East in Paradise

by Tif Marcelo

  He waves me forward, resigned. “Fine, come on over here.”

  I inch closer to the front of the toilet seat, tilt my head down so the minipigtails are accessible. “Cut just above the rubber band, closest to me.”

  “Okay.” His eyes focus on his scissors, now at eye level, hair between the blades. “Here goes nothing.”

  With one snip, a clump falls. And another and another. The bathroom floor becomes a crime scene of locks of hair, of all my years of holding on.

  After it’s finished, Mitchell stares at me in wonder.

  “How does it look?”

  He fingers the tips of my new bangs, down to the right side of my face, where the hair falls just below my jaw. My head already feels cloud light, and I grin. A smile forms, and his eyes follow suit. “I love it.”

  Relief spills out of me, and I giggle.

  “Wait here? Don’t look in the mirror, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “It’ll spoil the reveal.” He stands, not bothering to brush the hair off his jeans. Strands fall to the floor, trailing after him on the hardwood. He slips on a shirt.

  I hear him gallop down the stairs and out the door. Standing and purposefully not looking at myself in the mirror, I peek out the bathroom widow and watch Mitchell run up the hill to his house.

  What the hell is he doing?

  A couple of minutes later, he darts down the hill. The door crashes open as he bounds up the staircase.

  He appears at the doorway with a harried look, holding up clippers.

  “Oh no . . . I can’t!” Feeling panic, I bring my hands behind my back.

  Mitchell’s hair is so . . . beautiful. Silky and golden brown, with blond streaks trying to fight their way through its pattern. The strands fall naturally around his face, with a slight wave in front.

  He takes his same place on the chair, and with gentle fingers, pulls my arms in front. “Palm up, B.”

  Hesitatingly, I concede, and he lays the clippers on it. He curls my fingers around them and flips the switch up. The thing vibrates in my hand. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Following your lead.” He encases my hand in his, guiding the shears up to the top of his head. “Making a change.”

  “Copycat.” I’m trying to make a joke of it, but I’m cringing as my arm comes up. While holding my hand in one of his, then gripping a section of his hair with the other, he shaves it off.

  His locks fall onto his lap, and my mouth hangs open at the gaping line of skin showing at the top of his head. When my gaze drops down to his face, I meet a smile, without a hint of sadness or remorse. “I guess we gotta go all the way now,” he declares. “If I do it, it’ll be a mess. Make sure it’s straight for me?”

  “Um, okay.” I shave his head a row at a time, and my thoughts cloud over with what he’s—what I’m—doing. How this is so much of a big deal, maybe even bigger than sex. But as I finish up the last of the rough spots, a sense of renewal washes over me. Whether he did this for himself or for me, it required a whole hell of a lot of trust. In the process. In me.

  After I’m done, I bend down to kiss the top of his head.

  He pulls me onto his lap. “You okay?” Concern plays across his face.

  I brush away at the tiny hairs on his forehead and on his nose. “Yes, you?”

  “More than okay. I just want to make sure there aren’t any regrets, you know?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t have any regrets. Not with what’s happened between us. But how do we move on from here?”

  He squeezes me tight. “What do you want, Bryn?”

  “I don’t want our businesses to be hurt by what we’re doing off camera.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree.” He kisses my shoulder, lips warm and inviting. “But I don’t want to lose this new thing we have.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “Are we . . . together, then?” He’s still tiptoeing around our status, and I’m grateful knowing it’s not only me who wants to do this right.

  I’m grateful because he understands the importance of doing this right.

  “I suppose we are, but behind closed doors. Is that okay?” I readjust myself on his lap, debating how to say my next words. “You have to understand, Paraiso comes first, and nothing can come before it except for the people I love. I’m . . . not sure if I’m looking for anything serious. I don’t know if I can do serious—or more serious than what we have now—not unless I know something is forever.”

  “Wow.” He looks like I’ve stunned him, but his expression changes quickly. “But I respect your honesty. And I’ll take what you’ll give me, Bryn.”

