Raising Rain (35 page)

Jude went to her room early and they all breathed easier. Bebe wasn't sure just why. Jude hadn't been particularly difficult. If anything, she was less vocal and acerbic, and they had seen a bit of her old self emerge. Perhaps it was just the fact that they were always aware of her condition, and of its inevitable outcome. But more than likely, it was that she represented the task looming ahead.

Rain also called it a night, and the three of them got comfortable on the couch with their mugs while Mare channel surfed.

“So, what are we going to do?” Toni asked.

Mare flipped the channel to a
M*A*S*H*
rerun and glanced over at her. “About what?” she asked.

“About tomorrow. About the real reason for our little weekend.”

“Keep your voice down,” Bebe reminded her.

Toni kicked off her shoes and curled her feet beneath her on the couch. “Our best defense is to come up with our own ideas.”

Bebe rubbed her forehead. “I'm not sure what she's looking for.”

“I'm afraid of what she's looking for,” Mare said. “You don't think she'll want to picket or do something illegal, do you?”

“I can't guarantee that, but we always have the power of veto,” Bebe said.

Mare flipped the channel to late news. “Or get involved in raising money for abortion clinics. I just can't get on board with that anymore. Not after having kids.” She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “Sometimes I think, what if I had aborted Autumn? She was definitely a surprise. Or if she had decided to abort Sammy, or little Wesley? What a tragedy that would have been.”

Images of a battle somewhere in the Middle East filled the TV screen, and Bebe grabbed the remote. She scrolled through the options and settled on the cooking channel. “I've been thinking. What about donating toward animal rescue?”

Toni laughed. “She doesn't care that much about animals, Bebe.”

Bebe was about to defend Jude, since she couldn't imagine a person who didn't have a heart for helpless animals, when Toni continued.

“Remember that little gray cat that hung around the apartment at school? Remember how it just disappeared one day and never came back?”

Bebe said a slow “Yes.”

“What do you think happened to it?”

“I assumed it found its way home.”

Toni grimaced. “He didn't get so lucky. Jude had that guy, Terry . . . Jerry, whatever, take it out and dump it in the mountains. He did it when you were in class because she knew you'd throw a fit about it.”

Bebe was speechless. After a moment, she said, “I'm not surprised.”

“Besides,” Toni said, “I'm not sure animal rescue is big enough for what Jude has in mind. I think she wants to go out with a bang. And what's more, I don't think she has time to pull it off and she knows it.”

Mare and Bebe both grew thoughtful.

“Well, look at her,” Toni continued. “She tires out so easily, and did you see her color yesterday? Positively gray, like her veins had collapsed. And she hardly eats anything.”

The three of them silently contemplated Jude's condition while nursing their coffees.

“Well, it's inevitable, you know,” Bebe said. “But we owe it to her to try to fulfill her wishes.”

Toni looked puzzled. “We ‘owe it to her'? I don't see that, Bebe. What do we owe her?”

“She's a friend, for one, and she's dying. She wants to accomplish something significant with the time she has left. You can understand that.”

“You know, I only went along with this because of our friendship. And for Rain, of course,” Toni said. “I think Jude's terrified that her life has counted for nothing. She wants something for people to remember her by, whether she deserves it or not.”

“Now, you're being too hard on her, Toni,” Mare said. “She was
sincere in college, there's no reason to think she doesn't still have a heart for change.”

“Are you so naïve? It's all about her, Mare.”

Again, Bebe glanced down the hall and motioned for them to keep their voices down.

Bebe remembered the look of fear on Jude's face when she woke up in the car when they shopped on Cannery Row and the phone call from her drunken mother many years before. “There's something to what Toni says, Mare. She has a deep need to prove something about herself.”

Toni studied Bebe over her coffee mug. “You know something,” she said, leaning toward Bebe. “Out with it.”

Bebe tried to make her face a blank slate. “It's nothing. Just something that happened a long time ago at school. I can't go into it.”

Toni sat back, looking disgusted. “Why are you so indebted to her? As far as I can see, she did her best to try to control your life.”

“She tried to control us all, from the day we arrived at school,” Bebe said.

Mare looked up, surprised. “I never let her control me.”

“You were never around. You spent so much time in the art building with Arnie trying to stay away from Jude and her groupies,” Toni observed. “And look what happened.”

Instead of being angry, Mare admitted, “True enough. You weren't around much, either. But she didn't pursue me like she did Bebe. Either one of us, for that matter. I was never sure why she focused on Bebe.”

“Neither was I,” Bebe answered. She got up and gathered her cup. “Good night, ladies.”

November 30, 1969

 

T
he air surrounding the ground floor apartment pulsed before they even reached the door, which pushed open to Jude's brief knock. The music exploded. Jimi Hendrix wailed, and the notes of his guitar climbed Bebe's vertebrae. She followed Jude inside, lowering her eyes and trying for a coolness she didn't feel. Students sat entwined on the couches and in corners stuffed with pillows. The light from the overhead bulb was dimmed by lacy smoke, thick and sickly sweet. Somebody shouted her name and she glanced to a girl named Erica she recognized from psychology who raised her beer and grinned with a guy hanging on to her neck like a leech.

