North Coast: A Contemporary Love Story

by Dorothy Rice Bennett

  “Don’t forget us,” he said at the front door of the bar. “Those ‘Frisco fairies can’t have all of you.”

  “I’ll write,” she promised, as she climbed into her Beetle.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gina’s battered green “Bug” stood at the curb, nearly listing from the weight of clothes and boxes tucked into every available space—decidedly more personal belongings than she had owned when she arrived in Eureka at the beginning of the year.

  Valerie had fixed an early breakfast for them both. They sat quietly at the table, an uncomfortable silence between them. Sam too was still, as if she sensed the tension in the air.

  Gina’s stomach was so tightly wound that she could barely eat. We’re like actors playing out a script, she thought to herself. If only she could re-write the story, but she just didn’t know how. They were stuck in some way and had to just keep going along the path that had been set—that she had set. She sighed, without looking at Valerie, and buttered her blueberry muffin.

  After managing to finish her tea, Gina climbed the stairs to get her purse and sweater and to take one last look at her room—now her former room—to see that everything was in order. At the same time Val picked up Sam’s leash and prepared to take the dog for a long walk.

  Gina went out to her car and was closing the trunk of the Beetle when Valerie came outside with Sam. Gina started to wave a quick goodbye and climb into the driver’s seat, but she halted midway and waited. When Val and Sam reached the sidewalk, she asked, “If you are going for a walk, do you mind if I join you? I could use the exercise before a long day in the car.”

  “Sure,” Valerie said, without any particular warmth.

  Gina patted Sam, and the trio started down the sidewalk in the direction of the harbor.

  “I’m anxious to get to San Francisco,” Gina said, as they walked along, “but I want you to know how much this past year has meant to me.” The words just tumbled out. “I want you to know how much I appreciate your trusting me enough to take me in off the street when I first got here and for becoming a very special friend, way beyond a landlady. You’ve given me more than you could ever know—a safe place to grow and find myself.” Gina stopped herself, before opening up a pandora’s box about the evening they had watched Lianna together.

  Valerie offered a small smile. “I’m glad that living here has been positive for you,” she said genuinely.

  They continued walking in silence for a moment, amidst the still-cool morning air and emerging sunshine. Something was blooming. There was a sweet fragrance in the slight breeze off the coast.

  Gina finally picked up the thread of what she had been rehashing in her mind. Her voice filled with tension as she risked admitting, “Eureka has been so good to me that sometimes I’ve wondered whether I am making a mistake by leaving all of this behind. Everybody here, especially you, has been so warm and friendly, and I don’t know how long it will be before I enjoy such friendships again. It would be easy to stay, you know—.” Given that evening when they had kissed, this speech must sound really stilted, Gina admitted to herself.

  Stopping abruptly, Valerie interrupted Gina. Grasping Gina’s arm for a brief moment and looking her directly in the eyes, she said firmly. “I think you should go, Gina. This is what you’ve wanted for a long time, and you owe it to yourself to fulfill your dream. You’ve lost a lot in your life already, and you’ve given up many important things. I think you need to do this for yourself.”

  Gina sighed. A pained look crossed her face as she unconsciously shoved her glasses up on her nose. “You’re probably right,” she agreed reluctantly. “I really have held onto this dream for a long time. It kept me going in Tucson when things were very bad for me. I want to write, and I want to teach, and I want to experience ’Frisco, the Mecca for gay people. I need to embrace that world, for me.”

  As they started walking again Gina stubbed her toe on a crack in the sidewalk, nearly tripped but quickly righted herself, and continued. “I just want you to know how easy it would be to let it go. I feel like there is something between you and me that could be developed—.”

  Valerie interrupted again. “You’re not ready, Gina.” She tried to be gentle, to keep any edge out of her voice. “You need to go to San Francisco and do this thing for yourself. Lives are built around many things—careers, relationships, personal sacrifice, spiritual growth. Most people juggle many of these things, but always there is always one that is the most important. As much as I love my art I have always known that life for me revolves around meaningful relationships and one special committed relationship. I’ve watched you blossom this last year, but you’re still growing and changing and deciding what’s really important for you. You need to do that, above all.”

