Long Road to California Read online

  Chapter 8

  Nina’s Marriage

  We pull over for a break at an exit not far past the New Mexico border, and it hits me. I haven’t thought of home, or Lucia or work or money, all day. I have no idea what time it is, except that I’m hungry and it’s been awhile since we broke camp at the Buffalo Lake refuge. We spent, what, three days there? They’re running together. In a good way. No buffalo to be seen, but at least a pleasant campground. A lake, fishing for Caleb. Plenty of places where I could imagine campsites of old and sweet images of families kicking back, for the modern updates. Side trips to hunt for the actual locations, hours to edit and perfect my updated shots.

  But time is flowing past, unnoticed, in the way it did in childhood. You just look up and the day is over, and you’ve been thinking of nothing beyond what’s right here and now. No worries about all that external stuff, just making sure we’re fed when we’re hungry and have a place to rest when we’re tired. No fear of the phone ringing with bad news – there’s not much reception here anyway. Lucia’s been checking in by text, brief silly stuff, but reassuring. And it’s been six, no, seven years since my mom died, nine for my dad. We just saw Caleb’s mom and she’s as ever. His dad presumably just fine too; Caleb being a child of divorce doesn’t have the sort of ties and responsibilities toward his father that I once did.

  Anyway, a fine morning easing into afternoon, and I’m feeling at ease with myself, with my husband, with my camera, in a way that’s pleasant and rare. I’ve taken so many shots that both batteries are low. We need to stop at a coffee shop, linger at a place where I can plug in for a bit. So far people have been completely fine about that.

  Caleb’s driving, and with a quick raised eyebrow, he passes the pair of generic looking restaurants right at the highway. We’ve found the better places, the more authentic ones, farther along in the little towns. Funny, kitchy stuff, and it’s hard not to laugh, but then I feel like such a snob. These are real places, real people’s lives.

  Yes, we’ve been by a couple old style diners that were purposely done up, exaggerated to look like the stereotype of what anyone might expect in west Texas along old Route 66. And yes, I’ve had a small field day shooting the vintage fixed up cars, the garish neon signs. But I’m damned if I’ll chuckle at the slow drawl of a cheerful waitress, who calls Caleb hon and graciously points me toward an outlet to recharge my batteries. In fact, we’ve been chatting these local people up. Caleb, though he denies it, can still charm the ladies.

  A couple days ago, we talked with an old man who was parked in a rocker next to a little gas station along a road signed as formerly 66, and he was amazing. Said he had been born in Texas and only set foot elsewhere to go fight the Nazis in France. Clearly a peer of Grandma Vera’s, age wise. Said he could remember the caravans of migrant cars passing on the old route like it was yesterday. Actually, as Caleb later pointed out, he claimed to recall everything he told us as if it was yesterday, and it’s quite possible he was making it all up. Just keeping us there for awhile for company.

  But I jotted down a couple of the phrases he used anyway, wishing I could transcribe it in that slow and smiling twang he had, drawing each word into the maximum possible number of syllables. I got some good photos of him. Sitting in his chair and then standing firm, brushing aside Caleb’s offer of a hand or his nearby cane. His eyes small but sharp, his clothes hanging on his lean lanky body, arms folded firmly across his chest. The gentle breeze rustling the faded khaki and lifting the flaps of paper in the store window behind him, decades old advertising, also lose and faded.

  I’m not sure quite where he’ll fit in, but he’s surely another sort of “after” image. The people who witnessed it all but stayed put, who didn’t follow. It strikes me that I should pick up a tape recorder, try to get more from these stories when I’m putting the thing together.

  “We can ask around about the old campground. Get a real lunch.” Caleb says. “This okay?” He pulls in front of a small diner with a wide awning and a tiny side lot full of cars. A cardboard sign in the window proclaims HomeMade PIE.

  “Yeah. It’s got all the cars in town, looks like.” Hardly any cars are parked on the street.

  Caleb pulls up so that the truck’s cab is partly shaded under a windswept tree. I look for any signs that limit parking, but there are none. That’s weird for us, still, being used to the standard Bay Area battles to find a legal space.

  He gets out and stands by the truck, doing that little stretch, wince, stretch thing he does with his leg. I don’t think he’s even aware of it, but I can see the traces of pain on his face. Not sure from the actual pain or what it represents, the softball and so on that he’s missing.

  “Wait,” I tell him, pulling out my Lumix. “Can you stand by the pie sign?”

  He complies. He knows I’ll just keep finding different ways to ask him until he does. I cross into the street, looking for traffic though there’s none. But I want to capture the popularity of this tiny café in this tiny town. The idea that still, people crowd together to get the good stuff.

