He’s spent a lot of time on the idea, Alix thought. She said, “Only Cricket?”
“Just Cricket,” he promised.
2
The first person Alix saw in San Francisco Airport was Vliet. She halted at the end of the portable landing corridor. Her face turned pink. She was back in mountain gloom, the odor of sleep, Vliet on a double bed blowing his nose and whimsically telling terrible truths about her major phobia. Roger, you lied, lied, she thought. Then amended: But Roger never lies. She glanced at him.
He was staring at his twin, the grooves between his eyes coming and going, alternate expressions of joy and bewilderment. For a moment neither brother moved. Years and a continent might have separated them, yet each had remained part of the other’s interior landscape.
Vliet, one hand on the low barricade, vaulted into the crowd, swiveling his way upstream. “Hey, runt. Hey, shorty, hey.” Vliet punched his brother’s arm. “Hey, surprise.”
“Vliet …”
“All you medical students are the same. Overemotional.”
“Two and a half years. What’re you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
Roger socked Vliet, faking, and Vliet hit back. Two tall men clowning. Roger in worn jeans. Vliet’s light hair an impeccable curve touching the collar of his well-tailored jacket.
“Pardon me,” a fat man said, swerving his briefcase around them. All at once Roger hugged his brother, kissing him on both cheeks in the French style. An airport embrace. Awkward. Not quite spontaneous. Yet as they parted, identical pairs of deep-blue eyes were blinking back tears.
After a minute Vliet turned to Alix. She formed a smile. That’s a great smile there, he’d said.
Now he planted a kiss on her forehead. (Nice cologne, she thought, I’m glad Roger doesn’t use cologne. I cannot be with Vliet, I cannot.) “The celebrated waitress,” he said.
(Roger’s eyes have tears. They phone one another all the time, they write. For a few hours I can carry it off.) “The celebrated executive,” she said.
Cricket was calling, and they went through the gate. More hugging. Next to Cricket lounged a tall, actressy brunette: her thin body and large, weary eyes conveyed a type of smoldering, bruised sexuality. Vliet introduced her. RB Henderson.
“For Chrissake,” Vliet said. “You people’re jamming traffic. How can anyone get off the damn plane?”
They started walking. Beyond glass walls jets taxied. Vliet dropped an arm over RB’s shoulder. He said, “A friend of mine—”
“Me,” RB said.
“—has a place that’s not being used. It’s ours for the weekend.”
“In Carmel,” said RB.
“Carmel?” Cricket turned away. “I can’t.”
“Are freebie weekends bad karma?” Vliet asked.
“I have work.”
Vliet pantomimed guffaws.
“I do,” Cricket said.
“This, little cos, is Friday. Nobody works weekends.”
“A batch of film to develop.”
“The Puritan work ethic won’t wash, not for you. So be a good little kid. Quit interrupting.” He ruffled her bright curls.
For a second, misery glimmered on Cricket’s face. The others were too trapped in their own emotions to notice. Except RB. And she, yawning, turned away. They were at the baggage slide.
“Well?” Vliet asked Roger.
Roger reached for a backpack, then turned to Alix. “Sounds good to me,” he said to her.
A weekend? No. Not a weekend. A betrayal. He had promised. No family. Only Cricket, small, harmless Cricket. Vliet knows all about me, Alix thought, Vliet has my number, Vliet surely sides with his parents, the Montagues. Oh God, doubtless Cricket, kinswoman, does, too.
Alix turned to the other outsider. “RB, won’t so much company hassle you?”
“Who’s going to be there?” RB stretched indolently. “Me, I’ve got a six o’clock call tomorrow morning.”
“My friend the starlet,” Vliet said. “The four of us is all. For old times’ sake.” He smiled at Alix.
They both had tears, Alix thought. I can make it. I have to. “For auld lang syne.” she said.
They dropped RB off at the Fairmont. Cricket, for reasons she didn’t explain, lived on the Berkeley side of the bay, and they double-parked in front of an elderly frame house until she emerged lugging a straw satchel.
