“We’re neighbors, your father and I,” said Justine in a soft voice. “That’s how we met.”
“Oh.”
I watched her hands on the wheel. There was something about her wrists, her long hands and fingers, and the way she moved—graceful, almost floating—that reminded me of my father. And of Marguerite, too.
“He really sort of rescued me,” she continued. “I was having a very sad time. I was sort of sad and shut in. My marriage was falling apart, and I was so unhappy, crying all the time.”
Her eyes stayed on the road. I wondered why on earth anybody would tell a story like that.
“I kept seeing your father coming up the hill on the Triumph—his motorcycle—and pulling into my turnaround. The driveway. And I kept thinking, Who is that incredible-looking man? He’s so handsome! The more I looked at him, the more handsome he seemed.” She stopped for a second. “You must know how handsome your father is.”
“Yes.” I nodded and pulled my pea coat tighter.
“And so when I saw him down there cleaning his bike one afternoon, I just opened the window of my apartment and shouted out, ‘Hey, Triumph! When do I get a ride?’”
We pulled in to the city, after a few long silences, drove up the steep hill into North Beach, and then veered into the driveway of my father’s building, next to a space where two motorcycles were sitting. One had a purple gas tank; the other tank was orange.
My father got out of the MG, didn’t say anything to Justine or me, just pointed at the bikes.
“Oh,” she said with a little sound of surprise.
“Later?”
“Sure,” she answered. “Do you want to come by after you get settled?” This unfathomable exchange ended, and Justine glided up to an iron gate next to my father’s building and opened it with a key. She walked through a small courtyard and opened a glass door on the other side, and then she vanished.
“She’s my neighbor,” my father said as he stood with me in the lobby of his apartment building waiting for the small elevator. “That’s her town house next door—has its own entrance. I used to see her come and go with her husband, Ricardo Monti. He’s a race-car driver, sort of well known. And one day she was looking out her window and yelled, “Hey, Triumph!” And I yelled back, “Hey, Neighbor Girl!” And that was it. We’ve seen each other every day since. We’ve been hit pretty hard. Do you know what that means?”
I shuffled around and found a way to say yes that might hint, in an unsubtle teenage way, that I would be very relieved for this conversation to end. But, squeezed into the tiny elevator, my father continued, unabated, seeming not to sense any hesitation in me, or discomfort, as though his enthusiasm for the subject at hand were blinding.
“Isn’t she spectacular?” When I said nothing, he kept on, excitedly. “You’ll see. She’s very special. So kind and gentle. She’s lived all over and speaks four or five languages. Her family used to own most of downtown. You know Polk Street, where all the queens are? Her father’s a Polk. Anyway, she grew up here. Her mother lives in London—very proper, has a title. God, do I sound overly impressed? You know what I mean. It’s all very interesting, and it makes her interesting in some ways. She’s a Buddhist. Did she tell you that? Anyway, we get along like gangbusters, as they say. You know that expression, ‘as they say’?” He chuckled. “Please be nice to her, Inez. Will you? She’s very delicate—and been through a lot lately. She needs a friend.”
He neglected to mention what happened to the famed Ricardo Monti—but, more important, he had neglected to mention someone else. An hour later I made inquiries while he was grilling cheese sandwiches.
“Where’s Cary?” I asked.
“Cary,” he said. He flipped the sandwiches in the skillet and then pressed down on them with the back of the spatula. “Wonderful woman.”
“What happened to her?”
“What do you mean, ‘what happened?’”
“Did she die?”
“Of course not.” His voice had an edge—and when he turned around, there were beads of sweat on his forehead. “Listen, if you aren’t going to be reasonable, I won’t either.”
I left the kitchen for my familiar spot on the brown corduroy sofa, which, like the leather ledge in the back of the MG, I felt was mine. The sofa was where I slept, looked at the cartoons in the New Yorker and the nudes in Playboy, and where I watched TV. After a minute or so, my father came into the room and sat down on the arm of the sofa. He looked at me for a few moments—it seemed like an endless period of time—while I stared at the table.
“We’re still friends,” he said. “We’re in touch. We talk. Cary finished her dissertation—that’s all—and she went back to Italy for a while. She likes it there. Her mother lives there. And she has friends there. And there was no reason for her to stay in California.” His eyes seemed hurt, and weary from having to explain himself. I wondered if by “friends” in Italy, he meant that Cary had other boyfriends.