  It’s still flat and rural looking, just like where we’ve been. The license plates are all New Mexico though. The cars older, weather beaten. Nothing fancy in the little lot; each car is carefully slotted into its small space and I assume this is the politeness of people who are well acquainted. That dry wind blows. There are trees, clearly planted and tended by the town, struggling up at regular intervals, leaves tattered by the breezes. The other stores, a tiny grocery and drug store, a clothing shop, look unoccupied. There’s another shut up restaurant that must only open at night, and a bank branch with one lonely ATM.

  I edge back to get all this in view, focussing on the doorway and window where Caleb is patiently standing. Crossing back, I catch and quietly capture an elderly couple, the man graciously helping the lady into their large sedan although he looks none to steady on his feet either. Married for what, I wonder, 60 years? More people who saw the caravans but didn’t follow?

  We head in, and one of those classically cheery waitresses instructs us to sit wherever we’d like. She’s clearing crumbs from a cushy red booth by the front window, and we slide in across from each other. I spy an outlet, but wait until I can at least ask her to use it. No one’s in a hurry here. It’s past normal lunch hour, but half a dozen couples or little groups of friends are lingering over mostly eaten plates. It smells good in here, like fresh fried foods and something sweeter, waffles and syrup maybe. A thin, grizzled guy in an apron circulates, refilling coffee cups, and he pours one for each of us.

  “Is that fresh, Henry?” the brassy waitress calls. “These folks are visitors.”

  “Course it’s fresh, what do you think?” he harrumphs back. “It’s fine,” he assures us. “Milk and sugar right there on the table. They’re plenty fresh too.”

  Several regulars snicker at this exchange, but in a friendly way. “Don’t worry, they’re long married,” says the woman at the table closest to me.

  “That’s okay, so are we,” I tell her, eliciting an unintended laugh. I’m a bit self conscious about my accent or lack thereof. In case there was any question from a hundred little things about our appearance, as soon as we speak it screams that we’re not from around here.

  We get set up with menus, the batteries plugged in, soon an order working for heaping sandwiches at – by Bay Area standards – crazy low prices. We must have pie, the waitress instructs us. Caleb grins. He’s been eyeing the one on display at the counter already; now we have no choice.

  I just smile back. We’re doing okay as far as food expenses. The camping has been mostly free and we’re cooking simple stuff over the camp stove at night. Lunches like this are cool. Some pie, why not. I promise to find a place to role out my mat later, do a serious workout.

  The group next to us leaves, calling out several goodbyes, followed by another older couple who have been sc
rutinizing us from across the room. Henry – who’s apparently the cook and busser, probably dishwasher and maybe owner too – clears and quickly resets the tables. Our waitress tends the whole floor, runs the cash register, and I’m guessing bakes the pies.

  She lays down our plates with a flourish, and Caleb and I dig in. The food is pretty tasty, and best if I not think about how much butter, mayo and salt is involved. Outside, a big truck rumbles by, rattling the windows.

  “Walmart,” Caleb says, indicating the name on the truck. “Even out here.”

  There’s probably a big one at the nearest bigger town. Putting the remaining little shops like those around here out of business. Nobody wants to hear about it though. Good chance our lunch ingredients came from there.

  “So y’all visiting near here? Or just on your way somewheres?” The waitress eases into a chair across from us. “Don’t mind if I rest my feet for a bit.”

  “Kind of both,” I tell her, happy for this opening. Briefly, I explain our mission – Caleb’s grandmother’s Dust Bowl migration, the cherished photos she inherited, my photography.

  She listens with flattering interest. Could be she’s just enjoying resting for a few minutes, not being the one to keep cheerful conversations flowing over her domain. But the other customers are mostly listening in at this point too. We’re a real diversion.

  “We’re actually looking for an old camping area from that era,” Caleb interjects. “Her uncle and brothers helped this guy build it. We don’t know exactly where it was, and I’m sure it’s long gone, but they set it up not far past the New Mexico border for people making that trip along Route 66.”

  That starts a discussion amongst the whole crowd. One guy thinks he remembers hearing about this, not here but another ten or so miles farther along. His dining companion says it’s now a big truck stop. But another man pauses on his way out to say that the truck stop is at least 20 miles along, and that old camp was probably closer and just abandoned, gone back to nature. Henry puts in that his grandparents may have stayed at the roadside camp – they had made a similar migration and then turned around and come back, settled somewhat north of here in the town of Logan. We ask further about that – we’ve seen a lake and a campground up there on the map, and they assure us it’s a fine place.

