Girl With a Past (15 page)

We had gotten as far as the front porch when
an ancient pick up truck drove up the driveway.

“You, Yuri?” Carol asked.

“Yep.” It was hard to tell the age of the
driver. A heavy, black beard and waves of equally dark hair hid his
face.

“Will you give us a ride to a phone?”

“Hop in. I think I have enough gas to get
there.”

* * *

“Jeff is just leaving for work,” I relayed
to Carol who stood in the door of the phone booth.

She rolled her eyes. “Wonderful!”

I thanked Jeff for helping us out, hung up
the receiver. “Jamie’s farm is close to here. Jeff’s gonna have
Jamie pick us up and take us to the farmhouse outside Novato. Jeff
will either come out there tonight, or first thing in the
morning.”

Carol shrugged with uncharacteristic apathy.
“What-ever.”

We walked to the nearest intersection and
sat down on our bags. Half an hour later, Carol said, “How far away
is this farm?”

“Jeff said, as best he could tell from my
description, we’re maybe ten, fifteen miles from there.”

“It’s taking awhile.” Carol sighed. She
stood, rearranged her bag seat, and plopped back down.

“Maybe he couldn’t leave right away. It’s
not like he was expecting us.” I waited for Carol to once again
tell me I was always making excuses for people, but she was
silent.

Another half hour went by. “Can you call
him?” She glared at me.

“I don’t know the number. And it’s
unlisted,” I said.

“Call Jeff back.” Carol stood and paced
three feet to the street tree.

“He left for work.”

“Maybe Jamie can’t find us. What did Jeff
tell him?” Carol walked as far as the stop sign on the other side
of our bags.

“Carol, chill out.”

I breathed a sigh of relief when the VW bus
with Elliott and Ron inside pulled up to the curb in front of
us.

Ron rolled down the passenger side window.
He flashed his imp grin. “Hey, girls, need a ride?”

“Fuck you” Carol opened the door to the back
seat of the VW bus and threw in her bags.

“Thanks guys. Thanks for rescuing us.” I
slid onto the seat next to Carol and leaned between the front
seats. “Jeff said Jamie––"

“Jamie’s a bit tied up.” Ron grinned at
Elliott, “Well, maybe even literally.”

Both men chuckled.

Carol shook her head at me sending the
“don’t-ask” message. I settled back in the seat and relaxed for the
first time since the brakes went out.

* * *

The fragrance of something wonderful wafted
out of the kitchen as we entered the back door of the Victorian
farmhouse. We dropped our bags as we passed through the utility
room and followed the aroma.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Mac, had allowed Tom
into her kitchen.

I walked to where Tom stood in front of the
huge, old-fashion stove, stirring a kettle of aromatic stew. He
said hello without his usual warm smile. I gave him a hug,
wondered, but didn’t ask what he was upset about. I’d noticed that
Tom handled every crisis by cooking up a pot of soup; comfort food,
meant to make his clan of friends feel better.

“Are you upset about the car?“ I asked.

Tom shook his head, “No, just glad you two
are okay.” He didn’t look happy.

Mrs. Mac stood at the sink and drain board
peeling apples. “Glad to see you girls, I need some help with these
apple pies.” She wiped her hands on her apron and pushed her
glasses into her graying hair.

I hugged her hello, introduced her to Carol,
and washed my hands in the sink. “How many pies’re we making?”

Mrs. Mac had never asked for help before.
The first time I’d visited, I’d been informed that Mrs. Mac didn’t
like anyone in her realm of the kitchen and utility room. Later,
when she allowed me in after I had volunteered to pick apples off
the gnarly old tree, I realized it was the young men she was
keeping out of the one area she could keep orderly. The rest of the
ramshackle house she kept clean, but with slobs around, neat lasted
only until they entered the room.

That day, it seemed that Mrs. Mac was
keeping us out of the other rooms of the house. She even suggested
that Carol use the previously-unknown-to-me, bathroom off the
utility room.

Elliott and Ron had disappeared through the
swinging door that led to the dining room and adjoining living
room. We soon heard the sounds of Beatles music cranked up to full
volume.

“They’re gonna blow out the speakers again,”
Tom said.

Carol pushed the door open a crack to peek
into the rest of the house.

“Carol, come here and core these apples for
me please.” Mrs. Mac motioned to Carol to join her at the kitchen
counter. “Here, let me show you how that coring thing works.”

