Larkspur (2 page)

My mother will probably never win a Pulitzer for poetry, but she may take the National
Book Award one of these years, and she already has an impressive list of secondary honors. Why
pretend I don't have literary connections?

I sighed. "Tell me about Llewellyn. Is it true he's gay?"

"Yes, and a great blow it was to us at Bennington when we first found out." Mother
chuckled. "There we were, the entire senior lit contingent, ripe for Meaningful Liaisons, and he
wasn't interested."

"All-women's schools are a perversion." I had attended Ohio State over mother's
protests.

"Really, Lark."

"So you were all in love with the old guy."

"He was a dashing and well-seasoned fifty at the time, darling. Hardly an 'old guy,' and
he read poetry like an angel."

I tried to imagine a bunch of early fifties' college girls in pleated skirts and bobby sox
mooning over the visiting poet. Not my style. "Is he good?"

"A good poet, you mean?" She was still amused. "He was a pioneer." That word again.
"He made an impact on the young writers of the thirties and forties--liberating them from the
tyranny of the iamb and so on. He particularly hated rhyme, as I recall, and, yes, he was
good."

"Not 'is good.' 'Was.'"

Mother's turn to sigh. "Did I say that? I always thought Dai's wealth was a handicap. He
didn't have to scramble after prizes and fellowships, so there's a whiff of the dilettante in most of
his work, but he has a surprisingly good ear for an imagist and, of course, his visual observations
are exquisite. He's important."

"But his importance is historical?" I finished the thought for her.

"That makes me uncomfortable." She paused. I could hear her thinking. "But it's true,
unless he's been writing and not publishing. For all practical purposes he was literary history
twenty years ago. That was when he retired from Muir."

Muir College was an excellent, private liberal arts college in the heart of the wine
country. If Llewellyn had taught at Muir he was good more ways than one. Muir was famous for
the quality of its teaching.

Another thought clicked in, something she had said. "You talked to him a couple of
months ago. Why?"

"He's an old friend." Mother paused again. "He asked me to be one of his literary
executors, Lark. I had to think it over."

"An honor?" I ventured.

"Of course, but one that could entail a lot of work. He always meant Hal Brauer to act
for him--Hal was his lover--but Hal died in a car wreck several years ago. Dai went into
seclusion for months. The fact that he's ready to think about his work again is a good sign. I
didn't like to refuse him."

"But you did?"

"No," she said calmly. "When he told me the other executor was willing to do the shit
work, I agreed."

"Who's the lucky man--or woman?"

"Somebody named D'Angelo. One of Dai's students."

I groaned.

"I believe he teaches at your little junior college."

Monte J.C., a state community college, had seven thousand students. It was not little,
except in Mother's mind. I declined to argue the question. "D'Angelo's head of the English
Department."

"Is he? He sounded pleasant enough when I spoke with him. All of this is in confidence,
Lark."

I assured her I would be as soundless as a dot on a disk of snow, an excursion into Emily
Dickinson that tickled Mother so much she was still chortling when we hung up. I finished my
salad.

Out front I could hear Ginger murmuring something to a customer who rumbled back. I
decided to let her deal with him. When the door bonged on his departure I strolled out to see
what was happening. A hairy person in shorts and a tee-shirt was still drooping over the map
file.

"What's happening?"

"I sold one of those Ansel Adams books and a guide to the lake." 'The lake' was Lake
Shasta, a hundred odd miles south, though there were thousands of natural lakes nearer.

I commended Ginger's enterprising spirit. The Adams book was expensive. In fact I laid
on the soft soap.

Ginger preened.

"Uh, I probably ought to go to this place of Llewellyn's over the Fourth. Do you think
you could handle the store yourself?"

Her eyes went wide and her mouth formed an O.

"Don't panic," I said hastily. "I haven't accepted yet. Maybe Jay won't be able to get
away. Probably not. It's a holiday." Jay was a cop--acting head of the Monte County C.I.D., in
fact. Cops tend to do heavy business on holidays.

"You could go alone," Ginger ventured.

"Yes, but I don't want to. Could you handle it, Ginger? I'll drive in and spell you for a
couple of hours Friday and Saturday."

