Girl With a Past (13 page)

21

Berkeley, February 1969

After months of dating, Ted’s blue green
eyes, beneath his sun-bleached hair still got me every time. It was
important to know more about him by meeting his family. I was in
love, truly so for the first time. And with this invitation it
seemed, one I had pestered him about for months, perhaps he felt
the same way.

I tried on everything in my closet, and then
started in on Carol’s clothes. Nothing was right. Not a thing
looked acceptably uptight to wear to meet Ted’s parents. If only I
hadn’t thrown away all the things that I had recently adjudicated
as too boring, too stuffy, too un-hip to be seen in. My black
velvet dress with a white collar, or even one of the dinner suits
my mother dictated every college woman should have several of would
have been perfect for dinner with the parents.

I’d read between the lines of our
conversations enough to know that Ted’s parent’s Seacliff address
in the city was synonymous with old money and a butler at the door.
Dinner would
not
be served family style, and denim would not
be seen on anyone. I tossed the jean skirt on the teetering reject
pile on the bed.

“What am I going to do?” I asked Carol.

“Stop your whining!” Carol pulled a pair of
black velvet bellbottoms that had survived the purge from the back
of my closet and tossed them at me. “Put these on.”

She slid open the bottom dresser drawer,
lifted a white cloth envelope that I knew contained one of her most
precious possessions, a black cashmere sweater. “You’ll wear
this.”

She dug in my jewelry box and pulled out the
other thing my mother said every college woman must have is strand
of pearls. Everything else I owned were strands of hippie
beads.

I looked at my feet. I no longer owned
high-heeled pumps of any kind, those having gone out with the
velvet dress and dinner suits.

“Wear the boots,” Carol sighed. “They won’t
show under the bell bottoms––if you remember not to cross your
legs.” She gave me that look meant to remind me that ladies do not
cross their legs at the knees, only at the ankles, after which a
lady tucks her feet back under the chair.

“Take off the dangling earrings, pearl studs
only,” Carol ordered as she hurried off to answer the doorbell.

I glanced at the clock. “Shit.” That would
be Ted.

I pulled on the clothes, found a black
velvet ribbon to tie back my long hair, jammed the studs into my
earlobes, and struggled to fasten the pearls with trembling
fingers.

Damn, I hated being so nervous, hated caring
so much about what his family thought of me. I should put on
makeup, if only I knew how. I swiped Carol’s mascara onto my
lashes, swore when I smeared black under my eye. I cleaned it off
and applied some lipstick.

I was right about the butler. In the wood
paneled entry hall, Jones took our coats including my very hip
sheepskin, which had left deposits all over the black cashmere.
Jones discreetly picked wool hairs off my sweater, and ushered us
into the living room. Ted’s father, predictably dressed in blazer
and khakis, rose to shake my hand. His mother and sister set down
their cocktails, nodded and smiled ever so politely. Ted, knowing
my inability to handle hard liquor, asked Jones to bring us both a
white wine, and joined me on the loveseat near the majestic
fireplace.

Ted’s father sipped and smiled indulgently
while his wife and daughter prattled on about a wedding they had
attended the afternoon before. I recognized a few names from Carol
having read aloud, in her most affected voice, an account in that
morning’s society pages. I blushed thinking of the fun we had made
of the picture of Ted’s sister and her stick-up-the-ass husband.
But how were we to know it was Ted’s sister that looked so much
like a horse. Now that I compared the two faces, the same features
on Ted made for a handsome man, and his sister looked okay in
person. She was perfectly groomed, every hair on her head including
her eyebrows in place.

I wondered when was the last time I’d
plucked my eyebrows.

The stick-up-his-ass husband arrived with
his sister and her girl friend in tow. The two girls fell all over
themselves fawning over Ted while ignoring my presence. I forced a
smile and drank the wine a little too fast.

Fortunately, Jones announced, “Dinner is
served,”

I was seated next to Ted’s father, the
quietest man ever, and Ted sat between the two giggling girls
across the table. The girls had attended the same wedding and the
pre-dinner conversation about the occasion and attendees of the
reception continued at the table.

