Bravado's House of Blues Read Online Free PDF Page A

previous night’s concert. Heat from the strong summer sun washed into her, filling her hollow places with warmth. A smile played across her lips, brief and bittersweet. Martin had loved Beethoven, the bastard.
    And so had his gaunt and pinched wife.
    Perhaps today she’d find the inspiration that had eluded her since the frigid December afternoon she encountered Mrs. Martin Ellesby at the symphony.
    She’d fled Wellesley then, reeling from shock and deep shame. What else could she do? The scandal would devastate her family.
    In the end, her muse flew before the burning ridicule of her peers, ripping from her more than the sweet memories of Martin, of the innocence of her love, but also the joys of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Walt Whitman.
    Instead she found herself enfolded into the stoic propriety of her father’s house, affirming his long-held bias toward women and education.
    But here, with the long winter a painful but distant memory, she had no fear of meeting the knowing glances and judging stares of her mother’s inner circle. In Mexico she could lose herself in obscurity.
    A myriad of people flowed through the city. The Europeans and Americans were easy to spot in their drab clothing and pinched faces. The Mexicans, comfortable in their city, wore bright colors, celebrating life. The dark, weather-worn faces greeted her each morning with smiles as she purchased fresh-picked melon, halved and dripping, the juicy meat exposed to the world, or thick-crusted bread and gloriously rich goat cheese for her mid-day repast.
    A Spanish mission stood out amongst the mud-brick houses lined which the lane. Up ahead, growing against the startling blue sky, rose the new cathedral. She and her parents had been in Mexico City since May, and the cathedral’s slow transformation had transfixed her. Despite her best intentions, and well-laid plans, she inevitably found herself drawn toward the spire rising over the belly of the city.
    As she wound in and out of the streets, the growing spire winked in and out of view. Each time it came into view, a tightness crept into her belly. Only to subside again when the view became obscured by other, closer buildings.
    Shame had overwhelmed Agnes since the encounter with that horrible, shrieking Mrs. Ellesby. The hope that had been snuffed out inside her heart had given her something in return, a curse, it seemed, to seek answers. It drove her from sleep and haunted her waking pauses. Now the sight of that cathedral spire brought the feeling of expectation and dread.
    Today she’d started south of the cathedral, to visit a woman she had heard made beautiful wooden rosaries. She thought of her childhood in St. Ignatius’ school for girls in Connecticut. How the nuns had showed her the path to Jesus the Lord, through His Mother, Mary. She’d long since given up on the strictures and confinements of the Catholic church, but deep down, under the mousy brown hair, the glasses and the meekness, she felt the dread of the Christ.
    The anger and righteousness which threatened her, the judgment that would be meted out to her one day.
    She purchased a rather plain rosewood rosary with tiny veins of pink swimming through the creamy wood—each bead linked to its brother with a hand worked bit of silver. She slipped the rosary over her head, felt the heavy silver crucifix nestle between her breasts.
    The square in front of the cathedral bustled with a mid-day crowd larger than normal. The benches surrounding the fountains where she usually ate her lunch held gawkers and photographers, quite a few more than normally lunched here. The usually quiet murmur of the city had been replaced by a rising cacophony. Shouting erupted near the cathedral. Obviously something of note had drawn these people here.
    She craned her neck above the crowd as best she could, but nothing out of the ordinary struck her. A small, rotund local, poncho and sombrero brightly colored, pushed past her, his mandolin clutched in