The Last Ranch (14 page)

At the Top of the Mark she sat in a comfortable upholstered club chair close to the bar with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific Ocean beyond and ordered a martini. She didn't want to think about the night in 1944 when she'd sat at the bar with Petty Officer Second Class Brian Sullivan and helped him celebrate his impending departure to Pearl Harbor, where he'd join the fleet. For a year—almost the entire time they'd been lovers—Brian, a six-foot, brown-eyed rancher's son from Montana, had been trying to get into combat. That night, they drank to his safekeeping, made plans to get married when the war was over, and decided to blow their savings and spend their honeymoon in a suite at the hotel. After dinner they returned to their room, and with the curtains open to a view of the Golden Gate lit by a full moon, they made love and fell asleep, spent and exhausted.

A hospital corpsman, Brian died in combat on Iwo Jima in March 1945. If he'd survived the war, they'd be married, probably with a baby, and either living on his family's Montana sheep ranch
or in student housing in Bozeman while she worked and he finished his degree in animal science at Montana State University.

She still had all his letters and snapshots of their weekends together touring up and down the California coast. It especially broke her heart to look at the photos from the short trip they took to Seattle for his sister's wedding to a marine pilot. Brian's whole family had assembled for the nuptials, and Mary had instantaneously fallen in love with all of them. His parents, sister, and kid brother were warmhearted, happy, outgoing, and affectionate. It was as if she'd met the man and family of her dreams all in one.

When the waiter asked if she'd like another drink, she shook her head, paid the bill, and returned to her room. Fighting off sadness, she filled the tub, wiggled out of her clothes as the bathroom filled with steam, and sank into the deliciously hot water. In the morning she would be on a train to Los Angeles, where she'd stay with her best pal from the navy, Erma Fergurson, who was married and living in Hollywood with an ex-soldier named Hank Evans, who was trying to break into show business and using his GI Bill to take acting classes and voice lessons. Although Erma had hoped to study art after leaving the navy, she was supporting Hank by working as a waitress at an expensive steak house. Mary couldn't wait to see her.

She soaked until the water in the tub turned chilly and spent the next hour packing for her departure and setting out her clothes for the morning. Suddenly she was exhausted. She arranged her cosmetics on the small shelf below the bathroom mirror, brushed her teeth, snuggled into the luxuriously big bed, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

After a scenic train journey down the California coast, Mary arrived at Union Station in the growing dusk of a warm Los Angeles summer evening. Erma had agreed to meet her at the station, and she was surprised to not find her waiting. It wasn't like Erma to be forgetful or late. Mary called, got no answer at her home, and, concerned something bad might have happened to her friend, made arrangements to have most of her luggage shipped ahead to Las Cruces and hailed a cab to take her to Erma's as quickly as possible.

The cabbie got her there in a hurry and pulled to the curb in front of an old two-story Queen Anne house on a hill tucked behind Hollywood Boulevard. It had a full gable roof with delicate spindle work, and had been divided into apartments—two upstairs and two down. Only one light was visible from a front upstairs window.

Mary paid the cabbie, grabbed her small suitcase containing essentials and an overnight change of clothes, rushed up the walkway, and rang the bell in the foyer to Erma's first-floor
apartment. There was no answer. She rang repeatedly before trying the apartment across the hall, again with no success. Upstairs, only one resident was home, an elderly man who smelled of cigars and whiskey. He gruffly said he didn't know his neighbors and didn't care to before closing the door in Mary's face.

She sat on the front porch step in the deepening darkness, the sounds of traffic on Hollywood Boulevard wafting up the hill, and considered what to do. Since she had no other way to contact Erma or her husband, she decided to stay put for a while in the hope one or the other would appear. Soon she heard footsteps approaching on the sidewalk and, thinking it might be Erma, she got to her feet only to be disappointed when an older woman, stocky and winded, walked by.

The chilly night had Mary about ready to leave for the warmth of a hotel room when a car stopped in front of the house. A woman slammed the door on the driver's side and came around the front of the vehicle, her heels clacking on the pavement. In the pale light of a rising half-moon Mary recognized Erma and called out to her.

“Thank God you're here,” Erma replied, relief flooding her voice as she rushed up the walkway. “I'm so sorry I wasn't there to get you.”

“Not to worry,” Mary said as she hugged Erma. “What happened?”

“It's just a big mess,” Erma said, the words spilling out of her as she broke away. “Come inside.”

A half a dozen boxes were on the floor in the front room, some packed, some empty, and the walls were bare. Erma threw her purse and keys on a lamp table next to a saggy upholstered armchair and stepped toward a galley kitchen that contained a small
table and two folding chairs jammed in a nook under a window. “I'll make some coffee and we'll talk.”

