Don’t ask. Don’t receive. Lesson number 278 in Constance Prescott’s book of totalitarian wisdom.
“Where are you going?”
Cal glanced up after placing his duffle behind the driver seat of the 1932 roadster, the car something else he’d left behind after graduation. “Up the coast.”
“In this rickety thing?” She stood stock-still, arms folded over her chest, lips a hard-pressed line. Cal enjoyed watching her squirm; no one else would’ve noticed her discomfort.
“She’ll make it.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t drive so far from home.”
Standing inside the frame of the open car door, he tapped his fingers across the roof. “This isn’t my home.”
“Then why have you been here?” She stared at him the way a bird might eye prey from its perch on a rooftop. “For months ... doing nothing.”
“I don’t know.” Cal glared at her, feeling like a rebellious teenager who thought they knew better.
“How long will you be away?”
It never ceased to amaze him — the way she could ask questions so acutely yet so unsentimentally. His fingers danced over the windshield now. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You’re twenty-eight years old, Cal,” she said in her goddamn slow drawl, her eyes moving back and forth. “Other men your age are married and starting families. You are wandering…”
“I’m not like other men.”
“No.” She attempted to hold back a proud smile, but the sly grin won and escaped. “Is there someone?” She rolled her thumb over her palm and other fingers. “Is there a woman you’re going to visit, up the coast?”
Now, Cal glanced away, zipped himself up like the bag in the back seat of the car, attempting to contain his emotions.
Because there was a woman.
He’d made a few phone calls, poked around, and he had found her. He didn’t need to find her. She was always there — with him, part of him — but he’d started to forget her.
Constance, he couldn’t forget, standing feet away, watching him, still looking like an owl on a rooftop. Cal eyed the old bird, deciding to give her a morsel.
“I found someone to buy the car.” The woman he kept off his face. “He is... The buyer is up near San Francisco.”
“How did you find someone there? Do you know him? How will you return? With no car?” Constance uncrossed, then crossed, her arms.
Goddammit. He felt eight or twelve or even nineteen. He didn’t want to return. Not here.
Still, he would miss Ojai: the rustic house, the valley, the ocean nearby, his room. Cal had even missed his mother all these years: the cool crisp blue of her eyes, the never-ending antagonizing, the way she would proudly pout without producing a sound — like now.
However, after spending the last several months floundering — doing nothing, as she’d said — in his old room, he knew he didn’t want to return. Or maybe he was ashamed to.
Truly, what Cal wanted was to not have a care in the world.
But that was impossible.
The last five years had proven that. Attempting to live in a state of nonexistence, carelessness, selfishness.
Hedonism.
Once he’d settled in Ojai, Cal isolated himself, mostly behind the closed door of his old bedroom. A reconciliation for his prior behavior. Sure, he’d ventured out to the ocean, become reacquainted with the Pacific, regained his shape over his surfboard — maybe some of his confidence too — but he couldn’t shake the thinking.
The waves could be rough or unpredictable … but his thoughts — they could pull him fifty fathoms deep, drowning him before he’d realized what had occurred. Perhaps he was having some sort of midlife crisis — no matter that he was too young. That was the way it had been with Cal: born an old man, living in a young man’s body.
The months at home had given him pause. Time for reflection. And he could no longer make sense of what he once thought equaled success: power and money.
Still, the desire to go on proving himself gnawed at his heels.
Other thoughts lingered as well, simple pleasures, ones that would certainly delight his mother: falling in love, having children, spending time with family. But Cal didn’t think he deserved such beautiful things: tangerines hanging from the trees, fruit he could see from his window, a gentle touch from a gentle soul, lips to kiss away his troubles.
Besides, beauty had to be earned.
The way everything in life did.
He’d certainly earned money. Plenty. But he didn’t feel any different. The ambition remained.
And he hadn’t earned the money — he’d made it.
I’ve made you money, haven’t I, Cal? Lawton’s words paraded through his mind.
Money. Money. Money.
If he chased the scent of success long enough, hard enough, maybe his own worth would finally be apparent to the woman on the rooftop, the owl.
