B009R9RGU2 EBOK (23 page)

But I’m not worried. In fact I welcome the relative quiet and easier parking of off-season. Besides, I’ve been coming here since I was eight and gracelessly swung my first golf club, so it’s not like I’m going to be surprised or bowled over by the intense subtropical climate.

Plus I miss it. The open blue skies and namesake palm trees seemingly lining every road and all the plentiful golf courses. The city has hosted many of my favorite memories.

Regrettably it’s been years since I last spent any time there. After college, once I started working, freedom was scarce and what few breaks I had generally weren’t spent accompanying my parents out of town. No, there were always friends, boyfriends, or the demands of work to keep me preoccupied. Now with all three cornerstones of my prior identity on hold (or at
least out of reach, in Izzy’s case—I symbolically turned my BlackBerry off), I’m experiencing the first true—if very disorienting—break from all my old routines.

For better or worse, I’m 100 percent free—even if it feels a lot more like adrift.

Past Moreno Valley, I leave CA-60 East to take the exit onto Interstate 10 East, signaling we’re more than halfway there. I adjust the BMW’s windscreen visor, helping to block the direct sun, and put my sunglasses back on. Even with the satellite radio now tuned to “Nineties Dance Party”—the B-52s “Roam,” fittingly enough—my mind starts to drift as the sameness of the road and surrounding scenery lulls me.

I wonder what Izzy’s reaction was to my email. Is Billy declaring his love right now to another “Emily” at the audition? What’s happening with my projects at Bennett/Peters? Does Elle regret her decision? Or am I simply office gossip, a cautionary tale? And what of Jacob? Does he miss me? Or is he already moving on to someone kinder and less complicated? Perhaps a pretty peer in finance, who will cherish talking about… whatever it is they do, exactly.

The downside of this road trip may be a little
too much
time to analyze.

Okay, I’ll think positive.
The Secret
and all that. What’s the first thing I’m going to do when I get to Palm Desert? Lie by the condo association’s pool and finish every paperback romance and mystery novel I can get my hands on. It’s hardly a long-term solution, but it’s a plan.

I’ll take it.

As the miles rack up, so does the outside temperature. We’re
definitely entering desert territory. I raise the automatic windows. “Sorry, girl. Time to switch on the AC.” Lizzie looks up at me quizzically, all deep brown eyes and two tan dots punctuating her eyebrows, but happily concedes once the cool air is blowing.

I’ve got nothing but time to figure things out. There’s no reason to go back to LA right away. I mean, there’s no point, right? No job to wake up for… no red carpets to organize or phone calls to make. No relationship. I can stay in the desert for as long as I want. My parents are cool with it, and at this time of the year the condo otherwise sits empty. A little caretaking is in order.

This trip is about slowing down. During the few vacations I’ve taken since I started my career, I have never been able to really relax. I check my email compulsively, like an addict with a twitch. I am always high-energy, mid-story, and on the go.

But this is certainly not like a holiday. And as it turns out, it’s a lot easier to not check my phone when I know the only people who would be contacting me are the people I don’t want to hear from. Over the last week I have accepted that I won’t be hearing from Jacob. That Elle is not going to call, begging me to come back, because her firm is not crumbling down around her without me. When I saw Wanda von Kingstead’s number on my missed call list the day after my suspension, I realized two things: There are some calls you just don’t need to return, and self-preservation overrides a person’s habitual, borderline obsessive message-checking trait. Wanda’s remains the one and only voicemail I’ve ever erased without hearing one word.

Outside Beaumont, I pull over for some gas and the boost of
a fresh Diet Coke. It feels good to stretch my legs and back. The strong dry heat hits me, baking the asphalt, yet its nostalgic familiarity is comforting. It’s only the cold (which for me is anything below forty degrees Fahrenheit) or heavy humidity that makes this SoCal girl miserable. Just ask Izzy, who humors my “softness” whenever I visit New York in all but its most mild seasons.