Mary followed her and stood in the kitchen archway. Erma, who was always a bundle of energy but calm by nature, seemed uncharacteristically agitated. Slender and five-foot-two, her long brown hair was pinned up carelessly, strands cascading haphazardly down her neck, and her pretty face with her wide-set eyes, arched eyebrows, and thin lips looked haggard and pained.

“What's wrong?” Mary asked.

At the sink, Erma filled the coffeepot with water. She turned, pot in hand, eyes hard and angry, and bit her lip. “That son of a bitch husband of mine has been screwing some girl in his acting class for the last three months. I only found out about it last week.”

“The coffee can wait.” Mary took the pot from Erma's hand and put it on the countertop. “Let's talk.” She marched her friend into the front room, and sat with her on the sofa. “Tell me everything.”

“I should have known something was up,” she replied, shaking her head at her own stupidity.

She had trusted Hank completely, believing when he came home late he it was because he was rehearsing scenes with members of his acting classes, or at an open audition at one of the semiprofessional theater companies, or he was working as a studio extra to earn money for his private voice lessons. On certain nights, when he needed the car to go to his twice-weekly improvisation class, he'd pick her up after work. But recently he'd kept her waiting for almost an hour, claiming he'd been cajoled to stay late to help a fellow student with an audition scene she was preparing for a screen test at a major studio's new talent department. A week earlier, when he failed to come for her, she took a cab
home and found all his clothes gone and a note on the kitchen counter saying he'd moved out, wanted a divorce, and was keeping the car because he needed it more than she did.

Erma stopped to catch her breath. Mary gave her a moment before prodding her for more information.

“I darn sure wasn't going to let him take my car just like that.” Erma snapped her fingers for emphasis. “I bought and paid for it with my own money. I didn't think he'd be hard to find, but he'd dropped out of all his acting classes, stopped going for his voice lessons, and wasn't hanging out with any of his usual drinking buddies. Everybody I talked to knew I was looking for him and why, but it was only this afternoon that I learned where he was shacked up with the bimbo from his acting class. I went there, but nobody was home and the car was gone. So I waited, hoping they'd be back in time for me to get to Union Station before you arrived, but they didn't turn up until an hour ago. After they went inside, I jumped in the car and drove straight home hoping to find you here.”

Erma paused, took a deep breath, squeezed Mary's hand, smiled and said, “And I'm so glad you are.”

“Me too,” Mary replied. “But why are you packing to move?”

Erma pushed hair away from her forehead and laughed harshly. “It's just been one thing after another this week. My boss decided since my husband had left me I was fair game, so when he put his hands on me I quit. With next month's rent due at the end of the week, I can't afford to stay here. Besides, I hate this dump and don't ever want to see that SOB again. The place stinks of him.”

Mary nodded sympathetically. The heavy odor of cigarettes hung in the air and Erma didn't smoke. “Where will you go?”

Erma shrugged. “I don't care. Anywhere away from L.A. will do for a start, and I really need to get going. Knowing Hank, he'll be here soon demanding the car back.”

“Has he hurt you?”

“It hasn't gotten that far yet.”

Mary looked at the boxes and furniture in the front room. There was probably a lot more in the bedroom. “Are you planning to take everything?”

“I was, but now it doesn't matter. Every stick of furniture we own I bought secondhand to save money. The dishes, pots, and pans too—even the cheap movie posters I hung on the walls. It can all stay behind.”

“Then let's finish getting you packed, and go,” Mary said.

“Go where?”

“Can your car make it to San Diego?”

Erma laughed. “Are you kidding me? My Olds is such a honey of a car even my mechanic offered to buy it. It will take us cross-country if we want. What are we going to do in San Diego?”

“We'll sit on a beach for a couple of days, eat, drink margaritas, and hatch a plan.”

Erma grinned, reached over, gave Mary a quick hug, and stood. “I'm game until my money runs out. Let's get out of here before that jerk shows up.”

In less than an hour, they had the trunk and backseat of the coupe filled with everything Erma wanted to take with her, mostly shoes, clothes, jewelry, cosmetics, personal mementos, and important documents. They quickly tidied up the apartment and put the trash in the garbage cans behind the house. Erma dropped the door key on the kitchen counter and scribbled a note to Hank. It read:

Hey, Jerk,

Help yourself to anything you want, just don't try to find me.

At the front door, Erma took one last look around, sighed, shook her head, and laughed. “What a dump. I think that two-timing bastard has done me a big favor. He has sure cured me of the marriage bug. I'm taking my maiden name back. Do you think you'll ever get married?”

Brian's face drifted through Mary's mind. A recipient of the Navy Cross for bravery on Iwo Jima, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. There would never be another like him. “It's starting to feel iffy,” she replied as they walked to the car. “Have you got a bathing suit?”

“I need a new one,” Erma slipped behind the wheel of the Olds and cranked the engine.

“Me too,” Mary said.

