The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters Read online

  “Nilda talks about her childhood, about the past, and she mentions that this Heidi used to visit Fermina to interview her for some book she was writing.”

  “A book about Fermina’s life?” You picture Fermina as a child, then a young woman. You squint as you imagine a time before highways, trucks, dilapidated motels, and cafés —an expanse of sun-scorched earth, the emptiness of it. “Why?”

  Loretta shrugs.

  “Look,” Rita says. “See that?”

  Loretta slows, and we stare out the window at a café on Broadway and D Street. You stuffed yourselves with pancakes and runny eggs at the Denny’s in San Bernardino not two hours ago. Even you aren’t hungry yet. Anyway, the café isn’t open, a handwritten sign explains: We Are Seventh-day Adventists/ Our Only Closing Day Is the Sabbath/ What Was the Last Miracle That Jesus Performed? Do You Know the Answer? You read this aloud.

  “Water into wine,” Loretta says.

  “It’s closed,” you point out, “but there’s a taco stand ahead.”

  “Not that, you dummies,” Rita says. “There, there.”

  “What is it?” Bette asks.

  “The sign for the I-40,” Rita says at last, pointing at the blue shield. “Turn here.”

  “Can’t do it.” Loretta accelerates past the turn. “It’s not the Mother Road.”

  “Mother fucking road,” Rita says.

  Loretta says, “We’re committed to the Mother Road.”

  Rita asks, “Who put you in charge?”

  “I did,” Bette tells her.

  KINGMAN, ARIZONA —BETTE

  Just before Route 66 becomes Andy Devine Boulevard, Elena and little Aitch kick the fussing into high gear. We stop at a Whiting Brothers, where Elena is fascinated by the curio shop attached to the gas station. She totters through the aisles, gaping at scorpions in resin, Indian dolls, licorice whips, postcards, T-shirts, backscratchers, and other assorted crap. But my kid won’t touch a goddamn thing. Instead, she stares, wide-eyed and openmouthed, keeping her distance, as though inspecting artifacts in a museum of incredibly breakable shit. I have to urge her to handle stuff. I show her a rabbit’s foot key chain. “Come here, baby. This feels soft.”

  Elena opens her hand, and I run it over her pink palm. Her dimples deepen. “Tickles.” But then she pulls away to examine her hand for microscopic traces of dirt. I toss the rabbit’s foot on a shelf and scoop her into my arms. “Come on. I’ll take you to wash.” I lug her into the bathroom. A pestiferous cloud of stink hangs over the counter where Sophie is changing Aitch’s diaper.

  “Diarrhea,” she says by way of greeting. We wash quickly —Elena recoiling from the sooty washbasin —and I hold my breath as we back out into the shop.

  “For your information, Miss Knows-Everything,” Rita is saying to Loretta near the register in front, “it was raising Lazarus from the dead.”

  “You’re nuts.” Loretta pushes a bill across the counter to pay for gas. “How can you compare reviving some corpse to changing water into wine?”

  “Water into wine,” Rita says, “was maybe the first miracle, if you don’t count amazing the wise men in the temple with knowledge when he was just a kid.”

  “What are you talking about?” Loretta asks.

  “No way was the wine thing the last miracle performed by Jesus Christ.”

  “Last miracle? I thought Sophie said best miracle.” Loretta tucks the change into her purse. “Water into wine was definitely the best.”

  Sophie tromps up front with bald, gummy Aitch in her arms. “We better stop here for the night,” she says. “He has the runs.”

  “Okay,” Loretta tells her.

  Rita says, “I only have a week. Can’t you get it through your head?”

  “Do you sell wine here?” Loretta asks the clerk.

  “We have Coors.”

  Loretta draws back, wrinkling her nose.

  “We should keep going.” I turn to Sophie. “If he has the shits, he has them, whether we’re on the road or in a hotel. You just have to give him applesauce, bananas, and rice cereal —the diarrhea diet. We can at least make it to Oatman for lunch.”

  The clerk shakes her head. “Nothing worth seeing there, except that open range.”

  “We can spend the night in Seligman or better yet, Flagstaff.” I’d like Elena to see the Grand Canyon.

  “Good luck finding a room in Flagstaff this time of year,” the woman says, and reaches to squeeze Elena’s foot in a playful way. “Aren’t you cute?”

