1
Olivia needed two and a half days to drive from Los Angeles to Miramar. Part of it came down to the pre-Christmas traffic. Southern Californian drivers tended to go nuts in bad weather. There was no logic to it, so theories abounded. Olivia doubted it was actually aliens losing contact with their control subjects when clouds blanketed the region. More than likely it was because storms robbed the journey of any possible pleasure. Under conditions like these, cold and wet and windy and dark and gray, travelers were desperate to get the trip over and done.
But mostly her slow pace was because of the roads. She had of course heard about the storms that had lumbered off the Pacific, hurricane-force winds and weeks of torrential downpour. But LA had been spared the worst, and her own world had become reduced to making it through tempests of a more personal nature.
Once she passed Ventura, the true extent of storm damage became very real. Twice the highway was reduced from ten lanes to two by mudslides. Even when the freeway opened back up, the rubble not picked up by the scrapers remained ankle deep in places. Some drivers still insisted on scrambling over the debris fields, spewing gravel at the saner travelers.
Olivia actually found a sullen comfort in the slow progress, the swirling gray blanket overhead, the sudden lashing storms that came and went in seconds. Her mind flickered back and forth over the previous months, like a tongue gingerly probing a broken tooth.
Despite everything that had happened, she couldn’t bring herself to call her ex-husband a bad man. Gareth had occasionally thrown himself into situations he regretted afterwards. Typical hormone-driven, adolescent-minded male, was how her city friends called him. But in the good times, and there had been many, those were some of the traits that had made life with Gareth so exciting. They had also fueled Gareth’s success as a television producer. He had swept Olivia off her feet, and for five and a half years their romantic moments had left her breathless.
But as Olivia’s friends back in Miramar had warned, love in the big city was a roller coaster of a ride.
Seven months back, Gareth had finally confessed to what Olivia had long suspected. His impetuous nature had drawn him into the arms of a lovely young starlet. Olivia and her soon-to-be ex were still involved in the divorce when Gareth was struck by a trio of blows, bam-bam-bam, lightning fast and fatal. The new flame of his life ran off with a stuntman who claimed he had a real shot at stardom. Then the striking writers and actors froze his projects in development, and he was forced to declare bankruptcy. Which was when he took Olivia to dinner at their former favorite restaurant and confessed he was so broke he couldn’t pay his lawyers. Alimony was out of the question.
Five days later, Gareth was felled by a heart attack.
Farewell, wayward lad. Olivia actually cried at his funeral.
Of course, none of this was why it had taken her nine long years to make the return journey to Miramar.
* * *
The road from San Luis Obispo was a seventy-mile tale of unnatural events. Rubble and flooded areas reduced the county highway to one lane in places. The drive normally took no more than ninety minutes. Today she needed five and a half hours. When the crawling traffic stopped moving altogether, which was often, people rose from their cars. Stretched. Olivia did the same. In truth, she was not sorry for the difficult journey. It kept her mind off everything that waited up ahead.
The sky was an artist’s pallet of grays. The air tasted wet, thick with rain that did not fall. In the awful days gone by, she had repeatedly turned off the television whenever newscasters referred to the central coast storms. Any mention of her childhood home had Olivia reaching for the remote. She had not bothered with the papers or evening news. Not once in seven long and weary months.
She finally approached Miramar by the light of a sullen dusk. Olivia was tempted to head straight for the seashore walk, which had formed such a vital part of her early years. It was there she had set her course south. Determined to leave the small-town life. Certain her world was bigger than Miramar.
But that walk would have to wait. There were already too many emotions surrounding her return. She needed to be strong when facing that path. Ready for the act of surrender.
Miramar’s main street surprised her. A lot. Enough to push aside the recollections, draw her fully into the now.
She drove slowly up Ocean Avenue, aiming for the guesthouse where she had planned to spend her first few nights. Preparing for the hardship of returning home. Now she understood why there had been no response to her emailed requests for a room, nor any answer to her calls. Miramar’s main street was lined with an odd assortment of cars. Pickups and SUVs and campers jammed the fire lane and grass verges, something that would never have been permitted in her day.
The guesthouse parking lot was blocked by a pair of sawhorses. Castaways Restaurant was closed. Olivia turned down the side lane leading to the employees’ parking lot and found a space. She walked back to Ocean Avenue and stood there. Trying to understand what was happening.
The sidewalks were as full as she’d expect for the season. But the people showed no joy. The children were kept close. No running around or pulling on arms or shouting. And the clothes. Wrinkled, some stained, all of them worse for wear. The scene reminded her of hard-luck times in the farming valleys. People and cars drifting by, going nowhere at a very slow pace.
The guesthouse’s sign had a NOVACANCYshingle dangling in the fitful breeze. Olivia stopped halfway up the walk, halted by the handwritten sign taped to the front window: DON’TEVENASK.
Olivia crossed the street, climbed one block, and was almost prepared for the sight that greeted her inside the diner, the Ocean Avenue Grill. Every table was taken, every chair. But there was none of the normal chatter. The faces were both weary and unfamiliar. Of course, she had not been back in eight years. Still, she would have expected to recognize somebody. The diner was the center of town gossip, the place where the idlers gathered....
A waitress pushed through the doors, her tray overfull with what appeared to be six identical orders. She froze and gaped. Then called, “You stay right there.” She set down the plates, offered one of the children a smile, then hurried over. “Great heavens above. Is that really you?”
“Hello, Claire.”
“What on earth are you doing here?”
“Nowhere else to go.”
“I’ve been hearing that tune far too often these days.” Claire Levant gripped Olivia’s arm with her free hand. “You just come with me.”
A number of the children they passed were asleep, either cradled in their parents’ arms or using the table for a headrest. Claire pushed through the kitchen doors and announced, “We’ve got ourselves another hungry stray.”
Arnaud Levant, the head cook and Claire’s husband, was a rapier-thin man, whose hair was caught in a colorful scarf that matched his pirate’s grin. “Wow.”
Claire beamed. “I know, right?”
