Stella and Levi in Albuquerque
After Levi gets out of the service, they rent a small house in Albuquerque in the Northeast Heights. Stella remembers a big flashing sign outside their bedroom window.
They can't afford a phone so every day Levi walks across the street to the pay phone to check on his job prospects. He gets a job fixing IBM machines in Albuquerque and all the way from Socorro to Los Alamos.
Levi may be the only trained cowboy turned coastie turned computer mechanic in Albuquerque at that time. Stella gets a job teaching business and typing classes at a local high school. She meets a fellow teacher there who will become her best friend and mentor, Carol. Levi makes some good friends at work too, including a man named Fred. Together they teach themselves to fix cars. This eventually impresses Stella's Dad. Levi also meets a man named Harry.
Righteous Brothers Interlude
Stella becomes friends with Harry's wife Jo. Stella, Jo and Carol become a clique. Eventually they have kids together, eerily the same ages and genders (two boys and a baby girl). They shop together. They pile their hairdos high. They take their kids to the A-pool together (which is curiously shaped like an A) and drink margaritas in the afternoons.
They even take their kids to the same pediatrician, Dr. S. He's like a local Dr. Spock.
When the first baby boy arrives, Stella and Levi move to a house near The University of New Mexico, not far from where Levi's mom spent time at the Sanitarium. Stella stops working. Turns out the new kid is a climber. One day the neighbor tells Stella he's climbing on the stove. Stella replies, "Well, the burners are all off."
After the second boy arrives they buy a house near the highway and Juan Tabo. It's a new stucco house with no trees. The plant trees and bushes in the front, grass and honeysuckle in the back on a trellis.
The family gets a poodle-mix for the boys. And once they're a bit older, Levi takes them out to the edge of the town to fire bottle rockets.
The 1960s are full of IBM parties, Alpha Phi afternoon lunches and bridge parties. There's also dinners with friends. Stella learns to cook. She collects many cookbooks and recipes during this time. She keeps the house clean, does all the laundry every week, stacking the children's clothes very neatly into drawers and she makes everyone's bed. She even mows the lawn. Once in a while she makes everyone clean up their own rooms.
Whatever love wants.
Stella arranges play dates with Carol and Jo's kids. Levi and Carol's husband Jack take the boys camping and one of the tents catches fire.
Levi's friend Fred gets divorced. Stella and Levi get custody of Fred and they lose touch with his wife. Levi and Fred spend a lot of time fixing cars until Fred meets a new saucy wife named Anne. Anne has a sunny room in her house just for plants.
The Poem
Silvery ice cubes floating in a glass,
the liquid waves at their crests,
a burning spirit melting them down,
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Clang-clang-clang
went the ice cube sinking
into the sea of it.
He tipped his hat. He took a seat.
Who knows what tomorrow brings.
She lives to see the lights of town,
the bright neon signs in the desert.
Life without him was like a rough cut movie
with too many
SCENE MISSING.
By the end of the year, right before the baby girl comes, Levi builds extra rooms onto the house, a master bedroom, an office and a den with a carved stone fireplace. Stella's father visits to do all the electrical work. He gets a license from the state to do it.
The stone carver is an alcoholic artist who shows up every few months and asks them to please not to pay him until the fireplace is finished.
I tried with you. I really tried.
The baby girl is supposed to have been born when the astronauts landed on the moon but she was late. It was summer and Stella got big and her feet became swollen and she couldn't wear shoes. When contractions come, Levi is at work and they only have one car. So the neighbor takes Stella to the hospital, a brand new hospital offering steak dinners to the parents having their babies there.
The baby girl is the 100th baby born at this hospital. She cries all night and Stella is embarrassed.
They buy furniture and wall art from American Home Furniture, a full suite of tupperware and a detached dishwasher. Albuquerque in the 1960s is very sunny. Things appear bright.
