If I dig far enough, maybe I’ll find it—or China.
She opens the patio door to the warm outside evening, where the fig tree, dressed as a black señorita, stands nobly in the moonlight. Lavinia dances in front of her, letting the ground of her small yard absorb the pounding of her feet, wondering if her shaking will cause the almost ready figs to drop. With the earth below and the moonlight above, she dances freely. A ripple of energy pushes up through her feet to her ankles and calves, then moves on up to her hips and pelvis, then up to her tailbone and to her spinal column, neck and head. She imagines the noble fig tree as her mother. Have you followed me here, Mama?
She dances until the music stops. Feeling satisfied, she goes inside to her darkened room and falls asleep.
She dreams of her mother—or is it the time before her mother? Cradled in water, her head and tailbone tucked in, her fists are closed tightly, as are her eyes. It’s dark in this watery sea. There’s a swishing underwater sound. She can hear the beat as an underwater muffled sound. Sometimes the sea is gentle and then it shifts like in a storm, maybe even a tidal wave. What is the tidal wave?
Lavinia opens her eyes. She’s sweating but her sheets are dry. Though the dream unsettles her, she tries to grasp it, but it just slips away like a fish, leaving nothing but a deep yearning, a fluid feeling that is unfamiliar and yet as old as milk. She wonders if the noble fig has given her this dream.
Then a smile comes. La querencia.
Lavinia wants more time with Mercedes, with Kinky. “Who else do I have in my life?” she asks herself out loud. “Zack and Mario, whom I barely know? George?”
She misses him, though not without some agitation. He betrayed her, didn’t he? But why doesn’t she have deeper connections in her life? She can’t help but think it’s something about her. Why isn’t she speaking more with people? She feels tongue tied, like the curled-fisted fetus in the dream. Is that me? An embryo? Is that the dark shadow?
Days pass and she can’t get the dream or Mercedes out of her mind. On a late afternoon she leaves her apartment and walks down Valencia Street, passing the writing workshop where Kinky volunteers after a full day at school. The place bustles with kids of all ages working on computers, alone or with tutors. Lavinia looks at her watch: 3:30. Kinky won’t be leaving here until 4:00 p.m. from tutoring.
She pops a Bubblicious like it’s an injection, then quickens her step. Her body is leading her toward the guru Strega Mercedes. Onward, she tells herself, walking toward Florida Street, passing parked cars on the sidewalk. A man’s legs hang out from beneath a Ford pickup truck. She thinks of George’s sculptures of body parts and feels an anger rising up in her. She remembers the story of the bull who outwits the matador, and she moves on toward the house.
Then she’s standing there at the Montoyas’ door and knocks, anticipating the warm woman inside, knowing she is welcome.
“Pasa adelante, mijita.” Mercedes shows Lavinia into the familiar spot in the den, where she sits in the white chair with the soft round arms. Lavinia is beginning to experience the chair as home.
“Hmmm!” she whispers in recognition of her comfortable place.
“Sit down.” Mercedes looks at the watch she wears on a gold chain around her neck. “Kinky will be here at six, in time for dinner.”
“I wanted to see you today.” Lavinia covers her face with her hands. A rash of sadness rises. She feels her throat tighten and then just as easily release. She continues, looking up at her and continues, “I wanted to ask you . . .” She mumbles, covering her lips, because what she wants to ask Mercedes is, Are you my mother?
She doesn’t.
“You’re sad today. Don’t hide.” Mercedes sits down next to her, placing a hand on hers.
“I came here today to see if you can help me understand something. Because I can’t figure it out.” She’s choking back tears now. “Why did this happen to me? Why did my mother die?”
Mercedes rubs Lavinia’s arm with her small, leathery hands—not abrasive, just rough and strong, like turtle skin. Lavinia watches her face, but Mercedes doesn’t answer her question. She just sits with her in strong silence.
“This is the only place I feel safe,” Lavinia tells her. “Otherwise, I feel so alone.”
“I’m not able to tell you why this happened to you,” Mercedes finally says, pulling Lavinia closer in, embracing her. “But you have Kinky and me, and we are one of your safe places.”
