Tess was frozen to the spot. Maybe if she didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, he would go away. But the voice on the other side of the door was still shouting:
‘I know you’re in there! Open up!’
The fear of being a strange person, in a strange country, who didn’t know the rules and didn’t know what could happen next, gripped her.
‘Okay, that’s it,’ the voice said, ‘I’m going to call the super!’
Super? Was that some sort of building supervisor? This seemed to give her the shake she needed and she suddenly felt a boost of confidence – surely no axe-wielding maniac would call the ‘super’? That sounded almost quite a reasonable thing to do. Maybe she could summon her best business voice and talk this over with him as calmly as possible. Maybe this man’s bark was worse than his bite.
Sounding as English as she possible could, she said, ‘Just one moment please, I’m going to unlock the door.’
She turned the key, loosened the large bolt and slowly, heart hammering in her throat, pulled the apartment’s front door towards her. There in the hallway stood a tall, lean and upright black man with tight salt-and-pepper cropped hair, broad shoulders and a surprised expression on his handsome face.
‘You are not River Romero,’ he said.
‘No, hello, I’m Tess. I’m River’s houseguest. I’m going to be staying here for a few weeks. River’s gone to England,’ Tess said, drawing herself up.
‘Hmmm. So, did you throw dog shit onto my balcony?’
This man had a deep and melodious voice, far too classy for that question. It sounded a little like Morgan Freeman was asking her.
‘I am so extremely sorry about that,’ Tess began, ‘I was cleaning the balcony, which was a horrible mess, and a… well… poo… fell over the edge. I am so sorry. I was just getting my cleaning things together to come down and offer to clean it up for you.’
‘A poo? Fell over the edge?’ the man repeated.
‘Yes. It was a complete accident and I’m so sorry,’ Tess repeated, ‘I want to put that right straight away. I’ve got bags and a scoop out on the balcony that I can bring down.’
‘A poo…’ the man repeated. ‘Over here we say poop, or crap, or shit by the way… FYI…’
‘Right…’
‘This dog crap fell on a very special, very, very special pair of dance shoes. I don’t know if your tools, whatever they are, are going to be able to clean this up.’
‘Why don’t I get my things together and come over?’ she offered.
For a moment or two, the man looked beyond her and into River’s apartment.
‘I have to say, you have really cleaned up in here. The last time I came to talk to River about her dogs, this place was one great, hot mess.’
‘Yes… I’ve had to completely sort it out. I think she must have left in a hurry.’ This was the most tactful way Tess could think of putting it.
‘Yeah… that sounds like her. She is always in a hurry. Look…’ He put his hands on his hips and gave something of a sigh. ‘I can see you’re trying to sort that woman’s crap out… literally.’
‘No… not really,’ Tess began. In fact she was just trying to take a relaxing holiday. But absolutely not one single relaxing thing had happened so far.
‘Well, I can see you didn’t mean any harm,’ he clarified. ‘So why don’t I clean up my own balcony and my own shoes and if I have any problem, I will come back to you. What do you think of that?’
Tess got the impression that far from being an angry, hot-headed man, this was a pretty reasonable, and probably quite nice man, who had perhaps been pushed just a bit too far by River in the past.
‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure you’re okay with that? I really am happy to help out,’ she told him.
‘Yes… I think I’m going to be fine with that. I’m not sure I want any kind of dog crap removal tools coming through my apartment.’ These words did come with something of a smile.
‘No… probably not,’ she said. ‘Look, I really am sorry. What number is your apartment?’ she asked, thinking ahead to the bunch of flowers, box of chocolates, or other little gift she would leave on his doorstep later today.
‘I’m Larry Jones and I live at number 33.’
‘Hi Larry, nice to meet you. I’m Tess Simpson and I’ll be here for another six weeks. I’m going to try to train the dogs not to use the balcony, so hopefully this won’t happen again. By the way, you’re the first person I’ve met in the building, so I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what has happened to the pool?’
At this, Larry rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, the pool, now that is a long story.’
When Larry had gone, Tess finished some other chores in the apartment. But this was only minor dusting the slats of the blinds type stuff. All the critical areas, the heavy lifting of cleaning this absolute rat-hole of a place, was almost completely finished now and she was aware that she needed to get outside. She’d been in LA for over forty-eight hours now and she’d only stepped outside once to go to the shop. In all honesty, she was surprised by how overwhelmed she felt by the outside world. It was so hot, so dirty, dusty and busy out there. And she didn’t know where to go or how she could get there without using River’s car, which she’d not even gone to look for yet.
She realised that she was completely out of her comfort zone. Busy, busy, organised Tess, who could cope with client meetings, client deadlines, stroppy teenagers, a ludicrously overloaded timetable and all sorts of demands and expectations, was suddenly wondering if she could leave an apartment.
