10

AS IF ON CUE, ALL THE WOMEN STOOD. PERHAPS THEY were nudged by cool nips to ears or toes, which I felt as well, and were lifted upright by the breeze’s tugging at their flowing silks and lace. They stacked plates and cups. In synchronized twirls of wrist and skirts, the table was cleared. I remained in my seat, too tired to bother with any pretense of getting up to help, though I could tell without sparing a look that Guy was disappointed with me.

The men were left around the table to digest in dreamy bliss. Feeling out of place anew, but still more comfortable than I would have with the women in the kitchen, I risked an attempt to join their conversation, and turned to Manny. “How about you? How did you end up in Bellinas?”

Manny, chest puffed out and basking in his role as Father M, leaned forward. “There’s been a Rose in Bellinas forever.” He laughed, at what I am still not sure. Seeing that I was unamused—possibly wearing my buzzkill face, as Guy called it—he chose a tone that might land better with me. He was not so successful for nothing. “I grew up with Wyatt here. Our parents moved to Bellinas from San Francisco in the seventies to help run the flower farm. A whole horde of hippies did that, fled the city to return to their roots. It was a regular farm then. My dad inherited it at some point. Wyatt’s old man still runs the only bar in town, plus the general store. I’ve given a lot of thought to closing down the bar. Alcohol is the opiate of the masses, you know, Tansy? But we mostly serve natural wine and beer made here. Only thing on tap is kombucha. You know, I’m surprised Guy lets you imbibe and all. Super bad for women’s systems.”

As you can imagine, sometimes it took a real effort not to correct him, but then I had a lifetime of practice, not to mention the mastery I’d cultivated with Guy. “What about everyone else?” I asked in what I hoped was a friendly enough tone.

“Most of us grew up around here too,” he continued. The other men let Manny answer for them. “I grew up on Psalm Valley Farm, before moving down to Palo Alto for school, and then San Jose for work. When I could afford it, when I figured out I wanted to leave the Valley and start something special up here, I bought what I could of the town.”

“You bought the whole town?” I was unaware that one could do such a thing. “How does that work?”

“I just bought all the properties.” He leaned forward, and with a steady hand, he refilled my glass with water instead of wine. He seemed different suddenly. From Father M, the aspiring guru, he was now the wildly successful wunderkind of the tech world putting up a polished front as if for an interview.

“Even ones that weren’t for sale? What about the people who already lived here?”

He shrugged and refilled his glass with wine.

“Most of them were happy to take the money. It’s a small town, and I knew everyone from growing up here.”

“Do your parents still run the farm?”

“Nah. I bought a house for them on Maui.”

A shawl had appeared on the back of my chair—or was it always there? Wrapping its luxury around my pilling, stained sweatshirt, I looked more closely at the small vases of flowers. There was one for each of the women’s names, and for Manny’s surname. Roses. Damianas. Lilies. Asters. And one bunch of knobbly yellow weeds. My namesake. Common tansy.

“The couple who lived in this house—the Barlows—they were a little reluctant to sell. Older sort. Basically recluses. The house was hella run-down. I had to have my people keep on them, you know? Like, this was where I always wanted to live, and I knew Mia would love it.”

“So what happened?”

“There was a fire or something, and the old man had a heart attack right after. Probably from the stress. The family couldn’t afford to keep it after that. Spirit always provides,” he said, putting his wineglass down and bringing his hands to meet in prayer at the center of his chest.

The wind gave a vigorous flick to the candle flame at the center of the table, one of Mia’s.

“What about you, Tansy Black?”

“Not much to tell,” I said, suspecting that he knew everything about me already. He would have the means in every sense to discover anything. “I grew up in Charleston. A vet’s daughter. Mom was a housewife. They were killed in a car accident, and I was raised by my grandmother. She died. I met Guy in college. Worked at magazines. That’s about it.” I am never comfortable talking about myself, despite this history. Its importance outweighs my modesty, and I must press on.

“Guy says you’re a writer. A genius or something. That you speak Greek and like five other languages.”

It was not a question, and I didn’t know how to respond. After giving up a future in academia, the plan had been for me to write, and Guy to make art. I wasn’t really a writer yet, though I thought I might be one day. Delusion is nothing, if not vague.

“Sort of. You don’t really speak Ancient Greek or Latin, just read it. I wanted to be a scholar. I won an award in college—”

“I’ve got writing in my blood, you know,” he interrupted. “My great-uncle was a famous poet. George Sterling. Best friends with Jack London. As a matter of fact, he was the inspiration for our community here. This is actually the second coming, you might say, of the Bohemian Club. The first was an artists’ commune in Carmel that he started. In fact, when you leave, take a look at the front door. I had it imported from the club’s original meetinghouse in the city. Their motto is carved across the top. He was super progressive for a turn-of-the-century dude. People walked around naked and took drugs and made art all day. Half of them committed suicide, and, like, they all had affairs with everybody else. He probably invented polyamory, you know?”

“How did you meet Mia? Isn’t she from somewhere nearby?”

His eyes wandered from my own for the first time. “I met Mia in L.A. At an industry event. One of those funny coincidences.” It hardly mattered whose industry he meant. His, probably. The intersection of the tech world and the fashion world is wide for the reasons you would imagine. I had edited the photo captions on a feature about tech-world parties supplied with models like they were bottles of champagne.

