California Girl

by Rice, Patricia

  She scanned the note again, trying to find her inner peace so she could read sensibly, without all her fear and anger raging about, knocking her senseless. He was flying Mame into UCLA, to some heart program there. Good. This was productive.

  Get a grip, Alys, read slowly.

  There was nothing about him. He gave her the name of some friends in California in case she decided to finish the Route 66 trip. She could leave the SUV keys with them. Or if she decided to stay in Albuquerque, she could drop the keys in a mailbox when she didn’t need them anymore.

  She glanced at the keys again. She’d thought they were the rental car keys. He’d left her his keys?

  Was he really asking her to return the car to him? Would he still be in L.A. if she drove there?

  That was an awful small hook to hang her hopes on. Heart thumping, she read more slowly. Elliot was flying Mame to California. Jock lived in California. Jock was turning in the Taurus and flying home. Beulah would have to stay at Sam’s until Mame could get her. If Mame needed surgery, Jock would be there to help out. Elliot still didn’t mention his place in the scheme of things. He told her to enjoy her journey.

  He just gave her the facts and left her the keys—giving her the freedom to do as she would.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The Range Rover was a far cry from Mame’s Cadillac.

  Driving the highway, looking down from the high seat onto other cars, experimenting with the guidance system, Alys let the sun beating through the windshield ease the pain of Elliot’s absence.

  He had set her free. She wasn’t entirely certain how to feel about that, but she was about to find out.

  She’d stopped at a discount store and bought a pretty lavender camera for Lucia. She’d gone to the tribal reservation to check on her and Dulce. They’d been surrounded by a huge happy family celebrating their return. Dulce had talked of finishing school in Albuquerque. Lucia was delighted with her grandmother. Purple had been stalking field mice. They would be fine now that they were safe and together.

  Alys wasn’t feeling particularly fine, but she soaked up their positive vibrations and carried them with her. Lucia’s family had developed her pictures and given Alys duplicates. One of the photos had been of Elliot. She kept it in her pocket next to her heart until she decided whether to tear it into shreds or treasure it always.

  He was trying to save Mame’s life. She could relate to that. She could return the SUV and maybe they would just be friends. Mame could tell her all about Elliot in long chatty phone conversations. He’d still be in the universe somewhere.

  He hadn’t died.

  He was afraid he would.

  But Elliot would fight to live. That’s what his life had been about—prolonging life. And not just his life, but the lives of many. She could love a man like that. And he would break her heart—again.

  Driving across the vast barren plains of New Mexico and Arizona, admiring the sagebrush and mesas and approaching mountains, Alys thought about that. She turned on the radio and sang along with “Staying Alive.” She discovered Elliot had a CD collection in the car and popped one of his classical CDs into the player. The car filled with the drama of Tchaikovsky while she took a side road and drove through the Petrified Forest. She didn’t see much reason to stop though. With whom would she discuss the crumbling remains of strange rock trees? There wasn’t a soul in sight.

  She found an Eagles CD and played “Take It Easy” as she took the old road into Winslow, Arizona. She stopped and had a Big Mac and a shake, but without Elliot here, caring enough to tell her she was ruining her health, they didn’t taste quite as good as she’d expected.

  The gradual climb of the interstate into the mountains wasn’t as dramatic as flying over the mesas of New Mexico in a hot air balloon with Elliot wrapping her in his arms.

  “I’m beginning to see a pattern here,” she muttered as once more her thoughts turned to Elliot. She programmed the GPS to find the Grand Canyon, deviating from her route. She’d dreamed of crossing the country, free to go where the spirit took her. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, and she was determined to enjoy herself. Bless Elliot for setting her free.

  The canyon was huge. She stood on the edge and stared down and decided she’d enjoyed riding horses with Elliot through Palo Duro more than standing alone above this incomprehensible vastness.

  She needed people, dammit. Without people, she’d return to that block of ice she’d been after Fred’s death. She wasn’t made to live alone.

