Page 57 of And Still Her Voice
“It’s a wonder you’re not pregnant,” Grandma added.
“Oh my God! What? Oh Grandma, please stop. I don’t want to know.”
“You had a bad reaction to something you smoked. You kept screaming to be taken home until frat boy finally drove you back. You’d passed out by the time he got to the parking lot. He tried to have his way with you first.”
“Oh, no! Did he take my virginity?”
“No. I told him I hoped my lady blisters were healed by now and that the penis on the last boy had shriveled up like a slice of fried bacon. You should have seen his face. Alas, he kept your panties as a souvenir or for bragging rights. Imagine what he might have told the others; that he had relations with someone famous from the band.”
“I’m not famous.”
“Not yet, darling. And not if you keep up this type of behavior.”
“You’re right. I’m so stupid.”
“I said you weren’t street smart. You’re also a teenager, whose prefrontal cortex hasn’t fully formed.”
And then, after the Texas-sized headache, full of enough shame to pack all of the Roman Catholic confessionals around the world—you’d think I might have learned a lesson, but I’m sorry to say I hadn’t.
CHAPTER 21
The Flying Unicorn
The winter high plains had been flat and desolate, but now the approaching giant oaks and crabapple trees dotted the scenery like a French Impressionist painting. I gazed out the bus window, imagining the smell of the lilac bushes that would bud soon. As February exhaled the remnants of winter, no matter where we traveled in March, the promise of spring perfumed the air and with spring came the promise of amour.
The next morning, refueled for the trip with a hot cup of coffee, a donut, and a copy of theHouston Chronicle, I took a window seat and wrapped myself in my bedroll as the rest of the band boarded after being out God-knows-where all night. Abe closed the door. I looked around. “Where’s Tony?”
“He’s been warned,” John responded, making his way to the back of the bus.
River shrugged as I looked at him for answers. He took a seat across from me.Warned?I just always knew Tony was trouble.
***
Cindy tossed me an issue ofRedbookmagazine. I browsed through it but stopped when I came across an article about an orthopedic surgeon who’d been to Vietnam and said, “Nothingcould have prepared me for my encounters with Vietnamese women and children burned by napalm. It was shocking and sickening, even for a physician, to see and smell the blackened flesh.” I set the magazine aside remembering my march to Kezar Stadium and how Betsy had said, “They’re killing our babies.” I closed the magazine thinking about how naïve I’d been; how totally consumed with the matters confined inside my own head.
I opened up the newspaper and read how all across America even more university students were protesting the Dow Chemical Company, the principal manufacturer of napalm. In New York, around five hundred students picketed a university-sponsored recruiting event for Dow, holding up signs reading, “Dow Shall Not Kill” and “Dow Deforms Babies.” I turned the page to read how in Los Angeles, some fifteen thousand Latino high school students walked out of classes to press their demand for a better education. I thought about my family and worried how that might affect them. But now, I’d realized that everything centered around finding love, and not just the kind between a man and a woman. Humanity needed to find some love.
In Delano, California, Cesar Chavez had been on a hunger strike, and when he broke his fast, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was by his side. Kennedy had asked how he could help. Something pulled at my heartstrings and I looked out the window, terraced fields rolling past, and remembered Mom telling me that she’d met Chavez while working the fields up North and that’s where she reunited with Dad while he was up there working, too. My mother wouldn’t have been out there picking strawberries, I thought, if it hadn’t been for Grandma Phoebe first getting her deported.
“It all worked out. She found love.”
“Yeah, rub it in. Even those two were destined to get struck by cupid’s arrow.”
I set down the newspaper when I noticed Cindy, in the corner of my eye, handing River a book to read. “Someone gave me this back in Montrose,” she said, her earring still dangling after she pushed a golden strand of hair behind her ear. “Apparently,Emmanuelleis all the rage in Europe, but I don’t read French,” she said, and I thought good luck, Cindy, he’s not into girls. Then for a second my insecurities took over and I wondered, maybe he’s just not into me.
“Neither do I,” River responded, “Parlez-vous français?”
“Je fais,” I said, snatching the novel from him. “I know some French.”
“Well, Honey, now as you practice your French, maybe you might even learn something about sex,” Cindy said, sashaying her way to the back of the bus.
“En efet, c’etait lors de mon passage in France avec la—” Grandma said.
“Oh my God. Yeah, I know, Grandma. You were in France with the Red Cross during the war and fell in love.” I settled into my seat to open up to the first page.
“Chapter One, ‘The Flying Unicorn.’ Emmanuelle boarded the plane in London that was to take her to Bangkok.”
River laughed, pulling out a book to read. It seemed River had his hands on a new book every few days.
