The Spirit Vine

By Patti Cary

     Mira drives down a pretty, tree-lined suburban street, the steering wheel in one hand – in the other, her cell phone.     She is looking for an address but is having difficulty.  Frustrated, she pulls the car over in front of one of the many well-manicured, picturesque homes.  She calls a number and leaves a message. 

     “Doctor Frank’s office? This is Mira Payne.  I must have written your address down wrong.  I’m on Paloma Street but I don’t see a thirteen twenty-one.  Can someone please call me back?”

She sits with the car motor running, staring blankly out the car window.  Tearing up, she calls her husband to explain the situation. 

     Her husband, Brad, sits at a meticulously organized desk in a meticulously organized office. He’s chatting with a young woman, making a lunch date when the phone on his desk rings.  The young woman makes a face and quickly leaves. 

     “God, Mira.  I knew I should have come with you,” Brad says impatiently.  “Keep looking.  His office has got to be somewhere near there.  You probably wrote the address down wrong.  I should have known you’d get lost.”

     Mira disconnects and throws her cell phone into her bag, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.  She turns off the car engine and sets out to find the address on foot. 

The neighborhood is pristine and quiet.  Row after row of expensive homes line the avenue.  Finding the house marked thirteen-seventeen, she shyly approaches.  She stands on the porch for a moment before ringing the bell. 

     A little girl answers the door wearing a pink tutu and bright orange swimming goggles.  Smudges of chocolate cover her hands and face.  Mira tries not to laugh and asks the little girl if she knows if there is a doctor’s office in the neighborhood. 

     “I’m not supposed to answer the door to strangers,” the girl snaps before slamming the door shut.

     “Fabulous,” Mira mutters.

     Mira steps off the porch and takes a frustrated look up and down the street.  She looks at her watch as her cell phone rings. 

     “Dr. Frank?” she answers, but it is Brad confirming the doctor’s address as thirteen twenty-one Paloma Avenue.  “Yes, I know but there doesn’t seem to be a thirteen twenty-one. I just met the funniest little girl… Alright.  Alright.  I’ll walk up the street and see if I can find someone else to ask.  Goodbye.”

     Standing back on the sidewalk, Mira can’t decide which way to turn.  A crow scolds from a nearby tree so she heads in the bird’s direction. 

     “Hello, Mr. Crow.  Do you know where I can find thirteen twenty-one?”

She walks slowly, taking in the warmth of the clear spring day.  Every lawn is cut to razor-like precision and expensive cars dot the curb.  Everything looks new and in perfect order, but it only makes her feel more alone and out of place.  Aside from the crow, the street is quiet and there is no one else around. 

     Mira walks down to the end of the block and stops suddenly at the corner.  She is awestruck.

A magnificent house, unlike any other on the street, sits calling out to her.  Like something out of a gothic French painting, the house is alive with wild vines and gardens, framed by slate and wrought iron.

     Mira cannot move.  She is utterly enchanted.   Her cell phone rings again but she does not answer. 

Two large and thirsty, leafless trees man the front gate. Branches, like open arms with bony hands outstretched, welcome her home.  Vein-like vines creep up the walls and wrap in and out of the ornate ironwork that covers the windows and tops the stone wall, as if protecting the house from the surrounding suburban mediocrity.

     Two looming lampposts, covered in cobwebs and leaves, announce the entrance to the walkway.  A path of worn slate winds its way through the dense garden. Through the exotic greenery she can see the massive front door of hammered copper.  A rusty spiral staircase to the right of the porch leads to a mysterious second floor window.  The crow scolds again, stirring Mira from her trance. 

Reaching into her bag, Mira takes out her phone and sees it was Brad’s call she missed.  She turns back in the direction of her car but then boldly changes her mind.

     “Let’s see if I can do this without getting arrested,” she says.  Cautiously tip-toeing around, Mira takes pictures of the house with her cell phone.  She moves along the front wall to the side of the house and takes another, discovering more and more beautiful details.  She laughs out loud with wonder.  She makes her way back to the front gate.

