Half Moon Bay

by Alice LaPlante

  That’s three glasses each they’ve drunk in the last two hours, and they haven’t peed yet, he reports to Jane. Those guys are gonna bust out any minute.

  Helen doesn’t consider it such a light matter.

  Why are they here? she asks Jane. Jane ashamedly tells her about what she has decided to call the “misunderstanding” about her car. Helen doesn’t respond the way Jane hopes, which is to shrug it off. Helen purses her lips. She crosses her arms across her chest and turns away from Jane, looks out the window at the two men who are sitting, looking straight ahead, not talking to each other. Even from here, you can feel their grimness.

  They seem to be taking this quite seriously, Helen says. Jane tries to appear casual, although she is in fact deeply humiliated. She tries to think about when she has been quite this publicly ashamed. Because of course all the workers at Smithson’s are curious about the men. It doesn’t take them long to cotton on to the fact that people in authority—“responsible” people—clearly consider Jane a monster, think her capable of heinous crimes. Jane can feel her coworkers shrink away from her. Erin enters the break room at the same time as Jane to get coffee, only to leave hurriedly, her cup still empty. Peter doesn’t meet her eyes when he bumps into her outside the unisex bathroom. She is a pariah.

  Jane remembers being a pariah at thirteen. She remembers one particular winter day. It was only the second time she had gotten her period. She still didn’t understand all the symptoms, thought she had a bit of a stomachache, felt some wetness in her underpants but didn’t consider that it might be blood. Why should she? She’d put her first period firmly out of mind as an aberration. Her mother had simply handed her a sanitary napkin and a book entitled Now You’re a Woman! Jane’s two older sisters had snickered but offered no help. It had never occurred to Jane that it would happen again. She saw it as a onetime event, stepping over some unappetizing threshold that entailed discomfort and mess, but at least it was over.

  It was raining that day, sleeting, really, so instead of going outside for PE, the kids in Jane’s seventh-grade class were stuck in the gym playing dodgeball, the girls against the boys. Jane was bad at this game. She hated the smack of the ball hard against her thighs, the way the boys would jeer when they managed to hit a girl on her buttocks or breasts. The only saving grace was that as a sort of class scapegoat, she was usually targeted, hit, and out of the game early, so she could go and sit against the wall next to her fellow exiles and be ignored. But on this day, something odd was happening. Girls to the left and right of her were being hit by the ball and called out, but the ball never came close to Jane. One by one the girls were eliminated, until there were just a handful of them standing. Only a few of the boys had been declared out, which left a huge gang of them standing and leering at just five girls.

  Jane was aware that not only the boys but the other girls were openly snickering and pointing to her. She couldn’t figure it out. What was so wrong about her today that was different than what was generally wrong with her? She even saw her gym teacher, Miss Coutts, stifle a grin. Miss Coutts was famous for being easily baited during sex education classes. She asked for anonymous questions to be written down on pieces of paper, thinking this would encourage the girls to ask things they’d be embarrassed to ask in front of the group. But the girls would prank her and giggle when she read their questions out loud and treated them as inquiries for serious knowledge. One memorable day she had replied Salty, to What does a boy’s penis taste like?

  Suddenly Jane realized she was the only girl left standing on her side of the gym. Whatever gross humiliation the boys were planning for her—for there were laughs and whispers coming from the other side of the room—she wanted it to be over. One of the boys, clearly nominated by the rest, took the ball. He came almost up to the line separating the girls’ side of the gym from the boys’ side. He took careful aim. Jane simply stood there, her arms at her sides. She wasn’t going to fight this. She wasn’t going to scurry back and forth like a trapped rat. She closed her eyes and waited. The ball hit her squarely in the stomach. The blow was cruel and hard. It knocked the breath out of her. Jane fell to her knees, gasping. It was then, as she knelt taking deep painful breaths, that she noticed the blood. Her gym socks were stained crimson. Surrounding her, the polished wood floor was covered with drops. Had she been hit that hard? Was she bleeding internally? It wasn’t until Marcie Banks, not a friend exactly, but not an enemy, tiptoed over and helped her up and led her to the bathroom that she dimly grasped what was happening. No wonder they called it the curse. The three days of bleeding and pain she had experienced the previous month were just the beginning.

