The Merchant of Venice Beach (16 page)

I’ll make this up to you, I promise.

But like many important things rattling around in Suzanna’s head, she never got around to actually saying it.

Four days before they were to leave for L.A., Fernando and Suzanna were frantically packing up Suzanna’s belongings. Boxes filled her room. In one corner, boxes of stuff to give to charity. In another corner, boxes that would accompany her south. The content of the boxes for charity kept shifting. Desperate as she was to get rid of as much as she could—she felt that would give them a clean slate—Fernando had other ideas.

“Honey, we already have so much emotional baggage, a few more boxes won’t hurt . . . and shoulder pads are going to make a comeback. Mark my words,” he said.

And suddenly, a box marked “charity” would appear in the “to
L. A.” stack.

“I am so sick of this,” Suzanna said, throwing down the packing tape.

“Come on, Moan-a. Chin up.”

Her father called down to them and asked Suzanna to come upstairs. Suzanna and Fernando exchanged a long-suffering teenage look. The last thing either of them wanted to endure was another bittersweet exchange with her parents. Even though they were both nervous and a little sad about leaving, they were both guiltily excited—an emotion they were trying to hide from their assorted adults.

“Lately, I feel like a terminal cancer patient,” Fernando said. “Every time my dad looks at me, he gets misty-eyed.”

“I know. It’s unnerving,” Suzanna said, moving one last box back to the charity pile. She headed down, Fernando at her heels. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

True to form, Suzanna’s parents were standing at the top of the steps with that look. Fernando and Suzanna eyed at each other, and her father said in a strangled voice, “Come outside.”

“I bet they bought us a dog,” whispered Fernando.

“But the new apartment won’t let us have dogs,” Suzanna said, although she was pretty excited about having a dog, too.

Once outside, they stood rooted to the ground.

“That’s not a dog,” said Fernando.

And it wasn’t. It was a car! A red 1979 Land Cruiser and, although it looked suspiciously like a mail truck, Suzanna thought it was the coolest car ever! She was so overwhelmed, she spent a minute wiping her eyes and beating herself up for not being cool in front of Fernando. Which was ridiculous, because the sight of the car brought a full-on bout of gasping sobs from Fernando, who was now wrapped in Virginia’s arms.

When Suzanna was finally able to focus on the car, she noticed an alarming protrusion between the two seats.

“It’s a stick shift,” Martin said, “but you have plenty of time to learn to drive it before you leave.”

I have four days!

“Let’s take it for a ride,” Martin said, climbing into the passenger seat.

Suzanna settled into the driver’s seat as her mother helped a still-sobbing Fernando into the back.

“OK, the first thing you do is put the key in the ignition . . .”

Somehow, she did manage to learn how to drive the five-speed. When she offered to teach Fernando to drive it, he gave her a disdainful look. His father may not have had enough money to send his son to college, but he had taught him to drive all sorts of farm equipment when Fernando was child.

“I could drive that thing with my eyes closed,” he said.

“Please don’t.”

Finally, it was time to leave. Fernando had said goodbye to his father, who matched Fernando’s grape jelly fund, much to Fernando’s surprise. Mr. Cruz drove Fernando over to the barn–house, tipped his hat, and drove off. Fernando stared after the truck until it disappeared in a cloud of dust, and then put his one bag on the ground. He had turned his mind resolutely toward the future.

Suzanna’s father had had a trailer hitch installed and rented a U-Haul trailer to lug all their worldly goods to Southern California. After endless battles with Fernando, Suzanna finally had her trip organized. She was bringing her music collection (records and tapes of soulful or pissed-off singers like k. d. lang, Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt, and Sophie B. Hawkins), clothes (lots of black denim and her own wimped-out version of grunge), and some furniture: a bed for her, a bed for Fernando, two hand-painted dressers designed and executed by Fernando, a bookcase, a huge table and four unusual chairs (Fernando had grabbed four discarded 30-gallon wine barrels from the side of the road—only Napa Valley would have wine barrels set along the road instead of the random mattress or lamp—and had taken a saw and upholstery stuffing to them. They now were extremely comfortable but odd-looking high-backed chairs), a rocking chair, and a new futon.

Why her parents decided she also needed a futon when she was already bringing a bed, was a mystery to her. Fernando suspected they wanted to make sure that if she had an overnight guest of the opposite sex, they could at least feel that they gave her every opportunity to send him to the sofa.

Suzanna got in the overstuffed Land Cruiser’s driver’s seat and looked at her parents. Her mother had been crying, but Suzanna could tell she had resolved to be strong for her daughter’s sake. She sniffled a bit and gave Suzanna a watery smile.

“Bye, guys,” Suzanna said, trying to keep Goat Girl silent. (Fernando always called Suzanna “Goat Girl” when she was trying not to cry. Goat Girl has that quivery voice with a sort of a bleat in it: “Byyyyyyye, guuuuuys.” )

Suzanna tried to steady her voice. “Thanks for the Toyota! Really. I love it.”

Her mother’s fortitude was about to give way.

“A Toyota. Race fast, safe car. A Toyota! Boo-hoo-hoooo-hooo.”

Great.

Well, at least that made it easier to pull away.

They were silent as Suzanna drove over to the Caridis’ winery. She lurched up the dirt road—she was still getting the hang of the stick shift—through the eucalyptus trees and thought that a final drive up a picturesque private road leading to an even more picturesque winery really symbolized the end of her childhood—possibly more than leaving her parents in a spray of gravel. This was Napa!

Her car farted and died in front of the house.

