Tom Harper

RAMONA

Her straight blonde hair glows in the mirror like August corn in the July sun. It wants to curl for Fall, but the Bahamian sun stretched it tight and bleached it to a golden hue. Her brows are pale above the flash of soft green eyes; she ignores her Roman nose and classic face. Ramona thinks her hair turns trash to art. It is perfect, today.

The steady, high-pitched buzz in her head reminds her of the Castaways and too many beers last night.

"I did 'the dog' with Rufus Thomas," Ramona tells the mirror, before coloring her lips a conservative red. "And here I am, back here in Eden."

"What's that, honey?"

"I said, 'I did the dog with Rufus Thomas.'"

"Well, good for you, honey. Hurry up or we'll be late."

"I'm ready." Ramona rolls her lips, one over the other, then dabs her little finger over a stray streak on the left corner of her mouth. "Eden will make you crazy."

"You're a very deep person, that's your problem."

A shock of red hair vibrates over the thin, sweet face of Miss Martin. The widow can dissolve most ghosts with her elfin laugh. She's petite and feels smart in the straight green skirt, white blouse and plaid jacket.

Ramona is dressed the same, except that her hem dances above the top of her knees as she scurries over the slick, waxed wooden floor and out the front door. Miss Martin follows the energetic blonde, not bothering to lock the door behind. The two women climb into a small automobile.

"There's no telling what your daddy might do while he's in town. You'd better stay with me until it all blows over."

"It's so strange."

"And try not to get into it with Jeff today. You two are always picking at each other, all the time."

"He picks at me."

"And you pick back." Miss Martin guides the car through the tree-lined country town at exactly the 35-mph speed limit. She shades her eyes with her left hand and squints into the sun as they roll past her brother's shoe store. She completes half 'the circle' and continues south into a parking lot on the north side of a yellow brick building. A dentist's office occupies the west corner, a doctor's office the east and big, glass windows in the center display Jeff Candy's Pharmacy. The little redhead parks the car and offers Ramona some good advice. "With everything that's going on, don't make it harder on yourself."

Ramona thinks how she enjoys waking in the morning, to make herself beautiful and go out into the world; if she must be judged, then let it be by who she is today, not by what people know of her. But, everyday Eden greets her as a childhood friend, with its atrophied image of Ramona Lee. Things should have been different after her return from Miami.

In the spring, Ramona spent money she didn't have, to buy Shag Dancing clothes--short skirts, alpaca sweaters and penny loafers--to go dancing at the community center in the log house, or down to Greensboro and the Castaways. Over the summer, her friend Penny had convinced Ramona that she needed to "expand her horizons," and they'd gone to the canal and bought men's blue-jeans (Eden 1967 had no women's jeans). In July the two girls caught a ride to Myrtle Beach, carrying all their necessities in an army surplus duffel bag; including Penny's acne medicine, makeup and hair dryer. From there, they'd hitch-hiked to Daytona where they worked as chamber maids, on their own for the first time.

Miss Martin rushes to the pharmacy door. She accepts her reflection in the plate glass window.

Ramona straightens her skirt, and takes a deep breath. The young woman pulls her shoulders back, then follows the older woman.

Inside, two old men in bib overalls, one smoking a briar pipe and the other chewing on a plug of tobacco, sit watching the farm reports on television. They look up to watch the thin, neat lady with hair like a rooster comb, as she skips across the room and wrestles the top off the coffee pot. "Hello Marshall, Caleb, how are you gentlemen doing today?"

"Just fine, just fine."

"Fine, fine."

The men squirm and crane their necks to watch the door until Ramona appears. Their eyes take photographs of her firm limbs and admire the way her shoulders thrust her chest out magnificently. Her hair burns and sparkles in their tired eyes. The two men sigh.

"Is it raining out there, Mona?" Caleb asks.

"It's not raining yet, is it?" Marshall inquires.

"You boys need some coffee," Miss Martin answers them.

"It's about time." A short man in glasses hustles out of the back of the store to greet the women. "You been out partying again, Ramona." He coughs a steady, nervous laugh.

