My Beautiful Hippie (17 page)

How's the weather in Michigan? Denise is now happily married to one Jerry Westfield, a soon-to-be psychotherapist. This is hush-hush, but from the looks of it, we're soon to have a bouncing baby grandchild! Our Dan is attending San Francisco City College as a business major, following in the footsteps of his daddy. Our Joanne will be performing at the Palace of Fine Arts this December. As Dick says, “We count our blessings.”

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Dick, Helen, Dan, and Joanne

P.S. Dick complains about our dance lessons after working on his feet all day, but he just signed us up for another eight. Go figure!

Who were these people, Ralston and Valentine? Would my parents ever see them again? All around the world people were telling lies in their Christmas cards to people they hardly remembered. In my mother's case, they weren't exactly lies; she just didn't know what her family was really about. Was that true of most mothers? I had an urge to revise the whole thing:

Dear Ralston and Valentine,

Why would I be writing to some people in Michigan that we never see? Denise is now unhappily married to one Jerry Wienerfield, who won't let her go to college and complains she has immature clitoral orgasms. This is hush-hush, but our Dan is a drunk, flunking out of San Francisco City College, and from the looks of it will soon be a casualty in Vietnam. Our Joanne is the biggest failure of them all, having forgotten her Beethoven, so she won't be performing at the Palace of Fine Arts. As Dick says, “No one in this family has any talent.”

P.S. Dick is just another word for penis. Go figure!

I wandered into the living room and flung myself on the sofa, looking over its back out the bay window. Martin was planning to hitchhike to spend the day with his Santa Cruz friends. I wondered if he'd gotten a ride or if he was standing on Highway 1 in the pouring rain. Why didn't he want to spend Thanksgiving with Gus, his only relative in California?

I felt a presence in the room and turned to find Denise standing before the piano. I could see why Mom thought she was pregnant; she'd gained weight, and although she'd never had acne as a teenager, her face was splotchy with zits. She wore a shapeless long skirt and a V-necked, grandfatherly brown cardigan, the front pockets sagging. Her hair was done up in a librarian's bun, and it was greasy.

“Did you ever think you couldn't do it, Joanne?” she asked. “I mean, you get so nervous at recitals. Why do you like to play the piano so much, anyway? Maybe you could try something else.”

I looked at her for a long moment. “Like what? Typing letters?”

“Oh! That is so mean!” She plunged her fists into her sweater pockets and stalked back to the kitchen.

I looked out the window some more. I felt the weight of someone sinking into the sofa beside me. It was Jerry. He had greasy hair, too. Couldn't they afford shampoo? “Hi, Beethoven,” he said, forcing a cheerful tone.

“Don't call me that,” I snapped.

A long moment of silence passed. “I think you should stick with it,” he said quietly. “It's part of you.”

I kept staring out the window like I wasn't paying attention to him. Maxine Fulmer was coming up the walkway with Quentin Allen, whom Mom referred to as “Maxine's star boarder.” Mom didn't seem to have much in common with Maxine anymore, but then Maxine and Quentin probably had no other place to go. Her kids were far away, a married son who practiced law somewhere on the East Coast and a daughter in the Peace Corps in Kenya.

My parents greeted their guests in the foyer, and Maxine handed Mom a plastic-wrapped tofu loaf shaped like a miniature roasted turkey, which I doubted anyone would touch, even Maxine.

Quentin was wearing a beautiful maroon Edwardian suit with a flowered vest, a pink-and-white-striped dress shirt, and
a purple-and-pink paisley wide tie. It made me think how boring men's clothes usually were. He stood behind Maxine and attempted to slide off her raincoat.

“I'm not helpless,” she scolded. More and more, “liberated” women were biting the heads off men who dared to open doors or pull out chairs for them, gestures that had traditionally been considered gentlemanly displays of respect for the weaker sex.

