“Yes!” said Lindsey. “This little Mexican boy showed up on our doorstep on Halloween. I was out trick-or-treating with the kids, but Trey was home. The boy was really young, like four or five, and Trey could tell he was handicapped. Or, challenged, or whatever. He was rooting around the front of our house all by himself. It seemed like he was trying to steal the floor vase on our front steps, you know, the giant glass one I got in Venice last summer.”
Kylie nodded. “It’s gorgeous.”
“That vase weighs like a hundred pounds,” said Mel. “Why would a kid try to lift that?”
“Like I said, he seemed to have problems,” said Lindsey. “Anyway. Trey was very gentle with him. He just called out, like, Did anyone lose their kid? and when he did, the dad and mom just charged in off the street and the dad—or whoever—attacked Trey. Like just started shoving him and then punching him.”
“That’s rather extreme,” said Mel. “Almost hard to believe.”
“Maybe if you had seen Trey’s black eye and fat lip you’d believe it,” said Lindsey. “Thankfully, the guy’s wife broke it up, before Trey got killed.”
“Oh my God!” said Jess. “Did he call the police?” Regina watched Mel; one of her eyebrows had arched and her eyes were squinting, the way she did when she was getting upset.
“And get this,” Lindsey added, “they were wearing Stars Wars masks. Can you believe it? My husband was brutalized by Darth-fucking-Vader and his Chewbacca wife.”
“Very disturbing,” said Jess.
“Sorry to interrupt the story,” said Mel. “But what on earth does this have to do with undocumented workers?”
“They were Mexican illegals,” said Lindsey. “Trey just knew it. And this is a man who does not have one racist bone in his body.”
Now Regina spoke up. “How does one just know?”
“Thank you, Regina,” said Mel. She met Regina’s eyes. Regina felt herself almost smile, then looked away. No. She would not let Mel be her ally tonight. Not tonight, or ever again.
Lindsey sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I brought it up. The Mexican immigrant thing, it’s just become a . . . a trigger for me. Trey was so beat up when I got home. I still have PTSD from the way his face looked. But no, Jess, we didn’t call the cops. We didn’t want to get those people in trouble, even though the guy obviously had rage issues and deserved it. We didn’t want a little boy to get sent back to Mexico, to who knows what kind of life.”
Regina glanced at Mel, who had angled herself toward Lindsey and looked pissed.
“I’m sorry Trey got hurt,” Mel said. “But, Lindsey, connecting a random squabble to someone’s race and country of origin is just utter, pardon my French, fucking bullshit.”
Regina watched Lindsey’s pointy face squinch at Mel in disbelief.
“I’m sorry that my husband’s so-called squabble, aka, trauma, offends you, Mel,” said Lindsey. “Why don’t you pick a new topic? But first, I want Kylie to know that Trey and I will be the first to contribute to a fundraiser for fire victims. Regardless of their ‘race’ or ‘country of origin.’” She hooked her painted nails into air quotes.
“Not if Adam and I beat you to it,” said Mel. “Kidding!”
“Amazing!” said Kylie Dupree.
“You love that word,” said Regina, draining her vodka soda.
“I’m in, too!” said Jess. “I’ll even ask Larry if we can match other contributions.”
“I’ll inform Adam that we’re matching,” said Mel.
Now Regina wanted to scream.
Lindsey went on, “And I’ll do heavy promo for it on my Insta. We just need to come up with a good hashtag. I have over three thous—”
Regina could no longer take it. “Oh-kay! Can we please move on? We’ve agreed we’re doing a fundraiser. Yay. But we’re all in our forties here—can we please leave Instagram out of it?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Regina,” said Lindsey. “I didn’t realize you were above social media.”
Mel piped up, defensively. “No, it’s just that Regina has this insane self-control. Like she can just leave the Instagram app on her phone and never open it.”
“Because social media is boring and stupid,” Regina snapped. “They’re all just big bragging platforms.”
“Well, I guess the rest of us are just weak-willed braggers, then,” said Lindsey.
“Braggarts,” corrected Mel.
“Whatever,” Lindsey went on, her voice tight and icy. “All two-point-five billion of us.”
