Half Moon Bay

by Alice LaPlante

  Something shifts between them. Something that can’t be undone. Trust? Had she trusted him? She had, and she hadn’t realized it.

  She turns and leaves without a word. Two things had been taken from her, one she hadn’t known she’d valued. And that was something she could never get back, unlike her trowel. Something lovely has been smashed.

  * * *

  The Pumpkin Festival opens. Jane wakes up early on Saturday, is at work by 6:00 a.m. By 8:00 a.m.—they opened early for the three days—Smithson’s is swamped. At noon she is given a short break and takes a quick ride on her motorbike into town. She is curious.

  Goats! Lambs! Rabbits! Elephants! Yes, elephants. Kids are being taken for rides on them. Straw and elephant dung cover Main Street. The wine stands are doing a brisk business, and soon plastic cups will be strewn everywhere.

  The police are out in force. Walking around with their guns in full view, carefully examining the crowds, singling out the older men, the solitary males, especially the ones dressed on the shabby side.

  This is Jane’s first Pumpkin Festival. These sorts of festivities were becoming the norm in Northern California, each town claiming a vegetable or fruit to build a revenue-generating carnival out of. Garlic Festival. Artichoke Festival. But the Pumpkin Festival has been going on for nearly a hundred years, when the farmers would gather together, pool their resources, and attract people to Half Moon Bay to witness the contest for the largest pumpkin grown that year. The spectacle of a giant pumpkin—larger than the average horse and buggy—was enough to justify the half-day’s journey over the hill at that time.

  Wine is drunk. Pumpkins are picked up, examined, either rejected and put back on the ground or placed in a red wagon. The pumpkins can be quite large—forty-pounders, some of them; they can’t be easily moved, need two men to hoist them into the wagons. Artichoke soup is consumed by the gallon. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream, even pumpkin perfume are all available. Most of the decorations are for Halloween, but some are for Thanksgiving. Some of the stores even have Christmas lights. Lines are out the door of all the restaurants. Farmers cut paths through their cornfields to create mazes for people to get lost in, charging five dollars to enter. The weather cooperates: it is warm, no wind, clear skies, the ocean as blue as Jane has ever seen it.

  The winner of the pumpkin contest is an organic farmer from Bonny Doon. An orange monstrosity that weighs more than twelve hundred pounds. Bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle, it sits in the middle of Main Street on a pile of straw. People gawk.

  Except for that brief half-hour on the first day, Jane is needed in the greenhouse every opening minute of the three-day festival. She advises couples from Palo Alto and Menlo Park that, no, the seaside daisies (Erigeron glaucus) that bloom so profusely in Carmel and Monterey will not thrive in the sunnier and drier midpeninsula. She tells people from San Francisco to forget the Celosia spicata, that they need dry soil and full sun. The nursery staff doesn’t even have a chance to eat lunch, they are so busy. Helen orders pizzas and leaves them in the break room for the staff to grab slices when they can. Adam has brought a bag lunch: dolphin-free tuna with sprouts on brown bread, but Jane gladly devours three pieces of pepperoni pizza.

  To everyone’s surprise, the Pumpkin Festival is a success. Cars are parked illegally all over the place, backed up Route 84 to the top of the hill by the cemetery. All the stores are doing a smashing business, Smithson’s Nursery included. The parking lot overflows into a neighboring field. People are buying alstromerias, phloxes. Anything with fall colors—reds, oranges, bronzes—is being snapped up. Leashes sell out at the Feed and Grain, and little girls being held by them are spotted all over town.

  As it turns out, at least part of the success is due to the tragedies of the dead girls. The visitors are insatiable for news. What about those two girls? they ask, after pretending interest in a bush or flowering shrub. Or: Who do you think did it?

  Girls up to ten years old are on leashes or are being held firmly by the hand. Boys are allowed to run wild.

  Jane watches one rebellious girl—a redhead, like Jane, who was probably five years old—repeatedly slip her leash. Why? Why? Why? the girl keeps yelling. Why not him? pointing to her younger brother who is running free. Jane is curious to see what the parents will say, so she leans close.