“Lexi is a very talented painter,” Ted said
in an attempt to bring me into the conversation.

“Oh. Where would I have seen your work?” the
sister asked.

“Only on campus,” I answered.

She turned to her mother. “Oh. Mother, what
did you think of Bart’s girl?”

I attempted to converse with Ted’s father
who was polite, but, I soon realized, shy. The girls competed in
flirting with Ted, who, to my disappointment, flirted right
back.

It was the longest meal of my life. I
suppressed a sigh of relief when Ted excused us soon after dessert
was served, saying that I had classes early the next morning.

“I’m sorry. You wanted to meet them,” he
said helping me up into his jeep. “I told you, you wouldn’t like
them, but I forget how rude they can be.”

I nodded, refrained from mentioning the
flirting. I pulled the sheepskin collar up tight around my neck and
pretended to enjoy the scenery on the drive back to Berkeley.

“Stop for a drink?” Ted asked as he turned
onto Alcatraz.

“Sure.”

Ted ordered us Irish coffees to take the
chill off both the drive in the open vehicle and the evening’s
mood.

“I was actually planning to make an
announcement at dinner tonight, but . . . I didn’t know who all
would be there, and . . .” Ted said when our drinks arrived, “I’d
like to drink a toast.”

I held my breath. What was this about? We’d
been seeing each other for a few months, sleeping together since a
week after Carol fell down the cliff. He made it up from Big Sur
and his grandfather’s place once a week on days when the restaurant
wasn’t busy. Were we going to the next level with this
relationship? Would I ever fit in his life?

“I’ve been accepted at Harvard Law.”

I tapped my glass mug against the rim of
his. “Congrats.”

Ted knew I would graduate at the end of the
term. Would he ask me to go with him?

“I was hoping you would maybe visit, but it
is a long way away. And, well, the more I thought about it, I
realized it wouldn’t be fair to you, or to me, to expect either of
us to be, well, faithful. Considering the distance, and all.”

Holy shit. He’s breaking up with me.

I downed the coffee, burned my mouth and
throat, and then struggled back into my coat. “I’d better get home.
I do have a class.”

Goddamnit, shit. Tears sprang to my eyes.
Fuck. I refused, refused to cry in front of this prick. I stood up
turning around so he couldn’t see my face.

I ran into my room as soon as I hit the
house. I didn’t want to see anyone. Didn’t want to answer, “how it
went”. I was relieved that Carol wasn’t in our room, I pulled the
pearls over my head, and carefully folded the sweater back into its
cloth sleeve. I found my flannel nightie under the pile on my bed
and shoved everything onto the floor, planning to crawl into my bed
and pull the covers over my head before anyone knew I was home.

I hadn’t burrowed all the way in when the
sound of violent retching in the bathroom pulled me out of my snit.
Who was that? Carol?

* * *

I helped a pale, shaking Carol into Jeff’s
car and he rushed us back to the student hospital.

“Food poisoning” was the doctor’s
verdict.

Carol wrapped her arms around her knees
holding herself in a fetal ball. Whatever it was that her stomach
had reacted to now attacked her intestines.

“Abdominal cramping,” the doctor said. “A
common symptom of food poisoning.”

“This seems pretty bad. Are you sure that’s
all it is?” I asked.

“Food poisoning can be lethal. I’m going to
put her on intravenous fluids to prevent dehydration.” He nodded at
the nurse who left to get the IV. “Anybody else eat whatever it was
that she ate?”

I shrugged and shook my head. “Apparently
not. No one else in the house is sick.”

“Hmm.” He walked out of the room and I heard
him speaking to the nurse in the hall.

The nurse returned with a rolling IV stand
from which a plastic bag hung. I looked away as she stuck a needle
in Carol’s arm and inserted a plastic tube into the back of it.
“That’ll handle any chance of dehydration.” She attached two small
bags to the larger bag. “Just a little something to handle the pain
and settle down your digestive system.”

I sat down in the chair. Carol’s poisoning
had pulled me out of my funk without a word. How could I feel bad
for myself when my friend was enduring such pain?

