9

Carolyn worked all summer serving hamburgers and milk shakes at the local diner, and Charlie came in every day. He didn’t have to report to San Diego for basic training until the end of summer. Mitch had already finished basic and transferred to infantry training. Charlie drove down when Mitch called and said he had weekend liberty. When Charlie came home, he disappeared for a day without saying where he was going. He came into the diner just before Carolyn finished work and gave her a ride home.

“I decided not to wait. I’m flying to San Diego on Friday. I’ll be in basic by the beginning of next week.”

She made fists in her lap and looked out the window. “Why are you in such a hurry to die, Charlie?”

“I don’t plan to die. I just can’t stand hanging around here any longer listening to Mom cry or having Dad sit and stare at the news. It’s better if I go. You want to be the one to drive me to the airport?”

“No.”

“Come on, Sis.” He tried to coax her. “I’ll loan you my car for four years.”

“I don’t want your car.” She wanted to know her brother would be safe, and he’d just obliterated that hope.

He sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll take the bus and then a cab.” She knew he expected her to give in.

Dad drove Charlie to the airport. Mom closed herself in the master bedroom and didn’t come out all that day or that evening.

Three weeks later, Carolyn packed and tried to prepare herself to leave home.

Dad said Mom wasn’t up to taking her, and he had to work. Her grandmother would make sure she got settled.

Carolyn carried her things into the dorm. When everything had been put away in her small room, Oma suggested they go for a walk. “I’d like to see the campus before I leave.” They wandered for two hours along the walkways past great halls and through plazas. Oma wanted to see Sather Gate, the Bancroft Library, and the Campanile. “I would’ve given anything to attend a university like this. My father took me out of school when I turned twelve. He thought education was wasted on a girl.”

“You know more than most of the teachers I’ve met, Oma.”

Oma gave a short, humorless laugh. “You don’t give up just because someone says you can’t do something. Sometimes telling someone she can’t makes her want it all the more.”

Oma took Carolyn’s hand as they walked back to the old gray Plymouth. “Time for me to go.” Oma hugged her tightly and patted her cheek. “You’ll be learning from masters. Take advantage of every moment you have.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Your best is all anyone can ask.”

Carolyn kept her word. She attended every class, took voluminous notes, studied late into the night, turned in all her assignments on time, and passed her midterms.

Charlie made it through basic and came home on leave. He drove to Berkeley and took Carolyn over to San Francisco for a day. He’d changed since she’d last seen him. He didn’t say much about training, but pressed her for information about her classes, how she liked Berkeley, if she was finding her way okay. She said everything was fine, just fine.

They sat on a bench along Fisherman’s Wharf. Girls looked at Charlie as they walked by. He looked back at a few. She teased him. “Wishing your little sister wasn’t here?”

He laughed and said being locked up in a barracks for weeks on end tended to make a man appreciate the scenery more. “What about you, Sis? Having any fun?”

“Fun? I’m concentrating on keeping my head above water.”

“Oma said you made the dean’s list.”

Carolyn shrugged.

Charlie straightened and studied her. “You’ll make it, Carolyn. You’re a survivor.”

What about him? Would he make it? “I love you, Charlie. If anything happens to you . . .” She wondered if school was even important anymore.

He put his arm tight around her shoulders. She rested her head against him. He didn’t make any promises this time.

When Charlie dropped her off at the door, the resident manager asked to speak with her. Two students weren’t getting along. “You seem to get along with everybody. Would you mind trying another roommate?” Carolyn didn’t have the nerve to say no. The RM looked relieved.

Depressed, Carolyn went upstairs, bought a Coke from the vending machine, and settled down to study. The door burst open, banging into the closet. Without apology, a girl entered and swung a duffel bag off her shoulder, flinging it onto the striped bed. “Rachel Altman.” She extended her hand. “Since we’re now roommates, call me Chel.” She had a gravelly voice with an Eastern accent.

