Leaving Unknown (30 page)

“You’re the only person on the planet who can’t see that Noah only has
maka
for you.”

“I hope
maka
means ‘eyes,’” I muttered as my brain ricocheted. On the one hand, it felt like a huge boulder had rolled off my heart. Noah was who I thought he was. On the other hand, did I want to run backward to a relationship based on making sure I ate enough? Or did I want to fully stand on my own two feet? For a flash, I appreciated the beauty of illness—there’s usually one clear answer as to what’s best for you.

“So now that you know, what are you going to do?” Tuesday demanded. My lack of answer was notable.

“Don’t tell him anything about this while I try to figure it out,” I instructed. I had thinking to do.

After we hung up, I crossed to Laura’s room in two steps.

“Done with the phone?” She looked up from
In Touch
magazine.

“DidsomeonenamedNoahcallme?” The words tumbled out so fast they made no sense.

“What?” Her brow furrowed.

“Did. I. Get. Any. Calls. From. A. Man. Named. Noah.” I forced myself to go slowly and enunciate.

Laura’s face cleared. “Oooohhh. You mean No One? There was this guy that called, like, a
million
times, but every time I asked who was calling, he said ‘no one,’ or ‘no-one-thanks,’ like it was one word.” She giggled. “He was really polite, but
never left his name. I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.” She shrugged, smile bright. “Mr. No One!”

I sagged against the door frame. “Oh. Thanks.”

I rolled back into the living room and collapsed on the couch, staring at what I now thought of as “my” water stain. So Noah had called. Noah wasn’t a cheater. My relief was intense. But—I frowned—was it about Noah? I was over being “taken care of.” I was finally doing a pretty good job on my own. Tuesday’s question echoed in my mind.

“
What are you going to do?
”

“I don’t know.” I murmured my answer to the water stain. “I really don’t know.”

Two weeks later I was again surrounded by light and detail.

“Enjoy,” Dimple said, as she handed me the key.

I stared at the alien key in my palm. Was I really about to become an official resident of Venice Beach, California?

“I will.” I closed my fingers around the key. Yes I was.

I
tripped over a box in the dark living room, and cursed as my shin collided with the coffee table. I’d been living out of suitcases for a month, and I seriously needed to unpack. It wasn’t as if I had all that much stuff, but September was the busy season at work, and I’d had no time. All the television premieres held launch parties packed with people craving to be photographed. This was the eighth night in a row I’d gotten home after 2
A.M
. Too tired to turn on the light, I only wanted to fall into bed.

On cue, the irritable director who lived downstairs pounded
on the ceiling. I’d forgotten to take off my shoes again. It was remarkable how hypersensitive he was to the whisper of rubber soles on hardwood. It’s not like I was clomping around in clogs.

“What kind of director never leaves his apartment?” I muttered. “Is he directing internet webcam strippers?” No one answered because Oliver was asleep. Another Hollywood mystery.

Despite the fact that the director was an annoying jerk, I was comforted by his ceiling thumping. It was a relationship of sorts. Los Angeles was an isolating place. Where once I’d preferred the anonymity of fading into a crowd, now I missed the community of Unknown. It wasn’t so easy to meet people here. I was beginning to appreciate the old joke that the best way to meet someone in Los Angeles was to crash into their car.

“I don’t have any problems meeting expenses, though. They’re
everywhere
,” I reminded myself, as I dropped newly arrived bills on the table. I was exhausted from the amount of work I had to take on to make rent. The cost of living in Venice Beach was dramatically different from Unknown’s. After fourteen-hour workdays, where I covered three to four gigs a day, even Laura-Lola’s futon seemed like an appealing alternative. I headed for bed. I wouldn’t worry about it tonight.

When I awoke, I experienced the daily spurt of pleasure I’d known since getting my own place. I revised my sentiment of last night. Despite the cost, it was worth it. I enjoyed Dimple’s view—it
was
one of the best features of the apartment—but my real joy came from my independence. Every morning I remembered I was living in my own apartment, with my own job, in California, completely self-sufficient. I’d done what I had set out to do. My life wasn’t exactly as I wanted it, but I was proud of what I’d accomplished.