     “Are you taking pictures with your telephone?” an elderly woman’s voice crackles over an intercom by the mailbox Mira hadn’t noticed before.  Startled, Mira crouches down and comically tries to make her way back in the direction of her car. 

     “Don’t go,” says the woman.  “I welcome your company.”

     “I’m so sorry,” Mira says, “I didn’t mean to intrude.  It’s just I’ve never seen such a beautiful house.” 

     “Oh, thank you, dear.”  The woman seems eager to talk and urges Mira to come closer to the intercom.  The voice is feeble but cheery.  It has a calming effect on Mira.  “Can you hear me over this contraption?”

     “Yes,” Mira quickly replies.  “I can hear you just fine.”

     “Good.  I’m glad.  Most people can’t hear me.”

     Mira inches even closer to the intercom and soon she and the woman are chatting away like old friends.  Mira finally takes a seat on the ground to get comfortable.   Mira asks the woman if she’s lived in the house long.

     “Oh, all my life, dear.  I’m so sorry I can’t ask you in but I’m not feeling at my best today.”

     “Of course, I understand.  But you do have someone to look after you, yes?” Mira ventured.

     “Oh, dear me, yes.  I have many caretakers that come and go and they all have their ideas of what’s best for me.  Today they are away and I’m enjoying the peace and quiet.”

     Mira makes a move to stand, “Oh, I should leave you then…”

     “No, no.  You should stay as long as you can.  But aren’t I keeping you from something?” the woman hinted.

     Mira thinks for a minute and checks her watch.  Smiling, she says “No, not at all.  I’m happy to be here.”

     Over the intercom, the kind, gentle voice gives Mira the colorful history of the house, explaining how each detail was carefully considered and crafted with love.   The woman describes to Mira the many seasons, holidays, social events the house has witnessed over the years.  Mira feels at ease with the rather odd scene.  Even when a lady with a baby in a stroller passes by, Mira is not troubled by the lady’s sour stare.

     “This house was once full of life,” the woman says nostalgically.  There were so many parties and lovely guests.  I remember one Christmas Governor Clement Young came for dinner.  He was a fine man.  He was very fond of the gardens too, as I recall.”

Mira is happy and hangs on the woman’s every word. “The garden is so amazing.  What are these two trees in the front?” Mira asks.

     “Not what, dear, who.  That is Cosette and Marious.  They are Laurel trees.  Evergreens.”

     Eyeing the dry, leafless trees Mira asks, “Are they dead?”

    “Heavens, no.  They’re just sad.  They’ll perk up again once the right person comes along.”

     “And all these amazing vines everywhere.”

     “Yes.  They’re protecting the house.  They’ve even crept into the basement, the rascals, into the secret room built during Prohibition.  Oh, I so wish I could invite you in.  Will you come back and visit when I’m not so tired?  Sunday, perhaps, for tea?  Let’s say around four o’clock?”

       “I would love to! It would be an honor, “Mira says excitedly.  “I look forward to seeing you then.”

      “Cheerio,” sings the old woman, “until Sunday.”

     When Mira gets home and tries to tell her husband about the amazing house and show him the photos, he is disinterested and cold.  He’s angry Mira missed her appointment to see Doctor Frank.

“You promised you would see someone.  If not Doctor Frank, I’ll have to get another referral,” Brad snaps.  When he sees Mira is about to cry, he reluctantly agrees to go with her to tea on Sunday.  “Ok, ok.  I’ll drive an hour out of town to have tea with some old lady in some crazy house.  Why would I want to miss that?”

     On Sunday, Mira wakes early and buys a large bouquet of colorful flowers from her local market.  Back at home, she carefully picks out what to wear while Brad watches a football game.  At three o’clock she sits in the passenger seat, waiting for Brad, who slowly makes his way to the car and into the driver’s seat.  He’s talking and laughing into his cell phone.

