California Girl (37 page)

She’d stopped at a discount store and bought a pretty
lavender camera for Lucia. She’d gone to the tribal reservation to check on her
and Dulce. They’d been surrounded by a huge happy family celebrating their
return. Dulce had talked of finishing school in Albuquerque. Lucia was
delighted with her grandmother. Purple had been stalking field mice. They would
be fine now that they were safe and together.

Alys wasn’t feeling particularly fine, but she soaked up
their positive vibrations and carried them with her. Lucia’s family had
developed her pictures and given Alys duplicates. One of the photos had been of
Elliot. She kept it in her pocket next to her heart until she decided whether
to tear it into shreds or treasure it always.

He was trying to save Mame’s life. She could relate to that.
She could return the SUV and maybe they would just be friends. Mame could tell
her all about Elliot in long chatty phone conversations. He’d still be in the
universe somewhere.

He hadn’t died.

He was afraid he would.

But Elliot would fight to live. That’s what his life had
been about—prolonging life. And not just his life, but the lives of many. She
could love a man like that. And he would break her heart—again.

Driving across the vast barren plains of New Mexico and
Arizona, admiring the sagebrush and mesas and approaching mountains, Alys
thought about that. She turned on the radio and sang along with “Staying
Alive.” She discovered Elliot had a CD collection in the car and popped one of
his classical CDs into the player. The car filled with the drama of Tchaikovsky
while she took a side road and drove through the Petrified Forest. She didn’t
see much reason to stop though. With whom would she discuss the crumbling
remains of strange rock trees? There wasn’t a soul in sight.

She found an Eagles CD and played “Take It Easy” as she took
the old road into Winslow, Arizona. She stopped and had a Big Mac and a shake,
but without Elliot here, caring enough to tell her she was ruining her health,
they didn’t taste quite as good as she’d expected.

The gradual climb of the interstate into the mountains
wasn’t as dramatic as flying over the mesas of New Mexico in a hot air balloon
with Elliot wrapping her in his arms.

“I’m beginning to see a pattern here,” she muttered as once
more her thoughts turned to Elliot. She programmed the GPS to find the Grand
Canyon, deviating from her route. She’d dreamed of crossing the country, free
to go where the spirit took her. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, and
she was determined to enjoy herself. Bless Elliot for setting her free.

The canyon was huge. She stood on the edge and stared down
and decided she’d enjoyed riding horses with Elliot through Palo Duro more than
standing alone above this incomprehensible vastness.

She needed people, dammit. Without people, she’d return to
that block of ice she’d been after Fred’s death. She wasn’t made to live alone.

She found a park lodge, ordered a meal in the restaurant,
and looked around, wondering how she could find someone to talk to. It was
October, and the only families here were ones with small children who demanded
all their attention. There were several couples chattering away in foreign
languages. No one sat alone, like her. The isolation chilled her.

She chatted with the waitress, then returned to the front desk
to ask about a room. From the clerk she learned snow was expected and that the
hotel was full. She hadn’t dared make reservations for herself not knowing if
she could afford to finish the trip on her own. Thanks to Elliot, the problem
of transportation had been reduced to the cost of gas. She had enough money to
eat and still see the sights.

She could find another hotel, then drive back to sit in
front of the fire at the lodge and watch the snow.

Or she could keep driving—to California where the sun was
shining.

She climbed back into the Rover, drove back down the road
until she found a cheap hotel, and stopped for the night. The room was shabby
and lonely but clean and quiet. Exhausted, she slept.

She was up at dawn, heading out before the snow clouds moved
in.

Her heart ached as much as her arm. This was what she’d
wanted, wasn’t it? She’d had all those grandiose dreams of merrily cruising
America, seeing the sights she’d only heard about, meeting strangers in strange
places.

And she’d done that, with Elliot. He’d made her laugh and
cry, showed her the world from his perspective as well as hers, made her feel
at home no matter where they traveled. With someone to share her vision, the
mountains were higher, the air was clearer, the people more interesting.

