Santa Monica

by Cassidy Lucas

  “High-end?” A shot of anger replaced Regina’s oncoming tears. How had he even paid for this? Either Mastercard had granted them a serious favor or he’d sent their checking account into deep, deep overdraft. “How much did you spend on this cruise?”

  Gordon lowered her to her feet, looking hurt. “It’s my birthday present. What’s it matter?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I . . .” She trailed off. “Since you’re not working, I thought we’d . . . scale back a little this year.”

  “We have scaled back. We didn’t take a summer trip. The kids barely went to camp. You and I haven’t been going on date nights. At a certain point, you have to prioritize things other than money.”

  Regina could not decide whether to laugh or scream. Gordon! Giving her advice about priorities. As if he ever prioritized anything other than himself and his goddamn screenplay. As if he ever thought about money.

  For a moment, she thought about crumpling to the floor and telling him everything. Curling up so she wouldn’t have to see the look of horror on his face as she confessed all the terrifying facts of their financial life, one after the other. The sum she owed the IRS. The fact that the house they were standing in right this minute, the house they’d bought and loved and renovated and raised their children in, could easily slip into foreclosure if Regina did not do financial backflips every single month.

  Meaning: if she did not keep doing the illegal (she could barely think the word without a shiver of panic) thing she’d convinced her thirty-two-year-old trainer to do in the back office of their gym, all would be lost.

  What if she simply told Gordon everything? What would happen?

  She’d imagined this before, and the relief that might come after. After he’d exploded and cried and hated her and maybe even divorced her, and who knew what else. Took Mia and Kaden away from her? Their irresponsible, deceitful fuckup of a mother.

  No. Of course, she could not tell him.

  Regina gave the insides of her cheeks a hard bite. Get it together, Reg. Then she reached for Gordon’s hand and used all her might to summon a smile.

  “You know,” she began. “You’re right. We are due for a family trip. Sorry for the buzzkill on your birthday.”

  “No worries, hon,” said Gordon. “I appreciate it, actually. You’re just keeping us in line.” He pulled her back into his arms. “Can we have a take-two of that thing you did earlier?” he whispered. “I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”

  “The frosting,” Regina mumbled. “I still have to make the fr—” Despite her anxiety, she felt an unexpected current of desire move through her. She’d become so accustomed to Gordon ignoring her—padding upstairs to bed long after she’d fallen asleep, hardly looking up when she returned from school drop-off and the gym in the morning—that his sudden attention came as a surprise.

  “The cake can wait. Come with me.”

  He took her by the hand. Numbly, Regina let him lead her up the stairs to their bedroom.

  “Gordon—” she began, as he lowered her onto the bed. She told herself he did not deserve this. After four and a half weeks, he should not get to sail into the kitchen and whisk her back to the bedroom.

  Still, it felt good to be wanted.

  “You’re so tense, baby,” he whispered, lifting her shirt over her head. “Just relax.” As the fabric briefly enveloped her head, Zack’s face flashed to Regina’s mind—a lit-up smile and green eyes peering through floppy hair.

  A moan flew from her lips, and she gave herself over.

  Monday, October 15, 2018

  7

  Zack

  IT WAS ANOTHER GORGEOUS DAY IN SANTA MONICA, THE SKY GEMSTONE-blue and the temperature hovering close to eighty, despite winter being around the corner. Zack parked a few blocks from Color Theory and walked down Bay Street toward the ocean, pausing to glance up at the spindly, graceful palm trees stretching high above him. For a time, the sheer beauty of this place—the air that smelled of flowers and sea salt, the dazzling plants spilling from yard after yard, the views of the sun-sparked Pacific—had never failed to lift his spirits. Before his life had gotten so complicated, he’d been in love with Santa Monica. Florida seemed laughable by comparison, the equivalent of a crass, boozy ex-girlfriend.

  Lately, though, his feelings toward Santa Monica had changed. The splendor of his surroundings was no longer a balm; in fact, it often seemed to be taunting him. Who could possibly have real problems, in a place like this?

  Zack could.

