Range of Light (8 page)

Chapter Nine

Kath

1965-1967 / Western California

WELCOME KATHERINE PETERSON,
read
the fuchsia cardboard sign on the door to my dorm room. Thrilled and mortified by the public attention, I knocked hesitantly. That first night at U.C. Davis was a bad Carol Burnett skit. There was Dad lugging my high school graduation present luggage that he had won at a union raffle. Mom trailed behind us with an iron in one hand and a shoe box of chocolate chip cookies in the other. My legs were sticking to my jeans from our long, hot car ride. My new roommate, Judy, greeted us with a broad Princess Grace smile, dressed in white shorts and a baby blue blouse, the perfect fashion for 100-degree Sacramento Valley weather. Not that there was anything snooty about her, really. She acted more friendly than I had expected for someone from Anna Head School. Amazingly eager to meet me.

As Mom and Dad entered the modern dormitory cell, they looked shorter, older, worn. After a few awkward exchanges, Dad said, “Well, it's a long drive back to Oakland. We better get started.”

As Judy and I ate cookies and talked about Orientation Week, I veered between excitement and exhaustion. That night, lying in my twin bed four feet across the tiny room from her, I found it hard to sleep; the day's events swirled wildly in my brain. Then there was Judy's snoring. I didn't know girls could snore. Neither my sister nor any of the girls on the camping trip snored. Well, I would get used to it. I would get used to everything. Still, I couldn't sleep.

That first morning of orientatio
n
I stood,
sniffing the brand-new smell of my books and studying the blond, blond girls and guys bicycling around the green, green campus. Davis felt like a science fiction movie. What the hell was I doing here? No one in my family had been to college. Martha and I were the first ones to finish high school. I didn't have a clue how to be a coed. My stomach turned. Well, these bicyclists had all been new at some point, too. I would learn. The Orientation Week would be fun, filled with movies, hayrides, dances and lectures. Perching on a bench in front of Freeborn Hall, I placed the expensive books beside me. Here I was, finally, at college. This strange place. Alone. My mind hadn't quite arrived. That was the problem. I had spent so much time getting ready to come, finishing up my summer job at Roos Atkins, packing, convincing my parents again and again that college wasn't an absurd idea. I was an average American girl. Look at Adele, Paula, Donna and Nancy. Going to college was the next step. But my parents hadn't taken these stairs and even
I
wasn't sure they led anywhere. That day, surveying the eerie academic stage set, I felt very scared. I didn't know how to behave in a lecture, whether you wrote down every word or tried to memorize the stuff as the professor went along. What if I didn't make any friends? What if I was in the wrong place? Martha said I was living in some
Mademoiselle
magazine fantasy. Mom said a secretarial diploma would offer more security; Dad wanted to know (of course, Dad)—wasn't I just going to get married anyway? As I sat in the midst of this sweltering, verdant campus, tears and sweat streamed down to the collar of my once white blouse. I was certain my parents had been killed in a crash on the way home the previous night.

We were all hanging out
in Elbe's room, which was big enough for two beds, although for some reason she didn't have a roommate. I envied her, but Judy said she wouldn't have it any other way and did I mind if she called me Kathy, which sounded softer and prettier than Kath. When I asked her not to, she shrugged and said, all right, everyone had a right to her individuality. Judy really was a sweet person, but I still wanted a single room. Ellie, Mary Ellen, Sally, so many names to remember.

Ellie whisked off her robe and dramatically revealed the snappy mauve and coral polka dot nightgown she had bought for Pajamarino. “Homecoming is the
best
,”
she explained. “My cousin met her fiancé at the Pajamarino dance.”

“Well, I'm prepared.” Judy winked and pulled out striped pj's with a goofy tiger's face on the front.

“Oh, I get it.” Mary Ellen laughed. “The cat's pajamas! Too much!”

I missed Adele. Surely they didn't have callow events like this at Radcliffe. Why was I such a prickly bitch? Probably I was just defensive about not having a cool pair of pajamas. Wardrobe was one aspect of college life I didn't describe in my letters home. Martha would bust a gut laughing.

“Did you hear that Sally got called in for wearing pants to the library?” asked Ellie.

“What, again?” Mary Ellen shook her head. “What's wrong with her? Is she trying to prove something?”

I sat there wide-eyed, keeping my wisecracks to myself.