  We’ll have to just keep an eye out, I guess. It’s harder on the interstate – we can’t just slow down to look for a flat abandoned ground that may have some old railroad ties as a foundation. Maybe the truck stop makes sense to photograph, even if it’s not at the exact location.

  Caleb orders pie for both of us, his with ice cream.

  “Now it was your grandmother that built this place?” our waitress asks me, setting down our plates.

  “His grandmother’s uncle and father and brothers,” I explain. “They knew the man who had staked out the place. And they all needed the work, jobs like that were scarce.”

  “Don’t I know.” She swipes another table then eases back into a chair. “Henry and I’d be unemployable if not for this place.”

  Caleb’s eyes meet mine for a second. I’m sure he’s thinking about the word unemployable and his situation. And wishing me not to discuss it with strangers. “It was a special place for his grandma too, because she met his grandfather there,” I tell her. “She was just a teenager and they got to know each other as friends. But then they met up again a few years later and fell in love. Had those shared memories of all working together back here.”

  “Oh my. What were their last names, Henry, do you think your pop would recognize them?”

  “Doubt it.” Henry’s cleaning in the back, but listening too.

  “They were the Grangers, And he was Walter Byrnes. I guess he was traveling with some friends, I don’t have their names, but he knew the campground guy. They were all from the same part of southern Kansas.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet. Went west together. A long marriage?”

  “Pretty long. Until he died. She’s 88 now, been widowed for awhile. I wish we knew the name of the man who owned the campground,” I add. “She just refers to him as Uncle Stan’s friend, which really isn’t much help now. She can’t remember it.”

  “Yeah, her memory kind of shaky on some of the details,” Caleb says. “Other stuff, she remembers just fine. Could tell you all about the dog they left there.”

  “Oh, we love dogs. I’d never forget a dog’s name. That’s our fellows there,” the waitress says, pointing to a collage of snapshots next to her register. Out of focus, but cute brindle mutts.

  “Tell her the story, Caleb,” I urge him. I’m brought back to our dating days. I don’t know how it came up, but he mentioned Grandma Vera’s long lost dog one of the first times we went out.

  Caleb looks embarrassed at my enthusiasm and the waitress’s eager expression. “Well, the two families were traveling, and Uncle Stan’s family had this dog named Frisky. A little terrier, a bundle of energy, hence the name. And once they were on the road and saw how long it would take, and the kinds of places they would have to stay—“

  “And when they realized they’d have trouble getting work, that they’d have to keep packing up and moving,” I add.

  “Right, plus I think they were worried about could they even afford to feed the dog, I mean they were really running low on money. Anyway, they gave the dog to the man who was running the campground. There was lots of room for him to run around, he could help guard the place, they could afford to feed him. But all the kids were really upset, Grandma Vera too.” Caleb pauses, taking in everybody’s sad expressions, even Henry, who’s pretending to sweep but leaning toward us from the kitchen. “Then like three years pass. The man’s son, who’s in his twenties by now, married, brings the dog on a trip out to California. Goes to visit Stan’s family, who’s settled in a house. Vera and her brothers were living nearby, and they all got together for a grand reunion. Stan’s kids were almost teenagers by then, everybody waiting on the porch. They open the car door and that dog goes flying across the lawn in a frenzy. Like he’s been saving up all his tail wagging and licks for his original family this whole time. They thought sure he would have forgotten them, but he hadn’t, not at all. Grandma Vera used to say that after that, she knew what happiness looked like. Her, the dog, all of them, despite everything they’d been through.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet, brings a tear to my eye,” she says.

  I nod. “I knew I’d have to keep seeing him when I heard that story, so I could hear Grandma Vera tell it herself.” We both laugh.

  Caleb excuses himself for the restroom.

  The waitress leans towards me. “He’s a keeper, that one,” she says, voice low. “You chose well.” She winks as she picks up our pie plates. Leans close to her Henry as she passes them to the sink.

  Watching them, I can see a close couple. Kind of opposites, each with their role in the partnership. I wonder what she sees in us. Funny that she says I chose well, as if she figured out just from observing us that it was me who thought longest about it, who gave the final okay.

  I just wasn’t sure Caleb was serious, all those years back. He seemed so young. He was young, even younger than me, and I was young too, only 25 when we first met. We moved in together after a year or so mostly because we were spending so much time together it was dumb to keep renting out two places. But it still seemed casual, to me anyway. If I’m really honest, I’ll admit I thought he was a bit of a lightweight as far as intellect or ambition. I’d been surrounded by people who took themselves mighty seriously, thought highly of their degrees, their career paths. While Caleb was cheerful about being outside a lot as a landscape architect. And loving baseball, his whole zen of the game thing, which I still don’t totally get and didn’t then at all. But his smarts don’t advertise themselves. And his ambitions, in retrospect, were more reasonable than the high ideals of those long gone colleagues.

