The Road to Me, page 10
“That’s the woman I do remember. The world was too harsh a place for a free, light spirit as that.”
“I’m glad you weren’t there at the end.” When the words slip out, I’m shocked to realize I mean them. After all, my guilt is so much less than a mother’s—wondering where you went wrong, what you could have done differently . . .
G’ma swipes tears. “I think you need to finish.”
“They kept her in the hospital the rest of the time, drugged, mostly. I talked to my guidance counselor at school. She said I could graduate on the credits I had and got permission for me to miss the last month, and graduation. I got an extra job and visited Mom every afternoon.” I blow my nose and push the words through my regret-swollen throat. “I came in one afternoon, and she was alert, looking better than she had in a long time. She patted the bed and when I sat, she took my hands.” I stop to breathe for a moment. “She told me she was sorry. That I was a kid and I was stuck mothering her. She said she didn’t know what made her so antsy all her life, wanting things she couldn’t have and drinking to cover the holes the wanting left in her. Then she did a really strange thing.”
I wait until G’ma looks up from her lap.
“She told me not to blame you.”
Her narrow shoulders shake with sobs.
“She said she knew that you couldn’t have done anything else, though she didn’t know why.” I cock my head and study my mother’s mother. “What did she mean?”
She’s crying too hard to answer.
A week ago, I would have flung my mother’s death in her face. I didn’t think Nellie deserved to know her daughter forgave her. You couldn’t have pried that confession out of me with a crowbar.
Somewhere on this road, like a leak in the Duchess’ transmission, bitterness dripped out, unnoticed. I’m not sure about the how or why of it, or even if I’m glad.
My grandmother and I sit in the sunshine in the middle of nowhere, exhaling old pain.
Ten miles outside Kingman, Nellie tells me to hang a Ralph, and I shudder at the name of the demon goat. If I survive this trip, I’ll have some good stories to tell—not that anyone would believe them.
We start up a rocky, pinion pine-covered mountain. Not a mountain by Washington standards, but for Arizona, a dizzying height. I slow on the curves, enjoying the dappled sunshine and scent of fresh pine. This stopover may not be so bad. At least we’re out of the sameness of the desert.
“Slow down. It’s just up ahead.” Nellie’s tone is an excited bird-chirp. “Here. Turn here.”
I turn at a small break in the trees onto an asphalt track too narrow to be called a road. We pass under a log arch with a hand carved wooden sign:
Paradise del Soul ~ you were born to be free!
NO TRESPASSING
Sounds woo-woo, but this is Nellie, so I expect nothing less. There’s a break in the trees on the right, giving a view of a placid sapphire lake. “Wow.”
Nellie closes her eyes, inhales, and lets out a huge sigh. “It’s as wonderful as I remember.”
I pull into a clearing. There are cabins, and a large restaurant/store/office, all built of rough logs. “Oh. No. Way.” I brake so fast the seat belt tugs on my lap. There are naked people. Everywhere.
“What’s the big deal, Jack?” Nellie takes off her sun hat. “You brought a half gallon of sunscreen. You should be fine.”
Before she finishes, my head is shaking back and forth. “Nope, nope to the power of nope. You’ve done some crazy things, Nellie, but this—” A very overweight man jogs by, and I try not to . . . see. “This is way past my limits. If you think I’m going to parade around—”
“Let me explain.” She takes off her star sunglasses and grabs my hand. “After I found Easy that morning in the desert, I was half out of my mind. More than half, because when I became aware, I had walked miles into the desert wearing only a crop top, shorts, and sandals, the sun was a ball of fire, straight overhead.”
Her eyes are deep pools of sadness I can’t turn away from.
“I had no idea where the van was. The temperature was over a hundred, and I had no water.” Her fingers clench mine. “I slept that night shivering in the dirt and woke to another blazing hot sunrise. I could have been getting somewhere, or I could have been walking in circles, I had no way of knowing.
