The house was empty when I got home. I didn’t know where Lila was, but I was glad no one was there. I wanted some time alone. I was happy, and the afternoon with Nicco belonged only to me. I wanted to cup my hands around it in my own mind, unwrap it again and again, like a secret present.
Suddenly, too, I felt really, really interested in my appearance. I mean, like, I needed new clothes and to work out and to become a more beautiful and amusing person, pronto. I should maybe lift weights and buy a new bra, since my old favorite was kind of limp. I wanted to do all of that immediately, but I also wanted to just stay still and replay every second of the last few hours.
I went upstairs and changed into my two-piece, got a towel, my book, and a big glass of ice water with a wedge of lime. I laid my towel out on one of the chaises on the patio.
It was so warm that I could smell the delicious sun, plus the sea. Max found a shady spot just inside the house. I tried to read, but ha. It was the kind of reading where you look at the same sentence again and again and it makes absolutely no sense, because you’re thinking about dark curls and the way he said so fucking tender. The way it made me want all of his so-fucking-tender heart and his so-fucking-tender hands. I was in trouble, because this was nothing like Samuel Crane. Nothing. I’d jumped universes. I looked at my phone on the outdoor table beside me. I wondered if I should text first or wait, and for how long.
Don’t be available, Lila had always said. Make him chase you. Be the prize he has to earn.
I couldn’t blame just Lila for that advice, though, could I? She was only living in the world that was ours. I’d seen it already, how beautiful and disinterested girls were the most popular. You weren’t supposed to want or show your want. You were supposed to look sexy without actually being sexy. Be the ice queen with the tight blond ponytail who they wanted to touch but never would.
Sometimes, a cold, disinterested guy like Reed Shaw or Ellis Jackson would also be popular. But so was Ben Avery, that senior guy who pulled girls down on his lap and hugged them from behind and pushed whatever girl he liked up against his locker to shove his tongue down her throat. So was Jason Varide, who took half the girls in our eighth-grade class down to his parents’ basement. Guys could be anything they wanted—disinterested, interested, polite, assaulting. No one complained about Ben Avery, because he was Ben Avery. But if a girl ever acted like that, even the other girls would be disgusted.
You were supposed to dangle the candy without giving the candy. I knew that. Everyone did. But what if you wanted to give the candy? What if everything looked like candy to some people, even a certain T-shirt or a skirt? What about when you thought you’d better hand over the candy to some bully? What about when guys stole the candy, grabbed what was yours right out of your hands? Sometimes a guy could steal the candy and you’d be blamed for not keeping it safe enough.
No wonder even texting was a minefield. I felt suddenly anxious. Every possible choice seemed wrong. Agatha just walking on the beach, being who she was so openly—she was a fearless queen from some fuck-you time in the future. Why were you always told to just be yourself when so much else said the opposite?
Right then, my phone buzzed and danced a little circle around the table.
Kid just stuck a piece of Red Willow incense up his nose. Weeping emoji. Thanks for a great afternoon.
You shouldn’t text back for at least a half hour, Cora’s sister told us once.
I typed, Poor kid. Everything is going to taste Red Willow now! Laughing emoji. GREAT afternoon. Smiling emoji.
Too many emojis, probably. Excessive use of caps.
Screw it.
I pressed send.
I wanted… I really just wanted to be real.
On the sprawling patio of 716 Sea Cliff, perched above China Beach, I spread the lotion all over my body. Legs, shoulders. As much of my back as I could get. I lay on my stomach on the chaise. I rested my cheek on my arms. I remembered sitting on that second-story platform that night, how you could see our house from there. I got the creeps, thinking he was maybe watching me right then, that man working next door.
Then again, so what? Everyone had a body, and here was mine. The sun felt so good. Dread? What dread? I was happy. I was hopeful. Not for something in particular, just the pure meaning of the word—full of hope.
Max trotted out. He sat down and stared at me.
“Now?” I said.
He stared harder.
“Right when I just got comfy?”
Stare.
Ugh! I got up. The house was still empty. It was strange that Lila wasn’t home yet. It was maybe four or four thirty, and there was no note, nothing. I could have called to check on her, but I was glad to be alone. For once, I didn’t mind being by myself in that big, empty house.