     Mira looks at him with strained patience, “Please.  I don’t want to be late,” she whispers.

     “I gotta go.  Talk to you tonight,” Brad chirps, snapping his phone shut.

     “Who was that?” Mira asks.

     Brad ignores her question but sarcastically asks, “Now, you do remember how to actually get there, right?”  Laughing, he starts the car and they pull away.  Mira tries to make cheerful conversation with Brad as they drive along but he’s distracted and hasn’t got a lot to say.

     They make good time and arrive at thirteen-thirteen Paloma Avenue just slightly before four.

     “Wow.  This is a really weird house,” Brad says as they walk to the front gate.  “Your photos didn’t really do it justice.  Maybe you were talking to grandma Munster!”

Not to be deterred, Mira beams at seeing the house again. She nervously straightens her skirt and takes a deep breath before ringing the bell at the intercom, fondly remembering the conversation from just days ago.

There is no answer.  Mira waits, then rings again.

“Oh, god, Mira.  The woman did say Sunday, right?” Brad asks impatiently.

     Minutes pass until finally, a brusque male voice comes over the intercom, “Can I help you?”  Mira is puzzled but makes the awkward introductions into the intercom.  The male voice falters then says, “There must be some mistake.  I’ll be down in a minute.”

     Mira and Brad wait in stony silence.  The bouquet Mira is holding tilts downward in disappointment. 

A young, sporty looking man makes his way through the garden and to the gate, which he does not open.  He is pleasant but hesitant.  Mira recounts the events, describing the conversation with the elderly woman through the intercom and learning all about the house. She explains about the invitation to tea set for today at four o’clock.  The man is baffled. 

“Again, there must be some mistake,” he says. “There is no elderly woman living here.” 

The two men exchange glances.  Mira is visibly shaken. “Can you describe her? Did you get the old woman’s name?” the man asks sympathetically.

     “No.  No, I said we talked over the intercom for over an hour.  How can this be?  You don’t have a housekeeper or someone who was here on Wednesday?” Mira pleads.

     “This is very strange and I can see you’re upset but I’m sorry but there’s no woman here.  Anyway, we’ve been out of town since Wednesday,” was all the man could say.

     “She told me all about the gardens and the Laurel trees, Cosette and Marious, and the secret room in the basement…”

Again, Brad and the man exchange looks.  

“Well, it’s an amazing house.  My wife just fell in love with it,” Brad chuckles awkwardly.

     “Yeah, it’s quite a handful and as you can see.  The garden seems to have a mind of its own.  These vines just grow so wild no matter what we do.  My partner and I moved in about a year ago but we’re just here to fix it up and flip it.  That’s what we do.  Lately, though, I’m beginning to wonder if it was worth the investment.  Too much work.  Well, I’m sorry you came all this way but there is no secret room in the basement and there was no one here on Wednesday.  I’m really sorry.”

     “No, we’re sorry.  Please excuse us.  We’re sorry to have bothered you,” Brad says curtly in Mira’s direction. 

The man leaves them standing on the unwelcome side of the locked gate.  “This is really embarrassing, Mira.  Come on.  Let’s go.” 

Brad turns back to the car but Mira cannot move.  He quickly crosses the street and gets in, slumping behind the steering wheel.

     Mira is heartbroken and stands perfectly still.  Then, she hears the crow, once again, scolding her to attention.  That’s when Mira looks up and sees the trees.  The two Laurel trees, Cosette and Marious, no longer dry and barren they appear to be bending towards her in the breeze. They are alive again, in full bloom.

     “Hello, Cosette.  Hello, Marious.  You remember me?  You look so beautiful,” she shouts up at them.

     Brad shouts at her from across the street.  “Jesus, Mira.  What are you doing?  Are you out of your mind?  Get in the car!”

     Mira smiles back at the house then up into the trees. She understands.

“No.  Leave me,” she tells Brad.  “I’ll find my own way.”

