Santa Monica

by Cassidy Lucas

  “The kind Adam makes?” Lettie asked, instant admiration in her voice. “Those are delicious. Small piece only.”

  “It’s not hard to make,” said Mel (not that she’d ever tried), feeling herself blanch at the sound of her husband’s name. Lettie had been so damn impressed when she learned busy Mr. Adam made unemployed Mel gourmet breakfasts every morning, leaving them in a covered dish on the kitchen counter for her to enjoy when she woke after sleeping in. And even more impressed that Adam was the one who carted Sloane off to school so Mel could take her mornings at a leisurely pace.

  Adam. Adam. Adam. Maybe, Mel thought, they wrote that ridiculous Santa Monica city motto (fortunate people, yadda, yadda, prosperous land) with Adam in mind?

  She felt suddenly queasy, the few bites of Adam’s stupid frittata she’d forced down earlier churning in her stomach. She took a deep breath and opened the microwave.

  “You okay, Miss . . . er, Mel?” Lettie’s face crossed with concern.

  Mel placed the frittata dish in the microwave and pressed 30 seconds.

  “I’m good,” Mel said, as brightly as she could manage, then moved from the microwave to the espresso machine to make two cappuccinos exactly the way she and Lettie loved them: extra foam and sugar. Their ritual sweet indulgence (Mel could practically see Regina’s disapproving frown) before Lettie began the long job of cleaning Mel’s big house. But today, she feared she’d lose control when they sat down together, creamy drinks steaming in the cool A/C. The prospect of breaking down in front of Lettie, who gracefully contained the stress of her own (bigger, less-privileged) problems, mortified Mel. How could Mel cry over her rich husband’s bad behavior when Lettie was a direct target of the hateful orange clown in the White House? When ICE was making random raids in sanctuary cities, like LA, where undocumented immigrants were supposed to be protected?

  No, she could not confide in Lettie about the Adam situation. Mr. Good-as-a-Man-Gets had a way of impressing even women who’d endured terrible things at the hands of men, and thus had come to fear them in general. Lettie, Mel knew from Regina, was one of these women. Regina had told Mel the story of how she’d rescued bloody-faced Lettie and Andres from a raging Manuel in the middle of the night, driving them all the way to the Valley and paying for a motel where they’d be safe and impossible to find. Mel had found herself wishing she could’ve taken Regina’s place. What she’d give to be able to make a difference in the life of a woman like Lettie, especially now when it seemed as if any American who wasn’t a white cisgender male (Mel was determined to use the proper terminology, to be an ally) was viewed by the president and his lackeys as less than equal.

  Mel foamed the sweetened milk and poured it into two mugs over shots of espresso. Then she eased a hefty square of warmed frittata onto a plate and set it all on the kitchen island.

  “Come sit,” she commanded Lettie, who was up to her elbows in soapy foam at the sink. They settled on barstools at the corner of the island, facing each other.

  “I say small piece,” Lettie said, eyeing her eggs, but Mel knew she was pleased by the portion; she loved to eat as much as Mel did. “You look more skinny.” Lettie squinted at Mel. “Your arms got tighter. Maybe from that exercise party?” She took a big bite of frittata. Mel noticed Lettie’s nails were done in cherry-red acrylic, which meant, to Mel’s delight, that she’d finally used the salon certificate Mel had given her months ago.

  “More, skinny, me?” Mel said. “God no. I’m such a whale.” Instantly, she worried she’d offended Lettie, since the two of them were practically the same size, with matching soft, round bellies, a likeness that made Mel even more fond of her housecleaner.

  “No, no, no,” Lettie tut-tutted, “you looking good. This is a fact. I see it in your face. And here, too.” Lettie reached under the table and poked Mel gently in the side.

  “Honestly, I haven’t noticed,” said Mel, heat rising to her face. She was unaccustomed to body compliments and reluctant to share with Lettie the news that she’d been working out lately. (Twice in the last three days! Every part of Mel, right down to her butt cheeks, was sore.) She wouldn’t want her housecleaner—her friend—to wonder if Mel was becoming like all the other white women Lettie cleaned for: vain, fitness-obsessed, flush with free time for sweating in the gym Lettie was surely paid next to nothing to clean.

