Half Moon Bay

by Alice LaPlante

  And then, with the smile, it happens.

  Jane feels dizzy. She’s worried she will lose her balance.

  She slowly approaches the man. She finds she is reluctant to get too close. It’s not safe. When she is within easy conversing distance, he smiles again. Another powerful hit. Jane is definitely unsteady on her feet. The man holds out his hand.

  We finally meet properly, he says.

  She takes his hand. It is a shock to feel its warmth, its solidness. She grasps it tighter than she intended. It feels like a lifeline. It steadies her.

  Jane struggles to think of what to say.

  What did you call me? Back at the shrine? she finally asks. They are perhaps two feet apart. It feels too close. It feels too far.

  He thinks for a moment, then laughs. The lines on his face indicate he does this often. She estimates him to be in his early to mid-forties.

  Ammut. An Egyptian goddess. She sat in judgment of the dead. She weighed the hearts of the deceased on the scales of Ma’at. If found wanting, she devoured them.

  Jane takes this in.

  What is your real name, O Ammut? He takes his hand back—Jane hadn’t realized she was still holding it—and hoists his leather bag up further on his shoulder. He bends to one side to let a family pass on the crowded street. He is not a scarecrow, she realized. His body is lithe, agile. The clothes simply a little large for his wiry frame.

  Jane. Jane O’Malley. The handshake felt too intimate. Now she finds she can barely look at his face, afraid of what hers might look like. She turned her face toward him, but her eyes focus over his shoulder. She looks directly into the face of a striking dark woman who, like the man, is smiling.

  Edward, are you going to make introductions?

  It takes several beats. But Jane eventually understands that this woman is in fact talking to the man, that she is his companion. Jane’s face grows hot, she can feel the flush traveling from her head down her body. Why should Jane feel ashamed? She’s done nothing wrong.

  I’m Alma, the woman says. And this is Edward.

  Jane takes a step back. Out of confusion, she ignores the woman’s extended hand. But the woman doesn’t appear disconcerted. Her arm goes back to her side, gracefully and naturally, as if she meant to raise and then lower it all along in precisely that way.

  The woman is carrying nothing. No purse. Jane can admire that. A woman without a purse is a true revolutionary.

  Where can one get a good breakfast here, O Ammut? The man again. This time Jane looks directly in his face. It requires all her willpower. She remembers reading that it takes a hundred muscles to execute a smile, and understands she doesn’t have the power to control those muscles at this moment. So she stands straight, unsmiling.

  There’s the coffee shop down at the other end of Main Street. And the German bakery across the street has good coffee. Jane motions with her hand. She is still looking at the man. He is still looking at her, Jane.

  The woman, Alma, moves forward until she is shoulder to shoulder with the man. With any other woman, this would have seemed aggressive, proprietary. He is mine. Back off. But somehow that’s not the case here. Jane pulls back her gaze to include both the man and the woman. Edward and Alma. Margaret from Three Sisters is right. They are beautiful.

  Jane relents and tells them what no one tells strangers in Half Moon Bay. Go to Three Sisters, she says. That’s the best place in town. You’ve already been there, I understand. Keep going. No place else is worth it.

  The woman smiles. Like Edward, when she does, she has your full attention. Despite her dark hair and skin, her eyes are a strange blue-green, very intense. Sometimes flipping through a magazine, Jane gets stopped by the images of beauty served up by the advertising agencies. Fantasies, she knows; no one looks like that, really. But here she is looking at flesh-and-blood beauty. How can you resist? She notices that other people around are looking at the couple, equally struck as Jane.

  Yes, we’ve been there! she says. We loved it.

  Come with us, says the man, who is Edward, Jane now knows. You can help us out. Tell us more about the town.

  Alma nods. We’re new here. Just getting to know our way around.

  To her astonishment, Jane is tempted. They have broken through some barrier. They are offering something. They are the perfect match, her beauty, his . . . what? Empathy? No. Not that. Perhaps perception. As if he can see her soul, if she believed such a thing existed. He is not feeling her pain. No. But he sees it, recognizes it. And he has positive energy—for she sees that underneath the too-big clothes is a body pulsing to move, to get things done.

