My Beautiful Hippie (12 page)

I ran all the way to Stanyan Street. Suyu was perched on her stool behind the register, a tablet on her knee and a thick calculus textbook open on the counter.

She looked up and said, “Oh, hi, Joanne.” She leaped off her stool, retrieved my father's pants from the “D” clothes rack, and hung them on the hook next to the cash register. “How'd your first lesson go?”

“Okay, I guess,” I said in a dejected tone.

“The C major scale, eh? Don't worry. That's what everyone gets assigned their first lesson.”

“I don't know what he's talking about,” I admitted.

“It's something you'll feel when it's right, and once you have it, you have it. Here, I'll show you.” She lifted a section of the
counter, which was hinged, but I hesitated. In all the years I'd been coming to Li's, I'd never been on the opposite side of the counter, which seemed forbidden territory. “Come on,” urged Suyu. “It's okay.”

I stepped forward, and she lowered the counter. She extended her forearm. “Now, this is the piano. Sink the weight of your arm into it.” I set my hand on her arm. Quickly she lowered her arm, leaving my hand in midair.

“Ah! You see? You are holding your arm up by your shoulder. Sink it into the piano. Try again.” She raised her forearm again, and this time I pressed down on it. “No, you are pushing! Here, you be the piano this time.”

Suyu was a tiny person, and it was surprising to me how heavy her thin arm felt on my forearm. “Take away your arm,” she said, and when I did, her arm swung to her side. She smiled. “You see? My arm fell because you were holding all of its weight. Now you try.”

When we changed positions, Suyu used the fingers of her other hand to probe the muscle in my shoulder. “Let go, here! Let go . . . let go!”

I felt it! Suyu swung her arm away and my arm dropped!

I thanked Suyu over and over. I ducked under the counter, grabbed my father's pants off the hook, and darted out of the shop. Suyu locked the door behind me and turned the sign from
OPEN
to
CLOSED
. It wasn't until I reached the corner of Stanyan and Frederick that I realized I was still clutching the four quarters in my hand. I could give them to Suyu at school on Monday, but meanwhile her cash register would come up a dollar short. I felt terrible about that, but I was ecstatic, too. Finally, I understood arm weight!

I hated my birthdays. They were supposed to be so special, but I was almost always disappointed. The previous year I had begged and begged my mom to let me have a party, and finally she'd allowed me to invite five girls for a sleepover. I chose Rena, Lisa Girardi, and three of the other in-crowd girls. Lisa ate my food, listened to a couple of records, then began to pace around the living room, picking up things and setting them down. A little after ten, she announced she wanted to go home, so all the other girls did, too. Except Rena, of course. It ended up being just me and her sitting around scarfing Fritos and wondering what had gone wrong.

With my sixteenth birthday only a week away, I tried not to think about it. What if no one remembered? Rena was so busy juggling
Crucible
rehearsals and school, she couldn't think of much else. Mom would go the whole route, of course, make me a special dinner and sew something I didn't want to wear. The whole birthday trip was just a bummer.

It actually turned out to be pretty neat. Rena had play practice, of course, but she made me a beautiful belt out of suede with a row of little mirrors she sewed on. Denise and Jerry came over and Mom made me my favorite dinner, chicken fricassee with dumplings, and German chocolate cake. The big surprise was that she sewed me a cool Nehru jacket out of black-and-red
paisley, with black frog closures and a red lining. No other girl at school would have anything like it.

Dad gave me a patch of Schroeder playing the piano with the words
I LOVE BEETHOVEN
embossed around the circumference to sew on the back pocket of my jeans. It was extra-special, because he usually left the gift-buying to Mom. Of course Dan didn't take off work to be at my birthday dinner, but he set on the kitchen table a tiny yellow glass vase with paper flowers in it, something the tourists bought at the Cannery, but I really liked it.

Denise and Jerry presented me with recordings of the complete Beethoven sonatas, twelve LPs, packed in four flat cardboard boxes, which was more than they could afford. Jerry signed their card “to Beethoven from Beethoven,” making him probably the coolest brother-in-law ever. He had a crease across the pocket of his white Oxford shirt, a clue that Denise's ironing had become careless. She looked tired, as if her shoulders could hardly bear the weight of her husband's arm draped casually over them. She seemed much older than she had before her wedding, a few short months ago. After they left, I was relieved my birthday was over. I had been fifteen long enough.

Thursday evening, the following week, I was practicing Beethoven after dinner, having progressed far beyond the C scale. Dr. Harold had scheduled me to play my sonata in master class the last week of November, and that gave me the incentive to work even harder. The phone rang, and I didn't want to answer it. After the fourth ring my mother yelled in from the den, where she was sitting with my dad watching
Peyton Place
.

“Get that, Joanne! It's probably Rena.”

I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Joni! What's happening?”

“Hi-ay” came out on two pitches, my surprise apparent.

Only one person in the whole world called me Joni. Had Martin found my number in the phone book? I wasn't sure he even knew or remembered my last name.

“Can I see you?” he asked.

I glanced toward the den. “Now?”

“Now is always the best time.”

Beach Street was far, far away, and it was almost bedtime. “I can't.”

“I'm here in Hashbury. I came to visit you.”

“Where?” I asked hopefully.

“In the phone booth at Masonic and Haight. We can meet at the Tangerine Kangaroo.”

“It's late.”

“In front of your house, then. I'll start walking there right now.”

“Okay.” I hung up.

Mom called, “Who was it?”

“Rena.” I dashed upstairs to grab a textbook, then ran down again. I poked my head into the den. “She forgot her chemistry book in her locker so I'm loaning her mine.” I sprinted toward the front door.

