With Child (13 page)

"Does she know you're on leave?"

"She doesn't know anything. I didn't tell her about the shooting, or that I got hurt. I didn't want to worry her, and once I got out of the hospital, it didn't really seem like something I could put in a letter, somehow. She did say she was sorry not to make it to your wedding, that she's writing you and sending you a present."

"Are you two about to break up?" he asked bluntly.

"Jesus, Al, you do ask some good ones, don't you? I don't know. I just don't know anymore. I don't even know if I care. I haven't even talked to her in four months, just these stupid cards of hers. But there won't be any scenes, if that's what you're worried about. I wouldn't take Jules into that. I really haven't made up my mind one way or another. I just wrote and told Lee that I'd leave a message at the post office by the twenty-third if I decided to come - but if we do, it'd just be for the day, or maybe overnight, depending on the ferry schedule, but then we'd leave and go do something else. Does Jules ski?"

"Better than I do. Which isn't saying much, I admit."

"Maybe we could go to Rainier or Hood, then. If Jani approves."

"I'll talk to her, but I doubt she'll have any problems with it. Do you want the car?"

"I'm going to take the Saab off its blocks. And if driving turns out to be a problem, we'll come home. I'm not going to risk passing out or anything while I'm driving Jules. You know that, Al. I'd never put Jules into danger."

Al talked to Jani, Jani talked to Kate, Kate talked to Al again, and after that, she called the car insurance company, and finally went downstairs to see if she could get the Saab down from its blocks and running.

Half the department seemed to be in the church, from the brass to the foot patrols, contrasting oddly with the ethereal academics Jani had invited. It was an afternoon affair with an informal potluck-style meal afterward in the church hall, when the motley friends rubbed shoulders and piled their rented plates high with dishes ranging from tamale pie and Jell-O salad to spanakopita, vegetarian spring rolls, and hummus.

But the real surprise of the day was not the sweet, honest innocence of the ceremony, nor seeing an SFPD lieutenant talking football with a Chinese professor of mathematics and a black lecturer in women's studies, nor even the quartet of two cops, a graduate student in history, and a technical writer singing dirty rugby songs. The real shock was the newlywed couple's daughter: Jules had a new image. With a vengeance.

Her waist-length braids were gone overnight. In their place stood a cropped black bristle nearly as short as Kate's, with a longer mop on the top held in place with a thick application of gel. Her makeup, though admirably restrained, added five years to her age, and the short jacket, short skirt, and short heels she wore made it equally apparent that this was not a child, but a young woman. Jani could barely bring herself to look at her daughter, merely shooting agonized glances at her from time to time, but Al seemed for the most part amused, even proud, at the transformation. The younger males present were attentive; Jules was aware of them, as well.

When the wine had begun to flow and the conversations flourish, Kate found herself standing next to Al over a platter of barbecued chicken wings. He was looking over to the other side of the room, where Jules in all her self-conscious punk splendor was talking animatedly with her new stepbrother, Sean, a serious, handsome young man a head taller than his father. Kate leaned over to speak in her partner's ear. "Quite a family you've got there, Al."

"Isn't Jules something else? The fledgling takes on her adult plumage. God, I thought Jani was going to die when Jules came home looking like that on Friday. She'll settle down."

"Jules? Or Jani?"

"Both."

The noise in the hall rose higher, and Kate escaped for an hour, to sit in the Saab under the shade of a tree and drift in and out of sleep. When she felt restored, she went back into the hall, to find that an impromptu dance had started up in one corner with a portable tape player. She found a chair in a corner, talked to various colleagues, then Jani, and then Al's daughter, until eventually the tables of food had been reduced to a shambles of scraps and crumbs, the new couple fled out the door, suddenly realizing that they were going to be late for their plane, and the life began to seep out of the party. Jules, flushed with exuberance and reluctant to let go of her triumphal entry into maturity, eventually remembered the shaky state of her guardian and pulled herself away from the nineteen-year-old premed student she was dancing with. Kate drove first to the Cameron apartment so Jules could fetch the bags she had packed earlier and to empty the refrigerator, and then to the house on Russian Hill. They stayed the night in San Francisco, and on Monday morning, they emptied Kate's refrigerator, as well.