“By afternoon, I was dehydrated, exhausted, and I’d lost a sandal. I gave up. This life was too hard. I’d follow Easy, and depending on which religion was right, I might have a chance of being with him again. I sat down to wait for the end.
“Easy came to me then. We argued. He said I had to fight for us both from now on. I told him that a quitter had no right to judge me. He got mad and stomped off. I sat and listened to the wind and waited. Around dusk, two people appeared. I asked if they were angels. I told them I was ready.”
She looks away and studies the clearing.
I’m again shocked by the brutality of my grandmother’s life. “Who were they?”
She turns back to me. “They said they were pilgrims, seeking enlightenment. They took me to town, helped me report what had happened and deal with the details. Then they brought me here.” She waves a scrawny arm. “This place is a lot more than what you see with your eyes, child. You have to see past your puritanical roots to see with your soul.”
“My puritanical roots have gotten me this far, and I have no—” I try to pull my hand away, but her fingers dig into my skin.
“I just want to commune with nature and worship with these wonderful people one more time.” She squints up at me. “This place is magical, Jack. It replenished me and gave me the strength to go on. It will hold answers for you, too. I know it.” She thumps a fist to her concave chest. “I know it here.”
I shake my head.
“There’s a medicine woman here.” A twinkle comes to her eye. “She knows local plants. She can help you find new scents.”
My brains says no. But she’s plucked at a string of longing, deep inside me. It makes a lonely sound. I take in a barest hint of a tantalizing scent on the wind. Pine and . . . something. I glance around. “Well, just so you know, I am not taking my clothes off.”
Nellie squeals, leans over, knocks my hat awry, putting her dry lips to my check. “No worries. Clothing is optional.”
I straighten my hat. “Well I wish a couple of these people would take the option.” Apparently, this is how far I’m willing to go to learn the secrets Nellie holds. But it’s not like I’m going to run into anyone I know, so I can take this memory to my grave. I put the car in drive and pull up to the end of the store where a sign declares it the office.
“I love you, Jacqueline Oliver.” Nellie looks at me with a fond smile.
“Oh, now you do, huh? That might have helped—Stop that!”
She’s grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and is trying to wrestle it over her head.
I grab her hands. “Stop it right now!”
Her hands fall to her lap. “You’re probably right. This body has changed so much since I was here, they wouldn’t recognize me. Let’s go in. I want to see Spike.”
“If they had a dog back then, it’s long dead, now.” I pull the door handle and put my shoulder into it. It pops open with a squeal.
Nellie titters. “No, silly. That’s the name of the Soul’s leader.”
I so don’t want to see a naked biker dude. I walk around, open Nellie’s door, and reach for her walker in the back seat.
“Leave that shitty thing. I want to walk in under my own power.”
“Are you sure?”
She waves me off and steps out of the car.
I rush to take her elbow. She’s not breaking the other hip on my watch. We take the two steps slow and easy, then cross the porch.
A little wind chime tinkles against the door when I open it. The room is a surprise—it looks like a high-end mountain resort. The interior logs are a soft gold. Across the room, a large fireplace is surrounded by cranberry colored chairs and a matching plaid couch. Through a broad doorway, is a pool table, a card table with a partially completed jigsaw puzzle, and a kitchen area.
“Welcome to Paradise del Soul.” A squeaky voice comes from our left. A man stands behind a reception desk. He’s short and thin, with a mustache and a tonsure of gray hair around his bald pate. All I can see above the counter is his sunken chest sporting a few gray curly hairs. He looks like a naked CPA.
“Spike!” Nellie holds out her arms.
He takes off his reading glasses to look her over. “Blue? Oh my Creator, Blue, is that really you?” He comes around the desk and takes a few hopping steps to envelop Nellie in a hug.
That cannot be sanitary.
“Oh Spike, I can’t tell you how I’ve missed this place.” Nellie clasps his bony shoulder blades and lays her head on his shoulder.
He strokes her hair.