  Just the beginning. Jane dimly realizes from the looks from Helen and her coworkers that something bad is just beginning. Another sort of curse. Where would it lead?

  * * *

  Jane hadn’t realized how important it was to be a part of the Half Moon Bay community until she is excommunicated from it. Suddenly, everyone knows everything. No friendly nods at the Three Sisters—even Margaret serves her coffee without a word. In the street, people either stare, openly hostile, or avert their eyes. Even her cottage, formerly a safe haven, is assaulted. Eggs thrown. She wakes up one morning to find her shrubbery, mailbox, and window shutters wrapped in toilet paper.

  Jane doesn’t even think about it. Instead of driving to the nursery, as usual, she heads toward Pescadero, toward Edward and Alma. At this hour of the morning, both should be there. She needs both of them.

  The gates to Edward and Alma’s house are open, as if she’s expected. She feels expected. And indeed the door opens before she even knocks and Alma is standing there, then taking her arm and leading her to the kitchen, putting a glass of cold water to her lips.

  I . . . Jane begins, but can’t come up with words. She has not yet looked Alma in the face. Where’s Edward?

  In the shower. He’ll be out soon.

  Jane needs him. She needs them both.

  Alma . . .

  Yes? Alma’s voice is curiously devoid of feeling. After handing the glass of water to Jane, Alma has stepped back. She is now leaning on the kitchen table.

  You believe me, right? You know I wouldn’t hurt those girls.

  Silence. Jane slowly lifts her eyes to Alma’s face and is petrified by what she sees there. Nothing. The lovely features are just as lovely, but there is no warmth in the expression. There is nothing in the expression.

  Alma?

  Edward strides into the room wearing a bathrobe. He does not look friendly.

  What is she doing here? he asks Alma.

  She came here before work. I knew she would come one of these days. I was expecting her. They discuss her as though she isn’t standing next to them.

  Jane feels her world sliding away from her.

  Please, she says, knowing how feeble and weak she sounds. Please, not you too. I need you. On my side. You don’t know how badly I need you.

  Edward shakes his head. His face is composed, his eyes steady.

  Out, he says.

  * * *

  November limps to a close. The weeks pass, cold and bleak. Jane’s hands freeze as she rides her motorbike to Smithson’s Nursery, but she refuses to put on her gloves. A punishment. If thy hand offends thee, cut it off. The back greenhouse contains the tattered remnants of her shrunken world. She hadn’t known how much she depended on her bland anonymity, on the general goodwill she’d earned in Half Moon Bay, until she didn’t have them any longer. More than her fingers are chilled. The unmarked police car conspicuously follows her when she leaves her cottage until she arrives at the nursery, and it’s there waiting for her when she locks up in the evening. Jane finds she doesn’t care. She goes home and consumes cans of chicken noodle or tomato soup, hardly bothering to heat them up, anything to spoon calories into her uncaring body. But deep down is still a flicker of hope. They will come back to her, Edward and Alma. They will rescue her.

  The last week of November, the weather takes yet
another surprising turn. Each day dawns cloudless and warm, mocking Jane with blue sky and beckoning azure sea. She keeps going to work. Helen doesn’t say anything as Jane stays in the back greenhouse, hiding from customers and other staff. Hostility lurks even there: her plants are wilting, mites have eaten her stock of spring seeds, and the hummingbirds have all vanished from the garden. Jane anguishes at the loss of Edward and Alma. They are drugs she has unknowingly become addicted to. She sits outside her greenhouse and tilts her face to the sun, but still feels cold. Black Heart.

  She listens to Bach with her earphones, absorbs the mathematical precision of the cello suites, the hidden repetitions in the cantatas. She is reading No Exit again, it is a comfort.

  Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.

