“And you aren’t that kind of woman.”
“You’re right. I’m even worse.”
“Oh, Margot.”
“I’m going home.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’ve arranged a little something. In your honor.”
“Right now?”
“No. Tonight. Just after closing.”
“What is it?”
“The Mola release.”
She stares at him. He shrugs and smiles.
“You told us to surprise you.”
To pass the time until closing, she indulges in an old habit. She explores the town on foot.
First, she drives her truck to the head of the bike trail, to a little parking lot within spitting distance of the Naval Postgraduate School, the former site of the Hotel Del Monte. She gets out of the truck and inhales. There are eucalyptus trees here—planted long ago by a foreign-born boatbuilder who mistook them for teak—and it smells just like the menthol in Ricketts’s lab.
Then she begins to walk down the bike trail in the direction of the Row, in the direction of the aquarium. Back in the late 1980s, when the aquarium was still brand-new, the bike trail was laid directly over the old railroad tracks, and she can almost feel the steel ribs beneath her feet. She walks past the dunes and the beach, joggers and in-line skaters swerving around her without pause or complaint. When she reaches the adobe plaza above the wharf, she makes a point of visiting the bocce courts. The elder Agnellis, who still control this part of town, play here every day, rain or shine, and they bid her a polite “Good morning” as she passes.
From the wharf, she climbs the hill. She sold the small white house shortly after deciding to stay in Monterey for the duration. She has, however, continued to keep tabs, spying on its residents through the window near the bougainvillea. For a while, aquarists lived here: aquarists who descended the hill much like the cannery workers before them. These days, however, it’s a vacation rental property. Seashells and wicker, everything upholstered in sturdy, beachy pastels. On the walls, there are whitewashed pieces of driftwood painted with chatty, unambiguous demands: LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE.
Then, finally, she returns to the bike trail and visits the site of Ricketts’s demise. Other than the aquarium, this is the only place in town that truly matters to her, so she lobbied hard to ensure a certain look. The railroad crossing sign still stands, even though the railroad itself is long gone. There is a commemorative bust of Ricketts himself, sculpted by a local artist of known mediocrity. The bust looks nothing like him, and she feels absolutely nothing when she looks at it. The same is true of the lab. Since Ricketts’s passing, it has been meticulously preserved despite a number of functional incarnations. First, it was a boarded-up monument to Steinbeck’s loss. Then it was a men’s literary club founded on the principle that great poetry can be written and read only in the absence of wives. These days, it’s owned by the city and is open to visitors only twice a year. She’s never made the mistake of joining the tour groups and going inside. She’s happy just to watch them as they enter and exit: young people with a penchant for polar fleece who have discovered his works and have become fanatic as a result, their faces alight with the eternal blood sport of disappointment versus rapture.
Back at the aquarium, there is still another hour to kill. So she reads a little Steinbeck. She has all of his books, except Cannery Row, hidden in the same desk drawer as the liquor bottle. She starts with her favorite: The Grapes of Wrath. A few pages here and there, just enough to get a taste of its angry beauty. Then she moves on to the ones she hates: Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flat, Travels with Charley. East of Eden, she’s not surprised to discover, still offends and flatters her in a personal way: the succubus with the head wound, the photographs of the brothel, the corruption of the virtuous man. Finally, she peruses the book she’s never known how to categorize: a retelling of the Arthurian legends, published eight years posthumously. It’s a weird, childish, late-in-the-game offering, the players whittled-down archetypes who, despite their weaponry and armor and blustery shows of monarchical fealty, have no choice but to abandon themselves to love’s predictable pitfalls. It’s also, in her opinion, Steinbeck’s most autobiographical work. There is no reason why this should be the case. The characters are not of his own invention, nor are the stories, but there it is regardless: a man writing about himself with the deluded, self-destructive certainty of an oil baron who’s convinced the biggest payload is in his own backyard.
Then again, maybe it was. All these lofty motivations, but it’s usually so much simpler than the creator will ever admit. Her father and the Chinese girl. Herself and Ricketts. Jean-Paul Sartre, she learned recently, became a philosopher for the sole purpose of seducing women.