Lila Blue (22 page)

Lila put down her bag and answered
the phone at her desk.

When I found out it was my mother,
I couldn't stand to listen. I went in the kitchen and started rummaging around
for something to fix for dinner. We had everything we needed for shrimp salad
with avocado dressing, one of Lila's favorites.

I put all my attention on washing
and drying the bib lettuce and cherry tomatoes and arranging them on two flat
soup plates. The shrimp was the cooked frozen kind, so all I had to do was
rinse it with cold water for a few minutes. I cut a fresh lemon into thin
circles and arranged everything artistically on our plates and left them in the
fridge to chill. I cut the perfectly ripe avocado and mashed it with sea salt
and a little lemon juice and the tiniest bit of cayenne pepper. I scooped the
dressing into custard cups and made a spot for them on our plates. I completed
the menu with buttered sliced French bread and giant glasses of iced sun tea.
By the time Lila got off the phone, I had set the table with fresh placemats,
and everything was in place.

"Cassandra," she said.
"You are a blessing. I had no idea what to fix for dinner, but here you've
prepared a gourmet feast for the eyes and spirit as well as for the body. Thank
you."

I bowed Namaste to her and she
smiled a sad, tired smile before she sat down to enjoy the food. We held hands
and silently blessed the food before we began all the fussing and chewing it
takes to eat a big, fresh delicious salad with crunchy bread. We didn't talk
about anything except how beautiful the ocean was and how perfect the food.

It didn't take long to finish the
dishes, and when we were done we sat on the living room couch to watch the sun
sink toward the horizon. The cats joined us, for it was their favorite time to
sit on Lila's lap and take their evening baths.

I never realized cats were such
clean animals. Chloe and Zoe were so healthy and clean they smelled like
expensive perfume. I even asked Lila about it the first week I was with them,
and she said, no, she never put anything on them. They naturally smelled
delicious.

I couldn't leave it alone any
longer, so I said, "That was Janice on the phone."

"Yes, it was your
mother."

"What does she want?"

"I don't think she's allowed
herself to ask that question, much less know the answer," Lila said.

"What did she say then,"
I said.

"She said a lot of things, but
I'm afraid she was drunk or using some kind of drugs, so I don't think she knew
what she was saying. I listened, but you can't talk to someone when she's
drunk. It's a waste of time and only ends up in hurt feelings. I told her to
call me in the morning after a good night's sleep."

"What can we do, Grandma? I'm
worried about her, I'm afraid she'll hurt herself, but I don't want to be
around her. I feel safe here. I love it here. I want to live here with
you."

"I know you do, Cassandra. I
would love for things to work out that way. You have no idea how much joy you
bring me every day. Just seeing your beautiful face makes me very happy."

"Then I can live with
you?"

"You know it's not that
simple. Your mother has legal custody. She would have to really mess up to lose
her rights, and then the state of California might decide you were better off
in a foster home. Even though you are my beloved grandchild, I have no legal
rights, and neither do you."

"But why doesn't it matter
what we want?"

"That's a good question. You
might want to study law and work for legal rights for children."

"So what can we do?"

"Pray. Be happy now. Enjoy
every precious moment we have. Be impeccably honest and communicate clearly.
I'm going to write your mother a letter letting her know what I want, how I
feel, and what I think would be good for all of us. You might do the same. 'The
pen is mightier than the sword.'"

"I always read your holiday
letters over and over," I said. "Maybe Janice would read our letters
over and over."

"That's possible,
Cassandra."

After that we sat and enjoyed the
cats and the sunset. Zoe was on my lap, because halfway through her bath she
decided Chloe was taking up too much space on Lila's lap.

I could tell them apart now, and it
was so obvious, I wondered why I couldn't see it the first time I met them. Zoe
was more energetic, irritable, and skinny. She was a hyper cat, kind of like
Marge compared to Curtis. Zoe was boss and Chloe was happy to follow her as
long as it didn't take too much energy.

