Pacific Avenue (3 page)

When Angela came to stay for the holidays, I wasn’t done
painting the sewing room. In fact, I hadn’t exactly started. I was putting
masking tape around the wood trim so the paint job would come out neat. Angie
pulled up short in the doorway, suitcase in hand.

“Where’s my room?” she yelped.

“I needed a sewing room,” I said.

“What do you mean, you needed a sewing room? You don’t
even sew.”

“I might, if I had a sewing room.”

“You didn’t even let my bed cool down good before you
got rid of it!”

“I didn’t get rid of it yet—it’s out in the garage.” I
finished taping the baseboard and started on the windows.

“I’m supposed to sleep in the garage?”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll move the bed back in when I’m
through painting. Or else I’ll buy a daybed.”

“Where do I sleep tonight? In a motel?”

“On the couch. Maybe I’ll finish tomorrow. You could
help.”

“Well, if that’s what it takes. Where do I put my
stuff?” she asked.

I couldn’t figure out why she was staring at me like
something was wrong. All I was doing was painting the front bedroom.

“I cleared out a space in the laundry room.”

“Man, is there no room at this inn!” Angela flopped
down on the floor beside her suitcase.

“You did move out, Angela,” I said. “I meant to have it
finished. I’ve been busy at work. Don’t sit on that sack. It’s got my putty
knife in it.” I set the tape down and reached for her to pass the sack to me.

Angela pulled it out from under her and handed it over.
“Why are you so busy at work all of a sudden? Big project or something?” We
both glanced up as Willis came into the room.

“Mr. Giannini got me an assistant,” I told her. “It’s
more trouble training a new person than it would be to do the work myself.”

“Who did they hire, someone who never had a job before?”
Angela asked.

I pulled my knife out of the sack and held it up to
inspect it. The blade looked a little bent from being sat on. Angela didn’t
much look like she cared.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know if she’s had one
or not,” I said. “Her résumé disappeared.”

Angela shrugged. “Can’t you tell her to give you
another copy?”

I shook my head. “I decided not to. I’m pretty sure she
snitched it back.” I sighted down the blade to check if it was bent. It wasn’t.

Angela and Willis peered at me like a couple of owls.
“What do you mean, snitched it back?” Willis asked.

“It wasn’t with her application. I think I saw her slip
it into her purse after George interviewed her.”

They broke off staring at me and looked at each other.
Willis swiveled back to me. “Well, didn’t anyone else notice the résumé’s
gone?” he asked.

“Guess not. Mr. Giannini is far too important to touch
a file cabinet,” I said. “And I’m not sure George has learned to read. Very few
jackasses have.”

I picked up my masking tape and unrolled a length with
a little zipping sound. As far as I was concerned, they could drop this now. My
office wasn’t any business of theirs.

But Angela wasn’t about to let go. “Mama, how do you know
this woman isn’t some criminal on the run?”

That one took the cake. Angela was getting her master’s
in criminal justice, so she suspected everyone.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call her a woman,” I said,
pressing the tape carefully against the window frame. “She’s younger than you.
Way too young to be much of a criminal—and besides, she isn’t the type.”

“There
is
no
‘type.’ Don’t you know that? There’s no age, either. What about those people
who kidnapped Patty Hearst? Barely old enough to vote, some of them. Maybe she
robbed a bank, same as they did. Hell, she could be
one
of them. They could be anywhere by now.”

I tried to picture Kathy robbing a bank. She’d drop her
gun on the guard’s foot and say, “Oh, excuse me.” No way Kathy could rob a
bank.

“I doubt it,” I said.

“What about the Mansons? How do you know she’s not one
of
them
?”

I patted my tape work carefully into place. If I didn’t
get all the wrinkles out, the paint would leak underneath it. “They’re all in
jail,” I said.

“How do you know? Maybe she’s one who got away—now
she’s trying to live a normal life. Waiting for them to get out.
Mama, will
you stop with the damned tape for a minute?
”

I set it aside. “If she’s waiting for Charlie Manson,
she’d better be prepared for a long wait. He’ll get out of prison one day after
hell freezes over. You ought to go to work for the studios, Angela—this stuff
would be about right for
Columbo.
”

Willis chimed in. “It’s not that far-fetched, honey.
She sounds guilty as hell to me. Better lock up the petty cash.”

