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Foreign Places

CAROL HUEBNER

AuthorHouse™ 1663 Liberty Drive Bloomington, IN 47403 www.authorhouse.com Phone: 1 (800) 839-8640

© 2019 Carol Huebner. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/30/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3459-2 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-7283-3458-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover design by David Huebner Cover background: Retro Vancouver Travel Poster, Marlene Watson-Hall, artist

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Vancouver Hotel—Spring 1957

Chapter 2 Boarding School—Spring 1957

Chapter 3 The Duplex—Summer 1957

Chapter 4 A Company House—Fall 1957

Chapter 5 Huron House—1957

Chapter 6 The Queen—1958

Chapter 7 The Resort—1959

Chapter 8 The Vancouver Club—1959

Chapter 9 Across The Border

Chapter 10 A Best Friend—1959

Chapter 11 Acting—1959

Chapter 12 Becoming A Lady—1958

Chapter 13 A Business Trip—1959

Chapter 14 Transferred Back—1960

This book is being published posthumously and is dedicated to the author, Carol Huebner. Without her years of dedication to writing, the lives of all who knew and loved her would be even more empty and at a loss. Thank you Carol!

CHAPTER ONE

THE VANCOUVER HOTEL—SPRING 1957

A s a family we never travel happily, but we go fast. From California to British Columbia in seventy hours, cramped in an old station wagon, we’re either fussy or silent. Because I’m ten, three years younger than my brother Todd, and, he’d say, since I’m only a girl, I’ve got to be stupid, hardly worth his time. Todd and I don’t say much on the trip, except to whine at each other every so often. We have a few personal things lying around the back seat, and we can pick at those. But up in the front seat, I can hear that Mother doesn’t like the way Dad’s driving, so she nags a lot. And Dad, looking really pale and tired, gets a little mad about the motels and restaurants she picks out for us—since she doesn’t know how to drive. He thinks they’re way too expensive and he’d rather not stop at all, so we sleep only a few hours in a couple of dusty dumps, and we eat hamburgers and fries twice a day. “We made good time, anyway,” Dad announces, sort of triumphant, as we pull up to the curb outside the Vancouver Hotel. “No thanks to any of you.” “Now, Robert,” Mother says, and she swings her legs out of the car as a uniformed man hurries forward. Dad, Todd and I back up, rumpled and dazed, and stand by the huge glass doors of the hotel. Suddenly, I feel shy and embarrassed by our stuff. Back in California, we’d used twine to tie up suitcases that had broken latches, and we’d left things hanging out which should have been private: elastic from my underpants, Todd’s dirty shoe lace, a suitcase pocket stained with red nail polish. That shabby stuff looked all right when we left, but we hadn’t pictured arrival at some snazzy hotel. Mother’s different. Planted near our dusty car, she bosses the old man who’s

struggling with our luggage. “Porter, be careful of that box. A shoe is slipping—could you catch that? Better watch the curb there! That’s fine, fine. You about have it all now.” Mother acts as though she deserves all this, as though moving into a hotel in an unfamiliar city in a different country is something she does every day. Dad pats his left rear pocket, where his wallet is, perhaps figuring how much tip he ought to give this man. Finally, the last box and loose pile of shoes are loaded onto the metal carrier, and Dad steps forward to press a bill into the porter’s hand. Mother smiles. You see, she seems to be saying as she whooshes her wrinkled skirt through the revolving door, we do belong. The hotel has given us a bunch of rooms connected by a hallway. Walls are covered with furry green paper and the tall windows have green velvet curtains tied back with shiny cords. I have my own closet, my own bathroom. A room to myself is a relief after being cramped up for three days in a back seat with my brother. A man stacks the luggage the way Mother tells him, piling my boxes neatly below the windows near my bed. “Look “oot” there, missy,” he smiles at me. Startled, I stare back at him, but he again jabs one hairy hand toward the window, and I walk over. “Look “oot”, he repeats. “Pretty, ay?” Whatever he said, the view is pretty. Five stories down are a few heads, a few cars, some buildings, and the edge of a small park, deep green and quiet. “That’s a Mountie. Have you ever seen a Mountie before?” I look down at the red coat riding a horse on the park’s path. Someone sitting on a bench waves at the horse and rider, and the Mountie moves his gloved hand, just a bit. “Only on radio.” The porter’s bushy eyebrows shoot up. “Radio?”

“Yeah, Sergeant Preston.” He bends closer, waiting for me to explain. “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon,” I offer cheerfully. “Don’t you get that program here?” The porter straightens, brows meeting above his nose, and turns to his cart. Touching his hat, he says, “Good evening, missy,” and pushes the cart out of my room. Cheeks burning, I turn back to the window. Mother had assured me that Canadians speak English, but the baggage man had said “ay” and “oot,” and a customs officer had referred to Wed-nes-day. That’s English, I guess, but it’s not Californian. And the man made me feel funny about Sergeant Preston, but I don’t know why. This is a long way from home, from our redwood and glass house on a hill north of San Francisco. Those sidewalks down there aren’t trails, the concrete isn’t yellow grass. There couldn’t be a single lizard or gopher snake hiding in the shade. But here we are, three weeks before the end of my sixth grade, moving to Canada because of Dad’s promotion. Somewhere in the pile of boxes is my clock with the ballerina who twirls when the alarm goes off. Seeing the tiny ballerina in her stiff white tutu next to the bed would make me feel everything’s okay in this place. But I that she’s packed in the moving van, so I lean against the bedspread and slide to the floor, feeling rotten. “Karen,” Mother calls, “you’d better dress for dinner!” She appears in the doorway, buttoning something blue. “Where—oh, there you are! Don’t sit on the floor, dear.” She’s never told me that before. There must be new rules for life in Canada. “Whatdya mean, dress for dinner?” I ask. She lowers her head so that her chin almost touches her shoulder, and squints her

eyes slightly. This means she’s trying not to be mad. This means she understands better than I do. This means I’m being dumb. “Church clothes, Karen. Something nice.” I remain sitting on the floor. I’m having trouble thinking of church, a place we hardly ever go. Mother walks to the closet, sliding hangers with the flat of her hand. I want to remind her that most of my clothes are still folded in suitcases or scrunched in cartons. I want to ask her if we packed my clock in the car. Instead, I stand by the bed and wait, iring her. I feel sticky and I know my breath smells bad, but who’d ever know that she’s just climbed out of a car driven practically non-stop from miles away? Someone might notice the place on her head where the curls are flat from sleeping against the back of the seat. But she always acts as though she knows exactly what to do. Where does that come from? When will it come to me? Eventually, she selects a slightly wrinkled pink and white dress with black ribbons around the sleeves and waist—“Kate Greenway dresses are always suitable,” Mother assures me as she holds it toward me. Later, I’m pleased with how we must look to the elevator operator. My parents are standing tall and proper. Todd’s wearing slacks and a tie over a rumpled shirt, hiding, I happen to know, dirty underwear. Once inside the elevator, my father says “Mezzanine” and we stand silently, my parents watching the dial above the door as the operator pushes a black handle with white gloves. Todd stares at their backs, but Mother begins to read the French signs hanging below the English, making French sound full of sh’s. As we enter the hotel restaurant, a man in a tuxedo—“That’s a maitre d’, Karen”— bows slightly and waves us toward a table near the kitchen, sliding out Mother’s chair with a flourish. She smiles, shakes her napkin onto her lap and cups one hand around a glass filled with water. Our table is covered by linen, and shiny glass lights hang above our heads. Mother tips her head toward the sound of some violins on the other side of the room. “Such a grand old hotel, don’t you think, Todd? Could the two of you sit a little straighter?”

Todd and I glance at each other, and I sit up. He remains low in his chair. Dad orders for us—“All it is is hamburger with a fancy price,” he mutters to Mother who looks away quickly—and we around the silver platter of rolls. “Use your butter knife, dear,” Mother says calmly to Todd, but he ignores her. I can see what’s happening. She expects her son to talk to her about the music, certainly not lick butter off his knife. In this place, her children should at least be on the edge of proper. But my brother refuses. His first sports coat hangs loosely from bony shoulders, and he slouches and butters his roll with such wide strokes that his knuckles are smeared with yellow. We can both see that he’s disappointing Mother, but we’ve never eaten in a fancy place before, and I think Todd’s trying to show our parents that they can’t count on him. Whatever plans they have for this new life shouldn’t depend on him. He didn’t want to leave California, he doesn’t like the idea of going to a snooty school, his new clothes are too new-looking and his father too weird. This whole move was definitely not his idea. Todd and I watch his hands turn yellow and say nothing.

Mother comes in to smooth the bedspread with her fingers and talk quietly. “Your interview with the head of Lee House School for Girls is tomorrow. Miss McQuinton is her name. I’m sure she’ll accept you, so I think by the end of the week, you should be boarding.” I nod, pretending to be calm. “What will you and Dad do?” Mother glances toward her bedroom. “Well, your father has his job, of course. He has to start as soon as possible. And I’ll be busy with the company house, getting it ready for you. In three weeks, when you’re out of school, we’ll move to some nice place for the summer, and by the time school starts this fall, we’ll be snug in our beautiful new home!” “What’s a company house?” “Something owned by the company, not by us, but we’ll make it ours. No one

need ever know we didn’t pay for it.” “Why’s it empty?” Mother pats my hand. “Just waiting for us. And imagine—your father receives full redecorating expenses! How thrilling!” I can’t picture the new house or what redecorating is. I think that furniture is simply stuff which takes up space, only rarely being purchased with excitement, such as three years ago when we bought a big brown box with a tiny screen to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. And I don’t my parents fixing up any other house, so I can’t share Mother’s excitement at not having to do it this time. Whatever redecoration is, though, it doesn’t include kids. “Why can’t we just move in and set up our own stuff?” “It will become our own, Karen,” Mother answers. “Experts will help us choose, but then it’s as much ours as if Dad and I had picked it out ourselves.” In the dim light of the fancy room, Mother continues brightly. “When we finally move in, everything will be finished and so lovely. And,” she adds, “you’ll make friends during this last month of school. That way, next fall won’t be difficult.” “Todd doesn’t like having to board at a military academy.” “We have no choice,” Mother says, her tone changing abruptly. “Vancouver doesn’t seem to have neighborhood public schools and anyway, St. Michael’s is the best place we’ve heard about. This will be a good experience, lots of drills and rules.” She pats my hand again. “It will probably do your brother a world of good.” What good Todd needs, I don’t know. He has never liked school or had many friends, but other than getting bad grades and, lately, talking back, he hasn’t been in trouble. He simply likes to be left alone. When he’s sick during the night, there’s a light under his door, but he doesn’t ask for help the way I do. I want my mother to comfort me, rub my back, hand me a washcloth. Todd sits up alone, leafing through the pages of “Life” magazine. He doesn’t bother me much, since I have jacks and books, but he makes Mother mad. She wants to reach him more

than I do. Mother taps the gold nugget ring on my right hand. “Be brave. Imagine that a narrow thread connects your ring with mine—” she holds up her right hand which has a similar ring. “We’re never really apart. In no time at all, we’ll be together as a family.” I nod and kiss her goodnight. In the darkness of the room, I lie awake, rubbing my ring and imagining end-ofschool excitement. I’ll be part of a group: boarding school. For me, boarding school is a place in England where girls have wild adventures, followed by conversations lasting into the dark. Despite arguments, they are fiercely loyal, their friendships lasting throughout their lives. They sneak out of grim buildings into rain, fog, even snow, only pretending to be well-bred young ladies. And they celebrate everything, even if the ceremony is by candlelight with cold tea. I’ll gladly enter into the adventures, but I’m determined to be a bit mysterious, always good-natured, but mysterious. That’s because of a “Princess” series I’ve been reading. Each book is about an orphan who knows her true royal identity, but hides her background in order to fit in. These heroines are irable: shy, sweet, fascinating. As a newcomer from out of the country, I should be able to be fascinating, and these new girls don’t need to know that I’ve never been very popular.

Mother and I take a streetcar to Eaton’s Department Store. The streets seem very clean and everyone bows slightly. Eaton’s reminds me of Macy’s in San Francisco: long counters, dark wood, tubes sucking the money, all of the clerks old women who speak softly. To wear at my issions interview, Mother buys me a pale blue wool coat with matching gloves, purse and beret. Anxiously, I turn in front of a long mirror. Will I see a new person, a girl with a faint, Mona Lisa smile? No. There I am, not a princess but the usual me: newly permed hair balancing a beret, gap between my front teeth, round face with a tiny nose, faded sleeveless blouse and ripped cotton skirt covered by a stiff blue coat, my right hand

clutching the middle button so that the shiny purse doesn’t fall from my arm. No dimples, no chest. “Why do I need a new coat, anyway?” I ask, disappointed that I can recognize me. Mother tugs on the collar. “You can’t go wrong buying a good coat. that beautiful linen cape you had when you were small, the one with red lining? And you wore a sailor hat with a long ribbon. Just like Madeline in the story! You looked so precious! The photographer took special care with your photo on Santa’s lap. ?” I that the photo showed my underpants, so I didn’t like it. “When you pack for any trip,” Mother continues, “you should check most carefully your collection of coats: rain, warm, party, church. A good, black coat can double for warm and church. The best thing about a coat,” she adds, lowering her voice, “is that it can mask any number of inadequacies underneath.” Then she smiles brightly and spins me to face the mirror again. Well, I may look like Mother’s idea of an applicant to a British-style private school, but the mirror doesn’t show the fascinating, mysterious girl I was hoping to see. It’s discouraging to be so ready to change but have nothing new show outside.

As I climb the stairs to the Heistress’ office, dressed in my new blue coat, I hear girls giggling below the staircase. Even though they’ve never seen me before, they must know immediately that I’m a fake. In the books, the princess was royal, pretending to be common. I’m the reverse. I walk into the office trying to hide behind my mother. The Heistress, a gray-haired woman with an enormous chest, sits behind an antique desk in front of a picture of the Queen. Someone had told me once that Queen Elizabeth’s curls make the face of a devil, and I keep squinting above Miss McQuinton’s head, trying to block out the Queen’s face and see only her hair. Just as I’ve found a devil’s horns, Miss McQuinton looks up from the papers we’d mailed her.

“I see you skipped a grade, Karen. We discourage that here. Describe your sixth grade studies.” To my relief, Mother answers for me, explaining that my teacher felt I was weak in long division but otherwise, solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. I don’t quite know what that means, but I know it’s good. Miss McQuinton turns to me but doesn’t smile. “Could you wait outside my office for a moment, dear?” Standing at the top of the steps, I think about how people use the word “dear” without meaning anything affectionate. It’s simply a substitute for an actual name. How could such a nice word make me feel so bad? The door opens, and my mother, snapping shut her purse, smiles at me. “Did I make it?” I ask as we walk quickly toward the bus stop. “Of course, you did. No daughter of mine will be rejected.”

That evening, the four of us are again seated near the kitchen in the mezzanine restaurant. Todd has spent the afternoon with Dad at the military academy. “So you’re both accepted,” Mother says proudly as she flicks her linen napkin to the side and then pats it onto her lap. I glance at Todd, wondering if he’s happy, but he doesn’t say anything. Mother’s looking at Dad, but he seems distracted, drinking water and frowning toward the violins. The next morning he starts his new job. Maybe he’s thinking about that. “Dear?” Dad blinks at her and then at Todd and me, as though returning to where we are. “Sure, they’re accepted. They’re not scholarship kids, after all—” “Robert—” Mother warns.

He flushes and looks away from us. “Well, it’s all worked out. They’ll need to get uniforms tomorrow. That’ll cost me.” But he looks proud.

Eaton’s carries the uniforms required by both schools, and, because it’s so close to the end of the term, the clerk quickly helps us to decrease the numbers—not five dresses, only two, not four pairs of slacks, only one—so that Mother, Todd and I are soon climbing back on the street car, carrying tightly wrapped packages. We’ve even bought stacks of tags with our names printed by a steaming machine, and, once back in the hotel, I eagerly stitch labels on my clothes. I don’t know what my brother does. I ask Dad to show me how to tie a tie, since I’ll have to wear one as part of my uniform, and I spend time in front of his bathroom mirror, practicing. The next morning we climb into two cabs, Dad and Todd settling onto one back seat, saying nothing, Mother and I in another, waving and cheerful. I’m cheerful because I’m excited about trying again to be a mysterious princess. For Mother, it’s simply habit to chat with clerks, waiters, now this driver. We probably appear to be having a fun time. Our cab stops outside a brick hall that is covered with ivy. The driver hands me my suitcase, the best-looking one we could find. Mother pays him without removing her gloves, and we turn toward the Residence Hall. I climb the steps, trying to be dainty, but the suitcase frequently pulls me off-balance. I don’t turn around to watch Mother because she’s wearing a floppy-brimmed hat with big blue and red flowers pinned on the front, and she’s embarrassing. I wouldn’t want to be alone, but Mother’s not quite a comfort. The front door, which is dark wood, is opened by a white-haired woman who introduces herself as Miss Crake, the Residence Mistress. She shakes Mother’s hand and stares at her hat. Behind her, everything’s quiet. “You must leave your daughter here, Mrs. Smith. We cannot allow parents on the upper floors.” I gulp. This place doesn’t match my imagination.

“You’ll be fine, dear,” Mother says quietly, leaning over to kiss me. “ our thread.” I look away, a lump in my throat, and nod. Miss Crake raises her chin, frowning as she pushes up on her glasses, and reaches for the brass door handle. Mother smiles goodbye to both of us, and the floppy hat is gone.

1960

“Not much of a birthday, Karen. You shouldn’t have had to make your own cake.”” “It’s okay, Grandma. Anyway, I’m glad you came over.” “Woodacre’s not that far from San Francisco. And we had no choice if we wanted to see you. Your father isn’t driving much these days, is he?” “He’s mostly been sick—” “I can tell from looking at him. Your mother doesn’t look much better. The two of them slumped in that dark little hole. Call that a living room? I’d love to get in there, open the window, and give the place a good cleaning.” “It probably needs it.” “Darn right! By the way, I was going to show this at dinner, but I decided not to bother.” “The newspaper picture! Gosh, I haven’t seen this in ages!” “Was that your official welcome? Your father mailed it to us after you moved to Canada.” “It’s a picture of us in the back yard of the company house. Look at that. Mother and I on the only lawn chairs with Dad and Todd squatting behind us. I Dad was wobbling so much he even fell over once. It’s a good picture of him.” “He was a good-looking man, blond and cheerful. Not that awful color he is now with bags under his eyes. Elizabeth must have been happy.” “About the move? Didn’t Dad want it?” “Some, but she got him working for promotions ‘til he lost track of who he was.

You can see it in this picture. Hoity-toity, all that lace and her chest sticking out. Could hardly have much more hairspray. And why’s she poking her tongue between her teeth like that?” “Oh, Grandma. Except for Todd, we all look hoity-toity. He looks like a rock and roll star, doesn’t he? Like Ricky Nelson. Must be those lips and the curl on his forehead. Mother got mad at him for unbuttoning his shirt at the last minute.” “That sort of thing would upset her. You looked more like her then, Karen. Three years have made a change. You’re not so round anymore. Not so sweet-looking. But that’s all right. That’s growing up, leaving sweetness behind. You know, I’ve always spoken my mind. I have to tell you that the whole arrangement when you moved to Vancouver was lousy. Grandpa and I had to put off retiring to Arizona so we could move out to Woodacre. Take care of your barn of a place.” “But it’s a nice house, Grandma! Dad designed it!” “Ha! Not my type of place at all. And your father made us pay rent. You didn’t know that, I can tell from your face, but Bob made his own parents pay rent. Then he used that money from two old people to fix up a snazzy house in Canada just to please her! And what was it all for? Three years later he’s back and in shame.” “Not shame! He’s done a good job up there and the Head Office wants him back.” “Now you sound like your mother. Then why isn’t he happy about it? And his own son gone. What happened to your family up there?” “I don’t know. I guess we sort of…fell apart.” “Well, at least you’re back where you belong. Now listen to me, young lady. Stay put and make your own happiness. If those two could be real parents right now, that’s what they’d tell you. Did you hear me?” “Yeah.” “No one’ll help. Just make your own happiness.”

CHAPTER TWO

BOARDING SCHOOL—SPRING 1957

M iss Crake leads me up three flights of stairs, her wide hips swaying in front of my face. At the top of the second flight, we stop for a minute, holding onto the banister, and then we continue up to a room labeled “Infirmary.” “This is our only available bed, Karen,” she announces and opens the door. The room is white: white sheets, white bedspread, white sink, white walls and white curtains. I stand back. This is not what I’d imagined. Miss Crake puts my suitcase on a straight-backed, white chair near an empty bed and opens the rusted latch with difficulty. Stepping aside, she again pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and asks me to unpack my clothing I start with my nicest clothes: a dark blue wool dress with the new coat and beret. Squeezed into black pumps are new gloves. “What is this?” Miss Crake asks, shaking the blue dress. “That’s for church. I brought just the one, because—” “Lee House girls wear uniforms to church. The gloves will do, but do not hang up the hat and dress.” She turns the flat of her hand to block a small door, which must be the closet, and I swallow hard as I put my dress back in the suitcase. I hold up two uniforms and she nods, so then I open the closet that already holds a few uniforms. When I turn around, Miss Crake is walking toward the other bed, and I’m startled to see a lump there. “What’s the matter with you today, Ellen?”

A pale face with large eyes sticks out from beneath a sheet. The hair is curly in the front and the voice is high and whiny. “I just needed to rest a bit, Miss Crake. I think I may be getting that bronchitis Phoebe had.” “Not likely. You don’t leave your bed enough.” Miss Crake turns back to me. I don’t want to unpack my underwear in front of her, so instead I grab a paper bag containing what a saleslady had called ‘toiletries’. Glancing nervously at the mound and at Miss Crake, I pull out a new tube of Crest, an unopened box of tissues and an old red toothbrush that has dried toothpaste spit clogging the hole on the handle. I’ve never noticed that before, never tried to clean it out, but Miss Crake doesn’t say anything. Following her gesture, I put the toothbrush on the back of the toilet, nervous to see the brush tilt in a clean glass. When I come back to my bed, Miss Crake is holding up a pair of my socks. “Now look at this, young lady. Your pairs have only one nametag. Will they never need to be washed? Whatever were you thinking of?” I blush. It hadn’t occurred to me while I was sewing that socks are washed separately. “I think I brought some extra tags,” I offer with a little pride. “And a needle and thread?” “N-no, I guess not.” “No needle and thread.” She’s keeping a mental list and in the first column I don’t earn any points. Is she at least thinking that I’m mysterious? Not likely. By the time she’s shut the last drawer, stored my suitcase, shown me down the hall to the showers and the pay telephone where I may make one call a week, and tells me that, since classes are nearly over, I should wait in my room for the three dinner gongs, I’m frightened and the lump in my throat is hard. When I return to my room, Ellen is sitting on top of her bedspread, dressed in a nightgown, leaning sideways against a thin pillow. She watches as I sit carefully

on the white chair. “What’s your name?” she asks. “Karen.” “You’re new here, ay?” “What?” “New?” she repeats with some annoyance. “Yeah. I just moved from Marin County.” Ellen frowns. “Is that a place?” “Yeah, that’s where I lived in California.” Ellen leans back against her pillow. “I didn’t ask the county name, just where you’re from. I really don’t care anything about counties. California, ay?” “Yeah.” “United States.” “Yeah.” “Why did they put you in the Infirmary?” “The lady—” “Miss Crake, the Residence Mistress.” “Yeah. She said it’s the only bed.” Ellen turns her head toward the wall. “It’s the only available bed. That means it’s the only one not already assigned to someone else.” She closes her eyes and sits still.

Miss Crake had told me to change into a uniform, so I do, quickly in case Ellen opens her eyes. My new clothes—my uniform socks and shoes—are white, like the room, and as I sit waiting for three gongs, I wonder if I’m even visible. If Miss Crake were to open the door, would she look around the room and ask where I’d gone? Does anything of me show? The loud sound jerks me upright. It happens two more times, and I realize that this must be the dinner gong, so I hurry out my door. In the hall, girls dressed like me whisper and giggle quietly. They glance at me but no one comes over, so I follow the crowd until we reach the dining hall. Filing inside, they sit at tables in some order, and I stand back until Miss Crake grabs my elbow and steers me to the seat next to her. “Always stand for grace, Karen.” We bow our heads for a prayer that I can’t quite hear, and then doors bang open, older women pushing carts loaded with white bowls covered by metal lids. Following Miss Crake, I shake out my napkin onto my lap and wait for the food to arrive. “No, Karen,” Miss Crake says sternly, “ me the bowl with your far hand. Accept with the far hand. You always use the far hand.” I stop, my hands jerking until the metal lid falls with a clatter onto the dishes. Inside the bowl is something hot and smelly, something brown rolled in yellow leaves. Miss Crake quickly replaces the lid, and we practice ing the same bowl until she’s satisfied with my use of the far hand. “No,” Miss Crake says, pushing down on my fork, “you must not scoop food. You must learn to use your knife like so. Watch me, Karen. You may not eat until you do so correctly.” Other girls around the table whisper to one another as they sneak looks at me, and I can see that they use their knives the way Miss Crake wants me to, but it’s hard to stare at them. No one talks much, especially since Miss Crake wants to hear each girl at her table, and she s in the conversation. I can’t make my left hand hold the fork, and Miss Crake keeps stopping me, saying that I’m sloppy, so that by the time we rise from the table, I’ve barely tasted the brown wrapped in yellow.

“Karen,” Miss Crake says, reaching out to stop me. The other girls leave the hall. “Let us review what I have taught this evening. Stand for grace and for adults, transfer lidded bowls from receiving hand to ing hand, keep the knife in your right hand, fork in your left and your voice down at all times. Do you understand all that?” She pushes up on her glasses. “Yeah.” “’Yes, Miss Crake.’ Oh, and do you know the words to ‘God Save the Queen’? Probably no, coming from where you do. I’ll have one of the Prefects bring a copy to your room. Memorize the words before tomorrow. Since you have not yet attended class, you need not attend Study Hall, so please return to your room. Lights are out at eight.” Two hours. Ellen seems asleep, so I turn the chair toward the window and sit staring into the darkness, twisting my ring with its magic thread connecting me to Mother, to Lagunitas School, to dry hay fields and tether balls. Through trees I can see into the windows of a house across the street. A couple walks into the room and sits in two armchairs. She knits, he reads a book, but occasionally they look up and speak to one another. I lean forward, as though I could hear what makes them throw back their heads in laughter. By seven I’m in bed, lying on one side under the white sheet and gray blanket to watch these two people. I’ve decided that they’re happy, that she makes good dinners, that her name is Sue and his is Doug. She’s knitting him a sweater, and he’s reading a book of funny stories. They make me feel both better and lonelier, and I watch them until I fall asleep.

The next morning Ellen points across a winding path to the classrooms. “That’s the walkway, but please stay with me,” she pleads. “Don’t go to class. Just stay here.” “Well—but, don’t I—” “It’s okay to stay with a sick person.” I sink down on my bed, pleased that she wants me nearby and more than a little

confused by my class list anyway. Now I can put off finding the rooms. I try to sit so that I don’t wrinkle the bedspread. I’m proud of the tight corners, military corners, which my grandma taught me to make years ago. Ellen wants me to talk about Grandma. “Well, she married a Coast Guard captain. My grandpa’s ship guarded San Francisco Bay during World War II!” Ellen stares at me, unimpressed, so I keep trying. “When I was in about the second grade, she got mad about my bed. It was pretty messy. So she said I was old enough to make my bed right and she taught me.” “Show me. Show me how you do it the way she taught you.” Ellen rises onto one elbow. I slide off the bed and gladly pull out my sheets for a demonstration. “You smooth the end under tight, then you pull the corner out and fold it into a triangle, then you tuck that part under tight, then you tuck the rest. See? Straight line. She said in the military an officer could go along and bounce a quarter on the beds which were made right.” The door opens and there’s Miss Crake. “Karen! Why in the world are you still here? Are you ill?” She looks down my front, seeing that I’m dressed for class. “No, I’m…well, Ellen wanted…I just thought it might be okay if I….” Miss Crake lifts her chin and points with the arm that has a wristwatch. “You have missed your first class, and I shall have to report your absence. See that you are on time for second class.” Ellen has turned toward the wall. Miss Crake stands aside for me, and I pick up the new three-ring binder with its pencil bag and hurry toward the stairs. I find the sixth grade room without much trouble, but the lessons are impossible.

My binder is rarely opened and the new pencils remain sharp. Math is way beyond long division, into x’s and y’s. Geography is locating places using lines which disappear at the poles into a little dot. In English everyone can diagram sentences and recite rules about words which end in -ly. Social Studies is really confusing. Students are finishing Australia while at Lagunitas School I had just reported on all that the World Book Encyclopedia had to tell about Peru. On my first day and for the next two weeks, I learn to bluff. I open my book as other students do, I look down at the print and move a finger across the pages, I frown as though concentrating, but I never raise my hand and no one calls on me. Like my first night, I’m invisible. Except with Ellen. Each night I talk to her before dinner and sitting through Study Hall. Forgetting all about the mysterious, reserved princess, I tell Ellen about my old school, about my father’s new job and salary, about my brother biting his toenails. I know I’m talking too much, but she seems interested. Then at dinner, a girl turns to me and says, loudly enough for Miss Crake to hear, “Tell us about how to make a bed, Karen.” “What?” “If you did not quite hear, Karen, say, ‘excuse me,’” Miss Crake corrects. “Come on,” the girl continues, being nudged on either side, “we’re all eager to learn about Coast corners.” Ellen has been talking to them! She must have told them about Grandma and probably other things too, since they usually giggle when they see me. “Coast Guard,” I say. They smile and Miss Crake leans forward to hear each word. “Someone military,” the girl nods. “Tell us how they make their beds.” “Well,” I begin, desperate to share with this group, who are all looking at me for the first time, “first you have your sheets hanging down straight—” “That will do, Karen. I really do not think that this is an appropriate dinner topic,

is it, Theresa?” “Goodness, no, Miss Crake. But Americans are not quite civilized, are they?” Theresa asks sweetly, and I flush with embarrassment. Miss Crake lifts her chin, pushes up her glasses, and almost smiles at me. “No, but diligence will reward us, do you agree?” And she smiles at me, for the first time a smile square into my eyes, and I smile back, hopeful that Miss Crake will protect me while I’m learning to be civilized.

One day Miss McQuinton takes me aside and tells me that she has decided it would be appropriate for me to take finals with the other sixth graders. “Finals?” I ask. I’ve never heard the word. “Comprehensive examinations which show the teacher what you have learned.” “But I haven’t learned anything!” That was not the right thing to say. Miss McQuinton looks angry. “I should hope that you have learned a great deal in your few short weeks with us. Go to class now.” I report to the sixth grade room and sit in shock, before making a renewed effort to catch on to the lesson. In Study Hall I turn pages and write a few notes —“Australia settled by British convicts”—but I don’t know what’s important, and the size of the texts convinces me that learning what’s in them is hopeless. I take each exam and I cheat. That’s something I’ve never thought of doing before, but I see girls around me doing it and I imitate them. Most of them sneak looks at their textbooks; some have tightly written notes pasted inside tissue boxes or the lids of their desks. I perfect the search for tissue beneath my desk, quickly opening the book and returning to the test before the teacher notices. I’m not caught, but I fail most of the exams anyway, except English. I’m good at spelling, which allows me to , just barely. I don’t like seeing red F’s on my papers, but somehow none of it is real, none of it quite matters. What’s important

is that school is out in three days. To celebrate the end of the term, the boarding girls are to take a trip to the beach. The weather is still damp and foggy, but everyone’s excited about the trip. I confess at dinner that I haven’t brought a bathing suit, but, as Miss Crake smoothes her napkin and watches us, Theresa offers to mend an old one for me, and I excitedly accept. Back in the Infirmary, Ellen turns away as I tell her. “I thought you were my friend,” she sniffs, her voice muffled by her pillow. “I am!” I wail. Ellen rolls over to glare at me. “Friends don’t go to parties that other friends can’t go to.” I wait, confused, so Ellen continues. “I can’t go swimming. You’re going off to the beach with those girls and leaving me!” “But why can’t you go?” Ellen slumps onto her back and covers her eyes with one thin arm. “It’s not good for me.” When Miss Crake shuts off the lights throughout the building, I lie in bed, listening to Ellen’s breathing and rubbing my nugget ring. Ellen has told on me, made me look silly, but she’s the only friend I’ve got, and I’d like to please her. I’d like to do something that would make everyone like me, even Miss Crake, especially Miss Crake. Show her that I’m learning to be a lady. The house across the street is dark tonight. They must be out. Would they skip a party to care for a friend? Would that be the ladylike thing to do? I fall asleep before they come home or I’ve decided.

In the morning I pick up the bathing suit and knock on Theresa’s door.

Unlike my own room, this one is full of color, sound, personality. Puddles of underwear dot the floor and the walls have bright posters. When they see who’s knocked, the roommates stop talking. They listen to me explain why I won’t be needing the bathing suit after all. “You mean I did all this work for nothing?” Theresa demands, angrily shaking the suit with bright red thread dotting the strap she’d mended. “Well, now it’s fixed, anyway,” I suggest and add, hoping that they’ll ire my loyalty, “I just can’t leave Ellen like that.” But Theresa and her roommates are furious. They tell me that I’m ungrateful, that I have no manners. At lunch no one speaks to me. Silently ing steaming bowls of corned beef and cabbage, I have time to think about what I’ve done. Theresa and her friends are mad at me and Ellen hasn’t thanked me. I’ve made a mess. Before the day is over, Miss Crake calls me to her room. It’s brown with dark, shiny furniture. Sitting on the edge of a sofa that has a straight back and curved arms, I answer Miss Crake’s questions. “Yes—” “Yes, ma’am.” “Yes, ma’am. I know it was.” “Theresa took a great deal of care to repair that suit, Karen.” “Yes, ma’am.” “To refuse it after all her work is not proper manners.” I look up at her stern face behind the sliding glasses. “But I didn’t exactly refuse. I just decided that I’d stay with Ellen!” “Do not use contractions with me, Karen,” Miss Crake says. “The point remains that Theresa did a friendly act, which was very kind of her.”

Miss Crake leans forward. “You need a handkerchief, Karen.” I gulp, tears sliding onto my hands. “You have no handkerchief?” Miss Crake extends one of several tissue boxes placed on desks and end tables around the room, and I wipe and blow, my throat aching. “A well-bred young woman must always carry a cloth handkerchief. I do not suppose that you brought any with you,” she says with calm satisfaction. “The well-bred young woman should never need one of these paper tissues.” “N—no,” I gasp. “No, ma’am.” “No, ma’am.” “Now, Karen, we must not have you making work for others. But worse is being ungrateful. That is a truly unpardonable trait in your character.” “Yes, ma’am.” “You will always need friends to do favors for you. You must be sure that you are worthy of their acts of kindness.” I nod. “I have been meaning to ask you about another subject. Do you leave your socks to dry on the radiator in your room?” I look down and squeeze my eyes shut. “Because you really must not do that, Karen. You could be responsible for beginning a fire.” I try to take a deep breath. “It rains so much here,” I begin, and Miss Crake nods, returning the box of

tissues to its shelf. “That is why you should have purchased a pair of school-approved boots.” “My mother didn’t think—this fall—” “It rains here, Karen. It rains almost every day.” I nod again, unable to speak. “Think about what I have said to you, Karen. You must deserve acts of kindness. And you ought to buy some boots.” The flight of stairs down from her room is long, and I stumble, grabbing the banister and watching my feet through swollen eyes. All the girls in this building must know that she wanted to see me. They must think I’m going to be uncivilized all my life. They must be laughing about my socks folded up in towels on the radiator. And probably everyone carries a cloth handkerchief. The tissue boxes around Miss Crake’s room were there only for me. In the evening I make my weekly call to my mother. “I’m sort of lonely, Mother.” “Well, of course you are. But in just a few days, school’s out and I’ll come get you.” “Could you come now?” “Now? Heavens, no!” “We’re not doing much. Mostly it’s just the beach trip.” “And you should definitely go to that! Such fun, a trip to the beach. You must tell me what it looks like. I haven’t had the chance. Dear?” “What?” I ask, trying to hide my crying. “Do you still have your ring?” “Of course.” I may not carry a handkerchief or label my socks, but I haven’t lost

my one piece of jewelry. “ the thread, dear. You and I are always connected.” That’s only slightly reassuring. I know that I’m on my own here. Mother can’t rescue me.

