“I'd love it,” she said honestly. And how painful could it be spending a day in Bolinas with Leslie Baxter? “I want to show it to you. It's a crazy little village, but it's terrific.” She had told him about there being no signs, so no one could find them.
An hour later, they got in her van with both dogs, wearing jeans, T-shirts, and flip-flops. She warned him that it could get chilly if the fog rolled in, so they had both brought sweaters. And there was no sign of anything but blue skies as they drove down Divisadero toward Lombard, and joined the flow of traffic heading north to the Golden Gate Bridge. They chatted easily as he told her about growing up in England, and he admitted that sometimes he missed it. But he also confessed that it was different now when he went home. His fame had even changed the way people treated them there. No matter what he did to convince them otherwise, the ordinary people he had known growing up now acted as though he were special or different in some way, no matter how ordinary he still felt.
“Tell me about Chloe,” Coco said, as they drove across the bridge, and up the hill to the rainbow tunnel in Marin.
“She's delicious,” Leslie said, and his face lit up the moment he thought about her. “I wish I saw her more often. She's very smart, and extremely adorable. She takes after her mother.” He said it with a look of deep affection, not only for the child, but also for the woman who had been his girlfriend long before. “I'll show you pictures of her when we get to Bolinas.” He always kept a batch of them in his wallet. “She wants to be a ballerina or a truck driver when she grows up, apparently she thinks they're interchangeable and equally interesting professions. She says truck drivers get to dump things all over the road, which she thinks is extremely entertaining. She takes every imaginable kind of lesson. French, computer, piano, ballet.” He looked proud and happy whenever he talked about his daughter. He said his relationship with her and her mother was easy and straightforward and always had been. “Her mother had a serious boyfriend for a while recently, and I thought she was going to get married. I was a little worried. He was Italian, and Florence would have been even harder for me to get to than New York. I was relieved when they broke up, although Monica deserves to have someone in her life too. To be honest, I was jealous of him with Chloe. He got to see more of her than I do. I don't think her mother's seeing anyone right now,” he said as they took the Stinson Beach turnoff and drove through Mill Valley.
“Would you ever go back to her, because of Chloe?” Coco asked him with interest, and he shook his head.
“I couldn't, and neither could she. The trail is cold on all that now. It's been too long, and there's too much water under the bridge. It was really over for us before Chloe was born. She was just a wonderful accident that happened. Chloe is the best thing that ever happened to either of us. She makes everything worthwhile.”
“I can't even imagine having children,” Coco said honestly, “at least not now.” And even when Ian had been alive, she had felt too young to think about having kids, even with him. “Maybe when I'm in my thirties,” she said vaguely as they drove along. He admired the way she handled the curves in the road with the ancient van. It made some pretty scary noises, but it chugged along. Leslie mentioned that he loved working on cars. It was a boyhood passion he had never outgrown. He was impressed by the hairpin turns that followed the cliffs along the coastline, which she negotiated with ease. She seemed competent and calm and in control of her life to him, no matter what her mother and sister thought. He felt certain they were wrong. And the closer they got to the beach, the happier Coco was.
“I hope you don't get carsick,” she said, glancing over at him with concern.
“Not yet. I'll let you know.” The weather was gorgeous and the scenery fantastic. Both dogs were sound asleep in the back of the van, and after twenty minutes of sharp turns, the road dropped down to Stinson Beach. Half a dozen shops sat haphazardly next to each other on either side of the road. An art gallery, a bookstore, two restaurants, a grocery store, and a gift shop. “This has to be one of the lost wonders of the world,” Leslie said, looking amused at the quaint town, if you could call it that. It was over in two blocks, and they rounded a turn, passing some narrow roads with falling-down shacks.
“There's a gated community over there.” She gestured vaguely past a lagoon. “And a bird preserve on our right. It's pretty unspoiled here.” And then she smiled broadly. “Wait till you see Bolinas. It's a time warp and even less civilized than all this.” He loved the ruggedness of it, and the simplicity. This was no fancy beach town, and it felt as though it was a million miles from any city. He could see why she lived here. The feeling he had as they drove along the unmarked road was one of ease and peace. It was as though one could leave one's burdens far behind just by coming here. Even the harrowing drive over had relaxed him.
