Julia and the Art of Practical Travel Page 8

  Sure I do, he said. But it’s my home—and it needs me. The town would disappear forever if I left. And anyway, it comforts me to be there. And we have to take comfort wherever we can find it, don’t you think?

  Suddenly I thought of Aunt Constance when he said this. Before we left Windy Ridge, I never thought of Aunt Constance as being comforting. Grandmother wasn’t a comfort either, and neither was my mother—even before she left to be a hippie full-time. I got my comfort instead from the house and the gardens and my tree swing and from Belfry.

  But out here, on this car trip, with the house and gardens and Belfry gone, I realized that Aunt Constance had become my comfort. And our dusty car with our practical-travel things inside had become our Windy Ridge. When I realized this, I felt better than I’d felt for a long time—steady and cozy.

  Sheriff Stone and I picked up the rest of my photographs, and then we got into the cars and made our way slowly back into Gold Point. And I didn’t even drive our Windy Ridge car into the back of his truck again even once.

  I learned two other useful skills while Aunt Constance and I lived as honorary citizens of Gold Point, Nevada, eating bacon with Sheriff Stone and waiting for Aunt Constance’s ankle to get better.

  1. How to use a pistol. One afternoon it got very hot and no wind blew through the town for a change, and there was absolutely nothing to do at all. So Sheriff Stone and I sat on the porch of the building that had once been Gold Point’s saloon, which stood across the street from the old rusted-out car, and Sheriff Stone shot a few times at the car’s front door, which was the main target. Then he let me shoot it once, and the gun made my whole body shake, and even though I hit the door right in the middle, I gave him the gun back right away. After that, Sheriff Stone called me Deadeye and told me that I was his official deputy sheriff.

  2. How to mine for gold. Sheriff Stone gave me a hammer and a chisel, and for a few hours I went out into the hills and chipped away at the rocky faces of the hills. At first I didn’t find anything but gray old rocks. Just when I was about to give up, a big hunk of gray rock fell away from the hill and underneath was a big, fat, shiny piece of gold. I hacked it out and ran down the hill, whooping like an Indian. Sheriff Stone lumbered off the saloon porch, and Aunt Constance hobbled to the door of the jailhouse to see what I was hollering about.

  Look, look, I yelled, and told them: I found gold, a huge piece of it, as big as my head almost! Maybe this means that the miners and the American dream will come back to Gold Point again, and you won’t have to be lonely anymore, Sheriff Stone. And, Aunt Constance—now the Lancasters can be rich again, and we can maybe even get Windy Ridge back.

  Sheriff Stone picked up my hunk of gold and turned it from side to side.

  Honey, he said. I don’t know how to tell you this, but this ain’t gold. It’s pyrite.

  Oh, I said, and stood very still. What’s pyrite?

  Well, it’s what they call fool’s gold, he said. Looks like the real thing enough to fool even an expert. I’m so sorry to burst your bubble.

  I just stood there and didn’t say anything. Aunt Constance reached out and petted my hair quietly. Sheriff Stone put my big hunk of fool’s gold down on the porch.

  Look at the bright side, Deadeye, he told me. Now you have a fancy doorstop to add to your practical-travel things in those trunks of yours.

  Usually when we were driving away from the middle of nowhere and toward civilization, as Aunt Constance called it, she would get in a better mood. Sometimes she was in good enough a mood to let me listen to the car radio—as long as it was the Beatles singing and not what she called “that dreadful Janis Joplin creature.”

  But this time, as we drove across the Nevada desert away from Gold Point and into California and up toward San Francisco, Aunt Constance’s mood got worse, not better. She seemed very nervous and she didn’t talk a lot, and most of the time her mouth made a very straight line.

  What’s San Francisco like? I asked her as we got closer to the city.

  I’ve never been there, said Aunt Constance, looking straight ahead. But it’s supposed to be very pretty. Lots of good families have lived there over the years.

  Why are all of the hippies going to San Francisco, Aunt Constance? I asked her.

