Helen's Story

Authors note: the idea for this story came from the name of a reader, SequoiaSempervirens, who commented on another of my stories. This reminded me of a trip that I took as a young man and here we are.

As usual, all protagonists in this story are over the age of eighteen years old.

What follows is a work of fiction based on real-life events. None of the characters depicted are real and any similarity to real people living or dead is purely coincidental.

As always any grammatical errors are mine alone.

Please score and comment. Constructive comments are valuable and help authors to both write better and to write more.

Helens' Story.

On a narrow strip of land situated on the West coast of the United States grow the giant redwood trees. They are amongst the oldest and largest living things on earth. The oldest of these are more than three thousand two hundred years old and were living at the end of the Bronze Age when three great civilisations of the Mediterranean Basin, the Hittite, Minoan, and Mycenaean disappeared from history. Many of them were over a thousand years old when Jesus Christ lived and was crucified.

I first saw them when I was a young man. J was traveling by car from Vancouver in British Columbia to San Francisco. My route had taken me down US Route 101 into Northern California and then onto the "Avenue of the Giants," where these massive trees line the road.

I was too young for these to be on my bucket list, but I had nonetheless decided to take the coastal route to San Francisco rather than the faster inland route via Highway Five. I knew I wanted to see these trees. I did not yet know how they would influence my life.

The first redwood I saw did not have a name. it was not the Immortal Tree, the Drive-Thru Tree, the Chandelier Tree, General Sherman, the Dyerville Giant, or Hyperion. It was an anonymous, unremarkable, giant sequoia standing with several others by the roadside and was maybe two hundred feet high and ten feet in diameter.

I was awestruck.... transfixed. It is not an exaggeration to say that, at that moment, I felt the presence of something that I did not understand. I felt tiny and humble. To my shame, the only words I could find to express what I was feeling were,

"Oh Fuck!"

I didn't know it at the time but over half a century earlier, Joseph Strauss, the designer of the Golden Gate Suspension Bridge, had written a poem called "The Redwoods." The final two lines of his verse reflect perfectly what I was feeling.

"Sink down, Oh traveler on your knees,

God stands before you in these trees."

***

I drove slowly down the road. Although it was mid-August, the sun could not fully break through the canopy of the trees lining the road and only dapped light shone through.

"Here, sown by the Creator's hand.

In serried ranks, the Redwoods stand."

Twelve miles after passing Stafford, I came upon a sign directing me right to the Rockefeller Redwood Forest, and I followed the road for three miles until I arrived. I parked my car in the parking lot and looked around. Many of the larger redwoods were close to the car park but I decided to walk along the loop trail in the forest. Away from the car park, the trees grew close together and it was dark, the gloom pierced here and there by shafts of sunlight. It was very quiet and restful, and the dark trunks surrounded me like the stone pillars of a cathedral. Although there were several other cars besides mine in the car park, at first, I saw nobody else on the trail. Then, about thirty yards ahead, I saw a figure. I did not pay much attention to them other than to notice how insignificantly tiny they appeared against the dark trunk of the tree. It was only when I got closer that I could see that my companion was a tall young lady around my age. She was wearing blue jeans and a white blouse, had short black hair, and was very pretty. She was peering intently into the forest canopy, and I do not think she noticed me as I walked by.

As I walked up the trail, I turned and looked behind me, and caught sight of her walking away from me in the direction from which I had come. She was in the company of two other people that I had not seen before. I arrived back at the car park twenty minutes later, unlocked the car, and got behind the wheel. As I did, another car pulled out of a space adjacent to me and drove away. I could not see the occupants clearly but was surprised to see the white and blue number plate with "Beautiful British Columbia" embossed onto it, receding into the distance.

***

I drove back the way I'd come and back onto the main road. A short distance away I turned left towards the Founders Grove, the site of the Founders Tree and the Dyerville Giant. The car park there was busy, but I found a space next to a white Buick Electra with BC plates. This was the car I had seen earlier.

The trees I had come to see were huge. The Founders Tree was at the front of the loop whilst the Giant was halfway around the trail. It was there that I saw the threesome again. It seemed that they were a family; mum, dad, and daughter. I watched as the young lady took a photograph of her parents standing at the base of the tree.

