Flash Flood
Before they hiked down into the Copper Canyon, the guide talked about flash floods. Abby listened to his descriptions of walls of water rushing through the skinny canyons, the only warning a low roar echoing down the canyon walls, growing louder as it got closer like an eighteen-wheeler on the highway. Floods were rare though, and while Abby remained vigilant throughout their trip, on the last day they emerged from one of the canyons onto a wide plain at the bank of the Nayamur River. The danger was past.
At the river, water raging against swollen banks, the guide cautioned against swimming, but Abby, after facing the threat of flash floods without flinching, felt she could conquer water, fear, anything.
When she yelled for help—the current sucking her under and then spitting her back to the top, washing her fifty yards down the bank, half the group running after her—Manuelo pulled her from the river. That night around the fire, after she’d coughed up more water than he thought could fit in a person’s lungs, Manuelo sat and listened to her talk about a white tunnel of light and her life flashing before her eyes—clichés, yes, she said, but true. Manuelo was credited with saving her from drowning and in his own short life, this was a pretty big accomplishment. He felt proud, but also uncomfortable with the details about the light, the fact that she said she had died and then he’d brought her back. In Albuquerque the next week, he was determined not to bring it up, but after a beer or two downtown, it was all he could talk about.
His mother Ayla heard the story, and in the studio she’d set up in Manuelo’s old bedroom when it was clear he would no longer live at home, she started on a new series of paintings. While she wanted to paint what she imagined the girl saw when she was about to die, about the objects a person might think of—an aging childhood swing set, a mother’s hand on the oven door warning, hot, a little black dog curled up on a floor mat—Ayla couldn’t paint them. Instead, she painted colorful abstractions of these images, a purple dog-like shape in the corner of a color-filled canvas, a series of faint, gray lines that could resemble a swing set, but not necessarily. Ayla used a long, slow process of layering washes, one color over the next that created a depth she’d never achieved before in her work.
Ayla called a few connections from her old art teacher to place the series of paintings in a small gallery on Canyon Road. Wanda, who lived behind the gallery, took an interest in the series. She came in almost every morning—her bulldog’s nylon leash in one hand and a half-full cup of coffee in the other—and examined the paintings, especially one that seemed divided into two overlapping worlds: one in which a girl floated in a river and the other, an abstract blend of purples and reds in great billowing shapes. It was called “Liminal Water.” The painting reminded her of a dream she had about childbirth a few years ago as she was beginning to experience the first hot flashes of menopause. Childbirth was something she’d never experienced firsthand, and the dream had left her wondering for weeks if she’d made a mistake with those two abortions in the 80s.
Her husband would be displeased if she bought another painting—their walls were already full and Wanda had a stack of Brazilian art in one of the spare bedrooms—but after a few weeks of visiting the painting, she bought it one morning with a crumpled check she pulled from the pocket of her jacket, placed there just in case. When it was delivered from the gallery later that day, Wanda propped the painting on the sofa, opened a bottle of Pinot Noir and sat with it. Before her husband arrived home, she slid it between two Brazilian paintings in the spare room.
At Wanda’s next party, a few co-workers came from Casa de la Luz where Wanda had recently started volunteering. Justine, the nine-to-five front desk girl, sat on the living room sofa drinking gin and tonics as fast as she could make them. At one point, she had three lined up neatly on the table next to her. People at the party were loud and animated—a characteristic that Wanda’s parties, in certain circles, were known for—and it was overwhelming for Justine, who felt too young and unsophisticated for the party.
There was a lot of talk about the painting that hung on the wall behind the sofa, a mishmash of colors and shapes that Justine was sure a six-year-old could reproduce, and then everyone circled around one woman who turned out to be the painter. When Wanda started telling a story about hiking in Mexico, Justine scooped up two gin and tonics, leaving behind a collection of empty glasses, and moved toward the courtyard. There were a few people outside and Justine sat down on the steps and lit a cigarette, taking alternate sips out of her two glasses.
Something about Santa Fe made her feel reckless and act differently: sitting alone at a party where she felt she did not quite belong was nothing to be ashamed of—it was only a great opportunity to get drunk and maybe say something inappropriate. She would love to be known as the girl who says inappropriate things. She heard someone—Wanda, the artist?—inside telling a story: it was about a girl who’d gone for a swim in a river, the water high, fast, the bank too wide. Justine liked the story until it turned out that the girl had been saved and had spouted all kinds of mystical things about almost dying. Justine thought that was such bullshit and she thought, for just a minute, about going inside and saying so.