Carla zoomed out the front door with a duffel bag. Since she was not leaving for D. C. for another month and was getting antsy, she was going to drive down the coast with her friends and then fly home. Fernando wasn’t thrilled that Carla was horning in on their big adventure, but since Suzanna had the car and her parents were pretty much financing this whole thing, she got to throw her weight around a little bit.

“Oh, so this week we like Carla,” Fernando had said.

“We always like Carla,” Suzanna said. “Even when we hate her. She’s like family.”

Fernando had gotten out of the car to rearrange some boxes in the back, and when he was ready to get back in, Carla had commandeered the front seat. Fernando got stormily into the back.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Carla said.

Suzanna started the car and they headed down the road.

“Can you stop at the drugstore?” Carla said as they passed through downtown. “I need to get some gum.”

Fernando sighed heavily as Suzanna swung into a parking space.

“I’ll be right back,” Carla said as she hopped out of the Land Cruiser.

As soon as Carla was out of the car, Fernando crawled back into the front passenger seat.

“Two can play at this game,” he said, his butt still in the air.

Suzanna tried to set the radio buttons while they waited. Suddenly, there was a huge thud! On the hood, which spooked Suzanna and Fernando so severely they practically cracked heads. There, in the glare of downtown’s sunshine, stood Eric, smiling sheepishly. The loud thud had been caused by his oversized backpack, which he had plunked down on the hood.

“Want some company?” he asked, as he climbed into the back seat with his bag.

At that moment, Carla came bounding out of the drugstore. She jumped into the back of the Cruiser.

“Surprise! Surprise!” she said. “I invited Eric.”

Suzanna exchanged a horrified look with Fernando. What would her parents think? What, for that matter, did she think? And why had Fernando gotten back into the passenger seat? Carla and Eric were now in the back seat together. Eric caught her eye in the rearview mirror.

“It’s cool, isn’t it?”

“It’s cool,” Suzanna said, starting the engine.

The car stalled about seven times before they finally headed down the highway to Los Angeles. Once they were underway, the car never stalled again. Fernando took that as a sign that all was going to be well . . . and Suzanna was desperate to believe him.

They stopped for the night at that masterpiece of kitsch, the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo.

“Michelangelo could not have built anything more beautiful,” Fernando said, gazing up at the cake-frosting turrets.

“I think you mean Da Vinci,” Suzanna said. “Michelangelo didn’t design buildings.”

“God, you sound like your sister,” Carla said.

“No she doesn’t,” Eric said, while he pumped gas into the Land Cruiser at the Madonna filling station.

Suzanna flushed modestly as Eric defended her to Carla.

“Erinn would have been right,” Eric continued. “Suzanna is wrong. Michelangelo designed lots of buildings—like the mortuary chapel for the Medici family in Florence.”

“Wow. Now you sound like her mom!” Carla said.

Suzanna’s cheeks started to blaze. Eric looked at her.

“Sorry, Beet, but it’s true.”

“I just meant Michelangelo wouldn’t have designed the Madonna Inn, that’s all,” Suzanna said—although that wasn’t what she meant at all. She was showing off and it backfired, but she wasn’t about to admit that.

The four of them walked into the lobby of the hotel. It was truly a design trainwreck. The Inn looks like a wedding cake on steroids, the lobby like a detonation at Santa’s Workshop. The Madonna Inn wasn’t exactly on their student budget, but with the unexpected infusion of Eric’s money, the group thought they might as well splurge.

They decided on a plan. The girls would go to the front desk and request a room. Then, if the gods were smiling on them and they actually got a room, the boys would sneak in.

It was summer and the Madonna Inn was a destination with locals and tourists alike, so they approached the front desk, hoping for the best. They had their fingers crossed that they might at least find a vacancy in one of the less intense rooms . . . maybe the Fabulous Fifties room or the rather unnerving What’s Left—a room retched from odds and ends left over from the rest of the rooms.

But the Inn had a tour cancel out and they managed to snag the Caveman Room. With its cave like atmosphere (in this case, considered a good thing), the room had solid rock floors, walls, ceilings—and even a rock shower. The girls got the key and went up first. They boys showed up a few minutes later. They all loved the room, Fernando genuinely and the other three in a we’re-laughing-at-you-not-with-you kind of way.

Carla bounced on the bed as soon as they hit the room.

“Well, at least the bed isn’t made of rock,” she said.

“This is just too fabulous,” Suzanna said, running her hands over the rock walls.

“You’re sounding Hollywood already,” Carla laughed.

“I can’t believe that a whole tour cancelled. That sucks for the hotel,” Suzanna said.

“But it’s good to be us!” Eric said. “We’re just damn lucky.”

“Yeah,” Fernando said. “But it’s the kind of luck you feel guilty about.”

“What?” Suzanna asked. She wasn’t feeling guilty in the least.

“You know. Sort of like when you’re in a traffic jam and there is a hideous accident and even though somebody is probably dead, you’re actually relieved that you’re in the front of the line and won’t have to wait long.”

Suzanna nodded her head. Now she did feel guilty.

For not feeling guilty.

They went downstairs to the dining room, which, in July, had a Christmas tree set up.

“Listen to this,” Suzanna said, reading the menu, “they have something called Pink Shrimp Dolce Vita! ‘Dolce vita’ for whom? Certainly not the pink shrimp.”

Eric snickered appreciatively—something Suzanna always loved about him. He always understood even the most obscure reference. Suzanna and Eric each ordered the shrimp.

“So the shrimp would not have given up their vita in vain,” Eric said.

Carla ordered pasta primavera and Fernando ordered spaghetti and meatballs.

“So, Eric,” Carla said as they dove into their food. “Boston is only a seven-hour train ride to D. C. I hope you plan on coming down once in a while.”

“Or you could come up north,” Eric said.

“Maybe I will. In case I need to escape.”