This just wasn’t like her and she couldn’t understand what was happening. What was it about out there that was keeping her held back and stuck inside? It felt so alien and different and she felt so far away from all of her usual people, places and supports. She was truly out of her comfort zone and there was nothing familiar to fall back on. All at once, she realised how rarely she left that zone and did things that were new or difficult. Maybe part of the reason her life had become so routine was that she had become so routine.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she told herself, ‘you came here for an adventure, so you’ve got to start somewhere…’ Okay, she did at least know one person in LA, so that one person would have to give her the hand that she maybe needed. She called up Tom’s number on her phone.
‘Hi Tom, this is Tess… in River’s apartment. Yes… the malamutes. Well… I was just wondering…’
Then rather hesitantly, she explained to him that when he came to give them their walk round the neighbourhood, would he be able to walk her round the neighbourhood too?
‘I just don’t know where anything is,’ she said. ‘Where do I take the dogs? Where do I buy something good to eat? Where’s the best coffee place? I’m sure you could give me some pointers, just get me started.’
Tom was charmingly enthusiastic and promised he would be there soon, so that put Tess into a different kind of fuss, and she headed to the bedroom to change, wondering what she should wear for the weather and this first trip around the neighbourhood.
She decided on a flowing, floral linen shift type of dress. Then she brushed and fluffed up her hair, and added comfortable, new, white sneakers and a jaunty basket to her outfit.
Yes, she thought, surveying herself in the slim sliver of mirror – that looks fine: summery, breezy, colourful. Then she began the slow process of anointing her delicate skin with factor fifty sunscreen. Ye gods, didn’t every single bottle ever produced promise to be non-greasy, with no white marks and wasn’t it always a great big lie? She looked at herself in the mirror with much less enthusiasm now. Her legs, her arms, her face and neck all looked pale and waxy. Everything became worse when Tom rang the doorbell, the dogs got all excited and rushed around her legs, shedding white hairs into the layer of sun cream. Good grief.
‘So… I don’t often walk around these blocks,’ Tom was telling her as they set off at a jaunty pace with a dog each. ‘I usually put the dogs into the car and drive them out to the nearest hiking trail and let them run. But there are some pretty good dog parks nearby so let’s go check them out and I’ll show you the good places to stop and shop on the way.’ In his perfect fit blue cycle shorts and black t-shirt, he was just as neat and dapper as she remembered.
Ten minutes into this walk, Tess couldn’t understand why she hadn’t brought sunglasses. The glare from the bright white sky, from the pavement, from even the windscreens of passing cars was hurting her eyes. Plus, her sweat was mixing with the sunscreen to form oily dribbles already running between her shoulder blades and down her sides. Too late now, she realised that the thick linen shift was all wrong for summer in LA. It was designed for gentle British Julys, for temperatures in the high teens and low twenties, when your dress needed a bit of heft against the cool breeze. Here, the occasional passerby they met on the ‘sidewalk’ was wearing vest tops, shorts, or breezy skirts made of light clouds of material with deep slits to benefit from any passing waft of air.
And her feet were melting in the heavy plastic sneakers, while Los Angelenos wore flipflops, strappy sandals or sneakers made of mesh. Tess’s hair stuck to the back of her neck, as she regretted not securing her thick locks in a ponytail or bun so that the breeze could bring coolness to her sweating and overheated parts.
Meanwhile, Tom was walking faster and faster. Burton’s lead was tied to his waist and he was keeping up a stream of useful and entertaining chat: ‘So that’s the coffee shop I totally recommend,’ he said, pointing across the road, ‘They serve truly awesome chilled chai lattes, or just your regular hot cups of black Java. Whatever you want, they have it there and it is served with the minimum of sass.’
‘Do they let dogs in?’ she wondered.
‘I always do take out, so I don’t know. I guess they might let you sit out on the terrace with these two doggos,’ Tom replied. ‘But let’s face it, there is a lot of fluffy, doggie real estate attached to these guys. It may be too much for one small café to handle.’
‘Now over there,’ he pointed again, ‘That’s the best Mexican round here. So go and enjoy dinner there one night, or order takeout. Next door is the awesome vegan place and over on the other side of the road, great Chinese. So, everything you need, basically, within an easy walk of your apartment. Okay, and we turn right here, because this is the cutest dog park and there is also just the nicest Korean grocery store on the corner.’
They walked into a square, not with green grass, as Tess might have expected, but paved with flowerbeds and some space for benches, a kiosk and colourful plants in pots. There were other dogs bounding about inside a fenced enclosure. And this is where Tom took River’s dogs and deftly unclipped them. The dogs knew immediately where they were and what to do and Wilder began to bounce around playfully, while Burton took a dump.
‘Oh, Mr Burton, not again!’ Tom exclaimed, nimbly whipping out his dog mess bag from a zipped pocket at the back of his shorts and dealing with the situation. Ah, well, Tess couldn’t help thinking, at least that was one less for the balcony.
