by Glen Huser
For a minute I think she’s going to wake up, but then she starts snoring again. Whew.
The kilometers slip away under the tires of the red Buick, bringing me closer and closer to Vancouver and Jude Law Model Man. “The camera will love you.” I think of him saying that to me. And I think of how awful it would have been to be born without good bone structure.
I imagine Jude taking my picture from a hundred different angles in the modeling studio with its gilt-edged mirrors and flowing draperies, potted palms and furniture that looks like it might have belonged to French kings back in the days before they got their heads chopped off.
The Wrinkle Queen sleeps right through to Mount Robson.
“Pull in to a gas station here,” she mutters, half awake. “We’ll fill up and I need to use a washroom again.”
I can see that she’s cranky as a hornet trapped on a windowsill.
Yes, Vancouver, I think.
But first there’s Seattle. Somehow I’m going to have to live through that.
20
The car seat is cramping me.
“We’ll stop for the night in Kamloops,” I tell Skinnybones. “I need to lie down.”
When she helps me out of the car, I feel like I’m going to collapse, even with my hands riveted to the walker. In fact, I start to go down and she grabs me and holds me from behind.
“Take a deep breath,” she says, and I hear a little bit of fear in her voice.
The motel has a picnic table sitting in a patch of brown grass by the parking lot. She gets me over to a seat there and then finds the cigarillos in my purse. The flask of brandy, too. It takes a few minutes before I feel like I’m not going to topple over.
There’s a woman watching us from the door of the motel office.
“Tell her to come over here. I’m not going to try to get my walker into that roadside closet.”
The woman comes out reluctantly.
“If you just come into the office...” She has that kind of graying hair made frizzy that a whole breed of middle-aged women seem to embrace.
“As you can see, mobility is somewhat difficult,” I tell her. She’s gone slack-jawed. “I’ll thank you to take my credit card, make an imprint, and then bring the receipt out here for me to sign.”
“How many nights?”
I can’t help a little laugh that emerges as more of a snort. Would anyone stay longer than one night in a place like this?
“Just overnight,” Tamara says.
“Where you folks headed?” Frizzy asks, eyeing the credit card.
“To Vancouver.” Tamara walks with her back to the office. “My grandma and I...” The rest of the story is lost as the screen door bangs shut.
It’s Skinnybones who brings the bill back out for my signature.
“She needed to know our home address and I couldn’t remember what yours was so I gave her Shirl and Herb’s.”
The motel room is as cold as a morgue.
“My god, Tamara, turn off that air-conditioning or I’ll perish.” It’s a hideous room with what looks like paint-by-number sad clowns on the wall, a chipped arborite counter with a TV set and an ice bucket. There are cigarette burns on the bed quilt.
“I asked for a smoking room,” Tamara says. She’s got the TV on, of course, flicking from channel to channel. I lie down and close my eyes. She has sense enough to turn the sound right down so it’s only a murmur, almost soothing.
Is this how it’s going to be every day? My legs aching, my balance gone, energy pressed from my body? I wonder if Byron is lying on a beach in the Philippines right now. Sun beating down on him. No aches or pains.
If it’s going to be this hard, maybe I’m not meant to get to Seattle. Is there only so much music one is allowed in a lifetime?
“Tamara.” My voice sounds like it’s being dragged over sandpaper. “Bring me my purse. I’m going to take a couple of Tylenol.”
They ease the aches but they don’t help me sleep. One of the curses of old age — sleeping during the day, being awake all night. Tamara is tired, though. After we’ve had a bite to eat, she falls asleep watching TV.
“Get into bed,” I say. “We’ll get up early in the morning. It’s still a ways to go, you know. And the Coquihalla Highway can be a challenge. Even if it’s the middle of the summer, there can still be sleet and you can expect fog on those high mountain passes.”
She’s still tired in the morning when we turn in the key. A man — Frizzy-hair’s husband? — is at the door of the office, yawning. He’s in an undershirt and dirty suspendered trousers. Balefully he watches us as we ease the Buick out onto the main road.
