I didn’t date these guys, mostly searching souls pouring their passion into the world of film. For some reason I felt a bond I hadn’t experienced elsewhere—like we were in the same boat. I loved that they were all film crazy. We discussed every new release, the direction of Jean Renoir, the scripts of Ben Hecht, the cinematography of Orson Welles, and the morbid humor of Alfred Hitchcock. When Joel purchased a 1938 six-cylinder Chrysler for fifty dollars, we took off to see Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour, Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa, The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman, and anything by John Ford.
Me at a U.S.C. Cimema Department party, 1956.
* * *
One day, Elliot, a tall, quiet fellow with brown hair curling over his temples, and small cockleshell ears, showed up on my doorstep. I’d seen him whiz in late to my film-editing class and slip into a back seat. Did I want to go riding on his motorcycle? I had rarely spoken to him, but it was a warm day sweetened by fresh air from the coast and without a car I was landlocked. I agreed.
I clung to his waist as we swept past the campus and out to a distant park where a meandering stream flowed between massive chestnut trees. Elliot sat across from me on the grass, leaning against his knees and rubbing blades of grass between his fingers as he talked. The soft gurgle of water droned in the background. He told me he was putting himself through school by working three menial jobs, and that he was thinking of dropping cinema in favor of developmental biology. He was more than cute and I found myself enjoying the company of a boy who was gazing at me with light in his eyes. What if he took a liking to me? The though struck my mind and shattered like broken glass. I had enough to deal with, like pulling myself erect and creating a successful university life.
After several forays into the surrounding hills, we stood late one afternoon at my front door. Elliot stepped closer and told me he was looking for a girlfriend and wanted to know if I were interested. Taken back, I was at a loss for words, wondering exactly what he had in mind. I told him I was sorry, but I wasn’t ready to be involved with anyone right then. My studies and writing were foremost. The words spoke themselves, driven by some unconscious resistance. His low-key manner and the way his mass of brown hair hung around his ears were likeable. But such a step? I wasn’t sure.
Elliot stopped calling. One afternoon a few months later, I spied him across the street on his motorcycle talking earnestly to a blonde girl in a plaid skirt. She stood close to him, turned her face up to his for a long moment, and then slid onto the seat behind him and they sped off. Not long after that, while hustling across campus with Joel, I saw them walking down the sidewalk in front of Bovard Auditorium holding hands. I stared after them. Elliot looked taller than I remembered, and the blonde girl walked briskly beside him with smooth, graceful strides. They were chattering and exchanging glances, lost to the world.
The sight of Elliot and his new girlfriend stirred an inexplicable wave of envy. Maybe I was missing something! Decidedly this guy had become more enticing. Why was it I was only interested in boys from a distance? Since the days of worshiping Harold from afar, never catching up or seeing him turn around, had I desired the unattainable? Looking back it did seem that as soon as a boy became interested in me, my own interest diminished. There was something about direct, unequivocal attention that was uncomfortable, made me want to back off into the safety of indifference. I felt invaded if the person closed in, and if the closeness evolved to anything like intimacy I felt smothered. The feeling of having no air to breathe, nowhere to move, was intolerable.
Any boy who liked me too much was suspect. He must be a fool if he couldn’t perceive what an insecure, bungling person I was, if he didn’t understand that far down, buried under the visible shell, was nothing at all. He must be an idiot. Besides, what did I know about guys or relationships? Resistance was my expertise.
* * *
The day I moved into my apartment I noticed a small, dark-haired, bronzed girl perched on a wobbly stool in front of an easel. She had on a flowered print dress, orange sandals, and a smock. A painter! I was immediately intrigued. She looked up and we exchanged smiles. After that when I returned from class she might be sitting in the front courtyard next to the fanned-out palm tree, or I would see her breeze by and into an apartment two villas down from mine. One day she emerged from her front door and crossed the courtyard as I sat reading in a yellow striped lawn chair.
“Hi,” she began, looking at me evenly. “I’ve seen you so often and I’ve wanted to meet you. I’m Joan.” She approached with an unaffected smile and expression of frankness impossible to resist.
I eased the book onto my lap. Joan sat on the stoop next to me and tucked her skirt around her knees.
“So you thought I was a painter?” she asked after we’d exchanged introductory remarks. She laughed, smoothing her print dress with her palms. “No, it’s just a hobby. It keeps me busy.” Joan swept her arm out in front of her. “Don’t you love this patio? It was a find. There was only one apartment left so I grabbed it. I’ve been here three months. The manager doesn’t mind if I bring my things out on the grass and paint. It’s just paint-by numbers, you know. I’m not a real artist. You’re a student, aren’t you?”
Joan talked on cheerfully in a candid, little-girl way, words flying from her mouth slight and warm like fireflies on a summer night. No, she didn’t go to school, she worked in a telephone office near Vermont Avenue. Her mother was dead, her father lived in New York City; both were Filipino. Joan had been born in the Philippines but the family had moved to Los Angeles when she was two months old. She had an aunt living in the valley who sewed uniforms for monastic soccer teams.
