by Annie Katz
"To me, Namaste is like gods winking at each other. God inside me recognizes God inside you and says, 'Hi. I see you. Isn't this fun to be scattered all over creation so we can love each other?'"
"Wait. God in you, God in me, God in cats, God in seashells?"
"Precisely." She smiled, as if that explained everything, so I let it go.
"Well, then why does anybody go to church?" I asked.
She grinned and shrugged. "You should ask people and then really listen to them. You learn a lot from listening with a peaceful mind. We all have excellent reasons for doing what we do."
I nodded, relieved. "I'm glad there's no church attendance rule."
"Good. Thank you, Sandy, for being brave enough to bring it up. Please ask me anything, talk to me about anything. I don't have a church attendance rule, but I do have rules. We'll discuss them after you've had a chance to study them." She winked at me. "And you will be tested."
For lunch Lila taught me how to make amazing grilled cheese sandwiches in a big cast iron skillet on top of the stove. Her kitchen was nothing like my mom's. No microwave, no dishwasher, no toaster oven. Just a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink.
"I have appliances," she said, as if my shock at her not having a microwave was an insult. "I have a coffee grinder, electric, and a coffee pot and toaster, also electric."
"I only know microwave," I said. "My mom says I'm too young to use a real stove."
"How old are you," Lila said.
"Twelve."
"Twelve is old enough for practically everything!" Lila said. "I think Shakespeare's Juliet was only thirteen. And she killed herself beside her lover!"
I stood looking at the stove as if it might bite me. My mom hardly ever used hers. She microwaved. Mostly she ate things whose name started with Diet that came in a box or carton. My mom was terrified of gaining an ounce. She was five four, weighed one twenty, and fervently believed she was fifteen pounds overweight.
Grandma Betty liked the Olive Garden and In & Out Burger and Red Robin. I knew those menus by heart. I could survive in Sacramento. I looked at Lila and couldn't imagine how to explain my life to her.
"I see I got a bit off track there, didn’t I," Lila said, "because Juliet’s death doesn't properly relate to the present discussion."
I nodded mutely, so Lila smiled and patted my arm. “You’re old enough to learn anything you want to,” she said.
Next she explained each step while creating a yummy smelling grilled cheese sandwich, and then she stepped back from the stove and gestured for me to take over. "Mine's done," she said. "Your turn."
I'm sure I looked as shocked as I felt, but Lila smiled, so with her guidance I made my own delicious smelling melted cheese sandwich. Mine was a little burned on one edge, but Lila said it was perfect because carbon was an essential nutrient for life on earth. The alien abduction scenario flashed through my mind again.
The sandwiches tasted as delicious as they smelled. The grainy bread, which came from the bakery next to Lila’s barbershop, was toasty on the outside and soft on the inside, and the cheese was perfectly melted. Only a diet cola could have made it better.
When I asked Lila for one, she said, "Nope. Nothing fizzy here. Comes under house rule number two." She shook her finger at me and gave me a stern look. "And diet anything is absolutely forbidden in my house, understand? I will not have people eating poison in my sacred space."
I hadn't memorized the rules yet, and our sandwiches were cooling off. So I decided milk would be fine.
After sandwiches, Lila taught me how to tackle the pineapple.
"Imagine, sweetheart," she said, holding up the fruit and admiring it as if it were precious art. "A few days ago this fat fellow was growing in a hot field in Maui thousands of miles from here, and now it is right here with us." She kissed its green spiky top. "Everything is a miracle if you look deeply enough to see the truth."
Lila turned the pineapple carving into a science and cooking class, just as she had done with the cheese sandwich, so I learned one way to get into a pineapple. The hardest part was how slippery the pineapple juice made my fingers. When I was finished peeling and cutting up my slice, I had to wash my hands three times to get the slimy juice off. It was weird.
"Virginia Satir said there are hundreds of ways to wash the dishes," Lila said, "and every way gets the job done. It follows there must be hundreds of ways to do anything, including pineapple slicing. Put Satir on your reading list. I think her comment referred to how ridiculous most family arguments are."
