She’s seated in the red light of her living room, finishing up with a “client” when I arrive. I don’t knock, because this is really like my second home. Grandma doesn’t believe in locking her doors. She says she is watched over by spirits more powerful than any lock. Grandma doesn’t notice me stepping into the living room, because she’s in a trance. I can’t believe who is here.
Grandma’s wearing a silky purple robe thing, like a kimono or something, with her long crazy black witch hair frizzing out everywhere. I think she’s fifty-nine or so. She’s sitting at a card table across from the very same fat lady I saw at the bakery. Grandma’s holding the lady’s puffy hands; her eyes are rolling back in her head, and she’s speaking in a language no one has ever heard before. It sounds totally fake to me, but it probably isn’t. Grandma is unusual, and some think she’s crazy, but nobody denies she seems to really be able to tell the future and talk to people who’ve gone on to the other side. It’s still a little embarrassing to see her all tranced out like that. I mean, I could probably do it if I wanted to, but that’s just the point: I don’t want to.
I sit quietly on the bench in the entryway and watch. The light is dim, but I don’t think it’s dim enough to make me see things. And what I’m seeing is impossible. As my grandma talks in this weird language, the fat lady shrinks. I don’t mean she gets really small, like George in George Shrinks. She shrinks, like she’s losing weight faster than any human being on earth has ever lost weight. Soon she’s not lumpy anymore. She’s voluptuous or something. And her hair is shiny. Grandma is speaking English again, and tells her she can see the real heart of this woman. The woman starts to cry. Grandma tells her the obsessive eating is coming from pain in another life.
So you know? I’m a little freaked out by this. I don’t like when things make no sense — and when you’re me, there are plenty of things, vision kinds of things, that don’t make sense. So I don’t stay to hear what marvelous predictions my grandma is making for this lady. Instead, I go right for the kitchen. I’m starving. And even if Grandma is a scary good psychic, she can cook. There’s always something tasty in her refrigerator.
I find some enchiladas and pinto beans and some homemade tortillas. I heat them up in the ancient stained microwave and settle in at the little table in the corner. By the time I get to the last bite, I hear the front door closing. Then Grandma joins me at the table.
“M’ija,” she says, with that intense, burning look she gets in her eyes.
“Hi, Grandma.”
She takes my hand. “Did you like the enchiladas?” She asks this like it’s a life-or-death question.
“They were great.”
“Good.” From the look in her eyes, you’d think she was sitting around planning the takeover of a nation.
Then, without cracking a smile, she’s up and pouring herself a glass of water from the Brita filter pitcher in the fridge. The back of her kimono is all wet, like she’s been sweating. Or peeing.
“That was so heavy,” she says.
“What, your four-hundred-pound client?”
Grandma gives me an icy stare. “Her past lives. She’s had such a long journey.”
Bakery to grandma’s? Not such a long journey if you ask me.
“But enough of that,” says Grandma. She closes her eyes and pretends she’s got invisible ropes sticking out of her body. Then she uses her fingers like scissors and cuts them in the air. “Release,” she says. “Release, release.” She does this to disconnect from her clients. If she didn’t, she tells me, she’d be emotionally drained. When she has finished cutting the cords, she comes back to the table. She still has the intense look, but slightly softened. We look a lot alike, me and my grandma. In fact, I look more like her than I look like either of my parents. She smiles at me and gives me a huge, mashing hug.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting, sweetheart,” she says. “I’m hurting, too. I am going to miss you so much. I don’t know what I’ll do without you. I’m not going to say it’s going to be fine the way everyone else is, either.”
“I don’t want to go with him, Grandma.”
“I know. I know. I wish you could stay.”
She stops hugging me and takes my hands in hers, looking hard into my eyes. I feel like my entire soul jumps out of my body then jumps back in. And when it’s back, I feel instantly better.
“How’s that?” she asks. Tears quiver in the corners of her eyes.
“You’re amazing, Grandma,” I say. “How do you do that?”
“I have something for you.” She smiles. Grandma hardly ever answers questions the normal way.
“You do?”
