Sheri S. Tepper - The Fresco

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THE FRESCO

Sheri S. Tepper

[25 aug 2001 - scanned for #bookz]

[10 oct 2001 - proofed for #bookz – by bookleech, v 1.0]

Things that go bump in the night

Along the Oregon coast an arm of the Pacific shushes softly against rocky shores. Above the waves,

dripping silver in the moonlight, old trees, giant trees, few now, thrust their heads among low clouds, the

moss thick upon their boles and shadow deep around their roots. In these woods nights are quiet, save for

the questing hoot of an owl, the satin stroke of fur against a twig, the tick and rasp of small claws

climbing up, clambering down. In these woods, bear is the big boy, the top of the chain, but even he goes

quietly and mostly by day. It is a place of mosses and liverworts and ferns, of filmy green that curtains the

branches and cushions the soil, a wet place, a still place.

A place in which something new is happening. If there were eyes to see, they might make out a bear-

sized shadow, agile as a squirrel, puckering the quiet like an opening zipper, rrrrip up, rrrrip down, high

into the trees then down again, disappearing into mist. Silence intervenes, then another seam is ripped

softly on one side, then on the other, followed by new silences. Whatever these climbers are, there are

more than a few of them.

The owl opens his eyes wide and turns his head backwards, staring at the surrounding shades.

Something new, something strange, something to make a hunter curious. When the next sound comes, he

launches himself into the air, swerving silently around the huge trunks, as he does when he hunts mice or

voles or small birds, following the pucker of individual tics to its lively source, exploring into his life's

darkness. What he finds is nothing he might have imagined, and a few moments later his bloody feathers

float down to be followed by another sound, like a satisfied sigh.

Near the Mexican border, rocky canyons cleave the mountains, laying them aside like broken wedges

of gray cheese furred with a dark mold of pinon and juniper that sheds hard shadows on moon glazed

stone, etched lithographs in gray and black, taupe and silver.

Beneath feathery chamisa a rattlesnake flicks his tongue, following a scent. Along a precarious rock

ledge a ring-tailed cat strolls, nose snuffling the cracks. At the base of the stone a peccary trots along

familiar foot trails, toward the toes of a higher cliff where a seeping spring gathers in a rocky goblet. In

the desert, sounds are dry and rattling: pebbles toed into cracks, hoofs tac-tacking on stone, the serpent

rattle warning the wild pig to veer away, which she does with a grunt to the tribe behind her. From the

rocky scarp the ring-tailed cat hears the whole population of the desert pass about its business in the

canyon below.

A new sound comes to this place, too. High in the air, a chuff, chuff, chuff, most like the wings of a

monstrous crow, crisp and powerful, engine-like in their regularity. Then a cry, eerie and utterly alien, not

from any native bird ever heard in this place.

The peccary freezes in place. The ring-tailed cat leaps into the nearest crevice. Only the rattler does

not hear, does not care. For the others, staying frozen in place seems the appropriate and prudent thing to

do as the chuff, chuff, chuff moves overhead, another cry and an answer from places east, and west, and

north as well. The aerial hunter is not alone, and its screams fade into the distance, the echoes still, and the

canyon comes quiet again.

And farther south and east, along the gulf, in the wetland that breeds the livelihood of the sea, in the

mangrove swamps, the cypress bogs, the moss-lapped, vine-twined, sawgrass-grown, reptile-ridden

mudflats, night sounds are continuous. Here the bull gator bellows, swamp birds call, insects and frogs

whir and buzz and babble and creak. Fish jump, huge tails thrash, wings take off from cover to silhouette

themselves on the face of the moon.

And even here comes strangeness, a great squadge, squadge, squadge, as though something walks

through the deep muck in giant boots on ogre legs, squishing feet down and sucking them up only to

squish them down once more. Squadge, squadge, squadge, three at a time, then a pause, then three more.

As in other places, the natives fall silent. The heron finds himself a perch and pulls his head back on

his long neck, letting it rest on his back, crouching a little, not to be seen against the sky. The bull gator

floats on the oily surface like a scaly buoy, fifteen feet of hunger and dim thought, an old man of the

muck, protruding eyes seeing nothing as flared nostrils taste something strange. He lies in his favorite

resting place near the trunk of a water-washed tree. There was no tree in that place earlier today, but the

reptilian mind does not consider this. Only when something from above slithers sinuously onto the top of

his head does he react violently, his body bending, monstrous tail thrashing, huge jaws gaping wide . . .

