Deep in the Valley (3 page)

Or…maybe they did…

June knocked the caked mud off her boots and left them by the back door where the sun would dry them. Old Mikos Silva’s place was on her way to the clinic, and she had stopped by to check his blood pressure. His idea of “taking it easy” was to sleep in till 4:30 a.m. and do only half his chores, so she’d had to slog her
way out to the barn to find him. Old farmers like Mikos were typically afraid that if they sat down for too long, they might drop dead, doctor’s orders notwithstanding.

She slipped on her clogs and headed for the front of the clinic. She would have said good morning, but she was frozen silent by the dizzying sight of Jessica’s hair.

The girl was some kind of Goth, as she called herself. Black clothes, lots of piercings in oddball places, black nail polish and lipstick. There was no evidence she did any of the scary things her appearance seemed to imply—like take human sacrifices. But today she had reached a pinnacle. Her head was shaved but for the multicolored Mohawk plume that stood up proudly on top. Bold stripes—purple, blue, red, orange, yellow—waggled as she moved.

June wasn’t sure how long she stared, but it was long enough for Charlotte to return to her post. June met her nurse’s eyes and saw only grim misery. And a warning:
Don’t give her the satisfaction.
When June looked into the small waiting room, she saw that all six eyes were focused on the colorful Mohawk, in slack-jawed, fascinated stares.

“I’ll be just a few minutes,” she said to the waiting room. “Good morning, Jessie. New do?”

Jessica looked up from her filing, smiled beautifully, for she was a beautiful girl, and nodded. The action set her many pierced hoops in motion—on ears, eyebrow, nose and places June didn’t want to think about.

June picked up a stack of charts Charlotte had set out and made her way back to her office, her nurse on her tail. Charlotte closed the office door behind them.

“I’m at the end of my rope,” Charlotte announced.

“Take it easy. It’s only hair.” June bit her tongue against the temptation to remark on Charlotte’s own hair, a dark red with a purple hue that always looked two weeks overdue with its telltale quarter inch of gray against her scalp.

“You cannot let this go on!” Charlotte insisted.

“Charlotte, she’s a very sweet, very efficient girl.” June struggled not to laugh out loud. “She lends color to the place.”

“How can her father allow this…this…
insanity?
”

Charlotte and Bud had raised six children, none of whom would have dared part their hair on the wrong side, much less shave and color their heads. But Jessica’s father, Scott, a good-natured, broad-minded artist and widower of only forty-two, chose to let his daughter find her own way. June approved more of the latter parenting style, though she wouldn’t dare admit that to Charlotte.

“What did
you
say to Jessie?” June asked.

“I am committed to not reacting.”

“You have a lot of unnecessary stress over Jessica’s clothing and hairstyles, Charlotte. Maybe you should talk to someone about it. Have you given any thought to seeing Dr. Powell about this?” Jerry Powell was the local shrink—a Ph.D. psychologist with a specialty in family counseling. He had relocated to Grace Valley in search of a quiet, peaceful life, after a stressful, twenty-year Silicon Valley practice.

“Why would I talk to that nutcase?”

Jerry Powell was probably an excellent counselor…with an unshakable belief that he had once been abducted by aliens.

“His beliefs are not so different from some of our own townspeople’s,” June pointed out.

“We don’t any of us believe in spaceships, for God’s sake!”

“Oh no,” June laughed. “Not spaceships! Angels, buried treasure, Indian spirits, hidden caverns and Big Foot. But not spaceships.”

Charlotte pursed her lips. “I think you’re enjoying this,” she said, and left June’s office in a huff.

Jerry Powell took his coffee to his office, where he would wait for his first client of the day, Frank Craven. This was an emergency intervention—the boy had been in a fight at the school bus stop.

Jerry had lived in his three-bedroom rambler for just a few years, and while in one sense he would be a newcomer for at least twenty years, in another sense he was already accepted in Grace Valley. That was not to say he’d been pulled into the warm bosom of the town and cherished, but rather accepted as the San Jose shrink who’d admitted to Bay Area media about twenty years ago that he’d been for a ride in a spaceship. The Spaceship Shrink, they called him. Some, he knew, called him the Gay Spaceship Shrink, though no one in Grace Valley knew for sure whether he was gay or straight. There were undoubtedly lots of valley residents who thought he was delusional…but there were plenty of people who availed themselves of his services. He made a much better living in the little town than he’d ever expected to.

