"The Flamenco Academy" (10 page)

Finally, the door opened. Mom stood there,
not saying a word, backed up by half a dozen sisters and brothers,
all in their best pioneer Easter finery. Even the pastor was there,
his broad shoulders blocking the doorway.

The sight of them all there arrayed against
me rattled me so much that my thoughts zoomed immediately to what
I’d feared the most for so long that I almost asked, “What’s wrong?
Is something wrong with Daddy?” Then I remembered.

No one spoke. No one budged. They had
obviously rehearsed this whole thing. It was a sort of intervention
on my mother’s behalf. She finally spoke. “In case you hadn’t
noticed, today is Easter. The day we celebrate the resurrection of
the living Christ.”

The pastor put his hand on my mother’s
shoulder and she touched it in a way that made me aware that she
was the prettiest of the sistern. There was no wedding ring on the
pastor’s hand. He gave her shoulder an encouraging squeeze and she
went on. “As your mother, I have to love you enough to save you.
God did not bless me with a child to”—she glanced at the pastor,
who nodded for her to go on with the approved message—“populate
hell!”

The others nodded and muttered, “Amen.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. Go on,
sister,” the pastor prodded.

My mother gathered herself up like a child
in a Christmas pageant about to recite her piece. “ ‘A child left
to himself bringeth his mother to shame.’ I have left you too long
to yourself and you have brought me to shame.”

“Don’t blame yourself, sister,” the pastor
said in his ultra manly rumbling voice. “God had two children in
Eden and they both made wrong choices.”

The others chuckled with nervous relief,
then stiffened their spines again.

“Thank you, brother, but this is my fault
and my responsibility to change.” My mother turned to me. “My
brothers and sisters have helped me to cast out those things that
are abhorrent in the sight of the Lord and they stand beside me
today as I fight to reclaim the soul of my child.”

“Mom, my soul isn’t lost so it doesn’t need
to be reclaimed.”

“We knew you would say that, for Satan is a
powerful deceiver.” She glared at Didi and added, “And his agents
are even more devious.”

Didi’s head started weaving from side to
side like the black girls at school when they fought. That’s how
she sounded when she got up into my mother’s face. “Uh-uh, bitch, I
did
not
just hear you call me an agent of Satan!”

The sistern gasped as if they lived in a
world where every other word wasn’t
bitch
. My mom’s eyes
glittered with self-righteous vindication since Didi had just
demonstrated for all the other androids how impossibly hard her
life as a parent was.

The pastor’s voice boomed out. “Be not
deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves,
nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall
inherit the kingdom of God.”

Didi snorted, “Oh, that’s a big fucking
tragedy. Like Rae and I would even want to spend eternity with a
bunch of hypocritical, self-righteous, intolerant assholes like
you. Give me the fornicators and idolators any day.”

The pastor took his arm from my mother’s
shoulder, stepped in front, and squared off with Didi, glaring at
her until the tendons in his neck jumped out as he thundered, “ ‘If
a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them
have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death;
their blood shall be upon them!’ ”

Didi squeezed her eyes shut and shook her
head, laughing as if the pastor had just made a joke. “Did you just
call me gay?” She looked at me. “He thinks I’m gay. God, that’s
funny. Probably projecting, right? You got a secret boyfriend,
pastor? Is that it? Little boys maybe? You guys do altar boys? Is
that your deal? You like little boys?”

The pastor turned solid in front of my eyes,
filling up with bottled rage until he was a slab of marble who
intoned, “ ‘And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with
the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children
fatherless.’ ”

He scared me. Didi just shrugged. “Yeah,
whatever.” She turned from him and, already crunching across the
rocks, asked me, “Rae, you coming?”

I glanced at my mother, but she wouldn’t
meet my gaze. She wailed and pretended to be heartbroken when I
walked away with Didi. “Come back! Do not choose the path of
iniquity for I will do anything for you but abandon my lord and
Christ, Jesus. You are giving me no choice.”

