Track [3] “Summer Girl”/HAIM

Jane

Dad and I drove away from the airport in uncomfortable silence after Eddie’s plane took off. It was hard to be happy while he was so miserable, but I was trying my best to block out his bad vibes as sun winked on the corner of a road sign. I shielded my eyes and smiled as I read it:

CONDOR LAKE, 2 MILES

GAS—FOOD—LODGING

Finally! This was all exactly as I left it two summers ago. The mountains. The giant sequoias. The rocky landscape before we got to town. Nothing had changed. But I had. Goodbye Klutzy Jane, chauffeur’s daughter who fell into the dam. Hello Jane, future fiancée to the heir of a Californian concert empire. Okay. Maybe not fiancée. But moving in with Eddie—our own place? I could barely think about it without feeling giddy.

No amount of moping my father was doing in the driver’s seat was going to get me down.

“So… that was the famous Eddie Sarafian,” he said, one big hand slung over the wheel as we cruised down the freeway, approaching our turnoff.

I sighed heavily. “Spit it out, Dad. I know you’ve got something to say.”

He stewed quietly for one pine tree, two pine trees, three.… Then he could hold it in no longer. “He’s full of himself, cub. And too old for you,” he complained, tilting a golden mane of messy curls my way to peep at me over dark driving glasses.

“He’s twenty. I’m eighteen.”

“And he was surprised Mad Dog would let me drive the Mercedes across the state?”

I groaned as lingering embarrassment rose like an unkillable zombie in a horror flick. “A joke. His sense of humor isn’t great.”

“Damn right it isn’t. I fucking rebuilt this car with my bare hands, and I’ve been with Mad Dog for twenty-one years—before what’s-his-name was born.”

“Eddie.”

He gestured wildly, not taking his eyes off the road. “And he’s not polite. Why did he call me ‘the chauffeur’? He should call me Mr. Marlow. What’s wrong with kids these days? Privileged pricks with no manners…”

He wasn’t letting that go. Part aging surf punk—the old-school Agent Orange playing over the car’s stereo was his music choice—and part Gulf War vet, my dad lifted weights, was very protective, and liked it when people were on time. He had a faded pinup tattoo of my mom with angel wings on his forearm and my name scrolling delicately on the inside of his wrist.

“Eddie’s casual with everyone, not just you. I think he was nervous because we caught him off guard. It’s a big deal, what he’s doing in the Philippines. It’s the first big thing his father has trusted him to do alone for the business, and the farthest he’s traveled from… from…” Ugh.

Dad glanced at me. “Home.”

“Home,” I repeated, frustrated, petting Frida.

He turned down the music. I quietly sang along with the chorus until I felt calmer. Music had a way of hypnotizing the word-pixie. The rhythm was the thing. My brain craved it.

“Cub?” Dad said in a gentle voice. “I don’t have to like him. You just graduated, and you’re eighteen—that makes you an adult. It’s your life. Your choice. If you need me to step in, or you want advice or help—or a ride home—you tell me. Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.” You could always count on a ride home. That was Leo Marlow’s policy. No matter what you’d done, what trouble you were in, call him. He’d come get you and take you home, no questions asked. “Thank you.”

“I will do my best to keep my opinions to myself. But I will not tolerate anyone hurting my kid. That’s where I draw the line. Deal?”

“No one’s hurting anyone. He wouldn’t even kiss me in front of you. Be happy.”

My father didn’t seem happy. Probably best that I didn’t bring up the whole shacking-up possibility. Let him get to know Eddie after he came back. In the meantime, I had plenty to keep me busy at the lake. And that included the sleek brown bundle in my lap. I double-kissed Frida behind one pointy ear as she stretched tiny front legs to watch the moving view out the window.

“Here we go,” Dad said, exiting the freeway by the big gas station. “Ready?”

Was I? I blew out a long breath and held on to Frida as I watched the familiar landmarks, feeling a mix of excitement and apprehension as afternoon sun dappled the mural painted on the gas station, a collection of the music royalty that had played the Condor Music Festival since it debuted in the 1990s—everyone from Prince, who owned his own record label, to Nirvana, who played the festival back in their Sub Pop days, and headlined later, right before their tragic end.

