October 19
The Present
7:00 P.M.
Todd Stinson couldn’t wait until this whole party, and this whole weekend, was over. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to celebrate his wife’s achievements, her life, and entertain all her friends. He was proud of her and her success, and agreed it was important to take the time to mark the occasion; they had done the same for him five years ago, so it was all fine. And god knows they had attended enough over-the-top fortieth-birthday extravaganzas during the years. You’d think none of them had ever turned sixteen. There was that private island in Belize for Sanjay, yacht hopping in the Greek isles for one of her girlfriends, a bohemian weekend in Marfa for two artist pals; and Mean Celine had taken over the entire Amangiri hotel, with a dinner overlooking all of Canyon Point, including the famous Grand Staircase-Escalante. So he was used to excess. What he didn’t like was being kept in the dark.
He sure hadn’t liked it when Ellie bought this house on a whim without discussing it with him first. It was August. She was out here with her girlfriends, the four of them sharing one room at the V downtown—one of those nice-enough motel renovations. It was an odd choice, since it wasn’t even one of the newer or more luxurious properties in the area, but Ellie explained that even middle-aged women liked to feel like they were on a college trip, like they were young again at a big slumber party, and it amused everyone to pay so little for a room. Mean Celine had even smuggled in her Chihuahua because she refused to pay the pet fee since she wasn’t staying the night. Rich people. Todd had rolled his eyes. The plan was to shop Rancho Mirage and maybe check out the Chanel and Gucci outlets if they had time. Ellie wasn’t supposed to come home with a new house.
Sterling had been her coconspirator on this endeavor, pressing her to agree to a short escrow, no inspections, and fourteen-day close, and Todd would have held a grudge against him if he were that type. But Todd understood his wife’s bulldozer mentality. Sterling knew nothing and no one would have stopped Ellie from having anything she wanted, and Todd should just be relieved Sterling was a legitimate broker and not a sleaze. When he’d sold his condo in LA, his neighbor had offered to list it, and Todd had agreed; the guy seemed nice enough. It was during the height of the bubble, when banks were handing out loans like lollipops, and the guy came back with an offer from a buyer that was way above market value. Except it was all a scheme—if Todd agreed to it, there was someone at the bank who would approve the buyer’s loan, and all Todd had to do was kick back ten percent to his broker; oh, and leave the televisions. Todd was so insulted he threw the guy out and kept his TVs, even though they would end up buying a whole new set of flat-screens for the new layout in the new house. (And he ended up selling his condo for a fair price.)
He led Sterling to the master suite in the opposite wing. “We carpeted,” he said, showing off the bedroom and the lush, creamy wall-to-wall. Todd liked stone in the public areas and Ellie had insisted on carpet for the private sections of the house. The stigma against carpet was an upper-middle-class tell. They were much richer than that; they could do whatever they wanted.
“Gold Calcutta marble,” said Sterling admiringly, as Todd opened up the double doors to the master bath.
“We kept the Roman bath,” said Todd, noting the step-down, built-into-the-ground Jacuzzi that was one of the most charming fifties aspects of the house.
The bathroom was all white and gold, with a crystal chandelier. They hadn’t done much, just changed the ceramic tile to stone, but it had made a huge difference. Ellie looked even blonder in the bathroom.
“And you kept the vanity,” Sterling said, admiring the built-in mirror and desk off the closet. “I’m so glad. Most people buy these legacy houses and just tear everything up. You kept all the bones.”
“Ellie’s a designer,” said Todd.
“She told me you studied architecture,” said Sterling. “How’d you get into TV?”
“I moved to LA,” said Todd with a shrug. He’d studied architecture as an undergrad, then pivoted after finding out exactly how little first-year architects made. After business school, he had vague plans to go into real estate, or finance, but the network was hiring. Turned out he had a knack for it, and he fit the part—he was as handsome as the actors he hired and fired.
“Mr. Todd, Mr. Todd!” Citlali, their Palm Springs housekeeper, who had come with the house (as did the gardener and the pool man, bequeathed to them by the former owners), ran into the room, looking harried.
“The boys! They spilled . . .” she said worriedly.
“It’s all right, Citlali,” said Todd. “Sterling, if you’ll excuse me. Twins are a handful.”
Sterling raised his glass. “I’ll give myself the rest of the tour. I know the house.”
Todd followed Citlali down the length of the hallway. The house was laid out in a U shape, eight thousand square feet around the pool, with the golf course behind the hedges. Like most of the mid-century contemporary houses in Palm Springs, it was a one-story, sprawling. A few guests had begun to arrive, and he waved at them cheerfully but motioned to the housekeeper, making it clear he couldn’t stop and chat right now. Citlali’s slippers flip-flopped on the terrazzo as she jogged back to the game room.
