Lilac Mines (8 page)

She clenches her fists. She's checked her email once since arriving, at a café in town. But it's been over a week. What if Eva was staying in some shady hostel in a former eastern bloc country, cut off from the Internet? Maybe she's only recently made it to a developed city and has finally emailed her remorseful thoughts to Felix. Maybe she's wondering, at this very minute, whether Felix will forgive her and take her back.

A few feet away, the computer stares blankly at Felix.

She takes what her
Rock-Hard Abs 'n' Enlightenment
DVD would call a cleansing breath and turns her back to the computer. She tries to imagine herself as one of those kick-'im-to-the-curb girls on
Rikki Lake. You are not even worth booting up for, Eva,
she tries to think.

She walks over to the circulation desk and clears her throat. Gary Schipp lowers his glasses.

“Do you have, like, a local history section?” Felix asks.

Gary Schipp sighs. “You don't know how to use a card catalog, do you?” His voice indicates he's resigned to this fact. He gestures to an ancient set of cherry-colored drawers.

“No one does these days,” he continues. He is losing his hair an atypical way. A ring of gray-blond wisps remains, making him look like a monk with bangs. “Part of it, of course, is that there's no money to overhaul the old system, but I have to admit, I like the old girl. All those delicate drawers and the typed cards. Each one is a little gem, don't you think?”

“Like how sometimes an artist's sketches are more interesting than the final painting or sculpture or whatever?” Felix considers.

“Exactly like that,” Gary agrees. “Now, you're looking for local history? It's in the third aisle, see where the
Sweet Valley High
display is? In back of that.”

Felix seats herself behind a cardboard cutout of the Wakefield twins and begins scanning the shelves. There are lots of books on the Gold Rush. Hikes to take in Gold Rush country. Maps to ghost towns in California and Nevada. Mechanical histories of the mining industry. Felix grew up in a world of soft, Spanish-derived names: Hermosa Beach, Rancho Palos Verdes, Santa Monica; she and Eva had their first date at a vegetarian co-op café called Luna Tierra Sol. Now she encounters harsh tumbleweed names, mineral-sounding names: Chemung, Chloride City, Rhyolite, Leadfield, Salt Springs, Calsun. Places that promise a hard life.

The books favor Wild West tales and well-preserved towns. If a sometime boomtown is now a few crumbling foundations, it doesn't seem to matter what happened there. The books conflate history and tourism. Most have exactly one paragraph about Lilac Mines: girl got lost, town got its name. Make sure to visit the old soda fountain and see the
Gold Rush Melodrama
at the old theater.

One book stands out, perhaps because it does so little to announce itself. It has a thin, taped spine with no title. When Felix dislodges it from the others, she sees that it's staple-bound. The cover is hand-lettered:
A Brief History of Lilac Mines
by Lucas Twentyman. Felix smiles. The title sounds like that Stephen Hawking book her dad read,
A Brief History of Time.
She likes to think that the town's history might be as objective and as profound as the laws of physics. But the book—which appears to be self-published—was copyrighted in 1974, so Lucas Twentyman pre-dates Stephen Hawking.

The book is missing many of the trappings of regular history books. There's no index, no “about the author,” no intriguing blurb on the back cover. Felix pries open the stiff cover and starts with the foreword.

Dearest Readers,

I write this as our town is in danger of, once again, succumbing to the whitewashing sands of time, of becoming a ghost town for the second time in its unlikely history. This, dear readers, is precisely
why
I write: to preserve, to fight the Powers That Be. Let little Lilac tell her story, from the earliest settlers to the tragic fate of Miss Lilac Ambrose to the noble folk that manned the sawmill in the industrious nineteen-forties.

The '60s-revolutionary-meets-doddering-historian tone calms down after the first few pages. Without an index, Felix flips. She is hungry for something, and she can't devour the pages fast enough. She learns that Lilac Mines gets up to 15 feet of snow in the winter. That the remaining trees are sugar pines. That, before the town was East Beedleborough, it was Ragtown. When travelers made it over a particularly difficult pass in the Sierras, they washed out their clothes and spread them out to dry wherever they could. Only rags remained, spider-webbed over the sagebrush like a warning. Finally she finds Lilac.

