1. Rue
rue
. . .
catalyst
My caffeine wore off two hours ago. My ass is numb, my back aching. I haven’t seen another car for miles, and I’m starting to think I might never see one again.
Six hours of driving yesterday, a shitty night’s sleep at a roadside motel, and four hours on the road today are doing my grip on reality no favors. Despite periodic assurances from my GPS that I’m still on the planet, my eyes are convinced I’ve slipped through a portal to a different dimension.
Colossal redwoods crowd the narrow road, slowly reclaiming it, their distant crowns obscuring all but a serrated sliver of blue sky.
Sunlight falls through the crack in flashing intervals, giving the faded asphalt a flickering liquid aspect.
I can’t look directly at the surface for more than a few seconds without wanting to hurl.
Beneath the canopy, the shadows are deeper, the light more ephemeral. Dark umbras dilate in my peripheral vision like beckoning arms. Misty, glowing beams dance across shivering ferns, beds of emerald moss, and loamy fissures.
But it’s the redwoods themselves that are breaking my brain. Their enormity is inconceivable, their combined presence tangible and oppressive.
These aren’t trees. They’re sentinels of time. Cathedrals of memory. Breathing, seeing tombstones of forgotten dreams and lost gods.
And I’m trespassing.
Any second, my car engine will die and a cadre of alien warriors will emerge from the shadows to surround me.
I’ll put up a noble fight—gouge some eyes, kick some balls—but alas, they’ll overpower me.
I’ll be dragged before a tribunal of elders.
Condemned to death for trespassing on sacred ground.
Then, on the eve of my demise via carnivorous tree roots, a surly, undeniably handsome rebel will rescue me from my cell.
But he’ll have nefarious ulterior motives—
Thunk.
My front tire drops from pavement to dirt, my stomach plummeting the same two inches. I quickly course correct, then spend the next minute waiting for my heart to stop trying to convince me I nearly drove off a cliff instead of a tiny shoulder.
The good news is I feel like a gallon of espresso just hit my bloodstream.
Shifting from one numb ass cheek to the other, I jab the button to roll my window down. Warm air whips around me, drowning out my music and tossing my hair around my head. I suck in greedy lungfuls, relishing the potent fragrance of woods, moss, and brine.
The scent, so unique and new to me, sinks me deeper into this moment. Where I am—where I’m going. A destination two years in the making. A dream finally coming true.
With a glance at my navigation screen, my pulse picks up again—this time in anticipation.
Almost there.
I take the next turnoff onto a road even narrower than the previous.
Over the next two miles, the forest begins to release its dominion.
Signs of civilization return: a stack of mailboxes perched at the end of a gravel driveway, a car pulling into a small parking lot near a public trailhead.
I glimpse a few people on the trail with those fancy aluminum hiking poles.
The air cools slightly, the scent of the ocean increasing.
After a final hill and a curve shadowed by a border of Douglas firs, I spot a cluster of buildings in the distance, rustic colors blending with the surrounding nature.
Beyond, the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean stretches toward a horizon made indistinct by haze.
The beauty laid out before me is no less captivating or surreal than the redwood forest, but it doesn’t seduce me into imaginary realms. No, this ache is undeniably tethered to reality. A familiar pressure against the forever-tender bruises of memory.
I want to pull over. Take a thousand photos on my phone.
But I don’t; the person I want to share them with most will never see them.
Instead, I think of how all Teddy wanted for Christmas when he was eight was a camera and how devastated he was when he didn’t get one.
The next day, I dragged him outside into the ankle-deep snow and told him he could still take pictures.
That our brains could be cameras if we concentrated hard enough.
We stayed outside taking ‘pictures’ until our faces and fingers were numb.
Smiling at the memory, I lift an imaginary camera to my face and whisper, “Click.”
At the bottom of the slope, the road forks again. I stay to the left, and before long, a steel-framed wooden gate bars the way. I pull to a stop beside a security keypad, my eyes veering to the engraved wooden sign sitting in a bed of ferns.
Pacific Arts Collective
A surge of nervousness collides with the remains of gas station coffee and a granola bar.
Wincing at the resulting stomach cramp, I put the car in park and reach into the passenger seat for my phone.
