Valley of the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

rarely let myself dream anymore. My list quickly grew to over fifty places.
    In the end I decided on camping right near home. Yes, it was all I could afford, but I wasn’t settling; before I’d had Benno it had been my escape of choice. I’d been to Yosemite, Big Sur, and Carmel. Closer to home, I’d camped on Mount Tam, at Point Reyes, and in the Marin Headlands. If I was depressed, angry, or worried, I headed for the hills. If I didn’t get a regular dose of nature (a walk in Golden Gate Park didn’t count), I wasn’t right. I needed to get away from the city. Sit by myself under a tree for hours. Fall asleep to the sounds of an owl hooting rather than the heavy footfalls of my upstairs neighbors. I was competent in the wilderness. Nothing frightened me. I wanted to feel that part of myself again.
    Rhonda tossed her head. “Okay, nature girl.”
    “What? I
am
a nature girl.”
    “Using Herbal Essence does not make you a nature girl, Lux. When’s the last time you went camping?”
    “A few months before Benno was born.”
    “Do you still remember how?”
    “You don’t forget how to sleep in a tent, Rhonda.”
    “This just seems impulsive. Is it safe to go alone?”
    “Yes, Rhonda, it is. I can take care of myself. I know how to do this.” My father was an Eagle Scout. He taught me everything he knew.
    “Fine. Why don’t we make a list of what you’ll need.”
    “I already have a list.”
    I knew what Rhonda was thinking.
Here goes Lux again, just throwing things together and hoping for the best.
That was how I lived my daily life, from hour to hour, paycheck to paycheck. This was the only Lux she knew. I wanted to show her another side of me.
    “I’ve been planning this for months, you know,” I said.
    “Really?”
    “Really.”
    “Well—good,” she said. “Good for you.”
    I walked around the table and threw my arms around her. “Admit it. You love me.”
    “No.”
    “Yes. You love me. Silly, flighty me.”
    Rhonda tried to squirm out of my grasp, but she grinned. “Don’t ask me to come rescue you if you get lost.”
    “I won’t.”
    “And don’t take my peanut butter. Buy your own.”
    “Okay.”
    I’d already packed her peanut butter.
    —
    I did go into Benno’s room at midnight. I did lie down on his bed and bury my face in his pillow and inhale his sweet boy scent. I fell asleep in five minutes.
    —
    Rose Bennedeti and Doro Balakian were my landlords, the owners of 428 Elizabeth Street, a shabby (“in need of some attention but a grand old lady,” said the ad I’d answered in the classifieds) four-unit Victorian in Noe Valley. A lesbian couple in their seventies, they occupied the top-floor flat. We lived on the second floor, the Patel family (Raj, Sunite, and their daughter, Anjuli) lived on the first, and Tommy Catsos, a middle-aged bookstore clerk, lived in the basement.
    I loved Rose and Doro. Every Saturday morning, I’d go to the Golden Gate Bakery to get a treat for them. When I rang their bell, the telltale white box in my hands, Rose would open the door and feign surprise.
    “Oh, Lux,” she’d say, hand over her heart. “A mooncake?”
    “And a Chinese egg tart,” I’d answer.
    “Just what I was in the mood for! How did you know?”
    This Saturday was no different, except for the fact that the two women wore glaringly white Adidas sneakers and were dressed in primary colors, like kindergartners. They were in their protesting clothes.
    “We’re going to City Hall. Harvey’s”—Doro meant the activist Harvey Milk; they were on a first-name basis with him—“holding a rally, and then there’s to be some sort of a parade down Van Ness. Come with us, Lux.”
    “We shall be out all day, I would think,” said Rose.
    Rose and Doro were highly political, tolerant, extremely smart (Doro had been a chemist, Rose an engineer), and believers in everything: abortion rights
,
interracial marriage, and the ERA.
Why not?
was their creed.
    “You’ll join us,