Coming down from the redwood forest, where majestic trees defy rusted Coke signs and dead gas stations, we drive, curve after curve, in daylight darkness, with flashes of sunlight through the deep green.
Then the dream fades as the landscape diminishes into dry grasses, straighter roads, and the offer of something to eat somewhere you wouldn’t want to go.
An exit sign emerges, “Ferndale,” and I remember hearing about a hidden Victorian village. So we turn off the main road because that often seems like the right thing to do.
But there is no immediate affirmation that our decision is the right one. Mile after mile of mini-marts and collapsed old barns deflate us.
But here’s the thing: a wide river can change everything. We cross a bridge. Below are sandbars. I imagine children with pant legs rolled.
Then the Victorians emerge. Green, yellow, red, blue, pink. A main street of gingerbread and flowers. Patriotic flags and pride colors. Coffee shops. Bakeries, cafes, emporiums, farm shops, an old-fashioned drug store. People ambling. What do they do? How are they way out here? My twenty-something daughter, Annie, marvels at the ornate facade of a 100-year-old movie theater that looks like the Majestic from the Jim Carrey film—and it turns out it is one and the same.
But we arrive late. ‘Closed,’ says the first coffee shop and the next. The only one open has a long line. So instead we capitulate to the aroma of pizza across the street.
Annie decides to stretch her legs, while I wait inside for our order. And that’s where I meet her. She enters the restaurant just bones in an oversized coat too warm for the weather, gray hair poking out from a black sherpa hat pulled over her ears. Homeless, I wonder? But that doesn’t fit with the greeting she gets.
“Lily! Hello! How are you tonight? Here’s your usual. The ravioli you ordered. Take care of yourself now. Do you need help getting this home?”
Lily looks perplexed but pleased and clutches the bag, chats, thanks the wait staff, turns to leave but stops at the door, uncertain, circles back, and sits next to me in one of the chairs lined against the wall for those of us waiting.
As she turns to me, close now, I note her clear skin, sharp nose, bright gray eyes, her health.
“Where are you from?” She asks me.
What does she see that tells her I am a visitor?
No matter, I explain our journey of the past week, starting in Portland, Oregon, and traveling through the national forest and by the craggy beaches and the wineries of Northern California on our way to San Francisco.
She nods but she’s not interested. She has something to tell me.
“We moved here, let me think, eighteen years ago. Is that right? Yes. And my husband died fifteen years ago, yes, yes, fifteen years ago. He was so sick but he said, ‘Lily, I want to hear bagpipes before I die.’
“So there is a man in town that plays bagpipes beautifully, and he said he’d play just for my husband. And they gave us, let me think, what’s it called, you know the building down the street there, not town hall. . . . The Veterans Building! They set up his hospital bed in there for him. And there were two nurses that took care of him and they charged me nothing. And the food! So much food. Everybody came and they brought food. And did I tell you there were two nurses and they charged me nothing, nothing at all, for the whole night?”
“At one point my husband called me over to his bed and he said, ‘Lily bring the bagpipe player to me, I need to talk to him.’ So I did. And my husband asked him to play, ‘Amazing Grace.’ And my husband sang it with the bagpipes. Everyone, everyone cried. That was, yes, fifteen years ago. We moved here from Pasadena eighteen years ago.
“Then my husband said to me, ‘Now I can go, Lily, I can go home because I know you’re safe in this sweet little town. I know everyone here will take care of you.’”
She stops, studies me again, and asks, “Where are you from?” I repeat my answer.
“You should move here,” she says. “Have you seen our park? We have a beautiful park with a water fountain. It was built by the richest man in the world. I met him. He came here. I walk everywhere. I live in the cul-de-sac.” I wonder, Is there only one? It is a town of 1,300 people. So maybe.
“I walked to the park one day and he was there. His voice was gruff. He told me he used to live here and he wanted to give something to our little town, so he built the park. He’s the richest man in the world. Can you imagine? And he built us a park.”
My pizza is ready. I get up to go. Lily shakes my hand and says to be sure to see the park before I leave. It will make me want to stay here.
She stands up, looks confused, turns to the woman behind the cash register. “Am I waiting for something?”
“You came for your ravioli, your usual, remember?”
“Oh, am I waiting for it?”
“No, it’s right there, next to you in the bag by your chair.”
“Oh!”
“Do you need some help getting it home, Lily?”
“No, I’m all set. I like to walk.”
We step onto the sidewalk. She shakes my hand again. I go one way up the sidewalk, she goes the other. I look back and note how easily she moves, the memory intact of how and where her feet should take her.
I wander up the beautiful street, but soon I’m confused. I’ve reached the Majestic Theatre but my car is nowhere to be found.
My phone rings. It’s my daughter, “Where are you? Was my mother kidnapped?”
I look back down the street, across the way, and see Annie, standing next to our car. Of course! We had moved it. I forgot. I go back, heading in the same direction as Lily.
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