Sleeping Beauty (12 page)

He was surrounded by harpies out to destroy him. Anne. Marian. Rita. And Dora, who would have called the police if her mother had screamed.

“Daddy!” Dora called from the back porch. “Where are you going? Can I come?”

Behind her, Rita swooped down and took her back into the house.

Vince started the car. Rita would get whatever he was forced to pay, not a penny more. And he'd see Dora whenever and wherever he wanted, and he'd find a way to get her away from her crazy mother. And he'd get Tamarack away from his father. He might take it away himself; he might find someone else to do it; but somehow, no matter how long it took, he'd do it. None of them would ever forget what they'd done to him.

He tried to whistle the march he had been whistling earlier, but no sound came. His throat was dry; his lips were dry. Angrily, he turned on the car radio, spinning the knob until he found some martial music, and turned up the volume until it filled the car. Then he backed out of the driveway.

He thought fleetingly of Anne as he passed her house, and remembered her awkward body and huge eyes that first time
in the forest. Then he dismissed her. He wouldn't think of her again; she was already forgotten. She wasn't important. She'd take up with a bunch of other runaways and end up on the street. She'd be dead within a couple of years. Even if she didn't die, she'd never come back to the family; she wouldn't dare; none of them had believed her. They'd never see her again.

He left her house behind and kept driving. She wasn't important. She was already forgotten.

E
leven of them shared a house on Page Street in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco, sleeping on cots, sagging couches, and mattresses on the floors. The house, like dozens in the neighborhood, had once been elegant, its three stories decorated with scalloped shingles and carved and painted wood that covered every inch of its towers, dormers, eaves, and window frames. At the turn of the century, it had housed a wealthy banker's family and had echoed with the laughter of children, the clip-clop of high-stepping horses, and balls that lasted until dawn. But by the time Anne arrived, it had been a boardinghouse for thirty years, its stucco flaking, its sweeping banisters scarred and splintered, its chandeliers in shreds.

“A sad decline,” said Don Santelli, eyeing the house from the sidewalk. “But the toilets work, so do the lights, and the resident ghost is basically not too hostile.”

“The ghost?” Anne asked.

“Adolphus Swain, banker. He built the place. We figured he's vexed by seeing hippies in his mansion, so he causes chunks of the ceiling to fall now and then, and the sinks to back up, and pieces of the floor to collapse under you when you're thinking of something else. Walk warily and very lightly is rule number one. Rule number two is don't look scared. You seem to have a problem with that one.”

She darted a look at him. “Why?”

“You know why. What are you scared of? Somebody finding you? Or nobody finding you?”

“That's my business.”

“Hey, I was being basically friendly.” He put his arm around her. “Everybody goes through the exact same thing when they get here.” Anne jerked away from him. “Sorry,” he said. He took a long, exaggerated step backward. “I guess we ought to be properly introduced; then maybe we can be friendly. Don Santelli. I don't think I told you that when we met. Usually we don't pay attention to last names. I didn't get yours.”

“Anne Garnett.”

“Garnett. I like that. It's sort of a jewel, isn't it?”

“Sort of.” It had been her mother's name before she married; now it was Anne's. Somewhere between Chicago and San Francisco, Anne Chatham had disappeared. She was Anne Garnett now, and she would be, for the rest of her life.

“So, now we know each other,” Don said. “Are you hungry?”

She nodded.

“Let's see what we can find.”

He was tall and thin, with black hair tied back in a long ponytail, jutting ears, a quick smile, and a scattering of pimples on his high forehead. He had lived in Haight Ashbury for two years, in one house and another, with one group of people and another. “Looking for a place where I felt good,” he said as he took plastic cartons from the refrigerator and filled a plate with vegetables. “I may have found it; this is a decent bunch of people here. Bread,” he muttered, and cut a thick slice from a sourdough loaf on the counter. “Juice.” He filled a glass and put everything in front of Anne. “Eat up and relax. You've got nothing to do but be happy.”

