Girl With a Past (17 page)

She had complained about having to face the
tear gas first thing in the morning, so her first class must be on
the south side of campus closer to where the National Guard and the
People’s Park demonstrators fought over a vacant half block of
land.

Shit, I’d have to take my chances on getting
gassed.

Carol’s favorite spot in the library was
empty.

Dwinelle Hall was my next guess. I poked my
nose in the auditorium and scanned for Carol’s black hair. Plenty
of dark heads, but none with her sheen and soft waves.

I fought the panic that threatened to keep
me from thinking straight. I couldn’t try every classroom in the
building. From the benches in the plaza outside the entrance, I
could watch all three exits.

The Campanile struck eleven, and students
poured from the building. I spotted Carol flirting with
tall-dark-and-handsome just outside the north entrance of Dwinelle
Hall.

“Carol,” I yelled as I ran. “Carol.”

“What’s the matter?” The annoyance on her
face sent a loud and clear message, I-like-this-guy, back off.

I ignored her look, and dragged her to the
wood bench surrounding the raised planter and a Loquat tree.
“Carol, I don’t know why we’ve been so stupid.”

She scowled. “Hey, I was just about to give
that cute guy my number. What is your problem?”

“Someone
is
trying to kill you.”

“Look, I’m sorry I started this. I was
overtired, reading too much Kafka. My imagination ran away with
me.”

I grabbed her arm, and held tight when she
tried to stand.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She shook off my
hand, stood up. “I’ve got a class in Kroeber.” She walked between
the trees in their giant planters.

I rushed after her. “Really, think about it.
All the weird, possibly fatal, so called accidents you’ve had in
the last ten months.”

“Lexi, now
your
imagination is
running away with you.”

“No. Really, the fall––”

“I tripped.”

“Or someone tripped you.”

“I tripped.”

“The explosion.”

“Someone left the oven on. The pilot light
blew out. Accident.” She turned left and hurried across the wood
bridge leading into faculty glade.

I pushed between her and green foliage,
“Carol, you are in danger. Poisoning. Remember that? You almost
died.”

“Bad food. It happens. Get over it.”

“The brakes.”

She stopped walking, then turned to look me
in the eye with one brow raised. “I told you that car was
dangerous. You said, ‘Trust me.” Remember that?”

“Carol, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll tell you what, I won’t eat. I won’t
get in a car, or turn on any ovens, or climb any cliffs.” She
strode off.

I followed, but she ignored me until we
reached the door to her class. I grabbed her arm. “Why’d you change
your mind? Yesterday you thought maybe all those things weren’t
accidents, you said maybe some one had tripped you. Now you’re in
denial.”

“Lexi, I love you. I stopped freaking out,
got over my paranoia. I appreciate your concern, but why would
anyone want to kill me? After all, I’m such a nice person.” She
slammed the door in my face.

“Bitch,” I yelled after her.

30

Berkeley, Alta Bates Hospital, March 2008

“Al, can you hear me?” Steven asked as he
brushed a wisp of blonde hair off his sister’s forehead. The
orderly and nurse had just wheeled her back into the room. Her head
was no longer fully swathed in bandages, just a relatively small
patch on the right side where a razor had cut a swath through her
thick tresses.

“What did the MRI show?” he asked them.

“The doctor will be up soon to speak with
you,” the orderly said.

Steven didn’t like the way that sounded. Oh
shit. Please don’t let her have brain damage.

An eternity later the physician showed up.
“Well, the MRI still looks pretty good. The inflammation is going
down. Looks as though she should recover just fine.”

“It’s almost been two days. How long will
she be unconscious?” Steven asked after breathing a sigh of
relief.

“Hard to say.” The doctor smiled at Steven.
“I think your sister is going to be okay, although it is a puzzle.
We don’t know everything we could about comas. Sometimes patients
regain consciousness in minutes, sometimes months, even years . . .
and anything in between. But you say she has been speaking which
indicates she is waking up. Her GCS is good.”

“Her what”

“Her Glasgow Coma Scale.

“What’s that?

