The jeans were two sizes too big for the girl but exactly the right length, and the red Blick sweatshirt set off the crimson streaks in her hair. A gorgeous color, actually, what she’d managed to do with those red curls that rested next to the blue. Alizarin.
Warmth spread through her. P is for Pree.
At Ocean Beach, Kate turned left and headed south down Highway 1.
“I love it out here,” Pree said, her voice a mantis green. “Look at those surfers. They’re insane. Do you know how cold that water is?”
Kate did, actually. “They have wetsuits,” she said mildly.
“No way. You couldn’t pay me enough.” Pree propped one foot up in the corner of the dashboard, then seemed to catch herself. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” said Kate. “For anything.”
“Can you tell me more about Greg Jenkins?”
A sneak attack. Kate’s fingers twitched on the wheel, and she felt herself wince. “I will. Soon. I promise. I’ll try to remember more. But now—look, we’re here.” It was mortar to the brick lie, another layer she’d have to deal with someday. Some far-off day. Next to her, Pree cleared her throat.
Kate turned right into Fort Funston at the small brown sign almost lost in the dunes. For a Thursday morning, the parking lot was packed. Mostly dog walkers, Kate knew, and her heart lifted. “Don’t you love it?”
Pree leaned forward to look out the car window as Kate parked in front of a massive carpet of ice plant that rolled out to the cliff’s edge. “I’ve never been here.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wanted to stop a couple of times but whenever Flynn and I drive down here we’re usually on our way south to Duarte’s for pie, and we don’t slow down till we get there. Oh!” Pree unbuckled her seat belt and flung herself out of the car.
Kate grinned as she locked the car and moved to join her. “Aren’t they awesome?”
“Dude.” Pree breathed.
Dangling low overhead, three hang gliders soared. They wove, turned, and dove. Flying on the updrafts at the cliff’s very edge allowed them to hover only feet above the ground, or so it seemed to those walking on the paths below. They were so close that Kate could see the color of their sunglasses. She could hear them calling to each other.
Pree dashed ahead, up the path and then out, closer to the edge. Twenty feet above her, a man flying a green hang glider whooped at her, and she looked up, mouth hanging open. He put the glider into a dive, coming straight at her. She matched his joyful shout with her own. At the last minute, he turned and flew below the cliff’s edge, below Pree and down, toward the ocean’s choppy surface, and then rose back up.
Kate could hear both the man and Pree laughing uproariously. Joy. That’s what she’d missed by not allowing herself to come here. She’d denied herself this particular gladness.
“Come on, Kate!” Pree took off down what had been Robin’s favorite walk—the one that led through an old military battery and out to a sandy expanse that looked over the whole Pacific. Pree ran the way Robin had, a rapid, exuberant lope, her long legs eating up the yards to the edge. Kate had spent so much time calling Robin back from that edge that at least now she knew one thing: the cliff didn’t fall when someone stood on it. The bottom might fall out from other things, yes, but not here.
Kate reached the edge and stood next to Pree, who gazed at the water as if it might give her the answers she wanted.
“Robin used to say that on a clear enough day, you might be able to see Japan.”
Pree smiled. “Nice.”
“It was his favorite place in the world. We came almost every weekend with donuts and milk. He loved the hang gliders, but he loved the dogs more than anything.”
As if she’d called them, a pack of dogs came through the battery, tumbling over one another as they leaped and bounced. There had to be nine or ten of them, but it was hard to tell exactly—they moved so quickly, a swirling mass of dripping tongues and feathery tails.
“Look at them,” said Pree, and there it was again, that joy.
“Yep.”
A black dog with white border collie blazes bounded up to Pree and poked her with his muzzle. Pree laughed in surprise, and then the dog was gone again, chasing a Great Dane that lolloped toward the dog walker, a young woman with a poofy vest and dreadlocks.
“It’s wonderful. Can we keep going?”
Kate just waved her hand in assent.