“I’m not interested in getting married again,” he went on. There was a long pause, during which he held my eyes, and then he added, “In fact, I’m really not into marriage. Period. I’ve done quite a lot of thinking about it and decided that it doesn’t work.”
“It doesn’t?”
“It’s a bad deal for everybody—particularly women, I’m afraid.”
He was looking at the floor, just staring, almost like how he looked when he played flamenco. “Even more than my not wanting to be married again,” he said, “I don’t want any more children.”
I nodded as though I understood perfectly. But I noticed that my father said the word “children” with the same slightly bitter tone that my mother used when she said “bar” and “bus” and “Las Vegas.” A kind of angry sound.
“So?” I used a neutral voice that hid, I was certain, the hurt feelings I wasn’t sure I had, but if I did, I really didn’t want to discuss.
“So?” He seemed a little deflated, like he knew I was about to corner him.
“Why not?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t you want more children?”
He didn’t say anything for a while. Just looked at me. “Well,” he said finally, “I wouldn’t do that to you and Whitman.”
I wasn’t sure what Whitman and I had to do with any of this—or my father’s plans for the future. Nor, frankly, at this moment did I feel like an enormous piece of my father’s life.
“You guys are very important to me. Do you understand?”
I looked down at my fingers. They were fidgeting and beginning to peel off an oval of frosted nail polish I’d applied the week before. God, what was he talking about?
SIX
The White Tent
Justine’s town house was very spare, even emptier than my father’s apartment. It seemed quite odd to me—a large empty space punctuated with things I’d never seen anywhere, ever.
In the past my father’s girlfriends entered our world and I never saw theirs. Marisa had come and gone without my knowing whether she lived in a house or an apartment. I’d never seen where Cary dwelled when she wasn’t with us—it had never occurred to me that she might live somewhere on her own. So gaining entrance into the private world of Justine was a revelation of sorts and carried a certain thrill, a peek behind a forbidden curtain. But there was something troubling about it, too, for it made her seem excruciatingly real and, even worse, permanent.
Outside, we walked up to her iron gate. My father pulled out a key and unlocked a glass door that led to a flight of polished steps. As we ascended, the by-now-signature smell of Justine grew stronger—patchouli and cigarettes, a waft of lavender incense. At the top of the landing, a child’s tricycle was parked on the wooden floor. It shocked me. Bikes belonged in driveways, or garages, or under the roofs of carports next to the family garbage cans. What was a bike doing inside? Was it ridden inside or out? And where was the child?
My father disappeared down a wide center hallway to find Justine—I heard a “Hello, darling” followed
by a pause and then the sound of a kiss. I wandered into the stark living room. The windows looked out on the bay and Alcatraz—the same view my father had—but inside this cavernous space with its tall ceiling, I felt on the edge of the world gazing out. Dusk was settling, and the headlights of cars crossing the Bay Bridge were flickering on.
An enormous white leather sofa was pushed up against one wall. A carved wooden table held a bronze Buddha and a collection of smoking paraphernalia—a little urn filled with cigarettes, a silver cup of wooden matches, an abalone-shell ashtray, a small clay pipe, and a scattering of ivory cigarette holders. Aside from this corner of activity, which fascinated me, there was nothing else except a large white tent.
It stood square in the middle of the room. It was made of a very fine silk, or parachute nylon, and pulled taut with ropes and thin white rods. The ceiling of the tent formed a whimsical peak at the top.
“Cool, isn’t it?” my father asked me, when he reentered the room alone.
A big white tent. Right in the middle of the room. “Yeah,” I said, trying to seem underwhelmed. “Neat.”
Justine appeared. She had changed into something else fluid and exotic, and she carried tasseled silk cushions for the floor. “Hello,” she said to me with another uncomfortable smile, then went away, returning with a silver lantern. There was a lit candle inside it. She hooked the lantern high on the center pole of the tent so its walls became almost translucent and its peak a spire of light. “I’ll make some tea,” she said, then swept out of the room.
My father looked at me, and pointed at the glowing tent again. He nodded. I nodded back. Speechlessness seemed the appropriate reaction.
“Cool, isn’t it?” he said, nodding again. “Or, as you always say, ‘neat.’”
