The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

her hand. “Do you know that you are repeating one of Cooper’s letters, practically word for word?”

“Cooper?” Dora said, surprised.

“That’s right. Complaining about Anna. When she painted, she didn’t care about anything else—not Cooper, not their friends, not the house, not anything.”

“That’s interesting.” She was embarrassed by her outburst and glad to share the problem with Cooper. “I thought this was an exclusively female dilemma I was having. I thought I was turning into one of those horrible women whining: ‘Honey, pay attention to me.’ ”

“Well, it usually is a female problem,” said Maggie; “and not a unique one either, so don’t be so hard on yourself. How many men do you know who wear fruit on their heads so their wives can paint? I don’t mean the ones who already have a good living and can afford to be magnanimous,” she added quickly. “But someone who’s working hard, scrimping, saving, making sacrifices for a woman’s art.”

Dora shook her head. She couldn’t think of anyone who fit Maggie’s description. And like Maggie, she could think of half a dozen of her girlfriends in that position.

“Now Anna,” said Maggie, in between munching on hot salsa and tortilla chips, “she lived a fairly privileged life. She grew up in a time and place where it was expected that a man would support her. Cooper had an inheritance, so it wasn’t a financial sacrifice for him—but he went to the mountains for the sake of Anna’s work, even when he’d have rather gone back to New York. He always took Anna seriously, as an artist of equal calibre. There weren’t many women of her time—or even of ours—who could say as much.”

“But his support wasn’t enough, was it? Look at what happened to Anna in the end. She was only my age when she killed herself.”

Maggie shook her head. “No, it wasn’t enough. Cooper couldn’t stand against the entire weight of her family, her culture, her religious upbringing. Or of all the critics,” she added drily, “who dismissed her work as derivative of any male painter within five hundred miles.”

“Well then, you’ve got to give old Cooper credit. He really believed in Anna.” Dora frowned again. “And I believe in Juan. It’s just… I don’t know. I’m just tired, I guess. I get tired of being a wife sometimes. I want someone to be a wife for me.”

“Don’t we all,” said Maggie with a rueful smile.

On stage, the music was starting up, amplified and cutting short any possibility of conversation. Dora didn’t know whether to feel sorry or grateful for the interruption. It might be helpful to talk to Maggie about Juan, and yet she was hesitant, and not only because Isabella, Angela and Pepe were sharing the small outdoor table. She hesitated to talk to Maggie because she didn’t quite know what the problem was, or even where her loyalties should lie; she only knew that something had happened out in the desert, the night that Cooper died. Since then, Juan had been a different man. And Dora was going to have to find out why.

She topped up her glass, emptying the pitcher, sending Pepe to the bar for another one. Dangblast it, girl, she scolded herself, you’re not supposed to be thinking about Juan. She lifted her glass as the music began, knowing she was well on her way to getting thoroughly soused tonight.

The band started out with a Celtic reel, electrified and bone-shaking. Angel, the drummer, was hot tonight, moving smoothly between a bodhran, a dubek, a water drum and a congo set. Fox was on accordion, a man from Bayou Brew on fiddle. The spikey-haired girl from Big Bad Wolf belted out rude Irish lyrics. They slid from one reel into another, the second as raucous as the first. Then the addition of a bass and a Reggae beat turned the reel into something rather different. One of the tall Jamaican men took over the vocals, backed up by the other. Dancers were spilling onto the dance floor, and Dora felt the music’s pull.

“Can I borrow your boyfriend, Angela?” she shouted over the bass. Angela smiled. Dora knew from past experience that she would not dance in a place like this, not even before the injury that had crippled her right leg. Fox’s sisters came for the music, and were content to sit and quietly listen. But Pepe was a different matter. Get a single beer into Pepe and the boy started howling at the moon.

She took Pepe’s hand and pulled him into the crowd. Then she lost herself for a good long while, existing only in the beat of the drum, the quicksilver fiddle, the throb of the bass. She was sweating when the set came to a stop, her face flushed hot and strands of hair escaping from her velvet hairband, but Pepe was not even breathing hard. He gave Dora a grin turned rakish by the eyepatch over one eye.

They returned to the table and she gulped down some beer, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. “Aren’t you going to dance?” she said to Maggie as she stood, panting, catching her breath.

“Might do,” Maggie said.

Dora took her by the arm. “Atta girl. Come on. You too, Pepe?”

Pepe shook his head, looking at the dance floor longingly, but hovering close to the sisters.

The next set had a salsa beat, with didjeridoo thrown in for good measure. Halfway through Maggie took off her black suit jacket and threw it back to the table. Underneath she wore a man’s sleeveless undershirt—cooler, and rather sexy, Dora thought. Then Dora closed her eyes again, and gave herself to the music.

They sat out the next set. Dora re-tied her damp hair back from her neck, then poured another beer. She put her head close to Maggie’s ear and said, “So what do you think of the band?”

Maggie gave Dora a thumbs-up sign. Her cheeks were flushed, her sleek European haircut tousled and spikey with sweat. Dora sat back and followed