One Menlo Park, California #2
It’s self-soothing, this game of mine, assigning just the right color name to this or that.
In fact, for her Kate Spade, I’ll go with Mimosa instead.
Final answer. Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2010.
No, that’s not right. That year was all about turquoise—which, back when I was studying interior design at Sacramento State, struck me as uninspired.
I’m more open-minded these days, after seven years in this game.
I emerge from the café’s warmth into a web of silvery dew and the drone of commuter traffic on California Avenue.
The chilly May mist invigorates, and the nutty aroma of Pilar’s overfussy latte confection smells like my salvation.
And just like that, I’m transported from this cookie-cutter Menlo Park strip mall parking lot, populated by a virtual clone army of Teslas, to the warmth of Daisy’s kitchen.
I can taste every decadent note in her signature dessert, a sugared hazelnut torte. Dad’s fave. My mouth waters.
Was I really once that wide-eyed child with copper curls, up on my toes sprinkling coarse sugar on the marionberry scones that made my great-aunt a small-town celebrity?
Scones destined for guests of the Sugar Pine Inn.
An image appears of the quaint resort, a semi-elegant B&B-meets-dude-ranch sort of affair, and I wince.
After more than a decade of practice, I know how to slam on my emotional brakes before my heart hits that spike strip and repunctures.
But for the first time in as long, I tease my mind open, consider the potential upsides of revisiting my old summer stomping grounds—tomorrow, in fact.
Charity Falls, Oregon, where even in June the air smells like Christmas trees.
It’s not exactly a pleasure trip, which seems fitting.
Daisy’s in a vulnerable place, and I’m the one she reached out to.
We always did share a special connection. Do we still?
I’m surprised how much the answer suddenly matters to me.
So. My bags are packed—big-girl panties and all the rest. Tomorrow I’ll leave behind the trappings I’ve come to depend on and get behind the wheel of a car I’m pretty sure I can’t.
But I won’t park my emotions there just now.
This sense of dread I awoke to is due to more than the dream or my impending road trip.
First I’ve got to knock the Boatman meeting out of the park. No worries there, though. I’m prepared.
I’m probably overprepared.
Someone lays on their horn, and my shoulders flinch.
In the nearby intersection, a Lexus driver thrusts his arm out the window and gestures wildly at another car.
Jittery, I set the two coffees on Harriet’s roof.
Droplets of dew freckle her recently waxed finish.
I shuffle through my purse for the keys, but they’re not in the usual pocket.
My fingers rummage around the silky lining while I simultaneously peer through the front window.
On the passenger seat, there’s the stack of mail I haven’t had a chance to go through, including that curious padded yellow envelope from Aunt Daisy.
But no keys. And they’re not easy to miss, what with the bright, rainbow-colored plastic lanyard my eight-year-old niece crafted for me.
Terror clenches my chest. I soothe it with self-assurances.
No worries. All is still well. You simply set them down inside.
Legs cinched tight inside my pencil skirt, I quickstep back to the café in my accursed heels, hold the door for the woman exiting, and offer a smile that’s embarrassingly insincere.
Inside, forest-green walls sway and the coffee-shop din drifts around me with an odd, faraway cadence.
Just breathe. Sure enough, my keys rest peacefully beside the napkin dispenser.
But as I turn to leave, something catches my eye.
Someone has left the latest edition of San Francisco Style magazine flung casually on a sofa.
I angle my head for a better look. There’s no mistaking the woman staring back at me from the glossy cover.
Skin, flawless. Hair, inky black and precision cut. Eyeliner, flicked up at the corners. Signature red-rimmed glasses. The bold headline reads, “Designer on the Rise.”
Pilar.
Well then. This should ensure a celebratory mood at the office today. Good thing, because this might be the first time I’m late to work in, well, ever. At least I won’t show up empty-handed.
But wait . . . was that . . . was that a hint of movement on the roof of my car? I’m a ways off, so maybe I’m imagining things. Oh no, no, no, no.
I pick up my pace.
Too late. The two coffees are taking a roller-coaster ride down my front windshield.
A plunge. A midair flip. A crash. Eighteen bucks’ worth of brown liquid and foam gushes heavenward, rains down on Harriet’s white hood, and then dribbles down the fender. The two paper cups hop to the pavement and tumble in random directions like drunks leaving a bar.
Welp. One more reason I’ll never be a fan of Karl the Fog, as the soggy marine layer that often creeps this far inland is affectionately known to some. Or Starbucks. Nor, it seems, have I done anything to help secure my own destiny as a designer on the rise.