  Helen, after one talk, remains coolly friendly. Only Adam stays loyal. He brings Jane his tea. He comes, holding out dolphin-free tuna fish sandwiches, organic falafel, as if such delights could tempt her. He hasn’t tried to touch her since the night in the greenhouse. He has taken to calling her Janey, the way her sisters did when she was young. When did this start? She doesn’t know, but hearing the way he pronounces the two syllables is the only relief she gets. Her phone remains silent.

  Still, Jane endures and does not break. She does not break until Wednesday, November 30, comes, another startlingly beautiful day. Again the unmarked car following her, again the retreat to the back greenhouse of the nursery. Adam greets her with his customary cup of tea. Today she drinks it down. Adam is startled but pleased.

  This too will pass, Janey, he says.

  I don’t see how, Jane says. I can’t leave town. I can’t escape it.

  They’ll catch the real murderer. He’ll make a mistake, you’ll see. And you’ll be cleared.

  After he leaves, throwing reluctant glances backward, Jane hugs herself. The loneliness is unspeakable. The pain creeps into her bowels, giving her feverish chills, dreams where fantastical things happen, dark horrors worm into her consciousness, and she wakes gasping. She becomes fearful of sleep, previously her last resort of comfort.

  She is fitfully watering her plants when she hears, as if spoken out loud, her daughter’s name. Angela. She realizes it has been weeks since she has thought of her by name. What has come over her? She waits. Again: Angela.

  Yes, she thinks. Angela, I’m coming.

  She waits until Adam is engaged with a customer. She moves swiftly to the break room and puts her hands into his jacket pockets, filches his keys. At first she’s afraid that the aging Volvo won’t start, but then the engine turns over with a groan. She’s also appropriated Adam’s hoodie and hidden her bright hair under its peaked cap, so the cops sitting in their car next to her motorbike don’t even look up as she drives out of the parking lot. Once she’s heading north on Route 1, she relaxes. She’s going to make it. There’s a way out for her after all.

  She reaches the entrance to the old road to Devil’s Slide, now a walking and biking trail since it was deemed too dangerous for cars. She pulls into the parking lot right off the entrance to the tunnel. She doesn’t bother hiding it—the sooner it’s found, the better.

  She walks onto the abandoned road, now newly tarmacked. It’s only three in the afternoon, but the fog has already started to drift in from offshore. The trail is largely deserted. Jane can see some joggers farther down the road, but they’re moving away from her. The surf pounds the rocks nearly five hundred feet down. It’s a truly spectacular view. The sides of the hill have kept eroding since the road was closed, and cement blocks line the edge to keep people safe. Jane sits down on one of the blocks and swings her legs over. Now nothing is between her and the jagged boulders and water except air. The precipice is dizzying and alluring. She feels the inevitable pull to the edge. She remembers that day with Alma, years ago, it seems, down on the bluffs in Half Moon Bay.

  She imagines what it will feel like. A few seconds of terrifying free fall, then the end. The pain would be brief. Much more manageable than what she feels like. Pain management. That’s all she’s doing.

  She hears a noise. Two cyclists pull up behind her, on the other side of the cement barrier.

  Awesome, isn’t it? says one of the women.

  Yes, says Jane, when she realizes the woman is talking to her. The woman is wearing a helmet with a tiny mirror attached to it that always makes Jane think of the horrors of the dentist’s office.

  Move back a little. You’re making me nervous, says the other woman.

  I’m fine, Jane insists.

  The women look at each other, then wordlessly come to a decision. Jane knows that phones will be pulled out of pockets as soon as they’ve moved away. Calls will be made. She doesn’t have much time.

  Well, enjoy your day, the second woman says.

  You too, Jane says, and turns back to the ocean. The fog is coming in thick now, larvae-like tentacles snaking around Jane’s feet. She retreats into her dreams. Nothing is real. Soon unsavory things will emerge from the crevices and the sun will darken and it will be time. It is almost time now.