Little is known about Harold Ambrose or his daughter, Young Lilac. As he was a working man (though, as foreman, he did better than some), it is not surprising that his name fails to appear in society registers or, in fact, much of anywhere besides mining documents and a grocery tab before he made unwanted headlines after Lilac died (presumably). Ambrose left his native Milwaukee in the mid-eighteen-eighties, when Lilac was a baby. Although newspaper accounts would later list her mother as “deceased,” there are no records of a female Ambrose being born in Milwaukee in eighteen-eighty-four. There is, however, record of a Lilac Zaide, born to a “Gertie” Zaide in April of that year. The father is listed as “unknown.” This leads us to conclude that Lilac was either an illegitimate child or not born in Milwaukee after all. I was hoping to travel to Milwaukee to investigate this matter in person, but I am of limited means at the moment.

Well, at least he's honest,
Felix thinks. Lucas Twentyman wins when it comes to Lilac Ambrose minutiae—her hair was “said to be a golden-brown shade;” her father was promoted to foreman just a month before the accident; an elaborate funeral was held, as if an abundance of flowers could compensate for the lack of a body. For the first time since arriving in Lilac Mines, she feels like she might have a place here. As she reads, she is at Lilac's funeral, inhaling the soapy sweet smell of lilies and throwing herself on the empty coffin, her broken body embracing Lilac's missing one.

At the same time, the gaps and question marks send chills down her gauze-wrapped spine. The story is the same as in other books. The holes are the same. The book includes the same group photo of the angsty miners that was in the visitors' center. The caption says, “Miners circa 1898. Silicosis, a lung disease, was a common ailment.” No names. She's angry and intrigued.

She tucks Twentyman's book and the one that had the best photographs under her arm and returns to the circulation desk.

“What about local newspapers?” Felix asks.
A Brief History
has grainy reproductions of the more sordid headlines from the
East Beedleborough Examiner.

“We've got the
Lilac Mines Chronicle
going back to 1983, but if you want anything older than that, you'll have to go to the main branch in Columbia. They've got some originals and some issues on microfiche,” Gary says. He stamps the cards in her books. “Luke Twentyman, eh? This one hasn't been checked out in quite a while. He's sort of a local eccentric,” Gary explains.

“You mean he's crazy or something?” Felix wants the book to be true. She wants
books
to be true.

“No, no—at least not by small town standards,” Gary smiles. “You know how we are out here.”

“Mm.” Twentyman—when she hears it aloud, she remembers: This is her new boss's last name. There can't be too many Twentymans in town.

“Anything else?”

Felix means to say no, but she hears herself say, “Can I use the Internet?”

Finally, the name “Eva London” lights up her inbox as if accompanied by a small red flag icon. Nervously, Felix clicks and reads:

hi everyone,

berlin is amazing. a welcome change from prague, which was beautiful, of course, but so touristy already. if i'd been born even five years earlier, i know i would've been chillin' with all the other ex-pats, but c'est la vie.

but berlin—this is a real city. this morning we went to the jewish museum—so powerful—and took a walk by the spree river, which is overrun with these adorable little black ducks. haus am checkpoint charlie was pretty cheesy (lots of berlin wall for sale), but it was cool seeing the funky cars people built to sneak across the border. they managed to smuggle someone in an
isetta!
it's amazing what people will do to get to a safe place.

an interesting fact about the city: a huge percentage of the “historic” buildings here are actually replicas. the originals were badly damaged in the war, and afterward, the re-builders just made a giant photocopy. maybe the citizens felt better surrounded by history, or what looked like history. between the dreary communist apartments in east berlin and the new “old” buildings in west berlin and the club we went to last night (abandoned storefront-turned-pool hall), it's a totally schizo city. i love it.

everything's covered in graffiti, even the graveyards.

next stop: munich.

till then,

e

Felix gulps. Apparently, Eva has forgotten to take Felix out of her address book; now she's just one of “everyone.” The two vague “we's” in the email dance and gloat. For the first time since the break-up, Felix seethes. How dare Eva relegate her to travelogue reader. She deserves a personalized story, a real explanation, a confession:
Kate snores. I miss you.
How dare she think that Felix will be content with the official story.