Startled, Carolyn shook hands. The girl had an arresting, if not beautiful, face framed by a mass of long, curling red hair held back by a woven leather headband with beaded tassels. She wore a white low-necked blouse that was nearly transparent and would have been indecent if not for the bangles and beads. A macramé belt with more beads held up skintight, brown corduroy, hip-hugging bell-bottom pants. Pulling her hand free, the girl dropped onto the bed and gave it a few experimental bounces. Her gold circle bracelets jangled. “Well, it ain’t the Waldorf.”

Carolyn stared, speechless. Chel looked Carolyn over, from her white Keds and socks to her ponytail. Her mouth tipped in a sardonic smile. “Let me guess. You’re an education major, primary education. Right?”

Carolyn confessed. “What about you?”

“Liberal arts, baby. I’m liberal, and I like art. Seemed a good choice at the time, though I’ve been thinking about changing it to psychology or sociology. Any -ology would do.”

“How did you guess mine?”

Chel’s smile turned sly. “I just looked around. All your notes in neat little piles, typed. Books lined up. No dust on your desk. Your bed is made. All you need is a shiny apple on your desk.” She flung herself backward onto the bed and put her hands behind her head. “And you’re wearing a bra! I’ll bet when you get dressed up, you wear a skirt and a nice sweater and pearls.” She muttered a curse and lunged up, startling Carolyn again. “Don’t worry, babe. I don’t bite. Not girls anyway.” She grinned broadly. “You look pretty uptight. You want some pot?” She laughed. “You should see your face. Haven’t tried it yet, have you?” She stood and headed for the door. “Let’s get out of here for a while, have coffee at the student union. I promise to be on my best behavior.” She dragged Carolyn. “Come on. Live a little.”

Carolyn forgot all about her studies.

Chel talked all afternoon. She seemed high on life—or something. She told Carolyn she’d grown up at the Waldorf, cared for by a well-paid but disinterested nanny while her even more disinterested daddy went off to make his millions, and her bored, disinterested mother went off to ski at Saint Moritz or buy more designer clothes in Paris. “Heaven knows where she is right now, and I couldn’t care less. They’re both capitalist pigs polluting the air we breathe.”

She had left New York City and come to Berkeley because “Berkeley is the center of the universe, babe. It’s where everything is happening! Haven’t you looked around at all? I want to be in the middle of it. Don’t you?”

Carolyn surprised herself and admitted she’d never had the courage to be in the middle of anything. “I’ve always found a way to blend in.”

“A skill I obviously don’t have.” When Chel laughed, people looked, and she didn’t care.

Carolyn had seen free spirits around the campus, but she’d never been this close to one. Chel was like an exotic bird with wild, colorful plumage who’d managed to escape from a zoo and find her way to Carolyn’s dorm room. Chel fascinated Carolyn and made her laugh.

Chel looked smug. “I think you and I are going to get along real well.”

She hardly saw Chel during the day, but they talked for hours when she returned from classes or wherever she’d gone. She brought pot back to the room. She put a wet towel against the bottom of the door and opened the window. “Come on, Caro. It’s not going to kill you.” Carolyn took a tentative puff. Chel laughed at her. “Inhale.” After a few drags, Carolyn found herself talking. Chel lounged on her bed and kept asking questions. When asked if she’d ever had sex, Carolyn told her about Dock. Chel stopped smiling.

Despite their vast difference in material resources, Carolyn found their backgrounds weren’t that different. Absentee parents who, when around, were still so preoccupied with their own problems and projects they were blind to anyone else. Of course, Mom and Dad had never been blind to Charlie. But then, Charlie was something special. She talked a lot about her brother.

“You’re like a marionette, aren’t you, babe? Dancing to everyone else’s tune?”

No one made Chel dance.

Carolyn wanted to be just like her.

