Pacific Avenue

by Watson, Anne L.

  Dear Kathy,

  I love you.

  Richard

  I dropped his letter on the floor and opened my sister’s.

  Dear Kathy,

  I was really worried when you took off like that. Are you all right?

  I wish you hadn’t left my car at the cemetery. The last thing I needed was go back there. Anyway, thanks for sending the card with your address. Please don’t move again without telling me.

  Love,

  Sharon

  Well, it could have been worse. I’d been afraid she wouldn’t even answer my card. I wasn’t sure she’d still be speaking to me. Mom wasn’t. I didn’t think she ever would again. When the emergency room nurse came to tell us Dad hadn’t made it, Mom turned on me.

  “Was your little pickaninny worth killing your father for?” And she walked off behind the nurse without looking back.

  Sharon put her hand out to stop me from following. “Let it go. She’s upset.”

  But I wasn’t following. I couldn’t have. “I didn’t make him have a heart attack,” I said. “It’s not my fault.”

  “Look, Kathy. I’m not saying Mom’s right. You know I’m on your side.”

  “But it’s not my fault. And that was a horrible thing she said about Jamie.” I didn’t even try to wipe away the tears running down my face.

  Sharon pulled a package of tissues from her purse and passed one to me. She wiped her own eyes and nose with another one. “I know,” she said. “Mom’s pretty out of it. I don’t think the two of you should even be talking right now. How long are you staying in Baton Rouge?”

  “I hadn’t thought. I mean I didn’t think—”

  “Stay at my place. I’ll be over at Mom’s most of the time anyway. She’ll need me to help with the arrangements.” She sighed. “Everything’s so awful—do me a favor? Please? Keep out of sight at the funeral. We don’t need anything more. Please, Kathy.”

  “But it’s not fair.”

  “I know. But don’t let her see you anyway.”

  On the morning of the funeral, she took a taxi over to Mom’s. Sharon was riding in the limo, so she gave me her car keys.

  It was easy to keep Mom from seeing me at the church, because it was filled with Dad’s friends. I stayed in a back pew, hoping no one would notice. If they did, they’d push me up front with the family. I kept my head down.

  When the funeral procession left for the cemetery, I waited until last in the queue. The police escort rode behind me on their motorcycles. At the grave, I couldn’t hear the priest—the wind took his words away. In the church he’d said, “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” I kept thinking of that, over and over. Dad had so much—his friends, the house, his garden, his work.

  His daughters.

  His granddaughter.

  I sat on a cold iron bench a long time after the last of the crowd was gone. Just stared at the patchy grass, at the leaves giving up and letting go of the trees. Finally, I stood up, chilled and stiff. I didn’t go to the grave. I didn’t want to see it. Or Jamie’s, right next to it.

  When I got back to the car, it wouldn’t start. I’d forgotten to turn off the lights, the funeral procession lights. The battery was dead. Dead—the word hit me like it hadn’t done before, and my teeth started to chatter. I always thought that was only an expression. I clenched my jaw. Don’t think about it.

  I called a cab from the cemetery office and went back to Sharon’s place, trying not to shake in front of the cabbie. I left a note about the car and got all my stuff, which wasn’t much. I took another cab to the Greyhound station. The next bus that didn’t go somewhere in Louisiana was an express for Los Angeles. It didn’t leave for two hours, and I spent the whole time sitting on one of the station’s hard plastic chairs, looking at the terrazzo floor between my feet. The dirty globs of gum trampled into it were just like me.

  ~ 6 ~

  December 1974

  San Pedro

  Lacey

  When Angela came to stay for the holidays, I wasn’t done painting the sewing room. In fact, I hadn’t exactly started. I was putting masking tape around the wood trim so the paint job would come out neat. Angie pulled up short in the doorway, suitcase in hand.

  “Where’s my room?” she yelped.

  “I needed a sewing room,” I said.

  “What do you mean, you needed a sewing room? You don’t even sew.”

  “I might, if I had a sewing room.”