“So is everyone in Bellinas part of your club?”

“Not yet, but one day, that’s the dream. For the whole town to be an oasis of high vibes and pure living, you know? It won’t take long. Five years. Ten years tops, I’d say.”

“What about everyone who was already living here? Do they know about your vision, or do they pay dues or something?”

I anticipated Guy’s foot against my shin before it hit, in time with his plea. “Tansy, come on,” he practically snarled. Just as during our walk that afternoon, my negativity was about to spoil things. I was embarrassing him.

“No, it’s okay,” corrected Manny, again with a hand held up to my husband. “It’s important to know about the place you’re going to call home. Totally natural.”

Was he trying to put me at ease? Probably, but I exhaled in relief in spite of my wariness. If Manny thought my questions were all right, Guy would too. We would not have to fight about it later. He wouldn’t pull away from me.

“Like I said, the town was hella run-down when we grew up here.” He looked over at his friend, who nodded in agreement. “It had a spooky reputation, was hard to get to. Even though there wasn’t a whole lot here, it kept getting more expensive to stay: taxes and insurance stuff. It’s a ton of upkeep maintaining old homes in the weather here. But the older folks had put in a lot already.”

“Sunk-cost fallacy,” I said.

“What’s that?”

I could see, as on our afternoon walk, that he was unaccustomed to much interruption or exchange. Either way, I was too interested to remain polite. This was my new home, after all, just as he’d said. “You know, when people have invested so much time or money or energy into something that’s not working, they stay anyway. It’s a psychological thing. They’ve put in so much, they can’t walk away. People sort of fool themselves into thinking whatever it is will magically get better.”

“Right on. There’s that Greek logic working.” He shook a finger at me and smiled. “There were only three hundred people in the whole town when I grew up—like, max—and less and less as the old folks died. I’d say, including us, only a hundred or so people are left. The last few old-timers live on Main Street near the businesses. Won’t be long before the people unwilling to sell die off anyway. Nature at work.” He refilled his wineglass again. “Or we can lawyer them into moving. We heard a lot of people saying they wanted to die where they were born, but, like, when someone offers you three times what your house is worth, it’s crazy not to take it. I’ll scoop everything up sooner or later. I’ve got plans for this place. Can’t rush, though. Best to go slow, vet the people who move in. Gonna be a challenge, but we’re up for it. We’re all pioneers here, like our ancestors who rode wagons and ate their horses and shit to get here.” He’d switched back to the surfer aesthetic, as if he’d revealed more than he’d meant to. More than one type of calculation would have been necessary for success in his chosen field.

“So what about your club?” I asked, still unsure of what to make of it. I had never acquired so much as a gym membership before that evening. I did not think myself the type to join anything.

“Our club, right, Tansy?” He winked at me, a gesture I was used to receiving only from my husband. “It’s pretty informal. High vibes. We all meet up every Sunday to talk about whatever’s bothering us. How to make improvements to the community. Sometimes other people come in from town, or people we invite from out of town. This is the core team,” he said. “The beta testers, you might say.”

“Do I have to invest in some robes or get a tattoo? Offer up my firstborn child?”

He paused, and I feared for a moment that I had misjudged him. Jokes might not count as high vibes. Possibly they were of medium or even low vibes. I half expected an eruption or angry silence, perhaps from the habit of anticipating Guy’s moods.

After a moment, he laughed and shook his head, as if he had made a decision. “I like you, Tansy. I knew you’d fit in here.”

Before I could respond, had I known what to say, the women appeared offering a pavlova, that most fickle and impressive of desserts. Not a speck of flour, and agave in lieu of sugar. Perfect, of course, with berries glistening in a pile carefully constructed to appear as carefree as a white puff of cumulus cloud. The only dessert I ever saw in Bellinas.

“Aster has made this masterpiece for you especially, Guy and Tansy,” Mia announced, setting out tiny wooden spoons. Manny leaned over to whisper something in Mia’s ear, and I thought I saw her blush as she looked at me. Nothing was by accident with Mia. She reached over and put her hand on my cheek, and her touch made me shift backward into the slats of my chair.

“Can I ask what’s in it? I have an allergy to pl—”

“All in the mind, Tansy,” said Manny, tapping his temple. “With a few of our sessions, we’ll have you living off whatever it is you’re supposedly allergic to.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling her! She never even had allergies until college,” my husband practically yelled, hitting the back of his fingers against my upper arm. I’d have a bruise there the next morning. Along with some I couldn’t account for across my back and hips. Blots of purple and green at my waist and arms. Not exactly the tender ministrations of the Roses. I heard Manny advise his men to treat their wives as the goddesses we were. To think that I admired him as a husband for a few brief weeks. That I hoped Guy was actually listening to him. Maybe I was not allergic to anything except Guy, after all. He was right. I’d had no allergies until my last year of college, when I met him. How to apologize to the body when it has been right all along, but must suffer through the contortions and contrivances of the mind. In that sense, the body has much in common with being a wife.

“I actually didn’t bring my adrenaline pen tonight. There’s no hospital nearby . . . I’d like to make sure.”

“Don’t worry, darling. No plums in the dessert. Have some tea.” Mia’s look had an intensity to it. But then, I was nearest to the dessert, and perhaps she was just hungry. I cannot jump to erroneous conclusions now, when I have so little time left to furnish the true history of what happened in Bellinas. I must finish before they come for me.