“There you are,” Kylen said from the recliner in the corner. “I thought we’d have to send a search party.”
“Dad, you have to see this!” Pallas called. “Xochi, look what Mom and Kiki found!” Pallas scrambled to make room for Leviticus on a low couch. The room was so different from the rest of the house, a 1950s version of modern with shag carpet and tweedy, angular furniture. Io looked gorgeous in her simple blue dress and messy bun. Snuggled between her parents, Pallas completed the picture, a perfect family.
Still standing in the doorway, Xochi turned her attention to the screen: a cottage garden in spring. A boy with a Mohawk—Leviticus?—struggled to erect a white canvas tent. A gorgeous Amazon with a mass of multicolored waist-length braids—Kiki!—helped a tiny girl with cropped hair and a hippie skirt walk around the garden.
Kylen glared at Xochi from his recliner. “Are you staying or going? There’s a draft.”
“Be nice,” Pad said.
Bubbles patted the cushion next to her. She squeezed Xochi’s hand when she sat down. “Isn’t Io cute?”
Of course. The luminous girl with the pixie cut was Io, adorable and extremely pregnant. Here they were, the Romeo and Juliet Leviticus had described.
“I forgot we did this,” Leviticus said.
“So did I. Kiki’s mum found it.” Io smiled at him.
“I can’t believe that’s Pal in there,” Aaron said. The younger Io was striking silly poses with long-haired Kiki, playing up her enormous belly. Her laughter pealed into the room. Whoever had been operating the camera had figured out the sound. When the laboring girl in the movie yelped in pain, real-life Leviticus reached over Pallas to hold Io’s hand.
Now I’ve seen them touch, Xochi thought.
Everyone was so relaxed and happy, and they seemed to expect Xochi to feel the same. They’d installed her in a pretty room, loaned her books and given her clothes, fed her delicious meals, sat her in the front row at their concert, introduced her to their friends. Most of all, they trusted her with their most precious member, the single person who made them more than a group of friends and lovers, a real family.
Blood pounded in Xochi’s ears. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but opened them to Kylen’s cool stare. He knew something, or thought he did. Whatever it was, he didn’t approve. He broke their contact with an eye roll worthy of Pallas, turning to give Leviticus a pointed look as he passed him a bowl of popcorn. Leviticus refused the bowl with a snort, nudging Kylen’s slippered foot with his boot.
These people were too close, knew each other too well. How long had it been since they’d been like Xochi—truly alone?
When everyone was laughing at something in the movie, Xochi went for the door. She looked back at Leviticus one more time, drawn in by a gravitational pull toward the impossible, but there was only Kylen, watching her go.
II.
The city sings strangeness to Sister
Trees with pinecone-petal skins
And leaves like long green teeth
Gull-bright wind leads to the bay
The bridge arches land-to-land, a great bathing animal
Brother knows bridges. He knows the sea, a cold deep singer
Together, they whisper flame to sand
Daylily tongues lick the moon
Heat-filled they dive, pistil and stamen
Deep, deep, cold and deep, sea gives way to shoreline
Redwood memory, story forest
Mink-deep girl
The moon sinks to her repose
Brother takes Sister’s hand
Together, they run North
13
Just Like Arcadia
Pallas opened the door. It had been years since Xochi’s bedroom had been her playroom, but she still knew the creaky spots in the floor. Moonlight shone on Xochi’s face.
“I knew it,” Pallas said, padding to the foot of Xochi’s bed. “You’re sad.”
Xochi could only nod and turn away.
“Scoot over.” Pallas climbed in. “Did your butt get bigger?”
Xochi snorted. “There’s a bed in your room, you know. Twice this size.”
“It’s cold in there.” It wasn’t, really. But Xochi knew that.
“Fine.” Xochi scooted toward the wall.
“Xochi?” Pallas rolled onto her back. “Where were you born?”
“Concord.” Xochi’s delivery was deadpan, designed to put Pallas off. Obviously, she’d forgotten who she was dealing with.
