Half Moon Bay

by Alice LaPlante

  How can Jane describe her attachment to the native flora of California? The state flower of Oklahoma is mistletoe (Phoradendron serotinum), the oldest of Oklahoma’s symbols. The dark green leaves and white berries show up brightly during the fall and winter in trees that have shed their own leaves.

  Jane doesn’t like mistletoe. She doesn’t like the prickly leaves, the waxy berries, the tradition. For it was always used cruelly in Jane’s house. Mistletoe held above a special-needs boy who had a crush on her, so Jane was forced to endure a sloppy kiss. Worse, mistletoe held above the head of the boy she really liked, being forced to watch what he felt while kissing her. Why make mistletoe the state flower? Oklahoma had a bitter but beautiful weed, broomweed, and black-eyed Susans enough to carpet the world. Yet mistletoe it is.

  Oklahoma to Jane was flat, surrounded by nothingness, broken by spindly trees, the weak springs that slurred into the stifling summers. In California, Jane could look into the distance and see things: land eruptions and abruptions, the sea in its scale and majesty.

  Jane had never witnessed majestic, small or large, in her childhood, certainly nothing like what she experiences tonight watching the soap plants bloom with Edward.

  Then they go back to her house, shed their clothing, and make love again until dawn.

  * * *

  How Jane longs for Edward once he is gone! She sits naked on the kitchen floor, stunned with what has transpired. The cold of the linoleum shocks her bare thighs but not enough. No shock could mitigate what has just happened. She lets only a little piece into her mind at a time, lest she be overwhelmed. His hand stroking her thigh. Her arms roped to his chest. Hurried breathing. Jane doesn’t let herself think of how she stroked his face and lips. The betrayal was in that. All else could be blamed on lust. But the kissing committed the ultimate treachery. They didn’t speak throughout. How could they?

  Jane now gets up to prepare something to eat. She realizes she hasn’t eaten all day. She shells peas, noting this time how she automatically counts out ten pods, releasing the green globules from each one into a bowl. And then pausing before gathering the next handful of ten pods. She realizes what she lost when Rick left. How the act of love is so addictive that we crave touch to the point of desperation. It’s a human need. She had needed to feel human again. That’s what Rick’s betrayal and Angela’s death had taken from her, and that’s what she lost until Edward gave it back.

  * * *

  The next morning begins a day of accounting and self-loathing. She calls a cab and takes it to the pumpkin field where she left her motorbike. At first it won’t start. Then, with a cloud of smoke, it fires. It buckles and snorts as she rides it to Smithson’s. Dogs bark, cats screech, plants wither, the sun darkens as she passes. By the time she gets to the nursery, fatigued and bleary-eyed, customers are already lining up in her native-plants room seeking guidance on what to purchase. What to kill, Jane thinks, hatefully. Adam is trying to fake it, but he is telling one couple that yes, they could plant Fremontodendron under their pine trees. Helen does not look pleased.

  Jane makes herself a cup of Adam’s foul tea and drinks it down, fast. She spends the next hour explaining to various loathsome people why flowers that require partial shade will not flourish in their sunny front yard and that bushes that need sun will not blossom when overshadowed half the day by a large eucalyptus tree. She scorns every asker of every question and hates her own need to ridicule. Let me forget with generosity those who cannot love me, Pablo Neruda’s poem, her closest thing to a serenity prayer, but it isn’t working today.

  What is Jane’s problem? Simple. She desires something that isn’t hers: Edward. She does not want to compete with Alma. She’d had enough of that with her sisters. Now she shrinks from competition with other women as if from poison. It is toxic to her system.

  She makes and drinks another cup of tea and busies herself in her work. The soft soil is warm as she presses the shoots into their new pots.

  Hey, what’s up? Adam, of course.

  Jane straightens up and brushes her hands on her pants. She manages a weak smile.

  Nothing.

  Ah, man, come on. You can tell me. Adam perches on a trestle near the table where Jane has put her now-cold tea. He flashes his engaging smile.

  And, surprisingly, Jane finds she can. Not the details, of course. But the broader outlines.