“Howdy pardner.” Oliver greeted me when I entered the living room.

“Howdy yourself,” I said. It felt good to speak aloud. Last week, four days had gone by where I hadn’t spoken a word beyond hi and thank you, to clerks providing me goods in exchange for money. I’d taken to talking to myself a lot. I resolved to drop by Marion’s tattoo parlor for an overdue visit. Being so busy, I barely saw the few friends I had.

I didn’t have a job until evening, so I spent the morning sorting out the apartment. The bruise on my shin demanded it. I hung clothes and put books on the shelves. I wasn’t ready to put nails in the walls, even though Dimple had assured me it was fine. Though I’d left more than two months ago, I was still too homesick for Unknown to put up my pictures. The one thing I displayed in pride of place was the card I’d received from my parents when I’d sent them my new address. It read, “We couldn’t be more proud of you.”

I’d sorted all but a few boxes when my growling stomach would no longer be denied. There were no groceries in the house. I had a growing list of things I needed to buy—a shelf for the bathroom, a toaster oven, a fan—but I wasn’t motivated, even for Costco. I collected my camera and went to find lunch.

I grabbed a salad at the Fig Tree café, then wandered along the boardwalk, admiring the henna tattoos, jewelry, T-shirts, sunglasses, paintings, sculptures, knickknacks, CDs, psychics, chakra adjusters, and the “non-touching healer.” You could purchase anything along the boardwalk. I snapped photos of it all. The Jim Morrison mural, the man in the lawn chair selling annoying bird whistles, a couple in matching Universal Studios T-shirts holding hands, a drum circle on the beach, leather-skinned men drinking beer at the Waterfront, the skate dancers. I captured scenes of Venice, but it didn’t sink into
my soul the way that Unknown had. I kept walking, though, taking picture after picture, as if I could force it.

At five I had to return home to get ready for that night’s job. The event wasn’t until eight, but it was in Studio City, so I had to allow two hours to get there in traffic. Sometimes my round-trip commute was longer than the gig itself. That was LA for you.

“Where are they having the Cannes Film Festival this year?”

“I think he’s really deep, you know, ’cause he’s all about light, and lightness has to come from a really deep place. Especially if it’s true deepness and true lightness.”

“I get to go to lots of overseas places, like Canada.”

“I’m not on a diet. I just don’t eat as much as I’d like to.”

“Excuse me honey.” Fake nails were snapped in front of my face. “You need to step up the shutter action. You’ve barely taken any pictures. We didn’t have you come to sample the hors d’oeuvres.”

“Of course.” I lifted the camera to my eye.

“Hold on.” She repositioned herself. “That’s better.”

When I got home that night, I’d barely opened my door when the banging came from below.

“The view’s nice, but give me a room on the ground floor anytime,” I grumbled to Oliver. He was asleep. I suffered working mom’s guilt. Poor Oliver was alone all the time, and it was affecting him. Cockatiels were social animals.

A wave of tiredness washed over me. I was a social animal too. I was proud of getting established in LA, but worn out from everything taking so much effort. I was also tired of being alone so much. Even if I had a phone, it was too late to call Vi or Tuesday, and I was too restless for sleep. Though it was two in the morning, I decided to finish unpacking. The director could kiss my ass.

By three, I was down to the last box. I sat on the floor and pulled it toward me. It was labeled M
ISCELLANEOUS
and held all the random bits left at the end, which I’d thrown together. I pulled out a bath towel, a baseball hat, a pocket calendar, a coffee mug, and some unwritten postcards. Then came my framed scan from Samuel. I looked at it for a long time, tracing the pattern with my finger, before setting it aside. Next came a triangle paper football. And at the very bottom, under a jumble of pens and pencils, was
The Girl Who Could
. I carefully extracted the beautiful book. I opened it to the dedication and slowly turned the pages. By the time I came to the end, I’d made a decision.

