She stops. Breathes deep. Lenny worries she’s about to cry.
‘Father,’ she intones. ‘When I heard him — My whole life up ’til then, it’s like he looked right into it and saw how empty it was. Not just the guys and drugs, but me, the way I used those things to keep from caring about the world. I mean … there’s little black babies getting their toes eaten by rats, and here I am high every day and dreaming about Hawaii?’ She flicks her hair off her face, a prissy gesture at odds with her heavy words. ‘It’s not easy to hear you’re selfish. Shit, I figured anything I did had to be better than living for straight society. But either way, I was avoiding enlightenment. True loving connection. My purpose in this life as a committed and compassionate human being.’
Lenny can’t help being drawn in by something zealous in her face, the halo of her blond hair, the fact that she believes everything she’s saying. There’s a freckle at the corner of her lip. He likes it.
‘We’re nothing if we’re not connected. Working together as human beings for some greater good. I never realized that’s what I was missing ’til I saw all these people brought together by Father’s love to fight against prejudice and poverty. To feel that kinda love, truly selfless, when you’ve only known ego and exploitation …’ Her voice coils high and wistful. ‘… It’s like coming to an ocean in the middle of the desert. It gives a whole new perspective: on friendship, relationships. How important it is to surround ourselves with people who can be trusted to see past the surface.’
There’s a space between her breasts where the wool of her sweater pools like spilled milk. Lenny likes this, too. He likes those round, soft swellings, the way looking at them makes his mind feel just as soft. It’s this softness he’s thinking of when she fixes him with a pout.
‘I want you as a friend, Lenny Lynden, but only if you’re a guy I can trust.’
5.
On a fine blue December morning, a white family in an old white station wagon stops outside the white ranch-style house on Vine Street. The sun is almost at full height, highlighting the water stains on the windshield as Reverend Thomas Burne squints beyond it. He sees a white cat stalking across the lawn, away from a pair of screaming toddlers. Another toddler spins in dizzy circles and collapses. A baby looks on stoically from a plastic swing.
‘Congratulations. Looks like you’re grandparents now,’ Sally-Ann, his youngest, pipes up from the back seat.
‘I don’t think this is the place.’ Vicky, his second-born, sits forward, bookmarking her Wide Sargasso Sea with a Women Strike For Peace flier. ‘Looks like a daycare or something.’
Rev. Burne’s moustache droops as he frowns. ‘Care to ring the doorbell and see?’
‘Um, no thanks. You go ahead, Dad.’
‘I second that.’ His wife Margaret grins, cheekbones flushed apple-like. ‘Tom, you need to stretch your legs.’
‘Ditto. Women’s vote,’ Sally-Ann sing-songs.
‘Well … who am I to argue with democracy.’
Rev. Burne’s daughters have an impulse to giggle as he unpacks his lanky body and traverses the toy-strewn yard, careful as a stork. Instead, Vicky scrutinizes her book. ‘Mr. Rochester is a creep.’
‘I never liked him.’ Margaret grimaces. ‘Call me unromantic, but that moody-broody act does nothing for me.’
Rev. Burne raps on the door of the white house. Sally-Ann gives a low whistle as it peels open and a dodo-shaped middle-aged woman steps onto the porch. ‘Gee, Evie has sure packed on the pounds.’
‘Sal!’ Margaret cries. But her youngest daughter’s joke has taken her by surprise and she’s snickering like a schoolgirl, eyes watering under her round sunglasses. Sally-Ann and Vicky exchange glances as she dabs a tear. ‘Oh — Don’t laugh! — Girls.’
‘Mom’s leaking again.’ Sally-Ann smirks.
‘Better call the plumber.’ Vicky rolls her eyes. ‘Seriously, Mom? It’s not that funny.’
‘It’s not funny!’ Margaret agrees. ‘Just you wait till you’re my age and shedding tears at the drop of a—’
‘Looks like Evie got a perm, too.’ Sally-Ann peers out at the dodo woman. ‘And some gray highlights. Motherhood has really matured her.’
This sets Margaret off anew, and soon the car is humid with cry-laughter. ‘You know, I can’t even imagine Evie and Lenny with kids,’ Vicky says.