  I have this thing going, she tells him.

  Thing?

  You know. With a guy.

  Adam’s expression doesn’t noticeably change. Yet something has.

  Serious? he asks. Jane gets the impression her answer is important.

  It depends on what you mean by serious, she says. She is careful to pat the damp earth around the delicate green wisps just right.

  Does it have a good prognosis?

  Jane considers. Prognosis means future. A future? No. There is no way to think of this except in the present. It is what it is. There’s no looking forward. There’s no looking back.

  No, she says. There is no prognosis.

  Adam looks a little puzzled, but with a slightly brighter look, he continues.

  I haven’t heard of a problem yet.

  Yes. Well. This person . . . is not exactly unattached.

  Adam nods. It happens, man. It happens.

  And I feel . . . Jane pauses.

  Guilty? Adam supplies.

  No. Of this Jane is certain. So what is it?

  It excites me, she says. And I’m ashamed of that.

  The thrill of the chase.

  No, Jane says again. She shakes her head. Taking something away from another woman. I want to do it. Like I said, it excites me. Yet it’s like pulling out my own heart. And eating it.

  Adam has to think about this. I’m no shrink, he begins.

  But you’re going to give me some advice anyway, Jane says, and smiles for the first time this morning. The thought of Adam in a chair, in an enclosed space, sitting for hours listening to people parade out their paltry woes. Now that was funny.

  Yeah. I am. He’s silent for a moment.

  I was in this relationship. She was an amazing person. I mean that. Yet it turned out that she was only in it because her best friend was sweet on me. We all got high one night, and it came out. And at first I was appalled. Because, you know, what kind of person would deliberately hurt someone they said they loved? Then I saw it differently. Maybe it was the weed. But I saw that my girlfriend was really to be pitied. She wasn’t trying to take something away from her friend; she was trying to be her friend. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then she was flattering her friend to the skies. I think she longed to feel something herself, like what her friend was feeling. Liking someone else. Adam blushed a little. Loving someone. So she faked it with me, hoping it would become real. But her real issue was with her friend.

  Jane has busied herself in her work while he talks. She finds she doesn’t want to think about what he has said.

  I don’t think that’s the case here, Jane says. She stands up. Silly her. To think Adam would have answers. She thinks of Edward’s head on her pillow, the crook of his arm. She had bent over and kissed it in the early morning, before he woke up. An object of beauty, that arm.

  Do you know the other person involved?

  Yes, Jane says. She is impatient for this conversation to be over. She does not want to discuss Alma. There is nothing to discuss. She doesn’t want to be Alma, adulteress, abandoner of children. No matter how beautiful or accomplished, nothing will change those facts.

  Jane. Jane had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t noticed that Adam had moved, was now standing right beside her.

  I just want to say, whatever you need, I’m here.

  His look is not vapid. It is not trivial. Jane cannot scorn this away, no matter the clichéd words. Adam is a real human being, offering her a lifeline.

  Jane feels like crying. Ever present, Angela’s ghost hovers at the periphery. See what happens
when you forget, Jane thinks. See what happens when you try to snatch some happiness for yourself. You can’t even do that without bringing pain to someone else.

  * * *

  Days pass. When Jane’s doorbell rings at night, it is Edward. Jane takes his jacket, pours him a glass of wine. He winces when he sips—Jane doesn’t have the funds for the more expensive labels to which he is apparently accustomed—and stretches out his legs. He has been busy. The Pumpkin Festival was as good for him as everyone else, attracting people into his storefront. He plied hot, thirsty visitors with free bottles of water and foisted on them materials about coastal protection. He has signed up dozens of volunteers, taken in thousands in donations.

  So, Jane says one night.

  So, he repeats, and smiles. His legs nearly touch the other wall, so small is Jane’s living room. He looks around.

  How you can live in such a tiny place is beyond me.

  It’s like living on board a ship, Jane says. Everything has a place. The owners had ingeniously fitted up cabinets and closets everywhere for stowing things, and it was in fact like being in a cabin on a luxury cruise. Jane had to be careful, though, or her stuff easily got out of hand.

