Girl With a Past

by Sherri Leigh James

  Carol switched her gaze from him to me, “Is he having a seizure? You can get those from hitting your head, can’t you?”

  “No cuts, what could he have hit?” I leaned down to examine his head, at which point he jumped up, knocked me over, grabbed his backpack from the open back door of the car and ran screaming across the field to the road.

  “I guess I scared him,” I said.

  “You could’ve said you had no brakes.” Carol stood next to me watching the figure grow smaller until he disappeared around a bend in the road. “He must not’ve been seriously hurt if he can run like that.”

  “Wasn’t it obvious, about the brakes, I mean?”

  Carol gave me the I-am-not-amused-look before she pried open the trunk to retrieve our sleeping bags. I removed the two duffel bags from the back floor.

  “What do we do about the car?” Carol asked as she slung her purse and duffel bag over one shoulder and hefted her sleeping bag under the opposite arm.

  “When we get to a phone, I’ll call Tom.” I checked the glove compartment for valuables and picked up my things.

  A VW bug rounded the corner at the same moment we exited the field onto the shoulder of the road. As the mustached driver pulled over, his bearded passenger asked, “Where ya headed?”

  Carol and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Point Reyes?” I said.

  “Far out. So are we.” The passenger got out of the vehicle, extended his hand to me. “I’m Dick, that’s Andy.”

  “I’m Lexi. She’s Carol.”

  Dick opened the door. He threw in Carol’s things, and waved her into the back seat.

  Then he held open the passenger door for me, and I climbed in holding a duffel and sleeping bag on my lap.

  “How did you end up out here?” Andy asked.

  I explained what had happened with the car.

  “Far out,” Andy said.

  In the back seat, Dick lit up a joint and offered it to Carol.

  “No thanks,” she said.

  “What, are you two straight?” Dick passed the grass to Andy.

  “Not in the mood,” Carol responded.

  “That’s the point, to get you in the mood.” Dick chuckled, took the grass back from Andy and offered it to me.

  “No thanks,” I said, following Carol’s lead.

  Dick took an enormous toke and held his breath while he handed off to Andy.

  “You always smoke while you drive?” Carol asked.

  “Sure.” Andy giggled. “Why not?”

  Carol raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think it might impair your judgment?”

  Dick finally blew out smoke and took a breath. “Aah, his judgment is permanently impaired anyway.”

  “Hey, cut that out,” Carol yelped. “Get your hands off me.”

  I turned to look in the backseat.

  “Aah, come on baby.” Dick rubbed Carol’s thigh with one hand, placed his other hand on her neck.

  Carol swatted his hand off her thigh. With all the bags in the seat with them. she didn’t have room to really wind up a punch, but she gave her best and slugged him in the jaw. Before he could recover, she jammed her elbow into his lap.

  “Pull over,” I said to Andy in the shocked silence that preceded Dick’s scream.

  “Hey, I thought you girls were hip. What’s the matter?” Andy actually looked hurt, as though we had insulted him.

  He stopped the car at the side of the road. Carol and I unloaded our things and ourselves.

  Dick flipped us off with both hands as they drove away.

  We sat on our bags, and contemplated our dilemma.

  “I’m not getting into another car with a stranger,” Carol said.

  I looked around. We were quite literally in the middle of nowhere. All I could see was winding road, oak trees, dry grass, and a few cows. “We could camp right here,” I offered.

  Carol did not say a word, gave me “the” look again. Her eyes glaring, the set of her mouth said without uttering a word, “I am not amused.”

  “We could walk to the beach,” I said.

  Carol looked away.

  “I could walk to a phone?” I stood up. “I’ll leave you and our stuff here. I’ll come back for you.”

  “Not a fucking chance in hell am I staying out here in the middle of nowhere by myself.” Carol picked up her things. “I hate nature, hate camping. I only agreed to this stupid outing ‘cause I felt sorry for you and your goddamn broken heart. But I’m not gonna get raped or killed to cure your lovesickness.” She stomped off in the opposite direction of the beach.

  I hurried after her.