  But damn if Mel didn’t feel better from that hour-long torture session at Color Theory. And, according to that heart rate monitor thing Zack had helped her strap to her wrist at the start of class, his square-tipped fingers grazing her skin, she was burning an average of six hundred calories in a single hour.

  Had jogging up the stairs of her house that morning required a tad less effort? Or was it Mel’s imagination?

  “Well, if I’ve actually lost any weight, I’m sure I’ll gain it right back,” Mel added as Lettie swallowed the last of her frittata.

  Lettie hopped off her barstool and transferred her plate to the sink. Then she turned back to Mel and leaned back theatrically against the counter, sticking out her stomach so it stretched against the bleach-stained pink T-shirt she wore to clean. “Check out this belly. It’s good and fat.” She gave a little shimmy to make her stomach wobble, grinning at Mel.

  Mel barked a laugh; she’d always found Lettie to be a natural comedian, not to mention very smart. Mel had considered gifting her some kind of creative experience. An improv acting class? A humor-writing workshop? A few hours at the pottery studio on Wilshire?

  Lettie went on, emboldened by Mel’s amusement. “Today I take Andres early to school so I can go to the religious place where they have the free food. You know, the people who wear the dresses and sing and dance on the street? The happy people?”

  “Hare Krishnas?” Mel guessed.

  “Yes!” Lettie said as she rinsed their empty cappuccino mugs. “You so smart, Melissa.”

  “Well, they are pretty hard to miss.”

  “But,” Lettie continued, “I do not like the food that much. It’s all vegetarian.”

  Mel mirrored Lettie’s look of disgust. “Yuck. I know how you love your meat.”

  “And the beans.” Lettie lowered her voice. “They give me gas.”

  They laughed together, both clutching their soft stomachs, and Mel felt happier than she had all week. For the moment, Adam and his lies did not exist.

  “How’s Andres?” Mel asked, eager to maintain the good feeling, to stay in Lettie’s comforting presence. “Did you get him those services?”

  She’d been honored when Lettie had shared with her the challenges six-year-old Andres was having at school. Delighted to complete the paperwork Lettie handed her nervously, falsely claiming Lettie worked for Mel forty hours a week, a minor lie that enabled Andres to attend the excellent John Wayne Elementary in Santa Monica, instead of the crappy LA public school for which he was zoned. At Wayne, Andres would be able to get the services and therapy he so desperately needed, for free.

  “The therapist,” Lettie said, looking down at the sudsy dishes, “she says Andres is depressed.”

  Mel heard disgust in Lettie’s voice. As if the diagnosis was an insult.

  “And you don’t believe that?” Mel asked, treading carefully, not wanting to mess up again like she had with the Mona Lisa comparison.

  “What do I know?” Lettie said. “He is six. A baby. Babies have depression?”

  Mel wondered if Lettie might cry. What would she do to comfort her? What could Mel, with her designer shit and rich-people problems, say?

  She wanted to tell Lettie that only she, Andres’s mother, knew what was best for him. That Lettie was smart and capable and that Andres was lucky to have her.

  Then she heard Regina’s voice in her head: Dial it down, Goldberg.

  “Please, Lettie,” Mel said, “let me know if there is anything I can do to help. Anything at all. I want to help.”

  Lettie looked up from the sink, using the back of her hand to push a strand of dark hair from her forehead
. Mel could tell there was something Lettie wanted to say but feared any prodding would make her friend retreat. Mel had noticed how Lettie averted her eyes in conversation, especially with Adam, but now Lettie was looking straight into Mel’s eyes. For the first time, Mel saw the patch of green in Lettie’s dark brown iris.

  “You are a good person, Melissa. I tell my friends, Melissa, she is my favorite white person. This is a fact.”

  Lettie, Mel thought, couldn’t know how much this meant to her. What a gift it was to hear this today of all days.

  “And now,” Lettie said, her voice strong and firm again, “you go.” She pointed to the stairs. “I need to get to work.”

  “Okay,” said Mel reluctantly. She wasn’t yet ready for coffee time with Lettie to be over. “But I’m going to strip the beds. I’ll help you.”

  “You are crazy.” Lettie gave a deep belly laugh and slapped her hand to her forehead. “I tell you, someday, if I hire a cleaner, I won’t help her clean my house. Nope and never ever.”

