The Velvet Room (4 page)

Following Bridget’s instructions, Robin found a small bottle of a reddish liquid on a shelf just inside the cottage door. She held the bottle while the hummingbird drank from it. Hanging suspended in a tiny storm of wings, it dipped its stem-thin bill again and again into the sweet-smelling liquid. Watching it, Robin almost forgot to breathe. Finally it flew away to the apricot tree.

Robin was standing staring after it when Bridget’s voice broke the enchantment. “It’s almost noon, my dear. Perhaps you’d best go home soon. Won’t your mother be worried about you?”

“Oh, not much, They’re used to my disappearing.” Robin meant to sound careless and gay, but a guilty quaver crept in without warning. In answer to Bridget’s questioning look, she went on, “I’m always getting scolded for ‘wandering off.’ That’s what they call it.”

“Why do you do it?” Bridget asked.

Robin had been asked that question many times, and she always answered, “I don’t know,” quickly and stubbornly. But there was no anger or even disapproval in Bridget’s question. She sounded intrigued, as if “wandering off” was an interesting and original thing to do. It surprised Robin into really trying to answer, “I don’t…don’t…I’m not sure,” she stammered. “Everything seems to be so mixed up and strange sometimes, and I just have to get away.”

“I think I know just the feeling,” Bridget said. “But be that as it may, you’d better run along home now before they get too worried. Don’t you think so?”

“I guess so,” Robin said. “It’s been awfully nice meeting you. And Betty and Damon and Pythias and everybody.”

“It’s been nice meeting you too, my dear,” Bridget said. “And I hope you’ll drop by the next time you ‘wander off’ in this direction.”

It wasn’t until Robin was halfway home through the orchard that she remembered about the rip in her dress. She couldn’t recall whether she’d kept her arm over it all that time at Bridget’s. But it didn’t seem to matter very much.

W
HEN ROBIN CAME OUT OF THE ORCHARD
onto the dirt road of the Village, she met the girl with the black braids again. The Mexican girl was hanging up clothes on a line behind the last cabin in the row. When she saw Robin, she put down the pail and smiled.

“
Allo,” she said, “I’m Theresa. You wan of thee new keeds from cabin tree?” Robin nodded. “I see your two seesters, while ago. You got lots of seesters?” Theresa’s English was easily understood, but it rose and fell with a Latin lilt; the
rs
slurred and the
e’s
sang.

“No,” Robin said. “I just have those two sisters, and two brothers.”

Theresa examined Robin frankly. “You don’t look like your seesters,” she said.

“I look like my mother,” Robin said. “She’s dark like I am. The other kids look more like my dad.”

Theresa nodded. “Anyway, eet’s lucky for you, you got two seesters.” She smiled ruefully. “Me, I got seex lazee brothers.” She motioned to the long line of blue denim overalls she’d been hanging. “My brothers!” She nodded her head toward the closest pair, a rather small one with ragged knees. “Thees wan is Francisco, and Juan and Julio and thees leetle tiny wan is Lupe (he’s pretty cute) and Carlo, and,” she stopped and made a face, “that beeg sloppy wan on the end is Jose, my beegest brother.”

Robin laughed and curtsied to the line of overalls. “How do you do,” she said. “I’m Robin Williams.”

Theresa grinned approvingly, but then very suddenly her expression changed. “Where you been? You been gone a long time.”

“I went for a walk,” Robin said, “through the orchard.” It was true as far as it went, anyway.

“
You better be careful,” Theresa said ominously. She pointed toward the hills in the direction of the stone house. “You go for a walk over
that
way and maybe you never come back.”

“What do you mean?” Robin asked. “Why wouldn’t I come back? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Just then the screen door of Theresa’s cabin banged wide open and hung lopsidedly against the wall, trailing pieces of torn screening. A large dark woman appeared on the step.

“
Theresa,”
she called, “
ven aquí. Te necesito.’”
The woman was fat and her face looked tired, but her voice was low and musical.

“
Vengo, Mama,”
Theresa answered. But as she started for the house, she turned back to Robin. “I got to go now. But you better stay away from that old Palmeras House. Eet’s a bad place. And right behind eet there ees a lee tie house where the
bruja
leeves.” A fat dark-haired baby boy had started down the steps of the cabin, and Theresa swung him up in her arms as she went up the stairs. In the doorway she turned and waved.

A
bruja!
What on earth was she talking about? Well anyway, Robin decided, it would take more than a
bruja
to keep her away from Palmeras House, whatever a
bruja
might be.

When Robin got back to the Williamses’ cabin, Dad was just arriving from the opposite direction. He had walked over from the mule barns. He looked pale and tired, and he smelled of mules. The pallor of his face made the freckles stand out even more than usual. But he was feeling happy, because when he saw Robin he said, “Hi there, Big Enough,” and put his arm across her shoulders. They walked up the steps together.

The rest of the family was just finishing lunch, which was just as well since there were only four chairs. Robin poured some water from the teakettle into the washbasin. It was warm, so Rudy must have found a way to mend the stove. Together, Dad and Robin washed up for lunch.

The chipped enamel washbasin was dark blue with white speckles. It sat on a heavy wooden table against the wall. The table had received the splashes from so many dish washings and hand scrubbings that its surface was spongy and full of splinters. You could even pick up little pieces of wood fiber with your fingernails. On the wall, about two feet above the table, was a single brass spigot, going green with age. That one faucet was the only source of water in the cabin. But it could be worse. Many of the places the Williamses had stayed in the last three years had had no indoor water supply at all.

While Robin and her father ate their lunch, Mama and Theda started doing the dishes. Theda washed and made an awful clatter with the tin plates in the enamel basin. Rudy, followed by Cary, drifted out the back door, probably to poke around in the old motor parts someone had left in the back yard. Shirley had been put down for her nap in the other room.