  I don’t know, she answered. They just are.

  How many of them are there? I pressed. Will the men have Jesus hair like the ones in New York? Will the lady hippies be wearing any clothes?

  Oh, Julia, please stop pestering me right now—just let me concentrate on my driving, said Aunt Constance, gripping the steering wheel very tight.

  I didn’t know what to do then. Aunt Constance was never short with me like this and it hurt my feelings. I hoped she’d be nice again when we got into the city and she felt more at home from being near restaurants and hotels and churches again.

  Soon we drove past this sign:

  Aunt Constance drove us straight to an inexpensive but respectable place called Pinkham’s Hotel for Ladies. They gave us a room with a deep bathtub that had claws for feet, and a big bed with a lace canopy over it. Downstairs in the hotel there was a card-playing parlor and a pink tearoom, and everything was terribly ladylike.

  I thought this would make Aunt Constance happy, but she didn’t even really glance at any of these things. She didn’t seem to be seeing out of her own eyes. Her nervousness made me nervous inside too. She had a hotel maid wash and press her long flowered dress, and then she went out and bought a new straw hat with daisies on it.

  Now I look like myself again, she said, looking at herself in the mirror.

  But I didn’t think that she looked like she used to look at Windy Ridge. Something had changed about her. I didn’t know what exactly. I wondered if I seemed different and looked different too. I stood next to her in the mirror and frowned at myself.

  What is it, Julia? Aunt Constance asked, glancing at me.

  Do you think we look alike? I asked her.

  A little bit, she said. You can certainly tell that we’re both Lancasters, from our eyes and the shape of our noses.

  I peered closer at my face in the reflection.

  Do you think I look like my mother? I asked.

  Aunt Constance walked away from the mirror. She picked up her basket purse.

  Julia, I’m going out for the rest of the day, she told me. You are to stay right here at the hotel and wait for me to return.

  But why can’t I come along? I asked her. I got to come with you almost everywhere else. Like the voodoo parlors in New Orleans and out shooting javelina at World’s End.

  It’s different this time, she told me.

  How? I asked her.

  Because this time I truly feel that your mother is close by, said Aunt Constance.

  This didn’t make any sense to me.

  But we thought she was probably close by in New York, and New Orleans too, I said. And you wanted me to be with you and to see her then—so why not now?

  Please don’t be rebellious, said Aunt Constance, her voice rising. Especially now, of all times—when I truly need you to be good.

  But I don’t want to sit here and play cards and drink tea with all of these old ladies, I told her.

  Enough, Julia, said Aunt Constance.

  I want to see my mother, I yelled.

  Oh, for God’s sake—stop it! Aunt Constance shouted back at me.

  My mouth fell open. Aunt Constance never lost her temper. Only vulgar people lost their temper, especially with children. Certainly not Lancasters. Definitely not Aunt Constance. I expected her to collect herself and tell me that she was sorry but instead she walked to the door.

  I mean it, Joooooolia, she told me in a steely voice. Do not move from this hotel. I’ll be back soon.

  As she left the room, I heard her ask a bellboy for directions to someplace called Hate Ashbury, and then she left, her long flowered dress flowing out behind her.

  I just stood there for a few minutes after she left. The new, steady, comfy fe
eling was gone. The old cloud-over-sun feeling came back. And now I was afraid, on top of everything else. Why did Aunt Constance want me not to see my mother all of a sudden?

  I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head.

  One day turned into two days, and two into three. I obeyed Aunt Constance and hung around Pinkham’s Hotel for Ladies while she went off each day to Hate Ashbury. We didn’t talk to each other much at breakfast or dinner, and Aunt Constance got more nervous and steelier than ever. By the fourth day, I had read the hotel’s copy of Reader’s Digest about a million times and had written three postcards each to Belfry, Jack, Mrs. Foxworth, Moody and Bun, the Honorable Winston Cantor-Battle, and Sheriff Stone. I took so many pictures of the resident terrier—a gummy-eyed old thing—that I ran out of my last batch of film for my camera.