“Like where they lived in Little Women?”
“What?”
“Louisa May Alcott. They lived by Concord, in Massachusetts. On a transcendentalist commune. Io told me about it when we were having breakfast. Little Women was based a lot on Louisa May Alcott’s real life.”
“That’s fascinating. Now go to sleep.”
“But you never told me where you were born.”
“I did,” Xochi said. “Concord, California.”
“Where’s that?”
“About an hour east of here. Way out in the suburbs.”
“Xochi?”
“What?” Xochi sounded completely exasperated. But Pallas pressed on.
“Where do your parents live now?”
Xochi exhaled, the sound of defeat. “I don’t have parents, Pal. I never knew my dad. And my mom—I haven’t seen her in a long time.”
“But who took care of you?”
“I lived with my mom till I was eleven,” she said. “Then my grandma—well, kind of my step-grandma—she raised me for a while. She’s the one who gave me this.”
Xochi took off her necklace and handed it to Pallas. A pair of green hummingbirds touched their beaks to a central opal of midnight black. “My grandma said they were lucky. Protection from harm and a charm for good luck.”
Pallas tilted the pendant into the moonlight. “Where did your grandma live?”
“I told you that, too. She lived up north. In the redwoods.”
“Yeah, but where in the redwoods? There are a lot of them, you know.”
“Can we please go to sleep?” Xochi rolled over.
“I’m sorry,” Pallas said in her best animal-taming voice. “I know I’m being a pest. I just want to know. We’re friends, right? Kindred spirits.”
A single tear gleamed down Xochi’s cheek, but when she spoke, her voice sounded normal. “I lived in a town in Southern Humboldt,” Xochi said, “about six hours from here. My mom met this guy, and we moved there so she could be with him. I was nine. She left when I was twelve. My grandma—”
“Wait,” Pallas said. “What do you mean, she left? Like, without you?”
“Right. Then I lived with my grandma. She was technically Evan’s grandma, but—”
“Who’s Evan?”
“My mom’s boyfriend.” Xochi’s voice had changed. Maybe she didn’t like the boyfriend. “Anyway,” Xochi continued, “Loretta was his grandma, but she sort of adopted me. She had a cabin on the property. When my mom left, I moved in with her. But Loretta died last summer. It wasn’t home without her.”
“And then you came here, to San Francisco?”
“Yes,” Xochi said. “And that’s it, okay?”
“Okay. I guess.” Pallas sighed and rolled to her side, her back against Xochi’s. She tried to imagine Io or Leviticus leaving her and never coming back, but it was impossible. Wind chimes trilled in the garden and rain beat a happy song on the roof.
“Xochi?” Pallas asked. “Does this feel like home?”
Xochi was quiet. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I’m not sure what home feels like anymore. But if I could pick, this would definitely be the place.”
14
Going to California
Dear Xochi,
You were snoring, so I disabled your
alarm. I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready. The crêpe place is open all day.
xoxo
Pallas
Xochi dropped Pallas’s neatly printed note and lay back in bed. She’d had a vivid dream of running through the forest on the heels of a brown-skinned boy with streaming hair and silent feet. His sweet voice perched in her ear, soundless yet somehow clear.
“This way, little sister.”
Xochi follows, loping through the undergrowth.
A bird wings through the canopy: black feathers, red head, pale sky.
Trees give way to a road, the blacktop oddly comfortable under Xochi’s bare feet.
A sign on a rough wooden post, the gray of a gravel parking lot—the entrance to Richardson Grove State Park.
Xochi sat up, blinking in the cranberry light from the stained glass windows that circled her little room. Since leaving Badger Creek, she’d only allowed herself thoughts of home in strictly measured doses. Surely now, she could grant her mind a little leeway.
She retraced the dream, traveling the section of Highway 101 that ran through Richardson Grove, then slipping back to the first time she’d seen a redwood.
