Nora Jane (6 page)

“On a clear day you can see Mount Diablo. You ought to go while you’re out here. You can see eighty percent of California
from it. You came out to visit someone?”

“My boyfriend. Well, he’s my fiance. Sometimes he has to work at night. He wasn’t sure he could meet me. Is it far? To where
I’m going?” They were in a neighborhood now, driving past rows of stucco cottages, built close together like houses in the
Irish Channel. The yards looked brown and bare as if they needed rain.

“Couple of blocks. These are nice old neighborhoods. My sister used to live out here. It’s called the Lewis tract.” He turned
a corner and came to a stop before a small pink house with an overgrown yard.

“Four fifty-one. Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“You want me to wait till you see if anyone’s here?”

“No, I’ll just get out.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” She watched as he backed and turned and went on off down the road, little clouds of dust rising behind the wheels.
She stood looking up the path to the door. A red tree peeling like a sunburn shaded the yard. Here and there a few scraggly
petunias bloomed in boxes.
Get your ass out here and see where the USA is headed, Sandy had written her. I’ve got lots of plans. No phone as yet. Bring
some French bread. Everything out here is sourdough. Yours forever, Sandy.
He’s here, she thought. I know he’s here.

She walked on up the path. There was a spider’s web across the screen door. They can make one overnight, she told herself.
It’s nothing to make one overnight.

She rang the doorbell and waited. Then she walked around to the back and looked in the window. It was a large room with a
modern-looking stove and a tile floor. I’m going in, she decided. I’m worn out. I’m going in.

She picked up a rock and broke a pane of glass in the door, then carefully picked out all the broken pieces and put them in
a pile under the steps. She reached her hand in the opening, undid the latch and went on in. It was Sandy’s house all right.
His old Jazzfest poster of Dr. John and the Mardi Gras Indians was hanging on a wall. A few clothes were in the closets. Not
many. Still, Sandy traveled light. He’ll be back, she thought. He’s just gone somewhere.

She walked around the house looking for clues. She found only a map of San Francisco with some circles drawn on it, and a
list, on an envelope, from something called the Paris Hotel. Willets, it said. Berkeley, Sebastopol, Ukiah, Petaluma, Occidental.

She walked back into the kitchen looking for something to eat. The refrigerator was propped open with a blue tile. Maybe he’s
in jail, she thought. Maybe I got here just in time.

She reached up a fingernail and flipped open a greeting card that was tacked up over the stove. It was a photograph of a snow-covered
mountain with purple fields below and blue skies above. A hawk, or perhaps it was a buzzard, was flying over the mountain.
F
REEDOM
I
S THE
G
REATEST
G
IFT
T
HAT
O
NE
C
AN
G
IVE
A
NOTHER
, the card said. I
T
I
S A
G
IFT
B
ORN OF
L
OVE
, T
RUST, AND
U
NDERSTANDING
. Nora Jane pulled out the pushpin and read the message inside.

Dear Sandy,

I am glad I am going to be away from you during our two weeks of abstinence. You were so supportive once you realized I was
freaking out. I want to thank you for being there for me. We have climbed the mountain together now and also the valley. I
hope the valley wasn’t too low for you.

I know this has been hard on you. You have had to deal with a lot of new feelings and need time to adjust to them. We will
both hopefully grow from this experience. I want us to have many more meaningful experiences together. I love you more than
words can say. In deepest friendship.

Pam

I’m hungry, Nora Jane thought. I’m starving. She walked over to a bed in a corner. She guessed it was a bed. It was a mattress
on top of a platform made of some kind of green stone. It looked more like a place to sacrifice someone than a place to sleep.

She put her pack up on the bed and began riffling through the pockets for the candy bar she had saved from a snack on the
plane. When she found it she tore open the cardboard box and began to eat it, slowly at first, then faster.
I don’t know
, she thought. I
just don’t
know
. She leaned up against the green stone platform eating the chocolate, watching the light coming in the window through the
leaves of the red tree making patches on the mattress. That’s all we are, she decided. Patches of light and darkness. Things
that cast shadows.

