Which was why I was always grateful for my own room. No one ever knew to what state I had fried myself into.
“We’re just hanging out,” Danny said. He gestured to his cart – beer, tightly wrapped sandwiches and fifteen bags of chips in every flavor currently on the market. Ah, we were getting high.
“I’d love to join you,” I said, not sure if love was the right word but what the hell, an afternoon filled with cold rushing water, heat bouncing off the valley and onto on my pasty white skin. I wasn’t sure I’d indulge in the main attraction, but stranger things have happened. The Nacho Doritos looked good.
“We’ll wait for you at the bridge,” Danny confirmed.
“We hike up stream,” Jimmy warned me.
I smiled. “We always did.”
A young girl, who looked about twelve, except she was old enough to be trusted to choose her own hair color, in this case, bright pink, wheeled my groceries out to the car. She even balanced the cart with one tennis shoe clad foot and loaded both bags into the back of my Lexus SUV.
“I don’t have,” I looked into the black cavern that is my purse for a loose dollar or two.
“Oh no ma’am, we don’t accept tips, this is what we do.”
I squinted in the bright light. There are child labor laws, I’m pretty sure. Then again, in Claim Jump, the rules were often ignored, who was to know?
No tip.
Except to tell her not to call me ma’am.
I smiled and felt like my grandmother. “Well then, thank you.”
“Sure, have a good day.”
I pulled into the street and slowly drove to Prue’s, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding my phone waiting for a flash of three or four bars so I could make calls. I left a message for Norton just before the connection kicked out. I turned the corner and with a sigh of resignation, because I already knew the outcome, left a message on Peter Christopher’s phone, Jill Christopher’s phone and the main phone line for their office. “And have a godly day.” Her voice main message chirped.
At least the voice message on the main office line didn’t wish you immediate communing with god. As an after-thought, I left a message with the Bixby’s themselves. My clients Browns had signed, I just needed, had to have, the Bixby’s confirmation.
I checked my voice mail. Nothing. I turned the corner and headed up to Prue’s. I used both hands to navigate up the street. The high stone wall to my right was riddled with random rocks, the mortar was wearing away so some rocks jutted out into the street. I had to be careful.
The car bumped and jostled. In fact, except for the freeway, the roads in Claim Jump were not in very good repair. In the case of Marsh Avenue, there is no other route for traffic to take – the city would have to close the road in the middle of the night in order to repave. That costs far more money. It’s always about money, and most cities don’t ever have enough.
I called Carrie as I unloaded the groceries.
“I’m having a wonderful time, wish you were here,” I said.
“Allison!” Carrie responded with more enthusiasm than my lame opening warranted.
“What do you think about falling in love?” She startled me.
“What? As a concept? Plot for a movie? Career choice?”
“No, just falling in love with someone and staying with them forever.”
I nodded to Brick Bitterman as he emerged from the guest-house and blinked at the morning sun. Brick rooms with Raul. Brick is a more recent (ten years) addition. I don’t know how the permanency came about, but apparently Grandma doesn’t mind because they prevent anyone else from visiting Grandma for too long. That includes my charming uncles and my mother, who is already disinclined to spend anymore than an afternoon in Claim Jump
Brick is a thin, consumptive looking man who missed his calling as vicar for a small English town, the kind of village Katherine from my office, loves to visit; thatch roofs, ruddy faced locals, pubs, that kind of thing. But it was Brick’s misfortune to instead end up as the high school PE teacher for Forty Niner High. I don’t know how that career worked for Brick but he seemed quite relieved when he could finally retired.
“I have not experienced what that would be like.” I said dryly, addressing Carrie while waving to Brick. “And right now I think I’d rather come across another dead body than fall in love.” Why, why do I even think these things, let alone say them out loud?
“Your grandparents had a good marriage,” she pointed out.
“True, then there’s my parents,” I countered.
I retrieved the third bag of groceries and managed to lock the car, listen to Carrie and if I cocked my head to the east, I could retain about three bars worth of reception between the garage, barn, guest house, kitchen.
Brick stoically watched me from the narrow porch on the guest-house. He did not offer to help.
“Anyway.” Carrie had enough about me. “I think I’m falling in love with Patrick and I don’t know when I should tell him.”
“Never. Never tell him. Make him go first.” I counseled.
“Okay, thanks,” she clicked off. I paused with the silent phone against my ear and two bags in my arms. That was too easy. What was she up to?
I unloaded my necessities onto the counter and into the refrigerator and looked for Prue before I took off for the river.
Grandma is sitting on prime real estate and she knows it. Three useable and organized acres, a working garage, a barn with a history, and a 4,000 square foot house – some of the rooms usable, some not. I could sell it for 5 million but it would take too long. 3.5. To someone from the Bay Area. They’d be all over it. But I will never sell, I will inherit. Not because I can’t bear the thought of the house leaving the family, no, for the right price, anyone can bear the thought of letting something out of the family. Nope, I do not want to bring this sucker up to code.
Since my grandparents bought this place in the sixties, there hasn’t been a single permit filed for any improvements, dubious as well as useful. There are no permits for the barn, no permits for the dance studio inside the barn. There are no permits filed for the guest house, no permits for the greenhouse, certainly no permits or inspections for the wiring, the plumbing, the reconstructed chimney that fell down in 1983. Nothing.