My reading list? Was I in summer school? Would I be tested on traditional kitchen implements and reading assignments as well as house rules?
"Don't worry," Lila said, laughing at the expression on my face. "There's plenty of time for everything."
We took our time savoring the fresh pineapple chunks. They tasted sweet and sour at exactly the same time, and I ate so many my mouth was all puckered and dry feeling when I was done. Everything I ate at Lila's house so far had been an adventure. I felt years away from the dilapidated potato chips of Greyhound country.
Lila's big living room was arranged into little islands for different activities. Her desk corner had an upright piano as well as her desk, file cabinets, and bookcases. Opposite that on the wall between the living room and the kitchen was a corner fireplace made of gray stone. In front of the fireplace were two stuffed rocking chairs with footstools.
The big sofa sat in the middle of the room, an island by itself facing the sea, and after lunch I took a nap on it under a fuzzy white afghan while Lila did some work at her desk. The morning fog had been replaced by heavy dark rain clouds. When I got up from the nap, spatters of rain were hitting the window in gusts, and everything outside was a different shade of gray.
When I was truly awake, Lila gave me a tour of the room upstairs, which she called the Crow's Nest. It was straight out of an adventure story. The stairway was steep but sturdy, and at the top was a big landing with rails, so it felt safe. When we walked through the upstairs door into the Crow’s Nest, I had to stop and breathe several times, because it seemed the whole front wall was a huge picture window, and I was still not accustomed to being perched so high above the sea. When I had collected myself enough to walk again, I explored the room.
At the back of the house was a big round window where I could look down on the road and our driveway. From the ocean side window I could look down at the beach stairs and the concrete patio area in front of the living room window. Everything outside was dark and heavy with rain.
A long window seat below the beach window was fitted with thick corduroy covered padding and big pillows. It seemed perfect for reading or naps. As if summoned by my thought, Chloe and Zoe appeared and hopped up on the cushions, facing one another like bookends. They licked their paws and washed their faces. I couldn't tell which was which, even though Lila said Chloe was thicker and more cautious and Zoe was the alpha cat, the boss. They seemed to appear and disappear, sometimes indoors, sometimes outdoors. They were magicians, or maybe Grandma Lila was the magic one.
On both sides of the big room where the roof beams sloped down, there were built in storage areas. On the south side near the stairway landing were bookcases and closet doors above big pullout drawers filled with quilts and games and fabric. The bookcases were packed with books of all shapes and sizes.
On the north side above the bank of drawers were three built-in beds, each with its own headboard bookcase and reading lamp, like bunks on a ship. Heavy blue and green plaid curtains were pulled across each bed for privacy.
The bed in the middle was unused. It had a white sheet tucked over the bedding to keep it clean and the bookcase was empty and polished. The beds at either end had matching blue patchwork quilts, and those headboards were stacked with books and toys. One bed had about a dozen stuffed animals lined up against the wall across from the curtain.
"Who lives here?" I asked.
"This is where Mark and Jamie stay when they come for holida
ys. They'll be here in July. Maybe you'll meet them this time."
"The Christmas letters," I said, remembering school pictures of two boys, one older than me, Mark I think, and one younger, who must belong to the stuffed animals.
Lila nodded. "My grandsons. So you saw the holiday letters and pictures?"
"My mom showed me the Christmas ones. She said you were a friend of the family. I thought you knew Grandma Betty."
Lila nodded and smiled. "I'm glad you saw my letters. I wasn't sure."
"My mom is not big on writing," I said. "She'll write some guy's phone number on her hand, but that's about it."
Lila laughed. "Maybe that's wise. Sometimes writing gets me in trouble."
"Really?"
"I write a column in our weekly newspaper. Sometimes people take offense."
Her Christmas letters were so funny and sweet, I didn't know how anyone could be offended.
I moved to the center of the room where a sturdy wooden table was set up with six heavy wooden chairs. The whole room reminded me of an old ship, built to withstand storms on the high seas, impervious to blustery rogues and pirates.
