“For what?”
“Will you open the hotel again?”
“No way,” Karen answered. “This is a commune, man. We’re a community.”
“With what purpose?” Nqong asked.
“Purpose?”
Nqong nodded.
Karen nodded back, and then she smiled. “An ashram,” she said. “We’ll make Hope Springs an ashram.”
“What’s an ashram?” Nqong asked.
“Like a community, but with a teacher.”
“Do you have a teacher?”
Karen reached across the table and covered Nqong’s hand with hers. “I believe we do.”
———
And so Nqong gave civilized life another try. He moved back into the loft of the carriage house. Then, because they asked him to, he turned the carriage house parlor area into what they called a meditation room, which Karen outfitted with burgundy carpets and paisley cushions and sandalwood-scented candles. They joined him every morning and sat on the floor in a circle, holding hands.
He still hiked daily up into the hills, to tinker with the waterworks and to monitor the growth of the little worms in jars. Now and then Herbert accompanied him up the trail and watched him while he tested and adjusted the water. Sometimes Nqong stayed long enough in the forest to enjoy a mud bath, followed by a hot mineral bath, followed by a cold plunge. But he was always down in the valley by dinnertime. One thing about civilization: Diana’s cooking beat fried squirrel.
They treated him like a teacher, and so he taught them what he knew: the thirty-six ways of stretching. That was all he knew, but every time he spoke, they thought they were getting more wisdom out of him. He kept his words to a minimum, and that made them attend him even more. This attention made him uncomfortable.
———
There was a continual gathering in the bathhouse, where the community bathed naked and smoked. Because of the danger of fire, the bathhouse was one of the only two places where smoking was allowed. The other was on a footbridge that crossed the sulfur creek. As a result, the atmosphere inside the bathhouse was both smoky and steamy, and smelled of both sulfur and skunk.
“You never take baths, Nqong,” Nels observed. “How do you stay so clean?”
“I take my baths in the forest,” he answered.
“How come you don’t join us in the bathhouse?”
“I don’t like the smell of marijuana,” he said.
Within a few days everyone in the community had quit smoking dope. Except for Karen, who smoked marijuana once a day in her apartment in the hotel. She allowed herself that pleasure because she believed a daily joint made her a better friend to her friends, and besides, she owned the place.
———
One day late in the fall, Beatrice, the round one, asked Nqong what color she should wear to make her look less fat. He shrugged and said he liked yellow. Within a week the entire community was wearing nothing but yellow clothes. Karen had the burgundy carpet and the paisley cushions in the carriage house replaced with yellow carpet and cushions.
———
Diana asked him one cold winter morning if he thought her need to feed people was a neurosis. That made no sense to him, and he told her so. “There goes a decade of therapy,” she told him.
“I’m sorry,” Nqong said. “Don’t listen to me.”
“No, don’t be sorry!” Diana insisted. She held his hand and kissed his fingers. “I’m so grateful, Nqong.”
“I don’t know what a neurosis is,” he confessed.
“Nobody else does either,” Diana said. “You’re just wise enough to admit it. Do you want a cookie?”
———
Arthur took Nqong aside one spring afternoon and confessed that he loved Beatrice, but was too shy to tell her so. Beatrice came to Nqong early that evening and told Nqong how she wished she were brave enough to hit on Arthur. The next morning Nqong sent the two of them to the same hillside to gather wildflowers for the dining table. They came back holding hands and smelling sweetly of new grass and new love.
———
Baxter seemed to need the most help. He moped and scowled and never said a word. “What’s wrong with you?” Theresa challenged him at community meeting, one hot summer night. “You’re so negative. So secretive. What’s up, little boy? You got a problem or something? Why don’t you ever talk? You never talk, Baxter. How come? Why are you such a downer?”
Baxter looked to Nqong and said with his face, What should I tell her.
Nqong bowed his head and pouted the obvious: Tell her the truth.
Baxter took a deep breath. “I’m horny,” he mumbled. “Which is why I’m such a downer.”