22

Berkeley, Alta Bates Hospital, March 2008

The swish of the door to Al’s hospital room
swinging shut aroused Steven from his dazed state. He had dozed off
after the doctor left only to be awoken by a phone call from his
grandfather. It was good to know that his grandfather had hired
additional investigators to look for Lauren. Despite his
exhaustion, he’d been trying to think through the events of the
last couple days, searching for something helpful he could have his
grandfather tell the PIs.

“Aunt Carol,” Steven stood, “I’m glad you’re
here. She was asking about you. Like she’s worried about you being
okay.”

Carol waved Steven back into his chair and
walked to the opposite side of the bed. She picked up Al’s hand.
“My poor child, darling girl.”

Steven rubbed his forehead. He rose from his
chair, walked to the window and stared through the glass not really
seeing anything of the view. “I’ve been trying to figure out what
the hell is going on. Who could possibly hate my family enough to
do this? How could someone be so evil as to harm someone as good as
my mother? Or my sister?”

Carol pulled a chair to the bedside. “When I
was younger I saw the world in black and white. Now it’s clear to
me that it’s all shades of gray . . .” Carol stroked Al’s hand.
“You see, sometimes I’d realize that thoughts and impulses of mine
were bad, even the ones I would try to rationalize. You know, by
saying the person deserved me being mean to them.”

This is how she comes to make me feel better
he thought, but Steven waited while Carol hesitated. She sighed
then continued. “Because I knew evil lurked in me, I thought I was
bad . . . I was much older before I realized that we all have some
bad in us, of course not serial killer bad, but it’s a matter of
the good outweighing the bad.”

“Or can the good keep the bad in check?”
Steven offered. “So most people aren’t bad enough to be serial
killers?”

“I don’t think it’s the same thing,” Carol
said. “Serial killers are a whole different thing. I think other
people are not quite real to a serial killer. He doesn’t recognize
in others the same capacity for feeling or caring. Or maybe he’s
shut off from feelings and doesn’t realize that others do feel. He
doesn’t see what he is doing as evil. He’s satisfying a craving,
seeking a thrill . . . like a guilty pleasure. He knows others
don’t approve, but he’s convinced they are just being some kind of
prudes.”

“You seem to know something about serial
killers,” Steven said.

“My best friend was murdered, supposedly by
a serial killer,” Carol frowned, breathed deeply. “Yeah, I was
obsessed with the subject.”

“Was?” Steven asked.

“It was so long ago.” Carol turned up the
corners of her mouth in a weak attempt at a smile.

“Maybe not long enough,” Steven said.

“Steven, long enough that it was a different
world.” Carol sighed. “Actually the world was just starting to
change. Or at least that’s how it seemed to us, the generation of
children who roamed free from dawn to dusk riding our bikes through
safe California towns. We had no idea how dangerous the world could
be. As young adults we did terribly foolish things; picked up
hitchhikers, swallowed pills that could have been anything––” Carol
was interrupted by Jeff opening the hospital room door and coming
into the room.

23

Berkeley, May 1969

In my dream, I heard Carol’s voice. Was she
talking about serial killers? Or dangerous cars?

“Are you sure about this?” Carol looked over
the rusted nineteen fifty-three Chevy. “This thing doesn’t seem
reliable, let alone safe.”

“It’ll be fine.” I wiped dust off the
windshield and threw two sleeping bags in the trunk. “Trust
me.”

“Yeah, cause trusting you has proven to be
such a smart thing to do in the past,” Carol said.

“Are you gonna guilt trip me about Big Sur
for the rest of our lives?” I ignored the creak the driver’s side
door made. “You recovered without any permanent damage, didn’t
ya?”

“By some miracle.” Carol stood glaring at me
making no move to get into the car. “Fat lot you cared. You got to
hang out at the Pebble Beach Lodge while I lay there with tubes in
every orifice.”

“I didn’t hang out at the Lodge. I went
there to get cleaned up, but I slept on the bench in the waiting
room until they decided you were okay and kicked you and us out.” I
slid onto the car’s bench seat. “Get in the damn car, will ya?”