Between Us Girls (21 page)

Sam? Emotional? Maybe she'd left dark and moody back in the car.

At last she spoke. “In all honesty, you know how it is to see something through someone else's eyes? It changes your perspective somehow. Things look brand new. Uncluttered.” She paused. “I used to love the wilderness, but I'd lost sight of that. Today it's back. Thanks.”

“Anytime.” Jasmyn smiled. “You could return the favor. I used to love the cornfields and my hometown. Maybe if you came with me to Valley Oaks…”

“In your dreams.”

“You could have ribs slathered in Danno's sauce.”

“No, thanks. I hear it's cold there. Come on, I have to get to my meeting.”

Jasmyn took one last gaze at the bigness and whispered, “Thank You.”

It was what Liv would have done. And it felt good.

Thirty-Four

Sam stole a glance at Jasmyn as they drove past the highway sign that announced they had entered the Lotanzai Reservation. Jasmyn's face seldom disguised her feelings. Right now her eyebrows inched above her sunglasses, clearly suggesting some hesitation. It was an old reaction that Sam knew well.

She said in a solemn tone, “No need to worry, Jasmyn. They are a peaceful people these days.”

“Oh, dear. How did you know? I didn't mean to—I'm sorry. The thing is, I watched one too many old Westerns with my grandpa.”

“Indians were the bad guys.”

“Exactly. We even found arrowheads on the farm to prove it.” She groaned. “He was a difficult man.”

Sam figured Jasmyn sugarcoated the truth about her grandfather the way she did most things. From the few hints Jasmyn had dropped, Sam imagined the old man was a misogynistic bigot who blamed his granddaughter for being born to his unwed daughter.

“Hey, Sam, can I ask you something personal?”

Sam decided to just go ahead and answer the question she assumed was on Jasmyn's mind. “Yes, I am an Indian.”

“Now how did you know what I wanted to ask?”

“Because people have always asked me that. I legally changed my name from Whitehorse to Whitley after college and now they ask less. Apparently, I don't look Indian with a different name. I'm three-fourths Navajo.”

“Really?”

Sam focused on the highway and the odometer, anticipating the unmarked road. She stuffed down familiar, ugly reactions. Things like,
Yeah I really am three-fourths Navajo. What of it?

As a kid on the rez, she was defined by that one-fourth slice of non-Navajo heritage. As a college student off the rez, she was defined by the three-fourths. As an adult, she realized how much unwarranted shame had colored her world because of other people's reactions.

“You are the first one I've met.”

“Something to write home about.”

“I'm sorry.” Jasmyn apologized often. “Am I being offensive?”

Sam sighed. In spite of her saccharine voice, Jasmyn was the most genuinely nice, wholesome person she had ever known. The woman would have to work at being offensive. “No, you're not. I'm just being my usual touchy self on the subject. So what do you think? Do I meet your expectations?”

“Well, you definitely dress better than the characters in the Westerns.”

She smiled.

“Seriously, Sam, in Valley Oaks we don't have much experience with other cultures. Ninety-nine point nine percent of us are descendants of Swedish farmers who came to America in the mid-1800s, married each other, and farmed.”

Sam's mind's eye flashed to the faded photo she had of her grandmother, the grandmother with long blond hair and blue eyes. Her father's mother.

From the corner of her eye she saw the turnoff as they sailed past it.

“Nuts.” She slowed, pulled off the side of the empty highway, and made a U-turn. “I missed the turn.”

“The turn? We're in the middle of nowhere. How will people ever find this new hotel?”

“They'll go the front way, where a freeway and big signs for the turnoff into the town of Overland are located. I took this back route because it has the best wow effect for desert first-timers.”

Jasmyn grinned. “Thanks.”

“Yup.” She slowed at the narrow, cracked asphalt road and turned. “The reservation covers about fifteen thousand acres. My grandmother was Swedish.”

“Huh?”

Sam bit her lip. Those last words had slipped themselves into the conversation. She had nothing to do with it. Not even Randy had ever heard them, and she shared more with him than anybody.

“Swedish!”

Sam cleared her throat. “My father's mother. She died when I was a baby. I don't remember her at all.”

“How…”

“Heart attack.”

“I mean, how did she become your grandmother?”

Sam couldn't help but smile. “Jasmyn, let's save that talk for another time.”

She laughed. “Not
that
talk.”

“Oh! You mean how did she become my grandmother?”

“That's what I said.”

Good grief. Sam was teasing and discussing her family. Jasmyn Albright was an atrocious influence.

“Hannah Susanne Carlson came to teach on the reservation in the 1940s and met my grandfather. Blah, blah, blah. They both died young, as did my father.”

“Then you don't know much about them?”

Sam remembered the handful of stories she had heard as a child. “An elderly woman once told me that everyone adored Hannah. That she was a wonderful teacher and a kind person. I have no idea why she went to live with the Navajo.”

“She needed to meet your grandfather so you could be born.”

So she could be born? Sam tilted her head. What an odd comment.