He had converted his garage into an office, and had a brick walk directed to the side door so that he
wouldn’t have to escort people through his living room and kitchen to their therapy sessions. Half the garage served as private office, half as waiting room, and he’d had a large picture window installed so he could see his clients as they pulled up to the curb in front of his little house. Through that window he saw the police car, a beige-and-brown SUV. Lee Stafford was at the wheel and Frank Craven was getting out.

Jerry might have been looking at himself thirty-five years earlier—skinny, lanky, feet as big as snowshoes, arms too long, hair badly cropped and askew, head down and gait clumsy. And not so different now, Jerry thought, for he was six foot five, wore a sixteen shoe and had never been able to manage his wavy blond hair. And though he tried to stand up straight, it was hard when nine-tenths of the world was under his chin.

“Come in, Frank, come in,” he said, holding the door. “I don’t think we’ve ever met. I’m Jerry Powell.”

“The spaceship guy,” Frank said sullenly and thickly through his swollen lip.

“The same. You’ve had a rough morning. Want some juice? Water? Soda?”

“Naw.”

“Come back to my office, here. And if you change your mind, just say so.”

Frank followed Jerry into the office. Jerry stood at the door and waited for him to choose a seat, either in the conversation area, where a couch was separated from two chairs by a coffee table, or in one of two chairs before the desk. But Frank stood just inside the door and waited. “Have a seat, Frank,” Jerry said.

“Where?” he asked.

“Anywhere.”

“Where?” he asked again, unwilling to select their seating.

“How about here?” Jerry suggested, indicating a chair in front of the desk.

The boy flopped down, slumping. “This going to take long?”

“Probably not. Let me just tell you a couple of things first. I’m going to make a few notes because I don’t trust my memory, but they are completely confidential. Even though this visit was prompted by the high school assistant principal, I’m not required to tell him anything about our session. Okay?”

“I don’t really care what you tell him,” Frank said meanly. “He’s a cocksucker.”

“I am only obligated to tell him that you did, in fact, have your required meeting with me,” Jerry continued, as though he hadn’t heard the boy’s comment.

“I had two choices. Expelled or counselor.”

“Yes, well—”

“If it had been
suspended
or counselor, I’d have taken suspended.”

Jerry pulled a yellow pad onto his crossed knee and wrote April 17th at the top. “Why not take the option of being expelled? You like school?”

“Not really. But my ma wants me to go.”

“But you could have an excuse…if you got expelled.”

Frank started to pick a thread on his jeans. They were in pretty bad shape. Not only were they old, they were now dirty from having rolled in the dirt at the bus stop.

“Your mother’s been through enough today, I suppose.”

He looked up. “What do you know about it?” Frank wanted to know. There was such rage in his eyes. He was one angry kid.

“I know you got in a fight at the bus stop because someone said something about your dad being taken to jail and you were…what? Offended? Embarrassed?”

“How about pissed off?”

“Yeah?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah.”

“Pissed off because?”

“Just because…”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Naw. I’m over it now. It’s finished.”

“We gotta do something, Frank. We have fifty-five minutes to go.”

He was met with silence.

“I’m not obligated to say anything to anybody about our time together, but that doesn’t mean I won’t want to.”

Eye contact. Unhappy eyes.

“For example, if I thought you could benefit from more counseling, I don’t have to say why, I just have to recommend. It could happen that way.”

Unhappier eyes.

“So, let’s talk. See where we are. Huh? At least tell me what it takes to get you to punch me out. What do I have to say to get slugged at the bus stop?”

“Man…”

“I’m patient. I get paid by the hour.”

“Who pays for this hour?” Frank asked.

“In this case, county funds provided to the school district. When a kid gets in trouble and the school wants counseling, there are two ways to pay. The parents’ medical policy, or the school. What’s up, Frank? What are you so mad about?”

He squirmed a little, inhaled noisily through his nose like a bull and finally spoke. “How about if we make a deal? If I answer your questions for a half hour, you answer one question for me?”

This was a remarkably unoriginal barter. Jerry had this proposed to him regularly. And he knew all the tricks. “Go,” he invited.