  Because I love you better than him, she hears the mother say, pulling the little girl close, and whispering. Because you are my heart.

  * * *

  At the close of the Pumpkin Festival, everyone from town gathers at the VFW Hall on the south side of town to celebrate. Let the festivities begin!

  Jane hates parties. She has not been in a room with this many people since Angela’s memorial service at St. Mary Magdalene’s in Berkeley last September. Rick’s choice, even though neither had attended Mass for decades and certainly hadn’t brought Angela up in the church. A mockery. The empty words of the priest, who hadn’t known Angela from any other teenager on the street. We shall miss our sister in Christ. The saccharine pop-like songs the organist chose with lyrics that could easily be crooned in a nightclub:

  You are my desire

  No one else will do

  What’s wrong with Bach? Purcell? Jane bows her head so others can’t read her face, so they’ll think she is praying with the rest of them. They can’t guess her thoughts. How could they? She isn’t sure of them herself. She is in a daze. She has been going through the motions. There is no viewing, no casket. Angela has been cremated. Rick was against it, but Jane was firm. Her daughter’s mangled body would be purified by the flames. That’s how Jane wants her to leave life, not buried in the earth and eaten by worms. Ashes to ashes.

  Tonight at the Pumpkin Festival party, the room is hot and pulsing with some ethno-rock music, very loud. People are talking loud, almost screaming, to be heard over it. People are dancing or, because of the crush, simply moving their bodies or swaying to the music. People are almost certainly tipsy, or drunk, even. Someone spills red wine on Jane’s shirt. Someone else steps on her toes. This is purgatory. No, it’s hell. No redemption possible in a place like this, no matter how much suffering one endures.

  What’ll you have? asks Adam, who is buzzing around Jane as if she’s his prom date. Somewhere, back in a Berkeley storage unit, is Jane’s vintage prom dress from the nineties, which she had been saving for Angela. Who was she kidding? Even if she had made it to senior year, Angela wouldn’t have worn it. It would have been too traditional for her. She would have gone in a tuxedo or bathing suit or otherwise flouted convention. That was Angela.

  Just soda water, please. Even half a glass of chardonnay would put her under. Adam nods and slips easily through the bodies. Jane starts calculating whom she has to talk to, and how long she has to stay, to keep Helen happy, which is important to her. She bumps into Janet Holcomb, the mayor, and shakes her hand.

  A success, Jane says, and manages to conjure up a smile. Against all odds.

  Who would have thought? Our most successful ever. Almost a third more visitors than last year. Some shops sold out of merchandise. I heard that Brinson’s took in more than $30,000 with their corn maze alone. Then, lowering her voice, Maybe we’re past it. You know. Maybe he has moved on.

  Yes, but the police certainly haven’t, Jane says, nodding toward the bar. A group of uniformed policemen and sheriff’s deputies are crowded around it. They seem to be off duty, downing beers and laughing. Jane feels a stab of anger. How dare they?

  Jane sees that Adam has gotten snagged by Julie, the owner of the New Age shop on Clifford that sells crystals and fairies and dream catchers. Julie’s color is high and she is holding on to Adam’s elbow while she chatters on. His face doesn’t portray anything but his usual good nature as he smiles down at the young woman, who is patently drunk and a known bore with her dream interpretations and astrology predictions. Jane is surprised to see such patient restraint. Perhaps it’s not empty-headedness after all that makes Adam Adam but genuine kindn
ess. He gently detaches himself and, after negotiating his way through the crowd, reaches Jane with her drink. She gets only one sip before it’s knocked out of her hand, soaking her jeans. Adam looks stricken.

  Hold on, he says, and turns and starts pushing his way back to the bar.

  She deliberates whether she’s going to wait for him to come back. The crush is suffocating. The heat is causing Jane to sweat; she can feel the water trickling down the back of her neck. Her jeans are damp, and so is her shirt. As is usual on a working day, she’s pulled her hair back in a bun, but she can feel strands escaping, sticking damply to her forehead and neck and down her collar. This is truly intolerable. Jane makes up her mind. She heads for the door.