  No, she says hurriedly. It would be too much. Allowing these people into her life would not be wise. This she knows. Yet magic is in the air. Dangerous magic.

  Please, says the woman, Alma, and Jane almost relents. Then she shakes her head and breaks the spell.

  Another time, she says, not meaning it, anything to get out of the situation.

  Until later, then, says Edward.

  Let’s make it soon, says Alma.

  Jane makes a noise that could be interpreted as an assent, and escapes. But for how long? She is caught, and she knows it.

  * * *

  Rose’s funeral is even larger and more of a circus than Heidi’s. Now that the words serial killer have been used, every story-hungry reporter, employed or independent, is in town looking for something, anything, that has been overlooked and can be fed to an insatiable public. The local channel even has a Coastal Murder Countdown icon on the television screen that states how long the murders have gone unsolved. More than forty-five days by now since Heidi disappeared.

  The people in town don’t call them serial killings. That feels too impersonal. These are deep, personal losses. If one has to, one refers to them as the deaths.

  All families with daughters between three and thirteen years old are warned to keep them close, inside if possible, and to know where they are at all times. Doors and windows are to be locked at all times, especially at night, but also during the day. Dogs are left free to roam at night in the house or stationed near the door. Alarms are to be set.

  We are under siege, the mayor says. Behave accordingly.

  * * *

  Across the street from Three Sisters, a storefront left vacant since Millie’s Yarns closed six months previously is suddenly occupied. A hand-lettered sign, YOURBEACHES.ORG, is taped to the front windows. Inside, bustle. A notice for an administrative assistant, minimum wage but satisfying work goes into the Moon News, and economic times being what they are, a stream of young men and women are seen going in the door, dressed better than your average Half Moon Bay millennials.

  Jane is leaving Three Sisters with her morning coffee and heading toward her motorbike when she is accosted. That’s how she thinks of it. She doesn’t allow herself to think that she may have been lingering in the street, or may have deliberately crossed the street to walk past the YourBeaches front door, that she had tried to see inside past the blinds.

  O Ammut, woman of mystery, don’t pass me by again!

  It is Edward. He has stuck his head out the door of the YourBeaches office. This time he’s wearing jeans that fit more closely and a short-sleeved white T-shirt, appropriate for the day, which is surprisingly warm and sunny for late September.

  When are we having our lunch? Alma has been wondering, he says.

  Jane is not having a good day. She hasn’t showered. Her hair is pulled back in a stern ponytail. She had woken that morning in a rage and could barely restrain herself from driving across the bay to Oakland to track down her daughter’s killer, the restraining order notwithstanding.

  Edward takes his phone out of his pocket, taps some keys. He looks up. Today okay? It works for us. Jane can’t keep her eyes off his hair, so dark and full, with thick waves in it. James Dean hair. Any woman would kill for it.

  No, Jane says, but she doesn’t move. She is, she realizes, desperate to agree but is waiting to be convinced. She
wants to be wooed.

  Edward seems to know that he must proceed carefully. He comes closer to her. He leans in.

  Please come, he says. You’re on the short list of people we’d like to know better.

  I don’t see why, says Jane. She waits for his response, hoping for something that will flatter her, make her feel that she is truly wanted. But Edward does something audacious. He reaches around and pulls the end of her ponytail.

  We’re not asking you to marry us, he says, and Jane flushes as if that is exactly what he has been doing. Being near him makes her think of sex in a way she hasn’t since she was in her twenties. Images are teasing, exciting her.

  See you at the Sisters at 1:00 p.m., he says, and then puts his hand on her shoulder. Jane, the untouchable, has been touched for the second time by this mesmerizing near-stranger. Her skin burns under her shirt. She shrugs but the sensation remains. Edward doesn’t seem to notice.

  Catch you then, he says.

  * * *

  The word is that the FBI has let Fred Barnes go without arresting him. That they have no one else in their sights.

