29
Visit
Not long after the Wolffs left Oregon, ill health forced Nellie to surrender and allow Opal and Felix to make room for her in their small California bungalow. When it was time to pack up and leave Portland, Nellie looked through her letter box for the collection of short stories she had titled Leaves from a Reporter’s Notebook. She didn’t find them. Her creative writing teacher had seen promise in her last assignment, the one about Clara. Although it was not Nellie’s favorite, the instructor had encouraged her to develop Clara’s tale of woe for publication, going so far as to suggest a title:“The Woman with no Visible Means of Support.”
Is that what she looked like now? After years of supporting herself and setting aside money for her old age, her small savings were proving inadequate. Today she was being ferried back to California in Felix’s DeSoto, her few worldly goods stuffed in the trunk. Felix lit an El Producto and launched into a monologue.
“George Burns’ favorite. Opal won’t let me smoke them when Jane is in the car. Bothers her asthma, she says.” He raised the cigar in the air and looked over his shoulder at Nellie. “Might do her good to smoke one, I say. What do you think, Mother Scott?”
“I think it’s a good thing for all of us that Opal found a neighbor to watch Jane.”
What am I going to do with myself at their house? Nellie considered her options. Her favorite fashion magazine, McCall’s, had recently started to publish fiction. Perhaps she could sell her stories. She’d have to find them first.
While Felix drove, window down, puffing on his infernal cigar, Opal sat in the backseat beside Nellie, her hands folded in her lap.
“Mother, there is more in life you may rely on besides money.”
Nellie stiffened. Was Opal a mind reader? Sitting straight, allowing no contact between her spine and the back of the seat, she inspected the stiff fabric of her shiny black dress, dusting away the occasional white speck of cigar ash that fell on her skirt.
“How does Felix afford such a fancy car?” Nellie asked. “What make did you say this is?”
“A DeSoto Airflow.” Felix volunteered an answer in his loud, cheery voice—compensation for his small stature, Nellie always told herself. “How’s the ride back there, Mother?” The top of Felix’s derby hat bobbed up and down to a tune the tires played running over ruts in the road.
“The ride is quite comfortable, Felix.” Opal smiled at her mother. “Felix can afford this car because, in good times or bad times, people always want candy, and Felix is an excellent salesman.”
“My customers love me, Mother. Don’t you worry.”
Nellie pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders. “I make it my practice not to give myself anything to worry about, Felix, but a little worry might do you good. A steady diet of cigars and candy cannot be good for your health.”
Felix laughed and pulled open the ashtray to rest his cigar. “Got to have my smokes and my sugar, or life’s not worth living. Say, what do you do for fun?”
“Fun is not something that has ever concerned me. Fun is for children.” Nellie leaned forward and peered over the top of the front seat. “Felix, put both hands on the wheel! Your car may be new and modern, but it won’t drive itself.”
Opal placed her hand gently on her mother’s forearm. “Don’t worry, Felix is a good driver.”
“I’m not worried.” Nellie clenched her teeth and pulled her arm away, adjusting her seating to be closer to the window. Felix began to whistle “Love Is Just Around the Corner.” He flipped on the car radio and started adjusting the knob. “A little Bing Crosby, ladies?”
Has it come to this? Relegated to the backseat and forced to listen to a litany of love songs? Nellie steeled herself by staring out the window. She focused on the cliffs and dunes that towered above US 101 and fell into a reverie.
Leone had lived in a hut perched on a dune somewhere in California. Her granddaughter had come to see her a few months ago; just showed up one day in an old jalopy with another young woman. If there was anything to worry about beyond how she was likely to fare as a ward of the Wolff family, it was what was to become of Leone.
Nellie leaned her head against the car window, closed her eyes, and summoned Leone to her thoughts. The soft lips that used to turn up in her granddaughter’s teasing smile now pulled down into a tight jaw. No amount of makeup could conceal the puffiness around her eyes. Girlhood was gone, but it was more than that.
Looking back, she had to admit that the last time she had seen her granddaughter, she should have chosen her words more carefully.
R
“You look tired. Are you getting enough sleep?” An innocent remark, but Leone had looked like she’d been slapped. During Leone’s visit, the girl seemed to take everything Nellie said as a criticism. No wonder she didn’t make it in Hollywood. Not a charitable thought.
Leone had pulled her fingers through her closely cropped hair and forced a smile. “I don’t sleep very well these days. I lay awake at night worrying. How will I ever find a place in this world? It was easy for you, Grandmother. You always knew what you wanted to do. The world opened its arms to you.”
So that was it. Petulance had not been one of Nellie’s character traits until age had got the better of her self-discipline. The response that had formed in her head, she did not voice. How old are you? Twenty-four? I was close to forty before I saw an opportunity, and I had to walk over a perfectly good husband to take it.
But the time for lectures was over. By the end of her visit, Leone had relaxed enough to give her grandmother a glimpse of her new life. To Nellie’s way of thinking, her granddaughter appeared to be living in a ragtag community of poets, politicians, and polygamists, or whatever they called sexual adventurers. Passing hoboes, migrant farm workers, wandering mystics, and artists seeking each other’s company drifted to a colony some rich man had formed.
“Famous people come to see us all the time.” A bit of the sparkle returned to Leone’s eyes.
“Like who?”
“Like Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, and Meher Baba.”
“Humph. Sinclair and Steinbeck I know. Who is Baba? A baseball player?”
Leone did not choose to enlighten her grandmother. Instead, she repeated the history of the Dune community. “Gavin says that Moy Mell is a place where money means not much and ideas mean a great deal,” she told her grandmother.
“Gavin Arthur, the grandson of former President Chester Alan Arthur? That’s easy for him to say. He’s got both.”
“You’ve heard of him? Why do you say it that way, ‘he’s got both’”? Leone imitated Nellie’s cynical tone.
“Money and ideas; he can afford to bandy words around. It’s not an easy way to live when wild ideas are your only currency.”
Now it was Leone’s turn to seethe. Nellie regretted her remarks, but it was increasingly hard for her to bite her tongue. Who replaced Leone, the happy hoofer that went to Hollywood, with this changeling? What caused this strident young woman to spew angry words about a dizzying array of social and political issues? Where were her manners?”
Nellie expected that her granddaughter would stay several days, but Leone cut her visit short with an excuse that her friend Rosemary had set up job interviews for the two of them in San Francisco.
“I’m disappointed you can’t stay longer. What sort of job?”
“Oh, something in a publishing house.” Leone slipped into her coat.
“Well, you’ll be near your mother. That’s good.”
“Hah, I hadn’t thought of that.”
When Nellie reached up to give Leone a hug goodbye, she felt the girl stiffen. It was true: Nellie rarely embraced members of her family. It wasn’t how she was raised. Tears came to her more easily these days, and she let them fall.
“I love you,” she whispered. The words felt foreign on her tongue, but they had an effect.
Leone’s body relaxed into hers. One arm hugged now-stocky shoulders; one cheek rested briefly on the thinning hair atop Nellie’s head. Smells of cigarettes and peppermint chewing gum and the lemony scent of Jean Naté invaded Nellie’s nostrils. Her granddaughter’s husky voice vibrated low in her ear. “Go live with Mother. I worry about you.”