T. Parker: California Girl

“Too busy at the tire shop,” said Karl.

“Some of us work for a living,” said Nick.

Clay shook his head as if he’d anticipated this answer. He turned to Eileen, his new friend from the language institute.

“Clay’s gotten passionate about the Communist conspiracy,” she said. “He’s certainly informed. And I think there’s something to it.”

“I do, too,” said Max Becker. “What language do you study, Eileen?”

“I have French, German, and Spanish now,” she said. “What the government wants most is Russian and Arabic. I’m good at pronunciation and vocabulary but the rules of grammar throw me because they change by the language. Clay’s the one with a mind for lingual structures.”

“And a tin ear for the music of them.”

“No,” she said. “Really, Clay-your French and German are superb and your Russian is coming along beautifully.”

“Russian for you, too, Clay?” asked Katy.

Clay nodded, sipped his wine. “Mandatory.”

“What will you do with it?” asked Meredith.

“The government,” said Eileen. “You know-State Department, Foreign Service, Diplomatic Corps-even military. Wherever they might need you.”

Andy knew that Clay was already being paid by the government to finish his studies at the language institute. The whole family knew, and it had been a day of quiet celebration when news of Clay’s acceptance to the institute arrived by special delivery. Roger Stoltz had helped expedite the application through his friendship with Dick Nixon.

Later Clay had told Andy it was a CIA “scholarship.” He had no way of proving it but Andy believed him. Clay had told him he had applied to the agency. Wanted to do some undercover work, maybe fuck up the Communists without having to go to war or drop the big one on them. But first he had to finish school, and the agency was paying for it because he picked up languages like a dog picked up dirt. And because his grades for two years at UCLA were straight A’s, though he never studied more than fifteen minutes a week, tops. He’d taken some firearms training from this old marine instructor, and could outshoot Deputy Nick with both eyes closed. And learned some hand-to-hand stuff that would shrink your sphincter. And if Andy said one thing about it Clay would never tell him another secret as long as he lived.

Andy had kept these secrets because he believed in secrets. They came naturally to him, like taking written words seriously or drinking alcohol or wanting Meredith Thornton, who now, out of sight under the tablecloth, placed a warm hand on his thigh.

Then looked at him with the most puzzling and beautiful expression he’d ever seen.

And though he’d looked into those dark brown eyes for what seemed like weeks at a time, he saw something new in them now, something delighted and determined and full of joy.

“Meredith,” said Clay. “What are you thinking about over there?”

“I hate it when Andy asks me that,” she said with a laugh. Max and Monika Becker laughed, too. Meredith’s face reddened and her hand eased off Andy’s leg.

“You’re a lovely young lady,” said Clay. “You’re what, a senior now?”

“Thank you. Yes.”

She looked at Andy again. Bloomed into a smile that made his heart stumble.

Then pumpkin pies.

Max Becker talked more about the international Communist conspiracy, and this new organization called the John Birch Society. He’d heard about it from Roger Stoltz, who was starting up a local chapter. It was a group of conservative men and women who wanted to expose the Communists for what they were-subversives, atheists, and murderers intent on ruining the United States of America by undermining the freedoms that made it great.

Monika added that she thought Roger Stoltz was a good man and a patriot and he had promised to come over later in the evening.

Karl nodded agreeably but drifted off into a memory so clear and painful that Andy thought he saw Alma Vonn’s tiny image flickering in his black eyes.

Nick put his arm around his pregnant wife and set a hand on her very large bulge.

Clay and Eileen left the table early and changed shoes in the mudroom to take a walk around the property because Eileen was from Maine and had never been in an orange grove.

David smiled through his mustache and helped his mother with the dishes.

The Vonn girls helped Max and Meredith clear the table.

Andy watched Meredith with a vague ache in his heart and a very specific and painful one in each of his nuts.

“She’s a beautiful girl,” said Katy. “You’re lucky.”

“I know.”

AFTER THE FEAST Andy asked Karl Vonn if he could talk to him a second on the front porch.

Vonn didn’t even hesitate. “Sure,” he said.

Without asking, Andy poured Karl a glass of wine, then one for himself. They sat on rattan chairs with a round rattan table between them. It wasn’t quite dark yet but the porch light was already on. Andy wondered if Karl Vonn’s agreeability came from years in prison or jail.

“I…I’m very sorry about your wife,” Andy managed.

“Oh?”

“Yes, um-hm. Very.” He felt his words failing him. It was an entirely new experience, and terrifying.

“I still can’t believe it,” said Mr. Vonn. He took a sip of the wine, but from the way he held the rim of the glass Andy could tell he wasn’t used to a wine goblet.

“I’m supposed to write the obit.”

“Obit? Well.”

“May I?”

Andy set his glass on the porch rail and brought a small notebook out of a back trouser pocket. Then a ballpoint from his jacket. He felt a gush of sweat break onto his face and back, and an odd tightness of vision.

“I’m just going to-” He stood and freed himself from the sport coat. He took a deep breath, then sat down, gathered up his pad and pen, took another large gulp of wine. “Tell me about her, will you?”

“Well, gosh,” said Karl Vonn. He shook his head and looked down, then back directly at Andy. “That I can’t really do, just sitting here with a boy and a notebook.”

“Why not, sir?”

“I think the words would burn your fingers.”

“All I want is a little truth.”

“That’s what truth does.”

Andy wrote the sentence, pen sliding off the edge of the little pad in his hurry.

“When was she born, Mr. Vonn? What year were you married? Was she happy then?”

He looked long and hard at Andy. Andy looked down from the black eyes to the tight lips and the big pores of the nose and the slightly receding and unhandsome chin of Karl Vonn.

“Born nineteen-seventeen. She wasn’t a happy woman. Never was, except for maybe our first year.”

“Why was that?” Andy asked. His heart was slowing down. He was getting a rhythm. Thought of J. J. Overholt always reminding him to get the why. The who and what and when and where, but don’t forget the why.

Vonn studied him again and Andy looked away again. “Andy, I’m not going to do this. Someday, you want to know about Alma, then you can come by and we can talk some. I know you want something for the paper so I’ll write it up when I get home and send it to you at the Times. Facts about her. All right?”

“All right, sir.” Andy felt hugely relieved but he knew that he had failed. He took a large gulp of wine for courage and consolation, set the glass back on the porch rail.

Karl Vonn stood and offered his hand and Andy slipped his pen into his pocket and shook it. “Shaking hands reminds me of something Alma told me,” said Vonn. “It was after I came back from the Pacific. We were talking about death because I’d seen some. She said she’d be ready to go when she couldn’t count her dead loved ones on two hands.”

Andy rolled the words around in his mind. Made sure he had them straight. Eleven seemed like an odd number to come up with but he couldn’t help but ask the obvious. “Did she lose someone recently?”