Miranda
She went to the Spring Mountain clearing and sketched the view with pencils, then she stared and stared, trying to imprint the colors and shapes and essence on her mind.
Then she went home and tried to paint it from memory, so that she’d bring forth her feeling standing in the clearing she’d stood in with her father.
She didn’t want to just represent the visuals; she wanted to capture its essence.
Many experimental drafts later, she thought she had some pictures worth showing her sister. She called Winnie and invited her up for the weekend.
“I have a better idea,” her sister countered. “Why don’t you come down here for the weekend? Get away and relax a little. You can finally meet Bernard. I just know you two will like each other.”
“I’d love to meet him, but if you come here, I can show you the places I’m trying to depict, and I have my paints and things here, too.”
“Who cares about depiction? The labels are all about feeling, about getting down the emotional truth of Hartley wine. Plus, if you come here you get a chance to chill out a bit.”
When her sister articulated her own conviction about the true purpose of the labels, Miranda knew she had to go.
Still. “Don’t you ever need to get away from the city?” she asked Winnie.
“Sure. But to Carmel or Santa Barbara, not Napa.”
“Hey! Let’s do that. I’ll drive down and pick you up and we’ll stay in Carmel for a night or two.
” It was May and still the off season for the little seaside town they had been to so many times, but that was part of the appeal.
No crowds. Less fog occluding the beach.
Barefoot walks on cold, compacted sand. Warming up with a cup of tea at the Tuck Box.
“Great idea. How soon can you get here?” Winnie asked.
Even though it made for a longer drive, closer to three hours than the two it would have taken on the 101, Miranda and Winnie took the coastal highway all the way from San Francisco to Carmel so they could enjoy the views of the Pacific Ocean.
“I’m going to drive like a granny the whole way,” Miranda told her sister.
“That’s fine, because I couldn’t drive it at all.”
Miranda wasn’t entirely sure her nerves could take the hairpin turns, even though she was driving her mother’s smaller Ford and not her usual truck that had been repaired umpteen times.
But she wanted to try because the day was unparalleled in its beauty, and she was sure the coast would be more than reward enough for the hard driving.
The sky was a cloudless blue and the air was so crisp she could feel its snap on her cheeks.
The Golden Gate Bridge, which she’d driven over to reach Winnie, had been vibrantly red against the sky, and the white buildings were clearly etched into the hills of the city.
They tuned the radio to KFRC and let out twin howls of joy when the opening bars of “Good Vibrations” poured into the car. Miranda turned it all the way up and they sang along at the tops of their lungs as she wound her way out of San Francisco and onto Route 1.
“Yes!” Winnie exclaimed when the song ended and she turned the volume down for an ad break. “Perfect song to kick this off.”
“Perfect,” Miranda agreed.
They drove south, enveloped by sun and joy.
The steep slope of the land to the sea was indeed too close for comfort, just yards away from Winnie on the passenger side, but Miranda gripped the steering wheel and kept the speedometer at twenty and below to feel safe.
She found she couldn’t look out past her sister, whose eyes were glued out the window.
She kept exclaiming over how gorgeous everything was.
“Oh look! A whale!”
And: “Oh my god, the water might as well be a bowl of diamonds.”
And: “Miranda, look!”
“I can’t!” Why was it so easy for Miranda to imagine the car hitting a bump, veering off the road, and sailing into the ocean?
“Hey, there’s a vista point in a few miles,” Winnie said. “Then you can get out and enjoy the view.”
By the time Miranda pulled off the pavement onto the dirt jug handle that was mercifully edged by a metal barrier, she was shaking and her hands and armpits and thighs were sticky with sweat.
The view was worth it, though. As far as her eyes could see in every direction, the ocean surged and sparkled and rushed in big white-crested splashes against the steep, rocky coast. In the distance, she could see the glistening back of one of the whales Winnie had been pointing to.
Just then the enormous animal sprayed water gleefully into the air.
“Wow,” said Miranda.
“It’s so beautiful, I want to cry.”
Miranda put her arm around her little sister, who reciprocated by putting her head on Miranda’s shoulder, and they stood for a few minutes, soaking in the chilly glory of the view.
Looking about half a mile south, they could see a small sandy beach enclosed by the cliffs.
A lone figure was gathering pieces of gray driftwood and throwing them into a fire.
“How sad,” Winnie commented.
