“You did it!” Allie said after they had thanked their hosts profusely and let themselves back into the van in the dark.
The girl sounded inordinately excited, which seemed to argue painfully with Bea’s fullness and sleepiness.
“What did I do?”
“You told them something about yourself. Something real. And, like . . . personal.”
“How do you figure?”
Bea could remember only that she’d spied a perfect opportunity to admit her homelessness and firmly, consciously let it go by. Even though she was really no more homeless than they were. Just living on the road in considerably less luxury.
“You told them how awful it was for you to be in debt.”
“Oh. That. Yes, I guess I did, didn’t I?”
“I was so surprised! I thought you were going to sit back and watch me do it and see how it went for me.”
“Yes,” Bea said. “I guess I thought so, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
You’ll Be in Heaven, and There Will Be Jellyfish
Bea let a snort of air pass through her lips to vent her frustration.
They drove—if this inching along and stopping experience could be called driving in any proper sense of the word—through San Francisco, accidentally on the 101.
Allie had the map open in her lap. She’d said they’d have to go over the Golden Gate Bridge and several miles beyond before they’d get the chance to peel off onto Route 1 again and make their way west to the coast. She had promised Bea that after they did, their drive would turn remote again.
“This never ends,” Bea said.
“It ends,” Allie said, sounding more like the grown-up in the conversation.
“Well, it doesn’t feel like it does. As far as I can see, there’s nothing but these little short blocks. With a traffic light at every intersection. And the traffic keeps backing up and making us miss the lights. We haven’t hit one green light since we came into the city. It’s taken us longer to get this far down this route—except it’s actually more of a city street—than it did to get up here from Santa Cruz.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Bea. It ends. I’m looking at the map. I wish you were looking at it. After we get over the bridge and get back on Route 1, there’s nothing. For miles and miles the coast is national recreation areas and state parks and national seashores. There’s not much up there.”
“Damn!” Bea spat as she missed another stoplight. Then, turning her attention to Allie, “That sounds good. Let me see that, please. It’ll sustain me through this.”
Allie handed her the map, and Bea pulled her reading glasses out of her shirt pocket and put them on. At first she couldn’t even pin down where on the map she should be looking. Allie pointed, and Bea felt deeply soothed by the green shading of undeveloped coast just north of the city. Preserved land.
The feeling was forced out of her by a rudely honking horn. The light had changed.
Bea handed the map back and stomped on the gas pedal.
“I’ve begun to hate everything man-made,” Bea said as she inched along.
“The van is man-made.”
“I mean placewise. I like places where you can’t even see that people have been there. I think that’s a new thing about me. I always lived where there were freeways and stoplights and buildings. But I don’t think I want to anymore.”
The girl didn’t answer.
“What about you?” Bea asked.
“I like going where there’s nothing but cliffs over the ocean. But I think maybe when we’re done seeing all that I could go back and live in a city again.”
“It might be an age thing. I think we get to a certain age where enough of people and their ugly trappings is enough.”
“What town is this?” Bea asked.
In the absence of knowing, Bea knew she liked it. Because it was small and quaint. Unobjectionable. And not a stoplight in the place.
“I don’t know,” Allie said. “I missed the sign.”
“But you’re the navigator. You have the map.”
“Oh. Right.”
The girl peered at the map for a moment or two.
“Might be Tomales.”
“Well, I like it. Wherever it is. And I’m going to pull over and stop. Because I’m tired.” Bea parked the van in one of the perpendicular spaces in front of a bakery café. “Think anyone will care if we’re here all night?”
“No idea.”
Bea turned off the engine. They sat listening to the metal tick as it cooled.
“Only trouble,” Allie said, “is that if we only drive four or five or six hours a day, then here we are parked in a place and it’s only afternoon. So what do we do?”
“I have no idea. I just know I’m not good for any more driving today. It’s such hard driving. It was so twisty, especially that section just above the city. It makes my back and neck and shoulders ache.”
“I wasn’t blaming you for stopping. I’m just not sure what to do.”
“That seems to be the worst part of this whole living-in-my-van experience. These long stretches of time to fill.” A long silence. Neither one made a move to take off their seat belts or move out of the cab of the van. “It was worse before you came along, though.”
Bea thought the girl might have a response to that, but apparently not.
“What I wonder now,” Bea said, “looking back, is what I did all day in the trailer. I didn’t have a job. Or much in the way of hobbies, come to think. I guess I read and watched TV. And the day went by. Probably if you’d asked me where it went I wouldn’t have known what to say. Now I look back and all I can wonder is . . .”
But then she wasn’t the least bit sure she wanted to finish the thought.
She looked over at Allie, who was clearly waiting.
“I guess I wonder why I didn’t try to do more,” Bea said, essentially the same way you pet a bat ray. “I had all these hours that added up to all these days, and I look back and it seems my goal was mostly to make them go away. But that’s not a proper life. That’s not really living. Why didn’t I take up oil painting, or learn to play the flute or something?”
Allie waited, as if to see if Bea wanted to say more.
When she didn’t, Allie said, “No idea. But we’re living now.”
“How very true,” Bea said.
“I’m bored,” Allie said, sitting up suddenly on her inflated bed. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“A walk?”
“Yeah. A walk. You know. It’s one of those things people do when they’re living.”
“I’m an older woman, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“So? Older people walk.”
“This older person doesn’t.”
“Fine. Sit here in your recliner and read. I’m going out into the air.”
The girl began to put her shoes back on. It made Bea feel restless. Truthfully, she wanted a change of scene, too. The inside of the van grew tiresome quickly these days.