Then nothing. No more from the gator until morning, when the exploring heron looks along his beak

to find an intaglio of strange bones on the bank, carefully trodden into the muck, from the fangs at the

front of the jaw to the vertebra at the tip of the tale. Like a frieze of bloody murder, carefully displayed.

Benita—SATURDAY

It had rained a lot in August, warm wet air pouring up from the Pacific, across Mexico, into New

Mexico, on north into Colorado and Wyoming. Another year of it coming, said the lady-with-the-

graceful-hands, posturing in front of her weather map, bowing to the highs and lows, tracing the lines of

cold and hot with balletic gestures. So simple, on the map. So simple on the TV. Not so simple when the

rain came down two inches in half an hour and the arroyos filled up with roaring brown water, washing

away chicken coops and parked cars, filling up the culverts and running over the road to deposit unknown

depths of gooey brown.

Benita Alvarez-Shipton had negotiated two such mud flows in a fine frenzy, just not giving a damn,

determined to make it up the canyon, but by the time she reached the third one, her fury had cooled, as

usual. Her daughter Angelica told her that was her trouble, she couldn't stay mad. Angelica, now, she

stayed mad. Something inherited from her grandma on one side or grandpa on the other, no doubt, and

probably far healthier for her than Benita's continual doubts. Benita herself was plagued by voices, mostly

Mami's, counseling prudence, counseling patience.

You made your bed, Benita, now lie in it. God gives us strength to bear, Bennie. The stallion prances,

but it's the mare that nurses the colt. You've wasted so much, daughter. You can't afford to waste another

bit.

So, caution. The goo covering the road was suspiciously smooth and untouched. Things that were

untouched might be so for a reason.

It looks too good to be true, Bennie, it probably is. If it was possible, Bennie, somebody would have

done it already. Mami hadn't always been right, thank heaven, but she scored high, nonetheless. In this

case she would have asked, What if you get stuck, Bennie? What if somebody comes along, someone, you

know, not a nice person?

Not long after Angelica was born, Benita had begun to realize she'd made a major mistake. By the

time the kids were in school, she was seeking hiding places from the ghosts in her head, learning ways to

cope without money, without help. Solitude was easier to live with than people. Books were less

threatening than relatives. The fewer things she said to them, the fewer things she did with them, the

fewer mistakes she would make, the fewer hurtful memories there would be.

When the children were little, she'd taken them into the mountains, put up the tent borrowed from her

father, and camped for a week at a time without any bad memories. In the mountains you walked, admired

birds, smelled flowers, threw rocks in the river and picked up pretty stones. Nothing happened to come

back and haunt you in the night. Sleeping on the ground wasn't Bert's kind of thing, especially not in the

mountains, miles from the nearest bar. Back then, as now, the predator she feared most was the one she

lived with. Other risks paled in comparison.

At the side of the road a slightly higher stretch of ground offered itself. She drove atop it and killed

the engine. Even if another flash flood came down the arroyo, it wouldn't come as high as the wheels. She

rolled up all the windows and locked the doors, not that it would stop anyone stealing the car if they were

of a mind to, but no use wishing somebody would! The old wreck was beginning to cost more than it was

worth, just to keep it going. Unlike Bert, who could cheerfully rob Peter to pay Paul, and then rob Paul to

bet on football, Benita's ghosts wouldn't let her risk it. In her life there were no discretionary expenditures.

Every penny was committed.

She studied the clouds massing in the west, readying themselves for a full-scale downpour, checking

to be sure she had both a hooded rain poncho and a sweater in her pack. She didn't plan to go more than a

half hour away from the car. Gingerly, she placed one foot on the mud flow, which turned out to be a false

alarm - only half an inch of clayey goo spread over silt that had settled into a brick-like mass.

Just ahead of her the road turned up the canyon between two groves of ponderosa pine. This world

was empty, no people, no sounds of people talk or people machines. Saturdays people slept in, read the

papers, did yard work, maybe had a barbecue or went to visit family. Since Mami died, she hadn't had any

local family except Dad. Since she'd become a recluse outside of working hours, she hadn't had any real

friends. Anyhow, she wouldn't want to see anyone, not for a few days.

Half a mile up the road the pines gave way to aspen and fir around grassy glades, and within a

hundred yards she saw the first mushrooms gleaming from the dappled shade. She knew what they were.

