Read Waltzing In Ragtime Online
Authors: Eileen Charbonneau
Waltzing In Ragtime (32 page)
The women helped her rise from the chair. “You have a good lie out on the hammock before dinner.”“But the pole beans —”
“Get!”
Olana closed her eyes the moment she put her head back on the roped swing. When she opened them, she saw Matthew, his spectacles down on his nose, snapping pole beans and rocking her with one bare foot caught in the open weave of the hammock. She saw somewhere in his determined concentration, a teenaged boy refusing to obey. She touched his face.
“You are a fine man.”
He frowned. “Tell that to the women when they see the mess we’ve made of these beans.” His daughter appeared, still and waiflike, from her place under his arm. Matthew grinned. “Bring these to your mana, will you, Flibbity-gibbet?”
He leaned over and kissed Olana full on the mouth, even with his daughter rolling her eyes as she sailed off, munching and leaving a trail of their handiwork.
He climbed into the hammock with her. His clever hands were soon dancing beautifully with the places that brought her delight. Why had she told him the child wasn’t his? Her increasing
size was saying it was. If the baby came, full term, in two months time, she would be sure. Then she’d tell him.
size was saying it was. If the baby came, full term, in two months time, she would be sure. Then she’d tell him.
Annie rang the dinner bell.
“We should —”
“Stay a little, ’Lana,” he urged. “I got to ask you something.”
“What?”
“I’m wondering if you’d like to get away a bit.”
“Away where?”
“Just outside the mission. They have a festival. I crate up the apricots, sell them. I’d like your company there for some … business of our own as well.”
“Business, Matthew?”
“Yes. On account of it’s a holy place, you know? Back before the Spanish friars set down on it. Maybe that’s why the friars chose it, you think?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. It’s me should understand how to do this better, ain’t like I never … nerves, I guess, darlin’.” His fingers danced along her side, as they had that first time he’d touched her, against the sequoia. “Got to figure it some more, you know? I ain’t done enough, gathered enough. Say you’ll come with me to the festival, ’Lana.”
She lifted the summer gold hair back from his face, as intrigued by his drawl and slip into backwoods grammar as she was by his invitation. “Of course I’ll come, my darling,” she agreed.
The apricot festival was huge and welcoming. Olana clung to Matthew’s arm as they stood among people with loud voices, speaking in half-English and half-Spanish, only a smaller fraction of which she could understand. He kept his arm around her, leaning down often to translate.
“They are happy for you, ’Lana.”
“Oh?” she heard her own voice. Thin. Frightened.
“They want to know how many.”
“How many what?”
“Months along you are.”
“Why?”
“Good fortune. Luck that you’ll bring to the festival for every month. They believe —”
“I don’t know!”
Matthew lifted her into his arms. “She needs to rest,” he explained softly. Everyone bowed and Friar Malcolm led them into the mission.
“Matthew, put me down. I’m much too heavy,” Olana protested.
“Hush,” he whispered, then set her on a couch of pillows in a cool, quiet room bathed in shade and adobe potted plants. The cowled monk handed him a basin, pitcher, and white cloth, and left. Matthew poured, took up the cloth, dipped it in the water, and touched it to Olana’s brow. He was so like the friars in his stillness, she realized.
“Matthew, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“The women warned me about keeping the spaces around you open.”
“Do you think that’s all it was?”
“Sure. You won’t tell on me, will you?”
She took a sip of cool water. “My silence might cost you.”
“Why, Miss Whittaker,” he planted a kiss on her shoulder, “Whatever do you mean?”
“I …” she tried, but couldn’t keep up the playful facade. “Oh, Matthew, the festival people, the holy men at the mission. If they knew what I really am. What a burden I’ve been to you and your —”
“Are you going to start that again? Listen, I think we’d best do something official.”
“Official?”
“Get married.”
“But —”
“Shit, I’m doing it all wrong again, ain’t I?”
“Matthew, I’m the one who did everything wrong.”
“You nap now, I’ll get to work on this. Meet you after you take your rest, after the feast. Promise?”
“All right.” She was too tired even to argue with him.
Matthew was so gracious and Olana tried to match him, raising her glass, admiring the fierce dance he did around the daughters of neighboring sheep ranchers. They snapped their wide skirts in an angry passion that he did not seem to notice beyond its sensuality’s enhancing the dance. Olana wanted to tell the women that she should not be the object of envy.
The evening’s waltz was not the Viennese one of her Christmas ball, but a soft, slow dance that was done close. As Matthew brought her to the floor, he lowered his lips to her ear. “Olana Sarah Whittaker, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good,” he said, his voice tinged with surprise, as if her answer would have been anything else.
As Matthew negotiated with the friars, wool for apricots, Olana sat waiting. She touched the back of her head. Her hair was still in place. It had just grown long enough to pin the back strands up, giving the illusion of length. Olana did not want any to see how her husband’s wrath had been visited on her on his last night of abuse.
Shifting the folds of the white gown his women had presented to her this evening, she felt a sudden need to show Annie and Vita that she might, someday, make Matthew happy. Their gift’s high waist and ample material made her feel unconstrained by her pregnancy, almost pretty. When Matthew returned, handing her the spray of succulent blooms, she felt what he called her, beautiful.
“Walk?”
“All right,” she answered, sure he would explain the canvas sack he slung over his back.
