Banana Rose (16 page)

By the time I was finished and had gathered an armful of wood to carry inside, clouds had formed, and it had begun snowing all over again. I stomped my boots at the doorstep to get the snow off them and then I swung into the kitchen. Gauguin was at the table, finishing his breakfast of fried potatoes, green chiles, and biscuits.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. I went back to the front door.

“Oh, Banana,” Gauguin sang, like the words to an opera, “why does an elephant paint his toenails all different colors? I’ll tell you the answer on the way.”

We walked up the hill behind Blue’s house. Gauguin was ahead of me. He moved in and out of sight between piñon and falling snow.

“Well, why does he?” I yelled. “Why does the elephant paint his toenails?”

“All different colors,” Gauguin added. “Get to the top and you’ll get the answer!” he yelled back.

By the time we reached the top, my heart was beating fast and I was sweating. I pulled off my brown wool cap and stuck it in my pocket. I took off my mittens. Gauguin turned and kissed me. His lips felt cold against my hot ones.

“Well, why does he?” I asked. I closed my eyes and stuck out my tongue so I could feel the snow fall on it.

“What?” Gauguin had a quizzical look on his face.

I tugged at the sleeve of his green army jacket. “Tell me now. Why does the elephant paint his toenails different colors?”

“I’m not telling until you give me ten kisses,” he said, remembering the joke. Our breath was a fog between us. I kissed him only once and stood back.

“I know,” I said. “To leave his footprints in the cheesecake.”

“No,” he said, laughing. “That’s how you can tell the elephant was in the refrigerator.”

“How?” I was confused.

“His footprint was on the cheesecake,” he answered.

“Oh.” I still didn’t get it. “And what about the toenails? All different colors?”

“Let’s start from the beginning.” Gauguin didn’t want his joke to get lost. “Why did the elephant paint his toenails all different colors?”

“Because he was going to the junior prom?” I no longer cared.

“No, be serious,” Gauguin demanded.

“Okay, serious. So he could get his social security number and pay taxes like a responsible citizen.” Finally I got to tease him. We stood face to face. I liked this. I was getting interested again.

“I’m not telling the joke. It’s ruined.” Gauguin became stubborn.

“I’d like to ruin you. Let’s go home.” I took one step down the hill.

“No, wait.” Gauguin touched me on the shoulder. “Look.” He nodded his head out toward the view.

I looked out at the two mountains that came together like two elephants kissing. “Where can you find two mountains that look like two elephants kissing?” I asked.

Gauguin pointed out across the landscape.

“See, I give you easy jokes,” I said.

“That wasn’t a joke,” he answered as we both gazed ahead.

The whole Rio Grande plain spread out in front of us. To the right was Taos Mountain, like a great thunder god, covered in storm white. I sighed. This was the most beautiful place in America.

“Nell,” Gauguin whispered.

“Yeah?” I reached out to hold his hand. A jackrabbit flashed by between two piñons. I turned my head fast to watch it disappear. I heard Bonnie barking far below.

“You love it here, don’t you?” Gauguin asked.

“Yes.” I nodded and then I turned suspiciously. I suddenly realized he was building up to something, and I knew what was coming next.

“Nell, I’ve got to move. I want to play music, and I don’t want to do it for the Friday night ski crowd anymore.”

“I just can’t go. I never felt like I do here,” I said.

“C’mon, you’ve got to see my point.” Gauguin let go of my hand. He’d been trying to get me to listen for weeks now.

“Please, later,” I said, and began running in the soft snow.

He came after me and clutched my arm. “You’ve got to let me talk, Nell!” He was screaming now. “I’m not staying here forever.”

I put my hands over my ears. “I don’t want to hear it. Don’t scream at me!” I yelled. “First Anna, now you. I don’t know what to do. I love you. I hate you. I’m all mixed up. I don’t want to go away.” I started to sob.

Gauguin grabbed me. Tears were streaming down his face. His glasses fogged, and he pulled them off. “Please, Nell, please,” he wailed.

“I can’t. I don’t know what to do.” I felt like a caged animal. I bolted and began racing down the hill.

Gauguin ran after me. I dodged in and out of piñons. I was moving so fast, I felt like a jackrabbit. I gulped for air. He was close. I could hear his loud breathing but not his footsteps in the snow.

“I’m going to get you!” he called from behind. Suddenly, it became a game. He caught up, and then as he passed me, he yelled, “Last one to the house is an elephant!”