  Elena wrenches away. “You got a fill-fee potty,” she says, wagging a finger.

  “I swear she’s a throwback.” My voice thickens with pride.

  “I know.” Sophie nods. “Nilda, junior.”

  OATMAN TO SELIGMAN, ARIZONA —RITA

  Rita’s shoulders clench when Loretta pops open a Coors. She can smell the sickeningly yeasty belch from the can all the way up front. Rita’s insisted on taking the wheel because the way Loretta drives, tapping the brakes every few minutes to make sure they work, is both driving her insane and giving her whiplash.

  “Why didn’t we bring wine?” Loretta says from the backseat. “We’re from California. We should know better.”

  Rita grits her teeth.

  “Look,” Sophie says, “there it is —the open range, right there.”

  Sure enough, Rita spies a yellow diamond-shaped sign that reads OPEN RANGE, and propped against its post is a discarded white stove, the oven door gaping, an incongruous sight against the vast azure sky, biscuit-colored earth, and stubbly yellow grass.

  “See that, honey,” Bette tells Elena.

  “That’s just a stove,” Elena says.

  “ ‘Range’ is another name for a stove.” Loretta says she doesn’t care much for children, but from the uncharacteristically warm tone Loretta uses, Rita can tell her sister has a soft spot for their niece. Elena goes silent, considering this information, when a plosive sound followed by rumbling emanates from Aitch’s diaper area.

  “Pull over,” Sophie says, “as soon as humanly possible.”

  Rita flips on the turn signal. Her sisters roll their windows down and stick their heads out into the desert, until Rita bumps the car onto the shoulder and parks.

  After this pit stop, she continues driving. Rita loves driving. She could drive all day and into the night, but her sisters complain she drives too slowly. Bette claims Rita drives too carefully, as if that were even possible. Around midday, Sophie says she’s starving; so in Seligman, Rita pulls up to the Snow Cap, a drive-in next to Angel’s Barbershop and a grocery.

  Instead of sitting in the hot car and waiting for food service, the sisters climb out for what shade there is under the portico. A small yard near the drive-in is arrayed with a multitude of plaster lawn ornaments —gnomes, rabbits, cherubs, flamingoes, turtles, jockeys, and squirrels. Rita and Loretta stroll with Elena through these, while Sophie finds a table and Bette orders lunch. Rita’s amazed at how carefully Elena picks her way through the sun-bleached figurines. The toddler is curious, but not enough to come too close or touch. Rita senses Elena’s relief when Loretta lifts her to carry her to the table.

  Bette approaches with two full trays, “I think that guy’s in love with me.” She points at the food. “Extra fries.” Even at a plumpish twenty-eight, Bette’s heart-shaped face is as cute as ever. The extra weight accentuates her curves, making her voluptuous. Against her white shorts and blue gingham halter, Bette’s tanned skin is a rich shade of caramel. Rita glimpses the counterman staring after Bette and licking his lips.

  Despite Loretta’s pale-rose complexion and glossy black hair, she regards males with the same expression Rita imagines she wears when detecting tapeworm in fecal matter, and men don’t exactly bask in the warmth of this gaze. With the exception of Aitch, Sophie glances away from any men she encounters, as though these sully the view. And Rita, as the corny song goes, has eyes just for Rafe. Of all of us, Rita thinks, only the deep-dimpled Elena is likely to give Bette ser
ious competition when it comes to attracting male attention, but not for another decade or so.

  Sophie cradles Aitch in one arm, a bottle of white grape juice held under her chin, so he can drink while she eats. “Right, he gave you free fries, so you’ll grow bigger nalgas. ’Cause then, there’ll be more of you to love.” Her voice goes syrupy, and Rita trades a look with Bette. This is maybe something Harold the Disappeared has said to her. Rita calculates he dropped out of sight nearly two months ago. She opens her mouth to ask about this, but Bette shakes her head. It isn’t the right time.

  Rita turns away and spies two raggedy tumbleweeds wheeling across a vacant lot nearby. “So, tell us,” she says, “the story of Dad and his girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, I want to hear about that,” Loretta agrees.

  Bette sets a burger and a few fries on a napkin before Elena. “It’s a horror story.”

  A fly lands on the napkin, and Elena pushes the food away. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You have to eat something,” Rita tells her, her voice deepening with sternness.

  “No.”

