I’d planned on this being a quick visit. Even though Benno was in Newport, I still felt a need to keep the home fires burning. My priority was him and our life in San Francisco. But he wasn’t in San Francisco. And it was so busy in Greengage. There was no end to the work, and people were grateful to have another set of willing hands—so I stayed. Each day I joined a different crew. I wanted a chance to try everything out. How else would I know what I loved? What work I was truly meant to do. Back in San Francisco, I’d never have that luxury. Benno had Newport. Rhonda had Ginger. I had Greengage.
Everything was blissful, except for Joseph. After our conversation the first night, it seemed he was avoiding me. He was polite, but careful not to catch my eye. Every time I saw him, I was swamped with shame, transported right out of Greengage and into Safeway, my stomach a pit of anxiety, waiting for the cashier to tell me what I owed, knowing I did not have enough money in my wallet to pay the bill.
What would I put back? What could we do without?
That was the soundtrack of my life back home.
—
It turned out that I was right; Magnusson was courting Fancy.
“I told Dear One, but I’m afraid to tell Joseph,” said Fancy.
Outside, it was drizzling. We were in the barn, braiding garlic. The pungent odor mingled with the candy smell of our lunch, sweet potatoes baking in the ashpan of the woodstove.
Fancy squirmed on a bale of hay. “Next time I’m bringing a chair.”
She was dressed as usual in inappropriate work clothes. She wore a yellow silk dress and Joseph’s old boots.
“Joseph already knows about you two,” I said. “I told him.”
“You told him? What did he say?” When Fancy got nervous, her eyelashes fluttered up and down like tiny fans.
“He didn’t believe me.”
“Of course he didn’t.” She smiled. “I’m very good with secrets.”
“I don’t know why it has to be a secret. I’d think people would be happy.”
“You do?”
“Sure. The two of you make sense.”
“Really? But we’re so different.”
“Well, you’re not an obvious match, which makes a good match in my book.”
“I suppose you’re right. Yes, the difference is precisely what makes it so exciting.” She squeezed the stem just above the garlic bulb, softening it so it would be more pliable. “So I have a question.”
My garlic braid looked terrible. Lopsided and loose.
“Snipped or unsnipped?” asked Fancy. “I myself prefer snipped. It makes for a neat package, and oh, that lovely little mushroom cap. But I suppose there’s nothing wrong with a cock in its natural state as God intended, either.”
I hooted with laughter.
“Are you scandalized that I’ve had sexual relations before marriage?” asked Fancy.
“Of course not.”
Her face fell. “Oh. Does everybody do that now? Is that the fashion?”
“Not everybody,” I said. “But lots of young people experiment.”
“How many men have you been with?” she asked.
“How many men have you been with?” I shot right back.
“Two,” she said. “You?”
I didn’t want to tell any more lies here in Greengage; either they’d accept me or they wouldn’t. “Ten. No, eleven.”
She smiled broadly. “One short of a dozen. Well, good for you, Luxie!”
I was stunned. I’d expected a reaction like Joseph’s when I’d told him about Nelson, quietly judgmental. I did not anticipate outright enthusiasm.
Fancy leaned her head on my shoulder. “You are my role model.”
“I’m nobody’s role model,” I said, my cheeks hot. Role model? Those were two words I never thought I’d hear spoken about me, especially in the context of how many sexual partners I’d had. Fancy was far more accepting than people in the supposedly open society of the 1970s were.
“Well, you’re not Dear One’s role model,” Fancy said.
“That’s obvious. Hand me that bulb.”
Fancy plunked a head of garlic into my lap and I clumsily wove it into my braid.
“It’s just that she’s in such a sour mood all the time these days,” said Fancy. “I much prefer being with you.”
I sighed, feeling empathy for Dear One. “It can’t be easy for her. You being with Magnusson.”
Fancy huffed. “She’s my best friend. She should be happy for me.”