  She found a park lodge, ordered a meal in the restaurant, and looked around, wondering how she could find someone to talk to. It was October, and the only families here were ones with small children who demanded all their attention. There were several couples chattering away in foreign languages. No one sat alone, like her. The isolation chilled her.

  She chatted with the waitress, then returned to the front desk to ask about a room. From the clerk she learned snow was expected and that the hotel was full. She hadn’t dared make reservations for herself not knowing if she could afford to finish the trip on her own. Thanks to Elliot, the problem of transportation had been reduced to the cost of gas. She had enough money to eat and still see the sights.

  She could find another hotel, then drive back to sit in front of the fire at the lodge and watch the snow.

  Or she could keep driving—to California where the sun was shining.

  She climbed back into the Rover, drove back down the road until she found a cheap hotel, and stopped for the night. The room was shabby and lonely but clean and quiet. Exhausted, she slept.

  She was up at dawn, heading out before the snow clouds moved in.

  Her heart ached as much as her arm. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? She’d had all those grandiose dreams of merrily cruising America, seeing the sights she’d only heard about, meeting strangers in strange places.

  And she’d done that, with Elliot. He’d made her laugh and cry, showed her the world from his perspective as well as hers, made her feel at home no matter where they traveled. With someone to share her vision, the mountains were higher, the air was clearer, the people more interesting.

  On her own, one McDonalds looked like another, one stretch of interstate didn’t vary from the last, and even rattlesnake soup tasted like chicken. Strangers were always strangers, gone tomorrow, making no place for her.

  Maybe the song was right. Maybe “freedom” was just another word for nothing left to lose.

  She drove through mountain and desert in the same day, asked a nearby tourist to take her picture entering California, but she felt none of the euphoria she had earlier. A road sign wasn’t the state of California. Singing “California Girls” didn’t make her one.

  She’d experienced love and longing and near-death in one week’s time. What would she do with the rest of her life?

  Using the car’s navigational device, she battled rush-hour traffic into Los Angeles, found the stretch of original road on the east side, and turned onto it. She cruised the old route, thinking of Mame driving out here with her new husband, knowing she could lose him to a cruel war, that she had to make her way home alone.

  Tears started sliding down Alys’s cheeks as she followed the highway into Santa Monica. In between sobs, she drove around until she found a parking spot where she could walk to the beach. The end of the road.

  Standing on the pier, watching the sun fall over her first view of the ocean, she literally stopped breathing. Larger than the canyon, so large it reached the horizon and touched the sun, the sea enthralled her, drying up her tears. She sought her center, hoping to absorb the magnificence, hoping to find a sign to direct her.

  She smelled the salt, heard seals in the distance, watched gulls circle and dive over the water. Children ran along the water’s edge, screaming with delight. A lone surfer caught a cold wave and rode it to shore. People jostled around her. Shops teemed with activity. She could walk into any one of them and ask for a job and live here for
ever. That’s what she’d dreamed about, wasn’t it?

  The horizon turned apricot and purple. The waves lapped gently. Strange, contorted trees dotted the landscape. Fabulous flowers climbed the walls. She was in a tropical paradise. Elliot and Mame would return to Missouri.

  She had come to the end of the road and reached a crossroad.

  Her heart lightened as she finally faced the facts. Elliot had done the same thing as Fred—they had both loved her enough to set her free.

  Softly, she whispered, “I understand now, Fred. I love you, too. Thank you.” Digging the wedding band out of her purse, she kissed it, then flung it far out into the waves.

  * * *

  “It’s a routine angioplasty, Mame,” Elliot assured her. “They’ll insert a tiny tube in the clogged artery, inflate it like a balloon, clear the passage, and you’ll be fine again.”

  Mame nudged her pillows into a more comfortable position and with the regal frown of a queen, glared at the two men in her life. “I am not spending the rest of my life lying about on a couch like some tragic figure in a soap opera. If I’m going to die, I’d rather just do it.”

