The next morning over breakfast, I tried to apologize.
“I’m sorry I flaked out on you,” I said. “It wasn’t until I was turning out the light that I realized it was only nine-thirty.”
“You needed to rest, Mira,” Domingo said. “I think these things take more out of you than you realize—or maybe than you admit. Perhaps you should take a day or two to rest. Go to Albuquerque and visit your friend Hannah, maybe.”
“Trying to get rid of me?” I teased. “Maybe so I won’t be here to smear buckets of paint down the sides of the House? Seems to me that I managed to set us back from whatever progress having the crew work Saturday might have managed.”
This morning, even with the quick clean-up the crew had done, it did look as if some gigantic bird had tried to shit down the side of Phineas House.
Domingo shook his head. “Never, Mira. If you wish to play pigeon on your own house, who am I to complain?”
“You’re sweet,” I said. “In all honesty, I want to kick myself around the block. Why shouldn’t you? But, Domingo, I don’t want to go anywhere. I have a sense of urgency. Maybe it’s the fact that the monsoons never came and now it looks like that little bit of rain we had was just a taunt.”
“Child of a rainless year? Mira, you aren’t responsible. The southwest always has periods of drought. Ask any archeologist. And it rained when you were a child. I know I’d remember if nine years passed without rain.”
“Still,” I said stubbornly. “It’s a feeling, and except for a few words from a ghost and Aunt May’s journals, feelings are about all I have to go on. I don’t want to leave.”
“Then don’t.” Domingo sipped his coffee, staring out over the roses. “Do you plan to look at those kaleidoscopes again?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
“May I be with you when you do? I think it would be a good idea if you had someone with you. I’ve been thinking about stories I’ve heard about crystal balls and magic mirrors. They aren’t always safe. The more I think about them, the basic teleidoscope reminds me of some sort of weird crystal ball.”
“You’ve watched too many horror movies,” I said, trying to be brave. “But, well, why not? Last night’s bull session really helped me put things together.”
“Maybe not in the right order,” Domingo agreed, “but certainly we made a pattern from what we had. It may not be all the right pattern. We may be missing a key piece, but still, there is something.”
“Then this evening shall we look at the kaleidoscopes?”
“This evening or sooner,” Domingo said. “You forget. Today is Sunday. No painting today.”
“I had forgotten,” I said. “That’s what not having a job does to you. Makes you lose track of the days of the week. What are you doing here? We don’t usually have coffee on weekends.”
Domingo grinned. “I saw you when you went to bed, Mira. I thought you might forget, and decided to take my chance.”
“For a free cup of coffee,” I pretended to grouse. Hoping he’d say more. He only smiled.
“Have it your way then. I wanted to see what kind of coffee spirit women make. Did they make this?”
I stared at the cup in my hand. “You know, I think they did! I was too tired to set up the coffee last night, and this morning I turned on the machine without thinking. This is a first.”
“They anticipate your needs,” Domingo said. “Or maybe they didn’t want you to break the carafe by turning the heat on under it while it was empty. You did say they were House proud.”
“I did.” I stared at my coffee cup, then decided to finish the contents. It was at least as good as what I made, probably better.
“I don’t think I’m quite ready to deal with the kaleidoscopes right now,” I admitted. “Why don’t we do something dull? Walk around the yard. You can tell me what you’re planning for the State Fair.”
“That might be a good idea,” Domingo said.
He cocked his head to one side, birdlike, listening. I listened too, and realized that I could hear cars on our quiet dead-end street.
“Your friend Chilton’s article is bringing visitors,” Domingo said. “It must be a slow day for news. Phineas House is featured in a little box on the front page, and then the full article is inside. We should put a sign on the gate, I think, or you will be running to the door all day.”
I lettered two polite notes, one in English, one in Spanish, on a couple pieces of poster board. They stated that this was indeed Phineas House, that it was a private house, and there were no tours. People were invited to take pictures from outside of the fence, and have a nice day. Domingo hung them on the fence.
This stopped most of the potential visitors, but it was amazing how many still came in and knocked at the door. Finally, Domingo chained the gate shut, and, as the fence was waist-high, that stopped the visitors. The flow tapered off by late afternoon. Domingo’s sister, Evelina called to say she’d seen the article, and wasn’t that exciting, and did her brother and I want to come over for dinner?
We did, leaving Blanco to protect the yard from intruders. Later, when we were on our way home, I turned to Domingo.
“I think I’m ready now. I think I can handle looking at the kaleidoscopes.”
“Bueno,
” he said, and his foot got heavy on the gas peddle. “I’m with you.”
We went upstairs to Colette’s room side by side on the front staircase where—just possibly—my grandfather had been pushed to his death by his own daughter, or worse, by a house his daughter controlled.
I tried hard not to think about this aspect of Phineas House. I was coming to love the place. In the months that had passed it was subtly becoming
mine
, not Colette’s, and I didn’t want to consider what the House might have done under my mother’s rule.
It’s a little like having a boyfriend you knew had a steady or ex-wife he was crazy about and wondering what he did with her. The whole situation just feels twisted.
I gave Domingo a sidelong look, remembering how I’d thought his relationship with the House was a little like a love affair.
So, great
, I thought
. You have a thing for a guy—admit it, Mira, you do—you have a thing for a guy who you think might have a thing for your house. You can’t help wondering, “Is he doing this because he’s my friend or because I’m Phineas House’s owner?” If he is flirting with me—and a couple of times I’ve been almost sure he was—then is he flirting with me because I’m me or because I’m a single, middle-aged woman who happens to own the House he’s crazy about, and if he hooks me, he’ll finally be a co-owner. Is New Mexico a community-property state? I bet it is. Well, before I sign any marriage certificate, I’ll want a pre-nup making sure Domingo can’t take Phineas House if we split.