“She should be, but I’m sure it’s tough feeling she’s been replaced. The same thing’s just happened with my roommate. She’s in love.” I made a face. “With a man named Ginger.”
“Ginger!”
“I know, what kind of a grown man is named Ginger?”
“Ridiculous,” she snorted on my behalf.
“Right, but here’s the thing. He’s not ridiculous. He’s lovely. And he adores her. And I’m really happy for her, I am, but I also kind of hate him for taking her away from me.” I laid the garlic braid on my lap. “I imagine that’s a little bit of how Dear One is feeling. And there’s me. I’m taking you away from her, too. It’s a double whammy.”
Fancy’s eyes grew wide. “How can I have been so self-absorbed? I’ve been a terrible friend,” she moaned. “Poor, poor Dear One. She’s my first true love. My dearest.”
“I know. Go find her,” I said. “I’ll finish your braid.”
“I have no idea where she is.”
“You know perfectly well where she is—in the sweet potato fields.”
Fancy grimaced.
“Yes, you’ll get dirty and wet, and yes, it will be worth it. You’ll make her day. Go.”
Fancy handed me her braid. It was perfect, a work of art. “Don’t try and pass that off as your own,” she said, smiling.
—
After lunch Martha pulled me aside. “I need your help in the herb garden.”
Nobody ever dared to ask if they could join her. Martha always worked alone.
“Are you serious?”
“Don’t make me regret asking,” she said.
She gave me a quick tour of the garden, pointing at plants and reciting names—bear grass, blue flax, brass buttons, cat’s ear, skullcap, periwinkle, vetch, pennyroyal—then she set me to work weeding.
“You’re not staying?” I asked as she walked off toward the garden gate.
“You’re crushing my foxglove,” she said.
She picked up a wooden carryall full of tools, tucked a spade under her arm, and walked to the middle of the lawn, where for the next hour she did nothing but stare at the grass. At least to me it looked like she was doing nothing, but clearly that wasn’t the case, because suddenly she sank to her knees with a trowel and began to dig.
“Do you need any help?” I called out, curious.
She waved her hand at me, not even bothering to look up.
At first I felt insulted that she was ignoring me, but after a while I grew to appreciate the silence. With my hands in the dirt, the sun beating down on my shoulders, a now-familiar expansiveness bloomed inside of me. An internal settling. An openness through which the world poured in. I used to get that feeling at Lapis Lake. If there were a drug that made you feel this way, I’d have become an addict.
—
“It’s called a Horologium Florae,” Martha explained later that afternoon. She’d dug a large circle in the grass. The circle was sectioned off into twelve wedges.
“A flower clock. It was first hypothesized by a Swedish botanist in the 1700s. You plant a dozen flowers, each of them programmed to open and close at a specific hour. At the one o’clock section you plant a flower whose blooms open at one. At the two o’clock section you plant a flower whose blooms open at two. The blooms tell you what time it is. Like a sundial, only with flowers. Of course, I’ll have to wait until summer to plant, but I wanted to mark out the space before the first frost.”
She pointed at each section in turn: “Goatsbeard there, then morning g
lory, then hawkweed, then purple poppy mallow. Then, I’m sorry to say, I’ll have to use lettuce—there’s nothing else that will bloom at that hour. On to swamp rose mallow and marsh sowthistle. Then fameflower and hawkbit. I’m still working out the rest.”
I was surprised to hear her talking this way. Martha wasn’t the kind of gardener who forced things. She kept her herb garden neatly weeded, but she encouraged the mingling of species. She abhorred fussy plants and hothouses.
“It will really work? Each flower will open and shut precisely on the hour?”
“Yes.”
“But isn’t that sort of unnatural? Especially given—your situation?”
Time had turned its back on them. For better or worse, they’d been liberated of the need for clocks and watches.
“There’s nothing unnatural about it!” she cried.