I laughed. “Any petty cash at Giannini’s is so petty,
no one would be interested.”

“No lie,” said Angela. “That dude is a serious miser.
The first time I saw the office Christmas tree, I started looking around for
Bob Cratchit. I was sure Mr. Giannini had him in there someplace.”

Willis snickered. “You got his number, all right.”

“Anyone can get his number,” Angela told him. “It’s the
one the Arabs invented. Zero.”

Willis turned back to me. “Why don’t you make the old
fool fix the place up? He’s making enough money.”

“I already decided to talk to him. I guess I’ve gotten
used to it, but Kathy asked if we’d moved in recently. Made me notice.”

“Oh, right—Kathy!” said Angela, veering back to her single-minded
track. “She’s up to something, Mama. If you won’t find out what’s going on, I
will.”

“How?” I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I was
checking out the walls to see how many holes I had to fill before I painted. I
hoped I wouldn’t have to go out for more spackle. Angela had put up a lot of
pictures over the years.

“The library at school has newspapers from everywhere,”
she said.

“You won’t find anything there.” I made a mental note
of a water stain on the plaster under the window. Maybe we had some sealer in
the garage. Angela was frowning, so I tried to pay a little more attention.
“Look, honey, most likely Kathy had a bad husband. Those don’t make the
paper—they’re not news.”

“I don’t see why she’d take her résumé back if it was
her marriage,” she said. “Mr. Giannini should get the police to do a background
check. Want me to tell him how to request one, next time I’m in there?” She had
a real edge to her voice.

I snapped back, “Angela, you’ve been telling me for a
year or more to get a life of my own. So, I did. You live yours and I’ll live
mine. Don’t butt in, you mind?”

I picked up the tape again, but she glared at me, and I
put it down. I pushed my annoyance down, too. “Let it be, really,” I said.
You’ll stir up trouble for nothing.”

Angela gave a theatrical sigh, the way she used to do
when she was a teenager. “If you’re right about her being so innocent,” she
said, “there’s no trouble to stir up.”

“It’s not your concern, Angela. You leave it
alone—completely alone, you hear me? I’ll find out for myself.”

She got up from the floor and stood over me with her
arms folded. “I don’t see where it’s your concern either,” she said.

“You were just telling me it was. Wasn’t it you, one minute
ago, saying she was probably a criminal in disguise?”

Another theatrical sigh. “Mama, it’s your concern to
get it looked into. But last time I checked, the job description for
‘secretary’ didn’t include detective work. It’s your job to point out that
something’s going on—but whatever her problem is, it’s none of your business.”

Willis stepped into his peacemaker role. He was getting
good at it.

“Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, honey, but how
could you find anything out anyway?” he asked me.

“I have my ways.”

Willis snorted. Angela shrugged and left the room, dragging
her suitcase. I hoped she was just taking it to the laundry room, not back to
Berkeley.

“Let’s have some coffee in the living room, honey,”
Willis said. He put out a hand to help me up.

I was happy to drop the whole subject. But I hoped
Willis and Angela didn’t expect any Christmas cookies to go with their coffee.
If they did, let one of them make a batch.

For the next few days, I was busy getting the painting
done and hanging new curtains. Willis and Angela helped, and they didn’t say a
single word about Kathy. We finished the room and moved the bed back in. Angela
went to the market and bought some holiday goodies, and she opened all the
cards and stood them on the mantel. No one brought the decorations down from
the attic, but at least it was a little like Christmas.

Saturday was the day of the annual Holiday Craft Faire
at the Point Fermin lighthouse. I walked over in the late afternoon, just to
get out of the house. As I inspected a hand-knit sweater to see if it was the
right size for Angela, I caught sight of Kathy. She seemed so forlorn, walking
along with her arms drawn in and her head down. Color and music and fun all
around her, and she never looked up once. At work, she seemed down most of the
time, but she still got carried along by the busyness. Watching her on her own
now, I got the idea that whatever was wrong might be more serious than I’d
thought.

She wandered to the last table in the Faire and kept
going, walking straight as a chalk line now, right to the edge of the cliff
behind the lighthouse. I pushed money into the vendor’s hand and didn’t wait
for a bag or even a receipt. Wadding the sweater up, I followed Kathy at a
little distance.

She stood there way too long for a sightseer, staring
out to sea. She’d have been peering into some window in Japan if she could have
seen five thousand miles. And she almost looked like she could.