“I don’t know why you stayed away so long, silly. Wait til the others hear that Blue has returned!” He holds her at arm’s length. “You haven’t changed. I’d have recognized you anywhere.”
Nellie actually blushes. “Oh go on, I’m ancient now.”
“As are we all. The Creator has blessed us.”
Still holding Spike’s hand, Nellie turns to me. “Spike, this is my granddaughter, Jack.”
I lift my hand to shake, then think better of it (who knows where his have been?) and let it drop awkwardly to my side, forcing my gaze to stay on his face. “Um. My name is Jacqueline.”
“Jack it is, then.” He steps forward and takes my hand.
Which leaves the three of us holding hands. I squirm inside, drop his hand, and step to the desk. They could at least put out hand sanitizer. “I guess we’ll need a room for tonight.”
Nellie steps beside me. “Two nights.”
She’s pushing it. She knows it. I glare at her.
She smiles like an innocent. “You said we have to be in Vegas on Friday, right? That’s like a hundred miles from here.”
“Ninety-seven, actually.” Spike says.
A CPA would know the exact number. “Oh fine. Two nights then.”
He gets us registered into a cabin. The rate is exclusive mountain resort-sized. Great. All this, and naked people, too. I hand over my credit card. “I’ll just check in at work, and then—”
“There’s no cell or internet service on the mountain.” Spike passes two keys over the desk to us.
Alarm floods my stomach. “What? We’re not that far from civilization.”
He shakes his head. “We don’t allow the outside world to interfere with our chi.”
“Oh, this is not acceptable. To pay this much for a room with no internet, no phone, and naked—”
“We’ll be fine.” Nellie pats my hand. “Jack is wound just a little tight.”
“You’ll want a meal plan, then.” He names an exorbitant price.
I swallow, picturing my safety net in flames. “We’ll just eat in town.”
He looks at me over his glasses. “What town?”
“I don’t know, the nearest restaurant.”
Nellie squeezes my hand. “That’s where we ate breakfast.”
That can’t be right. “Kingman?”
She nods.
“What a racket,” I grumble, and hand over my credit card. Again.
“You’ll love our food. We serve only organic vegetables, grass fed beef and free-range chickens.”
For what he’s charging, they must be giving those chickens massages.
“So, what’s on the agenda, Spike?” Nellie chirps.“First, lunch. The staff is going to be so happy to see you, Blue. Then there’s volleyball on the beach, or alone time. Tonight, we’ll have a group sharing and meditation session.”
I’ve been railroaded by an octogenarian hippie. A nudist octogenarian hippie. Fine. Nellie will have her reunion, commune with the mountain Gods, and I’ll just hang out in the room for two days. I can survive that. “Come on, Nellie,” I take her arm and steer her for the door.
“You’ll see a lot more of me in a few, Spike.” She waggles her fingers at him.
“And I am looking forward to it.” He says as I push the door open and the wind chime tinkles again.
Back gates of hell, I tell you. And my grandmother is the imp, waving me inside.
I’m halfway to our cabin when it hits me—if they can run a credit card, they have a land line. Maybe I can talk Spike into letting me make a call.
I get Nellie in the room, then go out to the car to get our clothes. When I walk back in, Nellie is naked, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her skin is liver-spotted, wizened and brown. She has pastie-sized white patches on her nipples and the triangle of her pubis. Her butt is all tan. My grandmother wears a thong bikini. It takes me a moment to wrap my head around that. I drop the bags and raise an eyebrow. “Where on earth did you go to get a tan?”
“The Old Fart’s Warehouse has an interior courtyard.”
I snap my hanging jaw shut and drop onto the bed. “You mean you sunbathe almost naked in front of everyone?”
“Eh.” She flips a hand. “If all those old guys threw in together, they couldn’t raise a decent woody.”
I put my head in my hands. “There is no way we share the same gene pool.”
“If you’re not getting naked, let’s go to lunch.”