"Would you like me to take a picture of all three of you," I asked.

"Yes, please. Do you know how to use this camera?"

"I've got one a lot like it," I said, pointing to my camera case slung over my shoulder.

I took the camera and then the shot and handed the camera back.

"Do you mind taking one of me," I asked.

"No problem," and she waited as I took my camera from its case.

"You're Canadian," she said.

"Vancouverite, born and bred."

"That's where we're from."

I handed her the camera and stood by the tree. Her parents had moved away and were watching us. She took the camera from me.

As she peered through the lens, she spoke.

"I hope this comes out OK. I take rubbish photos. They normally come out at an angle."

At that moment I couldn't have cared less how the photograph turned out. If she thought I was looking at the camera, she would have been wrong. I was looking at the girl holding the camera.

She was tall, her short black hair framed a round slightly freckled, and pale face with big brown doe-eyes, a perfectly formed nose, and soft red lips. Her denim jeans accentuated her big bum and her thigh gap, and hinted at her sexuality, and under her white blouse the twin mounds of her breasts were visible. I was smitten, and wondering how I could turn this chance encounter into something else. I needn't have worried. She did it for me.

She gave me the camera.

"Are you alone?" she asked. "Have you driven from Vancouver on your own?"

"Yes, but it's not so far. I was meant to be with my brother, but he cried off. I'm driving to San Jose to meet my parents. I'm in no hurry. and only driving around three hundred miles a day. This is my third day."

"You must have left the day after we did. We're driving to L. A. I'm on holiday with my mum and dad. What's your name?"

"Chris."

"I'm Helen, I'm pleased to meet you, Chris."

By now, her parents had walked a short way up the trail. Helen called after them.

"Mum. Dad. Come back here. This is Chris. He's from Vancouver too."

Helen's parents stopped and turned towards us. He was tall, casually but expensively dressed, and in his forties. She was also casually but practically dressed in an expensive-looking summer dress and very pretty. It was difficult to judge her age and it was apparent she took great pride in her appearance.

"Chris is driving to San Jose alone," said Helen.

"Your parents must trust you," said her mum.

"They do. Although my younger brother was meant to come too. I keep to the speed limits, drive sensibly, don't drive more than three hundred miles a day, and don't drive in the dark. My dad has a saying, ' Better to be ten minutes late in this world than fifty years early in the next'. "

"Sensible man your father," said her dad. "Anyway, it was nice meeting you, young man. Come along Helen. We need to get moving."

As he turned to walk away, Helen turned to me.

"Which way are you driving? Are you going to Hopland?"

"I plan to try to find a motel in Lakeport."

"That's after Hopland, I think."

She ran after her parents and urgently spoke to them. I heard snippets of conversation.

"She's just met him, complete stranger, seems nice enough, what's the harm? and someone her own age."

Finally, I saw her father throw up his arms in exasperation and defeat.

Helen returned to me with a look of triumph.

"That's settled then. You can drop me off in Hopland."

"How far away is it?"

"My dad reckoned two hours, but he drives at fifty-five miles per hour. If you drive safely at forty-five it will be closer to three. He won't know whether to be pissed at your responsible driving, or not."

She giggled.

"I love my mum and dad but after four days I need some adult company."

***

I had pity on Helen's father, and two and a half hours later we drew into the car park at the Thatcher Hotel in Hopland. In just three hours I had started to fall in love, and so had she, although I'm not sure either of us realized it at the time.

Two and a half hours can be a long time when you are on a car journey alone but, with Helen by my side, time flew by. Later, Helen jokingly called it our first date. I asked her how many first dates involved the girl's parents sitting fifty yards away watching the boy's every move.

Her father had driven behind us every inch of the way.

She was her parent's only child and the apple of their eye. Her father was a successful lawyer, and her mother was a teacher. It was apparent that they were affluent, with a house in Point Grey. She was twenty years old and wanted to be a lawyer like her father and had finished her second year of study for an undergraduate degree before hopefully going on to law school.