On the day of the beach party, Ellen announces that she wants to go after all, but not to swim. So we become assistants to the chaperone, an old school nurse, who asks us to help her pack for the trip. We fill a canvas bag with towels from a closet, and then the nurse hands me a zippered bag and opens a locked cupboard. “Take some of these and put them in there,” she directs, turning away. Studying the neat piles on the shelf, I suddenly realize that these are the things my mother buys in big boxes, which I’ve learned, are never a present for me. They’re called sanitary napkins, and I carefully lift into the bag six or eight symmetrical pads with flapping gauze tails. The nurse glances at the bag and says, “A few more, dear,” and I put in another three. The nurse squints at the stacks in the cupboard and says, “More,” and I add six to the pile. The bag is now full, so she zips it shut and sets it at the top of the stairs for the trip to a waiting bus. The day is sunny but cold and when we walk onto the sand, only a few girls go near the water, not even wading. Wrapping themselves in towels, they huddle near the nurse. Ellen and I sit together without talking much and help the nurse serve sandwiches. After lunch the nurse announces, “I think we had better leave, girls.” “Why?” I ask. She frowns. “We could catch a chill.” “That’s true, Miss Hambro,” Theresa says, glancing at me. “Let’s go.” We board the bus and return to the Residence Hall, the nurse carrying an unopened bag of sanitary napkins.

I pack my other uniform, and what’s left of my underpants and socks, drag the suitcase down the stairs, and wait for Mother to pick me up. Because of the rain, I stand inside the building, peering through gray glass, clutching my blue coat. The path from the front door twists between bushes. I would have liked to be the princess who wanders there, gracious and gentle like that path, but boarding school has shown me that I’m not a princess. I’m simply a foreigner who needs training. I wear nice coats over torn dresses. I’m a phony. The cab arrives, and without waiting I grab my suitcase and run down the steps toward Mother’s hug. “Oh, it’s so good to see you again,” she cries. “Do you have everything?” She presses her cheek to mine. She’s wearing a checked plastic rain hat and the type of galoshes, which would have saved me a lot of socks. As the driver slams the trunk and we climb into the back seat, Mother squeezes my hand. “Now, we’re off to our temporary home!” “What’s it like?” “Oh, it’s rather unusual. It’s a…modest home, an up-and-down duplex.” “What’s a dupless?” “Duplex. Two families share a single building. We’re upstairs, they’re down. It’s just fine. It will certainly do for one summer.” “Did you find my clock?” Mother squeezes my hand again. “I certainly did. She’s waiting for you, right by your bed.” I like picturing that ballerina, twirling proudly. “By the way,” Mother says, “you won’t see much familiar furniture. It’s in

storage until our home is ready.” I don’t care. This is escape; this is change. Looking back at the Residence Hall, I imagine Miss Crake frowning at her window, shaking her head and a long finger at my lack of a handkerchief, and I’m positive that whatever’s new has to be better.

1961

I like tetherball. I liked it before we went to Canada and I still do, more than whacking shuttlecocks and pounding tennis balls, the way I did up there. I calling my silly autobiography in the third grade, “Tetherball Karen.” I knew what was me: standing out here on the bare ground, making up stories and talking to myself while I punch the tetherball. At first it was great, being back here in Woodacre, Dad quitting the company and buying a country store. Clean start. He told me that he liked counting his money every day, seeing exactly what he’d accomplished. Todd came home, and at first that was great, too. He’s gotten so tall and skinny! He must have changed his clothes in those trees. His suit was too small, and he had a faded old shirt and a wrinkled tie, all crammed into that backpack. I bet he wanted to dress up for seeing his dad again after all these years. When he first came out of the trees, I was right here, playing tetherball. He didn’t know what to do, whether to hug me or cry or what, but he cried when I took him to Dad. They both did. They tried to hide it, which wasn’t hard—Dad keeps the den so dark—but I could tell. Dad’s wondering whether Mother wrote to Todd, which I know she did. Then that means Todd came back on Dad’s , because he’s sick, which is pretty amazing, considering how much they’ve argued over the years. Dad just can’t believe his family feels any loyalty. And yet, there’s his son, crouching by his chair. How could loyalty survive? But it has. It’s too bad those good feelings didn’t last longer. Now Todd’s back to his nasty old self. We showed him our grocery store, but he wouldn’t work there. Instead, he had to go and rent some stupid place full of rusty auto parts that nobody wants and a foul-mouthed parrot. “Pretty girl, screw you, pretty girl.” That’s the only way it can talk, and Todd must have done that, taught it so much junk. Sometimes he drives me to school in that awful old truck, which really embarrasses me. Nobody would have noticed Todd at a public high school. But I

go to Branson’s, another girl’s school full of rich kids who see that pick-up and his clothes and stare at me. Todd says he’s going to make a sign and hang it on the truck: “I HAVE TO DO THIS. SHE’S MY SISTER.” He’s got a girlfriend, Barbara. She doesn’t talk about much besides her mother and God, and Todd can’t talk about anything except late-night radio. Still, she drives up to our house every Sunday morning. One time I went in his bedroom with my Brownie camera, all set to take a picture of them smooching, but what do I see? She’s got all her clothes off, all folded in a neat pile, and he’s almost posing above her, his thing aiming down at her like some jet landing. That was awful! I got out of there so fast. He’s been nicer to me since then, probably wondering if I’m going to tell Mother what he does while she works at the store. Barbara keeps coming up here every Sunday morning after confession. That’s handy, having confession. Makes me wish I was Catholic. Todd fights with Dad, just like in the old days. Why do they get into it so much? Why can’t they leave each other alone? Anyone can see that Dad drinks too much, straight out of a bottle he takes off a shelf in the store, but I’m not going to lecture him, and Mother’s half-sloshed herself, so she doesn’t care. I just stay to myself. But Todd had to go say he didn’t come home to watch his father die. Dad was counting money, and he tried to stand up too fast. He knocked over the till and money flew everywhere. He was yelling and Todd was too, and they were both so red in the face, I got scared. This morning Todd said he might leave again. Maybe he should. Mother gets mad at him, because she’s sick of pretending. I know that’s why. She’s sick of pretending that she loves owning a little store and shopping at the Goodwill. And she’s drinking too much. So she yells at Todd that he’s causing his father to get even worse, that Dad could at least stand up all day before Todd came home. Todd just gets really quiet. He never thinks on his feet fast enough to argue. He just works at that parts store and teaches his parrot crummy words. Whenever we talk about Dad, all Todd can say is, “I came back, didn’t I? I came back!”

CHAPTER THREE

THE DUPLEX—SUMMER 1957

O ur duplex is a tall, green box surrounded by dirt dotted with patches of grass. The paint is chipped and streaked, and as the taxi pulls up, I see trashcans in their covered stall behind the building, but the neighborhood is tidy and, since it’s close to Stanley Park, Mother explains, it has lots of trees. We have to drag my suitcase up a flight of stairs which climbs the side of the building, and we let the screen door slam behind us. “Todd!” Mother calls. “Todd! Come and help us, please!” There he is, lounging against the kitchen door jam, wearing the same tan pants that I from California. “Hi,” I say shyly. “’Lo,” Todd says. “Here, Todd, help your sister carry this into her room. You’re over here, Karen. It’s small, but—well, this is all only temporary.” And she opens the door to a bright yellow cell. In one corner is a bed on a metal frame with a faded, flowered bedspread. Next to the window is a white chest of drawers with my ballerina clock on the top, and behind the door is an unfinished wood desk and chair. On the one blank wall hangs a large map of the world, frayed at the edges and ripped through Greenland. Todd plunks the suitcase down in front of it. “So how was your school?” he asks. I shrug. “I didn’t like boarding.”

He snorts. “Mine was lousy. Full of creepy teachers who hit us with rulers in class and guys in army uniforms screaming at us all night.” Despite having been in a military academy, he seems to slouch more, leaning to the right with his left hand stuffed in his pocket. Maybe it’s the pimples, but he looks older now, and definitely taller. His eyes are still blue, but they’re narrowed, as though protecting himself against words and rulers. “My teacher was okay,” I say, “but the lady who ran the Residence Hall—she was strict!” I already know that if he asks, I’ll never tell about the beach party, but he doesn’t ask. Neither do my parents. We eat at a vinyl table in the small kitchen. It’s covered by hundreds of jagged cuts, scars left by sharp knives. The kitchen counter has different sizes of green and red stains and a brown burn in the circle of a frying pan. In fact, every flat surface in this place has stains from previous owners— sticky rectangles in the medicine cabinet, black streaks on the breadboard, gray smears on the throw rugs—stains which could tell about other families who’ve stayed here. We’re eating tuna casserole. “This is delicious, isn’t it?” Mother asks as she carefully spears another noodle. Without thinking, I use the style of eating required at school: knife in the right hand and fork held upside down in the left. “Did you make it?” Dad asks. Mother smiles, taking credit. “I mentioned to Mrs. McManama that we’d be together this evening as a family, and she made it for us, to celebrate.” “Hmm,” Dad says, as he squints more closely at the tuna. “Real tuna? Can we be sure it isn’t made out of corduroy?” Mother stops smiling. “Robert, please,” and I know that what she means is, “not in front of the children.” Then she turns to us and explains. “Dorothy McManama is our decorator. She’s been working awfully hard on our new home, and I go with her, of course, to help select fabrics and designs.” “Do you like corduroy, Karen?” Dad asks.

I can’t quite picture it. “Yeah, I think so.” “Your bedspreads will be green corduroy,” Mother interrupts quickly, grabbing the chance to tell me. “Tightly fitted with matching bolsters and buttercup yellow toss pillows.” “What’s a bolster?” I ask, chewing a mouthful of tuna. Mother describes the twin beds in more detail. I get the idea that this arrangement of bolsters with spreads is to camouflage the beds, make the room look more like a den. Mrs. McManama must think that a girl’s bedroom shouldn’t look like one. “What’s she doing with mine?” Todd asks. Dad glances at Mother, then turns in his chair to slide his plate onto the counter near the sink. “She was wondering about duck wallpaper, some sort of masculine hunting scene,” Mother says. Todd puts down his fork. “Hunting?” he cries. “I don’t want hunting paper in my room!” Todd’s one of those people who smells right to dogs. He would never use a gun. Mother tugs the corner of her placemat with bright red nails. “Well, it was just a thought, nothing definite. You wouldn’t want the paper that’s in there. It’s blue and white—an abstract pattern, isn’t it, Bob?” Dad nods. “Little triangles or something.” Todd shakes his head. “Fine with me. Just leave it. Don’t do anything with my room.” Conversation stops. Mother finishes her meal, obviously disappointed by how this dinner’s turning out. I help her clear and wash the plates, stacking them in a pink dish drainer with rusted feet. “A decorator is exciting, isn’t it, Karen?” she asks. She’s wearing a ruffled

apron, which has a glob of suds dripping from the picture of a radish. I slide a glass carefully over a prong bent out on the drainer. “Yeah, I guess so. How much has she done? I mean, when can we move in?” Mother, pleased by my interest, looks cheerful again. “Not for another month or so, but certainly before school. We’ll be sure of that.” She pauses in wiping the counter and turns to me. “Lee House is all right, isn’t it?” This is her first mention of where I’ve been for three weeks. I can’t think how to describe it. “Being a day student will be better,” is all I can say. “Of course, it will.” Mother hugs my shoulder, and the radish suds rub off onto my sleeve. “Living at home with one’s family is always better.”

One good thing, which has come from the military academy, is a friend for Todd. Roger calls him regularly, and Mother gives Todd permission to walk the short distance to Stanley Park and meet Roger where he works at the boat rental at Lost Lagoon. Todd always returns from these meetings cheerful. “Hi, how’s the park?” I ask one afternoon as he climbs the stairs to our apartment. I’m sitting on the landing outside the screen door, playing high-risk jacks—the ball could roll off the porch and drop into the dirt a floor below. If I get sick of going after the ball, I can switch to checkers, taking both sides and working hard for everyone to win. “Okay,” Todd answers and actually sits down on the step to watch me. Finally, he says, “I could work there with Roger.” I look up and stop playing. “At the boat rental?”

“Yeah. McBride had to quit and I could probably get his spot. Do you think Mom and Dad would let me?” “I don’t know.” I’ve been surprised that Mother lets him wander off so much, but at least he’s not sulking at home, spending all day eating sunflower seeds on his bed and then brushing the shells all over the floor. It’s been nice to have him almost friendly. “I don’t know,” I repeat. “I guess it would depend.” “On what?” He fingers a silver jack. “Well, the hours and how much you’d make.” Todd shakes his head. “That’s all okay. What it really depends on is if they think I’m responsible enough.” I don’t answer. “Do you think I am?” His voice almost pleads. I look up at the half-smile, his pimpled face, his eyes. “Sure. You just need the chance.” And I believe that. It’s the sort of explanation of Todd that he and I always believe. Dad gets home late, but he and Mother must talk quietly about Todd’s job offer because the next morning Todd asks Mother for the decision, and she says he can do it. Todd grins as he slams down a cereal bowl. “Hurry up with the corn flakes,” he yells happily to me. “:I gotta get going!” That afternoon I interrupt my checkers to answer the phone since Mother’s out with Dorothy McManama. It’s Todd, telling me to ask Mother if he can stay the night at Roger’s. He assures me that Roger’s mother says it’s okay. I copy his phone number and return to my game on the landing. It’s starting to drizzle, but the landing is partially covered, so I stay outside for a

while. It bothers me that Todd has a friend. I try so hard but no one likes me, and he doesn’t try at all, and he hates school, but still he ends up with a buddy who invites him over. I stop playing and bite my nails, carefully picking off bits of flesh and white tips to create a perfect edge, but when a bite goes too far, I have to nibble further to even out the mistake. All my nails have ragged edges, but I keep biting, even after they bleed, to make the mistakes right. When Dad gets home, Mother’s heating TV dinners and we eat without conversation and without Todd. As Mother and I clean the silverware and throw out the aluminum trays, Dad goes into the living room, sits in a stained blue armchair and opens “The Vancouver Sun.” He hasn’t said much about his job, but I’ve learned that fathers shouldn’t be pestered. I sit on the floor and play Solitaire, a rulebook nearby which explains 150 variations of the game. Black on red, in descending numerical order, the cards create long rows across the matted carpet, until I uncover an ace and begin to slap one card on top of another, squealing a little if I see I’m going to shrink seven rows to four winning piles. “What’re you doing?” Dad asks, looking over the edge of his newspaper. I like his attention. “Playing Solitaire. I won!” Dad smiles. “Don’t cheat now.” I shuffle and re-deal, able to lose countless hands as long as Dad notices the victories.

On sunny days I walk to the bike rental at the park and pedal to Lost Lagoon, where I can sit on the grass and watch my brother handle boats and girls. He sells tickets, scrubs out the boats, and sometimes rows engers, usually giggling girls, out to the middle of the lake. I can barely see them so far from shore, but when they return, they seem glad to have made the trip. Occasionally, he rows me around the lake, but I notice that he isn’t as cheerful when we return as when I’m watching from the hill. The lake has lots of ducks, and sometimes I buy a bag of crumbs for them. Quacking as they do on kid’s records, they approach my bag—although I hope

it’s me they’re glad to see again—and demand food. “Better be careful, honey,” an old man calls to me from where he’s sitting on a bench. “Those ducks can get pretty mean, especially if it’s mating season.” I look back at the man. Despite its being July, he’s wearing a scarf and a trench coat. “If it’s what?” I ask. “Mating season,” he calls back, his chin barely rising above the scarf. “You know about that, don’t you? A big girl like you?” His arms move slightly, pulling open his coat, and there’s his Thing pointing straight at me! I look from that to his face, but all I can see is the red plaid scarf and wrinkles, no expression. I stand and begin to back away, slowly, knowing that I should stop staring. Maybe I should tell him that it’s sticking out, in case he doesn’t know. “Was it firm?” my brother asks later when I reach him on the docks. “Firm?” Todd’s serious but not upset, which makes me feel better. “Yeah. Just hanging there or really pointing?” “Oh!” I consider carefully. “Pointing. Straight at me!” “Then he knew.” I stay away from that part of the lake, feeding ducks far from the boat rentals. Do the dock ducks miss me? Does the old man ever pull out his hands to show a bag of bread? The ducks would probably like him if he did, and they wouldn’t be mean, no matter what season it was. I have a sudden picture in my head of mean ducks attacking the old man’s Thing, but the picture fades quickly, and I don’t mention the man at home.

Mrs. Nance lives below us with a handicapped brother. From his wheelchair Rodney plays ping-pong on a folded table in a glassed-in porch outside their kitchen. He plays quietly and accurately. We don’t talk much to them, but we’ve seen them enough on our way to the bus stop or the park that Mrs. Nance has begun to smile slightly, and two weeks ago she offered us the use of the pingpong table, since we can go in her porch from the outside. Dad has bought our own set of paddles and balls. Whenever I play against Todd, he ends the game fast by slamming balls so hard that they bounce off the table onto the glass, and I holler, and he has a good excuse for walking off. Mother won’t play. Dad plays only occasionally and it’s a big deal. Against Dad, Todd doesn’t slam, concentrating like me on returning each shot gently in order to keep rallies going, thinking that the more times Dad connects with the ball, the more likely he is to play again. “Wow!” Dad yells. “That was a terrific shot I just made!” “Yeah,” Todd agrees, bending under a chair to retrieve the ball. “Great, Dad. I couldn’t lay a paddle on it.” “You see that, Karen?” I’m sitting on the side, waiting my turn to play against Dad. “Yeah, terrific!” After a few more minutes, Todd announces the score, another victory for Dad. “Okay, my turn!” I sing out cheerfully, taking my place at the end of the table. “Oh, Patootie, not me,” Dad says, shaking his head. “I’m done in. You play with Karen, Todd.” Seeing his father pick up his sweater, Todd shakes his head. “Naw, I’m tired, too. I’d rather go back upstairs.” I must look sad, because Todd walks to the side of the table and gestures. “Want me to put this side up so you can play alone? I think I can—” and

together, Todd and Dad set up the table for solo playing. Looking through her kitchen window, Mrs. Nance sees us and opens her door. She’s still dressed for work: stockings and heels and a wool dress. “When you’re finished, just leave it like that, Karen. Rodney plays solo. Unless —hold on a minute!” She disappears from the doorway, returning quickly. I can see Rodney in his wheelchair, sitting in the shadows of the hallway. “You want to play a game against Rodney, Karen?” I panic. Wheelchair Rodney? Rolling out to the table in a wheelchair? Playing frozen to a wheelchair? How would I—how does anyone— “No, thanks, Mrs. Nance. I just ed something I gotta do.” I scoop up the ball and turn to leave. “You’re sure, Karen? Rodney’s an awfully good player,” Mrs. Nance pleads, “and he hardly ever gets the chance—” “I’ve really gotta go. Thanks, anyway!” Upstairs, Dad looks up from the paper, surprised to see me back so soon. “Rodney wanted to play,” I explain, telling a half-truth. Mother, sitting on the end of the sofa looking at pictures in a decorating magazine, nods. “Better to let him play, then. You can always go some other time.” In my too-bright yellow room, I throw myself on the bed. As ugly as this room is, at least it isn’t white. Against yellow walls, my ballerina clock really shows up, and I ire her smooth, tiny legs. Suddenly, I get an idea: I’ll play school! Grabbing some lined paper, I make a roll sheet—Mary Smith, Jennifer James, Carol Scott, Andrea Malone. Naming my students is the best part. Using the yardstick left in the closet, I point at the

torn map of the world on my wall, challenging my students, who sit in long rows in front of me, to identify locations and give me capitals. When I know a name but not the location, such as Borneo or Madagascar, the lesson slows while I pretend to clean glasses, actually searching the map. Every so often, a student misbehaves, but one stern look from me is enough to restore her to proper conduct. Dad walks in and I abruptly stop the lesson. “What were you doing?” “Oh, just measuring something on the map.” “You want to be a geographer when you grow up?” “Sure, maybe.” “We’ll have to buy you a globe.” “Okay.” In Woodacre, where I spent a lot of time staring at tree leaves and bugs under logs, my parents bought me a microscope and two sample slides, suggesting that I might grow up to be a biologist. But really, the bugs and this map aren’t related to a career. I just don’t have anything else to do.

“Good news,” Dad says, standing in my doorway. “Mrs. McManama has given the word: we can move in.” He looks really pleased, and Mother comes to stand behind him. “This weekend, Karen,” she says, “so you’ll need to ready your things.” “Pack,” Dad explains. “And if there’s any stuff you don’t want, for heavens sake, leave it behind. Just pile debris in the corner.” He turns to leave, but Mother stops him. “Explain debris, Bob. She can hardly know that word.”

Dad squints at me, and Mother raises one eyebrow in a way I envy but can’t copy. “What’s debris mean?” Dad quizzes me. I guess. “Garbage?” “Close enough,” he smiles and walks off in triumph, leaving Mother standing in my doorway. “We want to move light, dear, because we’ll have to do it ourselves, so that’s why we’re concerned.” “What about Todd’s job?” Mother obviously hasn’t thought about it. “I don’t know. I suppose he can just quit, now that we’re moving.” But he won’t want to do that. Being independent is too important to Todd, I know, and I’m glad to have fallen asleep before he gets home and hears about the move.

“I told you last night. I’m not going,” Todd says angrily at the breakfast table. His eyes are swollen. Mother sits down behind a plate of eggs and toast and stares at her son. “We’re moving into our new home, after a long wait, and we expect you to be happy.” “Well, I’m not! Why can’t I just stay here?” “Don’t be ridiculous, Todd,” Dad says. “How could you do that?” “I could live with Roger! I’m sure he’d let me!” “You’re coming with us,” Dad says firmly.

“But you haven’t even asked! I’m sure Roger’s mother would say yes!” Mother glances at Dad, who has pushed away his plate. “You are our son and you’re moving when we move,” Dad says with more anger. “Now eat your breakfast!” Todd throws down his fork. “I don’t want any of your stupid food!” Dad’s face is red. “That’s a perfectly good breakfast your mother made. Eat it!” Todd shoves away from the table, his face wet with tears. “Todd!” Mother calls. “Come back and eat your eggs!” But he slams the screen door and tramps down the steps, heading for his last day at work, and he doesn’t return until after dark.

“Pile that here, Todd. Stick that box on the seat with you, Liz. You’ll have to or we’ll never make it! We’ve just got too goddamn much stuff! Here’s a kitchen box—you sure this is all ours? Hang up those suits—no, give them here and I’ll do it.” After several hours of this packing, we leave the green duplex without looking back and drive our loaded wagon to a neighborhood near Lee House. Streets are wide and smooth and lined with tall trees. Lawns are mowed. All the houses look gigantic to me, and by the time we pull into a curving driveway in front of a tall white house with green shutters and Dad announces, “We’re here!” I’m excited again about a new beginning.

1962

I, the mother, need to say positive things or else everyone wanders around so gloomy. They don’t seem to see that we’ll have to make our own spirit. “Christmas is such a wonderful time of year, don’t you think, Karen? All the smells and the cold air and that special mood. Let’s make popcorn strings. Real, old-fashioned decorations!” “That’s so much work, Mother.” “Oh, come on, Scrooge! It’ll be fun! And it’s inexpensive.” A little effort is all it would take, a little effort to distract us from thinking about being broke, or comparing this Christmas with more lavish ones in Vancouver. Let’s just try to be cheerful. “I know where the old decorations are packed. We can use those. Are we buying a big tree this year?” “Your father and I thought we might just cut one down from around here. We have so many on our own land, after all. We could bundle up and take an ax across the fields. Sing Christmas carols around the fire, drink some cocoa.” Karen looks so serious. Why won’t she make the best of this situation? “Come off it, Mother.” “What do you mean?” “Be realistic. We’re not trooping off like some big, happy family. That’s not us.” “It could be. We could act like that if we wanted to. Anyway, what’s the point of facing reality when it’s so grim?” She always takes such a dry look at life. Like her father. But I just won’t. “Speaking of reality, have you heard from Todd?”

Why does she do this? “A postcard from Montana. He won’t do well there. He thinks he can take gold from a national park.” “Maybe he’ll surprise you.” “I don’t think your brother will ever give us any pleasant surprises.” “But that’s wrong, Mother! You’re sure that Todd’s a flop. Why not think positively about him for a change?” “I’ll think positively when he gives me reason to. Causing our family pain isn’t right. Especially not when your father’s so ill.” “But maybe Todd spoke the truth to Dad!” “I think he makes your father unhappy by what he does as much as what he says. Dropping out. Having accidents. Using our money to rent that store and then never paying us back. Playing around with Barbara. Yes, we knew all about that, or I knew. I’m not sure if your father did. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to be pregnant, and she has lots of other boyfriends who might have—might be responsible. Some people will always cause their families pain, Karen, and your brother‘s one of them.” “Like Grandma and Grandpa.” “Yes, like them.” This talk is not Christmasy. “But you start the arguments with them.” “I never do! They are determined to find fault.” “But they can always find it so easily! Like why’d you scrape mold off the minestrone and still serve it? And why didn’t you have the rest of their stuff ready for them?” “Let’s don’t quarrel, Karen. There’s nothing wrong with a little mold and I’ve been through the packing with your father.” I’m the one who’s struggling. Why don’t they see that?

“But they moved out fast, just for us, and then they drive all the way back here to pick up the rest of their stuff and you don’t even have it packed! They need it and you’d promised, Mother!” “I have some other things to do, Karen.” “Then don’t promise!” “When I first offered, I thought I could. Somehow, I’m just not strong anymore. I still do a great deal around here, young lady. Around here and at the store.” “Around here you don’t do a thing. The mold is proof.” Where did she get such anger? She used to be so sweet. “That will do, Karen. You do not talk to your mother like that.” “That’s how all our conversations end. ‘Don’t talk to your mother like that!’ How should I talk to the queen?” “That will do! Go to your room!” “Gladly!” The injustice! Wasn’t it enough to have a son who never appreciated all I did? Now to have an ungrateful daughter, too. And a husband who’s ill. Three people who cause so much pain. Oh God. Perhaps if I prayed. I should start going to Mass again. Ask the Lord’s guidance through this vale of sorrow. I’ll just pour a little something and sit still for a while. It’s the holidays, and there’s so much to do, but I’ve been through quite enough for one day. Quite enough.

CHAPTER FOUR

A COMPANY HOUSE—FALL 1957

“ Don’t go up there yet, dear,” Mother calls out and stops me from climbing the wide staircase across from the front door. “I want to show the house in an orderly fashion.” The four of us gather obediently in front of her, and she seems to grow taller as we wait for her direction. “Those stairs go up to the bedrooms and a den or down to the basement,” she announces, flush with the excitement of showing off her new home. “We’ll go up those in a moment. First, here’s the formal dining room, done in a Wedgwood motif—” “What’s Wedgwood motive?” I ask. Mother throws open the double doors and cries, “This!” Blue and white curtains with blue and white sashes, two blue and white bowls on shelves, blue and white wallpaper with some country scene, eight tall chairs with blue seat cushions and white tassels hanging from the corners, blue cloth running the length of the shiny table and fat white candles reaching toward a chandelier. This is Wedgwood. “We eat here?” Todd questions. “Where’s the tv? And the folding trays?” Mother barely smiles. “We all dress properly and eat at this table—with no television.” Todd whistles through his teeth and shakes his head. “Guess I’ll starve.”

Mother turns abruptly to look at Dad. “Isn’t it beautiful, Bob? When I start collecting pewter, it will look lovely on those shelves.” Dad doesn’t answer but instead turns toward a swinging door. Mother, trying to hold our attention, waves quickly toward the windows. “Let me tell you about the curtains!” she cries, letting the long white fringe lace through her fingers. “Dorothy and I hunted for days to find the right fabric. All the while there it was in a charming little place near the water….” Her voice trails off as the three of us disappear through the swinging door. “Through there is the kitchen—” she announces unnecessarily, hurrying to catch up with us. The familiar doesn’t fit: pans with burned bottoms in freshly painted cupboards, stained dish rags hanging from a shiny peg, ragged towels stacked on new shelf paper. Stuff we bothered to save isn’t good enough here. We shouldn’t have wasted the money to move it, I think. We don’t even like most of it. A couple of things in the kitchen fascinate me: a cupboard called a pantry which has wire shelves and is screened on the outside—“That keeps everything cool,” Mother says—, the butler’s pantry, which is an alcove of cupboards and a deep sink, and a maid’s room which, Mother explains, we’ll use as a sewing room for the seamstress. “Who’s that?” I ask Mother. “You haven’t met her, but Dorothy introduced us. She’ll come periodically to mend and make special outfits.” “Just sit in here and sew?” Mother laughs. “Why, of course. What else would a seamstress do?” Mother continues the tour and I learn more new words: colonial, gables, rumpus room. In the living room, where two white linen couches face each other on either side of a marble fireplace, I learn French doors, sunroom, shoji screen, valance and bay window. This is not what I’m used to, I know, but this is

exciting. We finally reach the upstairs. On the right is my parents’ room. It’s large and padded: puffy headboards, puffy bedspreads, a pile of perfectly-arranged pillows, and puffy curtains with wide sashes. Angling out from the window is a chaise lounge—another new word—puffy with the same floral pattern. “The beds balance the room, don’t they?” Mother asks. “They help to fill the space.” My parents have never had twin beds, and I don’t see how a married couple can sleep on separate mattresses, but Dad and I don’t say anything. Between their door and mine is a tiny cupboard. “That’s the top of the laundry chute,” Mother explains, opening the door so that I can peer into the dark shaft. “Nothing goes down that except dirty clothes!” she warns Todd and me. “How about dirty sisters?” he asks, making a face. I make a face back but he only shrugs. And now my bedroom. So this is corduroy. As I’d expected, the beds look like couches in a doctor’s waiting room. The windows are only half-covered by yellow curtains—“At night you pull the shades, Karen, but during the day café curtains are such a sunny idea!”—and they’re made out of a fabric textured with lines like corduroy. My scratched gold and white dresser and chest are here, but the matching desk has been replaced by a Spanish Captain’s desk which comes apart in the middle, Mother explains, so that a Captain could carry only the top half onto his ship. The lid pulls down to reveal cubbyholes and compartments. My old white chair pulled up in front of an antique doesn’t match, and I can’t imagine doing homework, ordinary, gray schoolwork, at this desk. It must have seen far more adventurous assignments than mine. My closet is narrow and deep, and someone has hung up my old sundresses on newly varnished rods. But seeing the white uniforms suddenly encourages me, as though wearing them from this house rather than from an infirmary will bring better luck at school.

“Todd!” I cry, opening the door to his room, “you got all the old stuff! This kind of looks like a storeroom.” Todd stands next to me, and we stare at Mother and Dad’s double bed and chest of drawers, a straight-back chair with a sagging seat and the large mirror that once hung in our hall. Below his window is a shabby trunk that gives off a musty odor to mix with fresh paint smells. Todd jumps on the bed and leans back against the wall. “I like it,” he says, smiling, and I have to it that he looks comfortable. Next to his room is the den, a small room with a new television cabinet, a couch, tall lamp and a new chair. “The vinyl wingchair is where Dad will sit,” Mother announces proudly. “And isn’t this little cupboard a good idea?” She opens a square door behind his chair with the same flourish she’d used in the dining room. Inside are some half-folded papers which I recognize as old Triple A maps and a few old National Geographic magazines, moved because we couldn’t toss out glossy paper. “We’ll store something handy in there, like TV Guides.” “You’re not going to throw the Guide way back in that place!” Dad says. “Well, I do have another idea. We could make it a liquor cabinet.” “What’s that?” I ask, growing tired of not knowing everything. But Mother has turned away, as though she has mentioned something adult and regrets it. Just before the stairs drop down into the basement, the back door leads to a large yard. Mother and Dad stand on the steps, Todd walks to the fish pond, and I walk across a flat lawn—“ideal for croquet,” Mother calls—to discover a gate to an alley. Across the narrow roadway is a girl throwing a dirty tennis ball for her dog. She

doesn’t look at us, so I can stare, comparing her neatly cut hair and madras Bermuda shorts to my perm and torn pedal pushers. I’m impressed that she can play with a tennis ball, dangling it by soggy strings, because my dad says tennis balls are way too expensive to use as toys. In stores I long for the tall, narrow canisters that hold three immaculately white and fluffy balls. And now here’s a neighbor tossing at least two for her dog to chew! Incredible luxury. In this city, I decide, I must at least wear barrettes. “Hi,” she says, surprising me by suddenly folding her arms along the top of her fence. “You just move in?” “Yeah.” “My name’s Pam.” “Mine’s Karen.” She gestures toward the house, cocking one eyebrow, and I realize she expects some explanation. “We’re moving in today.” “I saw a big moving van last week.” She talks to me without moving her eyes, which makes me aware of my eyes flicking over her shoulder, down the length of her arms, around her hair. “That was our stuff, the big stuff. Today’s what we’ve been living with this summer.” Pam nods. “It’s nice to be moving in, finally.” Pam nods again, but she doesn’t smile. “Where will you go to school? Lee House?” “Yeah. I went there last year, just for a little while, and now I’ll go back as a day student.” “I thought I saw you around. Want to come over?” She’s asking me over! Maybe she wants to be my friend! Maybe even best friends, sharing secrets and problems and….

“Karen? Karen!” I look over my shoulder. “That’s my mother,” I explain unnecessarily. “We’re ready to unpack the car,” she calls, standing with Dad and Todd at the back door. As Pam turns away, I look longingly at her madras shorts and her pool. “See you later,” she says, and walks quickly toward a patio table. “It may not take me long,” I call after her. “I’ll look for you when I’m done,” but she doesn’t answer. I end up spending all day carrying things for my mother, not just stuff crammed into the car but books and lamps she wants moved from one room to another. It would be nice to look around at the end of the day and think how tidy everything looks, how comfortable, but, in fact, by the time we sit down for dinner, the front hall is loaded with boxes and our bedrooms are a mess. “This place looked better before we moved in,” I say to Todd as we go downstairs for dinner. “Figures,” he answers. Mrs. McManama has once again provided us with a tuna casserole to celebrate the first evening in our new home. Mother hasn’t succeeded in forcing Todd to dress up for dinner, but she lights the tall candlesticks and turns off the overhead light to create a glow. “I opened a bottle of red wine on the sideboard, dear,” she says to Dad, easing herself into a chair at one end of the table. “It should have breathed enough by now.” I look at the bottle and imagine its sides swelling and shrinking with each breath, but I’m not going to ask what she means. My brain is already swimming with new words. Dad seems nervous in his role of pourer. “What’s the towel for?” he asks, tossing it to one side. “A towel’s only for something chilled and wet.”