We both knew that what I was giving her was
a way to do exactly what she wanted: run off to HeartLand without
looking like a bad mother in front of her cult friends. It was my
Easter present to her and it showed how endlessly ridiculous the
human heart is because, even after everything, I was still crushed
that she took it. That she chose those strangers over me.

While the sisters and brothers prayed and
the pastor boomed out another Bible quote, “ ‘Then will I pluck
them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and
this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of
my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all
nations,’ ” Didi and I crammed as much of my stuff as we could grab
into her trunk. Didi flipped the HeartLanders a giant bird and
cackled wildly as we drove away. I was laughing with her when the
glee caught in my throat and turned into sobs.

“Rae-rae, baby, don’t stress. You lost her a
long time ago.”

“But why does she hate me? What did I ever
do to make her hate me?”

“It’s not you. She’s, you know, troubled.
Some people just weren’t meant to be mothers and you and I got two
prime candidates.”

I tried to stop crying, but my life seemed
ruined and meaningless and utterly ridiculous. I felt arbitrary and
unnecessary. Someone a mother could leave with only some Bible
verses and a few fake tears.

“ ‘Children are for the motherly,’ that’s
what Brecht says. Anyway, nothing we can do about it. I know you
think we’re friends because of our dads, but it’s all about the
moms. Face it, at this point neither one of us, technically, has
’rents. We have each other.”

When Didi said, “We have each other,” my
heart filled my chest in a way that convinced me the pastor was
probably right, I was a total lez. I slid a glance at Didi. She had
on a white angora top that looked like cottonwood fluff floating on
a pool of syrup against her dark skin. Did mom see something that I
was hiding from myself? Is that why I had zero interest in the few
guys who’d asked me out? Rodney Tatum, who occasionally worked the
late shift at the Pup, had asked me to the state fair rodeo to see
his sister ride in the barrel-racing finals and I’d turned him down
flat. No, lesbian, straight, extraterrestrial, whatever I was, I
don’t think Rodney and I would have hooked up. Michael Debont? He’d
asked me to Homecoming. But everyone except Michael knew he was
gay. Was that a sign? Was I broadcasting my essence while being too
blind to see it myself?

It was true, I wasn’t attracted to the
handful of loser guys who’d asked me out. I couldn’t imagine
choosing to be with any of the boys I knew over being anywhere with
Didi. Didi dug a roach out of the ashtray and tried to light it and
drive with the palms of her hands while I wondered if I was a
lesbian. It was better than thinking about Mom. I was doing what
Didi ordered; I was staying distracted.

Didi sucked in a lungful, then squinted at
me while she held the smoke in, and said, “What?” inhaling the word
so she sounded like a robot.

“What what?”

Didi exhaled, coughing. “That is some harsh
bammer.”

I patted her back until she stopped
coughing, judging with every whack what effect touching her was
having on me. Did I want to do more? I remembered the crush I’d had
on Scooter, my counselor back at Camp Lajitas. But I’d read enough
Judy Blume to know that such infatuations were common among prepube
girls.

“You’ve got that look,” Didi said, pinching
the roach out between her fingers, then putting it into the pocket
of her jeans. “You know, storm cloud brows.”

I touched the space between my eyebrows
where they were bunching up, trying to come together.

“I’ve got it! I know exactly what we need to
do. I read this account of an actual Lakota Sioux ceremony for
taking a blood sister. Blood sisters, what do you think? You wanna
be my blood sister?”

Sister
. The word shone in my mind
pure as light from a full moon. I nodded.

“Okay then, let’s do it!”

It was late afternoon as we cruised back
down Nine Mile Hill. The sun had slipped below the horizon and the
last slanting rays were turning the phone lines into sagging,
golden spiderwebs as they looped along Central Avenue.

Didi sang/shouted along with AC/DC about all
manner of dirty deeds involving cyanide and concrete shoes as we
passed Old Town. She finished with a rousing accolade to all deeds
dirty at the same moment that she screeched into the lot of Las
Palmas Trading Post, where she parked and announced, “Of course, we
have to have an exchange of ceremonial offerings. Wait here.”