The fog had been rolling out since they’d first seen the water, and now the bank was all but invisible, a low white line on the horizon. Bright sun lit the tops of the waves. Far down below, a small boat motored north. Two hang gliders, one a rainbow, the other decorated with blue lightning bolts, flew overhead, following their air current. And out on the horizon, a container ship hung still and motionless. From seeing them at the Port of Oakland, Kate knew it was enormous, almost a quarter mile long, but from here, it looked like a tiny toy she should be able to reach out and nudge with the tip of her finger.
The path turned, went downhill, and then curved back toward the edge. Kate bit her lip. It was obvious what direction the path took here—Pree would see it, and of course, she’d want . . .
Another pack of dogs came racing up the trail, a tired-looking man following them, his neck strewn with leashes.
“It goes all the way down to the beach here!” Pree kicked up sand as she ran to look. “It’s really steep, but I think we can make it. Can we go down?”
Kate jerked her head in agreement and motioned her ahead with her hand. How many times had she done that? she wondered. A hundred? A thousand? As soon as Robin had learned to walk he’d hurtled down this path. No, earlier than that. Kate had a vivid memory of Nolan worrying about Robin being on Kate’s chest in a snuggly as she careened down the dunes toward the water. His very first jump had been after he’d climbed up on a driftwood log and sailed into the air to land in the sand.
Pree zigzagged down toward the water, traversing the sand as if skiing, using her body to naturally slow herself down as she went. Kate preferred the hell-for-leather approach herself, always had. She liked to run hard, right downhill, until she came this close to tumbling head over heels. Two or three times, she’d done exactly that, coming up with sand packed in her ears and up one nostril, screaming with laughter as Robin rolled, helpless with giggles, in the sand below her. “Mama, Mama, Mama,” he gasped through his laughter. The sweetest word in the world. If she could have fallen like that every time, to make him laugh like that, she would have.
Today, though, Kate didn’t fall. As she almost lost control, she ran up a short dune to the ice plant, using it like a runaway-truck ramp. She did it several more times until she was at the bottom with Pree, who was out of breath, her cheeks bright red with pleasure.
Robin had always called the dogs down here the Serious Dogs. On the long, flat expanse of beach, these were the ones who were diligent in their jobs. They picked up driftwood and dragged it to more advantageous placements, bolting in and out of the waves, biting at the water as it rolled in, barking at seagulls. Down here, two hundred feet below the top of the cliff, was no place for froufrou lapdogs. This was strictly Serious Dog territory.
Both she and Pree left their shoes at the base of the trail, and then they turned right, walking north without discussing which way to go. The wind echoed Kate’s thoughts and then blew them away. She felt emptied again, and realized how damn much she had missed this scoured, windswept feeling.
And today, she’d stay out of the water.
“Look! The moon is up during the day!” Pree’s voice was still delighted.
Kate’s eyes had been resting on the low sliver of the visible quarter moon for long seconds without realizing what she was looking at. A day moon—the one that had upset Robin so much a month before he died. She and Nolan never figured out what had made him panic when he saw it, but he’d burst into tired tears in the backyard. “Pack up the moon, Mama. Pack up the moon.” They’d put him t
o bed, pointing out the full, glow-in-the-dark moon hanging over his head, and he’d closed his eyes, drifting into a fitful, feverish sleep.
The day moon. If Kate could have reached past Pree and shoved it out of the sky, she would have. Instead, she turned her head and looked at the water, hard, willing the glints to burn the tears out of her eyes.
After long moments of walking, Pree said, “Did Robin have a dog?”
“No,” said Kate. “Did you?”
Pree didn’t follow her lead. “Why didn’t he?”
“He and his father were both allergic.”
“A little allergic? Or a lot?”
Robin had been so allergic he couldn’t ride in a car that had ever had a dog in it. So allergic he couldn’t hug his kindergarten teacher because she had three dogs at home. In fact, when he first got really sick, they’d ignored some of his first symptoms because he’d gone home a lot recently with Sammy Willits, who had a dog out in an adjoining kennel, and they’d blamed the wheezing first on that, then on the cold.