“She's the one who needs it,” said Mom. “She's the one who can come get it.”

I slammed the door on my mother's words, then sped down the porch steps, through the gate, down the outside steps to the street, and fell into a warm, hard hug behind the retaining wall, my chemistry book crashing to the sidewalk.

“Missed you, lady,” Martin whispered in my ear. He let go just enough to hold my face in his hands. “Why did you stop coming over? Did I do something?”

“I did come over, but Byron said you weren't home, and then another time—well, it's harder now. I've got school, and you never want to plan anything, so—”

His concerned look broke into a wide grin. “We can plan something!” He clasped my hands and playfully swung our arms between us. “Let's spend Saturday together, the whole day!”

“Can't. I have master class.”

“Can't you ditch, like, one time?”

“No! It's the best time of my whole week—well, second best. Best is my piano lesson. I love my new teacher!”

“And I love you!” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “Come play with me, Joni, on Saturday!”

The word “love” got a lot of use. I'm not saying it was overused; I'm not sure that's possible, but that one little word had so many shades of meaning that its four little letters needed to explode into about fifty new words to express them all. “Oh, Martin, you love everything. You love this city, you love this tree, you love this chemistry book.” I picked it up and held it up to him. “Here, kiss it.”

He did, and then he kissed me, softly, sweetly, deeply. His hand slid up my waist to cup my breast, and I implusively hooked my elbow over his wrist and pushed it away. I didn't know where that had hand been, how many girls' bodies it had roamed over since it had last touched mine. I was going to be someone special to him or nothing at all.

“Oh, Joni, you feel so good,” he moaned, holding me tighter. “I need you, girl.”

Then what had taken him so long to come around? “We can do something on Saturday after my master class. It's on Nob Hill.”

“Right next to Chinatown. Let's have lunch there.” He rubbed his hands together. “Dim sum, duck with plum sauce, eels in squid ink!”

I knew he was kidding about the last dish. “What about ‘Simplify, simplify, simplify'?”

“Gotta splurge sometimes.”

A flood of light appeared above our retaining wall. It meant Mom had turned on the front porch light and was coming to look for me. “Meet you at noon at the Dragon's Gate,” I whispered to Martin, then kissed him on the ear. Toward the house, I shouted, “Coming, Mom!”

Martin peeked above the retaining wall, beneath the shrubbery. “Nice digs,” he said. I thought I might have detected a slight longing in his tone.

“Go!” I gave him a shove up the hill toward Masonic. I ran up the steps and met my mom just inside the gate.

“Joanne, you still have your chemistry book in your hand.”

I looked down at it. “Oh, yeah. Rena didn't really want it. She just needed to tell me something.”

“And she couldn't do it over the phone? What about?”

“Uh, it was about—”

“Never mind.” Mom gave me a hurt, disgusted look, and I felt guilty. How could I confide in her? She wouldn't allow half the stuff I did. I put my arm around her waist as we went up the steep porch steps, which made her puff.

“Don't worry so much, Mom. I'm not as bad as you think.”

I was worse.

As I scurried down California Street, past Grace Cathedral, the balls of my feet burned in a way that warned me blisters were forming. In the bottom of my right shoe were four folded one-dollar bills, which I hoped would be enough for my lunch. I was wearing patent leather pumps; nylons; a brown tweed suit Mom had tailored, with a skirt that hit the middle of my knee; and a ruffled butterscotch blouse. Master class had run over a half hour, and I didn't realize how long it would take me to get down Nob Hill to Chinatown.

After Mom had driven me to the first master class, I'd used public transportation. I had told her a half-truth, that I was having lunch in Chinatown with a group of kids from Dr. Harold's studio, and then I was going to the main library in Civic Center to work on a term paper for history.

“Dad and I are going to Uncle Herb and Aunt Meg's for dinner,” she had told me. “There's a TV dinner for you in the freezer. Get home before dark. I'm going to call to check on you.” She had hooked a dark-penciled eyebrow at me to indicate she meant business, but I knew she was bluffing. My dad's brother and his wife lived in San Jose, about an hour away, which was long-distance, and my mom never made an unnecessary expensive phone call. This dinner had no doubt been arranged by Aunt Meg and Mom exchanging little note cards, which only cost a five-cent stamp to send. It would be hard to know when
my parents would be home. If Dad and Uncle Herb were getting along, my parents would stay and play bridge after dinner; if they weren't, my parents would be home early.

Nearly an hour late to meet Martin, I braced myself for utter disappointment. As I approached the stone arch of Dragon's Gate, there was Martin panhandling, collecting the price of his lunch.

“I'm late,” I said, puffing, reaching for a hug.

“Are you?” Martin did not wear a watch. “There's so much to see around here, I didn't even notice.” He looked me up and down. “You're so . . . dressed up.”

What he meant was
straight
. “Yeah, for master class.”

“Are you comfortable?”

I shook my head and offered him a forlorn look. He laughed, took my hand, and led me to the Red Lion, where we gorged ourselves on abundant, cheap Chinese food. He told me about his latest adventure, how he had hiked up Mount Tamalpais. “What's been happening with you, Joni?”

I sighed. “Mostly doing battle with Beethoven.”

“I would never play music if it meant going to war.”

I tried to pinch another pot sticker with the chopsticks Martin had just taught me to use, and it fell back onto the plate. “I know you spend hours on the guitar, working out a new song.”

“Only if I want to. As soon as I'm tired of it, I put it down.”

I chased the pot sticker around with my sticks. “You didn't want to play bass with Roach that time. I could tell.”

“Oh, well, that's different. I was doing Gus a favor.”

“How's the Roach album coming along?”