IT WAS TIME TO FIX ARNOLD HIS BEDTIME CUP OF TEA.
There were three pills left. Twyla dreaded the inevitable trip down into the Valley on Monday to see Dr. Belk to ask for more. She might be refused a refill without Arnold present, but she couldn’t bring him along. A calm, compliant Arnold was necessary for her business to be a success. There had already been too many incidents that threatened her host ratings.
She tightened her bathrobe against the night chill seeping in through the windows and made her way down the hallway, past the closed door of the guest room where Sibyl was staying, down the stairs, careful to avoid all the creaky patches. This was how well she knew her old house: every sagging step, every splintered floorboard.
She crouched over Klondike, curled in slumber on his ancient dog bed by the kitchen door. She rubbed the crown of silver between his ears and whispered, “I’m sorry, buddy.”
Poor loyal Klondike. She’d wanted to slap that Mia Meadows across her perfect face, make the woman feel the pain poor Klonnie with his red and runny eyes had felt. What kind of monster pepper-sprays a playful dog? Arnold had wanted to call the ASPCA, file charges against the woman. Twyla had felt like a traitor apologizing to Ms. Meadows. They all had to sacrifice to make life on the ranch feasible, even the dog.
She made her way through the dining room, passing the table strewn with detritus pertaining to Arnold’s unfinished art projects: a mosaic from old garden tiles, a watercolor of a seascape, which she’d had to nag him to start. Where had Arnold the doer vanished to? The man who’d spent so many nights in his workshop sanding wood, carving dowels by hand, all of it resulting in beautiful Shaker-style chairs and stained art frames.
Arnold was asleep in the recliner in the dimly lit family room. She had always resented him calling it that, the family room, when it was and always would be just the two of them. He’d been asleep since after dinner when she’d left to feed the goats and make sure the holes the beechies had made in the rotting barn wall were stuffed tight with shredded steel wool. That’s all she needed—a bunch of rodents interrupting the serenity of Sibyl’s sessions with guests tomorrow.
She’d have to wake Arnold and risk his anger. What if she couldn’t coax him into drinking the tea? A whole pill would go to waste.
In the kitchen—it still smelled sweetly of the peach bread she’d warmed in the oven—Twyla set the kettle to boil, reminding herself to pull it from the flame before it whistled. It was important to stay extra quiet, as Sibyl was a light sleeper and prone to stormy moods if she woke before her “natural emergence into consciousness.”
From its place beside the fridge, Twyla pulled out a step stool and stood on the platform, gripping the edge of the countertop for balance. It was depressing how cautious she’d become with her body after all the years of unabashed use: entire mornings spent crouched and digging in the garden, afternoons loosening hay from the bale with a pitchfork to feed the goats, climbing ladders to repair roofs, riding uncooperative horses on uncleared mountain trails; what used to be everyday living had become a lineup of risks, any of which could knock her out of commission.
If Arnold had his druthers, she thought as she lifted onto her toes to reach for the herbs—chamomile salvaged from her dried-up garden, plus lion’s mane—some previously mundane chore would knock her down so hard they’d have to leave Celestial Ranch altogether. Not that Arnold consciously wanted her to break a hip or blow out a knee. But her husband was, clearly, looking for a reason for them to leave Topanga. He was ready for someone else to do the work. Preferably a staff member at some godforsaken senior living community in the Valley. He’d actually started sharing “literature” with her—pamphlets, websites, reviews on that Yelp site!
She didn’t hesitate to remind him of the 200,000 Covid deaths that had occurred in nursing homes. They were death traps, spiritual and otherwise.
She didn’t deny the obvious—Celestial Ranch had issues. Still: it wasn’t simply the place she’d lived for forty years. It was the only home her soul had ever known. It was an extension of Twyla herself, the Twyla she’d become after fleeing Connecticut and the suffocating cage of her conservative, status-quo-loving parents, for UC Santa Barbara back in 1968, where she’d met Arnold at the peak of radical love and antiwar protests, all-night euphoric celebrations spent dancing to rock ’n’ roll. She could still feel the ache in her muscles after those long ocean-soft nights moving in sync with the music of Arnold’s band, No Shrinking Violets. Not caring how her flesh jiggled, freed from the full-form bra and girdle her mother had insisted she wear.
