by Janet Dawson
“Come next week you’re a working girl,” Lindsey said. “You’ll have to get up earlier.”
“It isn’t next week yet.”
“Did you like Tess’s flat?” Lindsey asked. Nina had looked at the place Tuesday evening.
“It’s great,” Nina said. “Second floor, roomy, lots of light. I love the neighborhood.”
“Are you thinking about moving in, once Tess’s roommate leaves?”
“Not just thinking,” Nina said. “I told Tess I would.”
Lindsey felt that old familiar twinge. The advice she couldn’t help giving would be misconstrued as meddling. “This job is temporary, no guarantees. You said yourself you could be looking for work again in September. I’m just concerned about your financial situation.”
Nina sighed. “I know you are. So am I. Thank you for letting me stay, Mom. I appreciate it. But I can’t live here indefinitely. It’s an imposition on you.”
“It’s not.” But it was. Lindsey was used to living alone, the freedom of not having to consider the wants and needs of another human being in her day-to-day activities. When confronting Nina as an adult, Lindsey sometimes told herself things had been easier when Nina was a child. But that wasn’t true either. She and her daughter had traveled a rough road. Nina had been stubborn, willful and independent since the day she took her first step. But dealing with Nina during the terrible twos and threes was simpler than contending with the fifth-grader who pushed the envelope, or the sulky teenager who’d hit puberty like hell on wheels. To be honest, Lindsey had been relieved when Nina went away to college.
Now Nina was back. It wasn’t easy to move back home as an adult. Lindsey knew that firsthand. The financial burden of being a single mother—pregnancy, childbirth and caring for Nina—coupled with the long hard slog of finishing her dissertation, had forced her to move in with Aunt Emma for several years, until she got her first teaching job at San Francisco State and moved to the city. When she’d accepted the position at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, she’d lived with her parents in Paso Robles until she bought a house. Lindsey remembered the arguments she’d had with her own mother during that time. It was hard to insist she was a grown woman when she had to move back home. Nina felt same way. Her daughter had accused her of not treating her as an adult. Lindsey had thrown the same words at her mother years ago.
“It is an imposition.” Nina finished her scone, got up, and put her dishes in the dishwasher. “Besides, we don’t get along, never have. It’s better if we don’t push it.”
Even if it was true, hearing her daughter say it made it hurt more. Lindsey always figured it was her fault. Why was her relationship with her daughter so difficult? She felt as though she was teetering on a tightrope, trying not to say the wrong thing, trying to be supportive, yet trying to let Nina be her own person. She didn’t want to open another skirmish in the ongoing mother-daughter war. “I’m sorry you feel that way. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. But it sounds as though your mind is made up.”
“It is. I’m moving in with Tess. Right now I’m going to take a shower.”
Lindsey remembered the words Nina had thrown at her during their big blowout back in December. “I try to be honest with you and you won’t return the favor,” Nina had shouted. “When do we ever get to relate to each other like a couple of adults?”
When indeed? Yes, Nina was an adult. But your kid is always your kid, Lindsey thought. I carried her in my belly for nine months and looked after her for all those years afterward. She’s still my little girl. It’s hard to let go of that. And what will happen if...when...I finally tell her about her father?
In her office, Lindsey switched on her computer and checked her e-mail, pleased to see a message from Merle Sefton, saying she could meet with Lindsey Friday morning in her office at Southern Oregon University. Lindsey replied, confirming date and time.
The banker’s box sat in the middle of the office, full of promise and dread, its white cardboard exterior concealing Annabel’s secrets. Lindsey sat cross-legged on the rug and pulled the lid from the box. Light glinted on the crystal shard and the tarnished silver pineapple. She reached for the snapshot of Annabel and Lily “Shoe,” as Annabel had called her. Where was Lily now? Where had she lived then?
