The Shadow Wife

It most certainly was Penny, but her voice made Carlynn wince. It sounded as though her throat was lined with sandpaper.

“What’s wrong?” Carlynn found herself whispering as well, and Penny laughed.

“Everyone does that,” she said. “Everyone whispers when they talk to me. It must be catching.”

Carlynn chuckled. “I’ve missed you, Penny,” she said. “I was going to say it’s good to hear your voice, but that would be a lie.”

“I’ve been this way for four months,” Penny said. Was she crying? Carlynn couldn’t tell.

“Four months!” She stood up and walked over to the window, which looked out at the traffic on Sutter Street. “Do you know what started it?”

“It started while I was in a musical,” Penny said. “Just this little off-Broadway thing. I was under a lot of stress. That’s what caused it, my doctor said. He said I needed a break and my voice would come back, but it hasn’t.”

“Have you alleviated the stress?” Carlynn asked.

“Yes!” Penny sounded as emphatic as she could, given there was no power to her voice. “I left New York. I’m back in California, staying in a commune in Big Sur where there’s no pressure, just a lot of loving people and peace and quiet, and I’ve been here for two months now, and I still sound like this.” There were definitely tears behind her words now, and Carlynn felt her own eyes well up.

“Oh, honey, that must be frightening.” She tried to picture what Penny’s life must be like on a commune. They were cropping up here and there, filled with hippies who rarely washed and slept around with abandon. The lifestyle sounded unappealing to Carlynn, but she could see her old, unconventional friend thriving in that sort of environment.

“And the worst part is, there’s this play I want to do in New York next year,” Penny continued. “I want it in the worst way, Carly. It’s called Hair, and it’s going to be so good and so much fun, and I know they want me to audition for it, but I can’t. I’m afraid I may never be able to sing again. Maybe not even talk again.”

“Can you come up here to San Francisco?” Carlynn asked. “It wouldn’t be a huge drive for you. Come and spend a few days with us and I’ll work with you.”

There was a moment of silence on the line.

“I wanted to invite you down here,” Penny said. “I really don’t want to leave here right now. I’m afraid of the…you know, the stress. I have a little cabin with twin beds. Well—” she giggled hoarsely “—I have two mattresses, anyhow. On the floor. It could be like a little vacation for—”

“Oh, Penny, I can’t. I’m swamped here.” But her mind was racing ahead. A few days in Big Sur. The windswept cliffs above the coastline, the ocean and the fanciful cloudlike fog that put San Francisco’s to shame. A week off. She loved the center and adored her work, but still… Time with her old friend on a commune, of all places, would be an adventure. And Penny obviously needed her help. By the time Penny said, “Oh, please, Carly?” she had made up her mind.

Had she really thought of this fog as fanciful? It was positively blinding, and she wondered if this was how Delora felt all the time, unsure of where to place her next step.

The only way she would ever know where to turn off Highway One was by her mileage. She’d set her trip odometer as she passed the Carmel exit, and when it reached thirty miles, she would start looking for the tree. “It’s a coastal redwood,” Penny had said. “Sort of out of place right there along the road. You can’t miss it.”

Oh, yeah? Carlynn thought. But just as she was about to give up and drive to the nearest store or restaurant or anything she could find, if she could find one, the tree rose out of the fog to her left. It was massive and truly did seem out of place. An arrow-shaped board, only a foot long by three or four inches high, had been nailed to the tree, and yellow or white letters—she couldn’t tell which—spelled out “Cabrial.” That was the name of the commune, she remembered. Penny had told her the land had been owned by a family named Cabrial at one time. Now it was owned by a bunch of out-of-their-mind hippies, Carlynn thought as she turned onto the dirt road. Who would choose to live out here?

Highway One was nothing compared to this road, she thought as the dirt road climbed and plunged and twisted through the foggy forest. She would hate to drive it in the muddy season, and she said a silent prayer that it didn’t rain while she was at the commune or the road would be completely impassable.

For four miles, she drove through ruts and over rocks, and it was only then that she noticed her gas gauge: the needle was a hairbreadth above empty.

“Idiot,” she said out loud to herself. She would never get out of here.