She's Gone: A Novel (15 page)

20

New Digs

A new Help Wanted sign hung in the window when Jolie entered Brigham’s for her shift. She had been working for three weeks and had the job down. Dimitri winked at her as she walked into the back room. She smiled back. After he’d loaned her the money for the subway his demeanor had changed. Instead of ignoring her, he was protective. When she paid him back after she had cashed her first check, he told her to give him her lunch order before two thirty every day. He would have it ready. She would have more time to eat and rest instead of standing around, waiting for her order from the other cook. Besides, he told her, he was the better cook.

Frank caught up with her in the back room before she went down to the lockers. He didn’t usually talk to her before her shift. He was friendly enough but didn’t have time for small talk. Was something wrong? Was he going to replace her? Is that why the Help Wanted sign was in the window? She had caught on quickly, and her cash register always added up at the end of every shift. She clasped her hands together, her knuckles white as she waited for him to speak.

“How would you like to change jobs?” he said.

Did he mean work nights? She didn’t want to be away from Will but she couldn’t say no, desperate for the job. “Okay,” she said.

“I need you waitressing weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. One of the old birds is going out for surgery. I don’t expect her to return. They never do.”

A smile brightened her face. That meant tips. “Okay, thank you.”

“I’m going to need you to train the new person at the ice cream counter once I hire someone, hopefully today. Millie will train you on Monday. You’re a good worker, Jolie. I’ve been watching you.”

She floated down to the basement to change into her uniform. She didn’t know how much Millie and the others made in tips, but anything would be better than her minimum wage paycheck. She would save her tips, and Will would get a paying job. They would rent a small brick house. Today, she didn’t mind the pink uniform.

Later, on her way to her lunch break, a girl sat at the back counter filling out an application. She looked about eighteen with shoulder-length dark curly hair and a sweet face. She hoped Frank hired her. Jolie sat down at the break table next to Dimitri. He was studying the paper. The Greek print was unintelligible.

“I start waitressing Monday,” she said.

“Good. Then you’ll be working for me.”

“For you?”

His eyes smiled at her over his paper. “I control the orders.”

The next day when Jolie arrived at work, Frank and the dark-haired girl stood waiting for her by the time clock.

“Show her the ropes, Jolie,” Frank said before he dashed off.

Jolie took her down to the locker room and got her a uniform. Her name was Leah. She had just moved to Boston from New York and planned to go to Boston University in the fall. This was her first job. They changed into their uniforms, and Leah followed her up to the ice cream counter.

Jolie started by teaching Leah how to make change before she moved on to the ice cream creations. It was Friday, and they were slammed. The line grew. Slowed by training Leah, Jolie found it impossible to keep up. But the customers were patient as they waited for their concoctions, watching all types of treats being served before them.

Jolie reluctantly took her lunch break, worrying how Leah would do in her absence.

“Keep an eye on her, she may need some help,” Jolie said, passing Frank in the back room. She was glad for the break. Training someone was tiring.

“How’s the Jewish girl doing,” Dimitri said.

“Jewish? How do you know she’s Jewish?”

“She looks like a typical Jewish princess from New York,” he said.

“Well she is from New York, but I don’t know about the Jewish or princess part.”

Dimitri laughed, shook his head and went back to reading his paper. She’d ask Will what it meant. She didn’t think you could tell someone’s religion from their features, or could you?

Jolie went back to the ice cream counter after her break. Frank was helping Leah. The line was endless, and it was time for Leah’s break. She wouldn’t miss the ice cream counter, but could she keep up as a waitress? Her heart sank. She’d find out Monday.

Jolie quickly learned the menu and, since she already knew how to make the drinks and ice cream concoctions, the orders flowed. Some of her customers were even interesting. If they were college students she always asked them what they were studying. Jolie and the new girl, Leah, had the same lunch break and quickly became friends. Dimitri still read his Greek paper but he joined in on their conversation when he smoked one of his non-filtered Pall Mall’s.