“Well, it's a silly rule,” Judy snapped.

“What's wrong with asking people to dress decently, to wear skirts?” demanded Mary Ellen. “I mean, part of being in college is learning to be an adult.”

This had never occurred to me.

“And what's more adult about wearing a skirt—particularly­ on a cold, rainy day—to study in the library?” Judy continued.

Go Judy, I thought.

“It has nothing to do with maturity. All to do with convention­.”

If I had to have a roommate, I felt grateful it was Judy. But maybe Martha had been right about college. Maybe I wasn't the type. Or maybe Adele was right in bugging me to apply for a scholarship to Radcliffe next year.

I adjusted, of course.
It
was in my Norwegian-Quebecois nature. My immigrant blood pulsed: adapt, accept. Not only did I attend Pajamarino but I went to parties every weekend. I knew something was wrong with me. Everything. My clothes. My references. The very way I walked—body language, Mary Ellen called it. Compared to the other girls, I felt so abrupt and gross. My posture was too tough; my movements were broad, rapid, common. Yet I persisted, thinking maybe Mary Ellen was right about learning to be a woman at college.

One weekend, at an otherwise infantile fraternity bash, I met Vernon MacLean. The following Saturday he took me to a movie, then for a long Sunday bike ride past the prim mid­western-style local homes. We visited the pens where they held the barkless dog experiments. Vernon, an ag econ major, informed me Davis was a national leader in research about animal husbandry and plant fertility. Before Vernon, I hadn't known that agriculture was the largest industry in California. Or that California was the eighth largest economy in the world.

Vernon: freckled. Gap-toothed. Lively. Convivial to my parents when they drove up for a pricy weekend brunch with us at the famous Nut Tree restaurant.

“The Nut Tree,” joked my embarrassing father, “is it named for campus radicals?”

“You must be thinking of Berkeley, Mr. Peterson,” Vernon said with his unfailing courtesy. “Not too many wild politicos here in the Davis cotton fields.”

“Good thing,” Dad answered, awkward. “Keep your mind on studying.

Vernon smiled cordially.

He was too nice. I had known this for weeks.

“Katherine tells me you're in agriculture? That's a fine, sensible occupation.”

Vernon nodded, still smiling.

Dad tried again. “My father farmed in Norway. Never went to school at all. And Norway is a rough place to cultivate. But California is paradise. What do you plan to grow?”

“A changed economy. An end to hunger in this country.”

“Excuse me?”

I studied Vernon's expression. Was he playing with Dad? Mom was staring out the window, biting her thumbnail.

“I want to go into government. After my B.A.—to law school. Then run for office. The state legislature first.”

“First, yes, of course, first,” Dad said, concentrating on cutting his rubbery slice of Canadian bacon, which raced across his plate every time he put his knife to it.

Mom looked to me to fill the silence.

When I couldn't, wouldn't, she tried. “And what do your people do, Vernon?”

He looked puzzled.

“People. She means your family,” I explained, spreading grape jelly on my fourth piece of toast. I never ate this much.

“My parents are in academia.”

Mom's pupils darkened. She had such wonderful, terrible, large, haunting eyes. Dad squinted nervously out the window.

“They're deans at Saint Mary's College in Moraga.”

“Your mother is a dean?” asked Dad.

“Dean of students.”

“Saint Mary's, dear.” Mom took my arm. “That was one of the places I had hoped you would go, remember? So much closer to home.”

“Yes, Mom.” I nodded, gulping down the coffee. “I remember.”

For months afterward,
Mom asked
about Vernon. Such a pleasant boy with a future ahead of him. Dad didn't ask, but he hardly ever spoke on the phone and never wrote. My answers were vague. “Oh, fine.” “Fine, I guess.” “Busy with his studies.” Eventually, Mom stopped inquiring, without my admitting that I had grown bored with him.

I was just as happy, really, drinking pop with Judy and Ellie at the Coop, cycling into town for pizza on our dateless Saturdays. Besides, studying and my job at the dining commons kept me busy. The courses weren't hard. It was the organization of the time that confounded me, balancing lectures, sections, papers, tests, job, savoir faire. I had so much to learn about the world to become a sophisticated woman, a responsible person. The amount I didn't know was appalling.

