by Sean Platt
“I can’t help it. I’m a good girl.”
“You’ve never done anything bad? Anything that’s not like a good girl?”
Len was likely referring to duplicity and misdeeds, but for some reason a parade of sexual images marched through her mind: gropes in backseats, bodies stroked and massaged when her parents weren’t home. Each time she’d felt conflicted. But in those moments, Lily hadn’t cared. It hadn’t felt bad at all. It had simply felt like a natural side of herself, hidden because someone told her that that’s what good girls were supposed to do. Good girls sat with their hands crossed in their laps at all times, knees together. Probably praying.
“Not really.”
“Then don’t you see what’s going to happen? You’re going to keep playing by the rules, like a good girl. That bitchy little quiff across the way is going to keep dealing from the bottom of the deck. How are you supposed to win?”
“Maybe I win by keeping my dignity.” She sipped her wine. “I’ll remind you, I keep putting my cart outside, and I didn’t do what Evelyn told me to.”
“Sure. You defied Evelyn right true. But what about Kerry?”
“It might not even be Kerry who made the complaint.”
“Mmm-hmm. And even so, that’s all she might have done, right? You don’t get the feeling, other than that, that she’s out to get you?”
Of course she did. Even Antonia had said it: You came in here wearing a target from Day One. Antonia had given her the distinct impression that Kerry had had a gripe against the owner of the second or third flower shop to occupy her space — perhaps some sort of shattered love affair even. Whatever the reason, she’d set her sights on Lily. She might have been too young, too popular by default, too kind, too naive, too effortlessly magnetic. Or maybe Kerry hated beauty, or thought she could avenge that old gripe by punishing all who moved into the same space as the man she seemed to have hated. Her reasons were anybody’s guess, but Kerry’s intentions and biases were Waterford clear.
“My mother always told me to kill negative people with kindness.”
“And how’s that working for you?”
“I can’t let her get me down,” she added.
“Maybe you should get her down.”
Lily watched Len. His face was serious for a long moment, then it broke into his usual charming smile.
“Look, I’m not saying you should burn her place down or anything. Just that if you wanted to … pursue a mischievous scheme, say … I’d be in your corner.”
“That’s just because you think I’m pretty.”
When Lily looked up, Len’s smile was subtler. She shouldn’t have said that. They were on a business dinner, nothing more. And never mind that most of the time so far they’d discussed her instead of him, barely brushing his need to understand the lay of the land at the Palms Couture.
“Indeed I do.”
Two waiters arrived with appetizers and placed them on the table, breaking Len’s gaze and Lily’s embarrassment. Good. She was being an idiot. Something in Len — possibly his charm, the hard edge of his thinking, his humor, possibly his accent and his earnest eyes — was derailing her. She didn’t need complications right now, and really didn’t need another drop of wine. She’d only had a glass and a quarter. Had she really become this much of a lightweight? Or was there more at play in her biochemistry than alcohol?
“Len,” she said.
He looked up.
“Do you really think the high road is doomed?”
She wanted to hear his answer to such a pointed, loaded question. If Len said yes, it would be depressing. She’d been raised to be optimistic, to believe the best in people and to always greet the world with an upbeat spirit. He was dangerously close to making her believe that doing so was naive. It was a blow to her upbringing that she didn’t particularly want to bear.
“No, not at all. But you have to know when to take it. And right now, you’re dealing with a bully. Bullies love it when you turn the other cheek, because then they can steal whatever they want while you’re looking away. I learned that from my brother. I learned that in a lot of cases it’s best to do what might look ‘bad’ because you have to do it if you want to keep what’s yours.”
“Just for supposing, give me your honest opinion. What do you think will happen if I keep ignoring Kerry, but never fold or give in to her crap?”
“Then say goodbye to your dream.” Len shrugged. “Because if you do that, she will win, and you will absolutely fail.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A MOMENT ALONE
Lily drove home a little lightheaded, and not from the wine. The speed at which the first two glasses went to her head alarmed Lily enough to make her stop, fill her stomach, and allow the feeling to pass. Len, who probably had eaten lunch, sipped his first and then a second glass throughout the meal. But Lily only ate her food and sipped water, like a good girl.
Despite not driving drunk and not (yet) having done anything underhanded to hold onto the dream shop she’d finally managed to build (one she owed to her late mother, if she really thought about it, and that story went all the way back to Mom and Dad’s Paris honeymoon), Lily couldn’t help but feel a little off her game — in a good way — when she and Len parted for the evening. He was a perfect gentleman, taking her hand in farewell but not attempting to lean in for a kiss … because this hadn’t been a date in name, and he didn’t seem willing to break that lie by telling the truth they both knew.
Still, Lily felt jitters; she felt a lightness in her mood and an I-don’t-care in her attitude that would normally follow a date — a verified sense that she was very important to someone and couldn’t help but be buoyed by the confidence that gave her. She left smiling, trying to hide it lest it give away too much of her joy, and not sure quite why. She still needed to get up at the crack of dawn for Market, and she’d stayed up late enough with Len that she’d do it on very little sleep. But it didn’t matter. Lily still sang along with Taylor Swift to “Trouble,” cranking it louder than she normally would, cruising the quiet streets back to Dusty’s near midnight.