She ate the rest of the candy, stopping every now and then to lick her fingers. When she was finished she folded the candy
box and put it carefully away in her pack. Nora Jane never littered anything. So far in her life she had not thrown down a
single gum wrapper.

During the next week there were four earthquakes in the Bay Area. A five point, then a four point, then a two, then a three.
The first one woke her in the middle of the night. She was asleep in a room she had rented near the Berkeley campus. At first
she thought a cat had walked across the bed. Then she thought the world had come to an end. Then the lights went on. Everyone
in the house gathered in the upstairs hall. When the excitement wore down a Chinese mathematician and his wife fixed tea in
their room. “Very lucky to be here for that one,” Tam Suyin assured Nora Jane. “Sometimes have to wait long time to experience
big one.”

“I was in a hurricane once,” Nora Jane said. “I had to get evacuated when Camille came.”

“Oh,” Tam said to her husband. “Did you hear that? Miss Whittington have to be evacuated during hurricane. Which one you find
most interesting experience, Miss Whittington, earthquake or hurricane?”

“I don’t know,” Nora Jane said. She was admiring the room, which was as bare as a nun’s cell. “I guess the hurricane. It lasted
longer.”

The next morning she felt better than she had in a week. She was almost glad to be alive. She bought croissants from a little
shop on Tamalpais Street, then spent some time decorating her room to look like a nun’s cell. She put everything she owned
in the closet. She covered the bed with a white sheet. She took down the drapes. She put the rug away and cleaned the floor.
She bought flowers and put them on the dresser.

That afternoon she found a theatrical supply store on Shattuck Avenue and bought a stage pistol. It was time to get to work.

“What are you doing?” the proprietor said.

“Happy Birthday, Nora Jane
. Have you ever seen it?”

“The Vonnegut play? The one with the animal heads?”

“No, this is an original script. It’s a new group on the campus.”

“Bring a poster by when you get them ready. We like to advertise our customers.”

“I’ll do that,” she said. “As soon as we get some printed.”

“When’s it scheduled for?”

“Oh, right away. As soon as we can whip it together.”

Freddy Harwood walked down Telegraph Avenue thinking about everyone who adored him. He had just run into Buiji. She had let
him buy her a cafe mocca at the Met. She had let him hold her hand. She had told him all about the horrible time she was having
with Dudley. She told him about the au pair girl and the night he threatened her with a gun and the time he choked her and
what he said about her friends. It was Freddy she loved, she said. Freddy she adored. Freddy she worshipped. Freddy’s hairy
stomach and strong arms and level head she longed for. She was counting the days until she was free.

I ought to run for office, he was thinking. And just to think, I could have thrown it all away. I could have been a wastrel
like Augustine. But no, I chose another way. The prince’s way. Noblesse oblige. Ah, duty, sweet mistress.

Freddy Harwood was the founder and owner of the biggest and least profitable bookstore in northern California. He had one
each of every book worth reading in the English language. He had everything that was still in print and a lot that was out
of print. He knew dozens of writers. Writers adored him. He gave them autograph parties and unlimited credit and kept their
books in stock. He even read their books. He went that far. He actually read their books.

In return they were making him famous. Already he was the hero of three short stories and a science fiction film. Last month
California
Magazine
had named him one of the Bay Area’s ten most eligible bachelors. Not that he needed the publicity. He already had more women
than he knew what to do with. He had Aline and Rita and Janey and Lila and Barbara Hunnicutt, when she was in between tournaments.
Not to mention Buiji. Well, he was thinking about settling down.
There are limits,
he said to himself.
Even to
Grandmother’s money. There are perimeters and prices to pay.

He wandered across Blake Street against the light, trying to choose among his women. A man in a baseball cap took him by the
arm and led him back to the sidewalk.

“Nieman,” he said. “What are you doing in town?”

“Looking for you. I’ve got to see three films between now and twelve o’clock. Go with me. I’ll let you help write the reviews.

“I can’t. I’m up to my ass in the IRS. I’ll be working all night.”

