THE FOG WAS DENSE AND DISORIENTING. CARLYNN DROVE ALONG Highway One at ten miles an hour, afraid to go any faster for fear she’d sail right off the cliff into the Pacific. It had been a long time since she’d been down this stretch of coast. She remembered it as winding and treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful, as well. The beauty was lost on her at the moment, though, as she neared the Bixby Bridge. She had never liked this bridge. It was far too high, the expanse between the two cliffs far too long. She had to stop the car before driving onto it, licking her lips and gathering up her courage. “It’s just a road,” she told herself and started across. Fog swirled beneath the bridge, and she supposed it was just as well that it camouflaged the distance between herself and Bixby Creek, far below. Once she reached the other side of the bridge, she let out her breath. Not that the road she was on, which hugged the bluffs high above the ocean, was much better.
Highway One was always a work in progress along the stretch between the Monterey Peninsula and Big Sur. It was subject to floods and landslides and forest fires, and if there were boulders or fallen trees littering the road ahead of her, she wouldn’t know it until it was too late because of the opaque, cottony fog. There were also very few other cars. For a summer’s day, that seemed odd to her, but she supposed it was the weather that was keeping tourists away. Maybe they knew better than to drive when the fog was this thick. The route to the Cabrial Commune was only thirty or so miles past Monterey, Penny had told her. Carlynn hadn’t known they were to be the thirty slowest miles of her life.
Penny Everett had called earlier that week. Carlynn had been in her office at the center, looking over Alan’s initial draft for a brilliant research project he was designing, when Lisbeth buzzed her on the intercom.
“Phone call for you, Carlynn,” she’d said. “It’s Penny Everett!”
“You’re kidding!” Carlynn had set down her pen and picked up the phone. “Penny?”
“Oh, Carlynn.” The voice was a whisper. “I’m so glad I could reach you.”
The woman didn’t sound like Penny, and for a brief moment Carlynn wondered if it might be a desperate patient scheming to get in to see her. It had happened before.
“Penny? What’s wrong with your voice?” she asked. “You sound terrible.”
“I know. That’s why I’m calling. I hate to bother you…I know you must be terribly busy. But I was wondering if there’s any chance you could help me.”
It most certainly
“What’s wrong?” Carlynn found herself whispering as well, and Penny laughed.
“Everyone does that,” she said. “Everyone whispers when they talk to me. It must be catching.”
Carlynn chuckled. “I’ve missed you, Penny,” she said. “I was going to say it’s good to hear your voice, but that would be a lie.”
“I’ve been this way for four months,” Penny said. Was she crying? Carlynn couldn’t tell.
“Four months!” She stood up and walked over to the window, which looked out at the traffic on Sutter Street. “Do you know what started it?”
“It started while I was in a musical,” Penny said. “Just this little off-Broadway thing. I was under a lot of stress. That’s what caused it, my doctor said. He said I needed a break and my voice would come back, but it hasn’t.”
“Have you alleviated the stress?” Carlynn asked.
“Yes!” Penny sounded as emphatic as she could, given there was no power to her voice. “I left New York. I’m back in California, staying in a commune in Big Sur where there’s no pressure, just a lot of loving people and peace and quiet, and I’ve been here for two months now, and I
“Oh, honey, that must be frightening.” She tried to picture what Penny’s life must be like on a commune. They were cropping up here and there, filled with hippies who rarely washed and slept around with abandon. The lifestyle sounded unappealing to Carlynn, but she could see her old, unconventional friend thriving in that sort of environment.
“And the worst part is, there’s this play I want to do in New York next year,” Penny continued. “I want it in the worst way, Carly. It’s called
“Can you come up here to San Francisco?” Carlynn asked. “It wouldn’t be a huge drive for you. Come and spend a few days with us and I’ll work with you.”
There was a moment of silence on the line.
“I wanted to invite you down here,” Penny said. “I really don’t want to leave here right now. I’m afraid of the… you know, the stress. I have a little cabin with twin beds. Well—” she giggled hoarsely “—I have two mattresses, anyhow. On the floor. It could be like a little vacation for—”
“Oh, Penny, I can’t. I’m swamped here.” But her mind was racing ahead. A few days in Big Sur. The windswept cliffs above the coastline, the ocean and the fanciful cloudlike fog that put San Francisco’s to shame. A week off. She loved the center and adored her work, but still… Time with her old friend on a commune, of all places, would be an adventure. And Penny obviously needed her help. By the time Penny said, “Oh, please, Carly?” she had made up her mind.
Had she really thought of this fog as fanciful? It was positively blinding, and she wondered if this was how Delora felt all the time, unsure of where to place her next step.
The only way she would ever know where to turn off Highway One was by her mileage. She’d set her trip odometer as she passed the Carmel exit, and when it reached thirty miles, she would start looking for the tree. “It’s a coastal redwood,” Penny had said. “Sort of out of place right there along the road. You can’t miss it.”