  “Mame, I know plenty of guys who’ve had this done. You’ll be spoiling your nephew’s kids when they’re in college,” Jock argued.

  “Will I?” Mame lifted her artificially tinted eyebrows at her nephew.

  With a twinge of pain at the mention of children he might never have, given what he’d done to Alys, Elliot picked up her chart. “Lying around is the worst thing you can do. Healthy exercise and diet is the prescription after surgery. You scared us all for nothing.”

  “It wasn’t for nothing. It was for Lucia. Tell me about my grandchildren, Elliot. I can call them grandchildren, can’t I? It’s a trifle awkward to keep calling them my nephew’s children. I think you have to have a wife first, don’t you?”

  “Mame, you aren’t pulling me into this argument. First, the surgery. My love life or lack of it isn’t relevant. Will you please sign the consent form?”

  She regarded him through knowing eyes. “If this is routine surgery, why don’t you have it done?”

  Elliot slid his pen back in the pocket of his medical coat and ran his hand through his hair. “They’ll run tests on me as soon as I know you’re on your way to recovery.”

  Mame beamed and reached for the clipboard with the consent form. “It’s about time you decided to live, young man. Now let’s hope Alys is smart enough to forgive you for your stupidity.”

  Taking the form Mame handed back to him, Elliot feared Alys was smart enough to go on without him. She could be enjoying oceans and sunsets and healthy young men who had decades ahead of them, adventurous souls willing to share their years.

  As she’d pointed out often enough, he was a determined man capable of getting whatever he went after. He could have persuaded her to stay with him, but not at the cost of her happiness.

  If he could keep believing she was laughing somewhere, he’d be fine. He’d lived with a broken heart all his life.

  * * *

  UCLA was an enormous place. Sitting in her shoddy—extremely expensive—hotel room, Alys scanned the pages of numbers in the phone book and located another likely one. She should be out looking for a job. She couldn’t afford to stay in hotels for long. Her orchid needed a good home. She thought she saw a bud forming along one stalk. Hotel windows weren’t sunny enough.

  But she had to find Elliot and Mame before she could move on. She needed to know that Mame would recover. She had to know why Elliot didn’t answer his cell phone.

  Biting a corner of her lip, she dialed still another number. This time, she got the nursing school—and suddenly, all the pieces shifted into place.

  An hour later, she was on the road again. The motel didn’t have bellhops to help her with luggage as the Hilton had, so she’d left her suitcases in the Rover and simply rummaged through them for the best outfit she could find.

  She hadn’t brought any suits with her, but she’d found a pair of gray dress slacks and her all-purpose navy blazer. The silky white blouse with the ruffled V-neck was a little frivolous, but her only other option had been T-shirts and turtlenecks. They might have been suitable for an interview, but she had high hopes of finding Elliot before day’s end.

  Maybe she should have worn a businesslike turtleneck for Elliot. Would he take her seriously then? She really wasn’t a flake, but he’d only had a week to figure that out, and she hadn’t helped him much.

  Thinking of all the sensible, uniformed nurses hanging on to Doc Nice’s every word, Alys chewed her lip and drove a little faster. The weekend was over. He might have flown back to St. Louis to tape his radio show for all she knew. She had to do this for her.

  And she was. This was perfect. Ideal. If she didn’t have enough money in the insurance account to cover her tuition and couldn’t swing any scholarships, she’d work nights. The possibilities were limitless once she had her degree. She might explode with excitement if she thought about it too hard. She’d been blind for so long—

  But now she saw. Smiling at the muddled line from “Amazing Grace,” she followed the navigation system’s directions into the parking lot at UCLA’s medical facilities. Pure happiness spilled through her at the sight of all the modern buildings. She didn’t have the fortitude to be a doctor making life-and-death decisions, but she understood how caring for the spirit healed as much as medicine did. She would be the best nurse the world had ever seen.

  Once she had knowledge, she wouldn’t be helpless anymore.

