The Wonder Bread Summer: A Novel

by Jessica Anya Blau

  “Us, too,” he said. “I’m Mike.”

  Allie looked from the driver to his friend. The friend nodded his chin upward. “I’m Mark,” he said.

  “Mike and Mark?” Allie asked. “Seriously?” Allie felt like she was hallucinating again. How could it be that the only people who pulled over to give her a ride had the same names as two people who had created tremendous trouble for her?

  “Get in, we’ll take you,” Mike said. Allie didn’t move. She stared from Mike to Mark and back again. She remembered Wai Po saying, DEEP DOUBT, DEEP WISDOM; LITTLE DOUBT, LITTLE WISDOM. Allie’s doubts were enormous. She wished there were some magic light that appeared on people’s foreheads that would tell you if they were good or not so good.

  “We’re safe,” Mark said.

  “I can’t tell you how bad my judgment’s been lately,” Allie said.

  “Well if you were my daughter,” Mike said, “I’d tell you to stay away from two jocky-looking guys in a Honda. So, I totally understand if you don’t want to get in.”

  “Yeah,” Allie said. “You look nice but I think I better stick to, I don’t know, old women with gray hair driving ’63 Cadillacs or something.”

  “Totally get it,” Mike said, and he removed his baseball cap and ran his hands through his thick blond hair.

  “Thanks anyway,” Allie said, and she took a step back from the window.

  “Do you want us to wait here with you until you get a proper ride?” Mike asked. “Just seems like, I don’t know, not a great place to hitch.”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” Allie said. “Really. You guys are nice but lately everyone I think is cool turns out to be some raving lunatic who eventually wants to kill me.”

  The guys laughed. “All right, well, I hope the gray-haired lady in the twenty-year-old Cadillac shows up soon,” Mike said, and he turned his attention to the road, waiting for a break in the traffic so he could pull onto the bridge.

  The moment that break came, as the silver Honda slipped into the never-ending weave of cars, Allie turned and saw Jonas, naked except for his socks, running toward her.

  Allie stepped out of her Candie’s and took off barefoot into the traffic. Cars were on either side of Allie—their energy and heat pulsed against her. She could sense Jonas running behind her. The hairs on her arms knew he was there. The searing pain in her thighs, as she pumped her legs faster than she ever had in her life, also knew he was there.

  Allie was choking for air when she finally turned and saw Jonas, who was only a few paces back and gaining on her. She looked ahead. The Honda was stopped in the center lane—hazard lights on, the back door open.

  Allie gulped at the wind, pushed herself farther, and jumped into the backseat, pulling the door shut. “Go, go!” she said, looking out the back window. Jonas leaped for the Honda just as it jolted forward. There was a nerve-jangling squeal of brakes. Horns honked. Jonas popped up, body intact, his two hands held high like a fuck-you-finger Jack-in-the-box. Mike zoomed ahead.

  “That was fucking crazy!” Mike said, laughing. After the weekend she had just had, Allie understood the laugh. It was the exhilaration of having escaped something treacherous.

  Allie leaned over her knees trying to catch her breath.

  “You okay?” Mark asked.

  Allie nodded and took in giant, scraping, lungfuls of air.

  “Was he one of the raving lunatics who wanted to kill you?” Mike asked.

  Allie nodded.

  “The guy was totally naked, right?” Mark asked.

  “He had on dress socks,” Allie said. And then the exhilaration hit her and she started laughing, a raspy cackle that was just an exhale away from sobbing.

  Frank looked like he actually might cry. He grabbed Allie, pulled her into Beth’s apartment, and clasped her against his chest. Allie could feel his lungs pumping in and out like slowly flapping wings.

  “Oh my god!” Beth said. “Your neck, like, has bruises around it?”

  “Matches my lump,” Allie said.

  They moved to the kitchen. Beth stood on the stove side of the counter and Allie, Frank, and Rosie sat on stools across from her. Allie relayed the story of Jonas abducting her, from beginning to end. She took particular joy in telling them that Jonas was naked except his socks, although no one else seemed intrigued by this detail.

  “Let me see your feet,” Beth said, and Allie lifted one foot as high as the counter so Beth could look at the blackened, scraped bottom.

  “I was too scared to feel any pain,” Allie said. “But my soles feel sort of sunburned now.”

