Dove in the Window (3 page)

The museum was already bustling with activity when I pulled into the parking lot. The old two-story Sinclair Hacienda, donated by our local patroness of the arts, Constance Sinclair, had become as familiar to me now as the old truck I was driving and almost as well loved. If someone had told me three years ago that at thirty-five I’d be living in town, running a folk art museum while trying to juggle a marriage to San Celina’s chief of police, I’d have informed them the state mental hospital was thirty miles up the road and that maybe they’d better check in for a little testing. But here I was, and though at odd moments when my late husband Jack’s smiling face popped into my mind and sadness froze a section of my heart, I was amazed and grateful at where I’d ended up.

“Four more days,” a young potter named Julio commented. We passed each other on the ivy-covered arbored walkway between the museum and the old adobe stables that now comprised the co-op’s studios and my cramped but comfortable office. Pale November sunlight dappled his wavy black hair.

“We’ll be ready,” I answered with a smile. Exhibits didn’t tie my stomach into knots the way they did my first few months as curator, though a jittery edge of pre-event anticipation still lingered. I was ready for the crowds this time and looking forward to the week-long celebration of our county’s heritage and the Mission Santa Celine’s two-hundred-twentieth anniversary.

Spread across my desk was today’s
San Celina Tribune
, placed there as it was every morning by my sixty-eight-year-old assistant D-Daddy Boudreaux—the only person who’d managed to keep the part-time job longer than a few months. On the front page was a story about the most controversial subject since a local well-known grower of marijuana ran for mayor two years ago.

San Celina or Santa Celine? Is Historical Correctness More Important than the Homeless?

Apparently a group of people affiliated with the Historical Society had decided that our town’s name, the improperly monikered San Celina, should be returned to the proper Santa Celine to match the mission’s and honor the French saint the mission was named after. Most people in the town, myself included, never gave much thought about why the names didn’t match, figuring it was one of those government snafus that just happened. Research conducted by a local historian revealed that back in the early 1900s the town was renamed by a Texas millionaire who wanted to honor his hometown of Celina, Texas. Seeing as he owned most of downtown and all the city council, that change was accomplished without much argument. Obviously nobody involved was adept at proper masculine/feminine grammar in the Spanish language. But the Texan was long dead and his relatives scattered, so one faction of the Historical Society was determined to set things right. Local Latino groups also strongly supported the change back to grammatical and historical correctness. On the opposite side was a socially conscious group that didn’t believe in spending money that could be better used to help finance and run the new homeless shelter or fix potholes in the streets. The measure hadn’t garnered enough signatures to be included on the ballot in early November, so a new assault was obviously being launched for a special election.

I was finishing the article when the door to my office flew open.

“Look at these,” Shelby Johnson said, shoving a stack of black-and-white photographs in front of me. “I’m so stoked I could dance on your desk. They’re going to get published in a major magazine, I just know it. Especially after the photos I’ll take at the barbecue this weekend.” She nervously pulled on the long dark braid draped over her shoulder and flashed a smile that probably cost her parents what some of our county’s migrant workers made in two years. “What do you think?”

I picked up the eight-by-ten of me bottle feeding an orphan calf while another calf poked its head through the slats of the stall to stare at us hungrily. To be honest, she’d managed to capture an expression of vulnerability on my face that slightly embarrassed me. It felt as if she had uncovered a part of me I usually kept hidden. Which was why she was such a talented photographer. A senior at Cal Poly, she’d spent countless days these last few months at the ranch recording her images of me—a typical western ranch woman, if there is such an animal. In essence, I was her senior project.

Born and bred in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago, Shelby grew up in love with the romantic cowgirl images of Calamity Jane, Annie Oakley, and Dale Evans. As soon as she graduated from high school, she applied to colleges all over the West and finally settled on Cal Poly because of San Celina’s western flavor as well as the university’s excellent photography department. She had confided in me during our days at the ranch that her parents, both successful heart surgeons, were disappointed in her choice of career and university.