Mami had taught her what to avoid as well as what to pick, but she walked over to them anyhow,

admiring the picture they made, like something out of a child's fairy tale. Funga demonio, Mami had said.

Amanita muscaria, said the mushroom guide. Red with wooly white spots on the cap. Also amanita

pbailloides, white as a dove's wing, graceful and pure. She stood looking at them for a long time,

pretending not to think what she was thinking.

With a heaving sigh, she left the death caps behind and wandered among the trees parallel to the road.

One winy, plate-sized bolete crouched in a hollow among some aspens, a triple frill of tan pleurotus

fringed a half-rotted cottonwood stump, half a dozen white domes of acjaricus poked through dried pine

needles in a clump, gills as pink as flamingo feathers. There wasn't a single wormhole in any of them.

That was enough. She had learned a long time ago not to take more than she could eat in one day, unless

she was drying them for winter.

Lately she hadn't been in the mood to do anything for winter, or for any future time. No more

planning. No more preparation. No more dedication. Getting through each day was enough. No use drying

mushrooms when she'd be the only one to eat them. Bert had never cared for mushrooms, not even on

pizza, and the kids weren't here to eat them. Benita had always imagined the summers between college

terms as a time of homecoming, but it had been only imagination, not thought. Thought would have told

her that once they were gone, they would stay. Angelica had a job she couldn't leave. Carlos said he was

getting a job. Cross your fingers and pray. He needed to work, at something, not to go on doing . . .

whatever it was he did. Angelica begged her to come visit them, but somehow ... it hadn't seemed to be

the right time.

She glanced at her watch and went on upward, strolling now, relaxed by the quiet, the soft air, the

bird murmur in the trees, keeping an eye on the shadows. When they said near enough to noon, she sat

down on a flat rock and unpacked her lunch. Diet soda. Turkey sandwich. Two white peaches from the

orchard behind the house, apricot trees, peach trees, plus plums, pear, apple, cherry. This year the peach

trees bloomed even earlier than usual, but instead of the blossoms being killed by the April frost, they'd

managed to set fruit before it happened. Pears, apples and cherries bloomed later. July was for pitting

cherries, night after night, to freeze for pies. August and September were for making applesauce, apple

jelly, and putting up pears.

That was then. Other years had been other years, and now was now.

She dallied with her food, small bites, little swallows, not wanting to think about going home,

reluctantly packing away the scraps and the empty can in the pack with the mushroom bag on top. The

clouds had moved swiftly from the west to make a dark layer almost overhead, and it was time to head

back to town, go to the market, pick up some groceries. Maybe she'd stop at the bookstore for a couple of

books. One nice thing about working there was borrowing new books freebies. Or, she had a free pass to

the movies. Something light and fun with no chance it would make her cry. Lately, if she got started, it

was hard to stop.

She left the trees behind and stepped out onto one of the parallel tracks in the grass that passed for a

road, looked up at the sky once more, lowered her eyes and was confronted by the aliens.

Thinking it over later, she blamed the TV and movies for her immediate reaction. The media gobbled

everything that happened or could happen, then spit it out, over and over, every idea regurgitated, every

concept so mushed up that when anything remarkable actually occurred it was already a cliche. Like

cloning or surrogate mothers or extraterrestrials and UFOs. The whole world had heard about it and seen

movies about it, and had become bored with the subject before it even happened!

So, when the aliens walked out of the trees across the rutted road and asked her what her personal

label was, her first thought was that she'd stepped into the middle of TV movie set. She looked around for

cameras. Then she thought, no, she'd seen ET arrivals done better, far more believably, and certainly with

better actors playing the abductee than herself, so it was a joke. A moment's consideration of the creatures

before her, however, told her they couldn't be humans in costume. Entirely the wrong shape and the

wrong size.

Her final reaction was that she'd wanted to get away from home, sure, but an alien abduction was

ridiculous.

The lead alien, the slightly taller one, cocked its head and repeated in the same dry, uninflected tone it

had used the first time, "Please, what is your identity description?" Then, as though recognizing her

uncertainty, "My designation is mrfleblobr'r'cxzuckand, an athyco, of the Pistach people.”

Benita had to clear her throat before she could speak. "I'm sorry, but I can't possibly pronounce your

name. I am Benita, that is Benita Alvarez Shipton of the . . . Hispanic people.”

A rather lengthy silence while the alien who had spoken turned to the other alien and the two of them

focused their attention on a mechanism the first one was holding in one of its pincers. Claws? No, pincers.