  I exhale. “Oh good. I don’t know how to do this . . . This is all just so overwhelming . . .”

  Thankfully, he smiles. “Hey, you do know who’s going to be overwhelmed, right? The crew. The audience.”

  “They are going to freak.” I throw my head back, thinking of what my sister’s going to say. My family. Relief courses through me, because as much as Paraiso has to be my focus, I didn’t want Mitchell and me to end. “I probably won’t be able to keep my hands off you, but we need to try, okay? We’ve got to be at least a little professional.”

  “Whatever you say.” He squeezes me tight.

  The doorbell rings, bringing this magical, fun, and real moment to an end. I palm both sides of Mitchell’s cheeks. “Thank you, for changing today.”

  He rubs the top of his head. “You changed things for me, too.” He’s doing that thing where he pretends what he does for me is nothing. Thinking back, though, I know when he gives, it’s not about what he can get in return. This man is selfless.

  I kiss him hard on the mouth, channeling all of my gratitude and fear. Where we go from here will be like hiking without a map, creating a puzzle without a picture. “Ready?”

  “Yep.” He slaps his thighs. “Let’s shock the living shit out of them, shall we?”

  26

  MITCHELL

  We shocked the living shit out of everyone all right. We opened the doors on our matching haircuts and caused the Internet to explode. Half of our viewers were appalled and dumbfounded at our drastic looks, while the other half congratulated our solidarity. By the end of the week, our viewership would reach an astronomical three million, bringing in more advertisers to Food Right Now and increasing our personal revenue. Our live stream comment section is so busy the network hired a social media assistant to moderate the feed. Laurel says our “invested viewers” are as rowdy as college students on spring break.

  Those two words are a nice way to say nosy. Voyeuristic. And astute. Their most recent comments talk about how Bryn and I “look different” and “act different.” And they’ve come to the conclusion we’ve taken it to the next level.

  And we have.

  Our intimacy broke down the walls we protected ourselves with. The only time we’re apart is when I’m working on the vineyard. We can’t keep our hands off each other, even in front of the camera. Bryn can’t stop running her fingernails along my scalp; I can tell she loves my hair this short. When a barber from the next town took a trip to Paraiso to even out my buzz cut for the camera, Bryn gave him explicit instructions on what it should look like.

  When standing next to her, I find myself lazily running my hands through her short bob, now vastly improved after a trip to Mrs. Nichols’s salon. To my surprise, Bryn came out with hints of red in her hair, and I swear, her soul came through. I can’t stop staring at her, at the change one haircut and one moment of trust can make.

  Every night, we’re intimate. We have sex, we cuddle, we talk, and we sleep. For five mornings, we’ve woken up together. Despite her criteria of forever, how she acts, how she speaks, how she looks at me tells me I already have her. They tell me we are unequivocally together.

  Fuck, we’d better be, because this thing of keep
ing the two parts of our lives separate? I’m failing at it. For me, there is no on or off. There is just us.

  Fingers snap in front of my face. Cody’s voice pierces my thoughts, punctuated by a guffaw that’s a telltale sign he’s been talking smack. “He’s fucking gone all right. Like Sampson—he lost his balls with his hair.”

  I flip my brother off, then take a swig of the ice-cold hard cider just set in front of me. The crisp and tart bite of the drink brings my thoughts back to the present, the tap house of Foothills Cider House, with my brothers, who have both come into town. “This guy thinks he’s the shit now that he’s a cop,” I say to Levi, sitting across the table. “But we know all that talk is a smoke screen. You’ve been MIA, and tonight you’re going to fess up.”

  “Yep. Can barely get ahold of you, and I know you don’t work twenty-four-seven in that tiny blip of a town. What’s up? Is there a woman involved?” Levi, eyes bloodshot from his red-eye flight, undoes another button on his white shirt. He’s finally starting to loosen up after a good hour of drinking. Sleep is heavy on his eyelids, though the whole point of taking him out was to keep him awake. The faster he acclimates to the time change in the two weeks he’s back, the better.