The pirate image dispersed though when I saw the half finished jigsaw puzzle at the end of the big table. The picture on the box showed a field of brilliantly colored tulips with snow-covered peaks in the distance. It was a puzzle I would have chosen myself. I looked at Lila and smiled.
I'd been at Lila Blue's for less than twenty-four hours, and already I felt at home.
The phone rang downstairs, and I knew it was my mom. She'd be up now and want to check on me before going to work. I knew Lila had called Janice after I arrived, but I hadn't wanted to talk then.
Now I wanted to talk, so when Lila said, "It's probably Janice," I rushed downstairs to take the call.
"Mom," I said when I picked up the telephone.
"How did you know it was me, Sandy?"
"I knew."
"How are you, baby?"
I told her I was okay and then let the silence zing back and forth across the phone lines.
"Did you see the ocean yet?" She knew I was excited about being near the beach.
"Yea, we walked this morning before the fog came. It's raining now. It's really cold."
"Is everything okay, Sandy? Lila said there's plenty of room for you. Do you like it?"
"It's okay," I said. "How are you and Roger doing?"
"He's not staying here. We're friends. I told you that before."
"Oh."
"Sandy, I haven't had a drink since you left."
I held the phone receiver and stared outside at the gray ocean while the wind threw random sprays of raindrops at the window.
"I thought you'd be happy for me."
"That's good, Mom." Did she want me to be overjoyed that she'd behaved herself for one night? Was it so hard living with me that the instant I left it was easy to stop drinking?
"Okay, then, Sandy, do you need anything? Do you like the food there?"
"We had pineapple from Hawaii," I said, thinking how she would be amazed to see me peeling the prickly fruit.
"I didn't know you liked fruit," she said.
"It was okay." I didn't want her to think I was happy about being banished to the wilderness.
"That's good, Sandy. You have my work number, so call if you get lonely or need anything."
She'd never invited me to call her before if I got lonely. I let the silence sit there, because I couldn't think of anything I wanted to say to her.
"I have to go now. I love you, Sandy," she said, using her pitiful tone of voice.
"Cassandra," I said. "People call me Cassandra now. Goodbye." I hung up. It was the second time that I didn't know what I was thinking until it came out of my mouth. Cassandra. Okay. I was in a new place, I was growing up, and it felt right.
Lila had come downstairs by this time, and she was talking to the cats in the kitchen, so she must have heard the end of my conversation with my mom. I was glad she didn't ask about it. From then on, though, Lila called me Cassandra. She made my name sound regal.
"Can I stay down here?" I asked Lila. The upstairs room was wonderful, but it was too big and nautical. I didn't like the idea of being in the little white bunk in between two boys' beds. I wanted to sleep in the room across from Lila.
"Of course, Cassandra. We can keep the Crow's Nest door closed so the cats won't thump about up there."
We worked together to move her sewing supplies upstairs, and she even cleaned out the big walk-in closet so I'd have more than enough space for my things.
"Maybe we shouldn't move everything," I said. "I don't know how long I can stay."
"No one ever knows how long she can stay anywhere,” Lila said. “You're here now, and I want you to be comfortable. If you decide to go back to California tomorrow, that's fine. I want you to be happy." She patted my arm and grinned. "Rule number seven."
So we cleaned the whole sewing room and it became mine. After we took my empty suitcase and stowed it on the middle bunk upstairs, Lila showed me half a dozen patchwork quilts to choose from. They looked brand new, and most of them were variations of the same pattern, which she called log cabins. The rectangles all stacked into each other, so I could see how the pattern reminded people of the way log houses were built. I chose two quilts for my bed. One had lots of yellows and greens and pinks. The other had different shades of blue with red center squares.
The quilt I loved best was a different pattern, one Lila called rainbow world. It was solid colored squares that created a diamond pattern from the center point. Simple and bright, it pulsated with color and energy.
Lila said, "That's one of my favorites, too. Good choice for hanging on the wall across from your bed, so it's the first thing you see in the morning. It can get very gloomy here when it rains day after day." She shrugged and laughed. "Raining forty days and forty nights is not unusual for Rainbow Village."