Coco took an unmarked left turn ten minutes later, and they rose onto a small plateau. There were houses that looked more like old farms, huge ancient trees, and a tiny church.
“I'll show you the town first,” she explained, and then laughed as she said it, “although that's somewhat euphemistic. It's even smaller than Stinson Beach. Our beach isn't as good, this is more rural, but that keeps the tourists away too. It's too hard to find and too hard to get here.” As she said it, they drove past a ramshackle restaurant, a grocery store, the head shop, and the ancient dress shop with a tie-dyed dress of some kind in the window. Leslie looked around with a broad grin.
“This is it?” He looked vastly amused. The stores were tiny and from another era, but everything around them was pretty and green. There were big, solid old trees, and they sat on a slight elevation above the sea. It looked like country more than beach.
“This is it,” Coco confirmed. “If you need incense or a bong, that's the place to go.” She pointed, and he chuckled.
“I think I can manage without, just for today.”
She drove past the cluster of stores then, and down the road dotted with old-fashioned mailboxes, picket fences, and the occasional wrought-iron gate. “There are a few really lovely houses here, but they're a well-kept secret and tucked away. Most of the homes are just cottages, or old surfer shacks. In the old days, a lot of the hippies used to live in broken-down school buses near the beach. It's more respectable these days, but not much,” she said with a look of peace on her face. It felt good to be back.
She left the van parked outside her house, let the dogs out, and they followed her and Leslie through the weather-beaten wooden gate. Ian had built it for them. She unlocked the front door and walked inside, as Leslie came in cautiously behind her and looked around. She had a perfect view of the ocean from her living room, although the windows were old and not particularly large, unlike the floor-to-ceiling picture windows in Jane's house in the city. Nothing here had been built for show, it was just a cozy place to live, and Leslie could see that. It looked like a dollhouse to him. There were books stacked up on the floor, old magazines on the table. One of her watercolors was propped up on an easel in the corner, part of the curtains had come unhooked. But despite the friendly disorder that resulted from her living alone, the place was inviting and looked well lived in. She used the fireplace every night.
“It's not much, but I love it,” Coco said happily. There were some framed watercolors on the walls, and pictures of her with Ian on the mantelpiece and on the shelves of the overstuffed bookcase. The kitchen was open and slightly in disarray but clean, and behind the living room was her tiny bedroom with a cozy comforter on the bed, and a faded old quilt she had found at a garage sale.
“It's wonderful,” Leslie said, his eyes lighting up. “It's not a shack, as you said, it's a home.” It had a hundred times the warmth of her sister's elegant digs on Broadway, and he could see easily why Coco preferred it. He glanced at a photograph of her and Ian looking happy and young in wet suits on his boat, and then he walked out onto the deck behind her. She had an extraordinary view of the ocean, the beach, and in the far distance the city. “I think if I lived here, I'd never leave,” he said, and meant it.
“I don't, except to go to work.” She smiled at him. It was a lifetime away from the mansion in Bel-Air where she had grown up, and now this was all she wanted. She didn't need to explain it to him, he understood it, and looked down at her with a gentle smile. He felt as though she had just shown him her secret clubhouse, her hidden garden. Being in the house with her was like looking deep into her soul.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” he said softly. “I feel honored.” As he said it, the dogs came bounding up to them, already dusted with sand, and Jack had a branch with some leaves on it tangled up in his collar. The big dog looked elated to be there, and so did Sallie, as Coco smiled up at Leslie.
“Thank you for understanding what this means to me. My family thought I lost my mind when I moved here. It's hard to explain to people like them.” Leslie found himself wondering if she would have stayed there if Ian were still alive, or someplace like it in Australia, and he suspected that she would. Coco was someone who wanted desperately to let go of her origins, the values she found fault with, and all the trappings of that world. This was the outer manifestation of all she had rejected when she came here. The falsity, the obsession with material goods, the fight to get ahead, the sacrifice of people for careers. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she offered, as he let himself down into one of the two faded deck chairs.
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