Nick and Franny drove up Highway 101 from Garberville in Nick’s ancient, coughing VW bus. It was hot. Wild fires had burned throughout Northern California in recent weeks and a gray haze and the smell of smoke lingered like a bad memory. Franny turned up the AC and tried to find a radio station, but it was no use up here in the toolies.
She wanted to go back to Santa Rosa. She wanted to get into their apartment swimming pool in her bikini and put on a good play list. Maybe some Stones. Yeah. Then she would sip a gin and tonic from a water bottle. That was how you had to do it, or else “the management,” which was basically a fake blonde named Lottie, kicked you out of the pool.
They had been fighting. Nick was turning out to be a control freak, and Franny now regretted moving in with him. He was cute, but cute wore off after a while. Especially when it came with a whole lot of suggestions, like you should put out your cigarette, and you look better with less make-up, and maybe you need more exercise. Ass hole.
He was looking at her. She could feel it. She didn’t look back. “Keep your eyes on the road, hey? I don’t want to go flying off of one of these 500 foot embankments.” She looked down into a valley far below the curving road. It was covered in pine and scrub. Presumably, there were bears, too.
“I’m sorry.” Nick took one hand off the stearing wheel and it seemed he might reach over, perhaps to touch her hand, or pat her leg. But then he put it back on the steering wheel.
“Alright.”
She thought about her parents and their squabbles that cast a pall over every dinner, every family event, and every road trip. That had lasted throughout her childhood, and they both explained later that they had stayed together as long as they had for her sake. People did the dumbest things, herself included. Maybe she was just reincarnating their sad, snippy relationship. The guy before Nick was a piece of work too. Except he wasn’t controlling. He was just an angry person.
“No, I mean it,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m just… like, tense about finals or something.”
She took a drink from her Coke. “I said alright.”
The air was cooling as they went north. Maybe it was Franny’s imagination. But she cranked the window down and put her hand out to feel the breeze. It had been 100 according to the bank clock in Willits, and the gas station attendant in Garberville said it was 90. Franny would put it at 80 now.
After a few miles, they turned off at a town called Weott and pretty soon they were driving along a winding green river. Down on the river bank, a family played in the water. Two little girls in bright yellow and pink swimsuits ran along the river bank and then jumped in and splashed. The dad sat on the bank, watching their antics. Meanwhile, the mom rode around on a bright green raft, and the girls, who were wearing water wings, paddled to her. Franny couldn’t have said why, but this uplifting scene changed her mood just a little. It made her think things weren’t so hopeless, somehow.
The road narrowed, then, and they were driving under a canopy of enormous redwoods. The river had disappeared from view. It seemed quiet under the trees, as if the redwoods formed an enormous ancient library and it was improper to speak at full volume.
Nick pulled off the road into a little parking area and turned to smile at her. “We’re here. Come on.”
The redwoods were far more enormous than Franny had ever imagined–not only in height but in girth. Nick hugged one of the fattest ones, and he looked like a bug. It was that much bigger than him. She laughed.
“Some of these are more than 2,000 years old,” he said. “As old as Jesus.”
They walked along a path that wound through the trees, with the redwood duff dry and spongy under their feet. Finally, they came to one of the tallest trees. And they looked up.
Franny felt dizzy. “Oh! That’s amazing!” She nearly fell backward, but Nick caught her. And he held her in his arms as they breathed in the thick woody aroma that made the air feel dense around them.
She wanted to say she was sorry too, then, because all the things that had been bothering her seemed small and insignificant now. But for the moment, at least, it didn’t seem important to say anything, or do anything, except to listen to the creaking and swaying of the ancient trees.