"Like the Bible story," I said.
"You know the Bible? My dear child, you continue to amaze me."
"I haven't read the whole thing," I said. "Grandma Betty gave me a kid's version. It has some good stories."
"Wonderful stories," Lila said. "Of course it's like lots of other history books, way too many chapters about battles, wars, lies, and political intrigues. Ignorant boring slaughter." She shook her head and sighed.
"But," she continued, her impish smile returning, "there are also gorgeous love letters to God. Beautiful words that have been inspiring people for thousands of years. Read the Bible, the Koran, the Gita, the Tao, and the scriptures of the Buddha and Rumi and Confucius, all beautiful stories and poems, all fingers pointing to the Great Mother."
I stood looking at her thinking my reading list was growing longer by the second. I sure hoped those books were in English.
She got out a cookie tin that held pushpins, tacks, cup hooks, and nails, and we worked together to tack the rainbow quilt to the bedroom wall using lots of clear pushpins.
"Where did you get all these quilts?"
"I made them. The first two years I lived in this house, I read, studied, prayed, walked on the beach, wrote in my journal, and made quilts. It was my time to heal."
She sat on the bed and smiled at me, only it was a sad smile, the first time I'd seen her light go dim. "Ray, your grandfather, died of a stroke six months after we lost David. That's when I left Moscow and moved here. The first two years in this house were my healing years. The ocean, my books, these quilts, they called my spirit back to my body. After I'd healed enough, I wanted work, so I opened my shop and started cutting hair again.
"I was lucky,” she said. “For a while there, I didn't know if I would make it."
"But you did," I said, wondering what it felt like to have a spirit.
"Yes! And now here you are in this little room with me. Miracles abound!"
That night before I went to bed, I found a list of the house rules hanging on the back of my bedroom door. They were typed on a prett
y piece of stationary bordered with hearts and flowers.
Seven simple rules. They sounded reasonable enough, but Lila was right. In the weeks to come, I would be tested.
Lila Blue's House Rules: 1. Be impeccably honest. 2. Stay clean, safe, and sober. 3. Be responsible roommates. 4. Communicate clearly and completely. 5. Solve problems wisely. 6. Support one another. 7. Be happy here now.
I looked up impeccable. I knew it meant clean, but I wanted a deeper meaning. I found out impeccable comes from Latin and means without sin, blameless, perfect, incapable of wrongdoing. So, squeaky clean honest. That might be a challenge in real life. Didn't you have to tell little white lies to keep the peace and be nice? Nobody's perfect. How could Lila make perfection a rule? What right did she have to make up a list of stupid rules for people anyway?
I looked up sober, because I always got the connotations of it mixed up with somber, and I didn't think Lila would advocate being stodgy or glum. I really liked the sound of that rule, though, and I hoped my mom's sobriety was impeccable. Having never lived with a sober person, I wanted a chance at it.
My dictionary made this distinction. Sober means not using alcohol or drugs, being clearheaded and straightforward. Somber means dark or gloomy or serious and comes from Latin words that mean under a shadow. If Lila was any indication, sober could be the antithesis of somber.
I wrote Lila’s rules as well as the definitions for impeccable, somber, and sober in the beautiful jade journal Shelly gave me. As I closed my journal and put it on the bedside table, I heard Lila playing the piano and softly singing "When You Wish upon a Star." I snuggled under Lila's quilts and thought about Jiminy Cricket assuring Pinocchio that dreams come true. When I was a little kid, my heart believed him. Now I didn't know what to believe.
Rainbow Village
The next day, Tuesday, we spent pretty much like the first day, getting to know one another and sharing the space. My third day at the beach was Wednesday, a workday for Lila.
"Your timing is perfect, Cassandra," she told me that morning at breakfast. "When I turned sixty-five in May, I decided to cut way back at work. Herbert, the barber who works with me, wants to work all the hours he can get, because he's paying off his house loan. He'd work twelve hours every day if I'd let him."