“A lot allergic.”
“But he could come here?”
Kate stepped over a bulbous piece of glistening seaweed, resisting the urge to touch it with her toes. “If a dog licked him, like that dog did to you earlier, we’d wash him down. I carried a ton of wet wipes with me, and used them every time a dog breathed on him. It didn’t stop him, though. Every time I turned around, I’d see him trying to touch one sandy mongrel or another. It wasn’t good for him, but then again, neither were chicken nuggets, and I let him have those sometimes, too.”
“You were a good mom.”
Something in her voice made Kate look sideways at her. Pree’s gaze was out at the horizon again.
“I tried.” God, how she’d tried.
“My moms were good parents. They are good parents.” She said it defensively, as if Kate had asserted the opposite.
“I’m sure they are. I chose them for that especially.”
A pause. “Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed at your house last night.”
“Watch out. Jelly slime.” Kate pointed it out and Pree sidestepped it. “Why do you say that?” She felt suddenly worried that she’d blown it without knowing it.
“What if you—? No. Never mind. Hey, look up there!” Pree had turned and was staring back at where they’d come from, the bluff to the left. “Kites.” And with that, she was off, padding barefoot back to where they’d left their shoes, leaving Kate behind with the pale quarter moon she didn’t want.
Chapter Twenty-six
Thursday, May 15, 2014
9:30 a.m.
Nolan had tailed them.
Kate and the girl had gotten into the Saab, and they’d backed out of the driveway. They’d been laughing as they passed him. Kate hadn’t glanced his way, not once. And then, like someone out of a late-night cable cop show, he followed them.
He was behind them by one or two cars all the way over the bridge and through Hayes Valley, all the way across San Francisco. Out on Ocean Avenue, Nolan put three cars between them, which was safe enough. Confusion he didn’t know where to place in his body moved through him, making his eyes itch.
Because now it was obvious where they were going. Nolan’s breath came faster as he made the right-hand turn past the wooden sign.
Kate had a daughter.
And she was bringing her to Robin’s favorite place.
It couldn’t be possible, not really. She couldn’t have kept something like that from him—Kate had always been a bad liar, her cheeks reddening every time he caught her in the tiniest untruth (yes, she’d called her mother; no, she didn’t mind spinach again with dinner). There had to be a better, more obvious explanation for the young woman who looked like Kate. Who looked like Robin.
Jesus, who was the girl’s father? She looked too young for it to be Nolan, thank god, which would have been completely impossible, but then who? That meat locker of a guy she’d pointed out to him once, when they were back together? Named Zippy or something stupid. Or that Greg guy she’d gone to Josie’s party with? Kate had barely looked at him again, not after Nolan was back. Fucking hell.
He parked the equivalent of a city block away from them in the huge, windswept parking lot and got out. Fred Weasley gave a small, sharp whine at his feet. “Sorry, buddy.” Nolan released his tight hold of the dog’s leash, letting him romp in front, and as soon as they hit the sand, he released him. How Robin had loved that this whole area of Fort Funston was off-leash. Doggy dogs just being themselves, as far as the eye could see. As always, he wished for one long, unbearable moment that it was Robin with him, not Fred Weasley.
Kate and the girl were ahead of him now, a quarter of a mile out front so that he could barely see them. It didn’t matter. She’d go to the same place she always had—he would bet all $8,432 he had in his savings account.
“Hey, Nolan!” a voice yelled from behind him. “Wait up!”
Not now. He turned and waved at Boris, one of the older dog walkers. A transplant from Brooklyn, Boris had never quite gotten the hang of the Bay Area. He hated BART, saying it was everything wrong with the subway in New York and none of the parts that were right. He wasn’t good at driving, but to get to Fort Funston he drove an old VW van that broke down every other week. Nolan had picked him and his five dog clients up off the side of the road three or four times already as he waited for yet another tow. The man loved his dogs, though. There was a particular reason he walked each one: “This is Monty, and his owner got in a car wreck. Paraplegic, can you imagine? No one to walk him. That’s Silo, and his people own the bakery on my street. If I didn’t take him out, his only walk would be on leash at three in the morning before they go in to bake. No way.” Nolan liked the way Boris thought and would have normally welcomed a conversation, but not today.