In the airport parking lot, Roger had whistled at Vliet’s silver Porsche, and Vliet, tossing him the keys, had said, “Be my guest.” Roger drove fast. Warm air blasted through open windows at brothers laughing—Vliet was saying this month he’d been made district manager in Orange County, seven of Van Vliets’ least profitable markets. “Three of them could be closed tomorrow, except for the leases. We’d still have to pay the damn leases.” His half-humorous put-down did not hide his enthusiasm. Cricket curled quiet on the narrow back ledge. Alix, next to her, was taut in every muscle. She was waiting for Vliet to turn in his bucket seat and throw the first stone.
Pastel subdivisions were behind them when she finally looked around. How, Alix wondered, could she have forgotten this ultimate California landscape? Bluer sky, brighter sun, cattle grazing somnolent in pools of shadow from live oaks—trees that were black against lion-brown hills. Then they were tearing across one of the green valleys that feed the country, whizzing by car after glittering new car in which every passenger was tan, youthful. How had she forgotten this fertility and motionless heat, freeways shimmering like great rivers, this land in thrall to a quest for the Fountain of Youth? Here, everything was newborn. Hostage to the future. Alix tried for less literary concepts. Found none. She had missed California a lot.
She was almost at ease when they reached Carmel. “Stop,” Vliet said. A beamed cottage set far back on a brick patio. They went through a comfortable living room to the bedrooms, and Roger set their backpacks in the one with a king-size bed.
“RB’s divorce settlement,” Vliet explained. “Not bad for three unconsummated months. He’s Loomis Henderson, the director.”
On the patio they drank Vliet’s margaritas. “To your new job,” Roger toasted. “Hey, Vliet, why’re you up here?” “To see you,” Vliet answered. Right, right, he’d driven up for the weekend. “That’s a big trip,” Roger said. Vliet, dropping to one knee, flung out both arms. “I’d walk a million miles for one of your scowls, buddeee.” A perfect Jolson. The twins threw back their heads, howling with laughter.
“Now,” Vliet said, “for the real reason we’re gathered together.” He turned to Roger. “Cricket’s got your gizmo.”
“How’d you find out?” Roger demanded.
“Easy. She told me.”
Roger turned to his cousin, “Cricket, how come?”
Vliet asked, “Isn’t that the point?”
“No,” Roger said.
“You’re off your bird. You want it public. Under the circumstances, I’m as public as is available.”
Alix said, “How about letting me in on this?”
Cricket, having dug through raveled straw, held out an old velvet ring box. Roger sat on the end of Alix’s chaise, opening it.
An antique ring. Huge cabochon garnet with a star of diamonds surrounding a pearl. Oh lovely, Alix thought, perfect.
“It belonged to our great-grandmother,” Roger said.
“Whose it now?”
“Yours,” Roger said. “Sort of.”
“Explain sort of.”
He opened his hands.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” she said.
“For that,” Vliet said, “you’d have to know our great-grandmother.”
“A trifle late, yes?”
“Great-grandmama,” Vliet said, “spent her declining years figuring how to take it with her. Finally eliminating that happiest of possibilities, she tied it up so nobody else could have it. Her jewelry—and this was one acquisitive old chick—goes to her female descendants.”
“Whic
h eliminates me.”
Cricket put down her untouched margarita. “Some things were set aside for Grandma Wynan’s branch. Not Mother or Aunt Em, but their female descendants.”
“Until we have a girl,” Roger said, “it’s yours.”
“Cricket’s,” Alix responded. Even the dead in Roger’s family denied her.
“Rather have a new ring?” Roger’s voice was hurt.
He’s gone to monumental trouble for this one minute, she thought. She said quickly, “It’s beautiful.”
“I wanted you to have something that’s family besides me.”
“I love it.”
“You’ll have to have it sized,” Vliet said. “Hey, Roger, remember anything about her?”
“Just she smelled good.”
“She did? Well, she’s reputed to have had these tiny, aristocratic hands.”
“One thing about me,” Alix said, extending her left hand. “Skinny fingers.”
Venus shone in a lavender sky and Roger slid on the ring.
Vliet said, “Welcome to the family, dear Alix.”
Cricket, her plain little face glowing, hugged her.