It was neat, as well as beautiful and playful and beckoning, if I’d had all those words at my disposal. But, for me, “neat” was meant to capture it all. The apartment was neat. The Lotus was neat. And watching those pre-Columbian beads scattering all over baggage claim had been kind of neat. What I really didn’t love was Justine.
She was carrying a large kettle away from the stove when I came into the kitchen. There were hooks on the ceiling where copper pots and pans and bowls of all sizes were hanging. I had never seen a copper pan before. I had never seen pots hanging from a ceiling before either. And just as I was about to ask if she needed any help with preparations—as my mother and Abuelita had taught me to do—Justine turned to me.
“Chamomile or ginseng?” A tendril of hair fell away from her topknot.
“What?” I watched as she tried to pat the tendril in place, but it kept falling down.
“Which would you like?”
I wasn’t sure what she meant.
“Chamomile helps you quiet down. Ginseng gives energy. Yin and yang.” She was looking at me, still waiting for something.
My father popped his head in. “She’s asking what kind of tea you’d like, Inez.”
“Oh.”
“Chamomile or ginseng,” he said. “They are both kind of herbally tasting, except I guess the ginseng is a bit spicy. Yin and yang are male and female energy. I bet you’ve seen that yin/yang symbol—the circle with the black and white teardrops that fit together? It’s sort of a hippie icon.” He drew it on a little notepad to show me. “An ancient Chinese concept, but the hippies have taken it over as their own.” He laughed and turned to Justine, “Hey, Neighbor Girl, that smells marvelous.”
“Your favorite.”
“I thought my new favorite was lops suchuan.”
“Gunka nijing oolong.”
They both laughed.
“Oh, thaaaat’s right,” he said merrily. “But let’s not forget the effects of the red hibiscus. Wow. Wasn’t it red?”
It was hard to burst in. Were they still talking about tea? “I’ll have ginseng,” I said finally.
“Ginseng?” Justine said, seeming startled, as though she’d forgotten I was in the room.
“Good choice!” my father said, shaking himself out of reverie. “You’ll love this chamomile Justine’s got. I’ll have some, too.”
Dinner at El Bodega remained largely the same long ritual. The restaurant was small—only big enough for six or eight tables—and the ceiling was low, creating a cozy space where Hector played guitar, served dinner after an endless wait, and his bony wife with armpit hair danced in the middle of the room while the clients ate paella. Justine seemed familiar with the drill, as though she’d been going there all her life.
“Pablo!”
Hector always called out my father’s name, as if he hadn’t just seen him the week before.
“Hola cabrón!” my father responded to his friend. “We’ll have three paellas. And whatever questionable flamenco you’re prepared to provide.”
There were laughs and a few more harmless jabs. Then, once we’d settled into a booth, the men discussed a new classical guitar album by Julian Bream and an appearance in town over the week by flamenco guitarist Paco Peña. “Aside from that den of inequity, Alegrías, there’s not much happening in town, flamenco-wise,” Hector said. He leaned his heavy hands on the edge of our table. He was a burly guy with a thick head of hair and furry arms. “And I can’t take Ernesto’s dancing anymore. I mean, why doesn’t he just put on a dress?”
“I know, I know,” my father laughed. “That red sash! Antonio’s good, though.”
“Oh, sure. That cat plays better than anybody else around,” Hector answered. “It’s good for the scene that he stays in San Francisco. Although I’m not sure why he does.”
Antonio was always discussed—and after a handful of Friday nights I’d spent watching the guitarist through the cigarette smoke at Alegrías, he seemed to me, and apparently to everyone, a fantastically attractive figure. Manitas de plata. He was still young—not much older than Whitman—and had the same dark looks as Whitman, and romantic hair that fell tragically in his eyes.
“Played a powerful taranta last week,” my father said.
“I heard, I heard,” said Hector. “He can bring it on, in spite of the jones. He’s got a real—”
“I know.” My father cut in.
“It’s gotten so bad that—” Hector looked over at me and didn’t continue. I was surprised, because I was usually invisible to him. We all were—the children or girlfriends of my father, probably because we had nothing intelligent to say about flamenco. So it was even more shocking when, in the next moment, Hector looked into my eyes.
“How’s your mother?”
I froze, momentarily shaken.
