Big Green Country

by Frances Rivetti

  Single gauge tracks and trains have long since gone from here, another of the vanished lifelines in the region’s dairy farming and logging history. I parked the truck on the side of the half empty road and walked along Main Street where there’s little left to indicate the once bustling era of a depot town aside for a small strip of stern commercial buildings built in the Victorian style.

  A little ways down the street, I looked up at yellow lights that illuminated the stained glass windows of the pretty, white Catholic church where Bridget and I’d been baptized and where we both received our first holy communion like the good little Irish girls we were. Needless to say, neither of us made it through to confirmation. Mom had given up on any sense of piety, holiness and sanctity I guess by the time she fell sick. I wondered if Mia had been put through any Catholic rights of passage? At least I’d not been invited to attend.

  If, in some altered reality, the railroad had remained a feature of the landscape, this sleepy little place might well have grown into a much larger town. It would have meant a whole different story for those of us who grew up around here had the trains continued to run and larger industrial towns and even small coastal cities emerged. I dare say most of the folk who live out here prefer it the way it is. Those who pass through experience and surely appreciate a one-of-a-kind glimpse of the way life used to be. To spend any amount of time here is to turn your back on the conveniences of much of the modern world. All well and good for a long weekend but living here permanently takes a significantly more robust resolve, trust me.

  When the trains stopped running, most of the smaller waterside villages were frozen in time, if they survived at all. Tiny fishing communities consisting of no more than a handful of shacks on the banks of Tomales Bay have disappeared into the mists of time. Aside from that, the region has been preserved pretty much as it was when George Dillon and his potato farmer pals rode their horse and buggies down this same main street.

  The sky had turned a darker shade of gray with an ominous tint of blue in thick streaks. I walked on, peering over several fences of the childhood homes of old school friends. An old man with a long beard gawped back from an unlit downstairs window of a house built closer to the street. I jumped back, not expecting to see or be seen, an opportunistic voyeur of the past.

  It felt like I was strolling through a silent movie set of bygone days — although one without the players. When I reached the bakery, the last serving of a seasonal soup of the day was mine for the taking and just in the nick of time, served up piping hot in a heatproof paper cup. I savored, standing, each warming spoonful of the rich, thick and creamy crab and Bodega red potato chowder with its familiar flavoring of nutmeg, fresh parsley, thyme and Old Bay seasoning, the same that Mom used to sprinkle into the satisfying fish soups she’d concocted from whatever seafood came her way.

  ~ It was raining on and off, harder by then. I slid onto the vinyl seat inside the musty truck; it was held together with a thick crisscross of disintegrating masking tape. I had a good rummage around in the glove compartment, inquisitive as to what I might find. Besides a few packets of rolling papers and a stale pack of American Spirit, there was nothing more interesting than a yellowing pile of expired documents and ancient receipts, a cache of unopened ketchup pouches, two hair bands and a small, handwritten sheet of mostly 707 and 415 area code phone numbers, the majority of which I guessed I’d need a hotline to heaven or hell in hopes of reaching a living person on the other end. The floor of the truck was carpeted with a dozen old Lays potato chip packets and a stash of brittle, yellowed newspapers, most of which were antiquated copies of The Santa Rosa Press Democrat from the ‘80s.

  Rain was dripping through a rusted portion of the roof onto the left side of my head and shoulder. Sensibly, I’d wrapped Mia’s laptop in a couple of large plastic garbage bags for protection from the elements. I double-checked the package was still where I’d tucked it under the driver’s seat.

  Hanging a right turn to the south, I levered the truck into gear, hit the gas and took off in the general direction of the bayside oyster farm where I’d arranged to meet my soon-to-be ex. I could see that Andres had tried calling me while I was at the beach, as I suspected he might, but my phone had dropped his calls. “Double-checking that you do have the computer with you,” he’d texted, as if I’d forgotten the entire point of it, or maybe he thought I was tricking him into meeting me with the laptop as an excuse. My plan was to connect in a neutral zone that just so happened to be the oyster farm that supplied his favorite bar in the City.