“Come with me.”
I follow Grandma to her bedroom. It’s never a good thing when she wants to take you to her room. Her room has freaked me out since I was very small. It’s painted dark red and has incense going all the time. It’s full of weird art that looks like photos uploaded directly from the dead zone — ghoulish things from Mexico, miniature sculptures of skeletons and skulls that she tells me are in celebration of the afterlife. Grandma’s good but trippy.
“Here.” She takes a necklace out of her jewelry box and hands it to me.
“I can’t take your jewelry,” I say.
“It’s not mine, it’s yours,” she says. “I made it for you.”
It’s a long, thin black rubber string with a bright turquoise stone attached. The stone is carved into the shape of some kind of bird. I think it looks like something you’d call an amulet, but I’ve never actually seen an amulet, so I can’t be sure. It has that amulet feel to it, though, like something you’d read about in a science fiction book.
“It’s, uh, very nice,” I say. And that isn’t totally a lie. It’s actually kind of cool.
Grandma pulls me over to the bed and sits me down next to her. “It’s not nice. It’s powerful. This necklace is going to protect you.”
“Protect me? From what?”
“It’s a water bird. The water bird is very important to the Pueblo Indians. It represents distant travel, long vision, and wisdom. When you need guidance and I’m not there, seek it in the necklace.”
She pushes the water-bird stone against my palm and curls my fingers around it. Her hand is hot. Grandma stares into my eyes. “You are entering turbulent times.” She closes her eyes. “I see a yellow pyramid and a cement river.” Her brows knit together in a scowl. I get goose bumps, but I don’t tell her I’ve had dreams lately about the pyramid. Grandma opens her eyes and says, “What you are heading into won’t be easy. But I think you know that.”
“Please don’t tell me I’m going to die at the yellow pyramid.”
Grandma laughs. “No, sweetheart. Nothing like that.” She stares a moment. “Actually, it will be like a part of you dies. So you’re not completely off. And if you don’t honor your vision and gifts, well . . . I just don’t know.”
Great.
“But you’re not going to die physically.” She grins at the panic she must see on my face. Then she hugs me again. She’s trembling. “You’ll be safe if you do the right things. I’ll miss you so much. You’re not going to die, okay? Don’t think like that, okay, precious? It’s not like that. I have blessed this water bird, and the spirits have blessed it. And I feel that if you honor your gifts, you will find success beyond your dreams. The spirits have spoken, and this is what they told me.”
Oh goody. The spirits. I hate the spirits. They scare the you-know-what out of me. Why they chose me as one of their therapists — yes, they like to talk to me — I will never understand.
“Wear it whenever you think you need a little extra guidance, and we’ll be there, okay? Don’t be afraid of the power of the water bird.”
I stare at the stone and rubber and wonder how many people have a grandmother who says things like “Don’t be afraid of the power of the water bird.” There must be some who live by the beach somewhere, where water birds poop on the cars, but other than that, none. Just me. Lucky me.
>
“I know you think I’m crazy,” says Grandma. She’s crying with a smile. I think it’s almost harder for her that we’re moving away than it is for me and my dad.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I say.
“Listen to me. If you would just stop fighting the power, if you would just let it flow through you, you’d see what a great, great gift you have been given.”
“I already told you it’s a nice necklace.”
“That’s not the gift I’m talking about.” Grandma laughs. “I’m talking about this.” She taps my heart. “And this.” She taps my forehead, right between my eyebrows. “You are a seer, Pasquala. I know you saw my client transform in there.”
“I didn’t know you saw me,” I say.
“I see all,” she jokes.
I look at my watch. I don’t like when we start to talk about my “powers.” I don’t want powers. I want a normal life, a date now and then. “Okay, Grandma. Thanks. I’m going to miss you. Dad wants me back soon so we can hit the road.” I don’t want to stay any longer, because I know I’ll start to cry like a baby. I love my grandmother.
“You’ve forgotten what a great gift you were born with, just like your mother forgot about the gift of you.”