I was unlocking the door to Colette’s room as these thoughts spilled through my head, and I wondered if she had ever had similar thoughts. In her time it was even harder for a woman to keep property—kids, she could have, but the valuable stuff, well, the courts seemed to figure a man was better at handling money and stocks and all that. Maybe that was why Colette had so many lovers. She wouldn’t let anyone get their hooks into her—into the House.
So who was my father, then? A one-night stand somewhere? Somehow, I just don’t think so. Colette was too calculating for that. If I’m sure of anything, I’m sure she knew precisely who my father was.
I walked across the room and started taking things out of the right-hand drawer where the kaleidoscopes were stored. Domingo reached to help me, and I snapped at him.
“I’ve got it.”
“Sorry,” he said, settling back in his chair.
“Sorry,” I echoed. “This is making me nervous. I should feel, I don’t know, foolish but excited, like a teenager trying out a Ouija board, but what I feel is tense.”
“The difference is, Mira,” Domingo said, “that the teenager doesn’t really believe in the Ouija board. She hopes it will do something, but she doesn’t really believe. If the arrows point to something that makes sense, then she gets more excited, because now she has a reason to continue with the game, not because she really believes.”
“You sound like you know. Was Evelina interested in the occult?”
Domingo grinned and spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. “I could have said ‘he’ as easily as ‘she.’ Boys as well as girls play with such things.”
“I never tried a Ouija board,” I said. “No one I knew had one, but my mother—that is my Aunt May—and I bought some Tarot cards and tried them. Aunt May was interested in the occult, and I loved the brightly colored pictures on the cards. I considered collecting them for a while, but then I realized just how many different decks there were and, well, that they were all run off on printing presses somewhere. I think for something to be really magical, it would need to be handmade.”
“Like these,” Domingo said, gesturing toward the rows of kaleidoscopes I had just revealed. “Each of these is handmade, each a little love affair between the artist and beauty.”
I looked at the kaleidoscopes, then at Domingo, wondering how I could ever have thought him a crude opportunist.
This house is full of ghosts, Mira,
I said to myself.
Maybe the lines between your thoughts and Colette’s long ago crossed as you stood on the threshold to her room.
I suppressed a shiver at the thought, and reached into the drawer, picking up the first kaleidoscope my hand fell upon. The dominant colors on this one’s casing were rose and crystal, accented by the silver solder used to hold the pieces of stained glass together. The object case was one of those external wheels you turn, this one a separate masterwork in stained glass. Cut crystals, teardrops of translucent glass in rose and pearl, and shards of glass had been delicately fitted together, the lines of solder spiderweb delicate, and spiderweb strong.
“I don’t think I’ve looked through this one,” I said. “I prefer the ones where the items in the object case are either loose or suspended in liquid These color wheels are nice, but too predictable after a while.”
“But the first time,” Domingo said practically, “and the second and the third, even, they are not predictable at all. Moreover, these are perhaps the loveliest of all kaleidoscopes when not in use.”
“Good point,” I agreed, lifting the kaleidoscope to my eye and peering through the eyepiece. “And this one is truly lovely.”
I spent a moment
ooh
ing and
ahh
ing at the varied images, handing the kaleidoscope to Domingo so he could share those I thought best. He in turn shifted the wheel and shared his favorites with me. I noticed he liked those where the darker pinks dominated, where I leaned toward lacework fantasies where the crystal fluted against the pinks and made the pinks—at least to my eye—more vivid by contrast.
“This is fun,” I said after a bit, “but what should I try next, do you think? Another kaleidoscope?”
“Stay with this one,” Domingo urged. “Relax and study. Talk to me as you did last night, if that will help. Otherwise, I will sit here and let you forget I am here.”
As if I could,
I thought, but aloud all I said was, “Sounds as good a plan as any I have, and better than most.”
I raised the kaleidoscope again, then lowered it immediately.
“Maybe we should take one of the teleidoscopes down to the Plaza and see if we see Paula Angel. Maybe the teleidoscopes would help me show her to you. I’ve been worrying you think I’m crazy.”
“It gets dark earlier now, Mira,” Domingo said practically. “By the time we made it to the Plaza, it would not be good kaleidoscope light—and anyone walking by would think us both crazy, staring through kaleidoscopes in the twilight. I think you’re nervous again. Would you rather wait until another day? Have me go home and let you rest.”
“No and no,” I said. “I don’t want to wait—if I do it’s going to hang over my head—and I don’t want you to go. You’re right. I’m nervous, but I’ll give it a shot.”
I raised the kaleidoscope again and focused very carefully. When I was comfortable, I started turning the color wheel at the end, small turns that changed the image by only the smallest amount. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I thought this was the best way to be sure I found it.
After one full rotation and then another I lowered the kaleidoscope and frowned at it, turning it front to back so I could study the stained-glass wheel at the end. Then, very carefully, I gave it a gentle shake, holding the barrel close to my ear.
“Something wrong, Mira?” Domingo asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “Or something right. I’ve spotted something that doesn’t fit.”
“Doesn’t fit?”
“A singularity in a world of multiplicity.” Domingo made an encouraging noise, so I went on. “What I mean is every image in a kaleidoscope is multiplied by the mirrors. Even near the center where it can look like there is a single image, what you’re seeing is several images overlapping so closely that they look like a single entity.”