Ramona tries to disappear, moving slow and silently among the displays of expensive candies and cosmetics at the side of the room. The display is part of Jeff Candy's plan, he carries only the best and most expensive merchandise--no discounts at Candy's Pharmacy. The ornate boxes in crisp cellophane, bottles in boxes, and the smell of bittersweet chocolate are like love in the air; the aromas of success pull a curtain of memories over her senses, shielding her from the employer's teasing. Well-being calls a smile to her face as Ramona remembers thumbing rides to Miami.

First, there was the ride to Daytona with Skip, the pool hustler in the stolen car. At least it sounded like the description on the radio, but Skip denied it: "That's not me! The cops already picked me up and checked me out, it's somebody else in a car just like this. Here, I'll show you my cue stick." Then Penny and Ramona finished the ride to Miami Beach with a carload of surfers, the girls sitting on the floorboard and listening to boys singing, "Like A Rolling Stone."

"When is your hippie boyfriend coming to town?" The druggist attempts to tighten his soft belly, imagining he still looks like he did as a high school bantam wrestler. "Yep, she's got her a hippie." The blonde smiles and Jeff leers. The pharmacist directs his comment to the old men, "It's obvious she's not going to be worth anything today."

Ramona relives sleeping on the beach in Miami, that night before the two temporary refugees from Carolina found work as maids at a motel. Half of August and part of September the women spent in Miami, then they hitched a plane ride to Freeport, completing their goal of making it to the Bahamas. Quickly tiring of the humidity and the bugs, they returned to the mainland for a visit with a friend in Homestead. Then they were arrested for 'attempting to hitch-hike' home. Back in Eden, creditors wanted payment for Shag clothes. Jeff Candy hired her back, but he never let her forget it.

Tiring of holding in his gut, Jeff Candy exhales the smell of egg and bacon grease. He realizes Ramona's smile is not for him and so he puts her in her place.

"That display is fine."

"I mixed some ointment this morning and it needs to be cleaned up. You know, Mona, you ought to pay me for the privilege of working here."

Ramona doesn't notice the six male eyes that follow her every step down the aisle and around two counters, eyes watching the bounce of her hips, until she vanishes behind the wall in the rear of the store. Behind the wall is the wooden counter where medications are mixed, capped, counted and bottled. Picking up the marble mortar and pestle, Ramona carries them to the stainless steel sink. She turns on the water and washes the greasy film of Vaseline and powder off the bowl and pounder. The water muffles the voices from the front of the store; turned off, the word 'hippie' rings in her boss's voice like a birdcall.

Ramona grinds the marble dry with a paper towel. She crushes the damp paper in her fist and crams it into the garbage can. "Take that, Jeff Candy," she pretends the waste basket is his mouth.

"Are you all right, honey?" The tiny freckled face and shock of red hair peeks around the wall.

"It was all supposed to be personal and quiet, and everybody in town's talking about it."

"Little girl, you're just getting stage fright," Miss Martin says in a soothing voice. "Jeff is just yelling because he ain't got too many more wild oats to sow. Barking dogs don't bite."

"They might," Ramona doesn't trust any dog.

"You'll feel better if you'll eat something." Miss Martin watches the young woman clean the wooden counter, rubbing worries off with the dust. "It's the biggest thing to happen in Eden since Penny tried to kill herself."

"Nothing is private in this town. It's so boring, the same thing over and over, like a stuck record, and everybody knows the tune. It'll drive you crazy." Ramona jams more used towels into the waste can and then walks to where she set her purse by the door. She takes out a flat, silver cigarette case, balancing it on her fingertips as one would hold a treasure. The top opens to reveal ten Tareyton filter cigarettes stacked neatly in a row. "You want a cigarette?"

"Get you something to eat, girl."

A car drives up to the sliding glass window at the rear of the room. Ramona empties her hands and hurries to the window.

"Yes, can I help you?"

"I'd like to get these prescriptions filled."

"OK. Did you want to wait or come back later?"

"I'll wait."

Blonde Ramona takes the prescriptions, along with a quarter in change from her purse and hurries to find Jeff. "They're waiting for these," She tells her boss, stuffing the slips of paper into his hand.