  Turning onto Main Street, he nearly collided with a trio of young women riding electric scooters on the sidewalk. They were dressed for the beach, long hair fluttering behind them. One carried a foam boogie board under her arm as she steered her scooter with one hand.

  “Excuse me,” said Zack. “Scooters are supposed to be ridden in the bike lane.”

  The woman with the boogie board braked and hopped off. “Sorry! We totally didn’t see you. We’re just learning how to ride these things.”

  “Consider learning with helmets,” said Zack.

  “Haha. You sound like my dad. Oh my God, they’re so fun though!”

  “No need to bring God into it,” said Zack, knowing how curmudgeonly he sounded, not caring. “Just pay attention.”

  “Sheesh, dude,” the woman said, adjusting her giant sunglasses. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the cabana. Wanna come chill at the beach with us? I bet it’ll put you in a better mood.” She flashed an inviting grin.

  Her friend, a short-haired brunette in a tank top that read Oh, hi, pointed toward the large backpack she was wearing. “We’ve got supplies. Beers, chips, and guac. Weed.”

  For a short, hot beat, Zack imagined saying yes. He could almost feel the word pushing its way from his mouth, like a bitter drink he could not swallow. What if he did it: turned in the opposite direction of Color Theory and followed the girls with their beer and pot down to the ocean? What if he turned off his phone and never set foot in the gym again, simply stopped showing up to teach, never logged into the accounting system installed on the computer in the back office?

  What if he never made another transfer to Regina?

  Would his life really be any worse for it? Would he be at any more risk than he already was?

  Then he thought of Andres, the two of them tossing a ball at the beach, his nephew’s bad leg dragging behind him. A line from St. Thérèse flashed to his mind—A soul in a state of grace has nothing to fear of demons—and he felt himself moving past the girls, stepping around their scooters and long legs and backpacks stuffed with substances, not allowing himself to look at the willowy geometries of their bodies.

  “Thanks for the invite, ladies,” he said over his shoulder. “Unfortunately, I’ve got a pesky thing called work. Enjoy the beach.”

  “We’ll be at lifeguard station twenty-six until sunset!” one of them called to his back.

  Zack didn’t bother answering. His fingers shot to the rosary around his neck, and he took several long, slow breaths, focusing inward, shutting out the girls, the bell-bright sound of their voices and the sheen of their golden skin. Pretending they didn’t exist.

  Yes, he thought, reaching the entrance of Color Theory and trying to stay calm as he gripped the metal door handle, running away at this point would make everything worse. His situation was, after all, about to improve. Forty-eight hours had passed since the Version Two You! event, and so far, Regina reported, they’d already received four deposits for Zack’s personal training program. Never mind that one of the deposits came from Lindsey Leyner, whom Zack detested. Or that Melissa Goldberg was, as Regina claimed, on the fence. Mel was the one he’d been most hopeful about. He’d found himself thinking about her more than once since their conversation at V2Y! She had a certain dark edge about her, a barely contained storminess that Zack found interesting, as if she might say something outrageous or burst into tears at any moment. So different from the polished, breezy women he spent all day training.<
br />
  He’d considered texting Mel, to encourage her to sign up—her number was right there, on the list of “hot prospects” Regina had emailed him—but what would he say?

  It didn’t matter who the clients were, he reminded himself. Four clients meant roughly nineteen grand for Zack; a life-changing amount. Enough to give Lettie what she needed and pay his own bills for a couple of months.

  “’Sup, man?” Zack flashed a hang-ten sign to Davit at reception, a newly slim Persian dude who’d lost one hundred pounds following the Color Theory training method, then headed through the workout studio, empty until the next class started in two hours, to the cramped back office where he performed his accounting duties. Basic payables-and-receivables work, the stuff he’d learned in his first semester at Central Florida Community College. The gym’s owner, Jensen Davis, paid Zack fourteen dollars an hour to move money in and out of the corporate bank account. The skills required for the work were basic—a detail-oriented eighth grader could probably do it, Zack thought—but the trust factor was considerable. And that was where Jensen had a blind spot: he had enormous faith in his own power, and mentally slotted Zack as a minion, just one of his dozens of coaches (Jensen owned five Color Theory franchises) lucky to have steady instructing work at a trendy gym. A peon so grateful for the sixty bucks an hour he earned per class that he’d never do anything to endanger his job. Zack had worked for Jensen long enough to conclude his boss believed Zack would never have the balls to cross him.

