1
Richard Shelling left his rented Santa Monica home on a weekend evening, with no particular destination other than away. Earlier that day, while attending a brunch party at a television producer’s beach house–he attended many parties–looking down from a balcony at the groves of his fellow actors, he thought he heard a voice in his ear whispering “Away, take yourself away.” He glanced at his companions, assuming that one of them had spoken, but, as usual, they were taking turns not listening to each other’s stories. Shelling set his glass of rum punch on a table and left. At home he packed a bag.
His impulse propelled him east, rather than north or south. On the edge of the continent, west was impossible without a ship, and he understood this to be a road trip. Besides, he had grown up and gone to college in the northwest. East signified new territory, and the exploration of it would fortify him, grant him insights into previously hidden realms.
He drove toward Interstate 10, then to 15. In Barstow he stopped for gas and bought a road atlas and two compact discs of truck driving songs; back in his car, he inserted the first disc and studied the atlas as sounds of horns and snare drum readied him for the journey.{note 1} Las Vegas was next, and although he had no desire to see that fabled city, it stood between him and Interstate 70’s uninterrupted cross-country pavement. Distance plus thought equals change, he decided.
First light of the new day found him a few miles short of the Colorado border. He had never driven into the sunrise, and the intensity of the light, the tactile pinks and yellows filtered through his caffeinated brain, thrilled him. Turning up the music, he sang to the dawn.
~
By the time he reached Massachusetts (after sleep-stops in Kansas City, then Ohio, where he left I-70 for a northern route), the highway miles had stripped his California shellac and softened him. The past ten years he had spent acting in assorted television programs, years he would have to describe as lucrative but unrewarding, and he found the appeal of a simple, rural life growing in him, coalescing into a picture of a farmhouse surrounded by open countryside.
Fields gave way to hills and low mountains, to billboards advertising ski slopes. A peculiar yellow-gray mist filled the hollows, and he powered up his car windows to block a growing chill. He thought he saw flashes in the mist, like a horde of fireflies. Where the road slid between a sheer rock face on one side and a ravine on the other, the mist thickened, and he couldn’t see the road curving. He braked sharply and turned the wheel inward. His right front tire grazed the narrow shoulder, but he managed to straighten the car. He slowed to 25, then 20, then 15. A sign announced Highway 7, Springdale, five miles. At the intersection he turned right, hoping the new road would free him from the mist.
Springdale–the name tickled his memory. He had an image of a river, and a blonde woman wearing a thin satin dress with a plunging neckline. She wouldn’t let him near her; another man interceded.
Shelling bounced his right fist off the dashboard and laughed. That wasn’t real life–Springdale was the name of the town in that sexy TV drama. He had a guest shot on it once, which he had hoped would develop into a recurring role.{note 2} He laughed again. The road, that was it, driving too long, couldn’t even keep memories of television appearances separate from reality. He needed to stop at a motel and sleep. No sense pushing things. Springdale then. The thought of visiting this real-world namesake of a TV town appealed to him.
His highway intersected with another, and he turned left. The stone buildings of the town spread before him–town hall, schools, churches, shops. He didn’t see the river till he passed the library. The water drew closer to the road, and half a block farther, Shelling pulled the car into the gravel drive of a road- and water-side park. He lowered the front windows and turned off the engine. Wood smoke and a hint of springtime growth flavored the air. The sign over Springdale Savings showed 54 degrees, cold to his California skin, but he left his jacket in the car and wandered toward the water, savoring the clean air and the music of the stream.
Later that afternoon, he checked into a motel on the south edge of town. From there, he could explore the area, though there wasn’t much need–he knew he would stay. When morning came, with a dance of sunlight waking him through the motel windows, the first place he visited was the real estate office on Main Street. The realtor had reddish hair, one of those stiff coifs that could only be maintained with weekly visits to the beauty parlor (which they were still called in places like Springdale). She looked at Shelling carefully, as though judging whether he was worthy enough to buy property in her proximity.
“I was thinking a farmhouse,” Shelling said. “When I was a kid, I visited my Uncle Nathan on his farm in Northern California. Uncle Nathan raised goats.” Shelling paused as the realtor’s left eyebrow rose, an arc that he interpreted to mean he had lost points on her worthiness meter. “Not that I’m planning to raise goats here,” he added, hoping he hadn’t damaged his standing with her.
Despite his assumed faux-pas, the realtor drove him to an 1890s farmhouse on the river, about five miles from town. Though he gave it a day’s deliberation, he knew as soon as he saw the house and land that he would take it. He arranged to have his things shipped from California, and moved in as soon as the details of purchase could be settled.
~
In Springdale Shelling knew no one, but anonymity pleased him. As though instinctively planning this new life, he had always used a pseudonym for television, so his real name meant nothing to the realtor, and his face–well, everyone looked like someone else. Plus, the show on which he had spent the most time was a futuristic drama set on some far-off planet; for three seasons Shelling had worn orange neoprene over his face and head. Only the most avid fans read the “behind the scenes” articles showing him without make-up. When the realtor inquired about his career, he said he was a computer consultant.
The first time he went to the hardware store, the woman working the cash register asked him if he was Patrick Travis, which sounded familiar, and the name nagged at him for days, until he remembered: the character he had played for his guest appearance on Blake’s River. He couldn’t believe somebody had recognized him from it, but then maybe here, in this real-world Springdale, people took a peculiar pleasure in following the dramas of the fictional one.
Shelling’s new town pulsed; he exulted in the weekly paper, reading about the issues that gripped the residents, learning from the editorials, articles, and the police report. In the letters page, residents discussed radio towers, affordable housing, water quality, and traffic. (Surprisingly, for a town its size, the volume of cars passing through on Main Street proved excessive at times–especially during the tourist seasons–and a newly-opened resort complex northwest of town inspired much debate.){note 3}
But even with these signs of life, as a newcomer to Springdale without local connections, with no job-place interactions, Shelling could not figure out how to meet people. He started classes at the yoga center (something he had always meant to do in California), and although the teachers and classmates seemed friendly, it was hard to engage them in something that moved beyond the site of the class, into a café or bar, the socio-emotional realm of deeper contact.
Conversation, a quiet coffee with a friend, the spontaneity of a large group–he needed these things. Yes, he could, and did, talk to the various waitpeople, movie ticket sellers, fishmongers, but feared they would think him odd, coming in day upon day, buying a coffee here, a sandwich there. Perhaps he should open a café, or a bookshop. Then the people would come to him. But proprietorship would put him on the other side, the server side, and a wall existed, the barrier between the served and those serving.
In the Japanese restaurant, he often spoke to Monique, the redheaded waitress. He learned about her art school background, her pottery; they had made vague plans for him to visit her studio, but he worried that seeing her outside her job would change the nature of their relationship, might commit him to a course of attempted romance, the failure of which would prevent his return to the restaurant.
Without local contact, he found himself calling Vuksek, his financial advisor, every day for chats having nothing to do with investing.