‘Hey Tom! It is so great to see you! Hiiiii!’
Some teeny-tiny Los Angelena skipped up to Tom in her teeny skirt and teeny waist with her teeny-tiny dog in tow.
‘I heard you’ve got a second read-through for the Ackerman project.’
‘Oh yeah, pretty cool huh?’
‘In-cred-i-ble,’ she gushed, ‘it would be amazing to get a part on that. Uh-mazing.’
And so they stood there, these two impossibly beautiful people, grinning at each other. Then teeny-tiny girl realised that Tess must be with Tom.
‘Oh hi,’ she said, turning her radiant, soft skinned, pink-lipped, flawlessly white-toothed smile on Tess: ‘You must be Tom’s mom… how awesome to meet you.’
As she sat on the apartment sofa, blowing the fan directly at her sticky face, Tess tried to decide why she’d been so offended by this comment. It wasn’t as if the age gap between her and Tom was too small. She guessed that he was probably in his late twenties, and she was forty-nine, so really she could have been his mom. It wasn’t at all unreasonable. But it just made her feel so old, and uncool and unglamorous.
And God, this dress, she looked down at the linen flowers with disdain. What had she been thinking? She realised with a jolt that for some time now, she’d allowed herself to drift into the arena of camouflaging clothes instead of flattering ones.
Okay, that was enough wallowing. She needed to make a nice evening plan for herself. She had bought food at the Korean grocery and she was going to cook. Then when she’d eaten, she wouldn’t be able to speak to anyone in her family, because they would all be asleep, but she would send them a long group email, full of her adventures in LaLa land so far.
She had just chopped up her exotic mix of vegetables and was setting the wok on the hob when she was surprised to hear a tap on the apartment’s front door.
‘Hi, who’s there?’ she called out.
‘Hi, Tess? It’s me, Larry. We met earlier today. I hope it’s okay to ask a question.’
She undid the locks and the bolt and as she prepared to pull the door open, she had to ask: ‘This isn’t a trick, I hope… you’re not going to revenge splatter me, are you?’
‘Nope,’ came the simple reply.
Larry stood in the doorway, a little taller and broader than she remembered, but also much friendlier too. She liked his smile. It was warm and kind; it went right up to his eyes and crinkled the corners.
‘Hello, again,’ he said, ‘had a good day?’
‘Yes… so hot though, I don’t know if I’m going to get used to this heat.’
‘This heat?’ he asked. ‘Tess, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Been anywhere interesting?’
‘Just round the neighbourhood,’ she told him, ‘But I like the sound of the hiking trails. I think I’ll take myself out there with the dogs very soon.’
‘Cool… well, there was something that I just wanted to check with you. Did you say River was away for the next few weeks?’
Tess nodded.
‘Well… just how long exactly?’
‘We’ve arranged to swap houses for six weeks. We might even both agree to extend if we need to.’
‘Six weeks?’ he repeated. ‘I don’t get it. After our last argument about the dogs, she arranged to do one-on-one dance lessons with me to make up. She has a twelve-lesson, six-week course booked with me about to start and payment is due.’
He looked pretty annoyed again.
‘Was that woman just fobbing me off?’ he asked. ‘’Cos she sounded really genuine, really sorry. And I believed that she was going to make it up with me.’
Dance lessons… this explained a lot to Tess: Larry’s upright posture, broad shoulders, and the strong but sinuous muscles.
‘You’re a dance teacher?’ she asked.
‘Yeah… I’m guessing that could be a little obvious, what with me offering dance lessons, an’ all.’
‘What kind of dance?’ she asked.
Larry looked almost a little offended.
‘All kinds! Ballet, classical and modern, tap, tango, jazz… if you want to dance it, I can teach it to you. But what am I going to do about River?’
There were two reasons why one obvious solution suddenly came to Tess. She still felt guilty about the dollop of dog poop on Larry’s balcony and those very special shoes… and, following her afternoon out, she felt lumpy, un-dainty and gallumphy. And there was Larry, gracefully upright with his perfect posture, sinuous, taking up his space in the world so beautifully.
Plus, she was here in LA to do different things, to spoil herself and to try out all kinds of things she didn’t even know yet that she wanted to do. And learning how to dance in LA, well, that sounded adventurous… even a little bit glamorous.
‘What about if I take the dance lessons, Larry? Since River is going to be away. I could pay you and I could do those lessons… if that would be okay with you?’
Larry looked a little taken aback.
‘Do you have the time?’ he asked, followed with: ‘Is this something you want to do?’
Now it was Tess’s turn to ask the question: ‘Do you think you can teach me anything?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he answered, without hesitation.
‘Well, I’m keen to learn… I really would like to learn some new moves.’
‘What kind of new moves?’ he asked, looking almost a little uneasy.
‘Oh… I don’t know, but is there any chance you could teach even someone like me something just a little bit… wow?’