Erma made a U-turn and headed for Hollywood Boulevard. “Maybe we should go shopping tomorrow. That will make me feel better.”

Mary laughed over the throaty sound of the engine. “That's the spirit.”

***

A
fter midnight they arrived in the San Diego neighborhood of Pacific Beach and found a decent motel a short walk from the ocean. It was a single-story, Spanish Mission–style building with exterior brick walls painted white and a sloped red-tile roof topped by a fake bell tower above an arched portico. A Vacancy sign flashed in the window of the motel office. The room was clean, the linens fresh, and the twin beds were comfortable.

In the morning, after breakfast at a nearby diner, they drove downtown and roamed the streets window-shopping until the stores opened. It took diligent searching through the swimwear selections at four stores to find just the right suits. Erma picked a red maillot with a wraparound skirt, and Mary bought a strapless one-piece in black. After lunch at a Pacific Beach restaurant that served up a decent chef's salad, they hit the beach under a warm sun, where the whisper of a pleasant breeze and the sound of the ocean lapping peacefully at the shore lulled them into a languid daze. Occasionally, a group of noisy kids walked by, but mostly it was just the two of them on an empty stretch of sand.

Neither did much talking. Mary could tell Erma was smarting about being treated so shabbily by Hank, although she put up a tough front to hide it. She held back questioning Erma and let the quiet reign. Two pleasant hours passed, and when the clouds rolled in and cooled the day, they took a walk down the beach looking for seashells, went back to the motel, showered, changed, and found a friendly neighborhood drinking establishment several blocks from the motel populated by a few old men at the bar who were inclined to leave them alone. They settled into a back booth, ordered scotch straight with water chasers, and clinked glasses when the drinks came.

“Here's to new beginnings,” Mary said.

Erma raised her glass high. “Amen to that, sister.” She took a sip. “One of these is all I can manage.” She glanced around the dimly lit, smoky, run-down bar. “Maybe I could get a job here waiting tables and mixing drinks. Think it's far enough away from L.A. and the jerk?”

“Is that what you want to do? Work in a place like this?”

“Heavens no, but San Diego seems like an okay town.” Erma paused. “But maybe not. Being around a lot of sailors and
marines might not be a smart thing for me to do. I was a sucker for a guy in uniform once. I don't need to make that mistake again.”

“Where will you go?”

Erma sipped her scotch and sighed. “I know where I'm not going: back to Nebraska, where everything on the farm smelled like pigs, fertilizer, and manure; or to Des Moines, where I had a crummy job slinging hash until I enlisted.”

“How about driving me to New Mexico?” Mary suggested.

Erma leaned back, considered the idea, and slowly grinned. “Why the hell not? You were always talking about how wonderful and beautiful it is, and boy do I deserve a vacation.”

“Great!” Mary lifted her empty glass. “Shall we seal it with another?”

“Only if you agree to drive us to dinner, if I get too drunk.”

They ordered another drink and made plans. Mary would cash in the unused portion of her train ticket to cover their gas and expenses. Erma insisted that they share all the costs fifty-fifty. They'd get a service-station road map on their way to dinner and look for interesting places to stop along the way. Both agreed that a side trip to the Grand Canyon would be a necessity, since neither had seen it.

At a busy, loud Italian restaurant inside a converted beachside cottage, Erma ordered veal scaloppini, Mary chose the spaghetti, and they shared a bottle of red wine with their meal. Over coffee, they studied the road map and discussed places to see. Erma wanted to visit the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. Mary thought Tucson, with a detour to the border town of Nogales, might be fun.

An impatient, hovering waiter with the bill interrupted their road-trip scheming. They continued their planning in the motel room until, sleepy from the booze and wine, they decided to
chuck the whole notion of an itinerary and just roam wherever the spirit took them before heading to Las Cruces.

With the window open and the smell of the ocean gently coursing through the room, Mary snuggled into bed. Although completely sympathetic about the end of Erma's disastrous marriage to her despicable husband, she was truly delighted to have gained her company.

***

O
ver the next ten days, Mary and Erma crisscrossed the desert southwest. In Arizona they peered into the immense beauty and astonishing vistas of the Grand Canyon. They wandered along dirt roads in the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest before traveling south to the pretty town of Prescott, tucked into a mountain range, where Erma admired the cowboys and allowed that she might be tempted someday to wrangle one for herself.

After an overnight stay at a historic downtown hotel, they dipped south to Tucson for a few days and visited a nearby Indian reservation to tour an old adobe church before taking a day trip to Nogales, where they crossed into Mexico and meandered in and out of shops along the colorful main street. Mary haggled in Spanish with a merchant in a dry-goods store and came away with a lovely hand-tooled leather wallet, and then bargained on Erma's behalf for a coin purse she'd spotted that was etched with delicate dragonflies.