A View to Die For

Chapter 5

John Katsaros ended most of his evenings with a hike up into one of the hillsides where he could look out over the little city of Avalon. He loved the challenge of the steep streets as he strolled among the homes of his friends whose houses overlooked the town. He stood now, as the sun sank behind the western hillside and lights came on one by one, looking out over the curving harbor. With the onset of summer, it was filling with boats of all sizes; he noted a couple of big yachts that hadn’t been there that morning. He gazed at Cabrillo Mole, the rock jetty that served as dock for the passenger boats from San Pedro, Long Beach and Dana Point, and thought about the sea bass he’d caught from the end of the mole the week before. Probably the end of good fishing there until fall, he thought, looking at the cloudless sky.

The last Express had pulled out from the mole as he closed the door on his little house on Descanso Avenue, made his way across the plaza to Metropole Avenue, and climbed the steps to Calle del Sol. Pausing to catch his breath before he took the Burma Trail that zigzagged up the hill to East Whittley, he’d watched late-flying hummingbirds still nectaring among the fragrant shrubs on the steep banks.

Making his way along the high west edge of the valley, John strolled past the home his friend Edgar Ruiz had recently completed. He smiled, thinking of how successfully Edgar had transformed the summer house that had belonged to his wife’s parents, a typical mid-century multi-level cantilevered over the steep slope, into a model of efficiency with nearly invisible solar panels. No lights were on, but John was startled to hear the sound of weeping coming from a window at the back of the house. He scratched his head. Edgar and his wife, Alice Ann, were one of the most loving couples he knew, and over-the-moon happy to be expecting a baby. He shrugged. Perhaps Alice was watching something on television. After all, his beloved Celestina was doing that now, declining a walk in favor of—what was it on Friday nights? Dancing with the Stars?

DancingwiththeStars?He continued along, looping back to Whittley. He was just approaching Roger Cameron’s house when he heard a door open and caught a glimpse of Roger, a biologist with the Island Conservancy, emerging. He prepared himself for the usual pleasantries but was surprised to see Roger duck into an alcove at the sound of his approaching footsteps. And then the man disappeared. He pondered that as he continued his walk. In a few minutes, he heard Roger’s golf cart start up. Another mystery, John thought. It wasn’t starting from the Camerons’ driveway, but from a street corner above their home.

And now he was back at the bottom of the Burma Trail. He leaned against the wall at the upper end of Calle del Sol. Something was stirring in the quiet evening air, he thought, and despite the warmth of the evening, he shivered.

He was so lost in thought that he started when he heard his name called and saw his neighbor, Fred Paige, striding up the short end of Beacon Street toward him.

“Evening, Fred.” John waved and half-turned away, but it became apparent that his neighbor was intent on joining him. John wasn’t looking for company, but he knew Fred Paige was lonely. Fred and his wife, Evelyn, had retired a year earlier to their island vacation house, but Evelyn had died in March.

“You walk up here every evening?” Fred asked.

“Most evenings. Tonight I walked up the Burma Trail to East Whittley.” John indicated the narrow sidewalk that zigzagged up the hillside between homes and apartments that cantilevered out from the rocky slope. “Celestina’s watching TV, but—well,” John grinned, “I don’t really like television. When it’s not one of her program nights, Stina and I walk together, but not usually that far.”

Fred mopped his brow with a rumpled handkerchief. “I’m out of shape. When Evvie was so sick, there wasn’t much chance to get out.”

John clapped his friend on the shoulder. The two stood for a moment, looking out over the harbor and the ocean beyond. “It’s so peaceful when the last boat leaves,” Fred observed. John’s brow furrowed, but he nodded, and the two men descended the stairs, strolled east to Sumner Avenue, turned, and began to walk toward the harbor.

Behind them, from the fire station, a siren sounded. Doors opened and people stepped out onto their porches to peer up into the canyon. The siren stopped short.

“Practice?” Fred asked.

“Hope so,” John said. A year earlier, in the spring of 2007, a huge wildfire in the chaparral had burned to the edge of Avalon, threatening the town and blackening the hills above it. A fire truck rolled by, no lights flashing. “Yep. Looks like everything’s okay.”

John was surprised to realize how his muscles had tightened at the sound of the siren, how easily his internal alarm sounded. He recalled helping his friend Andrea, a caterer, shuttle food to fire crews and volunteers and Marines who battled the blaze. He remembered the Express boats that ran through the night ferrying terrified residents evacuated from their homes to shelters in Long Beach, and the flames that turned the night sky orange as they snaked down the canyons toward the town. But he recalled the way everyone had pulled together. Was it the return of fire season that fueled his anxiety? He didn’t think so.

Despite the terror, the fire had united everyone in a common effort. It didn’t feel the same this spring. John shook his head as he thought about conversations half overheard during recent weeks in restaurants and shops, wondering and sometimes worried and angry talk. “Toyon Ridge.” “That bigshot and his big resort.” He thought about how those conversations would stop short any time men in business suits appeared.

“That bigshot from Colorado.” John had met that developer, briefly, at a Rotary gathering. Hayden, his name was. Andrea had summed him up: “Too friendly, too well-groomed, too smooth. Much too smooth,” she said with a shudder. He had mentioned meeting Hayden to Lexi, his granddaughter, only to see her smile disappear. She’d shuddered, too.

