Leaving my sorrow behind.
I didn’t have much to pack—just clothes, books, some kitchen paraphernalia, a couple of lamps, my laptop, and my guitar.
I threw it all in my truck and headed back to Casa Diez on Saturday morning.
The studio was dark when I got there, and I went to the main house and knocked, figuring I should let October know I’d arrived. The furry dinosaur greeted me first, rushing out through a linebacker-size dog door on the east side of the house.
“Hey there, Diego.” He walked underneath my hand and leaned into me, and I scratched his back without having to reach for it.
October opened the door seconds later, holding a pair of dirty sneakers.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” she said back at me, a broad, thousand-watt smile immediately lighting up her face.
Only then did it hit me how pretty she was. I don’t know why it hadn’t been more obvious at our first meeting. Sometimes I can’t see things when they’re right in front of my face. But I saw it then. I saw how her eyes were like the forest that surrounded her house: mysterious but fresh, bright, and alive. And I saw how all of her features seemed kaleidoscopic: colorful and constantly changing, depending on the angles, the reflections, and the light.
However, it feels important to say this: It wasn’t anything as superficial as the way October looked that eventually drew me to her. It was something else. Something deeper. An energy. A spirit. Her presence warmed my heart and terrified me at the same time.
She sat down right where she stood in the middle of the doorway and put on her shoes.
“We’re about to head out for a hike.” She nodded toward the dog. “He won’t let me do anything unless I tire him out first. Walk with us. Then you can unpack.”
We followed the path that wound around the back of the house, through deer ferns, sorrel, and ivy, and up a short hill to the property line, where a chain-link fence with a gate entangled in wild blackberry bushes opened onto the fire road that led to the top of the mountain. It was a trail that Bob, Sam, and I had spent a lot of time on when I was a kid and, later, Cal and I as teenagers. I knew it as well as I knew the five-string triad arpeggios I used to practice with my eyes closed.
Diego ran up ahead, zooming in circles around a big tree until we reached him. I knew that tree too. Bob and I had named it together. He’d claimed it was the tallest coast live oak on that part of the trail, and we’d called it Beanstalk, then, later, Bean for short.
After the quick sprint the dog calmed down, ambled back over to us, and walked beside me, as if he thought it was his job to usher us up the trail.
We walked for maybe a quarter of a mile in silence. Finally October said, “Did Rae warn you not to talk too much, or are you just generally quiet?”
“Both.”
She chuckled. “Don’t let Rae scare you. She the oldest of five kids. Thinks she has to mother everyone. Including me.”
I didn’t know what to say to that except “OK.”
We were quiet again. Then October said, “Come on. Tell me about yourself. Besides your birthday, since I already know that.”
I made it a point not to tell people the pitiful details of my life, and I didn’t think I’d be working there longer than the project would last, so making shit up didn’t seem to matter. When I’d moved to Berkeley as a college freshman, I’d gotten into the asinine habit of telling people the tale of Bob’s childhood as my own, and I’d been doing it ever since.
“I grew up in Spokane. Moved here to go to Berkeley. How about you? Where are you from?”
“Rochester. New York, not Minnesota.”
That surprised me. She seemed too interesting to be from Rochester. “Did you study art there?”
She shook her head. “RISD.”
“How did you end up out here?”
“Got recruited to do graphic design for a tech company in the city.”
“Which one?”
“Ribble.”
“Wow. What did you do for them?”
She looked down and kicked at some rocks. “You know the little logo cartoons on the search engine homepage?”
“The Ribble scribbles?”
She squinted up her face and gave me a quick nod.
“You used to make those?”
She stopped walking, turned her head slightly in my direction, gave me a sharp side-eye, and whispered, “I still make those.”
“Really?” I was genuinely impressed. “That’s cool.”
She nudged me playfully with her elbow, and I remember thinking the gesture felt weirdly intimate, like something you’d do with an old friend, not a virtual stranger.
“It is not cool. It’s mortifyingly corporate. But it pays the bills, if you know what I mean.”
I nodded. I’d heard even the interns made six figures at Ribble. “I liked the one you did for Bob Dylan’s birthday last year, the one where his face was a cake, with the animated harmonica.”
She halted, wide-eyed. “You remember that?”
“Yeah. And the April Fool’s Day one with the spinning kangaroo. That was great.”
She threw her head back and laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
“What?” I mumbled.
She nudged me again, this time a playful push with her palm. “That wasn’t a kangaroo! It was Diego!”
“Ah. Shit.” I laughed too, our eyes met, and right away I felt like I was doing something wrong. To change the subject, I asked her how long she’d been living in Mill Valley.
“About three years. I lived in the city first, but I didn’t like it. Sensory overload. I moved over here as soon as I could afford it.”
We continued hiking uphill, and October spoke mostly to the dog, telling him what a good boy he was, pointing out birds and squirrels for him to see, stopping to give him water every so often. She talked to him like he was a child, and he looked at her with rapt attention anytime she said his name or raised the pitch of her voice.
I remember thinking that perhaps she was testing me, to see if I could be unobtrusive, and I’d been trying not to speak too much unless she spoke to me. But I also didn’t want her to think I wasn’t interested in her work; eventually I got up the nerve to ask her what kind of artist she was.
She bent down to tie her shoelace, looked up at me and, with a chuckle, said, “You took this job without knowing that?”
I shrugged, gestured toward the mountain. “I like redwoods.”