  Now that she knew the source of her fear, she marched into the antiseptic hospital without an instant of hesitation and asked for the head of nursing who had agreed to speak with her. She felt just like her old self again—confident and assured—and a lot more mature.

  From there, she was sent from office to office, gathering armfuls of information as she went. They showed her options and choices and even other schools, cost packages, and scholarships. With every step, she grew more certain that she could do this. On her own. All she had to do was decide where she wanted to go: here or home. St. Louis had a wonderful nursing school.

  With her course firmly established, she asked the staff how to find a heart patient. Within minutes, she’d located Mame and was on her way to still another medical facility. By this time, she was carrying a canvas bag full of brochures. She clung to them as she took the elevator up to Mame’s room.

  A little over a week ago she had been a shivering wreck taking a similar elevator up to see Mame in a different hospital. If she allowed the panic to creep back in, she could be reduced to that same shivering wreck, but she had a purpose now that she hadn’t before, one outside herself, and that gave her strength.

  She’d been terrified of being left alone again, and she’d let fear control her. But she’d learned from Elliot that knowledge gave her power. She could take command of her life as he had his.

  She ran into Jock drinking coffee in the waiting room. He looked better today, smiling as he recognized her.

  “How is Mame?” she asked eagerly.

  “She sailed through the operation with flying colors,” he boasted proudly. “Mame’s a trouper. I should never have let her get away from me all those years ago.”

  She took a deep breath of relief, letting it flow through her and sink in. After all these days of worrying, it felt good to know that Mame was alive, and with luck would be for many more years. “She had three boys to raise and you had a life to live. It’s good you’ve found each other now. You’ll give her reason to stay healthy.”

  Jock glanced at his coffee cup. “Yeah, I’ve got to give up this stuff if I want to keep up with her. The doc says she can’t have caffeine, and it’s probably not good for me either.”

  “But she can fly balloons when she’s well, can’t she?”

  He beamed. “That, she can. And we will. I got a place out here where she can recover. I’m hoping by the time she’s well, she’ll agree to stay with me.”
>
  Alys raised her eyebrows. “What does Elliot have to say about that?”

  He grinned. “We ain’t told him yet. He’s got enough on his mind right now, so we’re letting him figure it out for himself. Mame’s awake and kicking. Why don’t you run back and see her for yourself?”

  Alys didn’t need to be told twice. Following Jock’s directions, she all but raced down the corridor.

  “I’m not walking around on that thing like an old lady!” a familiar voice cried from behind a partially closed door. “If I can’t walk on my own, I’ll lie here and rot in the bed.”

  Smiling, Alys shoved open the door. Mame stood beside her hospital bed in a long blue robe, her red hair neatly arranged and her makeup adeptly applied. At sight of Alys, she smiled hugely.

  “There you are. Tell this tyrant you’ll lend me your arm, and maybe she’ll take that repellent walker away.”

  Throwing her bag of brochures onto a chair, Alys smiled at the nurse, offered her arm to Mame, and kicked the walker aside with her foot. “I want to be just like you when I grow up, Mame.”

  “You are just like me already. You just don’t know it yet.” With a glare at the nurse, Mame held her head high and proceeded to walk out of the hospital room, one very careful step at a time. “It’s about time you got here. Come along. We’ve some visiting to do.”

  “Mrs. Emerson, you can’t go any farther than the nurse’s desk!” the nurse called after her.

  “Do you believe that?” Mame said sotto voce. “They think I’m old.”

  “Nah, they’re following the rules. I don’t think any patient is supposed to walk much after an operation. Besides, Jock is waiting out there to take you back to your room. What room am I visiting?”

  Mame looked at her through shrewd eyes. “You haven’t fainted yet.”

  “Don’t intend to,” Alys replied cheerfully. Waving at Jock in the waiting room, she halted at the nurse’s desk. “I’ve chosen my future. Now it remains to be seen where I’ll live it.”