  Newly single, unemployed and technically homeless, it would have been wise for me to save the last few dollars in my pocket for a more practical temptation than splurging on oysters. To hell with that, I decided, if I had to see Andres, even for the briefest of meetings, I’d damn well make the best of it, bag myself a haul of oysters as compensation. The urge to indulge in the fruits of the bay was stronger than ever that day — one way of dealing with the futility of my situation, I guess. Plus, I figured once my face-to-face with Andres was over, my peace offering to Bridget would be the double whammy of access to Mia’s email along with a big bag of briny bivalves.

  These remote oyster farms are a hell of a trek for city folk, even during the best of conditions. I joined a slow stream of traffic snaking its way into a narrow sliver of a gravel parking lot where a hooded, hairy-faced dude in a heavy set of waterproof jacket and pants signaled for me to pull over by a big, nautical-themed, blue and white, handpainted valet parking sign.

  “OK, you’ve got to be kidding me. I grew up out here,” I said, reluctantly rolling down my window in fear of it sticking open in place. “Since when the valet parking?”

  “No choice, I’m afraid, ma’am,” he replied. “Not a lot of real estate for parking out here on the water’s edge you see.”

  Ma’am, please, I flinched at the formality, though technically, I was more or less old enough to be his mom.

  The briny delights of the oyster farm have achieved a cult-like status amongst the food aficionados of the Bay Area. The downside being that it faces a popularity problem when it comes to accommodating an increasing swell of crowds that choose to step away from the marble counters in the Ferry Building en masse for a wild drive west to taste at the source. Traffic routinely jams this narrow highway on weekends. And in the summer months an even more insane scene ensues in search of the seductive qualities of the half shell.

  But this was February and many of the roads out West were under water. I experienced a perverse stab of pleasure at the thought of Andres running into trouble, illequipped in such conditions in the Mini all this way out West. And all he was going to get from me would be a thank you and whatever sense of smug satisfaction on my being reliant on him for something so important. The commonly held myth of the aphrodisiacal qualities of the oyster briefly crossed my mind and I shuddered at the thought of my soon-to-be ex trying on any of his old games, holding me in his debt with inappropriate references to the oyster’s exotic nature — glistening, slippery, alive, just like him.

  A group of noisy young people gathered around a blazing fire pit by the shore, all manicured facial hair, piercings and hoodies, tech startup T-shirts and designer sneakers, guys a lot younger than Andres, laughing and toasting as their glossy, long-haired girlfriends bopped around in their skinny jeans and woolen ponchos, bright, happy faces beaming under wide-brimmed, felted hats in earthy shades of olive green and brown. I know the type. The heavier rain from earlier was holding off and yet I was impressed that a few of them had managed to establish a decent fire in such pervasive damp.

  I watched them a little longer as they chuckled and flirted, clinking small, round stemless globes of chilled white wine, layers of crushed shells crackling under expensive winter footwear. A pinprick of jealousy hit me in the center of my chest as the young and the beautiful reveled in each other’s company. When, precisely, had I stopped being one of this tribe, I wondered?

  The waterside ghet
to was abuzz with well organized, rainproofed hipsters in their beanies and branded puffer jackets snapping selfies in their small groups. The wood fires crackled in pits beside a fleet of wooden picnic tables, laden with photo worthy picnics, overlooking the brackish bay.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. A text from Andres: “I’m here, where are you?”

  I’d fed him the short story in my initial text message, reluctant as I’d been to speak to him directly, especially in the flesh.

  “Maggie, babe, how you doing?” Oh no, he hadn’t lost his touch, laying on the velvet voice with its killer delivery, the slightest hint of breathiness. His warm breath on the back of my neck told me he’d had no trouble honing in on me. Talk about radar instinct. I braced myself for my own reaction, how easy it would have been for him to render me wobbly at the knees once more. Stepping back, instinctively in a standard selfprotective move, I felt an instant relief in not falling prey to his charms, not even the slightest tingle.