Very neat, small, rather like a jeweler's tools, capable of deft manipulation.

The first alien turned to ask, "Are we mistaken in thinking this is America area? We are now in

Hispanic area?"

She fought down an urge to giggle and almost choked instead. "This is the southwest part of North

America, yes, but there are many Hispanic people in this area as well as Caucasian people and Indian

people. This country also has Afro-American people, ah, Hawaiian people, Chinese people . . .” She

caught herself babbling, and her voice trailed off as the two went back into their huddle. Could two

huddle? She sucked in her cheeks and bit down hard, trying to convince herself she was awake. Half

hidden in a grove of firs beyond the two aliens a gleaming shape hovered about two feet above the

ground. The alien ship: a triangular gunmetal blue thing, flat on the bottom, rounded like a teardrop

above. It looked barely big enough to hold the two beings, who were about her height, five foot six,

though much lighter in build, each with four yellow arms and four green legs, and what seemed to be a

scarlet exoskeleton covering the thorax and extending in a kind of kangaroo tail in back, like a prop. Or

maybe wing covers, like a beetle. So, maybe they were bugs. Giant bugs. And maybe they weren't. The

exoskeleton could be armor of some kind, and they had huge, really huge multifaceted eyes, plus several

smaller ones that looked almost human. The mouths didn't look like insect mouths, though there were

small squidgy bits around the sides. She couldn't see any teeth. Just horny ridges. They couldn't make

words with inflexible mouths like that, so evidently they talked through the little boxes they had hanging

around their . . . middles.

"Are you receptor person?" the taller one asked. "That is, provider of sequential life with or without

DNA introduced by another individual or individuals?"

She thought about this, sorting it out, flushing a little as she thought, Oh, Lord, are they going to ask

me about sex? She swallowed. "I'm a woman, female, yes, and I have two children.” With DNA

introduced by another individual. Which explained a lot, if one was looking for explanations.

"Are you recently injured?" the other, slightly shorter alien asked, reaching out with a pincer foot to

stroke the swollen purple skin around her left eye.

It felt rather like being touched with a pencil eraser: not hard, but not soft, either. Possibly very

sensitive, she supposed, and the gesture was delicately nonintrusive. "A small accident," she murmured,

putting her hand protectively over the bruise. "It'll heal up very soon.”

"Ah. You have our sympathy for being marred," this one said.

"Are you person of good reputation?" asked the taller one, with an admonitory glance toward its

companion. "You have done no foolish or evil thing that would make others consider your words false or

unbelievable?"

"All of us do foolish things," she said. "None of us are perfect. I've never done any purposeful evil . .

.”

You didn't mean to, Benita, but you bung your life out on the line like an old towel, to get faded and

ragged. I wish you could go back, daughter, but we can't do that.

“... I don't think I've done anything too ridiculous.” She sighed, and looked at her shoes.

"Will you help us make contact with your people, so we may do so peacefully, without injury to

anyone?"

This was real! The idea went off like a roman candle, pfoosh, whap! Honest to goodness real! Good

Lord, of course she would help avoid injury, though what could she do? "I will if I can," she equivocated,

trying to wet her mouth and lips. They were dry, achingly dry.

"We ask only what you can," the tall one said. "We will first give you names you can pronounce. We

will simplify our own names from our youth, our undifferentiated time. You may call me Chiddy, and my

companion is Vess.” Chiddy held out a bright red cube about six inches square. "This is our declaration.

Our investigation shows that this America section is the section most interested in search for

extraplanetary intelligence, so you will go to your authorities of this America section, and you will give

them this. When it is in the hands of authority, it will automatically do all necessary convincing, advising,

and preparing.” It nodded, well satisfied with this exposition.

The other one, the smaller, softer-voiced one, held out a folder. "Here is money for your trouble, legal

money, licitly obtained, not a replication, which we understand to be improper, plus we will do you a

welcome reversal.” The aliens stepped back, bowing, with their four hands or tweezers or whatever

together, upper right to lower left, upper left to lower right, so their yellow sleeves (shells?) made a neat

little X across their scarlet bellies.

Then the two of them, Chiddy and Vess, turned and went back to their ship, quad-a-lump, quad-a-

lump, like a team of trotters. The ship liquified to let them in, then solidified again, which was fine

because everyone knew about morphing ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger did one of those movies about

time travel, only it was the other guy who morphed . . .