“Oh well,” Mother shrugs, “just in case.”

After dinner I put sheets on my bed. They smell bad—“Slight mildew, that’s all. We’ll buy some new ones soon,” Mother assures me—but my whole body is sore from lifting and climbing stairs, and sleep seems even more appealing than looking for Pam. For the first time I have two beds, and I’m tempted to drop my clothes on one. Or perhaps use the laundry chute? No, I’ve seen the room at the bottom of it, and it’s a worse mess than the front hall. I’d better wear these another day. Maybe, though, if I rearrange all my clothes in this shiny closet, putting all my blouses in one section, I’ll find madras in here. But all I see are faded California clothes until I notice the row of summer uniforms, stiffly waiting for the start of school, and the recently purchased winter uniforms, heavy and woolen. I forget about madras as I finger the plaid wool skirts, green sweater with a school crest and, most exciting of all, two pairs of black stockings hanging over a skirt. I’ve never worn stockings but I know that something strange holds them up, and now, waiting in my very own drawer, is the mysterious garter belt. I pull down the shades behind the café curtains and take off my pants so that I can hook the belt around my waist and roll up thick, black stockings, clipping them onto the firm rubber circles. Then I fasten the winter skirt and stand in front of my mirror. I don’t like this feeling, exposed underneath the pleats. Then I the dark blue, heavy bloomers in my drawer and, pulling them on, I feel immediately protected by layers and quite safe. “You in there?” my brother hollers from the bathroom. My mirror hangs on that door. “Yeah, but you can’t come in!” “I wanted to tell you that I can go to the public high school! Three transfers but I get to go.” I can hear he’s happy. “You should ask if you can go, too.” But underneath my uniform is a garter belt. “Lee House is okay,” I say, and quickly unhook the thick black stockings.

Each evening Dad climbs the wide stairs to the second floor, pours himself a drink from the bottles in the cabinet, and sits in his big chair. The cupboard is now stocked with bottles, mostly brown with screw tops. For many hours at a time, my parents sit in there, Dad with his legs on the footstool, Mother curled nearby at the end of the sofa, feet to one side, covering her knees with a hand or, on a cool evening, an afghan, and, both of them, always with a drink. As far as I can tell, the glasses are never washed. They’re simply stored on the cupboard shelf or left, caked and sticky, on a table between the chair and sofa. The television is a low backdrop for their conversations. Dad describes the men at work, his office, some of the decisions he’s making. He tells Mother and me that it’s a relief to finally be the one in charge. Barely turning, Mother can hold up her glass to Dad, silently requesting a refill. I think both of them are pleased that they can drink without even moving.

With only a few days left before school begins, Pam invites me over. I hurry into her backyard and sit quickly on a concrete bench, trying to be casual, although I can’t stop looking at her swimming pool. She’s playing with her dog Scotty, rolling balls underneath a round table with a blue striped umbrella, and I decide that she looks perky and that I should stop getting my hair whacked off at Mother’s salon in the Vancouver Hotel. Suddenly, Pam sits down next to me. “My parents are separated,” she announces. I had been ready to tell her all about myself, but this sounds more important. “So, that means…” I say, hesitantly. “It means that they hate each other. Mom can’t stand to be in the same room with Dad.” Pam throws the soggy ball, but Scotty only watches it roll to the edge of the pool. “That’s too bad,” I say. “Not really. Alone they’re nicer to me. Anyway, to show off they buy me lots of stuff, so I do better than if we were together.”

“Oh.” “See this?” She holds out her watch, a shiny gold bracelet, wide on her narrow wrist. “Very expensive! So then my mom bought me this—” and Pam wiggles her fingers to show off a ring with a flashing red stone. “Oh,” I say again. “I don’t know what will happen if they get divorced. If it means they quit buying stuff, I hope they stay separated.” “Oh.” I can’t think of anything to say. I’ve never heard of being separated. I’ve never known anyone my age who didn’t live at home with both parents. And yet, Pam looks okay and her parents buy her things, so it can’t be all bad. Every situation must have its advantages—well, most situations. “Your parents are happy, ay?” I’m startled. What does a happy parent look like? “I—I guess they are.” Pam reaches down to scratch Scotty’s head. “Probably faking it. I don’t think there are any good marriages. I don’t plan to do it, myself.” “Get married?” “Yes. Just stay single and away from men. I listen to Mom talk with her friends and I think, why all the fuss? Skip men! They’re too stuck up, anyway.” “Are stuck up boys different than stuck-up girls? My dad doesn’t act anything like the stuck up girls I know.” “My mom says that men act like they’re the best. Whatever they want to do is what the whole family should do. A few years ago my dad decided to learn how to waterski, and he made my mom and me feel real bad because we didn’t want to try. Of course, my dopey brother went and learned, so he and Dad could show off together.” “My dad doesn’t care about waterskiing,” I assure her. “I don’t think he knows

how to do anything like that.” “Be careful,” Pam says in a low, alarming voice. “He’ll want to learn. And then he’ll drag the whole family in, and he’ll act like it’s the most important thing in the world, just because he likes it. I’ve heard my mom talk about it, and that’s how they all are. No way around it.” “Oh.” This conversation has taken a surprising turn, far from my telling about tether ball and Lagunitas School. “Oh,” I say again, and follow Pam as she climbs into a hedge to rescue the ball. “Karen!” I scramble out of the hedge. “That’s my mother. Want to walk to school together?” Pam shrugs. “Sure. See you at 7:30.” I hurry across the alley to my back door, where Mother is peering across the yard, one hand twisting the flower pinned to her blouse.

The night before school starts I don’t sleep very well. The loneliness of boarding school comes back to me, and the bathing suit and the dining hall and failing final exams. I also the couple across the street. Picturing them makes me feel even worse. Well, I finally tell myself, now I know my way around and at the end of the day I can walk home. No more path to the Residence Hall and Miss Crake. The best thing, I tell myself as I check my clock to make sure that the ballerina will dance early in the morning, the very smartest thing is to stay quiet and hope that no one re me. The next morning, Pam and I walk the six blocks, holding zippered book bags empty of everything but lined paper, pencils, a com and a protractor. We’re both dressed in starched summer uniforms and the school blazer. “You don’t have your beret on right,” Pam says, and she puts down her book bag. “Look at me. There! Straight, not at an angle. The crest has to aim forward.”

I reach my hand to touch the embroidered thing which Mother has carefully sewn on my hat: “LEE HOUSE” in gold above the curving tail of a lion? a tiger? a long-haired dog? I’ll have to ask someday. “But Mother thought this type of hat—” “Come on, let’s go. I don’t want to be late on the first morning.” We walk at a fast pace, Pam’s long stride keeping her ahead of me. “I visited my dad last week,” she says over her shoulder. “He’s in Manitoba with his girlfriend.” Girlfriend? A grown man? “Oh?” I prompt, and hurry to catch up in case she wants to tell details. “No fun, though. No good restaurants, no sightseeing, no presents, nothing. Dad was really off the mark this trip.” “Where’s Manitoba?” “East of here.” “It’s another state?” Pam stops and looks directly at me, scowling. “Province! Americans have states, we have provinces.” I feel inferior. Somehow provinces are better than states, and my hat had to be corrected, and Pam’s socks are rolled while mine are folded. The first day of school—no, school hasn’t even quite started yet—and I’m already wrong. “We came from a state. California,” I blurt out, eager to redeem myself by interesting her in my life. “We lived in Marin County, way out in the hills, but we went into San Francisco all the time. That’s where my dad worked, and I I got to play with his phones once. And the elevator. It was fun. Then his company transferred him up here. He’s supposed to fix a lumber mill so they can make a lot of money.” “How long will you be here?” It’s working! Pam sounds interested.

“I’m not sure. Until the mills make enough money, I guess.” “So it’s just temporary.” “Oh no, it may take a long time! Or I may decide to stay up here and live. I think I may decide that. It’s pretty.” “Meet some man and marry?” I’ve forgotten her resolution. “Sure! That would be nice!” I see myself in a cozy kitchen, rain on the windows, bread cooling, my apron and high heels spotless as I walk to the door to greet my husband. “You’d be making a big mistake,” Pam says, shaking her head. We continue walking, Pam’s long legs and perhaps her annoyance carrying her further ahead, creating a big gap. Once I try to catch up, but my hat falls off, so that by the time we reach the edge of the campus, all I see is Pam’s back as she walks through the fence and around the corner of the nearest building.

1963

Geez, this is heavy. “Sure you need a trunk? Whatever made you take this old thing?” “Because it holds practically everything, Dad. Just slide it over there.” “Sure, ‘just slide,’ she says. The thing weighs a ton.” I can hardly stand up. Damn, I didn’t drink that much. Only refilled the flask once. “Then leave it.” “How you gonna get it to your room? Third floor, didn’t you say?” “I’ll find someone to help me. Kids’ll be arriving soon. I don’t need the trunk right away.” Some other father’s gonna drag it up there. She’ll make a friend and ask that kid’s father— “Just leave it, Dad!” She’s disgusted. I disgust her. Probably her mother disgusts her, too. Elizabeth looks pretty good, carries herself okay, but I can tell Karen’s sick of us. Some of that’s her age, going off to college. Natural. Christ, I feel terrible. Good thing the banister’s there. The wall. If I squint, I can see her talking to someone. Housemother, I guess. Sit here and rest. Get my energy back. “Dad, Mrs. Rathburn says a lot of students have moved in already. I’ll be okay. Better get started back.” Wants us outta here. Get gone, old Daddy! Well, that’s natural, too. Can’t stop them from growing up. “Can I use the restroom?”

“Just a minute, Mother. Let me ask where they are.” “I could go upstairs to your floor… .” “That’s ridiculous! There must be one down here.” We’re ridiculous. The sooner we pee in her pot and leave the better. She doesn’t want anyone to see us, none of these sharp looking college kids. Sorority girls, all of ‘em will be. My pretty Karen, bright, aware. Will she do that, a sorority? Up to her, whatever she wants, but they’d be crazy not to grab her. I’ve gotta find the money, somehow. “Oh darling, I just hate leaving you here. Are you sure you’ll be all right?” God, is Elizabeth going to cry?” “Fine. I’ll let you know how Sorority Rush goes.” “Yes, do, dear! We’ll be eager for the news.” At least one of us gushes. Not me. Elizabeth says what I wish but can’t say. “So, Karen. Call if you need help. Otherwise, write.” “Sure, Dad. I will. Bye.” What’s Elizabeth whispering? Something about thread and a ring. Damn, these women and their secrets. If I stand here, just look down carefully, I can measure to the street. Get a good sense of how far down it is before I step off. Didn’t hold Elizabeth’s arm, didn’t hold the car door for her. She’s having to lift up that leg more now, hoist it. Something’s wrong. Get her to a doctor. Get both of us.

“What did you wear, Karen?” “I had to borrow a dress. Vicki—that’s my roommate—she loaned me a long, gold thing and her fur jacket and gloves. Now that I’ve pledged a sorority, I’d better buy some fancy stuff, I guess.”

“Oh, I’m so excited for you! I thought pledging was the right thing to do. Your father and I didn’t send you to college to be an outsider. Was your blind date nice? What was his name?” “Peter. Yes, he’s very nice. I think he has a girlfriend. Someone pointed her out to me. Her name’s Louise, and she seems very sweet.” “Nothing to stop him from having a new girlfriend.” “Oh, Mother.” “So what was the dinner like?” “Chicken. Are you supposed to eat with those long gloves on?” “Heavens, no! A lady always removes her gloves before eating. You didn’t?” “I couldn’t figure out how! If I stretched my arms out to take them off, I might knock over something. How about the coat? Those puffy jackets? Everyone seemed to have theirs off, but I didn’t see how they did it, so I just left it on. It made eating really awkward.” “The young man should offer to help you with your wrap, dear. Peter must not be very sophisticated.” “No, he’s not. We make a good pair.” “But you danced after the dinner?” “Yes, the dancing was nice.” “You can leave on your gloves for dancing.” “Good, because they were on the whole evening.” “But you took off your jacket?” “Yeah. We had our picture taken, and that made a good excuse.” “Excellent! You can send us a copy! We’d love to see it. Oh, Karen, I’m so happy for you. College is such a wonderful experience.”

“Actually, it’s scary, Mother. I don’t know a lot of things.” “Never it confusion. Simply eat without spotting your jacket, so to speak. Always look confident. Karen?” “Yeah.” “ your fifth grade teacher who said you were solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. Stay that way, dear.” “Yes, Mother.”

CHAPTER FIVE

HURON HOUSE—1957

S eventh and eighth grade classes are held in a small bungalow on the edge of the campus, within view of the Residence Hall, but not close enough to constantly remind me of last May. Afraid to stare at my classmates, I focus on arranging the stuff in my locker, which is really only an open shelf in the hallway outside the classrooms, and on Miss Swanson, my new teacher. Miss Swanson has curly white hair, a pale face, and she’s fat. Despite enormous hips, she totters around on spiked heels with ankle straps, and she wears ugly dresses which stick to her thighs with static electricity. She has thick glasses and a high voice, and she loves to read aloud. Her favorite book is Little Nell by Dickens, and if we behave all week, she tells us sternly, after lunch on Fridays she’ll read a chapter to us. She also recommends on our first day that we should read Kon Tiki because we’ll have to write a report on it later in the year. From her description, it sounds like an interesting book, but she’s said that the report has to be illustrated, and I worry about that: I still draw stick figures and the tiny raft which I doodle in the margin of my binder paper looks like an envelope. I stack my new books neatly under my desk lid, arranging a row of pencils and a pile of paper. At recess I touch my shelf to reassure myself that my hat is there, and then I hurry outside, but I don’t have the nerve to approach the kickball circle. Instead, I stand near the fence, playing with my sleeve and trying to look busy. “Hello,” a girl says, walking toward me with a group of friends. “Hi.” “You’re back.”

“Yeah.” “Where were you this summer?” she asks, unsmiling. She looks familiar. I think her name is Jan, a day-student who got high grades last year and would never talk to me. Because I was American? Because I was a boarding student? “We lived in a place near Stanley Park.” Jan frowns. “But that’s not your real house, is it?” I smile. “No, that’s way too far to get here. Now we live a few blocks that way.” “You bought a house?” “Well, not exactly.” Mother wouldn’t like my telling this, but maybe Jan will become my friend. “My dad’s company owns the house. It’s close enough so I can walk to school, so I don’t need to board now. I only did that last year, right at the end, because we couldn’t move in yet.” “Too bad you can’t buy your own house.” Jan turns to her friends and, putting one hand where a hip would be if she weren’t so skinny, she says, “The girl in blue. ? With that cute little beret?” and the circle of girls laughs. “We came over here to tell you that we’d play with you except you’re still so immature.” “No—” “Yes, you are. It’s obvious.” And she stares straight at my flat chest. They walk away, laughing with their heads close together. They’re not so mature, I tell myself. They don’t have shapely anything. Nevertheless, I decide to ask Mother if she’ll buy me a padded training bra.

“How’s school?” Pam asks as we walk home one day. “Okay. How about you?” “Okay. Tomorrow you find out what House you’re in.”

“House? What’s that?” Pam scowls at me. “All upper school girls are in a House.” I must still look blank. “Like a school team,” she cries impatiently. “You earn merits for your House! That’s the little pin everyone has on their jackets. Red for Iroquois, blue for Algonquin or yellow for Huron. I’m an Algonquin,” she says with some pride, touching the small blue pin, shaped like a bow and hooked onto her lapel. “What do the names mean?” “You don’t know anything, do you? Those are Indian tribes. Eastern Canada.” “But this is Western Canada. Why’d they pick those tribes?” “I don’t know, little Miss Asker! I’ve never heard why, they just did.” I study the leaves scattered on people’s lawns. “How do they decide what House to put us in?” I ask. “The Prefects look at grades and athletic ability and divide up the seventh graders to balance the Houses. That’s what they say, anyhow.” “What do you mean?” Pam hugs her book bag and looks across the street. “Everyone knows that the Iroquois win the brainy awards, the Algonquins win athletic trophies, and the Hurons are duds.” I concentrate. What have I done to call attention to myself? To convince some older girl that I’d be good in her House? Maybe I walk or answer questions or eat lunch the way an Iroquois does. Maybe those girls, sitting in a quiet room somewhere, have already put my name into the best box, because, to them, it’s obvious. The next day a pimply girl with long, greasy hair bends over to pin on the yellow bow, and, with a sinking heart, I realize that I’m now a Huron for life. The other

seventh graders who get red or blue pins are peppy, funny. They can toss their hair or wave to Knots of girls shouting their names. It seems to me that those of us wearing yellow pins creep on and off the campus, trying not to interrupt the fun. The Heistress comes in to lecture about good study habits. “You should study one hour each night in junior high school, and if you do not have that much homework—” this said with a cross glance at Miss Swanson —“then spend your time reviewing. , girls: high marks earn merits for your Houses, and I am sure that you all want to help your new House.” I’m not sure that my House cares. But no one has ever talked to me about studying before, ever made it clear and precise, and I take her words seriously. That evening I arrange all my books and supplies neatly on my Spanish desk, which Mother already pretends I chose, and boost myself up with a pillow on my old white chair. I look at my clock to check my starting time: the ballerina is pointing at 7:15. Go! Not much math, an easy reading comprehension exercise, now a social studies assignment, with a test threatened for the next day. I read carefully, and I think I know the material. Spin around to the clock: only 7:45. Thirty more minutes. She said to review, so I make a list of with definitions; then I quiz myself: equator, solstice, elevation. Longitude is the long line up and down, so, process of elimination, latitude must be sideways. Parallel has one “r,” with parallel “l’s.” Equator, equal distance, line around the center. This is kind of fun, making studying a game. I continue drilling myself, glancing at the clock, until it’s 8:15, when I pack everything up with righteous satisfaction. The next day, Miss Swanson smiles slyly as she produces a quiz. My classmates whine, and I’m worried too until the quiz sheet reaches me. Arranged in a row are geography with wide spaces for the definitions: longitude, latitude, solstice, equator. Hardly believing my luck, I begin scribbling answers while others chew their pencils or whisper to each other. When Miss Swanson totters in front of us the next day, holding the stack of graded quizzes, I can feel my heart beat.

“Only one student received an A,” she announces, and girls lower their heads in fake shame. “You really must all do as the Heistress advised, and study one hour each night.” She begins to return papers: walking down the row, pausing next to each girl, licking her finger and flicking through the papers, producing one to turn face down on the student’s desk. “Karen,” she says, as her hips stop at my desk, “yours was the perfect paper. You can see that studying pays off.” Several girls glance at me suspiciously, but as I stare at the large “100%—A” written in red ink, I feel stunned. This is a whole new possibility for me: academic success. Merits earned for a team floundering before I arrived. Then, elevation to the position of youngest Prefect and a complete change in Huron’s reputation…. Throughout the afternoon, I sit taller in class. Once I even nod as Miss Swanson explains demonstrative pronouns. But I can’t often find much to study, and many of the grades come on papers written in class. I see most of those A’s going to girls with red pins, which makes spending an hour each night even harder. No Huron Prefect approaches me to urge that I be responsible for changing the reputation of my House. After two weeks, I give up the nightly routine, spending only as much time as necessary to do worksheets and forgetting to make review lists before tests. Why fight it? I ask myself. In every crowd there has to be a Huron.

“You have behaved well, girls, so today I’ll read Chapter Eight of Little Nell.” Miss Swanson heaves her left hip onto the edge of her desk and, spreading her legs, sticks out her right toe for balance. Eighth graders have warned us that she cries in sad places, no matter how often she’s read the book, and she does. Her voice drops to a lower pitch, then a handkerchief appears from the wrist of her dress, and she dabs at her eyes without looking up at us. We sit in absolute silence, even crying a little ourselves. We behave very well to earn these reading sessions: we like the story, we like being read to, and we like to see Miss Swanson cry.

In the evening, while muffled sounds come from behind the den door, I lie on my bed reading Kon Tiki. What an adventure, going so far from help, trying something which may not work. How amazing to use all their brains to become primitive! This is something Todd should read, I resolve, getting up from my bed. It just may convince him that books are okay. “Can I come in?” I ask, opening Todd’s door slightly. He looks up from a magazine, slides it under a sheet, and shrugs. I sit on the straight-back chair, trying not to rest much weight on the sagging seat. “How’s school?” I ask. Todd looks toward the door. “Mother around?” “She’s in the den.” “Good.” From under the same sheet he pulls a package of cigarettes and some matches. “Players,” he announces, holding up the Canadian cigarettes with pride. “Where’d you get them?” “Stores aren’t careful. You’re doing good in school, I bet.” “Okay. Not great. The Heistress told us how to study.” “Yeah?” “You spend an hour each—” Todd hoots. “An hour?” He sucks in on a cigarette. “Yeah, she says it takes that long to—” “An hour!” He blows a perfect smoke ring, the gray particles hanging in the air before stretching into a line and snaking out the open window. “As if I’d waste an hour on studying!” “Maybe you’d do better in school.” “Little Miss Muffet lecturing her brother? You’re just so perfect.”

“No, but—” “I’m already getting enough advice, thanks.” He reaches under the sheet again and pulls out an open bag of sunflower seeds and the magazine. “What are you reading?” I ask, eager to return to the topic I had in mind when I came in here. Todd waves the cover in front of me. This is an adventure magazine, showing a man in a plaid shirt fighting off a grizzly bear. Once before he showed me a cover with a man in a plaid shirt gritting his teeth as he stuck a paddle out of a canoe, trying to steer himself through rapids. Strapped on his back was a rifle. “Why do you read those? You hardly ever go outside.” “They have good articles,” Todd answers. “Here. I’ll show you some really good ones.” Again his hand hunts under the sheet, this time emerging with a magazine which has a man in a white shirt and shiny black vest pulling the blouse off a woman. Her shoulder has a bloody cut, but it hasn’t stained her blouse. “Or this one,” Todd says, and pulls out another magazine. “It looks like the same woman!” I exclaim. On this cover she’s being chained against a wall, a different white blouse ripped from the other shoulder and outlining big breasts. The man has a blue shirt but the same nasty look, and the woman’s crying. “Who is that?” I ask, reaching for the magazine, but Todd quickly shoves it under the sheet. I’m used to “Life” magazine, or “Look,” where the covers have real photographs. If this lady is real, she has a lousy life. “Nobody in particular,” Todd answers. “I’ll show you something else.” I look toward the sheet—his bed has become a magic box where rabbits and top hats could appear instantly—but he raises himself on one hip, pulls his wallet from a pocket, and lifts out of the fold which should contain bills a collection of pictures of bare breasts, all snipped carefully from the rest of their bodies.

“Oh yuk, that’s gross!” I yell. “No grosser than what you left lying on the bathroom floor yesterday,” he sneers, and as I slam out of his room, I’m embarrassed. How could I forget to throw away one of those pads? Because my hands were full with all the other stuff you need when you “become a woman,” as Mother calls it. Mother has recently announced this great event to Dad, proudly standing me in the doorway of the den, but it didn’t seem to give Dad any particular pleasure. Beyond buying the necessary stuff—like another belt to wear under my bloomers—and providing the appropriate booklet, Mother seems uninterested in sharing any coping details, and so I handle the monthly curses without modesty. The only fact of life Mother offers, and this is done formally after closing my door and sitting on the edge of a bed, is, “One day, Karen, men may be interested in your breasts.” I look down at my flat front. Unless I grow like the women in Todd’s magazines, the possibility seems highly unlikely to me, so I don’t say anything, and Mother abruptly leaves the room.

On a December Saturday, Pam invites me to her house. Perhaps she’s warming to me, I think as I dress; maybe she’s going to talk girl-talk. I look forward to seeing her bedroom. Instead, we sit in her basement playroom, and she teaches me how to play Clue. “Miss Scarlet did it with the lead pipe in the Conservatory,” I announce, as we play for the third time. “Say, ‘I suspect’ first,” Pam corrects. “I suspect that Miss Scarlet did it with the lead pipe in the Conservatory,” and I’m right. Quickly, I’m winning every time we play, and Pam doesn’t seem too happy about it. The next Saturday I sit at the card table and see a different game,

Monopoly. I’ve heard of it but I’ve never played it. Paying money and receiving proof of a purchase is so definite that at first I’m fascinated, but I play with no plan and buy only the cheapest properties, rarely owning all of one color. I’m frightened of going broke, and I’m not at all eager to invest in hotels. Soon Pam schedules Monopoly marathons, leaving the game in play for weeks. Sometimes she persuades Todd to come with me, the two of them pooling cash to form partnerships which can acquire all the utilities and the dark purple lots, and then hooting when I land on them. I finally realize that they’re forcing me into bankruptcy, and I get mad and cry and am a poor sport. Running from their laughter, I grab a bton racket in our backyard and hit shuttlecocks high into the air, over and endlessly over. Fifty-one, fifty-two, fiftythree…. The tree near the fishpond sometimes traps the birdie until I grab a lowhanging branch and tug on it, loosening the feathers of the shuttlecock. If I’m rarely going to win, I complain without losing count as I whack the birdie, why can’t I at least be a good loser? I’m disgusted with myself, but I hide it by being grouchy toward Todd and Pam and Monopoly.

When report cards come out in June, Todd has failed. “Assigned to repeat tenth grade,” the printing says. He scoffs and slams his door. My grades aren’t terrific —mostly C’s and a few B’s—but, unlike last year, they’re good enough to prove that I can do private school work. “Well, that’s a nice beginning,” Mother says, putting aside the report card. “Next year you’ll probably do much better. Steady improvement is all we can ask for.” “What happens when you repeat a grade?” Mother, sitting on the den couch, pulls the afghan over her knees. “Exactly what the word says. You repeat. It’s nothing I’ve experienced personally, but Todd deserved it. Perhaps he’ll take his brains more seriously now.” She looks up from her magazine. Her hair is waved tightly around her forehead, and her skin is smooth.

“Did I ever tell you that your brother has a very high I.Q.?” I’m surprised. “Then how come he isn’t doing better in school?” “Lazy. I had both of you tested when you were little, and Todd’s quite smart.” “Am I?” Mother shakes her head and looks back down at the magazine. “Not like Todd. Oh, you’re not retarded or anything, just average.” She shakes her head again. “That boy is wasting his intellect. But you—” she smiles at me— “you keep working, dear, and you’ll steadily improve.” For a Huron, summer vacation is a welcome break from academic dangers. Pam will invite me over to throw balls or lose dumb games. I’ll rearrange my room, put the bookcases over here and the desk there and both beds on that wall. Maybe I should spend time with Mrs. Wiley, the seamstress, and learn how to do neat hems. I could get my hair cut or let it grow, whichever makes me look cuter for school, and I can always read. Mother’s bought me some Nancy Drew mysteries. Dad has said that we might take a trip to the Okanagan Valley, where they grow apples and there’s a lake with good fishing. Someone told him that if you know where to look, sometimes you can find Indian arrowheads or even a woven bowl. I imagine myself an Iroquois princess, paddling a canoe toward a grassy bank and climbing out onto a path lined with apple trees. Walking along the path, my braids swinging, I approach a log lodge, pink in the sunset. I disappear inside the heavy front door, and later, from high above the ground, I lean far out a window, my long braids, freshly wrapped in red ribbons, almost touching the handsome Mountie’s outstretched arms.

1965

Dear Mary,

Please forgive me for not writing. Somehow the hand just wouldn’t move. Every so often that happens—either a stiffness in my muscles or else absolute refusal to respond. I sit reading a good deal—fortunately, the eyes are still good. At any rate, that’s why this old typewriter. I hope I haven’t forgotten how to use it! ( our typing teacher? What an ogre! We were too young to be made marketable, don’t you agree?) Our news is that we’ve sold the store and our house to move back to Oregon. Although I love our home and will miss it terribly, I am looking forward to being home again. The aromas, the seasons, even the rain! We’re planning to buy a small place on the coast—Karen’s away at college and Todd isn’t at home, so we won’t need much space. Bob will set up an office in the home and get back to legal work, perhaps run for office someday. Imagine! You must come out to the coast and visit. We’d love to see you. The store has been an interesting experience, but I’m glad that period of our lives is over. Bob loves law and this move will give us a new chance. He’s been so ill since leaving CZ, and I think a return to “our roots” will help him. He’s eager to stop the medication, and I think that will be possible once the stress of the store is removed. When I feel up to it, I pack—there’s so much beautiful stuff, vases and crystal and fine linens that we collected in Canada. I was saddened to see how much of it was broken in storage. Such a lovely life we had up there, so elegant and refined. We do seem to have too many things for a small house on the coast, so perhaps it’s back into storage again! Karen’s a happy college student. (I’m sure you those wonderful days.) She’s surprised all of us with her acting! A real talent, the papers say. All those

years of girls’ schools may not have been such a good idea, because she seems ill-at-ease around boys. She’s made only one boyfriend, an art major named Peter. We took them out for coffee one evening, and he seems like a nice fellow, but we’d wanted her to circulate more (spoken like parents)! Todd has disappeared again, doing what, we aren’t sure. He seems content to make crafts and sell them at small gift stores. Well, when you next hear from me, the letter will bear an Oregon address! Old friends together again!

Love, Elizabeth

CHAPTER SIX

THE QUEEN—1958

V ancouver sets a record: no sun for 180 days. The drizzle and low clouds are depressing. Whenever I go into the backyard, I step in mud or mushy grass, so I can’t play bton or lounge on the lawn. Pam, who had promised to invite me over to use her pool during the summer, is closed inside her house, knowing that a game of Monopoly isn’t enough to pull me into the drizzle. Each evening Dad shrugs off his heavy coat and leans a dripping black umbrella against the front hall radiator before sinking into his chair and grunting “Brrrr!” The trip to the Okanagan Valley is canceled, but one night pictures of gardens appear on television. “Oh, Bob, look at those colors!” Mother cries. “Where did he say that was?” “Victoria,” Dad answers. “Where’s Victoria?” Mother asks, extending her empty glass in the familiar gesture. “Over on Vancouver Island.” “Is that far?” Dad looks at me. “You know your geography, Karen. How far is the Island?” I look away from the TV. “I don’t know the miles, but I think you can take a ferry over in a couple hours.” “And those gardens,” Mother asks, “are they near the ferry?”

“You take your car on a ferry, Mother, and then you can drive anywhere. It’s not like we have to walk,” I explain impatiently. Sometimes Mother can be so dense. “Victoria is the capital of British Columbia,” Dad volunteers. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea for us to explore the city a little, maybe see some government buildings. I’ll check into it at work, ask a few people.” Dad sounds very important. “Do!” Mother says, obviously excited. “I’m sure that people in your office would have some excellent suggestions.” They both take another sip from their drinks. “No trips until August, though,” Dad says. “This weather has to clear up by then, and I’ve got too much going on right now.” “That’s fine,” Mother agrees. Quietly, we turn our attention back to the television, where Lassie is bounding to another rescue. I like this show because Lassie is beautiful, and the family takes care of each other. After the show ends, I say good night, but leaving the room is never that easy. Mother twists her head, offering her cheek, and I give her a quick peck, hating this nightly ritual. Someday, I promise myself, I’ll close my book and the door and go to bed, saying nothing to anybody, giving no required kisses. I will also not call a child all the way from the other side of the house to open a window next to me—Mother has begun to do that, and I really resent it. Why, I wonder as I take off my clothes, has she suddenly begun to develop such bad habits? Just when I need to show her off. Rain continues. Todd sits in his bedroom all day, with no summer job because of his grades, looking at magazines and eating sunflower seeds, and he won’t talk to me. I’m so bored that when our next door neighbor, Betty McGregor, invites Mother for tea, I beg to go along. Betty’s married to a man who’s very quiet, and she has a son, about five, who’s whiny and spoiled, but Betty herself is sweet. She has pets, and during her

vacations, I feed her cats, bring in the mail and turn lights on and off. I love the job. Several times each day I can create a life-sized Tudor doll house, trying to see from a burglar’s eyes what occupied looks like, which shutters need to be opened, what room the family is sitting in, what time they’ll go to bed. I become so involved with this story, even leaving on a bathroom light all night to indicate a sick child, I hope, that it’s always a disappointment when the McGregors return. They pay me a quarter a day, which I add to my savings, hidden in a shoebox in my closet. Mother and I tie plastic rain hats under our chins and set off down the circular driveway to the sidewalk and Betty’s house. “Of course, I’m no expert on such matters, Elizabeth,” Betty says in her soft voice as we sit in what Mother and Clue call a conservatory, “but poodles are so well-behaved, and if you bought a miniature—not a toy, they’re too high-strung, but the next bigger size—it would still have plenty of room to play in your back yard. Of course, in this weather, it would be indoors most of the time, but then you’d have such a nice companion.” Betty twists her pearls and smiles shyly at me. I can tell that she’s nervous about offering an opinion or trying to persuade anyone of anything. Mother, who’s proud of having been loved by two huge German Shepherds in her childhood, watches the sugar tongs as Betty drops a cube into Mother’s cup. “Y-y-yes, it is a convenient size, certainly.” Betty continues. “Of course, I’m never sure about such things, but I think miniature poodles, especially silver ones, are quite popular now. It seems to me that I saw a picture of the Queen holding one. I’m not sure.” Mother looks up quickly. “The Queen?” “Or perhaps it was the Queen Mother.” “Well,” says Mother, vigorously stirring her tea to dissolve the cube, “a silver poodle is an excellent suggestion, Betty.” And so we buy one. He’s very expensive, and we add to the cost by buying a plaid bed in an oval basket, a fake jewel collar, a choke chain for obedience

class, a leather leash and a wool snow jacket. We name him CeZee, the initials of Dad’s corporation in San Francisco, and he’s immediately adored by Betty and our neighbor across the street, Rhona, both of whom live close enough to care. They walk by the back yard and stick their fingers through the fence, talking baby talk and cooing. If I’m outside, I pick CeZee up, so that he clears the planks, and they can pat him. CeZee especially loves Mother, following her around the house and yelping when she’s in the bathroom, but his devotion bugs me. I’m the one reading all the books and training him, after all. I take him for walks, making him sit and heel. I clean up his poop in the kitchen. Why doesn’t he moon around after me? Within a month, both neighbors buy silver miniature poodles, and I can tell that Dad is proud: neighbors have followed his family’s lead. “He’s a sharp dog,” Dad says emphatically, watching CeZee sleeping on the den floor. “Good breeding.” And he rises to pour a drink, congratulating himself. The weather finally warms, and we meet the neighbors on the sidewalk at the end of our driveway to chaperone the dogs, discussing their growth and personalities, much as though they were children: CeZee is boisterous, Fluff classy, Pokey shy. The dog becomes our first and strongest link with our neighbors. To show Rhona, who may look out her window, that CeZee knows how to heel on a leash, on dry days Mother walks up and down the sidewalk, the dog sniffing at wet bushes, Mother standing elegant but firm. Seeing her, Rhona emerges with Fluff, and they walk short distances together, parading in front of our house. Leaning on my bolsters and peeking through the café curtains, I watch them and envy their poise. Partly because she wears suits most days, Rhona looks old, even though Mother’s told me she’s about Mother’s age. They have the same bouffant hairstyles, which they keep up by regular trips to the same salon at the Vancouver Hotel. Rhona’s married to a frail, white-haired antique named Thomas. By comparison, Mother looks snazzy, this time wearing a pale blue silk dress,

white trim around the deep V front. The seamstress, who’s begun to work regularly in the small room near our kitchen, made it from a Vogue pattern labeled “difficult,” and Mother had shoes dyed to match, high blue heels with a tiny white bow on each toe. I see them talking quietly, each gesturing with broad gold bracelets. Rhona smiles at my mother, and Mother tips her head to one side and smiles back. Suddenly, Rhona looks down at Mother’s leg and reaches out an arm. I look, too, and I can see dark red blood oozing down Mother’s stocking, not touching dress, but slowly sliding over her knee and down her calf in a thick glob. She says something to Rhona and then turns with CeZee toward the house, glancing only once at the blood stretching toward her shoe. She walks up the driveway, gracious and unhurried, to extend her hand toward the doorknob. In a few minutes, I hear her opening drawers in her room, but at dinner, wearing a different dress, she doesn’t say anything about the blood, and I don’t ask. Her poise impresses me, though, and as she serves and talks to Dad, I watch. She may be phony—Todd has accused her of that more than once—but phoniness sure beats being embarrassed. That evening I try out queenliness in front of my mirror, smiling slightly, trying to arch a brow, but my eyebrows are unmoving caterpillars. I try to chat sweetly with an invisible friend, but the gap between my teeth spoils everything. Slumping at the Spanish desk, I pull out a fresh sheet of lined paper. I’ll write something. I’ll express my pain and frustration. Or I could write about Mother. Maybe CeZee. With sudden inspiration, I begin a poem:

Who trods this tiny path of light? What wonders does he see? Who kisses each blade of grass And drops blessings over me?

