by Sarah Ellis
“But does it go with a tie-dyed Laura Ashley dress? It does not.”
“I think it goes.”
“Joan Baez. Straight hair. Judy Collins. Straight hair. I rest my case.”
“Bob Dylan has curly hair.”
“Oh, good grief. Bob Dylan also has a beard.”
Charlotte turned the iron to the lowest setting and took a deep breath. Dawn laid her head on the board and Charlotte pulled out a corkscrew curl and pressed it straight. It was very satisfying.
“It kind of smells like an animal. Come to think of it, I guess it is an animal.”
The front door opened and closed and Mr. Novak stuck his head into the room. Charlotte didn’t understand what Mr. Novak did for work but it involved night shifts.
“What is this about?”
“Canadian thing,” said Dawn from underneath her curtain-straight hair. Over the years Charlotte had noticed that Dawn used “It’s Canadian” as a reason to get away with a lot. It was the opposite of “old country.”
It was nearly time to leave. Charlotte checked her bag, James’s old backpack. Blanket, brush, cookies, hat, Coke and the chocolate Easter chicken that had appeared on the end of her bed that morning.
“Cevapcici?” said Mrs. Novak holding out a Tupperware container.
“Mo–om!” Dawn’s voice sounded suspiciously un-Unteen. “Nobody takes meatballs to a be-in.”
Charlotte took one last look in the mirror. “Are sandals really the right thing? It might be wet.”
“Nothing else really works with this look. We can put up with wet feet.”
The falling mist started as the Novak car pulled out of the parking garage.
“Oh, heck. Look. My hair is just curling right back up. I am going to look like Bob Dylan.”
“Well, minus the beard.”
By the time they reached Second Beach the mist had gained confidence and Mr. Novak had turned on the windshield wipers. Blur. View. Blur. View.
The big open field between the road and the ocean was ringed with trees.
A band was standing on the back of a truck — the kind of truck that went in parades. There was a huge crowd. The sound carried across the field, through the trees, up the slope and into the closed car.
Dawn rolled down her window. “This is fine. We can just get out here.”
“Yes, stop here,” said Mrs. Novak. “Don’t shame the girls.”
Dawn exhaled loudly and Charlotte gave her a grin. The only thing more embarrassing than being dropped off at the be-in by your parents was one of your parents figuring out that you were embarrassed.
Mr. Novak pulled over. A couple of boys with long flowing hair slid by the car carrying boards covered in earrings.
“What is this about?” asked Mr. Novak. “Scruffing boys with jewelry?”
“Scruffy,” said Dawn, “And it’s not about anything. It’s just beads.”
“Pretty,” said Mrs. Novak. “Hippie fashion.”
“Don’t say hippie,” said Dawn.
“Wrong word?”
“No, it’s the right word but … it’s corny.”
“Corny?”
Dawn pushed open the back door of the car. “We’re going.”
“Umbrella?” said Mrs. Novak.
“Nobody goes to the be-in with an umbrella,” said Dawn. “We’ll find a tree or something.”
“Five o’clock,” said Mr. Novak. “Right here. Remember. No psychedelics.”
The big blue Plymouth pulled away slowly. Mrs. Novak waved. Charlotte had the odd impression that she was sorry to leave.
Dawn rolled her eyes. “How can he know the word psychedelic when he doesn’t even know the word scruffy?”
They stood at the top of a little rise by the side of the road. There were blankets and tarps, colors muted by the fine rain. The edges of the field were slick with grass but the main part was sticky with mud.
Charlotte remembered a preschool visit to a farm. She had expected a life-sized version of her play farm, all neat fences and plump animals. Instead it was dirty and smelly, the fields all churned up with mud from cows’ hoofs. The funny thing was, when the class got back to preschool they all painted pictures of the farm but nobody painted mud. Everybody painted the play farm.
There was a loud electric squawk from the stage.
Dawn raised her eyebrows. “Let’s go.”
If she could have, Charlotte would have bailed. She hitched her pack more securely on her back and took a deep breath.