Jude led her through the crowd to the kitchenette where an assortment of beer and hard liquor covered the counters. Jude reached up and briefly kissed one of the guys on the mouth. He said hello to Bebe and bent to kiss her, but she turned her face at the last moment and he grazed her cheek instead. He smelled like liquor and might have
fallen over on her if she hadn't planted her hand firmly on his chest.

Jude handed Bebe a filled cup and shouted over the music, “Come on.” Bebe followed her out the back door onto the crowded rectangle of patio where the music was muted somewhat and she was introduced.

“You remember Oz,” Jude said, and Bebe recognized him as the guy who'd asked her if she was going to the peace vigil. She hadn't made it there. She acknowledged him and he made a move like he was trying to get up, but she raised her cup to him and crossed her arms across her chest the best that she could to discourage him.

Just that afternoon, Bobby had taken her back to school after her Thanksgiving break, and she missed him already—especially in times like these. She had been so excited to go home for the long weekend and to see everyone, but once she got there, things were awkward. It was clear that her family still saw her as a child rather than a young woman, and expected her to fit back into her same role. To keep the peace, she'd played the part and said little of her school experiences. They hadn't seemed particularly interested, anyway. When Bobby pulled up to drop her off in the front of the Victorian, she was relieved that there wasn't a houseful of visitors at the time. She gave Bobby a hug good-bye, jumped out, and grabbed her suitcase from the backseat. She waved as he drove away and watched until his car was out of sight. She didn't like keeping secrets from him, but they were necessary. If Bobby could see her now, she knew he would freak out.

One of the guys at the party reminded her of someone from high school. He was clean-shaven and his hair curled around his collar. He gave her a rueful smile and lifted his eyebrows, like he wasn't as wasted as some of them. He introduced himself as Dave. She leaned back against the glass patio door trying to be inconspicuous. Bebe didn't know anyone, but that didn't seem to matter, because just being Jude's friend seemed to be enough for people. She watched the behavior of the others. One couple was making out on the couch, and when the guy got up and then returned with a refill, someone had taken his place. Bebe tried to hide her disgust. Did the girl even notice the difference?

Jude hooked up with an older guy Bebe recognized as Jerry, and
wandered off. Bebe overheard them making plans to protest the first draft lottery that was happening the next day. Bebe was left alone to entertain, or defend, herself.

Bebe's cup never got below half empty before someone refilled it. Between the drinks and the haze of pot, she was definitely feeling a buzz. She found a place to sit on the floor against the wall. She noticed that there was a room down the hall that had a lot of activity going on inside. She wondered what would happen if the cops came or whether they were as tolerant as the campus police. She sat for a long time, sipping her drink and not really talking to anyone, wondering if she could find her way home walking alone and whether it was safe. She could feel the alcohol unraveling her from the inside. The walls now pounded with “American Woman.” She personally wasn't crazy about The Guess Who, but for some reason tonight the notes bounced around inside her, knocking loose her inhibitions.

Dave, from the patio, came over and she made room for him beside her on the floor. His drink sloshed a little when he sat down and he apologized, sounding very sober.

He pointed upward, indicating the music, and said in her ear, “You like them?”

She shook her head. “Not especially.”

“But you were singing along.”

Bebe hadn't realized it. She felt herself flush, if it was possible to be more flushed than the alcohol had made her feel already. “It's compelling, you know?”

Dave turned out to be visiting from UC Santa Cruz. They talked for a while about his major and his professors. He reminded her of one of the Cartwrights, the younger one, and she could feel herself warming to him by the minute. She ran her tongue around her lips and they felt numb. They sat with shoulders touching and she slowly rolled her head from side to side against the wall, enjoying the sensation of her hair sliding against the bumpy, crimped plaster.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Someone offered them a joint, but she said no and Dave passed on it. She felt elated and calm
at the same time—a pleasant and strange combination. Dave was saying something to her and she turned dreamily to look at him. He smiled and got to his feet, taking her cup from her and pointing at his vacant spot beside her. She nodded, understanding. It seemed like a split-second later that he was sitting beside her again and she thought she must have blanked out. All she could think about was how handsome he was and how there were only the two of them connecting in this room full of strangers and how his cheeks had stubble. She reached her hand to his face and caressed it. She bent his head to her and kissed him deeply.

They kissed awhile sitting on the floor, and drank. He tasted good, and Bebe had no idea how much time passed. Then he was helping her to her feet, and she felt the world spin around her. She leaned against his chest and a button on his shirt scratched her cheek. She felt his heart beating beneath it. Her stomach felt unstable. She carefully put one foot before the other, opened her eyes, and found they were walking down the hallway. She opened her eyes again and they were on a strange bed, with the sheets tangled in disarray. The sounds of the party were muffled and distant. Her head rolled side to side with the room spinning around her, and she tried to protest. When she opened her eyes again, she found the crumpled sheet pulled up to her bare shoulders, and he was gone.

The next morning the fog rolled in, shrouding them in gray dampness and chilling them all to the bone. Bebe sipped her coffee by the windows, looking out into nothingness. The ocean sounded so much closer, so much deeper when you couldn't see it, but you were at its mercy. Bebe turned away and asked Jude if she wanted to stay back when they went to the aquarium. She wouldn't hear of it.