 "What was Grandpa like?"
I asked Lila after the sun had sunk below the horizon. We sat bathed in a
pinkish gray light, not wanting to disturb the cats enough to turn on lights in
the living room.

"Ray was born in 1910, and
we're all a product of our times. He was a child during World War I, and his
father died of influenza when Ray was eight. His mother struggled to raise five
children by herself. Then when he was nineteen, the stock market crashed. Your
grandfather was frugal and cautious all his life. He never trusted banks."

"What did he do with his
money, then?"

"He paid cash for everything,
and he accepted only cash at the barbershop. He liked money, though, and he was
good with it. Whenever we saved a shoebox full, we bought a piece of
land."

"Grandma!" I said.
"Not a shoebox!"

"Yes, under the bed." She
giggled as if it were naughty.

"Yikes! What if somebody stole
it?"

"Then we would have started
saving again. No one ever bothered us though, and we never locked our door at
home. Things are different now."

"You have to lock everything
in Sacramento," I said. "One time someone robbed all the downstairs
apartments in our building. It was in the middle of the night when people were
sleeping, and all the thieves took were TVs, stereos, and microwave ovens. They
probably opened a used appliance store."

We laughed about that. It was
finally so dark I got up and turned on the light over the piano and the one in
the hallway near my bedroom door.

"Anyway," Lila continued
when I sat back down beside her, "your grandfather loved owning land. He
believed waterfront properties were a good investment, so we bought lakefront
properties in Coeur d'Alene, which in fact are very valuable now. That's why we
don't have to worry about money. I have to figure out how to pay the property
taxes every year, but that's nothing to complain about."

"My mom always worries about
money," I said. "She makes lots of tips, but she spends money faster
than she makes it."

"Your grandpa and I were lucky
that way," Lila said. "We both liked saving money more than spending
it. Plus we worked, so we didn't have time to spend our money. We had the shop
open six days a week, sometimes ten hours a day. That doesn't leave time for
spending sprees. We were lucky in so many ways."

I thought about the one big way
they weren't lucky. "Did David like to work?" I asked, thinking of
the Memory Book pictures.

"He was happy wherever he was.
If he was at work, he enjoyed working. If he was at the lake water skiing, he
liked that. If he was waiting for us in the shop, he enjoyed reading magazines,
visiting with customers, sweeping hair, washing towels. He was happy all the
time."

"But why did he die
then?"

"He didn't have practice with
adversity. His life had been easy right up until Terry left him. When he found
himself in a really big mess, he had no confidence, no skill in solving big
problems," Lila said.

Then she shook her head and said,
"There I go again trying to make sense of something I know nothing about.
We are all so complicated and everything is in motion. I don't know why he
died. But he did. And we lived. And we're here now together. That's the
miracle. That's where I want to put my attention. The miracles."

Just then the neighbor's spotlights
came on and the miracle of light on breaking waves captured our attention.
Constant motion, miracle after miracle.

The next morning, Lila called
Janice after we had our walk. It was ten o'clock, which was early for Janice
but plenty late enough for the rest of the world. I couldn't stand to listen,
because it seemed my whole life was at stake, so I went upstairs. I found a
writing tablet that Jamie had been drawing on before the seal pup and Mark's
adventure consumed all our time. I took the tablet to the window seat, where
Chloe and Zoe joined me, and we all studied Jamie's drawings.

They were done in black ink, which
seems strange for an eight year old. I remember wearing out the eraser on my
pencils in third grade when I tried to draw anything. None of my friends drew
in pen. We wrote cursive in pen when we were trying out pretty pen colors or
practicing our signatures, but we never used ink for drawing. Jamie was
unusual, so this was one more way he did the unexpected.

The first drawing was of Chloe and
Zoe sitting in the window seat looking at him with the ocean and sky behind
them, but he had drawn me sitting between them. In the drawing I looked so much
like them it was eerie. Somehow Jamie had captured me and Siamese catness at
the same time. Maybe in his world the cats were his sisters and I was added to
the set. One new sister, bigger, but essentially the same.