“Don’t pay him any mind, Tamara. One of Alberich’s minions. Mindlessly mining gold.”
It doesn’t take long to get into the heights. Then it begins to rain. Large trucks throw up a spray, blinding the windshield.
“Keep the wipers on, girl.” I don’t mean to be screaming at her but I am.
I think about plugging another tape into the player, but the time doesn’t seem right. We’re on the top of the world, in with the rain while it’s still in the clouds. There are actually tears streaming down Skinnybones’ cheeks but I’m not sure she even realizes she’s crying. She’s gripping the steering wheel like it’s the wheel of life, the ring of the universe.
As we get closer to Hope, the rain stops and the sun comes out.
“Let’s stop in Hope and have some breakfast,” I say.
She doesn’t argue.
I pat her hand as we wait for our scrambled eggs.
“You’ve got fortitude,” I say. “It takes guts to drive the Coquihalla when the road is disappearing into the clouds. I’m sure, at one point, I saw the rainbow bridge the gods used to enter Valhalla.”
“The castle of gods and fallen heroes?”
“That’s the one.” Steam rises from our breakfast platters, carrying with it the warm buttery smell of the toast.
“The next challenge will be driving through Vancouver. Now, the good thing is it’ll be early afternoon when we get there.” I slather the toast with marmalade. “Not rush hour.”
When we get onto the long stretch of valley road, I tell her a bit of the story of the second opera, Die Walküre. The love story of Siegmund and Sieglinde and the magic sword Wotan has left for Siegmund in a tree. Skinnybones doesn’t seem too interested but she perks up a bit when I get to the part about Sieglinde being married already, and the discovery of the lovers that they are actually brother and sister.
“Incest set to music,” she observes.
It’s smooth driving now, and the music in this act is beautiful beyond belief. It’s probably a good thing that Act Two, with Brunnhilde and the walküres riding through the sky, is loud, rousing music, or we’d both be falling asleep.
“Are we getting close to Vancouver?” she asks as the tape goes silent, switching to the other side.
“That was Abbotsford we just passed. Less than an hour now.”
How many years is it since I first drove this road? That summer — 1959? 1960? — when I bought my first Buick and I drove Mama to the coast for a holiday. The year before she died. That was before they built the Coquihalla, and we’d driven the Fraser Canyon road to get to this stretch.
In a way, my fingers itch to feel the arc of the steering wheel beneath them. The power of metal churned to life, the exhilaration of hurtling over asphalt. Mama loved it, too. I think both of us made some little walküre cries as we careened along cliffs, and Hell’s Gate boiled below us.
21
The Wrinkle Queen’s gone off her rocker, doing little whoopee singalongs to the walküres’ shrieks as they gallop — get this — through the sky. The last time she saw the Ring, she tells me, they were on plastic horses suspended by superstrength fishing line, breezing across the Seattle stage.
How did I manage to end up driving along the road from hell with a madwoman?
My own private Miss Havisham.
She’s lost in thought now
as the skyline of Vancouver appears.
“Do we have to go through Vancouver? Couldn’t we go around it somehow?”
“I always go through Vancouver on my way to Seattle,” she snaps. “It’s how I always go.”
So there are other roads, I think. But it’s probably too late now.
“Have you got your map?” I ask her.
“You just need to follow the highway signs,” she says. But she does pull a map out of the glove compartment.
In a few minutes we’re on a gigantic bridge with wall-to-wall traffic, never mind that it’s not rush hour. It’s traffic that’s rushing somewhere, all going way too fast.
“You need to be in the curb lane to exit,” the Wrinkle Queen says.
“How can I get over there if there’s no break in the traffic?”
“Turn your bloody blinker on!”
She rolls down her window, sticks her scrawny arm out and begins frantically waving her hand. About twenty cars are honking their horns at us.