  “You didn’t even let my bed cool down good before you got rid of it!”

  “I didn’t get rid of it yet—it’s out in the garage.” I finished taping the baseboard and started on the windows.

  “I’m supposed to sleep in the garage?”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll move the bed back in when I’m through painting. Or else I’ll buy a daybed.”

  “Where do I sleep tonight? In a motel?”

  “On the couch. Maybe I’ll finish tomorrow. You could help.”

  “Well, if that’s what it takes. Where do I put my stuff?” she asked.

  I couldn’t figure out why she was staring at me like something was wrong. All I was doing was painting the front bedroom.

  “I cleared out a space in the laundry room.”

  “Man, is there no room at this inn!” Angela flopped down on the floor beside her suitcase.

  “You did move out, Angela,” I said. “I meant to have it finished. I’ve been busy at work. Don’t sit on that sack. It’s got my putty knife in it.” I set the tape down and reached for her to pass the sack to me.

  Angela pulled it out from under her and handed it over. “Why are you so busy at work all of a sudden? Big project or something?” We both glanced up as Willis came into the room.

  “Mr. Giannini got me an assistant,” I told her. “It’s more trouble training a new person than it would be to do the work myself.”

  “Who did they hire, someone who never had a job before?” Angela asked.

  I pulled my knife out of the sack and held it up to inspect it. The blade looked a little bent from being sat on. Angela didn’t much look like she cared.

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know if she’s had one or not,” I said. “Her résumé disappeared.”

  Angela shrugged. “Can’t you tell her to give you another copy?”

  I shook my head. “I decided not to. I’m pretty sure she snitched it back.” I sighted down the blade to check if it was bent. It wasn’t.

  Angela and Willis peered at me like a couple of owls. “What do you mean, snitched it back?” Willis asked.

  “It wasn’t with her application. I think I saw her slip it into her purse after George interviewed her.”

  They broke off staring at me and looked at each other. Willis swiveled back to me. “Well, didn’t anyone else notice the résumé’s gone?” he asked.

  “Guess not. Mr. Giannini is far too important to touch a file cabinet,” I said. “And I’m not sure George has learned to read. Very few jackasses have.”

  I picked up my masking tape and unrolled a length with a little zipping sound. As far as I was concerned, they could drop this now. My office wasn’t any business of theirs.

  But Angela wasn’t about to let go. “Mama, how do you know this woman isn’t some criminal on the run?”

  That one took the cake. Angela was getting her master’s in criminal justice, so she suspected everyone.

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to call her a woman,” I said, pressing the tape carefully against the window frame. “She’s younger than you. Way too young to be much of a criminal—and besides, she isn’t the type.”

  “There is no ‘type.’ Don’t you know that? There’s no age, either. What about those people who kidnapped Patty Hearst? Barely old enough to vote, some of them. Maybe she robbed a bank, same as they did. Hell, she could be one of them. They could be anywhere by now.”

  I tried to picture Kathy robbing a bank. She’d drop her gun on the guard�
�s foot and say, “Oh, excuse me.” No way Kathy could rob a bank.

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  “What about the Mansons? How do you know she’s not one of them?”

  I patted my tape work carefully into place. If I didn’t get all the wrinkles out, the paint would leak underneath it. “They’re all in jail,” I said.

  “How do you know? Maybe she’s one who got away—now she’s trying to live a normal life. Waiting for them to get out. Mama, will you stop with the damned tape for a minute?”

  I set it aside. “If she’s waiting for Charlie Manson, she’d better be prepared for a long wait. He’ll get out of prison one day after hell freezes over. You ought to go to work for the studios, Angela—this stuff would be about right for Columbo.”

  Willis chimed in. “It’s not that far-fetched, honey. She sounds guilty as hell to me. Better lock up the petty cash.”

  I laughed. “Any petty cash at Giannini’s is so petty, no one would be interested.”

  “No lie,” said Angela. “That dude is a serious miser. The first time I saw the office Christmas tree, I started looking around for Bob Cratchit. I was sure Mr. Giannini had him in there someplace.”