I’d never heard Martha raise her voice before.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Martha took a deep breath and sighed. “No, I’m sorry. There’s no reason for me to be shouting at you.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. You’ve done nothing but try and be helpful. I just find this whole endeavor—well, quite unnerving, if I’m honest about it.”
“Then don’t do it,” I said.
Martha tossed back her head in surprise. “When I first met you, you seemed easily categorized, Lux. Like one of my herbs. ‘Nettles: a remedy for night sweats, fatigue, and releasing excess mucus.’ I like things to be defined. It calms me, brings order to my life. So on your first visit, I thought, ‘Lux Lysander: flighty, scared, we’ll never see her again.’ On your second visit, I thought, ‘Sweet, a bit of a dreamer.’ And now, on your third visit, it’s clear I have to recalibrate once again.”
She nodded briskly. “Intuitive, honest, clear-thinking, and loyal.”
I looked at her openmouthed, letting the praise sink in. Each adjective was like a little firework burst, spreading its fingers of heat over the surface of my skin.
“I’m not done,” she said. “Compassionate, resourceful, intelligent.”
My eyes welled up.
“Worthy,” she finished.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I thought I’d lost those parts of me.”
“Nothing is ever lost,” said Martha. “Only forgotten. All that’s needed is one person who remembers, one person who realizes it is still there.”
The door to a long-abandoned room inside me that I hadn’t even known existed until this minute began to open. Sweet, fresh air poured in.
Martha knelt. “I have to make this damn flower clock. I don’t know why, but I do. Will you help? Will you bring me plants?”
“I’ll help however I can,” I said.
Late that afternoon, just before supper, I caught up with Lux. She’d barely spoken to me the entire week. I felt terrible. My response—or lack of response—to her confession was appalling. I hadn’t been put off by her admission that she’d lied about being married. I was taken aback that she felt she had to tell people she was a widow in order to be accepted. And worse, that she was willing to accept the crumbs of people’s pity because she felt that was the best she could get. Then there was her father, barely acknowledging her son’s existence, which reminded me of my own father. It was hard to accept that the change I wanted to see in the world hadn’t come even decades after my time. People still judged each other, and by all the wrong standards at that. It had put me in a pensive mood for days.
“How was your afternoon with Martha?” I asked Lux.
She sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, so soon?” Say something, you damn fool. Apologize.
“I’ll be back next month. Providing I’m welcome.” She arched her left eyebrow at me.
“You’re very welcome. In fact, I’d be upset if you didn’t come.” I joined her at the table. I swept crumbs into a little pile. “Devastated, actually.”
She made a skeptical face. “Devastated?”
“Yes,” I said forcefully. “I’m sorry.”
She drummed her fingers on the table. “For what?”
“For being an ass.”
She quickly looked to the side, trying to mask her reaction, but I could see my contrition pleased her.
“I wish things were different. I wish you lived in a world where you didn’t have to tell people you were a widow.”
“Yeah, so do I, but I don’t.”
“Well, then fuck them,” I said.
Her lips slowly peeled back in a delighted smile. “My God. Look at you. Cursing like a commoner.”
The kitchen was a different place with her in it. You could tell she didn’t quite belong here. She pulled the light toward her.
It was my turn to confess, to reveal something to her. I wanted to even up things between us. To keep us on equal footing.
“Greengage used to be bigger,” I said. “Back in 1900 there were nearly four hundred of us. We’ve lost more than one hundred residents in the past six years.”
She brought the mug up to her lips and took a careful sip. “Why did they go?”
“Lots of reasons. Family. Money. They were bored. They wanted something different.”
I looked out the window. From where I was sitting, I could see the dome of Martha’s straw hat bobbing as she made her rounds in the garden.
“The day of the earthquake, it was glorious out. Temperate, sunny. That afternoon we were going to have a goodbye party for yet another family who was leaving. I was upset, but doing my best to hide it. Greengage was so perfect. I thought to myself, Who could possibly want to leave this paradise?”