“Tomorrow then. I’m at Gautier’s. Call me for breakfast.”

“If I get through. If I can.”

“Holy shit,” Nieman said. “Did you see that?” Nora Jane had just passed them going six miles an hour down the sidewalk. She
was wearing black and white striped running shorts and a pair of canvas wedgies with black ankle straps, her hair curling
all over her head like a dark cloud.

“This city will kill me,” Freddy said. “I’m moving back to Gualala.

“Let’s catch her,” Nieman said. “Let’s take her to the movies.”

“I can’t,” Freddy said. “I have to work.”

An hour later his computer broke. He rapped it across the desk several times, then beat it against the chair. Still no light.
He laid it down on a pile of papers and decided to take a break. An accountant, he was thinking. They’ve turned me into an
accountant.

Nora Jane was sitting by a window of the Atelier reading
The Bridge of
San Luis Rey
. She was deep into a description of Uncle Pio. “He possessed the six attributes of an adventurer—a memory for names and faces;
with the aptitude for altering his own; the gift of tongues; inexhaustible invention; secrecy; the talent for falling into
conversation with strangers; and that freedom from conscience that springs from a contempt for the dozing rich he preyed upon.”
That’s just like me, Nora Jane was thinking. She felt in her bag for the gun. It was still there.

Freddy sat down at a table near hers. Your legs are proof of the existence of God. No, not that. What if she’s an atheist?
If I could decipher the Rosetta Stone of your anklestraps. My best friend just died. My grandmother owns Sears Roebuck.

“I haven’t seen one of those old Time-Life editions of that book in years,” he said. “I own a bookstore. May I look at that
a minute?”

“Sure you can,” she said. “It’s a great book. I bought it in New Orleans. That’s where I’m from.”

“Ah, the crescent city. I know it well. Where did you live? In what part of town?”

“Near the park. Near Tulane.”

“On Exposition?”

“No, on Story Street. Near Calhoun.” She handed him the book. He took it from her and sat down at the table.

“Oh, this is very interesting, finding this,” he said. “This series was so well designed. Look at this cover. You don’t see
them like this now.”

“I’ve been looking for a bookstore to go to,” she said. “I haven’t been here long. I don’t know my way around yet.”

“Well, the best bookstore in the world is right down the street. Finish your coffee and I’ll take you there. Clara, I call
it. Clara, for light. You know, the patron saint of light.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. The stranger, she thought. This is the stranger.

They made their way out of the cafe through a sea of ice cream chairs and out onto the sidewalk. It was in between semesters
at Berkeley, and Telegraph Avenue was quiet, almost deserted. When they got to the store Freddy turned the key in the lock
and held the door open for her. “Sorry it’s so dark,” he said. “It’s on an automatic switch.”

“Is anyone here?” she asked.

“Only us.”

“Good,” she said. She took the pistol out of her purse and stepped back and pointed it at him. “Where is the office?” she
said. “I am robbing you. I came to get money.”

“Oh, come on,” he said. “You’ve got to be kidding. Put that gun down.”

“I mean it,” she said. “This is not a joke. I have killed. I will kill again.” He put his hands over his head as he had seen
prisoners do in films and led the way to his office through a field of books, a bright meadow of books, one hundred and nineteen
library tables piled high with books.

“Listen, Betty,” he began, for Nora Jane had told him her name was Betty.

“I came to get money,” she said. “Where is the money? Don’t talk to me. Just tell me where you put the money.”

“Some of it’s in my pocket,” he said. “The rest is locked up. We don’t keep much here. It’s mostly charge accounts.”

“Where’s the safe? Come on. Don’t make me mad.”

“It’s behind that painting. Listen, I’ll have to help you take that down. That’s a Helen Watermeir. She’s my aunt. She’ll
kill me if anything happens to that painting.”

Nora Jane had moved behind his desk. “Try not to mess up those papers,” he said. “I gave up a chance to canoe the Eel River
to work on those papers.”

“What’s it a painting of?” she said.

“It’s A.E.”

“A.E.?”

“Abstract Expressionism.”