  We walked in silence for miles. I admitted to myself that I had perhaps over dramatized my heartbreak over Ted’s betrayal. If I’d been as hip as I was supposed to be, I would have shrugged off his interest in other women.

  But he was too damn attractive. Women were constantly throwing themselves at him. There was always some chickie flirting with him, making goo-goo eyes at him, rubbing her breasts against him, throwing her arms around his neck.

  Maybe I asked too much, expecting him to be faithful. Faithful was an old fashioned concept.

  Oh well, too late now. I’d burned that bridge, told him to hit the road. No way I was sleeping with him up until the day he left for Harvard.

  It was for the best really. I was too young, had too many plans to fall for the love of my life at this time of my life. The events of the day had scared me back into touch with the real importances in my life. Like how lucky I was to have good friends.

  “I’m sorry Carol,” I called out to her.

  She ignored my apology, walked faster.

  I called after her, “I’m sorry. I really do appreciate your coming with me. When we get to a phone, I’ll call Jeff to come get us. We’ll go back to Berkeley, back to civilization.”

  “Good.” Carol walked even faster.

  I looked up a dirt road and thought I saw a small house tucked in the trees. I pointed in that direction. “ Hey look! Maybe they would let us use their phone.”

  “You think that shack has a phone?” Carol backed up to consider the dirt road. “Looks pretty creepy. Bad vibes. With our luck, probably a crazy person, a serial killer lives there.” She looked down the blacktop. No other sign of a possible phone was in sight. She exhaled a deep sigh and walked up the dirt road.

  * * *

  The people who lived in the small house hidden in a circle of eucalyptus trees didn’t appear to be serial killers, and initially, seemed only slightly crazy. Three skinny, shaggy young men, clad only in boxer shorts, stood in a half circle at the door to greet us. Apparently visitors to their habitat were rare. Our arrival was a major deal. Soon another two men and two girls joined the curious group surrounding us in the dark entry hall.

  “May we please use your phone?” I asked the assembly.

  “Sure. Of course. Yes,” answered the chorus.

  A slender, bearded young man, with tangled hair trailing down his bareback, ushered me into a room furnished primarily with mattresses and floor pillows. He waved at a phone in the far corner on the floor. I sat down and picked up the receiver.

  No dial tone.

  I looked up at the young man. “Uhm, this phone doesn’t seem to be working.”

  “Oh, yeah, it doesn’t work.” He smiled a crooked, goofy grin.

  “Do you have a phone that does work?” I asked.

  “Not really.” He continued to grin.

  I returned to where Carol stood in the entry hall. “The phone doesn’t work.”

  “What?” Her look was becoming more of a glare. “Where is your phone that does work?” Carol asked with ineffectively forced politeness.

  “We don’t got one,” said a young girl who looked pretty close to normal. That is, she was fully clothed, but in what looked like pajamas.

  Carol sank onto her pile of belongings.

  “Do you have a car we could borrow?” I figured it was worth a shot.

/>   “Yes, we do.” All of the inhabitants nodded their heads in agreement. “Sure.”

  “Great.” I nudged Carol and picked up my things before they changed their minds.

  Carol stayed where she sat. “Does it work?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure.”

  “It runs?” Carol asked.

  “Yeah, it runs.”

  Pajama girl spoke up, “But it’s not here right now.”

  I addressed my next question to her. “Will it be back some time soon?”

  “Yeah,” She nodded. “Yuri took it to the city. He’ll most likely try to be back before dark ‘cause the lights don’t work too well sometimes.”

  “Hey, wanna see something real cool.” The guy who had shown me the phone waved his arm back to the mattress room. A large, hot, potbelly stove stood a few feet off the far wall.

  Carol stayed put, I politely followed the group into the room with the stove.

  Three of the men took turns feeding wood pieces into the opening to the firebox. In minutes the metal chimney glowed orange and the circle of crazy people jumped in a frenzy of excitement.

  “Fucking great, huh?” one asked.