  Everyone is on edge. They know more is coming. Terrible things are coming. Parents of small girls buy dog leashes at the Feed and Grain, hook their children to them just to walk down Main Street. Strangers are everywhere, distinguished from the usual tourists by their laconic attitudes. They are waiting. They are ready. They are predators as much as the murderer. When he or she is caught, they will descend and destroy. In the meantime, they are bored. They interview and reinterview the same people. They learn about Margaret, at Three Sisters, and camp out there, drinking cup after cup of coffee and peppering her with questions. They wait. Everyone is waiting.

  * * *

  Jane is early for her lunch with Edward and Alma. She is always early. This is her curse. When invited to a party, she inevitably is forced to walk around the block twice or stop by a café for a cup of coffee so as to not show up embarrassingly early for the event. Once in Berkeley she’d gotten the time absurdly wrong. She came two hours early. The hostess, a woman she worked with at the arboretum, was still in her shorts and sports bra. Jane was given a glass of water and waited miserably in the living room, her offers of help refused. Now she checked invitations twice, three times, to make sure she understood the time right. And still she was early.

  She didn’t want to be seen alone at a table obviously waiting—even though she was frequently alone at tables in the Three Sisters. But this was different. She should have brought a book. She studied the time line on the back wall. The sisters had created a huge wall collage of their lives’ paths to the café, which encompassed high school, college, law school for Margaret, MFA programs in creative writing for the twins, and countless rejection letters for stories, poems, jobs, and, later, bank loans for when they opened the café. The Trail of Tears, the twins said. Everyone else had been invited to post their rejection letters—from prospective employers, colleges, former girlfriends, boyfriends, and other failed endeavors. The Bong Wall, it was called. Margaret explained to Jane that it was the sisters’ stand against the shame and silence that typically accompanies failure. It’s so depressing to always hear about people’s successes, she says. What we needed were some good failure stories.

  Jane longed to post her own failures up there. Bad mother. Doctoral program dropout. Failed wife. Stalker and harasser. Destroyer of property. She certainly had the documentation to show it. One day she would post it all.

  Edward and Alma finally arrive. Jane has chosen a table that is too small for the three of them, so when they sit down, Jane’s knees momentarily touch Alma’s. She pulls them back, hurriedly.

  We’ve done some googling. Edward is speaking in a low voice so no one but the three of them can hear. Not that anyone is paying any attention, everyone absorbed in their own business. We know, Edward says.

  Alma places her hand on Jane’s. Jane’s first instinct is to pull away. But she doesn’t. A sense of calm is somehow transmitted. A drug. Jane has a cache of Xanax and clonazepam large enough to make any college student jealous. But this is more powerful than any drug. Alma’s hand is firm and holds Jane’s tight.

  It’s okay, Edward says; his voice is low.

  Margaret comes for their salad selections and Alma orders a bottle of wine, red, for the table. I think we need this, she says.

  Why talk about needing? This is a celebration! says Edward. We’ve captured the elusive Ammut. Let’s see if she finds our hearts wanting or not. It’s said as a joke, but Jane is pricked awake by the words. Their hearts. Isn’t that what she wants to know about? What is in their hearts? What their intentions are? Jane is suspicious. What do they want from her?

  What’s happened to these girls must be traumatizing you, says Alma. Her dark eyes are sympathetic, her hand still firm as it covers Jane’s.

  Yes, says Jane cautiously. It has been deeply . . . unsettling.

  A loss of the kind you endured does not go away, says Alma. It’s a wound that won’t heal.

  Jane says nothing.

  You must experience a certain amount of . . . satisfaction . . . ? And then there’s the inevitable shame that accompanies this satisfaction. It’s complex. All on top of an open wound.

  There was a moment of silence, Edward turned his chair slightly away from Alma, as if giving her space to expand.

  Jane is stunned to be named so precisely.

  How do you know this? How could you possibly understand?

  Alma doesn’t answer at first. Then she says, It’s possible I’ve suffered similarly.

