The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid (28 page)

I opened the shop – all the merchants in Old Town open on Sunday
. Except the ones who’
ve gone out of business.

n="e=ze="+0" fAmong
my other
n
euros
e
s
, I am mildly paranoid. I think the media is hiding the truth from us. They keep saying the economy is recovering, adding little reservations like
‘slowly’ to make it seem more plausible. They report tha
t unemployment is inching down.

What they don’t mention is that
unemploymen
t statistics are based on the number of people registered at state employment offices as job seekers. When they give up and stop looking for work, they are no longer counted as unemployed. As Mark Twain said, “There are li
es
, damn li
e
s and statistics.”

The statistic in Old Town is that twenty shops have closed.
La Hacienda
, the competitor to La Placit
a
where Susannah works, has shut it
s
doors
after more than sixty years in business.
Remembering
the
many
times I’ve stood on the east side of the Plaza looking across the street and trying to choose between La Hacienda and La Placita
make
s
me
sad
.
An era has ended.

The Memories in Old Town Gallery is also going out of business
. It will now be merely a memory itself.

You can probably guess what I was wondering – will I be next?

But my evening with Sharice had me in such a
good mood that I decided to
throw a pot b
ased on the Rio Doloroso shard.
I propped
the shard
on a shelf in the workshop
and began forming a piece with the same height and
circumference. That was the easy part. The difficulty was duplicating the compound curve. It took so long I had to wet the clay a doze
n times before I was satisfied.

I had the door to the shop open
so
I could
see customer
s
. I
might as well have
left
it
shut.

I closed around six and
sat with
Geronimo
in the patio
. Being outside
always cheers me up as does being with
a dog. They live in the moment. They don’t worry about money or where their next meal will come from. Geronimo doesn’t understand
the word ‘
economics
’
.

He also doesn’t
understand ‘stay’ or ‘fetch’, but that’s another issue.

He does, however, understand the vet’s office, and he started moaning as we approached it the
next morning in Tristan’s car.

After I dragged him in – he seems to prefer being choked by his collar to being in the veterinarian’s office
–
the vet, Julie, examined him
. In
spite of his appearance
, she
pronounced him fit.

Fit for what? I thought. B
ut I kept silent because I didn’t want to question her professional judgment or
hurt Geronimo’s feelings.

Julie looked at me as if I were also a canine patient and said, “You’ve rece
ntly had a
sunburn. You wan
t me to give you something to speed your recovery?”

“You can prescribe for humans?”

“I have a non-prescrip
tion cream you can use. It eases i
tching
and
stinging and speeds healing by diminishing
moisture loss through the skin. It works just as well on humans as it does on dogs.”

“Dogs get sunburned?”

She rubbed Geronimo behind the ears. “Not guys like this with full coats of long fur, but shorthaired breeds like
Dalmatians
and
Greyhounds
are susceptible. Of course the best treatment is prevention. You should always wear a hat.”

“I know that. But mine disappeared.”

She laughed and looked at Geronimo. “I’ll bet you know where it is, don’t you
, boy
?”

Then she looked back at me. “If he has a place he likes to dig or an area in some bushes, you might want to look there for your hat. Even male dogs have a nesting instinct, and they like to take soft
personal
items into their nests.
It’s a show of affection
for their owners
.
”

“
I thought the phrase these days is ‘human companion’.”

“Dogs make good companions. I’m not sure humans deserve the term.”

T
hen
she
depress
ed
me by telli
ng me about an abused
Terrier
she
had
recently treated. I cover
ed
Geronimo’s ears so he would
n’t
have nightmares.

30

The
rule of thumb is that greenware should dry for two days.

But if your thumb is in high and dry Albuquerque, you can cut that in half. So the next afternoon I added the design to the pot. The pattern was beautiful in its simplicity.
Bands
of burnt
sienna around the base and
rim with a row of
trapezoids around the belt that may well have represented corn kernels.

After finishing the design,
I
headed
for Dos Hermanas.

“You smell weird.”

Susannah is the only person I
know
who can
be simultaneously blunt
and charming.

Now that I think about it, maybe the unselfconsciousness of her bluntness is part of her charm.

“It’s some cream
the vet gave me for my sunburn,
”
I explained.

“You go to a vet for sunburn?
”

“You know I’m broke. A vet is cheaper than an M.D.”

“That’s the most ridiculous—“

“Just kidding. I took Geronimo to the vet
. S
he noticed my sunburn and gave me the cream.”

“She mistook you for a Dalmatian or a Greyhound?”

“How did you know those breed
s
get sunburned?”

“I was a pre-vet major.”

She’s had
more majors than the Army
.

She dipped a chip into the salsa and asked me to tell her about my date with Sharice.
I was happy to do so.

“She lives in one of those pristine glass and steel condos downtown, all angles and hard surfaces.”

“I don’t get those places, Hubie. They seem so cold
. P
lus they don’t really fit with traditional New Mexico architecture.”

“I like
them
better than the fake New Mexico architecture of the cookie-cutter suburbs.
Sharice decorated hers to match the architecture,
simple and clean. I guess
it
reflects her
Canadian
persnicketiness
.”

“Huh?”

“The label of my hat says it was handcrafter with
Canadian
persnicketiness
.”

“The hat’s gone,
” she reminded me. “
I’m not sure what persnicki
ness
means,
”
she added.

“P
ersnicketiness
,” I corrected, but stumbled over the last three syllables. “
Hmm.
I
think your version of the word is better
.”
n>

“What was she wearing?”

“
A silver strapless
dress made of
crinkled chiffon
. It
probably
fit her so well
because it was hand-
tailored for her by
a
Chinese
dress
maker
.”

“
A
Chinese dress
maker?”

“Yeah
.
Wong, Wee, something like that.”

“Vera Wang?”

“That’s it. You know her, too?”

“I don’t know her and neither does Sharice. Vera Wang is
a big-name
haute couture
fashion designer
and a former ice skating champion.
I’m surprised you haven’t heard of her.
”

“Ice ska
t
ing is not a popula
r
desert activity
,
and I’m not in
to
haute couture
,
whatever that is. I assumed she was some local seamstress.”

Her shoulders sagged. “I’m not into
haute couture
either, but I know a lot about Ve
ra Wang because she’
s the leading designer for wedding dresses. I think my mom has her on speed dial just in case I meet the right man.
”

Maybe she thinks you already have, I thought to myself.