  “Oh, yeah, great.” I looked up to where the glowing metal flue pierced the wood paneled ceiling and wondered when the wood would burst into flames. “A little dangerous, don’t you think?”

  “Nah, we do this all the time.”

  Eight people danced around the circle of heat and I realized why they were half-dressed. I tried not to think what would happen if one of them were to fall against the red hot glowing metal. I couldn’t look.

  I returned to Carol’s side.

  “From the frying pan to the fire,” she said. “We gotta get outa here before they burn the place down.”

  “You want to wait for Yuri to come back?” I asked.

  “What day might that be?” She stood, picked up her belongings.

  We had gotten as far as the front porch when an ancient pick up truck drove up the driveway.

  “You, Yuri?” Carol asked.

  “Yep.” It was hard to tell the age of the driver. A heavy, black beard and waves of equally dark hair hid his face.

  “Will you give us a ride to a phone?”

  “Hop in. I think I have enough gas to get there.”

  * * *

  “Jeff is just leaving for work,” I relayed to Carol who stood in the door of the phone booth.

  She rolled her eyes. “Wonderful!”

  I thanked Jeff for helping us out, hung up the receiver. “Jamie’s farm is close to here. Jeff’s gonna have Jamie pick us up and take us to the farmhouse outside Novato. Jeff will either come out there tonight, or first thing in the morning.”

  Carol shrugged with uncharacteristic apathy. “What-ever.”

  We walked to the nearest intersection and sat down on our bags. Half an hour later, Carol said, “How far away is this farm?”

  “Jeff said, as best he could tell from my description, we’re maybe ten, fifteen miles from there.”

  “It’s taking awhile.” Carol sighed. She stood, rearranged her bag seat, and plopped back down.

  “Maybe he couldn’t leave right away. It’s not like he was expecting us.” I waited for Carol to once again tell me I was always making excuses for people, but she was silent.

  Another half hour went by. “Can you call him?” She glared at me.

  “I don’t know the number. And it’s unlisted,” I said.

  “Call Jeff back.” Carol stood and paced three feet to the street tree.

  “He left for work.”

  “Maybe Jamie can’t find us. What did Jeff tell him?” Carol walked as far as the stop sign on the other side of our bags.

  “Carol, chill out.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief when the VW bus with Elliott and Ron inside pulled up to the curb in front of us.

  Ron rolled down the passenger side window. He flashed his imp grin. “Hey, girls, need a ride?”

  “Fuck you” Carol opened the door to the back seat of the VW bus and threw in her bags.

  “Thanks guys. Thanks for rescuing us.” I slid onto the seat next to Carol and leaned between the front seats. “Jeff said Jamie––"

  “Jamie’s a bit tied up.” Ron grinned at Elliott, “Well, maybe even literally.”

  Both men chuckled.

  Carol shook her head at me sending the “don’t-ask” message. I settled back in the seat and relaxed for the first time since the brakes went out.

  * * *

  The fragrance of something wonderful wafted out of the kitchen as we entered the back door of the Victorian farmhouse. We dropped our bags as we passed through the utility room and followed the aroma.

  The housekeeper, Mrs. Mac, had allowed Tom into her kitchen.

  I walked to where Tom stood in front of the huge, old-fashion stove, stirring a kettle of aromatic stew. He said hello without his usual warm smile. I gave him a hug, wondered, but didn’t ask what he was upset about. I’d noticed that Tom handled every crisis by cooking up a pot of soup; comfort food, meant to make his clan of friends feel better.

  “Are you upset about the car?“ I asked.

  Tom shook his head, “No, just glad you two are okay.” He didn’t look happy.

  Mrs. Mac stood at the sink and drain board peeling apples. “Glad to see you girls, I need some help with these apple pies.” She wiped her hands on her apron and pushed her glasses into her graying hair.

  I hugged her hello, introduced her to Carol, and washed my hands in the sink. “How many pies’re we making?”

  Mrs. Mac had never asked for help before. The first time I’d visited, I’d been informed that Mrs. Mac didn’t like anyone in her realm of the kitchen and utility room. Later, when she allowed me in after I had volunteered to pick apples off the gnarly old tree, I realized it was the young men she was keeping out of the one area she could keep orderly. The rest of the ramshackle house she kept clean, but with slobs around, neat lasted only until they entered the room.