She thought about Kerry. Right now, almost giddy, Lily suspected that Kerry had messed with the wrong gal. From higher up, a more realistic version of herself wanted to ignore Len and take the higher road, but her base self thought he might be right. And she wondered just how far Lily A was willing to extend her claws.
She thought about Len. One drunk, bullying brother, one dream a lot like her own. She’d thought of him as “the food cart guy,” but now saw him for what he was: a chef with a deep appreciation of the delicacies that Lily had thought of as mostly just food. The seafood pasta he’d ordered for her, with its sweet sherry sauce, had been rich without being heavy, delicious and sensually indulgent without sitting in her stomach afterward. He’d sampled it and listed the dish’s probable ingredients. “I may be off some, of course, but reverse engineering food is one of my talents.” He’d winked when he’d said that, as if they were spies trading secrets. But Lily had been slightly high without wine by then, and giggled like a shy little high schooler.
She thought about Antonia, who had the same cards as Kerry, but held them differently. Antonia had settled into who she was, but never in life. She still wanted. Amusingly, she was infatuated with the same men Lily might have been infatuated with. They could have been mother and daughter, but they felt like sisters. Yet it was Antonia, the older one, who seemed to have the bigger drive.
She thought of Allison. No, Antonia didn’t have the big sex drive. Allison, with her free way of speaking, filthy (and honest) mouth, and her goal of sleeping her way through the tenant roster, lapped everyone.
Cameron wants to bend you over a sink, she kept saying.
Which was funny when Allison said it, but which she’d said enough times that now, every time Lily saw Cameron in the courtyard on his break, Lily thought about it. The sink-bending talk had all been between the girls, but had Cameron literally said it? And if he and Allis
on had discussed it as much as Allison had brought it up to Lily, did that mean he thought about it — in those plumbing-related terms — whenever he glanced over at La Fleur de Blanc? Did he glance over as often as she thought he might, just as Antonia claimed Matthew Vitale did?
Lily drove. Images and thoughts spun through her head with the cycling passage of overhead streetlights — equally fleeting, equally blurred, leaving the same electric trails behind her eyes to prove their presence.
Lily. Kerry. Len. Antonia. Allison. Cameron. Matthew.
She’d never been bent over a sink, of course. That wasn’t something nice, well-raised farm girls did. It was funny to think about, the same way it had always been funny, back in class, to talk about how a girl had graduated from handjobs to blowjobs. You could slot yourself into those conversations even if you weren’t doing any of the same, because talk was harmless. Just like thoughts. Nobody could see you having them, the same as nobody could see you undressing if you kept your blinds drawn. Nobody could see what you did afterward, either, if you were alone.
Len. Cameron. Matthew.
It had been a hard week. As much as Lily hadn’t wanted to go on this non-date with Len, she’d had needed it. Part of her wanted to do it again, even though her schedule would shatter if she tried. It had been nice, for a few hours, to feel empowered. To talk about stuff that didn’t weigh on her shop, or to discuss things that weighed on her shop in ways that made her realize she could be strong if she dared to try.
Lily pulled into Dusty’s driveway feeling wide awake. Sleep would elude her. Her resting hours would be few enough that she almost didn’t want to bother. She could pull an all-nighter like she’d done in her younger days. She was only twenty-two. She wanted to take a bath first anyway, and that would take a while. She’d showered before heading out, so it wasn’t about getting clean. She needed to soak, to clear her head, to reset. What were the chances a few hours in the sack were going to help her much anyway? If she were someone like Allison, she’d call someone to share that sack for the evening. Apparently, according to Antonia, she was a catch even among the models’ runway that passed for Cielo del Mar, and would have no trouble finding takers.
It wasn’t something she should even ponder, regardless if it was serious or dipping into fantasy. Just like Cameron and the sink. Just like Matt, regardless of whether he was a total conceited asshole or not. And just like Len, the sweetest and, actually, likeliest of the three. Why not invite them all to her mental party? They were only capering behind her forehead, where no one could see the things that someone like Lily Whistler shouldn’t be thinking. But she was feeling itchy and antsy, awake and somehow eager to punch Kerry and everyone who thought they could walk all over her right in their faces. They thought they knew her. Everyone looked at Lily and thought they knew just who she was. But even caterpillars changed into new things only once they were inside their chrysalises, when no one was looking.
Lily was halfway up the outside steps to her apartment when she heard a noise behind her. She spun, aware in a distant way that she’d clenched her keys in her fist with the sharp ends out, just like she’d learned in her self-defense course back home. But it was only Dusty.
“Jesus, Dusty.” She exhaled hard, her fist still clenched on the keys. “You scared the tar out of me.”
He’d approached in the dark, probably because he didn’t want to startle her. He flipped on the overhead, and Lily was amused to see he was holding his other hand toward her palm out, as if begging her not to harm him.