And Roger put his arms around her. “Sweet, you’re freezing.”
She was. As the ring touched her finger—cold—she had shivered. A nightmare flash. This wasn’t hers, this never would be removed for Roger’s daughter. On some unknown day, in some unthought-of manner, she’d have to give it back. She said, “I better get my sweater.”
Roger went along.
Vliet watched his brother slide the glass door shut, watched as Alix—doubtless thinking them invisible—turned to his brother. Seen through a glass dimly, Vliet thought. I deserve an Emmy. Best supporting actor in a continuing drama. Today’s is a sterling performance. I love her, my brother I love, and there they are. They weren’t kissing. Their bodies were meshed, his legs around hers, his shoulders curving about her: he seemed to be protecting her. There was intense passion about the embrace without any of the thrashing contortions that generally reward a Peeping Tom. Depression overpowered Vliet. Normal, he thought, under the circumstances. He forgot his friend-and-brother role. He let his face relax.
Cricket, who had been watching him, looked away.
3
A few minutes later they emerged, Alix buttoning a lemon cardigan.
“It’s my dinnertime,” Vliet said.
Alix said, “We better get some food.”
“Out,” Vliet said. “It’s celebration time.”
“On me,” Roger said.
“On me,” Vliet said. “Where?”
Alix turned to Cricket. “Didn’t you work here one time, in a health-food place?”
That Cricket had worked in Carmel, that she had lived with a group, never had been secret. Only her son had been secret. This is inevitable, she thought.
A quiet hubbub of year-round regulars filled the patio, Vliet pointed to a free table, and Cricket trailed after the others. Candlelight flickered on handwoven napkins (her son had been wrapped in one) that were heavy with sea damp.
Orion, behind the antique brass register, saw her. He frowned. She remembered his worry over the unexpected. Then his face melted into pleasure. He hurried over. His chest and shoulders had filled out, and his pale beard, though still scraggly, no longer was tentative. He grasped both her hands.
“See? Father Genesis was right. You’re back.”
She pulled away. “For a weekend.”
“That’s all?”
“All,” she said. And introduced the others.
When—at last—Orion went to give their order, Vliet leaned forward, saying in a stage whisper, “Everyone catch that? The boy’s ape for our Cricket.”
A customer hurried by, almost dousing the candle. Cricket protected the flame with her hand. She rarely talked about herself. Who was interested? Other than Caroline. Caroline would inquire eagerly, “Anyone new, luv?” There had been seven—no, eight others—since Vliet. The longest tenure belonged to the most recent—Carl Werkhausen, a gentle, round-shouldered Berkeley linguistics major—it had ended only a few days ago. She still lived in Carl’s place, she still liked him. She liked all of them. And it was this continuing affection that disturbed Cricket. How could she be willing to lend this one a ten, be able to introduce that one to a girl? For her, sex (invariably fine) was a gold coin disappearing in a deep lake, leaving wider ripples of the original friendship. Any older woman, hearing of this, must be shocked. Caroline, secretly, was. To Cricket—unclouded by value judgments—her ability to remain friends was simply a bad sign, the final proof that misery, excitement, and love still centered on Vliet. A loves B who loves C who loves D, she thought. Hopefully C and D will live happily ever after.
Eggplants and quiches arrived, huge portions bubbling with cheese and giving off a steam of garlic. Alix leaned toward Roger. “I don’t have a knife,” she said. “They don’t use them here,” Cricket said, and a passing waiter remarked, “Knives are weapons.”
Alix, Roger, and Vliet shared glances.
They ate hungrily. “Crazy as loons,” Vliet said. “But man, can they cook!”
People Cricket knew came to welcome her.
“Where’s Magnificat?” she inquired. “Our women don’t work anymore. They stay home,” Orion answered. He laid the check down. Vliet and Roger grabbed. Roger won. “No charge?” he said.
Orion gave Roger his worried smile. “It’s, you know, for Cricket.” He pressed red-knuckled hands on the table. “Come on Sunday,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said. “Is Genesis around?”
“In back,” Orion said, glancing at the other three. “He wants for you to bring everyone.”