Nancy sent pictures of homecoming at Cal State, Hayward, where she was runner-up for queen. Pretty good for a freshman. She was also active in the music club and was planning on trying out for cheerleader. I said if she could only go barefoot—with that iridescent toenail polish—she'd be a sure bet. I admired the way Nancy threw herself into six things at once. I could have taken a few lessons from her about how to be a college student. Paula sent funny postcards from UCLA. Donna didn't answer notes or phone calls.

Adele's letters seemed to mention a new boyfriend every week. She was having a good time in class, and discovering an interest in art history, of all things. She hadn't ever talked about that before. But the one time she had taken me to a contemporary exhibit in San Francisco, I'd made a philistine comment about modern canvases reminding me of monkey splatterings, so maybe she just didn't talk to me about art. What else didn't she talk to me about? Generally, Adele seemed stimulated and happy. Too bad, because I had hoped she would spurn those snobs who made fun of her accent and come home to college in California. How could she live in exile like that? How could she desert the West? Deep down I knew that I could never follow her, that I couldn't live that far from my family. University—even a California school—was already a big departure. Was my reluctance to move an interesting contradiction or a failure of nerve? Well, Adele and I could really talk this summer. We would hang out every evening. And in August, the five of us would drive up the Sierra for another week.

Home. Home from college.
My
own bedroom. My old job wrapping cotton casuals in glossy Roos Atkins boxes. Mom's mashed potatoes. Dad's secular homilies. A Hawaiian postcard from Judy. Four weeks until Adele and Sari and their parents returned from Europe. The summer would be half over. Every Friday I went to the movies with Paula and Nancy, much to the irritation of Nancy's boyfriend. She insisted she spend one night a week with the girls. It all sounded so grown up. Grown up before our time. Word was that Donna had dropped out of college and moved to Mendocino. We tried to track her down, but halfheartedly, because her dropping out scared each of us in some way. If she did, we might, too. Nancy declared she had developed a taste for hiking. Would we have time to go to the High Country? Nancy and Paula insisted they were still committed. Of course Adele would want to go.

“Four weeks in Europe,” Dad was saying, electricity in his blue eyes. “What will the Wards
do
for a whole month?”

“Now, Nils, what would you know? You were nineteen when you left. And Norway is only part of Europe. The cold part. I'm sure there are lots of galleries and museums and beaches in the civilized part. France, for instance.” She winked at me.

I lay back on the couch listening to the familiar exchange of grumble and tease. Staring at the speckled white ceiling—Dad's idea of home improvement—I ran my fingers over the tired burgundy brocade upholstery of the couch.

Home, I had ached for it so much in flat, blistering Davis that I could smell the lemon tree in our backyard. But now that I was here, I felt like an oaf in a doll's house. Had the living room really been this small? I missed Judy's snoring. Had the evenings always been this slow? Of course I loved my parents and even my grim sister, Martha. But I pined for Adele. Where the hell was she?

It was 9:45 P.M., July 16,1966, an unusually warm night in San Francisco, and Adele and I sat next to the windows at Tweezer's Music Pub. We had costumed each other in sparkle hairspray, miniskirts, white lipstick, Maybelline lashes. I had picked up a few fashion tips at Davis. Ladies' night meant free admission and one complimentary drink for each lady. Had the bouncer believed we were twenty-one? No chance. We sat giggling, checking out the cute guys.

So good to be reunited. I had never felt this close to Judy or any of the other Davis girls. Adele was smarter, funnier, more daring. (Tweezer's had been her idea.) This was not Pajamarino. Everything about Adele felt so familiar. Except the haircut—a stylish flip, though I missed the long, luxuriant curls—and her new way of saying some things. Was she changing her accent or using different words? Basically, though, this was the same old Adele. Maybe I should get with the times, too, and have my hair cut.

Haze—tobacco and marijuana. A pissy smell of beer. The high-pitched guitars of Richards, Jones. A halo of smoke around Adele's face like morning mist rising from a stand of fir. She was talking to me. Laughing. About the Arc de Triomphe at dusk. Harvard Yard under snow. Picnicking by the Charles River. Adele talked much more about Radcliffe than I did about Davis. What was there to say about a livestock college plunked in Northern California? That I was so bored I thought I might die of brain atrophy? I couldn't feel part of the place the way Adele belonged in Cambridge. No, Adele didn't
belong
in Cambridge. She was on loan. Soon she would return here permanently.