Significant Others (12 page)

As they drove through Monte Rio, D’or turned to DeDe and said: “I guess ol’ Booter’s around here somewhere.”

DeDe nodded. “Across that bridge and to the left.”

“To the left, huh. Must be tough for the old fascist.”

DeDe shot her a nasty look meaning
Not in front of the children.

D’or persisted. “That’s fair enough, I think. He laid a wreath on a Nazi grave.”

“It was a reconciliation ceremony. You know that.”

“Sure.”

“And it was part of his official duties.”

“Mmm.”

“It was also a peacemaking gesture,” said DeDe tartly. “Aren’t you supposed to be in favor of that?”

D’or shrugged. “I don’t notice him making peace with the Russians.”

DeDe frowned at her lover, then turned and gazed out the window. She was hardly Booter’s biggest defender, but she hated it when D’or used him to pick a fight. What was going on, anyway? Why was D’or looking for trouble?

“Mom?” said Edgar.

“Yes, darling?”

“How much longer?”

“Oh, two or three miles at the most. Do me a favor, will you?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell that joke when we get there.”

After Monte Rio, the landscape opened up to the blazing blue sky. The river wound lazily toward the Pacific, flanked by summer-humming thickets and shiny white thumbnails of sand. They crossed the bridge at Duncans Mills (groaning at the self-conscious Old Westernness of the storefronts), then turned left on the river road.

“ ‘Moscow Road,’ “ said D’or, reading the sign. “Now, here’s a road worth turning left on.”

DeDe smiled, feeling mellower now. She reached over and squeezed D’or’s leg. “What an adventure,” she said.

They followed the road into a small stand of willows, which obscured their view of the river. Next came an imposing hedge of evergreens and an equally imposing redwood fence. “The security looks good,” said D’or.

It reminded DeDe vaguely of the approach to the Golden Door, her favorite fat farm of yesteryear, but she decided not to say so. She turned to the kids instead.

“So,” she said, hoping her newfound enthusiam was contagious. “You guys are gonna have your very own tent.”

The twins said “Yay!” in unison, their Nerd dispute all but forgotten.

“Look,” chimed D’or. “Here we are.”

A young black woman stood by the roadside, flagging them into the entrance. D’or slowed down, turned left, and spoke to the woman. “Registration?”

“All the way down,” said the woman. “Park first and unload your gear. There’s a shuttle to the land.”

“The land of what?” asked DeDe.

The woman laughed and leaned into the car. “The land of Looney Tunes, if you ask me.” She stuck out her hand to D’or. “I’m Teejay,” she said. “Welcome to Wimminwood.”

“Thanks. I’m D’orothea. These are DeDe, Edgar and Anna.”

Teejay smiled and raised a pink palm in the window. “Hi, guys.” Turning to D’or, she pointed at DeDe. “Tell her about the land,” she said.

D’or gave her a high sign and drove on.

“Well,” said DeDe. “Tell me about the land.”

D’or smiled. “It’s just a term for the encampment. It fosters a sense of community.”

Maybe to you, thought DeDe.

D’or parked in a dusty clearing that was already chockablock with cars. Several dozen other arrivals were in the process of disembarking, hooting hellos, hoisting their bedrolls to their shoulders.

“We just leave the car here?” DeDe asked.

“You got it,” said D’or. She turned to the kids. “O.K., gang, here’s the deal. Everybody grab a handful of stuff. Mom and I will get the tents and the heavy things. You get the bedrolls and whatever’s left.”

The twins tackled this chore with uncharacteristic vigor. DeDe cast an optimistic glance in D’or’s direction, then threw herself into the team effort.

Judging from the other new arrivals, their own paraphernalia was quite Spartan indeed. Some of these women were weighed down like pack animals, toting coolers and lawn chairs, Coleman lanterns, fishing gear and guitars. They converged, along with the Halcyon-Wilson household, on a central loading dock, then stood in line for registration.

“Pick a duty,” said D’or, when their turn came.

“What?”

“What work duty do you wanna do?”

“Wait a minute,” said DeDe. “Nobody mentioned any work duty.”

“It’s in the brochure, Deirdre. Don’t be such a damn debutante.”

DeDe would have put up a fight then and there, but the children were watching, and she didn’t want to inaugurate their stay by setting a bad example. “What are the choices?” she asked icily.