The second drawing was of Mark
walking up a mountain trail. Trees and bushes were beyond him, and following
him on the trail was what appeared to be a ghost dog, very large and wolf-like,
transparent. I couldn't tell if the dog was friend or foe. I wished Jamie had
put the dates on his drawings so I could know if this was before or after our
cove adventure.

The third drawing was of Jamie,
Mark and me swimming in the ocean toward a big wave that was ready to break
over us. It reminded me of my big wave dream, but I don't know if Jamie drew
the picture before or after I told him of my dream. If I had prophetic dreams
and Mark heard spirit voices, maybe Jamie had intuitive visions he recorded in
drawings.

Jamie's drawings were simple and
sophisticated at the same time. He used very few lines, sure and strong, almost
like some Japanese ink drawings our teacher had us try one time in art class.
We were trying to copy a bamboo stalk painting, but it was much harder than it
looked. Jamie's pictures were not self-conscious though, and I felt I was
eavesdropping on a private language, as if his drawings were a way he talked
with himself. I decided to take them down to see what Lila made of them, so I
tore them carefully from the pad and put them in one of Lila's big art books,
which I left out on the table.

I thought Lila would let me know when
she was finished talking with my mom, so I used the waiting time to write a
letter to Janice. I figured I could always tear it up and start over.

Dear Mother, I was worried about
you yesterday. You didn't sound like your best self. I'm writing you this
letter because I want to share with you what I'm learning here in Oregon about
my best self. Lila is teaching me to cook and knit, and to study the ocean, and
to think about my life in a different way. I love who I am here. I never knew
who I was in Sacramento. I didn't have an identity that felt right.

It's like needing the perfect
pair of shoes, shoes that fit beautifully and feel comfortable, shoes you can
wear anywhere with pride, like those black heels you wear everywhere. I needed
something, I didn't even know what, but I found the perfect fit here. I've
never had the perfectly comfortable me until I came to this little town. I'm at
home here. I want to stay. I have friends and a job offer and there's a room
for me here. I cook for Lila and clean up after myself and follow Lila's House
Rules as best I can.
1. Be impeccably honest.  2. Stay clean, safe, and
sober.  3. Be responsible roommates.  4. Communicate clearly and completely. 
5. Solve problems wisely.  6. Support one another.  7. Be happy here now.

I think these are good house
rules for us to have, too. Maybe for everybody. They sound easy, but so far
they are not. One afternoon I broke nearly all of them. But I'm getting better.
In this letter I'm trying to practice all of them together.

What are our house rules,
Mother? Did you have house rules when you were growing up? I'm growing up. I
want grownup rules now.

I've changed. These few short
weeks have changed me, and I know what I want for the first time in my life. I
want to live here. I'm happy here, and I wasn't happy there. You're not happy
there. Maybe you could be happy here?

I love you. I know you've always
done the best you could for me, for both of us, and I know it was very hard
sometimes. Lila is giving us a choice, giving us a chance to make things
better. Please let me take my chance for a better life. I beg you. Let me stay.
At least for seventh grade. Please. Your daughter, Cassandra Blue Teledin

I knew I wasn't going to send the
letter, but it felt good to write it all down. Signing
Blue
in my name
was a surprise to me, but I left it there. If I went to seventh grade in
Rainbow Village, I would be Cassandra Blue, not Sandy Teledin. I was brand new.
My letter was the truth here and now. It was something to hope for, something
to work toward.

I was ready to face whatever Lila
had discovered on the phone with my mother, so the kitty girls and I left our
cozy window seat and went down to our cozy couch in the living room. Lila was
in the kitchen making fresh coffee. Fresh brewed meant one minute to her, not
one hour, so she always made small pots, and her coffee was delicious.

She brought me a cup and sat on the
couch with us and looked at the sea. We breathed a while together, watching the
waves and enjoying the coffee, and then she put her cup on the table and turned
toward me.