It didn’t matter that his bank account was sufficiently padded. The drive for more called to him, and not even the ocean could quell the need. Like a temptress, this hunger held out its fingers and cajoled him, whispering to him while he slept, ate, read, surfed — even while he jerked off.
Maybe he had been doing nothing.
Reading book after book after book.
His ears were suddenly ringing, his throat stinging to the point of pain. One day, Cal, one day, you’ll see what you really need. Standing in his mother’s garage, ready to take a drive up one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, Joc’s words helped him see himself more clearly, but not yet clear enough.
“Calvin Warner Prescott,” the voice began, interrupting his thoughts. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
Cal bit back a smile, shocked his mother had managed to avoid snapping her fingers. He wasn’t a daydreamer — he’d heard every fucking word, but he had zoned out. That was why he had to leave. Being here had changed him, made him question himself. He was turning into a goddamn chameleon. Or maybe he’d always been one.
Taking his time, making her wait for a reply, Cal absorbed every feature of his mother’s face: the sunken cheekbones, the wrinkles across her forehead, her sharp blue eyes — the ones seeming to froth the more he delayed.
“I want to travel,” he finally said, trying not to smile.
“What do you mean?” she asked as he took in a breath, his chest expanding, loving that this revelation had truly ruffled her feathers. “You won’t return home? This is your home, Cal.”
“This is your home.” His eyes canvassed the orderly garage: several pairs of yard clippers arranged from smallest to largest, bicycles on their respective racks, firewood neatly stacked, each thing in its proper place.
“What about your belongings?” She noted the back seat with a glance. “You’re traveling with what … only this small bag?”
“I have money.”
“Where will you go?”
“I want to see places. I want to be alone.”
“You have been alone.”
“No, Mom, I just spent the last five fucking years with several million people.”
“That was your choice—”
“It always is, isn’t it?” he said. “My choice.”
Constance smirked. “Come inside.” She gestured. “I have something to show you.”
“Now?”
“Now,” she ordered. “Did you say your goodbyes to Rosa?”
“Yes.”
“Mmm, and you weren’t going to—?”
“I was going to tell you. I was putting my bag in the car and about to check things over first.”
Constance grumbled as she led him toward the den off the kitchen.
“What is it?” He didn’t care anymore if he sounded irritated or impatient. “I’m here six months, and now you decide you have something to show me?”
“I’m always showing you things. Everything—”
“I know, Mom. Everything is a lesson. Goddammit, I’m not twelve anymore.” How many times had she uttered those four words? He’d learned all her lessons by now.
Back straight. Eyes on me when I speak. You might not like what I say or how I say it, but you will respect me. Write it down. Keep account.
Diaries are for girls, he had replied.
Do you think an accomplished man is disorganized?
“Mmm, you remember my lessons? Do you remember this?” She lifted a floral cover, exposing the thing that couldn’t wait.
Cal froze.
Several memories held him captive. Music played, flashing through his mind, a handful of songs, good ones. Ella and Cole and Louis. Pictures came too, fuzzy details. Grandpa E.W.’s stories, the smell of his pipe, the calluses on his aged hands.
Constance had kept his grandfather’s old record player … all this time. How many years had passed now since he’d died? Why had this been hidden?
Don’t ask. Don’t receive. Lesson number 278 in Constance Prescott’s book of totalitarian wisdom.
“Why?” Stepping forward, his fingers grazed the lid. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When you left for school, I thought you’d lost all interest in this old thing. Then, when you moved to New York, you said didn’t want anything… You didn’t want a reminder.”
“I thought you got rid of it.” He opened the top and picked up the arm, mesmerized.
“No.” She exhaled. “It’s been in storage.”
“Why did you wait? I’ve—”
“There’s a time and a place—”
…for everything under the sun. “I’m leaving, Mom. Do you understand?”
“And you chose not to tell me your plans until you were ready to walk out my door.”
“And you think this”—he gestured toward one of the few relics remaining from his childhood—“will make me stay?”
“No.” Her infamous grin began to take shape. “No. I think this will bring you back. This is yours now, Cal. He always wanted you to have it.”