I didn’t mind Joan’s windy chatter. Her enthusiasm enlightened the balmy day. I relaxed as she talked about her elusive boyfriend and the boss at work who watched her like a hawk. Sitting back in the lawn chair, legs stretched out, I felt pleasantly at ease. Our talk turned to the future. Joan was eying New York where her father had moved when she was a teenager, but she didn’t want to leave her sometimes boyfriend. Her eyes grew wide when I told her I was not in the least interested in settling down or getting married, and that it was far better to follow your dream and immerse yourself in unknown experiences waiting out there and find out whatever it is that holds you true. Joan rested her chin in her hands with a compliant expression.
One Sunday, Joan persuaded me to attend a self-realization service. She believed that spiritual peace was the only lasting attainment and that all else was unsubstantial. Ideas were not fulfilling, people were not all-knowing. The spiritual path was the true response to life. Faith was required in something superior to oneself, something to fill the universal lack.
It was a clear afternoon when we boarded a bus traveling to a part of town I’d never seen before. Entering one of the temple-like buildings that bordered a central courtyard, I found myself in a high-ceilinged sanctuary filled with rows of chairs circling a front dais. We bumped past a line of knees and slipped into two empty seats in the middle of the row. Almost immediately chanting began, the congregation repeating the lines in unison. I joined in. The man seated next to me was braying loudly. I threw him a furtive glance. He was in his fifties, wearing khaki pants and a polo shirt. He echoed the preacher’s words loudly, exaggerating the intonations with throaty abandon. “We will become the spirit,” emphasizing the “ir” of spirit. He seemed to be regurgitating the words, and his exultations filled the air. I could concentrate on nothing but his booming voice.
A lady in front of us kept looking around. When we reached the phrase “I’m a bubble, make me the sea,” I hoped she didn’t notice my grimace as I tried to form the word “bubble.” I repeated “noble spirit, now” with the others, listening for the euphony of voices in full unity, but I could hear only the warbles of the man next to me spinning towards the rafters.
After the service I made my way to the rest room. Silence filled the spac
e between the tile walls. I was confronted with my reflection. As my eyes looked into those in the mirror, I felt a rumble, a fiery stir tremble in my chest and creep down around my ribs. A feeling of emptiness, then fullness, accompanied by tugs of desire, then waves of hope, like a boat rocking back and forth with the tide. Since there was no way I could take the production I had just witnessed seriously, I wasn’t sure where this came from. I studied my face, the stark cheekbones, the wide eyes staring back. What was happening? Was there a message striking to be born, and what was it trying to tell me? Just then Joan entered and pulled at my sleeve, and the moment slipped away as stealthily as it had arrived.
Afterward in the tea lounge, the statuesque yogi who’d presided at the temple service sat in a corner in his white robes, erect and immobile, surveying the room with gentle, unwavering eyes. His face was smooth and ageless, surrounded by layers of pure white hair.
The hostess approached.
“Please take tea. Your first time?” she asked, and when I nodded she smiled. “Wonderful.” Was I was familiar with Paramhansa Yogananda and had I read Autobiography of a Yoga? I told her I hadn’t but promised that I would.
The room hummed with low-key conversations. I noticed a calico cat peering at me from the next room and went over, chirping and holding out my hand. The cat didn’t budge, so I sat down on the threshold and ignored her. Finally, convinced my attention was elsewhere, she slunk over and leaned against my foot. In a minute I was stroking her fur.
“But this is remarkable,” cried the ladies who began closing in on me and the animal leaning its head against my lap. “This cat takes to no one. You must have a psychic rapport with animals.” They were convinced I had extraordinary powers. Even Joan was incredulous. I shook my head. Some people will believe anything.
* * *
I rang the front doorbell hesitantly. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be there. The large two-story Tudor building with steep-pitched roofs and dark-brown beams resembled a dwelling from a nineteenth-century English hamlet. In fact, it contained eight apartments, and the one I stood before was one of four on the lower level. This one was the first in a row of identical Tutor buildings, each surrounded with moist rich lawns, garden beds curving along with walks, and red and white flowered shrubs clustered under the windows. Already I was charmed.
The door opened and before me stood a girl with soft brown wavy hair, a square chin, and stern blue eyes.
“I’ve come about the room,” I said.
“Oh, yes, come in,” said the girl, whose name was Mary. Mary led me into the living room where tea and rice cakes were set out on a low modern-style coffee table. A minute later her roommate Eunice came in, seated herself in an armchair by the window, and wrapped her long legs around each other, pretzel style. We set about getting acquainted.
“I’m a senior majoring in comparative literature, minoring in cinema, and—well, I don’t want to live alone.” I wasn’t sure how to explain myself, but when I mentioned I was from Minnesota the girls looked pleased. The word seemed to evoke an image of the clean-cut, stable Midwesterner. I picked up my tea cup.
They were both grad students. “I’m not home much,” Eunice explained, taking a long draft of tea. A tall girl with a narrow face and horn-rimmed glasses, she regarded me nonchalantly. “I spend a lot of time at the biochemistry lab at school. When we’re here we eat together, but most of the time we’re out and about. We take it pretty casually.”