END

    

Missing New Orleans Series: #2

Mud Bug - a film by PC

Fork in the Road

By Patti Cary

     As a young girl, my family spent many summer days awayfrom our home, vacationing at my grandmother’s modest country house in Clearlake, California.  Clearlake is a one-horse town consisting of, back in the Seventies at least, a saloon, a post office, a liquor store and a Baptist meeting hall. 

     For parents, I guess it was a quiet oasis away from the stresses of the “big city”.  For kids, unless we were water skiing at the lake, it was pretty much torture. Sometimes we stayed there for as long as three whole weeks. 

     In the summer of 1975, I was thirteen years old.  On one particularly dreadfully hot and boring day I had run out of Archie comics to read, annoyed my siblings, pouted, stomped and cried myself into a particularly ridiculous tizzy.  Imagining I’d run away, I stormed out of my nana’s house.  Despite my grand theatrical efforts, no one seemed to notice.

I made the short walk up to the main, two-lane highway that led out of town.  In the blazing heat I got as far as the stone bridge above the nearby creek and did the only thing I could think of to do - drop pebbles into the trickling water below and watch cars zip by to what could only be more cool and interesting destinations. 

     Even in my limited lifetime, I was sure I deserved to spend my precious time in a more glamorous place than Clearlake, California.  Overlooking the creek with my head in my hands, I wondered what I’d done to deserve such a tragically dull life.  

     I recall I was wearing very short cut-off jeans, a Peter Frampton t-shirt, a black bandana tied around my neck and a pair of dusty black Keds on my sockless feet.  My stringy, brown hair hung to my shoulders and a very large pimple mocked me from the side of my nose. Cars and trucks rumbled quickly by, shaking the ground and the little bridge where I stood, moping.

As I contemplated flinging myself into the creek (a short drop which at worst would have possibly resulted in a twisted ankle) I was startled by the approaching rumble and roar of distant mayhem.  I had never experienced such a sound.  I looked up, turning towards the highway, putting my personal sorrows on hold to see a steady stream of very loud motorcycles coming down off the incline heading in my direction.  Finally.  Something interesting.

Not far past the bridge and just off the road was a lone cinder-block building, the liquor store that supplied my steady summer diet of comic books and Three Musketeer candy bars. I soon understood the dozen or so bikers would be making a pit stop at the store, just yards from where I stood. 

     In shock and awe, I watched the chopper parade snake by - wild looking men with long hair and crazy moustaches, leather clad and weather worn.  Some had sexy, hard looking women riding along, slung on the back seat like baggage. Some rode solo.  There were dozens of them and the sound of their arrival was intoxicating.  I was transfixed, frozen in my tracks.

Soon the little liquor store parking lot was overrun with a noisy crew.  Most of the bunch sat on their idling bikes, revving their motors and shouting insults back and forth.  A few wandered the parking lot, smoking and carrying on.  I wasn’t scared but I still couldn’t move. 
     Then it happened.  One of the bikers broke off from the crowd and was pulling a u-turn, heading back in my direction.  When he pulled his shiny metal machine up to the curb in front of me, I stopped breathing.  I tried to pretend not to notice him by studying the dirty laces on my sneakers.

I remember his hair was black and thick and choppy with bits of grey on the sides.  In my thirteen-year-old mind, he looked old.  He was probably thirty.  He didn’t seem as grizzled or rough as the others.  He wore the uniform of boots, jeans and a large belt and he was sans shirt under his tight black leather vest.  His strong, tan arms were the most wondrous thing I’d ever seen.

He revved his bike at my side until I had to look up.  He didn’t say anything.  He simply tipped his head in the direction of the space behind him on the seat where he’d made room for me.  He winked and smiled and I think I smiled back but then quickly looked away. 

     I felt an odd mixture of excitement, danger and defiance but before I could even fully grasp the situation, the bikers’ pit stop was over and the group was rallying and heading on up the highway.  The line of motorcycles took off in an orderly formation, away from Clearlake, away from the monotony.  My new friend lingered a moment longer, popped his bike into gear, winked again and sped off to join the tail end of the departing parade.
     I stood motionless for what seemed like a day, then, I high-tailed it down the dirt road back to my grandmother’s house, feeling very different and very alive.