Benita stayed where she was, holding the cube and the folder, while she tried to find words to tell

them they had the wrong messenger, that she didn't do things like this, that she didn't know how, couldn't

possibly . . .

By the time her mouth was ready to say "Wait," the ship was well off the ground. It rose until it

cleared the tops of the trees then soundlessly disappeared. The treetops moved as though hit by a strong

gust of wind from the east. She stood stupidly staring from the empty spot in the sky to the enigmatic

thing in her hands. It was warm. It hummed a little on her palms and she could feel the vibration. It also

changed color, from bright red to deep wine, and finally to dark blue. She set it on the ground, where it

turned red again and started to make an agitated noise, rather like a fussy baby. She looked in the folder

they had given her, counted for a rather long time, took a deep breath and counted again. There were two

hundred five-hundred-dollar bills. She put the money back in the folder and dropped it on the ground,

staring at it, as though it was a snake.

We're often tempted to be foolish, Bennie. Often tempted to do wrong.

Mami had never said anything about being tempted to do right! So, if she was tempted by this money,

did that mean it had to be wrong? Heavens, even children and puppy dogs received rewards for doing

right!

The cube was now squealing for attention, but it quieted and began to change color when she picked

it up and patted it, as she had done with her babies. After a moment's more confusion, she picked up the

folder as well. Though her brain seemed to be having a fit, her feet started moving, carrying her body

down the hill while her brain skipped here and there like a dud kernel of popcorn, badly overexcited but

unable to explode. The best her legs could manage was a wavering stroll, but at least they kept going until

she reached the car. The familiarity of it, the dents, the rust spots, the smell of the inside of it, fast food

and dog, mostly, settled her a little.

She leaned on the open door, still trying to think. Lord. She couldn't just get in the car and drive off

with no plan, nothing decided. And she couldn't just go home, either. Though it was remotely possible

that Bert had crawled out of his boar's wallow of a bed and found someone to give him a ride to work, it

was far likelier he'd stayed in bed, watching baseball and making his way through the rest of the case of

beer he'd talked Larry Cinch into bringing him last night. Larry was an open-hearted man whose kindness

used up all the room in his head, leaving no space for either evil intentions or good sense. One would

think that since Bert had been convicted of DUI five times, his friends would begin to catch on that he'd

be better off without beer!

And one would think when he did it five times, the last time killing somebody, they'd put him in jail!

Other places, maybe. Not in New Mexico, where at least a third of the male population considered getting

drunk a recreation and driving drunk an exercise of manly skill, something like bull fighting. The judge

had put Bert on house arrest, sentenced him to an electronic anklet that set off an alarm at the station

house if he wasn't within fifty feet of the monitor at home or at his so-called job in the Alvarez salvage

yard. He was supposed to call the station before he went from one to the other and they gave him thirty

minutes to arrive. Most of the time, Bert figured it wasn't worth a phone call to get to work, especially on

weekends when Benita was home and he could get some fun out of bedeviling her.

The rest of the week was bearable. Ten to nine, Monday through Friday, she was at The Written

Word, doing more than a bit of everything. Marsh and Goose, the owners, were casual about their own

work hours and pretty much left it to her. She'd been there part time for two years, starting when Carlos

was three and Angelica was one, then full time for fourteen. The first two years were mostly learning the

job, stocking shelves, unpacking, doing scut work. Gradually she progressed, and after they put her on full

time she read reviews and ordered books and paid the bills and sent back the unsold paperback covers and

did the accounts. She took adult education literature courses so she could talk to customers about books,

and computer courses so she could use bookkeeping systems and inventory systems. When she ran out of

anything else to do, she read books. Considering the correspondence courses, the books and the Internet,

PBS, Bravo and the History channel, she'd soaked up a good bit of education, maybe even a hint of

culture, occasionally comforting herself with the thought she was probably as well read as some people

who came into the store, people who had obviously not hung their lives out on the line like an old, ragged

dish towel.

Sometimes it was hard to remember how she'd felt more than twenty years before, a kid, a high

school senior madly in love with an older man. Among her friends, there'd been a little cachet in that, his

being older. She'd been too naive to wonder why an older man, a self-described artist, would be interested

in someone just turned seventeen. She was pretty, everyone said so, and artists were romantic, everyone

knew that, and the label wasn't an actual lie. Bert had never claimed to make a living as an artist, and he

had won a few third prize ribbons or honorable mentions at regional shows.