She cares for me. Lavinia knows this to be true. The place behind her eyes gets tight and her eyes fill with a stinging sensation. She imagines a waterfall being held back. She waits before speaking, but the words don’t come, only the tears. She sobs, leaning her head against Mercedes, noticing the cotton apron getting wet.
“Lavinia, Lavinia,” Mercedes says, rubbing her back.
This affectionate embrace only makes her cry more. “I miss my mother. I have nowhere to turn. I have no family.”
“I know. I know,” Mercedes says, stroking her head. “Tell me about your mother.”
“All I know is that I left her when I was nearly five, when Sal brought me to San Francisco. And I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why we were separated, or how she died. I don’t know if she died before we left, or if I’m the reason she’s dead. Sometimes I feel that it was my fault. Sometimes I think she was arguing with someone in our house in Italy and maybe she was mad at me. I don’t know. Sal told me that she had me when she was seventeen. I can’t imagine. It’s all confusing in my head.”
“Pobrecita Lavinia.”
“Something is happening inside me, like a whirlpool spinning.”
“A whirlpool will spin you around and shake everything up. Sometimes it is just what we need, mijita.” Mercedes massages her arm.
When Lavinia hears mijita again she feels a little bee buzz in her center and welcomes the soft touch of the woman beside her. She wants to memorize this feeling, to have it imprinted on her brain, but she doesn’t even know what to call it or where to store it. All she knows is that her center is fluttering. She focuses on the folds of the floral apron at her bosom, which look like smiling faces of clowns with multicolored pointed hats made wet now by her tears.
“Lean back on this chair, my child,” Mercedes says, pointing to the backrest of the soft upholstered chair with low arms. “I will massage your head the way I learned in my country.”
Mercedes pulls up her straight-back chair near Lavinia’s head. Lavinia adjusts her position, letting Mercedes’ capable hands move slowly to her head, and takes a deep breath, lets herself relax.
Mercedes gently touches with one hand the top of her head with oil-scented fingers, moving around the crown, massaging points close to her scalp. While she presses her fingers, she hums. Lavinia allows herself to receive her gifts, accepting the way Mercedes holds her head in her hands and gently moves her neck to the left and then to the right, applying gentle pressure to her neck and shoulders. The humming relaxes her mind. She pictures the figs, smells the rich mulch under the fig tree, and sees the little green pouches filling with seeds.
Maybe thirty minutes pass this way . . . or is it an eternity? With her small hands Mercedes kneads, then cradles her head and just sits. No massage. No humming, just a quiet holding.
“This reminds me of just before I fall asleep,” Lavinia says. “This is a space where I’m at peace.”
“Sí, sí, my child. And your dreams?”
“I’ve been dreaming of a watery place where there is turmoil and swishy sounds; where I am all bundled, with tight fists.”
“The womb. You’re seeing yourself in your mother’s womb.”
Lavinia tenses her legs; her head jerks backwards. “Really! It seems so dark in the womb.”
“Ah! The great mystery of connection,” Mercedes says, still cupping Lavinia’s head in her hands.
“I think my mother is whispering to me through the wind, the water, even the fig tree, but I can’t hear her words.” As Lavinia list
ens to Mercedes’s hum, she begins to feel her legs relax and her body rest.
“You are in Mercedes’s hands now. Not to worry, Lavinia,” Mercedes says. “Your mother, she fell in love with you before you were born. And each time she held you, her love grew. She could only stare at you, mijita, marveling at the miracle of your birth. Out of lovemaking, you were born. She knew you were of her life and not of her life and that she must part with you someday, dear child.” Mercedes voice gets dimmer, more serious. “Too soon,” she says softly.
“I wish I could see my mother’s face clearly. I only see white sheets hanging across clotheslines strung between old buildings. They are flapping like white wings of a great bird. Then I hear her voice, a sweet soprano, calling, ‘Lavinia Lavinia!’” Vague images of a beautiful young woman standing on the balcony looking down at her, waving and smiling, her eyes gleaming like a bright sun, appear in Lavinia’s mind as she says this. But then the sun is eclipsed and it all goes dark. Something black and scary blankets the sun.