A clear three-quarter moon and stars blazed from the August sky. Matthew headed toward a grove of scrub pine guarding an outdoor travelers’ shrine beside the mission’s walls. “We can do it there,” he told her.
“Do what?”
“Get married.”
“Matthew!”
“I asked you proper, didn’t I, when we were dancing?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?”
“Mocking me.”
“What?”
“I want to go back.”
“Cold feet. Goddamn it.”
“Don’t you blaspheme at me, Matthew Hart!”
“I apologize. To you. To the lady in the sack. Now will you marry me?”
“Lady?”
“If you’ll —”
“Matthew, I’m already married.”
“I know that. That’s why we’re having the divorce first.”
“Divorce?”
“I’d rather make you a widow but the women made me promise not to go after him. Shit. You ain’t Catholic, or against divorce on principle, are you?”
“No.”
“Good. Come on.”
She tagged behind his long strides rather than display any more of her bewilderment.
There was a bench at the grotto, made of the same stone as the mission walls. Olana sat there and watched him unload the first of his treasures. It was a long gray-green bundle wrapped in red yarn. He buried one end in the ground and lit the other. It smelled of sage.
“The divorce will be a Cherokee one, if that’s all right with you, on account of it’s the only one I know. See how the smoke
goes straight up tonight? That’s a good sign. Now you’re going to be on your own here, Olana. You say who you are and who you’re divorcing. Into the smoke.”
goes straight up tonight? That’s a good sign. Now you’re going to be on your own here, Olana. You say who you are and who you’re divorcing. Into the smoke.”
“Into the smoke?”
“Yes.”
“Matthew —”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“So divorce him.”
Olana stood close to where the smoke ascended skyward. She felt a strength coming from the women’s gift, or maybe from inside it as she spoke. “I’m Olana Sarah Whittaker, and I divorce you, Darius Moore.”
A warm breeze swirled the gown about her legs. The sage smoke followed, then rose high, toward the stars. Olana threw back her head and laughed. “I did it!” she shouted. “Matthew, I did it!”
“Perfect. That was perfect, love,” he said quietly.
She felt curiously light as he rummaged through his canvas bag again. He drew out a mesquite wood carved Madonna, one with a belly still distended like Mrs. Amadeo’s from recent childbirth, and full breasts, one of which the infant Christ was latched onto like any mortal newborn. Matthew held it before her.
“This is
Nuestra Senora de la Leche y Buen Parto.
In English, Our Lady of The Good Delivery and Bountiful Milk,” he explained. “I figure she can be our witness.” He put the statue into the grotto’s niche, then lit blue votive candles on either side. The scent of beeswax mingled with the sage.
Nuestra Senora de la Leche y Buen Parto.
In English, Our Lady of The Good Delivery and Bountiful Milk,” he explained. “I figure she can be our witness.” He put the statue into the grotto’s niche, then lit blue votive candles on either side. The scent of beeswax mingled with the sage.
“Now for this, I’m going to try to remember, from when I married Lottie up north, before a preacher who was mostly sober, if that’s all right with you.”
“Matthew, aren’t we being … sacreligious?”
“No. Seal Woman, she was the Catholic kind of Christian, like the friars and the Amadeos and Farrell. I don’t suppose I’m any kind of anything, Olana, but that don’t make me disrespectful. Well, that wife and me, we married ourselves, on an island. After
she died, I brought Possum to the friars. To see about making her legal and baptized and all? Well, they told me that we did right under our circumstances. They told me a priest or minister doesn’t marry people, that people marry each other. That’s what we’ll be doing now. In our circumstances.”
she died, I brought Possum to the friars. To see about making her legal and baptized and all? Well, they told me that we did right under our circumstances. They told me a priest or minister doesn’t marry people, that people marry each other. That’s what we’ll be doing now. In our circumstances.”
“You’ve thought about this very carefully,” she said.
He took her hands. “Not at first. I need your forgiveness for that, Olana. For letting my own fears, my grief over the lost women fight my love for you. It’s cost us. It’s already cost us both something awful. But I mean to change, if you’ll have me. Will you have me?”
“Yes,” she said.
He brought her to her feet. “Well, then, I take you, Olana Whittaker, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, in good and bad times, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, and nothing except death can part me from you now. From this day forward. Oh, hold on, I already said that part, didn’t I?” Olana nodded, her face beaming. He shrugged. “I think that’s close to it, anyway.”
She repeated his words, without letting him know that he’d omitted the vow Darius Moore had never let her forget: obey.
Then he reached into his pocket and brought out a ring she’d admired on his grandmother’s finger. A simple gold band, studded with garnets. It fit.
“With this ring, I pledge you my fidelity,” he said softly.
Olana thought of all the gifts she’d tried to give him. Her father had purchased the parkland, she and Sidney had been ready to launch his photography career with expensive equipment. He had always been richer than any of them. And now, she had nothing. The child within her thumped against her ribs. “With this kiss, I do the same,” she answered, and raised her lips to his. They kissed as the last waltz began at the trading fair.
“There,” Matthew pronounced, his voice gruff.
“There,” she agreed, smiling at the tear flowing down his guileless face. She wiped it away with her thumb. “Stop that now,” she imitated his accent, “or you’ll get me going.”
They sat together on the stone bench for a long time. The wolves began their nightsongs from the distant hills.
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