Paul if she saw him and why she thought about him at all.
Nobody was on the trail when she’d started out, and she didn’t see many hikers as the day wore on. She and China had the mountain to themselves. She hiked all morning and they stopped in a sunny clearing for lunch spreading a towel on the grass. Janie fell asleep with China’s head resting against her stomach.
When she woke, the light had changed. Maybe Paul would be gone by now. She hiked down the mountain to the swimming hole. She stayed there watching the light retreat slowly behind the mountains listening to the sounds of the nearby campground, the wet thunk of wood being chopped, and kids playing. When the light changed to shadows on the water she climbed the hill to the camp, and her heart began to pound. She rehearsed what she would say. She repeated her lines like a mantra. As she cleared the top of the hill, Paul Jesse was the first person she saw, standing there like some hippie version of Paul Bunyan, swinging an axe, cutting up a stack of firewood. Nobody else was around. Her stomach dropped. Paul looked right at her. She wanted him to hold her and she wanted to hurt him. Janie kept walking. He followed her.
“Wait up a minute.” He was right behind her, touching the back of her arm.
She stopped, trying to control her voice. “What?”
He didn’t take his hand off her. “Look, I heard what happened – ”
All she felt was the place his fingers met the bare skin of her arm. Her words dried up, and whatever she’d planned to say was lost.
Amber trotted toward them from the meadow. She slung her arms around Paul, and he dropped his hand from Janie. “Hi Paul, I’m so high, Paul.” Amber giggled. “Janie, you have any of that cherry lip gloss?”
“No, I don’t have any lip gloss.” Janie started walking to the meadow.
“I want that cherry kind. I could eat a stick of it, you know? Janie, where you going? Don’t just walk off. It’s okay about the lip gloss. I’ll ask Dee.”
STELLA SWUNG THE croquet mallet while he waited for his turn. The game had broken down now that it was getting dark and just about everyone was high. None of them could remember whose turn it was anyway, or even how to play. Janie hadn’t been around all day but Stella wasn’t worried. China was with her. Ernie turned on everybody who asked for a hit of the acid. Stella didn’t do any himself. Just being around so many hippies all lit up at the same time made him think of San Francisco, 1968, the year he’d come home. He’d met Cookie that summer.
Wandering around the U C campus, feeling lost and alone, he’d seen a group of protesters in Sproul Plaza under a sign that read, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Long-haired men in army fatigues, amputees in wheelchairs, all of them united by the same broken look. The crowd wasn’t big, and there were only a handful of women. Stella stood at the edge of the crowd listening to a former captain – now a double amputee in a wheelchair – speak. Stella didn’t realize tears were running down his face until he looked into the eyes of the petite Latina standing next to him. She put her hand on his arm and led him away to a house she shared on Prince Street. She made him tea with honey and brought it to her room. They talked the rest of that day and well into the night. By morning he was in love with Galletas Novella. Everyone called her Cookie.
Here in the meadow with the sun on her brown skin, she looked no older than the day they met eight years ago. One of the girls had painted a butterfly on her cheek, and her thick hair floated in waves to her hips. She knocked the ball through the hoop with her mallet and laughed at Ernie. Wearing Dee’s pink kimono and a pair of Hawaiian print swim trunks, Ernie carried a can of beer in one hand and a parasol in the other. Delores hung on his arm, trailing a feathered boa behind her.
From the edge of camp Stella saw China come bounding through the tall grass with Janie close behind. He put down his mallet and waved her over. Her face was pink and her eyes looked as if she’d been crying. “You were gone a long time.”
“I went for a walk up the mountain and fell asleep.”
China crowded around them snorting and chuckling. “Looks like China had a good day. I’m glad you took her with you or I would have been worried.”
“Can I sleep in the tipi tonight?”
“Sure.” Stella patted her back. “Bad dreams?”
“I just don’t want to be alone.”
JANIE MOVED HER sleeping bag to the tipi and walked back to the fire. Cat, her face painted with tiger stripes and whiskers, stood at the picnic table chopping tomatoes. Across from the table, Paul sat on an upended log, smoking a cigarette. He watched while Janie pretended not to notice.
She stuffed her hair into a ponytail. “Want some help?”
Cat handed her a bag of avocados. “Cookie said there’s enough beans left to make burritos. You make guacamole. There’s limes and garlic in that box.”
Janie sliced an avocado, removing the pit and putting the fruit in a large wooden bowl.
Cat chopped the tomatoes. “See they look like baby turtles when you turn them over. You should get some acid from Ernie and catch up with me. You look kind of sad.”
“I’m just tired. I hiked all day.” Janie used a fork to smash the avocados with some juice from the limes.
“Yeah. But you should do some acid anyway. Acid cleans out your psychic blockages – like a laxative.” She laughed.
“I’ll pass.”
Cat shook her head. “That fork’s not really doing it for you.” She stuck her hands in the bowl and began to squeeze the avocados. “I don’t know why we’re making all this food. Everybody’s so high they’re not going to eat.”
Amber trotted over to Paul and stood in front of him, shaking her head back and forth like a bobble-head doll. “Has anybody seen my brush? When you got hair like mine you got to brush it a lot or you get rats in it.”
“No shit? Rats?” Cat licked the avocado from her finger.
“Not real rats. Of course not,” said Amber. “Rats are a special word for the tangles girls like me get if we don’t detangle and condition and all like that.” She leaned over close to Paul, her breasts peeking out of the halter top she was wearing. She giggled. “You want to brush me out, Paul?”
Cat wiped her hands on an old towel. “Thought you said you didn’t have a brush?”
Paul smiled and looked at Janie.
Janie chopped garlic.
Amber tossed her head like a pony. “Paul wouldn’t need a brush to take care of my tangles.”
“Find yourself another stylist.” Paul stood up. “I’ll see you later.” He walked away toward the meadow. Amber trotted after him.
The thirty or so people congregated around the picnic tables as the smell of Cookie’s black beans filled the air. Tripper, an older guy who kept telling anybody who’d listen that he’d been to Woodstock, brought out a large pan of brownies. He offered one to Janie. She could smell the pot from them and declined.
Ernie grabbed a handful from the pan. “Just what the doctor ordered.”
Tripper
