Playing for Julia (4 page)

Late Friday afternoon Dan returns to our office after a long meeting with David and Mr. Movie Mogul.  He seems happy so the meeting must have gone well
. We didn’t close until late the night before and I am getting ready to go home.  I am definitely ready for the weekend.

“Julia, I think it is time for you to see how the other half lives.  Would you like to go out for a drink?  Unless, of course you have a passionate rendezvous planned with Mr. Bad Boy.”

I laugh.  Dan’s humorous take on life makes even the most stressful times at
Voices
so much easier.  He can be very funny.  And I haven’t heard anything from Austen so maybe that was goodbye.  Maybe I can start to forget him.

“No rendezvous planned.”

Dan drives through a part of the city I have never seen. The streets are dirty. The old apartment buildings are drab gray. Not many people are on the sidewalks and those that I see look pretty down and out.  I don’t think it is on our list of places to visit.

“What area is this?”

“The Tenderloin.  Polk Gulch.  You’ll see.”

He parks in front of a bar with a sign that reads:  Little Foxes. 
He comes around, opens the door and helps me out of the car. So gentlemanly. From inside I can hear Marvin Gaye’s voice singing “Heard It Through The Grapevine”.  What a sexy voice that man has.

“The perfect song for you, Julia
.”

Inside it
is dark, like any bar.  It smells like cigarettes and booze, like any bar.  But as I look around I realize that all the customers are men.  I am the only woman. Not in Kansas anymore, I say to myself, with a smile.  Dan takes my elbow and leads me to bar where we sit on tall stools.

“What would you like to drink?”

“White wine would be fine.”

“Oh
, no.  No white wine.  This is not some fern bar pick-up joint over on Union Street.  Here we drink real liquor, well, real liquor all gussied up.”  Then he says to the bartender. “Two Manhattans.”

Dan takes out a pack of
Marlboro cigarettes and offers one to me.

“No thanks.”

He lights one for himself.  A man about Dan’s age, but nowhere near as handsome as Dan, walks over from one of the tables.

“Who do you have here, Danny boy?”

“Julia, meet Ed.  Ed, this is darling Julia, my new assistant.  New to the city and already on the road to heartbreak and tears.”

“Something we know well,” Ed chuckles.  “How are things going at
Voices
?”

“Well, I think it
’s going to survive.  Mr. Mogul was in town today and we went over the figures and things are on track.  He says creating
Voices
is like producing a movie, only we do it every week instead of every three years.”

“
Good news, then.”

“Knock wood,” Dan responds.

The bartender sets the drinks in front of us.  I take a sip.  Strong.  Maybe bourbon? Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” starts playing on the jukebox.

“I assume you heard that
Politics Monthly
went belly up last week?” Ed says.

“Yeah, we
talked about it and David’s opinion is that the writing and ideas were provocative but the audience, the readership, was too narrow.”

“That, plus the fact that
Eric’s backer pulled the plug on the money,” Ed chortles.  “I heard that it was losing money hand over fist.  No one wanted to advertise in it.  It was too controversial.”

A minute or so later, two men walk in the front door and stop to talk to Dan.  Then another
.  They all mention
San Francisco Voices
and
Politics Monthly
, but also talk about other things.  Dan is obviously well-known.

Looking
around the bar I realize that this is not much different from
Voices
: almost all men—although here they are all gay.  At
Voices
Dan is the only gay man and there are only three women:  myself, Susie our receptionist, and Cathy who compiles and edits the Weekly Events section.

I take another sip of my drink.

Suddenly, what Dan said to Ed registers in my mind: ‘I think it’s going to survive.’  Holy cow, I say to myself, is there a chance that
Voices
won’t survive?  I love my job.  I need my job.  I love
Voices
.  Please let it survive.

“
Night Ride
”
starts playing on the jukebox and Dan looks over at me.

“Poor Julia.”  Then to the bartender: “This young lady needs another drink.”

Two more Manhattans later I am very woozy and Dan takes me home to the cottage.

Chapter Seven

Monday evening Austen calls.  It wasn’t goodbye after all.  He wants to go to lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf on Wednesday.  Eat with the tourists.  I tell him I can’t.  Wednesdays are too busy.  He suggests breakfast on Wednesday instead.

“I know a bakery we can go to.  It’s like Paris.  No, Italy.  No
—Paris.  We can have breakfast in Paris, Julia.”

“You’ve been to Europe?”  He didn’t mention anything about that in Twenty Questions
, but I guess I didn’t ask either.

“Y
ep. So, I’ll pick you up at 7:30?”

“Okay.”

It is foggy and cold as usual on Wednesday morning so warm clothes are in order even though it is the middle of summer.  I decide to wear my short black skirt, black tights, a pale blue sweater and my salt-and-pepper suit jacket.  I dig out a pink beret from the back of my closet and slip it on my head.  It makes me look French, I think.  He thinks so, too.