  Gina swallowed, and tears came to her eyes. She leaned down and patted Sam and then she reached out and gave Valerie a quick but strong hug. “I guess this is goodbye,” she said in a husky voice. Then she turned and ran back toward her waiting car.

  Valerie stood with Sam and watched her go. Val too had tears in her eyes. “Drive carefully,” she called out. Then, wiping away a tear with her hand, she turned and, with the dog at her heels, walked on.

  Gina’s Beetle sang its way down the highway and, after a few tearful moments, she began to sing along with it, buoyed by the beautiful redwoods along the roadside and her dreams of San Francisco. She stopped here and there to take a look and shoot photographs—of the redwoods, then a picturesque small town. At Santa Rosa she detoured toward the coast to go through Bodega Bay, where Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds had been filmed. Nearly a year earlier, traveling north, she had rushed by, desperate for a job and a place to stay. This time, although anxious to be in the City, she felt she owed it to herself to smell the sea air, save some memories for the future, and enjoy the natural beauty of northern California.

  It was very late in the day when coastal Highway 1 finally merged with 101 just north of the art colony Sausalito at the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Although her funds were limited, Gina managed to find a modest motel room in which to spend the night. She wanted to enter San Francisco rested and fresh. Tomorrow, she would really be there, she told herself. At dinner in a small, quaint cafe, she picked up a newspaper and circled rental properties in the City, comparing addresses with the maps she had brought. Later, back in her room, she read part of a novel to try to wind down to sleep, but she found that her mind kept wandering—backward to Eureka and Valerie and her friends as well as forward to ‘Frisco.

  The next morning Sausalito was bathed in dense fog. Gina awoke early. She showered, dressed, and took a brief walk. Then she had some hot tea, a croissant, and sliced bananas at a little coffee shop and loaded up her car. By the time she was ready to leave, the sun was breaking through the low-lying clouds. When she started across the Golden Gate, the blue San Francisco Bay was sparkling. Her heart felt like it was in her throat as she took in the renowned City spread out before her.

  Having studied tour books and maps beforehand, Gina felt she knew what she wanted to do and see. She followed Highway 1 through Golden Gate Park and continued southward until she came to the coast, then turned north and headed toward the Cliff House, a famous landmark restaurant facing the ocean. From there she took Geary Boulevard back toward the central part of the City. She had bought a morning newspaper and had circled a few additional ads for rooms for rent that could serve her temporarily until she found good employment and could rent an apartment. Gina knew she couldn’t be choosy in the beginning, but she had decided that the place had to be clean, in a reasonably safe neighborhood, and close to buses and trolleys. San Francisco was well known for its public transportation and she would use that whenever possible.

  Grabbing an unexpected parking space at the curb on Geary, Gina stopped for a few moments. She picked up her cell phone, took a deep breath—You can do this—and began to call each of her selected ads. On her first call, she quickly hung up when a gruff-sounding voice an
swered the phone. The second and third calls led only to answering machines and gave her little information to go on. She put the phone down on the seat beside her and experienced a rising tide of panic. She was already running out of ideas, and she needed somewhere to stay immediately. If she couldn’t get a real lead on a room, she would have to start driving up and down streets looking for posted rentals. That seemed rather futile, and the time, money, and gasoline consumed would be daunting. What could she do to make this easier?

  Suddenly she remembered that she had seen a sign pointing toward the University of San Francisco when she was driving into the City. If a university had helped her find a room in Eureka, maybe one here could do the same. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?

  Driving anxiously, but carefully, she managed to make a turn back through urban streets to the university campus, which was busy with vehicles both in motion and parked everywhere and great numbers of students on foot and bicycle. She would have to stash the car someplace and look for a housing office. She was becoming frantic when a car pulled abruptly out of a visitor parking spot just as she turned the corner. Gina quickly whipped the Beetle into the space. Whew! That was a good omen, she knew.