  “No more high heels,” Frank said. “From now on, only sensible shoes.”

  “Oh my god, your rabbit foot?” Beth plucked the little paw from the bowl that held her keys and handed it to Allie. Allie rubbed the rabbit foot, then shoved it down her pocket. That’s when she noticed the Wonder Bread bag on the counter.

  “Is that actual bread?” Allie pointed to the bag. It was fresh, new-looking. There was no smeared number on the side.

  “That’s the pure stuff,” Rosie said. “I’ll return it to Jonas as soon as I find him.”

  “It was in Mike’s toolbox,” Frank said.

  “So what was the deal with the bag of laxatives?” Allie asked.

  “I assume it was a decoy made especially for us,” Frank said.

  Beth and Allie went into the bathroom to wash Allie’s battered feet. Beth owned a pair of loafers but Allie couldn’t bring herself to wear them—they looked wrong with the acid-washed jeans and Flashdance shirts. Allie settled on a pair of flip-flops.

  “Do you want to change your top?” Beth said. “I mean, like, haven’t you been wearing that for four days?”

  Allie looked at herself in Beth’s full-length mirror. She liked how worn and filthy the clothes appeared. She felt like a warrior who was coming out on the winning side. “I’ll change tomorrow when I get in my room and pick up my stuff,” she said. “Do I smell?”

  Beth leaned in and sniffed at Allie’s neck. “No,” she said.

  “It’s the Chinese in me,” Allie said. “Dry ear wax and low body-odor.”

  “You have Chinese in you?” Beth asked.

  “My mom’s Chinese. I showed you pictures of her in People magazine, remember?”

  “I thought she was an Indian,” Beth said.

  Chapter 20

  Dad,” Allie said, “Mighty Zamboni played at the Cow Palace in San Francisco tonight.”

  “Oh yeah?” Frank merged into the right lane. For the second time that night Allie was cruising over the Bay Bridge. They were going to Sausalito to check into a hotel that was owned by a Japanese couple who ate at Frank’s restaurant every time they were in L.A. Since Jonas had yet to be located, Lionel’s house didn’t seem safe.

  “Should we stop off and see if we can find Mom?”

  “Allie, why would you want to see that woman?”

  “I dunno. I was almost killed tonight. I’ve got choke marks on my neck. I mean, I’m happy to be alive and I’m glad both my parents are alive.”

  “She’s not much of a parent,” Frank said.

  “Wai Po used to say, IN BROKEN NEST THERE ARE FEW WHOLE EGGS.” Allie spoke in Wai Po’s choppy dialect. It was an imitation she had been doing for her father for as long as she could remember. Usually it made Frank laugh. Tonight he just smiled.

  “All right,” Frank said. “We’ll go see her but you have to take it easy. Rest your throat.”

  “You can do all the talking,” Allie said. “I just want one moment of feeling like a whole egg.”

  When it was well after midnight, they reached the Cow Palace. A steady stream of cars flowed out of the parking lot as Allie and her father drove in. Frank waited in the Prelude while Allie ran to the steel backstage door and banged with her fist. No one answered. Allie banged again and again.

  Frank honked the horn. Allie looked back at him, then bopped her fist against the steel once more, and the door popped open. A guy with a headse
t on stuck his head out. He was wearing a black T-shirt that said BILLY IDOL. “Yeah?” he said impatiently.

  “My mother’s in the band and I want to see her,” Allie said.

  “There are no mothers in Billy Idol’s band,” the guy said.

  “No, Mighty Zamboni,” Allie said. “Can you tell the tambourine girl that Allie’s here?”

  “Zamboni’s gone, man,” the guy said. “Everyone’s gone except a few of us cleaning up.” He started to shut the door.

  “Do you know where they’re staying?” Allie asked quickly.

  “No idea,” the guy said. His eyes darted between the lump on Allie’s head and the cat-paw-looking bruises around her neck. “And if I did I wouldn’t tell you.”

  As they were driving away from the Cow Palace, Allie remembered the beeper number Billy Idol had left her. “Dad, can you pull over at a pay phone?”

  “Who you gonna call at this hour?” Frank said.

  “I’ve got Billy Idol’s manager’s beeper number.” Allie dug through her purse and pulled out the piece of Biltmore stationery. “He’ll tell me where Zamboni’s staying.”