  Jane realizes she is searching for Edward as she maneuvers through the crowd. She hadn’t been alone with him since the evening at the yacht club, although she’d seen him about town, absorbed in YourBeaches business. She’d assumed he’d come to the party, with or without Alma, since he had thrown himself into the festivities with such fervor. He’d even volunteered to take charge of the raffle for the romantic weekend at the Shorebird Inn. Although she notices that it certainly served his purpose, as he had a stack of YourBeaches.org brochures in his bag, and was cajoling people to write down their names and email addresses as he sold them raffle tickets.

  Jane is disinclined to think about the episode at the yacht club. She puts it out of her mind, frequently.

  Jane finds herself stymied ten feet from the door. Too many people coming in, it’s impossible to push against them. The room is getting hotter as even more people crowd into the space. But the mood is jovial. The town seems to have shaken off its grim mood. A voice at her ear startles her.

  They forget quickly, don’t they? Edward, wearing a black shirt and jeans and holding a beer.

  Although Jane agrees, she decides she doesn’t want to align herself with him too easily. She worries where that might lead.

  The two girls were from over-the-hill families, not locals, she says. It’d be a different matter if they were truly our girls.

  Our girls? So you consider yourself a full-fledged member of the community now? He is smiling that smile that is so difficult to resist, so warm and full of concern. Jane had looked up the definition of the word compassion after her last encounter with Edward: a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. Is she really so obviously stricken by misfortune?

  Edward is standing uncomfortably close, but then everyone is uncomfortably close. Jane can feel his breath on her forehead, is aware of his hands at the ends of his arms, which are attached to his shoulders. Jane has always had a thing about men’s shoulders. His dark eyes unfathomable. That smile. Other women are looking, noticing. It’s that kind of town.

  Where’s Alma?

  He doesn’t back off.

  Faculty meeting. She can’t get out of them even though she’s only adjunct.

  Adam finally finds her, holding up a roll of paper towels to indicate his successful foraging. He hands it to her from the rear, over her shoulder, as he can’t get any closer, with Edward dominating. She is virtually sandwiched between the two men. The crowd presses them even closer together. Edward doesn’t seem to be fighting it. He puts his left hand, the one not holding the beer, on Jane’s right shoulder, as if to steady himself against the crowd. Adam, however, is managing to keep three inches of air between himself and Jane. Again, Jane thinks, He is kind.

  Jane is not comfortable with this. She finds her anxiety level rising, the same kind of anxiety that she used to feel about Angela. What is happening? What is expected of her?

  Edward leans even closer. His grip on Jane’s shoulder tightens. His lips against her ear, he breathes, I’ve been thinking about you.

  Jane can feel the flush start in her chest and move up through her neck and face. She knows her cheeks are almost as red as her hair. But a wild excitement has also taken hold, replacing the anxiety and making her feel reckless. She is not thinking about what others think. For once, she is not thinking of Angela. She looks up, forces herself to look directly in Edward’s eyes. The pulsing music is making her head ache. She sees only the same understanding and acceptance that she’s always seen, which belies the kind of restless energy that permeates the rest of his body.

  Let’s get out of here.

  She’s sure that’s what he says. But the crush is suffocating. The heat is causing her armpits to sweat; she can feel the water trickling down her face. She has forgotten about Adam, she has forgotten about anything except this sense of fierce angry longing. Why anger? Why not? she thinks.

  Then a voice from behind her.

  Are you cool to leave, Jane? I think we’ve put in our appearance. No one will notice if we scram. Adam. It’s like a splash of cold water. Edward lifts his hand from her shoulder as she twists around to face Adam. His face is as inscrutably good-natured, even goofy, as ever, but something in the set of his jaw makes Jane take him very seriously at this moment. You seem a little on edge, Adam continues. Let me push a path out of here for you.

  Jane doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She decides to cry. Or rather, it is decided for her. She puts her hands on Adam’s shoulders as he pushes through the crowd, making a way for her to escape out the door as the tears stream down her face.