I kept an eye on her, worrying and trying to talk
myself out of it, first one and then the other. Behind us, the haggle and
laughter of the Faire petered out. By the time she turned back, there was
almost no one left in the park. I had to dodge into the restroom to make sure
she didn’t see me. I tried to laugh at myself for letting my imagination run
away with me, but it didn’t work.

When I got home, Angela saw me come in, still clutching
the sweater. I went upstairs to gift wrap it, but it was the wrong size after
all. Completely wrong—too big for her, too small for me. I stuffed the sweater
in a drawer. It would do for someone.

I could hear every scratchy tick of my old alarm clock
in the quiet room. Once in a while, there was a swish as a car drove by, or
maybe what I heard was waves breaking—sometimes the wind would bring their
sound in close.

I shut my eyes, picturing Kathy standing on the cliff
at Point Fermin. I’d started trying to find out about her because I was
curious, and to cover my hindside in case Mr. Giannini made a fuss about her
references. I’d hoped she had some easy problem, like in a television
show—something that could be solved in thirty minutes, not counting
commercials. Now I suspected she really needed help. I didn’t know what I could
do, but I decided I’d better do something. It didn’t look like she had anyone
else.

Deciding was one thing, figuring out where to go from
there was something else. I wasn’t exactly experienced in checking up on
people. For the past couple of years, Angela had been pretending I was some
kind of master spy, but that was ridiculous. She had no idea how helpless I
felt. Being a mother was like watching a sleepwalker—I worried about Angela
every minute, but I didn’t dare say one word about it. And that was my own
daughter, who I’d raised. How in the world could I find out about someone I
hardly knew?

Part 2

On Friday afternoons, the Student Union was packed. I hated
crowds, but I’d left my lunch at home, and there was nowhere else to eat. Just
inside the door to the cafeteria, I stopped short. Loud chatter ricocheted off
the glass walls and bounced around the room. Voices rose, competed, fell again.
Smells competed too—cabbage, fried fish, a sharp tang of onions—nothing I
wanted.

A bunch of girls charged in, laughing shrilly. They
jostled me, and I stepped aside to let them pass. They scanned the room and
headed toward a group at a corner table, waving to more friends as they
threaded their way through the mob. It looked easy when
they
did it.

But it wasn’t easy for me. It was only a few weeks into
the term, but the dorm students had already become a sort of tribe, and I
wasn’t a member. A townie and a freshman besides, I hardly knew anyone. So, I
wasn’t looking for friends to join, I was looking for an empty table to claim.
There weren’t any, but I spotted someone I recognized, at least—Phil from
English class, sitting with some other guys. He leaned back, feet on a chair.

They all watched me approach, but Phil didn’t say hi.
He didn’t offer me the chair his feet were on, either. I stood and waited.

“Car!” he bellowed to a boy who wasn’t more than six
feet away from him.

“Aston Martin!”

“Not you. You wouldn’t be an Aston Martin, ever. You’re
a 1966 blue Volkswagen van with a low tire.”

“Mustang,” hollered someone else.

“Yeah, cool, a Mustang. With a dent in the driver’s
door. What kind of animal?”

“Lion.”

“Racehorse.”

“Cat.”

“Cat, my ass. Polecat is more like it.”

They were playing “What kind of”—what kind of car would
you be if you were a car, what kind of animal.

“Town!” yelled Phil.

“Paris,” someone said.

“Yeah, the sewers of Paris. That’s you. The sewers of
Paris.” Phil finally turned around to face me, waiting for me to say what town
I’d be.

“Where’s that?”

“Nevada.”

“What’s there?”

“I don’t know. Desert. It’s a ghost town.”

“Rye-oh-LITE!” shouted Phil. Much louder than before—people
were looking. “The capital of Nerdland!”

Someone snickered. A narrow smile flickered on Phil’s
lips.

“I’m getting out of here,” he said. “I don’t want the
nerds to catch up with me. Whole hordes of them are on their way from Rhyolite,
even as we speak.”

He pushed back his chair and walked away. The others
flocked behind him, laughing. I opened my mouth to say good-bye, see you later,
in a flip, offhand way, but nothing came out.
He was only kidding, the way
he teased his friends. No he wasn’t.