Naked people and food aren’t an appetizing combination, but I can’t go forty-eight hours without eating. “I guess.”
I’ll be two days without calling the store. They’ll think I died out here in the desert. Hell, I feel like I’m losing myself out here. A lonely thought floats through my mind before I can stop it.
Leo may forget me too.
The dining experience is closer to camp than an exclusive resort. The long log-sided room has tablecloth covered cafeteria-style tables with long benches attached.
“We eat family style at Paradise del Soul.” Nellie says. At my insistence, she put on flip flops, sun screen and her sun hat but refused to wear anything else. Except for the small buckskin bag which she retrieved from her walker and put around her neck.
Turns out, she fits the dress code far better than I. The closest this crowd comes to being clothed is the napkin in their laps.
I peer through the long serving window. Thank God the cooks are clothed, anyway.
“Blue!” A bony old man stands and carefully extricates himself from a bench seat.
At his shout, conversations cease, and all eyes turn to us. My face flames, though why I should be embarrassed, I can’t imagine.
“Oh my God. It’s Blue!” A lavender-haired old lady with a dowager’s hump shimmies off the end of her seat and hurries over, flat breasts flapping.
“Starlight!” Nellie takes the woman in a full-body hug.
“When Spike told me you were here, I couldn’t believe it!”
The little old man arrives. “Blue, you beautiful thing. I’m so happy to see you!”
Nellie lets go of Starlight to clasp the man to her. “Oh Ren, you’re still here!”
“I went back to the outside world for a while. It didn’t work for me.”
“You always were too soft for the outside.” She pats his back.
“Blue!” Several people call to her.
Nellie waves both hands over her head. “I’m baaaaack!”
The crowd breaks into applause.
I take her elbow. “Let’s find a place to sit.”
“Oh, over here.” Nellie hangs a Louie. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
She leads the way to a table at the back. Luckily, there’s space at the end, so Nellie doesn’t have to try to balance on one foot and slide in. I help her to her seat, then step in next to her.
Sitting across the table is a woman younger than Nellie, but older than me. Probably around the age my mother would be, had she lived. Her long, silver-white hair lies in braids partially covering her breasts. Her face is handsome and tanned, but it’s her eyes that hold me. Deep brown and bottomless, they telegraph calm, surety, and peace. My muscles ease their death grip on my bones, just a bit.
“Hello Blue.” Her voice is quiet and melodious.
“You remember me?” Nellie’s voice is calm; I wonder if she too is affected by this woman’s tranquility.
She smiles. One front tooth is a bit crooked, but it adds, rather than takes away from her beauty. “Of course, I do. You are a legend here.”
Legend?
Nellie turns to me. “This is Fawn. She’s del Soul’s healer, and the person I wanted you to meet. Fawn, this is my granddaughter, Jack.”
She tips her head and offers her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Where’s your mother, Fawn?” Nellie asks. “Don’t tell me she’s—”
“No, she’s fine. Mother is going to live forever. She moved to a retirement community in Boca Raton.”
“Your mother in a golf cart—that I can’t imagine. Jack, when I was here, Fawn’s mother was the healer, and a good one. Fawn wanted to travel in her mother’s footsteps, and here you are.” Nellie takes Fawn’s hand in hers. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you.”
“Excuse me, friends,” Spike’s voice quiets the crowd, “shall we have a few moments of reflection with your deity? And would you ask for blessings for those who, due to geography, politics or their own closed minds, don’t have the freedom we enjoy?”
Everyone bows their heads. I do the same. I haven’t prayed since I was old enough to realize God wasn’t more real than the tooth fairy, but I send good thoughts out to those in prison. The unrightfully accused, anyway.
“Thank you.” Spike says after a minute. “After lunch, there will be a lecture right here, on healing the world through the use of crystals. Oh, and there will be a non-competitive volleyball game on the beach. Enjoy your lunch.”
What is the point of non-competitive volleyball?
A voice comes from behind us. “May I ask your preference for your meal?”