The old men watch as Ramona strolls to the vending machines. She doesn't see that the handle she pulls seems somehow connected to the men, both twitch when it snaps back. From across the room, they lean forward as though to help her take the package of cheese crackers from the machine. The fair wraith then pulls a Sundrop from the soft drink chest.

The phone rings. Miss Martin answers it promptly, and begins writing on a pad.

Ramona watches. It is her job to deliver the prescriptions which Miss Martin takes over the phone. Biting through the wrapper to the crackers, she leaves half an imprint, a kiss of lipstick on the discarded piece of clear plastic. She pops two crackers into her mouth, observed only by four old, male eyes--dull eyes stretched and focused like new binoculars; a drink of Sundrop washes the crackers down in a gulp of relief. The nourishment muffles the humming in her head.

Crackers and cola finished, the young woman meets her boss at his office door and takes the two bottles of medicine he hands to her. She prepares a bill and puts it in a small sack along with the bottles, and passes it out the window to the waiting customer. Turning back, she sees Jeff waiting.

"OK, Mona. These need to be delivered, and don't take too long. I don't want you riding around all over creation."

"I always go straight there and back," Ramona tells him and gathers up her purse. "That's way over in Draper, east of Eden, it'll take over an hour." She enjoys excursions to the 'other side of the tracks.'

"Just call me on the radio when you get there."

Sliding behind the wheel of the new 1967 station wagon, Ramona opens her purse, takes a Tareyton out of the case and fits it into a gaudy cigarette holder. Penny's sister brought this affectation home from Duke University; Penny, herself, introduced the elegance of the cigarette case to modern Eden. Cranking the car engine, Ramona turns the radio up loud, lights a cigarette and jams the wagon into gear. Otis Redding sings a blues song through the speakers; the mini-skirted woman cruises loudly, leaving a trail of smoke and music in the wakened streets of Eden.

In Miami, Jim Morrison's anthem "Come On Baby, Light my Fire" had seemed to echo from every doorway; occasionally punctuated by the novelty tune "Judy In Disguise (With Glasses);" and Penny loved "A Day In The Life" by the Beatles quartet.

The fair-haired delivery girl lightly dances on the gas and brake pedals, her feet tapping the latest Shag dance steps as she sings along with the Four Tops, the Temptations and then the Tams. This is her favorite time at work, it makes the job tolerable.

"Hey, Mona, are you out there?" the two-way radio interrupts in a cackle of static. "Are you there, yet?"

Ramona turns the volume of the music down before pressing the button on the microphone to answer.

"I'm almost there, it's just down the block." Ramona hates the CB radio in the new delivery car--the old pickup truck she used to drive rattled and complained, but it had only a regular radio, so Jeff couldn't call to check on her. "It's a long way over here."

"It's not that far. You come straight back, you hear. I've got more deliveries for you." The radio goes silent, then returns like a second thought. "You don't have that hippie stashed out there somewhere, do you?"

She snarls at the radio but remains silent, taking a deep breath and holding her anger until she's sure the boss is finished.

"Geez," Ramona says to herself. "Everybody in town must know by now." She takes a deep drag through the cigarette holder.

With the smoke come visions of the Castaways, the nightclub forty-five minutes away in Greensboro. Penny watching while Ramona gyrates to the music of Bobby Blue Bland. Then Ramona up on the stage, dancing with bluesman Rufus Thomas. All the men wanting her, and she not going home with any of them.

Arriving back at Candy's Pharmacy with lunch for Miss Martin, Jeff and herself, the delivery girl doesn't listen when Jeff compliments her attitude.

"I'm glad to see you've come back down to earth. It's high time you stopped partying every night, and looking for a hippie." The druggist still entertains thoughts that, if he can break her spirit, the young woman might entertain an interest in him.

"Sure, Jeff," Ramona says and bites into her cheeseburger. She truly enjoys the only real food she'll eat today. Otherwise, it's peanut butter crackers for breakfast, and beer for supper. The animal fat jolts her young body. She sits up tall, her heart thumping like a bass fiddle, and her bottom bounces to the rhythms in her head. When she feels good, she entertains. "I'm just a hippie angel," she sings.

The afternoon, with it's glimpses of autumn sun and the feel of fall winds, fuels Ramona's spirit. When she completes her last delivery, a message waits with Miss Martin.