“I was thinking about her this week,” Hector continued, looking over at my father. “So gorgeous. Really added something to a production. Paco Peña was good, you know. But the troop is pretty bland. Didn’t you think so, Pablo? Cotton legs and no passion. They don’t have a Consuela Garcia.”
“Well, who does?” my father said, chucking uncomfortably. He was hoping this subject would be dropped soon.
“Oh, well, that’s true.” Hector was studying me, as though searching my face for something he’d lost. “Where’s she dancing these days?”
I felt myself growing hot—and I looked down at the table, almost involuntarily, when I realized that I was the only person at the table who knew the answer to Hector’s question. My father never asked me about my mother. And now, coming from Hector—how did he know my mother?—the conversation felt so personal, particularly after all the years that he’d treated me like I didn’t exist.
“She’s taking time off,” I said.
“Time off?” Hector looked over at my father, who shrugged. “What’s she taking time off for?” Hector continued. “I mean, if she’s not dancing what’s she doing?”
Not wanting to launch into a long description or reveal too much, suddenly feeling protective about Mom—Hector couldn’t possibly understand her or why she was dancing or not dancing—I came up with something as innocuous as possible. “Tennis,” I said. “She’s gotten into tennis
.” This was suitably bland information, and the focus of attention might turn elsewhere.
“Tango?” Hector asked.
My father perked up. “She’s gotten into—”
“Tennis,” I corrected.
The men shared a look and then returned their gaze to me, as if to demand elaboration. I felt a funny rush of power. I hadn’t realized that my mother generated this kind of interest—now or at any time. I looked over at Justine and wondered if it was okay to keep going, but I did anyway.
“She’s really good—a natural,” I said with a swelling of pride, parroting a line that I’d heard Coach Weeger say. “She’s dating the basketball coach at my school, and she’s already better than him.”
“Dating…” Hector had a twisted look on his face.
“The basketball coach,” my father finished.
There was another long silence.
Hector shook his head. “Playing tennis. Jesus God.”
“I know,” my father agreed.
“Can you imagine?”
“No.”
“I’m so sorry,” Justine leaned over with a solemn whisper, as though there’d been a death in my family—the cause of which had been the most gruesome accident imaginable. “Everybody says your mother was one of the great flamencas of her generation.”
She was?
Whitman arrived at the airport the next morning. We waited for him at the gate—our new tradition—and he emerged with a sleepy face and bloodshot eyes. He was wearing a pair of army fatigues, a long-sleeved T-shirt that said JACKS SURFBOARDS, HUNTINGTON BEACH PIER, a necklace of brown beads, and a beige fisherman’s sweater tied around his waist. His hair was below his shoulders and sun-bleached to copper on its wispy ends.
He walked up to Justine first—gave her a kiss on the cheek and greeted her in a startlingly loud voice, as though trying to yell her awkwardness away. (It seemed to work.) Then he bent down, gave me a kiss that turned into a hug. He whispered in my ear, “Hey. Looking good.”
My father threw his arm around Whitman’s shoulder, and they walked ahead, their voices rising in humor. Something about Whitman’s bloodshot eyes. “Are you stoned?” I heard my father say. And then he and Whitman both smiled and broke into laughter. Whitman said something about “buds,” and they laughed again. “Hope you saved some for me.” Watching them from behind, I noticed that Whitman was as tall as my father now, but his body was stockier than my father’s and seemed stronger. His arms were muscular, and his neck had thickened. As they turned their heads toward each other, I noticed a slightly changed feeling between them, a kind of distance or wariness or mutual respect—it was hard for me to know which. The fraternizing of equals, perhaps. In the old days, when Whitman first moved to California with Patricia, my father seemed to dote on him, encouraged his interests and eccentricities—and I’d always suspected that he favored my brother in some quiet, subtle way. They had male things in common, an interest in cars and motorcycles, natural history and physics, and they were always recounting some story about an explorer or military hero, Sir Edmund Hillary or Admiral Nelson. But now, since the summer, I guess, my father seemed to study Whitman with a judgmental eye. He was a man, and, I supposed, more was expected. My father seemed quick to criticize—or instruct. At the same time, I began to notice that my father was more lenient with me, still coddled me with flattery and indulgences. He doted on me and greeted almost every remark with an outburst of amusement and applause.
The Ruins of California Page 8