Anyway, the festival was known for breaking the Next Big Thing. Not just during the festival, but all year, all over town. You could always count on live music at the lake. Music biz people owned homes or vacationed here so they could catch up-and-coming acts who played clubs and bars along the town’s historic main drag, known as “the Strip.” It gained a reputation for being the music lovers’ paradise in the Sierras.

But it wasn’t always a music haven. This tiny hamlet tucked in the middle of Nowhere, California, used to be a gold rush town, back in the 1800s. You could still see it in the buildings and street names as Dad and I drove through the rugged outskirts—Mother Lode Antiques, Eureka Lane.

And with the gold rush country came wild land. As in mountains and forests. Part of the lake butts up to a state park filled with some of the largest trees in the world, giant sequoias.

Dad and I drove past one now, one of the last of California’s kitschy “tunnel trees.” A sequoia that was hit by lightning a hundred years ago, in the 1920s, and instead of cutting it down, the locals turned it into a tourist draw and carved a tunnel through it that a single car could drive through. These days, they don’t let cars go through, but you can pull over and walk through it on foot.

“We need to take our yearly photo,” Dad noted. We always have our picture taken together under the tunnel tree. Dad prints them out and adds them to a frame with photos of us that go back to when I was six. It’s our thing. We missed last year’s photo.

But I didn’t have time to worry about that too much, because when we passed the tunnel tree, Dad turned onto the Strip. Between tall pines, the town opened its arms.

Condor Lake.

Teal-blue water ringed by snowcapped mountains. Rows of brick old-west buildings lined the packed downtown, a mix of live music venues (bars, quirky clubs) and family-friendly lake tourism (canoe rental, a million ice cream parlors, the California Condor Flight ride). The streets were too narrow, and parking was a mess. Tourists rode the Bonanza, a streetcar that went up and down the Strip, clanging a bell. But I didn’t care about any of that at the moment. My eyes sought out the arrowed sign pointing away from town that made my heart pinwheel:

CONDOR PARK AND AMPHITHEATER

HOME TO THE WORLD-FAMOUS CONDOR MUSIC FESTIVAL

A SARAFIAN EVENTS PRODUCTION

Yep, there it was. Dad and I were huge music nerds. You didn’t grow up like I had and hate music—not possible. And I loved festivals. Coachella was down near L.A., and there was Burning Man above us, but that was something else entirely. Condor, however, was in the forest by the lake for a weekend, with tents and lights, and there were unsigned bands playing all the tiny venues on the Strip, and the bigger outdoor shows in the day.

Condor was magic.

Anyway, all anyone was talking about this year on the festival boards was something so new, it didn’t have a label yet. People just called it the Sound. West Coast indie, post-post punk. It just exploded over the scene, and suddenly there were, like, ten bands, then a dozen. Then who knows. But I was really into it, just watching clips online. Dreaming of getting back to the lake.

So, yeah, I’d made a mental list of bands I wanted to see this summer. Maybe even meet some of the band members. You know, through Eddie. Sometimes I met bands at Mad Dog’s studio in Bel Air, but I had a feeling it would be different meeting them as Eddie’s girlfriend rather than the Help. How could it not?

Driving past the festival grounds today, Dad and I couldn’t see much from the road, but we could see something I wished we could avoid. Blue Snake River. Betty’s on the Pier.

And the Condor Dam. My nemesis.

Dad gestured as we took the auto bridge that crossed the river behind the dam, and said unceremoniously, “There it is.”

Whoomp. I craned my neck to look behind the seat as the Mercedes bumped along the bridge. “They put up a gate?” He came up here last summer when I stayed back home in L.A.

Dad cleared his throat. “They lock it up after dark. It’s a good thing, baby. No one else can fall in now. Positive change. That railing is dangerous at night.”

My throat tightened. Now I was the girl who made the town lock up the dam at night? The kids here must hate me. Jane, the Summer Girl who ruined the party—forever. Ugh.

My father never wanted to know the details about that night. He didn’t ask. I didn’t tell. I hid behind the excuse that I couldn’t remember much after my fall, and Dad hid behind his fear. Why had I been at a party at the dam? How had I gotten a ride out there? Who was I was with? How did I fall in? Who pulled me out? Those questions weren’t as important to him as Will my daughter ever be able to speak again? That was his priority at the beginning. When I started talking, then he focused on my speech therapy. When Eddie and I started talking online—and meeting up in L.A. on occasion—we kept it on the down-low. Until today.

