December 1 - December 24, 1998

CHAPTER X

"Jules!" Steve Quinn called out to his friend across the produce section in Ralph’s supermarket.

It was the first week of December, almost a year since Paco died. Julia had apparently failed to hear Steve. He abandoned his cart and hurried to the spot where Julia seemed to be choosing apples. Only she wasn’t choosing them. She had her hands tucked in the front pockets of her jeans while she stood there considering the apples as though they were a phenomenon she never encountered before, and didn't give a damn about. Her cart was empty.

"I looked in the fridge this morning. It was pathetic. Some eggs of indeterminate age, and two jars of Dijon mustard." She said all this as though she and Steve had spoken yesterday. In truth they hadn’t talked on the phone in a while and they hadn't seen each other in months. It was all Julia's doing.

She looked thin and out of focus to Steve. Worse, really. She looked as though she had fallen apart and whoever was in charge of the reassembly had been working from an old and blurry photograph and didn't get it quite right. "Why don’t I hang around and shop with you?" he offered.

The offer seemed to make Julia uncomfortable. "No, that’s okay," Julia said. "I’ve got a lot to buy. It’ll probably take me a while. I don't want to hang you up."

"I’ve got the time," Steve said.

"No. Really. I just kind of feel like doing this on my own."

Steve could sense if he didn’t drop it, if he didn’t drop it immediately, Julia would panic and bolt. "Okay, Jules," he said, keeping his tone light. "Drop by the clinic. We've got a litter of kittens someone left at the door last night."

"I will," Julia promised.

Steve sensed it was a promise Julia had no intention of keeping.

Everyone expected that Julia’s reaction to Paco’s death would be intense. But the form her reaction took was exactly opposite to what everyone predicted it would or should be. Instead of relying on those she loved and loved her back, she began separating herself from them. No one, including Julia herself, understood what had gotten into Jay Russo: While everyone else respected the lines in the sand Julia drew, the highly effective barriers she erected, Jay, who could usually be counted on not to be counted on, ignored all that. He dragged her on hikes in Runyon Canyon, he dragged her to the movies, he dragged her to lunch. He even watched television with her in the evenings when he couldn't get her to budge, then came back most mornings and made her go to work. At best, Julia believed, Jay was being obtusely sans serif, completely ignoring her strong desire to be left in peace. At worst, she suspected his behavior--because of his competitive feelings toward Paco--had a certain diseased pathology to it. He had Paco's job now. Was he after Paco's missus, too?

Some of the other outward signs that Julia was declining rather than improving included an inability to drive, which began in June, and an increasing inability to do her job. She left the Studio in early August. As the months passed and Julia still didn’t improve, everyone continued to believe her state of mind was the combined effect of the shock of Paco's death itself, the heavy toll of watching him disintegrate before her eyes, and, the grief of not having him anymore. Those aspects acutely factored in, but as spring turned to summer, her friends and family began to comprehend she was suffering through something more complex than the normal grieving process.

No one, however, suspected for a moment what the real rootstock of Julia's problem was. To keep the knowledge from everyone was the principle reason she withdrew.

In September, Julia received a letter from Sal Berelli. The letter came with a photocopy of a newsclipping. As bad as Julia had been before Sal wrote, reading the contents of the photocopy marked the beginning of the worst part of her decline.

September 28,

My Dear Jules,

I've tried to call you a number of times the last few months, but I invariably get your machine. I hope that means you're all right and that you're keeping busy (the only way to beat grief, believe me). By the way, I love it that Paco's voice is still on the message. I recorded it a few weeks ago for posterity.

Libby said I shouldn't mention this, but when you said you couldn't meet me for dinner that night last spring when I was in town for the day to deliver that lecture at UCLA, all the reasons you had for not coming sounded like excuses to me. My feelings were hurt. I've been worried about you ever since, because I don't remember you ever being anything but glad to see me. Please remember that I still think of you as my daughter, and also as one of my very best friends.

Libby and I are now back at the Inuit settlement, Iqaluit. They are fascinating and proud people. I'm particularly captivated by the kinship group hosting Libby and me right now. (Kinship. I had a lovely boy. He's gone now. I'd give anything if I could've gone in his place.) Anyway, I watch my (mine, only on loving loan, of course) Inuit family's noble effort to preserve a way of life that is age-old to them, in the face of environmental problems not of their making, bald economic encroachments, and the ticklish dilemma of trying to incorporate aspects of the modern world that make their existence easier (like modern medical technology, down and Gortex clothing, powerboats and snowmobiles), and resist the ones that would trash it (booze, drugs, Twinkies, TV, etc., etc., etc.). They don't, however, seem to have any interest in playing May I which Libby and I have tried to teach them. Oh, well.

