Bob looked up and a slight frown twisted his face.
"Yeah, it sure does."
Lani ran up to the small car, peeked inside, saw the familiar upholstery and fittings, and then turned to Bob enthusiastically.
"It is her, Bob, she's come to visit me!"
"Great, kiddo… great," he said darkly.
Lani didn't notice his tone of voice, but started quickly up the stairs onto the front porch of the meeting hall. She met Moses, the thickly bearded man in overalls who had made such a good impression on her mother, coming out the front door.
"Hey, Moses, guess what?"
Moses smiled at her excitement, and gave her a fatherly pat on the head.
"Your mother's come to visit. I know, I've already met her."
"Isn't she great?" Lani didn't wait for an answer. "Where is she? Is she inside?" She started for the screen door of the meeting hall.
"No, she's not in there," Moses advised her. "I showed her the way to your cabin. I think she wanted to sit down and rest. She was pretty tired from her climb."
"What climb?"
"She took a little walk up to the Chapel, looking for you," Moses answered. He caught the quick and apprehensive look Lani shot Bob, who was sitting now on the steps below them. "But she said she couldn't find you."
Lani's face eased in a sly wink at him, and she laughed a reassured laugh.
"Well, it's a good thing she didn't. She might not have liked what she found."
"Maybe she should have found us," Bob interjected harshly, "then maybe she'd realize you're a big girl now and she doesn't have to come change your Goddamn diapers anymore!"
"Oh Bob," the voluptuous young teenager retorted, "it's the first time she's visited me in all the time I've been up here. You're just being difficult." She turned again to Moses. "You said she was down at my cabin?"
"Yeah, she went down about fifteen minutes ago."
"Well, I better get on down there then!" she exclaimed excitedly, and skipped down the steps of the meeting hall. She poked her boyfriend as she went down. "Come on, grumpy, come and say hello."
Bob glared at her, and shook his head.
"I'll see her later. If I know her, she'll be here at least a month. I'm going to take a swim."
Lani frowned at him, but then her face brightened immediately.
"Well, you're an old stick in the mud, but I don't care. You just sit here and sulk, I'm going to go have a good time. Bye, sweet." She gave him a playful peck on the cheek, let her eyes linger warmly on his for a split second, and then turned to run gaily across the clearing and down into a grove of oaks on the far side, to where her mother was waiting for her.
Bob sat slumped on the steps, his eyes following her curvaceous body as it finally disappeared in the trees, and then glanced quickly at Moses.
"Shit," he said simply.
"Well, it might not be all that bad, Bobby my boy," Moses laughed. "Unless I miss my guess pretty badly, it seems that you got that little piece of yours pretty well sewed up. She's not going to go running back to Momma now, not after what you've taught her."
"Awww," Bob answered wearily, "I don't give a fuck if she does. You know that. It just bugs me, you know, when parents can't leave their Goddamn kids alone."
"Now, now," came the teasing voice behind him. "You're projecting again, Bobby boy. Not everybody has the ogres you had for parents, you know."
"Listen, doc, would you do me a favor? Take your freshman psychoanalyzing and shove it up your ass for me, would you do that, doc?" Bob said, and then turned to his friend, smiling, to show him he'd only been kidding. "Want to go have a swim?"
"No thank you, Bobby, never touch the stuff."
"Right. See you later then."
"And don't worry about Ann Walker. Who knows, we may not be losing a daughter at all, we may be gaining a mother."
Bob turned to him quizzically, and tried to define his meaning from his leering, hair-covered face.
"Just how, exactly, do you mean that, oh gracious leader?" Bob asked curiously.
"Oh, I don't know," the lewdly grinning man on the porch beamed down at him. "I just think that maybe Ann Walker likes our little utopia here, and we just might be able to… uhh… persuade her to stay."
"Well, if you can do that, baby, I'll have to hand it to you," Bob said skeptically, "because she's an iceberg, man, a real deep freeze."
"Icebergs melt, Bobby my boy, they finally melt."
"Well good luck, flame, you'll need it."
Bob laughed and turned away, and began walking slowly across the clearing. Hell, Moses is out of his fucking mind, he grinned to himself, but wouldn't that be a kick, though! Getting Lani's puritanical mother to join in on the community fun and games. Then he chuckled aloud. There was no way, not even Moses with all his talent would ever be able to crack this nut, he felt sure, though it was going to be out of sight watching him try!
Ann Walker watched with tears in her eyes as her young daughter stalked away from the tree they'd been sitting under, and disappeared into her cabin, slamming the door behind her. What did I do wrong, she asked herself, but she knew the answer very well.
Lani had come rushing down to the cabin excitedly, and had thrown her arms around her mother joyfully. They had kissed each other again and again, Lani overjoyed to see her mother, but Ann unable to shake the lingering visions of her daughter thrashing under that strange man's weight not even a half hour ago. They had gone to sit in the shade of the towering oak in front of Lani's cabin, and begun to exchange trivial bits of news with each other, how it was in the commune, and how it was in South San Francisco, and on, and on. Finally, Ann had been able to take no more of it, and had abruptly stated that she wanted Lani to come home with her, that the commune was an evil place, and that Lani must leave it at once.
Lani had been taken completely by surprise by the fierceness and irrationality of Ann's attack, and had immediately begun defending The Zodiac and the people who lived there, with fiery intensity. She couldn't understand how her mother could be so dictatorial and show such a lack of understanding after having so long seemed amenable to the idea of her living in the commune. And as Lani had become more and more defensive, Ann had become more and more insistent, until at last they were arguing with each other almost violently, the first time Ann could ever remember having done so.
And now her daughter had left her angrily, saying that there was no way she would go back to South San Francisco, that she loved it in the commune, and was staying there. Ann sat forlornly under the spreading oak, trying wildly to think of another plan of action, and rebuking herself for having lost control with her daughter. She should have known that to insist would only make Lani more insistent on staying. But now what? Her daughter was locked in her cabin, and she was alone, with no one to turn to for help.
She got up slowly, and began to wander aimlessly up toward the Village. What could she do? Of course Lani was underage, but Ann would never think of forcing her to go home on that basis. She had to convince her headstrong, young daughter that it was better for her, better for all of them if she came back. But how?
Suddenly a desperate thought came to Ann's frantic mind. It was an outside chance, and she didn't know whether she could even force herself to do it, but she had to try. She walked quickly up to the Village, strode purposefully to the main meeting hall, and found Moses sitting on the porch, staring vacantly into the bowl of a freshly smoked pipe. He looked up after she'd called his name twice, and smiled distantly.
"Hello, Ann."
"Moses, can you tell me where I can find Bob Seikerd?" Ann had discovered the man's name during her argument with Lani.
"Who?" Moses replied blankly.
"Bob Seikerd… Bob… Lani's friend." Ann's tongue stumbled over the last word.