Xochi had been nine, almost ten, and spent most of the drive from Oregon lying down, mourning what she’d been forced to leave behind. Gina had met Evan three nights before at the Oregon Country Fair. She and Xochi were supposed to be there with Gina’s boyfriend, Adam, helping sell the silver jewelry his dad had made all winter.
Adam was nice. He liked kids and talked to them like regular people. His big hippie family was nice, too. They’d caravanned to Southern Oregon in a line of beat-up Volvos and colorful VW buses. Adam said the country fair was like a village out of a fantasy book—music everywhere, delicious food, and booths full of beautiful wares for sale, all handmade. Children could run wild, eating cream puffs and berry pie with painted faces and bare feet. Every evening, a special parade came through the fair to honor the famous dragon. When he passed, Adam said to chant, “Make way! Make way! Make way for the magic of the dragon!”
The day the fair opened, Xochi spent most of her time alone. All the kids in Adam’s family were either much younger and had to stay with their parents or teenagers who wanted to find their fair friends without a stray ten-year-old tagging along. Xochi also got the feeling the three older girls didn’t approve of her and her mother. She heard them saying Gina was just using Adam. Xochi hoped they were wrong.
Walking the figure-eight path that curved around the main fairgrounds, she was happy to wander alone. Performers danced on stilts, played old-time music on washboards and accordions, did acrobatic tricks on a trapeze, and told silly, slightly dirty jokes.
There was a drum circle with so many drums that Xochi couldn’t count them all. How did they all know how to play in rhythm? Sweaty muscular boys jerked their arms and tossed their heads. Big-hipped women in long skirts and halter tops swung in sexy spirals. A boy of four or five pulled Xochi into the circle of bodies. She held his hands and danced until they had to rest, sprawling on hay bales and drinking the herbal iced tea his brown shirtless mother bought for both of them.
On the second day, Xochi found a secret theater tucked in a grove of trees, the dusty ground lined with rugs and cushions, the stage hung with silver stars. As she sat down, the most mesmerizing women Xochi had ever seen shimmered onto the stage. Moving like they had liquid under their skin instead of bones, their made-up eyes held secrets she needed to understand.
They reminded her of her mother, in a way. Gina was like a slinky cat everyone wanted to touch. The belly dancers were similar, with everyone under their spell. Xochi sat in the front row as troupe after troupe performed. At the end, a single woman took to the stage. She was older than many of the other dancers, curvy and soft and absolutely regal. She looked right into Xochi’s eyes, her gaze like a present without strings attached.
Xochi imagined being a woman like that, strong and free. She saw herself listening to music and reading lots of books. She would love someone who liked animals and could be a friend. Other women would want to hug her, laugh with her, share their dreams and tell her their problems. They wouldn’t be jealous or afraid like they were with her mom.
As good as days were at the fair, nights were even better. When the heat of the afternoon waned and all of the regular fairgoers went home, the workers and vendors had their chance to play in the fairy-lit village. Music rang from every corner and food booths kept producing their delicious specialties, but the lines were short and the damp night air settled the fine dust on the paths into a velvet carpet under Xochi’s bare feet.
On the final night of the fair, Gina took Xochi, who was filthy with dust and all the sticky things she’d been eating, to the communal baths called The Ritz. While they waited in line to get in, Gina explained that inside, past a dressing room, there was a wooden deck with open-air showers and a big redwood sauna. Men, women, and kids all cleaned up together. Xochi worried a little about the nakedness, but once they were inside, it was wonderful—clean and calm, lights low so you could see the moon and stars, gloriously hot water and happy faces everywhere you looked.
The fair was having a great effect on Gina. It was the first vacation she’d had in years. With no tables to wait, no orders to take and enough sleep, Gina was an entirely different person. She shampooed Xochi’s hair and scrubbed her back with almond-scented soap. Surrendering to the delicious feeling of her mother’s hands on her scalp, Xochi thought she must be imagining the music. Of all the wonderful, crazy storybook things Xochi’d seen at the fair, the grand piano in the bathhouse was the best. Xochi and Gina took their time getting dressed, staring up at the dazzling stars and enjoying the rich music. By the time they left, Xochi was clean and warm, her usual rat’s nest of tangles flowing in silky waves down her back.