  He sit
s back down across from me, amiable as ever. Now, the whole relationship, the little accident that became Lucia, the marriage, it seems inevitable. Hard to imagine any other life for either of us. I glance over at Henry, manning a steamy hose over the back sink, and wonder what those two talk about at night. Or that old couple in the parking lot. Do they still surprise each other now and then?

  I unplug and repack my camera equipment. We pay, leave a good tip, and decide to head up to that lake for the night. Caleb thinks he can get good radio reception, catch the Giants playing in Arizona. I’ve got to sit down and delete the bad shots. I’ll use the evening light for camp side images up there, and we’ll find whatever we can of the original abandoned site before the sun gets too high in the morning.

  He stays at the wheel. I gaze out the window, mind still on the people we’ve just been talking to. Wondering where they live, how they live. Remembering Caleb in his twenties, both of us, how we just kind of landed in our situation. Found ourselves there and kept moving along, hardly noticing time pass until years and years had gone by.

  I don’t think of us as having had a grand romance, ala Grandma Vera, meeting up with her old friend and soon swept off her feet for a hasty wartime marriage. But maybe we did, in our way. I remember interviewing Caleb for my soon to fold enviro mag. The issue was a local park; he played ball there, represented his softball team. I remember how we clicked, how fast the interview went, how I kept forgetting to ask questions when he asked things about me. And then later, how we talked on those first times together – that was the romance for me, I guess. The physical attraction presented itself pretty clearly too, even if I first saw it as a fling.

  Even these past few years, the stupid money stuff, I haven’t regretted my choice. Choosing him. Wish I could have known to avoid the multiple hits that led to our catastrophe, of course. Spiraling college costs, the loan we made to my sister when her husband left and left her his debts, the size of the investment in Caleb’s start up. But when I look around at other people’s lives – people we’ve met, or people we’re learning more about, like Vera – our problems kind of shrink in perspective.

  It’s not far at all to the lake. There’s a state park, a small self serve campground, a couple tents, no people in sight. Pretty place, still high desert, and at last I can see actual mountains off on the horizon towards Santa Fe. Caleb unloads the tent and we set up the frame with practiced ease. Unroll and inflate the cushy air mattresses, set out the stove, fill up water bottles.

  “We’ll need a food stop pretty soon,” I say.

  “Santa Fe,” he says. “Santa Fe Walmart.” Laughing. “Pick up some good energy there too.”

  He mocks it, but I’m looking forward to finding a nice farmers market, organic foods, doing Pilates without people staring. I’ve got friends up there too, a couple who met in college and stayed together. Fun people, and talk about long married.

  I check my phone, which is miraculously getting service. Lucia’s sent a couple goofy texts, which I answer in kind. It’s warm up here, but the dry kind, and we’ve gotten used to it. I rub on some sunscreen and hand it to Caleb.

  We decide to walk by the lake before the game starts, and it’s nice, I think, that after the rest of the day together it’s still a pleasant prospect to wander around together. Quiet, outside, no agenda. Well, that’s Caleb’s ideal situation anytime. Me, one I’ve had to learn to appreciate.

  Back at the camp, Caleb gets out his solar radio. I check my phone again. “I’m going to call Vera’s room. See if she can tell us anything more about the camp. It’s earlier in the afternoon there, right?”

  Several patient rings, and Vera’s hesitant voice comes on the line. I speak slow and loud so she knows it’s me, and when I hear that recognition in her voice, bring her up to date on our progress. Ask about her day, which always seems a funny question when there really isn’t much going on with her day to day anymore. But I think she appreciates the idea that somebody cares to ask.

  Not surprisingly, she can’t recall any more than she’s already told us about the campground they built. She wasn’t paying attention to its exact location or to the last names of adult friends of her uncle. Her world back then, like any teenager’s, was focussed on her own family, other kids, how to make her hair and clothes look decent under those conditions.

  “Well, can you tell me about meeting Walt?” I ask her. “He was already there, right? Did you first spot him looking all strong and manly at the construction site?”

  That just gets a laugh. “I’m afraid I never could pinpoint when I met him,” she says. “Walt said he remembered seeing us arrive. Was concerned if the boys would shorten the job. Noticed me amongst the children, thought that gal would grow up to be pretty or some such thing.”

  “Well, you were just a kid then. It was later when you saw him in a more romantic way, right?”

  There’s a long silence, and I wonder if she’s set the phone down or is dozing off.