"Well, maybe. If it gets real busy, though..." Her face brightened. "There's Annie. She
could come in during the peak time and help me."

Annie was Ginger's best friend and a part-time clerk in the liquor store. Annie needed
money even more than Ginger did. I protested. "She doesn't know the stock."

"No, but she could ring up, and I could answer questions and so on. That might
work."

Two clerks would also cost an arm and a leg. Chalk it up to PR? "I'll think about it," I
said decisively. "Here's Dennis."

The door did its bonging thing, and Ginger's love interest barged in, beaming. I was fond
of Dennis, but if ever there was a bull-in-a-china-shop he was it. He brushed against the SF rack
and gave Ginger a hug, smiling shyly at me over the top of her perm as William Gibson's latest
slipped to the floor. "Hi, Lark. How's business?"

"We may have to have a fire sale. How's business with you? If the heat keeps up
you'll
be having a fire sale." I picked up the paperback. Fortunately books aren't
fragile.

Dennis looked blank then frowned. Forest fires were Serious. "They wanted to do a
controlled burn at Castle Crags. Lots of underbrush. But it got hot too soon. There's already a big
fire up across the border. We may have a bad fire season."

"Again?" I had only been in Monte a year, but both summers had been dry. Drier than
normal, everyone said. I had the sneaking suspicion dry was normal, and they just didn't like to
admit it.

As Ginger and Dennis made for the door I said, "Think about the Fourth, Ginge," and
she nodded.

I closed at nine. I had sold a climber's map of Black Butte and a guide to local flora. Not
much for two hours' work.

My bookstore is in a mall near the Interstate which also contains a dry
cleaner/Laundromat, a liquor store, two small bad restaurants and a supermarket. Off by itself in
weedy isolation lies the health club I belong to. I ran half a dozen half-hearted laps of the gym,
swam, showered and drove home.

Jay's Blazer was parked two slots down from the entry stair by the Calfirst Bank's big
door. So he was home from Los Angeles. He might have given me a ring. I drove around back
and parked in my specially reserved tenant slot next to the bank vice-president's BMW,
grumbling to myself. My pulse quickened--naturally it did, who can suppress hormonal
surges?--but Jay's presence in my apartment
sans
ceremony suggested he was taking his welcome
for granted, and we had been bickering when he left. He'd been gone a week.

I took my time on the back stairs.

Jay was on my sofa, blinking himself awake, when I entered. I gave him a quick kiss and
moved out of range.

"Hey!" He levered himself up to a sitting position.

"Time for a talk."

"Uh-oh."

I slid a disk in the CD and turned the volume low. Instrumental jazz. Jay thinks to jazz
and makes love to classical--at least sometimes. "How was LA?"

"Peachy keen."

"I suppose you watched a lot of old movies on the motel cable."

"I stayed with Ma in Beverly Hills and watched a lot of old movies on cable."

"A week's worth?"

"Freddy's on a 1940's kick." Freddy was his fifteen-year-old half-brother. "He says
hi."

I had met Freddy the previous summer, a nice shy kid. "How's your step-father?"

Jay made a face. "Alf won't last a year, according to the doctors."

"Heart?"

"Yeah. Ma's pretty depressed."

I commiserated. Jay had escorted a prisoner to Los Angeles and testified at the
arraignment. It was unusual for him to stay with his family.

He stood and stretched enormously, yawning, "On top of everything else, the flight from
LAX to San Francisco was delayed half an hour and bounced around like a Ping-Pong ball on a
geyser when it did take off. I missed dinner."

"No foil-wrapped packets of delicious dry-roasted almonds on the turbo-prop?" Monte is
served by a commuter line through the tiny airport at Weed.

"I eschewed the cheese-flavored peanuts," he said gravely.

"Ugh. Eschewed?"

"Must be the opposite of chewed."

"I'd better feed you." I made for the kitchen, nuked a frozen dinner, and poured two
beers.

He ate with exasperating slowness. I sipped my beer and stood at the front window
which overlooks Main Street.

The street lights were just coming on. They turned the geraniums in front of City Hall
punk purple. A police car slid to a stop in the loading zone, and two uniformed cops got out and
walked down the stairs that led to the police station. One of them was gesticulating, and the other
was shaking his head. A Winnebago with bicycles on the roof made its sluggish way past City
Hall and turned down a by-street. A kid on a skateboard whooshed by on the sidewalk below me.
I like a cityscape, even if the city tops out at 17,347 counting dogs and bicycles.