“I have to get a job. I can't do anything until I find some work.”

“Bite your tongue, Anne; that's a dirty word around here. We came here to get away from all that. Work is for peons.”

“But—”

“Now listen. What you do is, you collect food stamps every month. If you have to, you pick up odd jobs now and then, just enough for whatever you need. Rent is twenty-five bucks a month for each of us, food varies, maybe fifty a month, and you've got clothes, right? So what else do you need?”

Anne was staring at him. “But everybody works.”

“Not here. You're talking about that awful place you escaped from. Here you do your own thing. Find out who you are and what's really important in life. You don't like the food?”

“Well, if you had some meat or something . . .”

“I don't eat that shit,” he said amiably. “I'm strictly vegetarian. But we're easy around here; nobody cares what you do, as long as you don't try to convert anybody, and provide for yourself. But just today, we'll give you a break. Barbie has some tuna fish; she won't mind if I give you some, to help you feel at home. Just replace it sometime, okay?” He opened a can and shook the contents onto Anne's plate. “That okay?”

She nodded. “Thanks. If you don't work, do you go to school?”

“Nope, not interested. I'm a lousy student; I hate being told there's only one right way to do things, and I freeze on tests. My father offered me a hundred bucks for every A I got on my report card; I told him that was pretty shabby.”

“Why?”

“Because it should have been eight or nine thousand for every A. Because I was working, right? And a hundred bucks an A was grossly below minimum wage when you figure class time and homework. I was totally disillusioned by my father doing this typical capitalistic thing, trying to screw me out of a decent living wage, and he and my mother didn't like my hair or my clothes or my friends or my smoking pot or I guess anything about me. And I didn't like the way they were always so careful with their life, planning everything before they made a move so they'd know the end of something before they even started it. I wanted romance and mystery and unexpected passion. So we had all these
crises, lots of shouting, lots of tears, so I left and came out here. So now I play my guitar on street corners, talk to strangers and make them feel better about themselves. Life is a drag for most people, you know, but not me; I lie in the sun and take each day as it comes, and I never know what's going to happen tomorrow. That's the way life oughta be. Let's find you a place to sleep. It's probably best on the third floor; not so crowded. No bathrooms up there, but there's two on the second and one on the first, and everybody's easy about sharing.”

He carried her suitcase and Anne followed to the second floor and then up a narrow, ladderlike staircase to the third. “Let's get you settled,” he said, putting her suitcase on a bare mattress. He brought over an empty box. “Looks like your stuff will fit in here if this is all you have.” He started to open the suitcase.

“Leave it alone!” Anne snapped.

He drew back. “Sorry. I thought you'd like some help.”

“I don't like people touching my things.”

“Hoo-ee,” he said softly. “We share a lot around here. You might want to think about that.” He turned to go. “No rush in getting settled; not a time clock in sight. Not any clocks, as a matter of fact. See you around.”

Left alone, Anne sat on the mattress. It was in a corner of a large room with a carved ceiling and parquet floor that was gouged and dull with age. Once it had been a ballroom; now it held five mattresses, a few chairs, and cardboard boxes filled with clothes. Above Anne's mattress was a round window with square panes, and through it she saw similar houses across the street, and beyond them the treetops of the Panhandle, the long, narrow stretch of Golden Gate Park where she had sat for two days, telling herself that the park was so much like home that she'd get used to being there pretty soon.

She had told herself she wouldn't miss anyone, but she missed them all. Not Vince, never Vince, but all the rest of them, all the people who had filled her days since she was born, and who seemed to be getting brighter, bathed in a
kind of mystical glow, the longer she was away from them. She had learned about Haight Ashbury in high school, where her classmates had talked about it with excitement and longing as the place of freedom and free love. They had vowed they'd go there the minute things got really bad at home, but none of them had. Anne was the only one who did, and those first two days, wandering around San Francisco, she hadn't felt free at all; she'd felt alone and piercingly lonely and sure she had done the wrong thing. And then she met Don Santelli playing his guitar in the Panhandle, and she went home with him because he told her she was welcome and could stay as long as she liked, and he didn't ask her anything about herself, and because she didn't know what else to do.