“So I am having breakfast with a French girl this morning, am I?”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes.”  We smile at each other
and time stops for a moment. Then he runs a finger down my cheek to my chin and says: “You look a lot like Leslie Caron.  Same shape face.  Same mouth.  Your eyes are different, though.”

No one has ever told me that I look like her
.  She’s a very pretty actress and dancer, very gamine and very French.  She starred in
An American in Paris
, one of my favorite movies of all time.  And Austen thinks I look like her.  That makes me feel good.

At the bakery he orders two café au laits
from the man in a white apron standing behind the glass fronted display case filled with breads and pastries.

“Two croissants, too,” he adds.

We carry them over to a narrow wooden counter that is attached across the front windows of the bakery. No seats.  We have to stand. On the sidewalk in front of us a businessman in a suit passes by gripping his briefcase. A secretary in a poufy hairdo, a green dress, and high heels rushes uphill.  An old man in a baggie brown jacket—he must be Italian in this neighborhood— shuffles along.

“In Paris this is how everyone starts their day.  Go to a bar or bakery, order a shot of espresso, down you
r caffeine fix, and head off to work.  Croissants are optional.”

“When were you in Paris?”

“In ’61.”

“Were you travelling around, seeing the sights?”

I take a bite of the croissant.  It is meltingly good.

“No.  I was in the army, stationed in Germany.  I’d travel around when I had leave.  I spent s
ome time in Paris, listened to French music—Edith Piaf.  Django Reinhardt.

“Who’s D
jango Rein—“I stumble over the name.

“Django Reinhardt.  He was a gypsy guitar player who recorded with Duke Ellington.  He was the first to play an electric guitar, back in the ‘40s.
But I’ll take Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters over them any day.”

“I don’t know who they are either.”

“I’ll play their records for you one day.  They’re where rock ‘n’ roll came from.  Totally American.  A couple of those English bands have ripped them off.”

“You know, you are full of surprises,” I say. “You’re not like the image of the typical rock musician.”

“And what is that?”  He smiles, amused.

“Rowdy. Obnoxious.
Drunk half the time. Jumping in and out of bed with a series of airhead groupies.”

“Sounds like Tommy,” he laughs, then adds:  “You’re not quite what I expected either, Julia. 
Surprises for both of us, I guess.”

I look up at the big round clock on the
bakery’s wall.

“Austen
, I think we better leave.  I don’t want to be late.”

He pulls the Mustang to the curb in front of the
Voices
office.  He seems to find parking right where we are going.  It must be some sort of rock star good parking karma.

“Thank you for breakfast.  That was fun.”

He reaches over and pulls my face toward him and kisses me on the lips, softly.

“Enjoy your day,
Julia.”

* * *

No mention of ‘truth or dare’ this morning at breakfast.  That’s a relief, but I can’t allow myself to think about it, about him, about that kiss. It was so soft and gentle. I have also given up trying to explain to myself why I am so attracted to him.  I simply am. Maybe it was written in the stars or something.

Right now
I have too much work to do. I am bent over the drawing board when Dan calls me over.  He, David and a guy from display advertising have been looking at something.  Dan hands me a cartoon.  It appears very roughly drawn and, most striking of all, the woman has enormous breasts.

“You’re our test
Market.  Females 18-30,” says Dale, the ad sales guy.

“I thought it was 18-49
?”

“Oh, we don’t trust anyone over 30,” he chortles.

I roll my eyes at him and shake my head.

“What do you think about it?”  Dan asks with a slight smile on his face.
  David is watching me, too.

“It sure isn’t Blondie and Dagwood.  Who does it?”

“A guy named Robert Crumb.  Zap Comix.”

“
Well…if you want my Test Market reaction—I think I’m going to join the National Organization of Women, buy a T-shirt that reads ‘Women Rule” and start wearing it to the office.”  I smile at them. “But it is funny.”

“Then I guess we’re going to help the National Organization of Women increase their membership.
” Dan says.  “It’s going to run on the first inside right hand page.”

Dale
sniggers: “That t-shirt would be better if it read ‘Women on Top.’

“
Oh, puleeze,” I shake my head and frown at him, then ask David:  “I don’t think I’ve seen anything in
Voices
about women’s topics.  Do we cover them?”

“There are new magazines
about women’s lib springing up from coast to coast.  If there is a demonstration or a boycott here we will cover it as local news.  Arts, culture and local news—that’s our beat.”

* * *

“Would you like to go to the Fillmore on Saturday?  The Grateful Dead are playing.  We can have dinner before.”  Austen call
s, again on Monday.  Most guys call on Wednesday or Thursday, but Monday seems to be his choice. For a moment I wonder why, but it doesn’t really seem important enough to think about.

On Saturday, Ali decides she is going to choose my clothes.
Since we moved here she is becoming more California golden girl than Seattle Swedish lass and, on top of that, even more of a fashion fiend than she was before.

“If you’re going to date a rock musician, you might as well look the part.  Although why you are going out with him…”  She shakes her head.
  “What you really need is someone else more normal.”

