My Beautiful Hippie (5 page)

I felt a hot blush rise up from my Peter Pan collar. “I'm not a visitor! I live here. I didn't have any extra money that day and—”

He waved a lazy palm to stop me. “It's cool.”

I had failed miserably at impressing this beautiful boy, who assumed he had me all figured out when he didn't know me at all. Rena had warned me; I should've listened. All my hoping and fantasizing had come to nothing. A hot indignation bloomed in my throat, and my eyes welled up. I swung around to rush out of the place, but his hand caught my elbow, slid down my arm, and clasped my hand.

“Hey, now.”

“My mother sent me to the store with exact change and—” My chin trembled and I looked down in utter humiliation.

“You sure cry easy. Are you a sad person?”

When I shook my head, my tears sprinkled him a little. “No, I'm a happy person,” I said to the floor. “I just
feel
things hard. I used to think everybody did, that all people feel alike.”

“Not everybody.”

“I
am
giving.”

“I wasn't talking about you. Those straights that—”

“Look like me?”

“Ah, hell.”

When he took me in his arms, I thought, This is it. This is just where I want to be. He held me and rocked me a good long minute or so, and when he let go, he handed me the yellow bandana he'd been using as a headband. Blotting my tears, I inhaled his smell: sandalwood, patchouli, essence of weed.

Out of his guitar case, he pocketed a few dollar bills, then scooped up the rest of the money, walked across the room, and deposited it in the pickle jar set on the counter, marked
DIGGER FUND
.

He packed up his guitar, and we walked out of the Tangerine Kangaroo together.

Out on the sidewalk, he hesitated. “We should get together sometime.”

“Where?” I asked, too eagerly. Not cool.

“Could you come to my pad?”

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“North Beach. Didn't you see what house I turned into that night you and your friend were on the same trolley?”

I attempted a wide-eyed innocent look. “I was on the same streetcar as you? When?” Some of the things Rena and I did were just too embarrassing to admit to.

He grinned. “It's 614 Beach Street.”

“When?”

He shrugged. “Whenever. If you come around dinnertime, I'll fix you a meal.”

“What day?”

“Like, any day. All days are good, right?”

How could I just drop by his house without him expecting me? I wanted to ask for his phone number but heard my mother's voice echoing in my head: You can't get a boy by chasing him. “Okay, cool. Anytime, then. Oh! What's your name?”

“Martin.”

“Joanne.”

“See you around.”

We flashed peace signs in farewell, then parted ways, him toward the Panhandle for the free Digger meal and me toward home for my mom's Shake 'n Bake chicken and Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat.

“Oh, can I have my bandana back?” he called after me.

I turned to face him, walking backward, smiling broadly, nearly delirious with joy. “Nope. It's important to give, you know. Feeds the soul.”

He laughed. He was so beautiful, the ends of his hair alight in the sun.

The wedding was held at All Saints' Episcopal Church on Walker Street, where we had attended services sporadically, maybe six or seven Sundays in a row, then had lost interest for a few months or years before returning for another few Sundays. When I was little, I went to Sunday school there for a while, but all I remembered about it was that once I filled a shoe box lid with plaster of Paris, then stuck a plastic Jesus into it and some shells around him. I don't know why.

Our pastor, Father Leon Harris, had donated some office space in the church basement for the Diggers, a hippie organization that provided a runaway location service, counseling, food, shelter, and medical assistance to street people. When parishioners complained, Father Harris said God's church was meant to help the needy, but the parishioners argued that the kids wouldn't be needy if they had stayed at home with their middle-class families.

Looking over the guests on the bride's side, I saw relatives, neighbors including Rena and her parents, family friends, and a bunch of people I didn't know, probably Dad's business associates. I also spotted Lisa Girardi and Candy Lambert. What were
they
doing here? Then I remembered that Lisa's dad owned a grocery store up on Divisadero Street, and she'd probably invited Candy. I was having a great summer and had been able to
forget the misery that the popular kids put me through at school. I hoped their presence wouldn't wreck my day.

The groom's side was far less populated. Jerry was an only child, and his parents were conservative Southern California types from Orange County. Denise had wept over the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Westfield were not in favor of the marriage in general or Denise specifically, an unclear point. The Westfields had been paying for Jerry's education, but Mr. Westfield insisted that a married man stood on his own two feet, and they were therefore cutting off further support. When they met our family at the rehearsal dinner, they were polite but cool toward my parents. Mr. Westfield, who had made a killing in the real estate business, smoked a pipe and stared off in the distance as if we bored him out of his gourd. Mrs. Westfield, a little toothpick of a woman who wore short skirts and draped herself with fox furs with the heads and paws still attached, looked Denise up and down a lot. I'm not sure if they thought they were better than us, but Mom was convinced that they were.

Jerry had not gotten that haircut he'd promised my mom,
and
he wore love beads over his powder-blue dinner jacket. They would be in every single wedding picture, and there wasn't a thing Mom could do about it. Nor Denise.

Denise was a beautiful bride, with her long, dark hair in a cascade of ringlets beneath her veil and her full-skirted white brocade gown trailing behind her. I felt sad for her. She was passing from my parents' house to her husband's without ever getting a chance to live for herself.

I was not a bridesmaid but performed the music instead. I played “Here Comes the Bride” on the organ, and when Denise and Jerry snuffed out their individual candles and lit a big one together, I played my guitar and sang a song I had composed for the occasion, “Now We Are One.” Candy Lambert had once said that when I sang I sounded like a bullfrog; another time like a mosquito. When I hit the final high note, Candy nudged Lisa and pointed at me. She opened her mouth wide, rolled back her eyes, and shook her jaw, causing Lisa to snicker. My voice
tightened, forcing my vibrato to go out of control, making me sound something like a mosquito.