Not bad, I think. I erase “he” and spell it with a capital; I re-consider “trods,” but I like the sound of the word, solid and forceful, so I don’t look it up; I change “each” to “every” and prefer the rhythm. Generally, I wonder what this verse means, but since it’s only a beginning, I’ll probably figure out the meaning as I go along. Unfortunately, I don’t go along. No ideas come. Standing at the window, I watch the clouds; I scoop erasure onto the carpet to clean my desk; I go to the bathroom. No inspiration. Writer’s block. The telephone rings, Mother answers it, and she calls for me. I’m excited because I never get telephone calls. It’s Pam, and she wants to take a walk with our dogs the next morning, since the rain is supposed to stop. “I think I’ll try wearing heels,” I say. “Want to?” Heels would help me look queenly. “No, I’ll probably wear pants. See you at ten.” I don’t have time to explain that each evening Mother has been making me practice walking in heels, back and forth in the living room between the two linen couches, ankles wobbling, hands out for balance. My new shoes are black and have squat heels which leave dents in the carpet. “Now lower your arms, Karen. You won’t fall. I’m right here…. That’s it! That’s the way!…. Oh, dear, you’re all right. No, no, you’re all right. Let’s try again…. That’s it. Keep going. Now, when you turn, try pirouetting just a bit. Like this…. No, like this!…. Well, let’s just concentrate on the walk. You can take modeling lessons someday and learn the turn, I suppose.” The path of dents widens so thick that there is no smooth place in front of the mantle, only Swiss cheese, but Mother isn’t thinking about the carpet as I rest on the sofa. “You’ll need stockings, of course, before you can wear those shoes with a party dress.” We both know that Dad hasn’t approved clear nylons yet. Lifting her chin,

Mother stands. “You leave stockings to me, dear.” “Can I try out heels tomorrow? Pam and I are going to walk the dogs.” “Those heels? Let’s save them for dress-up. But you can borrow a pair of mine. We wear the same size.” “Won’t yours be too high?” I ask, as we climb the stairs. “Look through what I have.” She gestures grandly toward her bedroom. “Pick out whatever seems comfortable. But don’t come in here,” she adds, extending one palm toward the den door. “Let me have a few moments with your father.” And we smile slyly at each other. Her closet is a deep room, with built-in cupboards and open shelves for purses and sweaters. I can smell dried flowers, wrapped in tiny sacks tied with satin bows and scattered through her drawers or hanging from a special dress. Peeking inside a zippered bag, I touch my favorite fancy dress: bright flowers with a draped back, hanging above shoes which are covered in matching fabric. Someday, I think as I force my bare foot into the spike-heeled shoe. Someday. For now, the low-heeled shoes with woven toes will do. Even these are a treat, imported from Italy and purchased downtown to become Mother’s first pair of sophisticated shoes-for-everyday, as she describes them. These are not even distant relations to the sneakers we routinely wore in Woodacre. As I walk cautiously in front of her mirror, my ankles tremble slightly, but I’m steady enough for a solo flight. The next morning I put on a dress and Mother’s heels without stockings. The look is not quite right. Then, hooking CeZee onto his leash, I pick my way through the damp yard and cross the alley without getting Mother’s shoes dirty. Pam is dressed in pants, and with her short, straight hair bobbing, she looks cute, but I want to match my poodle in dignity as Mother and Rhona do. Tottering a bit, I hope CeZee prances. “Maybe a walk will clear my head,” I say to Pam.

She frowns. “You’ve got a cold?” “No, I’m writing a poem, and….it’s giving me trouble.” I like the sound of that, like I’m doing battle with some enemy over whom I shall eventually, certainly triumph. “Oh.” Pam’s not impressed. “I just want to buy something. Mom gave me some money.” She swaggers as she announces this, as though dollar bills regularly blossom from the tips of her mother’s fingers, as though Pam is facing a greater challenge than my struggle with creativity: how to spend someone else’s money. “Oh,” I answer. The truth is that I really hope a walk in heels will establish me as an young sophisticate. If the walk stimulates creativity, so much the better. The neighborhood between our houses and the store is shaded by lush trees over broad lawns. One particularly beautiful house is three stories high, all brick with dark green wood shutters and trim. Lining its front walk are bushes, trimmed tall and skinny, all heavy with red and pink roses. One window is open and a lace curtain waves at me in my heels. We reach Fischer’s, and I’m proud of not stumbling, not once attracting Pam’s attention. Pam hands me her dog’s leash. Scotty pulls toward her owner and yaps, not comforted by my sounds as I lean over, a little unsteady in my shoes, and rub his ears. “It’s okay, Scotty,” I say, “she’ll be back. She’ll be out right away.” Even though my position is uncomfortable, I keep talking because I worry that animals can feel confused, so they deserve explanations. CeZee wiggles and sniffs and barks at traffic. When Pam comes out, having bought some wax lips and two packages of Necco Wafers, I explain to CeZee where I’m going and hand Pam his leash.

Walking slowly up each aisle, I hope that my appearance will attract comment, but the owner is busy stacking bottles, and his wife, after a quick glance, bows her head over paperwork. I’m left trying to decide what to buy with my 50 cents. Perhaps a movie magazine, a candy bracelet, a box of Chiclets to share on the walk back. Then I see a display of sunglasses and, forgetting my feet, I hurry to the rack. Spinning it, I find a tortoiseshell pair, so classy and stylish. The tag says $2.95, much more than I’ve brought, but the glasses rest comfortably in my hand, as though I’d wear them well. I’ve seen girls on buses wearing sunglasses. I want this pair. I want to simply put them in my pocket and walk out, see if these glasses can be mine. If I make it, I deserve them. I look for the lady, but she’s gone. The man is studying a shelf of bottles and talking on the phone. No one notices, no one cares. I slide the glasses into my sweater pocket and walk a few steps toward the magazines, heart pounding. I don’t want to buy one of those. I really don’t want to buy anything now. I walk as smoothly as my shoes will allow, down the aisle marked “Hygiene Centre” on hanging cardboard, and out the door. “Heel!” I command, jerking the choke chain from Pam’s hand and beginning to walk quickly away from the store. Pam runs to catch up. “What’s the rush? Didn’t you buy anything for me?” “No.” Cheeks burning, I shove the glasses further down in my pocket. “Hey! I was hoping for some gum! I’ll share with you. Didn’t you buy anything?” “No.” By the time I reach my yard and let CeZee off his leash, my calves ache and my heart is pounding. I’m terrified that the couple will spot the missing glasses and send the police after me, sirens blaring, but I hear nothing except a bird. In my bedroom, I take out the glasses and bite off the tag, hiding it at the bottom

of my wastepaper basket. The glasses are not so special now, not appealing with their bit of gold at the temple. All I can think of is that I’ve stolen something. I’ve been a thief. Instead of trying them on, I hide the glasses at the bottom of my sweater drawer and slam it shut, knowing that I’ll never touch them again. That night I dream I’m in a store. I walk quickly, taking one thing from each table, every shelf. When my purse is bulging with cosmetics, and my arms are so hidden by clothing, towels, and a rubber bathmat that I can’t grab anything more, I rush for the front doors, dropping some of my load to squeeze outside. A woman is running off with my dog, but I don’t yell or try to catch them, and they disappear into an ivy-covered building with shutters. When I reach the building, still loaded with stuff from the store, a window becomes a slide, and, squatting on the chute, I disappear into the building, all the merchandise and my fat purse sliding after me. Suddenly, the trees around the building have my stolen items dangling from their branches, panties and jeans and mascara and candy bracelets fluttering in the breeze. A crowd gathers—Rhona, Miss Swanson, the store owner, my mother— all staring at the tree, pointing and talking seriously with one another. And they are all wearing sunglasses, tortoiseshell sunglasses with gold at the temple. The breeze which moves the underpants and candy bracelets in the tree also moves the price tags hanging against their cheeks, but no one stops talking.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Mother says, tapping her nail on the brochure resting on the afghan. “The Club would expose the children to fine things.” “I wasn’t thinking so much about them,” Dad answers. “I need to be a member for my job, be seen around the place. I’ll probably have to take up golf.” “Oh well, golf’s not so bad. Karen likes bton and both the children ought to learn tennis. Don’t they have a gardening club?” Dad swallows from his glass of orange-red wine. “I think so.” “Karen? Wouldn’t it help at school?”

I look away from “Lassie.” “Being a member? Probably not.” Mother frowns. “You don’t think the other girls value that?” “We’re Americans, Mother.” Mother tilts her chin toward her shoulder and arches one eyebrow. “Americans are inferior? Do you get that feeling, Robert?” Dad shakes his head. “Not inferior, Elizabeth. But…different.” Mother’s other eyebrow s the first. “Different how?” But Dad only shrugs. “Things can’t be equal but different, Robert,” Mother continues, her voice ing her eyebrows. “Are Americans belittled? Karen? Do those girls make you feel lesser?” Dad glances at me and then looks out the window toward Betty’s. I’m confused. Would I win at Monopoly if I still lived in California? No. Would I write better poetry? No. Would I balance better in heels? I wouldn’t be wearing them yet. That’s what’s so confusing: trying to decide how we’re doing when we’re not doing what we’d normally be doing. “I was going to say,” I answer, without answering, “Todd’ll never go to the club.” Mother picks up the brochure again. “Don’t worry, Karen. Your father will just have to make him, won’t you, dear?”

Mother puts aside a copy of “Better Homes and Gardens” and announces that it’s time to do some cleaning. “But we have Anna,” I say, looking up from my cards.

Anna’s our German housecleaner who comes each Friday. We have to clean before she arrives or everything left out will be thrown away. Any small object is unnecessary clutter. So on Thursday nights and Friday mornings we scoop everything out of sight, into drawers, back onto hangers, knowing that what we don’t hide, Anna will dump. But on Sundays, the house is a mess again. More than that, sloppiness reappears. The kitchen especially attracts peculiar odors, and the refrigerator is filled with half-sealed containers of molding food. Glasses in the den cabinet become orange. Wastebaskets overflow. The laundry basket has clothes which are never washed, and the dryer has stuff we’ve never folded because we don’t know where it belongs, so we simply keep drying it. Every week that same stuff spins and tumbles, endlessly drying. I had hoped that this house and Anna would change our habits, but, I think with real concern, we are who we are. “No,” Mother says, unfolding her legs, “Anna does surface. I mean a deep cleaning.” She leaves the sofa for her room and re-emerges a moment later in pedal pushers and a blouse which hangs outside the waistband. These are Mother’s work clothes. Later I hear water running in the kitchen sink, then the clink of glass. She must be washing the decorative bottles, the ones perched on glass shelves in front of the kitchen windows and filled with water and food coloring. Each bottle is carefully removed from its shelf, emptied, swished with a scrubber, re-filled and returned to its place, creating rows of yellow poodles, red dolphins, blue palace guards, green fish with open mouths. The cleaning is often interrupted by a meal, or by the groceries being delivered to the back door, so that it may take several hours, but eventually all the bottles are back on their shelves, colors sparkling in the light. Mother returns to the sofa, folds her legs again, and picks up the magazine. The decorative bottles begin and end her cleaning. “I’m glad that’s done” she sighs. “Dorothy’s coming by in the morning to say hello, and I want things to look nice.”

The interior decorator will probably not go into the kitchen, but Mother can move more confidently through the other rooms, knowing that the kitchen bottles are clean.

Mrs. McManama hugs Mother and we sit on a linen sofa. A faint pattern of dents from my heels still shows. Mrs. McManama looks around the room possessively before her eyes rest on me. “And how are you getting along now, my girl?” she asks, taking my hand. “Okay,” I reply. Her brown eyes are so alert that she makes me nervous. She looks down at the hand she’s holding, until I try to pull it away, knowing what’s coming. Mrs. McManama looks at Mother. “I’d hoped that she’d stop biting her nails, Elizabeth, now that she’s comfortably settled in her own home.” Mother nods and the room is filled with sorrow for my nonexistent nails. Mrs. McManama reaches for my hand again, but I grab CeZee, hoping that it looks like the dog jumped into my lap, and bury my face and hands in his fur. When Mrs. McManama is distracted by coffee, I escape into the backyard, enjoying the unusual warmth of the sun. I think a little about a second verse for my poem—surprised that I’ve begun writing something which sounds religious when I haven’t a religious idea in my head. Maybe that’s why I’m still stuck. Mrs. McManama wears a crucifix around her neck. Betty and Rhona go to an Anglican church every Sunday. The Queen is the head of the Church of England. No, maybe that’s someone else, but she’s always on her way out of church, wearing a suit and ugly hat and carrying a purse which I’ve heard is empty. And why not? She has zillions of attendants. What could she possibly need? Unless she suddenly bends over a girl standing in the crowd, hugging a poodle. “What do you need, child? Sir Jeremy! I want to give this girl something!” she

might ask as Sir Jeremy, running up behind her, nods toward me. And what would I ask for? I need help with my poem? Could you invite my parents over so they get out of the den? If you gave me three dollars, I could pay for some sunglasses. “Queen, please, could I come live with you? Just for awhile, until I’ve become sort of royal? Because staying where I am, I’m afraid I’ll never make it.” “Do you own that poodle?” she might ask, her empty purse dangling. “Yes, ma’am,” I’ll answer politely. “Spend a great deal of time with your poodle, my dear,” and she may disappear into a Cinderella carriage, pulled by eight white horses. CeZee yelps at me. He wants to play, but I hesitate, unsure how a lady ought to play with a dog. Then I grab his yellow rubber bone, and, stretching forward, more like an athlete than a lady, I throw it as far as I can.

1960

“Let him go. He’ll be better off on his own.” “He’s always been a good person, Mother. After all, he’s never killed anyone or broken the law.” “Send him the money, Elizabeth. He just needs some cash to get started.” “The maps of gold mines may be for real. You never know with Todd.” “With that battered truck, it’s amazing he can finish a sales trip. Buy him some new tires for Christmas.” “Don’t help him set up a dune buggy business. One more stupid idea.” “I think his wife got on drugs. That must be why she left him.” “Even though he didn’t get custody, his kids prefer living with him. I can understand that.” “He’s just different, that’s all. Should have been born in the 1840’s. He’s an anachronism.” “He’s an eccentric.” “He’s a loner.” “He’s a flake, Karen.” “Your grandfather and I quit giving him money. We realized we could never give him enough.” “Even though he’s your brother, it’s possible that he’s just not a very nice person.” “Even though he’s my son, I don’t want to leave him any of my money. He’ll

waste it.” “He’s a loser.” “He’s a flake.” “He’s only different!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE RESORT—1959

“ Todd,” I call excitedly, pushing open his door. “Guess—” He quickly slides a magazine under the blanket. He won’t let me see the women anymore. “What?” he demands. “We’re going to Vancouver Island! Next week! To a resort!” “Big deal. I don’t want to go. Probably be like our famous trip to the Grand Canyon. ‘There it was! Did you see it?’” “That’s weird, coming from you. I mean, you don’t like being around us, so I’d think you’d like a fast trip.” “Doesn’t matter. I’m not going.” But we both know he has to. I tell myself that a trip to a resort must be different than driving non-stop through Yellowstone. There’s a destination, with things to do once you get there. Dad’s secretary makes the reservations and tells everyone where we’re going, which makes Mother proud. We pack half a dozen suitcases, stuff them in the trunk of the car, loan CeZee to Betty because the resort won’t accept pets, and drive to the ferry. The crossing is foggy, and when we reach the island, we inch through more fog to Victoria. My mother calls “I think I see the Butchart Gardens over there!” and “That must be the capital building!” Todd punches my arm, gloating. “We’re not going to stop?” I ask. Dad mumbles something about needing to find the resort, and, the tour ended,

we head north. Fog lifts, and the island looks beautiful, green and bushy. As we pull up in front of the lodge, I twist around in the seat to watch kids hitting golf balls on a small lawn. Even from the top of the stairs, I can hear their laughter and friendly teasing about each other’s aim, and I long to be part of the group. The lodge is an enormous log cabin. My parents have two rooms upstairs which I barely get to see before Dad takes Todd and me back down to our shared room on the main floor. “We’ll be staying several days,” Dad reminds us, putting down the last of our ragged luggage—he and Mother got to use the new white bags. “You’d better unpack everything. Todd! Are you listening?” “Yeah, yeah,” Todd answers, throwing open his suitcase, scooping up an armful of clothes, and smashing them into a drawer. Dad’s lips tighten but he does nothing except slam our door. I carefully smooth out my dresses, hanging them on three wire hangers, and match my shorts outfits with their blouses in a drawer, but I leave my underwear hidden in the suitcase. Then I sit on my bed, waiting, but Todd’s reading a book on aliens and only grunts when I ask if he wants to go outside. I’m more bored than afraid, so I leave him. The swimming pool is a big rectangle surrounded by tables with umbrellas and matching chairs. Sitting in sport shirts and talking very loudly are men Dad’s age, and next to them sit women in stockings, sundresses and large hats. I watch carefully. As golf games begin, the men come and go, but the women stay behind, talking quietly with one another, sometimes gathering for a game of bridge or canasta. As far as I can tell, they wear bathing suits only at dusk, when they slide into the water to swim the long lanes, keeping their hair carefully above the surface, and then climb out to drown in fluffy robes and hurry off to the lodge. Along one side of the pool stretches a set of narrow tables covered each day for lunch. Children climb from the pool, rub themselves quickly with a towel, and then fill plates with desserts, while the uniformed waiters stand ready to slice roast beef. But even the desserts are left half-eaten on the tables or on the pool deck: playing Marco Polo or trying to see the outlines of a girl’s privates is more

fun than food. For three days Todd and I swim, play cards, eat with quiet voices in the dining room, and putt on the green. Dad, who has learned to play golf, spends his days on the course and sometimes Mother goes along, sometimes she sits by the pool. I notice that when she stays behind, she’s more chatty at dinner, even though she’s only watched people all day. Mother seems to feel that observing is as good as doing, and that talking, thinking, forming opinions, is an action. “Did you realize that this lodge was built in 1880?” she asks one evening. We’re sitting at a fancy table in the dining hall which has a high ceiling made out of boards which meet at a peak. “The builder was a very rich man who wanted a hunting lodge for entertaining his friends, so he hired—” she abruptly lowers her voice— “coolie labor.” We’re all busy trying to use the skinny long forks for spearing shrimp and dipping them into red sauce. Mother continues. “Still, it cost a fortune. And then, just a few weeks after it was finished and he was preparing to move here for the summer, his wife died. That was so tragic! Not sick at all, but a sudden heart attack, they think.” She frowns, as though still trying to help solve this mystery. “In those days they didn’t have much medication. Death happened all the time,” Dad offers. He lifts the wine bottle from its icy stand and refills first Mother’s glass, then his own. Mother shakes her head and continues to frown, still concerned. “I met the owner’s daughter today,” I volunteer. Mother smiles at me. “What’s her name, dear?” “Stacy, I think.” Stacy hadn’t told me her name, but I’d overheard it when she left the pool for food. I was in line behind her, and envied how the waiters smiled at her, speaking in friendly voices. I resolved that someday I would be recognized as a regular somewhere.

“She’s in college, a sophomore or junior.” I love those words. “How nice,” Mother says. “Have I ever told you about how I chose a college?” Todd rolls his eyes, but I shake my head and so she pushes away her plate and leans toward me. “I had the highest grades in my graduating class, nearly a straight-A average. My best friend Mary was second, quite far behind, actually. But then the Mother Superior of the school called my mother and told her that I couldn’t be valedictorian after all because I’d missed attending one chapel! That was the day Mother was sick! I thought I’d made up for it by doing the school’s penance.” She pauses. “You know what that was? I had to walk to every Catholic church in southeast Portland! Every single one!” Mother shakes her head, this memory as alive for her as if she had just returned, exhausted and bloody, but forgiven. “And so,” she continues, “Mary was valedictorian and she got my four-year scholarship. I could only afford to go to the local community college.” She looks away as though trying not to cry, and I’m embarrassed. “Where’d you go to college, Dad?” I ask. “Northwestern, in Illinois.” His pale blue eyes look tiny above puffy bags magnified by his new glasses. “What did you major in?” “English.” “Really?” I squeal. I’d never known that. “Yup. I was going to write the Great American Novel. ‘It was a dark and stormy night… .’” “Why didn’t you?” I always pursue topics which make his eyes twinkle.

“Because I needed to eat and to do that I had to work, and when I was doing that, I was too tired to write.” “And then he went to law school,” Mother adds proudly, as though this were one more activity she’s accomplished. Dad looks down at his plate again. The twinkle has ed. “And then I went to law school and got more jobs and here we are.” Todd’s looking at us carefully, and when we leave the dining room, Todd slouching, he watches our father stagger from finishing the bottle, but says nothing. Stacy is leaving for college, so on our final evening there’s a party. Fussing with my hair, I nag Todd to get out of the bathroom, while Mother hurries between the recreation room, decorated for the party, and my door to tell me what other girls are wearing. We decide on a sundress, but no sooner am I ready to go than she rushes back. “No, no, wear your shorts! I see the cutest girls wearing shorts! Here, I’ll help you change.” Then we argue over my different outfits, finally choosing the red one with white trim on the collar. “This is too tight, Mom,” I protest nervously. “I look stupid!” “You look darling.” Combing my hair again, Mother fusses over my barrette. Then I pull Todd away from his book and let Mother square my shoulders before we set off down the hall. The rec room is full of older teens, many of them from Stacy’s college or the nearby town. Todd disappears, so I sit on a couch, watching everyone dance. Two boys set up a calypso bar, and girls wriggle their madras Bermudas below the bar, sometimes collapsing in laughter. I get glasses of punch and handfuls of chips, but mostly I watch, wishing that I owned madras Bermudas.

Eventually, no one replaces the record, and, seeing that the party has moved to the pool, I run down the hall to change into my suit. It feels tight and I’m embarrassed wearing it, but standing in front of the mirror, I drape a towel just so and try to walk without mes the arrangement. As I close the door, I notice Todd’s clothes piled in the corner. He must already be at the pool. Someone has turned off most of the outdoor lighting, and in the shadows wet towels snap against backs, paper plates become flying saucers and voices yell dares. A diving contest begins. One after another, slim bodies arc gracefully off the side of the pool and guys push each other to follow girls into the water. Really good divers then move up onto the board, and their arcs become even more sleek. I don’t consider ing in. I’ve never learned how to dive, contenting myself with cannon balls or the lifesaving jump. I’ve always pretended to prefer jumping, but really, I’d love to make that graceful arc. Suddenly, in the flickering light, Todd appears on the diving board, pale and skinny, his suit hanging limply from jagged hipbones. The white drawstring, hidden by other boys, sticks out of his suit at a lopsided angle. I can’t believe he’s there, can’t believe he’s trying to participate! Without rising to his toes, he runs and jumps, leaning toward the water as far as he can, but hitting it with a harsh slap, arms and legs spread. The crowd laughs. Todd swims toward the side, then stops and ducks his head under the surface. “He’s lost his suit! His suit came off!” kids yell, and they crowd to the edge of the pool. I step back. Todd finds his drawstring because I see his elbows poke out as he ties it roughly. “Hey, put a little meat on those bones and your clothes’ll fit!” someone yells as Todd pulls himself onto the cement. “Great dive!” another voice laughs. “You musta studied with Esther Williams!” Todd grabs a towel off a chair, wraps it around himself, and disappears. I discover I have tears in my eyes. Someone puts slow music on the record player and boys pair up with girls,

dancing in their damp suits. I walk back to our room, grateful that, for us, the party is over. Todd is dry, dressed, and sitting on his bed, turning the pages of his book. “Why did you try that?” I ask, shutting our door. “Assholes,” he answers.

The next morning we leave the resort and drive back to the ferry. For most of the trip, while Todd and I stare into the fog, Mother talks with Dad about getting a houseboy. “Rhona told me that the ones from China are easily available.” “No.” “And cheap.” “How cheap?” “I’m not sure. She also said they’re trainable.” They go on like that until I doze off. When I wake up, we’re at the dock and our trip is over. Dad must have given in, because after a week of interviewing, Mother hires a boy named Wei Ling Po. He’s tall, thin and shy, and at first he doesn’t speak English, not one word. Mother dresses him in a starched white jacket and black pants, and she teaches him to come out when she rings a small bell by her place, to serve and then wait quietly at a distance, and to wash the dishes and put them away. He doesn’t cook, but since I’m not supposed to go in the kitchen while he’s working, the days of my making cottage cheese and pineapple salads are now ended. Wei Ling never says anything, but Mother gestures and raises her voice a lot, and somehow the meal is served. “These early days will train a wonderful servant,” she assures Dad.

Tinkle-tinkle. Mother puts down the bell on a silver plate and looks over her shoulder, as though turning a good ear toward the kitchen door. Tinkle-tinkle, a little louder and firmer this time. The swinging door opens and Wei Ling comes out, a questioning look on his face. “You may begin serving now, Wei Ling,” Mother says loudly, with some impatience. When he only bends, frowning, she cries, “Serve!” and he runs back into the kitchen. By my birthday, he’s memorized the routine. Traditionally, on my birthday, I can request whatever food I want, but I always ask for ham, with pineapple stuck onto the sides and the whole thing dripping with brown sugar. Dad comes down from the den in time to lower his head for Mother’s grace. “For what we are about to receive, dear Lord, we thank You. Amen.” We all look up as Wei Ling sets the ham in the center of the table, and I lean forward, enjoying the smell of baked sugar. Mother asks me to Dad the cutting knife, and Dad begins to slice, hesitating so that the first piece is too thick, then getting used to it. Wei Ling stands next to each of us, serving bowls of yams and mashed potatoes. As always when he’s in the room, we eat in silence. Dessert is my birthday cake and Mother carries it out herself, starting the singing in her loud soprano. Todd mumbles and smiles just a little. “Make a wish, dear,” Mother reminds me, unnecessarily. I lean toward the cake and close my eyes. “May we all be happy,” I wish silently, “especially Todd.” Then I blow out the 12 candles easily.

School begins, and I approach Lee House without fear. It’s my turn to warn seventh graders about the unreliable toilet in the second stall and about Miss

Swanson’s reading Little Nell. I feel experienced. Although it’s exciting to be new, in case I can create a whole new identity, it’s better to be one of “the old girls” who knows her way around. Once a month the school acknowledges its six American students by reciting the U.S. pledge and singing our anthem, but I like “O Canada!”, and this year I don’t stumble over “our home and native land.” Our classroom looks exactly the same as last year’s: desks with lids, one small bulletin board with seasonal pictures, usually calendar photographs of spring, two high windows and a narrow door. Miss Burns is younger than Miss Swanson, but not by much, and she has a large copy of a poem by Robert Burns framed on the wall behind her desk, which makes me think that he must be a relation. She assigns me a seat near the front because I talk too much, although practically no one answers, and from where I sit I can almost read the poem— something about a mouse, but none of the verbs makes sense, and I give up. One day I show Miss Burns the poem I began before walking to the store. Miss Burns hasn’t indicated any clear opinion of me yet. I’d like her to think I’m artistic. She returns the poem the next day. Neatly written over “trods” is “treads,” which I don’t like as well. I check my dictionary for “trods,” but Miss Burns must be right: it isn’t there. She’s also circled the capital H and placed a tiny question mark above it. This causes me to ask myself again what this poem is about. Is it a tribute to God? Having recently learned the word omniscient, I wonder if it’s about His omniscient powers? I’ll have to set this poem aside for awhile longer, waiting for more insight.

“Karen?” Todd calls from the bathroom. “What?” “Come into my room. I want to show you something.” No magazines. This is another book on aliens. “Look! This picture proves that creatures from outer space must have built the pyramids! Isn’t that something?”

“How does anyone know for sure?” “Who else could have done it? Look at the engineering required. The same with Stonehenge. How could normal humans have pushed those stones upright?” I’m not convinced. “And something else. There’s a book in the Bible—Ezekiel or something— anyway, alien creatures are described in that! Just the way we imagine them now!” I don’t imagine alien creatures at all. “You mean green?” Todd is unusually patient with his little sister, which must mean he really cares about this subject. “Inhuman-looking, with burning hair. Sometimes one-eyed. Think of it: thousands of years ago people knew this stuff.” He shakes his head. “Amazing. You should read this, Karen.” But I know for sure that I don’t want to read those books, I don’t care about aliens, I don’t believe in builders from space. Why has Todd finally started to read, only to pick topics I don’t like? He’s repeating the tenth grade, but his grades are even worse than the year before. He talks back to teachers and they send home notes complaining about his attitude, but mainly he falls asleep in class. Once I get up during the night and hear his radio, tuned to a far-away station with angry voices, and then I know why he’s so tired during the day. Occasionally, he’ll mention some opinion at dinner, something about Big Foot or the Russian Menace, and I know he got that from the radio. I know, but I don’t tell. Todd begins to run away. Sometimes I hear an argument first, sometimes he just leaves. Each time he leaves, he sneaks out his window and slides down the roof into the hedge. Within a day Roger’s mother calls to reassure us, and the next day he returns home. He and I don’t talk about why he’s doing this. There are apparently too many things I can’t understand. Certainly, I know that he hates school and that he may even hate his family, or at least find us useless. But why run away when you only have to come back?

Our parents spend a lot of time in the den, drinking with the television on. I retreat to reading or telling stories aloud while pounding a tennis ball against our garage door or whanging a shuttlecock. “Karen?” Mother calls, hearing me come up the stairs. “Yeah,” I answer, putting down my tennis racket and walking into the den. “Get your brother, will you?” Mother arranges herself on the sofa, looking ready to talk. “What?” Todd asks, shoulder against the doorway. He’s grown to at least six feet but most of his height is hidden in the slouch. “I want to talk to you, Todd. Karen, this is between us, please.” Telling myself that Todd left the den door open on purpose, I leave my door open, too, and lean against a bolster, listening. “Now, listen to me, young man—” “Oh, Mother,” Todd groans. “Listen!” She sounds mad. “Your father and I have been talking about this new habit of yours and we want it to stop.” Silence. “I want no more telephone calls from Roger’s mother telling me that my son is safe at her house. Do you understand?” Silence. “If you have a problem, we’re here to help. Talk to us! Don’t run to some friend’s house. I’ve never even met Roger’s mother and there you are going to her again!” “I don’t go to her, Mother. I just leave here!” “But that’s my whole point! You needn’t do that, Todd! Whatever help you need is right here.”

Silence again. “This last time you ran away when we said you couldn’t go to Alaska. Do you want to discuss that?” “Yeah. Why can’t I go?” “Because you need to graduate from high school first. Then, if not college, perhaps a good trade school and after you have a career—” “I’ll be old by then! I want to go to Alaska now!” He sounds desperate, tearful more than angry. “The answer is no. It’s a foolish thing to do at this point. And running away is not going to make us change our mind. Do you understand me?” “Some discussion,” Todd sneers. “There’s nothing to discuss,” Mother announces. “This is where I can talk about problems? What a lie! You can’t discuss anything but—but—home decorating!” “That will do, Todd!” “You’re damn right, it’ll do. I’m not talking to you anymore!” “Do not use profanity in this house, young man!” “Fine!” Todd yells. “Then I’ll leave!” First the den door, then his bedroom door slams. A moment later I hear his door open and I wait quietly. “Don’t you dare talk to me—” “Oh, just shut up, Mother!” “What has gotten into you?” “Living here! Now get out of my room!”

“I am not leaving until you apologize to me!” “Okay. I’m sorry for being your son! There. Satisfied?” His door closes, the den door shuts, and the house is quiet. I sit in my room, staring out the window.

“Where’s Todd?” Dad asks at dinner, glancing nervously toward the empty chair and the staircase. Mother shakes her head quickly. “He isn’t hungry.” “Are you sure he’s here?” She looks at me, probably thinking of hiding this conversation, and then must give up the idea. “Yes, he’s in his room. I heard a drawer slam.” “Probably packing.” Mother stares at her husband with open anger. “Why don’t you stop him? You’re his father. Well? Will you even try?” “I am trying, Elizabeth. Just give me time.” Dad looks sad. The next night Todd appears at dinner and slumps in his chair, pushing food around with his fork and ignoring Mother. Wei Ling has the day off, so Todd and Dad begin an argument about the morals of importing immigrants, when Todd goes too far. “I heard experts say that, Dad! At least I use my mind!” “Are you suggesting that I don’t?” Dad asks angrily, slamming down his wine glass. “I’m just saying—”

“Listening to other people pontificate is using your mind?” “I—” “Sitting around on your tail when I’m out there—” “Well, at least I sit around sober!” Todd yells and looks surprised at himself. Dad lunges at his son, first groping across the table and then, when he can’t reach, staggering to his feet. Todd jumps up and runs to Mother’s end of the table. He stops, panting, but Dad grabs a knife from the platter, splattering gravy into the air, and lunges for Todd. At sight of the knife, Mother squeals and Todd runs in real terror. He’s too confused to leave the room, to run toward the front hall. Instead, he continues around the table, crying. “Come on, Dad, don’t do this. Stop, Dad!” Mother begins to shout. “Robert, put that down! This is ridiculous! Both of you sit down!” But Dad keeps staggering around the table, sawing the air with the carving knife, and Todd runs ahead of him. I move my chair closer to the table to avoid their legs and arms, and I duck my head. Their faces are distorted by anger and tears as they stumble around the table. Suddenly, Dad catches his toe on a chair leg, falls onto his left knee and collapses, the knife sliding under the sideboard. Dad’s sobbing and I realize that I’ve never heard my father cry. Todd holds onto the back of a chair for a moment, panting, then stoops toward his father, but Dad reaches out and slaps Todd’s face, a hard smack from the flat of his hand, and Todd’s nose gushes blood. Mother searches for her napkin and tries to stand, herself unsteady, but Todd’s already running for the stairs, holding his nose and leaving Dad on the floor. I push my chair back and stand up. Not looking at Mother, sitting with her hand pressed to her forehead, or at my father, still sobbing on the floor, I pick up my plate, Todd’s, my parents’. Hands shaking, I arrange knives next to their mates and away from dangerous edges, and I walk carefully into the kitchen.