I grabbed his jacket. “No, you don’t!” I yelled back. He tripped me and I rolled three feet. The snow was dry, and I quickly brushed it off. I could hear his laughter as I saw his jacket flash between two piñons.

“Stop, stop!” I screamed. I scrambled up and dashed after him. I hated being beaten in a race.

By the time my wet face hit the heat of the kitchen, he was already undressed and in bed under the covers. My boots squished on the floor. I bent and flung one boot off. “Wait until I get you,” I called into the bedroom.

I climbed into bed and grabbed for him. “Ouch, Nell, warm up first.” He dodged my hands, but he couldn’t get far. “Ouch, ouch,” he squealed.

Then I began to kiss him. He moved his face away. “Nell, I can’t make love just yet. Can we talk first? I really need to.”

“Okay, let’s talk.” My heart was much softer after the race. I turned on my back and traced the vigas on the ceiling with my eyes. “What do you want to say? I’ll listen,” I said. The third viga from the wall had a long crack in it.

Gauguin paused awhile. I counted the wood boards that lay on top of the vigas. “Look, I can’t stay here forever. I’ve got to go, Nell. Come August first, I’m leaving, with or without you.”

I finished counting the boards. There were twelve. “Where do you think you’ll go?” I asked.

“I don’t know. New Orleans? Denver? Anyplace?” he reasoned.

I took in a deep breath, turned, and put my arm over his shoulder. “Gauguin, I love you. You’ve been really patient, haven’t you?”

“Well, I love you, Nell. I wish it felt right to stay.”

I could see how relieved he was that we were finally talking. “I’ll think about it,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“Whether I could come with you or not.”

“Nell,” he said.

He kissed me long and slow. We didn’t say another word. With my eyes closed, I saw rock gardens, bare cottonwood branches by the river. I made love out of something old and broken. We knew now that this would not last forever, this room, these windows, that sky outside. Our lovemaking was tender, the way pears lean on each other in a round bowl, and the whole time I heard the bells on Blue’s goats tinkling in the distance. The snow fell and I fell with it.

Later, I sat at the table as Gauguin heated up black bean soup, his back toward me.

“Gauguin, remember when we went to Israel and Kita’s wedding up in that meadow near El Salto? When we brought that blue bowl full of cut pineapple and cantaloupe?”

“Yeah? How come you’re bringing that up?”

“I don’t know. I’m reminiscing. I want to remember everything as it was before I go,” I said.

When he turned around, a big smile was spread over his face. He placed a bowl of soup in front of me. “You mean you’re going to come with me?”

“What else can I do? You’re the only thing I love better than Taos. I can’t imagine life here without you. Maybe if we went to Denver, I could find a painting teacher.”

“How about Boulder?” he asked.

“Yeah, we could go there.” I started to cry. Gauguin came around the table and held me. “What will you do?” I asked.

“I could paint houses again, like I did before I left for Peru. I got real good.”

“And then you’d play at night?” I asked. He nodded.

After dinner, I sat at the table. I could hear Gauguin in the next room practicing scales.

I remembered the Thanksgiving just past, when we had stayed up all night at the Luhan house. Gauguin and Neon drummed. Anna didn’t like parties, but I’d talked her into coming and she had a great time. Happiness was there, too, and Blue, Lightning, Cucumber, Tiny, and Fine Point. I brought my feet down one at a time to a slow sway in tune with the beat. When the sun finally rose and Gauguin and Neon quit drumming, I still stepped, one foot after the other. My feet were stepping with an internal drummer, my heart, and it felt as though I would never stop. I did stop, though, when Cedar brought out the sour cream chocolate cake I had baked the day before. She held it high. “Hey, let’s have this for breakfast. We never got around to eating it last night.”

With my first bite, I said a spontaneous poem. “The title of my poem is ‘Chocolate Cake.’ ” I paused. I said the title again. “ ‘Chocolate Cake: I made it and I ate it.’ ” I liked it, it sort of rhymed.

Cucumber, who was a totally pure macrobiotic, said, “I got one: ‘Chocolate Cake: I didn’t make it and I hate it.’ ” She squatted in the corner, eating a whole-wheat cracker.

Sitting at the kitchen table, thinking of that Thanksgiving, I began to cry all over again.