Right in the middle of my misery, I imagined a business
lunch.
Bankers or lawyers or something, all in suits, getting into a food
fight like little kids. One banker gets hit between the eyes with a glob of
mashed potatoes. As they plop down onto his pin-striped vest, I see he looks a
lot like Phil.

I stifled a laugh—if I let it start, I’d end up crying.
I pulled myself together and looked around. Curious faces turned hastily away.
Well,
that was one way to get an empty table. Too bad I’m not hungry anymore.

I went on to my next class. Psychology 101 was a survey—a
one-size-fits-nobody kind of course. I was an art major, but the university
made all the freshmen take a social science class, and this was the one I’d
picked. I was already wondering why I’d thought it might interest me. A
graduate assistant gave the lectures in a big hall, almost an auditorium. After
the first day, I always sat in the back, trying to take notes but mostly
doodling. I usually slipped in as class started, or even late. That day, I was
early.

The lecture room was empty when I got there, but another
student came in almost on my heels. I’d noticed him before, mostly because he
was the only black guy in the class. He sat across the aisle from me and read a
book, looking up a couple of times. Smiles, here, gone, private. Here again. I
imagined thoughts tumbling around his mind like a rock polisher.

I sketched his face in my Psych notebook, but the expression
wasn’t right. I tried again—closer.
He’s so alive. He’s different—not just
because he’s black. Except why do we say “black?” He’s some shade of brown.
Sienna, maybe? Just not “café au lait” or some polite little phrase like a lot
of people use. Rude-polite—a person isn’t a piece of food. I’m the color of
cheap bread, but no one ever says so.

The room had filled up while I was drawing. The teacher
came in and opened her notes on the lectern. The class quieted obediently, and
she started the lecture, droning away like she always did. “In 1937, Lorenz
established the pioneering research on imprinting in young animals,” she said.
“Imprinting is the process by which animals learn their species identity. By
substituting himself for the animals’ mother during the critical period, Lorenz
induced them to imprint on him.”

The guy I’d noticed before class raised his hand. The
teacher stopped, with a slightly put-upon air. “Yes, Richard?”

He stood, holding up a book for the class to see.
“Here’s a picture of Konrad Lorenz and his geese,” he said. “He hatched these
goslings in an incubator, and the first thing they saw was him. They thought
they were junior Konrad Lorenzes. They followed him everywhere.”

Suddenly the idea was interesting. How could a goose
think it was a man? How did he ever get rid of them?

My fantasies unreeled like old black-and-white
slapstick movies. I stifled a laugh. Richard caught my eye and smiled. It
wasn’t quite a real smile, but it was better than one of those smiles you have
to do. Maybe he could see the movie too.

After class, I hurried down the hall until I caught up
with him.

“Hi, I’m Kathy,” I said. “That was neat, what you said
in class. How did you know all that stuff about the geese?”

He shrugged. “It’s interesting, how we learn what we
are. Normally, the first thing goslings see is their mother. That first look
tells them they’re geese. Maybe people do something similar—probably over a
longer period of time. But when a baby learns what he is, he also learns what
he’s
not
—and then, maybe all his life,
he’d see it as a threat.”

“You make it a lot more interesting than Miss Sharpe
does.”

“I’m probably more interested in the subject than Miss
Sharpe is.”

We fell into step, headed for the Student Union. The
sidewalks were thronged—almost everyone was either going to the Union or
leaving it. A few people smiled at us, and some frowned. Everyone seemed to
feel entitled to a political opinion about a black guy and a white girl walking
together. But I wasn’t political—I was just interested in Richard.

He waved to a few people as we walked through the Union,
but when we reached the cafeteria, no one signaled us to join them. We bought
coffee and took it to a small table of our own, abandoned near the edge of a
loud group. There weren’t any chairs. I stood by the table to claim it while
Richard scrounged a couple of chairs.

“So, how did you know Miss Sharpe would talk about
imprinting?” I asked, as he dragged the second one back.

“I had a similar course in high school. The subject
came up then.”

We both sat down. “You had Psych in
high school
? Where did you go to school?”

“All over. I’m an army brat. My father’s family is from
here, but he joined the military to get off the farm, then he stayed in. I grew
up on army posts—Texas, Missouri, Virginia, and Oklahoma. Even Germany for a
while. Some of them had good schools.” He gave me a quick look, then a longer
one.

“Your father’s family had a farm near here?” I asked.

