Read Online "The Flamenco Academy" by Sarah Bird - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sarah Bird
Tags: Fiction, Coming of Age, love triangle, Women's Fiction, Literary Fiction, Spain, Dance, New Mexico, womens friendship, Jealousy, obsession, obsessive love, mother issues, albuquerque, flamenco, granada, university of new mexico, sevilla, erotic obsession, father issues, sarah bird, young adult heroines, friendship problems, balloon festival
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stretching her mouth into a big puppet
smile that made all the sisters beam at her.
Didi popped her eyes at me to show how
strange she thought it was to be told you’re not supposed to be sad
at a funeral.
After the service, there was a reception in
the fellowship hall next door. The HeartLanders walked into the
afternoon sunshine with shoulders thrown back and satisfied looks
on their faces as if they’d just cleared some pioneer land or
churned a batch of butter. Some of them seemed kind and acted like
they wanted to come over and say something to me. But I had shut
down behind a wall of sullen hostility and glared warnings at them
to keep their distance. They were happy to oblige since I was
clinging to Didi, and she represented everything in the modern
world they had arranged their lives around rejecting. For my
mother, basking in the consolation and condolences and blessings
that were being rained on her, the funeral was like a debutante
ball, like her coming-out as a true HeartLand sister. I wanted her
to be my mother so badly that I momentarily considered breaking
into the group clustered around her, but that would have been
pointless. My mother was enjoying being mothered herself too
much.
Didi drifted away and I followed her toward
the big showpiece of the Compound, the HeartLand Crafts Center. A
large display window was piled with quilts, baskets, decoupage,
pottery, beeswax candles, handmade brooms, and all manner of jams,
jellies, and pickled things. In another window were manly items
like handmade furniture and wrought-iron grilles. In the girl
window, I recognized a quilt top I had worked on. A really
intricate Double Wedding Ring pattern all in gorgeous,
supersaturated shades of periwinkle and lavender, violet and marine
blue, it had a $1,200 price tag on it.
“Wow,” Didi, who was also perusing some of
the price tags, said, “the brethren and sistern aren’t shy about
asking for the big bucks. What kind of a cut does your mom
get?”
“None that I know of. It’s all supposed to
go to support ‘The’ Work and ‘The’ HomeTown.” I made quote marks in
the air so Didi would know that they always capitalized the
words.
“What is ‘The’ HomeTown?”
“It’s their headquarters or something,
somewhere down in Georgia or Mississippi. One of the hookworm
states.”
Didi shook her head. “Wow, and they think
I’m weird. At least I’m not making a whole life out of pretending
I’m living in another century. What a bunch of freaks.”
“Nutcases,” I added, feeling a guilty
thrill.
“Lunatics.”
“Psychos.”
“Amish wannabe foot-sniffers.”
I started laughing. Not good laughing
either. Scary, gasping, hiccuping laughter that I couldn’t
stop.
Didi watched me for a few seconds, then put
her arm over my shoulder and gently led me to the ’Stang. I fell
into it, never more grateful for its refuge. I calmed down the
instant the door closed.
“This reception? It’s not going to work, is
it?”
I shook my head no.
A few of the sisters still outside the
fellowship hall stared as we pulled away.
We drove in silence over to Central, taking
the street past Old Town, then up Nine Mile Hill toward the West
Mesa. I watched the city shrink in the mirror on the visor until it
was little more than a short streak of green winding through the
high desert, the thinnest thread of life fed by the slender silver
artery of the Rio Grande. On either side of the fragile city,
desiccated plains waited to suck the life out of it. The Sandias
loomed above, ready to crush whatever might survive. I flipped the
visor back up.
We parked and hiked up toward the
petroglyphs. Didi led me to a sheltered spot. “This is my compound,
my church. This is where I came every day. After.”
After her father died.
We squatted on the ancient volcanic rocks
that marked the escarpment. Blue tail lizards skittered away
through the snakeweed with their sulphur-yellow flowers. A desert
millipede traced waves in the
smile that made all the sisters beam at her.
Didi popped her eyes at me to show how
strange she thought it was to be told you’re not supposed to be sad
at a funeral.
After the service, there was a reception in
the fellowship hall next door. The HeartLanders walked into the
afternoon sunshine with shoulders thrown back and satisfied looks
on their faces as if they’d just cleared some pioneer land or
churned a batch of butter. Some of them seemed kind and acted like
they wanted to come over and say something to me. But I had shut
down behind a wall of sullen hostility and glared warnings at them
to keep their distance. They were happy to oblige since I was
clinging to Didi, and she represented everything in the modern
world they had arranged their lives around rejecting. For my
mother, basking in the consolation and condolences and blessings
that were being rained on her, the funeral was like a debutante
ball, like her coming-out as a true HeartLand sister. I wanted her
to be my mother so badly that I momentarily considered breaking
into the group clustered around her, but that would have been
pointless. My mother was enjoying being mothered herself too
much.
Didi drifted away and I followed her toward
the big showpiece of the Compound, the HeartLand Crafts Center. A
large display window was piled with quilts, baskets, decoupage,
pottery, beeswax candles, handmade brooms, and all manner of jams,
jellies, and pickled things. In another window were manly items
like handmade furniture and wrought-iron grilles. In the girl
window, I recognized a quilt top I had worked on. A really
intricate Double Wedding Ring pattern all in gorgeous,
supersaturated shades of periwinkle and lavender, violet and marine
blue, it had a $1,200 price tag on it.
“Wow,” Didi, who was also perusing some of
the price tags, said, “the brethren and sistern aren’t shy about
asking for the big bucks. What kind of a cut does your mom
get?”
“None that I know of. It’s all supposed to
go to support ‘The’ Work and ‘The’ HomeTown.” I made quote marks in
the air so Didi would know that they always capitalized the
words.
“What is ‘The’ HomeTown?”
“It’s their headquarters or something,
somewhere down in Georgia or Mississippi. One of the hookworm
states.”
Didi shook her head. “Wow, and they think
I’m weird. At least I’m not making a whole life out of pretending
I’m living in another century. What a bunch of freaks.”
“Nutcases,” I added, feeling a guilty
thrill.
“Lunatics.”
“Psychos.”
“Amish wannabe foot-sniffers.”
I started laughing. Not good laughing
either. Scary, gasping, hiccuping laughter that I couldn’t
stop.
Didi watched me for a few seconds, then put
her arm over my shoulder and gently led me to the ’Stang. I fell
into it, never more grateful for its refuge. I calmed down the
instant the door closed.
“This reception? It’s not going to work, is
it?”
I shook my head no.
A few of the sisters still outside the
fellowship hall stared as we pulled away.
We drove in silence over to Central, taking
the street past Old Town, then up Nine Mile Hill toward the West
Mesa. I watched the city shrink in the mirror on the visor until it
was little more than a short streak of green winding through the
high desert, the thinnest thread of life fed by the slender silver
artery of the Rio Grande. On either side of the fragile city,
desiccated plains waited to suck the life out of it. The Sandias
loomed above, ready to crush whatever might survive. I flipped the
visor back up.
We parked and hiked up toward the
petroglyphs. Didi led me to a sheltered spot. “This is my compound,
my church. This is where I came every day. After.”
After her father died.
We squatted on the ancient volcanic rocks
that marked the escarpment. Blue tail lizards skittered away
through the snakeweed with their sulphur-yellow flowers. A desert
millipede traced waves in the
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