Quentin was not the least bit ruffled. “Of course you aren't helpless, my dear, but one ensconced in a coat is not as well positioned for said coat removal as another caring individual standing by to lend a hand. It is an honor and privilege for me to offer this simple act of kindness to one who has given me so much.”

She patted his cheek. “You are a dear, Quentin.”

My dad cleared his throat as if he were an embarrassed observer of a lovers' quarrel. “Well! What wet weather we're having!”

At dinner, Maxine talked about the 1968 presidential election, which was a whole year away. My parents weren't political. They were Democrats who voted in every election, and Dad was a big union man, but other than that they were pretty conservative. They complained that taxes were too high and believed that all people on welfare were too lazy to work. They weren't so much for the Vietnam War as they were disgusted by those who protested it.

“If only Bobby Kennedy would run,” Maxine said. “He'd stop the war. I'll bet he throws his name in the ring yet.”

“That would make no sense,” said Jerry. “Eugene McCarthy is our antiwar candidate.”

Maxine went on and on about Bobby as if she hadn't heard Jerry. As attorney general, Bobby had done so much for civil rights, and Bobby had taken on organized crime, and Bobby would fight for the redwoods and end poverty, and Bobby this and Bobby that.

“It's a moot point, Max,” said Dad. “The incumbent is always nominated at the Democratic convention, and the incumbent is Johnson.”

“And LBJ is doing a hell of a job!” exclaimed Dan.

“Yeah, bombing the hell out of Hanoi,” said Jerry.

“Of course!” said Dan. “That's how we'll win. We can't withdraw from Vietnam without winning. It would be a waste!”

What he really meant was that the U.S. couldn't leave before he had a chance to get mixed up in the war. No ears for Dan, I still hoped. I didn't say much. I stuffed myself with turkey, cranberry sauce, dressing, mashed potatoes, marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes, and two kinds of pie: pumpkin and black bottom.

After the dishes were cleared and the dishwasher was humming, Maxine asked me to play something for her.

“I don't really feel like it,” I said.

“Go on,” said Mom, carting the heavy, grease-filled roaster from the stove to the sink. “Denise and I will finish up. Play your Beethoven for Maxine, Joanne.”

I hadn't touched my Beethoven since the day of that fateful master class, but once I was seated at the piano, I played my heart out, just for Maxine. In my peripheral vision I could see her gently swaying, her eyes half-closed, her lids fluttering.

I had not released the final dying chord before everyone but Mom entered the room without giving Maxine time to compliment my playing. She didn't need to. That she had listened was enough. Maxine looked at Denise and patted the empty place next to her on the sofa. When Denise took the seat, Maxine launched into a tirade about how her “brothers,” meaning men, had stood by her during the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement, but now for the women's movement, they had fled. From across the room, Jerry glared at Maxine's hairy legs flashing beneath her long brocade skirt.

I was so restless, I had to get out of the overheated room. I ran out the back door, flinging on my car coat, and dashed down Frederick Street in the cool drizzle. Just because I couldn't explain to Denise why I loved the piano, that didn't invalidate my feelings for it. I hurt inside so badly that not even Martin could console me. In fact, he made me mad. He had all the talent in the world, and he didn't even bother to learn to read music.
Maybe I was a little jealous of him, too. Would I ever learn to relax into the music the way he did, or would every performance of mine be sheer agony and misery?

Of all people, I appreciated Jerry the most. He was right; the piano was part of me. Who would I be if I quit? Who would be walking down the street or into a classroom? Just a shell of me, lacking purpose and passion and a goal. Without the piano, I would simply not be me.

With that resolved, I turned around and dashed back home.

It happened on a day when I had a dentist appointment and had to make up a history quiz at lunch. Rena sat with Lisa Girardi and the in-crowd kids. The next day when I got to lunch, she was already at their table. I walked right by them as if they didn't exist, or at least I tried to.