Only six hours to go. Only six hours to Be.
They picked their way down the slope, trying not to slip on the wet grass, holding the tie-dye skirts out of the mud. Three boys with Beatles hair were on the stage. Their band had guitars and some horns, a golden drum set and huge amplifiers covered in plastic. The sound rolled across the field.
Charlotte didn’t recognize the song. In fact, it didn’t really seem like a song at all. More like the noise of a storm. She wondered what the seagulls thought. They were used to being the loudest things around but they could not compete.
People sat on blankets and tarps on the ground, and around the edges people danced. Charlotte spied a patch of grass at the edge of the crowd. It wasn’t too muddy. “Let’s stop here.”
“This is way too far away,” said Dawn. “We’ll hardly hear the band.”
Charlotte thought they could probably have heard the band clear across English Bay, but she was trying to be as brave as Dawn so she followed her right into the middle of the dancing, singing, smoking, drinking, bubble-blowing, kite-flying, laughing crowd.
A girl who looked like Juliet in velvet and lace, except for the hiking boots, motioned to her.
“Come sit.”
Charlotte glanced at Dawn who gave a little nod.
Charlotte took out the blanket and they put it down on the edge of Juliet’s tarp.
“Thank you,” said Dawn. “Great spot.”
Juliet reached into a large tapestry bag (so much prettier than James’s khaki backpack) and brought out two apples. She held them out, one balanced on each upturned palm.
“Fruit,” she said. “A gift.”
She had weird eyes, starey, like doll eyes.
“Um, thanks,” said Charlotte. Did Juliet think that they didn’t know that apples were fruit? She couldn’t look at Dawn.
Dawn was being nicer. “Fruit. Yeah. Cool.”
Juliet then floated up and dissolved away into the crowd.
Charlotte pointed at the apple. “Fruit,” she said in a deep important voice.
“Don’t be like that,” said Dawn.
“What like that?”
“You know. Superior.”
“Come on, Dawn, she’s a nutbar.”
“Look. We’re at a be-in, right? We’re just supposed to be. You’re always judging.”
Judging? Always? A nutbar was a nutbar. Where was this coming from? The distance between them on the blanket suddenly seemed like a city block. Charlotte pulled her feet in and hugged her knees. When Dawn got in this mood there was no discussing it. She would maintain her position to the death. To save the day somebody needed to patch over the crack. And it wasn’t going to be Dawn doing the patching.
“You’re right. She was nice with the apples. Seeing as how we brought nothing but junk to eat.”
Dawn accepted the patch. “Yeah. We could have had meatballs, of course.”
The rain let up and Charlotte leaned back against her elbows and watched the passing parade.
Dawn had said that it was all about the clothes, but really it seemed to be all about hair. Who knew there were so many kinds? Long, every variety of curly, straight, wild, fluffy, braided, greasy, pulled back (boys in ponytails!), piled up, swirling around as everyone danced. And all the colors. Charlotte thought of horses. Bay
, roan, chestnut, palomino, tortoiseshell.
Tortoiseshell? No. That was cats. Or, come to think of it, tortoises.
Dawn was obviously also thinking about hair. “Look at all the beards.”
“Isn’t it weird how some match head-hair and some don’t? It must be fun to grow a beard or a moustache. Just to see.”
“I wouldn’t have one of those big lumberjack ones, though. Things could nest in there. Yuck. I’d have a neat one.”
An especially long weedy beard walked by.
“How long can they grow if they never cut them?”
“Maybe as long as head hair?”
“It’s like you can turn your face into a work of art.”
“Nice for guys, cause otherwise they don’t get to be fancy much.”
A new band jumped on the stage truck and their rhythms were dancier. Charlotte was just about to suggest to Dawn that they join the crowd of jumping, jiggling, waving dancers when a boy (man?) grabbed her hand, and then Dawn’s.
“Come on!”
His hand was sand-papery and callused like Uncle Claude’s, but not very clean. Charlotte peered around him at Dawn who raised her eyebrows and grinned. The guy had long ginger-colored hair and a ginger beard just one shade darker. He was wearing burnt-orange-colored pants and shirt. Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me. I’m the gingerbread man.
