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VICTORIA
August 8
The best part of the journey is the beginning: the anticipation, the planning, the ability to dream and map out the greatest potential. With very little expectation, everything is possible. Days are a blank slate, and only good moments can be envisioned.
It’s at the beginning of my trips where my bullet journal gains the most use. I fill pages with scribbles and wannabe self-taught calligraphy, with inspirational quotes like Be in the moment and Face to the sun. Tiny doodles of flowers, arrows, and hearts trail across pages in different thicknesses and textures from gel pens and markers. The optimism shines like the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge through the Northern California fog. Unstoppable. The inspiration from these journals are the launchpad of my food and travel blog, Gutóm—which means hungry in Tagalog—where I’m free to wax poetic and make a living at the same time. Best job ever.
Yet, rarely do my journals show the middle of my journey, where the road muddles and stops and sometimes detours, nor does it depict the shuddering realization that I’ve accidentally taken the wrong turn. These pages don’t reflect the moment of despair, my decision to turn around, or my panic to want to head back to the starting point, back to my Pollyanna attitude.
And they sure don’t tell me what my next step should be.
Under the mattress of my sister’s guest bed, my home now, indefinitely, I tuck my journal away. I won’t be needing it for a while. For the first time, I’m not looking forward to my next adventure. The compass whose needle once pointed to my personal true north has proven erroneous, and I no longer trust it.
The cherry-red hard-shell suitcase packed with most everything I own is open on the mattress, my belongings inside still in perfect order. With how much I travel, there’s no room for mess, and I’ve learned to live with little. Usually, when I unpack, there’re more dirty clothes than clean, the remnants of the trip memorialized in the wrinkles and musk in my clothing, in the half-used tube of travel toothpaste, in the layer of dirt under my walking shoes.
The stuff I’m unpacking today is all still clean, tightly rolled, tucked together.
“Knock, knock.” A rap on the door and my sister’s voice makes me turn. Bryn leans against the doorjamb, holding up two steaming ceramic mugs of what I can smell is Kape Barako coffee, the best java in the world, brought from the Philippines by my father. Startlingly strong, nutty, and seemingly more caffeinated than any other coffee I’ve tasted in all the cafés I’ve found myself in, it’s a sign. My sis wants to talk. Like, really talk.
I hunch at the shoulders. Rehashing my current situation is worse than the actual truth of it, like digging for a splinter that’s embedded itself deep into my skin. It was bad enough experiencing it the first time, but to recall it, out loud? I’d shared as much as I was comfortable with when I returned over a week ago, and I’m not keen on feeling like a loser again. Even if I know it’s good for me to talk about it, my tongue rebels and roots itself to my palate.
“We have to talk about this.” Bryn passes me my mug. It’s a set we had personalized together. Hers has the word ate—older sister in Tagalog—in a rounded Arial, and mine has bunso—or last child—in calligraphy.
I give in to the temptation, my fingers wrapping around the warm mug. As if infused by caffeine through heat transfer, I stand straighter. After taking a sip, I try to distract her by bringing up the biggest thing on her plate: Paraiso Retreats, the culinary retreat she owns and operates here in Golden, a historic gold rush town on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. “I said I was fine. Let’s talk about the opening this weekend instead. Are you ready?”
Bryn is five years older than me, but is my father in every sense. She’s not fooled by my diversionary technique and it’s written on the slight upturn of her lips. Usually she wouldn’t let me get away with it. But this time, instead of a sharp redirection, she pushes the suitcase to make room for herself and climbs onto the bed, folding her legs beneath her. “I’m not talking about him.” Her eyes cloud at the mention of the source of my problem. “I want to know what you’re going to do about it?”
My eyes rest on my phone next to my suitcase. Last week, I’d received a callback email from West Coast Eats for a food TV host. At first, I was thrilled and had made an appointment to audition in person in two days, but now? “I don’t know. I’m better at writing than I am on camera. I was actually thinking of canceling so I can work on redesigning my blog—”
“When was the last time you blogged?”
I wince. The truth is that the thing with him has taken a toll, and my focus has been nonexistent. “Eleven days ago.”
Eleven days.
For the last couple of years, I’ve logged a blog post or a video almost daily. Gone are the days when bloggers could get away with posting once a week to keep readers. Now, to lure and maintain advertisers, content has to come up fast and often.