"Penny called. She wants you to call her."

"Probably something about your hippie," Jeff laughs, snorting through his nose.

Ramona finds the most private phone, in the back room, to return the call.

"Penny. What's the matter?"

"He missed his bus in Charlotte. There's not another bus into Eden tonight, so we have to go pick him up in Greensboro."

"Joe called you?"

"He tried your house but no one was home."

"Thank goodness."

Eden is an old person, telling the same stories, over and over, again and again, and there are no healthy young men left in the small town, all have gone to Vietnam or college. Joe Munday is a different story, a Bohemian poet from Alabama with white socks and a beard--new, bright, young male eyes for Ramona to study her likeness in. He is both uncertainty and change.

When Ramona Lee and Penny Evans came home from the Bahamas and the beach, wearing bells, beads and ponchos, they waited while the town turned and watched, but nothing changed.

"I don't want to do this," Ramona tells the phone, withdrawing into familiarity. But, there she finds unwelcome ghosts. Like her boyfriend Bill, who had followed her to Daytona, wanting to marry her, and make babies. Spurned, Bill returned to Eden, and married the girl they all called California. Then Bill died of a heart attack, leaving California pregnant.

"Yes, you do," Penny laughs, "Tee hee hee hee," like a billygoat, tossing her head back and forth. "Look, he came all the way up here to see you, we have to at least go look at him."

"But, the picture he sent is so weird--him sitting on top of the house, holding a duck and a guitar."

"Remember what his brother looked like. Tee hee hee." The women think of Joe's brother, the tall, dark, athletic man they met at the motel on Miami Beach. "He's a Bohemian version of his brother."

"His picture looks like an Alabama redneck. Hair slicked down, and blue-jeans rolled up over white socks."

"Holding that duck under his arm. Tee hee hee hee." Penny loves novelty.

"Who would send a picture like that?"

"No one from Eden," Penny unleashes a flurry of giggles. "Someone real."

"OK. OK. I'll go. When?"

"His bus gets to Greensboro at eight twenty-five. We can leave by seven thirty."

"Hon, you better plan on staying with me again tonight," Miss Martin's sweet face appears from around the corner of the wall. "There's no telling what your daddy might do tonight."

"Penny, I need to stop by my house and get some clothes. Daddy should be down at the VFW. Can you pick me up here?"

"OK. I'll see you after five."

Ramona hangs up the phone without saying good-bye, as Jeff Candy circles behind Miss Martin and enters his office. She waits until he closes the door behind him.

"Penny is going to pick me up after work, Miss Martin. We're going down to Greensboro, but I won't be late tonight."

"Out drinking again," Envy rumbles out from under the druggist's office door. Ramona is startled that Jeff overheard the conversation.

"Good for you, darling," Miss Martin smiles and disappears behind the wall.

Her pale brow relaxes, as Ramona slips out the front door of Candy's at five o'clock; pleased that she managed to escape without seeing her boss. She prances from one foot to the other, like a filly at the starting gate. The sound of a Volkswagen engine and the strains of music from a radio announce the arrival of Penny.

Penny has long, dark, straight hair with bangs in front; a pleasant face; and almond-colored skin. She smiles as Ramona slides into the passenger seat, slamming the door shut. "Tee hee hee hee!" is her greeting.

"Everybody knows everything."

"Tee hee hee hee. That's Eden."

Ramona envies the way the men look at Penny, when the dark, slim woman tosses her head back and laughs absurdity. "Hey, my Mother knows more about your life than you do, Mona. She heard it all at the beauty salon."

"How do you think that makes me feel?"

"So, what do you want?"

"I want to run away, change everything about me. I want...a way out of Eden."

The VW jumps and roars, bouncing over the gutter and into the street. "This guy is real. He's from a bigger world than Eden. This is your way out."

"You really think so?" Ramona wants to believe.

They ride slowly up to Ramona's house, making sure that no one is home.

"Get you some clothes. Something sexy for your hippie. Tee hee hee hee!"