“Oliver,” I told the sleeping bird, “we’re going home.”

“I’m glad,” Vi said.

“I had to come here, though, to be able to make the choice.”

“I get you. When are you going to leave?”

“As soon as I can. I want to find someone trustworthy to take over the apartment sublet. I don’t want to screw Dimple. I think Clark might take it. I also want to do all the jobs Judd assigned to me. I won’t leave him in the lurch. He took a chance on me, so I owe it to him, especially during the busy season. And I want to build a comfortable financial cushion, so I don’t get myself stranded like I did on the way out. That part might take me a little longer. LA is expensive.”

“Let me send you some money,” Vi offered. “You’re still calling me from Marion’s phone.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I can do this on my own.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“I do indeed.”

“Well, all right then,” she said. “I won’t worry. Maybe I should come visit for this Monkey Flower Festival.”

“Definitely you should.”

A week and a few (borrowed) phone calls later I put my plan into action. First was a trip to Michael’s craft supply store to buy photo paper and inexpensive mattes and frames. Next: an all-night after-hours printing binge at the Woot Prints darkroom, permission of Judd. Finally: setting up my booth on the boardwalk one busy Saturday.

I displayed for sale both framed and unframed photos of Venice and Unknown. I initially reserved more space for Venice images, figuring tourists would prefer a local souvenir, but eventually my table displayed prints from both places equally, as avid buyers snapped up pictures of Unknown with enthusiasm. By sunset, I’d sold all my stock.

Three weeks later, Clark and Dimple had agreed on the sublet, I’d had several successful weekends on the boardwalk and a substantial nest egg, and I’d finished my last job for Judd. Elsie had recently had a bath, and my things were in boxes. I had a hotel reservation in Phoenix. I was ready to go, almost.

I smiled as I sold my last photo of palm trees to a tourist in a Hard Rock Los Angeles T-shirt. LA had helped get me where I belonged in more ways than one.

M
arion looked up when I walked into the tattoo parlor. I’d said good-bye to Judd, Clark, and Laura. My last stop was Marion and Jacob.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“I sold ’em all again.” I was flush with profit. “Check it out.” I waved my shiny new iPhone at him.

“Nice. But I hate to lose you,” he said.

“You’re not losing me,” I said. “You just have to drive farther. Got any parting advice?”

“Don’t spend too much time folding the fitted sheet,” he said. “It’ll never come out perfect.” He handed me a bag. “I got
you these.” Inside were several pairs of touristy Los Angeles kneesocks. “So you remember us.”

“I love you too,” I said. “I got you this.” I handed him a miniature Oscar statue that said Best Friend Award. I was out of kachinas.

Jacob wandered out. “Hey ya, chicken.”

My smile broadened. “Not this time.” I slapped $60 on the counter and tapped the page I’d found in the book. “This one.”

They both started. I nodded.

“Right here.” I tapped my neck behind my ear.

“Rock on!” Jacob exclaimed. We high-fived.

Marion pulled the book to him and looked at the design. Then he looked at me. “That’s a good one,” was all he said, but his voice was gruff.

I knotted my hair and tilted my head so he could ink me with the Chinese symbol for Life. My decision was permanent.

Afterward, Oliver and I walked over the soft white sand down to the water. It would be our last time at the beach for a while. I sat cross-legged and watched the mesmerizing roll of the waves. I felt the sun on my face, smelled the salt. I sifted sand with my fingers. I felt the stinging in my neck from the tattoo. Oliver tugged strands from my braids, and a gentle wind blew them across my face. I breathed. Absorbing. I didn’t take a picture. I didn’t frame the scene. I
was
the scene. Breath, light, warm sand. The graceful cresting of a porpoise shot me with delight. I don’t know how long I sat there. I wasn’t calculating. I wasn’t on the outside. I was the center of everything. Breathing. Feeling.

