Chapter Three: Bottomed Out
IT was a little after 3 in the afternoon when the bus crested a rise and began its descent through the verdant coastal mountains. She was finally in the home stretch after almost ten hours on the road. It had started with the downtown bus to the Megabus station early that morning in Los Angeles. After almost six hours cruising up the 5, she had dismounted in San Jose, already feeling weary, but still with nearly 5 hours of travel to go. It was the first time she’d set foot in the San Francisco Bay Area since she’d left...escaped...deserted. She frowned at her inability to decide what words described her departure from Half Moon Bay, her birth place. Most of Daniel's family was probably still there, though she knew her own father and siblings had left shortly after her mother died two years ago. The thought that she might be in such close proximity to her second family (and Daniel!) left her simultaneously giddy with anticipation and nauseous with dread. Most of the probable outcomes were likely bad ones, but the giddiness just wouldn’t close up shop and go away.
Earlier that afternoon the Megabus had dropped her off in the San Jose station where she’d walked across the platform and caught Caltrain -- light rail -- up the Peninsula. She had almost made it across the platform before being stopped by a middle aged man in an expensive suit asking her to autograph his pocket silk. The intensity of his grey-eyed stare had unnerved her, but he seemed friendly enough. She was surprised by the dull ache in her chest as she watched him quickly hurry away from her, as if afraid of being seen with her.
At least he said ‘thank you’, she mused, forcing herself to feel bitter amusement at his furtive retreat in lieu of hurt shame. Almost 4 years since she’d last been in front of a camera, and fans still recognized her. She sighed, hoping Half Moon Bay would give her more anonymity than Los Angeles had.
By the time the train boarded, she had shaken if off. She had long ago learned how to compartmentalize chance meetings like that. There was a time when she would have been thrilled by the encounter, pleased to have been recognized by a stranger...
She found a seat on the upper level, her curiosity driving her to seek a broader view for the trip back. She had rarely traveled this far from the coast in her youth (though some might call 24 youthful, she certainly didn’t feel very youthful after 6 hours on Megabus!). Nicolette tried comparing her memories of the South Bay and Silicon Valley to her memories from her previous trip, but couldn’t really find many differences.
Of course, when you’re concussed and blinded by tears for half the trip, it’s hard to make a really meaningful comparison, she thought, feeling both physically and emotionally exhausted.
I guess coming home was bound to dig up things that I’d worked hard to bury, she thought. I feel like some kind of cut-rate paleontologist, digging through layers of bad decisions and unlucky breaks. A real paleontologist finds bones, she thought. What will I find? Will the bones just be a dry, fossilized record of past mistakes, or are they going to be the festering remains of my life in Half Moon Bay, holding records of pain and sorrow still unresolved?
As her throat began to tighten, she abandoned the absurd line of thought. If she kept flogging herself with her regrets, her return journey would be just as heart-breaking as her outbound one had been.
At least then my memories would have symmetry, she thought ruefully.
She stared out the window as the train rode its tracks through the heart of Silicon Valley. She knew it was supposed to be an ‘Economic Powerhouse’, driving the economy of the state and possibly even the nation. To her it mostly looked like freeways, low boring buildings, and trees tamed to the urban environment. For such an important place, it looked plain and uninteresting, like a strip mall, but without any shopfronts or eye-catching marquees. It depressed her, and she was glad when the light rail ride ended near the shopping mall. She glanced westward toward the mountains, seeing flows of grey mist beginning to pour between the peaks, a slow motion wave drifting down the green, forested slopes.
Half Moon Bay is just the other side of those mountains, she thought. Where Daniel probably is, the thought arising before she could stop it. She had a brief memory of his brown eyes twinkling with amusement, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Guilt and betrayal surged through her, momentarily overpowering the hopeful longing accompanying the memory. Angrily, she pushed the memory down, but knowing she was so close to her destination got her feet moving. From the mall, she caught the 294, almost the last leg of the journey. The 294 went west into the mountains, passing over the Crystal Springs Reservoir, a lake nestled in a valley between green, forested mountains. It was beautiful as it caught the afternoon sunlight, but she was exhausted, barely able to summon enough interest for more than a cursory glance at the long water in its forested valley.
I need to call Ramona, she thought, her exhaustion unable to completely blunt her fear and anxiety. She wanted to discretely suss out Daniel through his mother, and to apologize...