“There’s a break,” she screeches. “That minivan is letting us in.”
I move over.
We’re off the bridge but I think we’re going north. Toward the mountains.
“Isn’t Seattle south?” I say. We’re on another bridge now.“For God’s sake, weren’t you watching the signs? We need to get over to Number 99.”
“Pardon me, but I was watching the road.” We’re on a highway that makes you drive a long way before you can turn around. About half an hour later we’re on the same bridge going south.
“There’s the highway sign,” the Wrinkle Queen says. “Just stay on this until we get to the Lougheed...”
It takes about an hour to get through Vancouver. We even have to go through a tunnel that seems to go under the city forever.
“Keep your left blinker on!” she yells at me. “That way people can tell where the edge of your car is.”
They still honk their horns at me, though. Maybe it’s a B.C. thing.
When we get through the tunnel and outside Vancouver, she tells me to find a place to gas up where there’s a restaurant. After what we’ve been through so far today, I feel like I might need a sugar fix, but I order a Perrier. Once we’ve told the waitress what we want to eat, the Wrinkle Queen makes a beeline for the bathroom, and she’s in there so long I finally go looking for her. I can see her red shoes in the crack beneath a cubicle door.
“Miss Barclay?”
“Thought I’d better have a couple of sips of brandy,” she says, banging her walker into the stall door as she comes out. “It’s going to be me driving for a while until we cross the border.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” she snaps. “I don’t even know if they allow fifteen-year-olds to drive in the state of Washington. We can’t take any chances.”
So there she is with her claws glued to the steering wheel as we pass the Peace Arch. She barely comes up as high as the dash, and the official at the crossing booth looks down at her in amazement. She gives him one of her big lipsticked smiles and hands over her passport.
“Purpose of your visit?” he says.
“Pleasure,” she croons. “I’m taking my granddaughter to see the Ring Cycle of operas in Seattle.”
He’s not happy that I don’t have a passport, but he waves us through.
We drive a few miles past the crossing booths and she pulls over, groaning.
“I hate my legs,” she cries. “Just reaching the pedals has given me pain I didn’t know was possible.”
I help her around the car to the passenger seat and, when she gets settled, she drains the last of her mickey of Courvoisier and pops some Tylenol.
Needless to say, she’s asleep before we reach Bellingham, the first big town on the road. In fact she sleeps all the way to Seattle. When we reach the outskirts, though, I pull into a gas station. You’d think this would wake her up but it doesn’t. I still have to pat her hand a couple of times.
“Where are we?” she croaks, her eyes suddenly wide and frightened.
“Seattle. But we need to look at the map to figure out where we’re going.”
The gas station has a cafe, and we spread the map out on one of the tables.
“We’re here.” The Wrinkle Queen taps one of her scarlet nails on the map. “And we’re staying at Pagliacci’s Bed and Breakfast.” She flags the waitress and asks to borrow her pen. “It’s not hard to get to.” She traces the route. Her hand isn’t very steady and the line looks like wool that’s unraveled.
I memorize the places I need to turn.
“Okay, test me,” I say. “I don’t want Vancouver happening all over again.”
“I told you to follow the signs.”
“Yeah. That really worked.”
I only make one wrong turn, and it’s easy to go into a keyhole, turn around and get back onto the right road.
The Wrinkle Queen seems to be sucking in energy from Seattle. No chance of her drifting off to sleep. Her head with its smushed black hairdo is turning this way and that, and she’s chattering like one of those talking dolls.
“Yes. We’re getting close now. There’s the Space Needle. And the opera house. Just a block or two now.”
When I find the bed and breakfast, she’s practically leaping out of her seat. We’re on a semicircular driveway in front of what looks like an old walk-up apartment building. It’s covered with pink stucco and looks like a dried-up birthday cake. It even has those little white Christmas lights on a kind of fancy iron fence on the top of the building.
There’s a man at the front door waving at us. His bald head shines beneath the porch light. He’s wearing a shirt that looks like it’s covered with big red poppies, some cut-off jeans and sandals.