Oh sure, in 1964 no one in Claim Jump bothered with permits, it was considered necessary only if the city manager could see what you did from the road. He often looked the other way anyway. Grandma re-furbished the greenhouse way back when she was volunteering for the city manager. Friends in high places are often more beneficial than cash.
So you see, this will be my house forever; a badly wired heap of 140 year old, dry timber. I think the walls stand because the termites in a fit of civic duty, have taken to holding hands.
But it looks really good from the street. The house is a tall three-story box with coins decorating the sides, Italianate. Great curb appeal. Just don’t go round the back.
“I’m going to the river Grandma!” I announced as I banged the screen door.
I unloaded the groceries as Grandma walked in. “I forgot to tell you where the things go.”
I braced myself for a new recycling program. Grandma has a new one every time I visit.
Now, I’m green. Everyone in California is green. But I’m not, for instance, Forest Green, or Jungle Green, I’m more a celadon green: light celadon green.
My grandmother on the other hand has escalated some typical green practices to an art form, like one of those annoying performance art pieces involving mimes.
Grandma set down her misshapen (hand thrown) mug of coffee and launched into the latest instructions. “The water bottles go into this,“ she pointed to a brown Safeway bag by the kitchen table. “The aluminum foil goes into the shoe box,” she gestured towards a shoe box resting just behind the back door.
“The plastic bags go into that white plastic bin under the sink, and to the left of that is another bag for the cans – remember to rinse them
out.”
I nodded and turned to get more coffee, but she was on a roll. “All the peelings go into the carton.”
I glanced around, ah, the carton was a cut down milk container, because everything is recycled. I simply nodded, there was no way to contribute to this recitation.
“Just pile the papers on the extra chair, we can put the magazines with the newspapers now, that took about seventeen city council meetings, but we did it. If you are finished with a colorful magazine with lots of pictures, Marianne is making collages for the library study hour next month so she needs good magazines for that project. That collection is over there next to the side board.”
“Okay, colorful magazines.” I nodded, and tried not to say anything sarcastic, but for a fleeting second I felt sympathy for my mother, who refuses to recycle anything at all on the grounds that it’s just like piling up garbage in your own home.
Once I solemnly swore to Prue that I would recycle any and all things according to the current rules and specifications, I was released to clomp upstairs and stuff a few things into a more casual canvas tote I brought for such a contingency. When I was younger, a trip to the river meant two pairs of shorts and at least two pairs of panties. And that was when I was skinny dipping. I pulled out three of everything and stuffed them all into the tote.
I am not being a prima Dona. Wet, sandy clothes are very uncomfortable to sit on when you drive your sorry burned, soaked drunk body home after an afternoon of debauchery.
I could hardly wait.
“Don’t dive,” Prue called after me as I stomped back down the stairs.
“I won’t get pregnant either,” I called back.
“I’m not worried about that any more,” she called back.
Damn straight. Someone had to break the Singleton women’s curse – all of them pregnant at 18. Happened to grandma, happened to mom (and she’d kill me if I told you, her youthful appearance isn’t all due to the magic of chemicals, old fashion age has a great deal to do with it. She pretends she had my oldest brother at the acceptable age of 25. Hah).
Anyway, not me. I popped a bottle of wine into my tote along with an opener, glasses, some cheese and a bottle of water. I wore shoes I did not care about (old Tod’s driving loafer, their bumpy soles mere nubs) climbed back in the car.
I drove through the east side of town and out to the highway (that would be a slightly wider two lane road than the two lane road I just left which makes it the highway.) I took a left onto the road that snakes down to the deep gulch that holds the south fork of the Yuba River.
The Yuba River is cold and fast. More tourists should think twice before they launch their kids into this water. Oh sure, there are kids down at the river, especially on the weekends. But these are tiny little natives, and they are not jumping from the bridge, only tourists do that.
You heard my grandmother, don’t dive.
I pulled into a civilized parking area complete with parking stripes and a small blue port-a-potty positioned at an official trail head decorated with a lengthy warning sign that first absolved all government bodies of any liability and second, pointed out the dearth of life guards, signage, trail markings, water fountains, and as a bonus, the abundance of poison oak, submerged rocks, hot sun and sharp pointy objects randomly scattered around the valley floor.
I made the last line up.
Parking at the river used to be so much more exciting. As long as the car was a centimeter behind the white traffic line, you were legally good but that made no difference to a high driver.
The uncertainty added to the mystery and excitement on the walk back. As I struggled up the last yards of the trail, I’d torture myself with thoughts of my car towed, or sideswiped, or completely wrecked. Kind of sobered me up. At least enough drive home.
But now, all that excitement is over.
Jimmy and Danny were not alone. Not that I expected to be the only girl on the trip. Three skinny young things with legs that ran up to their arm pits orbited around Jimmy and Danny, while the men waved vigorously in my direction.
The young ladies nodded at me at I approached, but did not smile. I was the odd woman in the group – it was already three to two before I arrived. Well, Danny must still have it. Good for him.