Eddie wanted to keep us a secret. Drama-free, just us. That was fine back in L.A., but I couldn’t do that over the summer here at the lake. I hoped he wasn’t mad at me for showing up with my dad and popping our little bubble of privacy.

It’s just that it was going to be hard enough for me, returning to the lake for the first time since my fall. I needed him as part of my present. Someone who’d changed and grown up. Not a secret. Not a murky memory from a terrible night that was haunting my nightmares.

I wanted to let go of that. I was trying.

“Hey,” Dad warned me gently as we drove away from the dam. “Don’t let seeing the dam get you down. We’re Marlows. What do we do?”

“We get back up on the board again,” I recited, even though I actually couldn’t get up on a surfboard if you paid me. He’d tried to teach me. The sporting life and I weren’t compatible.

“That’s right,” he told me. “When you had trouble talking in the hospital, the doctors said it might be permanent. I said nope. She just needs time. We get back up again. And look at you now? Graduated. Back at the lake. And Velvet’s personal assistant.”

He was right. Though, the last one wasn’t all that impressive. Yes, I was going to be a rich music daughter’s personal assistant this summer. But here in the Larsen house, “PA” meant shopping, returning calls, booking appointments, and picking up their prescriptions. Like, my dad was sort of Mad Dog’s PA. But Mad Dog had an actual professional assistant who handled music biz stuff back in his Bel Air studio—Denise, a fiftysomething ex–record executive who didn’t “do” Northern California. She got paid the real money. My father didn’t make much more than me, and I was a minimum-wage peon. Mad Dog was cheap.

“Hey, PA is better than dog walker on your resume.… Shit,” Dad mumbled, glancing at his phone screen. “That’s Mad Dog now, asking where we are.”

Dad sped up. So much for a leisurely drive through town. We were still ten minutes or so from the lodge. And by lodge, I’m talking a sprawling 1920s luxury estate on the northern side of the lake, away from the Strip and the festival grounds. Away from everything, no neighbors for miles. It was built by some rich railroad tycoon from San Francisco who kept live tigers and prostitutes in different bungalows. It had its own dock, a pool, and a multicar garage in a separate building called the carriage house—where us domestics stayed. And as we pulled around its horseshoe-shaped driveway and stopped in front of the entrance, it loomed in front of us, larger than life. For a moment, I forgot all about the dam—and Eddie.

“Why aren’t we parking in the carriage house and going through the kitchen?” I asked. We always went through the back. Never through the main house entrance. Ever.

“Mad Dog’s coming down. He wants me to drive him into town.”

“Now?” I complained. “The backseat is filled with luggage and ice.”

“Hustle, cub. Get Frida inside with Velvet and see if she needs your help. I’ll dump everything here. Get Kamal and Norma to help move it after we’re gone. Just don’t forget to tell them that there’s forty pounds of melting ice out here, okay?”

Welp. Thirty seconds at the lodge, and we’re already back to work. Hooking the dog leash, I gathered my purse and cross-body bag. Then Frida tugged me across the driveway toward the people arguing in the main house’s open doorway, which sat between two giant California condor sculptures, perched on pillars.

“I may not have my first kitchen delivery,” an unhappy voice was saying. When I crossed the threshold, I spied a familiar figure wearing a cross-back linen apron and a yellow scarf tied around her head. “How can you expect me to throw together a party?”

“Not a party-party,” someone a couple of years older than me answered. “Just cocktails and a low-key dinner. Small plates. It’s just four extra people. And Daddy. And Rosa. And me. And I guess Starla and Leo because I should include the assistants. And—look, my very own assistant is here! Whoa. You cut your hair for graduation? I likey.”

She did? If Velvet Larsen liked it, that made me feel better about cutting it.

“Jane will be attending—casual summer dress. Something sleeveless with sandals will look good with your new hair. I may have a tiny thing you can borrow,” Velvet told me, smiling. She stood in bare bronze feet on the tile of the entrance hall, wearing a billowing maxi dress. When she reached toward Frida, dozens of gold bangles tinkled on her wrist. “Come, mija!”