She nodded. She’d asked herself the same question, too.
“ ‘Her early leaf’s a flower; but only so an hour,’ ” I recited.
“You read the book?” she said, looking pleased.
“From cover to cover.”
“It’s good, isn’t it? ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay.’ My favorite.”
It wasn’t my favorite, but it was the poem that spoke to me most.
“I think I must have known that our hour was nearly up. We’d been operating for seventeen years. We’d had a good run, but I knew our numbers would continue to dwindle. People would drift away.”
“Oh, Joseph. Your dream—”
“I’m not disclosing this so you’ll pity me.”
“I know. That’s not what—”
“I have to tell you something.”
“All right,” she said.
I inhaled, suddenly realizing that I’d been holding my breath. “I wished, just for a moment, for time to freeze. For it to stop.”
Her brow creased. “No, Joseph. You can’t think that this is your fault. Everybody wants time to stop at some point in their life. Everybody.”
“Yes, well, now I’ve been given what I wished for. We won’t lose any more people, because they have no choice. They have to stay.”
She didn’t say anything. She took the truth of my statement in, and for that I was grateful.
“Please take me to see The Deer Hunter,” begged Benno.
Benno was obsessed with anything that had to do with war. He was eight years old now, and if he wasn’t playing with his G.I. Joe, he was reading encyclopedia entries on General MacArthur. He knew everything there was to know about trench and chemical warfare. He’d read Anne Frank’s diary three times. But what he was most desperate to talk about was the Vietnam War, which wasn’t a popular topic. Whenever Benno and I saw vets out on the street, many in wheelchairs or on crutches, he would walk right up to them and say, “My daddy was a soldier like you. He was killed in action.”
Almost all of them teared up and hugged him, and I knew exactly what Benno was thinking. He could have been my father. Although I did not like the idea of him going around embracing strangers, I let him. It provided him with a kind of comfort no book or movie could.
I’d seen Deer Hunter last w
eek. There was no way I was going to let Benno watch Christopher Walken play Russian roulette.
“It’s too adult for you,” I said.
After Benno had been born, I’d hired a service to help me track down Nelson King’s family. I’d had no idea where he’d grown up or if his parents were dead or alive, if he had siblings or if he was an only child. I knew what seemed like important information at the time. His favorite band was Jefferson Airplane. He loved pizza with black olives and onions. He was a rabid Doonesbury fan.
The service had found Nelson’s only surviving relative, his mother, in Wisconsin. I’d written to Anna King and enclosed a photo of Benno. I also sent her copies of the letters Nelson had written to me as proof; I wasn’t sure she’d believe me. There was something sort of classless about breaking the news to a stranger who’d lost her son that I’d not only had sex with him, but had a baby by him as well. A baby he’d never lived long enough to know about.
Two weeks after I’d sent the letter, it came back to me. On the envelope, scribbled in pencil, were the words Return to Sender, Addressee Unknown. Anna King had steamed open the letter, read it, then taped it back shut again. Whatever I’d written, whatever decisions I’d made, whatever I and her son had shared, she’d decided she wanted nothing to do with it. With us.
“I have an idea. Let’s do something special tonight,” I said to Benno.
“Like what?”
“Let’s make lasagna. Real, authentic lasagna. We’ll go to North Beach to buy the ricotta.”
“Can I have Coke?”
Coke was only for special occasions in our house.
“Okay.”
“Dr Pepper, too?”
I laughed. “Don’t push your luck, kiddo.”
—
I loved North Beach on a Saturday; it had a festive, celebratory air. After shopping we walked to City Lights bookstore. It was packed; a local poet was giving a reading. We stood in the corner and listened for a few minutes until the poet started reciting a poem about a blow job he’d received in the back room of a grocery store. I quickly hustled Benno out the door.
On our way home we stopped at a café to get an ice cream.
“Can we sit at the counter, Mom?” asked Benno.
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