My maternal grandmother drove a silver Datsun when I was a kid. She parked it outside the place at the lake and when we would get inside to drive to Napa or to the fruitstand it smelled like sun-softened pleather and California dry heat. She'd put a towel down on my side so the black seat wouldn't burn the backs of my thighs.
It was a small, sporty car. A two-door and the only manual transmission I regularly rode in. She took the curves down from Lake Berryessa to Napa like a professional driver, priding herself on the spots where she managed to cut straight through two, or even three, bends at a time. "Straightening out the road" is what she liked to call it. Sometimes, she'd tell me to reach into her bag for a piece of gum that we could split.
If we went to Napa, there would be a stop for cash at the bank's drive-through teller. Then to the supermarket, where we loaded up a cart with food to last us weeks from a list in my grandmother's spindly cursive-print. Sourdough bread to freeze and then thaw to crusty warmth in the oven just before dinner. Enormous jugs of mayonnaise for her potato salad. Flour and buttermilk and maple syrup for hotcakes on mornings we were lucky.
When my great grandma was alive we'd stop by to see her. I vaguely remember a small house with a green backyard edged in trees and flowers. A sunny kitchen with a table in the middle and a window over the sink. A sitting room with pictures on the wall that we never sat in. We were always the kitchen, or the backyard.
Later, she was in a nursing home and the last time I was taken to see her we went out for frozen yogurt. She couldn't remember who I was but when I finished my treat first, she offered me some of hers in the cramped backseat of my grandmother's car.
Driving home, my grandmother and I would pull in to a fruitstand, the gravel out front crackling under the Datsun's tires. We must have gone to the Pioneer stand back then, and my grandmother would dig in to the wooden barrels of corn they set out, opening the husk just slightly to make sure the kernels were healthy within. There were cases of peaches, sweet and ripe and picked that morning. The tomatoes were perfect. Bright red, they smelled like the sun in the dirt.
We'd adjust our groceries to make room in the car for everything, and off we'd go, up into the hills, around the curves, and to the lake. If, by then, it was evening, I'd try to spot a deer on the way, but I never was any good at spotting deer, and so we'd sing songs or talk, or just look at the scenery. There were fewer vineyards when I was a kid, and more walnut groves. The grass would be burnt to straw by then, and every so often, there'd stand an abandoned barn with gaps in its walls, and a rusty old tractor waiting next to it. Hanging on the trees were garlands of Spanish moss.
Then, all of a sudden, there was the magic of the lake, open to the sky and waiting for us behind the hills as we passed by. We'd pull back in to the Datsun's spot, and my grandmother would jump out to supervise the unpacking of the car. Some things stayed in the kitchen and the rest went down to the old refrigerator in the shed. I'd creak open a slightly rusty door and inside, among dust and skis, life jackets, inner tubes, and fishing poles, I'd carefully roll a watermelon into the fridge.
Then I'd slide the squeaking shed door closed behind me, climb the steps back up to go inside, and once there, let the hinge door swing behind me with a bang. The dog would come running to see who it was, and my grandmother would already be in the kitchen seeing about dinner.
It was a small, sporty car. A two-door and the only manual transmission I regularly rode in. She took the curves down from Lake Berryessa to Napa like a professional driver, priding herself on the spots where she managed to cut straight through two, or even three, bends at a time. "Straightening out the road" is what she liked to call it. Sometimes, she'd tell me to reach into her bag for a piece of gum that we could split.
If we went to Napa, there would be a stop for cash at the bank's drive-through teller. Then to the supermarket, where we loaded up a cart with food to last us weeks from a list in my grandmother's spindly cursive-print. Sourdough bread to freeze and then thaw to crusty warmth in the oven just before dinner. Enormous jugs of mayonnaise for her potato salad. Flour and buttermilk and maple syrup for hotcakes on mornings we were lucky.
When my great grandma was alive we'd stop by to see her. I vaguely remember a small house with a green backyard edged in trees and flowers. A sunny kitchen with a table in the middle and a window over the sink. A sitting room with pictures on the wall that we never sat in. We were always the kitchen, or the backyard.
Later, she was in a nursing home and the last time I was taken to see her we went out for frozen yogurt. She couldn't remember who I was but when I finished my treat first, she offered me some of hers in the cramped backseat of my grandmother's car.
Driving home, my grandmother and I would pull in to a fruitstand, the gravel out front crackling under the Datsun's tires. We must have gone to the Pioneer stand back then, and my grandmother would dig in to the wooden barrels of corn they set out, opening the husk just slightly to make sure the kernels were healthy within. There were cases of peaches, sweet and ripe and picked that morning. The tomatoes were perfect. Bright red, they smelled like the sun in the dirt.
We'd adjust our groceries to make room in the car for everything, and off we'd go, up into the hills, around the curves, and to the lake. If, by then, it was evening, I'd try to spot a deer on the way, but I never was any good at spotting deer, and so we'd sing songs or talk, or just look at the scenery. There were fewer vineyards when I was a kid, and more walnut groves. The grass would be burnt to straw by then, and every so often, there'd stand an abandoned barn with gaps in its walls, and a rusty old tractor waiting next to it. Hanging on the trees were garlands of Spanish moss.
Then, all of a sudden, there was the magic of the lake, open to the sky and waiting for us behind the hills as we passed by. We'd pull back in to the Datsun's spot, and my grandmother would jump out to supervise the unpacking of the car. Some things stayed in the kitchen and the rest went down to the old refrigerator in the shed. I'd creak open a slightly rusty door and inside, among dust and skis, life jackets, inner tubes, and fishing poles, I'd carefully roll a watermelon into the fridge.
Then I'd slide the squeaking shed door closed behind me, climb the steps back up to go inside, and once there, let the hinge door swing behind me with a bang. The dog would come running to see who it was, and my grandmother would already be in the kitchen seeing about dinner.