I slid over to where Tom stirred his
soup.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

Tom shrugged.

Mrs. Mac glanced in my direction. “Here’re
some more apples to peel.”

I returned to my peeling station. On the
table behind me were two large bushel baskets of red and green
apples. “Wow, how many pies are we making?”

Mrs. Mac saw me studying the baskets and
smiled. “Oh, some of them apples are gonna be for apple butter. The
red ones are for juice. I was thinking a couple pies, but now I got
some help, maybe we should make a half dozen. Then you can take
some home with ya.”

Carol failed to suppress a sigh, but Mrs.
Mac didn’t let on she’d heard any protest.

With the occasional eye roll from Carol, we
peeled and cut in silence until all the green apples were sliced.
Mrs. Mac rolled out shells, then showed Carol how to fold the dough
to lift it into the pie dish.

Ron came in to take a beer out of the fridge
without commenting on the novelty of seeing Carol cooking. In fact,
he didn’t say anything: no jokes, no wise cracks, nothing. That
really made me wonder what the hell was going on.

Mrs. Mac went into the utility room to get
the apple juicer.

“Okay, Tom, what gives?” I asked.

Tom scowled at me, gave me a look that
implied that he had no idea what I meant.

“C’mon, you guys are acting strange.”

Tom shrugged.

“I’m not imagining things. Mrs. Mac usually
doesn’t want anyone in her kitchen––now she won’t let us out.” I
said, “And Ron hasn’t made one crack about––well, about anything.
You’ve been standing in front of that pot like something was going
to jump out of it. Mister-proper-polite-host, Jamie hasn’t even
come to say hello.”

Mrs. Mac returned and placed the juicer on
the table. “Lexi, you can show Carol how that juicer works.”

“Okay, that’s it.” I pushed open the
swinging door, walked through the dining room and entered the
living room at the same time Jamie came through the hall door. Ron
put down his empty beer bottle and headed down the hall. I heard a
girl’s voice from the room at the end of the hall.

“Lexi.” Jamie stopped and looked at me with
surprise. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Carol and I have been trapped in the
kitchen, helping with pies.”

Jamie looked momentarily puzzled. “Oh.
Carol’s here?”

“Yeah, I thought Jeff spoke with you,” I
said.

“Yeah, right, yeah.” Jamie walked behind the
sofa and the over stuffed armchairs headed toward the kitchen.
“Want a beer?” he called out from the dining room as he headed into
the kitchen.

“No. Thanks.” I sat down on the ottoman in
front of the brick fireplace.

I wondered who the girl was, and why they
didn’t want us to know a girl was there. Did we know her? Was the
girl why Mrs. Mac had welcomed a stranger into her kitchen?

Jamie stuck his head out the kitchen door.
“Lex, are you hungry? We’re going to eat in here tonight. Please
join us.”

Eat in the kitchen? What the hell was going
on?

Jamie and Tom were clearing the apples and
the juicer off the table. Mrs. Mac wiped off the wood top. Carol,
unaware that eating in the kitchen was unusual, carried a stack of
plates, setting one in front of each chair. “How many of us are
there?” she asked.

“Yeah, how many?” I asked with an eyebrow
raised. “And who’s the girl?”

Jamie ignored our questions. “I thought
after we ate, I would drive you two into Berkeley.”

“Jeff said he could come for us after work,”
I said.

“I need to do some stuff in town. Might as
well take you.”

“Thanks.” I guess whatever was going on
here, the guys, and even Mrs. Mac, didn’t want us to know. Tom,
Elliott and Jamie ate with us. Ron never made a re-appearance.

“Isn’t Ron going to eat?” Carol asked.

I noticed the exchange of glances before
Jamie answered, “I think he had something he had to take care
of.”

Elliott looked down at his plate in an
attempt to hide a grin. Mrs. Mac slammed the utility room door as
she left the house.

My friends did not welcome our unexpected
arrival at the farm. And that seemed the strangest, most upsetting
part of what had been a strange, scary day.

24

Berkeley, Alta Bates Hospital, March 2008

The chime of his cell phone woke Steven.

OMG, he was stiff from sleeping in that
chair. He looked at his phone. It was Aunt Carol calling.

“Hey,” Steven answered.

“How is she?” Carol asked.