  The same way, Zack supposed, that the wealthy women who employed Lettie left their diamond jewelry and cash lying around everywhere, in plain view. They assumed Lettie would never take such a risk.

  These thoughts gave Zack courage.

  In the office, he locked the door behind him, flipped on the light, closed the venetian blinds, and settled at the cheap IKEA desk in the center of the room. On the desk was a MacBook with a Color Theory logo sticker on its closed top.

  Designed by Regina, Zack remembered, almost appreciating the irony.

  He wiped his hands on his gym shorts and ran his tongue over his teeth.

  Then he opened the laptop and typed in the passcode, whispering, as always, the Lord’s Prayer—Father in heaven, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors—in sync with his keyboard taps as the pulse in his neck began to throb. His throat was dry so the prayer emerged raspy and strained. He swallowed hard and opened the accounting software.

  Each time he did it was more nerve-racking than the last. He reminded himself that Jensen was in Denver for a conference at the moment; there was no need for panic. Jensen had made him a long string of unkempt promises: creating a head trainer role for Zack; starting a Color Theory YouTube channel featuring Zack; making him the manager of the newest franchise location, slated for Malibu.

  For the past year, Jensen had been spouting this pie-in-the-sky bullshit at Zack. Endlessly promising to transform Zack’s future while continuing to pay him peanuts for working his ass off in the studio, week after week, hustling for his pathetic three bucks a head at five thirty in the morning, while Jensen snoozed in his massive Palisades compound, lifted weights in his private home gym, or swam in his own lap pool, which he was forever inviting Zack to “come check out”—as if Zack had time for such leisure activity.

  Don’t you see? Regina had told Zack, wringing her hands. That’s how Jensen keeps people around. Dangling carrots he’ll never, ever give you. Do you not think he’s promised the same exact crap to Shawn? To Bri?

  Zack had been too embarrassed to admit the thought had never occurred to him.

  Don’t fall for it, Regina had said. Get your own damn carrot, Zack.

  He entered the accounting program’s password (M_A_G_A_2018—Jensen’s political leanings veered right like Zack’s, and unlike most of the Santa Monicans) and braced himself for the numbers that would flash on the screen, the mind-boggling record of the cash that gushed into Jensen Davis’s corporate accounts week after week, fast and steady as mountain runoff during a spring thaw.

  Zack clicked on Vendors and selected Big Rad Wolfe, LLC.

  He hovered the cursor over the Pay Vendor field, his index finger trembling over the laptop’s track pad.

  He thought of Jensen, how his boss’s easy smile slid across his tan face and deepened the crow’s feet that fanned from his eyes as he told Zack, yet again, to just hang tight, because I’ve got some big plans for you, just as soon as . . .

  Then Zack pictured little Andres rushing toward him across the sand, skinny arms spread wide, left foot scraping the ground as he struggled against the pull of his flimsy, ruined leg.

  He could almost hear the ping of a fresh text from his half-sister Lettie. The demands for money came day and night: in texts, emails, voicemails, even DMs on Facebook and Instagram until Zack had blocked her.

  I need more money.

  When you give it to me?

  MORE MONEY WHEN???

  Lettie’s troubles, she claimed, had gotten out of control. They were bearing down on her faster by the day, threatening to remove her from the life she’d fought so hard to make for herself and her son, here in the US. Her clock was ticking, she told Zack. It was just a matter of time until ICE found her. Her unpaid medical bills from Andres’s accident, along with the court notices from her shoplifting charge, would lead them to her.

  The only solution was money. Fifteen grand, minimum, to pay her past-due hospital bills and legal fees. Fifteen grand was what she needed to have even a chance of staving off deportation. She’d showed Zack the documents: first, demanding she pay fines for the Pokémon cards she’d shoplifted last year on a sudden (stupid, Zack thought) impulse to make Andres happy, the numbers multiplying at a sickening rate, then the subpoena demanding she appear in court.