“Ali
, I like him.  He’s interesting.  And you know I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.
I won’t talk about it.  So let’s get started.  This should be fun.”

She
pulls the long black skirt from India out of my closet.  The one with the tiny bells.  Then she hands me a black knit top of hers that is really low cut and tells me to put it on.

“I can’t wear this,” I say
, looking in the mirror.  “My boobs show.  I’m practically falling out of it.”

“
Wait. Wait.  I’m not finished.  Here,” she says drawing a long scarf from the closet.  “Wear this scarf around your neck but don’t tie it.  Just let it flow down your front.  It will cover you and give you a romantic middle-ages look.  Like Guinevere or some other woman from Camelot.”

The scarf is dark green silk and
whisper thin.  She adds two thin silver bracelets and a pair of dangling silver earrings. Next comes a luxurious dark forest green sweater coat from her closet—another treasure with a famous label inside she found at our favorite thrift store.  It only cost three dollars.

“
Be sure to put tights on under that skirt or you will freeze” she orders.  “It’s always so cold here.  Now—a little black eyeliner and pale lipstick.  Not too much.”

She stands back
, looks at me and smiles:  “The perfect rock ‘n’ roll girlfriend.”

Austen seems to think so, too.
He is in full rock star regalia:  a black suede leather jacket with fringes on the sleeves, black leather pants—very sexy—and dark red cowboy boots.  As we walk to his car he puts his arm around my shoulders and murmurs: “You look good enough to eat, but I think we’ll have steaks for dinner.”

The restaurant
is on a narrow street near Coit Tower above North Beach. Some of the customers—stuffy businessmen in suits and their wives in cocktail dresses—gawk at us when we enter. The Maitre‘d doesn’t blink an eye, but immediately seats Mr. Raneley and his guest at one of the best tables.  A heavy white linen tablecloth and napkins are on the table, the silverware gleams, the wine glasses sparkle in the muted light.  From the bar at the back I hear soft jazz music.

“The view from here is great,” he says. 
We can see Oakland and the Bay Bridge through the window next to our table.  “No fog tonight either.  God, I am really tired of the fog here.  It closes in on that house on Lake by 4 o’clock every day.”

He orders steaks for us and red wine.
  This restaurant has the best steaks in the city he tells me.

“So how did you and your roommate end up living on a houseboat?”

The waiter comes with the bottle of wine and pours a small amount in the wine glass.  Austen tastes it and nods his head.  The waiter pours wine for both of us and leaves the opened bottle on the table.

“It was our first
break from the expected. That sounds weird. It’s a little complicated to explain.”

“I’m listening.
”

“Ali and I met in a coffeehouse in Seattle.  We were both
sitting there, reading Kerouac’s
On the Road
.  We introduced ourselves and when we began to talk about it, we realized we both had the same reaction: life could be more than what our parents and everyone else expected our lives to be. We wanted lives that were different. Nothing as crazy as running off and becoming a drugged-out hippie. Those people never bathe—repulsive.  And begging on street corners…”  I shake my head.  “Anyway, what we decided to do was to rent a houseboat.  Both our parents were shocked.  The houseboats have reputations as kind of rough, down-and-out communities, but we lived in one along Fairview and the people were very nice.  It was a lot of fun.”

“And the canoe came with the place?”

“No, we borrowed the canoe from a neighbor who didn’t use it often. We went canoeing almost every weekend the weather was nice and met a lot of people in the sailing and boating world.  I miss it sometimes.  Then back in January Ali and I decided we just had to move to California. So we did.”

“And moved into that cottage
?”

“Yeah, I guess it is
like the houseboat in a way—a little green cottage afloat in a sea of cream color apartment buildings.   It’s definitely not the kind of place where most people would like to live. Especially with that wild interior. But I’m so glad we decided to leave Seattle.  So much more to do here, so much that’s new.  And people here have a different outlook on life.”

“Like me?”  He smiles
that honey smile.

“Yes.  You
…and other people.  Although I met you in Seattle…”

During dinner he tells me that he and John have almost finished all the songs for their new album.
  They will start rehearsing and recording soon.  Then we talk about other things.  The steak is delicious.

* * *

Good rock star parking karma, again, outside the Fillmore.  He takes my hand and grins: “Ready to rock and roll, baby?”

We walk past the line waiting outside.  The guy at the door opens it for us.  “Hi, Austen.”

“Hi.  Is Bill here?”

The guy nods his head.

T
hen we walk in like he owns the place.

The noise is deafening.  The Grateful Dead is going full blast on the stage.  Strobe lights flash and glare in a light show
that bounces across the crowd and around the walls and ceiling. People are dancing, swaying to the music.  Smoke fills the air and it doesn’t smell like tobacco.

We stand and watch for a minute.
His arm is around my shoulder. Some people nearby notice him and start whispering to each other.

“Do you like the Grateful Dead?”

“They’re good, but I think I have a new favorite band, these days,” I answer, looking up at him.