“Mama,” Mercedes says, cradling Lavinia’s head. She whispers this over and over, all the while holding her head in her small oiled hands that smell of spring onions. Tears form in the corner of her eyes and begin to move down the sides of her face and onto Lavinia’s forehead. “Mama, Mama, Mama,” she prays, and the tears mingle with Lavinia’s own so that Lavinia doesn’t know which drops belong to whom.
Time stands still.
Lavinia hears stirring in the kitchen—sounds of a pot being moved from the stove, a spoon scraping along its insides, ice cubes against a glass, plates rattling, the closing of a cabinet door. Kinky must be home and getting things set up for supper. Lavinia was so immersed in the cradle, she didn’t hear her friend come in.
The dinner tastes more delicious than anything she’s ever eaten. Frijoles seasoned with chili, tomatoes, and garlic tickle her palate. The masa is soft and sweet on her tongue. The salty taste of the queso reminds her of her own tears. As they eat together, she doesn’t even mind the silence. Then Kinky begins to talk of Armando lovingly.
Lavinia looks into Mercedes’s deep, dark, fluid eyes and smiles. She feels safe and held, and free to leave her friends. It’s early evening and still enough time to visit her friend Mario in North Beach.
Chapter 8:
THE FIRST DANCE
Lavinia walks into the Falcone Café. A man in line in front of her says she looks like she drives a Ferrari, the way her hair is so mussed up. Another patron adds that she looks like Sophia Loren with that dimple in her chin. Then another high-pitched voice asks if she just got laid. She looks around for that voice just as Mario locks eyes with her.
“Whoa! Who just said that?” Mario glares at a thin guy who works cleaning the glasses.
“How rude!” Lavinia says.
“He can be an asshole!” Mario says to her in a low voice, eyeing the skinny little guy in an orange T-shirt and baseball cap.
“I was thinking the same. Thanks.”
Mario looks into her eyes. His seem inflamed to her. Or maybe it’s her own fire she sees reflected in his eyes.
“I’ll talk to him. You do glow, though, Bubblicious.”
“I had a massage.”
“I’ll be off at nine.” He looks directly into her eyes again before hesitantly moving away to the espresso machine, where he pulls the handle, froths the milk, and pours it to make heart designs in the lattes. Lavinia watches his quick, purposeful moves but mostly his body, so alert and strong. What made a stranger say I look like I just got laid? Truth be known, she hasn’t been laid in a long time—she’s been off that drug for a while. Since Andy left, she’s shied away from men. And even with Andy she never felt free.
Sidling up to her at the bar for a brief moment when things are quiet, Mario puts his face near hers. He smells like he’s been rolling around in the roasted beans. She inhales him.
“You want to hang out?” he asks. “Dinner?”
“Oh, sorry, I already had dinner with a friend earlier.”
“You going with someone?” he asks—but when she frowns, he says, “Okay, no more questions. Are you too full to try a slice of the best pizza you’ve ever had?”
“Yummy!” She relaxes. She can’t stay annoyed with him.
“I’ll show you my favorite haunts in North Beach and we’ll take it from there.” He gets up and moves to his machine, where he begins to clean cups and glasses in a hot wash.
His replacement—a younger, shorter guy—stands next to him, examining her with big eyes.
“She’s pretty cute. Yours?” the guy with the high-pitched voice, the one who insulted her, asks.
“Not mine, I don’t own her,” Mario says.
“Ha ha! I bet you’d like to.”
“Steve, you’re out of control. Quit it! Or you’re fired!” the barista snaps before going behind the bar to a closed room.
The guy moves toward Lavinia. “I’m Steve Crow. You’re new in the ’hood.”
“And you’re rude!”
“Guy talk! Sorry, if I offended you.”
“Get over it,” she says. “Guy talk is absolutely out of fashion!”
“Truce?” he asks, putting out his hand.
She looks at his hand and then toward the door Mario just disappeared behind.