‘Lenny.’ Margaret sighs. ‘He’s still such a boy. I hope Evie isn’t cracking the whip too hard.’
‘This is so weird,’ Sally-Ann gripes. ‘Who even is that lady?’
They watch Rev. Burne and the dodo woman exchange gestures. Rev. Burne takes a slip of paper from her and dips his balding head, makes as if to go. Out of nowhere, the dodo woman reaches over and plants a kiss on his cheek.
‘Far-out, Mom! You’ve got competition.’
‘And I didn’t even bring my dueling pistol.’ Margaret tilts her face upward as Rev. Burne re-enters the station wagon. ‘Hello, darling. I see you’ve found an admirer.’
‘I suppose so.’ Rev. Burne blushes. ‘Nice lady from Lafeyette … Indiana. One of those “Peoples Temple” members. She had a Korean baby,’ he adds curiously. ‘We’ve got a few miles to go yet. They’ve moved to a cabin, apparently.’
‘Evie in a cabin?’ Margaret sighs, shakes her head. ‘She’s full of surprises, our girl.’
The tires are just a whisper on the dirt road, but the black-and-white dog hears everything. He bounds ahead, barking rabidly, and his mistress doesn’t bother calling him back. A squirrel, perhaps, or some kind of bird. Last night she and Jim heard screech owls. The cabin comes into view, and Picnic’s barks become shallower. Something slams in the distance. Her chest splinters like glass, target-practice milk bottles in the woods. She freezes in her boots, bloodlessly gripping her .22. Then, scrutinizing the movement through the trees, a pang of recognition:
Oh! MomandDad.
Evelyn has always been thin, but what strikes the Burnes most seeing their firstborn daughter emerge from the bushes is how her clothes swamp her body — the clunky boots and long plaid skirt and chunky sweater. Her whole appearance somehow diminished, in fact, cringing and shadowy, as if she’s trying to hide not only what’s in her hands but her heart. With a slithery feeling, they realize what she’s holding. Sally-Ann cracks a joke about cabins and shotguns. Margaret shuffles forward, mouth o-ed. ‘A gun, Evie?’
‘It’s for self-defense.’ As Evelyn steps closer the sunlight brings the shadows on her face into full relief. ‘There’ve been reports of prowlers from the highway.’
‘Prowlers?’ Margaret reaches to touch her under-eye. ‘You mean — somebody came and did — this?’
‘Oh, no, that was my fault.’ Evelyn gives a rusty little laugh. ‘I hit my face on the car door. You know how clumsy I get when I don’t have my morning coffee. Speaking of which.’
She throws her head toward the cabin and invites them in. Rev. Burne frowns as she mounts the porch, rifle tucked under her arm. ‘Lenny, he’s okay with … that weapon?’
‘Don’t let Picnic in. He’s covered in dust.’ The screen door yelps as Evelyn tugs it open and continues conversationally, ‘He was named by some children who found him on a church picnic. Our church has an impressive animal rescue program. Since September we’ve found homes for thirty-six animals that would’ve otherwise been euthanized.’
Though the hall is narrow and rustic, it’s also tidy and reverently decorated with art and family photos. ‘When I saw that bruise …’ Margaret tells Evelyn’s nape. ‘We worry, Evie.’
‘Honestly? It looks worse than it is.’ Tucking back a loose strand, Evelyn’s fingers brush over her rose earring. She motions her family into the kitchen and taps the rifle’s handle. ‘Have a seat. I’ll put this away and freshen up.’
‘About that …’ Rev. Burne tries again. ‘I never want to tell you girls how to live, but I had hop
ed, growing up in a pacifist household—’
For the first time since their arrival, Evelyn meets her father’s gaze, arms crossed and brows blandly raised. ‘It’s only a .22. Practically a children’s rifle.’ She smiles faintly and rolls her eyes. ‘Everybody keeps firearms around these parts. It’s just for show.’
‘All guns cause harm, Evelyn … And I’ve never known you to do anything simply because everybody else is.’
This is such a typically Rev. Burne thing to say that Evelyn has an urge to roll her eyes again. Instead, she looks to her mother, whose face is soft with concern, and her sisters, who mostly just look curious. ‘You’re right,’ she sighs and holds the rifle out to him, horizontal in surrender. ‘I suppose I just got caught up in the hysteria. Here. Take it away.’