We'll be back in Brooklyn Thanksgiving through the New Year. If you're not going to your family for Christmas, please consider coming home to The Heights, and to us. If you must, you can even bring one or two of your cats (don't you dare bring all five of them!). We'll stand you the ticket.

We'd both love to see you, darlin' girl. I miss Paco's cooking, but I know he taught you to make many of the same things, and that you do it almost as well. Libby thinks she can cook Italian. But I've got news for her; to me, her marinara sauce tastes like doctored ketchup.

A word about my lovely boy's ashes. At dinner that night in L.A. (the one you couldn't/wouldn't come to), Jay mentioned that the studio brass said no to casting Paco to the four winds over their territory. That's a shame, because the Studio's the place that had the most significance to him. You still got them in your china hutch along with the ashes belonging to Moses and Shadrach (china hutch burial . . . anthropologically interesting development of the later 20th Century)? If you do, please remember that I visit lots of lovely places all the time, where the four winds blow. . . . many of them suitable, although none of them particularly significant to Paco. . . . nevertheless.

Some of our mail caught up with us yesterday. I got a letter from Uncle Nick. I think he's good, but he never did learn to spell, so I can't be entirely sure. I'll probably call him soon to check. Or maybe I'll have Libby do it, because I hate fighting with him on the phone when it's my nickel.

I also thought you'd be interested in this clipping concerning Juanita. I've been crying since I got it (sure has been the year for that) . . . That's what some of the blotches are on the letter (grease, too. I'm having a smoked narwhale sandwich with hot mustard for lunch as I write this).

As Ever,

Sal

Later that afternoon in early December, behind the wheel of his old pickup in the parking lot of the Ralph’s market, Steve waited for Julia to come out. When she did, her arms were empty, and her hands were still tucked in her front jeans' pockets. She hadn’t purchased a thing. Steve continued to watch Julia as she walked through the parking lot to the crosswalk at the intersection of Third Street and La Brea, then crossed at the light with the other pedestrians. In comparison to them, Julia seemed transparent; the loneliest soul he'd ever seen.

Steve pulled out of the lot. Instead of going back to his clinic, he continued to follow Julia down Third Street. As Julia was about to cross Detroit Avenue, Steve pulled around the corner and stopped, blocking Julia's path. He rolled his window down.

"Can I drive you home?" he said, although they were only about two blocks from Julia’s house.

"No," Julia said.

Steve could hear her exasperation. Without another word, or even a wave, without once looking back at Steve, Julia moved on. Steve sat behind the wheel watching his friend until she was out of sight.

Something had to be done. If Jay Russo was the only person Julia could presently seem to bear, then Jay would have to be the one to do it.

September 23, 1960

Since our visit to the healer (the diagnosis was a combination of the heat, the water, and homesickness), I have used every ounce of the self-discipline I have to pretend I am my old self . . . I'm not.

Juanita's puppy is growing. He's more exceptional looking each day. When she fires her pots, I have seen him sitting within close proximity, at the edge of the escarpment (6,000 foot drop to the floor of the Painted Desert). With his ears cocked and his neck elongated, his velvet muzzle and nostrils quivering, he scans the landscape like the most royal of princes. The phrase "the wind and his nobility" (Shakespeare. Henry IV, Part I maybe? ) comes to mind when I see him like this.

If Juanita was a witch (I'm not entirely convinced she isn't, for I am certainly bewitched) the dog would be her familiar. The belief system on these mesas supports the idea of a kind of animism: that all natural objects (rocks, trees, streams, etc.) and creatures have souls. You can see this puppy's soul shining clearly from his eyes, which are of the same color and liquid brilliance as those of his mistress.

I am thinking of leaving First Mesa. I have no clue what excuse I can offer Dewey, whom I'm sure will see it as some kind of betrayal of our friendship. But it would be better for him to believe that than to ever discover my real betrayal: I have allowed myself to fall hopelessly in love with the woman he loves. He's opened his home and his heart to me, and I, in a fashion historically typical of most relations between Indians and pale faces, am greedy for more.

(to be continued)

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