I shudder at being compared to my mother. I mean, let’s see. Irresponsible drug addict or honor student. Hmm. Nope. No comparison there.
“Allrighty then,” I say. “I hate to eat and run, but . . .”
Then Grandma’s face turns fierce. “You don’t want to believe what I’m telling you, Pasquala. But if you continue to reject your powers, there’s no telling how badly things might turn out.”
3
Dad has his Gwen Stefani CD blasting in the U-Haul with the Toyota in tow behind us. Did you even know U-Hauls had CD players? Me neither. But at least he’s wearing his old clothes again, jeans and a T-shirt. We just listened to my Alkaline Trio disc, and now it’s Dad’s turn. He lives in a highly democratic universe. I mean, I can tell he doesn’t really like the music I like. But he tolerates it and never complains. He wants to understand me. So why is it that he misses how scary I find it that he thinks he’s Gwen Stefani? Anyway. I’m in sweats, just in case I want to fall asleep, but how can anyone sleep with my dad singing along to Gwen Stefani? Maybe that weirdo magician David Blaine could do it. But not me.
Behind the seats, in his carrier, Don Juan howls in cat terror, as he’s done for the past two days. It’s not even like a meow. It’s like a baby in a vise. I’m seriously about to lose it. This is two straight days of Dad singing “Rich Girl,” two straight days of the cat screaming, and there’s only so much a girl can take, you know what I mean? And then there’s the whole thing of having to share a hotel room with my dad, who snores like a sick giraffe.
“Can I turn it down a little?” I ask.
Dad looks at me like I’ve insulted him. “What’s wrong, Punkin?” he asks. “I thought Gwen was da bomb.”
Here’s how much I hate that nickname: I’d rather be called Pasquala than Punkin. I can’t deal with the fact that my dad just said “da bomb,” either. So I look out the window and say nothing. In the past hour, the flat, endless desert of eastern California has slowly turned into a flat endless assortment of tract homes. Out the window, it’s house after house, square stucco things with pitched roofs done up in red tiles. Everyone has a little patch of struggling green lawn. Everyone has a white door. I guess it’s supposed to be charming. I still don’t want to be here. I miss home. Well, I miss Ethan, anyway. And the mountains. And my friends.
“What’s wrong?” Dad has this habit of repeating himself until you answer him.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say. Like I’m really going to tell my dad I think I’m in love for the first time? No way. He’ll find it adorable. He’ll call me Punkin again. He’ll say I’m da bomb. This is the same dad who took me out for ice cream when I got my first period, and actually asked the staff to sing a congratulations song. Sometimes he’s too understanding and supportive. I haven’t had a scoop of mint chocolate chip since.
“We’re almost there, Paski!” Dad takes an overly excited sip from the mammoth cup of Coke he got back in Barstow. It’s got to be hot and flat by now. Foul. But that’s the thing with this new version of my dad. Everything’s “awesome” to him. He keeps using that word, too. By the way, don’t ever go to Barstow. It’s like a giant RV monster took a dump there.
“Yay,” I say, sarcastic. “We’re almost there.”
“Cheer up.” Dad rolls down the window on his side. “Look!” He sticks his head out like a too-happy dog, then ducks back inside just as this massive semi truck passes us and nearly chops his head off. Dad doesn’t notice, of course. “It’s warm out there! You feel that? It’s like summer in January!”
I turn down the volume on the stereo and try not to look impressed by the beautiful weather. I’m actually pretty psyched about it. Speeding semis? It’s not just the semi, either. The closer we get to our new home, the crazier people drive.
“Look!” Dad shrieks. I follow his pointing to a road sign for the turnoff from Interstate 15, which we’re on, to California Highway 91. “Toward ‘beach cities,’” he reads, pushing me playfully. “Did you see that? ‘Beach cities,’ kid! We’re going toward beach cities! It’s a whole new life for us. You’ll see.”
“But I didn’t want a whole new life. You did.”
I have to admit, but only to you and never to my dad, that there is something sort of exciting about moving toward beach cities. I know as well as anyone that what you see on TV is pretty much geared to fool and brainwash you. But you have to admit, California is a pretty cool place. In theory. I’m not going to get too excited yet.