I let Max out into the walled front garden. I was going to have to go out there and pick up his poop, because no one else had been doing it. No wonder Lila left most of my upbringing to Edwina.
The wall was maybe four feet high or so. I’m not good with heights and distances. The point is, I could see over it. And as I stood there waiting for Max to finish, I saw this car parked across the street. A man was sitting in it. He wore a shirt and a tie, sunglasses, and he looked my way when I spotted him, and sure, he could’ve just been some real estate guy or something, but it didn’t seem like it. He was just sitting there, like he had all the time in the world.
I got a bad feeling. Really bad. Dread, doom, anxiety—all of it. He’s watching our house, I thought. I had no reason to think it. I mean, when you live in an expensive neighborhood, you always have reason to think it, but I didn’t have any particular evidence for it.
And then a truck turned the corner onto our street. It looked like the one that had delivered the paintings a few days before. But it turned a fast circle then. Back the way it came, and in a screaming hurry. Just, veeroom, getting the hell out of there.
The man in the parked car started his engine. He looked calm, but then he hit the accelerator, and it was like some chase scene in a movie where lots of cars blow up. It was one of those times when something big and terrible is actually happening, but it seems too dramatic to believe. You blame your own imagination because the truth would be too crazy.
“I’m nuts,” I told Max. He tilted his head as if this were quite possible. “I mean, look.” Aside from the commotion next door, and the arrival of a Molly Maid van heading to one of the neighbors’ houses, the street was quiet now.
Max trotted into the kitchen for some water and a cool spot on the marble floor. I felt distracted, but I went back outside. I lay on the chaise again, tried to return to where I was. I forced myself to think about Nicco and his dark curls and his notebook and his olive skin in that white shirt.
And then I heard someone. Max wasn’t barking, so maybe Lila was home. It wasn’t Lila, though. It was Jake, on the phone. This startled me. He was around all the time lately, even if he still supposedly lived in one of his other houses nearby. But—how long had he been there? All that time, I’d thought I was alone. I suddenly felt weird, since I hadn’t been. Did he see me with my straps all undone? I mean, I hadn’t exactly been careful.
Jake paced. He strode through the White Room and back again. His voice was intense. On his second trip, he saw me looking at him. A few minutes later, he appeared.
I sat up. I felt a little exposed, you know, there in my bikini. I saw that it had shifted, showing my swimsuit lines, the caramel tan of my skin against white, a dark-light line of what had been revealed and not. I wanted to cover up with the towel, but I didn’t want him to think I was uncomfortable with him when I was uncomfortable with him.
“Hey, Syd.”
“You’re home,” I said.
“Yeah. I had some work to do. I didn’t want to bother you out here.”
The intensity was gone from his voice. He seemed like an entirely different person from the one on the phone, hunched and pacing.
“Oh. Well, thanks. Do you know where Lila is?”
“Probably shopping, huh? She shops a lot, doesn’t she? How you doing? It must be kinda lonely here on your own.”
At least someone had noticed. “A little, but I’m okay. I’m fine.”
“Good.”
There was an awkward silence. Why did I need to fill it? I wanted him to like me. I wanted to be a team player, you know? He was part of our lives now. “Actually, I saw the labyrinth today, at Lands End.” My voice was cheerful, even though what I felt was self-conscious.
“Can you believe I’ve lived here all these years and have never seen it? Did you feel all woo-woo spiritual?”
“Filled with inner pizza, I mean peace,” I joked.
He laughed. “I need me some of that. Man. Get me some of that right now, huh?”
“Exactly.”
“Are you watching the sun out here? You’re getting a little burned.” He gestured to my shoulders and then made a V with his fingers, indicating the space between my breasts. I looked down, and it was true—I’d gotten red.
“Well, hey, you two.” Lila dropped her bags on the patio. I hadn’t even seen her come in.
“Hey, babe,” Jake said.
Now I wrapped my towel around myself. I felt embarrassed, with both of them standing there dressed. Guilty. Her face was all stony and hard, like she’d caught me doing something wrong.
“I didn’t hear you drive up.” Jake’s hands were in the pockets of his shorts, all casual.
“Clearly,” she said.