“But I’m their only daughter, so I get away with murder,” she’d said, her brown eyes sparkling with mischief. She had three older brothers, all studying to be doctors. “I’m the family’s greatest unspoken disappointment,” she told me cheerfully. “That’s okay because they need something to complain about. My brothers are all so perfect.” Then she’d lift her expensive Leica camera and snap another picture of me. In time, I became so accustomed to her camera, I didn’t react with my customary frozen smile.

“Getting your subject to forget you’re there is a very important part of being a photographer,” she’d told me once. “I think it’s where most photographers fail, and their photographs look stiff and rehearsed.”

“I look like crap in most of yours,” I’d complained.

“No, you don’t,” she replied. “You look just like what you are, a ranch woman who loves her animals and her land.”

I spread the eight-by-ten prints across my desk. They were good, I had to admit. Really good. She was having her first show in a gallery downtown this week, sharing the featured artist status with another of our local artists, Greer Shannon, whose family had owned ranch land here in San Celina County since the Spanish land grant days. Shelby was hoping not only to make some sales, but also to catch the eye of some of the San Francisco and Los Angeles art critics and dealers coming into town for our much publicized women’s western art show.

“Roland’s putting this one in the window,” she said, her voice squeaking with excitement. She pointed to the photograph of me and the calves. Roland Bennett, a recent immigrant from San Francisco, had opened his gallery—Bennett’s Gallery of Western Art—two years ago. He claimed to be a distant relative of Buffalo Bill and loved wearing chamois-colored fringed jackets in honor of his flashy ancestor. Though I found him to be a bit pretentious and too Hollywood-kiss-kiss familiar with anyone he suspected of any social or economic importance, to his credit he had wholeheartedly supported women artists and was showing only women’s art in his gallery this month. I suspected his interest was more monetary than a deep concern for equal rights, but as Dove would say, when someone’s offering you free manure for your garden, don’t complain about the odor.

“That’s great,” I said. “I hope you sell some of these, even though the thought of me in my dirty jeans as a centerfold in a national magazine is not exactly my lifelong dream.”

“It would be nice to get a small pat on the head from the AMA,” she said, flopping down in one of my black vinyl visitor chairs. She referred to her family collectively as the American Medical Association and said the only artistic genes they possessed were the Ralph Laurens they wore on weekends. Her dark-lashed eyes skimmed over mine, then looked back down at the buckskin-covered photograph album she held, but not before I caught the glimpse of hurt. She only talked about her family in the lightest, most teasing terms, making jokes about what a source of mortification she was to her parents and brothers. Her unconcerned act didn’t fool me one bit, and my heart went out to her. When you’re twenty, whether you like it or not, your family’s opinions still form a big part of your self-image. But after getting to know her over the last couple of months, I guessed that she’d eventually discover who she was and learn to live with an acceptance of both herself and her family. For a split second, I didn’t envy Shelby’s flawless young complexion and was thankful to be halfway on the other side of thirty.

“They’ll come around,” I said. “In the meantime, you just follow your heart. You have real talent, Shelby. There’s not a person in the world who can look at your photographs and not know that.”

Her moist-eyed, grateful look was heartbreaking. “Somehow I feel like if I could get them in a magazine, maybe the AMA will take me seriously.”

I looked back down at her photograph of me leaning against a fence post after shoeing a horse. I was wearing my stained leather chaps and a thin white tank top and held a dripping bottle of Coca-Cola against my neck. In the dim background, Gabe stood half hidden in the barn’s shadows, watching me with an expression of desire that caused my neck to warm slightly from the intimacy. My neck warmed slightly from the intimacy she captured in that one second.

“Your work is always so surprising,” I said, quickly turning the photograph over.
“And
you’re a little sneak.”

An impish smile appeared. “In all my photos I like to have a little unexpected surprise for the viewer.” She placed the leather-covered photo album she held on my desk. “I made this for you. They’re copies of my best shots. I even made the album myself. Copied one I saw in a fancy pants western catalog. I’m not through with you yet, but I wanted to say thanks for letting me tag along for the last couple of months and for inviting me to the barbecue on Friday.”

I took the album and ran my fingers across the smooth leather. She’d painted my brand on the front and decorated the leather with bits of bone and feathers.