Dad takes the turn onto Highway 91, and I’m surprised by a couple of things. First, it’s really hilly here. Second, it’s pretty. It’s like nature here. I mean, it’s no Taos, but there’s a lot of nature around. I didn’t expect that. I could do some serious mountain biking here. You see high-rises and stuff on television. I didn’t expect mountain peaks with snow on them. You never hear about those. All you hear about is the beach and Beverly Hills.
I shrug. “I guess it’s pretty here.”
I cringe as I feel my father smiling at me. I don’t look at him, but I know him well enough by now to know that he’s happy I said something nice. I haven’t said anything nice for days. I can’t stand the way he smiles when he’s proud of me but thinks he’s won.
“That’s better,” he says. “You’ll see. It’s gonna be awesome.”
After about a million other interchanges and tolls, we wind up on something called Moulton Parkway. I think of a lava lamp, and this reminds me of Emily, who has two. We’re in Orange County. In case you’re wondering? Yes, it’s beautiful. There are flowers on the medians of the freeways, big splashes of them in purples and reds. Grandma would like the freeways here. And yes, everyone has a nicer car than we do. Well, not everyone, but lots of people. I have never seen more BMWs, Lexuses, and Infinitis in one place. And Hummers, which I hate on principle. I don’t get it. How can so many people have luxury cars? How can so many people have that many important things to talk about on their cell phones? How can people drive so fast without crashing all the time?
“Huge,” I have to tell you, does not begin to describe how big it all is. Everything goes on forever. The freeways, the parkways, the lawns, the malls. The sun is bright, and the air, when I roll down my window, smells like I remember the ocean smelling from a trip we took to Florida when I was younger. It’s the same smell from my dream, like salt and car exhaust, clean and dirty at the same time.
Dad looks at his map while he drives, and almost crashes the U-Haul about forty times. He’s singing, too, “’If I were a rich girl, na na na na . . .’” People are honking at us and I want to hide. I’m, like, yes, this is my dad; he can’t drive, he can’t sing, he’s not a rich girl. Yeah, he’s lost. He’s going the wrong way.
“Sorry,” says Dad, fumbling with
the gearshift. “I know it was around here somewhere.”
It? The apartment. You know, the place we’re going to live? It’s already three o’clock, and Dad tells me we only have until five to unload everything. After five, there’s no moving in or out of the apartment building. Outside, everything looks like a mini-mall. And the weirdest part is that nothing is natural. There are plenty of trees, flowers, lots of grass, but it all looks like someone arranged it by straightedge. The whole world is manicured like a movie set here.
Finally, Dad finds what he’s looking for. He’s been promising me for days that I’m going to love this place and its racquetball, volleyball, tennis courts, gym, and swimming pools. It’s not just an apartment, he’s reminded me, it’s a luxury apartment.
The St. Moritz Resort Apartments aren’t what I expected. I thought, you know, apartment building. In Taos, that means just what it sounds like. A building. With a parking lot. Made of adobe and falling apart. Usually there’s a drunk guy in the parking lot or something. But this thing sits at the end of a fake cobblestone driveway behind big iron gates. It looks like a college campus. There are buildings, lots of them, and acres of lawns with walking paths and palm trees. The buildings are stucco, like almost everything else I’ve seen so far, in pretty peaches and browns. People have flowers on their patios. A few people walk past, and they are fit, with tans and tennis racquets thrown over their shoulders. It does look like a resort. Pine and palm trees tower over everything. Impressive.
“Wow, Dad,” I say. “Not bad.”
“I told you,” he gloats, happy to be winning again.
Dad drives the U-Haul to our building and parks on the blacktop in front of a small white garage door. Then we walk to the office to get our keys. The clubhouse has white walls and navy blue carpet, with luxurious sofas and potted plants everywhere. There’s fresh coffee and tea for guests, and chocolate chip cookies. I down a cookie. I hadn’t realized until right now how hungry I was. The place is huge, like everything else in Orange County. Except the women.
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