After that, the girls were on the road.

Fragments of conversation from the road north:

"Oh hell. I don't think I turned off the coffeemaker."

"You did."

"You're sure?"

"Positive. And you locked the back door and turned off the oven and checked that the upstairs toilet wasn't running."

"Thank God for your brain, girl. So, I thought we'd stop in Berkeley on the way. I need a raincoat and there's a good outdoor store there."

"I wonder if they have boots."

"I wasn't going to say anything, but those shoes you're wearing aren't going to do it. Athletic shoes are great for California, but the rest of the world is a little tougher."

"It'll be wet up there, won't it? And we may be in the snow."

"Count on it."

"God, Kate, this is going to be so great. I love snow."

"Let's look at boots, then. Or heavier shoes, anyway. And we'll stop in Sacramento tonight, to get your school project out of the way."

"You sure you don't mind?"

"Not at all. The last time I went to the capitol building was when I was your age. I wonder if it's changed."

"You don't think I should have gotten those heavier boots?"

"These will be much more useful. And they really are waterproof."

"I like your hat."

"At least this one doesn't itch."

"What a boring thing it must be, to be a state legislator."

"One more career option to cross off your list, eh?"

"I'd rather teach kindergarten, or be a garbage collector. Or a cop."

"Thanks a lot."

"No offense."

"Is anything wrong, Jules?"

"No. Not at all. Why?"

"I thought you were going to fall out the window looking at those soldiers, and they weren't even very cute."

"I wasn't looking at them. I mean, I was, but not at them in particular. I was just thinking the other day that I didn't really know any soldiers; I don't know anything about them. When you were growing up, you must have had a lot of friends who went to Vietnam."

"I was a little young. I had a friend whose older brother was killed over there, but that was before I knew her. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know, just curious. Wearing camouflage clothes in a city seems kind of... incongruous, I suppose. And having to keep their hair so short, and wear those heavy boots and... well, the dog tags."

"Dog tags."

"Yes, the identification tags they wear."

"I know what dog tags are. Why are you so interested in dog tags?"

"I'm not."

"You sound like you are."

"They're just kind of strange, that's all."

"How so?"

"Well, what do they do with them when a soldier dies? And could they be faked? How can you check up to see if the number is real? Do they keep records?"

"Um, yes, they certainly do. The Veterans Administration could tell you about that, although they have to preserve confidentiality. I suppose a set of dog tags could be faked - they're only pieces of metal - although the number would have to be backed up by actual identification - for example, if the vet were trying to apply for benefits. They're not like a driver's license. And as for what they do with them, I've always assumed they send them to the next of kin. Why are you interested?"

"I just am, all right? Can't a person be curious? God, you sound like a cop."

"I am a cop, for heaven's sake."

"Yeah, well, don't act like one all the time, okay?"

"Sorry," Kate said to the back of Jules's head.

"Why did you become a cop, Kate?" This time, they were not in the car, but in a pizza parlor near their motel north of Sacramento.

"I thought I could do some good. And I guess... I don't know, I suppose the tight structure of it appealed to me. It does to a lot of the people who join the police. You know where you stand, and who stands with you. At first, anyway; it gets more complicated as time goes on."

"Sounds like a family."

"It is, a bit. Tight-knit and squabbling."

"It's my word for the day."

"What is,
family
?"

"You sound surprised."

"Most of your words for the day are more complicated than that."

"I'm beginning to think that some of the most basic words are the most difficult. You know what
family
comes from? The Latin
famulus
, which means "servant." It meant all the relations and servants who lived together under one roof. In my dictionary, it's only the fifth definition that gets around to describing a family as two adults and their kids."

"Really?"

"Yes. Which would make you and Lee and Jon a family. When you're all together, I mean."

"That's a terrifying thought, being related to Jon."

"Ashley Montague says that the mother and child constitute the basic family unit."

"Well, I'm safe, then. You want that last piece?"

"Can I have the pepperoni off the top?"

"Sure."

"Dio's family sounds pretty awful, doesn't it?"

"Has he told you anything about them?"