  Willis snickered. “You got his number, all right.”

  “Anyone can get his number,” Angela told him. “It’s the one the Arabs invented. Zero.”

  Willis turned back to me. “Why don’t you make the old fool fix the place up? He’s making enough money.”

  “I already decided to talk to him. I guess I’ve gotten used to it, but Kathy asked if we’d moved in recently. Made me notice.”

  “Oh, right—Kathy!” said Angela, veering back to her single-minded track. “She’s up to something, Mama. If you won’t find out what’s going on, I will.”

  “How?” I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I was checking out the walls to see how many holes I had to fill before I painted. I hoped I wouldn’t have to go out for more spackle. Angela had put up a lot of pictures over the years.

  “The library at school has newspapers from everywhere,” she said.

  “You won’t find anything there.” I made a mental note of a water stain on the plaster under the window. Maybe we had some sealer in the garage. Angela was frowning, so I tried to pay a little more attention. “Look, honey, most likely Kathy had a bad husband. Those don’t make the paper—they’re not news.”

  “I don’t see why she’d take her résumé back if it was her marriage,” she said. “Mr. Giannini should get the police to do a background check. Want me to tell him how to request one, next time I’m in there?” She had a real edge to her voice.

  I snapped back, “Angela, you’ve been telling me for a year or more to get a life of my own. So, I did. You live yours and I’ll live mine. Don’t butt in, you mind?”

  I picked up the tape again, but she glared at me, and I put it down. I pushed my annoyance down, too. “Let it be, really,” I said. You’ll stir up trouble for nothing.”

  Angela gave a theatrical sigh, the way she used to do when she was a teenager. “If you’re right about her being so innocent,” she said, “there’s no trouble to stir up.”

  “It’s not your concern, Angela. You leave it alone—completely alone, you hear me? I’ll find out for myself.”

  She got up from the floor and stood over me with her arms folded. “I don’t see where it’s your concern either,” she said.

  “You were just telling me it was. Wasn’t it you, one minute ago, saying she was probably a criminal in disguise?”

  Another theatrical sigh. “Mama, it’s your concern to get it looked into. But last time I checked, the job description for ‘secretary’ didn’t include detective work. It’s your job to point out that something’s going on—but whatever her problem is, it’s none of your business.”

  Willis stepped into his peacemaker role. He was getting good at it.

  “Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, honey, but how could you find anything out anyway?” he asked me.

  “I have my ways.”

  Willis snorted. Angela shrugged and left the room, dragging her suitcase. I hoped she was just taking it to the laundry room, not back to Berkeley.

  “Let’s have some coffee in the living room, honey,” Willis said. He put out a hand to help me up.

  I was happy to drop the whole subject. But I hoped Willis and Angela didn’t expect any Christmas cookies to go with their coffee. If they did, let one of them make a batch.

  For the next few days, I was busy getting the painting done and hanging new curtains. Willis and Angela helped, and they didn’t say a single word about Kathy. We finished the room and moved the bed back in. Angela went to the market and bought some holiday goodies, and she opened all the cards and stood them on the mantel. No one brought the decorations down from the attic, but at least it was a little like Christmas.

  Saturday was the day of the annual Holiday Craft Faire at the Point Fermin lighthouse. I walked over in the late afternoon, just to get out of the house. As I inspected a hand-knit sweater to see if it was the right size for Angela, I caught sight of Kathy. She seemed so forlorn, walking along with her arms drawn in and her head down. Color and music and fun all around her, and she never looked up once. At work, she seemed down most of the time, but she still got carried along by the busyness. Watching her on her own now, I got the idea that whatever was wrong might be more serious than I’d thought.

  She wandered to the last table in the Faire and kept going, walking straight as a chalk line now, right to the edge of the cliff behind the lighthouse. I pushed money into the vendor’s hand and didn’t wait for a bag or even a receipt. Wadding the sweater up, I followed Kathy at a little distance.

