Halfway through her oatmeal and fruit cup, which she had been eating in silence, Allie said, “I think we need to go to the aquarium.”
“Nonsense.”
“Why is it nonsense?”
“First of all, I don’t think you know the meaning of the word ‘need.’ We need to breathe air and drink water and eat food. We’d need shelter from the elements if they were extreme, but here they’re not. I’m sure it’s expensive, that aquarium, and it’s just entertainment. It’s just a diversion. It’s the last thing we need.”
“But that’s the old you talking. And you said you weren’t going to keep making the decisions you made in the past.”
Bea paused with a strip of crispy bacon halfway to her face. “I didn’t say I would change every single thing about myself. Some of it is worth keeping. Especially frugality. Especially at a time like this.”
Allie ate her oatmeal in silence for a few moments.
Then she said, “But I have money. And if this is what I want to spend it on . . .”
“You don’t have money. We have money. You committed that money to our expenses. You can’t just take it back and waste it.”
They ate in a strained silence for several minutes longer. It was becoming increasingly important to Allie that she see that aquarium, and that she get Bea to do the same. It felt more crucial than she could really explain to herself. It seemed to set the tone for how this adventure was going to play out—whether it would be fabulous, like life paying her back for everything, or just another tense grind, full of sacrifice and boredom.
Finally she reached into her jeans pocket and curled her fingers around the one-ounce bar of gold. She pulled it out and set it on the table, covering it with her hand.
“What have you got there?” Bea asked.
Allie lifted one side of her hand so Bea could have a quick look. Then she stuck it back in her pocket, fast.
“Is that real? Where did you get it?”
“My uncle gave it to me on the day I was born. It was one of those things I was supposed to hang on to because it would just keep getting more valuable. I don’t know what it’s worth. But probably a couple hundred dollars at least.”
“Is it an ounce?”
“Yes. An ounce.”
“Then it’s worth close to thirteen hundred dollars.”
Allie could feel her eyes go wide.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. The gold spot is nearly thirteen hundred.”
“How do you know that?”
“Herbert used to have a little gold. Just a couple of ounces. For the same reason. You’re supposed to hold it, because it usually increases in value. Over enough time, almost always. But he couldn’t hold it. The business was in trouble and he had to sell it to pay some back taxes. Ever since then I’ve looked at gold prices in the paper, just so I can stay mad over what those two ounces would be worth now. I shouldn’t have done it. It only irked me every time. But somehow I couldn’t stop. So, that does help our situation quite a bit. That we have it.”
“There you go with the ‘we’ thing again,” Allie said.
Bea dropped her fork and sat back in the booth with an audible thump.
“Are you trying to say you’re holding out on me?”
“Not exactly. I was going to. I hadn’t promised that piece of gold because I didn’t even remember I had it at the time. So, yeah. I was just going to keep it to myself in case things didn’t work out and I ended up off on my own again.”
“Mad money,” Bea said.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s something girls carried on dates when I was young. Smart girls, anyway. The boy paid for everything. So theoretically the girl didn’t need to bring any cash on a date. But what if you get out there and it turns out you’ve accepted a date with a loser who’s all hands and no respect? We didn’t have cell phones in those days. You needed to be able to walk away. Use a pay phone. Call a cab, maybe. So you squirrelled away a little secret money. We called it mad money, for reasons that should be obvious.”
“Right. Yeah. I was going to keep it as mad money.”
“Was going to? Past tense? What are you going to do with it now?”
“I’m willing to throw it into the travel fund. I’ll hold on to it, and not sell it unless I have to. But it’ll be if we get into any trouble. If we need it. Under one condition: You don’t always get to decide how much we spend and on what. You said we’d decide together, but it hasn’t worked out that way at all. You say yes or no and expect me to accept it. I get to have some say in these decisions, too.”
“You want to go to that darned aquarium.”
“I want us both to go. Yeah.”
“Let me see that thing again. Are you sure that’s real?”
“Now why would my rich uncle give me fake gold as a present on the day I was born?”
She slid the bar out of her pocket and across the table, keeping it discreetly under her hand. Bea quietly accepted the transfer. Then the old woman pulled her reading glasses out of her pocket and studied the gold closely.
A moment later she slid it back across the table.
“On to the Monterey Bay Aquarium,” she said.
PART FIVE
BEA
Chapter Twenty-Five
How to Pet a Bat Ray
They stood in front of the giant kelp forest exhibit together, swaying slightly. Surprisingly, Bea was succeeding in ignoring the crowd around her. In fact, the other tourists seemed to have disappeared, so complete was her focus on the inside of the massive saltwater tank.
The glass walls of the thing soared more than twenty feet over Bea’s head, looking like a real window onto a real kelp forest under the sea. Some sort of pump or other device caused the kelp to sway, the way the tide would in the open ocean. It had taken Bea several minutes to realize that both she and the girl were moving slightly in response.
Now and then a leopard shark swam lazily across her view, or a school of thousands of tiny silver fish flashed by in near-perfect unison. Larger fish, the kind Herbert used to catch on their trips to the coast, moved with purpose across her view, or just hung without swimming, swaying back and forth with the kelp.