  Mel laughed, too. “No way. You’ll sit back and drink cappuccino while she cleans.”

  Lettie thumbs-upped with her long red nail. “Now you making sense, Miss Melissa.”

  UPSTAIRS, MEL STRIPPED the sheets (patterned with soccer balls, naturally) from Sloane’s lofted mattress, then moved on to the master bedroom, where the sight of the giant, unmade bed she shared with Adam triggered a spike of rage. She charged toward it, and yanked so hard at the fitted sheet (two-hundred-dollar Egyptian cotton—how did she live with herself?) that it ripped at the seam. “Fuck!” she said, under her breath, and gave the cherrywood bedframe a swift, impulsive kick with her bare foot.

  Which, of course, hurt like hell.

  “Fuck!” she wailed, at top volume this time, plopping down on the bed (Adam’s side—ugh—but she was in too much pain to care) to examine her injured big toe.

  “Miss Melissa?” Lettie called. “You okay up there?”

  Before Mel could steady her voice enough to answer Sorry, I’m fine! she caught sight of a wad of Kleenex on the carpet, at the base of Adam’s night stand.

  Instantly, Mel burst into tears.

  He couldn’t even give her the respect of throwing away his used cum rags.

  She snatched the stiffened ball and threw it as hard as she could. It bounced off the wall by the bathroom and back onto the floor.

  Mel crawled to her side of the bed and lay on her side, sobbing as her bruised toe began to throb. The reality of what Adam had done, cheating on her after almost two decades together, was too much to bear. She could not move, or stop her tears, even when she heard Lettie’s feet on the stairs, coming to check on her.

  Mel opened her eyes to see Lettie kneeling.

  “Melissa? You okay? What happen?”

  Mel stopped crying, but could not speak. This was exactly what she hadn’t wanted to do: confess her rich-lady problems to Lettie, who had no money, a handicapped son, and lived under the constant threat of deportation.

  “Tell me,” Lettie pressed. “What is wrong?”

  “Everything!” Mel finally burst. To hell with it. She’d never had any self-control, anyway—probably the reason Adam cheated on her in the first place—why should now be any different? “Adam’s having an affair!”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  Instantly, all her rage at Adam turned to an unbearable, smothering sadness. She curled into a ball and began to weep again, though this time over the prospect of actually losing him—the same man who, just last Friday, had called her out of the blue, for no reason, to tell her he loved her. (Though in the same call, Mel remembered now, Adam had apologized in advance for needing to get home extra late that night—Stupid drinks meeting with studio people. Should Mel have been suspicious?)

  The same man who’d told her how beautiful she looked when she’d first woken up the other morning, groggy and wild-haired. (Though he’d followed up by asking whether she was sure she hadn’t lost weight.)

  Adam, the man who patiently stroked her hair until she fell asleep on nights she was too anxious to sleep. (Though he also mentioned, yet again, how she might consider learning to meditate. As if.)

  She didn’t want to lose him. Despite the vulgar, incriminating texts she’d found. Yes, he was a cheater, and yes, their marriage had been strained this past year since moving to California—so much bickering!—but what about the nineteen happy years they’d had together? Shouldn’t their relationship be salvageable, based on the math?

  Then the texts flashed to mind: thinking about u & how hot ur . . . and the awful reality of Mel’s situation engulfed her. Adam was lost to her. What if he had already found Mel’s replacement—his Version 2.0 partner to match his Version 2.0 West Coast life?

  “Ohhhh,” she moaned, face-planting into the mattress, the pain of her thoughts turning physical, overriding the ache of her stubbed toe.

  Then she felt Lettie stroking her hair. Finally, when her tears subsided, Mel slowly sat up, unable to meet Lettie’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Mel mumbled.

  “Do not be sorry, Melissa,” said Lettie gently, handing Mel a soft, damp washcloth to blot her swollen face. As Mel pressed it to her cheeks, she saw Lettie’s expression harden. Her teeth clench.

  “Hijo de la chingada!” Lettie hissed, eyes flashing.

  Mel didn’t speak Spanish, though it was on her to-do list, but she didn’t have to. She knew exactly what Lettie was saying. Or, at least, the gist of it. Men are dogshit.