Now that they had her tip money coming in, Jolie was anxious to move. Will wanted to live in Cambridge, closer to the action and the Central Underground office. He found an advertisement posted on the bulletin board at Liberation Books. There was a house to share in Cambridge between Central Square and Kendall Square. He called and set up a time to see it on Saturday. The address led them to the second floor of an old brick triplex.

A young man greeted them at the door and invited them in. Another man joined them in the kitchen. They introduced themselves as Daniel and Sam. The apartment had high ceilings and hardwood floors. Soft light poured through the tall windows.

“I teach high school in Roxbury,” Daniel said. He had dark curly hair and behind his rimless granny glasses, his large brown eyes looked kind.

“Roxbury?” Jolie said.

“Boston’s black ghetto,” Daniel said.

Sam was studying engineering at M.I.T., the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His sandy-blond hair and long side burns melded into soft facial hair that was overdue for a shave.

Daniel led them on a tour. The apartment had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large kitchen, dining room, and living room. Off the back hall was a covered porch that overlooked a green space.

The back bedroom was vacant. Jolie glanced around. It was furnished with a bed and dresser and some odds and ends of furniture. It was clean and it wasn’t a commune. They walked back into the kitchen.

“So you’re starting a new underground press?” Sam asked Will. Sam had posted the ad in the bookstore and was a member of the Students For a Democratic Society (SDS). An explosion of political diatribe ensued between the two.

Daniel and Jolie eyed each other cautiously. “We don’t cook much,” Daniel said.

“I can tell.” The kitchen looked like it was used to make coffee, open a beer, and maybe make a sandwich. “I love to cook.”

“You do?” A big smile spread across his face. “I’ll chip in for groceries if you cook once in a while. Sam is hardly ever here.”

“Sure.” Her eyes darted about the house. It was large and clean and sparsely furnished. There was a TV on in the living room. The news announcer’s voice droned in the background and then a Shake and Bake commercial blared. “Is Roxbury like Harlem?” she asked.

“It’s smaller but just as scary. The schools close when there are riots.”

“Riots?”

“Last year after Martin Luther King was assassinated they tore the school apart. It looked like a war-torn battlefield. But it’s fairly safe here. They’ll rob you, but not rape you. In some neighborhoods you need to watch out for everything, but not here.”

Robbery and rape? She’d have to be more careful.

Will and Jolie rented the room and planned to move in the next day. On the walk back to the subway, she talked nonstop. “I can get a library card now. And I can invite Leah over for dinner. It’s an easy walk to Central Square and Central Underground. It’s only two T stops from Harvard Square, or I can walk. I can’t wait to move.”

Will emerged from his thoughts and squeezed her hand. She didn’t care that she had to pay all the rent. She wanted out of the Berkeley dive.

The next day in the new house, she cleaned their room and the bathroom. She unpacked their meager belongings into the antique walnut dresser. Over the previous weeks, she’d bought new sheets, a blanket, and a turquoise madras-print bedspread. After making up the bed, she looked around the room. This was good. She could see the green field in the back from the bedroom window. The other two bedrooms were at the front of the house and shared a bathroom, which made the back bedroom and bathroom more private.

She went out and shopped for groceries at a nearby market. She had a kitchen to cook in. No more hot plate dinners. Daniel hovered in the kitchen, talking to her while she made spaghetti and chocolate chip cookies.

After dinner, Will sat in the living room with Daniel and Sam, talking. Jolie went into the back bathroom. At Berkeley Street she wouldn’t have even considered taking a bath, but now she filled the claw foot cast iron tub with hot water and lavender oil and took a long soak while she read Hemingway.

That night in bed, Jolie lay her head on Will’s shoulder.

“Did you hear Daniel say that in this neighborhood they might rob you but not rape you?” she said.

“Hmmm.”

“Would they rob us at nighttime, or when we’re gone in the day?”

“I don’t know, baby. Don’t think about it. We don’t have anything to steal anyway.”

He was right. They didn’t have anything now, but she wanted things. A camera for her and a guitar for Will to start with.