U
H-OH, THERE’S
S
AM,
I said to myself as I turned the corner, heading out of Rexall’s. I wanted to avoid him. It was March, three months after that dinner at Blue’s. Whenever I visited her now, she was alone. I had begun to think Sam was a mirage. I wanted it that way.

“Hey, Banana!” he yelled. I couldn’t believe it. He could speak.

“Oh, hi.” I hesitated and made like I didn’t recognize him for a moment. “Oh, Sam,” I said, haltingly.

“Yeah.” He smiled such a sweet smile, I was taken off guard. His hair was still matted. “It’s nice to see you.” He was friendly, too. “Have time for something at the counter?”

I was so stunned, I nodded yes and followed him back into Rexall’s. We sat on two swivel stools.

“You should come up sometime and see the house I’m building for Blue.”

I nodded. I was still speechless. We both turned away from each other when the waitress placed our drinks on the counter. We leaned over our straws. I had a lemonade, Sam had a root beer. We said nothing for half the drink.

Then Sam raised his head, turned to face me, and blurted, “I’m so in love with Blue and Blue loves you so much that I got scared. I wanted to make a good impression and instead I froze.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s okay.” Was it okay? I didn’t know. I was embarrassed that he was saying this stuff.

“Really, you should come up to the mesa. Blue told me you’re leaving in August. Come before you go. It will almost be finished and I’m making a chicken coop out of bottles and beer cans as a surprise for her.”

“Sure, I’d like that.” I nodded. We finished our sodas, left Rexall’s, and waved good-bye on the sidewalk.

I hadn’t wanted to like Sam, but suddenly I found myself liking him. I wondered how much I had disliked him because I thought he was taking Blue away from me. I guess I had wanted things to stay the same, even after I left. I wanted to imagine Blue forever on Talpa hill and the mesa to be someplace that only existed before Anna met me.

A
MONTH LATER,
Gauguin received a Western Union telegram delivered right to our door. It was early morning. Gauguin stood barefoot, holding it in the kitchen.

“Open it,” I said, excitedly.

“ ‘Pick me up in Las Vegas. I arrive April twenty-ninth, at 4
P.M.
TWA.’ ” Gauguin read it aloud. It was from his father.

Gauguin looked at me. “That’s today.”

“Gee, your father gives even less notice than my mother. I’ll go with you.” Then I changed my mind. “Maybe I’d better stay and clean up. I can make dinner. Las Vegas is only a two-hour drive away. You should be back in time.”

“Are you sure Las Vegas has an airport?” Gauguin asked.

“I’m pretty sure. I’ve heard they do. Call TWA from the post office and find out,” I suggested.

“Naa. If he got a flight there, they must be landing.” Gauguin paused. “Holy shit! Rip’s coming! It’s just like him to do something spontaneous like that.”

“Let’s put him up at La Fonda on the plaza. He’ll like it. They have D. H. Lawrence’s erotic paintings,” I said.

“What do you mean by that?” Gauguin got defensive.

“What’s wrong? I thought he was artistic, being an architect,” I said.

“Oh.” He started to laugh. “I thought you meant he was a horny bastard.”

We both laughed. I hadn’t thought of that, even though Gauguin had told me that Rip slept around. It was what finally broke up his parents’ marriage.

“I’d better leave around one to have plenty of time. Nell, I wonder how long he’s staying. I have a gig in Albuquerque tomorrow. He’ll be too wiped from traveling to drive three hours down with me, and then I’m staying overnight.”

“Cancel it,” I told him.

“I can’t do that. I worked too hard to get it. Rip will understand,” he said.

“Well, I guess you know your father better than me. If it were my family, they’d freak if I didn’t drop everything to be with them.”

“Yeah, they’re not like that, and besides, he gave us such short notice.”

I headed back toward the bedroom and then turned. “So, I’m finally going to get to meet someone from your family.” I came back and hugged him. “I was beginning to think they were a mirage.”

At eight in the evening, the front door opened. Gauguin stepped through and dropped his car keys on the floor.

“Nell, I waited. The air traffic control man said that no commercial plane had landed in Las Vegas in eight years!” Gauguin crumpled into a chair.

“We got another telegram from Rip fifteen minutes ago.” I handed it to Gauguin.

He read it: “ ‘Where are you? I thought Las Vegas was right nearby. Can’t get a flight to Albuquerque until tomorrow. I’ll take a limo up. See you then. Rip.’