  “Nope. Been busy.” Cody tosses a handful of nuts into his mouth, then sips his water.

  “I call bullshit,” I counter. Cody’s voice is clipped, and he’s too quick to answer the question. I flash a look at Levi, who picks up on it, too. He shakes his head, meaning we should leave it.

  I relent, for now. I turn to Levi. “How’re Ruby and the girls?”

  At the question about his wife and his two daughters, his face lights up. “Girls are great. Shan is deep in the terrible twos, but she’s her own person and I love that. Mira is perfect—then again, she can’t do wrong at six months old.” He pauses. “But Ruby’s not happy, man. She doesn’t think I need to be out here, that I could have done all of the family business on the phone or Skype. If I can get back before the two-week ticket’s up, the better. Otherwise, I might not have a house to come home to.”

  “That bad?” I wince. Levi and Ruby are the epitome of relationship goals. They dated and married and had kids all under everyone’s watchful eyes, on Instagram and Facebook. They were the it couple, with matching clothing, her perfect homemade meals, and vacations galore.

  Levi nods, regret steaming off him. He gulps his cider. “Let’s just say I’ve been too busy acting imperfectly, and she’s equally busy being perfect. The diverging path in the woods? My marriage.”

  Cody shakes his head. “Aw, man, you’ve got to fix it.”

  “No shit, right? To be honest, I don’t know how. But I’m not drunk enough to talk about that. Tell us, Mitch, now that you’ve been home awhile, what do we need to do to help at Dunford? I’m here to work.”

  The waitress appears with our nachos, and for a moment our attention is taken away as the three of us converge on the chips and cheese and guacamole. A few bites in, and I’ve got enough balls to make my announcement.

  “I have a business plan drawn up for Dunford . . . as a winery.”

  “I was hoping that announcement you made on the live stream was just a hair in your ass.” The shake of Cody’s head is vehement. “I can’t be in. I just got on the force, and I’ve got responsibilities.”

  “I’m not asking you to come home, C.” I glance up at Levi, who’s giving me a blank stare. Behind those eyes, he’s calculating, measuring. So I soldier on. “The upper vineyard is healthy. The fruit is amazing—you’ll see when I take you around—and only part of the lower vineyard needs replacing. The vines that are healthy are budding fruit. Those vines are five years old, some are seven—all we can definitely work with. Got our equipment inspected the other day. We’ll have to replace our fermentation chambers, but with the money from Food Right Now, it’s not an issue. We’ll even have enough funds to clean up and modernize the old tasting room in Mountainridge.”

  Levi’s begun to eat again, a good sign. He’s so much like our father, a bad idea would have warranted an immediate shutdown and a fist pound on the table. Judge and jury. “Two retail businesses in one area. Parking will be a bitch. And where will you live?”

  “I can live on the second floor. And I’m sure we can work something out with the parking.” I straighten. “So you agree?”

  “Maybe. How long is Lavenderhill’s lease for?”

  I don’t like where this is going, so I squash it. “Five years, with the option to renew, and don’t even ask me if the lease is negotiable.”

  He holds up both hands and laughs defensively. “Okay, okay. Someone’s a little sensitive. I’m just talking it out. The only thing, who’s the keeper of the magic? The wine maker. Who’ll blend?”

  “You’re looking at him.”

  My brothers cackle. Cody covers his mouth with the back of his hand as he swallows. “You have the worst taste buds, even when we were kids. You couldn’t make Kool-Aid without fucking it up.”

  “I’ll come home.” Levi wipes his chin with a napkin.

  “How about Rubes?”

  “You’re right. Fuck, I can’t. I need to figure this out.”

  We all dig back into the food and fall into silence. Worried about my pitch, I didn’t realize how famished I was until now. My mind wanders to the possibility of turning Dunford into a winery, striking the real California gold like my great-grandfather who came to the foothills for a new stake in life.