“Hey, Donnelly, where'd you get that neat Nehru jacket?” Candy shouted after me. “It looks just like George Harrison's.”

I stopped. “It doesn't look anything like his. My mother made it for me, and it's one of a kind.”

“I'm sure glad my mother doesn't dress me,” said Candy.

“Here's a spot for you right here, Joanne,” Rena said hopefully, patting the bench next to her. I walked on as if I didn't hear her.

It was a long lunch period. I scarfed my food in about five minutes, and to keep from feeling self-conscious about sitting alone, I did my chemistry homework. After school, I didn't wait for Rena and started home alone. There's a saying that the women of San Francisco have the most shapely legs in the world, and as I angrily puffed up the big hill on Haight, my calves were burning!

I heard Rena behind me, shouting, “Joanne! Wait!” When she caught up, she said breathlessly, “Don't be mad.”

“You can sit with whoever you want at lunch.”

“But you're mad, even though I saved a spot for you. Lisa
isn't even going steady with Kent anymore. She has a new boyfriend from St. Ignatius.”

“I don't care who Lisa dates.”

“She's changed! She wears bell-bottoms and love beads.”

“I don't care what she wears.”

“I don't get you, Joanne. Sitting alone is social suicide. I can't stand it.”

“I don't like the in-crowd kids. I'm not going to let them hurt my feelings anymore. What's so bad about that?”

“You've changed, Jo. Ever since you started hanging around with that hippie.”

“His name is Martin, and this has nothing to do with him.” It did, though. The way Martin built me up gave me the power to shun the in crowd. “You've changed, too, Rena.”

“How?” she asked defensively.

I lifted a shoulder and let it drop. It would be too painful to go into it. For one thing, I didn't seem to matter to her anymore. All she talked about was herself and the theater. It had built her up in different way, giving her the power to claim a place in the in crowd.

When I didn't answer, Rena said, “Lisa's not so bad.”

Maybe she wasn't. I let that drop, too.

Our friendship survived, but it wasn't the same, I felt, and Rena must've felt it, too. Sometimes I had lunch with the orchestra kids, but more often I ate alone. I realized if I did my homework during lunch, I'd have more time to practice at home.

One day I looked up from my history book to see Lisa standing before me. “I heard you know Gus Abbott. His brother is your boyfriend.”

“I don't have a boyfriend.”

“Rena says you go there, to the house where Roach lives. Could you take me to meet them sometime?”

I screwed up my mouth as if I was considering this. “Um, no.”

“You probably don't even know them.”

“Probably not.”

Lisa stalled, thinking of another tack, while my heart beat fast. She was used to getting what she wanted, and it took effort to resist her. She gazed across the quad and noticed Suyu sweeping her arms apart, lost in the music in her head. “Oh, my God, what is that Oriental freak doing?”

“That's Suyu Li. She's a great pianist.”

“Well, there isn't a piano there.” Lisa cupped her mouth and shouted, “Hey, Chop Suyu, stop that weird thing you're doing. You're embarrassing the whole school!”

Suyu looked over at us and put her hands in her lap. Now it was up to me to set things right. I started walking the gauntlet of all the other tables. The nerds, the jocks, the band kids, the Negroes, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Japanese, and Koreans all stared at me as I passed them, and then I was standing before Suyu.

“Hi, Joanne.”

“Hi, Suyu. I'm sorry about what Lisa just yelled.”

“It's okay. Your friend doesn't matter to me.”

“She's not my friend. She just uses me.”

“What does that mean, use you?”

“You know, she only comes around when she wants something.”

“Friends help each other, right?”

“Well, yeah.” I felt heat surge up my neck, making my jacket feel too hot. It occurred to me that I only sought out Suyu when I needed help with my piano. At school we traveled in different circles. She took calculus and physics rather than orchestra and choir, and if I ever joined her and her Chinese friends, it would just seem too weird. “Well, anyways, I just want to say sorry for how rude Lisa was.”