The Lesson (6 page)

“I’ll be finished with my closing work in ten minutes,” she said, picking up her dishrag. “I’ll change into my street clothes and meet you at the door.”

The Apartment, Lincoln Street

Gina awoke to the warm glow of a late morning sun streaming through her narrow bedroom window. What time was it? Through bleary eyes she strained to see the alarm clock on the scuffed wood nightstand. Eleven-thirty. The morning was nearly over and she hadn’t even gone to the Launderette with the week’s worth of dirty clothes. But it didn’t bother her that much, because since Michael had broken off their engagement and moved to Berkeley, Saturdays had stretched out like long dusty roads on a hot summer day, endless, monochrome, and dull. If she slept most of the morning, it just made the empty weekend go by faster. When she was asleep she wasn’t missing Michael.

As her feet hit the carpet she remembered why she had slept so late: she and Kevin had stayed up, talking and sharing funny stories, till four a.m.

How could that have happened? She had planned only to do a sociable, just a little ice cream, a little pleasant talk, not more than an hour or so. But they had ended up at the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell, at Marie Callender’s, a local pie shop, enjoying sandwiches and coffee and splitting an enormous serving of coconut cream pie. Kevin had entertained her with outrageous stories of stunts he and his older brother had pulled when they were little, while his mother was at work and they were in charge of their little sister. Most of these hijinks centered around terrorizing poor, defenseless Mimi by rolling her up in a carpet, or locking her out of the apartment, or bribing her with snack cakes to get her to do her brothers’ chores. Gina also heard wild stories of shenanigans at sea, mostly idiocies committed by drunken shipmates who failed to return to the ship when it was docked in foreign ports.

“One Saturday night when we were docked in Manila," said Kevin, "a first class petty officer got so drunk, instead of making it back to the ship he staggered into one of the many Catholic churches on the island.”

A Catholic church? He had her full attention.

“He flopped down into a confessional box and shut the door behind him. Then he just sat there. Didn’t say anything. The priest coughed a few times to get his attention but the first class didn’t respond. Finally, the priest pounded on the wall three times. The first class mumbled, ‘Ain't no use knockin.’ There's no paper on this side either.’”

Such irreverence. Gina felt guilty for laughing but she couldn’t stop.

“Another time a guy was supposed to be back to the ship in time for dog watch. That’s a late day, two-hour watch, like a security guard for the ship. But he got drunk in some bar somewhere and didn’t show up till his shift was over.”

“What happened?”

“He was still drunk when he crawled back to the Shasta, so he was hauled in front of the commanding officer. The C-O said, ‘You’ve been called in for drinking.’ And the sailor said, ‘Okay, let’s get started.’”

“You’re making this up,” Gina sputtered, covering her mouth with both hands.

“Another time we were docked at Mare Island, and three guys went into Frisco for a night on the town. They got drunk as skunks, and on their way back to the Flint
they decided, like bozos, to stop at one more bar. They parked their car at the curb and one of the guys put a quarter in the parking meter. The meter zoomed to sixty and he said, ‘Look, I’ve lost a hundred pounds!’”

Gina was embarrassing herself. Tears of laughter spilled over and ran down her face. Across the table Kevin was laughing too. He was thoroughly in his element, and she was enjoying the camaraderie so much that she didn’t think once about his weird clothes, though she was vaguely aware that they were attracting annoyed looks from other diners, one elderly couple in particular that was seated close by. Gina reached into her purse for a tissue to dab her eyes.

“We gotta stop this, Kevin. People are staring. We’re going to get thrown out,” she said between dabs.

“They can’t throw us out. We haven’t paid the bill yet.”

They laughed harder.

Kevin’s candor about sibling rivalry emboldened Gina to share stories of her own sibling squabbles, embarrassing tales in her estimation, but Kevin didn’t seem shocked that four girls could fight physically or hurl things that shattered. Gina learned some Navy terminology too, all new and fascinating to her, such as
geedunk
, for junk food available aboard ship after hours. They had laughed and talked at the pie shop till about eleven, but were still full of conversation and wide awake when it was near closing time. As they stepped outside, Gina looked up. The crisp fall night was glorious with stars. She wrapped her jacket around her a little tighter.

“Why don’t we go to your place for a while?” Kevin asked as they walked toward his VW.

“Well …” Gina hesitated, searching for the right words. “I’m not the type of girl to let a guy friend stay late at her apartment.”

“No, you’re the scandalous type who opens the door to a total stranger after dark, including,” he said, smiling slyly, “a sailor of unknown intentions whom you met only an hour earlier.”

They both laughed, but Gina did so to hide her embarrassment. She didn’t like being reminded of what a stupid and risky thing she had done.

“Gina, if I were going to make a pass at you, I had plenty of opportunity last Wednesday night.”

“Hmm. I think there’s supposed to be some logic in that," she said, "but I don’t see why I should make it easy for you a second time.”

“If you feel that way, we could drive a while. To Santa Cruz? The inside of a beetle hardly encourages any behavior you’d have to repent of.”

Just then they arrived in front of his dark green VW. It was new looking, but it appeared to Gina to be even smaller on the inside than her Austin. “You have a point,” she said, peering through the window to the beetle’s cramped interior. “Okay. Santa Cruz.”

He held the door while she got in and sat down, her knees one with her chin. As they drove over the mountain on Highway 17, she began to fear that her face would be flattened into the dashboard if Kevin were to suddenly hit the brake on one of the many sharp curves. All the while she was keenly aware of the roar of the engine, which was located in the rear but blasted its fury throughout the entire passenger compartment.