“Perhaps we should cease and desist with this topic,” said Kylie.
“Wait!” said Jess, stirring the ice at the bottom of her glass with a cocktail straw. “I have one more question. Who’s the hot trainer guy all over your Insta, Lindsey? Like in all your workout posts and stories. I tried to find him but his account’s private.”
“Oh, that’s Regina’s boyfriend,” said Lindsey gaily. “Zack. She can tell you all about him.”
Regina stood up and took an unsteady step away from the booth. “You know, I’m suddenly not feeling great.” This was true; the vodka was sloshing acidly in her stomach and her knees felt unstable. “I’m going to head home.”
“Sheesh, Reg, I was just joking,” said Lindsey. “Can we call a truce? Sit back down.”
Cautiously, Regina took another few steps, managing not to fall. Perhaps she could make it out of the restaurant, after all.
“Regina, wait!” she heard Mel call. “I’ll go with you.”
But Regina was already hurrying toward the restaurant’s doors.
WHEN REGINA GOT home from Canyon Rustica (after a minor struggle with unlocking her front door—she was even tipsier than she thought), Gordon was sound asleep on the couch in his office, still wearing his glasses and snoring heavily, a half-full tumbler of bourbon beside the lamp on the end table. The sight of him came as a relief; Minnow Night had left her feeling achingly empty—devoid of friends, of money, of the pleasure of fantasizing about Zack—while also brimming with a hot, restless anger toward the women at Minnow Night and the luxurious cocoons of their lives. In this condition, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to say good night to Gordon without falling apart.
She covered him with the blanket draped on the back of the sofa and then, on an impulse, took a long drink of his bourbon. She hadn’t been this drunk in years and was not quite ready to sober up. The bourbon almost made her gag going down, searing her throat. Once she’d absorbed the shock, she switched off the lamp and made her way out of the office in the dark. Then she went upstairs, checked on the girls, and went to her bedroom, closing the door behind her. She pulled off her top and dropped it on the floor, then sat on the edge of her bed to wriggle out of the faux leather leggings. As she pulled them off, her phone fell from the back pocket and bounced off the hardwood floor.
Down to her bra and underwear, she picked up her phone and lay in the center of the mattress, facing the wrong way, toward the mound of pillows. She tucked one arm under her head and propped her feet up on the headboard, telling herself she’d just rest for a minute, then get up and wash her face and change into her pajamas. But as she lay on her bed, a gnawing, desperate urge to make contact with Zack took hold of her, zapping her will to move. She closed her eyes and imagined him standing before her: shirtless, muscles standing to attention, hair tousled over his tanned forehead, his blue-green eyes dancing with amusement and understanding.
“Hey, Echo,” she called out to the smart speaker on her nightstand. “Play Mumford and Sons.”
Mumford & Sons was Zack’s favorite band.
Acoustic guitar chords started.
She eased one hand beneath the lace border of her thong.
It was stupid—she knew—but she’d really believed Zack had gotten her. That they’d gotten each other. And that feeling of being understood by him was far sexier than his muscles or pretty face. Was the glacier that had formed between them really necessary? Yes, he had hooked up with Mel, but should that single incident erase everyt
hing Regina had built with him over the last two years? The hundreds of hours of sweating together at Color Theory, the confessional conversations, the bantering text exchanges, their business ventures?
She moved her hand down, pleased with the smooth feel of her Brazilian. Waxing was her single cosmetic indulgence, and she’d felt guilty every time she’d shelled out sixty bucks to an esthetician at Bare Bar in the last year, aware of how unjustifiable an expense it was given the state of her finances.
Still, she’d kept going, month after month.
Now, as she traced the pad of her index finger over the silky, stubble-free (take that, Mel Goldberg) skin between her legs, she was glad she’d kept spending the sixty dollars she didn’t really have.
There was dignity in keeping yourself up. An embedded optimism. All those bikini waxes had, in a way, kept her hoping that one day, somehow, she and Zack might . . .
She pushed two fingers inside herself and stifled a groan.