Over the next thirty minutes he found out a lot about Gus’s binges, the beatings, the rages and the regular visits made by the police. Jerry found out how much Frank hated his father, how much he loved but disrespected his mother, how fragile he was with his own rage and how frustrated he felt over his complete inability to protect his mother and younger brothers. Jerry wished he were hearing this story for the first time, wished it didn’t happen this way so often. In the end he knew what he would do—try to get Frank to commit to an anger management workshop and a group for battered teens. But he’d have to tread slowly and carefully. And keep his part of the bargain.

“So,” Frank asked, leaning forward in his chair. “What’s the inside of a spaceship like?”

“Well, it looks like shiny metal, but it turns out to be something like glass,” Jerry began.

C
hristina Baker was sixteen and pregnant. Married, too, which gave her one advantage over many a pregnant sixteen year old. She was also anemic, underweight and probably depressed.

“Is the morning sickness over now?” June asked her.

“Oh yes. I haven’t been sick in a long time.”

“And you feel the baby move?”

“Uh-huh. For a couple of months at least. Gary is so excited, he can’t stand himself.”

But when she said that, she was unconvincing. Her blue eyes were flat.

June didn’t really know Christina or her family. They came from down valley—another way of saying they were rural, lived off the beaten track. That could mean a farm, a shed, a collection of trailers, just about anything except mountains. That would be up valley. But it likely wasn’t a farm. The girl wasn’t in school and the handwriting on the new-patient paperwork belonged to Jessica. That would
mean the girl couldn’t read. It was surprising this was her first child. But to give them credit, her young husband had accompanied her; he was in the waiting room. Maybe they’d do better by their kids than was done by them.

“And Gary is helping you a little? Around the house and such? Because I’m worried about your weight and your anemia. It might be you’re working too hard.”

“It’s not the house, it’s me gettin’ up at four in the morning to ride clear to Fort Seward with my mama and auntie to work at that flower hothouse up there. That’s what’s wearin’ me down, but I can’t do nothin’ about it. We need the money.”

“And where does Gary work?” June asked.

“He works timber…when he works. He’s off right now.”

June frowned. Off? He must have gotten fired, because logging was good at the moment. It was during the rainy winter months that loggers, construction workers and fishermen had trouble staying employed. In spring, everybody went to work.

“He do anything else?” June asked. “Besides logging?”

“Framing. Sometimes.”

New construction was up, too. People were flooding to small, out-of-the-way coastal, valley and mountain areas, giving up on the big, dirty cities in search of the quiet, clean country life. How else could Grace Valley account for almost doubling its population in ten years?

“That is quite a drive you have to take. I’m more than happy to see you through this pregnancy, Christina, but did you know Dr. Lowe is right on your way
to Fort Seward? You could probably make appointments on the way to or from work.”

“I know. But I heard you was real good.”

“Oh really,” June said, smiling in spite of herself. How stupid to smile at that, she thought. This girl didn’t know what good was. Still, it gave June enormous pleasure to know she was liked. “That’s nice.” And she looked back at the chart. Christina was not healthy and should see a specialist. June had high hopes of hiring John Stone, which would resolve so many similar problems.

“I’m going to see that you leave here with an extra supply of vitamins, Christina. I want you to double up and try to put on a little weight.”

“Gary don’t much like chubby girls,” she said.

“Well, if Gary wants to be a daddy, he’d better develop a taste for them. That baby needs nourishment.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know it.”

This was the part of country doctoring that was so hard. Grace Valley was a quaint village with some special shops and a few restaurants that drew people from other towns—people who drove nice cars. Most merchants did well here, and relocated yuppies who didn’t seem to need money had moved in and raised the standard of living even more. Their taxes were welcomed by the schoolboard and roads department. Plus there were some successful farms, orchards, vineyards and ranches around the valley. But there was plentiful abject poverty, as well. Poor people who might not be seen in the Vine & Ivy, a quaint restaurant and gift shop at the edge of town. But June saw
them. They didn’t shop at The Crack’d Door—an upscale gallery that had opened six years before—but she could run into them anywhere, even her own living room at dawn. You could look at the houses in town, the bed-and-breakfasts that had opened since the late eighties, the local tasting rooms, some of the new architecture, and begin to think of this place as upscale country. An affluent village. But there was an underside here, not visible to the casual eye, that concerned only the police, medical and social welfare people: battered women living in isolation on rundown farms; a roadhouse called Dandies that was not quaint and did not welcome tourists.