"Blow the horn if you see Daddy coming," Ramona warns, and hurries into the four-room frame country house. She picks several outfits from her closet. Then, looking around, she notices something torn protruding from the garbage can. It is a thick letter, torn in two. She gathers the pieces, and places them safely in her purse, then rushes outside to rejoin Penny.

"Daddy tore up his letter," the blonde tosses her clothes in the back seat. "It's not bad enough to kick me out?"

"What happened last night?"

"He found the picture, and the letter. Daddy called me every name in the book. He said if I 'was going with that forty-two year old hippie,' I couldn't live in his house. He even took my car, and I had to walk over to Miss Martin's to spend the night."

"It's a good thing he never found out about us getting arrested."

Both girls laugh, remembering their departure from Homestead. They thought they had a great ride with a newly-wed couple. But when the couple billed and cooed, and pretended to be flying a rocket ship, the passengers set to giggling. The moon-travelers dumped Penny and Ramona on the side of the road. There, they were promptly arrested for hitch-hiking, by a scrawny constable who hitched his pants pulled up past his waist, and warned: "You know, there's a gang out there that picks up hitch-hiking girls, and forces them into prostitution."

"Who'd want us, tee hee hee hee," Penny had reacted.

A long-distance call to Henry Evans, Penny's father and a prominent Eden banker, brought orders to "keep the girls overnight and put them on the first bus home in the morning." The local cops then gave the two girls a tour of St. Augustine, from the back seat of the patrol car; a bologna sandwich and a glass of water for supper; and one night in a jail cell. The warden also supplied reading matter--a book called Christine, about a car with an attitude. While Ramona read, Penny sprawled on the upper bunk, writing on the wall: PENNY EVANS & RAMONA LEE / 1967

Ramona's best friend Penny likes anything that's different, new or artsy. She reads exotic magazines, and goes to poetry readings at the library. While Ramona helps her father set turtle traps and cook Brunswick stews. Penny is the concept, and Ramona is the reality.

When they reach the Evans home, the two slim, healthy young women giggle and preen, as they dress in jeans, turtleneck sweaters and cowboy boots.

"Have you got something to drink, I'm tight as a tick."

"Daddy's got some whisky."

"No. I want to be conscious."

"We can get some beer on the way out."

The October darkness has overcome the sun when the two young women fill the VW with the smell of denim, leather, wool, hairspray and perfume. They pick up a six-pack of beer, and go through the brewed hops like mowers through a wheat field. Adrenaline and barley ferment into nervous laughter. Lighting cigarettes in holders, they drive past bats screeching under streetlamps, and through the symphony of frogs croaking in nearby ponds. The round, black German automobile glides, whirring through the countryside, onto the four-lane highway to Greensboro. Lights and traffic swish past. They arrive at the Greensboro exit.

"The people in Eden take themselves so seriously," Penny plows a favorite subject, as she eases the vehicle onto the road behind the bus station. "They go to work, or have babies, just like their parents. There's got to be more than that."

"What time is it?"

"His bus should be here by now. Do you see him?"

Ramona gazes intently out the window as the VW sneaks up slowly behind the big buses at the Greensboro terminal. She sees a dark man in a wrinkled green corduroy jacket standing behind a guitar case and holding something under one arm. The man sways his shaggy head, slowly surveying the station.

"There he is," Ramona nearly chokes on the words. "Oh, my god!"

Looking exactly like his picture, the man's head halts, and his eyes rivet on the Volkswagen.

"I don't want to do this. It's just too weird!"

"Yes, you do. Look at him, that's real. He's just like those people we read about in Evergreen magazine. He's a real Bohemian."

"Why don't you pretend to be me and I'll be you."

A smile crests on Penny's face, "He knows you're a blonde."

"It's so strange, what am I going to do?"

"Come on, this will be fun." Penny opens the door and climbs out of the car, walking toward the stranger. Looking back, she waits for Ramona to join her.

Ramona thinks of working at the pharmacy, of all the teasing, of the summer in Miami and the Bahamas, and of Bill with his frail heart. Then she thinks of the letters from Joe, and a warm glow rises in her like a tide--she loves his letters: the strange, beautiful words typed with a new ribbon; for Ramona Lee, alone.

The Eden blonde steps from the car and walks directly towards the Alabama traveler.