at compartmentalizing her life—
putting everything into its own box and dealing with only what was right in front of her. To some degree, that still worked with the disaster in Montana. Aside from panic attacks, the odd nightmare, and these unguarded moments when it all showed up to crush her.

I’m fine
, she thought, turning over.
Why do you ask? Ha-ha
.

A psychologist in the hospital had told her that if she didn’t deal with all the emotion attached to the doomed trip, she could expect to continue to be ambushed by panic attacks.

Mostly, she could avoid thinking about it. Mostly, she simply pushed it away. But then she would notice the still-shiny scar tissue on her foot, and suddenly she’d be back on the morning of that last day in Montana. She had thought, clearly, that she should not go out, that the spider bite was too infected.

But she powered through, because that’s what she did—she was strong, she was the leader. When the mountain came down in an avalanche of mud, dumping Lisa and her into the river, Tessa was so addled from the infection that she’d made huge mistakes.

There was the black hole. Nothing she could say, nothing she could do would ever justify it or make it right. Lisa had died directly because she had entrusted herself to Tessa’s care. Lisa headed out to save them because Tessa told her to, and she died.

Lying very still in the center of the bed, with the bells ringing and ringing, Tessa let the weight press her down, smother her. It was so unfair that she was still on the planet, walking around, while Lisa’s mother was probably breaking down over a kitchen sink somewhere, her hands in rubber gloves, the forks falling back into the water as she bent over, crying.

So unfair.

Lisa was gone for good. Forever. Because, plain and simple, Tessa did not do what she should have done. How did a person ever make that okay?

She didn’t know. Wallowing would be too easy and would only add to her sins, trying to get sympathy for the crime of hubris.

“Enough,” she said aloud, and pulled herself out of bed.

Slightly sweaty even in the skinny cotton tank and gray shorts she slept in, Tessa washed her face, brushed her tangled hair and pulled it into a scrunchie, and made some hot water for tea. While the water heated, she opened the French doors to the plaza to let a breeze in, thinning the stale overnight air in her room. It smelled of spruce and possibility, and she breathed in gratefully.

Here I am
.

A waft of a dream came to her as she stood in the doorway, arms crossed loosely. Tasmania. She’d been dreaming of Tasmania, where she had lived for six happy years, four of them with the man she had believed she would marry. The happiest she had ever been in her life. Something about the air here, halfway around the world, made her think of Glenn and the town of Hobart, where they had lived between a towering mountain and the sea. It must have been the market yesterday, reminding her of the Salamanca Market on Saturdays in Hobart.

It was in Tasmania, while living with Glenn, that she had become accustomed to drinking strong Australian-style tea, made the English way with milk and sugar. She carried English tea bags with her whenever she traveled in America.

While her cup brewed this morning, she checked email and
then started working with her photos again. She selected a few to send to her boss and then pulled up the little girl watching the dancers at the cantina the other night. Idly, one foot tucked under her knee, tea steaming at her elbow, Tessa cropped it, bringing the focus to the chubby little fingers, the falling-down sock.

The photos of Vince were there, too.
Mama mia
. He was freaking gorgeous. A soft wash of red light illuminated his throat, caught in his hair, along the curve of his lip. His chest, one sturdy thigh.

A quiver of lust moved through her. She wasn’t usually attracted to such big men, but something about his giant legs and giant hands was working on her libido.

Search and rescue, she thought. How appropriate.

She heard herself humming “Rescue Me” under her breath, and snorted. It broke a little of her dark mood, and she took a sip of tea, laughing at herself.

Maybe she was just horny. It had been a fairly long time since she’d had a man in her bed. Only a couple of times since she broke up with Glenn, which was probably a good thing. She really had not wanted some big rebound thing. Too much drama.

She clicked forward, found the picture of Vince looking into the camera, long lashes and direct gaze, and a distinct zing worked its way through her belly.

Anyway. She clicked the photo closed.

A plan for today.

There was no big hurry—she had decided last night that she wanted to spend more than a week here. She’d find a cheaper room in a few days, allow herself the time and pleasure of exploring the town that so charmed her, follow whatever links
might come up to help her piece together her shattered memory.

She did need to get organized, however. She wanted to meet with the woman who ran 100 Breakfasts and visit other restaurants in town, map out some possible hikes and outdoor activities. On the table was a thick glossy book of trails in northern New Mexico, and she flipped through the chapters on the area around Los Ladrones with keen hunger. She was dying to get out on the trails again! She absolutely respected the healing process, but it had been way too long since she’d been able to take a good long walk.