She was the one who’d invited us to dinner in the first place. Right after I got back from my hike, all sweaty and gross with Dan sleeping on the couch and boxes of crap everywhere, the doorbell rang and there was this glamorous, glowing nymph. I think I said something eloquent like “um-uh” before she gave me a big welcoming hug (which she had to stoop down for) and told us how happy she was that we’d chosen Greenloop.
And if her light, upper-class English accent doesn’t already make her sound like a genius, she’s also getting her PhD in psychosomatic illness therapy. I don’t know who Dr. Andrew Weil is (one more thing I’ll have to look up), but she used to be his protégé and invited me to take her daily “integrative health yoga” class, which, of course, gets armies of online subscriber views a day.
Gorgeous, brilliant, and generous. She presented us with a housewarming present called a “happy light,” which is used to simulate the exact spectrum of the sun to dispel seasonal affective disorder. I bet she doesn’t need it, either for depression or for keeping her flawless overall tan.
Tony joked that he didn’t need one because Yvette was his happy light.
Tony.
Okay, I’m supposed to be honest. Right? That’s what you told me. No one but the two of us will read this. No barriers. No lies. Nothing but what I think and feel in the moment.
Tony.
He’s definitely older. Fifties maybe, but in that rugged, older movie star kind of way. Dan once told me about this old comic book—G.I. Joe?—where the bad guys took DNA from all the dictators in history to create one perfect supervillain. That’s kinda the opposite of what I feel like they did with Tony, only Clooney’s skin, Pitt’s lips. Okay, maybe Sean Connery’s hairline but that never bothered me; I mean, I tolerate Dan’s man-bun. And those arms, they kind of remind me of that guy Frank used to have a poster of in his room. Henry Rollins? Not as big and buff, but ripped and inked. When he reached out to shake Dan’s hand, I could see the muscles rippling underneath his tattoos. It was like they were alive, those tribal lines and Asian characters. Everything about Tony is alive.
Okay. Honest. It reminded me of Dan. How he used to be. Energized, engaged. How he used to effortlessly command a room, every room. That speech he made to our graduating class. “We don’t have to be ready for the world. The world better get ready for us!” Eight years? That long ago?
I tried not to compare, sitting there next to who he’d become, across the table from who he thought he’d be.
Dan.
Writing this now, I feel guilty about how little attention I paid to him during dinner, and how I didn’t even as a reflex reach out for him when the ground began to shake.
It was just the tiniest of jolts. The glasses rattled, my chair wobbled.
Apparently, that’s been happening on and off for the last year. Just a slight tremor they said came from Mount Rainier. Nothing to worry about. Volcanos do that. It reminded me of our first month in Venice Beach, when the bed started rolling, not shaking, rolling like a ship on rough seas. I’d heard of the San Andreas Fault but didn’t know about all the mini fault lines crisscrossing under L.A. I can see why so many easterners don’t survive their first earthquake. If Dan wasn’t so set on “Silicon Beach,” I would have totally packed it in. I’m glad I stayed, glad I realized the huge difference between a few shakes and the supposed Big One. That little tremor in Greenloop, less than a truck rumbling by, reminded me of what you said about the difference between denial and phobia.
Denial is an irrational dismissal of danger.
Phobia is an irrational fear of one.
I’m glad I was rational then, especially when everyone else didn’t seem to mind. Yvette even got this sympathetic smile on her face and said, “How unfair is it to leave California earthquakes for this.”
We all laughed, until the next tremor happened—the human one!
That was when Mostar showed up.
The old lady I saw in the window earlier. Not Ms. Or Mrs. or Mostar Something. Just “Muh-star.” She came in late, apologizing that she’d been distracted in “the workshop” and needed the extra time to let the tulumba cool. That’s what her dessert was called. Tulumba. A big plate of what looked like cut up churros under a syrup glaze. We already had desserts. The Durants brought them along with their salmon: some honey-dribbled apple slices right from their tree and gluten-free artisanal ice cream with local berries. I was looking forward to comparing it with my nightly fix of Halo, especially when everyone else had warned me how good it was. Mostar must not have gotten the message. Or didn’t care? Dan didn’t care that there was more dessert. He tore into the tulumbas. He must have had, what, five? Six? Chomping and moaning with each one. So gross.
I politely took one. I could already smell the fried dough. I don’t even want to think about how many calories. Maybe that’s why almost no one else took any. The Boothes said something about animal butter. The Perkins-Forsters mentioned Palomino’s gluten allergy. That was kind of inconsiderate of Mostar to do that. She must have known about all these dietary restrictions. Maybe that’s why Reinhardt only had one as well. I would not have expected that, given how he looked. Sorry. Body shaming. But seriously, given how he plowed through everything else, I figured he’d join Dan in a total snarf-off. Instead, he just nibbled at the edge of one. Polite and chilly. You could feel the room temperature drop.
“Eat.” Mostar plopped down at the end of the table. “Go on, put some meat on those bones.” She’s like this old-timey stereotype nana, right down to the foreign accent. What is that? Russian? Israeli? A lot of rolling r’s.
She’s really short, shorter than Mrs. Boothe, who I think only comes up to my forehead. Maybe five feet or less? And built like a barrel, like if someone threw a dress on a keg. Her olive skin is wrinkled, especially around the eyes. Wrinkled and dark. Raccoon-ish, like she hasn’t slept in a year. Is that mean? I don’t want to be mean. Just an observation. Her eyes were pretty though. Light blue accented by the dark circles. Her hair was silver, not gray or white, and tied back in a bun.
Her whole energy was really different from everyone else’s. Like if the vibe of most people in the room was slow, wavy lines, she’d have this hard, sharp bounce. God, I lived in SoCal too long.
But really, everything about her was hard, the way she moved, the way she talked. She kept staring at me, watching me peck at her dessert. Everyone else was looking at me. It felt kind of weird, like how I reacted to her tulumba somehow had this deeper meaning. I know I’m reading way too much into this. You told me to trust my instincts, but really, I started feeling so uncomfortable that I lost my appetite.