We were in the kitchen while I was fixing dinner. It has been very cold so I was making a lamb stew to warm our cockles. Chelsea was sitting at the counter, her leg crossed, one bouncing slowly up and down like she does when she's impatient or nervous. Her scuffed up Merrill boots were still damp from walking home in the the snow.
"What do you think of Cielo Nuevo?' she asked, cocking her head quizzically.
"I had a good time there," I said, not really wanting to go into my many ambivalent feelings about the upscale "private" art community where Gloria gave me a luxurious day-at-the-spa treat for my birthday.
"I know you had a good time there with Gloria, Mom, You already said that," my daughter asserted in that you-are-so-hopelessly-pathetic tone only a tween can affect. "I want to know what you think of Cielo Nuevo!" Her leg stared to bounce up and down faster. Impatient child.
"Well," I sighed, "it is a very different kind of place."
"Would you want to live there?" Now she was looking at me with eager intensity.
"No, I definitely would not want to live there." No ambivalence there.
"Becca would rather live there," Chelsea, looking worried. "Becca says it's beautiful. Everything is clean and new and they have everything! Just everything you could want. A little movie theatre, tons of shops, and little bistros. She had a quail chanterelle quiche for lunch and started to laugh and roll her eyes when Wren and Carley and I didn't know what chantrelles are. Compared to there she thinks Katani Falls is like a third world country and that growing up here it was no wonder we didn't know that chanterelles were mushrooms. So why wouldn't you want us to live there?"
How would I answer that? I stopped stirring the stew and leaned against the stove. I could fell its warmth against my body. "For one thing, it's very expensive there. I don't know how I'd ever earn enough money to live there and still have a family life. Also it's a private community. Exclusive, as in excluding ordinary people. It's surrounded by walls. There are only two guarded gates in and out to keep out people who don't have permission to be there. It feels like a gilded prison to me."
Chelsea looked away, staring off at nothing in particular. I could see she was thinking, sorting out her feelings. I turned back to stir the stew and add the mushrooms - plain, ordinary white mushrooms.
"I don't think Becca is a happy person, Mom," she said after awhile. "The other day she was showing off all the things she bought on a shopping trip to Cielo Nuevo. She was wearing these grey suede UGGS, a special present from her dad, she said in this snotty tone. I thought the UGG's were pretty, but they already had mud stains on them. Really, who wears boots like those when the weather's like this, anyway?" Now Chelsea was rolling her eyes, but quickly shifted back to a concerned tone.
"Then Becca points to my boots and says, 'Everything here is dirty and old and scruddy.' Then she looks over at Wren who was sitting across the lunch table from us. "You folks only wear hackneyed standard brands - no style whatsoever - and even those are all worn out. Just look at you all in your cruddy faded sweatshirts and jeans!'
"Do you know that word, , Mom, hackneyed?" I nodded and started to explain, but Chelsea quickly added, "I looked it up. She meant dull and boring."
Chelsea looked down at the counter top. She was feeling self-conscious, I think, something I'd never seen in her before. I know, she's at an age when that's a common way for kids to to feel, but not so much here in Katani Falls. I hated seeing that look of unconditional self-doubt on her face. It was a feeling I'd known far too well for so much of my life.
"What do you think about our ways here?" I asked, wanting to see how deep this concern went.
"Well, I've never thought about it really. My boots are scuffed. So are yours. Your clothes are all old looking. Mine would be too if I didn't outgrow them every year, right? And we do get them a SaveOutdoors in the city. Everyone up here shops there. So we do all look pretty outdoorsy and, I guess, are pretty scruffy." She paused briefly before adding, "You always look pretty scruffy, Mom and your skin is dry and your hair is, well, ... " Her face clouded over in subtle frown verging on a pout as she looked up again, watching carefully to see how I would respond.