  I turned. “Hello Andres . . .” He sensed my hesitation as I stood my ground — a conscious separate entity, barefaced as he’d rarely ever seen me during the daytime hours, my hair scraped into a ponytail, wet from the rain. “We’re not here to talk about me. It’s Mia I’m worried about, as we’ve established. I’m really grateful that you’re not above cracking her computer passcode.” Best get straight to the point, I told myself. No more broaching the subject of our uncoupling. It was over. I kept it civil, averting my eyes from his as best as I was able. He was about to do me a big favor, he owed me that much, we both knew it.

  “So where is Mia’s laptop?” he asked, his eyes brushing over the damp fringing on the front of my funky jacket, “You do have it with you?”

  “Why do you keep on asking me that? Of course I have it with me, it’s in the truck,” I snapped. We walked side by side, my leading the way to the junky vehicle the parking attendant had wedged into an almost impossibly tight space. I wrangled the keys and unlocked the door, wiping the leak-splattered seats with a greasy looking old towel I’d rescued from the clutter of the back seat.

  “Are you serious, Maggie?” a look of distaste on his face as Andres assessed the general state of the vehicle’s interior, of me. He was a little too close for comfort, so near, in fact, that for a second time, I recoiled at the sensation of the heat of his breath on the side of my exposed neck. I handed over the laptop and swiftly dug my hands into my pockets, taking extra care to avoid any unnecessary skin contact. He kicked aside an ancient bottle of Mexican Coke on the passenger seat floor, asking: “Jesus, how long has this been here?” After shifting around uncomfortably in his seat a few seconds longer, he released the computer from its layers of plastic, opened it and positioned it on the knees of a pair of expensive looking thick, heather colored corduroy pants. New life clearly meant new luxury clothing for one of us at least.

  Andres removed a USB stick from a small cloth pouch he’d taken from his coat pocket and inserted it into the side of the laptop.

  “I’m using a data security program to unlock Mia’s computer without a password,” he said. This time it was he who was avoiding looking directly at me. “Don’t ask.”

  We sat in silence for several long minutes while the computer took its time to wake up. Andres tapped away at the keyboard. “And hey presto, we’re in.” He said he had every confidence it would be of help in our figuring out where my niece had gone. Ever the optimist, though he’d never shown such interest in my family when we were together.

  “Bridget has a lot on her plate, we both do,” I said. Let’s not pretend he cared about Mia, my sister, or me for that matter other than as someone who had been in love with me, once. “We’ll be alright. This at least will give us some idea of what Mia was up to before she took off. Thank you for this, Andres, I mean it.”

  The man I no longer loved sighed, softening his voice as he reached for my hand, an old trick I’d fallen for a million times in the past. No more of the old-times’ sake stuff, dear God. I’d been there, done that plenty. Not happening. I pulled away.

  “And you? The apartment, I hear you’ve let it go, reduced yourself to what, driving this old wreck around, Maggie, what’s next? You’ve lowered your standards a tad, haven’t you?” he asked, gracing me with one of his patronizing half smiles, as if my reduced circumstances had nothing to do with his taking off. “Does this mean you’re back at the ranch for good?”

  “I’m undecided but I’m fine. Don’t you worry about me, in fact, I really do have to go — thanks again for your time,” I said, reaching across him to release the passenger door. I caught an exotic whiff of the cologne he’d favored for as long as I’d been in his life, sweet, sandalwood, essentially masculine, classic Andres. I did my best to block a flood of sensual memories. “Bridget and me, we appreciate you going out of your way to help. You take care now . . . ”

  “Come on, Maggie, let’s have a nice, chilled glass of white, share some oysters for old times sake at least,” he suggested, “seeing as I’ve driven all the way out here.” He extended a tailored arm toward my shoulder, his chiseled, clean-shaven features closing in and, before I could stop him, landing a warm and lingering kiss on the cool skin of my cheek. Andres always knew exactly which buttons to press and when.