Mama brought a stack of tin plates over to the table. She shuffled them from the top to the bottom of the stack as she dried.

The plates got several dryings each as Mama chatted about what she had done all morning and what she was going to do.

“You know, Paul,” she said, “I think we can fix this little house up so it won’t look so bad at all. Now that we can count on a steady salary, even if it is just fifty a month, we can put a little bit by for furniture and curtains and…”

“
Wait a minute, Helen,” Dad interrupted. “Don’t forget, Mr. McCurdy only said
maybe
it would be permanent. I have to prove I’m able to give satisfaction. Of course, I expect to if I can just keep from getting sick again, but…”

“I’m just sure you’re going to stay well here, Paul,” Mama said. “The climate’s so mild and all. Why I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few months you had a foreman’s job, and we’ll all be living in a nice little white house like that one of Mr. Criley’s.”

Robin sighed. It would be wonderful to believe in Mama’s prediction. But it had been a long time since she had counted on Mama’s plans coming true. She just couldn’t see how Mama could go on believing in them herself. When Robin was little, she had loved Mama’s stories about wonderful things that had happened or were going to happen. She couldn’t recall just when she’d begun to realize that Mama remembered only the best parts of things, and planned things that weren’t ever going to happen.

Nobody said anything for a few minutes, and then Mama went on. “Well anyway, Theda and I really gave this old place the scrubbing of its life this morning. Didn’t we, Theda?” Robin could see that the rough board floors were still waterlogged. “And then I helped Theda wash her hair and set it, and we did some unpacking…” At that point Mama broke off suddenly and frowned at Robin. “And Paul,” she interrupted herself, “you just have to talk to Robin about wandering off. She was gone again —all morning! And we certainly could have used her help.”

Dad sighed and looked at Robin. “Where did you find to go this time?” he asked.

“I just walked through the orchard up to the foothills,” Robin said, “and Dad, I met a woman who lives in a stone house that looks like something out of a fairy tale. She was awfully nice, and she showed me her family. At least she called them her family, but they were really a cat and a raccoon and a goat and a hummingbird. And Dad, she’s sort of crippled and she has to stake Betty — that’s the goat — out on the hills every day, and I said I’d come over and help her sometimes. Is that all right?”

Dad shook his head in helpless wonder. “I never should have asked,” he said. “Sometimes when I’m not so tired, we’ll go over that again and see if I can make heads or tails out of it. In the meantime you stay home and help your mother.” Dad’s voice sounded cross, but his eyes weren’t. Robin let her smile say that she knew he wasn’t really angry.

“Dad,” Theda broke in, “now that you have a job, couldn’t I have just a little money for curlers? I just have a few left. I never did find all of them that time Cary used them on that stray dog’s hair so he could sell it for a poodle.” She turned around to display the back of her head. Her lightish no-particular-color hair was done up on rags at the back of her head, instead of on the metal cylinders that clustered around her face. She put her arm around Dad’s neck and her cheek against his. “I’d only need about a quarter.”

“Oh, Theda!” Robin said. “That’s all you ever think about. Clothes and make-up and stuff. You’re always wanting something for yourself. Don’t be so selfish.”

Theda looked surprised, but Dad’s reaction surprised everyone. “Now that’s enough, Robin!” he said, and this time his eyes were cross too. “I’ve never worried about the things Theda wants. They’re not extravagant.
You’re
the one who worries me. You’re the real wanter in this family.”

For a moment Robin stared at her plate, feeling her cheeks getting hot. Then she got up quickly, leaving part of her beans and bread uneaten, and went into the other room. She threw herself down on the bed. Dad almost never scolded her, particularly not in front of Mama and Theda. And besides, it wasn’t fair. She never talked about wanting anything. What did he mean when he called her a wanter?

She lay on the bed for what seemed a long time, but no one came in to see what she was doing. From the other room she could hear Mama telling Dad what groceries to buy .when he rode into town with Mr. Criley. The only other sound was deep breathing from the corner of the room where Shirley was asleep on her old crib mattress on the floor.

After a while Robin began to feel less hurt and more curious. It was strange the way Dad always knew what she was thinking, almost before she knew herself. When she let herself really think about it, Robin had to admit that she knew what Dad meant. She just hadn’t thought of it that way before. But there were uncomfortable hollows, empty except for vague longings — like when you’re hungry, but not for anything you can have. And that was wanting, all right — wanting, wanting, wanting.

And Dad must have known about it. It was like that with Dad and Robin. Once, a long time ago, Robin had overheard a conversation between Dad and another man. The man had mentioned, as lots of people did, that all the Williams children looked a lot like their father. All, that is, except Robin, who obviously took after her mother. But Dad had said, “Yes, Robin escaped the towhead and freckles, but in many ways she’s the most like me of them all.”

That had been a long time ago, back in Fresno, before Dad had had pneumonia and had lost the house and his job. Robin had been pretty young when she overheard the conversation, but even then she had known just what Dad meant. The same things mattered to Dad and to her — important things, like books and music. But in the last few years that had all changed.

R
OBIN WANTED TO AS
k about going to Bridget’s again that evening after dinner, but she didn’t want the others to hear, and the little two-room cabin was just too full of Williamses. Besides, Dad was tired. When Robin asked him to go for a walk with her, he brushed her off with, “Some other time, Robin. I’m just too tired.”

So when bedtime came, Robin resolved to wake up early the next morning and walk part way to the mule barns with him. She could ask him on the way. As she climbed into bed, she tried setting an internal alarm clock by saying over and over again, “Wake up at six — wake up at six.” She’d tried it before, and it worked sometimes.