I'm sure she's right. I probably do look scruffy most of the time. I don't remember when I last bought any new clothes and there isn't anything stylish about me anymore. My hair? Well, it's shaggy. And my skin ... the day-spa glow had long vanished in our dry winter air. For just a moment I was tempted to feel defensive myself. I like the casual lifestyle here, I wanted to say. It's comfortable and functional. I keep myself up. I exercise, eat right. I think I look pretty good for a middle-aged woman ... But I quickly cut off that line of thought. This conversation wasn't about me, it was about Chelsea, so I just looked at her and smiled warmly. With that she continued.
"It just doesn't seem like how someone or something looks is all that important," she asserted, her voice firm and assureds, yet till slightly twinged with the remnants of the high pitch of childhood. "Isn't what we do an how well things hold up more important than how we look?"
"I think so," I said, feeling proud of my daughter for having incorporated so naturally the very values it had been so hard for me to adjust to when I was overcome with gratitude that we had moved here before Chelsea had to face the kind of image scrutiny snobbery Becca had obviously ready endured from growing up in LA.
"But, Mom, something's not right with Becca," Chelsea said after a moment's quiet. "Something is wrong in her family. She said it's always freezing in her house and they were trying to live like the dark ages. She thinks her dad wants to turn her Mom into a servant. Making her bake bread and grind grain, peel and cook all kinds of vegetable, and hang their laundry around the house to dry.
"Her mom's not well, you know," she added. "Becca says her dad makes her mom sick, slaving away, and that she's always unhappy and cries a lot."
An alarm went off in my stomach. My thoughts were racing. I could feel my pulse rate rising. What was going on? Was this just teenage exaggeration? Was Becca about to spill the Altos secrets? Had she said more? I was about to ask how the other girls at the table reacted to Becca's comments when Chelsea jumped back in.
"Nobody at the table knew what to say. Carley and I just looked at each other. Wren was slumped over, looking down and over to the side like maybe she didn't want anyone to see she was going to start crying or was going to flee from the lunch room. But then the bell rang and we all just go up and went to class."
I was sorting through possible ways to make sense of this scene. Chelsea was sitting hugging her heavy wool sweater tight around her. "It's cold in our house, too, Mom, but can't you just put on more clothes or go sit by the fire?"
I went over to the counter and gave her a snuggly hug. "Of course, darling. Of course. I'm sorry Becca is so unhappy and that her family seems to be having a hard time. Do you think we should do something for them? Maybe bake them a cake. Offer to help out. Maybe have them over for a movie night? " I admit my suggestions sound a little lame, but unsure just what is going on between Ian, Adriana and Becca, compassion seemed like the best response.
Chelsea jerked back and looked alarmed though. "No, no! I don't think we should bother them. Becca hasn't been back to school since then. Wren neither. I don't want to get them in trouble with Becca father!"
What is it with everyone being so afraid of Ian? I'd seen it in the eyes of my friends on Altos the night I visited there. I'd heart in it their voices. Well, I doubted Chelsea knew so I assured her that since I saw Rachel at the clinic everyday and I'd find out if they're OK without betraying any confidence."
"Yes, please, Mom, don't tell anyone," she said hugging me tight. "I'll call Wren tonight, see how she is. I hope she gets to come back to school again. It's sad her being way up there without any friends other than Becca."
Chelsea wandered off to call Wren and I went back to stirring the stew. Then it hit me in a flash. They know something. The people up on Altos. The people in Cielo Nuevo. They know something we don't, something frightening, something urgent, and they're preparing for it. Ian had used the word "collapse" the night of our meeting. It seemed an extreme choice of words to, but he'd said it as if it were a given one should take for granted. No one there seemed alarmed by it. Is there suddenly some sort of imminent collapse?
In that flash I felt sure of it was something like that and was more sure when Erik called yesterday to say they need to meet with me ... "Soon," he said, "soon." After last night I'm even more convinced. Ned came up from the city unexpectedly in the middle of the week to talk to Mark about "something legal." They were in the study with the door closed for a long time. When they came out, Ned asked me not to mention to Gloria about his being in Katani Falls. That he had to get right back to the law firm ... something about Cielo Nuevo, Mark told me later ... something he "wasn't at liberty to talk about."
(c) Sarah Anne Edwards (2009)
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