Maybe when you have a beer belly that big, you quit worrying about what you look like.
Miss Barclay has the window rolled down.
“Ricardo!” she calls out. “We’re here!”
22
“Ricardo!”
“Jean!” he says and stoops to give me a hug. He’s wearing some kind of after-shave that smells like vanilla, and I remember it, the vanilla.
“Where’s Bernard?” There were always the two of them. Ricardo trying his best to look like a Mexican houseboy, Bernard looking like he’d just put aside his newspaper at some posh men’s club.
“He’s gone.” Ricardo clasps my hand. “We lost him last November.”
I give his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry.”
Skinnybones is standing at the back of the Buick, trying to disappear into the shadows of a holly hedge.
“Meet my companion.” I beckon to her. “Tamara, this is Ricardo. Runs the best bed and breakfast in Seattle.”
Ricardo is a hugger, and he enfolds Skinnybones.
“Hardly anything to hang onto here. We’ll remedy that with a few good Pagliacci breakfasts.”
Tamara mumbles something, but I don’t think it’s actually words.
“I’ve saved the Butterfly Room for you,” Ricardo says as he helps me in. “When you told me about your surgeries, I thought — something on the main floor. I know you used to prefer the Parcival Parlor on the third but, as you know, we don’t have an elevator. I was always after Bernard to get one installed. Now maybe I’ll just do it myself and, if you come next year, you can be back there with the swords and the grail.”
“The Butterfly Room will be just fine,” I tell him.
Of course, it’s more than fine with its little Japanese lamps, decorative fans on the walls, some pieces of antique, lacquered oriental furniture, and bedspreads that look like they’ve been fashioned from the kimonos of geishas.
Ricardo pushes a button on the radio, and the flower duet from Madame Butterfly fills the room like filtered light. I grab his arm, and he helps me to a chair.
Skinnybones has headed out for the rest of the bags.
“How would you and Tamara like a bite of supper?” he says. “I know this is a bed and breakfast, but f
or special guests I’ve been known to put together a suppertray. Some pâté, pickled artichokes, fruit. Coffee. It would be my pleasure.”
Ricardo, Ricardo, I think we need you at the Triple S ranch.
“Do you have any Courvoisier?”
“All this and Courvoisier, too!” He laughs as he leaves.
“He’s a bit...gay,” Skinnybones says, dragging in her suitcase.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well...you know...”
I can’t help laughing. “Tamara, my dear, are you really thinking of knocking on the doors of the world of high fashion?”
She blushes and begins unpacking.
“His name’s not really Ricardo,” I tell her. “He told me once he felt there was a Latin trapped inside him, so he had it legally changed.”
Along with the Courvoisier, Ricardo brings a bottle of wine and a soda spritzer. He takes over the little table in the room, pulling up chairs, moving aside the bonsai tree in a porcelain pot, unfolding cloth napkins.
“I’ll join you if you don’t mind,” he says.
“Mind!” I give his hand a pat.
Tamara eases a couple of pieces of artichoke and some crackers and cheese onto her plate. Ricardo spritzes some soda into a glass, adds a cordial and a slice of lemon for her. I can see she’s enchanted with these maneuvers. With her fork, she spears an artichoke, tastes it very tentatively and then looks to see if we’re watching. A bit of the marinade slicks her smile. Ricardo catches my eye and winks.
“Have you heard anything about the cycle yet?” I ask him between nibbles of baguette slathered with Cognac pâté and sips of a very good California red.
“They’re calling this one a Green Ring. Earthy with lots of light and greenery.” Ricardo swirls the wine in his glass. “We already had our tickets reserved before Bernard passed on, so a good friend of ours, Adrian, is joining me. I think you’ll like him. And Tamara, did I hear you say you’re studying to be a model? You definitely need to meet Adrian. When he isn’t teaching, he does fashion illustration. He’s very good.”