Frida pranced her way to Velvet and stood up on her hind legs to greet her. “Oh, doggie kisses, muah, muah, muah!” Both parties quickly lost interest. For Frida, there were too many other smells to sniff, like the elaborate floral arrangement that was taller than me. Frida gave it a bark, just to be sure it wasn’t an enemy in disguise.

I stood under a massive mission-style chandelier that hung between two joining staircases. A window overlooked the pool out back. “What’s this about a cocktail party?”

“It’s not happening,” Exie said. “That’s what it is.”

“Too bad. I already invited them,” Velvet said, undeterred. “No shrimp, by the way.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Just a little romantic icebreaker.” She winked at me confusingly. I never knew what her winks meant. They were confusing. Especially because I didn’t know she was seeing anyone. Were others up from L.A. already? Condor Lake was all locals during the off-season. That didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of interesting singles that might be in Velvet Larsen’s orbit, but she dated a lot of UCLA art school dropouts, sons of Hollywood actors, the young nephew of a wealthy Latin American narcotraficante—you know, everyday people.

“So now it’s ten people?” Exie said, annoyed. “Tomorrow night? Does Mad Dog know?”

“He knows… that there will be some people here.” That sounded vague. She elaborated. “When I asked, he said, ‘Make it so, number one,’ ” Velvet said in a comic voice that was somewhere between her father’s deep Danish accent and Patrick Stewart.

Exie swore filthily under her breath. Mad Dog was a big, tattooed metal Viking, but he had a soft spot for old-school Star Trek and sci-fi shows. That definitely sounded like him.

“Look, this is a nice thing I’m doing,” Velvet argued, gesturing broadly. “You’ll see. It’s a surprise that everyone will like.”

Velvet was the youngest of Mad Dog’s brood, his only daughter with his current wife, Rosa Garcia, a former poet laureate, and Velvet was the only Larsen kid at the lodge this summer. She was high energy and generally fun, but she was a princess; her mother’s family in Mexico City was rich too. She sometimes had unrealistic expectations, which caused headaches for the domestics.

Like now. Parties were easy to plan but hard to execute at the drop of a gold bangle.

But we did it. The main party-executer here was Exie. She was a thirty-eight-year-old Black chef from Baldwin Hills who joined Mad Dog’s crew a couple years before Dad and I did. I wouldn’t say she was a motherly figure because she would hate to be called that, but when I hit puberty, she did more birds-and-bees duty than Dad. She was unofficially second-in-charge on the domestic staff—officially third, after head of security.

I didn’t like when there was tension between them. Definitely didn’t need it today.

“What can… I do?” I asked Exie, fumbling words while trying to control Frida. “Help? Ugh.” I raised my hand and signaled to let her know I was struggling.

The thing about having a brain injury is that everyone treats you differently. Dad was overprotective. Eddie got impatient—I could tell. Exie just kept on treating me exactly the same. She didn’t help me when I was lost for words. She ignored it and kept going.

Her laugh was dry. “Don’t know how you can help, baby. You’re not mine to command anymore. Norma’s neither. Ask your new boss here. You’re attending the party too, remember.”

Velvet smiled. “Exactly! But first, I think I forgot my special shampoo, so you might have to make a trip somewhere to find me a bottle before Thursday night, Jane. I doubt they’d have it here. Maybe Fresno. Or somewhere in the Bay Area?”

“Velvet Larsen,” Exie complained loudly in a voice that echoed through the hall. “No one is driving hours for a bottle of shampoo. Your split ends will survive if they don’t get the exact shit they sell in Bel Air. Jane is your PA, not your baby sister to boss around. Hear me?”

Velvet made a pouty duck face. “Fine. But those small plates better be good Thursday night. I want sunshine on a plate, or I’m walking.”

“Oh. You’re walking, all right.” Exie swatted the air with a kitchen towel as Velvet laughed, racing up the stairs away from her. Just like that, the two of them were on good terms again. My shoulders relaxed, and I felt lighter. Crisis averted.

“Come hither, assistant,” Velvet said playfully, hanging over the upstairs railing. “Let’s get me unpacked and enjoy this glorious day. Daddy’s going into town. The lake is ours.”

All at once, it came back to me in a rush, the heady joy of this place. Here, I could be somebody different. Maybe even a princess like Velvet…

After I hauled in forty pounds of melting ice.