  “Good,” says Loretta, reaching for Elena’s burger, “more for me.”

  “Hey, that’s mines.” Elena snatches it back and takes a big bite.

  Loretta’s snuck her Coors to the table and gulps it surreptitiously, though the besotted fry cook couldn’t care less. Rita’s the only one who minds. “The story of Dad and the girlfriend,” she says.

  Bette glances at Elena, who’s staring back at her, wide-eyed and expectant. “I’ll tell you later,” she says.

  FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA —LORETTA

  We take two adjoining rooms at the Mountain View Lodge, just off the highway, and Bette and Sophie settle the kids to sleep in their room before slipping across the threshold —the common door propped open —into our room, where I’ve filled the plastic bucket with ice chips and longnecks. Even Rita obligingly opens a bottle and sips from it. She says, “The story of Dad and the girlfriend.”

  “Ah, yes.” Bette rolls a joint and glances at Sophie. “Where to begin?”

  “What’s she like?” In spite of myself, I’m curious about the woman.

  “Let’s see,” Bette says with mock delicacy. “She’s a woman of a certain age.”

  “A vieja, a drunken, cranky witch who’s going bald,” Sophie interjects, stroking her own thick mane. “Dad, for mysterious reasons, is nuts about her.”

  “They’re getting married.” Bette lights the joint, sucks in a toke.

  Unfazed, Sophie continues her description. “She’s a dead ringer for a Thunderbird puppet. Remember that show, those stiff-moving dolls? Pam’s the bubbleheaded blonde exactly, except her hair’s the color of dried blood.”

  Bette exhales noisily. “They already have rings and shit.”

  “She’s reigning queen of the barflies. I, myself,” Sophie says, “wouldn’t know her without the stink of booze rolling from her pores, the constant nicotine haze.”

  “Can you imagine Mom smoking?” Rita asks. “Or drinking? Mom hated anything that made a person stupider than usual.”

  I drain my beer and reach for another. “She hated makeup, too. Remember how she used to say, ‘Why do I need lipstick, when I’ve got brains?’ ”

  “Pam loads that shit on. She must use a fucking trowel for the foundation cream,” Bette says. “She even wears false eyelashes.”

  Sophie takes the joint. “And she calls everyone —even Dad! —‘kiddo.’ ”

  Bette says, “Cary thinks Pop’s been brainwashed, says we should call in a deprogrammer, one of those guys that gets the cult out of people.”

  “This does not sound good.” Rita’s voice is grim.

  “You think?” Sophie says. “Old Pam wants Dad to take her to Vegas. She says it’d be a ‘real kick’ to be married by an Elvis impersonator.”

  “I’d like to give her a real kick,” mutters Bette.

  “We have to do something,” Rita says.

  I clear my throat. “Look, he’s an adult. If he wants to get married, let him.”

  “You only say that,” Sophie tells me, “because you never met Pam.”

  “I’m not a violent person,” Bette says, and we gawk at her. “Okay, I’m not always a violent person, but I want to smack the shit out of that old bitch.”

  “If old Pam has her way, they’ll be married this summer,” Sophie says. “Thank God there’s divorce!” She sips her beer, and I wonder if she’s filed papers yet. She ought to get some kind of support for raising Aitch; and the sooner, the better.

  Rita yawns, and Bette pinches out the joint. “We better go to bed soon.”

  Sophie heaves herself off the bed, heads next door, and Rita lumbers for the bathroom, while Bette opens the outer door, lights one last Marlboro. I rummage through the paperbacks, notebooks, pens, and glasses cases in my all-purpose bag for my toothbrush holder and miniature tube of paste. My fingers brush the boxed reel-to-reel tape I keep with me so it won’t be ruined by heat in the car. Energy surges from my fingertips, sparking me with the same giddiness I felt when I discovered it among my letters, photographs, and diplomas. I never forgot about the tape. That would be like forgetting my birthplace or middle name —things I don’t think about every day, though they are imbedded in memory and identity. I always knew I had it, but rediscovering it after all those years in Georgia, as I was moving from the apartment I shared during graduate school into my own rental, time and place made the tape seem strange and new, unfamiliar as a relic from another world. But listening to it —the call and response of my high, clear adolescent voice combined with Nilda’s animated, inflected tones —released a rush of familiar excitement, stirring up my old questions, and reawakening my longing to snap the pieces together so the whole picture finally emerges.