And any new doctor June brought into this clinic had better understand the two faces of this town.

When she took Christina’s chart to the front of the clinic, she saw that the young girl had been her last patient for the morning. The waiting room was blessedly empty.

“You have plans for lunch?” Charlotte asked.

“Just to avoid George Fuller.”

“I heard he sent some people out by your house at six in the morning and they caught you naked, just gettin’ out of the shower,” Charlotte said.

“My God! This town is amazing! Why do we bother with a newspaper?”

Charlotte shrugged. “For good fiction, I imagine. Bet you wished you’d plugged that cordless phone in for once, don’t you.”

“Has my father been here?” June demanded, shocked.

“No, but your aunt Myrna called…and asked could
you come out to lunch today, and if you can, would you bring her some more of that blood pressure medicine.”

It was remarkable to June that, living in a town where everyone knew everyone’s business, her aunt didn’t realize that her blood pressure pills were placebos. Myrna was in astonishingly good health.

June had been out to Myrna’s a lot lately, evidence that her aunt was bored or lonely or restless. Myrna, aged eighty-four, was hardly housebound. She drove a 1967 Cadillac all over the place, including to weekly poker with Elmer, Judge Forrest, Burt Crandall and Sam Cussler. Myrna was the oldest player and most frequent winner.

“Call her and tell her I’ll be right out,” June told Charlotte. “I need a change of scenery. And tell her I’ll bring scones from the bakery.” June began to walk away.

“Didn’t you already have a bear claw today?” Charlotte asked.

June stopped, looked back over her shoulder and peered at her nurse. Charlotte was past pleasantly plump, and June had never known her to be slender. She, on the other hand, was whip thin, one of those pathetic creatures who’d drunk supplements to put on weight in high school. Yet Charlotte kept track of June’s food intake as though she had an eating disorder. June lifted her eyebrows questioningly.

“You won’t always be young,” Charlotte said, and turned her back on June.

June sat in her Jeep behind the clinic, door open, and wrote down in a little notebook she kept in her bag a
few questions she wanted to ask John Stone, a few things she wanted to remember to tell him.

“My heavens above,” she heard a man say, and she jumped in surprise. There, leaning against her opened door, was Jonathan Wickham. He pounded his fist against his chest. “Look at you! What’s the occasion?”

She didn’t know what he was talking about at first, but then remembered she had dressed up just a little. Gaberdine slacks with creases as opposed to jeans and boots. Skirts and dresses were fine for city docs, but out here, when a call might come from a logging site or farm, it was more sensible to be prepared than to slip in the mud wearing a thin-soled slipper and end up with your skirt over your head.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “I’m interviewing a potential new doctor this afternoon. What’s that on your cheek, Jonathan? Looks like you got slapped.”

He frowned, touched his palm to his cheek, then realized she was probably kidding, and smiled at her.

Jonathan was one of those men who had a shot at being handsome, and spoiled it with ridiculousness. He was tall and slim, a bit over six feet. His labors were spiritual as opposed to physical, so his body was not muscular, but neither was he frail. He had a strong chin, square jaw and slightly rosy cheeks. His teeth were strong and straight, but unfortunately for him, his smile always seemed forced. And then there was that little problem with baldness. As was typical, if he’d just let it go, it would be so much better. But no, he had to try hair pieces, wigs, and now these foolish plugs.

“Well, you look ravishing,” he said to June. “You would tempt the very saints.”

“That’s great, Jonathan, so long as I don’t tempt you.” She turned the key and started the ignition.

“Ah, June, I am but a mortal—”

“Didn’t I see Mary Lou Granger storm out of the church this morning…right after Clarice stormed in? It almost seemed as though they might’ve had a disagreement.”

He had to think about this for a moment, and June realized that Tom was right. It
was
hard to look at those silly plugs and keep a straight face. Jonathan was such a notorious flirt, and so bad at it, too. But there was something about June’s demeanor, she knew, that held him at bay, as though he knew, instinctively, that if he ever touched her, she’d break his arm.

“I can’t recall what that might’ve been about,” he said. “Probably some misunderstanding.”

