“It was very impressive. I especially liked the paintings by the French artists.”
“Now she’s decided she wants to go to Paris next year, but I don’t know about that,” Matt laughs. “No beaches, no palm trees and no Mai Tais in Paris.” His laugh is like Austen’s.
As we are waiting to be seated at the restaurant near Coit Tower, I can see Matt and Austen both have the same brilliant blue eyes. I wonder if they come from their father’s or mother’s side of the family. Everything about Matt, however, is shorter, rounder and he sounds much more Texan. His light brown hair is cut short and neat.
As usual, we don’t have to wait long. Mr. Raneley and his guests are seated at a table with a view of the Bay Bridge and Oakland where lights are twinkling in the growing darkness. I think it must be another rock star thing: everywhere we go Austen is always seated at the best table in the house.
Steaks for dinner, all around, and a bottle of red wine. Judy wants only a glass of water. Then Austen begins pointing out the sights across the Bay.
“That one is Treasure Island. It’s an artificial island with a navy base on it.”
Matt immediately launches into his opinions about the anti-war movement. Basically he is against it. He supports Nixon and believes he really does have a secret plan to get the U.S. out of Viet Nam. Matt’s comments sound exactly like what my parents have said and I have already had the argument about Nixon with them—more than once. They believe Nixon. I don’t. I listen and say nothing.
Our dinner is served and it is, as before, delicious.
“I think these are the best steaks I have ever eaten,” I say.
“You may be right about these steaks, Julia,” says Matt. “And that’s saying something coming from a Texan. We have a lot of cattle down our way and a lot of steaks on our supper tables. We grow some cotton, too, in East Texas but mostly it’s cattle. Big, juicy steaks walking around on four legs.” He chuckles at his own joke.
For the rest of dinner our conversation stays away from politics—thank goodness.
After dinner Austen drops Matt and Judy at the Mark Hopkins hotel and we head to Marin.
“They liked you,” he says.
“They’re nice people. They reminded me a lot of the people in Spokane, my parents and their friends, even some of the people I went to high school with. All nice people, but a little stuck in their ways. They don’t like change very much.”
Austen smiles. “Well, that’s one way of putting it.”
“Oh, I wanted to ask you—are you going to play at that music festival in New York next weekend? One of our freelance writers is going to be there and offered to write a review for us. Maybe he can do an interview with you, too.”
“Julia, if I was going away I would have told you already, baby. But thank you—I appreciate the thought,” he says. Then goes on: “The promoter for that festival contacted our record label and Joe a while back, but it is way out the hell and gone in upstate New York. Who knows how many people will show up? We’re going to play at that one in San Jose next month. Joe and the record company think it’s a better event to introduce a couple of songs from the new album.”
* * *
Sunlight comes early in the summer, but as I open my eyes I see that the terrace behind the bedroom still is in shadow. I lie still in Austen’s arms, then feel his fingers creep up my side and he starts to tickle me. I squirm and giggle.
“So you are ticklish.” He laughs.
I try to tickle him. He grabs my wrists. “No you don’t.”
He rolls over on top of me and holds my hands above my head, pinning me down.
“Oh, are you going to tie me up and cover me with strawberries and cream again?”
I can feel his erection against my stomach. I rotate my hips and push up against him.
“Not today. I want to see your face when we make love. You close your eyes and get lost in it.”
“That’s because you make me feel so good and I never want it to stop.”
“Never?”
“Yes, ‘never’.” I am not talking about sex. I hope he knows this.
“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, Julia.”
His mouth crushes down onto mine in a kiss that is demanding and loving. His hand caresses one breast, then the other. He begins to trail kisses down my neck. His tongue circles around one nipple, flicking across it. His teeth nip it. I feel his erection get harder. His fingers circle and twist my other nipple. Instantly I feel a deep ache between my legs. My hips move and rotate in response to what he is doing to my body.