“GCS measures the depth of the coma. The
deeper the coma, the lower the score.”

“So how deep is her coma?” Steven asked.
“Please, I just want to know if my sister is going to be ok.”

The neurologist looked at Steven with
sympathy. “Here’s the deal. Coma is a response to injury that
allows the body to pause activity in order to concentrate on
healing immediate injuries before waking up.” The doctor looked at
Steven as if to see that he was following. “Your sister’s wound in
the cerebral cortex was away from any critical structures in her
brain. She is in a mild coma and appears to be waking up. Likely
the worst after effect she will experience will be PTA.”

“PTA?” Steven asked.

“Post-traumatic amnesia. And before you ask,
the length of the amnesia correlates to the length of
unconsciousness. And she may not experience much at all. Unlikely
she would experience total amnesia. Usually it’s just some details.
Or names. Bottom line, there is every reason to believe your sister
is going to be just fine.”

31

Berkeley, May 1969

“Where’re ya headed?” He stuck close to my
side as I rushed across the street before the light turned red.

Aw, for chrissakes. Yeah, he rescued me, but
did that mean I had to be nice to him? Why couldn’t I be a bitch
without guilt tripping myself? He was exactly the excessively
handsome kind of guy I wanted to avoid.

“Thanks again. I do appreciate you helping
me.” I forced a smile and waved. “Ciao.”

I lengthened my stride; maybe he’d give up.
I glanced to my left; he was hanging in there. His legs were even
longer than mine. I wouldn’t lose him easily.

He caught my eye and smiled that charming
crooked grin. Oh man, those crystal blue eyes. And dimples.

I couldn’t help myself. I returned the
smile.

He grinned. “Groovy.” He waved at the tables
and chairs on the wide patio of the Euclid Café. “Coffee?”

I nodded and followed him to a table.

“Sit, please. Cream?”

I nodded.

“Sugar?”

I nodded again, dropped my book bag next to
one of the chairs, and sat down.

He walked to the line of students and
faculty waiting to order.

A newspaper left on the table headlined
another Zodiac killing. A photo of his latest victim led the
front-page story; a copy of a letter purportedly from the Zodiac
was next to the photo.

I couldn’t handle any more evidence of our
fucked up world that day. I moved the newspaper to a nearby
table.

Derek returned with two steaming mugs of
coffee before I had a chance to reconsider befriending a stranger.
Especially a handsome one. He placed both cups on the table and
passed me a handful of sugar packets.

“So––where do you live?” he asked.

At least he didn’t ask me “what’s your
sign?” Or “what’s your major?” But then the smears of acrylic paint
on my bell-bottom jeans might have given my art major away.

“Up the hill.” I waved up toward the top of
the Berkeley hills.

“Headed home?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a lot of work to do.” I
rubbed dried paint off my finger.

“What’re you painting?”

“Kinda abstract nudes in landscapes.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Like cubist nudes
descending staircases?”

“I’m not Picasso or Braque. Landscapes, not
interiors.”

He flashed that damn smile revealing dimples
again. “I’d love to see them.”

That I ignored. “What’s your thing?”

“Architecture.”

“And you escaped the Environmental Design
building?” I asked with a smile. “Don’t they keep would-be
architects chained to their drafting tables? I see people working
in there twenty-four hours a day.”

“True, too true.” He sipped his coffee, and
then grinned. “Couldn’t hack it, had to get out and find a pretty
girl to rescue.”

I drank the last of my coffee. “Thank you.”
I forced a smile.

I wasn’t going to violate my new agreements
with myself. No more handsome and charming men. Too dangerous for
my bruised heart. Women throw themselves at men like this one.

“I really do have to get to work.”

He drained his cup and stood up. “May I walk
with you?”

I shrugged an "if you want to" and picked up
my bag.

The small talk continued as we headed up the
hill to the house I shared with a group of close friends plus an
assortment of guys who did not officially live there but hung
around a lot.

My roommate Carol was about to graduate and
already job-hunting. She was beautiful and talented so she would
land a position in a fashion house quickly.

Jeff was a law student and my best friend
since childhood when we had spent summers at the same camp, playing
the same sports.