21

Save the Planet

Jolie and Will walked along the musty banks of the Charles River most mornings on the way to the Central Underground office. She breathed in the earthy smell. The trees were thick with pink and white blossoms that floated in the spring air.

Central Underground was officially in business. With an address and two phone lines, news stories poured in by phone and mail from sources all over the country, Latin America, and Vietnam. Will needed to recruit more student volunteers to keep up with the flow of information. Jolie worked a few hours every morning, sorting mail and organizing the chaos before going to work. When she stopped by after work to meet Will, it was always in worse disarray.

One evening after work, Jolie dropped by the office, as Central Underground became known. Will was on the phone as usual. He raised his index finger, the one minute sign.

“Jolie girl, you look happy,” Adam said. He worked at the long wooden table on the layout for the next weekly edition. He was always clean shaven and kept his blond hair trimmed.

“I just saw a poster for a National Earth Day demonstration this Wednesday, April 22. Jolie said. “People are finally realizing we’re all connected to the earth and the universe.”

“Yeah, we’ve had some calls. There are events all over the nation, all ignited by last year’s Santa Barbara oil spill.”

She smiled to think the oil spill may have had a positive outcome. And then her smile faded. The spill had been a catalyst for a lot of events; her being enrolled in an all girls Catholic school, leaving home with Will, living in communes, fleeing Oregon, the Berkeley Street dive. It had been a year of living on the edge. Her life had changed so much. “Good, maybe something positive can come from it. Corporations need to be held accountable. They shouldn’t be able to pollute and then raise prices to clean it up,” Jolie said.

Will stood next to her. “Earth Day?” He shook his head. “Sounds like a one-time event for tree huggers.”

“You used to care about it. It’s our planet. If we don’t save it, nothing you do here will be of any use,” she said.

“I have a single focus now. You need to align your passion with the movement. We could use some serious help around here,” Will said.

Jolie inhaled deeply. She did do a lot of work. Both before and after her crappy job. But she also had other interests. “We can only survive with the survival of other species and the earth. It’s even spelled out in the
Diamond Sutra
.”

“The
Diamond Sutra
?” Adam said.

“An ancient Buddhist text.”

“Get your head out of that Buddhist mumbo jumbo,” Will said.

Adam grinned and shook his head. “Maybe you should write an article, connecting the dots for our readers.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Will said.

Why didn’t Will ever take her seriously? She would write an article. She’d include Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophy on the over-soul and man’s connection to the universe.

On Wednesday morning, before Jolie’s shift, she and Will went to the Earth Day event at Boston Common. Will had agreed only because he didn’t want her to go alone. The Common was packed with a diverse crowd of workers, businessmen, labor leaders, students, and long-haired youth.

A man on the bandstand spoke. “For the first time, groups are united here today to fight against polluting factories and power plants, toxic dumps, contaminated streams and rivers, the loss of wilderness and the extinction of wildlife. We need to work together to create a sustainable environment.”

Will and Jolie eased up toward the stage. The speaker lamented: “The Cuyahoga River outside Cleveland caught fire last June. The Connecticut River, the Hudson River, the Mississippi River, and rivers in New Hampshire, and Maine and here in Massachusetts are so polluted if a person fell in they would dissolve.”

After two other speakers took the stage, Jolie leaned into Will. “I have to get to work or I’ll be late.”

He nodded and brushed her lips with a kiss. Reluctantly, she left him standing near the stage. She wanted to stay, listen to the speakers, and get involved. She glanced back at Will as she walked through the crowd. He was talking to an attractive young woman with dark hair and long bangs that partly covered her eyes. Her high cheekbones and full pink lips were striking. Jolie’s heart thudded. Did he know her?

All day at work she flashed to the woman and Will. Were they still hanging out together?

The next day, reports came in to Central Underground from around the nation. Earth Day had been a success. Will’s headline read:
Twenty Million Gather to Save the Planet
. Adam included Jolie’s article urging respect for all forms of life on earth, but limited it to four paragraphs. At least she got to make the final edits. Adam told her it was a thoughtful piece of writing. Despite Will’s objection, he placed it on the back page, prime space in the paper.