She looks at the books in her bag. More official stories getting her nowhere. She needs to rake her fingers along the floor of the mineshaft until Lilac's ghost asks,
What's all that noise?

On the ride to Beedleborough, Jody and Imogen debate who should get the clerk's attention, and who should avoid it.

“We want to get in and out of the store fast, right?” says Imogen. “And if I'm the one asking for help, I'm going to be waiting behind every white person who walks in there.”

“But at least you look normal,” says Jody, steering the Edsel down a street bigger than Calla Boulevard but smaller than most of the avenues in downtown Fresno. From the back seat, Anna Lisa watches taverns and barber shops roll by. Her palms are sweaty. “When people see you, they think, 'There's a Negro'—it makes sense, even if they don't like it. They don't think, 'What is that freak of nature?' ”

Imogen pets the blonde fuzz on the back of Jody's neck. “You're not a freak, you're my handsome butch.”

“I'm just telling it like it is. And put your hand down. Someone's gonna see.”

They have chosen a department store in Beedleborough as their destination because Lilac Mines is too small to shop for menswear in. People talk. A boy that Edith dated when she was dating boys works at the one apparel shop in Lilac Mines. He threatened to hurt Shallan, Edith's butch, if Edith or her friends came in there again.

In the end, they decide Imogen will take the lead. Jody and Anna Lisa hang back by the ties and socks, as if working their way up from accessories to meatier items: shirts, suits. The men's section is paneled with dark wood and smells like shoe polish.

“Go talk to him,” Jody says, gesturing with her chin to one of the clerks. “He looks like family.”

Imogen shakes her head. “Naw, he's a bigot.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell, okay?”

Imogen waits while another clerk helps a thick-waisted man select a belt. Then she approaches.

“Excuse me, I'm looking for some nice shirts for my husband's birthday.”

While the thin-lipped clerk talks to Imogen, Jody and Al load their arms with clothes and sneak off to the fitting room. Al's heart feels as if it might burst out of the first cotton shirt she tries on.

A few minutes later, there's a soft knock on the dressing room door. Al freezes. “Imogen,” Jody mouths, and opens the door.

“Smooth.”
Imogen nods approvingly, and slips inside. The three of them are inches apart.

“We gotta get Sylvie to cut your hair, though,” says Jody, keeping her voice low. “That'll be the finishing touch.”

Al sees herself in their faces, but she turns toward the mirror behind her to check if it's true. The crisp white shirt makes her shoulders look square. The black slacks are sleek and formal. They make Al think of dance floors. Her shoulder-length brown hair crouches in a low ponytail at the back of her neck.

Jody slips it inside Al's collar. “See? All gone.”

“The pants are too long,” Al worries, wagging a foot.

“One of the femmes will hem them,” Jody assures her.

“Really?”

“'Course.”

“If you
ask nice,” Imogen clarifies.

Al thinks of her father's slacks. He takes them to the tailor down the street from Hill Food & Supply. Even if Al could afford a tailor, she can't just walk in and say,
Shorten these pants to fit a 5'4” woman—and let the hips out a little while you're at it.

“All the femmes are going to swoon,” Imogen whispers.

“You think?” Al says, stifling a smile. She has seen Meg at Lilac's two more times. All the other regulars seem to be more… regular. Jody and Imogen keep singing the praises of Sylvie, a femme who lives with them and a few other women in an abandoned church east of Calla Boulevard. Sylvie has delicate features, silent-film-star lips, a funny way of wringing her hands. She's okay, but something about her is too familiar. Al prefers to watch Meg in profile as she sips her drink. There's a bump in the middle of her nose. Al wonders if it's been broken.