Dave, a Cal grad, commuted to a job in the
city.

All three of them led busy, productive
lives.

The others, the hang-arounders, needed to
get a life. They used our place as their Berkeley base. All were
graduates, and either trust fund babies or wannabes who managed to
kill every day fucking around, tripping to the beach, hanging out
in the Haight, going to Janis Joplin & Big Brother & the
Holding Company concerts in Golden Gate Park or the Grateful Dead
at The Fillmore.

Some days I was envious of their freedom.
But once I started painting, I forgot everything but the music and
the flow of my brush.

Two of the hang-arounders, preppie looking
Jamie and Ron, lounged on the front porch swing smoking. Jamie had
actually attended prep school and was one of the trust fund
beneficiaries. Wannabe Ron imitated Jamie’s mannerisms, dress, and
accent, but his rugged face and his engaging smile charmed both men
and women. Jamie’s relaxed manner was equally appealing. Both lit
up with curiosity when we came up the front walk and climbed the
stairs of the entry.

“Yo, Lex,” Ron said. “Who’s your
friend?”

Shit. I’d planned to say good-bye and close
the door in his face if I had to, but these two guys were going to
make it awkward.

“Can I see your paintings?” Derek asked.

“Ah, shit man, you gotta see her work. It’s
far-out.” Ron jumped up from the porch swing, opened the door,
grinned in answer to the scowl I shot his direction, and invited
Derek into
my
house before I could think of how to get out
of this one.

One of my recent canvasses, a colorful
abstract landscape hung above the fireplace in the living room. I
followed the three guys into the entry hall and groaned as I
watched Ron point out the painting.

“Wow. Cool.” Derek directed a nod of
appreciation to me.

“I really gotta get some stuff done. Thanks
again.” I ducked down the hall toward my room as I heard the men
introducing themselves. Jeff was exiting his room.

“Hi,” I said to him. “If you see Carol,
please tell her I need to talk to her.”

Jeff nodded his strawberry blonde head.
“Sure.”

In my room, I dumped my bag on my bed,
grabbed a new brush from my desk and headed out to the garden shack
I had converted to my studio.

Through open green house windows, I could
hear Derek, Ron, Jamie, and my housemate Jeff in the living room,
yukking it up and talking in those low, guttural voices that told
me they were passing a joint. Any minute now they’d start
discussing the relative merits of Acapulco Gold versus whatever
they were smoking.

I loved those guys, but that dope story was
getting old.

I closed the rusted, metal-framed windows,
slid a Beatles record out of the album cover and set it on the
turntable. “
In Penny Lane there is a barber––”
The sweet
sounds took the edge off my tension.

Carol cracked the door enough to poke her
dark head in. “Jeff said you wanted to talk to me.”

“I went to the library after I saw you on
campus.” I motioned for her to come in. “Know what the symptoms of
arsenic poisoning are?”

She shrugged, pulled her long black hair
back from her pale face. Seeing how white her face was made my
heart ache with concern for my best girlfriend. Carol did her best
to hide her soft heart and anxious nature, but I saw through her
tough shell.

“Vomiting,” I said, “diarrhea, abdominal
cramps.”

“You’re still on that subject!” She walked
out; the crooked hinges thwarted her attempt at a door slam.

32

Berkeley, Alta Bates Hospital, March 2008

“Ste-ven,” a hoarse whisper.

He looked up from his reading to see his
sister struggling to speak.

“Wa-ter,” she whispered.

Tears sprang to his eyes. “Oh my God, Ali,
thank God.”

He held a water cup and straw to her mouth.
She sipped and worked to swallow.

Steven gave his sister a weak smile.

Her eyes looked toward the water cup.

“More?” he asked.

She gave a tiny nod and took a larger
swallow this time.

“Steven.” Al smiled at him. “I’ve had the
strangest . . . most vivid dreams. It was like I was reliving . . .
a memory.”

“I’m so glad you’re back.” He squeezed her
hand; afraid to touch more of her for fear he’d hurt her. “I’ve
been so scared.”