  That day, it seemed that Mrs. Mac was keeping us out of the other rooms of the house. She even suggested that Carol use the previously-unknown-to-me, bathroom off the utility room.

  Elliott and Ron had disappeared through the swinging door that led to the dining room and adjoining living room. We soon heard the sounds of Beatles music cranked up to full volume.

  “They’re gonna blow out the speakers again,” Tom said.

  Carol pushed the door open a crack to peek into the rest of the house.

  “Carol, come here and core these apples for me please.” Mrs. Mac motioned to Carol to join her at the kitchen counter. “Here, let me show you how that coring thing works.”

  I slid over to where Tom stirred his soup.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  Tom shrugged.

  Mrs. Mac glanced in my direction. “Here’re some more apples to peel.”

  I returned to my peeling station. On the table behind me were two large bushel baskets of red and green apples. “Wow, how many pies are we making?”

  Mrs. Mac saw me studying the baskets and smiled. “Oh, some of them apples are gonna be for apple butter. The red ones are for juice. I was thinking a couple pies, but now I got some help, maybe we should make a half dozen. Then you can take some home with ya.”

  Carol failed to suppress a sigh, but Mrs. Mac didn’t let on she’d heard any protest.

  With the occasional eye roll from Carol, we peeled and cut in silence until all the green apples were sliced. Mrs. Mac rolled out shells, then showed Carol how to fold the dough to lift it into the pie dish.

  Ron came in to take a beer out of the fridge without commenting on the novelty of seeing Carol cooking. In fact, he didn’t say anything: no jokes, no wise cracks, nothing. That really made me wonder what the hell was going on.

  Mrs. Mac went into the utility room to get the apple juicer.

  “Okay, Tom, what gives?” I asked.

  Tom scowled at me, gave me
a look that implied that he had no idea what I meant.

  “C’mon, you guys are acting strange.”

  Tom shrugged.

  “I’m not imagining things. Mrs. Mac usually doesn’t want anyone in her kitchen––now she won’t let us out.” I said, “And Ron hasn’t made one crack about––well, about anything. You’ve been standing in front of that pot like something was going to jump out of it. Mister-proper-polite-host, Jamie hasn’t even come to say hello.”

  Mrs. Mac returned and placed the juicer on the table. “Lexi, you can show Carol how that juicer works.”

  “Okay, that’s it.” I pushed open the swinging door, walked through the dining room and entered the living room at the same time Jamie came through the hall door. Ron put down his empty beer bottle and headed down the hall. I heard a girl’s voice from the room at the end of the hall.

  “Lexi.” Jamie stopped and looked at me with surprise. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Carol and I have been trapped in the kitchen, helping with pies.”

  Jamie looked momentarily puzzled. “Oh. Carol’s here?”

  “Yeah, I thought Jeff spoke with you,” I said.

  “Yeah, right, yeah.” Jamie walked behind the sofa and the over stuffed armchairs headed toward the kitchen. “Want a beer?” he called out from the dining room as he headed into the kitchen.

  “No. Thanks.” I sat down on the ottoman in front of the brick fireplace.

  I wondered who the girl was, and why they didn’t want us to know a girl was there. Did we know her? Was the girl why Mrs. Mac had welcomed a stranger into her kitchen?

  Jamie stuck his head out the kitchen door. “Lex, are you hungry? We’re going to eat in here tonight. Please join us.”

  Eat in the kitchen? What the hell was going on?

  Jamie and Tom were clearing the apples and the juicer off the table. Mrs. Mac wiped off the wood top. Carol, unaware that eating in the kitchen was unusual, carried a stack of plates, setting one in front of each chair. “How many of us are there?” she asked.

  “Yeah, how many?” I asked with an eyebrow raised. “And who’s the girl?”

  Jamie ignored our questions. “I thought after we ate, I would drive you two into Berkeley.”