  “Who’s Billy Idol?” Frank asked.

  “A rock-and-roll star,” Allie said. “His band’s playing with Mom’s band.”

  Frank pulled over the car. They were at a dark corner with looming electrical towers and an office park. And there, like a life raft, stood a phone booth.

  “Call Beth’s house first and see if Rosie’s found Jonas,” Frank said, and he handed Allie a fistful of change. “And make it quick.”

  Allie rapidly ran through the last few phone calls she’d made to Beth. Each one had made her feel like there was a bag of shifting sand in her stomach. Now was no different.

  Rosie answered the phone.

  “Did you find Jonas?” Allie asked.

  “He’s here,” Rosie said. “Everything’s fine now.”

  “So, he’s not after me anymore?” Allie asked.

  “Shit!” Jonas shouted in the background. “Are you talking to that goody-two-shoes curly-haired pain in my ass?! Is that Allie-fucking-fuck-up-my-weekend?! If I see that college-girl on my side of town I am going to fuck her up, you hear?!”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Rosie said, but Allie couldn’t help but tune in to Jonas’s rant. “I’ve got control of the situation.”

  “Okay.” Allie felt vaguely queasy. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

  “He’ll be on to hating someone else within eight hours, I swear. The guy’s got so many enemies in this town—”

  “My biggest enemy is that daddy’s-girl motherfucking—”

  “Trust me,” Rosie said, and he hung up before Allie could say good-bye.

  Another time, Allie thought. She dropped in the rest of the change Frank had given her and hoped it was enough to dial out to the Los Angeles area code of the beeper. The phone rang once, there was a double beep, and then Allie punched in the number for the phone booth. Thirty seconds later, the manager was calling her back.

  “Hello?” Allie said.

  “You beeped me?” The accent was British, but not Billy Idol. In the background was the layered buzzing of a small crowd.

  “Yeah. Billy gave me this number to call in case I’m in trouble and, well, I need to find my mother, who’s with Mighty Zamboni, and I was just wondering if you could tell me where Zamboni is staying?”

  “What’s your name?” the guy asked.

  “Allie.”

  “Allie?”

  “Yeah. But Billy was calling me China Blackie.”

  “Oh, China Blackie!” the guy said. “Billy told me about you. Yeah, your mum’s here with us at the pub. Hold on, I’ll try to find her.” There was a hollow clattering, Allie assumed it was from the receiver being placed on the bar. Allie could see the phone in her head: red, like most bar phones, with a dial rather than a push button on the base. She could hear the thunk thunk thunk of shot glasses being slammed down. Music started up, it was George Benson.

  After a few minutes, Frank tapped the horn and waved Allie toward the car. She pushed the receiver harder against her ear as if that would bring her mother to the phone sooner. The random titterings in the background folded into group laughter. Very quickly, that laughter increased, thickened, and broadened its range into mass hilarity. And within that dense ruckus, Allie could suss out Penny’s laughter, the same way she could hear her mother in the choruses of Mighty Zamboni songs, a single, vibrating thread of sound that Allie knew as well as her own voice.

  The passenger-side window glided down and Frank leaned toward it. “Allie!” he shouted. “Enough! Let’s get a move on!”

  The phone clanked, as if it were being bounced on the bar top, and then Penny was finally there. “Hello?” she said.

  Allie found she couldn’t speak. There were words in her throat but they felt barricaded behind a trapdoor. She had spent so much of her life waiting for her mother—to come home, to call, to send a postcard, to pick up the phone—Allie knew that she could no longer wait.

  “No one’s here!” Penny shouted to a rumbling voice beside her. “Hello?!”

  “I’m going to go now,” Allie finally said, and she waved to her father in the car to let him know she’d only be another moment.

  “What?!” Penny was laughing, drunk. “Who is this?!”

  “I’m going now,” Allie said, and she hung up.

  “Jonas has the coke,” Allie said. “But he’s still raging at me.”

  “I am certain,” Frank said, as he pulled onto the road, “that Jonas fully understands that I will kill him if he touches you.” Allie wondered if her father really had it in him to murder someone. He did own a gun, after all.

  “Okay then,” Allie said. “That’s one more thing I’m never going to think about again.”