Lily was probably Chinese American, so Chinatown was a place to start. Away from Grant Street, which drew tourists to shops and restaurants, that part of the city had many narrow, hidden streets, alleys really. Was Lily at one of these addresses, apartments stacked on top of each other in narrow, old buildings, glimpsed from cross-streets on Chinatown’s steep hills? Perhaps Lily had migrated to another part of the city. Chinatown had fluid borders, moving out to the Richmond and Sunset Districts of San Francisco. Lily may have moved to another town in the Bay Area, such as Oakland, which had its own Chinatown. Lily might live anywhere.
Surely Annabel had put Lily’s phone number in her address book. Or books. Tess said Annabel saved old address books, just in case. Lindsey did the same, though she herself had recently migrated to an electronic organizer. What would happen to old addresses now, if they only existed on a computer chip?
Not all the books in the box contained addresses. There were volumes of poetry, novels, and children’s books, Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden. Lindsey smiled as she found a handful of small volumes in blue cloth bindings chronicling the adventures of that intrepid sleuth, Nancy Drew. She set these aside and concentrated on the address books, six in all, in varying styles and sizes.
This can’t be that hard, she thought. Look through the addresses, find Lily. But Lindsey’s conversation with Annabel had been interrupted before Annabel could tell her how to spell Lily’s last name. Shu was an obvious choice. But there could be variations that sounded like shoe, such as Hsu, Tsu, or Xu.
Lindsey opened a small volume covered in worn brown leather and flipped through pages filled with Annabel’s small, precise handwriting, pages crowded with letters and numbers, scribbles and doodles. Annabel was always doodling, tiny sketches of birds, flowers, fish, cats. So many times over the years she’d seen Annabel at a desk or a table, pen or pencil constantly moving as she drew on whatever piece of paper was in front of her.
This address book was untidy, well-used, its pages covered with ink and pencil. Addresses had been written between the appropriate lines, then crossed out as people changed location, with new addresses written above, below, in between the lines and along the margins, anywhere there was space for Annabel to write. In some cases she’d written addresses on less-used pages, regardless of alphabetical order. If that wasn’t confusing enough, some addresses had no names to go with them, just initials, while others had nothing at all to identify them. Was there a code, waiting to be cracked?
Annabel used this book until there was no more room on its pages for pictures and words. There was no date in the front, nor had Annabel written her own address. But what about Lindsey’s address? She opened the book to the Ps. She saw her own initials, LP for Lindsey Page, in the center of a wreath of doodles. There were two addresses for LP, one at the top of the page that had been crossed out, and another added below it. The first address was the apartment south of Golden Gate Park where Lindsey lived when she was teaching at San Francisco State. The second one was her parents’ house in Paso Robles, where she’d lived for several months when she took the position at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. So Annabel had started this address book in the late 1970s, after Lindsey got the job at SFSU and before she’d bought her house in San Luis Obispo in the 1980s. In a way, the book was a time machine. Those old addresses filled Lindsey’s mind with pictures and memories.
She didn’t see a listing for anyone named Lily. Nor did she find any initials that would go with a Lily Hsu, Shu, Tsu, or Xu. Or in the L pages, for just plain Lily. She reached for another address book, this one newer. Claire had moved to her condo on Nob Hill in the early 1990s, and that address was in this book, under the initials CM. Lindsey went throug
h the book page by page. Still no Lily. Lindsey examined a third address book, then a fourth and a fifth. I must be missing something, she thought. It’s got to be here. She’s hidden the name and address somehow. Maybe she didn’t want anyone to know she was in contact with Lily, though I can’t think why. But it’s here. I’ve just got to find it.
She stretched, muscles cramped and feet tingling from sitting on the floor. There was one more address book to examine. Just inside the front cover Annabel had written her own address, that of the green stucco house on Hillegass Street. She had lived there the entire four years she was in college, so the earliest date for this address book would be the fall of 1970, when Annabel came to UC Berkeley as a freshman. Lindsey turned to the Ps, but she didn’t see her own initials. She had moved into the Hillegass Street house in June 1972. There was the Milvia Street address, this very house, where she’d lived with Aunt Emma starting in the summer of 1974. No initials. But there was a doodle.