It was crazy-wild dancing. Charlotte thought of school dances in the gym. One of the horrible things was that you’d be standing talking to a friend and some boy would come over and ask one of you to dance. It was just as awful if you were the asked or the not-asked. If you were the not-asked you’d feel left out but it was actually worse if you were the asked because then you’d feel like you were abandoning your friend. It was one of the many dilemmas that had driven Charlotte to her Unteen position.
But here it was totally different. Gingerbread Boy just held out two hands and asked both Charlotte and Dawn.
It was completely unlike a school dance. There were no partners. Someone would meet your eye and you would dance with them for a second or a minute, or you would just dance by yourself. Gingerbread Boy was folded into the crowd almost immediately and Charlotte soon lost track of Dawn. It didn’t matter. The booming music came in through her pores and it was like the dance was a random but beautiful pattern they were all making up together — a pattern without rules.
When the song ended with a loud squawk, Charlotte looked down and the entire hem of her skirt was muddy. Her sandals and feet were slick with dirt. As she headed back to the blanket her feet started to slip around in her sandals so she took them off and went barefoot. Barefoot in mud, her feet felt like they were four years old.
When she got back to the blanket there was no sign of Dawn. But Juliet was there. She was dancing to the music while sitting down, flipping her hair back and forth and smiling a faraway smile. Charlotte reminded herself not to be judgy and actually, sitting with her was very comfortable, like sitting with a dog, no conversation required. Every so often Juliet would comment.
“Wow.”
“Far out.”
“It blows your mind.”
Charlotte noticed some police on horseback standing at the edge of the field. She and Dawn had often visited the police stables at the entrance to the park. She knew some of the horses by name.
“Hey, wanna go see the horses?”
Juliet scowled. “But, those are the cops!”
“And …”
“The fuzz. Look at them. They’re here to shut down the be-in. Pigs.”
“They’re not that kind of police.”
Charlotte had seen the TV news where bad police beat up protestors and all that. But that wasn’t here.
“Hmph,” said Juliet, and she went back to dancing with her hair.
Charlotte looked out over the bobbing heads, through music that was so loud that you could almost see it, to the gray beach and the grayer ocean beyond.
Hippies! They had figured out how to be the ultimate Unteens. They weren’t kids. They were adult in size and they were smoking and making out. (Seriously! It seemed rude to look but really, she’d never seen kissing like that in public. Well, not in private either, come to think of it.) But they were also just playing, doing goofy dances, laughing, wearing costumes, getting muddy, blowing bubbles, not worrying about manners and being on time.
Like children. Flower children.
Maybe there was a way to be that wasn’t either kid or adult but a different thing altogether. A third choice that wasn’t teen.
Charlotte didn’t really want to be a hippie. Already her dirty feet were getting itchy and she wanted to be able to pet the police horses.
But the third-choice idea. It was a new thought and it was like ginger ale for the brain. It made her feel like she could fly or do a perfect front flip or walk on her hands.
At that moment Dawn came back. She was with a boy who was just about as opposite from the be-in as you could imagine, a kind of anti-matter of hippie. He had very short tidy hair shaved up the sides of his head, and he was dressed in crisp jeans and a white T-shirt. He was so clean that he seemed to have a little halo around him.
How was he staying so clean?
The second he arrived at the blanket, the sun peeped out.
“This is Tom Ed,” said Dawn. “He’s from Texas. He’s a draft dodger.”
Later, when Charlotte saw those T-shirts that declared Today is the first day of the rest of your life, she thought of that moment.
The damp blanket, her muddy toes, the music in her pores, the hippie-sweet air and the tall, bright-faced Texan.
Five
“You can come stay at our house.”
Tom Ed had been describing where he was “crashing,” and the invitation just popped out of Charlotte’s mouth.
Tom Ed gave a slow smile. “How will your folks feel about that?”