Normally Bea hated to stand for any length of time. It made her feel hot and dizzy almost immediately, and drove her to look for a place to sit. But in this case the feeling had passed quickly, replaced by intense concentration. Bea was completely absorbed by what she was seeing.
“All right, I was wrong and I admit it,” she said, nudging Allie slightly with her elbow.
“About what?”
“Coming here. This was worth . . . well, I was going to say twice what we paid for it, but I can’t very well say that, can I? Because you wouldn’t let me go along to buy the tickets, so I have no idea what we paid.”
“Just as well. You were right that it was kind of expensive.”
“But I was wrong when I said it’s just a diversion. It’s not. It’s a way of learning about the world. And it seems especially meaningful what with our driving beside the ocean all these days. I was viewing it wrong. I was just looking at the surface of it, like that’s all there was to it. Oh, I know better, of course, in my logical brain. I know it’s deep and there are fish in it. But I never pictured that. I just never stopped to think about it. Now I’ll look over at the water as we drive and understand there’s a whole other world under it. It’s like seeing part of the world you never thought about before. Never factored into your thinking. It makes the world seem bigger all of a sudden. I know I’m talking a lot. I hope I’m making sense.”
“You are,” Allie said. “But I think we should go look at something else now.”
“But I like this so much.”
“But how do you know you won’t like that so much, too? The only way you’ll know is if we go see.”
“I hate it when you get all logical,” Bea said.
“I am not touching one of those monsters,” Bea t
old the girl.
“Well, I am.”
Allie stood with one hand over the edge of the bat ray tank, a thigh-high open tank that allowed for petting. Though Bea could not imagine why. Petting zoos were one thing, but they were full of soft, cuddly mammals. With fur. Which is not to suggest that Bea would have enjoyed one.
“They sting,” Bea pronounced, though really she had no way to know.
“No, they don’t.”
“You can get stung by a stingray. Why do you think they call them that?”
“These are not stingrays. They’re bat rays. And they wouldn’t have them in an open petting tank if they stung. And I’m petting one. So there.”
Bea watched with mild alarm as the strange creatures lifted their front ends slightly out of the water, their winglike fins brushing upward against the sides of the tanks as though they planned to try to climb out. Then three or four glided by just under the surface of the water, looking like dark gray kites with stubby noses, and Allie dipped her hand in and allowed one of the creatures to slide against her palm.
“Whoa!”
“What does it feel like?”
“It’s hard to explain. But it’s soft. Almost . . . satiny. But wet. I couldn’t describe it to you. You have to try.”
“Oh, I think not.”
“You really should do this, Bea.”
“Why? Why should I do it? Give me one reason.”
“Because this is probably the only chance you’ll ever have to pet a bat ray. And because it’s an amazing thing that they let you touch them. That they’re not even afraid of us. And because it’ll make your world bigger. And you keep saying you want that.”
Bea wrinkled her nose. She could feel it.
“I said one reason.”
“Get over here.”
Bea moved closer to the tank and looked down. There was a bat ray just a foot or two away, gliding under the water in her direction. Somehow Bea knew the key would have to be an utter lack of preparation. Of anticipation. Once she allowed space for doubt, she would never overcome it. She would have to move faster than the doubt. She yanked the left sleeve of her sweater up to her elbow with her right hand, then stuck her left hand in the water and touched the bat ray as he swam by. It was satiny soft, just like the girl had said. But it was wet, living flesh, not fabric. It was unlike anything Bea had ever touched before.
She yanked her hand back before any part of the stinger could touch it.
“Oh my!”
“Now aren’t you glad you did that?”
“I think maybe I am.”
“I’m getting hungry. Are you getting hungry? We’ve been here for hours. We could get our hand stamped and come back in and see more after lunch.”
“I could eat,” Bea said.
“We can’t always eat in restaurants,” Bea said as they settled at their table. She picked up her menu. Looked at the right side first. Pricey. Everything was pricey. This was a tourist area, Cannery Row, and nothing came cheap. “It’s just wasteful. Think how much food we could get at the supermarket for this kind of money.”
Bea could see the disappointment written on the girl’s face. Truthfully, Bea felt disappointed, too. The old Bea had returned, and issued an old Bea proclamation. It seemed both inevitable and sad.
“But we have no way to cook it.”
“Not all food needs to be cooked. We might not be able to afford a hot meal three times a day.”
“Okay. I get it. But we decided to have this one. So let’s enjoy it.”
“Good point,” Bea said. “I’m sorry.” Then she tried to stop talking. To leave it at that. But something about her simple apology—the very entrance of the word “sorry”—seemed to open a door that Bea was not strong enough to slam shut again. “Actually, I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
Allie looked into her face. The girl seemed guarded. A little suspicious.
“Like what?”