On her own, one McDonalds looked like another, one stretch
of interstate didn’t vary from the last, and even rattlesnake soup tasted like
chicken. Strangers were always strangers, gone tomorrow, making no place for
her.

Maybe
the song was right. Maybe “freedom”
was just another word for nothing left to lose.

She drove through mountain and desert in the same day, asked
a nearby tourist to take her picture entering California, but she felt none of
the euphoria she had earlier. A road sign wasn’t the state of California.
Singing “California Girls” didn’t make her one.

She’d experienced love and longing and near-death in one
week’s time. What would she do with the rest of her life?

Using the car’s navigational device, she battled rush-hour
traffic into Los Angeles, found the stretch of original road on the east side,
and turned onto it. She cruised the old route, thinking of Mame driving out
here with her new husband, knowing she could lose him to a cruel war, that she
had to make her way home alone.

Tears started sliding down Alys’s cheeks as she followed the
highway into Santa Monica. In between sobs, she drove around until she found a
parking spot where she could walk to the beach. The end of the road.

Standing on the pier, watching the sun fall over her first
view of the ocean, she literally stopped breathing. Larger than the canyon, so
large it reached the horizon and touched the sun, the sea enthralled her,
drying up her tears. She sought her center, hoping to absorb the magnificence,
hoping to find a sign to direct her.

She smelled the salt, heard seals in the distance, watched
gulls circle and dive over the water. Children ran along the water’s edge,
screaming with delight. A lone surfer caught a cold wave and rode it to shore.
People jostled around her. Shops teemed with activity. She could walk into any
one of them and ask for a job and live here forever. That’s what she’d dreamed
about, wasn’t it?

The horizon turned apricot and purple. The waves lapped
gently. Strange, contorted trees dotted the landscape. Fabulous flowers climbed
the walls. She was in a tropical paradise. Elliot and Mame would return to
Missouri.

She had come to the end of the road and reached a crossroad.

Her heart lightened as she finally faced the facts. Elliot
had done the same thing as Fred—they had both loved her enough to set her free.

Softly, she whispered, “I understand now, Fred. I love you,
too. Thank you.” Digging the wedding band out of her purse, she kissed it, then
flung it far out into the waves.

* * *

“It’s a routine angioplasty, Mame,” Elliot assured her.
“They’ll insert a tiny tube in the clogged artery, inflate it like a balloon,
clear the passage, and you’ll be fine again.”

Mame nudged her pillows into a more comfortable position and
with the regal frown of a queen, glared at the two men in her life. “I am not
spending the rest of my life lying about on a couch like some tragic figure in
a soap opera. If I’m going to die, I’d rather just do it.”

“Mame, I know plenty of guys who’ve had this done. You’ll be
spoiling your nephew’s kids when they’re in college,” Jock argued.

“Will I?” Mame lifted her artificially tinted eyebrows at
her nephew.

With a twinge of pain at the mention of children he might
never have, given what he’d done to Alys, Elliot picked up her chart. “Lying
around is the worst thing you can do. Healthy exercise and diet is the
prescription after surgery. You scared us all for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing. It was for Lucia. Tell me about my
grandchildren, Elliot. I can call them grandchildren, can’t I? It’s a trifle
awkward to keep calling them my nephew’s children. I think you have to have a
wife first, don’t you?”

“Mame, you aren’t pulling me into this argument. First, the
surgery. My love life or lack of it isn’t relevant. Will you please sign the
consent form?”

She regarded him through knowing eyes. “If this is routine
surgery, why don’t you have it done?”

Elliot slid his pen back in the pocket of his medical coat
and ran his hand through his hair. “They’ll run tests on me as soon as I know
you’re on your way to recovery.”

Mame beamed and reached for the clipboard with the consent
form. “It’s about time you decided to live, young man. Now let’s hope Alys is
smart enough to forgive you for your stupidity.”

Taking the form Mame handed back to him, Elliot feared Alys
was smart enough to go on without him. She could be enjoying oceans and sunsets
and healthy young men who had decades ahead of them, adventurous souls willing
to share their years.