Theresa reached across the distance between them, her frown melting to tenderness, and said, “I love you, Baxter. You’re such a beautiful man. No need to talk. Let’s find something you’re more comfortable doing.”
The two of them stood up and left the carriage house together. Before the door shut, Baxter stuck his head back inside and grinned broadly at the members of his community, his eyebrows bouncing on his forehead.
Baxter and Theresa remained a couple for a week, by which time she had lost the constant frown. Even in the months to come, after Baxter had moved on to Emily, then to Beatrice (“Don’t worry, Arthur, it’s just Baxter.…”), then Diana, and even eventually to Karen, Theresa never frowned again, except for a couple of days each month, when she would go to Diana, who would feed her popcorn and massage her cramps away.
———
One afternoon, when Nqong had lived with Karen Hope’s community for three years, he went up to his favorite mud pond on the mountainside to meditate in the gook. It tingled. He could feel motion. The earth was thirsty, excited. Fall was coming. The warm mud spoke to him, and told him what he had to do.
He adjusted the valves until he had them just right. Then he put on his yellow canvas wrap, blew out the lamps, and left the water house. It was time to go down. Time to tell them.
———
That evening, after dinner, before the dishes were cleared away, he spoke. “The earth is quickening,” he told them, “and the rains are coming. The mud will be refreshed, and I must spend more time with my jars.”
“What jars?” Arthur asked.
“Jars,” Nqong answered. “Also, I know now that it’s becoming a strain on this old body to climb that big hill every day. It’s a two-mile hike each way, or so old Mr. Hope told me.”
Karen asked, “Do you have to go up there every day? Every day, Nqong? Wouldn’t it be easier to just go now and then?”
Nqong shook his head, which meant “no” to the Wanqong, as it does to the whites, but also meant “I understand your love.”
“Every day,” he said. “I don’t have to go up there every day, but I have to be there every day. It’s the water, you see. And the beetles.”
“Beetles?” Nels asked.
“The yellow ones. They hatch in the spring.”
“Oh, those beetles. Yeah, they’re nice.”
Nqong smiled. “Nice,” he said.
———
“We’ll miss you, Nqong,” Karen told him the next morning in front of the hotel, where he was shouldering his makeshift yellow canvas bag of stuff. “Will you come to see us now and then?”
“I’ll keep an eye on you,” he promised.
“Whenever you need anything from town, feel free to charge it to my account.”
“Thank you.”
She gave him a pair of binoculars. “You’re our guardian angel,” she said. “Please protect us.”
That was a large favor for her to ask, when all he knew how to give to her and her people was the yearly flight of yellow fairies. That was all the protection he had to offer, but perhaps it was more protection than most people enjoy in this capricious, cruel, mindless, beautiful but self-gobbling universe.
4. The Piano Tuner
Diana was in the kitchen when she heard the doorbell ring. Doorbell? Who needs
to ring the doorbell? Did somebody lock the front door by mistake? She set her wooden spoon on the counter, next to the bowl of cookie dough, and walked toward the front of the hotel, through the dining room and the lounge, where Herbert and Will were shooting pool, and on to the lobby. Sure enough, a man stood outside the screen door, with a tool box on the verandah beside him. A large tool box. A tall man. A tall, good-looking man with an unsure smile on his face. An endearing smile.
Diana opened the screen door. “Would you like to come in?” she said.
The good-looking man picked up his tool box and stepped inside the lobby, still smiling. “Nice and cool in here,” he said. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and Madras plaid Bermuda shorts. “Hot outside, I’ll tell ya. Here it is almost fall, and it feels like the middle of summer.” Also tennis shoes, no socks.
“Set your box down and have a seat,” Diana said. “I’ll bring you a glass of water. Or would you like some iced tea? Hey, I know what, I’ll make us some lemonade.”
“Maybe later, when I finish. I should get started. Show me to the patient.”
“Patient?”
The man set down the toolbox and scratched his head. “You are expecting me, right? I’m Casey. The piano tuner? And this is Hope Springs?”