  For nearly half an hour she wandered on foot around the campus, her heart pounding with both hope and fear. She looked at the educational buildings with fascination and asked questions of students she passed who strolled or sat somewhere studying. Following a couple of suggestions, she finally reached the housing office and entered the front door.

  A young woman with shaggy brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses—probably a student, Gina thought—looked up from a book as Gina approached the counter.

  “Do you keep lists of rooms off campus that rent to students?” Gina tried not to let her nervousness show.

  The unattractive and frankly overweight young woman eyed her suspiciously and stuck out a hand. “Student ID, please,” she said gruffly. Perhaps she was annoyed at being pulled away from her reading.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have one,” Gina admitted.

  “Then you’re not a student here?” The tone was terse.

  “No,” Gina said. “But I plan to enroll next semester.” This was not the time, she knew, to trot out her Ph.D. She forced a smile.

  “Hmmm,” the clerk said. She clearly didn’t believe that Gina intended to be a student and considered her critically for a moment. Finally, with a heavy sigh, she admitted, “Well, we have some listings, but most of them are pretty restricted to currently enrolled students.” After a long pause, during which she looked at Gina out of the corner of her eye, the clerk decided to flip through a Rolodex. “I do have one, though, that might work for you. There’s a woman in North Beach who occasionally takes in a student, usually a more mature woman, and she insists that they don’t drink, smoke, or have pets.” She stared directly at Gina. “If you fit that description, you might give her a call.”

  “That’s me, to a tee.” Gina gave her a friendly grin. She felt with great relief that she must have passed some test, since the clerk now seemed willing to help.

  “Well, this lady doesn’t advertise anywhere—probably lives in a neighborhood where renting rooms is frowned on or a tad illegal—so between you and me, keep this quiet. If you don’t take the room, tear up the phone number, okay?”

  “Sure,” Gina said. “Right. Got it.”

  The clerk wrote down a number on a slip of paper and started to push it across the counter. Then she hesitated.

  “I’m breaking every rule in the book to give you this, so I hope I’m not making a mistake in trusting you.” She offered a raised eyebrow.

  Gina looked at her very directly. “You’re not making a mistake. I’m very trustworthy.”

  “Okay, and good luck,” the clerk said, passing over the paper. The barest of smiles crossed her lips.

  Gina looked at the phone number carefully to be sure she could make out the handwriting and then said, “Thank you very much. I really appreciate this.”

  The clerk nodded and turned her attention back to her book.

  With a farewell wave, Gina left the housing office and stood outside for a moment, catching her breath. She had really feared that the clerk was going to turn her away. Once she had calmed down a bit, she moved along the walkway but away from foot traffic, pulled out her cell and quickly dialed the telephone number. When an elderly woman answered, her voice highly accented, Gina introduced herself, explained that she had gotten the number at the university housing office, and asked if a room was available. At first the woman hesitated but then gave Gina an address in North Beach, a neighborhood that Gina recalled from her research was seemingly decent and located somewhere between Union Square and Fisherman’s Wharf.

  When Gina eventually found her way there, the address in North Beach was on a block that looked clean and very international, but there was absolutely nowhere to park. Gina drove around the neighborhood several times before finally locating a small spot to stash the Beetle. Then she hiked a number of blocks back to the house number written on her piece of paper. Despite the obvious parking issues, she’d decided that she should at least look at the place. Parking could well be an issue wherever she went.

  A tiny, stooped lady answered the door when Gina rang the bell. Mrs. Han seemed to be of some Oriental extraction, but spoke English quite clearly—despite the accent and some incorrect grammar. Mrs. Han appeared relieved to see that Gina was nonthreatening and presentable. The row house, which had windows only on the street and a rear alley, seemed cramped and very dark to Gina. The room available for rent was located on the second floor at the top of a narrow stairway. It was small and equally dark but serviceable—for the present, anyway. Gina mentioned her difficulty in finding a place to park, and Mrs. Han smiled. “We fix that. I don’t drive car myself, but I have garage and would rent it to you.” The total cost seemed steep to Gina, and she stood considering.