Todd figured if the disaster was confined to the game room, nothing too terrible could have happened since it was furnished with comfortable sofas, billiard and foosball tables, and arcade games. What could those boys have spilled or broken?
The game room was empty and the twins were nowhere to be found.
“Hey, man,” said the second DJ, a stoner from Cathedral City whom a friend of a friend had recommended.
“Hey,” said Todd. “Is that a speaker?”
“Yeah.” The DJ shook his head. One of the six-foot-tall speakers was lying sideways on the floor, broken, with bits of metal and plastic on the rug.
“They were fighting over the mic and pulled too hard,” the DJ explained. “Your person tried to get them to stop.”
Citlali kept shaking her head and muttering to herself.
Todd sighed. “How much?” A price was named. All in all, it wasn’t too bad. “Add it to the bill,” he said. “Will you still be able to play?”
“Nah, man.”
Todd would have to remember to apologize to Ellie for yelling at her for booking two DJs, since it was fortunate they still had the other guy. The fancy DJ from the Las Vegas club was playing music in the main part of the house. Then again, it wasn’t the fancy DJ’s speaker that was busted. But it could have been, knowing the boys.
Todd brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Where are the twins?” he asked Citlali, who was sweeping the rug as the DJ began to pack up his equipment.
“They ran away.”
Todd went to find them. They were probably outside on the golf course, taunting golfers. Another hobby of theirs, he thought with a grin. Those terrors. He couldn’t stay mad. In truth, he wasn’t even mad in the first place.
The twins were a hurricane; they left havoc in their wake. The family once went to dinner at a popular Mexican restaurant in Rancho Mirage, and Otis had climbed on the table to try to get a tortilla chip from the basket but fell on his butt, his sneaker landing in the salsa, which flew everywhere. He and Ellie had been so embarrassed, hurriedly gathering all the kids and getting out of there, but they also couldn’t stop laughing when they got home.
He had four children. Sam was his eldest, his joy, his baby, but he had left her mother and he would never be able to make it up to her; she would forever feel the sting of that abandonment. Even if Sam liked Ellie, loved her even, she would always know that her father had chosen Ellie over his own family. Then there was Giggy, who loved him from the beginning, then hated him when she found out he wasn’t her “bio-dad.” That had cost a lot of therapy and he still resented the fact that Ellie hadn’t let him adopt Giggy when they had the chance.
But the twins. Oh, the twins.
Elijah Samuel and Otis Benedict.
They were angels. Identical white-blond angels with their tanned little bodies. They ran rampant throughout every resort they’d ever stayed in. Ellie liked to keep their hair long; she never took them for haircuts. They looked like wild, feral, beautiful children. The boys could do no wrong. The girls liked to complain that Eli and Otis got away with everything, that their parents loved the boys more.
They weren’t wrong. But they weren’t quite right either. It wasn’t that they loved the boys more—it was just that they were easier to love. Was that a fair thing to say or think? Todd was pretty sure he loved all his children equally, even as they came to him under different circumstances.
The thing was, each girl was living with only one of her parents, a product of broken promises and broken homes. The girls knew that fairy tales sometimes didn’t have happy endings. They knew and saw that their parents were flawed and sometimes made bad decisions. But to the twins—their parents had always been in love and they were the loves of their lives.
Besides, the two girls spoiled their brothers to death. The twins were everyone’s favorites.
“Boys!” called Todd as he walked through a hole in the hedges in the backyard and continued on to the golf course.
Eli was chucking golf balls into the air while Otis was trying to get the golf cart to start. Thank god it was late in the day so there were no golfers around to complain. Not that anyone ever did. The boys lived in a bubble—every naughty prank they pulled only made them more endearing. Everyone at the golf club adored the twins, no surprise there.
Todd shook his finger at them. “Behave yourselves, okay? No more fighting. You broke the DJ’s machine. Not good.”
“Sorry, Daddy,” said Eli, who was the sweeter one.
Otis looked petulant. “It was Eli’s fault.”
“It’s both your faults,” said Todd automatically. “You hear me?”
Otis pouted. “Yes, Daddy.”
Todd looked down at them sternly. “What’s today?”
“Mama’s birthday party,” whispered Eli.
“And what did we say you had to do today?” asked Todd.
“Be good,” chorused the boys.
Todd ruffled both of their heads. They were like baby chicks, their hair as soft as feathers and as bright as the sun. “All right, let’s go inside the house, and don’t run away again; you guys can have dessert early.”
Okay, so the girls were right, he did love them more. Shoot him.