  Everything has its place, Edward agrees. He seems disposed to linger, to talk. The physical urgency is not there tonight, or rather, it’s being held at bay, not unpleasantly. It’s nice, Jane thinks. It makes the affair seem less seedy. Although she doesn’t allow herself to linger on the words affair or seedy. That’s not what this is. This is a self-rescue mission. To keep going down and down until the wreckage has been retrieved and can be reconstructed on safe land. Jane is salvage. She turns on the Bach cello suites. Yo-Yo Ma. Bach is as late as she goes in musical time, is as complex and dissonant as she can stand.

  Where’s Alma tonight?

  Over the hill. A seminar by a guest lecturer. Someone she admires, although I couldn’t tell you his name. And then a reception.

  I hope she’s careful coming back over the hill. It can be treacherous, especially on weekends when people have been drinking. Just last weekend, a Half Moon Bay kid—a teenager—was killed after going to a party in Belmont and racing home to make curfew. The couple in the other car, tourists, seriously injured, were helicoptered to Stanford. It seems odd, expressing concern for someone who, technically, is Jane’s rival. But Jane somehow doesn’t see it that way.

  Alma is extremely careful, says Edward. He is not inclined to join Jane in expressing any concern for Alma. Jane takes pleasure in that. He is somehow hers tonight more than other nights, as if Alma is not on the other side of the hill but on the other side of the moon.

  I have something for you, Edward says. He pulls a wrapped package out of his pants pocket and tosses, rather than gives, it to Jane. Casual.

  Jane opens it and sees it is the bracelet of Alma’s that she had admired more than once—green and blue stones set in ceramic patterns that appear vaguely Arabian.

  You can’t give me this.

  Sure I can.

  Does Alma know?

  It was her idea.

  Who is this from, really, then? Is it from you? Or Alma?

  Why not say it’s from both of us? Would that satisfy you? He doesn’t seem perturbed by Jane’s response, although he could hardly have expected a different one. As he talks, he is fastening the bracelet on Jane’s left arm. It is gorgeous. As she brings it up to her eyes to examine it more closely, she sees that small clear stones are also embedded in it, creating the overall sparkling effect.

  What are these stones, these transparent ones? Jane asks. Are they glass?

  Diamonds, he says. And the green ones are emeralds. At Jane’s look, Edward laughs. Yes, it was expensive, but that’s not the point. The point is that you admired it, and you’re a very difficult person to buy for. So happy birthday.

  Jane is speechless.

  How did you know?

  That was easy—I looked at your driver’s license. I took your wallet from your saddlebag when you were in the kitchen last week, he says. I had to know. Happy fortieth, Jane.

  For some reason, Jane is made incredibly happy by this. Her phone has been ringing all day, but she has not answered a single call.

  I can’t accept this, she says. It’s too much. Besides, it’s one of Alma’s favorite pieces. She told me so herself.

  All the more reason she would want you to have it, Edward says.

  Would want? You mean she doesn’t know? Jane asks. Edward doesn’t answer. He simply laughs. Relax, he says. Enjoy it. Enjoy your birthday. Which leaves them looking at each other.

  Then Edward gets up, holds out his hand, and leads Jane into the bedroom just as her phone begins to ring again.

  * * *

  Jane is riding in the silver Mercedes with Edward. It is 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, so few cars are on Route 1. They are overheated. They are excited. Tremendously excited. Or—it occurs to Jane—perhaps she should speak only for herself. She is certainly all those things. Edward never shows much. Yet how could Jane tell where he started and she ended? She is in love.

  So they’re roaring down Route 1. Alma is teaching her night class at Stanford. She won’t be back until 11:00 p.m. at the earliest. So they do the time-honored thing of illicit lovers: they sneak out. Because people would talk if they saw them together without Alma after the very public scene in the pumpkin field. Jane is trying to be more circumspect. They drive to Pomponio Beach. It is technically closed, but they park in the lot anyway, behind a dumpster. From Route 1 nothing of the car can be seen. Edward is careful about that.

  So there are some rules, Jane thinks.