As we chatted over tea it became clear that Eunice and Mary had formed a comfortable, functioning relationship. By a stroke of luck, Mary had discovered the apartment—tipped off by one of her professors—and Eunice had moved in six months later. Eunice was good-natured, the type who didn’t create waves. Mary proved to be the sensitive one. At first I was struck by Mary’s proper demeanor and serene air of assurance, but as I got to know her I discovered she was pleasantly fun-loving, in her own reserved way. Her passion was art and she had been studying for several years with Sister Mary Corita at Immaculate Heart College.
“Meanwhile, I’m pursuing a master’s in fine arts at U.S.C.. These are my paintings,” Mary she told me with a smile.
I looked around the spacious living room. The effect was cool and modern, with contemporary furniture and high-ceilinged walls. A surround-sound stereo system that Mary had purchased with her great aunt’s inheritance dominated one side of the room, with three speakers mounted along the walls. A framed print of Willem de Kooning hung over a hallway table.
But it was Mary’s artwork that drew my attention the most—abstract, wildly colorful, and strangely stark at the same time, something between Jean Miró and the cubists. I was mesmerized. As Mary poured tea from a blue-and-white China pot, we conversed about blizzards in Minneapolis, Mary’s upcoming art show at St. Scholastica, the French films I was in the process of devouring, and the exigencies and opportunities of graduate school.
Walking up Menlo Avenue I weighed the pros and cons of moving in. On the one hand the well-appointed apartment, complete with two amiable, academically tuned girls, appeared too good to be true. I would have my own room in a quiet corner in the back. The girls’ friendly no-nonsense manner was appealing. It would be interesting living with an artist again.
On the other hand a tiny voice warned not to be hasty. I might not get along in a setup where I was obliged to compromise and follow the reigning norms. Was inserting myself with roommates who had no doubt already cemented a bond a good idea? With Mary’s affinity for the nuns and her Catholic background she might be conservative and narrow-minded. Would this be more of what I had been fleeing? Would their judgment come down on my offbeat ways? I hadn’t had much success with roommates up to now. Could I ever fit in?
It was Mary who persuaded me. Competent and generous, her sweet smile and benevolent air of authority were reassuring. One would be in good hands with her. The house felt spacious and welcoming.
I decided I wanted to be there.
Journal Entry
January 10. Now I am not so lonely. It feels good to hear the commotion of others coming and going. I like Mary. She is devoted to her art and shows me the serigraphs she is working on. Her work has an imaginative simplicity about it. Mary relishes my admiration and spends hours explaining techniques and telling stories of her art teacher, Sister Corita, and the other nuns she studies under.
January 18. Mary and Eunice are very religious and make great efforts to be considerate and unselfish. I think we will get along. But to tell the truth I feel out of place. The only common ground we have is consideration and decency. It may not be enough.
February 1. I don’t think I like Mary and Eunice. They are too nice and considerate. This emphasis on politeness and always thinking of the other person is trying, if not unnatural. I’m afraid to take the last portion of pork chop at dinner—too selfish. The slightest thing requires a “please’” or “thank you so much” or “may I”; phrases that are supposed to indicate appreciation, not replace it. Maybe they are just trying to be careful since I’m new. Eunice raved and raved about the Spanish rice I concocted one night for dinner. It was over-seasoned and the rice was hard, but she couldn’t praise it highly enough. This artificiality is demeaning and unnecessary. They go too far.
February 13. I am so touchy! And negative! I don’t like anyone. Is this lack of ability to give esteem and credit a permanent fixture in my makeup? Does being a loner too long drain one of the more humane aspects of socialized living? I have noticed one thing: the unhappier I am the less warmth I can generate. I expect this is termed taking oneself too seriously.
March 6. Several weeks have passed. I begin to think if things go wrong it’s not because my roommates haven’t tried. For some reason, I trust them and am growing to like them, despite the irritating goodness they display. Yet there is a barrier. Our discussions in the living room or at the kitchen table lack warmth, maybe
because I make them uncomfortable by philosophizing over everything, by probing to interminable depths, by holding out the only right opinion. Often I make remarks I later regret, blurting out whatever has come into my mind, comments with derogatory or insinuating implications. They make no response, but the silence is heavy.
My fly-by-night ways don’t go over well in this house. Mary and Eunice judge on actions, not words. If I create a racket getting home late at night, no matter how reasonable my apologies, the predominant fact remains that I woke them. No buttering up, no excuses. Now I move through the house on tiptoe, quiet as a mouse, not because I must try to be quiet but because I must be quiet. Being aware of making a mistake is not enough. I start to show up for house meetings on time.
March 12. Actually, I am beginning to like it here. Living in a household with two intelligent girls creates an environment friends like to visit. With such a home base, I have more clout than I did as a single package.
I especially appreciate the way Mary and Eunice handle people. When someone comes over they do not gush, as if the person is doing them the biggest favor. There are standards everyone must live up to, certain courtesies expected. This is made clear, yet no matter how visitors act they are treated with firm politeness and consideration.
If a boy calls me at 11:00 p.m., expecting me to be available, I no longer jump at the chance to get out, regardless of the inconvenience. It is now easier to stay home. It feels good to show backbone, to have an alternative to agreeing to just anything.
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