  On top of her fines, there were the past-due fees Lettie owed her lawyer, Ms. Ochoa, the one person Lettie believed could make ICE retreat. Ochoa’s fees were modest but inflexible—when Lettie failed to pay, Ochoa seemed to stop working. Where, Zack wondered, were the bleeding-heart attorneys who would help Lettie for free? How could his sister have been stupid enough to hire Sandra Ochoa, a woman she’d found through a billboard ad on the I-10, and who, according to Zack’s too-late Google research, wasn’t even trained in immigration law, but personal injury.

  Zack guessed Lettie had been too afraid to ask for the right kind of help. Too scared to show her face at a legal aid clinic, or to ask the rich and educated women whose houses she cleaned for advice.

  It was too late now: Lettie was neck-deep in debt. Due largely to Andres’s accident.

  The accident for which Zack was responsible.

  You are the reason he is a cripple, Lettie told him, eyes flashing with anger. So, you will help pay for our problems. You will make it right.

  His finger hovered over the track pad. He lowered it over the Approve Transfer button until he heard the mouse click.

  Transfer successful! flashed the green text on the screen.

  Zack exhaled, selected a Florida Georgia Line song from Spotify on his phone, and cranked up the volume, eager to move on to his legitimate duties.

  He’d finally settled into his work and was humming along to the music when a loud rap on the door cut though an Imagine Dragons chorus. His eyes snapped up from the screen to see Jensen striding into the office. Instantly, Zack felt his palms tingle and his sweat glands kick into gear. He removed his earbuds and forced what he hoped was an easy, welcoming smile.

  “Jens! Nice surprise.”

  “Z-man. Glad I caught you, buddy.”

  Zack’s airways constricted, as if he’d suddenly developed asthma. He took a pull from his smoothie and cleared his throat. “I, uh, thought you were still in Denver. At the . . .” He searched his memory. “CrossFit conference?”

  What the fuck was Jensen doing here?

  “Oh, I bailed a day early.” Jensen looked freshly showered in his crisp white polo and pressed khakis, his salt-and-pepper hair gelle
d and combed to the left side. “Those CrossFit dudes are a bunch of Neanderthals.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Zack. “Welcome home.”

  “Got a minute?” Jensen closed the office door behind him, then took a seat in the folding metal chair on the opposite side of the desk, facing Zack, giving him an instant sense of claustrophobia. “Just need to chat with you for a sec. Sensitive topic. Won’t take long. I know you’re teaching the three fifteen.”

  Zack’s stomach churned. In his mind, blinding red flares exploded against a black sky. So, this was it. Jensen knew. About the transfers. It was over. Zack would go to jail. Lettie, and maybe even Andres, back to Mexico.

  Perhaps it would be something of a relief.

  “Earth to Z-man?” said Jensen.

  “Sorry,” Zack said. “Been a busy day already. What’s up?” He was seized by the urge to run. Pictured the open window directly behind him, imagined wheeling around and kicking the screen away, leaping out and running down to the beach and into the ocean. Swimming straight toward the horizon until his muscles and lungs gave out, surrendered like the tubercular-ravaged lungs of young and innocent St. Thérèse, his guiding light, who, Zack had read, died at just twenty-four.

  Thérèse: The world’s thy ship and not thy home.

  Beneath the desk, he balled his hands into fists. But the rest of his body could not move. He was paralyzed, bolted to his seat.

  “Don’t worry, this won’t take long.” Jensen sighed and held up his phone. “I just need a little help managing the tattooed wildcat. She texted me ten minutes ago. Says she needs to sub out tomorrow.”

  Zack blinked at his boss as he struggled to process Jensen’s words.

  The tattooed wildcat was the nickname he and Jensen privately used for Bri Lee, a longtime Color Theory trainer whose inked-up body offended Zack as much as her foul mouth.

  Jensen was not here to accuse Zack of embezzlement.

  He’d come to talk about scheduling issues.

  Under the desk, Zack’s fists uncurled. Oxygen returned to his lungs, sweet and plentiful.