1966

Once a week Carolyn received a letter from Oma, going over family news and whatever had been happening around Paxtown, which was never much. Mom called a couple of times a month, usually when Carolyn was away at class. The RM left notes in her box. Your mom called. They’re looking forward to having you home for summer break. Carolyn groaned. She didn’t want to go home, but she couldn’t afford to stay in Berkeley.

“If you don’t want to go home, babe, check in with the employment office. They can line up a job for you. We’ll get an apartment, have some fun.”

“I can’t afford an apartment, Chel.”

“Did I say you had to pay?”

Chel didn’t let up on the idea until Carolyn gave in. She figured staying in Berkeley with Chel might be easier than explaining to her parents and Oma why her grades had dipped dramatically. Mom and Dad didn’t put up a fight. That didn’t surprise her. Why would they care? But when Oma didn’t fuss about it, she wondered if anyone missed her. Chel told her to join the club.

Charlie, on leave after infantry training, came to visit one afternoon. He looked surprised when she answered the door. “I guess Berkeley is having its way with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Attitude, too.” He grinned. “Mind if I come in? Or are you going to leave your poor brother standing out here in the hall?”

She threw herself into his arms and hugged him. “Come on in. Take a look around.” Chel had rented the apartment furnished and added a few colorful pillows to the beige sofa, an Oriental rug under the coffee table. They’d nailed up posters of Venice, Paris, London, van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and Monet’s Nympheas, but it was Georgia O’Keeffe’s Grey Line that dominated the living room.

Charlie gave her a troubled look. “Interesting decor.”

“Glad you like it.” Carolyn lounged on the couch. “Chel pays the rent. Or rather her dad does. His secretary dumps money in her account every month.”

“Must be nice.”

“I think she’d rather have parents who cared.”

He wanted to know more about Chel. “She’s the first real friend I’ve ever had, Charlie.” She didn’t want to talk behind her friend’s back. “You want a glass of wine? We have Chablis or cabernet sauvignon.”

“I’m driving.”

She poured herself a tall glass and brought it back to the couch. He raised his brows. She lifted the glass. “Never seen a girl have a glass of wine before?” She drank deeply.

“Lots of times. Just not my little sister.”

She laughed, relaxed after half a glass. She asked him a couple of questions, knowing he’d take over the conversation. He talked about training and his new buddies-in-arms. “We’re all getting transferred to different bases. Dad says it was a lot different when he was in the military. They trained and went overseas as a unit. I’ll be going alone.”

Her muscles tightened. “Are you going to Vietnam, Charlie?”

“Not yet.”

She finished the glass of wine and thought about having another. Instead, she put the glass on the coffee table and leaned her head against the sofa. She wanted to cry, but it would only make him wish he hadn’t come.

Charlie tugged a strand of her hair. “Try not to worry about me so much.”

She rolled her head toward him. “Do you ever worry about me, Charlie?” Did anybody?

“I will now.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek before pushing to his feet. “It’s getting late. I’d better get on the road. You have to work tomorrow.”

Drowsy, she followed him to the door. “Tell Mom and Dad I’m doing fine.” If they asked.

He grinned. “I thought I’d tell them your apartment smells like pot and you keep bottles of wine in your fridge and pornographic art on your living room wall.”

“It’s a flower!”

He laughed. “Yeah, right. Some flower.”

She grinned, bolstered by the alcohol. “You have a dirty mind, Charlie.”

“Relax. I’m not going to tell them anything. If they ask, I’ll suggest they come see for themselves.”

“Like they’d have time for that.”

He hugged her and spoke seriously against her hair. “Don’t mess around too much, okay? I’d hate for you to have regrets later on.” He let her go.

She leaned in the doorway. “Didn’t you mess around when you were at USC?”

“Yeah, but I’m a guy. It’s permitted.”

“Male chauvinist pig.”

Punching the elevator button, her brother looked back at her. “Don’t go too crazy, Sis.” He jerked his chin up, gave her a sad smile, and disappeared into the elevator.

She went back into the apartment and poured herself another glass of wine. She cried and swore and wondered what the future held for each of them.