On Thursday, April 30, President Nixon addressed the nation. Sam called them into the living room to watch the broadcast. Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. He was attacking the headquarters of the Viet Cong.

“Our involvement is supposed to be winding down,” Will said.

“Lies, all lies,” Sam said, absently stroking his long sideburns.

Will called Adam, and they met at the office. They worked all night on a special edition of
Central Underground Press
, writing articles calling for protests and immediate student strikes. The paper was on street corners by early morning. Volunteers distributed the paper around the city and to all the colleges.

The nation responded to Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia with outrage. Students went on strike at over four hundred fifty campuses. The protests continued over the weekend. On May 5, the National Guard fired on unarmed protesters at Kent State University, killing four and injuring nine others.

Will’s headline screamed:
Invasion Hits Nerve—Four Million Students Strike
. Students and protestors clashed at twenty-six universities and colleges. The National Guard had been called in to twenty-one campuses.

“Nixon was escorted to Camp David for his safety,” Adam said. “He’s calling the protests a civil war.”

“How can it be a war if only one side has weapons?” Jolie asked.

“We’re at war against the war,” one of the students said.

At Central Underground the phones rang constantly with news pouring in. Will, Adam, Sam, Jolie, and a cadre of student volunteers worked tirelessly getting the articles coordinated. They typed the stories and cut and pasted pages for the press. Will was in his element. While he hadn’t slept more than a few hours in days he was energized by the events unfolding. He organized the volunteers and the news was flowing out of Central Underground. But more volunteers were needed. It was hit and miss who would arrive to work the next day.

“One hundred thousand peaceful protesters showed up in D.C. and one hundred fifty thousand in San Francisco,” Will said to Jolie and the small group working on the next issue. “They showed up spontaneously. Just think what we can do if we organize the movement.”

More and more student volunteers showed up at the office. Boston University and seventy-four other colleges across the nation announced they would stay closed for the remainder of the school year.

Everyone shared in the camaraderie of the office. Jolie worked with them before and after work and on weekends. Strangers became sisters or brothers or lovers. The office teemed with enthusiasm and sexual energy. The male students outnumbered the women, but the women didn’t mind. Jolie thought they liked the attention. Relationships flared and eventually burned out. Adam liked the flow of women through the office and had flings with all that succumbed to his charms—and charming he was.

Central Underground had taken off in a short period of time. Will supplied other free presses with a subscription service for fifteen dollars a month. Not everyone paid on time but Central Underground News Agency continued to supply them with the news. The
Central Underground Press
consistently sold fifty thousand copies a week. Both were starting to make money.

One evening after work, Jolie found Will and Adam sitting with a group of students drinking beer. The mood was festive.

“What’s the occasion?” Jolie asked.

“We cut our first paycheck.” Will held up his bottle in a toast.

She hadn’t doubted the success of the agency, she just hadn’t envisioned Will earning money from it.

“I’m proud of you guys. You had a vision,” she said.

“Come work fulltime with us,” Will said.

“That’s a great idea. We need you around here,” Adam said.

Flattered, she smiled. She didn’t like waitressing, but she wasn’t planning to give it up. The tips were good—so good that she’d begun depositing most of them in her bank account. She still kept the account a secret from Will, not because she didn’t trust him, but because she planned to surprise him someday if they needed money fast. Plus, she liked her independence.

The front door opened, and two striking young women, a blonde and brunette, walked in with a pizza and a twelve-pack of beer. They set them down in the kitchen and hugged Will and Adam. Will kissed them both, lingering an extra moment with the brunette. Jolie’s stomach flipped and heat rose to her face when she recognized her as the dark haired girl from Earth Day.

“This is Marlena,” Will said.

“Hi,” Jolie replied.

“Hey,” Marlena said, tilting her head toward Jolie, giving her the once over.

Will moved away to take a phone call. Jolie took a deep breath to squash the jealous pang. In
The Wisdom of Buddha
, she had learned that misery originates from within. Let it go. They were just volunteers in the movement. She exhaled slowly.