Johnny picks me up at the bus stop in downtown Santa Rosa and we go up all the impossibly steep hills to his house. I remember once again how crazy scary those roads are, how I wish I'd learned to drive on them so they wouldn't seem so big. My cousin Jordie does it, all the kids here do. And they don't get ice or snow, I remind myself. Ice on a hill like that could kill anyone.
For today, it's just Johnny, Alex and me. Alex is 16 now, and doesn't believe in speaking in more than two words at a time. I cheerfully call him 'toad', which he doesn't mind, and Johnny cracks up. We eat lunch in their giant kitchen with the view of the mountains. Being up top the crazy hill has its perks. Afterwards, Johnny and Alex go play tennis, and I'm left to relax with the cats and all the luxuries of the house: hot shower, good books, the sun-warmed stones by the backyard swimming pool.
I'm in the middle of talking to C when they come back. She's not a happy camper right now; pretty much nothing is going right, and I'm one of those things. I can't make it better from 3000 miles away. I feel a little like my mom must've when I called from Prague, mewling and puking over the loneliness of it all.
Johnny offers to take me on a drive through some wine country at sunset, and we'll grab a bite at this great Italian place he knows. Alex is going to the movies with friends. It sounds perfect. We take the red convertible. How does he not stall out on the hills? It's magic. He shows me everything I want to see without asking: the kids' elementary school where his wife started a garden program that ran for years, tiny houses tucked into enormous gardens, his favorite vineyard, covered in flowers. We sneak grapes from the vines on the side of the driveway, and giggle over the ridiculous descriptions of the wines. "A nice bouquet of grapefruit and lemongrass with a hint of butter," indeed.
All the while, we're talking family history. He fills in the gaps in my stories, I fill in the gaps in his. He talks about his parents by their first names; I talk about my grandparents with theirs. We've never talked like this before with one another, but it's familiar conversation. We talk about how immigration is the big unspoken issue-du-jour in our family, and it just might convince certain (ahem) family members to vote for McCain. I say we should have more outrage about the fence along the border. We talk about being allowed to stay silent because we've made it - we pass as white, we're wealthy, there's no more fear. I don't say that I still believe that this could turn on us very, very quickly. He talks about the pressure to go to college, get as many higher degrees as possible - he holds a Masters - to ensure family success. I've never had that pressure. Expectation? Sure. But no one ever sat me down and told me I had to have a career at the end of college. No one objected to this trip. It's a different world for me, the one they hoped for. Johnny says he's proud he contributed to that safety and luxury for me.
Dinner is excellent, and filling. We come home just after dark and watch Olympics for an hour, until we're both crashing. I only got 3 hours of sleep on the train, and have pushed myself to stay up this far.
That Australian diver guy who won the gold appears in my dreams, on the other side of a fence I do nothing to tear down.
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