  “Nina,” she says sharply. “I have to tell you that it wasn’t that way, really. Now that you’re back there, seeing the things I saw.” She pauses. “Is Caleb there with you?”

  “He’s down at the lake, listening to the game.” I stand, edging away from our camp chairs, just making out his silhouette by the lake. The sun streams across, still too high for decent photography yet.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about it, dear,” she says. “I’ve decided it’s all right for him to know too, for both of you to know about Reno.”

  Good thing, I think, since I’ve already been nagging him about who the heck was this guy. “That you met him, that you, um, liked him before you married Walt?” I ask, trying to come up with delicate phrasing.

  “That I did,” she says firmly. “He was a fine fellow, such a fine fellow, I can hardly explain. We – we just had a magic thing. Like they say in the movies, as though music followed us when we spent time together. We met at a stopover by the river just before the California border. All the fellows did some hauling there. We caught each other’s eye, yes indeed. Now I don’t mean anything untoward, mind you. He became a friend to my brothers too. We agreed to look for each other again farther along, farther north. He was the one who knew the name of that large berry farm where we spent a good long time, three seasons of 1938 it was. And then the cotton farm.” She stops. Tired out from talking? Remembering?

  “Where you all had jobs,” I prod her. “Even you and your little brother were picking because the wages were so low. And your father had passed away by then.”

  “Yes. You see, by then we were already making plans for our future, Reno and I. Not in public yet, neither of us felt I could leave my family until we were more set, had some money saved to start out. But my brothers knew he was sweet on me. Walt knew, he was a friend to all of us too.”

  “So, why, um…?”

  I hear her take a huge breath, a long sigh. “Well, Reno and Smitty, that was his brother, had gone to work in a cannery at the coast. Higher wages, you see. But more dangerous work. And we found out there was an accident. Word made it back to us that Smitty was hurt, that Reno had died. It was a dreadful thing, you can imagine.”

  “Oh, Vera, that’s terrible.” I’ve been casting an eye around, looking for places to shoot later, but her words pull me back.

  Her voice halting, she continues, “We all hoped that Smitty at least would come back, or get in touch somehow before we had to move on. I couldn’t have traveled all that way for the burial, anyway I’d not even gotten word until a week later. But winter was coming, we were out of work again. We couldn’t stay in the town where we’d been. My brothers and I went to the city, to Oakland, where there were starting to be more jobs. Our mother soon followed. So we just lost track of him.”

  “They couldn’t forward mail or leave word with someone?” It’s hard to imagine such a thing in a world where anyone can find an
yone with a few clicks, even people you’d rather forget.

  “I sent a letter of sympathy to him, of course, but it came back. I suppose we just thought he would show up, find us. I was just so numb, dear. I don’t know what I was thinking, just that my boy was gone. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other.”

  “But, then what about Walt?”

  I hear her sigh again. “Oh, he’d bumped into my brothers in town. He’d heard the sad news same as we had. He was going through hard times too, lost both his parents that year. When we met later in the city, it was a relief, for both of us, to be around someone familiar. Someone you could sit with, be blue together.” Her voice perks up. “When Pearl Harbor came, and the war, he signed up right away. We decided to marry before he left. He wasn’t so sure he would be coming back. He wanted someone waiting for him, though, and it felt right to me. Understand me, Nina, I grew to love him very much.”

  “Of course,” I assure her, though my head’s spinning a bit.

  “We had four fine children. All of our grandchildren, many happy days. We pulled ourselves out of those hard times together and managed a very satisfactory life together.” There are noises on the phone, other voices. “I hope I haven’t said too much. But I’m old. Maybe I need to tell more of my story. That much of it, anyway.”

  I thank her, unsure what else I can say, and she says needs to get off the phone. The aide Maya comes on the phone briefly, assures me things are fine but they’re taking Vera down for a routine check up.

  I sit back in my little chair, still a bit mind boggled from Grandma Vera’s story. Wondering if there’s more, from the way she ended it. I stifle my impulse to run and tell it all to Caleb. He’s content down there. Will it bother him, I wonder? I don’t have a parallel to compare – I never knew my grandparents, and certainly didn’t know of their courtship stories. She did love her husband, she said, and they had a “satisfactory” life.

  A few decades go by, and that seems okay, I suppose. I envision Caleb and my time together telescoping out into the future. Grown children of Lucia’s telling the story of their grandparents. They wouldn’t care that each of us had a few partners before we found each other – they’d just want to know that we did well together.

  A shiver passes through me, though the air is still warm. Moments like this are part of the trip, I tell myself. Much as we learn about Vera and the old days, we’re also looking big picture at ourselves, looking at our own lives.