When I go to the den to say goodnight, Dad doesn’t look away from the television, but Mother waves a brochure. “You should see this lovely resort, Karen. Perhaps we could all go at Christmas!” Dad turns toward her, and I can see that his eyes are red. “Don’t count on it,” he says. Mother looks at him. “No? But we could have such fun. The children could learn to ski, and—” “I said, don’t count on it. Goodnight, Karen.” “Goodnight,” I answer and walk numbly to my bed.

1965

This is a nice party. People talking a lot, good food. June’s outdone herself again. As mayor, even of some podunk little town like this, I need to stay on good with people. There’s Robert Smith and his wife, whatever her name is. She’s sort of pretty, but he still looks sick. Pale. “Hi, there, Robert! How’s the law business?” “Not bad, Jerry.” “I read some little thing you wrote in the paper the other day. Real cute. You doing some of that, too?” “Some.” God, the going’s tough with this guy. “I was going to offer you a refill, Bob, but I don’t see your glass. What would you like?” “Against doctor’s orders, I’m afraid.” “How are you feeling, anyway? Working’s a good sign.” “Doing something is always better than nothing.” “Isn’t that the truth!” I’m shoving in the fudge. The longer I try to make this guy talk, the more I eat. “Have some candy.” “No, thanks. More doctor’s orders.” “What exactly was the matter with you, anyway?”

Damn it, if he’d just talk, I wouldn’t be trying so hard. “Doctors are never quite sure of anything.” This guy is really a lawyer. Knows how to avoid a question. “Staying around here for Christmas? The rain makes me want to visit some resort in Florida.” “We’ll stay put.” “You gotta son, right? Will he be home for the holidays?” “I haven’t heard.” More fudge. “How’s your daughter doing in college?” “Great.” Well, there’s some enthusiasm. “What year is she now?” “Senior. She’s majoring in English, maybe also sociology.” “Double major! Now that takes some brains.” “Yeah, she’s sharp. She has the lead in a musical, too.” At least I’ve found the way to open him up: get him talking about the girl. “That’s terrific. No better time of life, I always say. Beating the boys away from the door, are you?” “She’s got a steady friend.” “Local boy?” “No, Denver, I think. We really don’t know much about him, except he’s going to grad school in L.A. She might go down to visit over Easter.”

“What for?” “To talk, she says.” “This sounds serious, Father! What are her plans after graduation? She could be your secretary.” “I’d thought of that, but she’s probably off to grad school.” “Her honey’s probably the temptation. Gals don’t see that it’s important for a husband to have an education, but what does the wife need an advanced degree for?” Je-ee-esus H. Christ, can’t I keep my trap shut? Now he’s walking away. “I don’t know, Jerry. But I’d pick grad school over our house any day.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE VANCOUVER CLUB—1959

T hings are different now. Mother and Dad argue, their loud words filling every room of the house—the dining room, their bedroom, especially the den. Our neighbor Betty doesn’t call to “chat,” the way she once did, and I’m convinced she’s heard them fighting. Dad often works through dinner and Todd runs away all the time. “It’s not quite running away, Karen,” Mother corrects me at dinner. It’s only the two of us being served by Wei Ling who slams the bowls and goes back into the kitchen. Mother has stopped training him. “Running away is packing up with no intention of returning. Your brother always comes home.” “So what’s it called, what he’s doing?” “Leaving. Just leaving for awhile.” Mother chews carefully. “Let’s not discuss it.” And she tinkles the bell for Wei Ling to clear away our dishes. I can’t understand what’s happening. All I know for sure is that my family isn’t like the ones on my favorite television shows, who seem to do stuff together. Instead, most of what I do, I do alone, like writing and cards or trying to keep rallies going in bton or tennis. I go to Pam’s house whenever she asks, even though I don’t think Pam really likes me very much. At least being a Huron is sort of interesting. The three Houses compete in going door-to-door, collecting coat-hangers as a fundraiser, and I regularly bring in a staggering number. We knit six-by-six inch squares, which Red Cross volunteers sew into afghans, and, once I have the rhythm down, I produce hundreds. We rehearse after school for a synchronized calisthenics competition, all the Hurons bending and stretching in the same direction, and I practice every night before

bed so that my House Prefects will be pleased with my effort. All these activities earn points, and when Huron House has a slight edge at the end of the first semester of my eighth grade, I’m thrilled. Leaders of my House may even treat me with more respect. They know that, without my squares and hangers, they’re losers. Practicing calisthenics in front of my mirror, smoothing out the motions so that I can be graceful on the gym floor during the real competition, I can see out my windows to the house across the street where Rhona and Tom live. As my parents’ friends, they don’t interest me much, but their college-age daughter Nonie does. I love her. I’ve met her walking her poodle, and we talk on the sidewalk over our dogs’ heads. She’s smart, an economics major at the University of British Columbia. She’s also a lady, always wearing dresses and stockings and a cardigan with a small pearl chain connecting the edges. She has short, curly hair and a definite chin, something I want even more than being able to arch one brow, and she has a chest, which I really envy. In our brief conversations, Nonie uses some wonderful words: stock exchange, margin buying, municipal bonds. She’s never invited me in, but I’ve figured out which bedroom is hers, and I imagine her clothes closet, her desk, a tidy twin bed where she sleeps with only sweet dreams. From behind my cafe curtains, I spy on her dates with Gregory, a stock broker who drives a sports car. Sometimes they drive with the top down, Nonie tying a gauze scarf around her curls, settling back and placing her life in the hands of this speeding male. One quiet Saturday afternoon, I knock on the front door of her house, asking if Nonie is home. I have a plan. “No, dear,” Rhona smiles at me, “she and Gregory left an hour ago to hear the head of some mutual fund give a talk.” Mutual fund. Another wonderful term. “Oh, she must have forgotten she’d invited me over. Will they be gone much longer?” “I don’t think so, but I can’t invite you to wait downstairs. As you can see, I’m having the floors cleaned.”

She gestures at two men with steaming vacuums and a plump woman on her knees in the hallway, moping the hardwood. This is even better. I hesitate. “Would you like to wait upstairs in her bedroom?” Victory! Heart pounding, I enter Nonie’s room, which is papered with tiny blue flowers. I touch her curtains, study her framed pictures, one of Gregory, and memorize the names on her perfume bottles—Chanel No. 5, CanCan, White Shoulders—dusty with talc, arranged on a lace runner. Her desk has a book case next to it, filled with fat volumes which prove she goes to college. I hear a car door slam and from her window I can see Nonie running up the walkway, so I sit down at her desk, comfortable in the knowledge that she’ll be welcoming. Nonie’s surprised to find me in her room, but as courteous as I’d expected, and she sits on the edge of her bed. I ire her flushed cheeks, her pearl necklace, her whole life. “How’s school, Karen?” “Pretty good,” I answer. “Eighth grade is easier than seventh.” Nonie smiles. “I think all the new material is used up in seventh grade. Now your teachers are just coasting until high school and then it gets difficult again.” “What about high school math? Is that hard?” Nonie smiles at me again. “Not for you. You’ll do just fine. Mother tells me that you’ve ed the Vancouver Club. That’s great! You’ll love it.” I start to ask if she goes there often, but a horn interrupts us. Nonie walks over to her window, pushes aside the curtain and waves. I look outside also, and there sits Gregory in his sports car, waving back. I don’t know whether I should wave too, so I raise my hand halfheartedly, but it’s the wrong hand and he can’t see it, can’t see that I’m being mature. “Sorry, but I have to change. Gregory and I are going to a professor’s house for an economics symposium.”

Sym-po-si-um, I quietly repeat. “That’s okay,” I say, truthfully, and I go home, waving at Gregory. Later that evening I hear him drive up to the curb with a screech, and Nonie jumps out, angrily slamming the car door before she runs up the path and Gregory speeds away. They’ve argued! How could that be? Not someone so tidy and beautiful. Not someone who studies money. But then I see Gregory circle back to her house and politely ring the doorbell. The door is opened wide by Rhona, all smiles and nods of her head as she steps aside on a shiny floor, and Gregory looks up the staircase.

“You know, you should all go down to the Club,” Mother says one evening at dinner. “It has far more than just sports. Betty never mentioned it, but the Club has a special group for women.” Only Mother has walked through the huge glass doors and taken the official tour. “You mean women’s sports?” Dad asks, without looking up. “No, a social group. They’ve sponsored charity shows and next they’re going to entertain a group of unwed mothers.” Now Dad looks up and we all stare at Mother. “The girls live in a home over in West Vancouver, and the women thought they’d give them an afternoon out, so they’re going to take them to someone’s house for a nice tea. Isn’t that a sweet idea?” Dad swallows. “Tea? Pregnant girls need tea?” Mother’s face is suddenly stern. “Of course, they need much more than that, Bob.” “What they need it’s too late to give,” Dad says, and I can see a smile behind his

napkin, but Mother remains serious. “Robert!” Todd smiles and so do I, which makes her mad. “This is a very nice gesture,” she insists. “These girls live away from home for months, maybe never seeing their parents, and finally someone takes an interest.” “And gives them tea,” Dad says sarcastically, and Todd and I laugh outright. “Takes them out and treats them like ladies!” Mother almost shouts. “That’s more than they’ve had! More than what’s ahead for them!” We all sit silently now. Mother obviously doesn’t see anything funny. In fact, I think as I watch her, Mother doesn’t have much of a sense of humor at all. The other day I asked her why we don’t subscribe to any magazines, and she answered that decorating magazines have all anyone needs to know about gardening. I was talking about articles on Gandhi, so I laughed, but she wouldn’t smile Yet now, here she is emotional about unwed mothers. I can’t keep up with her. “So I offered my home,” Mother says. “You did what?” Dad demands, a bean dangling from his fork. Mother lifts her chin. “I told the women we could have the tea here.” Dad stares at her and then asks quietly, “When?” “A week from Saturday.” “In the afternoon?” “Of course. It’s tea!” “And who supplies the food?” “I do! I’m the hostess. I’ll use the silver tea service.”

“How many of them will be coming?” I ask. She looks directly at me for the first time, but her face doesn’t soften. “Perhaps a dozen. And that reminds me: you’re to stay completely out of sight. Both of you.” “Why?” “Because,” she answers, “you may make them feel bad. Just seeing you may—” “Rub it in,” Todd interrupts. Dad bursts out laughing and Mother jumps to her feet, slamming her palms on the table. “That will do, young man! I will not have insolent comments made in this house, especially by someone who has chosen not to take advantage of the privileges offered to him!” Todd flushes with anger. “I can say what I want!” he mumbles. “That’s where you’re wrong, Todd,” Mother says calmly. “In this house, you show respect for what we’ve given you.” Todd stands and I notice for the first time that he’s grown much taller than Mother. “I—I think parents should earn respect,” he falters. “What have you ever done to get my respect?” Mother looks toward the kitchen door, probably worrying about Wei Ling overhearing us. Dad rises to his feet, ignoring her glance. “Don’t talk to your mother that way,” he says, enunciating carefully. “I can talk any way I want!” Todd answers. “Even this is a free country, isn’t it?” “Just get out!” Dad orders and sits down again. “Go to your room!” Mother adds.

Todd looks from one to the other, glances at me and turns to march out of the room. Over his shoulder, he hurls his final words. “I’ll do more than that!” Mother sits down heavily, and I feel embarrassed, as though I’m seeing something I shouldn’t. “He’s going to leave again,” Mother says to Dad, putting her forehead into her palm. Dad nods. “Aren’t you going to go up there and stop him?” Mother asks, looking up. “You’re his father. Tell him that he doesn’t leave this house! I will not have a son who runs away from me!” Dad slouches in his chair. He looks very sad. “That won’t work and you know it.” Mother pushes aside her plate. “Well, do something! You can’t just sit there!” “Nothing I can say does any good!” Dad yells back. “Why don’t you go up there? You’re the one with all the opinions about child rearing. Go up there and practice what you preach!” They’re staring so hard at each other, glaring straight ahead, that they’ve forgotten me. I wish I could slide down my chair into the basement. I really don’t want to be sitting here when they realize that I am. “Well!” Mother explodes. “To think that my own husband—” “Oh, go to hell!” With that, Dad rises suddenly and walks out of the dining room, Mother walks quickly after him, and I’m left with the remains of our dinner. As I carry the dishes to Wei Ling in the kitchen, I think, every meal in the dining room ends this way, everybody screaming and someone, usually Todd, walking out. But if we keep up appearances, if we’re very careful in public, it’s possible

that people will never know. Know what? I ask myself, but the only answer which comes is an image of those things in the basement, going round and endlessly round in the dryer. One day, I promise myself, I’m going to figure out where everything belongs or throw it all away.

Feeling both excited and frightened, I walk to the Vancouver Club. It’s only a few blocks away, and I’ve been wondering what it looks like inside those plate glass doors and sort of hoping that I’ll run into some girl from Lee House. She’ll be older, preferably a Huron, but probably not, and she’ll recognize me with obvious delight, introducing me to a bunch of her friends, some of whom want me to them in a game of bton. I’ll win with grace and spirit. They’ll crowd around, asking when I’ll be back again…and a man, dressed in white from his hair to his shoes, approaches quickly, wanting my identification. “Identification?” I ask. He bows slightly. “Your hip card.” “I—I don’t have one. I mean, my parents ed but they never gave me anything.” I can feel my cheeks flush. The man bows again. “Come with me, please.” At a long, dark counter, he pulls out a book and, mumbling quietly, runs his finger down to the “S’s.” “Here we are. ‘Robert Smith, wife, two children, 12 and 15.’ You are the 12 year old, I assume?” “Yes.” “And your sport?” “What?” He frowns slightly. “Which game do you wish to play, miss? I see no equipment

—” his eyes dart across me—“nor are you dressed in white. You were perhaps planning to take the tour?” The whole picture—shuttlecock flying surrounded by friendly faces—the whole scene vanishes. All I can do today is look on, which isn’t going to earn me any friends. “Could I see the bton courts?” “Certainly, miss. Come with me.” We peek through the door, opened slightly to show two empty courts with a slick floor and clean white nets. Then we walk quickly down a hall with closed doors, past a quiet restaurant and many signs in fancy lettering, back to the main hallway again. “Next time you’ll want to dress, miss,” the man says, bowing again. “And bring your partner, so you’re ready to play.” “A partner,” I say. “Sure.”

The unwed mothers-to-be arrive in several cars. As ordered, I hide behind my café curtains and peek at their round bodies, walking gingerly up the driveway, their faces gawking at the neighborhood, perhaps at the sizes of everything. Their reactions make me notice the height of the front tree, the size of my house, even the pruning of the hedges, and I realize that it all must look quite fancy. While they settle themselves with the Club ladies in our living room, Todd climbs out his window. “She didn’t want us to be seen,” he says, frowning, before he slides down the roof, “so I’m taking off.” I don’t try to argue with him. I just walk to the top of the stairs and sit down, folding my arms around my knees. I can hear Mother’s phony laughter and the girls’ shy responses. It sounds like they’re bunched together on the extra chairs Mother told Dad to carry in, rather

than on furniture around the room. They speak quietly about the weather, how good the tea is, how they can’t eat another sweet. Spoons clink against china. Nothing in Mother’s voice gives away the fact that their coming to our house created an argument. Nothing leaves these girls with anything but envy. I’m relieved. “It was all quite wonderful,” Mother announces at dinner. “Hmm,” Dad answers. “I think the Club may just ask me to do this again. Being asked twice is quite an honor.” “Giving away tea is an honor?” Dad asks. “Why can’t someone else host this thing? The girls’ve seen this place, anyway.” “Oh, different girls, Bob. A whole new group.” Dad looks at her silently, chewing and thinking. “Don’t say it, Robert,” Mother says.

Mother attends Vancouver Club meetings at lunch every Wednesday, always wearing her fancy clothes until bedtime. She repeats conversations very excitedly, and I bet that’s why Todd almost always “leaves” on Wednesday afternoons, so he won’t have to listen at dinner. “Today Aileen was describing a tour of the historic Southeast and the Bahamas. We should go, Bob! Golf courses and a yacht. Her pictures were quite lovely.” “Anyone mention the girls coming to tea?” Mother looks down at her plate. “Actually, no. What about the tour, dear?” “Why go back to the States?” Dad asks. “We’re not used to it here yet.” But the very next day he hears that some associate is going, and he decides to go, too. The brochures he brings home show smiling couples with cocktail glasses

held at their waists, posing at tables, in the cruise ship’s dance hall, on a balcony. Quite suddenly, Mother and Dad shop and pack and leave with some excitement, and I’m glad the idea of a trip has made them happy. Todd has promised to stay around while they’re gone, and Nonie knocks occasionally on the front door—“just to be sure you’re both all right,” she always says cheerfully. Paid to be with us is Anna, the cleaning lady, who cooks and asks us angry-sounding questions even though she knows we can’t speak German. Despite our protests, she sweetens glasses of milk with several tablespoons of sugar, and one night she fries twenty hamburgers for dinner, watching to see that we clean our plates. I excuse myself to the bathroom where I flush four smuggled patties down the toilet. Todd and I spend a lot of time hiding in his room. “I think she’s going to kill me. Overeating. Food poisoning. Something.” We’re sitting on his bed and he’s rolling a cigarette with a bag of tobacco and some end papers scattered across an open magazine. “Tonight’s dinner was the worst yet,” I moan, clutching my stomach. “If only she weren’t so sure the food is good for us.” “How much longer? Did they say anything on the postcard?” “Another week. Sounds like they’re having fun.” Todd snorts. “Mom wrote the card. Dad doesn’t like all that fanciness.” “But it looks good to other people, taking a tour like that. And it gets Mother off his back for awhile.” Todd squints at me, looking interested. “I always thought you liked Mother better.” “Me? Why would I?” I laugh, hoping I sound mature. He blows a smoke ring. “You’re so good in school. I figured you wanted to please mommy.”

“Not me! Mother’s sort of a…a…social climber, don’t you think?” “Not sort of, she is. Like that club. Typical of Mother that we’d have to .” I look down at my blue tennis shoes. “I went the other day. It’s pretty nice. They have a big bton court.” “You fit in with that sort of indoor crap better than I do.” I was going to ask Todd to go to the Club and be my partner, but now I’m ashamed to like indoor crap, so I don’t say anything. “And a Chinese houseboy, for God’s sake! The other day I ran into Wing-WongFang-Fong on the bus, with a bunch of his pals, probably all going to goddamn jobs like ours. They were yammering in Chinese, of course, but they were laughing at me! You could tell. They go home and sit around drinking saki, or whatever it is, and laugh at all the rich people who have to show off!” Having Wei Ling around embarrasses me, too. I’ve been smiling at him a lot lately, trying to perk him up. “I think he’s going to quit,” I announce, proud of my insight. “He looks pretty sad.” “I wouldn’t blame him. It can’t be much fun, taking orders from her.” “I wonder why Dad doesn’t say much to him.” Todd shrugs. “He doesn’t get involved with phony stuff.” Surprised, I lean forward. “You like Dad better? Even after all your fights with him?” Todd blows another ring and looks at his closed door. “He’s okay. He ran away when he was a kid, did you know that?” “Dad did?” “Yeah, after high school. He lived with Indian tribes for awhile. That’s how we got those books autographed by L. Ron Hubbard—he lived with Hubbard and

worked on ranches and stuff.” He squints through his cigarette smoke like a movie star, green eyes veiled, head back against the wall. I really like having a good looking older brother, even though he hasn’t introduced me to any of his friends. Even Todd says that they aren’t right for a sister. “I like Dad better, too,” I say, eagerly. “I just wish he was around more.” It occurs to me, too briefly to trap the thought and say it, that we both prefer the parent who does fewer things with us, the parent we don’t know well enough to dislike. “I wonder what he sees in her,” Todd asks quietly. “I don’t think they’re very happy. They argue all the time.” “Maybe they shouldn’t stay together.” “You mean—get a divorce?” The idea shocks me. Divorce only happened to other people, like Pam’s parents. “Maybe they’d be happier,” Todd says. He squints, the curl on his forehead lost in smoke. “I’d stay with Dad and you’d go with Mother.” “No!” I wail. “Why do I have to be with her?” He turns away. “That’s how it goes. Mothers with daughters, fathers with sons,” he says with finality.

Mother and Dad return from their trip with tons of stuff: a calypso bar and records and floral shirts and shaker gourds. Their pictures show them always dressed up, whether they’re on sun chairs, sitting at card tables or climbing onto a yacht. Mother is posing in snazzy outfits because of frequent appointments with our seamstress. Dad’s fatter in the middle and puffier around the eyes—and always drinking.

Mother calls Wei Ling, to tell him to come back to work, but there’s no answer. “I can’t believe he’d quit such a good job,” Mother says, as she, Dad and I sit in the den. “Maybe he went back to China,” Dad suggests as he fills her glass. I shake my head. “Maybe he found a job he likes better.” “What?” Mother and Dad stare at me, the skin around their eyes white from sunglasses. I want to say, first Todd, then Wei Ling. Get the message? But I don’t. “Are you going to hire another one?” I ask. “No!” Dad answers loudly. “Wel-l-l,” Mother says, looking down at her needlepoint, a new hobby. I’m not interested in learning how to do it, but I have to ire those tidy little stitches. “Perhaps a hint dropped at the Bridge game….” “Bridge?” I ask. “We learned how to play on the trip,” Mother says with enthusiasm. “It’s a real intellectual exercise, not just luck, like so many games. But it’s extremely difficult to play well. We’d better watch that show tomorrow, hadn’t we, Bob? I always learn something from Goren.” A whole new era begins. Soon, they watch “Goren on Bridge” every Sunday and argue different plays. They go out for games. Business acquaintances are liked or disliked according to their card-playing characteristics. Mother says, “I can always count on Jane bidding too high,” or Dad says, “John’s so dim-witted he forgets what’s trump.” And they’re mad at each other a lot. “That was an idiotic bid, Elizabeth, when you only had Jack-high!” “Idiotic? You, of all people, are calling me an idiot? Have you forgotten….” and the fight is on.

They argue about money, about Todd’s schooling, about wallpaper, about the gardener. They dislike each other’s decisions in life and in cards. Yet they play frequently, and I grow to hate their Combat Bridge as much as I hate Monopoly, and I dread hearing the pop of the card table legs as my parents prepare for company. “They’re so stupid,” Todd says, blowing smoke rings out his window. “They’ll never be any good.” “But at least it gives them something to do,” I argue, suddenly annoyed. “I mean, if it weren’t for Bridge, they’d be in the den all the time!” “They’re just trying to show off. Like the Club,” he adds, blowing another ring. “Groups of women who have teas for worthy causes. They should donate their money to something valuable, like building a really high-powered telescope.” “For spotting little green men?” I ask in a nasty voice. “For seeing whatever’s there! It’s better than living in some fake world, everything for show. Look through that little lens and see reality, you know? You care about reality?” “Oh, shut up.” Todd blows another smoke ring, this time not bothering to aim out the window. “That’s what’s the matter with you.” I want to leave, but I want to hear this more. “What, Mr. Know-it-all?” Todd takes a moment to stub out his cigarette. Then he leans toward me. “Reality: Mother and Dad are drunks, or pretty close to it. Sit still and listen to me! You’re lousy at games. The Club and everybody who goes there is fake. And school’s a crock. Get me? But you don’t have any choice. You’re just a girl and you may even like that stuff. I can get out and I will.” I don’t say anything. This is the first time Todd’s ever described our life and I

need to think about why I don’t like what he’s said. “Just as soon as I’ve got some money, I’m gone. Alaska, where you have to be honest.” “You sound like some ad.” Todd ignores me. “Alaska makes a man out of you, not some corporation loser.” “So don’t a company! Why run away?” Todd looks suddenly tired, his cheeks pale, his eyes red, his thin shoulders slumped. Seeing him slouching there on his bed, I think of a scarecrow—empty clothes on a stick. “I gotta get out of here. You’ll be okay, but not me. Now, go to bed. I’ve got stuff to think about.” “You’re not going anywhere, you know,” I say, flouncing toward the door. “In five years, we’ll all still be living in this house. I’ll be going to college by then, but you’ll still be trying to the tenth grade.” Why do I want to hurt him? But Todd only shrugs and begins flicking his lighter on and off, on and off.

1966

I have to write this down, to see these words in print. Dad is dead. He died today at 1:30. Three days ago he and I were playing ping-pong and laughing. Then yesterday, something exploded inside him. We got him to the hospital and I called Todd who flew up and now Dad’s dead. It was, by virtue of its quietness, a “beautiful” death. Mother and Todd keep calling it dignified. But it was not beautiful, not really. A stubborn man, who hung on so tenaciously these last few months, undemonstrative, still a mystery to me—this man died as thin as is humanly possible, his hands limp on his chest, his face stubbled, his jaw open, his eyes staring blankly—no, frightened. His eyes kept trying to talk, to communicate fear. A tube in his arm, three in his nose, two waste eliminator tubes—six tubes getting little results except a weasing breath and fear in those yellow eyes. And so, perhaps to show his desire not to depend on tubes and nurses, he chose to die. Perhaps, as one nurse said, he was worn out from fighting. Or perhaps, he was simply sick of all of us. Mother says she wants him to have a funeral just like Jackie had for John Kennedy. Todd told her that Dad was no President, but I know it’s hopeless to talk reality to Mother. We’ll have a simple ceremony and invite people over afterward, and CeZee will have eaten the food I’ve arranged, and Todd will be embarrassed that so few people show up. But as long as Mother has a becoming black dress and we conduct ourselves with dignity, the whole day will be just fine. Todd’s in Dad’s office, going through the drawers. He found one file marked “Insurance,” but the policies have “Cashed” and a date written across them. Mother looked frightened. She yelled, “Keep looking!” I think she’d pictured herself a wealthy widow. Once, Dad told us we’d all be better off without him than with him, which I thought was strange, but Mother just nodded, as though that were a good thing. Now it seems we’ve been living on those policies and there’s nothing left.

If Mother really is broke, what will she do? What kind of job could she possibly keep? And should I get married next year, leaving her alone? Peter called. I wish he could be here. I need him. I prayed tonight. I asked God for strength to get me through the next few days. But God answered—I swear He did—and He told me that I’m praying to something inside myself. It’s up to me. I’m so tired of going it alone.

CHAPTER NINE

ACROSS THE BORDER

T he telephone rings, and I rush from my bedroom to answer it in my parents’ room, hoping the call’s for me. “Hi, Karen. This is Mary.” I recognize her voice, my mother’s childhood friend calling from Oregon, and I’m excited at holding a long-distance call in my hand. “Hi, Mary! How are you?” “Oh, just fine, dear. How are you and the rest of the family?” At this moment Todd is probably smoking on his bed and Mother and Dad are starting an argument, quietly blended with the sounds of television. “Just regular.” Mary laughs. “Isn’t that nice. Say, while I have you on the phone, tell me how your mother is.” I’m surprised. “What do you mean?” “Sometimes I think there might be something wrong with her health. Perhaps even a slight stroke.” I don’t say anything. Mary’s a nurse, so perhaps she enjoys spotting illness. But I’ve never noticed anything wrong with Mother, except that sometimes she has to run for the bathroom, holding herself like a little kid, but I’d decided that’s her own fault. “Well, maybe it’s nothing,” Mary says during my silence. “I’m hardly the

world’s greatest correspondent!” She laughs. That’s something I like about Mary: her willingness to laugh at herself. “It’s just that sometimes I won’t hear from Liz for months and when she does write, she might say that she hasn’t been able to hold a pen lately. I was just wondering if there was something she isn’t telling me.” I can hear Mother in the den. “You’re too easy on him! If you were a strong father, you’d be in there at this moment, disciplining him! Oh, darn! My box emptied!” Mother has many boxes and they’re each full of bits of tile, different shades of blue, white and black, for making a coffee table topped by the Milky Way. She has a big book open on the floor and a lot of stinky glue. Thinking of Mary’s question, I wonder: Has she ever complained about working with those tiny tiles? Never. “I don’t know, Mary,” I say. “I think she’s just the same.” “Well, that’s good then,” Mary’s practical voice says. “Is your mother there, Karen? I have an idea for getting together!” “Great! Just a minute,” and on Mother’s unmade bed I rest the receiver, buried in folds of flowers. When I open the den door, Dad’s leaning forward to reach under the footstool and beneath his chair to scoop out tiles. Mother’s on her knees beside the coffee table, surrounded by the contents of a box. Looking up, Dad sees me and leans back heavily against his chair. “Karen, help your mother.” I ignore him for a moment and say excitedly, “It’s the phone, Mother! It’s Mary.” Mother pushes up from the floor, steadying herself a bit against the table. I watch her closely, but she seems normal. “Do what you can with the tiles, could you please?” she calls over her shoulder as she hurries out of the room.

I sit cross-legged, scooping handfuls of the Milky Way back into their container. “This is a rock star. Some stupid name. Whatdya think?” Dad asks. I look up from the floor and lean back to watch this singer make an audience of girls scream. He moves with his legs spread apart, cradling the microphone, and his hair is swirled, as shiny as his suit. How he looks stops me from hearing how he sings. “Yuk,” I announce. Dad smiles and settles further back into his chair, extending one leg onto the footstool. “Good,” he responds. “Glad to hear it.” “Are we going to watch ‘Father Knows Best’?” I ask, continuing to pick up tiles. Dad puffs on his pipe, squinting at the wriggling gray figure on the screen. “Sure.” I lean happily against the couch. No one has begun dinner, so this must be another of Dad’s canned-tomato-soup-on-a-tray-in-front-of-the-TV-set Sunday meals. Those are fun, because no one pretends to have tried for anything fancy: canned soup and crackers are what they are. Sometimes Dad makes popcorn after the soup, carefully melting butter in the popper and adding exactly the right number of kernels. He’s as proud of his popcorn as Mother is of her soup. After “The Ed Sullivan Show” we watch the father who’s perfectly wise and his wife who always wears aprons which are never spotted. Their children sometimes misbehave but Father sets them straight, teaching them a lasting lesson. As the plot unfolds and I watch the children burst into the living room where Father sits twinkling, I wonder if everyone else has parents like that: patient, wise and clean. Mother returns to the couch, settling herself and leaning over to offer Dad her glass. “That was Mary,” she announces unnecessarily. But nothing more is said; my

parents don’t discuss things in front of the children. The next morning, though, Mother tells me over cereal bowls that after school’s out we’re all going to drive to Bellingham for a long weekend. “Mary can stay with a cousin there, but we’ll stay in a nice hotel.” Surprised by her tone, I frown at her. Mary had taken Mother’s college scholarship, married and always worked, especially because her husband died young. Does Mother mean that marriage results in a nice hotel? I’m going to have to think about this. “And perhaps we can pick up some things for a party.” “A party?” I ask. “I think it would be a good idea if you hosted a little dance. Perhaps something with a Caribbean motif, since we brought back all those things. At any rate, let’s keep our eyes open for the right invitations.”

Todd cuts school completely, hanging out at Roger’s house. I have only a vague idea where that is, so I can’t tattle, and I care only because his disappearances create so many arguments. Dad slams doors and drinks until his eyes are red, and Mother weaves from side to side across the landing and makes me bring up stuff from the downstairs. They never sound like they have anything figured out, so I stay in my room, reading, writing stories, trying to review. I don’t how. I turn pages of the book, letting my eyes skim the page, occasionally stopping at an interesting name or illustration, but I can’t make myself drill, recite, make lists, revise my notes, all things which I’ve seen others do in study hall. Some girls even have colored pens and index cards, but what are they doing with them? I can’t ask, because then everyone would know that I don’t know. Instead, I flip pages and stare. My teacher, Miss McArthur, is a boring, homely woman who isn’t very smart, so it’s a good thing she’s not teaching high school. On one of my compositions, she circles “seeing” in red, writing in tiny letters in the margin, “Rule: No words in the English language have three vowels in a row.”

But the dictionary tells me that “seeing” is spelled right, so it becomes a personal goal of mine to find other proof. “Guaranteeing” in large red letters on a box of tape gives me real satisfaction. I never challenge her because she’s made fun of me, referring to “those poor American schools,” but I keep track, collecting examples of her wrongness: freeing, agreeing, even peeing. One spring morning the Heistress comes into our classroom, still decorated with faded photographs of autumn leaves and winter scenes, to tell us that Miss McArthur has fallen and will miss the last month of school. At recess older girls suggest that Miss McArthur fell against the tub in her bathroom, that she probably has cheap plastic shower curtains hanging from gigantic pink rings, some cracked and missing, that she must have been naked—no, that her body is too ugly to have ever been naked, not in the bath, not even at birth. She deserves a place in the Book of Records: “ONLY PERSON BORN CLOTHED!” Because these girls aren’t really friends, I don’t say anything about Miss MacArthur’s spelling mistake, but now I’m always watching for three vowels in a row.

Finals are over—I do B work—and school ends. Because it’s not sunny yet, it isn’t fun driving weather, but we decide to make the trip to meet Mary anyway and reserve a hotel room in Bellingham. Betty tells us with real delight that we can buy lots of bargains in the States, and she writes on a slip of paper the name of a strong aspirin available in drug stores across the border. “Five or six bottles, if possible, Elizabeth,” she says, pressing the slip into Mother’s palm. I expect Mother to marvel, as I do, that one woman could feel so much pain. “I’ll pick up all I can,” Mother solemnly assures her, putting the paper in her purse and snapping it shut. “You can never have too much of that.” Todd, who has flunked a second time, is looking chipper, as though he has somehow proven himself. His khaki pants are too short again, and he rolls up sleeves to reveal tan lines on his olive skin. I’ve told him that olive skin and naturally wavy hair should be saved for girls.

“Hey, I don’t waste it,” he smirked. Now he’s doubly pleased because, after a long telephone call with Roger’s mother, Dad has given Todd permission to stay with Roger instead of going to Bellingham. His friend may even be able to get Todd a job at a shipyard where he’s working for the summer, loading freighters. The night before we leave, I overhear part of an argument about, as always, Todd. “She sounded all right on the phone, but I really think he ought to be made to go.” “Fine, Elizabeth, you do it. Go in there right now and make him pack.” “That’s a father’s job, isn’t it, dear?” The sarcasm is obvious from across the hall. “Why should he go, anyway? What interest does he have in shopping? For that matter, what interest do—” “Oh, never mind, never mind, Bob. I happen to believe that a child’s place is with his parents, but you don’t seem to hold that belief. We’ll do it your way. Time will tell.” “What’s that mean?” “How he turns out. We’ll see.” It’s not difficult to hear over the lacrosse game on my radio that Dad’s voice is rising. “Is that a threat, Elizabeth? If he doesn’t meet your standards, it’s my fault? You had no part in this?” There’s silence, and then, “Do as you wish, Robert. You’re the father, after all.” Turning off lacrosse, I cover my head with a pillow. The next day I pile clothes into a tower which Mother will check and Dad will

pack. Then I search for CeZee, but he’s already living at Betty’s, so I find a deck of cards and go into the sewing room. Sew. On the final in Home Economics I was writing a short answer question and needed to use that word, but it wasn’t in my head. I couldn’t think of how to spell that simple little word: SEW. I blocked and fussed and felt my heart start to pound. I even grabbed a piece of scratch paper, but the letters wouldn’t come. I scanned the test, hoping the teacher had used “sew” somewhere else, but she hadn’t. Finally, I wrote a ridiculous substitute, a long sentence about the construction of a dress, which must have sounded like some translation into English. The whole thing had wasted so much time that I couldn’t finish the test, and my final grade was a C. Now I will never forget that spelling. All it takes to make a memory is a little pain. Well, what do I want, I wonder, dealing out another hand of Solitaire. Confidence? Dad can stand at a cocktail party and jingle coins in his pocket, showing how comfortable he is. That’s men. Women don’t have pockets which can carry anything, only pockets which have to be smooth and soft and flat. Women have to be empty. But someday I’ll meet a man who will take over my life! Someone who will tell me what colors flatter me and how he likes my hair. Someone whose schedule and interests will shape my days. Someone who will form me into whoever it is I’m waiting to become. I stop playing cards and stare out the window toward Pam’s house.