  And then I finally got fed up and decided that if I was old enough to be a deputy sheriff and shoot a pistol, then I was old enough to take a short walk by myself. Aunt Constance didn’t have to know, I told myself, and what she didn’t know couldn’t get her mad.

  I strolled out into Union Square and found a drugstore where I could buy some more postcards and film. There was a food counter there and I had enough money for a chocolate egg cream in addition to the film and cards, so I sat down on a stool at the food counter and ordered one. A little television sat behind the counter:

  I asked the old waitress with tall, dyed-black hair if I could watch it. She turned the television on, and since there was no one else but me at the counter, she clumped down to the far end of the drugstore and began buffing her nails, leaving me to watch television by myself.

  At first there was a show on about a masked cowboy called the Lone Ranger, who liked to shout, “Hi-yo, Silver—away!” and then there would be a horse chase and lots of yelling and carrying on. It was a dumb show, but it was nice to watch it and not think about Aunt Constance and my missing-but-close-by mother, and I was sorry when it was over and my egg cream was gone.

  Then the news came on. No one ever watched the news at Windy Ridge. Grandmother said that television newsmen were hysteria-mongers, whatever that meant. I had never seen a hysteria-monger before, so of course I stayed right there on my stool and kept watching. The newsman talked about the war in Vietnam, which he said was getting very bad. And then he talked about how the war was making many people across the country really mad, and there were pictures of those angry people out in the streets protesting. And a lot of them looked like those hippies back in the Greenwich Village park, who carried signs that said things like, Make love, not war.

  Just then the waitress came over and turned down the television’s volume and looked at me.

  You allowed to be watching the news? she asked, and not in a nice way.

  Oh yes, ma’am, I said with my best Lancaster manners, and added: My grandmother says it’s very important to be apprised of current events, so you can be conversational at soirées.

  I hoped this fell into the category of white lie instead of just plain old lie. The waitress looked at me like I’d spoken to her in Japanese. She shut the television off anyway.

  It’s giving me a headache, all the news about the war, she told me, and popped a piece of gum into her mouth. This country’s going straight down the toilet, she added. Why can’t things just go back to the way they were? I hate all of these hippies, each and every one of them. They make me sick, I tell you. The cops oughta go clean ’em all outta the Haight.

  This rang a bell. Wasn’t Aunt Constance going to a place called the Hate every day? Maybe they were the same place.

  What is the Hate? I asked the waitress as innocently as possible.

  Haight-Ashbury, the waitress told me, is the neighborhood where all of those hippie degenerates go and lie around like a bunch of dead cats and generally waste their lives. They’re all worryin’ their families sick. No good will come of it, I tell you. Young people today got no sense of duty or manners, not at all.

  I had many more questions, but it was getting late and Aunt Constance would be getting back soon. So I thanked the waitress for the information and marched back to the hotel.

  Well, the moment I walked into Pinkham’s Hotel for Ladies, I wished that I’d stayed back at the drugstore, because Aunt Constance was waiting for me right there in the lobby, her face as red as a cooked lobster. She swooped over to me and grabbed me by the shoulder and marched me into the card-playing parlor.

  Where were you? she cried. I’ve been worried sick, Julia—sick!

  I went out to buy some film and postcards, I told her, and showed her my drugstore bag.

  Aunt Constance burst into tears and buried her face in her hands. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there with my film and postcards and waited for a long time for her to take her hands away from her face. Two old ladies came into the parlor, took one look at Aunt Constance, and wobbled back out again as quickly as their rickety old legs could carry them. Finally Aunt Constance took a few long, shuddery breaths and moved her hands away from her face.

  Sit down, Julia, she said, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. I have something to tell you.

  I sat down, my heart pounding.

  What is it? I asked.

  I found Rosemary today, she said in a trembling voice. I found your mother.

  The cloud-over-sun came back again, and this time it was a black cloud, a thundercloud, even.

  Where? I heard myself ask.