When it was time, I reached into my pack. There was one last thing I needed to do. I couldn’t go back in time and give Cameron this last kachina, but I could say good-bye.

I was perched on the side of Cameron’s bed. For a change, it was just the two of us.

“No more,” she begged. We’d been playing “Would You Rather…?” for almost an hour.

“You just don’t want to chose between a hairy mole and third nipple,” I chided.

“Hairy mole! It’d be the only hair I’ve got.” Her laugh turned to a cough that turned to gasping for air. She was pallid as onionskin except for purple shadows bruising beneath her eyes and freckles standing out like blood spatter on a white wall.

She leaned her head back as she regained control of her breathing. She looked like what I used to imagine I did as a kid, flattening myself in bed so any roaming thief wouldn’t see that I was there. A third sheet.

“I think I’m ready for this to be over,” she croaked, without opening her eyes.

A flash of agreement, then revolt. Cameron had been the gift God handed me when I needed it the most. I wasn’t ready to give her back.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“Don’t ask me that.” She silenced me, eyes open now.

“Are you afraid?” I asked.

“No.” Her head was comically large for her twig neck, and her shake was more wobble. “You know how it is.”

I nodded, but I didn’t. I’d never gotten to that place where fear let go. When death had danced close, I’d been afraid. But even when they’d asked if we wanted a priest, they hadn’t stopped the fight, chemicals continued to flow. And worked a miracle. Cameron was off the tubes. No more battling. This was a different kind of waiting. I chose to believe that when you were one hair closer, when you could almost smell the lemons, fear died first.

“Tell them.” She made me pledge. “Tell them I wasn’t afraid. Coming from you they might believe it.”

Again I nodded, wondering what I could possibly say to
her family. A twenty-two-year-old girl trying to solace broken sixty-year-olds who wanted to know why God hated them.

A nurse with a fierce unibrow interrupted us. She had a tall glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast drink.

“I’m not drinking that shit,” Cameron said.

“Now, Cameron,” Unibrow cajoled.

“I’m. Not. Drinking. That. Shit.” Cameron closed her eyes and pretended Unibrow wasn’t there. Soon enough, she wasn’t. She left the drink.

“Flush it,” Cameron instructed. “I detest that shit.” I did.

“Bargaining time’s over,” she said. “At first I tried to make deals—I would swear less, I’d be nicer to that annoying social worker that wears all the happy-face flair buttons, I’d be a better person in general. I lasted three days before I realized it was stupid and gave up. You can make all the promises in the world and you’ll still have cancer.”

I didn’t tell her all the bargains I’d been making if God would let me keep her. There were ways you could acknowledge certain death, and ways you couldn’t.

Cameron went on. “For years I was the manic, melodramatic cancer-won’t-get-the-best-of-me person. But you know what? It’s horseshit. Cancer sometimes will get the best of you and that’s why it sucks.” She grabbed my hand. “I’m not saying permanently, just sometimes. Remember that.”

“Are you giving me a parting lecture?” I wasn’t sure what she wanted from me.

She managed a laugh. “I want to be as famous as that ‘Last Lecture’ professor at Carnegie Mellon.”

“And as rich,” I agreed.

She rolled her head to look at me. “I don’t know what I would say for my last lecture.” We held eyes, wondering what wisdom we could give each other in our diverging journeys. What she spoke at last, she simply said, “Live.”

“As long as I can.” I made the only promise I could keep.

She made a feeble gesture to her long-abandoned desk. “Get that envelope. It’s for you.”

“What is it?” I drew out a thick sheet of watercolor paper eagerly. Cameron was incredibly talented. She had been an art student at the Rhode Island School of Design.

It was a watercolor comic map of the United States, scattered with caricature icons—A cowboy galloping across Texas, an Amish buggy cantering through Pennsylvania, Mt. Rushmore dominating South Dakota, surfers cresting California’s coast. In the middle, hanging out of a bright red convertible, waved a blonde girl with a wide smile, driving, and Cameron’s grinning freckled face on the passenger’s side.