“Deeds, hold on, I don’t know if—”

But Didi was already out of the car and
sauntering into Las Palmas, which was not a trading post but a
really good Indian jewelry store. The thought of all the valuables
inside made me nervous, but Didi wasn’t wearing the puffy parka or
carrying the diaper bag she usually took along on her “five-finger
discount” shopping expeditions. In fact, in her lace-up hip-huggers
and skimpy top, she didn’t have any place to stash items. Still, I
didn’t relax until she sauntered back out with nothing in her
notoriously sticky hands.

My relief disappeared the instant she jumped
in the car, reached between her breasts, fished around in her bra,
and hauled up a silver chain with a turquoise cross dangling from
it. “Sorry about the cross. It was only supposed to be my cover
while I was trying on this really cool screaming eagle pendant, but
the clerk turned around too quick and I unhooked the wrong one, so
the cross dropped down instead of the eagle. Sorry. Thought that
counts, right? I’ll hang on to this until you get your offering.”
She hung the turquoise cross around her neck. “Okay, your turn,
sister.”

Sister
. I repeated the word to myself
as I crossed the parking lot and pushed open the door. There was no
one in the store except a couple of women, tourists in shorts that
showed more than most would care to see of their varicosed legs. A
high school girl, Native American from the look of her apple-shaped
body and sleek black hair, wearing matching glitter nail polish and
eye shadow, was waiting on the tourist women. Two other clerks,
hard-eyed, older women, gossiped by the far register. I was certain
they all knew what I planned to do.

Harsh afternoon light sliced in the front
windows and glinted off the silver and turquoise jewelry tucked
into the black velvet trays filling the glass cases. One of the
older women glared at me. “Can I help you with something?”

She knew. There was no question, she knew. I
shook my head too quickly, answered, “No, just browsing,” and
tacked off into a side room filled with baskets and kachina dolls.
I hid out there while I came up with a plan: I would ask Didi if we
could postpone the ceremony. I’d tell her that it would be better
to come back on a Saturday when the store was jammed and clerks
were trying to wait on three customers at a time. But I caught a
glimpse of her, sitting in her father’s old Mustang, her elbow
resting on the edge of the open window. She was singing along to
the AC/DC tape. I thought about her driving away, just leaving me
there in the store to find my way home by myself.

Home? What did that mean anymore? I turned
back toward the glass cases filled with jewelry. Through the
feathers hanging down from a row of ceremonial drums, I watched the
young clerk with sparkly nail polish pull black velvet trays out of
the case so that the tourist women could try on squash blossom
necklaces. The women left without buying anything. While the young
clerk was bent over, putting the trays back, I stepped out of the
side room.

“Oh,” she said, surprised when she stood
back up and I was standing there. “I didn’t see you come in. Can I
help you?”

“Yes, I’m looking for a present for my mom.
I want to get her something really special. My dad’s sick.”

“What were you looking for?” She pointed
down at the cases and named what was in them. “Bracelet? Ring?
Pendant?”

“I don’t know. Just something really
special. My father’s not doing real well.” I hadn’t planned to say
that, to have to look away because tears filled my eyes.

“Oh. Wow. Sorry, that sucks.”

“Yeah.” The look of sympathy made her baby
face seem even younger and my courage returned.

“Bracelets are good,” I said.

She swiveled over to the right section and
pulled out a tray humped with rows of bracelets. With a glance at
me to gauge what my taste would be, she plucked several delicate
pieces set with pink mother-of-pearl in butterfly designs off the
tray. “These are real popular.”

She’d nailed me because I loved them, but
Didi? Didi sneered at both pink and butterflies.

I searched the trays still behind the case
until I spotted the perfect bracelet, Didi’s bracelet. It was a
band of beaten silver with a design that appeared abstract at
first, but gradually revealed itself to be two stylized panthers
coiled about each other, either fighting or mating. I asked the
clerk if I could see the tray with the panther bracelet on it, then
requested half a dozen others. She slid the trays onto the counter
in front of me, before turning her attention to chipping the polish
off her nails.