Bellingham is not a pretty place, but the hotel’s big, the accent is familiar, and I like being with Mary. She’s so “nursey”, with her basic shoes and her conservative colors. Mother seems like a peacock next to her, and their shopping trip barely lasts through our first stop, the drugstore to pick up Betty’s aspirin. Mary obviously doesn’t approve of the purchase, almost as though Mother were cheating on a prescription, and the taxi ride to a department store is quiet and tense.

Mother buys a bunch of stuff, including some pants for Todd and for me an expensive bathing suit, some shorts outfits, two skirts and a blouse. For herself she buys three dresses and Hanes stockings. Mary buys small gifts for her children. Dad’s waiting at the hotel, we treat Mary to dinner, and the next day she takes us to the zoo. As I walk next to Mary down a path, I it that I do think of myself as a Canadian now. “I can see it would be exciting to be from a different place,” Mary its. “I’d like to stay put, though. Vancouver’s really nice. I could stay there.” “And are your parents happy?” Mary transfers her purse to her other wrist and looks toward my mother, edging through crowds near the gorilla cage. “I think Mother is, but I don’t know about Dad.” Mary smiles and pats my arm. “We can never know about fathers, can we?” That afternoon, we say goodbye to Mary amid promises to visit, and then we drive north again. Getting back across the border is complicated, because now we’re Canadian residents leaving the United States. The Canadian officer leans in Dad’s window and scans our car. Mother’s hidden all the bottles of tablets under her seat, and she’s definitely chubby from wearing extra clothes. The officer’s cold stare makes me self-conscious about the bathing suit and shorts I’m wearing underneath two skirts. “No, nothing to declare,” Dad says. “And the reason for your trip, sir?” “Just visiting friends in Bellingham.” The officer sighs, scribbles something on a tablet, and waves us on. I exhale noisily and as we leave behind the border station, I begin to undress, more comfortable again.

Having bought some colorful invitations in Bellingham, Mother sets the date for my party and decides we should call it, “Calypso Caper.” I address an invitation to each girl who’d been in my eighth grade class and carefully write “MIXER” in bold letters, so they’ll know to invite some boys. We don’t date yet, any of us, but we do know a group of boys from St. Anthony’s, and they form a stag line at dances. In return, Lee House girls attend their dances, although I’ve been included in only one. The event lasted an entire weekend and was supposed to be filled with activities, topped off by a formal dance, but the rain was so heavy that everything was canceled except the ball. I think the dress I wore was pretty enough, but I sat through the whole evening, no one inviting me to dance. Later that night, all of us girls giggled in the damp darkness, watching shadows through the windows of our gray castle and hoping to be invited by St. Anthony’s boys. A few of the lucky girls were. Maybe I’ll have better luck at this party. I can wear the stuff Mother bought me on her trip—white pants, a floral shirt which ties at the waist and a fake flower behind my ear. Hoping to make my legs look browner against the white pedal pushers, I wipe QT on my legs, carefully inspecting the results. I finally decide that, if anyone takes pictures, I should stand with my right side facing the camera because that’s the only really brown place on my legs. Most of the food will be prepared by a caterer, but I peel pounds of potatoes for Mother’s salad recipe. Someone calls to check the party time, and as we talk, I sit on the top step of the stairs leading down to the basement, lifting my shoulder to hold the receiver while I describe my potato peeling in, I think, funny detail. When I hang up, Mother lowers her chin to her shoulder in that look. “Not appropriate, Karen.” “What?” “Telling your friend about the potatoes.” I glance down at the bowl of brown peels. “But why? I am peeling and it is taking hours!”

Mother arches one eyebrow. “The gracious hostess never reveals how much work went into preparing for a social gathering. That simply isn’t done.” Amazing myself, I retort, “Baloney!” and am sent to my room.

The party is okay, at least less stiff than I’d feared. Everyone arrives at about the same time, they all know each other from other parties, and they sort of take over. Some boy helps my dad stretch the record player onto the back step, and they play calypso records while people try to bend under the pole. No one makes it and they laugh a lot. In the dining room the food is laid out with all kinds of pineapples and leaves, and the plates I see people carrying around look full. In the living room I get to try out the box waltz I’ve been practicing in gym. It goes okay, especially since my partner is another girl from the same class and we’re in bare feet. Dad’s bought a new camera, and he spends the evening snapping pictures of boys—boys leaning over food platters, boys smiling into the lens, boys doing the calypso—so that the developed pictures will seem to show me involved in a wonderfully good time with males. In fact, not one boy talks directly to me the whole evening. I’m simply the hostess, the provider of good times, the peeler of all those potatoes. After the last guest has left, Dad asks me to take his picture, stretched out on a chaise lounge in the backyard, eyes closed, a long-stemmed red carnation between his teeth, asleep in the tropics, asleep in a suit. “Well! That was certainly a success!” Mother announces as we clear the table. “I just knew that calypso pole would make a great party! It was worth carrying it back, wasn’t it, Bob?” Dad sets down the punch bowl and winks at me. “Whatever brings popularity for my daughter.” “Oh, Dad.”

“Really, Karen!” Mother says, nodding at my father. “This just may do it! I wouldn’t be surprised if the phone begins ringing next week!” She unties her stained apron, wordlessly leaving the mess until morning. “All it takes,” she says confidently, “is word to get out about one smashing party and our Karen will be moving in the inner circle.” She smiles at me as she flicks off the light switch. “Better get my baseball bat ready!” Dad says, climbing the stairs slowly, and Mother loops her arm through his. “I’ll help you hunt for it, Bob!” she says, and they disappear inside the den, laughing.

1967

“I just had to call and tell you that everyone said it was a lovely ceremony, Karen, and I’m so pleased that you chose to have it here in my little home. Are you happily settled?” “Very.” “And you’re enjoying being a wife?” “I don’t have any sense of that. Peter and I just like being together—finally.” “To think, he was your first date in college. Have you ever regretted not dating others?” “Never. Is your upstairs rented?” “Most of the time. There’s a nice, young couple up there. Bill and Suzy. Recently married, I think. They both work, so I don’t see much of them, but it’s a comfort to have someone nearby, just in case.” “For security?” “Not so much that, as to help me in case I need it. Since the car accident I just haven’t been up to my old level. Bill carries sacks of groceries and brings my laundry basket up from the basement.” “But you’re still working for that babysitting agency?” “You know, I just may have to stop that.” “Why?” “Carrying babies is so difficult. I dropped one the other day.” “Dropped a baby? Mother! What happened?”

“Oh, it was all right. He just slid down into the tub and I grabbed him quickly. No harm done. But I don’t want to take chances. So, I’ve been thinking… I might re-marry.” “What?” “You met him before your wedding—Alex Aimsly. I hired him to re-paint the bedroom and fix my roof, and he seems…interested.” “What do you mean ‘interested’?” “Oh, most mornings he brings little pastries, more than he could eat alone, and he fixes us coffee. We talk for hours while he works. He’s an awfully nice man. Career Navy, which suits me just fine, Dad having been Coast Guard, you know. He was married once, but she died of cancer. I think he’s saved a fair amount of money over the years, and that would be a comfort.” “Mo—ther!” “I can’t afford to be romantic, Karen. I’d expect that from a newlywed like you, but Alex and I need to be more practical. We have to decide if it makes sense to finish our days married. I think it does for me. Economically as well as emotionally. I’ve had to become very level-headed, you see. It’s not much fun, but that’s how I’ve survived. What’s appealing about Alex is that I could just relax, let someone pamper me for awhile. It would be nice to be pampered again, Karen.” “Pampering never was Dad’s strong suit. He wasn’t the type.” “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. You shouldn’t judge other people’s relationships. Your father and I loved each other very much, and I don’t expect to ever experience that sort of relationship again.” “There you go re-writing history again! You and Dad argued all the time.” “We were very close, Karen.” “Never mind. About Alex. Maybe you’re one of those women who need a man, Mother. Maybe that’s part of why you’d consider re-marriage.”

“Yes, I’ve thought about that. I enjoy having a man around, doing for him. And perhaps Alex needs a woman. I hope I can be enough of one for him. At least I’ve had a hysterectomy.” “What?” “And he knows a good dentist who can pull the rest of my teeth and make me a good set of dentures.” “All your teeth?” “Pooh, I don’t have many left. Just take it all out, is what I say. Get rid of it! What good does it do me to have a womb or my own teeth?” “Wel-l-… . “So. I’ll let you know how things develop. It’s just a thought. Both of you busy?” “Very.” “I wish it were the two of you upstairs. I wish you didn’t live so far away.” “Hmm… .” “Because we’ve always been so close. I was telling Mary the other day, we’ve always been more like friends than mother-daughter….Well, I’ll let you go now. At least there’s the telephone to keep us together.” “’Bye, Mother.” “Goodbye, dear.”

CHAPTER TEN

A BEST FRIEND—1959

O ne girl calls to thank me for the party. I can hear her mother whispering in the background, making sure she says polite things, but I appreciate the effort. Feeling sorry for myself, I walk down to the Club. I’ve been there a few times, wearing proper white, so that now the man doesn’t say anything when I walk in without a partner. This day I feel so bad that I’m sure no one wants to play bton with me. After a few minutes of batting the shuttlecock, I notice a girl standing at the doorway with a man. She smiles slightly, but I don’t know what to make of her expression, so I keep playing by myself until the man walks over. “Hi,” he says. I look but I don’t look, just in case he’s another one like the man in the park. No trench coat, though, and his shirt flashes a club crest. “Hi,” I answer. “You here alone? Want a partner? My niece over there, she needs someone to play with, if you need a partner.” “Okay. That’s fine.” He waves toward the girl in the doorway, and she walks over to us. I like her hair, blond and curly, and her green eyes and her pink cheeks. “This is my niece, Daphne Ladd.” “My name’s Karen Smith.” “I’ll be back in a couple hours, Daph. Here’s some money for soda. Have fun!” Turning quickly, he leaves the court, and Daphne and I stare at each other, twist

our rackets, pull up our socks. Finally, she says, “I’m not a member.” “Oh well,” I answer, suddenly ashamed, “we’re just slightly.” “What’s a slight member?” Not sure how to explain myself, I begin whacking the shuttlecock, then Daphne sticks out her racket and hits it, and soon we’re rallying across the net. It’s fun playing with her. She laughs and whoops and compliments me easily, even if my good hit means one less point for her. After an hour, we have to give up the court to four players, so we wander into the Female Locker Room. Four women push through the door ahead of us, laughing, slamming lockers, dropping tennis rackets and towels. They glance at us, but they’re more interested in gathering shower stuff and walking quickly into the next room, their tennis skirts flicking like windshield wipers. Daphne giggles. “I know how to walk like that,” she whispers, and, standing on a slated bench, she walks the length of it, hips flicking. “I call it the clock walk,” she says. “Your hips go like the pendulum that hangs from a big clock.” I laugh loudly as she demonstrates again, emphasizing her hips by conducting with one hand. “That’s great!” I say. “You look just like them!” “Have you taken modeling?” “No. Mother thinks I should, though.” “Well, I did. It was a cheap class and taking it made my mother feel better. Since I’m not going to private school.” “Where do you go?” “Westside High. What about you?” “Lee House.”

Her eyes widen, and I tell another lie. “Just for awhile! I’ll probably go to public school with my brother next year. He’s at Vancouver High. Go to public school together,” I repeat, when I see it working, see her eyes soften. “You took modeling?” She nods and jumps back onto the bench. “I learned this. It’s called the Tearoom Routine.” I stand back, watching her feet, one heel directly in line with the other toe, her tennis racket the stem of a parasol. At the end of the bench, she twirls. “How did you do that?” I cry. “Easy. Turn your body before your head. See? Snap the head around after.” I grab my bton racket and begin twisting it, pretending to open it above my head, pointing it from my hip each time I twirl. On opposite benches we spin and pose, until the women return from the showers, damp and shiny, covering our tearoom ramps with hairbrushes and cosmetic bags. In the hallway, we pant dramatically against the wall, as though we have just escaped from some hysterically funny scene. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you, Daph. Let’s go!” Her uncle puts his hand on her shoulder and smiles at me. “Can we give you a ride?” “No, thanks. I’ve got one,” I lie again. For some reason, I’m afraid to let Daphne know I live nearby. She may misunderstand, may assume that we belong here, that we fit. “Will you be back next Saturday?” Daphne asks. “Sure!” I say, and I wave goodbye. We meet only once more at the Club, exchanging phone numbers so that we can arrange for me to take the bus to her house. It’s a long trip, and I wish Daphne were a neighbor so we could walk to school together, study each evening, play at recess, but if she were a Lee House student, she’d be ruined. Private school girls,

I decide, skipping myself, are snooty. Daphne couldn’t go to Lee House and stay nice. So I have to ride the bus. But it’s worth it. She lives in a small apartment with lots of glass overlooking the beach, not too far from Stanley Park. Her bedroom’s downstairs, and it has twin beds and a small nightstand. I can’t wait to be invited to stay the night. We spend Saturday afternoons looking at movie magazines, then singing songs from the twenties, with Daphne picking out the melody on the piano, barely reading the notes and not able to make a big sound. “You can’t play?” she demands one day, irritated with herself. “It would sound a whole lot better if one of us could at least play some chords.” “I’m going to take lessons. Mother said I have to learn.” “Why?” Daphne turns to look at me. The dampness outside which straightened my frizz has made her curls tighter. “She said I could entertain at parties. People would like me better if I could play popular songs.” Daphne shakes her head and returns to squinting at the music open in front of her. “Your mother’s wrong. Nobody our age cares about piano. It may make mothers more popular at parties, but not us.” We begin to sing again, struggling through “Bye, Bye, Blackbird,” until Mrs. Ladd comes in, laughing as she bumps Daphne off the piano bench and takes over. She can play with two hands and produce a full sound, melody and chords prompting us to sing all the verses in loud voices. We go on to “You’re the Cream in My Coffee,” “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” and finally “Singin’ in the Rain.” It’s only after we finish that we hear the thunder outside and rain so heavy that the window glass trembles. Giddy with the sudden thought that I have a best friend, I insist that Daphne and I sing the song again, parading in a Tearoom Routine with real umbrellas this time and twirling at imaginary ladies licking sugar off their fingertips. “Very nice! Well done, girls!” says a deep voice. We spin around to discover a

man in the doorway. He’s tall and thin, with a gray hat pulled low over one eye, and he’s wearing a wet rain coat, hands shoved in the pockets. “Daddy!” Daphne screams, and throws herself at the man who pats her gently and kisses his wife’s cheek. “Why are you home? How long will you be here?” Daphne sputters and hugs him again. “Awhile,” is all he answers, and together we walk upstairs to the living room. I’m introduced and glow all afternoon after hearing that I’m Daphne’s “special friend,” and we all sit, eating cookies and drinking coffee or cocoa, and talking about the weather and schoolwork and Daphne’s uncle and her brother Jeremy, a person I hadn’t known existed. As I break my cookies into pieces and dunk them, I realize that Daphne and I have never talked much about our families, but watching hers laugh and hug, I’m relieved: my family wouldn’t have done well by comparison. After dinner, noisy despite Mr. Ladd’s serious face, we clear the kitchen table. “I want Daddy to show you a card trick,” Daphne says. “No, no, sweetie, no tricks.” “Well, then show her how you shuffle. This is a real shuffle, Karen, a professional way. My dad’s a professional card player, so he knows.” I’ve never heard of professional card players, and I wonder suddenly if there are professional Monopoly or Clue players. Could you earn a living doing that? I hoped, for my brother’s sake, that you could. It would give Todd an option, anyway, some alternative to spitting sunflower seeds between the pages of dirty magazines. Cards snapping and fluttering first in an upward arc, then a downward loop, Mr. Ladd’s shuffle is flashy. He’s quiet and patient, and he keeps his head bent over long skinny fingers, showing only bushy eyebrows and his hands, distinctive hands. When he does look up, his eyes are sad and lined. I still haven’t mastered the shuffle before it’s time to leave, so Mr. Ladd hands me a new deck, the cellophane still around the box.

“You’ll get it,” he says softly. “You’ll do fine.” “Here, Dad,” Daphne says, handing him his coat. “Mom, take this umbrella, just in case,” and they walk me to the busstop. “Sure you know your way?” Mr. Ladd asks as I climb on the bus. “It’s not too far,” I lie. “I’ll call!” and Daphne waves before turning back into the shadows with a parent on either side. Once home, I let myself in the unlocked back door and climb the stairs to my room, calling goodnight through the closed den door. I don’t hear my father, but Mother calls out, “’night, dear!”

It must be that sometimes Mr. Ladd does well and sometimes he has a streak of bad luck, because one day Daphne might open a kitchen cupboard to rows and rows of new packages, and another day she’d break already tiny crackers in half before laying them on thin slices of cheese, and I know the cupboard must be getting bare. Daphne and her mother seem to live on tentative money which appears only occasionally from the slightly mysterious card player who’s always traveling. But we laugh and sing a lot, and I learn to love canned chicken noodle soup. We rarely go anywhere that costs money. If the weather’s warm, we carry blankets and towels down a rocky trail to the beach, where we sit against a huge tree trunk and slather baby oil until our yellow legs glisten. We have long talks about Life, about the Future. We giggle at the same lifeguards, and we it the same fears about dating. “Jeremy told me once they use their tongues,” she says in a whisper. “Todd said the same thing. I think they’re making that up, don’t you? Typical thing for a brother to say.” Daphne shakes her head. “It’s true. My mother says so.” “You asked your mother? I can’t believe it!”

“Sure. We talk about lots of things. Don’t you and your mom?” She makes talking sound so normal, that I decide I should try harder. Maybe it’s my responsibility. “Where’s your brother?” I ask, changing the subject. “In Nevada. Carson City.” “Really? That’s not far from where I lived! What’s he doing there?” “He plays cards, like Dad. Sometimes they play as a team.” I see heavy rain clouds gathering and agree with Daphne that we should go. I’m wondering again about playing Monopoly professionally. Perhaps ping-pong. Would Dad team with Todd? That would be pretty nice. Back at her apartment, I peer into Daphne’s bathroom mirror, carefully combing her new mascara wand on my eyelashes before ing it to her. While she uses it, elbow out, mouth open slightly, I dab at my lashes with a tissue. “Here,” Mrs. Ladd says, taking the tissue from my hand. “Stop wiping it off, Karen.” “I wasn’t,” I protest. “Just the extra goop.” “”No,” she shakes her head, confident, “you don’t need to wipe off what you just put on. In fact,” she added, squinting at my face, “you need more. So do you, Daph.” Daphne and I look at each other, embarrassed to see our eyes bold. “It’s so…so…dramatic,” Daphne whispers. “My mother doesn’t even look like this. Does yours?” “No. Only when she’s dres for something fancy.” “Is that often?” Oops. I have to that we have only slight money. “Just for weddings, things like that.”

“By the way, I got a new book,” Daphne says. “I think it has elves in it. What do you think?” I study the picture of a miniature man wearing a long, tasseled cap and nod. “An elf or a brownie. Good! Can I borrow it when you’re finished?” “Sure. What about that book you told me about? Have you finished it yet?” “Yeah. I’ll bring it next time. Or—why don’t you come stay the night at my house next Saturday? That way you can bring the book back yourself.” Make the invitation sound practical. Hide my excitement that she’d be my first overnight guest. Daphne smiles and shrugs, unaware of how special this is. “Let me ask my mom.” Her mom says yes.

The next week I try to rearrange my room, making Todd help me lift furniture into the hall and then drag it back, but it turns out that everything fit best pretty much the way it had been, which makes Todd so angry that he stomps off into his room and slams the door. I carefully sort my books, arranging the ones I could loan in a neat pile on the top of the bookcase. Friday evening I do all my homework and Saturday morning I re-fold my underwear. Everything’s ready, I think, standing back to see my room as Daphne would see it. And then I panic: my room looks rich! The house looks rich! I can’t both show it off and hide it! I can’t sit here hoping she’ll like my room without noticing my neighborhood. I should never have asked her over! No, I should never have pretended. That’s where I messed up—thinking I could be comfortable in her life without including her in mine. I knock on Todd’s door. “Whadya want?” He’s lying on his bed, surrounded by sunflower seeds and red licorice packages. “My friend’s coming for the night.”

“So? Have a good time.” “But I wanted to ask you—I mean, everything looks so nice here, and she doesn’t have much money.” “So?” he asks again, prying apart a seed, eating the insides and dropping the shells on the sheets. “Show her the basement, if you want her to see a mess. Or the laundry chute—it’s clogged again. Or Mother’s closet.” “Or your room,” I say with a nasty voice. He isn’t helping much, and somehow his seeds make me mad. “Sure. Bring her in here.” Then he turns and seems to really notice me, to really think about what’s bothering me. “If you’re worried about it, Karen, just don’t have her come.” “But we bought macaroni and cheese and popcorn!” “How’s she getting here?” “The bus. I’m meeting her at the stop and walking her here.” Todd shakes his head. “And she doesn’t think you’ve got money?” “Well, I just made it sound like it was around here, but not really ours.” “You’re going to walk past the houses on this street and pretend your dad doesn’t make much? Forget it. Cancel.” My eyes fill with tears. “But I really wanted to show her my room and stuff. I really wanted a friend to stay over.” Todd snorts. “I wouldn’t. That’s Mother’s decorator, not yours. Listen, Karen—” and he sits up— “take the macaroni and the popcorn to her house. Tell her your mother got sick, or I did. That’s okay, tell her I did! Anyway, she can’t come after all. If you don’t want to give her the right idea , don’t have her over.”

He lies down among his seeds again. “I never would have wanted to show off in the first place. You’re so dumb.” For one of the few times in my whole life, I take my brother’s advice. I catch Daphne before she leaves for the bus, tell a sad story and get invited over. But then I have to tell my mother. “Daphne can’t come after all.” I stand in the den doorway, holding the handle for and speaking quietly enough that Todd can’t hear. Mother looks up from her magazine. Her hair’s newly curled and I feel bad until I that she has it done every Friday. “Oh? That’s too bad. Why not?” “She—she hurt her ankle.” Mother frowns. “Not badly I hope. Sometimes that can be serious.” “No, just a slight sprain. Her mom was wondering if I could go over there and stay the night.” “I don’t think so, dear. Daphne needs to rest.” My heart pounds. “No, her mother thinks it’s a good idea. I could take the stuff we were going to cook for dinner and—and entertain her.” Mother looks down at her magazine. “We—l—l, should I talk with her mother? I don’t want you to impose.” She swings her legs onto the floor, preparing to stand up. “Her mother got on the line!” I lie. “She invited me herself! So I know it’s okay.” “All right, then,” Mother says, sinking back onto the couch. “You can go. Just pack the food carefully.” And so I make the three bus transfers, carrying a small overnight bag and a sack of canned macaroni and a tinfoil-topped pan full of buttered popcorn, relieved to be escaping a reality which may have gotten me into more trouble than the lies

I’d begun to tell. I set down the sack in Daphne’s kitchen. “I hope your mom isn’t too sick, Karen,” Mrs. Ladd says, unfolding the sack. “Perhaps I’ll make her a little salad. Would she like that?” I nod. “How about some chicken soup? I could send some home with you.” I nod again, already picturing myself drinking it on the bus. Daphne and I sit down in her small playroom. I give her the books and she’s excited to have more to read about elves. Then she surprises me. “Let’s try smoking.” I don’t want to be a chicken, but I’m afraid to try smoking. “Won’t your mother get mad?” But Daphne’s concentrating on finding the cigarettes and matches. “I know I had them,” she mumbles. “Maybe the brownies hid them. Would they want to stop us from smoking?” “Probably. I think it stuffs up their hiding places.” But that doesn’t help. “Well, one little try,” she says, producing the cigarettes in triumph. “My uncle loaned me this stuff.” She settles back into a soft chair, but she fumbles the match and drops the package of cigarettes. Then she puts a cigarette in her mouth, tears off a second match and lights it, but blows it out before the match can light the cigarette. “I need more hands,” she says, laughing nervously. I sit with my arms pressed between my legs, wanting her to inhale the thing successfully but wanting someone to stop us. Finally, hands trembling, Daphne lights the cigarette with a choking drag, but when she blows out the match, she drops the cigarette and stamps it out in the

carpet. On our knees, patting the faintly burned rug, we knock heads. Both of us fall back, laughing. “Well, you did it!” I say finally. “You got it lit! What did it taste like?” Daphne grimaces. “Awful. You must have to work at smoking. It doesn’t come naturally.” “My dad smokes—just a pipe. I like the smell.” “My uncle smokes these things—Players. I hate the smell, but I’m going to learn. You want to try it this time?” Suddenly, there’s her mother in the doorway. Daphne and I stop talking immediately, and I look anxiously between the two of them, but their faces seem calm. Mrs. Ladd walks to Daphne’s chair, leans over and unlatches the window behind her head. Cold air rushes in. “You’ll need ventilation for that smoke, girls. Otherwise, the whole house will stink.” Daphne settles back into her chair, matches, new cigarette and an ashtray lined up on her lap, and I realize, with relief and disappointment, that we aren’t in trouble. Mrs. Ladd walks to a small African violet and absently pushes the soil with one finger. “There’s been an emergency, Daphne. I just got a call from Jeremy.” Daphne pushes aside the cigarettes and the ashtray falls to the floor. I can see that she’s upset. “Jeremy called?” “Your father’s been arrested. We’re going to have to help Jeremy pull together enough money for bail, but the police don’t think Dad will be able to leave the area. He can’t come home, he can’t…work.” Her voice breaks. “We’re in a bad way, girls.” Daphne goes to her mother and they hug, but I sit watching, not sure of my place. “Karen?” Mrs. Ladd says, pulling back from the hug, “I’m afraid you can’t stay

over night after all. I feel bad about this, but…” “That’s okay. I understand,” I say and jump up to get my stuff together. I don’t mention the macaroni, and Mrs. Ladd forgets about the chicken soup. “Keep the books,” I say, waving away Daphne’s offer to return them. The three of us walk to the bus-stop without saying much. I want to know why Daphne’s father is arrested. I want to know how one pulls money together, as though it’s taffy or puzzle pieces. I want to ask about jail. Instead we walk quietly, and when the bus comes, I wave goodbye, and they wave back. Then Daphne and her mother walk back to their house, arms around each other. The next day I call Daphne, but there’s no answer, nor on the day after or the day after that. I guess they’ve driven to Nevada with their uncle, carrying their money, but I don’t know when they’d be back. Finally, I take the bus down to Daphne’s corner. As I turn to walk toward her house, I see a “For Rent” sign on the front lawn and the curtains gone from the windows. The apartment is empty. Daphne has moved away. I manage to jump inside the bus before the doors close, and I ride, unseeing, numb, to the end of the line before paying again to ride home. Each day I hope for a letter or a postcard, so I hurry downstairs when I hear the plop of mail through the door slot. Finally, there’s a letter addressed to me, but it’s not from the Ladds, it’s from Nonie. “Mother!” I run screaming into the backyard where Mother’s kneeling next to the gardener, inspecting some new plantings. “Nonie moved to Toronto! She’s started her first job in Toronto!” Mother looks back at the plants. “Her mother said something about her flying back there for some interviews. How nice that a job worked out for her.” “But I didn’t know! How could she move like that, so fast?”

“Oh, it doesn’t take long if you’re starting fresh, the way she is.” Mother smiles at the gardener, a polite Japanese man who comes each week with a small crew, tapping at the back door if they have any questions. Lying near her knee is Mother’s small spiral notebook about her garden. On several pages are neat diagrams of a section of the yard, with a list below each one of which plants are growing where. She’ll have to add these new bulbs, but she won’t do it here, where her writing would be messy and smeared with dirt. She’ll wait until later or she may never do it. The gardener smiles back at her, not understanding our conversation. She taps the soil and he digs a small hole in that spot and drops in the bulb. I stand staring at the letter, written in Nonie’s beautiful linked printing. She’s included a newspaper clipping which announces her appointment to a stock brokerage firm. I turn it over and see the end of a sentence: “…riding donkeys as transportation in BC.” Nonie, I think as I walk back to the house, is living in some place where they think we ride donkeys.

Mother and I agree to accompany Rhona to an Anglican service. Because her sister is ill, Rhona wants to put in a special appeal, although Mother privately tells me that she’s sure God doesn’t have time to honor appeals like that. Once inside, we kneel with our heads touching our folded hands. Rhona and Mother probably pray for the sister to be free of illness. I pray that Nonie will prefer Vancouver and that Daphne will call. The minister mumbles and my mind wanders, but when there’s a hymn, we all rise, fumbling through the thin hymnal pages to find the right number. I’ve learned many of the melodies in school, but my parents haven’t made themselves attend this or any church, and for Mother the hymns must be unfamiliar. But she used to sing coloratura soprano before she married, and she still has a strong, loud voice with a wide vibrato, so she tackles each hymn with gusto, pretending she knows the tune and the words. Other worshippers turn partway to look at her, to glance at me. Rhona moves a step away. The hymn over, we gratefully sit down again and rearrange the folds of our dresses, moving back toward Mother.

I stare at the dark rafters and the stained glass windows, each depicting a gruesome scene: crucifix, sagging body, blood dripping from a foot or a palm. A brownie could live up there quite happily though, ignoring the windows, and sneak along the rafters to study our hats and hairlines. He could run beneath the pews to snatch a shoe buckle or drop a pebble into a loafer. And when we have all gone home and the carved entry doors are closed, a tribe of brownies could scamper gleefully down the aisles and up the carpet to dance jigs on the organ keys and wide pedals, throwing their caps in the air and flicking their plaid jackets. Drinking tea or sherry in the manse, the Anglican minister might cock his head, thinking he hears a sound, wondering if perhaps someone needs him in the sanctuary, perhaps someone is seeking refuge. While people file out of the church, Mother and Rhona continue praying, mumbling earnestly. I bow my head, but I keep my eyes open, afraid that prayers, especially from a liar, will never make Daphne write. When Mother and Rhona finally stand, wiping their eyes and patting one another, I suddenly know that Daphne is never coming back. She’s gone forever. I had a best friend for such a short time and now she’s gone. Lowering my head, I walk down the church aisle, sad that there are no hiding places, no magical worlds, except, perhaps, those created by elves.

1975

“My name’s Todd and—and I’m…an alcoholic. Geez, that’s harder than I thought. “Well, uh…I began drinking about ten years ago, when I was a kid. We lived in British Columbia, and I got a job at a park, renting rowboats. I hung out with a friend and some girls. It was pretty nice that whole summer, a pretty good life. “After awhile I was drinking cheap stuff off and on all day. Roger—that was my friend—he sneaked bottles underneath the life jackets and when the boss was gone, we’d row out into the middle of the lake. Sometimes we gave girls free rides, and then we’d all sit out there, fooling around. I’m not proud of that, but I gotta it it was fun at the time. “So…after that summer, when I got allowance money, I’d get Roger to buy me some booze and I’d hide it in my room. No one knew. My folks were out of it most nights, and my sister—well, she’s pretty naive. She doesn’t even guess now. “Why I came here was to figure out about myself. I mean, I know I’m real angry at my parents, and I know I gotta figure that out. My dad had some things about him that I really liked—when he was a kid, he’d been sort of a loner himself, you know? So how come we didn’t get along better? He should have felt some—well, I don’t know. “I do know this: never work for anyone. A corporation wrecked my dad. A little bit at a time, bosses and profits and all that corporate crap. I don’t want any part of it. For awhile I thought maybe I was to blame for what happened to my dad, his getting sick, but I gotta think it wasn’t me. “And I hate my mother. My own mother doesn’t give me money when I need it, just enough to buy a couple dune buggies so I can go into business. She inherited a little from Dad, I don’t know how much, and she refused to even loan me any of it! I drove all the way to her house in Oregon and her new husband kept her from seeing me. I don’t care if I never lay eyes on her again. I might even change my last name, drop it or something. For all our fights, my dad probably would

have tried to help me out, but not her. I can’t figure that out. “Why don’t your own parents understand you as well as a friend’s parents? I was always going to someone else’s house, or maybe…just drinking. Understanding in a bottle. But I never figured out anything, I just got drunk. “One time I was walking down a street in Vancouver and I saw a family sitting at a table. Laughing, looking happy. That got me so mad I blasted a rock right through their window. Just heaved it and busted all the glass. I took off running. I didn’t wait around to see if anyone was hurt. “I still got a lot of questions. Alcohol has been a kind of hide-out, but that’s over now. I hope. I want it to be over. So, I guess I’m glad I’ve come, and …well, that’s it.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ACTING—1959

S chool starts again. I miss calling Daphne and seeing her on weekends, so I try to be friendlier toward my classmates. They may be all I’ve got. Amazing as it seems, by the end of the first week of ninth grade, I know I can win president of the class. I know I can because everyone likes my hair the way I’ve pulled it back into a pony tail and curled the tail under like a bun. And because I’m blessed with a desk in the rear of the room, which is the most highly prized row. And because I happen to wear the school sweater on the same day everyone else decides to wear it. This year I’m really in. I go back to studying an hour each night to ensure A’s. I brush my teeth carefully after a classmate hints that I have bad breath. I sing the Canadian anthem with all the patriotism of a citizen, and, during the monthly ritual, I don’t recite the American pledge in a voice filled with its usual longing. For class president, no campaigning is necessary. One day the two ninth grade classes have a meeting where students are nominated for offices, followed immediately by the voting. A girl who doesn’t sit in the coveted back row nominates me for president, I don’t jump up to decline, and the teacher continues taking nominations for other offices. Finally, the nominations are closed. A Prefect distributes ballots, carefully torn squares of paper on which we write our choices from the names on the board. Writing backhand, I disguise that I’m voting for myself, something which doesn’t seem modest. Then the Prefects, together with the teacher, move to a corner of the library to count votes. The rest of us can talk quietly, and I try to in, but I’m terribly nervous and keep glancing toward the corner. Suddenly, one of them shrieks. Wide-eyed, she hands a ballot to the teacher. We all turn to stare, completely quiet while the Prefects huddle, shaking their heads.

The teacher listens for a moment, clears her throat and steps forward. “Karen, come here, please.” Startled, I walk toward the corner. The Prefects look away, embarrassed, while the teacher takes my elbow with one hand and hands me the ballot with the other. On the paper, in tidy printing, is written, “PRESIDENT— KAREN SHIT.” “Do you know anything about this?” the teacher asks sternly. “I didn’t write that! I wouldn’t have written that!” The teacher takes the ballot back and folds it, first once, then twice. She is not thinking, so much as delaying. “I’m sorry, Karen, but I have no choice but to disqualify you. This is unacceptable.” “But I didn’t write that!” I wail. “No, but someone felt provoked enough to write it about you, and that is just as bad. Please return to your seat.” No one asks what happened, and I sit numbly, not offering any explanation. As far as they know, I simply don’t win.