That night, Lila was sweetness and light to me, while she bossed Jake around like he was a servant. To him, it was, Order some takeout, would you? Why are you calling that place? You know China Harbor has the egg rolls I like! How long are they going to take? Call them back and make it a rush order. To me, it was, Are you going to bed, Syd-Syd? Put some good lotion on after being in the sun today, okay, baby? Let me give you some of mine. It was all us girls. Her and me. Sweet dreams. Love you.
Lila could do this. Shove one person out; bring one person in. Separate, like her own cattle drive, where a certain cow stays and the other is turned toward the slaughterhouse. I saw her do it with boyfriends, and friends, and even with her agent, Lee, and her manager, Sean James. When I was little, she’d pull me onto her lap whenever Papa Chesterton was displeased with her. When my father was nice to me, she wasn’t. When he wasn’t nice, she was. Maybe I was just starting to notice things because I was getting older.
Sweet dreams.
Not exactly.
I tossed in my bed. I kept thinking about that car out front. Those tires screeching around the corner. I didn’t ask Jake about it. I didn’t ask Lila. Jake had said to trust my gut, and my gut said, Don’t.
Lila and Jake’s shouting woke me up. Lila’s room was directly below mine. I swear, the house shook.
How dare you tell me to get out! Jake yelled. Have you forgotten where you are? Who are you, some big important star? What a fucking joke.
I will destroy you! Lila’s voice was ablaze.
Oh my God. I hunched down in my bed. It was a warm night, but I pulled all the covers up over me. I plugged my ears. I started to hum a made-up song to drown out the sound.
I could still hear, though.
You bitch!
This wasn’t the Jake who’d joked with me that afternoon, or the one who was friendly with the waiters at the restaurant, or the one who bent over backward to pull out Lila’s chair or get her coat or bring her coffee. This wasn’t the father-Jake who sent little pink roses and who wanted to teach me to drive. Or the one who was around lately, putting food in the refrigerator and fixing Lila a drink.
He was shouting so loud, his voice was getting hoarse. I kept my ears plugged, and I rocked a little in my bed. I felt sick and scared, but I was also pissed. I mean, I felt betrayed. By both of them, but especially him. I’d tried to be nice. I’d believed in we, and now look. I’d believed in the pink rose guy. I’d given him my hope and now he’d wrecked it, same as my father had again and again.
There was a bam, a crash. Something hit something else and shattered. A glass against a wall, maybe. I started to get seriously frightened, and maybe Lila was too, because her voice turned pleading. I could tell she was crying.
Oh, it was awful. I couldn’t stand it.
And then I remembered: Big Jake. The former bodyguard. Mr. Las Vegas with the scary associates. We’d laughed that night at the restaurant, but it suddenly felt like the wrong kind of nickname. She’d tried to tell me too, hadn’t she? What kind of man he was, and who he did business with, and how she “loved” him anyway?
I reached for my phone, tucked it beneath my covers. I wondered if I should call someone. Edwina, or the police. Lila’s friend Louise. Someone. I needed to protect her, only I didn’t know how.
The fighting died down.
I heard creaking in the hallway. My door opened. I lay very, very still. I didn’t dare peek. I hoped it was just Max, fleeing the fight. If it was, I’d soon feel his big body leaping up onto the bed.
But it wasn’t him.
“Baby?” Lila whispered. “Syd-Syd? Are you awake?”
I lay without moving, barely breathing. It was the second time I’d ignored her like this. I waited for what seemed like forever. Finally she left.
In that city where fire burned things to the ground and earthquakes cracked streets right down the middle and assholes ruined art meant to bring peace, I hid like a crouched animal. I wanted to go home. I started to cry quietly into my pillow, because I wanted that so bad. My chest felt caved in, and I sobbed without making a sound. This was the night the ghost had tried to warn me about, I thought. I didn’t know that it was nothing compared to what was coming.
After a while, I heard murmurs above me. Softer voices. Making up, probably. I worried about Max all alone down there. I hoped he wasn’t scared. Dogs are so sensitive.
I tried to sleep, replacing the bad images in my mind with good ones. I played a different story. I walked the circle of the labyrinth with Nicco. I sat on the rock and watched those two young guys. Middle kiss, I said, and Nicco wrote it down.
I set all of that into my own notebook, in my head.
It’s still there, even if he isn’t.