I was fiddling with the radio in my twelve-year-old Chevy when I nearly missed the most breathtaking sight I had ever seen. No one prepares you for the beauty of Oregon. The highway bent around a hill and carried me into a forest of evergreens. Fog sat low between the trunks. The trees farther back disappeared into the mist. Ferns covered the ground right up to the road. I turned the radio down and slowed enough that the car behind me had to pass. The driver gave me an irritated look. I barely noticed. I couldn't believe I was going to live here.
You might be wondering why anyone would leave the land of beaches and endless sunshine for Oregon. But let me tell you, Bakersfield is nobody's dream version of California. The ocean was hours away, and most of the palm trees belonged to shopping centers. I had spent twenty-two years watching California appear in movies and wondering where they kept that part of it.
But that was behind me now. Oregon was my fresh start. I had a job waiting, a cozy cottage of my own, and miles of forest where nobody knew me yet.
My thrift-store suitcase lay across the back seat beside a box of kitchen things. The camera was in my backpack, within reach. For the past week, I’d slept on Aubrey’s couch. We’d known each other for years, and she wanted me to stay until the baby came. I liked helping her. I liked her boyfriend considerably less, particularly after he started keeping me company when she went to bed.
On Monday, I would start as a personal assistant at the town’s real-estate and development company. I’d spent months applying for office jobs between waitressing shifts and evening classes, changing in restaurant bathrooms for interviews that went nowhere.
I found this position after widening my search again. At the bottom of my application, almost as an afterthought, I included a link to my photographs.
Martin Ellis, the older gentleman who interviewed me, had asked about them.
“Did you take the laundromat picture?”
I knew exactly which one. A woman holding a sleeping child, her clothes turning in the dryer behind her.
“I did. I missed my bus waiting for her to say I could take it.”
“My wife was also a waitress when we met, you know. Twenty-one years ago now, and she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old, but I believe in giving someone a chance when they’re clearly trying. I think you could do a lot of good here, Rory. I’d like to offer you the job.”
He said I could start on reception and help him look after some of the rental properties. They needed photographs for the listings, too.
I tried not to sound too eager. I would have photographed every bathroom in Oregon if it meant somebody might eventually pay me to use my camera.
Finding somewhere to live was harder. The rooms I could afford on Craigslist either disappeared before anyone answered or required money before I could see them. Aubrey kept forwarding warnings about scams.
When I asked the office where people usually rented, Mr. Ellis sent me a listing for a cottage the company managed.
A deep porch. A green front door. Bright rooms, partly furnished. I emailed to check whether the rent covered the whole place, then read his answer twice.
I was imagining the porch when my stomach cramped. I’d left Bakersfield in the dark, and the crackers I bought with my gas were long gone. A sign for PIE AND COFFEE appeared beneath one announcing the town was nineteen miles away. I took the turn.
A bell jingled above the diner door. The air smelled of coffee and potatoes frying, and I stood inside long enough for someone behind me to clear their throat.
I moved out of his way.
Thick beams crossed the ceiling. The booths were dark wood, worn smooth along their edges, and cream curtains hung halfway up the windows. Through the uncovered glass, I could see mist caught in the trees.
Behind the counter, a silver-haired woman in a plum-colored apron poured coffee while a customer counted his change.
“Leave it, Paul. You gave me too much yesterday.”
She looked up and smiled at me. Fine lines gathered beside her eyes, making her whole face seem warmer.
“Come in, honey. Are you eating?”
“Please. Whatever I can smell.”
“Probably the potatoes. Take a seat, and I’ll bring you a menu.”
“See you tomorrow, Linda,” the man said.
“Take your glasses this time.”
He came back for them, smiling to himself. I slid into a booth while two women at the counter continued a conversation about somebody’s boat.
Linda brought coffee. I pushed back the sleeves of my oversized teal sweatshirt and wrapped my hands around the mug.
When she asked where I was headed, I told her about the job and the cottage.
“The one with the green door?” She stopped with the coffeepot still tilted over my cup. “I didn’t know they were renting that. My daughter would’ve been asking about it.”
“My employer sent me the listing. I’ve only seen pictures.”
“Well, you’ll have to come back and tell me what it’s like inside.”
My stomach growled before I could answer.
She laughed. “Let me bring you the house breakfast. How do you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled. And could I have jam with the toast?”
Steam rose from the plate when she set it down. I burned my tongue on a potato and kept eating. The toast broke with a crunch, dropping crumbs into my lap. I spread blackberry jam right to the edges of the next piece.
By the time Linda came to clear the plate, I could have stayed another hour.
“Could I have the check, please?”
“You’re taken care of. That handsome young man paid for your breakfast.”
I looked at her, then toward the counter.
“Which man? I haven’t spoken to anyone.”
“The one just leaving.”
The bell jingled. A tall man stepped through the doorway, his back to me. I turned farther in my seat, but the door closed before I saw his face.
“Are you sure he meant my table?”
“He pointed you out.”
Heat rose into my cheeks. I wished I’d checked my hair before coming inside.
