Sweet Breeze Bay, New Zealand. In the ten years since she’d been there, it had reverted to a mythical place in her mind. The gentle sweetness of the air, the beautiful light, the beaches and hills and sky…sometimes she wasn’t even sure that it was a real place at all.
Except for the memories that lingered. All these years later, recollections still woke her in the night sometimes, breaking into her dreams even though she should be free of them by now. At least she wouldn’t have to be face to face with the guy at their center—Nana Mac had said his whole family moved to Australia. An ocean between them should be enough, even if she still didn’t have that much emotional distance. She’d made herself so tough in other ways, but that tiny chink in her armor seemed to always be there. Maybe, as well as giving her a desperately needed break, going back to the bay would finally clear away the last remnants of the past.
With her newly cut and colored hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing oversized sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled down low, she took a taxi to LAX, hoping to slip out of the country undetected. It wasn’t a long drive, but crossing the city with only a single suitcase in the trunk felt like a rite of transition—shucking off her old life, clearing the way for something new. It didn’t seem to matter that she had no idea what the new might be.
Her first week in LA, she’d gone up to Griffith Park and looked out at the sprawling city, wondering, hoping, imagining. Since then, she’d barely stopped for breath—the relentless effort of trying to support herself while building a music career from nothing didn’t leave much time for leisure. The reward was achieving so much of what she’d wanted, including an ever-increasing distance from her past. But the price was realizing that what she’d wanted might not be worth it. The flip side of her fledgling success was being under the spotlight—critiqued, judged, and scrutinized by the media and the public for more than just her music. She knew it was just part of the game, but it took a thicker skin than hers to be unaffected by it all. She’d proved some things to herself though…and to her father, who’d left her and her mom to manage without him, and never looked back.
She tipped the taxi driver and wheeled her own suitcase inside, just another traveler checking in. Now she’d made the break, she was almost thankful for the pressure she’d been under, and even for the Greg-shaped last straw that broke her back and forced her to strike out. She planned to do things on her terms now, and that meant not giving head space to people who didn’t deserve it—including record label execs, mean-spirited reporters, and her so-called father. She found a quiet seat in a corner, and called her mom, Trina, in Florida one last time to say goodbye. Her mom was surprised, but she promised not to tell anyone where Jacinda was going, and Jacinda promised to keep in touch.
Her plan to go incognito worked—with her new hair and a makeup-free face behind her sunglasses, she made it on board without anyone giving her a second glance. And if the cabin crew recognized her as they ushered her into business class (a splurge that should increase her chances of staying anonymous), they were professional enough not to say anything.
The minute she was on the plane, she felt like she was halfway there already. The flight attendants had accents that instantly transported her to her other, neglected home in the South Pacific—the place that was her childhood retreat, but her teenage downfall.
She’d already talked to Hannah, but now, while she waited for the plane to take off, she wrote a quick message to her band members, telling them just enough without giving anything away. She didn’t know exactly how long she’d be gone, but with the latest string of small gigs finished, they all had other work lined up anyway. She hit ‘send’ on the message, then turned off her phone and leaned back in the soft leather seat, feeling some of her long-held tension start to recede. Twelve, or maybe thirteen, hours in the air stretched ahead—more than half a day of suspended animation from which, hopefully, she’d emerge into some peace.
At Auckland airport, she made a quick stop to buy a prepaid phone, then headed for the taxi stand, eager to get to the house. Nana Mac wouldn’t be there—she’d just left for a long-planned trip to Europe. Her last gasp, she’d pronounced in her lingering Scottish accent, a last hoorah now that she was in her eighth decade. But Jacinda doubted that. Her grandmother was one of the most vibrant characters she’d ever known, and being in her seventies had hardly slowed her down. If anything, she’d seemed even more vigorous and determined in their phone calls. They’d talked regularly since Jacinda had last been in New Zealand, through her slow rise in the music biz, and through the family dramas that occasionally sprang up. Even though Nana Mac was far away, she could sometimes see things more clearly than Jacinda or her mom could.
Although she wouldn’t be there herself, she’d said Jacinda’s timing was perfect. Her cat Velvet was expecting kittens, so Jacinda could mind the house and be on kitten watch. Her neighbor, Nadia, would feed Velvet until then. Jacinda had no idea what was involved when a cat had kittens (apart from the obvious mechanics of it all), but Nana Mac sounded confident that she could manage, and Jacinda figured there’d be a local vet if anything went wrong.
Now the taxi made its way via a winding route toward the center of the city. It felt weird to be on the wrong side of the road again, taking in the quaint wooden houses, the lushness of the landscape, and the grassy volcanic cones that dotted the city. Eventually the driver turned onto the freeway, and they skirted the city, then started up the bridge that spanned the harbor. She watched the city spread out before her as they rose higher: yachts and gin palaces in the marina, a jumble of buildings, the Sky Tower topping them all. Then over the sparkling water to the North Shore, green and suburban and homely. And beyond that, Rangitoto, Auckland’s king of volcanoes, keeping guard in the gulf just as she remembered it.
On the northern coast, directly opposite Rangitoto, waited Sweet Breeze Bay. The little neighborhood was tucked away at the end of the road, a nook carved into a steeply forested peninsula. It was the kind of place where kids played barefoot in the street, the tang of salt was in the air, and whole families swam in the shallow bay on summer evenings. It was a tiny village retreat on the edge of the city, as though a small country town had been picked up and popped down on the suburban coast, only separated from the ‘real’ world by the tree-clad peaks of the peninsula.
That was how she remembered it, anyway. The world was only getting tougher, and ten years was a long time, even in this idyllic part of the planet. She hoped that all her better memories of the bay would hold true, and that she could make some new ones—just herself, quietly in the sun, with a little cat family for company. And maybe then, the bad memories would lose their power.
As the taxi turned into Tui Street—named for a native songbird—she realized she was holding her breath. When they stopped outside number ten, she let it out in a long release. It looked just the same. She paid the driver, and he looked surprised when she gave him a tip; she’d forgotten that people didn’t tip here. God, so civilized.
She got out and stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the house. The trees were bigger, and there was a new gate, but otherwise, nothing had changed. Clematis tumbled over the porch roof, the camellia hedge was neatly trimmed, and a cluster of tree ferns still stood in one corner of the garden, the spiral of each new frond just like the one over her piano. She looked back along the little cul-de-sac. Same thing. Even the tire swing was still hanging from the gnarly old tree a few doors down. She breathed in the salty-sweet sea air, still cool this early in the morning. The clean goodness of it flooded through her, and she could practically feel every cell in her body perk up. No more city fumes or stress, for a while at least.
The driver took her suitcase up the path to the front door, and left her to it with a cheery goodbye. Then, for the first time in ten years, she turned the key in the lock and stepped forward…into her past, and maybe her future.