Normally, her family flew everywhere. The previous year they had flown to Rome and the year before that to Paris. Then, it had occurred to her mother that they hadn't seen much of the West Coast and that a road trip might be in order. Her mum had suggested they do it that year because soon Helen wouldn't want to go on holiday with her parents anymore.

In turn, I told her the reason for my journey. The week before, my parents had flown down to San Jose to visit an old friend of my father. The plan had been that my brother and I would drive down to join them, and we would all drive back together. Only after they had left, did my brother tell me that he had work commitments that he couldn't break.

"I don't believe him," I said. "I think he wants to have the run of my parent's house alone with his girlfriend."

"Do you have a girlfriend waiting for you?" asked Helen.

"No, I'm footloose and fancy-free. How about you?"

"No, I'm kind of choosy."

Then she looked away, and quickly changed the subject whilst my hopes grew. I just hoped she wasn't going to be too choosy.

"What did you think of the trees?" she asked.

"Honestly?"

"Of course."

"I've never seen anything like them. So, imposing. So, old. Eternal. I was in awe. Don't laugh... I saw God in them."

"Have you heard of Joseph Baermann Strauss?"

"Of course. I'm a civil engineer. He built the Golden Gate Bridge and designed bascule bridges."

"He was a poet too."

Then she quoted his poem, "The Redwoods."

" 'Here, sown by the Creator's hand.

In serried ranks, the Redwoods stand......

....To be like these, straight true and fine,

To make our world, like theirs a shrine,

Sink down, Oh traveler on your knees,

God stands before you in these trees.'

He felt the same way. He managed to put it into words. My father read it to me last night."

"And you learned it by heart?"

"I've got a good memory, and it's beautiful like the trees. I was saying it to myself when you passed by on the trail back at Rockefeller Forest. The trees touched my soul."

She stopped talking for a few moments.

"You didn't think I saw you looking at me, did you?" she asked.

I didn't reply. I was thinking. She was beautiful, intelligent, and perceptive. What more could there be?

***.

By the time we reached the hotel and I pulled into the parking lot, I knew that I wanted to see Helen again. I took a deep breath and spoke.

"When will you be back in Vancouver?"

"In just under two weeks"

"Can I see you again?"

She turned to me and smiled.

"Let's swap telephone numbers."

I hurriedly found a pen and paper in the glove compartment, and we exchanged details before Helen got out of my car and walked toward her parents' automobile which had been parked at the end of the lot. As I turned to drive away, she stopped and gesticulated towards me. I opened the window. She was standing about ten yards away.

"Don't go yet. I've got an idea. Can you hang on for a minute?"

She turned and ran over to where her parents were retrieving three traveling bags from the trunk of their car. I saw her briefly speak to them. Her father had his back to me, but I saw her mother smile and then say something, whereupon Helen came running back to me.

"Have you booked a place to stay yet?"

"No."

"Why don't you find a place close by and meet us for dinner here at eight o'clock? I would recommend you stay here but it's very unlikely they'll have a room, and my father has a very suspicious nature."

Tactfully she didn't say that the hotel was well out of my preferred price range.

I smiled.

"I'd love to meet for dinner. I'll see you then. Black tie?" I joked.

"Smart casual will be fine."

She called after me.

"And you can tell me about bascule bridges."

It was about a forty-minute drive to Lakeport on Clear Lake, so I decided to change my plans. I had passed a motel only a few miles back and I drove back to it and booked in. It was cheap and cheerful, but clean. I had ninety minutes before I was due back, and that was plenty of time to shower and change into a pair of chinos and a white shirt.

At eight o'clock we sat down for dinner. Over the lobster bisque, I felt as if I was being interviewed for a job.

"So, Chris, how old are you?"

"Twenty-five, sir."

"And what do you do for a living? Helen said you're an engineer."

"I'm a civil engineer. I work for a firm in Vancouver. I work on steel bridge design."

"And I asked him who Joseph Strauss was," said Helen.

Helen's father seemed even more satisfied when I told him I owned my condominium in Downtown Vancouver, and that my father was a doctor.

After it had been established that I was not a vagrant, the meal and the conversation moved on and soon the evening was ending. We drank our coffee and I offered to pay my share of the bill.