“Trust me, Sam, I've thought a lot about these things. My mother never even knew my father's name. My heart has this spare room—oh, never mind. That's a long story. Where did Hannah come from?”

“Um, up north. Seems like it started with an ‘I.' My dad told me when I was little. My mom refused to talk about his family.”

“Illinois?”

“I don't know.”

“Seriously? You don't?”

“I don't. Iowa, Idaho, Indiana. It doesn't matter.”

“It's interesting, though. Why wouldn't your mom talk about it?”

Sam had asked her once. If she thought long enough about it, she
could feel the sting on her sixteen-year-old cheek and hear the shrill voice.
You stupid girl, shut up!
“I figure Hannah and my mom did not get along for some reason. My mom is a difficult woman. She never said a nice thing about my dad. I don't know why she hooked up with him in the first place.”

“There's only one explanation. Same one as why your grandmother stayed on the reservation. Your mom got together with your dad so you could be born.”

“Come on, Jasmyn. That's ridiculous.”

Jasmyn gave her a small smile. Enigmatic. A Liv-cloneish smile and attitude. “You never googled Hannah Susanne Carlson?”

“I did. Do you have any idea how many Carlsons there are in this country?”

“Yes. It's a good Swedish name. Half the people in Valley Oaks have a Carlson in their family tree.” Then she giggled. “Who knows? We might be related.”

The tribal council president's name was Deborah Brown. She was a stylish fiftysomething woman in a black business suit, a red silk blouse, and pearls. Her well-coiffed hair was short, thick, and black. She was intelligent and friendly.

She looked nothing like Sam's mother. She acted nothing like Sam's mother. There was no reason for Sam to react to her as if she were her mother. But she did.

Sam felt incompetent, ugly, stupid, and worthless. She hoped it wasn't showing.

“Randy.” Deborah looked up from the sketches spread about the table where the three of them sat. “You didn't tell me your young associate was brilliant.”

Randy shrugged. “What can I say? We keep Sammi out of sight. Can't have another firm hiring her away.”

Deborah smiled and her whole face lit up. “The question is, what firm would it be? Evidently she's an engineer and an architect and probably has a host of other top-notch talents in her back pocket.”

Sam squirmed in her seat. “I don't have a degree in architecture.”

“I doubt that would matter.” The woman gazed again at the drawings.
“Besides being more beautiful, your renditions flow better than the architect's. You've made a casino look like an extension of the landscape. It blends in like bighorn sheep camouflaged against the rocks and hills.”

Randy caught Sam's attention and winked. He mouthed,
Told you.

Deborah smiled at her again.

“You said you drew these for fun?”

“Sort of.” She made herself meet the woman's eyes. They were warm and caring. Her edginess dwindled and she softened her voice. “Yes. It's a hobby. They're not to scale; I don't have the skill. But…well, I couldn't help but take another look at the plans.”

“Why is that?”

Sam still had a hard time explaining why, but she tried. “Because I wanted to take into account your history. I didn't find burial grounds or any environmental reasons to halt the project, but I highly suspect that this corner where you want to build is where your ancestors summered. Now you're going to welcome other people to come and play here. It seems a shame to obliterate the landscape any more than necessary.”

“That's the most impractical thing I've ever heard.”

“I know, right? And I'm one of the most practical people on the face of the earth.”

Deborah's eyes were moist. “Me too. But this speaks to my heart.”

Sam felt her own eyes burn, and she blinked quickly.

Randy hummed off tune. “Please don't tell anyone I was in on this conversation.”

Deborah laughed. “I want to show these around. I'm sure the others will agree that we could ask the architects how much they can incorporate into what we already have on the table.”

Sam resisted the urge to do a handspring.

They hashed out details. Although the new designs were Sam's creation, she wanted to give them to the professionals who could actually make plans that contractors could use to build. Randy insisted on some official paperwork that would give her credit. There was the question of fees.

They left Deborah in her office in the community center and made their way outdoors. Across the road they stopped beside Randy's car.

“Congratulations, Sam. I'm really proud of you.”

She had no words, only a grin that wouldn't stop stretching across her face.

“You should celebrate.”

She eyed the small town center, little more than a speed bump on a side road. There were some nondescript houses, a mobile home park, a school, a Laundromat, a gas station, a café. She assumed Jasmyn was nearby, probably with half a dozen new friends in tow. “I'll find my friend and we'll get some ice cream at the café.”

Randy chuckled. “Be careful you don't overindulge.”

“Actually, this whole thing doesn't feel real yet. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.”

“Get used to it. You're gonna be a rock star. You should dress up and go to a fancy restaurant on the coast with a guy wearing a tie. Do you have one yet?”

“A guy in a tie?”

“Yeah.”

“Nah. I don't have time for that.”

He shook his head. “Give yourself a break, Sammi.”

“But I love work. I'm fine.”

Randy slipped on his sunglasses. “I'm going home to my wife, and we're going to make a list of all the eligible nice guys we know.”

“Don't you dare.”

He laughed and got in his car.