“Piano tuner?” Diana felt the blush rush to her cheeks. “Aw shit. Shoot. I sound like some dumb echo, huh? I mean I didn’t know we were expecting a piano tuner. Are we? Are you sure I can’t make you some lemonade?”
“No thanks. Well, I was sent here by Nellie Hope. She owns this place, right?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, she wants her piano tuned. Steinway grand, she said. She paid me in advance, so if you’ll lead me to the instrument, I’ll get started.”
Diana smiled. “Right this way.” She led him down the long hall and into the lounge. “There she is.”
“She’s a beauty, all right,” Casey said. Then he turned to Will and Herbert on the other side of the lounge. “Are you guys anywhere near done with your game?”
“You want winners?” Will asked.
“I need silence, I’m sorry to say.”
Herbert said, “Just a sec.” He sighted down his cue and sank the eight ball. “Game. Will, my man, let’s get back to work.” They put their cues in the rack on the wall and shuffled out of the lounge.
Casey asked Diana, “Are those guys brothers? And are you their sister or something? I mean, you’re all dressed in yellow. Not that I’m any expert on style, but hey.”
“We all wear yellow. All of us who live here.” Diana pulled at the hem of her yellow tee shirt.
“Another question, and then I’ll tune this handsome beast.” He gave her a bright smile. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Diana. Diana Pearson. And I’m making cookies. I hope you like chocolate chip.”
———
Casey sat down on the piano bench and uncovered the keyboard. He played a few scales. Ouch. Well, Nellie had told him the piano probably hadn’t been tuned in over ten years. It was amazing it didn’t sound a whole lot worse. He stood up and lifted the lid and propped it open. No missing strings, no missing felts. Good.
He got busy with tuning fork, hammer, and mutes, and got lost in his work. A couple of hours later he closed the piano lid, sat back down on the bench, and played “Chopsticks.” Okay. More like it. “Here’s That Rainy Day,” in C, E-flat, F, D, and G.
God, what a fine instrument. Casey was falling in love. He stood up, laced his fingers together over his head, and stretched. And decided it was time for a smoke before his long drive back to L.A. He walked through the hotel to the front door, stepped out, and saw a woman sitting in an Adirondack chair on the verandah. She looked up at him and smiled. She wore a plain yellow smock, and Casey guessed she was in her late forties. To be exact, he had a strong hunch this woman would turn forty-nine on the equinox, just a couple of weeks away.
“Hello,” she said. “You’re the piano tuner.”
“I am. And you, I believe, are Karen Hope. Nellie’s sister?”
Karen nodded. “Identical twins, entirely different.”
Casey took a Sucrets box out of his pocket and asked, “Is it okay if I smoke here?”
Karen stood up and pointed across the driveway to a bridge that stretched over the creek. “That’s our smoking bridge. It’s the only place on the property that people are allowed to smoke.”
“Well, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Tobacco?” Karen asked.
Casey grinned. “Nope.”
“Mind if I join you?”
Karen took his hand as they strolled down the path to the smoking bridge. On the bridge they sat on the bench, and Casey fired up a joint from his Sucrets box. He inhaled and held in the smoke while he offered the joint to Karen.
Karen partook. They passed the joint back and forth a few times, until Karen waved a signal that she’d had plenty, and Casey dropped the burning roach over the rail of the bridge to the sulfury stream below.
“You do look like your sister,” he told her. “Except for the straight hair and the yellow dress, and you wear a lot less makeup. Which is just fine, by the way.”
“Nellie and I are different in every conceivable way. We can’t stand each other, actually, but we have one thing in common. We both hate our older brother. What a little shit he is. So. Nellie tells me she met you at a party in Malibu.”
Casey said, “That’s right. Couple of weeks ago.”
“She says she took you home with her. A one-night stand, I understand.”
“By mutual agreement,” Casey pointed out. “No hard feelings.”
“I suppose not. Nellie’s had more than her share of handsome piano players, just as I expect you’ve had more than your share of one-night stands with rich old sluts.”