After dinner, Gina took Xochi to see the fire show in the meadow. In the rosy light of the flaming batons, Gina was a fairy princess. Her blonde hair and light eyes made it hard for people to believe she and Xochi were mother and daughter. The gauzy clothes she’d gotten from the fair suited her more than the tight jeans, tank tops, and high heels she wore at home. She looked way too young to be anyone’s mother.
When Evan saw her, it was like a barn owl and a mouse. Xochi knew what was coming from the second he said hello. Her mother knew the owl-and-mouse dance very well. Only Evan probably had it backward. Gina was never the mouse.
They left Adam without saying goodbye. All of Xochi’s things left at Adam’s were forfeit. All she owned in the world now were five stuffed animals, three days’ worth of clothes and a mother who had dragged her through at least four different lives on the way to the perfect fairy-tale ending Xochi knew would never come.
Evan and Gina wanted her to ride in the cab with them, but Xochi refused and climbed in the back. The camper shell was old and leaked in the corner, Evan said, but it wasn’t likely to rain. He’d opened the side windows so she’d stay cool, duct-taping a ripped screen to keep out the bugs. Lying on a bed of their three sleeping bags, Xochi tried to ignore the sweaty man smell of Evan’s things and pretend she was someplace else.
When the truck stopped, Xochi expected to see another gas station in some stupid, ugly town, but she climbed from the tailgate into a world of branches and green light. Forgetting to give Evan the silent treatment, she whispered, “What is this place?”
Unlike most of Gina’s new boyfriends, Evan hadn’t tried to get in good with Xochi to impress her mom. It was usually so gross and fake, a total waste of time. Xochi was determined to hate them all on principle, and Gina wanted a man for herself, not a father for her kid. But now Gina was in the restroom, and Evan joined Xochi on the tailgate as she craned her neck to see the tops of the trees, savoring the spicy redwood perfume.
“Smells good, doesn’t it?” Evan said. His voice had a Northern California lift, sort of like a surfer guy from Santa Cruz, bu
t not quite. Evan was so tall—”six foot four!” according to Gina—but even he seemed puny under those gigantic trees. “See the sign over there?” He pointed to the entrance of the gravel parking lot. “It says Richardson Grove State Park. But I’ve always thought this looked more like Middle Earth.”
Xochi looked directly at Evan for the first time. His Tolkien reference wasn’t much, but it was a start.
“You’re right,” she said. “It does.”
15
All Cats Are Gray
The string of bells above the door announced a customer.
“Hi!” Pallas’s musical voice pierced Peasblossom’s exhaustion.
“Hey there,” Xochi said.
“Hi, girls,” Nora called from her perch behind the cash register. Peasblossom raised his head at the happy note in her voice. Nora was wearing his favorite dress and long beaded earrings. She’d been his for many years, but he never tired of the details that made her beautiful. “How’s it going?”
“Great,” Xochi said. “I can’t believe how nice it is outside today.”
“Where’s the kitty-man?” Pallas asked, irreverent as usual.
Pallas joined Nora in the children’s section. The girl was rosy and calm, her scent sharp with exercise. Curls like summer grass spiraled out from under her customary furry cat-eared hat. “For solidarity,” she’d said the first day she appeared in it. “We’re in this together, Peas.”
The cat purred, thinking of when the pale girl had befriended him two years ago. It had been during the worst time in Peasblossom’s life. The winter Ron died, the entire city was in mourning. Lover after lover, friend after friend, beautiful man after beautiful, beloved man, lost.
Ron and Nora had been best friends since childhood. Nora, baby Anna, Ron and Peas had lived happily together for seven years. So happily that Peasblossom often forgot the yellow-fanged menace in Ron’s blood, waiting to take him away from them.
All of Us with Wings Page 8