As she’d pointed out often enough, he was a determined man
capable of getting whatever he went after. He could have persuaded her to stay
with him, but not at the cost of her happiness.

If he could keep believing she was laughing somewhere, he’d
be fine. He’d lived with a broken heart all his life.

* * *

UCLA was an
enormous
place. Sitting in her shoddy—extremely expensive—hotel room, Alys scanned the
pages of numbers in the phone book and located another likely one. She should
be out looking for a job. She couldn’t afford to stay in hotels for long. Her
orchid needed a good home. She thought she saw a bud forming along one stalk.
Hotel windows weren’t sunny enough.

But she had to find Elliot and Mame before she could move
on. She needed to know that Mame would recover. She had to know why Elliot
didn’t answer his cell phone.

Biting a corner of her lip, she dialed still another number.
This time, she got the nursing school—and suddenly, all the pieces shifted into
place.

An hour later, she was on the road again. The motel didn’t
have bellhops to help her with luggage as the Hilton had, so she’d left her
suitcases in the Rover and simply rummaged through them for the best outfit she
could find.

She hadn’t brought any suits with her, but she’d found a
pair of gray dress slacks and her all-purpose navy blazer. The silky white
blouse with the ruffled V-neck was a little frivolous, but her only other
option had been T-shirts and turtlenecks. They might have been suitable for an
interview, but she had high hopes of finding Elliot before day’s end.

Maybe she should have worn a businesslike turtleneck for
Elliot. Would he take her seriously then? She really wasn’t a flake, but he’d
only had a week to figure that out, and she hadn’t helped him much.

Thinking
of all the sensible, uniformed nurses hanging on to Doc Nice’s every word, Alys
chewed her lip and drove a little faster. The weekend was over. He might have
flown back to St. Louis to tape his radio show for all she knew. She had to do
this for
her.

And she was. This was perfect. Ideal. If she didn’t have
enough money in the insurance account to cover her tuition and couldn’t swing
any scholarships, she’d work nights. The possibilities were limitless once she
had her degree. She might explode with excitement if she thought about it too
hard. She’d been blind for so long—

But now she saw. Smiling at the muddled line from “Amazing
Grace,” she followed the navigation system’s directions into the parking lot at
UCLA’s medical facilities. Pure happiness spilled through her at the sight of
all the modern buildings. She didn’t have the fortitude to be a doctor making
life-and-death decisions, but she understood how caring for the spirit healed
as much as medicine did. She would be the best nurse the world had ever seen.

Once she had knowledge, she wouldn’t be helpless anymore.

Now that she knew the source of her fear, she marched into
the antiseptic hospital without an instant of hesitation and asked for the head
of nursing who had agreed to speak with her. She felt just like her old self
again—confident and assured—and a lot more mature.

From there, she was sent from office to office, gathering
armfuls of information as she went. They showed her options and choices and
even other schools, cost packages, and scholarships. With every step, she grew
more certain that she could do this. On her own. All she had to do was decide
where she wanted to go: here or home. St. Louis had a wonderful nursing school.

With her course firmly established, she asked the staff how
to find a heart patient. Within minutes, she’d located Mame and was on her way
to still another medical facility. By this time, she was carrying a canvas bag
full of brochures. She clung to them as she took the elevator up to Mame’s
room.

A little over a week ago she had been a shivering wreck
taking a similar elevator up to see Mame in a different hospital. If she
allowed the panic to creep back in, she could be reduced to that same shivering
wreck, but she had a purpose now that she hadn’t before, one outside herself,
and that gave her strength.

She’d been terrified of being left alone again, and she’d
let fear control her. But she’d learned from Elliot that knowledge gave her
power. She could take command of her life as he had his.

She ran into Jock drinking coffee in the waiting room. He
looked better today, smiling as he recognized her.

“How is Mame?” she asked eagerly.

“She sailed through the operation with flying colors,” he
boasted proudly. “Mame’s a trouper. I should never have let her get away from
me all those years ago.”