  The traffic was as thin as it ever got in San Francisco, so it was only minutes before Allie and Frank were merging onto the Golden Gate Bridge. Just the sight of the bridge made Allie happy. She especially loved traveling over the bridge at night, when it was lit and resembled a giant, unraveled Ferris wheel.

  “So that Tommy Idol fellow didn’t know where your mother was?” Frank asked.

  “No, he knew where she was,” Allie said. “But I decided I don’t need to see the Queen of Hearts again.”

  “Good to hear,” Frank said firmly.

  “I don’t think Mom ever loved me,” Allie said. She thought she should have cried saying something like that aloud, but it wasn’t painful. It just felt like a simple fact.

  “She gave you what little she had,” Frank said. “It was a type of love.”

  “I guess,” Allie said.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Frank said. “You’ve got me to love you.”

  “Are you saying you love me, Dad?” Allie nudged her father on the arm, she laughed. Frank had never told Allie he loved her.

  “Of course that’s what I’m saying.” Frank held his gaze ahead.

  Allie looked out the window to the sky draped over the bridge all the way down to the inky bay. She felt like she and her father were in a hydroplane bulleting out into the open sea, into an open future. And then she remembered her favorite Wai Po saying: EVERYTHING IN PAST DIED YESTERDAY, EVERYTHING IN FUTURE BORN TODAY.

  Here I go, Allie thought.

  Acknowledgments

  Enormous thanks to everyone who read and commented on early drafts of this book: Geoff Becker, Michael Downs, Kit Givan, Michael Kimball, Deborah Reed, Cheryl Hogue Smith, Ron Tanner, Stacy Thal, and Marion Winik. I am indebted to the Evergreen Café writing group and appreciate the support of Jane Delury, Larry Doyle, and James Magruder. Molly Peck at Blu Dot in SoHo must be thanked for selling me the most comfortable couch in the world in a year when I didn’t have time to shop. Thanks go to David Piltch for helping me with the County Bowl details. Thank you to my family and my children: Madeline Tavis, Ella Grossbach, Bonnie Blau, Sheridan Blau, Rebecca Summers, Josh Blau, Alex Suarez, Satc
hel and Shiloh Summers, Sonia Blau Siegal, Morgan Ortiz, and Jillian and Jenna Grossbach. I am immensely grateful to all the smart and talented people at HarperCollins, especially Amy Baker, Julie Hersh, Olga Gardner, Mandy Kain, Cal Morgan, Mary Sasso, Margaux Weisman, and Martin Wilson. I wish there were bigger, greater, more powerful words than thank you. If there were, I’d save those words for Katherine Nintzel, Gail Hochman, and Joanne Brownstein Jarvi.

  P.S.

  About the author

  2 With Dogs

  About the book

  7 Chinese Proverbs

  Read on

  9 An Excerpt from

  Drinking Closer to Home

  About the author

  With Dogs

  JESSICA WAS BORN IN BOSTON. Her father was a graduate student and her mother stayed home with Jessica and her older sister, Becca. They had a dog named Growlie. Jessica doesn’t remember Growlie. They also had an old Chevy that Jessica’s parents had bought for twenty-five dollars. The Chevy had a hole the size of a teacup saucer in the floor. Jessica doesn’t remember the car or the hole, but she thinks about that hole every now and then—how cool it would be to look down and see the road swooshing by like a fast-moving stream.

  When the family moved to Southern California (Jessica now had a little brother, Josh), they adopted a dog named Mitzi. Mitzi was old and gray. She looked like a woman who would hang out in a bar, drink whiskey, and chain-smoke unfiltered cigarettes. Certainly she’d have a raspy, barking laugh that would disintegrate into a phlegmy cough. Mitzi gave birth to a litter of pups. They were all black except one, Gumba, who grew to resemble a matted, orange shag rug. Josh carried Gumba around whenever he could, and he often dropped her on her head. This is why, the family thinks, Gumba was so dumb. Gumba was like the girl in the neighborhood who would do anything you told her to do. If you told her to eat a snail off the sidewalk, she’d pop that snail in her mouth and then follow you down the street chomping the shell, which made noises louder than potato chips. Mitzi ran off into the lemon orchard behind Jessica’s house sometime after Gumba was born. It was assumed she died there. Gumba died of old age when Jessica was in college. This was very sad for everyone. Even though Gumba was a very dumb girl, she was a lovable dumb girl.