I drive home.
Mrs. Pryce was still sleeping when I left, and I gave Mr. Pryce the name of a colleague who practices in Santa Monica because the trip north on the 405 freeway, even on a remarkable day with less traffic than usual, is very long for me, and she needs access to help right away. Thankfully, Hugo and the rest of the media were gone by the time I got into my car, and I was able to make a quick exit from the mansion and all of that white, white, white.
Now, as the sun sets, I enter the four-digit code onto the barely lit keypad that’s embedded in a nondescript wood post at the unguarded gate to my street, Del Mar Avenue; the ever-deepening shadows on the narrow, winding dirt road are a relief compared to that bleached-looking house. The house reminded me of a documentary I recently watched on coral reefs that are being killed by fertilizer runoff and acidification in the world’s oceans—they turn as white as the Pryce home, like the brittle bones of a skeleton.
The thought makes me shudder.
Too much death.
I slow down to enter my dirt driveway, and the hybrid switches to battery as it decelerates, the engine making barely a sound at this speed. I cut my headlights out and come to a full stop, turning the car off. I sit for a moment, gazing at my small, yellow house in the semi-moonlight. The marine layer isn’t as thick as it was last night, and I can just make out the foundation, which looks slanted.
Even though I already knew it was tilted—the contractor helping me with the second bedroom having been quick to alert me—it makes my stomach feel queasy.
Not only are the houses in Majorca Point being seismically shaken off their foundations, but the foundations themselves are sliding as well. It’s a geological phenomenon known as “block glide,” in which large areas of overlying rock and soil sometimes glide along the subsurface layers, and there are a few—heck, more than a few—layers of land under our feet here, like slippery Bentonite or volcanic ash that’s turned to clay.
And, one day, we’ll just start to glide—down.
It’s happened before, albeit a hundred years ago.
It will, more than likely, happen again.
At the very least, my bedroom will have to be moved—maybe even destroyed, as it sits at a most vulnerable spot.
Which pains me, greatly.
Not so much for the expense, or the work, though both of those will hurt, a lot. But what will nearly break my heart will be the destruction of the built-in shelves that house my computer. My dad surprised me with those one August morning when I was twelve and a half years old. I’d been away for a week at a local summer camp, and while I was gone he’d made them. My dad was hardly a professional carpenter, but he’d crafted them with so much love that they look, to me, like pieces of art. And now they’ll probably have to be torn out.
I sit in my car remembering my dad leading me around the house by my hand with my eyes shut, telling me not to peek, and my mom tiptoeing, holding my other hand, and when we finally got to my bedroom, he said, “Oh, no, Esmeralda, your … bed … is sliding down the hill!” This wasn’t too hard to believe, even then, because Majorca Point had been slipping, in one way or another, for as long as we’d lived there. So I opened my eyes and cried, “Noooo!” But, instead of a falling bed, I was staring at the sturdy, built-in wooden shelves in a corner of my room, next to the window, so I could feel a breeze while I did my homework.
We all laughed and laughed.
I must have thanked my dad a thousand times; those shelves were awesome, solid, my own piece of the house.
It’s a wonderful memory, and I smile.
That’s when I see a shadow, darker than the rest, creep around the other side of my house, next to the two compost bins that are near enough to my kitchen to make it an easy distance to walk and throw some scraps inside—and then the shadowy, slinking figure moves to the front door.
I make sure my car doors are locked, then turn the Ford on and flare the headlights.
The beady eyes flare back at me.
A coyote, its mouth open, panting. I watch its ribcage rise and fall, really skinny, obviously hungry and thirsty.
We stare at each other.
Then it disappears, remarkably silent, into the shadows.
I turn my car off again.
Unlock the doors.
I debate whether to put water out. I know some of my neighbors would have a fit if they found out I was giving water to a coyote—but these poor wild animals, all of them that try to survive this latest southern California drought, are dying of thirst.
I get out of the car, boots crunching on the dirt and gravel. I find my way to the wooden storage bin that’s next to the front door, squinting, feeling, looking for a bowl or bucket under the pale light of the moon, when something brushes my hand.
I swivel on my heels.
Is it the coyote? Is it hungry enough to attack me?
They’re usually so shy …
But then I hear, “Ez?”
“Hugo?”
Right—I gave him the Del Mar gate’s entry code the morning after Abigail Pryce died.
He grabs me to him and kisses me.
I smell leather, and soap, and the pure male scent of desire, and I kiss him back, hard.
Why not?
It’s been a tough day.
Until now.