As my fingers close around it, loud ringing overtakes the car’s speakers.
I yelp, fumbling the device and losing my grip.
It flies off the seat to the floorboard, disappearing instantly.
“Sonofabitch.”
Unbuckling my seat belt, I stretch over the center console and dig blindly through assorted road-trip trash. It isn’t until Ivy’s laughter fills my ears that I realize the ringing has stopped.
“This sounds entirely on brand for you,” she says, still giggling. “Please tell me you’re not driving right now.”
“Ha! Found it.” Victorious, I straighten with my phone in hand. “I’m parked. Just pulled up to the entrance.”
“Oh, good. I was hoping that was the case since you’re pretty close to the coast. You made great time!”
I groan. “How many times have you checked my location today?”
“Less than forty, more than twenty,” she answers airily. “Was traffic okay? Did you listen to today’s playlist? Have you had anything to eat or drink besides coffee?”
A smile tugs at my mouth. It took a few years of friendship and one memorable fight for me to accept that Ivy doesn’t actually think I’m incapable of adulting. She just worries, at times excessively, about the people she loves.
“Traffic was fine once I got out of Bakersfield, your playlist has been on shuffle all day, and I ate a granola bar with my coffee.” Before she can lay into me, I hurry to add, “I’ll grab something when I get settled. I’m totally fine.”
As I say the words, I’m forced to admit I’m increasingly not fine. In the last few seconds, a cold sweat has broken out on my neck, and my intestines have begun competing for the world’s tightest knot.
“Okay, good.” Her voice softens as she asks, “And how are you feeling otherwise? Emotionally speaking.”
My throat betrays me, closing before I can lie. There’s no point, anyway. She’s been my best friend for a decade and is well aware I normally spend today in bed.
I’m actually grateful when a spike of pain lances through my abdomen, bringing me back into my rebelling body. I’d rather be freaking out over the present than the past. At least one of them I have a modicum of control over.
Ivy makes a distressed sound. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I wasn’t going to, but I also didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten—”
“Ivy, it’s okay. Promise. We can do hard things, right?”
I easily envision the tension releasing from her shoulders. “Hell yes, we can. You’re such a bad bitch.”
“Takes one to know one.” Swiping quickly through my emails, I find the one with the gate code. “Can I check in with you later? I need to get through this gate and find a bathroom. I’m either about to shit myself or my period has come early.”
Her dramatic gasp doesn’t completely disguise a snort of laughter. “Hopefully it’s just gas. Call me later. Love you!”
“Love you too.”
As I reach for the red circle on my dash screen, she yells, “Wait! I almost forgot the reason I called—besides making sure you were alive, obviously. You’re not going to believe this. Actually, you’ll totally believe it because weird shit happens to you all the time—”
“Ivy,” I whine.
“Sorry! I was talking to my mom earlier and bragging about you being accepted for the writer slot at PAC out of a bajillion applicants, and guess who’s one of the artists-in-residence this summer?”
My fingertips go numb.
“Who?”
Please don’t say—
“River!”
White noise roars in my ears, momentarily drowning out her voice.
“…showed up at our parents’ house a few days ago, completely out of the blue, and borrowed a car to drive down there.
Now you don’t have to worry about not knowing anyone!
And get this—he told my mom he’s thinking about moving back to the States.
So no pressure, but I’m relying on you to convince him to stay. ”
All I get out is a wheeze, my pitiful protest lost in Ivy’s effervescent laughter. The rise of several voices in the background of the call swallows my second attempt at words.
Oblivious to my full-system crisis, Ivy chirps, “Gotta go. Make sure you give River a big hug from me, okay? Love you!”
She hangs up at the same time my forehead hits the steering wheel.
The first time I met Ivy’s older brother, I told him to eat a dick.
He deserved it.
On that day nine years ago, a standard of behavior was established, and in all of our interactions since, we’ve only deviated—or almost deviated—one time.
So no, I will not be giving River a hug, no matter how much Ivy means to me. Nor will I be spending a single ounce of mental effort convincing him to move back to the States. I much prefer there being an ocean between us.
For the next six weeks, I’ll be staying as far away from him as humanly possible.