  Mrs. Han was not about to let her get away. “Do you have computer?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Gina admitted, not sure what this had to do with anything.

  “Well, I too have computer. I also have ‘WiFi,’ and if you take room you may sign onto my account to use,” Mrs. Han offered, with a knowing smile.

  That, of course, did it! Gina couldn’t let this deal get away. Relieved, she decided to take the room at once. The price was high for her, $450 a month plus $50 for parking, but given the neighborhood and what little she had gleaned from the newspaper and the promised Internet connection, she had a feeling that it was a steal. Handing over to Mrs. Han the first month’s rent and a deposit just about cleaned out her cash reserve, but she was determined she would find work soon.

  When the deal was complete, Gina hiked through the neighborhood to collect the Beetle and drove to the house. She eased the car into the tiny garage, which was lit by a single naked overhead bulb, and hauled her boxes and bags one by one up the narrow stairs to her room. The biggest plus to her new housing was that Mrs. Han had equipped the room with a small refrigerator and tiny microwave. Remembering with a surprising touch of nostalgia her struggles at Valerie’s house in the beginning months, Gina acknowledged that she had really found a gem in this place.

  That evening, after eating a light dinner at a little ethnic restaurant nearby, she tried to organize her belongings and her thoughts. Putting her clothing away in the dresser and the closet, she recalled doing this exact same thing in Eureka. She sighed, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. How far she had come since that first day at Valerie’s house when she had moved in with her duffle bag and box of books. Her admittedly more extensive wardrobe still fit in the closet here, but she smiled with amusement as she attempted to shove her current pile of books, videos, and CDs into the little bookcase that Mrs. Han had put in the room.

  The bed proved comfortable but, as she lay awake that night reliving the day’s events, she thought of that beautiful, bright room she had had in Eureka. Her reverie was disturbed by the clanging s
ounds of a cable car nearby as it rounded a corner and headed uphill—a sound she knew she would have to get used to. San Francisco was definitely different from the quiet world she had known on the North Coast.

  Valerie struggled with her feelings. The first tear, after Gina’s departure, had led to a flood and a pile of tissues before the day was over. Returning home, she had put fresh sheets on the bed in Gina’s room, hoping to dispel the last of Gina’s scent. She cleaned the already clean bathroom and put out different towels. By the time she had completed these tasks she was physically ready to move on, but it became clear that getting beyond her current thoughts and feelings would not be as easy.

  Despite the fact that she had always known Gina would be leaving and despite the fact that she had constantly reminded herself that Gina was a roomer, not a potential lover—well, a friend at times—Gina had made a deep impact on Valerie. She would miss Gina’s coming and going, her steps on the stairs, her occasional laughter. For a relatively serious, rather introverted person, Gina did have a engaging laugh. Then there was her affection for Sam—and her warmth toward Val’s friends. And her willingness to work hard, very hard, to go after something she wanted.

  If Gina ever seemed open to a change in her plans or had ever indicated that Val was truly important to her, Valerie would have been in real trouble. That one night watching Lianna—the slip, when they had kissed—was just a mood of the moment. It hadn’t changed anything. But if things had been different at that instant, Valerie would probably have abandoned all or most of her reason—Gina was too young, too focused on her immediate goals, too inexperienced to know what she really wanted yet—and would have become deeply involved with her. Yet by the time Gina had mentioned the possibility of staying, just that last morning, her Beetle was already packed to go to the Bay Area. At that point Valerie had been unwilling to do or say anything that would have altered Gina’s plans. She did really feel that Gina needed to go. She still believed that. But knowing that she had almost literally pushed Gina out the door did not make it any easier to get beyond her own feelings of attraction, of caring, perhaps the beginning of love and of loss.