“I guess I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you said you’d gone through that terrible experience. Which I now see you really had. And I’m sorry I was so quick to want to put you out of my van again. I was just being cautious, I guess. And about the money. Thank you for going back and getting your things from your house and using them for food and gas so we can get by until my next check. I wasn’t being very appreciative about that. I was acting like you owed me all that and more. But it’s generous. So I’m sorry I wasn’t nicer about it. Money is a tricky subject for me. I’m always scared about it, and when I get scared I suppose I get rather . . . tight. And maybe not my very nicest self. I’ll work on that.”
“Wow,” Allie said.
Bea expected her to say more. Instead a brief silence fell.
“Wow what?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t expect all that from you.”
“Don’t be so surprised,” Bea said, feeling herself bristle. “I can be nice.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I just—”
The waitress arrived, wanting to take their order. Which seemed strange to Bea, because she hadn’t even taken a simple drink order first. High prices and they push you through fast, she thought.
Truthfully, Bea had barely glanced at the menu. But she knew what she wanted. It was a lunch choice that would be hard for Bea to order. Things being what they were. Bea being who she had always been. A day earlier it might have been impossible. But Bea felt she knew how to do it now: the same way you pet a bat ray. Without hesitation. Without creating a gap that doubt can wedge its way into, to create an even greater hesitation.
“I’ll have the Dungeness crab,” she said.
Allie’s eyebrows looked strangely high in Bea’s peripheral vision, but Bea did not openly turn her head to look.
“It was what I wanted,” Bea said under her breath.
“I didn’t say a word,” Allie whispered back.
An hour or more after lunch they stood in a dim room of the aquarium filled with tank after tank of jellyfish. Bea found them mesmerizing.
She would never have imagined jellyfish as a thing of beauty. But these were brilliantly colored and patterned, veiled, glowing. They moved—pulsed, drifted—with astonishing grace. And something almost akin to serenity.
“I think we should find ourselves a good campground tonight,” she told Allie. Quietly, because the room and its creatures inspired reverence. “With nice hot showers.”
“Ooh,” Allie breathed. Equally reverent. “That sounds great.”
“Doesn’t it? I haven’t taken a hot shower since I left my home. What I really like is a nice deep bathtub. But I only had a skimpy little one in the trailer. I’ll probably never take a hot bath again. But a hot shower will be the next best thing.” Silence. Bea looked over to see the girl staring at her in the dim light. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’ll take a bath again. Why would you even say that? You don’t know that you’ll always be homeless.”
“I don’t see what’s going to come along to change it.”
“I’m not assuming I’ll always be out in the world like this.”
“You have parents.”
“True. But when they get out of jail and I get to go home, you’ll come take a bath at my house.”
“Oh, I’m sure your parents would love that.”
“After everything they’ve put me through, I doubt I’m going to put it like a question. I don’t think I’d give them much choice.”
But that’s easy to say, Bea figured, when you’re not looking said parents straight in the eye.
Bea sat on the front bumper of her van while the girl used the shower. Bea had showered first, and the feeling of cleanliness filled her with an exhilaration that would have seemed almost silly had she stopped to examine it.
They were at a state park campground, most of or all the way to Santa Cruz, camped just a few yards inland from a white sand beach that Bea had to admit was lovely. There was a pier. At the end of it a huge, ancient-looking ship s
at broken apart and sunk in the shallow water. The setting sun made it look orange. The setting sun made everything look orange. And someone was flying a kite, all long tails, in front of that setting sun.
It’s a good thing this place makes me so happy, Bea thought. Because it was expensive.
She pushed the thought away again. They had paid the camping fee. There was no going back now. Somehow she had to find a place inside herself that could relax and enjoy what they had purchased. Bea knew that would not be easy.
The people at the next campsite over had put chicken and sausage on the barbecue, and the smells had begun to drive Bea crazy. It would be hard to settle for the fruit and nuts they had bought at the supermarket.
Squirrel food. I shouldn’t have gone with only what the girl could eat, too. I should have bought some luncheon meat or cheese for myself.
“That feels great,” a voice said, and Bea jumped the proverbial mile. Of course it was only Allie.
“It does,” Bea said. “For once you and I agree on something.”
“What are you staring at?”
Bea realized it was not the ocean. Not the ship or the kite. The natural setting had lost her attention. Her focus had shifted to the meat cooking next door.
“Oh, just coveting dinner at the next site over.”
She might have said it too loudly. A moment later Bea noticed the middle-aged couple responsible for the barbecue looking her way, disturbingly ready to break that conversational barrier.
“You don’t have many of the comforts of home over there,” the woman called.
Of course that was easy for her to say. She and her husband had one of those motor homes about the size of a Greyhound bus.
She was small, a compact woman with hair that looked beauty-parlor fresh. How one achieved such a thing on the road, Bea could not imagine. It made her feel self-conscious about her own thin gray hair, slicked back after her shower and left to dry on its own.
“We get by,” Bea said.
“Any refrigeration?” the husband asked.
He was wearing a robe over swim trunks. Bea wondered if he really was brave enough to swim in that cold, wild ocean. People did, of course. Bea knew that. Still, she did not swim. And knowing what kind of creatures lived under there did not make her feel any more inclined toward a saltwater dip.
Allie and Bea : A Novel Page 20