She shook her head, suspecting that running away had probably hurt Ramona almost as much as Daniel. She didn’t think Ramona would be happy to hear from her.
Later, she thought, tamping down a brief spasm of paired guilt and worry.
As the 294 crested the low coastal mountains and began the long descent on the other side, her earlier giddiness resurfaced along with dread. After seven long years away, it was hard not to react to all the possible scenarios she’d imagined, both good and bad. The bus traveled through tamed pine forest, passing long stretches of wildness, interspersed with dirt roads winding back up into the woods marked by mail boxes.
She was once again settled on the left side of the bus, resting her head against the window, enjoying the vibration though the cold glass. She watched for familiar sites or places that she might have visited (with Daniel!, her mind unhelpfully supplied before she could stop it). The bus wheezed to the top, then began the long roll down the switchback, where it passed the invisible but intuitively felt border between The Wilderness and The Town. She watched, her throat tight.
As the bus finished the lower half of the switchback and climbed a short hill, she waited in anticipation, watching for the Christmas tree farms: long orderly rows of cultivated pine trees of various ages, types, and sizes. It was one of the things that identified the border of Half Moon Bay for her.
When the road wound past the trees and through the horticulturists’ alley, her eyes did fill with tears as she unconsciously pressed her palm against the window. She watched the figure of a rusted red tyrannosaurus rex as the bus drove past it. It was a huge iron sculpture, purposefully made to rust and gain texture and character in the North Coast air. It stood as a sign for passerby, to attract the interest of tourists and to mark a small collective of produce and souvenir shops, marking the eastern edge of the city.
“Clifford!” she murmured huskily, a name she had bestowed on the monster during Beverly Willards’ sixth birthday party. The kids had started a game which involved fighting the attacking monster, but when Nicolette had first laid eyes on it, she had immediately dubbed it ‘Clifford’ after said big red dog and set herself to defend him against his vicious, soulless attackers (i.e., her classmates). Daniel had wanted to be one of the knights slaying the dragon, but Nicolette had forced him to stand with her and defend him. By the end of the party (or at least, when the parents had realized the children were all but playing in traffic), all the kids had switched sides and were defending the fearsome, rusting monster from The Poachers (at the time, Nicolette hadn’t known what the word meant, only that it signified bad people that hurt animals). Even then, she thought, she had loved Daniel, albeit in the uncomplicated way of a child. He was her knight, her protector, her best friend...eventually, almost her first lover.
Her biggest betrayal.
She watched, her heart beating faster as the bus topped a small rise, the trees drawing apart like a curtain framing the road; the ocean came into view, a grey somnolent expanse, extending all the way to the
pale glimmering line underneath the early evening fog. Her breath caught, as the mystery and majesty of the ocean filled her with a momentary rush of anticipation. The bus approached a busy intersection, then wheezed its way over to the side of the road. People -- mostly kids coming from the mall -- stood up and began filing off the bus onto the sidewalk. She took a deep breath, then forced herself to her feet, a strange mix of excitement and dread roiling about in her stomach. She descended the steep steps, then took the last long step down, meeting the gray, chilly afternoon. Out on the coast, the high-altitude fog tended to roll in early. It was going to be a damp evening.
She watched as the bus roared away, its passengers dispersing toward the mini-mall parking lot, or to the crosswalk across the main avenue. She was left alone at the bus stop. She still had to finish some last minute business, eventually to return and wait for one more bus to take her to Montara, a small suburb about 6 miles north up the 1 -- the Pacific Coast Highway. Angela had made the reservation at the lighthouse hostel for her the month before. Her excitement slowly drained out of her, leaving only dread, and a dreary sort of exhausted disappointment.
She was home, had come full circle. She’d left to escape this place, running blindly, only caring that she was getting out.
Well, here I am, she thought, feeling as though she’d once again run away from an impossible situation in Los Angeles. She sighed deeply as she settled onto the bench, feeling thoroughly defeated. Soon, she’d have to start confronting the wreckage of her first failed escape, but for the moment, she was thankful that there were other more pressing matters that demanded her attention -- starting with getting to the Lighthouse and maybe calling Ramona to get his contact info; the number she had didn't seem to work any more.
Welcome home, Nikki, she thought bitterly. When she had left Half Moon Bay seven years before, she’d thought she could never feel more thoroughly beaten, beaten by the exigencies of her life and the consequences of her decisions.
Apparently she had thought wrong; that realization stung her eyes and the back of her throat.