Folks. That would be parents. Charlotte was doing translation. She was used to accents from New Canadian kids at school but she’d never heard Texan before. It was sort of slow and wide. Relaxing.
“It’ll be fine. We’ve always got people staying.”
“Yeah,” said Dawn. “They’ve got Uncle Claude who’s there half the time and there was Lena from up north taking that nursing course and those little kids.”
“Frankie and Susie. Their parents were having a divorce. And that Czech refugee guy whose mean landlord beat him up. But we’ve never had a draft dodger. There’s lots of talk about draft dodgers at Meeting.”
“Meeting?” said Tom Ed.
“Quaker Meeting. We’re Quakers.”
“Ah!” said Tom Ed. “I know about Quakers. Never met any, though, till this moment.”
Tom Ed had a way of listening that was extra alert, listening with psychedelic ears, angling his head like a budgie.
Charlotte thought about the boys she knew — at school, at Meeting, James and his friends. Canadian boys didn’t do that budgie thing. They kept their heads screwed on tight to their necks.
The conversation meandered all over the place. Dawn talked about a dream she had where her bicycle melted. Juliet, whose name was actually Janice, began to talk in full sentences about her aquarium and her allergy to pineapple and how e. e. cummings was her favorite poet.
Tom Ed told them the basics. He was nineteen, from a town called Levelland, and had two brothers and one sister. But mostly he asked questions.
“What astrological sign are y’all?”
“Charlotte and me are both Aquarius,” said Dawn. “It’s the best because we have our own song.”
“Cool!” said Juliet and began to sing about the dawning of the age of Aquarius, mystic crystal revelation and all.
Tom Ed was intrigued by tie-dye. “I don’t recall seeing that in Levelland. Is it Canadian?”
The truth was, the tie-dye had been a big mistake. All the other girls wore either jeans and leather vests or lace and velvet like Janice. Charlotte hadn’t said anything because it had been Dawn’s idea. But she was glad when her skirt got toned down with mud and she was relieved she wasn’t the one in the all-over tie-dyed dress.
“No,” said Dawn. “It’s not Canadian. It’s …” She looked at Charlotte.
“Groovy?”
Groovy set them off on a round of giggles. Then Tom Ed had to hear the whole story of blue-pawed Puff.
“At least we haven’t seen anyone from school,” said Dawn. “We look kind of ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” said Charlotte. “Like practice targets.”
“It did cross my mind that it was good that Canadians aren’t partial to guns,” said Tom Ed. Charlotte and Dawn both punched him in the shoulder.
The afternoon disappeared as they let the music boom through them. They danced a bit, sang along, making up the words when they didn’t know them, which was mostly. They ate all the snacks.
Finally, Janice rolled up her tarp and before she started to float away into the crowd she made the peace sign to them and they all peace-signed back.
Then it was five o’clock and Mr. Novak was waiting in the blue Plymouth.
Peace, love and grooviness got a bit battered on the way home. As soon as Mr. Novak heard that Tom Ed was a draft dodger he immediately started talking, in a pointed way, about his time in the Yugoslav People’s Army.
It always amazed Charlotte how adults could get away with being rude. It was one of the things that nobody seemed to notice. Nobody except Jane Austen. That’s what was so great about Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen noticed. If Charlotte had been Elizabeth Bennet she would have thought of something perfect to say, but she wasn’t, so she just sat in the back seat beside Tom Ed and felt grumpy on his behalf.
Tom Ed seemed to take care of himself though. He addressed Mr. Novak as “sir” and was more polite than Charlotte had ever seen a teenage boy be.
Mr. Novak unbent a tiny bit. It probably helped that Tom Ed wasn’t the least bit scruffing.
When the Novaks stopped at Charlotte’s house, Dawn gave Charlotte a look that had a whole conversation in it. It was something like, “Oh, you’re so lucky. Your very own draft dodger! And now you get to have dinner with him while I have to go home and have Easter dinner with my aunt and uncle and my drippy cousins and I’m so jealous! But I know you’ll phone me later and tell me every tiny little detail.”