  The sea below is now invisible, shrouded by fog. If she jumps now, she will land on its soft pillow. It will be like going to sleep. Still she doesn’t move. She wills her feet to step forward. One step. Another. Yet another. It will only take one more. A pebble dislodges itself from under her shoe and rolls soundlessly over the edge. You cannot hear it land, it is so far down, the crashing of waves on rock below so loud. Another pebble follows. She can feel the earth give a little when she presses her toes into the ground.

  She tells herself to take the final step. She can almost do it. She will step onto nothingness, and that will be the end. Jane closes her eyes.

  One step. That’s all she needs.

  But finds she can’t do it, after all. Sartre would have understood.

  I can’t go on, I’ll go on.

  Oh dear God.

  * * *

  Jane most definitely does not want to be early for this meeting. Funny, to think of it using that term, meeting, like an office function, formal and cold. To consider Edward and Alma in such terms. Alma had sounded casual enough on the phone. But when she said, No, not our house. How about the Sisters? Jane knew that whatever they wanted to say to her, safe—or at least neutral—territory was necessary.

  So Jane waits until five minutes past the hour before leaving her cottage—three hundred excruciating seconds. She counts every one. This is against every grain of character she possesses. She never permits herself to be even a minute late. What did her mother used to say? Early is on time, on time is late, late is unacceptable. She walks from kitchen to bathroom and back to the kitchen again. She unloads the dishwasher. Finally she allows herself to get on her motorbike and head toward downtown Half Moon Bay. It’s a cloudless and fogless night for once. The stars seem ominously near, the moon too large, as if it could crash into the earth’s orbit. Jane feels small and vulnerable as the wind rips past her face.

  She arrives at the Three Sisters fifteen minutes late. Still, Alma and Edward are not there.

  She sits there four minutes, alone. Margaret doesn’t come to ask her what she wants. The place is deserted except for two regulars at the counter, so it’s not that she’s too busy. Jane is toxic, even here. Nine-fifteen. They’ll be closing up in another fifteen minutes. Five minutes pass. When the second hand of her watch ticks off the sixth minute, the door opens.

  She can’t tell from their faces what they might be thinking. Neither looks in her direction. They take their time winding their way to her table.

  Jane. Edward pulls a chair out, takes his coat off, and hangs it on the back. He sits down. His eyes had passed over her when he said her name.

  Alma takes more time, unwinding a large scarf from around her neck and looking around the café to see who is there. She smiles and waves at Jeff Stone and Jerry Rigg at the counter, neither of whom had ack
nowledged Jane when she came in. They smile and wave back.

  Then Alma turns to Jane. She holds out her hand. Jane automatically extends hers. She remembers that first day, in the flower market, this was how Alma had been introduced to her, with a semiformal handshake. Then she had thought it charming. Now it seemed calculating.

  How are things? Jane asks, addressing both of them. Her feeble attempt at casualness. Alma drops her hand almost as soon as Jane takes it.

  We’re good, Edward says. But how are you? His voice stressing you. It sounds sincere, perhaps even caring. Jane sits a little straighter. But Edward still hasn’t looked directly at her. Now he’s taken a napkin from the holder on the table and is wiping his leather jacket at a spot on the sleeve, real or imagined, Jane can’t tell.

  Fine, Jane says first, automatically. Then she corrects herself. Actually, no. I’m struggling a bit, she says. Her voice breaks in the middle of struggling. Strug. Gling. She sounds like she is attempting to speak an Asian language. She is chagrined. Edward simply continues polishing his jacket. He’s moved on to another spot. Alma is sitting poised and alert, smiling serenely.

  How beautiful they both are. Jane can hardly stand to be so close to them.

  What is it? Why are you shunning me? She hadn’t meant to be so direct. The words burst out.

  Edward finally finishes with his jacket. He looks straight at Jane for the first time.

  You look pale, he says.

  Jane finds herself blushing deeply. He has addressed her personally. Even now, she feels the full force of his Edwardness. How could she have ever thought she could claim him, even temporarily?

  Edward reaches across the table with his hands. It seems as if he might take one of Jane’s hands into his, but he stops short. He is only flexing his shoulders. Too much office work, he says.

  What is going on? Jane says, louder than she intended.