"Of course not. You are our guest," said her father.

"Another time perhaps," said Mrs Peters (that was their surname) knowingly. "Come along, George. Let's give these young folk some time to talk alone. It was nice meeting you, Chris. We'll see you in the morning, Helen. Breakfast is at eight so don't stay up too late."

Predictably enough she did. We talked until almost one o'clock in the morning, and then I left with a promise to ring her when we both arrived home in Vancouver.

***

Just over a week later, in the late evening, I was sitting at home in Vancouver. I had returned the day before after a twenty-hour drive from San Jose. My father and I had shared the drive, but it had still been tiring, and I had just completed a full day at work. I was exhausted and planning an early night when the telephone rang. It was Helen.

"Hello, it's Helen," she said.

"Hello, Helen. I didn't expect to hear from you yet. Where are you?"

"Still in California. In a hotel in San Luis Obispo."

There was a long pause at the end of the line.

"Hello, are you still there?" I asked.

"I wanted to hear your voice. I've missed you," she said. "It's stupid of me. I hardly know you."

It was my turn to be honest.

"I feel the same. So, when will you be home?"

"I can be home tomorrow if you want."

"Of course, I want. But how are you going to do that?"

"There's been a change in plan. Today is Wednesday and I start school next Monday. My father was planning to drive back to Vancouver arriving on Sunday. Yesterday we learned that my mother's sister in Sausalito is not well. We were going to stay there tomorrow night but now my parents plan to stay there a few days longer. I can't wait to drive back home, so I'm flying back to Vancouver from San Francisco. I can fly anytime in the next few days. I just must get home before next week, although sooner is better since I'm only going to be in the way there."

"Why don't you get your parents to drop you off at the airport tomorrow? You are a four-hour drive from there so you can get an afternoon flight. I'll give you my office telephone number. Ring me with your flight number and arrival time and I'll meet you."

"You'd do that?"

"Of course."

"I'll see you then."

She paused as if she were about to say more, but then she put the phone down and was gone.

***

Just after six o'clock the following evening, Helen arrived on an Alaskan Airlines flight, and half an hour later entered the arrivals hall carrying just a small bag in her hand.

I greeted her warmly.

"Welcome Home."

What she did next shocked me. She leaned up and kissed me firmly but briefly on the lips.

"It's fine to kiss on the third date," she said.

We walked to the car.

"What's your address," I asked.

"I don't want to go home. Can we go to your place, please?"

"OK. Are you hungry?"

"Airline food isn't great and there's never enough of it."

On the way home we quickly visited the mall, and I bought a couple of steaks. jacket potatoes. sour cream, chives, and a couple of bottles of good red wine.

Back at the condo, I fired up the barbecue that I kept on my large balcony. I have never been a fan of gas and it took me a little while to get the charcoal hot enough to cook.

Whilst I busied myself cooking, Helen took the opportunity to shower and change out of her travel clothes. I had offered her the use of the shower and she had happily accepted. A little later, she reappeared wearing a yellow cotton thigh-length dress which accentuated her beautiful bottom, thighs, and long bare legs.

She was beautiful, and I started to develop impure thoughts. I wondered whether she was an innocent unaware of the effect she was having on me or was deliberately giving me the come-on. I needed to distract myself.

"How do you like your steak?" I asked.

"Medium rare, please."

We sat and ate. I drank sparingly, anticipating that I would need to drive Helen home to Point Grey later in the evening. It was well after nine-thirty in the evening when we finished eating.

"When would you like me to drive you home? " I asked.

"Later, if that's alright? Can I let the food go down and have another glass of wine? But don't mind me. Why don't you have a shower and get the dirt off you? I'll tidy the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher."

The way she said this made me wonder. I desperately wanted to make love to her but was conscious that I did not want to appear too fast and frighten her away. She was so very beautiful and sexy but also had a childlike innocence. I was in a quandary.

Whilst Helen sipped her drink, I did as she suggested and went for a shower. I ran the water hot and listened to the sound of Leonard Cohen as I soaped myself down. I had turned and had my back to the cubicle door when I heard it slide open and a naked body entered.

Helen was making my choices easy.