Rev. Burne shakes his head. ‘There’s no need for that. I trust you’ll do what’s right.’
He gives the crook of her arm a squeeze, in lieu of a hug; his firstborn daughter doesn’t like being hugged, and he respects her need for distance. She nods and lifts her gray eyes to his, lowers them and turns back down the hall. That bruise. It bothers him. More than he can say.
In Evelyn’s absence, the Burnes seat themselves at the dining table, Margaret resisting the urge to get up and make the coffee herself. ‘It’s nicer than a typical cabin,’ she says. ‘The way she’s done it up. It’s almost how I pictured she might’ve lived in France.’ Sally-Ann plucks a lemon from the fruit bowl, sings, ‘They call me mellow yellow …’ Vicky needs to pee. ‘It does surprise me that Lenny would agree to keeping a firearm,’ Rev. Burne muses. ‘Well, it’s not as if we were ever in doubt of who the decision-maker is in that relationship,’ Margaret rejoins. Vicky creeps back in, brown cords rustling like leaves.
‘Evie’s on the phone,’ she reports. ‘It looked kind of … intense.’
‘She better be telling Lenny to get his butt over here.’ Sally-Ann rolls the lemon between her palms.
Soon enough, Evelyn floats back into the kitchen, her bruise freshly powdered and her sweater exchanged for a chic cowl-neck blouse. She looks both more and less like herself than before, her eyes strangely veiled, high color in her cheeks. Margaret asks how Lenny is, and Evelyn says, ‘Him? Oh, fine,’ and shrugs with one shoulder. She busies herself at the stove with the coffee and carries on, ‘We’re expecting large numbers at our service tomorrow. Last week we had over three hundred. I know Dad will be working, but if you want to stay on, Mom, or even just Vicky and Sally-Ann, you’re most welcome. People come from Sacramento and even further to hear Reverend Jones speak. He’s truly a sensation.’
‘I’m afraid this overworked unenlightened housewife already committed to cooking a feast for a dozen seminary students tonight. And Vicky has a date, rumor has it.’
‘Well. You’ll meet Reverend Jones soon enough.’ Evelyn angles away from the stove. ‘He’s on his way now. He wants to meet you very much, and I want you to meet him.’ Her voice dips, dreamily deliberate. ‘You should know: Jim has become very important to me.’
6.
Lenny has a friend and her name is Terra. She works with him at the Silver State, hired on the spot to waitress five to midnight. He sees her early in her first shift through the serving hatch, shadowing a larger girl with a face like a speckled egg and dressed in the same Western getup, all ruffle and bodice. She wears the outfit well, hair in two braids on top of her head. He registers her appearance as a minor annoyance and resolves not to look through the hatch again.
But other guys in the kitchen do.
‘Did you get a load of Barbarella waiting tables?’
‘Mannn! Dig the jugs on that little blonde!’
‘Oh, baby, you’re makin’ me thirsty!’
He tries to lose himself in the usual thoughts of space and swirling water, but it’s as if there’s a mosquito constantly buzzing around him, settling on his skin, agitating his blood. Scoffing his free steak dinner in the break-room, he finds himself worrying about Terra out on the restaurant floor, those comments like the snarling of wolves. And yet, exciting.
Because guys never talked that way about Evelyn. Did they?
Time passes slowly, intrusively, a clunking thing of heat and metal. For the first time since he started at the Silver State, Lenny is aware of the Lee and Nancy duets playing in the dining area. He’s aware of the locker-room-like confinement of the kitchen, and that just outside these confines, girls in uniforms are bending over for tips, smiling, taking orders. He’s aware of those same girls butterflying past the kitchen at closing, when he still has an hour’s worth of dishes left, then coming back the way they went in sweaters, jeans, sheepskin coats.
‘Pssst! Lenny! ’ Terra sticks her head into the steaming space. ‘I’ll wait for you out there, ’kay?’ She beams. ‘I made thirty dollars in tips!’
As soon as she’s gone, the guys are on him, eyes aglitter with hungry contempt.
‘Dude, you know her?’
‘How’d you know that babe?’
‘You fucking pussy! You know her?’
‘Yeah,’ Lenny stumbles out. ‘She’s my friend.’