Cricket thanked him again. “Okay to talk to him?”
Orion stacked plates. “Tonight he’s not one with the world,” he apologized.
She was surprised. Always Genesis had been their gray-bearded pivotal point, his deep voice tying them with comforting orders: Except for those few terrible days, he’d always been at one with their world.
The four decided to stroll off their organic dinner. At a pretty little Ocean Avenue shop, Alix paused to turn a revolving paperback rack. Roger, arms clasped around her waist, his body pressed to her back, watched the titles.
Vliet and Cricket continued along the narrow brick sidewalk.
“Even if the boy’s ape about you, that bunch give me goose pimples,” Vliet said.
“Why?”
“Why? Don’t you get the resemblance? Really, I swear to God, it’s old Charlie Manson revisited.”
The bricks had sunk. Cricket stepped cautiously. “When I lived here, nobody had heard of the Mansons.”
“Okay. But there’s a point here. Cricket, believe me, counterculture isn’t necessarily better culture.”
“I know it, Vliet. You don’t have to think you’re playing iconoclast.”
A fat man was smirking up at Vliet and down at Cricket. Vliet fixed him with a superior Van Vliet look. The man turned his bullet neck, hurrying by.
“I love it when you put in those five-buck words. Someday you’ll have to tell me how you know these freaks.” Vliet ran a friendly hand across her shoulders. She stepped away. “Listen,” he said. “Father Geritol, or whatever he calls himself when he’s in this world, I bet he believes he’s the Second Coming. And what’s with this segregating women just for sex?”
“No sex,” Cricket said.
“None?”
“Well, for having babies.”
“You’re kidding! Should I kneel or something? For procreative purposes!”
They walked a couple of minutes.
When Vliet spoke again, his voice was sober. “You see only the good, little cos. But Christ! Can you imagine Ma or Caroline living with a bunch like this? Creeping around in whites, talking about cutlery as weapons? Maybe they aren’t Mansons, but this is a cult. A cult. C-U-L-T. Caroline and Gene would file joint heart attacks if they knew you’d lived in a place like this.”
The reason she’d lived here—procreative purposes—made her walk faster. He kept up.
“That’s what’s wrong with today’s setup,” he said. “Some young people assume that any group who live other than the normal life-style belong in the Greater Galilee area.”
“You eat one dinner, and—”
“And get that murderous glint out of your eye, Cricket. I’m worried about you.” He looked down at her. Concerned. If Vliet were concerned, the handsome, whimsical face got an expression that charmed. And was meant to charm.
“It’s not necessary.”
“They want you back.”
“No,” she said, “they don’t.”
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why so?” he asked, pulling down the corners of his mouth.
“I’m not.”
“You can tell old Vliet.”
She was silent.
“What sort are they?”
“Mostly middle class, like us.”
“Not me, not like me. And what does that mean—mostly?”
“Before, Genesis was sort of wild.”
“Hairy wild?”
“I guess,” she said.
“Sunday’s out.”
“I have to.” They stopped at a red light. “Genesis, he was … very good to me … helped me a lot.” The light changed. They crossed. She asked, “Let me have the Porsche. I’ll only be a couple of hours.”
“No.”
“Please, Vliet?”
“If you remember, I was invited.”
“You’ll go?”
“Not willingly.” The smile went up on one side, and the lower lip, the tender lower lip, moved forward in the center. “I don’t trust you in their clutches is all.”
4
Indian summer and Carmel Valley sweltered, but cool shadows filled the north side of the porch. Here, on Chinese boards worn silky, sat Cricket, Alix, Roger, Vliet, and Orion. Genesis had not put in an appearance. The Select came and went. There were over twice as many as the last time Cricket had been here, maybe eighty, with a ratio of three women to each man, plus an even half dozen babies under a year old. Cricket’s friends relinquished their monastic calm, hugging her. And Magnificat, redheaded Magnificat, Cricket’s old roomie, was saying with dignified pride, “Now I’m Mother Magnificat. Father Genesis and I were married May first.” Cricket kissed her friend, since May elevated to the blessèd.
Rich Friends Page 33