“That’s really nice of him. I just feel strange letting somebody pay when I can’t even thank him.”
Linda leaned closer. There was a mischievous brightness in her eyes now.
“Honey, if I were your age, I’d be out there asking what he was doing this afternoon. You can let him buy your eggs.”
I laughed and looked through the window again.
“Now I wish you’d told me sooner.”
“If he comes back, I’ll mention that.”
“Please don’t. I’ve already embarrassed myself enough.”
She smiled as she took my plate. “Then I won’t say a word.”
I lingered over my coffee, wondering what he’d noticed. I’d been eating as if I’d forgotten other people existed. Apparently that hadn’t put him off.
When I left, I added two dollars to the tip I’d already counted out. My bank balance was low enough that I’d reconsider something at the grocery store later, but Linda had made me feel welcome.
My phone rang as I got into the car.
“Have you got there yet?” Aubrey asked. “I’ve been trying not to call, but you were supposed to send pictures.”
“I stopped for breakfast. Someone paid for it.”
“Hang on, let me turn this down. Someone who?”
“A man. I only saw his back as he left, but Linda was impressed.”
“Who’s Linda?”
“The waitress. She thinks I should’ve followed him.”
“I like her already. Did she get his name?”
“I was too busy blushing to conduct an interview.”
I put the phone in its holder. Aubrey wanted to know whether I’d at least seen his car, and I admitted I hadn’t.
“You’ve been in Oregon five minutes, and I’m already getting an incomplete report.”
I laughed as I pulled onto the road.
We talked through town. She had a prenatal appointment the next morning and couldn’t find her folder. I told her to look beneath the magazines beside the couch.
“You see?” she said when she found it. “This is why you should’ve stayed.”
“Put it in your bag now, while you’re holding it.”
“I am. You’d better let me know if this cottage is even real. I keep looking at the pictures and wondering what they’ve left out.”
The road narrowed beyond town. I passed a wooden post bearing the number from my directions, turned in, and stopped.
The cottage stood beneath the trees, with pale siding and a climbing plant reaching up one porch post. Its leaves had begun turning red. Beside the green door was a bench I hadn’t noticed in the photographs.
“Aubrey, I have to let you go. I think the cottage is real.”
“Send me proof before you unpack.”
I promised.
I caught my toe on the porch step because I was looking at the bench. My knee hit the wood, and I sat back, checking my jeans and then my phone. Both survived.
“Excellent start,” I muttered.
The key waited in the lockbox. Inside, afternoon light reached across wooden floors toward a small fireplace. There was room for a sofa beneath the window. I could wait until I found one I loved.
Upstairs, the furnished bedroom faced the trees. A cream bedspread lay neatly over the mattress, with two pillows propped against the headboard. I pressed the mattress with my palm. After Aubrey’s couch, it felt extravagant.
In the kitchen, I opened an empty drawer. Then another. There was space beside the window for a table where I could leave my coursework overnight.
My throat tightened.
I’d been thinking about rent and mileage and whether the key would work. Now I could unpack completely. Put my suitcase away instead of living out of it.
I went back to the car before my eyes could fill.
My camera was in the front of my backpack, wrapped in a T-shirt. The black finish had rubbed away beside the shutter button, exposing a little brass, and one corner of the leather covering kept lifting despite my attempts to glue it down. I’d bought it from a thrift store years ago.
There were four frames left.
I stepped back until both bedroom windows fitted in the viewfinder. Tomorrow I’d wake up behind one of them. I could come downstairs and drink coffee on that bench. Nobody would need me to fold up the bedding first.
A shadow crossed the bedroom window.
I lowered the camera.
Nothing moved. I waited, then lifted it again, trying to find the same angle.
There was nobody upstairs. I’d just been there.
The branches shifted above the roof. Their reflection, surely. The gray light made it difficult to tell where the glass ended and the room began.
I put the camera away without taking the picture.
One suitcase wheel caught in the seat belt. I bent to free it, annoyed with myself for getting frightened before I’d even unpacked. When I straightened, I checked the window again.
Still nothing.
Upstairs, I went to put my backpack on the bed.
The edge of the bed was slightly sunken, the bedspread creased as though someone had been sitting there.
The thought gave me a sudden jolt of fear.
Maybe I’d sat down when I first came upstairs. I couldn’t remember now.
I bent over to examine the creases, pretending I was some sort of private investigator, but caught a scent I hadn’t noticed anywhere else in the house. Beneath the pine and cedar was something different.
Instinctively, I leaned closer. Sea salt, maybe, with a hint of musk. God, whatever this was smelled good. I took another sniff and lingered, then caught myself.
What was I doing? I’d bent down to look at the creases, and now I was practically pressing my nose into the bedspread.
I went downstairs to find something to eat. There were crackers somewhere in my backpack, and I could make tea once I found a mug. I wanted to sit in my new kitchen and enjoy being here.
Everything was unfamiliar. I’d probably feel better once I’d unpacked.
End of Chapter 1