California Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the Bible. Somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
    With this she hopped onto the footstool. Shook her curls for one blurred moment, spread her arms. Then fixed Andy with an unfathomable eye-to-eye look. She tried to make her voice rough and grown-up as she sang:
    Baby, time will pass you by
    But you can catch up if you try
    So be whatever you want to be
    And, baby, you can count on me.
    She jumped off and ran back into the house laughing, colliding with Meredith on her way in.
    Karl Vonn watched her go, then settled his black eyes back onto Andy. He sipped the wine with difficulty, still holding the glass by the rim.
    “So, you saw a lot of death in the Pacific, Mr. Vonn?”
    “I killed fourteen up close. That isn’t for the paper, boy.”
    “I understand.”
    “You absolutely do.”
     
    ROGER STOLTZ and his tiny pretty wife, Marie, came by later that afternoon. Everyone followed them to the living room with their wine and after-dinner drinks and cigarettes. The Stoltzes got the seats of honor, Andy noted—the nice leather recliners his father and mother usually sat in. Max’s was blue, Monika’s white. His parents and the others arranged themselves in a circle of respect. Karl Vonn and his two daughters were introduced to them. Stoltz smiled at the girls, hugged each one, and touched their arms consolingly. Marie looked into each girl’s eyes while she spoke to them.
    Andy noted David’s obeisance to Stoltz. Stoltz was eight years older than David. Stoltz had helped to arrange a position for David when he was finished with his Presbyterian education. David would be attached to First Presbyterian in Anaheim. This was no mean feat for a young minister. The presbytery in Southern California had too many young ministers as it was, David had told him. Something like three thousand too many.
    The room swam with voices and faces and the flames from the big fireplace. Andy couldn’t get Karl Vonn’s words out of his mind, or Alma’s words, or the expression on Meredith’s face earlier. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie loosened but he was still sweltering in a room that was apparently fine for everyone else.
    He stood next to Meredith and listened to Roger Stoltz hold forth about the Communist threat, how it was so obvious what the Bolsheviks had in mind with the United Nations, and watch Cuba he said,with Fidel and Raúl and Che Guevara down from the Sierra Maestra you’re going to have Russian puppets running a country ninety miles off our shore. Khrushchev will try to bring in all kinds of menace, he said—machine guns to missiles—you watch, you’ll see.
    Andy had heard Roger Stoltz use that sentence before: You watch, you’ll see . Stoltz’s voice was clear and not loud but the timbre of it cut through other voices and bored straight into Andy’s brain. Marie looked ten years older than her husband. Something preserved about her, thought Andy—something halted, like a photograph.
    Meredith led him outside for some fresh air.
    He followed her off the porch, away from the light and windows. In the darkness of the grove they kissed. Andy felt a determination he’d never felt from her before, the same thing he’d seen in the look she gave him before Clay had tried to claim her attention by embarrassing her.
    “Ready to do all this again?” she asked, breaking away, almost breathless.
    “Yeah, sure.”
    The agreement was they’d do the Becker family get-together early and the Thornton family dinner later.
    “I love you, Andy. I realized it, just sitting there watching you and your family.”
    She’d never said “I love you” to him and he knew that these words made all the difference in the world. For the second time that night Andy’s words failed him. He was aware that his mouth was partly open and something hard was lodged between his chest and his throat.
    “I’m ready now,” she said.
    “Where?”
    “The Serenade. Nobody’ll know if we park the Submarine in back.”
    “I’ll get a