D’or read from a list posted at the registration table. “Kitchen, Security, Garbage Patrol, and Health Care.”

“Which one are you picking?”

“Garbage Patrol.”

DeDe grimaced, but the choice made perfect sense for D’or. The woman loved to clean more than practically anything. “What’s Security?” DeDe asked.

D’or shrugged. “Patrolling, mostly. Keeping an eye on things.”

That sounded tame enough. Better than Kitchen, certainly, and a lot less icky than Health Care. “Put me down for that,” said DeDe.

They were issued orange wristbands—plastic hospital bracelets, actually—which indicated they were festivalgoers rather than performers or technical people. This smacked of concentration camp to DeDe, and she couldn’t help saying so.

“I know,” said D’or, “but there’s a reason for everything. All of this has evolved from past experience.”

After registering, they walked back to their gear and waited with the other women for the shuttle. It arrived ten minutes later in the form of a flatbed truck—much to the delight of the children, who invariably applauded any form of transportation that promised to place their lives in jeopardy.

As they bounced along a rutted dirt road into the wilderness, DeDe shouted instructions above the engine noise. “Hold on to something heavy, Edgar. Anna, stop that…. Sit down this minute.”

D’or threw back her head and laughed, a strange primal glint in her eyes.

Ten minutes later, the truck lurched to a stop in a clearing near the river. DeDe hopped down first, grateful for release, then gave the children a hand. Readjusting the belt around their double sleeping bag, D’or said: “Now we’re on our own. Where you wanna camp?”

DeDe shrugged. “Someplace pretty.”

D’or scanned the map she had picked up at registration before pointing downriver to a clump of trees. “The party-hearty girls are over there. The S and M group is half a mile behind us.”

“Swell,” said DeDe dryly. “What else?”

“Mom,” chirped Anna. “Let’s go down there. It’s pretty next to the river.”

DeDe draped her arm across her daughter’s shoulders. “Sounds good to me. What about you, Edgar?”

“I like the river,” said her son.

DeDe turned to D’or. “How’s it look on your map? Anything we should know about down there?”

Her lover caught the irony in her tone and reprimanded her with a frown. Then she said: “The Womb is up at the next cove, but that’s fairly far away.”

“The Womb,” echoed DeDe, deadpanning. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

D’or lifted the bundled tent and began to stride toward the river. “If you’re going to be snide about everything, I’d rather not hear it.”

DeDe let it go. Turning back to the twins, she checked for dangling or abandoned gear, then said: “Now stick close, you guys. This is uncharted territory we’re heading into.”

“Oh, sure,” said Anna, rolling her eyes.

DeDe helped Edgar rearrange the weight on his backpack, then hurried to catch up with D’or. “O.K.,” she said. “Tell me about the Womb.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m interested, O.K.?”

D’or hesitated, then said: “It’s a place women can go when they need emotional support. This is a big festival … people can get hurt.”

DeDe visualized a tent full of wailing women, all boring the Birkenstocks off the poor dyke who’d pulled Womb duty. But she now knew better than to say so. “It sounds very supportive,” she told D’or.

When the time came to pitch their tents, they chose a stretch of riverfront property separated from the other campers by a stand of madrone trees. No one, not even D’or, had the slightest idea as to which plastic rods went where, but the process of finding out drew the family together in a way that warmed DeDe’s heart.

Afterwards, flushed with their achievement, the four of them crammed into the larger tent and sat staring out at the light dancing on the water. They had been there only a matter of minutes when someone approached through the madrone trees.

The head that appeared through the tent flap had been shaved just short of bald. The remaining hair had been etched with a female symbol, with the circle part at the crown and the cross coming down to the forehead.

“Hello there,” said the woman, smiling at them.

“Hi,” they chorused.

She extended her hand to D’or. “I’m Rose Dvorak.”

“I’m D’orothea Wilson. This is my lover, DeDe Halcyon … and our kids, Edgar and Anna.”

The woman looked at Edgar for a moment longer than necessary, then addressed D’or. “I saw you come in. Just wanted to welcome you.”

“Oh,” said D’or. “Are you … uh … with the Wimminwood staff?”

Rose smiled in a way that was meant to convey both mystery and authority. “I’m pretty much all over.”

Great, thought DeDe. Thanks for sharing that. “Do you know the way to the dining area?” she asked.