“Hi, I’m Allison, an old friend of Danny’s.” I probably didn’t need to emphasis the old, but I thought it would make them feel better.
The three young ladies nodded in unison as if they practiced.
“He told me about you. You don’t really live here,” one said.
“No, but I visit my grandmother every summer,” I explained.
She looked doubtful, as if not being from Claim Jump was an affliction that maybe could not be cured, or it was contagious.
I waited. She considered. Perhaps some of her chemical experiments had not been so successful, it took her quite a while to find the right words.
“Oh, okay.” Was the best she could do, but the other two visibly relaxed after their leader gave me the Uh, Okay.
We cannot all be rocket scientists.
“I’m Pamela.” She finally came up with a name. She gestured towards me with her elbow, her hands were filled with paper grocery bags, a small blue cooler dangled from the crook of her arm.
“I’m Cindy,” the other girl, her hair tucked into a sensible ponytail nodded to me. She carried the towels and more paper bags.
“Tiffany,” the third, hair in a pony tail and her face shadowed by her CAT tractor hat was burdened with Safeway bags and a gallon of water.
Water? My, how things have changed. We use to carry that much volume in wine alone. I did not look at Danny as I remembered that.
Formal introductions finished, Jimmy and Danny simultaneously bent to retrieve a six pack of beer each and we shuffled down to a dirt path cut into the shear cliff stretched between the parking area and the roaring river below. Churning green water crashed and roared below us as we hiked up stream. Occasionally the water swirled into a deep pool, more blue than green. Every quarter mile or, so a flat rock emerged from the tumble of granite and every flat surface was decorated with teens lounging on the hard surface. Many kids were still in their hollering and hooting phase – they still had some energy and beer left. Later in the afternoon these same vigorous individuals will be just laying around in the hot sun, replete with beer, unwilling to do much more than flick water at their friends.
The rocks glimmered with flecks of iron pyrite. This is gold country. Sometimes there is gold, sometimes a rock is just shiny – Fool’s Gold. Great name for a town. Like You Bet.
We trudged slowly along the river, in single file, which precluded conversation.
Each time one the girls found a branch or rock, she squealed to her friends to watch out, watch out, and then another girl would set her bag or cooler down and gingerly move the branch from the path, then gesture to her friends to pass, like an elaborate play-ground game. Then as I approached – bringing up the rear, so to speak, one of them – again I couldn’t remember which, would turn and release the branch so it smacked me in the face, breasts, legs, pick a part.
I felt it was better to not react. I just marched forward and followed the elaborate tattoo decorating the calf of one of the girls. It looked like a pretty, pretty pony or something. Another girl sported a Celtic knot in green and yellow on her upper arm. The third was tattoo-free, as far as I could tell.
We rounded the corner so the bridge was finally out of sight and marched for what seemed like miles and mile. March, step, squeal, smack with a branch. You know, Manzanita has strong resilient branches and thus is very painful when it hits a delicate flower like myself.
Finally, I recognized one of my “usual” spots. Danny lifted his arm like a scout leader at the head of the pack. The evil thoughts I entertained in my head would preclude a good sportsmanship badge.
“Oh hell,” Danny said as he gazed down the precipice to the water.
“He got here first,” Jimmy commented calmly. “Damn
him.”
“Oh come on, there’s just one of him and a bunch of us.” One young lady, I forgot her name, she wore the Deer tractor hat, cheerfully summarized. “Besides, he’s cute.”
I stopped walking before I glanced down. The trail forked ever so subtly, lined with more dark green poison oak, there were a few flat spots with sand and rocks offering almost even foot holds and below was a series of small spits of sand like tiny beaches. One boulder thrust into the river, forcing the current around its smooth sides. Below, I knew, the river dipped and created a perfect, albeit small, swimming hole. Better, there were a number of places a person or persons could go to avoid being seen from any hiker on the trail above.
I did not look at Danny.
“Come on, it’s too far to the next hole.” The girl in the Deer Trailer hat tugged at Danny and succeeded in gaining the six-pack to carry for her trouble.
‘Well,” she squared her narrow shoulders determinedly. “I’m going to say hi.”
“Hi!” She yelled loudly, and with towel and cooler and bags and now beer, she bounced from rock to rock like, yes a mountain goat, to the valley floor.
I shrugged and gingerly followed her. I moved to the left of where she leapt. I have some muscle memory of the place, but I didn’t leap per se. I placed my feet securely on one rock before lifting the other to move forward. Age and the cost of orthopedic surgery has made me more cautious in my older age.
But I’m not old. I’m certainly not a ma’am. I will concede however, that I’m no longer a mountain goat.
The men followed me, sliding and whooping and creating cascades of pebbles and dirt that got into my shoes. I was already hot and sweaty now I was not in a good mood at all. I would have turned back, but the boys were in the way.
By the time we all struggled down to the sand and began to divest ourselves (the girls and me) from our accruements, Tiffany, I think it was Tiffany, was in deep conversation with our interloper (however, he was the first person at a river spot, so really, he was the owners of that spot for today. We were the interlopers.)
Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 02 - Time Is of the Essence Page 5