  I’m shoveling food into my mouth when Cody clears his throat. “I’m going to be a dad.”

  The sharp edge of a tortilla chip gets lodged in my throat, and I erupt into a coughing fit. Levi downs the rest of his glass and says, “What?”

  “Fuck it. We’ll take a cab back.” Cody snatches my pint and drinks it, eyes glazing over with uncertainty. The man looks like he’s about to cry. “I didn’t want to tell you guys on the phone, and to be fucking honest, I was shocked. It was a one-night stand, and she’s keeping the baby.” His eyes shift from me to Levi. “It’s Monica Cruz.”

  Levi heaves. “Monica Cruz?”

  “Who’s Monica Cruz?” Then my mind flips again. “You’re gonna be a dad?”

  “She’s Golden’s pediatrician,” Levi supplies.

  “Wow, Cody.”

  He swipes a hand down his face. “Don’t get me wrong, Monica’s nice. Beautiful, inside and out. Kind. But I wasn’t ready for this, and yet, this is my child. I can’t not step up.” He waves down our waitress. “A round of apple brandy.”

  Shot glasses land in front of us and are filled to the brim with dark yellow liquid. Levi and I pick up our glasses as we share the same look. Is this a celebratory drink or the kind to blur reality?

  Cody raises his glass to his lips. “To Dunford. To us, the last of the Dunford men. That we do right, just like Pop taught us, even if it’s hard as fuck.”

  The toast guts me. Cody always has a way with words. “Hear, hear!”

  “Cheers,” says Levi.

  We tip our glasses up, downing our brandy. The liquid burns down my throat, and I hiss from the pain.

  With a hoarse voice, I say, “It’s gonna be fine, Cody. Our family just gets a little bigger.” I nudge him with an elbow. “I’ll be around. You and Monica, no matter what happens between the both of you, you can count on me to help with the baby, too. You can ask Levi’s kids, I send the best presents.”

  Levi nods. “He sends all that noisy and creepy shit. Drum sets, dolls with eyelids that shut.” He shivers.

  “Well, since we’re spilling our guts.” I brave our circle for one more piece of truth. “I’m back in therapy, and things are getting better.” I hold off on the rest, that Bryn has helped with my insomnia, too. That having her to talk to at my most vulnerable moments, at night, has been priceless. Monumental.

  Levi slaps me on the back. “I’m glad to hear it, Mitch.”
/>   Cody lays a palm on my forearm and squeezes it, then raises a finger to our waitress. “One more round.”

  “My turn to toast.” Levi takes up his glass after the round is poured. “To Dunford, and keeping it real, and keeping it family.”

  “Hell yes,” I say.

  Cody adds, “Prost!”

  It’s official, I can’t see straight after that second shot. My vision is wavy and hazy with barely anything in my stomach. The music is fuzzy in the background, and by looking at my brothers, they are worse than me. Levi looks especially done.

  But we’re not done. We can’t be, because it’s my turn to toast.

  I wiggle my finger at the waitress. “Last one!”

  She steals a glance at the bartender, who eventually nods.

  After the final round is poured, I pick up my glass, glance at my brothers. But in my mind’s eye, my focus is on the vineyard, this dream of reviving our home, and of a feeling that’s caught up in my chest I can’t find the name for. I declare the first thing that comes to mind. “To love.”

  “Aw man, you are whipped!” Cody cracks.

  Levi coughs out expletives.

  But I don’t give a shit. “To Dunford, dammit—to love!” I yell. “That we know it when we have it, and don’t let it go.”

  My brothers go silent, their faces sobering.

  Levi lifts his shot glass. “We’re really pathetic, aren’t we?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hear, hear!” Cody raises his glass. “H-E-A.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Color rises to my brother’s cheeks. “Happily ever after. It’s from fucking romance novels. The mother of my unborn child reads them, you pricks.”

  That’s it, I’m practically falling off the stool, snorting through my nose. Levi can barely breathe, face turning completely red, clutching his stomach.