Celestial Ranch was the culmination of that freedom. She deserved to spend the last years of her life in dignity.
She wasn’t quite sure she, the liberated Twyla, would survive anywhere else. So, she’d done whatever it took to keep the ranch intact, even if it had involved driving down to that awful computer café in the Valley, studying the godforsaken Airbnb website, and figuring out how to take “flattering” photos of the crumbling cabins. Even if it had involved cashing in an old favor with Griz and that sketchy friend of his, Tom Something-or-other, to build a yurt, the only modern structure on the property, and the one Twyla showcased on her Airbnb profile. Once potential guests got an eyeful of the yurt, with its stainless-steel kitchen and freshly stained redwood deck—plus the photos of the ranch’s prettiest spots: the ridge, the meadow, the grand oaks, and the massive agave in full bloom, its ten-foot-tall stalk reaching from the center of the plant up into the sky—they skimmed right over the heavily edited photos of the other structures.
If she continued to have money for the upkeep of the ranch, Arnold’s argument for leaving would grow considerably weaker. She wasn’t there yet, but she was moving forward. The party this weekend, regardless of that twit Mia Meadows, was her biggest earner yet. Which is why the appearance of foul-smelling animal crap in the bathroom of Betelgeuse had nearly sent Twyla into a fit.
The log of shit was a mystery. How could an animal that large—it must have been a black bear or a bobcat—get into the cabin and manage to shit on the bathroom floor, then leave without destroying furniture or scratching walls? She had heard from Dr. McAllister, the homeopathic vet she insisted treat Klondike and the goats, that the pandemic had caused big changes to the wilderness areas around Los Angeles—the months of decreased human presence had made animals much bolder. Coyotes in downtown LA, falcons circling the subdued skies of the airport, and even large families of deer grazing in empty lots in South Central.
Perhaps a rare mountain lion had slid into Betelgeuse sometime yesterday and taken its formidable dump as some sort of marking technique? Animals, after all, possessed extraordinarily high degrees of intelligence and canniness. Humans, on the other hand, Twyla thought, not so much. She’d known the city women wouldn’t question whether Klondike had been responsible for the shit. And she’d been right, though Twyla felt a little bad about pinning the mess in the bathroom on her innocent dog. Then again, she desperately needed this weekend not to result in any refund requests.
Steam shot from the kettle, and Twyla moved it from the flame. Arnold snorted from the family room, and the springs of his old recliner squeaked. She poured the scalding water into the mug and paused to inhale the fragrant steam.
She dropped a small pill into the ceramic mortar bowl and hummed as she ground it with the pestle, hoping her low drone covered the sound. A movement at the kitchen window made her lean forward, scan the rolling hills of the meadow, lit blue in the moonlight like a shimmering sea. A dark shape ran across the meadow.
It must have been one of the guests, she decided as she carried the mug into the family room. The thought of the guests running through the moonlit property pleased her. Like a scene straight out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. How romantic.
Twyla was careful when opening and closing the swinging door to the family room to avoid its creaks. When, when, would Arnold WD-40 it, as she’d asked so many times? Whether he was incapable of making the smallest efforts to keep up the property or simply unwilling, Twyla was unsure, though how he’d sprinted after Klondike yesterday afternoon hadn’t escaped her. And how did that Arnold jive with the Arnold who seemed too weary to locate the canister of WD-40 in the garage and hold down its button? Who had suggested they sell, even donate, the goats they had loved like children for years? The first Arnold, the dog-chasing sprinter, thought Twyla, as she unfolded the tray table and set it next to Arnold’s recliner, did not make so compelling a case for deserting the home they’d tended for forty years for a “gated community” with a bleach-filled swimming pool, starchy dinners served at five p.m., and giant-screen TVs on every wall.
She brushed her lips over the coarse, dry cheek of sleeping Arnold, and placed the steaming cup of tea on the tray.
“Wake up, Arnie,” she whispered. “You need to take Zephyr’s bedtime tea if you’re going to get a good night’s sleep.”
Arnold startled awake, flailing his arms. His hand smacked the mug off the tray. Twyla lunged for it, her knees landing hard on the cold wood floor. The tips of her fingers brushed the mug, one she’d hand-thrown herself at the wheel in the barn, before it shattered across the floor.