  Lettie was enraged at Adam.

  Lettie understood. She cared. She was, Mel realized, her only true friend in the state of California. The thought both comforted and saddened her.

  “Thank you, Leticia,” Mel said, sniffling. “You are so kind. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Sometimes, I feel like there’s just nothing, no one, here for me.”

  “That is not true. Many people here love you. Regina says you are a very special friend to her.”

  “Regina? She’s not really a friend per se. More like, um . . .” She searched for a simple way to explain. “We’re in the same place at the same time, and got pushed together. You know?”

  “Si.”

  “I mean,” Mel said, catching a glance of her face in the mirror and loathing the sad person she saw—eyes puffy, nose and chin shiny—“look at me, and then look at her. Regina’s basically perfect.”

  “You are beautiful!” Lettie said with the astonished reflex of a mother.

  “Oh God, now I’m really pathetic.” Mel used the bed to hoist herself to her feet. “I’m so sorry, Lettie. This”—Mel pointed to her own swollen face—“is not part of your job description.”

  “You have been hurt, Melissa. You have the right to be sad. And angry!”

  “Maybe. But it’s not your problem.”

  “You are my friend, so it is my problem, too. I want to help. And I think I have the answer. A big Band-Aid!”

  Hearing Lettie call her a friend lifted Mel’s ravaged spirits.

  “What you need,” Lettie went on, “is a fresh start. What is it that man, the coach—muy guapo coach—said at the exercise party?”

  “Um. Zack?” Muy guapo, indeed, thought Mel, remembering his turquoise eyes, the tousles of hair, and sun-browned skin. The cords of muscles in his arms.

  “Yes, Zack!” Lettie said. “What was the name of his program?”

  Mel winced. “Version Two You?”

  “Yes! A new you!” Lettie sounded downright excited. “My idea is, you should do the program. It will make you strong. Ready to start Melissa’s new life. I see it like a fortune-teller. All the good things coming to you.”

  “That’s sweet of you, Lettie, but—”

  Lettie cut her off. “And with the new Melissa comes a new man. Like French fries come with a burger.”

  “I doubt that,” Mel said. “You know what the women look like here.” She waved a hand toward the windows. “They’re . . .”

  “No, Meli
ssa!” Lettie practically shouted. “You are wrong. No man wants a skinny no-ass like Lindsey Leyner. The men, they like the meat.” Lettie opened and closed her fingers like she was squishing a handful of dough.

  Mel couldn’t help giggling. “Men don’t want vegetarians.”

  “Right.” Lettie grinned. “So, I am not saying to get skinny. Only that I think you will be happy getting strong. It will help you forget”—she tapped a curved red nail to her temple—“about Mr. Adam.”

  Downstairs, the oven buzzed, indicating the end of its self-cleaning cycle. Lettie stepped toward the bedroom door. “I will go finish my work now. And you start thinking about the New Mel. About that program with Coach Zack. No more tears. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Alone again, Mel moved to the sitting area by the picture window and watched the palm trees swaying in the light breeze, the sun lighting the thick fronds so they gleamed like plastic. Lettie was right: she did need a change. Something radical, in a direction Brooklyn Mel would never have considered.

  Could she actually sign up for Zack’s program with the terrible name? After two measly one-hour workouts, Mel’s first in practically a decade, could she possibly hire a personal trainer—one who used the phrase hashtag blessed?

  Then she closed her eyes and pictured it: flying east to New York for the weekend, stepping into her old friends’ cramped living rooms dressed in some trendy new outfit four sizes down from her current one, everyone going gaga over her new svelte body. Marveling at her toned arms, her accentuated waist. The new her.

  She opened her eyes, feeling something like hope spread through her chest. Outside, the clear blue sky blinked through the magnolia leaves.

  Good-bye, double chin, she thought.

  Good-bye, hump of back fat!

  Good-bye, Jigglypuff!

  Hello, Mel 2.0.

  14

  Zack

  ZACK DROVE ALONG THE BLUFFS OF OCEAN AVENUE UNTIL HE REACHED Montana Avenue, made a hard right, and gunned his truck in the direction of John Wayne Elementary, where Andres attended kindergarten. For the second time. In some sort of special ed class.