The Cavalier in White

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November mornings in northern California’s Valley of the Moon are generally clear and sunwashed. The light has a peculiar watery quality and is further filtered through a gentle woodsmoke haze. They are days to delight the soul, even one as battered and ragged at the edges as Joanna Stark’s, and normally one such as this would have filled her with enthusiasm and high hopes.

But on this Tuesday she walked across the Sonoma Plaza head down, feet scuffing the grass, leaning into the northwesterly wind. When she did raise her eyes she saw that the flag on top of the square basalt city hall had become entangled in its own ropes and drooped dejectedly, wrapped around its pole.

Trapped, she thought. Just like I feel. The trouble with Sonoma is that there’s no place to hide.

She stopped, thrusting her hands into her pockets, and scanned the plaza. Its eight acres — containing the city hall, the chamber of commerce, playgrounds, and a duck pond — seemed wide open and threatening. The business establishments that surrounded it on four sides — ranging from Mexican-era adobes to false-fronted Western structures to the Depression-era Sebastiani Theatre — afforded plenty of old-fashioned charm, but little comfort. And the streets: In summer they were thronged with tourists who had been lured by Sonoma’s ties to California history and tastings at the nearby wineries, but now the crowds had thinned; the very emptiness made Joanna feel vulnerable.

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