Regina had been a good friend to Zack. Hell, she’d been better than good—she’d handed over thousands of dollars to him in cash, just for his willingness to click a few buttons on the Color Theory laptop.
She did not deserve a glacier.
Maybe Zack considered the incident with Mel a huge mistake. Perhaps she’d had a fight with Adam and thrown herself at Zack, along with a dose of her neurotic charm, and maybe Zack had just gone along with it. He was a red-blooded male, after all.
Regina flexed and unflexed her wrist, accelerating the rhythm of her fingers.
Maybe he was ashamed to have done it. Wildly embarrassed. Perhaps his shame was the reason he hadn’t bothered acknowledging Regina’s Hey text—or the second one she’d sent on the way home in her Lyft—So, you don’t even bother saying hi back to me now? I guess Mel was all you ever needed????
Abruptly, she pulled her hand from between her legs, her mood suddenly shifting. Whatever Zack’s reason for ignoring her, she needed to get to the bottom of it. With her other hand, she tapped *67, to make her number private, and then called Zack. Distantly, she was aware of her heart pounding, but the whiskey dulled her nerves.
He picked up on the third ring, sounding sleepy. “’Lo?”
“It’s me. Regina.”
Long sigh. “’Sup?”
“Nothing. I’m just calling to . . . say hi. We haven’t said hi to each other lately.”
“Yeah. It’s been a minute. Did I mess up the schedule?”
“What? No. I’m not calling about business.” The schedule was how they referred to the transfers. “I was just calling as a friend. Because we’re friends, right?”
His voice softened. “Of course we’re friends.”
“And friends keep in touch, don’t they?”
“Yes. They do.”
“So, can we keep in touch? That’s what I’m calling about. To ask if we can keep in touch.”
“Are you moving or something?”
“Moving? No! I’m not going anywhere. I just . . . miss you. You didn’t answer my text tonight.”
Silence. Then: “I’m right here, Regina. And I didn’t answer your texts because I was sleeping. I have to get up to teach the five thirty in the morning.” Did he sound irritated? Regina wasn’t sure.
“Are you and Mel having a thing?” she blurted.
A pause. “Are you drunk? Because you sound sort of, like, slurry.”
“No! You know I hate being drunk. Just answer the question. Are you and Mel having a thing, beyond whatever the fuck that was I saw in the van? Which, by the way, totally traumatized me. And is that why—”
“Regina?” he cut in, almost gently, as if interrupting a child. “I’m going to hang up now.”
“Don’t hang up. Not yet. I’m playing Mumford and Sons.”
He chuckled. “I thought I heard that. Love those guys. But I’m still gonna get off the phone now. I need to sleep. I’m still your friend, but I’m hanging up.”
“No! We’re not done yet.” She knew she was being too loud, but didn’t care.
“We are.”
“Zack! No. Just two minutes! I need to talk to you.” She couldn’t remember exactly what she wanted to say; only that she felt a primal, desperate desire to keep him on the phone with her.
“Good night, Regina. Sleep off whatever’s gotten into you, ’kay?”
“ZACK, DO NOT HANG UP!”
Silence.
“ZACK!” she yelled again.
But he was gone.
She dropped her phone, laid her arm over her face, and sobbed into the fold of her elbow.
It was after her tears finally subsided and she’d pushed herself up on one palm and cleared the damp strands of hair from her face that she noticed the door. It was open six inches, letting in a slice of darkness from the hallway. She blinked, feeling the mascara heavy on her lids, trying to remember whether she’d left it open.
No. She hadn’t. Yes, she’d been drunk—was drunk still—but she distinctly remembered the clicking sound it made when she’d closed it.
She pulled herself into a seated position and wrapped the bedsheet around her body.
“Gordon?” she called out softly. “Honey, are you awake?”
There was no answer.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
24
Zack
THE BEACH WAS SHROUDED IN MARINE LAYER AT SEVEN A.M. WHEN ZACK arrived at the popular outdoor workout spot adjacent to the carousel nestled against the Santa Monica Pier. Muscle Beach was an iconic SoCal spot, a swath of sand half the size of a football field—a cross, Zack thought, between an outdoor gym and a playground on steroids. When Zack had first moved to Santa Monica, he’d been smitten with the place, which attracted everyone from old-school weightlifter dudes with sun-grizzled faces and bulging biceps to professional gymnasts to homeless people having push-up contests. It was one of the few parts of Santa Monica where he didn’t feel out of place.
