Free Like People in History by Felice Picano Page A

assumed—gathered me up into her musky, rather large bosom (unhindered by any bra, I couldn't help but note), and welcomed me with a hug and a light kiss.
    "It wasn't too awful a flight?" she asked in a voice suggestive of the onset of laryngitis.
    This had been my first airplane flight, filled with wonder upon wonder. I replied, "It was okay."
    She'd already corralled a redcap, who located my two suitcases and brought them out to the parking lot. As I stepped out of the hangarlike building, I felt I was stepping into a place truly different from any I'd known before: dry, warm weather, yet balmy, with breezes, an astonishingly cloudless blue sky, a bright disk of sun slowly descending toward a horizon defined by a distant mountain range. Palm trees were the tallest nearby objects. Rows and rows of them patrolled everywhere I looked, guarding the low, wide airport buildings, the immense parking lots. But what impressed me most was the enormous amount of sheer wasted space everywhere I happened to glance.
    Cousin Diana's car was a six-year-old Chrysler station wagon, a stodgy high-bodied vehicle with wood paneling except for its forest-green metal hood and roof. Drearily suburban, I thought, until I jumped into the front passenger seat and noted that the speedometer went up to 120 mph, and when I started to roll down the windows, she asked, "Wouldn't you rather have the air-conditioning?"
    Wouldn't I?
    The late fifties and early sixties were the years of great construction of the L.A. freeway system. As we drove south out of Burbank Airport, along Vineland Avenue toward the mountains ahead, I was constantly amazed to see enormous sections of crisscrossing cloverleaf ramps just sitting there in midair every few miles, unconnected to any likely road. For Cousin Diana they were merely a nuisance, obstacles to be gotten around, objects worthy of passing interest—"This is where the Ventura and Hollywood freeways will meet. Eventually. Up ahead is Ventura Boulevard. But that's different."
    In fact, Cousin Diana had a constant patter of conversation filled with names and Spanish-sounding places, few of which I understood. Her nonstop conversation was more or less as follows:
    "I told Dario this car wasn't taken care of properly the week in the shop. I should have taken the Bentley, even though he just washed and polished it!"—To me, the Chrysler ran fine. But a Bentley? They had a Bentley? I'd never seen one outside the auto show at the Coliseum. Who was Dario?
    And:
    "I hoped your cousin would come with me to meet you. But he's been gone all day. I know he had a dance class earlier, and he probably went to Topanga to surf. Or over to Judith's. Even so, I wish he'd check in once in a while."—What cousin? Alistair? A dance class? Where was Topanga? Who was Judith? Did mother and son ever see each other?
    And:
    "Now you tell Inez if there's anything special you eat. And, of course, anything you won't or can't eat. Are you allergic to anything? Alfred's allergic to almost everything. Your cousin's a vegetarian. Lacto-ovo type, of course. Almost all of us are, except Dario, of course, which drives Inez crazy. She's off Sundays, so we generally eat out. Or fix it ourselves. Do you cook? Dario's wonderful with the barbecue. Do you like barbecue?"—Lacto what? Inez, I guessed, was their cook. But who was Alfred? And who was Dario?
    And:
    "We're not going directly to our place, you understand. If we were to do that, you'd have to take Ventura almost to Stone Canyon then... What am I saying? You wouldn't know Beverly Glen from Mulholland, would you? We really should stop up at the project. Alfred should be there. And your cousin might be too, although that's unlikely. I'll call the house from there. Dario might know where he is."—What project? What kind of project? Who was this Alfred? And, above all, who was the omniscient Dario?
    We'd already driven into the mountains upon a road that began to swerve and curve and rise ever more