He remembered seeing normally friendly people casting uneasy looks at strangers in a town where strangers were the locals’ bread and butter. This wasn’t the easy Avalon he’d known all his life.

“Hullo! Lovely evening.” Another voice retrieved him from his musings. He and Fred returned the greeting as a couple approached, a man carrying a pair of easels over one shoulder and two backpacks over the other, a woman carefully carrying two canvases.

“Painters? Isn’t it late?” Fred asked as they continued on their way.

“Catching the evening light on the mole or the casino, probably. The Plein-Air Festival’s starting, and there’ll be painters everywhere for the next week,” John said.

“Plein-Air?”

“Painting on the scene, outdoors. It’s always been big here. There used to be a plein-air event every year. They’d end with an auction of the work the artists did here.”

“Is that where you got that painting by your stairway? It looks like Stagecoach Road.”

“It is. And no, we didn’t get it at the festival, but the painter—Jill Reinhardt—lives here on the island. In fact, she’s heading up the revival of the festival this year. Back when she was just getting established, she used to have a seconds show every fall. We got it there. To my mind, her seconds are better than a lot of what you see in the galleries now. I should have bought more when she was affordable.”

Their companionable walk took them past a small craftsman bungalow Edgar Ruiz used as the office for his construction firm. It was growing dark now, but the “Open” sign still hung in Edgar’s window. Edgar served on the city council, and was still finishing The Arroyo, a small development of eight eco-homes bermed into the hillside above town, homes with grass roofs and solar energy. Of course he would have to work late sometimes. But John thought again of the sound of weeping he had heard at the Ruiz home above them on the hillside.

The porchlight of the bungalow shone through a tangle of red and purple and coral bougainvillea that draped the porch rails. The vine vibrated as the door opened. Ruiz emerged, and reached back to turn the sign in the door’s little window over to read “closed.”

“Buenas noches, amigo!” John called out.

Buenasnoches,amigo!Ruiz jumped, and the face he turned to the two men was blank. But he mustered a smile. “Oh, bueno, Zorba! Good evening!”

bueno“Cómo estás, Edgar? Do you know my neighbor, Fred Paige?” he asked. “Fred, Edgar Ruiz.” The two men shook hands.

Cómoestás“I’m glad to meet you. You’re on the council, aren’t you?” Fred asked. “I’m just now getting a sense of how the city runs. I liked what you said in that forum last week, about being a sustainable community. We’re so small out here, and with the council on board with that, and the Conservancy controlling development outside the city, we’ve got a good start.”

Fred seemed unaware that the smile had left Edgar Ruiz’s face. Lines John hadn’t noticed before creased Edgar’s forehead, tightened around the mouth in a face John had always thought of as a smooth oval. “Speaking of the Conservancy,” Fred added, “what’s all this we’re hearing about some developer from Colorado building a big fancy resort on the bluff up above the Inn? The city and the Conservancy wouldn’t approve that, would it?”

Edgar Ruiz shut his eyes for a moment, drawing a breath. When he spoke, it was with difficulty. “The problem,” he said, “is that the land in question isn’t in the Conservancy. It isn’t in the city, either, although of course the county will ask our planning commission to weigh in on the environmental reviews. And we hope we will have some effect.”

“I hope so too,” Fred said. “People say it’ll have a spa and a racquetball court and a rooftop swimming pool,” he continued, oblivious to Ruiz’s discomfort. “People say this Colorado guy’s bringing in a gourmet chef. People say it’ll make the Inn look like nothing at all, and put the place up the canyon out of business.”

“People,” John reminded him, “will say anything.”

But Fred was warming to his subject. “Some people are saying that bringing in tourists with more money will be a good thing. And some are saying it’ll ruin the island. Myself, I think you get big money in here, you get a lot of pressure to change the rules. Don’t you think so?” he asked Ruiz.

“There’s always a danger of that,” Ruiz said carefully. “But we have to keep an open mind until we hear more from this Mr. Hayden.”

“We’re keeping you from your family. We’d better be going,” John prompted. “Good night, Edgar.” After another round of pleasantries and hand-shaking, he and Paige continued their walk toward home.

“A place like that would change the whole feel of the island, don’t you think?” Fred persisted. John’s thoughts were of the strained look on Edgar Ruiz’s face, the stories that were circulating about the Mount Ada development, the polarizing of opinions around Avalon. Fred went on, “You get a bunch of high-rollers coming in to some big plushy resort and the next thing they’ll want to buy houses here.”

“There’s an old Greek saying,” John said finally. “God ascends stairs and descends stairs. The island’s always changing.”

“Not all change is good,” Fred said. He tried to laugh at himself. “You know how it is with us newcomers. Last one in pull up the drawbridge! But the people that resort will bring here—” The pitch of his voice rose, and John could hear the fear in it. “They’ll buy up anything that’s for sale, buy it at any price. And that’ll drive taxes up, and then people like us won’t be able to afford to live here.” He shook his head. “Somebody ought to shoot that Hayden.”

John turned to face him, his intake of breath audible. “Just kidding, of course,” Fred said.

“Of course.” John clapped him on the shoulder. “But you are right, my friend. Not all change is good.” John sighed, and then they walked in silence.