“So you’re telling me that you’re using your pretend work as an excuse.” Bryn levels me with a deadpan stare. “You know I love you being here, and I could find things for you to do, but I won’t allow you to hide. It’s time for you to go.”
My eyes grow wide. “You’re kicking me out?”
“Nope. I’m making you go to the callback. Luke Graham, fake or real, can’t be the one to keep you down, Vic.”
My cheeks burn and quiver at the sound of his name. Tears fill my lower lids, though I sniff them away. Stop it. Don’t cry. “I don’t know. I don’t know about anything now.” Words plop out of my mouth in chunks. Nausea follows at the memory of my two-day road trip to Phoenix in my Prius, at the searing heat through the windshield. I’d left Golden with a full heart, inspiration brimming. My blog covered every restaurant I visited while heading south, and my journal had runneth over with gratitude.
Now, I can’t bear to even touch them.
“Has he tried to contact you?”
“Yes. He left a slew of voice mails on my phone, texted a bunch of times. But I saw what I saw, and he can’t change that.”
A ribbon of silence weaves between us as I stare into my coffee, the humiliation of getting out of my Prius when I’d dropped by Luke’s workplace bubbling through me. Face primed with makeup, lips shiny and red, and in a blue romper I’d changed into at the Cracker Barrel where I’d had my last rest stop. Too excited to arrive at my destination, I’d skipped getting something to eat. After being faced with his lies, I’d driven another two hours before my appetite returned.
Looking down now, at the T-shirt and sweats I jumped into this morning after a sleepless night, I’m a far cry from where I imagined I would be today. Today’s coffee should have been with Luke. Not with my sister.
“Are you planning to call him back?” Bryn asks.
I shake my head.
Her lip flattens into a sort of smile. “Good. He doesn’t deserve an ounce of your time or forgiveness.”
I nod, despite the part of me that wonders what clues I missed. My shame slips to anger, because how could I have been so stupid? I’m a capable businesswoman with a strong support system and I am a good person. Women like me don’t get catfished, don’t get crushed like this.
Emotions war in my heart as they have the past week, showing me again that, those five stages of grief? There’s no order.
“You’re right though. I can’t just sit here.” With that, some acceptance tunnels to the surface.
“That’s the spirit.”
On the bed my phone lights up from an incoming call. Luke’s face beams at me: gorgeous light brown eyes that I thought only saw me, kissable lips that I looked forward to ravaging once I was in his arms. One glimpse and my tummy gives way.
I rush to my phone and decline the call. I don’t want to see that face appear again, and I want his information, his texts and emails, blocked. Social media and this phone were the conduits of our relationship, and while I’ve stayed away from anything online the last eleven days, I have yet to snuff these outlets. “Can you just . . . erase him?”
Bryn accepts the phone from me. “Yeah, I can. The texts and emails, too?” When I nod, she thumbs around and scrolls through. “Dang, he’s written you a ton.” She taps on the screen, scrolls and taps. “Okay, it’s done. But I left one email up that I think you should reread. You know, about a certain callback?”
“Will it really make you feel better if I go?”
“Yep. This is just an audition; nothing could come out of it, you know? But you might as well get away from this house. Eat, dance, get that dumbass out of your system. Be twenty-four.”
Our conversation’s interrupted by the buzz of my sister’s phone in her pocket. She fishes it out. “Hold that thought. Time to say good-bye to the crew. C’mon.”
We head downstairs and out the front door of Paraiso, and I gasp at the rush of warm wind and at the postcard view of Golden nestled in the trees. August took an already lush mountainside and put it on blast, and the lavender that used to line this side of the Dunford Vineyard property, from which the retreat is leased, now covers the ground like carpet. Yet, the beauty that once would have humbled me now feels deconstructed and raw, like the BLT I reviewed last month at La Fresca in Napa, a couple hours west of Golden. I was served the sandwich in separate parts spread over a handmade wooden board: toasted bread, three pieces of nitrate-free bacon, a thick slice of an heirloom tomato, a glob of mayo, and two lettuce leaves. And my overall impression was: “Just okay.”
We walk down the path to a gravel road and take a left up a hill. The sound of our steps mixes with nature—birds chirping, the wind whistling—until we reach the first row of the vineyard, where the roar of industry takes over. Workers are scattered throughout the vines, preparing for the harvest. Construction vans are parked off to the side, and a man wearing a paint-splattered jumper passes us with a ladder hooked onto his shoulder, on his way to Mountainridge.