A man of minor talents and major resentments. The marriage counselor had said that, quietly, to

Benita. It had been a revelation, not the fact that Bert had major resentments, she couldn't have missed

knowing that after all these years. But the bit about the minor talent, yes, that was a revelation. Somehow,

Benita had come to think of him as being too lazy to live up to his potential. After that, she'd fretted over

it, wondering if he thought he had no potential, and if he drank rather than admit it. She felt sad for him

and wanted to comfort him, and that coincided with a few days when Bert wasn't drinking so they had a

weeklong second honeymoon, not that she'd ever had a first one. It made her feel better until the next time

he got drunk and knocked her down.

It was really hard to be understanding or sympathetic with Bert.

When he was sober, he would sit at the table listening as she begged him to talk to her. He would

grunt or utter a monosyllable, or he'd grin, that infuriating grin that told her he was teasing her, goading

her. She never got close! Oh, he had good points. He was always good to his mother. He wouldn't work to

help her out with money, but he was always ready to help her out with advice or carrying stuff or taking

her somewhere. He never once laid a hand on the children. If he was sober, he was delightful with them:

he'd tell the tall stories about places he'd been, things he'd done. He'd take them to the zoo or the

playground or the movies. Of course, if he was drunk, he could tongue-lash them raw, so she kept them

out of his way when he was that way. But even sober, he never talked with her, and she tried to figure out

why that was, what she could do differently. She bought books and tried everything they suggested. After

that one try at counseling at the county mental health clinic, there didn't seem to be any point in trying

again.

Even with his drinking cronies, he didn't talk much, and what little she overheard going on among

them was totally predictable. Same stories. Same angers. Same jokes directed at the same targets: women,

fags, foreigners, any racial or religious group except their own. Not that they were religious, but they had

a common acceptance of what they'd honor and what they wouldn't. They wouldn't spit on a cross or the

flag or a Bible, but they'd kick a small dog or hit a sassy woman without blinking.

At seventeen, she'd taken him at his own estimation, at his own word. He was an artist. He would

have great career. Besides he had brooding good looks, simmering glances, a line of compliments, used

often enough with enough other women to sound sincere, though she didn't know that then. Benita had

had no defenses, and she'd very quickly become pregnant with Carlos and defiantly happy about it. Papa

said she would be married before the baby was born, or else. He and Mami had a furious argument about

it, one of the few Benita could remember. Mami said no, let the baby come, they'd take care of it in the

family, Bert wouldn't be a good husband. Papa said no, Benita had to learn that actions have

consequences, good husband or not, she would not have a bastard.

Surprisingly enough Bert wanted to marry her, and she thought marrying him was all she wanted. He

even had a place for them to live, with his widowed mother. In fact, as it turned out, Mrs. Shipton had

suggested to Bert that he get married so she'd have some company and help in the house, which was

something else Benita didn't know at the time. Benita's giddy delirium carried her through Carlos's birth

and Angelica's birth two years later, and partway through the year after that, by which time she had begun

to perceive, though still dimly, just what it was she had done.

"You must go to work, Benita.” Mami had said it calmly, as she said most things. "This is the fourth

time you have come to me to borrow money for groceries.”

"Mother Shipton . . . she's been paying for groceries, Mami, but her social security only goes so far . .

.”

"If you have no money to feed your children, you must work. You have no choice.”

"Mami, Bert's looking for work . . .”

"He quit his last job, Benita.”

"He said they fired him for no reason . . .”

"He quit, Benita. The people gave him that job as a favor to your father, so he asked them why Bert

left. He left because they expected him to work, actually do things. Bert prefers not to work. If he will not

work, you must.”

"But, the babies, and Mother Shipton . . .”

"I will care for the babies daytimes. Soon they can go to nursery school, and you must also pay for

that. Bert's mother is Bert's concern, and her own. She is not an invalid, Bennie.”

"I'm not qualified for anything . . .”

"You are a woman. Hombres son duro, pero mujeres son durable. I have found you a job.”

After that, Benita had been so busy she had never had time to think, except about one thing.

"The mistake you made must stop with you," said Mami. "Your children must go to school! To

college.”

That was the start of the secret bank account. That was the start of Mami's little lectures to Carlos and

Angelica. By the time Angelica was five, she was saying, "When I go to college, Mama.”