Lizzie’s content to keep her serial nap going, so I leave her momentarily to man the vehicle.

An electronic chime announces my entrance at the convenience mart. It’s one of those overlit places—day or night—with more blinding fluorescents than Hollywood’s shorthand vision of the afterlife. An exhausted-looking mom tries to wrangle her pleading kids out of the snack aisle, shaking her head at each air-plumped bag or can of Pringles. In the rear at the beverage coolers, an acne-scarred teenager pretends to admire the range of bottled iced teas while cagily eyeing six-packs of beer.
Been there, my friend
. I grab my soda bottle plus some water for Lizzie and head to the checkout, happy to spare my corneas.

And that’s when my old life catches up to me.

Up front, next to the impulse gum and candy, sit the usual tabloids. Without a pause, the entertainment publicist in me automatically scans the headlines. And there in the top right corner of this week’s
In Touch
is the headline
BILLY AND EVA BUILDING DREAMS
above a shot of the striking pair hand in hand beside a meticulous sand castle on a beach somewhere.

Gotta hand it to Wanda
.

The picture-perfect sand castle is a giveaway that—whether
Eva was in on the ploy or not—this caught date was intended to be anything but private. Just the ridiculous thought of Wanda demanding an extra turret makes me laugh.

“You’ve got a great smile.”

Caught off-guard, I look up to find a super-cute—if barely legal—Hispanic clerk with enviable lashes and a black faux hawk behind the register. He’s flashing me his own killer smile.

“Thanks,” I say, paying for my purchases. “You too.”

I leave the innocent flirting at that, but the unexpected compliment couldn’t have had better timing. It reminds me that there’s a whole future of possibilities. Change in hand, I catch myself grinning again in the automatic door’s reflection.

Sure, that one was more baby than babe. But I won’t lie. For the first time in a while, it felt good to be me.

Arriving at my parents’ place in the desert is like traveling back through time without a flux capacitor, though it would’ve been nice to go eighty-eight miles per hour. I feel like a young girl again pulling into the driveway of the sweet bungalow-style condo with its one-car garage, concrete tiled roof, sage-painted plantation shutters, and sentinel palms flanking the front walkway. In the distance, the majestic San Jacinto Mountains spread out as if embracing the entire fertile valley.

Lizzie perks up, recognizing the home as well. Seconds later she’s racing me to the front door. Seems someone else feels like her younger self.

Once inside, Lizzie scooting out of sight, I deactivate the security alarm and then turn around to get my first good look.

The two-bedroom condo was originally decorated in the
mid-eighties and, other than looking a little worn at the edges, remains remarkably the same. It’s like stepping into the past. Long forgotten high school golfing trophies (my elegant swing disappeared years ago with my pre-cellulite thighs) maintain their place of honor in the den. There’s the mirrored wet bar with its glass shelves that adolescent Izzy and I once raided, smugly replacing the pinched booze with water and later learning the hard way not to mix our liquors. The flat-screen TV is new, but I recognize the oversized cream-colored sofas, the framed watercolor paintings (from Mom’s
artiste
phase), and the corner game table that hosted many a competitive round of Uno, Monopoly, and Pictionary. Combined with the wallpapered bathrooms and kitchen straight out of
Family Ties
, it all makes me keep waiting to hear my parents announce it’s time for me to go brush my teeth before bed.

Nowadays my parents could afford to buy something new and modern, but it’s clear that they’re equally sentimental about the idyllic shared past.

I find Lizzie lounging on the ceramic tile floor beside the sliding door that leads out to the back patio. Just beyond the simple patio lies the deep green fairway of the 8th hole. Yes, our “backyard” is a meticulously maintained golf course—one of roughly thirty in Palm Desert. I sit down beside Lizzie. Does she remember Dad and me heading off with our clubs to play? Or how Dad would barbeque out on the patio while Mom tried to teach me the “pleasures” of cooking, when all I wanted was to be searing steaks outside.

One thing’s for certain: I’m glad I came.