Mountainridge is the residential home and the future tasting room of Dunford Vineyard, right next to Paraiso Retreats, where Mitchell Dunford, my sister’s boyfriend, lives. Mitchell is also her partner in the live stream series Paradise in the Making that finished at Mountainridge today, which I know they’re both glad for. They’re looking forward to a life without cameras in their faces, though the film crew have become much like family.
We crest the hill to Mountainridge and Mitchell is giving a round of handshakes and shoulder bumps to the three-person crew. Seeing them, my sister speeds up to a jog, and uncharacteristically launches herself at the cameraman, Joel Silva. As she moves on to the next person in the crew, I approach Joel, who is serious, as usual. For all the time I’ve known him, except for a couple of lunches and a group dinner at a brewery last month, his face has always been half-hidden behind a camera. But I like the guy, and I’ve come to trust him after his being around our family for so long.
I hug him, though I don’t bother getting on my tiptoes. I slip my arm around his waist and pull him to me. I come up to his shoulders; with me at five-one, he’s probably about six feet tall. His gray T-shirt is butter soft, and when he wraps an arm around me to reciprocate, I’m completely enveloped by him.
I savor his embrace for a second because, God, I sure need it right now. This is what a hug is supposed to feel like.
“I’ll miss having you right on my tail, Joel. Not.” I joke, though neither one of us lets go. I look up at him, and notice for the first time that his beard has a smattering of silver, like a cluster of stars in the dark sky.
He smiles, his eyes lighting up. “It was an interesting six weeks.” His eyes dart to the left, where my sister has started into some kind of a speech to the rest of the group. Joel steps back a bit, though he still has a hand on my waist. His face dips down and he asks softly, “Are you okay?”
I press my lips together. Of course he knows. While the details of my life weren’t featured on the live stream, Joel was there when I first came home, when I was distraught and inconsolable. But for some reason—maybe it’s what he represents, or because I know this is the last time I’m ever going to see him—I say the first honest thing to come out of my mouth. “No.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I . . .” his voice trails.
I half laugh. “What? You could do something about it?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “But I’m sure I’d need to get in line. Your whole family’s waiting to kick this guy’s ass.”
“It’s a good and a bad thing, for everyone to know so much.”
“Well, if you ask me, the guy’s a dick. Excuse my French.”
“It’s okay. I like France.” I tear myself away from the sincerity in his brown eyes. A second more and I might crumple right here in front of him.
“Did you know I used to be in the Army?”
Raising my eyes in surprise, I place a hand on my hip. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Straight teeth flash back at me, proud. “And know what my drill sergeant used to say? He said”—his voice changes to a Southern drawl—“ ‘There’s only one way to the other side of that wall, soldier. Gotta climb over it. Around is not an option.’ ” He brings his voice back to normal. “When I’m having a shit day, I tell myself the same thing, complete with accent. It isn’t supposed to be easy, but you just have to get yourself to do it.”
I shake my head, incredulous. Melancholy has given way to curiosity that this guy knew and cared about me. “Why, Mr. Joel Silva, I have just learned more about you these last five minutes than I have in the last six weeks.”
“I did my job right, then. I was supposed to blend into the background.”
He scans my face, and my cheeks flush in response. I have to swallow to enunciate my next words. “Well, thank you. I mean it.”
“Joel, time to go,” someone says, breaking the moment.
“Good luck to you,” he tells me, then turns to walk away.
He’s already in their work van before I can say, “Yeah, you, too.”
As the van backs up, and Mitchell, Bryn, and I wave good-bye, my sister comes to stand at my side. “What was that about?”
“He said that I’m going to be all right, if I want to be.”
She cackles. “See? Even Joel the Quiet One knows you should go to Vegas. Don’t you think she should go to Vegas, Mitchell?”
“This is a trick, isn’t it?” Mitchell seems to deliberate the question, then jumps to answer as if it just came to him. “Follow your big sister’s advice, Vic, or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Bryn pats her boyfriend on the back. “Galing.” Well done. “Good answer.”
“Enough with the nagging!” I put my hands up in surrender. “You win. I’ll go to Vegas.”