Almost to make someone regret my defeat, I study hard. In the required religion class, I work hours on the composition, “How I Know That God Exists.” The essay is to be 500 words, the longest school assignment I’ve ever had, and I skim class readings to gather ing quotes. Most of my knowledge of God depends on faith, and the essay is filled with examples of unquestioning acceptance of what I assume to be divine wisdom which I, a mere mortal, can’t begin to understand. Late one evening, I finish copying my composition in ink and count the words carefully: 499. But that’s impossible! I was sure I had the right number. Re-

reading, I hunt for some place I left out a word or could add “the,” but it reads exactly as I want it to. Then I have a brainstorm. At the end of the composition, I skip an inch and neatly write, “Amen.” Feeling tremendous relief and pride, I write a few hasty notecards and an outline —not the way we were told to do it, I know, but the order I’m convinced is realistic. Finding a piece of yellow paper, I staple it carefully onto the top as a cover, printing the title and my name. Reverend Philps seems shocked when 20 girls hand him their compositions, some with cardboard covers. “Ah-h-h…yes. Well. Thank you. Thank you all.” He bends his silver head over the pile and pats the papers into a smooth stack. I guess that, not being a regular teacher, he hasn’t thought about actually having to read these things, and when the bell rings, we all file out of the room behind him, in quiet awe. But two weeks later, when he returns the compositions, his eyes glow a bit. “I quite enjoyed these, young ladies. You have some fascinating insights into… ah…religion and…ah…man’s search for meaning.” He begins to the papers down each row, and I wait nervously, eager and frightened to see his assessment. Suddenly I care more about his grade than about the girls’ opinions. My essay reaches me. On the top, in tiny fountain pen writing, is an “A” and the comment, “Very thoughtful.” I turn quickly to the second page. The “Amen” is crossed out, faintly but definitely crossed out. Looking up at his dignified, reserved profile, I’m surprised that he’d draw a line through a holy word, but I’m also relieved. I’ve never been sure just how exact school expects me to be, so it’s nice to know that 499 is enough.

In November, I volunteer to try out for a part in the Christmas play, “Amal and the Night Visitors.” It’s a sudden desire, and it feels right.

“You wish to be in this production, Karen?” my teacher asks. “It requires memorizing lines. And speaking in front of an audience.” I just know that it’s not so much that Miss Thompson thinks I can’t do it, as that she knows she couldn’t and wonders why I’m volunteering. She adds, as a final discouragement, “Reverend Philps will probably attend, as well as other important people.” “That’s okay!” I respond, eager to show off for the handsome minister. So one afternoon I stand in front of Miss Thompson and the Heistress, whom I haven’t seen for months, and they judge me as I read lines from the script. My voice is loud, not timid or shy, and they ought to be impressed. The next day, Miss Thompson takes me aside between classes. “Could you erase the board, dear? Diagramming sentences always creates such a clutter!” Never sure if erasing the board is privilege or punishment, I move my arm slowly, trying to look disinterested in case anyone walks by. “By the way, Karen, about your audition. It is a problem with your diction, you know.” “Diction?” “Pronunciation. Yours is just not quite right.” “It isn’t?” “It is just a little too…too…American. Broad. Not refined. That is such a common problem for Americans, certainly not one that you suffer from alone, dear. It will simply take living here and listening to us, before you can soften your diction.” “Oh.” First Daphne, then the presidency, now this. Ninth grade is lousy. “But take heart!” Miss Thompson adds cheerily, adjusting her shawl. “We have a role for you which will be just fine. No speaking required. You’ll be the old woman, the sweeper. That will at least allow you to rehearse with the rest of us, ay?” “The sweeper? I don’t that part.” “It was just a footnote in the script, but we will make it a real part for you.”

So we rehearse, most afternoons until nearly dinner, in the small auditorium on the edge of the campus. Although I rarely have to be on stage, I’m expected to sit quietly out front and help fetch things. “Only two more weeks!” Pam announces excitedly one evening as we walk home together. She has a small part—“At least I have some lines,” she’s bragged —and, most important, she’s best friends with Brenda, the girl playing Amal. “Are you ready?” I ask. “Sure! I even have Brenda’s lines memorized.” “Are you her understudy?” I imagine Brenda getting the flu, Pam taking her part and someone—perhaps me?—being begged to take on Pam’s role. “There aren’t any understudies. No one would get sick.” “Come on, Pam. Someone might not want to, but it just happens!” “Never. That just couldn’t happen.” Four days before the play, doing something with her family on a mountain, Brenda breaks her leg. No one’s quite sure how bad the break is, but she’s gone from school and from playing Amal. Pam rushes, cheeks flushed, to Miss Thompson’s desk. “I’m her best friend, Miss Thompson, and I know she’d want me to have the part! We’ve been rehearsing together all the way along, and I know her lines perfectly!” “Then who would take your role, dear?” I hold my breath, picturing my popular pony tail, my coveted desk, my good study habits. I still brush my teeth extra long, and I really, really want a speaking part. Aren’t I the obvious choice? But Pam looks straight over my head and points to Jan, whiney, nasty, skinny Jan. “She’d love the part, Miss Thompson.”

I start to raise my hand, trying to attract someone’s attention, but Jan jumps up and claps excitedly. “Oh, thank you, Miss Thompson! I’d just love to be in the play!” After that, I lose interest in my sweeping. On the night of the performance, instead of starting and stopping as Miss Thompson had directed, I absentmindedly sweep all the way through the act, swoosh swoosh swoosh, until dust makes Amal and three parents in the front row sneeze loudly. I skip the after-party, too embarrassed to socialize with the rest of the cast. Instead, my parents and I settle in our den. “Don’t worry, Karen,” Dad says, watching Mother glue Milky Way tiles. “When I was in college, I wanted to try acting, and I got a part in ‘Riders to the Sea.’ Very exciting, big deal.” He taps his pipe against the large ash tray. “You know what my part was? The corpse! From the opening scene until the end, I lay right there, smack in center stage, and tried hard not to breathe. I was the dead Irish fisherman, and I did a great job.” Mother, Dad and I laugh. I like moments like these: no drinks, no arguments, just enjoying each other. Dad taps his pipe again and leans to one side to pull out his tobacco pouch. “When it came time to cast the next production, I was sure I’d proven myself, so I tried out for ‘Little Women.’ I got the part of the sick father.” “That was pretty good, wasn’t it?” I’d read that book. The daughters loved their father and took good care of him, treating with respect a somewhat pitiful person. Dad shakes his head, smiling, crinkling his eyes. He taps his pipe again. Pipes seem to need a lot of attention. “I only had a couple of lines. Most of the act, I sat in the corner in a rocking

chair, peeling an apple. What happened was, I got so involved in peeling my apple that I forgot to come in on cue. The cast repeated their lines, and they stared at me, but I just peeled away!” We laugh again. I’m very happy. “Well, I’m thinking of trying out for ‘Alice in Wonderland.’” “Do.” Tap. “Act like they need you.” Tap tap. “Might as well.”

To my relief, the play closes school for the holidays. Our backyard is covered by snow and the fish pond is frozen, goldfish living way below the surface. Our Christmas tree is set up in what’s called the sunroom, an alcove off the living room which has lots of windows looking into bamboo bushes and Betty’s tall wooden fence. My parents usually unfold the bridge table in there, but now it’s full of tree. Dad brings from the basement four battered cartons and drapes the lights without our help, but Mother insists that everyone participate in hanging the ornaments, unwrapping torn tissue to reveal birds and Santas saved from her childhood. Each year the peacock’s plumes and Santa’s beard are thinner. Each year some ancient ornament is found broken, and we listen to Mother’s description of its life. Finishing as fast as we can, we hurry to our rooms, escaping her nostalgia over a time which didn’t include us. “I suppose you bought presents for them,” Todd says one evening as we sit in his room. I look at his sheets and wonder. Could anything for us be hidden under there? “Sort of. Mother took me out and paid for most of it, but I chose the stuff. You didn’t buy anything?” “What’s the point? That’d be pretty phony of me, to go off and buy presents for Mom and Dad and sign nice little cards. Why pretend? You all know.” “Know what?”

“How I feel.” “How do you feel?” Todd scowls and kicks off one shoe. “Shut up and get out of here.” On Christmas Eve, Todd and I have to stay in our rooms while Mother and Dad set out presents—to honor our German ancestors, we celebrate on Christmas Eve rather than the next morning. I use the time to dress up—“That’s only fitting, children,” Mother has said—, putting pearls under my Peter Pan collar and fastening the top button of a cardigan. I don’t hear any sounds from Todd’s room, and sure enough, when Mother calls us to come out of our rooms, he’s wearing regular pants and his sleeves are rolled up. “Todd—” I begin to complain as we walk down the stairs. “Keep it to yourself, Karen,” Todd interrupts. “But you don’t look Christmasy! Mother said—” “Who cares? You wanna wear a costume, that’s okay. I don’t.” We arrive in the sunroom and ire the tall tree, even though we helped decorate it and have been staring at it for weeks. Underneath the branches are wrapped boxes, most decorated with ribbon glued around one of last year’s cards —that’s one of Mother’s favorite wrapping tricks. As we sit carefully, posing for some pictures, I know that Todd won’t like what’s inside his boxes. Presents always disappoint him, as though they prove that we don’t understand and just can’t get it right. But to me, unopened packages are fresh possibilities, and I carefully remove ribbons with real optimism. During unwrapping, Mother and Dad sit on the couch, watching and nodding and smiling. Gifts for them are handed up to the couch; they never sit on the floor. My first gift is a package of three books, each with Mother’s writing inside the cover: “One of my favorite plays, Love, Pooh Bear,” or, “I have wonderful

memories of these stories! Love, Mum.” Todd unwraps a pair of pajamas and a book on the Gold Rush. “Knowing your love for this era, XXOO Mother and Father.” Todd and I each receive one large gift, portable typewriters, and Dad takes a picture of us crouching on the floor behind the open lids. I’m smiling, because now I can type stories, maybe even try writing a play, but Todd tells me the next day what a stupid gift that was. “What the hell am I supposed to do with a typewriter?” He waves a cigarette toward the hard blue box lying in his bedroom corner. “As though I care about writing! You want both of ‘em?” Suddenly, I’m embarrassed for our parents. “Just act happy. Those are expensive, I know they are.” “The more it costs, the happier we should act? You’re just like Mother, know that?.” Nothing hurts more. “I am not! Not one bit!” But Todd blows a smoke ring at the ceiling in confidence, confident that he’s right. Perhaps because my parents’ arguments seem to give me permission, I begin fighting with Mother over things like my list of rules for surviving in this household, a list which she isn’t supposed to have read because it’s in my diary. The rules include things like, “Always agree with whatever adults tell you,” which didn’t make her so mad, and “Don’t make friends—they might not be acceptable,” which made her furious. I yell at her that she’s insensitive, pushy, stuck-up. She gets red in the face and cold and sends me to my room. At least she doesn’t try to spank me anymore. I still wear my gold nugget ring, but the invisible thread is broken. It connects to nothing. As they sit in the den, she on the sofa sliding tiles around, he in the armchair,

drinking sweet wine, my parents grow nastier. “Of course, as a boy he’s always been more your responsibility,” I can hear Mother saying. “You’re the father, after all.” “Then that makes Karen your responsibility, and I don’t think you can be too proud of that.” “I think I’ve done quite well with my daughter. At least she succeeds in school.” Dad takes his time responding. “But does she like you?” “Of course she does!” Mother sputters. “Of course!” Dad’s voice is hard, an attorney trapping a witness. “I heard her little tantrum yesterday. If my daughter said to me the things she says to you, I’d look at myself for some serious changes.” The volume of the TV goes up, and I don’t hear their talking anymore. I lie on my bed, astonished. Dad would worry over my criticism! He values my opinion! Now I know I like him better.

One night Dad’s anger hurtles from Todd’s bedroom. “All right, go! But listen to me! The next time you leave this house, you walk out the front door. No more creeping out your window. You pack a bag and walk out the front door in broad daylight. Is that clear?” Todd’s door slams. The next day I discover my shoebox bank, hidden in a corner of my closet, is empty of every cent. All my savings of the last two and a half years, gone. I know who must have taken the money, and I confront Todd with the box dangling from my hand. “I’m sorry, Karen, but I need it! Dad’s letting me go to Alaska! But I have to work on the Alaska Highway, because he’s only giving me half what I need. You

don’t need that money. Please let me have it.” Todd’s face is animated: he can see his goal within reach. “Anyway, there wasn’t all that much, only about $30, but it’ll help me a lot,” he pleads. “$37.52,” I correct him, slapping the box against my knee. Todd moves as though to touch me, but he doesn’t. “Please, Karen.” I know that, despite my resentment and despite the ugliness he’s created, I can’t refuse him anything. He seems to hurt more openly than I do, to have fewer defenses. He hasn’t learned about pretending. I’m not much good at acting, but he’s even worse. “You can have it,” I say, turning away from him, “but it’s only a loan.” Todd leaves the next morning. Dad sends for a cab, Todd walks out the door with an old suitcase, climbs into the cab, and he’s gone. In a couple of weeks he sends a postcard telling us that work on the highway is hard but he’s almost reached Anchorage. Then he calls collect to tell us that he’s renting a room in a house and looking for work on the water, but a later postcard says all he could get was a job washing dishes at Woolworth’s. He enlists in the Coast Guard, but they kick him out of bootcamp. He’s too skinny. Then he rams someone’s motorcycle into a brick wall and breaks his jaw. We know because my parents receive a telegram from his landlady which ends: “Mending OK Stop Send money “ Dad shakes his head and crumples the telegram. “Maybe you shouldn’t have let him go,” Mother suggests between sips of wine. Dad turns fiercely toward her and yells, “I’m not a prison guard! He wanted out and we let him go. For God’s sake, I did the best I could!”

But he turns back to his glass and to the television, his eyes watery and a deep crease between his brows.

Todd’s room remains his room. I stand in the doorway and try to see or maybe smell him, but most of Todd is gone. It never occurs to any of us to create a guest room, an office, a hobby area because no one ever visits us, and Dad doesn’t work at home. As for hobbies, Mother uses the den to create her coffee table. I have more space in the bathroom, though, and no fears of having underwear discovered or the seat left up. But I’m not happy being an only child. I miss having a brother, even if he was only an occasional friend. Now I have to receive my parents’ full attention. They ask about school, my friends, even about career plans. I it that I’m considering writing, which makes Dad smile, or else teaching. “How about acting?” Dad asks. I shake my head. “Probably not. I tried for the White Rabbit in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ but they said I wasn’t convincing.” “Whadda they know? Some universities offer good training in both acting and English,” Dad says, tapping his pipe. “I think Northwestern was one.” “But if she teaches,” Mother says, “she’ll be both writing and acting every day! What you need to do, Karen, is prepare for the finest colleges.” Dad nods. “Yeah, keep the options open. You may even decide on law.” I look from one to the other. Dad has droopy bags under his eyes and his right arm shakes. Mother’s dressed up, as though prepared for some magazine photographer, and she looks at us as if we’re strangers, borrowed for the picture. I want to trust their advice, but it’s risky. “Whatever I do,” I say, “Todd would be disappointed if I worked where there’s more than one street light.” Suddenly, they’re quiet. The departure of their son is too recent for him to be mentioned like that, and our conversation ends abruptly. When they speak to me

again, I am only, after all, their little girl.

1977

I could use a beer. Maybe Karen would go get me some. Nice Christmas, having Liz’s daughter here. Wish she lived upstairs all the time, her and Peter. I’d feel better about Liz when I’m working if I knew her daughter’s around. How come Karen grows up okay when her brother’s such a bum? I’ve been around enough kids to know it’s weird, the way Karen and Todd turned out so different. Todd’s worse than me, doesn’t even have a diploma. What’s a grown man doing these days without a diploma? Can’t make it like I did. Those days are gone. He’s enjoying himself with the artsy crap, but that doesn’t earn a living.

CHAPTER TWELVE

BECOMING A LADY—1958

T he worst thing about Todd’s leaving is that Mother decides I need more formal training in being a lady. She even mentions the possibility of my going to a finishing school in Switzerland after high school, an idea which intrigues me more than it should—I’ve already had a bad experience in boarding school. But by the time I graduate, I tell myself, I’ll be older, more secure. After all, the other young women might be fascinated by me, an American-Canadian who blends the best of both cultures in my eager refinement. By the time I’m seventeen, I might be tall, even stately, and with mahogany hair twisted into a French roll…. Then the mirror tells me that I shouldn’t get carried away. In preparation for finishing school, we have tea at Stanley Park. Sometimes Rhona or Betty s us to sip from floral cups and select dainty petit fours from a three-tiered silver tray. I love the pastries, but the conversations leave me out. Then Mother invites me to ride the bus with her to an artist’s studio, where she’s posing for a painting, and I learn to watch as silently as she sits. She poses serenely, in her pale blue silk dress, next to a table holding a pewter sugar bowl and two lemons. Her expression in that painting, which we frame right away and hang over the mantle, is puzzling: partly sad—“Because of your brother,” she says, eyes lowered—and partly pleading—“Because I really didn’t like doing it, but your father wanted a portrait.”. On one bus ride to the studio, she surprises me by asking if she’s been a good mother. I look out the window, watching tidy yards go by. “You’re okay.” I think I’m lying. Mother reaches over to lay her gloved hand on top of mine, and I flinch. “Because I’ve always loved you, Karen. You’ve always been so dependable and

good. I’d like to think I played some part in making you that way.” She squeezes my fingers, and her hand remains wrapped tightly around mine. I know she wants me to say more, to squeeze her back and reassure her that Dad’s wrong about something bad he’s said to her. But I hold my breath and continue watching the yards, my fingers unmoving beneath hers. Gradually, she loosens her grip and returns her hand to her lap, looking across the aisle, and I relax a bit. So love is a conscious effort, I think. We love someone because. But there’s absolutely no reason to love Mother. She’s not dependable, she’s a rotten housekeeper, she drinks too much, she’s been mean to her son. Well then, I won’t love her.

To go with the dancing lessons we’re receiving in gym class, holding each other at arm’s length and perfecting the box waltz and the two step, I also begin piano lessons, not classical but “popular” piano so that, Mother assures me, I’ll be popular at parties. I tell her what Daphne said, that no one is ever asked to play the piano at parties, but she won’t listen. We buy a used upright piano and put it in the basement next to the pingpong table. I practice 30 minutes a day and enjoy it fairly well. Chords in the left hand, melody in the right, within a few months I can play, “Who’s Sorry Now?” and “The World is Waiting for the Sunrise.” My teacher is a quiet, bearded man, who wordlessly follows me each Monday evening down to the rec room, most often with a wool scarf wrapped tightly around his throat. I love to begin a new piece because after he writes out the notes, playing snatches to test his accuracy, he plays the whole piece through. Instead of twisting on the piano stool, shyly offering excuses, I can stand back, in the teacher’s normal position, and pretend my prize pupil is performing smoothly, effortlessly. Once a month Mother leaves some Canadian two dollar bills on the radiator case below the hall mirror, and he picks them up quickly so that I don’t have to hand them to him. I open the front door, we say good night, and he disappears for another week. I also take modeling lessons. I learn how to do the tearoom routine on a ramp,

modeling a dress and carrying a parasol, just as Daphne had taught me in the locker room. Heel in front of toe, walk a straight line which will rock the hips attractively, spin on the right foot, bringing the head around last, aim the parasol to one side and flick it open, twirl, smile, close the parasol, spin around, look down over one shoulder, walk off the ramp. I also learn how to stand in fifth position while waiting for the bus. But all these efforts—tea, art, piano, modeling—all fail. I’m uncomfortable around adults, staring at them as though they’re laboratory animals. I’m still embarrassed by body things: on a train to central British Columbia, I make the whole 16 hour trip without once using the restroom because I don’t want everyone to know that I need to go. They’ll all talk about me and laugh. Perhaps word will even reach the man driving the train, who may walk back to my car to stare at the girl who had to use the toilet. Twice I can’t stand the pressure below my belly and force myself to walk to the rear of the car, trying the restroom handle, only to find that the sign says, “Occupied/Occupé.” I cover my embarrassment by drinking from the water fountain instead. And at the few mixers I attend, nobody, let alone me, is ever asked to play the piano.

Over dinner Dad extends a magazine toward me. “What do you think of that?” he asks, and I look down to see a picture of a new car. “What kind is it?” Dad slices his steak and chews before answering, looking at me and the picture with an unfocused bleariness. “A Corvair. I might buy one for your mother.” I look at Mother with amazement. “But you don’t know how to drive!” She smiles coyly, and Dad says, “She’s starting lessons tomorrow.”

I haven’t thought much about owning a car, but the act of driving, perhaps because Mother doesn’t do it, seems mysterious. “I really think that a lady ought to know how to drive,” Mother says, “and that’s such a cute little car!” The next morning at ten o’clock, a brown car with two steering wheels pulls up our curving driveway. Mother and I stand on the bottom step with Rhona and Betty, who are waiting to judge the instructor, wish Mother well and provide a proper send-off. After the instructor says something to Mother, she slides in on the enger side and they drive away. Mother waves out her window as they turn the corner. An hour later, the brown car returns, this time driven slowly around the corner, jerking and zigzagging. It comes to a complete stop before turning into our driveway, and then flattens a small bush as it jerks toward the front steps. I hurry downstairs and out the door in time to see Mother climb out, pale and tightlipped. The instructor again says something, and she walks grimly past me, closing the front door behind her. Rhona and Betty, standing on their front paths, turn away. Neither calls. “So how’d it go today?” Dad asks, putting down his briefcase in the hallway. He always carries it, but, once home, he never opens it, and it sits quietly, a ive pup, waiting for the next morning to be taken back outside. Mother doesn’t look up as she puts a casserole on the table in the breakfast nook. “It’ll be fine,” she says tersely. Dad glances at her, then down at the casserole, tipping a serving spoon over his plate. Every three days Mother has another lesson, always in the same car with the same instructor, always jerking back to the front door. In the evenings she pushes aside the boxes of Milky Way tiles to read a driver’s manual. “I’ll do fine on the written portion,” she says to me, and then, with a tight smile, she adds, “Mr. Schwartz has said that behind the wheel will be a bit more difficult for me.”

I sense that this business of getting a license has become a nightmare for Mother. Gone are pictures of the baby blue Corvair. Instead, she’s trying to prove something, and suddenly, forgetting that I decided not to love her, I’m rooting for her, wanting her to show Mr. Schwartz that with her, he’s teaching an intelligent woman, almost valedictorian, married to an executive and owner of— well, occupant of—a house big enough to have a room just for sewing. He shouldn’t treat such a woman with ridicule. But Mr. Schwartz must. After her final lesson, Mother slams the front door, stalks upstairs and slams her bedroom door. In a moment I hear the sound of shoes hitting the floor and drawers banging. At dinner she doesn’t talk about the lesson, and when I ask about why she keeps hitting plants on the driveway, her look shuts me up. I go to the basement to practice piano, convinced that driving is impossible. But on her third try, Mother es both the written and the driving test, and Dad buys her the Corvair. He drives it home and parks it in the garage where it lives, unused, while Mother continues to ride the bus or call a cab, until one afternoon when Betty and Rhona want Mother to take them for tea at the park. Dad holds up his palm to silence my protest. “It has to begin sometime,” he whispers, and walks into the den. But begin by killing our neighbors? Both of them at once? As they leave, I wave anxiously at the window, watching the pale blue, shiny car jerk hesitantly into the street. “Karen! Wanna listen to a ballgame?” Dad calls downstairs. “I got it on the radio. It’s the Giants! Should be good.” Leaving the window, I run upstairs. I love that team. I can tell stories about Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, the Marichal brothers, but no one at Lee House wants to hear them. No other girls care about “Say hey!” or the chances of San Francisco winning the pennant or how strong the bullpen is. Dad, on the other hand, likes my loving baseball, and we holler together in the dusk of the den. When the key turns in the front door, we’re startled at the time.

“Not bad,” Dad laughs. “Your mother got home safely even though we were rooting for someone else!” and we hurry downstairs. All three women stand in the front hall, flushed and excited. “That is just a pet of a car, Robert! I’m going to tell Tom all about it,” Rhona exclaims. “Tea at Stanley Park was not nearly as exciting as the drive there and back!” Betty says, patting Mother’s shoulder, and I glance at Mother, wondering. I think Dad’s disappointed when our neighbors’ husbands don’t immediately do what he calls their “poodle trick” and buy matching cars for their wives, but everyone, including Mother, seems content just to know the blue Corvair is there, waiting in our garage. When Betty calls to suggest that they go out again, Mother hurries out of her bedroom and stoops over a drawer, enthusiastic about tea. “You’ve got something on the back of your dress, Mother,” I say. She straightens up quickly, reaching a hand to her behind, and seems to something. “Damn,” she says quietly, and goes back upstairs. When she comes down a second time, she’s changed her clothes and her expression. In those few minutes, it’s dawned on me what that stain was, and I wish that my mother could control such things better. Otherwise, there’s no hope for me. That night, while we wash lettuce, she announces that she’ll probably be checking into the hospital for a hysterectomy. “A what?” “That’s an operation to have the womb removed.” “The what?” “The area of a woman’s body which grows babies,” she explains patiently. “There’s something wrong in there, so I want to take it out. I’m finished with it,

after all.” She adds energetically, “Out with it!” I stare at the butcher knife in her hand and feel vaguely sick. “Doesn’t it hurt?” I ask. “Certainly. But what a relief to have all that over with.” I wonder what “all that” is, but I’m too afraid to ask. “I’d have preferred to have all my family home, of course,” she adds, lowering her head as though to hide tears. “But after all, what I most need now is someone to take care of your father, another woman around the house.” “But I can’t cook!” Mother nods and smiles, almost Buddha-like. “This will make you learn.” “But what will we eat?” “I’ve listed some menus on this sheet—” she holds out a piece of my lined notebook paper, filled with her stately writing—“and, of course, you and your father can be creative.” I think that creativity comes after the basics, which I haven’t ever learned. What if I’m responsible for my own father’s death? First my mother kills the neighbors in a car accident, then I kill my father by food poisoning. This is just too much. But without further discussion, Dad drives off with Mother that Sunday and returns home alone. We serve ourselves left-overs scraped off the bottom of a burned pan. The operation is Monday morning and that night we’re eager to visit, but as we stand at the counter, a nurse assures us that the operation went fine, Mother’s asleep and we can’t see her until Tuesday. Dad and I agree that we’re too tired to eat. Tuesday we go to the hospital and stand awkwardly by Mother’s bed, bumping

into each other as we rush to fetch water or an extra chair. After we shyly kiss her goodbye, Dad suggests that we go to a Chinese restaurant, where he tells me that Mother ate so much Chinese food when she was pregnant with me that they thought I’d be born with slanted eyes. On Wednesday Dad takes me to eat at the Vancouver Club. “I hear they have great fish and chips on Wednesdays,” he says. On Thursday Dad warms canned tomato soup and adds oyster crackers, followed by popcorn. This is his usual Sunday meal, so I know he’s worried about eating what I could cook. On Friday, when Anna comes to clean, he hires her to cook for us until Mother has been home for two weeks. I’m very relieved to have put off becoming the woman of the house, and I think Dad is, too. After Mother’s back at her old spot, sitting on the end of the couch and offering her glass for a refill, I tell her that girls at school have insisted that women shrivel up afterward and their voices drop to a growl. “Oh, pooh!” she scoffs. “Do I sound any different to you? Another thing a nurse told me: it doesn’t spoil the sex drive. Not one bit.” I stare open-mouthed. Her breath smells like wine and her cheeks are flushed. She glances at Dad, but he doesn’t show that he’s listening. Mother leans back and laughs. Dad and I don’t. Mother’s laughter and her comfortable recuperation indicate that she may know more about Life and Womanhood than either of us, and so I return to my game of Solitaire and Dad reaches again for his pouch of tobacco.

In a couple of months Mother’s strong enough to be excited about attending the Vancouver Club’s Fundraising Bazaar and Dance. Even I get to go. Mother has a new dress made from bold floral fabric with a low back—a very sexy dress, I think. Dad looks proper in a gray suit and tie, one of the many he now owns, and I wear a dark blue organdy puff of a dress with my first pair of Hanes stockings, South Pacific shade. I’m very excited to be wearing stockings.

We pat CeZee goodnight, carefully arrange ourselves in the Oldsmobile, Dad at the wheel, and drive to the Governor General’s estate. The house is enormous, and what we’re allowed to see is decorated with fresh flowers in gigantic vases set on shining tables. Counting the chairs, I figure that the dining room table can seat 30, and on either side are doors through which butlers quietly appear and vanish, carrying trays of champagne and horsd’oeuvres. Through French doors I can see a velvety lawn with stone terraces and an occasional gazebo. I would love for a handsome young man to bow low, offer his arm, and escort me through those doors for a private, earnest conversation. “Richard—” Stop. I don’t like that name. “Chas! To honor our parents, we mustn’t! How often I’ve tried to explain that I simply cannot—” “Coke, ma’am?” the butler offers, and I startle both of us by turning so fast that I jerk out of my shoe and nearly fall. He steadies me with one gloved hand, then extends the silver tray again, repeating, “Coke?” “Thanks,” I say, with what I hope is a regal nod, and I twist my feet into the fifth position, proper for waiting. There’s something called a silent auction going on in the living room and library, but I avoid the clumps of adults huddled around expensive objects, writing bids on thick paper with silver pens. A small jazz band on one terrace competes with a dance band under a nearby tent, and a bton net is surrounded with lanterns and flood lights, but no one’s playing. My parents sit next to each other on a love seat, each talking with people crouched on upholstered stools. All of them are flushed and animated, but not loud. Dad is talking to a tired-looking man about how to make a product sell, and Mother’s describing her flower gardens. “Karen!” she says, when she sees me watching. “Do come over and let me introduce you!” Her arm draws a wide arc, drawing me into this intimate circle, but I stay where I am. Her eyes seem cold, her gesture designed to impress the woman listening to Latin names of herbs, but not really to draw me into closeness. I decide that

Mother won’t make a scene, so this is a good time to refuse her. Sure enough, she drops her arm and turns quickly back to the woman on the stool. For the rest of the evening I mostly wander and watch. No handsome young man singles me out. I keep accepting cokes and worrying about toilets. A little girl with long braids does ask me to play bton and we try, but she can’t return the shuttlecock, and she keeps insisting that I swing too hard, that I’m stepping over some imaginary line. When her mother walks by, the girl throws down her racket and runs to wrap her arms around the woman’s skirts, looking up at her and pointing at me. When I hear car engines, one after another, I realize that it must be time to leave, and I search for my parents, finding them near a table still loaded with food. Dad’s leaning heavily against the wall, a suit pocket smeared with whipping cream, and Mother’s throwing back her head in laughter at something an old man next to her has said. When they see me, Dad looks at his watch and sticks out his elbow to Mother, who accepts his arm. They walk toward the door, stopping to say something to the lady standing there. I follow behind as they walk unsteadily out the door. Mother seems about to lose a shoe and one of her knees pops, snapping out and then back and throwing both of them off balance, but when she’s steady again, she looks around, smiling. No one extends a hand. The Oldsmobile’s brought up the drive by a valet who opens Mother’s door and hands her in. She puts her right hand under her thigh to help lift that leg, help it swing clear of the heavy door slamming us in. Dad accelerates too quickly, spraying a wake of gravel, and we drive toward home. “That was a lovely evening, wasn’t it?” Mother asks Dad. From the back seat I can see his hands gripping the wheel and his eyelids blinking rapidly. He shouldn’t be driving. If it makes her so wobbly, she shouldn’t be drinking . Suddenly, I get a horrible idea. Todd was right. Both of them are alcoholics! I shut my eyes tightly, hoping this will all go away, but when I open them, Dad is still gripping the wheel, Mother sucking in her breath as we weave from the center line to the curb of the road.

When did this happen? How did they go so far beyond their happiness about having a liquor cabinet? They’ve never been devoted parents, but now they’ve moved into another world. How have I come to be so alone? Suddenly, despite Mother’s gasps and occasional cries of “Robert, watch out!”, our big Oldsmobile swerves too far to the right. Mother shrieks. Something furry and white zigzags in the headlights. The front wheel goes over the curb, and we’re stopped by the bumper smashing against a tree. “Hell!” Dad yells. “Goddamn it!” Mother rubs the back of her neck and turns to look at me. “Are you all right, dear?” Dad opens his door and, one hand sliding along the hood, walks to the front of the car and stoops over. “Hell!” he says again as he slides behind the wheel. “That tree messed up my bumper!” “What are you doing, Bob?” Mother cries out, as Dad stretches his arm along the back of the seat, turns to squint out the window, and slowly backs up. “Are you sure—” “We’re fine,” he answers. The car rolls up slightly, then bounces down off the curb. “Dad! Look! You hit that dog!” I begin to roll down my window. “What dog?” Mother asks, and reaches for her window knob. “Just shut up! Both of you! And don’t open that window, Karen! You want the whole neighborhood to hear you?” Moving the gear lever, he leans forward, as though willing the car to accelerate quickly down the street, away from the sudden porch light and the flattened white lump. I begin to cry, quiet whimpering which lasts until I’m under my blankets,

burrowed under the pillow. My blue organdy dress lies in a heap on the floor, and I haven’t bothered to splash water on my face or brush my teeth. I don’t close my eyes, because when I do I see trees, curb, a white mound needing comfort, needing someone to run down the stairs in the porch light and rescue him, wrap him in blankets, carry him for help. “Are you in bed, Karen?” Mother calls. “Yes.” She opens my door and sticks in her head. “Don’t let that unfortunate incident spoil your memory of the party, will you?” “Mother!” I wail, “Dad ran over a dog!” “Now, now,” she says, sitting on my bed and patting my leg, “you don’t know for sure. The animal may be okay. Or it may not have been an animal at all! You just can’t know. By the way, it doesn’t help to yell at your father.” “But you do! You yell at Dad all the time!” “That isn’t the same thing. We’re husband and wife. You’re just a child.” “But—he—ran—over—” I gasp. I want to say something about drinks, about their liquor cabinet. I want to make demands. But what should I ask for? What would fix the family I’m seeing? “Let it go, Karen.” I can’t answer. I’m crying too hard. “Just let it go.” She bends over to kiss my forehead. “You need to learn that it’s often wiser for the woman to say nothing.” She leaves, closing the door gently behind her, and walks toward the den where pieces of the Milky Way lie scattered across the floor and hidden under the cushions. “Sweet dreams, dear!” Mother calls, and I hear the den door shut.