After taking Lizzie for a walk and starting to get the house
cooled, I retrieve my light packed bag and the not so light container of special formula dog food from the car. I’ll pick up groceries for myself tomorrow because, even taken by surprise, my supermom whipped up and sent along a small cooler of goodies for dinner tonight. Reheating a delicious home-cooked meal in the microwave sure beats scavenging the pantry’s limited canned goods or hitting the closest fast-food franchise. And now I’m feeling extra grateful because pressing a few buttons is about all the energy I can muster. The long, monotonous ride and climate adjustment have left me wiped.

Soon after dinner, I don’t need anyone to tell me it’s time for bed.

I decide to pass over the more comfortable master suite to reclaim my old room. It just feels right to be in
my
space again. And it’s just as I remember it. The décor grew up with me from purple-loving, imaginative child to too-cool, impulsive teen, but there’s the same twin bed I slept in nearly every Friday and Saturday night of my defining years. High school achievement ribbons and more trophies line the bookshelf, and most amusingly, the walls are still tacked with posters and clippings of past teen music idols and “Billy Foxes” of their day.

Be careful what you wish for
.

Lizzie takes her usual spot at the foot of the bed and in no time is snoring.

Following her example, I change and climb into bed, pulling the sheet and thin coverlet up to my chin. Lying there—coming full circle—brings on the strangest feeling, both uncertainty and Goldilocks’s
just right
. On the bedside table is
my old Sony “Discman,” batteries long drained, with an Alanis Morissette CD still inside.

You, you, you oughta know
.

I’m working on it.

Lights off, I rediscover the faint constellations of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. For years, they comforted and inspired me. Eyeing them again, I no longer wish I had the power to stop time or even return to the past. I want to fast-forward, to move beyond the sadness that returns when I lie still at night. Those wishful gifts are all fantasy. I’m stuck in the present with a mess of my own making.

But as exhaustion pulls me into a deep slumber, I’m more hopeful here that, somehow, I, Sophie, will find my way out.

I wake to the sound of Lizzie’s incessant barking
.

“Lizzie, no…,” I murmur, pulling the sheet over my head in a futile attempt to go back to sleep. To my side, the desert’s powerful sun is already threatening to push through the closed blinds. Lizzie’s wake-up call crescendos, which is weird because she only gets super-excited these days… if someone is at the door.

And that’s when I catch the underscore to Lizzie’s fanfare—a faint yet steady knock.

Whah?
I’m not a morning person. I’m really in no mood for any cookie-pushing Girl Scout or Jehovah’s Witness. Who else still knocks on people’s doors unannounced? I haven’t been here a day and the Neighborhood Welcome Wagon has already arrived? Maybe if I lie still and close my eyes, Lizzie will calm down enough so I can go back to—

“Sophie?! Are you in there?” I distinctly hear from outside.

No way
.

I know that voice.

Jumping out of bed, I scramble to the front door, hair wild and half-dressed. Lizzie’s deliriously running back and forth
in the foyer. I turn the deadbolt, unlock the door, and then throw it wide open.

Please don’t let this be a dream or some heatstroke mirage.

Arms crossed, she cocks her head and says, “Did you have to pick the hottest day ever to sleep in?”

“Izzy!!” I throw my arms around her. My best friend who’s remarkably here, twenty-seven hundred miles away from New York. Picture one of those Publishers Clearing House winners, stunned and then weeping joyful tears at the invasion of TV cameras, balloon bouquets, and an oversized check at her doorstep, and you have an idea how I feel right now. “How did you ever—”

“Dennis and Jeanne tipped me off when I called looking for you.
Someone’s
been impossible to get in touch with lately.”

It’s true. I’ve been avoiding her and, well, everyone. Talking to others would make my situation too real, even though I knew I was denying myself their support. Sending the belated email to Izzy only thirty-six hours ago was a major step forward, but I still feared her immediate reaction enough to skip town and consciously stay offline.