And then she was mean to him when he was trying to be nice.
We share a lot around here. You might want to think about that.
But she didn't want to share. She didn't want to get close to anyone. For the first time in two years, her body was hers again; she felt clean and pure and untouched. And she was going to stay that way. No one would ever degrade her as Vince had done. No one would get the chance.

But it wasn't only touching she found unbearable; it was hard to talk to people, too. She just wanted to be quiet; she wanted to be separate from everybody. But at the same time she didn't want to be alone. If they just kind of hang around but don't get too close, I'll be fine, she thought. If they get too close, I'll go somewhere else. She sat cross-legged on the mattress, looking out the round window. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. Nobody can make me.

She didn't even have to work, it seemed. Little odd jobs, Don had said. Food stamps. Grandpa would be awfully disappointed, she thought. He'd say,
But wouldn't it be best if you at least tried to find a real job? You can always ask for help if you can't make it on your own, but wouldn't you feel better about yourself if you tried to use that good brain of yours?
And then he'd kiss me and tell me how smart I am.

She blinked back tears. “But I don't live there anymore,” she said aloud. “I'm not part of them anymore. I'm part of
here. And I owe Barbie, whoever she is, a can of tuna fish.” She left her suitcase on the mattress and walked down the steep stairway. The kitchen was empty when she passed it on her way outside; the house was empty. No one cared where she went. No one cared whether she went or not. Marian would have asked where she was going. She always wanted to protect me, Anne thought. But when it really counted, she didn't.

She walked along the sidewalk, wondering where a grocery store was, but not wanting to ask. The street was alive with people, groups of brightly dressed men and women who parted for her as she approached, and came together again as she passed. It made her feel very much alone, and the tweed pantsuit and white blouse that she had worn when she took the bus across the country made her feel out of place. But everything around her was so exotic that she told herself it was enough just to be the audience.

Nearby, young girls in gossamer scarves held hands in a circle and danced; farther down the street men with pony-tails and earrings, and women with long hair and headbands, sat cross-legged in doorways, smoking and gossiping. Straight ahead, groups were coming from the park, or going to it, and when Anne came closer, she saw what looked like hundreds of people sitting and lying on the grass, lounging against trees, reading or singing to mournful guitars.

It was spring in Haight Ashbury. From all parts of the country new people came each day, lured by romantic tales of freedom, peace, harmony, joy, and love. In the few square blocks of that enclave bordered on two sides by Golden Gate Park, they created a small world bright with the colors of Indian saris, velvet and old lace rescued from forgotten trunks, hand-painted T-shirts, sandals, and long strings of beads. It was a world perfumed with incense and marijuana, furnished with junk-shop furniture, and illuminated by candles in wine bottles or bare bulbs dangling from high ceilings. It was the world of the Jefferson Airplane, Ken Kesey, the Grateful Dead, and Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park.

“Plenty of room,” someone said to Anne as she stood
watching the crowd on the hill. He reached up to pull her down beside him. “You can squeeze in right here.”

Anne shrank back. “I'm just looking.”

“Plenty of room,” he said, but as she scurried away, she saw he had already forgotten her.

Every day Anne walked through Haight Ashbury, watching and listening. After a month she recognized dozens of faces, and she was recognized by people who greeted her with a smile or a raised hand, palm out, that was like a salute among them. “I've waited two whole weeks to say hi,” said a young man with a blond beard and long blond hair. “So, hi.”

“Hi,” Anne said briefly, and kept walking.

“I'm Sandy,” he said, keeping step with her, “and I'm writing a song and it's dedicated to you. So I need to know your name.”

He had moved close to her as they walked, and his shoulder and hand brushed hers. Anne moved away. “Pick somebody else.”