“Wait till Sylvie sees you,” says Jody. Jody has a way of making things sound like the final word. These clothes. This girl. Al wonders if this is what it's like to have an older brother—someone fiercely on your side and mostly uninterested in your opinion. “Okay, put your old clothes back on and Imogen will go pay for these,” Jody instructs. “Did you want the blue shirt too?”

“No, this is already more than I can afford,” says Al.

“Don't worry, we'll chip in. Right, Jo?” Imogen says. “We're like the Homosexual Welcome Wagon.”

Al slides out of the slacks, catching sight of herself in white underpants and bra, suddenly a girl again. Opening her body as little as possible, she puts on her women's brown slacks. In the fluorescent light of the dressing room, she can see how dusty they are. She's worn them almost every day during the weeks she's been in Lilac Mines. She's reluctant to unpack her other clothes—the circle skirts, the secretarial blouses—for fear that they'll mop up all the town's magic like old rags.

Imogen gathers Al's new clothes and eases out of the dressing room. Twice as fast, she pulls back in. “Damn it,” she hisses. “I think he saw me.”

“Who?” mouths Jody.

Imogen's voice is barely audible. “Some man. Some customer. Damn it,
damn
it.” Her blue-shadowed eyes are wide. Jody is breathing heavily, combing her hands over her short, red-blonde hair as if it will coax a plan from her head. The fearless centaur of the other night looks panicked, slightly wild.

Peering through a narrow gap in the booth's structure, Imogen whispers, “All right, he went back out. You two gotta make a break for it.”

Al doesn't know exactly what this involves so she follows Jody, who walks briskly down the hall of dressing rooms, past a rack of shiny leather shoes, and toward the make-up counter. Behind them, the clerk's voice calls out, “Ladies? Ladies!” a reminder of what they are or should be.

“He's on to us,” Jody says. “I hope Imogen doesn't try to pay for that stuff now. She'll get hassled something awful.”

They linger nervously by a poster of a dark-haired woman powdering her face. It says, “Ladies: what could be more foolish than choosing a foundation based on your hair color?” Al, who only wore make-up when Suzy pinned her down and attempted to obliterate her freckles, didn't know that this was something ladies did. She has to agree it seems foolish.

Finally, Imogen trots up to them. “I took it upstairs and paid in Children's,” she says. “I don't think that clerk in Men's was about to leave his post, but we better get outta here just in case.”

“Sounds good to me,” Al says. She takes the bag from Imogen and clutches it tight to her body as they exit the store and hurry toward Jody's grinning Edsel. Al has never worked so hard for a pair of pants. She's never had a pair that fit so well.

The church is a plain wooden building with peeling paint and a rusted-silent bell in its steeple. Nevertheless, Al considers it a holy place. When Jody explained that they were squatters, Al asked how they got away with it. “Think of us like church mice,” Jody said. “Everyone knows they're there, but no one cares until one of them runs up some old lady's leg.” And so by this blessing they are left alone with their functional altars: the wood-burning stove; the long table Jody and Shallan built; the old pews pushed together to form beds, appropriated as shelves, arranged in every formation but straight rows.

Al's new clothes are folded neatly on the pew that holds her suitcase. The white shirt is dappled gold and purple in a stained-glass shadow.

“Where's Imogen?” Al asks. “I need to pay her back for the clothes.” She peels the last bills from her wallet. They're dog-eared, soft as a peach.

“She's getting dinner started,” Sylvie says with a giggly grimace. Of the femmes, Imogen is the worst cook. Jody has asked that she not cook meat because it's expensive and she always renders it un-chewable.

Al finds her in the church's tiny kitchen chopping vegetables. Zigzags of hair escape her carefully molded bun. The ostensibly white countertop is stained and missing tiles, like a bad smile. Imogen's coffee-brown forearms ripple as she knifes a yellow squash, as if pure determination will summon the proper picture of domesticity.