  I tuck it in a deep corner of the bag and lower my voice to tell Bette, “The thing about Dad is that it’s his life. Why shouldn’t he be able to do what he wants? To love whomever he chooses?”

  “You don’t even know the worst of it,” she whispers, expelling ragged streams of smoke, shredded ghosts escaping into the dark night.

  THE GRAND CANYON, TWIN ARROWS,

  TWO GUNS, AND HOLBROOK,

  ARIZONA —SOPHIA

  At the lookout spot, you raise little Aitch to behold the Grand Canyon, and Bette lifts Elena into her arms so she can also see into the abyss. The iron-streaked crags and sheared rock plummet into a profound terrestrial gash. But Elena shields her eyes from the pale morning sun and says, “I don’t see nothing. Where is it, Mama? Where?”

  “You’re looking at it, m’ija.”

  “I’m with Elena,” you say as you cup Aitch’s eyes against the light. He kicks his frog legs a few times, but is silent, unimpressed by the sight. “I hate to sound all Peggy Lee, but is that all there is?”

  “It’s the Grand Canyon,” Rita tells you, coming up behind, her camera in hand. “It’s a canyon. It’s grand. What more do you want?”

  “It’s a little . . .” You pause, searching for the right word.

  “Majestic,” Bette says with nearly enough conviction to make this so.

  “Picturesque?” suggests Loretta. “Panoramic?”

  “No,” you say, “boring. It’s goddamn boring,” and you yawn.

  After the Grand Canyon, you again share the middle seat with the sleeping children, and Bette drives. Rita, who’s wearing a red-and-white bandanna tied over her eyes, blindfold-style, rides shotgun, while Loretta is sprawled in back, reading.

  Bette glances at Rita. “Will you take that thing off?”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t.”

  “Seriously, Rita, you look like a hostage,” you say. “People will think we’re kidnapping you.”

  “Take that damn thing off,” Bette says between clenched teeth.

  “No offense, Bette,” Rita says, “but I can’t stand the way you tailgate and steer with your knees. I can’t even bear to look.”

  “Get rid of it before El
ena wakes up,” Bette warns her, “or you’ll freak her out. So it’s coming off, hear me, if I have to yank it off myself and strangle you with it.”

  “Like that won’t traumatize the kid,” you say.

  Bette pushes in the lighter, fumbles for a cigarette.

  Rita says, “You’re not smoking while I’m up here.”

  “Right,” Bette says, and she lights up.

  The second day of the road trip, you have to admit, is a jarring contrast from the first that was filled with goodwill, expectation, and nervy energy. After the first twenty-four hours pass, the car seems to shrink. The interior closes in, becoming tight and fusty, filled with a near-suffocating amalgam of odors —soiled diapers, sweat, spilled beer, stale Fritos, and melted chocolate bars. On top of this, Bette’s smoking and Loretta’s drinking drive Rita nuts, you know your voice is louder than Loretta can bear, Bette’s sick of putting up with Rita’s priggishness, and you wish they’d all disappear for a few hours, so you could take little Aitch in your arms and have a good solid cry.

  But you say, “Look, look! It’s the twin arrows of Twin Arrows.”

  Rita lifts the bandanna to peek out, emits a disappointed hiss, and replaces her blindfold. You reach for her camera, and through the window, you snap a photo of the two tall wooden arrows, their red tips angling toward the ground.

  “Nobody better be using my camera,” Rita says.

  Loretta leans over the seat, reaches into the cooler, and fishes out an icy beer, which she pops open.

  “Nobody better be drinking beer before noon,” Rita says.

  Loretta lifts her bottle in salute. “Your hearing is excellent.”

  “Hand me one, too,” Bette says.

  “Pull over this minute,” Rita says. “You are not drinking and driving.”

  Bette snatches the blindfold off Rita and tosses it out the open window. “Will you shut up?”

  “For the sweet love of Jesus,” you say as Loretta hands you a dripping brown bottle to pass to Bette. Rita turns to face Bette, gape-mouthed, rigid with wrath. Bette wrenches the wheel, the tires squeal onto the shoulder, and she hauls out of the driver’s seat. “You want to drive, pendeja, then drive,” she says, and Rita scoots behind the wheel. Bette yanks open the passenger-side door, plops in, and slams it shut. “Just give me some fucking peace.”