We were supposed to go to the cousins’ house for lunch. Before this, we went for a leisurely drive through Beverly Hills to look at the mansions, passed the lot where a famously tacky mansion from the ’70s used to be, the one where the owner had painted pubic hair on the nudes that surrounded the place. (Now it exists only in a funny montage in a Steve Martin movie, THE JERK.) In Santa Monica, we stopped to walk in the park near the shore. A sidewalk passing through weatherbeaten trees, traffic on one side, an expanse of sand dotted with people on the other. Off in the distance we could see the Santa Monica boardwalk, watch the cars of a tiny, distant rollercoaster rising and falling.

We got lost trying to find the cousins’, drove though more neighborhoods of valuely mediterranian houses and bungalows. Dad asked directions of a group of beefy, crewcut men gathered around a pickup truck, none of whom had ever even heard of the street he asked about. Finally, we pulled over to a pay phone so Dad could call for directions. (Yes, a pay phone. There were so many more of them back then.)

They live in a house that was originally part of a display at some city event, build inside a coluseum and then moved by truck to its present location in the Santa Monica Hills. There, it was inadvertantly put in backwards, so that the front door does not face the street, but that worked to their advantage. The largest windows offer the nicest view of the hills instead of a suburban street. We walked with our host, who was outside carrying a cooler, to the “front” door throuh a beautifully tangled, carefully tended garden, all greenery and brick paths and clay pots.

The house itself is airy and spacious inside, decorated but not cluttered with Kachina dolls, family pictures, Indian blankets, etc. The ceiling was peaked up into the roof and there were stairs leading up to what looked like a sleeping loft. Two dogs that resembled dandelions in full bloom — Bichons, I think — lay beside the front door along with a very calm and elderly cat, which Michael immediately picked up and began talking to. One of the dogs, feeling left out, stood on its hind legs and begged Michael for attention.

I wandered a little, looking around. One room had a piano covered with family pictures. My great uncle in his navy uniform, my great grandfather and his wife, their daughter, my grandmother, looking exactly as I remember her with her silvery french twist and her amused smile, her eyes cutting sideways. A couple of headshots of Dad’s beautiful actress cousin as a young woman, mysteriously coiffed in a nun’s veil and wimple. She made a rather bold nun, I thought, with her red lips, high cheekbones, and darkly mascara’d eyes. Plainly it was from some role she’d played.

Such houses are often like museums of family history. You can wander and see artifacts and photos, some you remember, some you don’t. “So that’s what Uncle Einar looked like when he was young and in uniform.” “Grandma and Grandpa look like they’re having a helluva time at that party in the forties…”

The house is, I believe, still in the family, but it’s changed hands. My father’s glamorous cousin, still clever, and still beautiful, now lives near the Santa Monica Beach in a small condo crowded with many of those same photos and artifacts. We’ll be visiting southern California in a month or two. I hope to see her again. Writing this makes me miss her intensely.