At the wedding reception in the church hall, the buffet table was packed with salads, relish dishes, and casseroles assembled by the members of Mom's garden club. I loaded my plate high, while Rena followed behind me, forming tiny islands of a few selected items, repulsed if different foods touched one another on her plate.

“Did you notice that Lisa and Candy are here?” Rena asked.

“Did I? Candy was making fun of me while I was trying to sing and made me goof up. Hopefully it's so crowded in here, we can avoid them.”

“We'd sit with them if they asked us, right?”

“You can if you want,” I snapped.

“It looks like Lisa got another nose job this summer.”

“Yeah.” Lisa was the only person I knew who had had plastic surgery. I didn't think her nose looked bad to begin with, just Italian, but the first surgery had left a little bump in it. Now nothing much was left but a pert little ski jump. She was also the only girl I knew whose mother let her get her hair bleached.

Rena and I found a good spot at a table and dug in, whispering hilarious observations about the wedding guests.

Suddenly Candy and Lisa were at our sides. “You sang real good,” Candy said. She turned to Lisa, and they snickered together.

Lisa was pretty, except for her too-small nose and her blond hair that didn't match her olive complexion. Candy's features sank into a hollow at the center of her face, and she had a short bubble haircut that exposed puffy earlobes. I wondered if she would seem less ugly if she weren't so mean. I wondered why mean girls were popular.

Lisa was wearing the latest style, a white frilly blouse and a jumper that scooped beneath her bust line, emphasizing her big boobs. Candy was wearing a ribbed poor boy top, a tweed mod cap, and a brown wide-wale corduroy miniskirt, broader than it was long. I made a mental note to tell Rena later that Candy's
bulging thighs in her mottled textured hose looked like sausages in casings. My mom wouldn't let me wear either outfit, claiming they wouldn't look good on me. I didn't understand this reasoning, knowing what every teen girl knows in her heart: the latest fashion looks good simply because it's the latest fashion.

“Pretty good eats,” said Candy, nodding toward our plates. “We've got something that will make them taste even better!” She opened her clutch purse to reveal two joints, bulging and ineptly rolled. “Want to smoke some grass?”

My heart began to thump faster. Did Rena and I dare try pot
now
, on my sister's day of days, with two in-crowd kids I didn't trust? I had heard it was hard to inhale marijuana the first time. What if I was struck with a humiliating coughing fit?

“Since when do you smoke pot?” I asked. The in-crowd kids were drinkers, not dopers. At a football game last fall Lisa had gotten so drunk she'd vomited all over her flower-power tent dress and passed out. The story that got around school was that Kent had to scoop her up and toss her in the trunk of his dad's Cadillac to keep her from stinking up the interior. She came to while he was hosing her down in her backyard, before hoisting her through her bedroom window.

Candy put on her leering grin. “This summer I got a three-joint-a-day habit.”

Alarms were sounding in my head. Pot users did not consider it a habit.

“I want to try it, Joanne,” said Rena.

I looked around. My parents were still busy with the receiving line, greeting all their guests alongside Denise, Jerry, and his parents. It was stuffy in the crowded hall, and if we four girls slipped out, it would seem like we were going for some air.

We went out the side door, around the corner to the picnic tables. The outside lights weren't on in that area and the place was deserted.

Candy handed a joint to Rena.

“Don't you want the first hit?” Rena asked her.

“No, no. This grass is just for you guys. It might only be enough for two.”

“Yeah,” said Lisa. “Candy and I got stoned before the wedding and still have a buzz on.”

Rena placed the joint between her lips, and Candy held a match to its end. It didn't catch.

“Suck harder,” said Candy, lighting another match. “Haven't you ever done this before?”

“Lots of times.” Rena inhaled so deeply, she began to sway and hyperventilate.

“You sure you've done this?” asked Lisa. “We gotta get back before my parents miss us.”

“Let me try.” I put the joint in my mouth; it was soggy from Rena. Candy handed Rena the matches, and she and Lisa left us fumbling in the dark. I tried so hard to light that joint, I wore it out. Grass started poking through the paper. Rena and I examined it.

“Hmmm, looks too green to burn,” said Rena. “Doesn't it have to get dried out first?”

“Hey, wait.” I held the joint under my nose and sniffed. “It's grass, all right.” I bent over, yanked up a handful of lawn, and flung it at Rena in disgust.

In the dark, I could see Rena's eyes, drooping at the corners. “How are we going to live this one down?”

I laughed. Rena laughed. It was embarrassing, but it didn't hurt, not the way Candy's making fun of my singing did. As we walked back inside, I was relieved we hadn't smoked pot. I could have done something stupid, and then Denise would never have forgiven me for ruining her wedding.

During the bride and groom's dance, Denise and Jerry didn't stand apart from each other, stomp their feet, and wave their arms the way kids danced. They foxtrotted to “Blue Moon.” Denise's left hand with the winking diamond ring was held high in Jerry's right hand, and his left hand lightly touched her waist. I hadn't known Denise could foxtrot, nor did I know where she
had learned it. After a while my parents, Jerry's parents, and their friends joined in, Jerry and Denise fitting right in with the swirling, foxtrotting older couples. Denise no longer seemed a mere three years older than me, but somehow had advanced an entire generation. My sister was now one of
them
—a grown-up.

Later the DJ got around to spinning some of the songs of the current decade: The Troggs' “Wild Thing,” the Monkees' “I'm a Believer,” and the Turtles' “Happy Together.” As Rena and I dug into our second pieces of wedding cake, the Doors' “Light My Fire” came on. I bounced to the beat of the music but froze when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up to see Pete Wattle. He, Dan, and Jimmy Howe, who was now serving in Vietnam, had been buddies since junior high.