Lindsey chuckled. Here was the key to Annabel’s address book, a drawing of a book, with pages. On closer examination Lindsey saw the initials LP along the edge of the drawing. She flipped to the Ks. Gretchen Kohl had moved in with Doug Segal that summer. At the top of the page, above the address of the apartment Gretchen and Doug had shared, Lindsey saw a tiny sketch, a lump of coal and a seagull perched on a piling, with tiny waves lapping at its base.
Was Lily here? And was Lily a flower or a shoe? Lindsey leafed through the pages again, looking carefully at the doodles she had dismissed as mere drawings. Then she saw a flower, a lily sketched in next to an address and a phone number. Lindsey squinted at the drawing, then examined the sketch with a magnifying glass. She discovered the initials LH at the side of the lily’s stem. Lily’s last name was Hsu.
Now that Lindsey had the key, she went back through Annabel’s address books, tracking the drawing of the lily and the addresses and phone numbers that went with it. The earliest book, from Annabel’s high school days in the late 1960s, placed Lily on Beulah Street, near Haight. In the 1970s, Lily lived in the Sunset District, then sometime in the early Nineties, in the Richmond District. An answering machine picked up Lindsey’s phone call. She left a message, hoping Lily Hsu would respond.
The doorbell rang. It was Gretchen. “I’m reporting for cat-sitting duty. Here to pick up the key, anyway.”
“Come have coffee.” Lindsey led the way to the kitchen, filled two mugs and set them on the table. She fetched an extra house key and a slip of paper on which she’d written the name and phone number of the Ashland bed-and-breakfast inn. “Thanks for looking after the cats while I’m gone. Cat food in the cupboard next to the sink, litter next to the cat box. We’re leaving early tomorrow morning, driving home on Monday. You can reach me on my cell phone.”
Nina came out of the guestroom with her purse slung over her shoulder. “I’m going shopping. I need a few things for the trip.”
When she had gone, Gretchen asked, “How is that working, with Nina living here?”
Lindsey circled her mug with her hands. “It’s awkward. This morning she informed me that she’s moving in with Tess. She doesn’t want to impose on me any longer. We had another one of our mother-daughter discussions.”
“In civil tones, I hope.”
Lindsey shrugged. “No blows were exchanged. Or voices raised.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“This job with Claire is temporary. I’m guessing Nina doesn’t have much money, though we haven’t discussed it. This economic downturn hit her hard. She’s been underemployed or unemployed over the past few years. The Texas move was a mistake, and not just financially. Thank God she realized it and came home. Moving in with Tess isn’t very practical right now. Why pay rent when she could be out of a job again in four months?”
“Because she’s an adult and doesn’t want to live with Mom,” Gretchen said. “Remember how we were at that age? I couldn’t wait to get out of the house, even if it meant renting a closet in some squalid rooming house. Which is where I lived before I lucked into that apartment on Hillegass Street. Given her work situation and the economy, she’s jazzed about having any kind of job. She’ll have a paycheck and some benefits, even if it’s only temporary. I’ll bet Nina won’t be out of a job in four months. Claire will find her a permanent position.”
Lindsey nodded, remembering that she’d rejected Aunt Emma’s offer of a room in this house in favor of a place of her own, on Hillegass Street with the others. “I worry about her.”
“Of course you do. You’re her mother. That’s your job. That’s what we moms do.” Gretchen sipped coffee. “I’ll worry about my kids no matter how big they get. Until I get old and creaky and it’s their turn to worry about me. If Nina lived here you’d be at each other’s throats. She needs her own place. She’ll be fine.”
“I hope so. She’s had some rocky years. First she lost her job and apartment. Then she got involved with Chad, that obnoxious, narcissistic twerp...”
Gretchen smiled. “Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”
“I wish things were easier between us,” Lindsey said. “If I told her about...”
“Her father? You’ve been adamant about keeping that secret. And I respect your privacy. It’s late in the game to tell Nina who her dad is. Why now?”