“Right in town.” He laughed. An embarrassed laugh,
awkward. “My grandfather is one of the local characters. He still farms his
land, right on the edge of that business park near the airport. Behind a pair
of mules.”

“Oh,
him. He’s
your
grandfather?” I’d seen the old man for years, every time I went to the airport.
I always wondered what he was thinking about, walking behind those mules, ignoring
the traffic a few yards away. “I think he’s kind of cool. People must have
offered him a fortune for his land.”

“They have. He’s stubborn. Like his son. And his grandson.”

I wondered what it would be like to live on army bases.
I didn’t think I’d like it. On the other hand, you’d live in different towns,
even in foreign countries, instead of in the same house year after year. Would
you get to start all over again every time you moved? Be someone different, try
something new?

“What’s it like, living on an army base?” I asked.

He grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”

“Does your dad want you to join the military, too?” I
asked.

“I already did. He didn’t like it much.”

“Why not?”

“I enlisted right out of high school. He wanted me to
wait and get an engineering degree—go in as an officer. Maybe in the air
force.” Richard fiddled with the sugar packets, looking uncomfortable. “Now I’m
starting college, five years later than he wanted, but I am majoring in
engineering. Maybe he thinks his dream is back on track. I don’t know—we
haven’t discussed it.”

“Are you planning to go back after you graduate?”

“In the military? No, thanks. I don’t think so.” He
shook his head sharply. “What about you? Where did you grow up?”

“Right here. I was born in Illinois, but we moved when
I was three. My dad teaches here.”

“What does he teach?”

“Philosophy. Mostly graduate students.”

The coffee was nearly gone, and Richard began to gather
his things.
He’s about to leave now. He won’t ask if we can get together
again, I know he won’t. He’s not supposed to ask a white girl. Girls can’t ask
boys, either. But why not?

“I was wondering, I mean . . . .” I felt
like a fool, but I made myself go on. “My sister was supposed to go to a movie
with me tonight, and she backed out. Would you go with me?”

His hands stopped moving. He didn’t look at me, or at
anything. “Do you live at home?”

“Yes, why?”

“What will your parents think when I show up to take
you to a movie?”

“Nothing.”

“You really think—nothing?”

“Yes, I do. They’re not like that. I’m not like that.
Please go to the movie with me.” I wished he didn’t look so sad about being
invited to a movie.

“What time should I pick you up?” he asked.

* * *

Telling my parents at dinner that night about my date with
Richard, I felt awkward, and ashamed of being awkward.

“Sharon had to cancel for the movie tonight, but I’m going
with a guy from school,” I said.

“Oh, how nice,” Mom said. “Now that you’re in college,
maybe you’ll be dating more. What’s his name?”

“Richard Johnson.”

“Johnsson?” she asked. “Is he from around here? He’s
not related to Erik Johnsson, I suppose?” Erik Johnsson was one of Dad’s
colleagues, a math professor whose classes I had managed to avoid.

“No,” I said. “He’s from around here, but I doubt he’s
related to Erik Johnsson. He’s black.”
Better let them know right away. But
it’s weird that I have to prepare them so they won’t look surprised when they
see him. Like we were bigots or something. Are we? I’ve never come home and
said, “Oh, by the way, I’m going to a movie tonight with so-and-so. He’s
white.”

Dad glanced at Mom, then turned to me.

“What’s his major?” he asked casually.

“Engineering.”

“Ah. What year is he in?”

“He’s a freshman. He’s a few years older than me,
though. He was in the army.”

“Well,” said Dad, “we’ll look forward to meeting him.
Are you planning to be out late?”

I had no idea what they thought. We finished dinner
without saying much more and then sat in the living room, lined up one, two,
three on the couch. Backs straight, feet together, already on our good
behavior, we waited for Richard to ring the doorbell.

* * *

In the weeks that followed, Richard and I kept going out.
But he didn’t come to the house. I’d meet him somewhere or pick him up, since
he didn’t have a car—he’d borrowed one for our movie date. I loved setting out
on autumn afternoons to go to dinner or a movie with him, driving my Volkswagen
off by myself instead of waiting passively for my date to take me from my
parents.

One Saturday in early November, as Dad and I cleaned up
the garden for the year, he said, “Haven’t seen Richard in a while. How’s he
doing?”

“He’s fine.” I struggled to pull up a tomato stake that
was taller than me.

Dad gave me a hand. “He never comes to the house,” he
said.