“Mario’s a good boss,” Steve says. Then, “You don’t know much about him, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“He’s a bro. Fair. Pulls the shots straight.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?” She can’t help asking.
“Maybe.” The coworker winks at her just as Mario comes toward them.
Lavinia regrets having asked him about Mario, feels disgusted. Why didn’t she diss him totally? She turns away from him.
Mario’s, hair slicked back with grease and parted in the middle, makes him look like a movie star. He wears blue jeans. Walking towards her, he buttons a peacoat over a collared shirt. His shoes are stylish. Lavinia stands up from the bar stool. They are about the same height, though his body is fuller and more muscular than hers.
They walk onto Columbus Street toward Vallejo, where groups of young people laugh and talk. Occasionally an older couple mingles with small groups of men and women, women only, men out for fun. Party animals! She delights in being one of them—out for fun. They merge with the small pockets of restaurateurs and bar hoppers.
“What did Steve tell you?”
“Nothing.” She tells a fib and walks in step with him. “Thank you for speaking to him.”
Mario takes her arm as they cross a busy intersection on Columbus where several side streets converge with traffic going in all different directions.
They walk toward the pizza place. People are queueing inside for pizza by the slice. Behind a long counter, a man is throwing pizza dough into the air. Deep inside the small pizzeria, seats line the walls. Outside, people sit at sidewalk tables with aluminum seating.
“You’re not chewing gum tonight,” Mario comments.
“No need tonight.”
“You beam. That’s what I was trying to say,” he says, as if to explain the bad behavior.
“I had a beautiful head massage this afternoon from my friend’s mother.” She looks into his eyes.
“That accounts for the glow.”
“How do you keep so clear and direct? Usually, I mean.” She squeezes his arm.
“I try to stay in the physical world—present,” he says.
She’s not sure what he means but doesn’t ask him to explain, either.
“And your secret, Lavinia Lavinia?” he asks.
“I don’t think of myself as direct at all,” she says, staring at Mario. If she were direct and clear, she would have finished State and not impulsively quit; she would have confronted Andy; she would not have indulged Steve’s desire to tell her about Mario; she would have spoken with Nina about Don; she would have insisted that Sal tell her about her mother. The list goes on.
“Fair enough.” Mar
io points to the menu. He orders two slices of pizza with mushrooms and sausage for himself. “A beer for you?” he asks.
She nods.
“And two Morettis,” Mario tells the guy behind the counter.
Lavinia orders a slice with mushrooms. Soon they’re eating at an outside table, their hands dripping with olive oil.
“Delicious,” Lavinia says. “You’d think I never ate.”
Mario grins. “The best in North Beach, like I said.”
They drain their beers. When they stand to leave, Mario nudges her, pressing his shoulder into hers. “You want to dance tonight? I know an unusual music venue.”
“I love to dance.” She slips her arm through his.
“Let’s go to my favorite place. Not the usual,” he says.
He tells her it’s more a gestalt practice where you dance to five rhythms developed by a dance therapist named Gabrielle Roth. He warns her that a teacher-DJ might stop the music at some point and ask everyone to contemplate and pay attention to themselves.
“It’s like a groovy meditation,” he says, “or a yoga practice.”
Lavinia considers it. “Not sure about it!”
“Well, it’s different and not for everyone.” He pauses and looks into her eyes. “If you want to leave before the two-hour deal, I’ll leave with you.”
“Fair enough,” she says, consciously repeating his familiar response, trying it out.
Mario and Lavinia join a line on the sidewalk outside a large, gray, fifties-style building—a relatively nondescript building on Columbus Avenue, one she’s never noticed before. It’s more like the Masonic Lodge than a rock concert or a dance hall—but then, according to what Mario told her, it’s not the usual club. She’s amazed to see such a long line at 10 p.m. People wear flowing costumes; Lavinia pulls at the lapels on her tuxedo jacket, perceiving her attire to be a little stiff, picturing her own flowing shirt at home, the one she reserves for dancing alone.
People laugh and hug each other in greeting. She smooths down the front of her jacket. Several women and men offer their cheek to Mario, as if this is his special club. She can’t help but feel a little jealous at his attention to others.
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