I reach down and wrap my fingers around his erection and stroke it. His voice is thick, his breathing ragged: “Yes, baby.” He thrusts his pelvis forward as I stroke him faster. His hand slides down even further down my body and his long fingers begin to circle and probe me down there. Oh my god, it feels so good…so good. My hips move up to his hand.
He pushes my knee aside, spreads my legs wider and plunges into me. I gasp. His hard, long erection stretches me, fills me.
“Oh, yes,” I murmur. “Yes.”
“Is this what you like, babygirl?”
“Yes, Austen, yes.”
Then he eases back and begins to move in and out, slowly, then faster and harder. My hips match his thrust for thrust. His mouth covers mine as he kisses me intensely, our tongues seek each other, keeping pace with the rhythm of our bodies.
My pulse speeds up. Relentlessly, his erection drives into me again and again. Then, once again, I lose all sense of everything around us—just him and me. It feels as if we are one.
His breathing is heavier as he thrusts into me over and over. I feel an urgency building deep inside. I tilt my hips upward and spread my legs even wider. He goes further into me.
“Ohh. Ohh. Ohh.” I sob. I feel him deep inside and I can feel my orgasm building to a peak of tension, ready to explode. He thrusts into me harder.
“Give it to me, babygirl. Now.”
His voice is rough, demanding and I come, my body tightening, convulsing inside around him. I feel like I am dissolving into nothingness. Release—oh yes…it feels so good…oh yes…oh yes…oh god yes. One more powerful thrust into me and he comes. He gasps my name as his body sinks onto me. As my pulse gradually slows back to normal I run my fingers through his hair and kiss him softly on his cheek. We lie still, looking at each other, both of us smiling.
He pulls me into his arms and holds me tight against his chest.
“Julia, I’m so glad you’re here. This is where you belong.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The memo from Mr. Mogul is on our desks on Monday morning. For a second I wonder who he has type the memos and make copies of them…or does he fly up from L.A. and sneak them into the office over the weekend himself. The ‘how” is less important than what it says, I say to myself, as I scan the page.
The memo informs us that our new editor will be joining us on Friday. His name is Steve and he is from Los Angeles. He worked for one of the national movie star magazines as well as the L.A. Herald-Examiner, a big daily newspaper there.
Holy cow. Movie star gossip? Well, maybe his experience at the Herald-Examiner is closer to what San Francisco Voices does. Dan just shrugs his shoulders when I ask what he knows about this new editor.
“Only what the memo says.”
Tim has the same reaction as I do: a bit puzzled by the movie magazine background, but then he, too, shrugs his shoulders: “That’s L.A. for you, I guess.”
“Are you sorry you weren’t named the new editor?” I ask him at lunch. We’re at the salad bar café, but today we are both having cheeseburgers with salty French fries. Tim, who has a lean and lanky build, is not a good influence for food.
“No. Mr. Mogul called me about this over the weekend. Given his ‘off-with-his-head’ approach, I think I’m better off as an associate editor at least for the time being. Who knows how long this new guy will last?”
We go on to talk about Woodstock . O
ver 500,000 people showed up. Austen’s record label people and Joe were wrong about that, I reflect. I ask Tim what he knows about the music festival in San Jose.
“It should be big. A hundred thousand people at least. Some bands that didn’t play Woodstock are going to be in San Jose. I’ve heard that one band that played at Woodstock is going to be there, too. I haven’t made any assignments to freelancers yet but we are going to cover it.”
“Make sure whoever does it writes nice things about Austen’s new songs.”
“That doesn’t sound much like a request for objective journalism,” he replies, grinning.
“It’s not.”
As expected, the news of a new editor at Voices sweeps around town and I hear from a couple of freelance writers asking me to keep them in mind. I will, I promise. One freelancer tells me he once met the new editor in Los Angeles and describes him as ordinary looking. Dish-water blond hair, medium height, wears black frame glasses—not someone you would instantly remember. He has a good reputation down there writing for the entertainment section of the Herald-Examiner. His articles have more substance than fluff. Before working at that paper he had been an associate editor at that movie star magazine. Again, a good reputation.
