Page 47 of Nothing Less than Magic
There’s a green reflective sign up ahead. Bear Creek Beach. I follow the direction of the sign’s arrow to find a large parking lot, public restrooms made of cinder block, and a row of picnic tables. There are a few parked cars and a group of kids playing loud music. A girl is dancing in the back of a pickup truck, and the smell of pot is thick in the air.
I scrap my original plan to take a stroll on the beach but park on the far end of the lot. It’s too dark to see anything other than the shimmer of the moon bouncing off the water. And the music seems to have gotten louder. More aggressive.
A few of the young people have spotted my car and are walking towards me. My intuition tells me to leave, but my car is now surrounded by them. I quickly roll up my window and try to come up with an escape route that doesn’t involve mowing anyone down. For all I know, they’re just being friendly. But my gut doesn’t think so.
One of them, a young man with dirty blond hair and bedraggled clothes, is banging on my back window. He’s at least six-two and outweighs me by sixty pounds. I take some solace in the fact that the other two people menacing me are female; then I remember the “Manson girls.”
I tap on my horn, which comes out more as a soft toot than a muscular honk. One of the women holds up a joint and motions for me to unroll the window. I shake my head. The man has climbed onto my trunk and is jumping up and down, violently rocking my car, making me seasick.
I search the passenger seat for my phone and realize I forgot it. As a warning, I start my engine and slowly pull forward. Through my rearview, I see the man drop to his knees, then lay prone on my trunk, his arms dangling over the sides, his legs sprawled spread-eagle. He’s laughing. Hysterically. The women, now flanking both sides of my car, are laughing, too.
I see no way out without flooring it. Panicked that I might kill someone in the process, I weigh all my options, deciding that it’s either them or me. Then someone across the parking lot lets out a shrill whistle. The guy hops off my trunk, and he and the two women run to a waiting SUV. Within seconds, the parking lot is empty with the exception of me.
I sit there for a while, trying to regain my breathing, because for a time there I’m pretty sure I’d stopped. Then I nose out of the lot, taking a different road than the one I came in on, a different road from the SUV.
A few miles later, I try to convince myself that the parking lot idiots were just a harmless bunch of local kids, probably stoned out of their minds but gentle lions just looking for attention. Still, I’m unsettled enough that I keep my eyes on all my mirrors, looking over my shoulder every few seconds.
I take the backroads on the outskirts of Ghost, avoiding downtown, passing sheep farms, cattle ranches, old barns, and garages big enough to house tractors and farm equipment. Here, the houses are utilitarian. The lights out. Early to bed, early to rise. But there’s safety in knowing that I’m just a driveway away from help if I need it.
Subconsciously—but the psychologist in me believes it’s probably more conscious than I want to acknowledge—I wind up on Old Ranch Road. This time around, the road doesn’t feel as long. And in no time at all, I’m sitting in Knox’s driveway with the engine running, wondering what to do next. The porch light is on, so I turn off the car and climb the stairs.
As if he’s been expecting me, Knox opens the door, then his arms, and takes me in.
He doesn’t ask why I’m here so late or interrogate me about why I’m not home, safe in my bed. He just wordlessly holds me, and I’m no longer afraid of bad dreams or hoodlums in an empty parking lot. It’s the most generous thing anyone has ever done for me.
“You hungry?”
“I never ate dinner, but it’s got to be after midnight.”
“So? Kitchen is always open here.” With his arms still wrapped around me, he walks me across the house.
“I’m going to let you go now,” he says, because I’m still clinging to him. Then he moves to the refrigerator and sticks his head in. “Soup or a sandwich? Or both?”
“Both, please.” I didn’t realize how hungry I was until now.
By the time Knox has the bacon sizzling in a frypan on top of the stove, I’m ravenous. The smell alone is making my stomach rumble. When he finishes building a perfect BLT, the microwave dings with the soup. Tomato. I don’t know if it’s homemade or store-bought. And frankly, I don’t care. It looks delicious.
He serves me at the table and takes the chair across from me.
“You’re not eating?”
“I ate already.” Of course he did. The entire state of California is asleep by now.
“Thank you,” I say in between bites. “It’s so good.” I can’t remember anything tasting this wonderful.
“So you were just driving around and decided to stop by?” he says, trying to make it sound casual, but I can see he’s concerned, possibly even thinks I lost my mind.
“Something like that.”
He holds my gaze, willing me to tell the truth.
“I was afraid to sleep. Last night, I was besieged by weird dreams. I thought if I took a drive, it would clear my head. And I wound up here. Were you writing?”
“Nope. Done for the night. The odd thing is, I had a premonition you’d show up. When I heard Bailey barking . . . well, I knew.”
I can’t tell if he’s playing around with me, joking. “What kind of premonition?”
“Just a feeling that you’d wind up at my front door.”