“It’s all the places we said we’d go when we got better.”

I swallowed hard. “I might not get better,” I said.

“You might,” she said.

“I can’t do it alone.” I wasn’t talking about the road trip.

“Not to sound like Dr. Phil”—we both hated Dr. Phil with a passion that burned white hot—“but you’re only as alone as you want to be.”

“I think I might want to be.” My throat was tight. “For a while.”

“That’s a choice.” Her voice was fading as she tired, but she managed a smile. “But when you’re ready”—she indicated the colorful map—“take me with you.”

I’d cried a normal amount once—skinned knee, dead dog, broken heart. But when I got sick and had a well of legitimate causes, the tears had dried up. I hadn’t wanted to wash away in them. In that moment, the valve burst, and every single tear I’d ever held back erupted. I put my head on her knees and sobbed. The watercolor still bears the blotch that stained the corn palace in Iowa before Cameron extracted the map to safety. She made shushing noises, hand on my head.

“I’m going to miss you,” I burbled through the snot.

She feebly tapped the map. “I’ll be right here.”

I pulled myself together and mopped my face.

“If you live, I’ll get you a corn dog and funnel cake at the Minnesota State Fair,” I begged.

She laughed. “How did you know what I wanted for my last meal?”

“Crazy in the brains!” I scolded. “You need to shop on the right-hand side of the menu. Get the lobster thermidor and baked Alaska.”

“How about snow-crab legs and artichokes…”

We bantered until her parents arrived, then switched to the safer topic of how unseasonably hot it was and what a relief to be in the air-conditioning. I would not be alone with Cameron again before her death three days later. It was years before I was able to say “I love you” to anyone, because I hadn’t said it to her.

I extracted the jar from my bag. I’d been carrying it with me a long time.

“I hope you enjoyed the trip,” I said to Cameron. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

I unsealed my portion of Cameron’s ashes and gently shook her into the breeze. Soon, I would write her parents and tell them what I had done. I could stop avoiding them.

When the jar was empty, I filled it with Venice Beach sand. In the resulting hollow, I nestled a kachina for Cameron. While her ashes continued her exploration of the world, the seventh kachina would stay on the California beach she’d dreamed of seeing. The statue intertwined a bird, nest, fish, and wave. I wondered if my mom had been thinking of my friend when she created it. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Cameron’s own drawings. To me, the seamless joining of elements and
animals meant belonging. I didn’t belong to Los Angeles, but I belonged to myself at last, body and spirit. I was grateful to this place for giving that to me. I didn’t need to stay until October. This particular marathon was over, though surely there would be others. I was ready for my new home.

The eighth kachina, the mother-figure with the owl, would return with me. It was mine to keep, to remind me of where I began, and the seven others that marked my journey to where I am now. With a last gaze at the ocean, I walked to where Elsie was waiting to take me to the desert.

“Where’re you headed?” The parking attendant looked at my packed car. “You’re loaded.”

What he didn’t know is how free I finally was. “Destination Unknown.” I smiled.

He didn’t bat an eye. Venice Beach saw it all. “Good luck.”

“You know it,” I agreed, and drove east.

When I pulled into Unknown it was a far different scene from my shadowy arrival many months ago. Though it was after dark, the town square was vibrant, bustling with preparations for the Monkey Flower Festival. I could see Bruce and Ronnie bickering over how to erect the marquis tent. Liz Goldberg and Jenny Up were hanging paper lanterns on the repaired bandstand, while Helen Rausch skulked nearby ready to pounce on flaws in their work. Fairy lights were strung from every possible branch and structure. I could see Tuesday’s work in clusters of misshapen paper flowers. There was no mistaking the existence of a town this time. I was looking at its beating heart. I knew I’d come home as my own heart beat in harmony. I didn’t see Noah’s tall frame among the crowd, but that didn’t worry me. I put the car into drive and headed home to Ruby’s. I had all the time in the world.