  Edward and Jane have sex under cover of the cliffs. Or make love. Or they do it. Whatever euphemism serves best. Jane is beyond caring about words. She has brought blankets, one to place on the sand and one to provide cover on top. Although in the end they throw off that top blanket to let the cool sea wind massage their bodies. The waves gleam as they break on the sand. Except for the muffled crash of the surf and the occasional motorist going north or south on Route 1, it is blessedly silent.

  On the way back, Edward kills something. An animal. An entity, Jane thinks. Not large, but not small either. Edward swerves but doesn’t brake. Jane turns around to look at the black lump in the dark road.

  Consider it a sacrifice to the gods, Edward says.

  Why do they need a sacrifice?

  To atone for our transgressions.

  I didn’t realize that’s what we were doing.

  Edward reaches out and strokes Jane’s hair—always the hair!—and says, But of course we are. Why do you think it’s so good?

  Jane cannot speak for a moment. Black Heart. She rolls down the window to feel the sea air on her face, breathe in deeply.

  Of course there’s a way to find out, he says.

  Find out what?

  If it’s a transgression or something else that makes this so exciting. You seem to think it’s something else, that the clandestine nature isn’t the stimulating factor.

  The fact that it has to be kept secret has nothing to do with how I feel.

  Edward doesn’t speak for a few moments. Then he says, in the most reasonable and grown-up of voices: There’s certainly a way to test out that theory. His tone is cool, almost scientific.

  Jane’s elation is dissipating so fast that she is dizzy. What is happening?

  What’s that? Jane is afraid to know.

  We can tell Alma.

  Tell Alma? Jane can’t control her voice, it comes out in a shriek.

  Yes.

  Tell her what?

  That we’ve been sleeping together. Jane notes his euphemism of choice. It’s the most benign one of all. As if they had been cuddling in flannel pajamas. We can see if she minds. Edward is not avoiding looking at Jane. The opposite, in fact. But there is an appraisal in his glance, as if he’s not looking at a human but a thing. Jane sees desire in his eyes. No, she sees something else. He wants her, she can tell. But what does that mean?
r />   Any rational response Jane could have had dries up.

  If she minds, she says.

  Yes.

  You bastard, she says, but to her astonishment a flicker of . . . what? Is it hope? Ignites within her. She realizes she can’t see the end of this. She realizes she is only at the beginning. She sees she is caught. The physicality of her desire for Edward stuns Jane. His face is perfect, as are his neck, his shoulders, his abdomen, his thighs, his feet. She would kiss those feet and everything else. She adores.

  Why would you do that? Jane manages to say.

  As a sort of probing of limits. Alma and I do have an . . . understanding.

  You mean this has happened before? Jane holds her breath.

  No. But we discussed the possibility of it happening—to her or to me. We decided it would be all right. Not that we would have to confess or provide details.

  She knows, I’m sure. It’s really a question. But Edward remains silent. Jane tries again.

  You’ve discussed me.

  Of course we have. But not in that context. As a dear person who is becoming a friend.

  Cold words. They chill Jane. On the one hand. But on the other, she doesn’t care. She is ready to run this affair into the ground, and if the results are ugly or messy, so be it.

  * * *

  That night, alone in her house, Jane has one of what she calls her “heart attacks,” a deep pain in her chest, a pounding of her heart that endures for three to four long minutes. She lies on her couch, waiting for it to pass. She tries not to panic. She had a series of these episodes after Angela’s death, and at first had thought they were real heart attacks. Her doctor told her no, but also cautioned her about taking care of herself when she had one.

  A lot of people, after an emotionally stressful episode, are left with heart pain or palpitations, the doctor had said. It even has a name: broken heart syndrome. And it’s real, and can be dangerous. The heart muscle suddenly becomes weakened and one of the heart’s chambers changes shape. It’s been suggested that it might actually be a mechanism for protecting the heart from the surge of adrenaline that often accompanies shock and grief.

  Shock or grief. That is what she’s feeling tonight. After the tenderness on the dunes, the shock of a proposed betrayal. Or was she the betrayed or the betrayer? Jane is confused. She lies on the sofa and holds on to her chest.