  Aunt Constance stared at her shaking hands.

  A neighborhood named Haight-Ashbury, she told me. And she’s living there in something called a commune. That means a house with a lot of different people living together.

  Like a hotel? I asked.

  No, said Aunt Constance after a long pause. Not at all like a hotel.

  Julia, she went on, my instincts were right. I’ve decided that you are not to see her after all.

  How come? I cried.

  She’s not exactly … herself, Aunt Constance said carefully, and suddenly I remembered what Madame Batilde had told her back in New Orleans.

  You will see her, yes, but you won’t find Rosemary Elizabeth Lancaster.

  And what’s more: she is going to be staying here in California, said Aunt Constance, trying hard not to cry again. And live with all of those terrible hippie people in that commune, instead of coming back to her own family. So, tonight we’re going to pack up our things. We’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning.

  Does she know that I’m here too? I asked.

  Yes, said Aunt Constance.

  I’m not leaving tomorrow—not until I see her too, I told her.

  I’m sorry, Julia, but that’s not going to be possible, said Aunt Constance. You have to believe that I have your best interest at heart.

  I’m not a baby anymore, I yelled. Where is she?

  Aunt Constance stood up.

  I’m going to tell the front desk that we’re checking out. Please go upstairs and start getting your things in order.

  She left the room.

  I sat there by myself and felt like I had an angry swarm of bees buzzing in my head and stomach. This whole long trip with our practical-travel things had seemed sort of like a strange dream. But now that my mother was found, the trip stopped feeling like a dream. I wanted to see Rosemary Elizabeth Lancaster. I wanted to see her, whether she was acting like herself or not. I wanted to see if I looked like her and to see why she wanted to live out here in a strange place with strangers instead of at home with her sister and her daughter, in the house where her family had lived for hundreds of years.

  And to ask her why she hadn’t wanted me.

  Just then I noticed that Aunt Constance had left her basket purse on the table, and there was a slip of paper inside. I reached over and pulled it out. On that piece of paper, in her handwriting, appeared this address:

  1468 Haight Street

  I still cannot believe what I did next.

  I took the paper and a five-dollar bill from her
basket purse, and then I snuck out of the lobby while Aunt Constance’s back was turned.

  Then I was out on the street, and I got into the backseat of a taxi and slammed the door shut behind me.

  Please take me here, sir, I told the driver, and gave him the slip of paper.

  The taxi driver dropped me off on a corner. I looked up and the street signs read HAIGHT STREET and ASHBURY STREET. My head swam because I knew how much trouble I would be in later for sneaking out and stealing money and disobeying, and because I was scared of what I’d find now that I was here.

  There were lots of people sitting around on the street, smoking cigarettes, and the men mostly had scratchy beards and long Jesus hair like the men back in Greenwich Village, and the women all had long hair like my mother had by the time she left Windy Ridge. A lot of them were pretty dirty and I wondered if there wasn’t any running water here in Haight-Ashbury, like at Jack’s house in Paw Paw or Sheriff Stone’s jailhouse in Gold Point.

  A shaggy man who reminded me of a werewolf reached out and tugged the hem of my dress.

  You got any spare change, little girl? he asked me.

  I was scared of him and heard myself say, No, thank you—even though he’d asked me for money. Then I yanked my dress away and ran up Haight Street, looking at the house numbers until I got to a building with a small, tangled front lawn. Two women sat on the stoop, smoking one of those funny-smelling cigarettes, and one of them was playing a guitar; they had braided wilted flowers into their hair. It looked like they put those flowers in their hair a long time ago and then forgot about them.

  Above the front door someone had painted the number 1468.

  Excuse me, please, I called out to the women, and my voice shook.

  What is it, little sister? asked one of the ladies, staring down at me.

  I am looking for my mother, I told her. Her name is Rosemary Elizabeth Lancaster.

  That’s groovy, said the other woman. We didn’t know that Rosemary had a little girl. You look exactly alike. Go on in: she’s back in the kitchen, having a nap.