“Going down to the beach,” he called and Boris nodded, waving back. Boris had had his left hip replaced twice already. He walked around the dunes on the paved trails, not down them.
Nolan followed Fred, who bounced a Pomeranian and got a loud bark in payment. They wound through the ice plant to the top of a small dune. Fred, who liked a little modesty and always picked the farthest place away to do his business, turned his back on Nolan and pooped. Nolan muttered under his breath as he tromped through the plants to get the shit. “Come on, come on. Get it over with, Fred.” What if he lost Kate in the dunes? Or conversely, what if he caught up with her? What the hell would he say?
Shit. He had no idea what he was doing, besides following his ex-wife and a stranger (to the exact place he’d been heading, he reminded himself in belated justification, to the beach where he spent every Thursday morning, always).
At the top of the rise, he kept his eyes on Kate’s hair as he scoped out the nearest trash can, the warm bag swinging heavily in his fingers. There, by the fork, was a waste bin. Nolan tightened the knot on the plastic bag and started down the dune, almost tripping over a knob of dead ice plant.
Nolan lost them for a moment while at the trash can, so he broke into a slow lope, which Fred Weasley thought was a fine idea, whuffling and bouncing loudly next to him. “Come on, buddy. That’s right. Find Kate,” he said, even though the dog had no idea who Kate was. What a concept! The only two things he loved anymore didn’t know each other.
Then he jogged around the curve and there: Kate stood at the top of the trail that led down.
Kate was really there. With the young woman, whoever she was.
They still hadn’t seen him. There was time to turn around, to take another trail. Or fuck that, he’d just go home. Fred could have a leash walk today instead.
No! He shook his head, hard. This was Nolan’s place now. His. She couldn’t have it. God knew, she could have every single other thing she wanted. He’d give—had already given—her everything else. But she couldn’t just take the beach back. The images of what occurred the last time they were here together unrolled in front of his eyes. He’d tried for the past year not to think abo
ut it when he came here, and now it was flooding back, as if it had just occurred. The confusion felt thicker. It was moving up his chest, to his throat now.
But then Kate laughed, her voice tossed back to him on the wind, and she started to run down the dune, her heels flying up behind her, her body tilted forward at that unnatural angle—she’d trip, he knew she would. Nolan sat heavily on the bench next to the trash can. He watched her run out of sight, just like she’d done so many times before.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Thursday, May 15, 2014
10:30 a.m.
The way back up the sand path was practically impossible, and Pree had no idea why she’d wanted to go down it in the first place. Hadn’t she noticed that it went almost straight down? And she was in pretty good shape. She couldn’t ever talk Flynn into working out, but she tried to get outside and run at least three times a week. She liked the high it gave her, the feeling that she’d accomplished something with just her body, distance covered by determination. This climb, though, might just kill her.
It wasn’t the baby. You couldn’t feel a fetus this tiny. Right?
She struggled up the hill, one step at a time, keeping her eyes on the blue T-shirt of the old man ahead of her who was somehow climbing at her pace even though he was a hundred and eleventy. She turned her head slightly, just once, to make sure with her peripheral vision that Kate was still there. She was getting closer, and Pree put more stomp in her step. She needed to get to the top first, to be able to turn around and watch her climbing.
The old man smiled as she threw herself onto the ground at the very end of the trail, where the sand blew onto the paved walkway.
“Long way up, huh?” She gasped. The borrowed jeans that had been baggy in the morning now felt tight.
He shrugged, barely winded. “Just the right distance, I always think.”
Pree’s phone rang in her pocket. Flynn’s ring. She took another deep breath and willed her voice to be steady when she answered.
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