As Kevin chatted animatedly about Navy life above the ceaseless chug of the engine, a memory, as vivid as a postcard, surfaced in Gina’s mind. Michael’s Porsche was small too, but that was sexy small. Kevin’s VW was noisy and rattle-y small, not nearly as much fun as the Porsche. People standing on the street or waiting at red lights used to stare when she and Michael went jetting by in his shiny white Porsche with the custom gold trim. But no one noticed a beetle. It’s not that she cared about cars. She didn’t. But it was hard not to mentally catalogue the many differences between Michael and Kevin.

Then, in a moment of self-realization, Gina felt guilty to think that she wasn’t listening to Kevin anymore but was instead reliving dates with Michael. Even if she had no lasting connection to Kevin, she was being rude. Though she ached with longing for yesterday, it wouldn’t do to be thinking about Michael when she was with another guy today, even if he was a guy she wasn’t interested in. It didn’t seem right. She shook out her thoughts and came back to the present.

“The boardwalk will be all dark. Let’s go straight to the beach and walk along the surf,” Kevin said as they entered the commercial strip.

He found a parking spot on a quiet side street. To avoid disturbing sleeping residents, they walked wordlessly along the dimly lit street, which was lined with tired-looking, World War II era, wildly painted pink-and-purple beach bungalows. So very Santa Cruz. The oceanfront looked just as hippie-ish as it did when Gina's mother used to take Gina and her sisters there in the summer when they were little. The shabby familiarity was comforting. A VW van, held together by a psychedelic mural that covered every inch, was parked alongside one rental. A garbage can near its back door overflowed with beer bottles and there were more on the ground beside it. The occupants, thought Gina, must be sleeping very deeply indeed.

“Ooh, sand’s cold,” she said as they slipped out of their shoes and stepped onto the hard, wet surface of the beach nearest the surf. They zipped up their jackets to their necks against the damp ocean air. There wasn’t much to see in the vast cold blackness of the Pacific, but they could hear the relentless pounding of the waves and watch sea foam skitter along the stretch of deserted beach. Off in the distance a few lights burned in cafes on the pier. Occasionally they saw a dark clump of blanket in the sand, usually a safe distance from the waves. Gina wondered if the clumps were homeless people or if something more animated was going on under the blurry black blobs. It was too dark to tell. She was glad she wasn’t alone.

“Tell me about your sisters. I’ve got one, you’ve got three. You should have triple the stories to tell. I’ve already told you about Mimi,” said Kevin, beginning to walk along the wet sand.

“What’s to tell? Nina is married. She has an adorable little girl that she stays home with. Babe is still in Buchser. Maria is at Curtis Junior High. We’re pretty ordinary. What I’ve really wanted all my life is a brother.”

“Whatever for? You got it good now. Why ruin it?”

They chuckled.

“I don’t know what it’s like, that’s all.”

“I suppose I could clue you in, but it wouldn’t be objective. I mean, my relationship with Jake is brother to brother. Yours would be sister to brother. It would be like comparing apples to oranges,” said Kevin.

“True. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Perhaps I should be talking to your sister instead.”

“Oh no! Don’t do that!”

They laughed. It felt good to laugh aloud in the open air where no one but blanket clumps could hear, and even if they did hear, they were oblivious to passers-by.

“So what is it you imagine you’re missing?” said Kevin.

“Well … a pal. Someone to feel at home with. Someone to talk to about all sorts of personal things without the sexual issue always clouding the atmosphere.”

“Yes, that certainly can get in the way of rational conversation.”

She decided her best response to that was just a smile.

“With a brother,” she said, “you’d have a lot in common. Shared experiences. Like family vacations and favorite Christmas mornings. You could talk about your parents and your siblings’ quirks, and someone would understood why you ranted and raved about them. You’d speak the same language, have a common bond. All that togetherness and all those mutual experiences should add up to something of value.”

Kevin stopped walking and turned to face her. “Togetherness doesn’t necessarily add up to anything of value, not even with brothers. Maybe even especially with brothers.”

Gina stopped too. She was taken aback at his candidness. She didn’t know how to respond. What did he mean? Intuitively she determined it was wise not to ask. She kept talking as they resumed their stroll.

“A brother would understand why you were you. Especially, it seems to me, a brother would be more interesting to talk to than a sister, because guys look at things differently than girls.”

“And thank God for that,” said Kevin. “But there’s not much you can do about getting a brother at this late date.”

“No.”

“So what else have you always wanted that you don’t have?”

“I encourage myself a lot that everything will be better
someday, after I pass the bar.”

“Such as?”

“Someday,” said Gina, “when I’m a pin-striped-suit attorney with a fat paycheck, I’m going to a buy a car with room enough in the back for anything. My two-door Austin is too small for people and stuff. I thought when I bought it that I needed only a small car because it was just me. Wrong. I need bigger.”

“And how big is that?”

“Mack truck big!”

Kevin looked down at her and smiled.

“A car that doesn’t break down constantly,” she continued. “And if it does break down, I’ll have enough money to pay the tow truck driver and the mechanic. And a big house too. One that doesn’t have a floor plan like a swastika. Nice draperies on all the windows, a spacious laundry off the kitchen, and a telephone in every room so I don’t have to get out of bed in the cold of night to walk to another room every time someone calls.”

“Is that the main reason you want to go to law school? A better life?”

“That’s a big part of it. Right now I have to put up with a lot to make ends meet. I get sick of it. Working way past tired just to earn another dollar. Being endlessly polite to creeps,
courzen food. of the deep freezer, no, make that two deep freezers, humming away in a
waiting on old men who call me honeypot and sweetie and make me disgusting offers to earn a little ‘extra’ on the weekends. It gets old.”

“I’m sure it does. Some things about Navy life get old too.”

“Tell me.”

“Months at sea. Missing your family. Working weekends sometimes. Doing a watch at four in the morning. Mostly it’s the loneliness,” said Kevin.

“But doesn’t all that travel and adventure make up for it?”