Bert had a different idea. He played with Angelica and called her his cutie-pie, but since the time

Carlos first grabbed a crayon and made marks on the bedroom wall, Bert decided that when Carlos

graduated from high school, the two of them would start a gallery. Bert talked about it all the time, as

though it were real. Carlos would bring his scribbles home from school for Bert to critique. Bert would

put on his pontifical voice and explain art techniques. The two of them would huddle over the table while

Angelica, Benita, and Mother Shipton fixed meals or washed dishes. Bert was an artist. Carlos would be

an artist.

Before long he was saying, "Granny says I will be a great artist, Mama.” Benita didn't contradict him

or his granny. So long as he expected to succeed, she would help him. It was something to think about, to

plan for, to work for.

Bert kept the idea alive, hugging his son. " 'That's my boy, we're gonna show 'em, huh, Carlos, when

we open the gallery.”

Carlos agreeing, "Right, Dad. When we open it.”

The years were all the same, with only the sizes of their needs changing: extra large instead of

medium for Carlos, size twelve instead of eight for Angelica, an old wreck of a car instead of a bike for

Carlos, a computer instead of a TV for Angelica. Mother Shipton died when Carlos was eight,- Bert

inherited the house. The years accumulated in Benita's routine of buying books, supervising homework,

making Carlos do better than he cared to, helping Angelica do as well as she wanted to. The years

accumulated with the drinking bouts happening oftener, then very often, then every day or two. Benita

couldn't figure out where he got the money! He never had any money for groceries or the gas payment.

When the children were little, Benita had occasionally fled with them to the shelter when things got

violent. When Carlos was as big as his father and at no risk of his father's temper, Benita and Angelica

found a refuge in Benita's office, after the store was closed, sleeping on the floor on a spread sleeping bag,

with no one knowing where they were.

Then, suddenly Carlos was out of school (low C average) and neither Bert's plans nor Benita's turned

out to have been sure things. Carlos approached his father about the gallery idea.

"Well, we'll need a few thou, Carlos. Got to get together a few thou first. For rent, you know. Rent

and making contacts with artists, all that.”

"Where are we going to get that?" Carlos demanded. Carlos might not have done well in school, but

he could add two and two.

"Mortgage the house," said Bert suddenly, out of nowhere. "We'll mortgage the house.”

But he didn't mortgage the house. Not for a while.

Benita said, "Carlito, while you and your dad are figuring out the gallery business, why don't you

enroll at UNM? I know your test scores and grades weren't great, but you can get student aid, and it's right

here in town, and you can study art . . .” Benita, trying to move him but not telling him about the secret

bank account, not until he, himself, was committed to going on. That had been Mami at her most succinct.

The bait only works if the fish is hungry.

Carlos was unresponsive. "Aw, Mom. Leave me alone. I need a break from school. I'm not ready for

college. I need to, you know, give this gallery thing a chance! Have a time of self discovery!"

Three separate times Goose or Marsh or Benita herself found jobs for Carlos, but Carlos didn't want a

steady job. He preferred to sleep until noon, to take long, long showers, eat like a lion and go out with

friends most nights. He worked for his grandfather at the salvage yard every now and then, just long

enough to earn money for his car, or when he needed money for gas or repairs. Now and then he'd get

some odd job with his friends, moving furniture or bussing tables. The rest of the time he ate, watched

television, slept, and drove around all night with several other young men who were doing pretty much

the same thing.

The bait only works if the fish is hungry, Benita would say to herself, wiping her eyes, remembering

Mami's face when she said it. You couldn't make a fish hungry. You just had to wait.

So long as Benita let Carlos alone, he seemed contented enough. If she tried to push him, he retreated

into gloom. The sulks, her father said, who had no patience with the boy. Melancholia, Benita read in

nineteenth-century books. Depression, Marsh said, but then Marsh had a family that reveled in

despondency. The doctor prescribed antidepressants, but Carlos refused to take them.

"There's nothing wrong with me. Leave me alone.”

Two years like that. He was nineteen going on twenty when Angelica graduated, proudly presenting

her mother not only with her diploma but also a letter from a California university granting her a

scholarship! One of her teachers had applied for her, and she had saved the news for a surprise.

"I didn't want to get your hopes up, Mama. Isn't it wonderful? I've always wanted to go to California.

The scholarship won't be enough, all by itself, but I'll get a job, and maybe a student loan . . .”

That was when Benita held her close, crying happily, and told her about the secret bank account.

Don't tell Daddy, dear. You know why. But shortly thereafter, Angelica, all unthinking innocence, told

Carlos.