“Tess, wanting to know about her father.”
“You know what I think about that,” Gretchen said. “Bad idea where Tess is concerned, maybe bad for Nina as well. You’ve put off telling her for so long that coming clean could backfire on you. My opinion. Take it or leave it. You have to decide what you want to do.”
“I know.” Lindsey sipped her coffee and pointed at the discarded Chronicle. “Did you see the business section this morning?”
“With all that innuendo about the Dunlin Corporation? Did I ever! That column was a hit piece directed at Claire. I called her right away. She’s really pissed off. She’s had run-ins with that columnist before. She thinks Brinker’s behind that column. He’s been a thorn in her side for ages. He hates anything innovative and wants to do business just the way Annabel’s father did back in the good old days. Claire has so much emotion and energy invested in the company. Her father started it, but he gets left out of the equation and her Uncle George gets all the credit.”
Like so much revisionist history, it depended on who did the revising. Megarris’s alcoholism was the reason Dunlin had airbrushed his partner from the picture. Lindsey sipped coffee. “Mr. Megarris died such a long time ago, it’s not surprising that Mr. Dunlin is the one—and the name—everyone remembers.”
“True, but it’s a family business,” Gretchen said. “Claire and Mrs. Megarris are part of the family. That columnist implied there’s a power struggle going on, but Claire says it’s more a case of modernization versus doing business the same old way, retooling the company’s goals and mission. Brinker’s a major impediment to change. And Claire’s concerned about Hal.”
“Why?” Lindsey asked. “He’s been running the company for years. Dunlin groomed Hal to take over as chief executive officer.”
“Yes, and Dunlin left Brinker looming over the company, like a gargoyle. Claire’s words,” Gretchen added. “She says Hal’s indecisive, won’t move without consulting Brinker.”
“Max is the chief operating officer,” Lindsey said. “Of course Hal consults him. Annabel, too. She’s on the board. There’s a board vacancy coming up. Claire has a candidate to replace the director who’s resigning. She was trying to lobby Hal Monday evening but he told her it wasn’t the time to discuss it. That column said something about real estate for sale. Surely they wouldn’t sell the Dunlin Building.”
“Selling the warehouse makes sense,” Gretchen said. “The commodities are shipped into the Port of Oakland. Most of their operations are already over there. Claire says the headquarters building needs an earthquake retrofit, and upgrading in terms of plumbing, wiring, and security. But I doubt she would give up tha
t short commute to her condo on Nob Hill.”
“Straight uphill,” Lindsey said.
Gretchen laughed. “Downhill for going to work, uphill for going home. She takes the cable car at the end of the day. Enough about this. I have a volunteer thing and if I don’t hustle, I’ll be late.”
Lindsey watched from the front porch as Gretchen left, and then Nina returned from her shopping excursion. “I should pack. Will I need any dress-up clothes?”
“For Ashland?” Lindsey shook her head. “No, it’s pretty casual up there. Listen about this morning, when we were talking about your moving in with Tess, I didn’t mean to be...”
Nina raised her hand. “I know you’re concerned about me, Mom. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” She went into the house.
Lindsey picked up a pine cone, fallen from a nearby tree, and sat on the wide porch railing. Next to her, a potted geranium held buds fat with the promise of bright red flowers. Her relationship with her daughter was up and down, like a merry-go-round, circling through argument and truce.
18
The Oregon morning was cool, but the blue sky held a promise of warmth. Tulips and daffodils splashed bright colors along the walk and rosebushes were covered with buds. Lindsey and Nina walked from their cottage to the inn’s main house, where French doors led into a dining room with a long table set for breakfast. They helped themselves to coffee from the urn on a nearby counter.
The woman who ran the bed-and-breakfast inn emerged from the kitchen, bearing a large platter with slices of cantaloupe and honeydew melon, fat red strawberries mounded in the middle. She set the platter on the sideboard. “Breakfast will be ready in five minutes.”