Chapter 9

They had brunch and spent another couple of hours of visiting. The snowstorm had muted by then, but every time someone opened the doors of the restaurant the cold air swirled along the floor, making people shiver. They went back to the motel, spending time in the lounge next to a fireplace. Danielle knew some of her teachers in Tiburon would object to a fireplace. After all, they were burning wood, which came from trees, which had to be cut down, and...

She'd snorted slightly to herself. In the last couple of months she'd gained a completely different perspective about such things. She remembered the pictures she'd seen at the lecture about Greece. Wood was often the only thing people had to burn, and they had to stay warm. They had to cook their food. The alternative was living like an animal. She wondered if that was what some of these people wanted.

I'm not an animal, she thought. She rubbed her arms and shifted slightly. She was nice and toasty, and had no desire to brave the elements.

" ... some days it's an uphill battle," her father was saying, "and those are on the good days."

"Can't these people look ahead and see what's coming?" Uncle Jack asked.

Her father shook his head. "They're so caught up in the present that, and this is a quote, 'In the long run we'll be dead, so what does it matter?'" He chuckled grimly. "The actions they take today limits that future, but they refuse to believe that."

"The State is not all-powerful," Uncle Jack said. "I suppose they expect the Feds to bail them out."

"That's the only alternative. I'm sure the Feds will, but that won't teach any lessons to those who need it. It's all about power and prestige, and the scorecard is, well, you know."

Uncle Jack nodded. "I've seen it happen over and over again in history. I hate to say that as California goes, so goes the nation, but..."

"I've tried to do what I can, but it's like talking to a granite wall. People just don't want to see it."

"Are you going to stand for re-election?"

"Somebody has to. If I don't, they'll get another one like them. Whoever runs against me will be heavily funded—you can bet there are people who want me out of office—but I got 77% of the vote in the last election. I don't take things for granted, so I'm always out meeting people and listening to them. If I just relaxed I'd be an ex-Assemblyman. Of course the real power isn't the State Assembly, not any more. These days it's the unelected bureaucracy. If we could get rid of at least half of it, things would be easier."

"And their pensions."

"That, too. But every time you find a new revenue source, their allies in the Assembly add a program, they don't apply it to what we already have."

He shook his head. "Listen to me, going on about things like that." He looked at Danielle and smiled. "And what have you been considering for college?"

"Well," Danielle said, hastily trying to order her thoughts, "I was thinking of studying history, sort of what like Aunt Jessica does, but—"

"Be careful with that," her father said, interrupting her. "You'll have to play political games. A constituent came to me the other day complaining about one of the teachers at the local community college. He wanted the man removed because he wasn't a Maoist, he was a Trotskyite!" He chuckled grimly. "As if there's much difference between one flavor of Marxist and another."

"Only on when they want to shoot you," Uncle Jack said. "I thought you realized, the last hold out of the Marxists is in American Academic circles."

"Not until recently."

Danielle frowned. "But I thought ... didn't Communism collapse or something? You know, the Berlin Wall?"

"But don't you know, dear? The Russians did it all wrong. That's why Communism failed." Her father shook his head. "I've had people actually tell me that to my face. One of the people from my district emigrated here from Russia back in 1992. I held a town hall meeting the other week, and when someone trotted out that little excuse, Anatoly, great guy, just don't ever go out drinking with him if you value your liver, anyway, Anatoly got up and said 'The Soviet Union gave it 70 years and 70 million dead. It does not work!' Of course they didn't want to hear that. The current excuse is that the Russians did it wrong, and the academics we currently have will 'do it right'."

"There's a picture I saw a few months ago," Aunt Jessica said. "It was a memorial stone, and it said 'Vladimir Lenin — speaker, academic, mass-murderer.'" The adults chuckled.

Danielle was somewhat taken aback by the tone of her father. She wanted to say that, the history she'd been exposed to was nothing like that. But she stopped. The history they'd been teaching her in school was almost at complete odds with the history she'd been taking in Tiburon.

She remembered the pictures she'd seen in Aunt Jessica's office. That looked interesting. That was the kind of history she wanted to study. But she wasn't sure she wanted all of the things her father was implying.

"I also thought about culinary school," she said when her father had run down. "You know, become a chef. There aren't that many women chefs, and I thought I might like to give it a try."

That didn't set her father off. Instead she saw the others nodding. She didn't know if there was a culinary school in Three Valleys, or even Center, but it sounded interesting. She'd watched the Food Network, and even read a few things. Food had taste, sure, but it had texture, and a lot of other things, and blending all of those took a real talent.

"Well, whatever you decide, honey," her father said, "don't limit yourself."

The rest of the visit passed pleasantly enough. She'd never realized how all-consuming her father's passion for politics was, but he seemed to find a political angle on nearly everything.

"It's the climate these days," her mother said quietly when they were temporarily alone in the Ladies Room. These days the people find politics in everything, and he has to respond. Sometimes I wish... " She bit her lip and shook her head. "I'll be glad when he retires."

"Think it'll be soon?"

"Not soon enough for me." She brightened up and checked her hair in the mirror. "Now you take care of yourself. I know things are way different back home, but bear up with it. You're much better off there than you are here."

"I suppose. It just seems ... strange."

"I know. It was just as hard leaving there and coming here." Her mother shook her head. "I had a lot to get used to."

Danielle felt somewhat buoyed by this. Knowing what she knew now about her mother, she could see how big a change her mother had had to go through. She'd gone from The Ozzie and Harriet Show to Desperate Housewives. And the look in her mother's eyes when they returned to the table told her why her mother had done it. Love could make you do almost anything.

"One thing I've wondered about," Danielle said, stopping her mother. "What about Sis? You know she went through ... She had..." Her voice ran down.

"I talked with your sister just last week," her mother said, her voice turning a little bitter. "Traci is all caught up with her own life now, and she and your father have had a serious falling out over politics. She wants to help the poor and oppressed. She'll feel better for doing it. She doesn't understand his politics at all."

"I expect all of her friends are doing that sort of thing," Danielle said, "so of course she has to also." She grimaced. "Your friends dictate an awful lot of your life. That's what I've been learning these last few weeks."

"Pretty much. I checked with my superiors, but they said no, they wouldn't let me send her to where you are. They barely said yes to you going. I think that's working out, though."

"It's been hard," Danielle said. "All of my friends were here, and some of the girls back there are ... different."

"Oh? In what way?"

She told her mother briefly about Fiona. "That's taken ... that wasn't easy to get used to. I'm still not sure I have. I mean, that's her, but..."

"People from Upper and Lower are unconscious about it," her mother said. "They generally have a live-and-let-live attitude. I think that's because they interact with us all of the time. The ones from Seaside are the militants. I remember taking a trip there when I was your age. I was there a whole week, and it was an eye-opener, and I don't mean just the boys."

"Did you have to... ?"

She nodded. "That was hard. Fortunately gym class prepared me for it. Now let's get back, they're looking at us kind of funny."

She didn't have a chance to ask what her mother meant by 'gym class'. Before she realized it, the afternoon was winding down and it was time to leave. They said their good-byes, and were barely on the road when Danielle felt like crying. She felt closer to her mother than she had in months. They had a lot more in common than she'd thought. Oh, she loved her mother, but now she liked her, too. She'd done things that were hard for a woman: given up her world for love, and sent her daughter away for the same reason.