“Sure,” said Rose. “If you come out, I can show you.”

DeDe left the tent and followed Rose to the other side of the madrone trees. “Look,” said Rose, when they were out of earshot. “That boy can’t stay here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. This is women-only space.”

“But he’s not ten yet. He’s only eight.”

“Ten is the cutoff date for attendance. He still can’t camp on women-only space. That’s made perfectly clear in the regulations.”

“Well, Jesus … what are we supposed to do with him? Float him on a raft in the river?”

The woman gave her a long, steely stare. “Have you read the regulations? Maybe that would help.”

“Well, I’ve—”

“There’s a separate compound for boys under ten. It’s over next to the—”

“A compound?” said DeDe. “Give me a break. A
compound?”

“It’s called Brother Sun,” said Rose.

“So … my daughter can stay with me, but my son has to be … deported?”

“I never used that word,” said Rose.

DeDe was livid. This was Sophie’s Choice without the choice. “Well, this is truly sick. This is really the dumbest thing I’ve ever …”

“They should have told you at the gate,” said Rose. “I don’t know why they didn’t.”

“Yeah. Must have been an oversight on the part of a
human being.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed noticeably. “I have an obligation to report the boy. My job is to ensure that this remains Women-only space. If you’re not willing to comply with the rules, you’re free to leave at any time.”

DeDe faltered, then turned, hearing D’or approach. “What’s the matter?” D’or asked Rose.

“It’s Edgar,” said DeDe. “His wee-wee is a major threat.”

D’or met the remark with a scowl and spoke to Rose. “He’s not ten, you know.”

“Ten has nothing to do with it,” said DeDe.

This time D’or gave her a look which said:
Shut up and let me talk to the woman.

“We have a separate camp for the boys,” Rose explained, sounding far more placatory than she had with DeDe. “It’s a courtesy we provide for women who can’t leave their kids at home. If you’d like to see the facility …”

“But we came here as a family,” said D’or. “Surely you can bend the rules enough to …”

Rose shook her head, a maddening smirk on her face. “You know where that would lead.” She turned and swaggered away, yelling her final edict over her shoulder. “The person to see is Laurie at Brother Sun. I’ll check with her later to see if he’s situated.”

“Let’s go home,” said DeDe.

“Now wait a minute.”

“I won’t stand for this, D’or. That woman will not tell me what to …”

“I know, I know.” D’or slipped her arm around DeDe’s waist. “She’s a bitch. I’ll grant you that.”

DeDe felt a sudden urge to cry. At this rate, she’d be down at the Womb before she knew it. “D’or … why didn’t you tell me about this compound business?”

“I didn’t know, hon. Honest.”

“Well, I think we should just leave. I couldn’t possibly tell Edgar …”

“Hang on, now. We don’t know what it’s like. It could be very nice.”

“Forget it.”

“He’d be with other boys his own age. Haven’t we talked about that? It would be like summer camp … only we’d be just a few hundred yards away. And we could visit him all the time.”

“But he couldn’t visit us. He’d feel excluded.”

“How do you know, hon? He doesn’t wanna go to the concerts. He told us so himself.”

This was true enough, DeDe decided. Or were they just rationalizing their way out of a difficult situation? What if Edgar didn’t understand? What if this marred him for life?

“Tell you what,” said D’or. “Let’s you and me go see this Laurie person at the boys’ camp. If the place is the pits, we’ll scrap the whole thing … pack our gear and find a good public campground somewhere in the area.”

DeDe nodded tentatively. D’or was at her very best when building bridges over troubled waters.

Brother Sun turned out to be far nicer than DeDe had imagined. There were at least a dozen boys, and most of them were Edgar’s age. Wasn’t this what she had always wanted for her son? Edgar, after all, was the sole male in a household of women. For the time being, at least, an all-boy environment would probably do him a world of good.

Laurie, the boys’ overseer, was fiftyish and warmhearted, with an apparent devotion to her mission at Wimminwood. She referred to her charges as “the little hellions,” but it was obvious that the boys liked her. The camp itself was a semicircle of redwood lean-tos, only yards away from a boys-only swimming hole.

In the end the decision was left up to Edgar. He took to the idea almost instantly, banishing any vestige of guilt DeDe might have felt. Only Anna put up a mild protest, faintly envious of this “special place for boys,” but D’or assured her that there was plenty here for girls to do too.