The wealthy widow lady who owned it and had lived there for twenty years sold out to a sharp eyed investor who carved it up into low-cost apartments for oversexed newlyweds who didn’t mind being awakened at all hours of the day and night by the roar of heavily laden trucks and the thunder of cascading boulders.
At the new landlord’s direction, the gardens out back that had long been nurtured by a loving full time gardener were ignored. Left to their own devices, the covered arbors dried up and went to seed. For a while, without human intervention, only the ivy and one tall tree were tough enough to hold out against the dry realities of the arid Southwest. Now Jaime Gonzales, the new gardener, was starting the slow process of reclaiming the gardens and the upper terraces, but on that far lower level, all that remained was that one old tree, brown-needled and dying.
Holly remembered how tall and alive it had been, green against a warm blue sky that spring afternoon. The precocious eleven-year-old Holly Patterson had been flat on her naked back, waiting for poor, hapless Billy Corbett to figure out how to make his dinky, useless “thing” stand up. It finally did, after Holly showed him how to rub her stiff little nipples with his groping fingers, but even then it didn’t work. When Holly had taunted him, laughed at him because he didn’t even know where to put it, Billy had slapped her hard across the face. His blow had left a bright red handprint on her cheek, one she had been hard-pressed to explain to Mama that afternoon when she came home from school.
Remembering that time, Holly rocked even harder and pulled the sweater closer around her body. Billy Corbett had died in Vietnam. His was one of the first names on the memorial plaque over by the new high school.
It served him right, Holly Patterson thought, thirty-nine years after that jewel-dear spring after noon.
Whatever Billy Corbett got, it served him right.
There was a knock on the door. Holly jumped, surprised by her own nervousness. She would have to remember to tell Amy how she was feeling and ask her what it meant. Ask her to put her under and calm her, make the bad feelings go away. Maybe, later on, they could go for a ride in Rex Rogers’ bright red Cadillac. Maybe Amy would even let Holly drive.
She had read in the paper that Marliss, the old battle-ax who wrote a weekly column for the Bisbee Bee, actually thought the car belonged to Holly. That was a laugh. When she was evicted from her last roach-plagued apartment, Holly Patterson had scarcely anything left to call her own. Amy had helped her salvage the few paltry possessions that remained in storage back in California. And what she had she could keep only so long as she continued to pay the month-to-month storage rental.
The knock came again, and Holly realized she hadn’t answered. “Who is it?”
“It’s me. Isabel.”
“Come in.”
Isabel Gonzales, the gardener’s wife who served as both cook and housekeeper, bustled into the room. She stopped short when she saw Holly’s untouched lunch tray.
“You don’t like what I cook for you?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Isabel shook her head and ducked her tongue “Not eating is bad for you. It will make you sick.” This place is making me sick, Holly thought And it wasn’t just Billy Corbett, either, although at first she had thought it was, hoped it was. No it was something else, something much more than that, something about the dump itself, perhaps. Whatever it was, it remained just out of reach beyond the grasp of her conscious mind.
She had felt it the first day, as soon as she had set foot in the house. Of course, it was nice of Paul Enders-Pauli to his friends-to lend his “cabin by the lake” to his friends when he found out they were going to Bisbee on business. Of course, there was no lake anywhere near Bisbee. But for someone who lived in the high-pressure world of Hollywood costume design, it was important to have a hideaway where he could go to let the creative juices flow. Besides, Cosa Viejo had been such a wonderful period-piece bargain that he simply couldn’t afford to turn it down.
Paul Enders was only the latest in the long list of Cosa Viejo’s would-be rescuers. The exodus of miners in the late seventies along with a real estate glut had left even low-cost rentals sitting empty and in even worse decay. Into that economic slump came an unexpected sum of remodeling money that likely had its source somewhere in Colombia’s drug cartel. Cocaine paid the bills for returning Cosa Viejo to a single family residence.
Alleged drug money repaired the dry rot, renewed the plumbing, fixed the wiring, and cleaned up and replanted a few of the gardens.
The job was only partially finished, however, when the feds moved in to take over. That was how Pauli Enders had picked the place up in the late eighties at a bargain-basement price.
Paul Enders said he found Cosa Viejo to be a homey place where he could work on a project and not have his creative bursts interrupted by unexpected visitors. He claimed that working in a room that overlooked that wild brown dump made him feel that he was perched somewhere Just below the rim of the Grand Canyon. But what was good for Pauli was bad for Holly, although why it was bad for her she couldn’t quite fathom.
What was it about the dump? Why did it call to her so? Why did its looming nearness keep her from sleeping or eating or thinking?
“Well,” Isabel was saying, “are you coming or not?” She sounded impatient, as though she’d said much more than that, only Holly had heard none of it.
“Coming?” Holly repeated stupidly. “Coming where?”
“Downstairs. To see your father. He’s waiting to see you.”
“My father? Here?” She quailed and pulled back into the chair, rocking desperately. “I don’t want to see him. I can’t.”
“Mrs. Baxter says you should come on down.”
“No. Tell her I won’t come.”
“All right,” Isabel said. She went out and closed the door. Moments later the door opened, and Amy bounded in. “What do you mean you won’t come?”
“I don’t want to see him. I can’t.”
Amy came over to Holly’s rocker and knelt in front of it. “Yes, you can, Holly. You’ve got to. He wants to settle. He’s willing to make a deal, but you have to talk to him in person.”
“No. Please.”
“Come on, Holly, after all this, don’t back down now.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve already come this far and done so damned much hard work to get here,” Amy insisted. “This is the one last thing you have to do to regain your self-respect and take control of your life. Now’s your chance to hold your father’s feet to the fire. He’s managed to get away with what he did to you all these years. Don’t let him do it again. He owes you. And you owe it to yourself.”
“Can’t Rex talk to him?”
“Rex is in California today, remember? He’ll be back tonight, in time to be in court tomorrow if he has to. It’s up to you, Holly. I know you can do it. Take a deep breath now. Relax.”
Holly nodded, then distractedly ran her fingers through her sweat-matted hair. “But I’m a mess,” she said. “I can’t see him like this. I’ve got to shower, wash my hair, put on makeup.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
“Please.”
At last Amy relented. “Alright,” she said with a smile. “Get in the shower. I’ll tell him to come back a little later.”
“You’re sure I can do it?”
Amy came over to Holly’s rocker and knelt in front of it.
“Do you remember what I told you when you first came to me for help? After we met at that meeting?”