Back safely on her boring porch, back with my boring family on our boring vacation, I couldn’t help but wonder what Betty or Veronica might have done.

END

    

Where there is opera, there is life...

By Patti Cary - Originally published on The Alamedan - January 9, 2015

Tensions run high when feuding neighbors lie, cheat and sneak around to get what they want, leading to bitter betrayals with tragic consequences.  No, it’s not an episode of Real Housewives.  It’s the breathtaking story of Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti and the next exciting performance presented by the newly formed and locally grown, Island City Opera.

What?  You don’t like opera?   It’s too long, boring, old fashioned (fill in the blank) for your taste?  ICO founders and Alameda residents, Eileen Meredith, Ellen St. Thomas, Robert Boyd, along with the rest of the talented folks working to bring quality opera to Alameda, would like you to reconsider.

“The themes of opera are classic, timeless,” says Meredith, soprano and Executive Director of the company, “and full of emotions everybody feels.” 

The word opera means “the composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined” and what an exciting opportunity for Alameda to cultivate a rich tradition that dates back to the 16^th century. Once considered exclusively for elite society, opera became a more accessible form of entertainment in Venice, Italy during the annual festival of Carnival.  Popular productions soon spread throughout Europe and opera “season” was born.

Lucia di Lammermoor (often referred to simply as Lucia) will be the first full production of Island City Opera’s inaugural season. It is a bel canto (beautiful singing) opera, performed in a style made popular in the 19^th century, defined by its splendid compositions and vocal pyrotechnics. 

“Love, hate, political interests, lust, greed…anything you can think of since the beginning of mankind, really hasn’t changed and neither have our stories.  It’s all here,” says Maestro Robert Ashens, Musical Director and Conductor for the January performances at the historic Elks Lodge Ballroom, a perfect setting for Lucia which takes place in Scotland during the early 18^th century.

Really?  Opera here in little ol’ Alameda?  The answer is yes!

Formerly under the banner of the Virago Theatre Company, ICO is devoted to “producing great opera in an intimate setting.”  After visiting a recent rehearsal of Lucia, it is clear ICO is group on a mission.

 “We are about high quality music and drama together, beautiful singing and bringing music back to the schools,” says Meredith, whose daughter attends Encinal High.   The company focuses on local talent, with an emphasis on supporting new, promising performers along side artists with extensive opera backgrounds.

“We work really hard at introducing a younger crowd to the values of opera so that it’s not stale and that it’s always new, says Maestro Ashens, a renowned conductor and unflappable ambassador of opera.  He wants locals to know, “Excellence lives right here at home.  It’s an exiting time for this city.  Look at the movement and the people who are the driving forces here. The people at Island City Opera are doing things in such a quality way, they are not shirking their responsibility to the art form.”

There really is something for everyone in opera and our very own Island City Opera hopes to bring the young and the older, the seasoned opera buffs and the curious newbies together to experience the beauty of this classic art form. 

Seasoned opera enthusiasts will surely be pleased to see such professional talent and thoughtful productions right here in our own backyard.  Newcomers will get an intimate chance to expand their cultural horizons with tantalizing tales of passion and pathos, tears and triumphs.

“We have a lot of great things planned,” says Meredith, “and we love being in Alameda.  It’s so beautiful and the people are very supportive.”

It takes a village to keep the arts alive and Ashens sums up the idea of opera in Alameda nicely by adding, “Opera is the sign of a healthy environment and a healthy community.

So, come out to the opera!  Yes, Lucia will be sung in Italian but there will be supertitles in English and a fabulous 20-piece orchestra to bring the words (libretto) to life.  Step into a world where music can elevate your soul, where joy and madness often go hand in hand and nothing is really over until somebody sings.

Originally published on The Alamedan - January 9, 2015