He was waiting for Benita when she came home from work, his nose pinched, his face haughty.

"Angelica told me you'd been saving money for us. I think I deserve half of it!"

"I saved it for my children's education," she said, her own cheeks pink with resentment at his tone.

"And if you're in college, you'll get half of it.”

"I prefer to take it in cash, now. Dad and I can use it to help start the gallery.” Haughty, that I prefer.

Arrogant.

She swallowed deeply, hating his tone, his resentments, his pomposity, hating the fact she could not

meet any of it without tears and pain. She hated the way he resented anything she did for Angelica, as

though his sister were negligible, not worth the investment. He got that from his father. Bert was big on

the worthlessness of women. The books said sibling rivalry was normal, that confrontation was an

ordinary thing, a difference of opinion, it should not hurt like this!

"The gallery plans are between you and your father, Carlito. I was never part of them, so it's up to

you and him to make those plans come true. My plan has always been for your education. The money will

be used for that only, for one or both of my children. If you don't want to go on to school, if you aren't

ready to do so, then Angelica can use the money.”

He hadn't accepted this. Carlos never accepted no. He had done what he always did: badgered her,

harassed her, talked her down, kept after her, but this time it didn't work as it always had before. There

were too many years of hard work in that bank account. Too many years of doing without and making do

and, more important, Angelica deserved the help and would damned well get it. And something else

happened she hadn't counted on ever, hadn't even conceived of. She went inside herself looking for the

love she'd always felt for both the children and wasn't able to find it for her son. He had done something

to it, or she had, or it had dried up, all on its own.

Strangely enough, throughout it all, Carlos never told Bert about the money. He was smart enough to

know that would have killed it for all of them. A month later, all his harassment unavailing, he had said he

would go to college as well, but not to the state university. He wanted to attend the school in California,

the one Angelica planned to attend. They should, he said, be treated equally.

Benita had cried, "I've always treated you equally, Carlos.”

"No, you haven't. When Angelica needed help with reading, you had her read to you while you fixed

supper. When I needed help, you had somebody at school do it!"

She stared at him, unbelieving. "Angelica was in the second grade, you were in fourth. All she

needed was practice. You had a problem with dyslexia. I can listen while someone practices, but I don't

know anything about helping dyslexia. The school had a specialist who knew all about it. Equal doesn't

mean identical! It's impossible to treat different people as though they were identical.”

Again the sulks, the depression, the endless hating silences.

Goose asked what was the matter, and she told him. "He's digging up old, silly resentments from

when he was seven or eight years old, Goose. And it's been two months. It's like breathing poison gas,

being around him. He's perfectly capable of keeping it up for months, even years, and I can't take it.”

"Well, I can't stand to see you this upset," Goose drawled in his lofty, patrician voice. "It's extremely

enervating. I've got some family contacts in California. Let me see what I can do.”

He came up with the name of a Latino foundation that provided loans, tutoring, and counseling for

less-than-perfect Hispanic candidates for college, Carlos hyphenated his last name, charmed the

committee, like his dad at that age, he could charm anyone when he tried, and was accepted. Since he was

twenty, he chose to share a house with several other foundation beneficiaries, while Angelica, only

eighteen, lived in a dormitory.

For Benita, it was the tape at the end of her race. She had a day or two of exhilaration, then she

deflated slowly and inexorably, like a soufflé taken out of the oven. She had never considered what she

would do when it was over, never planned for afterward when the thing was done. Mami hadn't ever

mentioned what she would do then. The worst was the unforeseen fact that with Angelica gone, not just to

college but away to college, Benita had no one to celebrate with or sympathize with or mourn with. With

both of them gone, she couldn't stay busy enough not to think, and over all those mostly solitary years at

the bookstore, she had learned to think.

It seemed to her that up until then, she had been two people, one at work, one at home. The work

Benita was decisive, crisp, intelligent, capable. She spoke to people directly, simply, without strain and

without later self-recriminations over wrong words, wrong emphases, wrong ideas. The home Benita, on

the other hand, was tentative, common, an ignorant woman who used a small vocabulary and bad

grammar, who ventured comments on nothing more complicated than the dinner menu, a sort of wife-

mother-sponge to soak up Bert's rages and Carlito's sulks.

When the kids went away, however, there was no need for a mother-sponge anymore, no reason for

that person to take up space. Perhaps it was time to let bovine Benita go. The planning that had kept her

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