1988

I’m ready, but no Karen. Sundays we watch TV together. I tell her how pretty the view is from my bed, how nice the nurses are. She tells me about my grandson, her job. Cheerful talks. No one can say I’m not cheerful. But I want to die. What good is this life? M.S. has no cure, so this will only get worse. I can’t do anything, can’t walk, can’t use the toilet. For ten years nurses have wiped every inch of my body. All my womanliness is gone. Karen’s a good girl but she doesn’t like visiting. She’s only doing her duty, like the nurse who changes my sheets. I prefer the one who tells me all about her boyfriend. She’s more fun. She’s painted in brighter colors, like Todd. I do love Todd. When he was just a little boy, I taught him to fish. That was me putting bait on the hook, me helping him reel in the trout, cleaning it, bragging about it. I taught him to paint, then loaned him my camera. Could he have become an artist without me? I’d take some pride, if he’d let me, but he never writes. He’s dropped his last name. It’s like all those years didn’t matter. I’m tired. The nurses won’t try to talk me out of what I’m planning. The doctor promised me no forced feeding. So next Sunday the priest will come and I’ll say confession and that will begin it, however long it takes. If we’ve got any brains at all—and I’ve been blessed with plenty—we learn from what Life hands us.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A BUSINESS TRIP—1959

T he den window opens, Dad leans out, and, ignoring Betty’s curious stare from between her kitchen curtains, he calls down to me. “Karen, come in here! We need to talk to you!” I’m hitting a bton shuttlecock in the air, counting how long I can keep my rally going, and showing off for Betty. “Okay, just a minute.” But even such few words distract me enough that I miss my next bounce and the birdie flies into a bush. “Your mother and I were wondering,” Dad begins, as I stand in the den doorway, slightly out of breath, “if you’d like to go to San Francisco with me.” He has a sheepish grin. “What? Fly?” I’ve never been on a plane! Dad studies his pipe, decides it needs care, and manages to look preoccupied. “The San Francisco office called me today and I have to fly down there for some meetings. Your mother and I thought you might like to come along.” “Stay in the City?” Mother looks up, first at me, then at Dad. “The St. Francis would be nice. It’s a lovely hotel.” I don’t know what lovely means, not in any clear detail and certainly not where

hotels are concerned, but the word does make me the holes in the elastic of my underpants. Dad nods. “The St. Francis is fine. We could get a room there, and then I thought you might like to visit your grandparents while I’m in meetings.” My grandparents, our old home in Woodacre—I could see it and them again. “You’re not going, Mother?” She seems surprised. “No, Karen, that’s what we’re saying: you would accompany your father on his trip.” “We’d have time for a few activities together. Dinner at that tropical restaurant in the hotel. What’s that called?” He looks at Mother and the two of them speak in half-sentences, trying to help each other piece together a name but with no luck. Finally, Dad looks back at me, and I wonder if my excitement shows. “Well? You’d have to miss some school. Whaddya think?” “When would we go?” “End of next week.” The beginning of second semester. “Yeah, that would be okay.” I want to scream, “I’d love it! I can’t wait until next week!” but I just say the trip would be okay. Exasperation with my parents is forgotten in the excitement of the trip. At school I try to talk calmly to other girls, especially because returning to the States, even on a short trip, is considered traitorous and just what they’d expect of an American. I show each teacher a note from Mother, stating in very precise, adult phrases when I’ll be gone, how educational the trip will be, and requesting make-up work. I don’t think they’re convinced about the educational benefits so they really load up on the homework, and I stay up late each night before we

leave doing long assignments. Dad works late, too, preparing reports on how his company’s doing. I know from dinner conversations that the company’s no longer sick and that morale is high. He must be looking forward to the bragging. Meanwhile, Mother has dragged out a decent-looking, large suitcase and spends part of each day packing and unpacking my stuff. Her philosophy is, “You never know what may come up, and a Lady is always prepared,” which translates into church clothes (which can double for a funeral), nice dinner outfit, casual picnic clothes, shopping suit, modest nightgown (with an extra), bathing suit, a frothy dress in case there’s a wedding, plus being prepared for rain and a heat wave. Packing is a matter of anticipating everything. Since I don’t own many clothes besides uniforms, by the time I sit on the bag and Mother snaps it shut, my closet is almost empty. Waving goodbye to Mother and climbing into a taxi, Dad and I leave the house at five in the morning. The streets are dark and quiet, the light of an early riser only occasionally shining on a lawn. The taxi’s radio, crackling with what Dad calls a dispatcher, is turned low. We drive without speaking until we come to ribbons of light around low buildings. “Here we are,” Dad says, and I peer through the darkness at this unreal place. A man who looks Eskimo takes our heavy suitcases from the trunk and shoves them up to the airline counter, and Dad tips him, more confidently than on our first day at the hotel, I think. Our suitcases disappear behind rubber flaps and we walk to the waiting room to sit in plastic chairs, looking through windows into the runway lights and the darkness beyond. A uniformed man announces our flight, my father produces several copies of our tickets for different people to tear off pieces, and we settle ourselves into seats near the front. Even following the stewardess’ instructions, I have trouble connecting my seat belt, especially with Dad nervously demonstrating the sickness bag hidden in the pouch in front of me. But the take-off is wonderful. Pressed back against the seat, I feel completely free: there’s nothing I can do to save myself in this capsule, so I relax, giving complete control to unseen others. After the plane levels off, signs flash on and off, and Dad orders a drink. Then he

says, “Excuse me, Karen,” climbs out over my legs and walks up the aisle—to the restrooms! In front of everyone, he has opened one of those doors! Even more embarrassing, he’s gone a long time. My cheeks burn when he finally comes out, and I hardly dare look up, but everyone around me continues reading or drinking, no one seeming to react, which is hard to believe. He climbs back over my legs, adjusts himself, and then whispers, “Where’s your purse?” “On the floor.” “Get it.” I do. It’s a cheap vinyl imitation of the enormous leather handbag popular with older girls. “Now put these in,” and he pulls from his bulging suit pockets small, neatly boxed rectangles, stuffing them into my purse. “What are those?” I ask. He leans closer, and I can smell the drink he’s been sipping. “Sanitary things,” he whispers. “Your mother told me to pick up some on the plane because she forgot to pack you any. There. That’s all I could get.” Suddenly, my too-big bag is full. Mostly, I look at magazines and eat, while Dad drinks and sleeps. Before we land, he wants me to get up and look in the restroom at all the tidy compartments, but, although I’d love to see them, I’m too shy. He asks the stewardess to get me some wings, which she pins on with a smile. Being a enger on an airplane, I decide proudly, is an important achievement. As we climb into the taxi, I breathe the fog of San Francisco and I suddenly how the City smells and feel at home. I recognize the hotel from walking to the dentist near Union Square when I was little, and while Dad handles ing, I stare at the shiny windows and counters. Our room is tiny,

with space only for twin beds, a dresser with a TV on top, and a small table, but it’s still exciting. Dad and I are hanging clothes in the same closet, tossing nightclothes onto matching pillows, using the same bathroom. From the window I can hear a cable car bell and watch yellow taxis dart up the cramped street, while Dad calls someone at the Head Office. He changes into a dark gray suit and leaves me sitting in our hotel room, reading, watching TV, staring down onto the street. This isn’t boring; this is waiting for Dad. When he returns, he grins. “The company president wants to stop his vacation and talk to me!” He runs a hand through his blond hair. “This could mean something big, Karen, really big.” “That’s great, Dad!” “Really big! Jesus, I can’t believe it! Well, put on your fancy dress and I’ll take you out to eat.” All the way up in the elevator and even after we’re seated, Dad doesn’t stop talking, pointing out lights and costumes, explaining how the ceiling rains and the fake parrots squawk. Almost jubilant, he orders himself a scotch and for me a Shirley Temple, which arrives topped by a small umbrella, such an extravagant give-away. From watching other tables, I realize that I’m thoroughly used to the British style of using the knife to scoop food onto the fork. Miss Crake would be proud. Before the end of my veal parmigiani, Dad has ordered me a second drink with a second tiny umbrella. I try to make conversation, asking for details about his meeting. “They were impressed. One guy said he wished everyone had my talent. Maybe the president wants to see what my secret is.” As he produces a credit card, he looks happy. I climb into bed early, leaving Dad awake with TV. Dinner was a dizzying experience: elegant, unfamiliar and expensive.

The next morning I have to repack “I wouldn’t mind staying here,” I say, hoping that he’ll let me sit, waiting again. “You mean, you’re not eager to be alone with your father’s irascible parents?” He laughs and pats my shoulder, but when I just look up at him, pleading silently, he says, more seriously, “I need your report on the place, Karen. Think you can be my little spy?” “Sure,” I answer, turning my head. I get excited again when Grandma and Grandpa are standing in the lobby. They haven’t changed: they’re both short and brown and awfully old. Grandpa still has white hair and smells like he’s been ironed. Grandma still has tiny permed curls and wears Indian bracelets from her wrists to her elbows. After quick hugs, Grandpa takes my suitcase and sort of shoves Dad back toward the elevator. “You must have appointments, son,” Grandpa says. “We’ll just take Missy here and go on back home. We’ll bring her back in two days, about this time. You have our number.” I smile to myself: my grandparents are just bossy enough to make me feel safe. We drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County countryside. The house looks different, not cool and modern as we’d left it, but somehow upholstered and padded. Grandma and Grandpa are proud of all their improvements—“Tell your father about this one, Karen. Be sure you describe how much work this was. We’re not young, you know”—and I don’t tell them that, somehow, the house has gained weight. But the view is beautiful, every bit as big as I ed. Few new houses and no new stores have been built in the last two and a half years, so the view from the deck is still uncluttered, the sunset gorgeous. Probably because of our laughter, the house feels different than before, friendlier. For two days I eat huge meals, sit in long conversations, ire the sunsets from the deck and play Double Solitaire with Grandma. She teaches me the game, and we play most of the day, screaming as we slam cards on aces, accusing each other of using both hands, holding up bends and tears in our cards as proof. Sometimes Grandpa comes running into the den to referee, alarmed and amused,

but we shoo him away, intent on our game and delighted by our nastiness. At night, Grandma tucks me into my old bed. “This is quite a trip for a young girl, Karen, flying all the way down here. We hope you’re enjoying yourself. Just you and two old people.” “I am, Grandma.” “By the way, tell your mother next time that one small bag is enough. We live a simple life, and there’s no need to show off,” Grandma says, patting the bedspread and leaving. But I know I won’t say anything to Mother. She doesn’t get along with Grandma very well. Anyway, how could one small bag hold a rain coat plus a dress for a wedding?

Grandpa drives me back to the hotel, but Dad has left a message that he’s still downtown, so Grandpa takes me to my room and carefully unfolds the suitcase on the rack at the foot of my bed. “Will you be all right, Karen? I can stay, you know.” He’s worried, both about me and about the drive home. “No,” I say, “I’m fine. Especially now that I have a deck of cards.” We both laugh. He’s given me a deck of Grandma’s cards to remind me of our fun. After we hug and kiss and the door’s closed, I turn on the TV and, dealing one game after another, watch a show about cheetahs and then a public television auction. Somehow, the zillions of things they’re selling, with all the pledges and phone calls, make me feel more disoriented. I’ve seen my house and don’t quite recognize it, I guess because someone else lives in it. I’ve sat on our old deck, iring hillsides and straw grasses, but that’s different than rolling around out there. Could I ever do that again? Could I ever go back?

Just when I’m about to start crying, I hear a knock. “Dad!” I run to the door. Without stopping to hug me, he turns toward the closet. “Have fun?” “Yeah, it was nifty! Grandma’s a good cook. The place looks different, though.” I want him to that I was his spy, but Dad’s far away and simply nods. He looks depressed and puffy around the eyes. His tie is loosely knotted around an open collar, and his wide pants are wrinkled. “Hungry?” he asks. Our last dinner out together. “Yeah, a bit,” I answer happily. “Let’s just have room service,” he says, and grabs the telephone. He orders two chicken dinners, a bottle of wine for himself and a Coke for me. When the food arrives, we eat from the linen-covered cart in front of the television. I’m afraid to ask him about his meeting with the company president, and he doesn’t ask for details about the house, so we watch the auction without comment. A painting of dried flowers sells for twenty dollars. An imitation tiara sells for ten. Dad shoves the cart outside our door, then goes into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. I quickly change into my nightgown and sit on the edge of the bed to wait my turn. But there’s silence from the bathroom. Several minutes with no sound, until suddenly, I hear loud vomiting, manly and grotesque. I sit unmoving, watching the bathroom door and wondering if I should run over, pound on it, rattle the handle. Finally, the vomiting stops, the toilet flushes, and the sink taps are turned on for a long time. When he comes out, Dad looks pale, but he doesn’t say anything. “Okay?”

“Lousy.” And he turns off the light. “Goodnight, Petootie.” In the darkness I wish I could smile at the name I rarely hear. The return airplane trip is marked by one huge accomplishment: I walk up the aisle to the restroom, open the narrow door, and lock it behind me. When I return to my seat, there are no laughing faces. Otherwise, nothing much happens. When the plane finally circles over Vancouver, I want to feel that this is a homecoming, that I’m returning to a place I’ll never leave. I want us to chatter in the taxi and then rush into Mother’s arms, filling the house with sounds of our high adventure. But it doesn’t happen. The landing is bumpy, the wait for baggage long, our ride in the taxi even more quiet than our departure, and when we get home, we have to ring the doorbell. Dad says something to Mother, and they disappear into the den, closing the door behind them. Something bad must have happened at that last meeting, something to make my father need not his daughter but his wife. I hang up my clothes-for-everyoccasion and pile the unused sanitary pads in the bathroom cabinet. I organize my books for school and stack papers into neat piles before sliding them behind a flap in my binder. The den door is still shut, so I change into pants and go outside to pound a tennis ball against the garage door, humming the Lee House school song:

“The time will come when we must part, And leave these walls with saddened heart.

We shall go out our work to do,

With head held high, our values true.”

I like this song, the melody and the words. It’s…ennobling, especially when sung by 300 young voices at morning prayers, and it makes me feel better. I slug the tennis ball, sending poufs of dust away on a breeze, and shift into, “The Happy Wanderer”—

“I love to go a-wandering,

Along the mountain track,

And as I go I love to sing A knapsack on my back”—

which is so jolly.

From that I go to “When you walk through a storm, keep your head up high.” It reminds me of my P.E. teacher, a woman who’s pretty, yet good in emergencies. In tough times I’d like to have her by my side—better yet, I’d like to be that sort of woman. As dusk dims the edges of the ball, I end with my very favorite hymn, singing low and defiantly:

“Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth and falsehood,

For the good or evil side.”

I have no idea what that means, but I love the strength and determination. Inside my house, two adults sit drinking in a darkened den. But out here, bashing a tennis ball and singing uplifting songs, I’m convinced of a meaning in life more significant than anything they’ve experienced, a meaning which can be grasped only by the energetic, the confident, the eager. As my parents discuss some no doubt minor problem, some earthly concern, here am I, holding my head high and singing through storms, tipping my hat to all I meet, and siding with Truth, grand and everlasting.

1989

“This is great, Karen. You’re lucky to have such a view.” “We love it. Undeveloped canyons are really unusual so near a big city. Here Todd, have some lemonade. Pretzels?” “Thanks. God, what a relief. I’ve seen her. After all this time, I’ve finally seen Mother.” “It wasn’t so bad, was it?” “She looks old! I guess I’d frozen in my mind how she looked when I was a kid. All these years I’ve pictured her like that—hair all snazzy, that look on her face. Her stuck up look, you know?” “She still gets it sometimes, but not very often.” “You see her every week?” “Usually on Sunday mornings.” “You’ve been real good to her. Just like you were all your life—the good kid. I learned about that in a book on children of alcoholics. I’ve been lousy, never visiting. But AA says you have to make amends with the people you’ve hurt, so now I’ve talked to her.” “For ten years her nurses thought she’d made you up. They used to drop hints, ask me little questions, but I assured them you were alive.” “I was so—so scared, like she could still hurt me. When I was a little kid, she dressed me so other kids made fun. Then she argued with Dad about letting me go to Alaska. And after Dad died and I really needed some money, she wouldn’t give it to me. She actually refused her own son! Christ.” “But that was years ago! Anyway, withholding the money may have been as

much Alex’s doing as hers.” “That bastard. He never liked me.” “He thought he was protecting his wife, Todd. Alex was really good to Mother, and I think she loved him. She certainly appreciated his companionship.” “Love. I’ve always thought I loved Dad more. That he understood because he was more like me. But lately, talking at AA, I’ve been thinking: he was kind of an SOB, kind of a sell-out. I mean, he wanted to be a writer, but he let Mother talk him into the corporation and transfers, all that. If he was so smart, how come he didn’t do what he wanted?” “Because he had us? Responsibilities?” “I don’t believe it. I don’t think he worked for our sakes. He wanted promotions for Mother.” “So?” “So he was a coward, afraid of his own wife. Now I’m thinking that the mother I’ve bouthed all my life, maybe she was the strong one.” “A survivor.” “I ire that.” “I will say that Mother’s been the model patient. She’s made it as easy on me as possible. Once we talked about her stoicism, and she said something fascinating. ‘Stoics make it easy to be ignored,’ as though that’s something she regrets a little. I’ve thought about that a lot.” “I feel bad for you. You were the other person I have to see.” “For what?” “Tell you I’m sorry. For being older, so Mother used up all her mothering on me. For making you be so good.” “Don’t worry about it, Todd. That was a long time ago. I do feel like I raised

myself, but life’s turned out okay. I’m even learning from Mother now, seeing some traits I inherited. Like that look. I hate it, but it’s there. And the stoicism.” “So maybe I should like her more. What do you think?” “I think you should get on with your life, Todd. That sounds like some radio shrink but I mean it. Put her and Dad behind you. They don’t matter anymore.” “But maybe that’s what the book calls denial. Be honest: how do you feel? Do you love Mother?” “No, probably not the way I want my son to love me.” “And Dad?” “…He’s been dead too long, Todd. No, I don’t think either one of them was so great.” “Is….. Mother’s still around.” “But she’s dying, Todd.” “Dying? What do you mean?” “She hasn’t eaten much in a month.” “What?” “The doctor wanted to put her in the hospital, but she and I agreed—no. Leave her be, where she gets good care. If this is the way she wants it, just let it happen.” “Jesus! Can’t you do something? I’ve heard of pushing food down. Can’t you do that?” “She wants to die, Todd.” “God! You’re so calm!” “I cry all the way home every Sunday. I cry for what was, what never was, everything. I’m really glad you visited. I think it will make her feel more at

peace.” “But what about me? Both my parents dead? How am I supposed to feel?” “On your own, I guess. No excuses. It takes awhile, but it’s a good lesson.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TRANSFERRED BACK—1960

A t dinner we sit silently. Looking between my mother and father, I know they’ve been discussing something angrily because they keep their eyes down, not looking at me or at each other, only at the food: small mounds of once-frozen peas with onions, sliced pot roast with canned gravy, and large mounds of instant mashed potatoes, flattened by margarine. Only after I’ve cleaned my plate does Dad look up, straight at me. “We have to move.” “What?” I ask in amazement. “San Francisco’s transferring me back. The job here is finished.” “Now, Bob,” Mother insists, “don’t put it like that. They simply see what a good job you’ve done. They appreciate your success.” “And they’re rewarding me with a do-nothing job?” “It’s a promotion, Robert.” Mother sounds exasperated, as though she’s said all this before. “He’ll be Assistant to the President, Karen. Next in line.” I put down my glass and turn it so that the tiny American flag decal isn’t showing. I can’t believe it. Going back, leaving here. I can’t believe it. “I’ve done such a good job,” Dad spits out angrily, “that they want me to sit on my butt in the Head Office.” He looks at me, as though, because we’ve just traveled to San Francisco together, I will understand their thinking or his anger and be able to explain. At least I understand now why he looked depressed on the trip back. His reports of

company success must have been too good. He impressed everyone and they want him nearby. In English we’re studying irony, and I realize that this is a reallife example. “When do we move?” I ask, twisting the glass so that the flag decal comes around to me again. “They want me down there immediately.” I start to protest, but he waves a hand. “Don’t worry, I put them off. Later this spring you and your Mother can fly down to pick out an apartment and get you enrolled somewhere, and we’ll move after school’s out.” Before I can say anything more, they stand. Dinner’s over, the conversation ended. They’ve been discussing this while I was hitting a ball, and at some other time they must continue the topic, but for now each has enough to think about privately. I don’t stop them as they put down their plates for me to wash: it’s not typical for me to pump them for information, or to discuss an event as though we’re sharing it. The decision to move up here had been announced without any discussion other than to reassure me that English is spoken in Canada. And now I have to think on my own about starting over. Up in my room, trying to make the V of my hand catch the line on the handle of my tennis racket, I start listing advantages of moving: new school, new chance to be popular, new beginning for all of us except Todd. Now that’s a question: what happens to Todd? Do we leave him in Alaska? Can we just load our stuff into a moving van and drive away from the few postcards and telegrams we receive? If Todd can’t picture where we are, will he ever write again? So leaving Todd is a definite disadvantage. As is leaving behind some beginnings of friendships at school. Jan said she’d invite me to a mixer next fall, and Chloe said it was too bad that my birthday comes in the summer when no one’s around to celebrate. But really, no one much likes me. Daphne was my only best friend, and I’ve never heard from her again. Smacking the racket on one hand, I look through my yellow café curtains toward Nonie’s house. Nonie has moved, Daphne has moved, Todd has moved, even the minister at school was transferred. Why not start over? What’s to hold me?

Somewhere deep inside is excitement. Given the way my classmates reacted to my trip to San Francisco, I don’t tell anyone about the move. They’d simply purse their lips and roll their eyes, and I couldn’t stand it. Instead, I concentrate on doing well in school, leaving them impressed. Nightly, I stare at pages for the proper number of minutes, and in a tiny spiral notebook I neatly record assignments. At school I wiggle my way into gossip about teachers’ imagined private lives. Of special fascination is Miss Maherson, the ninth grade English teacher. She has thin, pale red hair, black eyebrows, and dark red lips, penciled into sharp points, and she always wears scarves draped across her shoulders like shawls, fringed, beaded, floral scarves made of wispy fabrics which brighten her monotonous gray or black skirts. In this drab place, Miss Maherson stands out. Having informed us that we write “like peasants,” she devotes several weeks to what she calls “composition skills,” and we repeatedly underline introductory sentences, number ing details, circle conclusions. Finally the big day comes: we are to bring paper and pencil and we shall write. “I thought we’d been doing that for years,” Jan grumbles, as we zip our book bags and file out, and I nod but I’m excited. Something about this seems like a fresh start to me, a chance, after weeks of labeling, to produce our own perfection. The next day we unzip our bags to produce lined paper, watching expectantly while Miss Maherson snaps the map with a dramatic flourish to reveal the topic: “My Favorite Place.” “You must begin a rough draft now and write your final copy this evening,” she announces gravely. Dipping my head and picking up one of three sharpened pencils, I begin to write. By bedtime, the composition I produce is, I think, well-organized and carefully re-copied. To my surprise, I’ve chosen to write not on Woodacre but on Vancouver. I describe the city’s beauty, the tour of the Governor-General’s mansion, drippy but cozy weather, and most of all, a certain gracefulness of living. I think that my years here have been happy, and I announce at essay’s end

that one day I shall live here with my own family. When Mother comes in to say goodnight, she offers to read my composition as a last check. I hesitate because the essay seems awfully personal, but I don’t refuse. Maybe it will start a good conversation. Mother sits at my fancy Spanish desk, reading in silence. “You’ve really enjoyed Vancouver this much?” she asks as she finishes. From bed I nod. “Yeah, I like it here.” Mother returns my essay to its place on the desk and walks to the door, flicking off the switch. In the darkness she says, “Good. I’m glad you’ve been happy. Goodnight, dear.” The next day Miss Maherson tells us to take out our essays. “Put them on the corner of your desks,” Miss Maherson orders. We all obey. “Now,” she says, stooping to pick up the gray tin wastebasket, “crumple them and drop them in here.” Whining protests follow, but she persists, walking with wastebasket held at arm’s length up each aisle, pausing beside each desk. “Crumple!” she commands. Watching her advance, I realize that I love my paper, love seeing my sentences and knowing that Mother has sort of approved my effort. But when Miss Maherson stops by my desk, I obediently wad up my composition and drop it on the growing heap of wrinkled paper balls. “You must learn from this experience,” Miss Maherson announces as she returns to her desk at the front of the room. “Probably none of you re-wrote what you had begun in class yesterday. You must learn,” she continues, drowning our grumbling, “you must learn to hand in perfect papers, and that means re-copying them until they’re perfectly neat. You are all too accustomed to handing in your first attempt, and that practice must stop. Now, take out some fresh paper, and begin again,” she beams, as though we’ll respond with joy to a second chance.

“She probably forgot to plan a lesson,” Jan mutters as the bell rings. I agree, but on the walk home I decide that I’m glad for the chance to switch topics: now I’ll describe Woodacre as my favorite place.

Over Easter Vacation Mother and I fly to San Francisco to choose an apartment and a high school. The flight isn’t fun, the hotel isn’t special, the trip isn’t spirited. Each day we check items off our to-do list: more realtors, read want-ads, call Grandma and Grandpa, tour flats, call schools, discuss choices, eat. We finally decide on a place in the Marina District, a two bathroom flat with a tiny enclosed garden and, if I stand in exactly the right spot, a view of Alcatraz. The public high school nearest Woodacre “isn’t suitable,” Mother assures me, and she’s pleased when a private girls’ school in Marin County agrees to mail an application to Vancouver. On our final evening, we sprawl on twin beds in the hotel, exhausted. “What do we do with all our furniture if we’re living in a flat?” I ask. “Most of it will go into storage.” “How long will it stay there?” “Until your grandparents choose a house in Arizona and move. Then we’ll go back to Woodacre.” “If I get accepted at Branson’s School for September but we’re not living in Woodacre yet, how will I get there?” I’ve guessed the answer, but I need to hear Mother say it. “You’ll be a boarding student at first,” she responds cheerfully, saying exactly what I’d thought, “just until we can get moved back into our own house. From the brochure, the campus looks lovely, and you’re experienced with boarding now. You’ll do fine.” “I wish we could have gone over there.”

Mother snaps her garters to release stockings which she rolls down, careful not to poke holes with her pointed nails. “That would have been nice, Karen, but we just didn’t have the time.” She begins to unbutton her blouse but stops. “ that essay you wrote? About how you love Vancouver? It’s all right that we’re returning to the States, isn’t it?” I hear sincerity. She really wants to know my feelings, so I prop myself on one elbow. “I’m getting used to the idea. At first, I just thought about how much I love Vancouver, but now I’m glad to be moving.” “I understand. No matter the pain, there’s always some excitement about making a fresh start. New school, new friends, new possibilities. Emerson called that Compensation. Whatever you lose is balanced by a gain.” Watching Mother sit down with the Room Service menu, I marvel. I’d decided not to love her, yet here she is, saying just the perfect thing! It’s almost unfair, giving me these glimpses. It’s like teasing. It would be a lot easier to know what I think if she’d be consistent, either good or horrible. Growing up is hard enough without parents being inconsistent.

“You’re moving? I knew it!” Pam says. We’re walking home one warm afternoon in June. “Just when everyone’s getting used to you, you leave. That’s really stupid, Karen.” Pam shifts her binder and books to free one hand for yanking off her beret. We’re supposed to wear it whenever we’re off campus, but she likes breaking this rule. “It’s not like I decided to move, you know. I can’t help it! My dad’s being transferred.” “I thought you really liked it here.”

“I do.” “But your parents don’t,” Pam says. “They do! We’re all happy!” “But not Todd. He’s never come back, right?” “It wasn’t the city, Pam.” “You mean, he didn’t want to be around his family.” She looks away from me, toward the traffic. “I can understand that.” “What do you mean?” Do I really want to know? “Your parents are odd. Even stranger than you.” She kicks at a rock, her long legs carrying her several paces ahead of me. “I’m not strange!” I cry, hurrying to catch up. “I’m not!” Pam shrugs. “You’re an American, aren’t you? That’s weird right there!” Suddenly, I feel lost, and we walk the rest of the way in silence.

“So!” Mother announces with a scrap of paper in her hand, “Todd’s located and informed. CeZee’s shots are verified. I’ve sold the piano and given away tons of stuff. We’ve only got to pack for our car trip and organize for the moving van.” Dad looks up from his pipe. Behind his chair, magazines sliding against the hinges of the liquor cabinet door push it open permanently. “You’ve really taken this on, Elizabeth. Quite a project.” Mother smiles as she pulls her legs underneath her. “It’s not all that complicated, really. The company is paying for so much help.” “Almost as though you’re glad to be making the move.”

Mother drapes the afghan over her knee, adjusting it more carefully than she needs to since it’s not cold and I’m the only one below her on the floor. “Let’s please make the best of it, Bob,” she says, finally. “We’ve picked a nice flat, lovely location, Karen’s been accepted at a fine school—why, even your title, your position, it’s not so bad. Compensation means seeing the bright side, right, Karen?” I’m surprised to be Mother’s ally now, but she’s been doing that since our trip. I have to it it was nice traveling with someone who didn’t have mysterious moods, or get held up in meetings, or—most of all—vomit. At home Mother always has a drink in her hand, but on our trip she did without booze completely. So maybe only Dad—but I thought I liked him better! Holy cow, this is confusing. “Easy enough to be cheerful,” Dad grumbles, “when it’s not your job being lost. You two can go on as if nothing’s happened.” Mother arches her back and turns sharply toward Dad. “Don’t be ridiculous! We’re all affected. You just can’t see it. You can’t see any loss but your own!” “Oh, now—” “It’s the truth, Robert. You’re being totally self-centered! Karen,” she says abruptly, turning toward me, “help me organize the linen closet. We need to keep going or we won’t be ready.”

It seems sort of strange, but no one—not our neighbors or Dad’s business associates or the girls at Lee House—no one gives us a going-away party. It’s almost as though we’d been a minor interruption, as though we never quite belonged. The way I don’t think about a splinter once it’s pulled out, no one makes a fuss over us. I wait for some teacher or maybe the Heistress, to wish me well, but they in the halls with barely a glance. On the last day of school, I stand by my locker, waiting to wave, but no one says anything, so I turn and walk home, not once looking back at the Boarding Residence.

Rhona, Betty and their husbands do come over for cocktails one evening. While Mother hurries in and out with trays of crackers and cheese, Dad sits stiffly on the living room couch, making awkward small talk, like, “Can’t say I’ll miss the rain.”. Rhona’s husband is too old and frail to count—he hardly talks—but Betty’s husband, for all his quietness, seems snooty. He doesn’t say it in words I can overhear, but the look on his face is superior, as though he’s quite sure this sort of thing—being transferred, leaving one’s home—would never happen to him. Not very friendly. “You see, Robert?” Mother says as they climb the stairs to the den, “they aren’t people worth missing. Not really.”

The moving van arrives. The men pack bulky stuff for storage and smaller things for our apartment, and then the long truck leaves. Our Oldsmobile, its bumper fixed, is loaded with luggage, some of it matching now, some of it still ragtag. Dad and Mother travel in suits, posing at the open car doors and saying a formal goodbye to Rhona. Both women clutch gray poodles to their chests, waving the dogs’ paws and making them say, “Bye bye, CeZee. Be good, Fluff,” in high, baby-talk voices. We make the trip back to San Francisco in only three days, Dad doing all the driving. Occasionally, he gulps from a small bottle stashed in the glove compartment and handed to him by Mother whenever he sticks out his right arm. I never see Mother drink from it, and yet she staggers as Dad does when we stop at restaurants, and I feel separate from them again. In the back seat I daydream. I see myself at my new school, standing in fifth position, surrounded by girls curious to learn about Vancouver. I hear them tease me gently about how I eat. I hear teachers compliment me on my strong academic background, my study habits, my acting potential. As scenery rushes by the car windows and San Francisco nears, I daydream, and I stop worrying about my parents and start being hopeful about me.

We’re settled into our flat, crowded by furniture which doesn’t look small

anymore. It’s my birthday. My parents haven’t forgotten it, but they aren’t functioning beyond giving me a check and good wishes. My grandparents are going to visit that afternoon, so I decide to make dinner. No ham—I’m tired of ham—but something easy followed by a cake. I plan to make from scratch, I announce to no one in particular, a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and 14 candles on top. My grandfather will lead the singing, and everyone will smile and be happy. The Giants are playing a close game against the Dodgers, those rowdy heathens from Southern California, and I listen on the radio as I mix ingredients. Beating and stirring are interrupted by my shouts of approval or disgust, and it feels good to be linked with thousands of screaming fans at the park. A sixth inning change of pitchers allows time for several commercials, during which I turn down the volume and think about school in the fall. If the fog would blow away early enough, I could sunbathe on the roof and get a tan. I always look better with a tan against a white uniform and white socks. Socks: I have to to label all of them, not just pairs. Maybe Mother could buy me some clothes this Saturday, skirts and blouses, in addition to the uniforms. And I do need a new coat. Starting school with everyone else in September, I shouldn’t feel far behind, and after just a month or two in this apartment, we’ll be back in Woodacre and I’ll be a day student. If Todd answers Mother’s letter, he may even come home. This could be great; everything could turn out just great. After I push the two baking pans into the oven, I set the timer. “Mother, do we have any candles?” I call out. “Oh, I don’t think so, Karen. Why?” I go to the doorway leading into the living room. The shades are drawn against the light because it bothers Dad. Slumped in a chair, he’s watching a golf game on TV. Mother sits on the end of a sofa in the gloom, trying to begin knitting her first sock. “Could I go buy some?” I ask, and Mother looks up in surprise.

“Are you making your cake?” “Yeah.” Embarrassed, apologetic, she fumbles for her purse among a stack of magazines spread across the Milky Way coffee table. The table’s spindly legs wobble, too weak to thousands of pieces of glued tile with magazines added on top. “Here, take my wallet, dear. Buy whatever you need.” I walk two blocks to the store, select a small box of multi-colored candles, and saunter home. The Marina is lively and beautiful: colorful awnings over special shops, fashionable women in very high heels, and the flags of consulates snapping over balconies. A small girl tips over on her tricycle and I help her up, comforting her so energetically that she forgets to cry. Back in the kitchen, I turn off the radio, the Giants having won by two, and check my cake. As the recipe has predicted, the two mounds are lightly cracked and springy to the touch. Just before the timer goes off, I begin to hum.

1989

Dear Todd,

Enclosed are some photographs, as well as jewelry from Grandma. I have kept two bracelets, her wedding ring and a small diamond. Years ago I gave three of her silver bracelets to Peter’s sister. I’m sending this at your request, but the jewelry and photos are not owed to you, Todd. You didn’t want the jewelry when I offered after Grandma’s death, and you would have accumulated photos naturally over the years, had you been an involved member of the family. You have chosen not to be connected, but now you’re angry at being left out. I’m uncomfortable with the greed in your voice. When I called to tell you that Mother had died, it was not concern for me or for the arrangements, but for what you hoped to inherit. The same with Grandma Smith’s death—how much and when will you get it. Perhaps that’s your sad inheritance from our parents: people’s loyalty, obligation, love is expressed in money, money which you want and then never acknowledge. You live independently but expect your family to be there when you need them. You expect to receive but not to give. I don’t think it works that way, Todd, not for me, anyway. For me, a sense of family grows daily, through interactions and mutual need. Everyone pitching in, everyone being involved with each other. When we talk, I hear that the past is very alive for you, that you tons of hurts and grievances. (Somehow, we should both be too old for that.) You sound like you have spent time figuring out what’s due you as compensation for those hurts, and since I’m the only family member left, you expect me to “pay up.” But I can’t and I won’t. I am not responsible for the wrongs which you perceive have been done to you by other people. I didn’t do those things, and I can’t make amends for the people who did.

Before I realized that, I had been planning to use some of Mother’s money—and there’s not much left after ten years in a nursing home—to try to make things okay between you and her memory, to make you feel happier. I had been prepared to continue being the good girl, a role that I read about in the book you recommended. And then I decided to honor Mother’s will by not sharing her money. You and I could argue forever about whether she owed you anything, but there is no argument about whether I do. I am your sister, not your mother. That’s it. You may feel disappointed by me, but you should not feel betrayed. And speaking practically, while you may have immediate financial needs, I have future ones which are potentially more threatening. You prefer not to face the implications of my also having M.S., but I don’t have that liberty. I inherited more from Mother than money. I inherited a tendency for a dreadful disease. I hope that, through AA meetings and therapy, you’re able to move beyond the past. I also hope that you come to feel I’ve been fair.

Love, Karen

THE END