“Ten seventy-five, right?” says Al. “I'll leave it over here.” She puts the bills under a saltshaker shaped like a chubby farmer. His chipped wife holds the pepper. “I need a job,” Al sighs.

“We all do,” says Imogen, although she's just being sympathetic. She has a regular job at a doctor's office—technically as a receptionist, although the doctor frequently asks her to clean the examining rooms, and occasionally asks her to kiss him. She gives in to the former to make it easier to refuse the latter. “The end of the month is the toughest. But don't worry too much. We know you do your part. Maybe you're not working yet, but you swept up and set those mousetraps and helped Jody with… ”

With a start, Al says, “The end of the month… wait, what's the date today?”

“August 24th.”

“Oh no. It's my sister's birthday.” Al can't believe she forgot. Usually she is vigilant about deadlines. Her school papers didn't always earn A's, but she invariably turned them in on time. But so many things are different in Lilac Mines. Maybe time is too.

“You still talk to your family?” The hard and longing look on Imogen's face says that she does not talk to hers.

“Well… I don't know. I haven't really decided anything yet, not officially.” Hot afternoons of around-the-church work with Jody have stretched into evenings of scanning for Meg, which have cooled into yellow-gray mornings waking up on her mat. The floor pressing into her back makes her feel resilient, ready for another day with her tribe.

Imogen wipes her pulpy hand and reaches into the pocket of her skirt. She drops two dimes into Al's palm. “Go to the drugstore and give her a call.” Her voice is so sure, so parental, that Al doesn't dare turn her down.

Al could walk to the drugstore, buy a soda, and page through movie magazines for a while. She could buy a newspaper and read it at the counter. But she's not a good liar. If Imogen asks her how her sister is, she won't be able to invent an answer. This is why she cannot live in Fresno and love girls at the same time. She can't imagine looking at her father's expectant, mustached face and telling him that she was out with a nice boy last night, nothing serious, no, she doesn't think she'd like to bring him home.

The first dime tinkles into the pay phone. The operator asks for another, and Al remembers that this is long distance. She's not sure she's ever made a long-distance call before. She blows a small O of air from her lips and drops in the second dime.

Suzy picks up on the third ring. Al's first reaction is relief that it's not one of her parents on the other end of the line, but her stomach quickly clenches again. She will still have to explain.

“Anna Lisa?” Suzy exclaims when she hears her sister's voice. “Oh my God, Nannalee, I'm so glad you called. Are you okay? Where are you?”

“I'm fine, I'm in…” Al hesitates. She wonders if her family is the type to form a search party, and if she'd want them to. She decides to say she's in San Francisco—big, un-searchable, home to Alcatraz—but when she opens her mouth, she says, “I'm in this little town. It's, um, kind of northeast of us.” She is still placing herself with them: “Us” is Fresno, slow days, the hum of the ceiling fan in the family store, crops lined up the way church pews are supposed to be lined up.

“Why did you run away?” Suzy wants to know. It's a fair question.

Al recalls the vague note she left. “I… when I tried to picture the rest of my life, nothing came up. Does that make any sense at all? It was so frightening. Just a blank, like all the old fields around our house.”

To Al's surprise, Suzy says, “Yes! It
does
make sense. Oh, Nannalee, they both broke things off. First Roy, because he found out about Kevin, then Kevin because he's just a copycat. Now I don't know what to do—they're both spreading rumors—and I can't exactly tell Mother and Daddy about this sort of problem.”

Suzy's voice is twisted with despair. Somehow Al thought that things would stay the same in her absence, that liking boys would be enough to guarantee Suzy a future in Fresno.

“What should I do? Couldn't you come home?” Suzy begs. Her questions are no longer about Al's motivations and safety; now they demand things from her. Al's fraction of a moment in the spotlight burned her, then left her cold.

“Let me think about it. I'll call you again soon, I promise.” Their phone time is almost up, and Al is out of coins. “Happy birthday,” she adds feebly.