All right, Casey thought. Enough. He stood up and said, “I’d best be going.”
Karen laughed. “I didn’t mean that in an unkind way,” she said. “Come on, play me something on the piano. Just one song, okay?” She stood up. “Please?”
“Sure,” Casey said, and they strolled back to the hotel.
In the lounge, Casey sat back down on the bench and played a few chords before launching into “The Lady Is a Tramp.”
Karen gave him a nod and a wink. “Touché,” she said.
Halfway through the second chorus, Diana walked in from the kitchen and laid a plate of cookies on the piano. She began singing at the bridge and belted out the rest of the song. Jesus, Casey thought. This woman is good!
After the big finish, Karen applauded, and Diana demanded another song.
Casey shook his head. “I really should be getting on the road. It’s a long way to L.A.”
“You don’t want to drive it now. You’ll hit commuter traffic. Stay for dinner. Please. Come on, let’s do another song!”
“She’s right, Casey,” Karen said. “Traffic’s a bitch on the 101 this time of day. You should stay for dinner. Diana’s a wonderful cook. I hope you like vegetarian.”
Why not? Casey smiled at Diana and said, “Name that tune.”
Diana smiled right back. “Embraceable You.”
———
Karen was pleased to observe that Casey was an ideal guest at dinner. Relaxed, jovial, appreciative, and he seemed to enjoy the company as much as he enjoyed the tofu casserole and garden salad. He told stories about his life as a piano bar player, tales that made fun of himself. He even made Theresa break down and smile.
It was Baxter’s and Emily’s turn to wash dishes and Nels’s and Arthur’s turn to dry. Casey rose and offered to help with the dishes, but Karen told him, “That’s nice of you, but you and I need to have a chat. Would you join me in the library?”
He followed her through the hallway to the lobby. They turned and entered the library, where Beatrice was lighting the kerosene lamps. “Thank you, dear,” Karen told her. Beatrice shook out her match, nodded, and left the room, and Karen and Casey sat on opposite ends of a long
sofa.
Casey crossed his knees. “What’s up?”
Karen said, “I want to offer you a job.”
“A job? Tuning pianos?”
“Don’t be silly. I want you to be a hotel manager. In case Nellie didn’t tell you, Hope Springs is going to be a hotel again, open to the public on weekends, as it was back in the roaring twenties. And I want you to be the innkeeper of the hotel. We’ll need a host for the guests, a manager for the staff, and an entertainer after dinner. You’ll be perfect, my friend. You’re every bit as sociable as Nellie told me you were, and you also happen to be easy on the eyes, which doesn’t hurt. What do you say? Please make it yes.”
No question about it. Casey had been sick of L.A. for months anyway. “When do you want me to start?”
Karen grinned. “October first. The hotel won’t open until sometime after the new year, but we have a lot of work to do to get ready. I don’t suppose Nellie told you much about how our family has taken care of Hope Springs. No? Well, before our father died in 1950, he left instructions on how his children should take care of this place over the next thirty years. The first decade, the fifties, Hope Springs was the responsibility of my brother, Joel Junior. Joley didn’t live here, he just came down from Santa Barbara every now and then and camped out in the hotel, but otherwise he let Hope Springs go to the dogs. He hated the place, couldn’t stand the smell. Then it was Nellie’s turn. During the sixties she came up from L.A. at least once a month. She hired a gardener to take care of the grounds and a cleaning woman for the hotel, and she threw some wild parties for her Hollywood and Malibu friends. Sex, drugs, you name it. I’ve been here since nineteen seventy, using the place as a commune. We’ve taken good care of Hope Springs, and it’s been our home for ten wonderful years.
“But here it is, the end of the seventies. All things must change. Nellie and I decided to compromise for the first time in our almost fifty years. With Hope Springs back in business as a hotel, she’ll have a party pad again, and I’ll still have a communal home for my friends. Win-win.”
“What about your brother?” Casey asked.
“Joley? Oh, he wants to sell the place, but tough shit. It’s two against one.”
Hot Springs Eternal Page 5