  The way she says it forbids questions. But that, plus the drug being transmitted through her hand, touches something deep inside Jane. She nods. She will wait to learn more.

  The wine comes. Jane drinks hers, too fast. Edward immediately pours her another glass. She has not looked at him directly since he arrived. She does so now. She finds his eyes on her. The dark features. The strong thick hair. Again she feels that pulse in her neck, her chest. What a beautiful, beautiful man. She drags her eyes away and drinks her wine. The effect of the wine combined with the touch of Alma’s hand makes Jane feel that she is not quite in the world. It’s not an unpleasant feeling.

  I have to get back to work, she finds herself saying.

  But we haven’t eaten yet. Look, here are our salads. Relax and eat.

  To Jane’s surprise she does. Everything has a fresh taste to it. She discovers she is hungry as well as a little tipsy.

  I won’t be able to drive back to work in this condition, she admits.

  I’ll give you a ride, says Alma. You can pick up your motorbike later. Now eat.

  Jane picks up her fork.

  Change of subject, says Edward, and his voice is brisk. Jane glances at him. The electricity has been turned off. Here is an efficient man, getting down to business. She feels herself relaxing.

  Tell me about Dunes Resort, he says.

  Jane pulls herself together and does.

  It’s being built in a special place, she says. You drive south of downtown Half Moon Bay for about a mile. You park at Bob’s Fruit Stand, on the east side of Route 1, or you risk getting towed. Bob—if there is a Bob, as the stand is manned by local farmworkers who don’t speak much English—doesn’t seem to mind. You cross Route 1 and walk about half a mile due east on a dirty path through the artichoke fields. It’s hard to find, but it’s there. You climb down the cliff. There are two ways down: a steep and a steeper. And you don’t go down at all unless you’re quite confident that you can make it back up. Most people come this far and then turn back. But for those who persist . . .

  You have to really want to go there, Jane finishes. But when you’re there—it doesn’t matter what the weather is. You’re on a long stretch of pure white sand, the cliffs shielding you from the sight of everyone except the occasional fishing boat. Nothing but you and the waves and the sand. But you have to be very careful not to stand under the cliffs. They’re eroding. Once I got cau
ght in a rock slide, had to run straight into the ocean. My back and legs got hammered pretty badly, needed stitches.

  And that’s where the Dunes Resort will be built, says Edward.

  Yes. Right at the top of the cliff. Replacing the artichoke fields. There was a lot of talk against it, but it went through, Jane says. They’re going to build concrete steps down to the beach for the guests, she adds. She is more bitter about this than she can express. Desecration of a sacred site. Secret Beach, another one of Jane’s places. This is where she scattered her daughter’s ashes.

  Edward reaches into his leather satchel and pulls out a card. He hands it to Jane.

  Edward Stanton

  Senior Advisor

  YourBeaches.org

  We’re organized, we’re funded, and we’re ready to go, he says.

  But it’s too late, Jane says, and hands back the card. You were needed last year. There were protests, but it didn’t do any good.

  It’s never too late, says Edward, and picks up his fork. This I can promise. Now eat.

  * * *

  That night, Jane dreams of Edward and Alma. It’s all right, Alma tells Jane in her dream. You can love him too. There’s enough for both of us.

  Jane wakes up, thinking not of Edward but of Alma. She-who-was-oh-so-lovely. She wasn’t a competitor. She wasn’t a sister—sisters were natural predators in Jane’s experience. She was a different kind of woman altogether.

  How beautiful Alma was! The skin, patterned into exquisite spider wrinkles emanating upward from the edges of her eyes. An eye smile, Angela used to call it. Give me an eye smile, she’d say if Jane had been cross with her for some transgression—chocolate on her shirt or evidence that she’d gotten into Jane’s things. Alma’s cheekbones that would retain their high-sculpted sharpness, growing more angular, more powerful, with age. And that dark hair, turned white! Never would Alma cut it, Jane was sure. She would wear it long and straight, a white mane that would flow over and past her shoulders, contrasting with her velvet dark skin. A muse for all ages.