Chapter 31
We’d been in Los Angeles for five years before my family came out to visit.
By then, my father and Mae had the added incentive of Bobby being stationed in Ream Field, outside San Diego.
Two birds, one stone, my father said, and too much time had passed already.
I understood the delay. The year after Leonard and I left Florida, Mae had a little boy they named Charles and called Skip.
She said if they were going to drive three kids all the way to California, she wanted everyone to be old enough to use the bathroom by themselves, and old enough to appreciate the trip.
It would be the biggest vacation they’d ever taken, and by far the most expensive.
They planned to arrive at our apartment on a Sunday morning, and I said I’d serve brunch.
Leonard and I woke early to sweep the tumbleweeds of dog fur from the floor and get everything ready.
I was feeling so many things—nervous and proud but mostly excited.
Whenever I got a letter from Mae or Janet, it was like a car going by playing a song I loved, and by the time I recognized it, the music was already quieting, the car driving away.
“You look nice,” Leonard said, likely because I’d changed clothes twice and kept messing with my hair.
But he said it again, and then he put on our Bobby Darin record and twirled me around to “Mack the Knife,” which really was the best thing he could have done for my nerves, though the lady downstairs thumped her broom at the ceiling, which meant we had to turn down the volume.
When we heard a bunch of footsteps trooping up the stairs, Leonard got hold of Phoenix’s collar.
I opened the door, and there they were—Mae and Janet jostling in the hallway to get to me first, my father behind them, waving and laughing, and Shirley and Skip both wearing Mickey Mouse hats I’d soon learn had been purchased just inside the state line.
I ran out into the hall, where Mae and I alone made such a whooping, jumping commotion that the lady downstairs thumped her broom again.
Shirley and Skip hung back, wide-eyed, but Janet, Mae, and even my father hugged Leonard almost as tightly as they hugged me.
“Good Lord,” my father said. “That looks like an entirely different animal.” He leaned down to scratch the white star between Phoenix’s ears. “They fatten you up, good boy? Nora still feeding you fries?”
I sneaked a wink at Leonard. Mae had written, more than once, that this was my father’s favorite part of the story—that I’d doled out fries, one at a time, to keep the dog close and quiet while Leonard used Russ’s wire cutters on the neighbor’s fence.
The next morning, when my father went out back to turn on the sprinkler, the neighbor came out, yelling and pointing at the hole in the fence, wanting to know if my father knew anything about it or the whereabouts of his dog.
My father told him no, and said he was honestly just as baffled until they got my first letter.
Even now, he seemed surprised to see the dog was truly with us.
“Ahem,” Mae said. Even frowning, she still looked younger than she was.
Her hair had faded to a copper color, no longer as bright as Janet’s.
But her nails and lips were painted the same tomato red as her dress.
“That is a very nice dog…” she said, bulging her eyes at my father, and then at Janet, “…that they got in California.”
We all took the warning. She’d been clear that neither Shirley nor Skip could know that our dog once belonged to their difficult neighbor, who remained in the house next door, and was someone Mae wanted no trouble with.
“It’s just love at first sight,” Janet said. She was still on the floor, nuzzling Phoenix’s neck. “I’ve never seen this dog before in my life.”
If either child sensed a cover-up, they didn’t show it. They remained by the door, looking uneasy. I gave them both a little wave, though I knew Shirley wouldn’t remember me, and that I was just a name to Skip. Skip raised his chin and scowled at me, looking so much like Bobby my breath caught.
But Shirley waved back, and said, “Hello. I’m Shirley. I’m eight.”
Laughter all around, even as I felt the old claw at my heart. I didn’t look at Leonard. I knew he felt it, too. In the fall, she’d be starting third grade.
“Who’s hungry?” I asked, my voice too loud, too chipper.
I was set on the visit being a happy one.
My father looked considerably older, with new sunspots on his forehead and hands.
Mae had warned me that he’d chipped a front tooth but wouldn’t get it fixed—he’d told her that he didn’t want to spend the money, but it was her opinion that he was afraid.
When he raised his hand in answer to my question, he smiled, caught me looking at the tooth, and put his hand over his mouth.