"You wanted to talk?" Jay joined me at the window.

I wanted a Meaningful Discussion of our Relationship. I groped for an opening.

Jay gave me his best negotiating-with-terrorists smile and smoothed his mustache.

I chickened out. "I want us to spend the Fourth of July at Dai Llewellyn's lodge."

"Die?" The mustache whiffled. Jay's eyebrows shot up.

I spelled it, adding, "E. David Llewellyn. He has a lodge up past Murietta."

Jay frowned. "Llewellyn...hey, 'Siskiyou Summit'! I'm damned. I didn't know the old guy
was still alive."

"My mother assures me he's history," I said when I overcame my chagrin. What was I,
illiterate, that I'd never heard of the damned poem? I told Jay what I knew about the weekend
festivities and watched his face as he processed the data. I expected him to cite a backlog of work
and plead off, as he usually did when I suggested some kind of sustained social interaction. Jay
was inclined to be reclusive, and he had a snug house out in the wilds for us to be reclusive in. I
was half-hoping he'd refuse to come. When I described the guest-list, however, he just looked
thoughtful and sipped at his beer.

I finished outlining the horrors of four days of literary small-talk. "And the head of the
English department will be there. He knows my mother, too." The culminating horror.

Jay missed the point--or ignored it. "Four days, huh? Okay. I'll see if Kevin can hold the
fort. He owes me."

I must have been gaping.

Jay gave me another grin and finished his beer, looking bland.

I rallied. "I'll say Kevin owes you. Memorial Day, Easter, Christmas..."

"Thanksgiving, Veterans' Day, Yom Kippur. I don't like holidays."

"So I gathered when you refused to fly back home with me at Christmas." That was a
sore point. However, it was not a new sore point, and I refused to let myself be distracted. "Why
change your habits now? Think of all the DWI arrests you'll miss out on."

"And the Domestic Assaults," he said nostalgically, "and the Reckless Endangerments
and the Vehicular Manslaughters."

"How can you give all that up?"

He kissed me on the mouth, breaking my concentration. I slopped beer on the rug.

We mopped together and sat on the carpet for a while, smelling like hops and roses. We
made it to the bedroom eventually.

However, the night was but young. Somewhere around midnight we drifted back out to
the kitchen. I made tea, and we sat at my nice gate-legged table, sipping, and flirting with our
eyes. A week without Jay was a long time.

"Tell me the truth." I took a swallow of herb tea. "Why did you agree to go with me over
the Fourth? I mean really," I added, rather cross, when he leered over his cup.

"I was overcome by the irresistible attraction of the biggest pot-farm north of Fort
Bragg."

I set my cup down and gaped. "What?"

"This guy Peltz..."

I was completely at sea. "Angharad's husband?"

"Name of Ted. A poet and a naturalist, so he says. They live in a cabin at the lake, and
there's no visible means of support except the woman's job as a part-time English instructor. Her
family's wealthy, of course, so that could explain the fancy van and the TV dish and the general
air of laid-back post-hippy prosperity. Their movements in and out are suspicious, and we know
he's a user."

"Wow." I was revising my mental image of Ms. Peltz.

"Of course, we leave the big pot-busts to the feds these days. But it's interesting. The
place is interesting. Half the developers in northern California are lusting after that lake. I
thought the title was in dispute or something, but if Llewellyn is still alive
he
may be the
snag."

"He doesn't like power boats, according to Lydia Huff."

"He's not the only one." Jay's house overlooked a tiny lake that was technically on Forest
Service territory, but he was apt to feel proprietary about it. Motorbikes and snowmobiles
infuriated him, too. "Some outfit from Sacramento was nosing around the county commissioners'
offices last winter, talking about putting in condos. The Sierra Club called out its troops."

I was feeling a lot more cheerful. Ecological protests. Pot busts. "Should be a great
weekend."

"Yeah. There's Denise, too. I'd like to meet her." He was eyeing me. "Are you sure
Dennis Fromm is her son?"

"Incongruous but true."