RUNAWAY ROSE
Chapter Fifty-Nine
November 12, 1915
Rose stood on the beach, looking out across the
water. No one was around. A chill wind whipped her hair around her face and
sent the surf crashing against the beach.
Sighing, Rose wrapped her arms around herself
for warmth and walked across the sand. A cold rain began to fall, dampening the
sand above the surfline. No boats were on the water today, and no families
cavorted in the shallow water at the edge of the sea. The beach was deserted.
Ignoring the wind and rain, Rose sat down on
the sand away from the water, still looking out across the sea. It was endless,
it seemed, going on forever. No one could see across it, and the distant lands
on the other side of the Pacific were only a dream.
She pulled her knees up to her chin, picking
up a handful of sand and running it through her fingers. She hadn’t worked in
weeks. After her initial success as a film extra, she had found herself unable
to find work. The competition was fierce, and, despite her love of acting, she
had found that her heart wasn’t really in it.
Money wasn’t a problem, of course. She had
plenty of money left from the gold she had exchanged in San Francisco. Her
needs were few, and she saw little reason to indulge in unnecessary purchases.
Her landlord had furnished her apartment and she had only added a few of her
own decorations to the small living space. Living alone, she needed to buy only
enough food for herself and her dog, and she had bought only a few clothes
since she had arrived. Her needs were easy to meet.
Why then did she feel so restless? To be
sure, she wasn’t working, but that could change quickly enough. She had made a
few acquaintances amongst her neighbors, and was studiously avoiding the
attentions of a young man who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Rose pulled her hair out of her eyes and tied
it back with a ribbon. She hadn’t returned to Santa Monica since she had
visited in October. Much as she had enjoyed it, there had been something
missing, something she couldn’t quite define. She had watched groups of friends
and families enjoying the pier, and a part of her had wished that she could be
a part of that, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t join in the friendship and
laughter, and she had no family. Robert flashed briefly through her mind. He
would have liked this place, she thought. They would have enjoyed the rides
and amusements on the pier and visited the beach. After a while, perhaps, they
would have had a child to bring along with them and introduce to all the joys
they had experienced.
She shook her head, pushing the thoughts
away. It didn’t do any good to wish for what she couldn’t have. Robert was
gone, and she could only hope that he was watching over her. Maybe someday she
would find someone else to love, but not now. Not yet. She had to make her
peace with Robert’s loss before she could open her heart again.
Rose shivered, wrapping her arms more tightly
around her knees. She hated the cold, even though it was much warmer than the
deep, biting chills she had experienced before. A cold, overcast day in
Southern California was still infinitely warmer than a tundral winter—or an
April night in the North Atlantic.
She looked out over the ocean again, not
really seeing it. She had been in Southern California for months, and had
visited the beach often, but she had never been able to bring herself to go
into the ocean. The closest she had gotten was when she rode the horse in the
surf. The Pacific Ocean was warm enough, she supposed, but the endlessness of
it and the crashing waves made her apprehensive. It would be easy to vanish
into the ocean, never to be seen again.
Rose sat up as Tripper loped up to her, a
strand of seaweed hanging from his tail. She got to her feet as he shook
himself enthusiastically, spraying her with water. He wagged his tail, dropping
a dead fish at her feet.
Shaking her head, she picked up the fish and
flung it back out into the surf before her pet could eat it. From the smell,
the fish had probably been dead for a while, and she didn’t want the dog
poisoning himself.
Another gust of wind whipped her skirt about
as she turned back toward the city, flinging sand against her legs and chilling
her to the bone. Hooking the leash back on Tripper, Rose started back towards
home.
She wasn’t content here, she realized as she
walked along the streets of Los Angeles. She had always wanted to see Los
Angeles and Santa Monica and work as an actress, but now that she had done
those things she was restless and wanted to move on. But where would she go?
She could go back to San Francisco, she
realized. Deborah would welcome her, and she could resume acting at one of the
theaters if she chose. Or, she thought, she could return to New Orleans and
find her uncle. But neither of those choices really appealed to her.
She wanted to go someplace warm, she
realized, which eliminated San Francisco, which was cold and damp in the
winter. New Orleans was warm, most of the time, at least, but she couldn’t
really bring herself to return there. The city held too many memories of the
time she had spent there with Robert, and she wasn’t ready to see it again.
She could go south, she thought, down to San
Diego, or east to the desert. It might not be much warmer than Los Angeles, but
it was someplace new.
Entering her apartment, Rose looked around,
feeling as though the walls were closing in around her. The restlessness was
more pronounced now, and she realized that she really didn’t have anything to
keep her where she was. She didn’t understand the restlessness—she had wandered
so far already—but it was there nonetheless, pushing at her, telling her that
she needed to move on and find whatever it was she was unconsciously searching
for. Maybe she wasn’t looking for anything, she thought. Maybe she just needed
to keep moving, to stay ahead of whatever sorrows might be following in her
wake.
Removing the dog’s leash, she looked around
the small apartment. She didn’t have many possessions, and it wouldn’t take her
long to pack up what she did have. There was no reason for her to leave, but
there was really no reason for her to stay, either, and she felt driven to move
on.
Impulsively, Rose walked into her tiny
bedroom and pulled her suitcase from beneath her bed. Moving quickly, she
removed the clothes from her closet, packing them into the bag. Striding around
the apartment, feeling ever more closed in, she packed up her few remaining
possessions and hooked the leash on the dog again.
Picking up her suitcase, Rose went to the
door, hurrying outside, not stopping to say good-bye to anyone for fear that
they would talk her out of leaving. She needed to leave, even if she had no
idea where she was going or why she was going there.
Writing a quick note to her landlord, Rose
slipped the key into his mailbox and set off toward the train station. Few
people were on the streets as the rain began to fall more heavily, but she
almost ran through the streets, arriving at the train station in record time.
An hour later, Rose was aboard another train,
headed towards San Diego.