  I cut him off, sharply, though, to be honest, my mind did wander a brief moment at his offer of a glass of wine. Hell, if you spring for the whole fucking bottle, I thought, then maybe. I caught myself shivering, in equal part due to the damp leather jacket and my unbridled fear of caving in. I shook my head fervently and watched him as he extricated himself from the truck and walked away, shoulders back, head held high. He turned to look back only the once, those big, brown, beautiful eyebrows raised and a shrugging of his shoulders to remind me the whole thing between over us was my loss. As if he’d played no role in our demise. Take it or leave it Maggie. I continued to keep an eye on him as he took shelter beneath a stupid, giant designer golfing umbrella out there on the water’s edge, looking as he always did, like a million dollars, even in the rain. He was not oblivious, of that I’m sure, fully aware of my watching him as he, in turn, took in the actions of an oyster shepherd in waterproof wading gear hanging large sacks of freshly harvested oysters onto racks for hand sorting on an open-air conveyor belt.

  His silhouette shifted behind a filter tank of bay water bubbling with newly bagged oysters undergoing the natural cooling process used to slow down their metabolism in readiness for transportation to Bay Area restaurants. The line at the oyster take-home window had shortened with the onslaught of now heavier rain. I watched ‘til I was sure Andres was out of sight before I stepped out of the truck. I waited my turn in line, intent on placing an order for a dozen oysters to go, mentally patting myself on the back for mustering the courage to deal with my soon-to-be ex in such a clipped and businesslike fashion. Any sense of achievement did not last long, however, before the all-too familiar, ice-cold onset of anxiety crept in and a swift and strangulating hold swept over me. This awful condition had been the bane of my existence since Andres left — unpredictable, overwhelming feelings of sudden and irrational fear, a suffocating sensation of helplessness. I’d experienced my first, a preview of what would fast become a series of frequent panic attacks a few weeks prior to Andres’ threatened departure.

  My heart pounded. I could barely catch my breath. The last thing I needed was for Andres to stroll back over and find me like this. I felt instantly weak and vulnerable, aware of the extra weight I was carrying as I stood against the wall of the oyster shack, closing my eyes in an effort to find calm. I told myself to conjure the Maggie of my postsupper state of the previous evening, the strange sense of inner power that I’d felt, a fleeting feeling of ease, of wellbeing and self-contentment. After about five minutes of forcing myself into channeling whatever amount of positivity and strength I was able to muster, I somehow managed to pull myself together and, in the after effects of having gotten myself into such a state, I purchased a bag of o
ysters and drove myself straight back to the ranch.

  Chapter 13

  Marcus

  As I climbed the dilapidated porch steps to Bobby and Bridget’s place, I took in a couple deep breaths — a coping mechanism I’d learned from rehab that most times helps in calming my stubborn social phobia issue sufficiently enough for me to walk on in.

  No matter how many times I go through this, it’s never easy to shake the crippling fear of making a complete dick of myself. That particular evening I was even more revved up than usual and ready to roll with my standard round of self-punishment at the mere thought of having to make small talk with a stranger, even if it was my buddy’s sister-in-law. I was dry mouthed, experiencing the shakes and all. My heart raced and my palms began to sweat. I knew full well this was idiotic considering my feelings for these guys, Bobby and Bridget and them being my only real friends, the two of them. It’s not as if these troublesome anxieties of mine are based on any one real thing. I mean, who the hell gives a shit, aside from me, should some dumbass statement spurt out of my mouth? I reminded myself for the millionth time to shut the interior monologue the fuck up. Being around a woman I had never met before was no big deal, but still, the mind of the introvert will press on with its dirty work of self-assassination.

  I figured I was going to have to work double time for Bridget’s sister to be convinced of me as any kind of normal, happy-go-lucky dude grateful for some company and a decent meal. Don’t get me wrong, it was no way on account of her being a woman of a certain age that had me all riled up. I’m not one to discriminate. I have trouble connecting with folk in general. I’ve grown accustomed to my own company, my own space, peace and solitude you see. Idle conversation, table talk, typically filled me with dread.