“Maybe he’s just out for the day,” Miranda said.
“Lots of people who were in the city during the summer just kind of became rough sleepers. They had nowhere else to go. Their families wouldn’t take them, because they’d dodged the draft or gotten into one too many scrapes with the law.
Couldn’t find work for the same reasons.
The Diggers and some of the churches try and keep them fed and warm as much as possible, but… ” Winnie shrugged.
Miranda winced at the thought of so many lost souls. Then she turned her attention back to the ocean. Its vastness was a consolation.
“We can get on the 101 at Half Moon Bay if this road is killing you,” said Winnie.
Miranda gave her sister’s shoulder a squeeze, then dropped her arm and headed back to the car. “I’ll be okay.” It brought her so much joy to hear her sister’s childlike exclamations—how could she possibly let a little fear get in the way of that?
And she was okay, barely. A string of terrific songs came on the radio, and she kept her eyes glued to the road. They stopped at several more vista points and for burgers and fries in Santa Cruz, and as they munched, Miranda asked, “How are things with Lincoln?”
Winnie sighed heavily, swallowed a fry, and washed it down with a glug of Coke. “I love him so much, but…I don’t know. He’s always rehearsing.”
“Why is that bad?”
“I guess on its own, it’s not. I want him to find success. It’s more like he doesn’t have time for me anymore.”
“That sounds familiar, unfortunately.”
“This is different,” Winnie said vehemently. “He hasn’t just disappeared without a trace or an explanation, and he wants me to come out with him every night to listen to his band or his friends’ bands, but when I do that I’m too tired to write the next day.” She paused to eat another fry.
“Your writing is just as important as his music.”
“I know he feels that way, too. It’s just that in practice, it’s really hard.”
Winnie looked as though she was considering whether or not to tell Miranda something more, and Miranda bit her tongue lest she spook her sister before she got the words out. At last she asked, “Whatever happened with you and Ben?”
Miranda hadn’t seen that question coming. “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve always been curious. I mean, it’s hard to believe you were ever involved with someone who was married. You’re so…moral.”
“He didn’t tell me he was married at first, which I’ve come to learn is a trick a lot of cheating men use. Just like his next tactic, which was to say he planned to leave her.”
“Why did you stay? What was so good about him?”
“He just felt…so familiar somehow. And he respected me and my plans for Hartley. No one could talk about wine like he could. We’d go out in San Francisco or Sacramento and he’d order the best bottle on the menu to perfectly complement our food.
I learned so much from him, and…honestly, I was flattered.
I was twenty-two and he was thirty-five, and he thought what I had to say was worthwhile. ”
She paused and ate another fry as she realized it had been two years since they’d even spoken—and from time to time still she wondered about calling him when she had a knotty scientific dilemma she knew he’d help her solve.
“I wish I had been the one to leave. It would have been better for my dignity.”
“He left you?” Winnie sounded floored. “I thought married men never left their mistresses. Getting the milk for free and all that.”
“I think his wife found out about us and issued an ultimatum. He chose her, and their son. I can’t blame him. But I do wish I’d been the one to walk away as soon as I saw the handwriting on the wall. I knew for too long. I just…couldn’t leave.”
“That sucks, I’m sorry. What an asshole.”
“I’ll never let that happen again.” These felt like more than words to Miranda; they felt more like armor protecting her heart.
“Why haven’t you gone out with anyone else?”
Miranda shrugged, putting down the last bites of her burger. “I haven’t found anyone I’m that interested in.” She’d lost her appetite.
They were quiet until Winnie slurped the last of her soda.
“Do you remember Dad at all?” she asked.
“Winnie! What is with you and the hard questions today?”
Winnie shrugged in a sweet, shy way. She’d obviously been waiting for an opportunity to ask all of this.
As if to prompt her sister, Winnie said, “I don’t remember him that well.
Just little snippets, like him tickling my feet in the hammock, or washing my arm when I’d scratched it on a thorn.
Taking us to the clearing on Spring Mountain.
I remember us making those books for him, and climbing into bed with him and watching him read them. ”
Miranda smiled, but sadly. “I remember all of that, too. Do you ever…think about what happened to him?” Miranda held her breath. Every once in a while, she checked in with her sister, to see if anything had come back to her.
“I try not to, to be honest.”
Miranda exhaled. “Me too,” she replied.