  Don’t be melodramatic, I told myself. She’s looking at the ocean. Everyone does it when they first get here.

  She stood there way too long for a sightseer, staring out to sea. She’d have been peering into some window in Japan if she could have seen five thousand miles. And she almost looked like she could.

  I kept an eye on her, worrying and trying to talk myself out of it, first one and then the other. Behind us, the haggle and laughter of the Faire petered out. By the time she turned back, there was almost no one left in the park. I had to dodge into the restroom to make sure she didn’t see me. I tried to laugh at myself for letting my imagination run away with me, but it didn’t work.

  When I got home, Angela saw me come in, still clutching the sweater. I went upstairs to gift wrap it, but it was the wrong size after all. Completely wrong—too big for her, too small for me. I stuffed the sweater in a drawer. It would do for someone.

  I could hear every scratchy tick of my old alarm clock in the quiet room. Once in a while, there was a swish as a car drove by, or maybe what I heard was waves breaking—sometimes the wind would bring their sound in close.

  I shut my eyes, picturing Kathy standing on the cliff at Point Fermin. I’d started trying to find out about her because I was curious, and to cover my hindside in case Mr. Giannini made a fuss about her references. I’d hoped she had some easy problem, like in a television show—something that could be solved in thirty minutes, not counting commercials. Now I suspected she really needed help. I didn’t know what I could do, but I decided I’d better do something. It didn’t look like she had anyone else.

  Deciding was one thing, figuring out where to go from there was something else. I wasn’t exactly experienced in checking up on people. For the past couple of years, Angela had been pretending I was some kind of master spy, but that was ridiculous. She had no idea how helpless I felt. Being a mother was like watching a sleepwalker—I worried about Angela every minute, but I didn’t dare say one word about it. And that was my own daughter, who I’d raised. How in the world could I find out about someone I hardly knew?

  Part 2

  ~ 7 ~

  September 1972

  Baton Rouge

  Kathy

  On Friday afternoons, the Student Union was packed. I hated crow
ds, but I’d left my lunch at home, and there was nowhere else to eat. Just inside the door to the cafeteria, I stopped short. Loud chatter ricocheted off the glass walls and bounced around the room. Voices rose, competed, fell again. Smells competed too—cabbage, fried fish, a sharp tang of onions—nothing I wanted.

  A bunch of girls charged in, laughing shrilly. They jostled me, and I stepped aside to let them pass. They scanned the room and headed toward a group at a corner table, waving to more friends as they threaded their way through the mob. It looked easy when they did it.

  But it wasn’t easy for me. It was only a few weeks into the term, but the dorm students had already become a sort of tribe, and I wasn’t a member. A townie and a freshman besides, I hardly knew anyone. So, I wasn’t looking for friends to join, I was looking for an empty table to claim. There weren’t any, but I spotted someone I recognized, at least—Phil from English class, sitting with some other guys. He leaned back, feet on a chair.

  They all watched me approach, but Phil didn’t say hi. He didn’t offer me the chair his feet were on, either. I stood and waited.

  “Car!” he bellowed to a boy who wasn’t more than six feet away from him.

  “Aston Martin!”

  “Not you. You wouldn’t be an Aston Martin, ever. You’re a 1966 blue Volkswagen van with a low tire.”

  “Mustang,” hollered someone else.

  “Yeah, cool, a Mustang. With a dent in the driver’s door. What kind of animal?”

  “Lion.”

  “Racehorse.”

  “Cat.”

  “Cat, my ass. Polecat is more like it.”

  They were playing “What kind of”—what kind of car would you be if you were a car, what kind of animal.

  “Town!” yelled Phil.

  “Paris,” someone said.

  “Yeah, the sewers of Paris. That’s you. The sewers of Paris.” Phil finally turned around to face me, waiting for me to say what town I’d be.

  I’d be the Nevada desert, the stone building facades standing up with nothing behind them, the mountains looking out through the windows. “Rhyolite,” I tried.