“Probably,” she said, putting the Jeep in reverse. “Jonathan, I have to get going. I’m running late. Was there something special you needed, or are you just casting out compliments to see if you catch anything?”

He laughed, backed away from the car and said, “You know me too well, don’t you? I was on my way to the clinic to ask for a handout. I’m all out of that cream you gave me for the dry skin.”

She pulled her door closed and draped an elbow out the open window. “You can go in and ask Charlotte, or you can come back later. I have errands.”

At that moment Charlotte came out of the clinic, her purse hanging from her arm, and caught the tail end of what June said.

“Come back later,” she told the pastor.

“I could…ah…maybe little Jessie could—”

“Jessie isn’t allowed to hand out medicines, Pastor. Better not—”

“I’ll just go see how she’s doing…haven’t seen her in—”

“No!” both women barked, and his palms went up as if to ward off their protests. He slowly turned and made his way back across the street. June and Charlotte made eye contact briefly, but neither moved out of the clinic parking lot until he was all the way across the street, safely ensconced in his church. And then Charlotte did something rare. She turned around and locked the back door. Anyone who walked in the front door of the clinic, where Jessica would probably be sitting at the reception desk, would be in full view of the street, the café and the church.

June and the nurse made eye contact again and both nodded in agreement.

Pastor Wickham and his family had been in the valley less than a year, and his reputation was getting worse by the day. This seemed to greatly amuse the old men at the café, but June thought that several women, and she for one, were getting just a little tired of it.

Charlotte routinely went home for lunch, where she could eat with Bud, and they could both smoke in peace. If June was gone, which she almost always was, that left Jessica alone in the clinic to answer phones and eat her packed lunch.

This was very much to her liking. If anyone knew how she occupied herself, they might think more than her hair was strange. She would go into June’s office and find a medical book, usually
Gray’s Anatomy
but some
times
Disease and Microbiology.
She spent about forty-five minutes reading and looking at pictures while she slowly nibbled away at her peanut butter and pickle sandwich.

No one knew. Since Jessica had dropped out of high school and had no diploma, she was sure the fact that she read complicated science textbooks with lunch would only make people laugh. Her father understood that it wasn’t a dislike of school, per se, that had caused her to drop out, but feeling so out of place.

Here, in June’s clinic, Jessica felt at home.

The bakery was operated by Burt Crandall and his wife, Syl. When Burt had returned to Grace Valley after the Korean War, he’d wanted a business of his own so he could stay. Since he didn’t farm or fish, he knew he’d have to be a merchant of some kind or else leave for a town with some industry. He’d wanted the gas station, but it wasn’t for sale, so he opened a bakery, without having the first idea how to bake. But you’d never know it from tasting. Burt supplied everyone in town, including the café and the Vine & Ivy, and a good many eateries in surrounding towns.

The bell jangled as she walked in.

“Hey there, June. I heard you flashed some little old mountain people this morning,” Burt remarked, a wide grin on his face.

“You know me,” she said wearily. “Just can’t keep my clothes on.”

He laughed happily, a high-pitched giggle, really. His teeth were too big for his mouth and his good nature brought them into frequent prominence. He was
thin all over except for his round paunch, like a barrel on legs.

His wife, however, was built like a little beach ball—five feet tall and round as an apple. Right on cue, Syl came through the swinging door from the back. She carried a large tray full of fresh cookies. “Burt, leave that girl alone. June, you just pay him no attention. And take some cookies while they’re warm.” That said, Syl went back to the ovens.

“Give me four scones and hold the bullshit,” June said to Burt.

“Oh, you going out to Myrna’s? Tell her I baked these special for her. You know, June, you ought to have a dog, warn you if someone’s letting themselves in your house.”

That was a dead giveaway.

“My father used to be the most discreet person in the valley. And now I think he has just about the biggest mouth.”

“He’s been fishing too much. Fishermen—big-mouthed liars, that’s what they are. Plus I think keeping all those secrets he had to as a doctor ate a hole straight through him and now he just can’t shut up. That’s what I think.” Burt put the scones in a box while June dug out her money. “He still has a poker face, though, old coot.”

“Says the pot.”

“Tonight’s meat loaf night, isn’t it? Why don’t you take some dinner rolls with you. Elmer likes these potato rolls.”