“Sorry, sorry. I saw your car come in and … well … it’s so late that I just wanted to make sure you were okay and … ”
Lily unclenched her fist. The hand hung at her side. She felt so emotionally keyed up, so volatile. It almost didn’t seem to matter which emotion or sensation she had, so long as it was deep. She’d stayed near the surface these past weeks because that was what life had required: Lily on an even keel; Lily like a robot so she could accomplish what needed doing without undue encumbrances. But now something had been uncorked, and she was cycling through joy, anger, irritation, fear, and other things that were even now itching at the back of her skull.
She looked at Dusty and felt something new: loving exasperation. He was a good, kind man who meant no harm. And at the same time, he acted like she was helpless and in need of protection.
“Dusty,” she said, “you can’t keep watching for me like this. Okay?”
“It’s bad to watch out for you?”
“There’s a difference between watching out for me and just watching for me. I feel like you just sit there looking out the window, waiting for me to come home. Like my parents used to do. It feels like that: waiting up for me. But I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”
Dusty’s eyes flicked to the keys now held loosely in Lily’s hand. Dusty was about her height and probably not much heavier — and that owing to a small, creeping belly. If pressed, she was sure she could lay him flat. The way she felt right now, she could lay just about anyone flat.
Like Len? chided a snickering voice inside her head. Like you could lay Len flat? On his back? Do you think he has any tattoos on his chest, once he was on his back with an open shirt?
“I know, I know,” said Dusty. “I’m just … I thought … ”
“I’m fine.” Oh, hell. She had her panties hiked up, so she might as well say what had been on her mind for a while. “I should be able to conduct my life without feeling like I’m under surveillance.”
“Surveillance!”
“Yes, Dusty. That’s what it feels like sometimes. ‘What is Dusty thinking about my leaving right now? Should I leave a flower market receipt behind on the driveway so he understands?’ I think about that kind of thing all the time, right here in my own life, as if I need to leave a trail to explain the things I’m doing so you won’t think something worse.” And I also need the freedom, if I want, she thought, to do the something worse if I choose to.
“Oh, oh, I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I don’t mean to be like that. Not at all. I—”
“It’s okay.”
“I never had a daughter.” He immediately seemed to regret the implication, probably because he’d almost certainly thought about her in unapproved ways behind the mental curtains of his mind. “I mean, I don’t really know the protocol. Not that I think of you as a daughter, not that you’re young enough to be my daughter, I mean, you are, I guess, but I don’t think of you like that, we could be a couple, even … ”
That was much worse. Dusty started waving his hands.
“I didn’t mean that at all, just that I know this guy down at the club — the country club, you know it? — who’s dating this girl who’s really young, but it’s fine and … ” He ran a hand through his graying hair. “Oh, goddammit.”
Lily felt her irritation melt into affection. She still wanted to get upstairs and get inside — more urgently with each passing minute — but she’d flustered Dusty by putting him on the spot, and now he would just keep embarrassing himself further if she didn’t stop him.
“No, no, I understand. Just … please trust me to come and go as I want, okay?”
“I’m not trying to get in your way. I … ”
He was going to explain something again and fumble all over the place. Lily felt that strange mishmash of emotion churning below her surface. Her head felt off. Her clothes felt itchy and ill fitting. She wanted to move and shift until her body felt less awkward, less alien to her. But she couldn’t do that in front of Dusty. It was like an itch on her nose that she didn’t want to scratch lest she look like she might be picking. Dusty needed to wrap it up, and soon. If he wanted to show her he understood, he needed to do so by going back inside now, so that she could scratch.
“It’s fine.”
“I don’t sit in there looking out the windows. I just happened to hear the clunk as you came over the rough spot in the driveway, where the pavement cracked back when I … ”
“It’s
fine, Dusty.”
“Oh wow, I really just don’t want you to think that I’m sort of creepy old man. Not that I’m old, I mean, and not that I really think you think I’m creepy, but we all know there are some weirdoes, and you’re so … well, you know, and it kills me to even consider that you might think … ”
“I don’t think you’re creepy. Promise.”
“Because plenty of guys out there, they’ll take advantage of a young pretty girl, or try to, or … ” He looked like he might start sweating. In going to pains to make it clear what he’d never do, all he seemed able to actually do was stuff ideas in Lily’s head of ways he definitely was not doing what other creeps did. Soon he’d be swearing up and down that he wasn’t watching through her windows or planting spy cameras, and then he’d offer to buy her blackout shades and do an electronics sweep of her place to prove it.
“I really need to sleep, Dusty.” But Lily wasn’t tired at all. She needed a hot bath. To soak. And calm down.
“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry.”
She smiled and started back up the stairs.
“I’m going back inside.”
“Okay. You do that.”
“I do have some hot chocolate made already, though. Do you want some?”
Lily was suddenly sure that if she didn’t get inside and close the door, she’d never manage to decompress. She really would be up all night, and float through tomorrow at the Palms like a zombie.
“No.”
“Oh.” He tried on a smile, but she only saw half of it because she’d turned again to resume her climbing. “Just thought I’d offer. Don’t add that to the ‘creepy old man’ pile.”
Lily thought she should probably assure Dusty that he wasn’t that old, but didn’t want to open any more boxes.
“No thanks.”
“Well, okay. Good night.”