Most days, Muscle Beach was crowded from morning until sunset, but now, on a gray and chilly November morning, it was empty but for a cluster of grandma types (still looking pretty dang good, he couldn’t help but notice) doing vague stretching movements, and a few classic gym-rat guys grunting through sets of push-ups. Zack set down his bag, which contained only one large beach towel and a water bottle, and watched two cyclists shoot from the long pedestrian tunnel that ran under the pier, pedaling furiously and whooping, teeming with camaraderie. Zack felt a wave of envy; he could use some real bros.
He took a long breath of moist salt air and scanned the various exercise structures, considering which would intimidate Mel the least. The famous rings course—a series of staggered rings designed to swing across Tarzan-style—was out the question. So was the slack line, which required a strong core and steady balance, and the parallel bars, which were difficult for everyone except the gymnasts.
The trapeze, though, was a possibility, as were the climbing ropes, which would give Zack the opportunity to assist her. The thought of being able to touch her gave him butterflies. He glanced at the parking lot at the far corner of the sand, but no sign of Mel’s green Mini Cooper. His phone read 7:13. He turned his gaze to the ocean, fifty yards off, where choppy gray waves slapped the shore, and told himself to be patient. Mel was rarely punctual. Out in the water, Zack could make out the shapes of a few surfers waiting for a swell. He’d been meaning to learn to surf since moving here, but hadn’t found the time.
Perhaps, he thought, he and Mel could learn to surf together.
Since the thing with Mel in the van nearly a month ago, Zack had been feeling happier than he had in a long time. Which was unusual. Such things usually left Zack feeling desolate, reaching new lows each time he slipped. They required days of repentance: stones lodged in his sneakers, fasting, even the occasional shallow cuts administered to the flesh just below his hip bones with an X-Acto knife—just enough to draw little lines of blood that itched after they scabbed.
But the thing with Mel had left him wi
th none of those self-punishing urges. And even more surprisingly, with very little shame. Instead, he’d felt galvanized from being with her, more alive, as if shot through with positive electricity. What had happened between them—even if it had been in the back of a van—seemed somehow sweet and good, almost wholesome. Their bodies had been channeling a deeper current of feeling. Something far beneath the flesh.
But also, there was her flesh: Mel’s softness, her gentle heat, the luscious curves of her body that felt both decadent and comforting under his hands. Utterly new and yet somehow familiar, as if he’d arrived at some long-lost home.
To live in love is to sail forever. This was one of his newly discovered lines from The Little Way for Every Day, which he’d ordered from Amazon after he’d somehow lost his copy of the book.
How badly he wanted to be inside Mel. Not to erase himself, as was usually the case—that crude, searing need to consume, then empty himself (some girl he’d slept with a few times, years ago, her name long-forgotten, had accused Zack of having sexual bulimia)—but to join Mel in a place far beneath the superficial surface of their lives. Since that evening in the van, he’d dreamt twice of the two of them swimming in vast, blue water, holding hands, angling down toward an unseen ocean floor.
It was silly, he knew, that a torrid make-out session could leave him feeling so smitten. So alive. But it had. Since that Friday night with Mel, he’d found it hard to think about much else. Replaying every detail over and over in his mind, imagining how it might happen again.
He was still staring at the sea, imagining Mel and himself in sleek wetsuits, paddling their boards side by side out into the waves, laughing, when he heard her voice call out behind him.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Zack felt his face go hot, as if she might have glimpsed the fantasy in his head. He turned to see her hurrying down the sand, wearing her usual all-black workout ensemble, her dark hair clinging damply to her face, as if she’d just showered.
For a moment, his voice stuck in his throat. He hadn’t seen her alone since the thing—clearly, she’d been avoiding him—yet here she was, alone with him on a near-empty beach, making him feel like a nervous teenager.
Santa Monica Page 24