"Just little things, here and there. It's what he doesn't say that makes me think it was pretty bad."

"You're probably right."

"You must see a lot of that kind of thing."

"Too much."

"Why do parents do that to their kids - ignore them and hurt them and push them out?"

"A lot of them never learned how to be parents. Their own parents abused them, so they never learned the skills, and never had the self-confidence to make their own way."

"Sounds like those experiments on animals, when they take baby monkeys away from their mothers. It's so sad."

"It is. But it doesn't excuse them."

"It explains them."

"To some degree."

"Yes."

"What is your father like?" Jules asked.

"My dad? Oh, he's been dead for ten, eleven years now. He was a good man, honest, hardworking. He ran a store that sold fresh fish and seafood. My grandfather - his father - had a fishing boat out of San Diego, and Dad had all sorts of cousins and uncles who let him have the pick of their catch."

"He sounds... well, ordinary."

"He was, I suppose. What they call 'the salt of the earth.' "

"I wonder what that means? I'll have to look it up when I get home." She took out a slim book with a sunflower on the cover and made a note.

"Do you write everything in your diary?" Kate asked.

"I write a lot. My words for the day, things to remember, ideas."

"Not so much daily happenings?"

"Sometimes, if I think they're the kinds of things that will interest me in ten years."

"Ten years, huh?"

"Did you keep a diary?"

"For a while. Just daily things - who did what to whom, tests, teachers. Dull stuff."

"I like keeping a diary. It helps me think about things."

"What kind of things?"

"Just... things."

"You want me to put on a tape?" Jules offered.

"Sure."

"You have some great music, but some of these people I've never heard of. Who's Bessie Smith?"

"Old-time blues, real old-time."

"Janis Joplin I know; Al has a couple of her tapes. She's incredible."

"The woman sings straight from her - she sings with feeling."

"What were you going to say?"

"A word your mother wouldn't want me to use. I'm afraid I'm not a good influence on you, Jules."

"I know all the words."

"I'm sure you do. And their derivation from the original Anglo-Saxon, no doubt."

"I'm sorry. I must've been showing off again."

"Showing off? Hell no, I get a kick out of the sorts of things you know."

There was a brief silence as Jules went through a shoe box full of cassettes.

"Do you want k.d. lang or Bessie Smith?"

"Bessie Smith is a little hard on the ears. Put on k.d."

"She's supposed to be gay, isn't she?" Jules slid the tape into the player and adjusted the volume.

"So I heard."

"Did you know you were gay, when you were a kid?"

"No."

"Sorry. Do you mind talking about it?"

"No, not really."

"Meaning you do."

"Meaning I don't. What did you want to know?"

"Just if someone always knows their orientation."

"Some part of you knows from the beginning. Lee knew from the time she was eight or ten. I was in denial for years."

"Until you met Lee?"

"Until long after I met her."

"Did your family think she had made you into a lesbian?"

"Good heavens. How did you guess that?"

"It was in a story I read one time. Actually, being gay or straight seems to be inborn, doesn't it?"

"About the same percentage of the population is born gay as is born left-handed. Left-handedness used to be seen as a moral flaw, too."

"Are you serious?"

"The word
sinister
refers to the left hand."

"God, you're right."

"And you can force a leftie to write with the right hand, just as you can force a lesbian to act straight. With much the same damage to their psyche."

"Do you think I might be a lesbian?"

"Frankly, no. Do you?"

Jules sighed. "I'm afraid not."

Kate began to laugh. "Being straight is nothing to mourn over, Jules."

"I know, but I always wanted to be left-handed."

"Are you sorry you didn't go to Mexico with your mom and Al?"

"No. Not at all."

"You just seem distracted."

"Tired, I guess. It's been a really busy fall term."

"You're sure that's all?"

"Yes."

"Jules, why did you cut your hair off?"

"I just wanted a change."

"You sure it wasn't out of solidarity with my bald head?"

"No. I think I cut it because my mother didn't want me to." Silence followed this admission. Then she said, "Guess it's kind of a stupid reason."

"Hey, if you can't use that reason when you're thirteen, when can you?"

"Oh well. It'll always grow back."