The phone on my desk rings again.
“Hi baby.”
“Hi. What’s up?”
“I wanted to let you know that I’m going to L.A. for a week or so. We have a bunch of interviews and this morning we decided to rehearse for the San Jose festival before we come back up here. It’ll be easier there now with Peter and Tommy back in L.A.”
“They moved out of that house on Lake?”
“Yep. They left yesterday. They’d had enough of San Francisco.” He chuckles. “I think they had run out of new girls up here.”
“Okay.” I can feel my anxiety level creep up. Peter and Tommy are gone. That means Austen and John and Emma will be going soon. What this will mean to Austen and me?
“I’ll call you, Julia.”
“Drive safely…and dream of me.”
“I always do, Julia. You know I do. Dream of me, beautiful girl. Always dream of me.”
* * *
I stare out the window as the bus winds through the streets. Finally, it has begun to warm up in the city and people on the sidewalks are wearing more summery clothes. My mind drifts. Austen said he wouldn’t leave me and that I was the best thing that happened to him in a long time. But what does that really mean? I don’t think I have just been a summer girlfriend for him—someone for sex and fun for a few months, so he wasn’t the odd man out with John and Emma. And I think about that dinner with his brother and sister-in-law. I think he is more serious. I know I am, but I am not certain what ‘serious’ will mean to us. He still has not said anything about the future and I am afraid to ask.
I suddenly notice the bus has turned the corner onto Clement Street. Two more blocks and I reach up and pull the cord that rings the bell so the bus driver will stop at the next corner.
* * *
“Come on, Julia, you have to go with us,” Ali says. “Tony said to invite Austen. Too bad he’s not here. There is plenty of room for all of us and it’ll be a lot of fun. Ned says the water in the Delta is low and sluggish so it should be more like paddling around Lake Union than fighting the currents on the Bay.”
“Okay, but only if you promise never to drag me off to meet a guru or yogi again. Yesterday was enough. I’ll skip spiritual enlightenment in this lifetime; I can do it in the next one.”
We both laugh. I’m glad to see her laugh about it. That yogi was absolutely weird, even if some of the things he said were true. He also seemed a little greedy: he charges an admission fee for some of his sessions. If she is going to jump into Eastern religions, she better find someone less bizarre than him.
* * *
I pout. Not my style, but I pout anyway—internally. Steve, the new editor, does not like the idea of reviewing the Indonesian restaurant or the breakfast-only café on Union Street. He says the same thing Tim did: Food isn’t art or culture. Ha—I think. If all the Italian food around San Francisco is not representative of Italian culture I don’t know what is. Arguing with a new editor, however, is definitely not a smart idea.
At our first editorial meeting he outlines where he wants Voices to go. He agrees 100% with the original goal of covering arts, culture and local politics from a counter-culture, street level point of view, but wants to shift the focus more to the individual people involved.
“If we are going to write about a dance performance, let’s try to include a short separate profile of the choreographer or lead dancer or even a dancer in the chorus. It will humanize the arts, maybe even make stars of artists and performers who might be overlooked otherwise.”
That’s interesting, I reflect: he described them as ‘stars’. It must be a Hollywood way of looking at things.
Steve goes on to say: “And if we look at some of these local politicians more closely, who knows, we might come up with some dirt on them. We all know it’s there, somewhere. It’s going to be our job—and our writers’ jobs—to find it.” We all smile, knowingly.
Weekly Events is capped at 6 columns—one page—and I am expected to include Marin in that space. I get the sense that I won’t be doing any editing of reviews and essays, let alone writing some. As far as Steve is concerned my job is to compile event information and edit it to fit. That appears to be all.