“Oh, Shelby, it’s beautiful,” I said. “I’ll treasure it always. Thank you. You know, you’re going to have a ball. My family’s a bunch of hams, so you’d better bring along lots of film.”

“Great! I can’t wait. I know I’ll get some good stuff.”

“We’ll do our best to look interesting,” I said, laughing. “We’re tagging, vaccinating, and castrating. Ought to be some intriguing situations there somewhere.” I looked at her curiously. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” I assumed she wasn’t flying home if she was going to be here on Friday. “You’re more than welcome to come on tomorrow, too. We’re cooking four twenty-pound turkeys.”

“Thanks, but Kip and I are splurging and spending the night at the San Celina Inn. Breakfast in a canopied bed and a fancy Thanksgiving dinner with someone else doing the dishes. Then we’re going up to the hills near Lake Santa Flora to take pictures of condors or whatever wildlife surfaces. I’m trying to teach him how to shoot something besides a gun.”

“You and Kip are still an item, huh?” Kip was one of my dad’s ranch hands, a young man from Montana who had worked for Daddy about six months now. His family owned a ranch north of Billings, but he’d grown tired of the cold weather and was hoping to buy a small spread in California eventually. According to Daddy, he was a young man of few words, but a darn hard worker. There was no higher praise from my dad.

“Front page and in color,” she said, gathering up the photographs in front of me. “He’s such a babe. And he thinks I’m smart. I can’t tell you how great it is not to be afraid that everything that comes out of my mouth is considered stupid and inane.”

I studied her for a moment, trying to imagine coming from a family where you didn’t feel like you fit. No one could blame her for picking a college as far away from them as possible in a place they wouldn’t even consider visiting.

“Gotta go,” she said, jumping up with the never-ending energy and exuberance of youth. “See you Friday. Should I bring anything?”

“Just your appetite.”

Five minutes later, I was still flipping through the album, admiring her craftsmanship and artistry while lamenting the unglamorous shots she caught of me when my door swung open again. This was the reason I rarely attempted paperwork in my office anymore. When I was here I felt a great deal like Lucy in the Peanuts comic strip sitting in her five-cent psychiatric booth with the sign stating ‘The Doctor is In.“ I stuck the album in my large bottom drawer and turned to my visitor.

“Hey, Madam Curator, how’re they hanging?” she asked. Greer Shannon, her fifty-four-year-old face a road map of sun-created wrinkles, grinned at me with strong ivory teeth. Her luxurious, pearl-white hair made me envy the other side of the age line for a moment. If I just had Shelby’s complexion and Greer’s hair ...

“They ain’t,” I said. “And I thank the Lord for that.”

“Amen and hallelujah.” She stuck her hands deep into her tight sapphire-blue Wranglers. A fancy silver and gold belt buckle winked under the bright florescent lights. “Did you see those pictures Shelby took of you? Gorgeous. I mean the scenery, of course. That little gal is a real, honest-to-goodness talent.”

“I agree.”

Greer sighed. “Oh, to be that young and on the cusp of a brilliant career.”

I pointed over at the chair Shelby just vacated. “Plant your old bones down and quit your belly-aching. You’re no slouch in the artistic area yourself.”

“These bones are tired,” she said, sitting down. “I painted until two A.M.”

Though she’d grown up on the Central Coast, Greer had only been a part of San Celina’s local art scene for the last three years. Her family, the Montoya-Shannons, were some of the old time settlers in San Celina. The family ranch, off Highway 46, was some of the richest and most accessible ranch and crop land in the county. At ten thousand acres, it was also one of the largest ranches. Like me, she’d spent her childhood on the ranch, leaving in her twenties to marry an oil executive in San Francisco. She lived in the city for the last thirty years where she’d taught and studied art, coming home three years ago after a messy divorce involving her husband and a nineteen-year-old file clerk. But Greer never spoke of her life in San Francisco, except in the most casual and general way. Though from one of what I call the “A” families in the ranching community, she never held airs like some others in that group and was well liked in the co-op. She pitched in without complaining whenever there was a cleanup day or someone needed a ride home or ten bucks for groceries.