  * * *

  Then suddenly it’s all over. Business at the nursery falls off a cliff on the Monday after the Pumpkin Festival ends. The beginning of the nursery’s fallow period, until after Christmas. Schedules become more normalized. Restless, Jane earns extra money by working for Tucci’s to clean up after the excesses of the Pumpkin Festival. They have one of the largest pumpkin crops in the area. Everyone takes the Pumpkin Festival seriously because it’s serious money. But Tucci’s brings in large blow-up bouncing castles and ponies for rides and a cider-and-hot-dog stand. Rather than simply picking the pumpkins and leaving them in a great pile the way the other farms did, Tucci’s harvests the pumpkins, mows the field, and replaces the pumpkins in the field, as if they were still growing there. Now the remains have to be gathered up and sent in trucks to the Central Valley, where they will be distributed to the local stores to sell for Halloween.

  It is near the end of a long day. Jane helps pick up the remains of the ten- and twelve-pound pumpkins, placing them in the truck that moves slowly down the field. It is like a scene from a Flemish painting—harvesters in the waning sunlight, the orange and brown colors warmed by the setting sun.

  Jane sees Edward before he sees her. He’s parked the silver Mercedes at the top of the drive and walked into the field, carefully scanning all the pumpkin pickers. Then he sees her, and something changes in his face, although Jane couldn’t have said what. Something changes in her too, she sees from his expression. Satisfaction. It all seems foretold. Like it already happened centuries ago—the rich orange against the brown fields, the deep blue sky, and the bright colors of the harvesters’ clothes, even the truck idling in the field seems inevitable. Painted and hanging in a museum. Jane finds herself blushing. She bends over to wrestle another giant pumpkin and hoist it into the truck. Her hands are dirty; she wipes them on her jeans and stands there awkwardly as Edward approaches. She foolishly holds out her right hand. He’s also wearing jeans and the inevitable T-shirt. By the time he reaches his hand out to touch hers, it’s a done deal.

  Jane.

  Edward.

  They simply look at each other for a moment. Then, Hard work, he says, pointing to the pile of pumpkins in the truck.

  I would have thought red and orange would clash, but in fact it’s lovely, he says, pointing to Jane’s hair, which is tightly braided into a bun at the back of her neck. But you should wear it loose, he says.

  In this weather? I’d die of heat.

  Then let’s go someplace cool, he says. They both know what he’s saying.

  I’m working, Jane says.

  Doing penance.r />
  Of course he’s right. Jane has been counting the pumpkins, picking them up in sets of ten and stopping after each set to pause and drink in the scene. The colors, the mild breeze, the softening light—all rewards for her hard work.

  On impulse, Jane tells Edward that.

  A pumpkin rosary, he says, and takes Jane’s dirty hand in his again, this time to lead her out of the field and into the silver Mercedes parked off the side of 92. Jane doesn’t care who sees, who knows. She leaves her motorbike parked in the field next to the outhouses. It’ll still be there when she returns.

  There is a sweetness to making love to a man who belongs to another. Taking a bite of someone else’s food while they’re not looking, finding it delicious. For delicious it is. Jane is still under the spell of the pumpkins and dazzled again by the colors, now muted in the shadows of her darkened bedroom. Shades of brown so slightly differentiated, brown of hair, of eyes, tawny shoulders, the black chest hair, always hidden from Jane before and therefore much more dear. Everything precious, a gift. And what has Jane to offer? Her visibly altered mental state. It must be gratifying, she thinks, to have this effect on someone else.

  Afterward, at dusk, they walk down to Mavericks Beach. Jane points out the soap plants, half of them already in bloom. The leaves of the soap plant don’t get far above the ground, so when the plant begins to produce its six-foot stalk, it is a dramatic announcement of things to come. When the flowers appear, they are worth the wait.

  The show begins at the time when dusk disappears into night. The flower buds are elongated striped ovals like small beans. From a distance, they look like feathers in the soft evening light. Up close, the curve of the petals, the shape of the flower parts, and the color of the stamens are sinuous, alluring. There’s no point picking them. The flowers fade by morning.

  Edward and Jane stand and watch as a flower opens up in front of their eyes. It takes four minutes. Jane thinks this memory will give her pleasure for years to come.