“She’s muttering occasionally. It still
sounds like asking about you. And some guy named Ted. Do you know
anyone named Ted?”

“Hmm.” Carol was silent for a moment. “No,
not anyone she would know anyway.”

Jeff pushed open the door, walked to
Steven’s chair, and patted his shoulder. “Any change?”

Steven said goodbye to Carol. “Hi Dad. She’s
been talking, muttering actually. About some guy named Ted.”

Jeff scowled. “Does she have a friend named
Ted?” He walked to the bedside, took his daughter’s hand in
his.

Steven shook his head. “Not that I know. Any
word about Mom?”

“I’m sorry, nothing new.”

25

Berkeley, May 1969

“Aren’t those two guys Jeff’s friends?”
Carol nodded at the far end of the bar. We had ended our study
night at the library with a quick trip to the Monk, our favorite
student dive bar. Officially it was the Monkey Inn, but everybody
called it the Monk. The beer was cheap, cheaper than bars close to
campus, but the main attraction after a long night of studying, was
a savory filled pastry called a pierogi.

Hoping to avoid dealing with men on the
make, we’d chosen a small table in a dark corner to await the
arrival of our midnight snack.

I strained my neck to see the faces of the
two she meant. The pudgy body closest to us resembled Elliott, and
both men were short enough to be Dave and Elliott. Subtleties of
hair color were lost in the dark bar. The swing of a door flooded
their location with light long enough for me to recognize Dave’s
face. Ron came through the open door and joined the other two.

“Yeah, that’s Dave. And the guy with him is
probably Elliott.” I lifted a mug of cold beer, clinked Carol’s,
and chugged. “And Ron just walked in.”

Carol licked suds off her upper lip. “What
do you think of those three?” she asked.

I shrugged, more interested in my beer.

“They’re a little creepy,” she said.

I frowned at her.

“Come on, you’ve noticed how different they
are from the rest of that group. “ She nudged my arm. When I failed
to respond, she continued. “Dave and Elliott. They’re both so
uncomfortable . . . self-conscious. The others are confident, good
looking, well spoken––”

I had to admit she had a point, but, so
what?

“Why are they part of the group?”

“I think Elliott and Jamie went to prep
school together.”

“That doesn’t explain it.”

“They’re fraternity brothers.”

“And how did that happen?” Carol asked.

I drank my beer, considering her point.

“You know, why did they let those two in?”
Carol said.

“They liked them?”

Carol rolled her eyes and gave me the look
that said, “How stupid do you think I am?”

“Maybe they were legacies,” I said. “Dave’s
okay looking.”

“Yeah, he’d actually be good-looking––if he
weren’t so creepy.”

“Define creepy,” I asked.

“There’s something weird going on with
him.”

“He’s just uncomfortable because he grew up
poor.”

Carol shook her head. “It’s way more than
that.”

The bartender waved at us to come for our
pierogi sandwiches. I jumped up, grabbed the two paper wrapped
snacks and hoped that Carol would be distracted from her subject by
the food.

She nibbled an exploratory bite. “Oh! Real
hot.” She put the filled dough aside. “It’s something more than the
poor thing with that guy Dave.”

I raised an eyebrow at her without giving up
on the steaming hot sandwich. I took little bites around the edge
of the crisp crust letting some of the heat from the center filling
escape.

“When Dave tries to smile, he leers. And
he’s really condescending.”
“That’s a cover for his lack of confidence,” I explained.

She squinted one eye at me. “Maybe. But it’s
like––like a hollowness. Like he’s just a shell with nothing
inside, no heart or emotion, except occasionally he’s annoyed. But
he tries to hide it.”

I burned my mouth on the pierogi, took a
gulp of beer, and gave up on the pastry until it cooled. The word
hollow did fit Dave’s character.

“What’s your thing about Elliott?” I
asked.

“Well, he’s funny looking.” Carol bit into
her now cooled beef and onion filled pierogi.

“Not funny looking in a bulldog cute
way?”

“No.” No hesitation in her voice. “He’s pear
shaped . . . and . . . puffy. With bad skin. I don’t trust ugly
people. Ugly on the outside, ugly on the inside. ” She chewed and
thought. “Decidedly not athletic, definitely dorky. I have never
met a rich person who doesn’t play tennis . . . or golf . . . or
ski . . . or ride . . . or sail––I mean, what
does
he
do?”