NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
The Trips have invited me again to enjoy their hospitality and a tour of the new house. Being an informal neighborly visit I ignore the grand entrance on Wicket Street and as usual Mrs. Gomez lets me in through the gray painted service door by the garages. Walking up the driveway towards the massive stone blocks facing Oval Street, I feel I am about to enter a castle keep, but there is neither portcullis nor guards with pikes.
Inside two miniature silver porpoises leap from a small golden wave in the sconce over the mirror. Mrs. Gomez greets me in dim yellow light from the small bulbs in their mouths. “Ahhhhhh, Mr. Fred, yes ooooh! good morning Mr. Fred”. She sings her words at a cheery high pitch, drawing out the sound and getting a little higher with each successive word of her aria ending with an “oooooooooooh” that falls in pitch with the last of her breath. She invites me in with growing maternal warmth and closes the door after me. We walk down a long narrow corridor with proposes lighting the way at intervals. Mrs. Gomez’s hard sole slippers slap on terracotta floor tiles in time to her slow and careful tread. She reaches for the dorsal fin of a metallic goldfish which turns off the light at the enterance. Her thick black hair is graying, cut short above a round face and a wide mouth. Her round eyes seem tired and care-worn yet they sparkle under heavy lids when she looks up at me to speak.
Mrs. Gomez opens the door at the far end onto a wide landing. She beckons me to step past her into blinding daylight and leaves me alone, closing the door behind her with a quiet scrape as the bottom brushes along the thick pile carpet. I am on the grand staircase that curves up the back wall of the great room over the formal entrance. The wall around me is painted with roses and Clematis perpetually climbing their trellis and blooming in trompe l’oeil. Together they conceal the closed door to the narrow hall with shades of green pink yellow and purple shadows behind brilliant petals and all without bees or flies or any blemish. Only a swing of the door occasionally breaks the stillness.
From the rail on the landing I can look into the massive cylindrical aquarium on my right where sea horses rock, like animated chess men, near broad leaf weeds agitated by a column of tiny silver bubbles growing bigger as they rise. Beyond the tall windows, hollies break the line of Derwent Sloot’s roof. Its overhang shades his living room like a glowering brow. Gale’s voice rises from somewhere below. “Juanita, was that Mr. Fred?” I can’t hear any response, but Gale soon comes into view, and invites me down to the upper part of the great room. The floor descends from there toward the deck outside in three wide curving terraces like a small concert hall. The upper level is lined with bookshelves across the back wall. Sports trophies are interspersed with books and framed photos. Blues, reds, and creams glow in the pile of Afghan war rugs covering the bottom level. Each level is arranged with white leather couches, and deep armchairs with marble and glass side tables.
We move along the upper level past the aquarium column and into the kitchen painted in tones of lavender. Mrs. Gomez has her back to us. She pours coffee at the island counter top, which is too high for her to work at comfortably without the convenient dark wooden step carved in the shape of an alligator. She has changed into a lavender sweat suit with yellow and white piping and a heavy enamel Snaz logo hangs from the zip like a jewel. “Oh la” she sings acknowledging our entrance into the kitchen. We sit down at a glass table in the bay window looking out toward the gazebo. She brings us coffees in white porcelain cups and saucers with the golden Glitz logo printed on the side. She leaves a faint lavender scent in the air after ambling away with a slight limp I hadn’t noticed before.
“Juanita, Juanita, Juanita,” sighs Gale. “I keep telling her she should retire, but she won’t. I know that leg hurts too, we’ve had her examined at the clinic.”
“You’ve had her examined?”
“Sure we take good care of our Juanita.”
The swirling eddies settle in my coffee after it is poured, and the aroma strengthens as all hint of Juanita’s lavender is gone.
“She has a brother up in Troy NY but she doesn’t want to move up there because it’s too cold.”
“What about Mr. Gomez?’
“Hector was killed by leftists when we threw out Allende.”
“How horrible. In the wrong place at the wrong time I suppose.”
“Yeah, he was working for us.”
“Oh, were you living in Santiago?”
“No I mean working for the U.S. against the commies. It’s a long story but they ended up bringing Juanita home, you know … I mean she was left with nothing.”
“Who brought her home?”
“Oh the Macadamias. They had a very nice place down there, and a vineyard too.”
“So Juanita started with the Macadamias. What made her leave?”
“You know how it is with them.”
“With whom?”
“Hispanics”
“How is it with Hispanics?”
“I mean they flood in for jobs. It is becoming a big problem.”
“Yes working here without documentation has been dangerous since 9/11.”
“Oh they don’t care. You know, they’re happy go lucky people.”
“I understand it is pretty grim in the detention centers.”
“Well they have broken the law.”
“Isn’t that rather a technicality these days?’
“No the problem is they are taking American jobs, not paying taxes and using our schools and everything for free. Jake used to talk about ‘wetbacks’ and all that but we do have to watch our language now.”
“Yes it pays to be more respectful.”
“You know she could go down to our place in Beaufort and take it easy. It’s warm down in North Carolina and we don’t have time to go there much these days. All she’d have to do is be caretaker.”
“Sounds like a generous offer.”
“She won’t go. Juanita prefers it here. I don’t know why … but we’re all glad because she’s such a part of the family, and so cheerful.”
“Didn’t she work for the Nightingales at one point?”
“Yeah, Juanita was on sort of long term loan I guess. I don’t know. She says she just about raised Boyd by herself.”
“Yes, he had two very busy parents.”
“Yeah, Lark is an out and out radical, kind of anarchist or something and Juanita says Harper was never around much.”
“Have you ever met Lark?”
“No, I don’t even know what she looks like.” The phone on the wall rings and Gail gets up to answer. “Professor who? … Tinderbrush, are you sure you got that right Juanita … I guess so …. what does he want? Okay Juanita you know where we are.”
Tinerbrush strolls into the kitchen stepping in front of Juanita to introduce himself. His trench coat is open, a back-pack hangs off one shoulder and he holds his brief case in both hands. “Hi Gail, I have just got off the plane from Ontario. Is Jake around?”
“No, Jake is away until tomorrow.”