Saying it makes it true, in a way he never would’ve expected when he woke that morning with a hard-on for Evelyn and dreading his lunch date. And squelching out at one a.m. to find her waiting in the dark among the overturned chairs and cowboy kitsch, there it is again: My friend. She’s reading to the glow of the aquarium, but as soon as she sees him she shuts her book and bounds over, unfazed by the lurking kitchen crew. ‘Have you read this? The Feminine Mystique?’ She links her arm with his. ‘Sister Joya lent it to me. She said it changed her life.’
Before Lenny can say anything about the ubiquity of that little red book among the girls at Davis, they’re at the back door and Wile E. is holding it open, glowing eyes on Terra. ‘Hey there, Miss America … You like to get high?’
‘Sorry,’ Terra says, in that blithely polite tone Lenny is sure all girls must learn, along with how to hook up a bra. ‘I’m high on Jesus.’
She doesn’t look at Lenny, but the triumph in her profile, the feel of her arm against his, it’s enough. He barely hears the jeers as they walk to the car, barely thinks of the high she just passed up. ‘Hey, I know it’s out of your way, but could we drive under the arch, real quick? I wanna see it all lit up.’
‘Sure.’ Lenny opens up the station wagon.
‘And over the river? I bet it looks groovy at night.’
The exhaustion is just a fuzz behind his forehead as he tweaks and glides through the backstreets and onto Virginia, its topaz and ruby inferno, ice-slick and lined with empty cars, its smoke shops and glitter fountains and nine-foot-tall Primadonna girls. Terra toys with the radio and marvels in that flat-sultry drone. ‘… It’s like Christmas. How it looked as a kid, I mean? Before you’re old enough to know it’s all just white capitalist bullshit.’ At her fingertips, Motown turns to bluegrass, bluegrass to ‘Hey Jude’. ‘… I mean, the valley is beautiful, but something about this place? It gets my heart beating. I guess — I could be happy here.’
This is unexpected, but it takes Lenny some moments to figure why. He slows the station wagon as they pass under the arch and her face really does look like a little girl’s on Christmas morning. ‘You mean … you could be happy without the Temple?’
‘Oh!’ Terra looks stricken. ‘Well, I … The Temple is the best thing that ever happened to me, Lenny! And you …’ She fumbles across the shift for his fingers. ‘I just mean … I think these next couple weeks together here could be full of happiness.’
Lenny glances at her small hand curled over his, her short, buffed fingernails. He thinks of Evelyn’s white hands, her oval fingernails with the pointed tips. He doesn’t want to be rude, but he also doesn’t want to pretend they’re the same. He pulls his hand away and stifles a yawn. They cross the bridge in silence, the Truckee just a gutter-like trickle
below.
‘Father wants you to be happy,’ Terra speaks up. ‘So does your wife. She told me.’
It’s the first time Lenny has thought of Evelyn and Terra together. He says nothing as he turns the car to face the neon treasure trove across the river. ‘You can talk about her, if it helps,’ Terra offers. ‘I don’t mind at all. Maybe it would help us both?’
Lenny hopes she can’t see him cringe in the dark. ‘I only met her once,’ Terra goes on. ‘I heard you met at college?’ She toys with the hem of her sweater. ‘I got into USC, if you can believe it. Daddy wanted me to be a lawyer, too. My mind’s kinda fucked-up now; not as quick, I mean, and I can’t read for a long time. But I’m totally committed to getting an education.’
There’s something so tragic about this that Lenny can only smile feebly and say, ‘I know.’ He’s thinking of the redneck kids in Jim Jones’s night classes, the un-with-it housewives, the black folks learning to read at seventy, but also of where he came from: that mansion in the Berkeley Hills, with its bay views and laurel trees and kidney-shaped swimming pool. That studious boy’s bedroom, encyclopedia shelves and M.C. Escher print overhanging the bed where so often he’d wake from hot dreams drenched in shame. Sons should be chaste like daughters, wasn’t that what Dr. Lynden said? And: Sons and daughters should spend three hours a night on study, minimum. His older brother, Ned, at Harvard. His older sister Beth, Cambridge. His mother always with a fat Russian novel in one hand and a long cigarette in the other.
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