I explained that our kitchen table was small, so we’d eat in the living room on trays. Skip asked if that meant we could watch television while we ate.
“Absolutely not,” Mae said. “We are here to visit your sister and her husband. We’re going to talk to each other like civilized people.”
In the kitchen, I served Skip the biggest cinnamon roll, dripping with icing, and he seemed to warm to me a little. Leonard whispered to Mae that we’d gotten a Slinky for each child, if that would help to keep them occupied.
“Thank you,” Mae said, and took a long swallow of her mimosa. “Glad you got them two. They’ve been bickering nonstop since Nebraska. They can have them after they eat.” She pulled me to her side and kissed my cheek. “Oh, Nora. It’s so good to see you. And you’ve put out a nice spread for us here.”
“Leonard helped,” I said.
She lifted her glass to Leonard, pulling me close. “Look at you,” she whispered. “Landed a doctor who helps in the kitchen.”
“Still in training.” Leonard held a spatula in one hand, a plate in the other. “On both fronts.”
It wasn’t true—he cooked all the time, but Mae laughed.
Phoenix stood close beside him. Of the two of us, I was far more likely to feed that dog from my plate, but I’d long accepted that I’d always be a close second in his canine heart.
I wasn’t jealous. I’d told them both, more than once, that I could understand.
—
Out in the living room, my father stood by the window as he ate, looking down at the cars parked behind our building. “The air is nice and dry out here,” he said. “I can see why you like it.”
“That’s true,” Janet said. “My hair’s better out here, that’s for sure.” She sat on the couch’s armrest in her cute capri pants, one wedge sandal dangling. “But it’s not what I expected of Hollywood.”
“We’re closer to Larchmont.” I walked to the window, checking the sky. The morning’s smog had lifted, as I’d hoped. “But if you go just one block over, you can see the Hollywood Sign. We can go look at it later if you like.”
Janet said she would like that very much. “I want to get my picture with it behind me.” She shimmied her shoulders, exactly the way I’d seen her mother do it a hundred times. “Do you ever have celebrities come into the library?”
I nodded. “June Lockhart came in last March.”
Janet frowned. “I don’t even know who that is.”
“Yes, you do.” Mae sat on the couch and poked Janet’s arm with the handle of her fork. “That’s the mom on Lassie, sweetheart. Nora, that’s really exciting. Do you remember what she checked out?”
I told her no. Even if I’d remembered, I wouldn’t have said.
I’d earned a degree in library science, starting at the city college and then moving on to USC, where we’d had respect for patron privacy drilled into our heads.
On the other side of the couch, Shirley and Skip shared one cushion.
Skip had already finished his cinnamon roll, and he made one hand into an anteater that walked across Shirley’s tray to her plate.
She shook her head and swatted away his hand.
“I will say I’m a little surprised by the neighborhood.” Mae had a bit of egg on her chin, but before I could gesture to her, she turned to Leonard. “It doesn’t bother you?”
Leonard pointed discreetly to his chin. “No, ma’am.”
He didn’t seem offended by the question, though I was sure he knew what she meant.
Our apartment was just north of Koreatown.
We’d been lucky to find any place we could afford, especially with a dog, but I, too, had worried that hearing the Korean language so often would bring up hard memories for Leonard.
He said he’d be fine, and he was right. And it was our Korean landlord, born in Pusan, who introduced Leonard to Ji-ho, who’d served in the US Army.
He’d also been held in a North Korean camp, though not the same one as Leonard.
Ji-ho was how Leonard heard about the POW group that met at the VA, and sometimes he and Leonard would get a drink after a meeting.
They were the only two in the group who’d been held in Korea—everyone else had served in the previous war, and had been held in Germany, Italy, or Japan.
The facilitator told Leonard it was especially hard to convince POWs who’d been in Korea to come to the VA at all.
Because of the petitions, he said, and the brainwashing business.
So I was glad that Leonard and Ji-ho had become friends.
“It’s a good neighborhood,” I said. “But we’re saving for a house. We’d like a yard for the dog.”
Janet sighed, swinging one sandal. “I was thinking you’d be checking out books to real movie stars. But I guess they’re so rich they don’t need a library.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But even if I was rich, I’d still want to go to a library.”