I am a little disappointed. I have come to realize that editing Weekly Events is precisely the work I did when I started at TV Weekly although there I was editing listings for the weekly TV shows—boring. Here the information is far more interesting, of course, but I seem to have come full circle—back to square one: cutting and editing what other people write so it will fit into the allotted space. No original writing for me in this job.
Over lunch, Tim tells me he likes what he hears from Steve. Later, Dan says the same thing. Maybe this editor will last, they both agree.
* * *
Ned has somehow come up with a canoe and 2 two-person kayaks for us and we are now paddling away from an old, low-slung, weathered marina hidden back in the San Joaquin-Sacramento river delta. Ned has Charli, who has the least experience, riding along in his kayak.
“Just sit still,” he tells her. “You don’t have to paddle. I’ll do it.”
Tony, who has been out in a kayak before, is in the second kayak with Charli’s boyfriend. Ali and I, of course, are in the canoe.
Ned leads our parade of three boats slowly along the streams and sloughs lined with tall grasses and cattails that rustle dryly in the breezes. Birds dart skyward and ducks scuttle away as we follow the winding and twisting waterways. We pull in closer to the banks to see if we can see their nests. Ned can identify most of them. This watery experience could be very peaceful—if Charli would just stop talking. She is a chatterbox. She ooohs and aaahs and comments about everything. I wish she would be silent.
Finally, Ned says: “Let’s all be as quiet as we can. Maybe we can hear some other birds.”
I catch Ned’s eye and smile at him. He winks at me. That was a very tactful way to tell her to shut up and it works for a while, then she starts talking again.
Twice we hear a car driving along what must be a road beside the river. With the high muddy banks and tall grasses beside us, it is hard to see much.
“Ned, where does that road go?” I ask.
“There are farms all along here. Further up the river they grow rice in paddies.”
Ali and I continue to paddle along quietly. I smile when I think of inner tubing on the Russian River—rambunctious, rowdy, so different from this. Paddling among the docks and houseboats in Seattle—discovering a hidden world of surprises, again so different.
Eventually I see that we are coming back to the marina, but from another waterway than the one we left on. Ned must have led us in a circle through the maze of narrow waterways we traveled this afternoon to avoid the area that is off
-limits because of the Navy.
It has been a pleasant day. Everything with Ned seems pleasant. I can’t imagine living a lifetime of ‘pleasant’. I want more than that. And I admit to myself that I want that ‘more’ to be with Austen.
* * *
Austen is back from Los Angeles and we are on our way to eat at Fisherman’s Wharf. Although many San Franciscans avoid the place, tourists love it. We have both heard that the tourists have it right: the seafood there is great. Local fishermen dock their boats alongside the wharf and unload their catch right there. Much of the fish and crab goes directly into the kitchens of restaurants on the wharf run by their family members. Most are Italian-Americans, of course.
He has been complaining about the L.A. interviews. Tommy and his invisible back-up band—it was the same thing all over again. Maybe a big bowl of cioppino will improve his mood. Food often has that effect on him.
“The only interesting news was that a song that John and I wrote three years ago is going to be on the new album of that band—the one that was on top of Billboard last winter.”
“When is it going to be released?”
“Next week, I think. Joe is really turned on about it.”
“I don’t understand. Why is he excited? It isn’t on your album.”
“The royalties. John and I will get paid royalties because we wrote the song, even though another band is recording it. That could mean a lot of money if it becomes a huge mega-hit like a couple of that band’s previous ones were. Joe gets a cut of our royalties.”
“That’s good.” I don’t want to pry and ask how much a ‘lot of money’ is, but money never seems to concern him.
He is quiet for a minute or so.
“So how was the kayaking trip?”
How did he find out about that? Oh, maybe he heard about it from Luke or Tony. “It was fine. A nice afternoon. Pleasant. Ali and I were in a canoe, not one of the kayaks. We couldn’t see much because the waterways are narrow and lined with tall grasses. We mostly saw birds.”
Playing for Julia Page 16
