Life After Coffee (19 page)

CHAPTER 21

Of course, the time I actually don’t want a babysitter to be free, Arielle is one hundred percent available. This is pretty inconvenient, as not being able to get a babysitter at such short notice would have been a stellar and very plausible excuse for me not to go out on this date. But that’s not how it went down. Arielle got here twenty minutes ago and now Matt’s standing at the front door, staring.

I can’t actually believe what I look like right now. And from the way Matt keeps looking at me, neither can he. Well, he said dress
nice
, didn’t he? As soon as I got off the phone with him, a due-diligence audit of my wardrobe confirmed that I wasn’t in possession of anything “nice.” Having given up on the whole having pride thing a long time ago, I threw myself at Lizzie’s mercy and, seeing as giving me a complete and utter makeover was something she was actually interested in doing, she hooked me up. I told her I was going to my college reunion and she believed me. Let’s hope she never discovers that I attended college for all of one year before dropping out—and in London at that. The fact that I lied to Lizzie underlines the truth, of course, which is that I’m doing something tonight that I certainly shouldn’t be. The first lie has been woven.

I have to say, the transformation is rather dramatic. I’m in a slinky blue dress with some helpful underwear beneath it. My hair has been excessively pulled at with a flat iron until it’s lost its usual halo of fuzz. I’m wearing very expensive makeup.

“That’s more than a dress. That’s an Audrey Hepburn movie,” says Matt. I’d forgotten his slightly annoying habit of quoting movie lines at the times when I’d like him to actually be genuine.

“Get home before midnight, Mommy, or you’ll turn into a pumpkin,” says Violet, who is, of course, entranced by my transformation.

And what exactly do I think I’m playing at, dressing up like this and going out on a date with my ex? I’m getting a glimpse, that’s what. And then I’m going to walk away. If I can’t have the life, I can at least get a good look at what it is I’m missing out on. No one can argue that I’m not entitled to that. I want to see it up close. I’m hoping that I hate everything about it. And if I love it? Well, in that case the memories will just have to last me a long time, won’t they?

Matt and I are whizzing along the freeway in comfortable silence. Maybe he’s saving the big conversational download about Peter’s future for over dinner. My brain’s so busy drinking in the decadence that is the inside of his Porsche, I’m not sure I’d be able to concentrate on a conversation anyway. I’m a sucker for a leather interior. The most luxurious thing about the Honda is that it smells fruity. And that’s only because Billy recently decided to smear half my strawberry lip balm over the backseat. As we pull up to the restaurant, I get a zip of anticipation through my stomach. Matt just happened to mention on the way over that the executive chef—a friend of his—is putting together a special tasting menu just for us. He also told me this place has recently been awarded two Michelin stars. I’m officially excited.

As soon as the Porsche comes to a stop, the valet runs to open my door for me. I can’t remember the last time someone opened a car door for me, or any kind of door actually. I swirl my legs to the side in perfectly clamped-together unison. No one will be getting a flash of my lacy underwear tonight. Not unintentionally anyway. I didn’t say that! Seriously, though, that’s not what tonight’s about. Besides, the fact that I flat-out fail the pencil test these days is reason enough to conceal my body from anyone who isn’t legally contracted not to run away from it.

I gracefully extend one leg toward the sidewalk and then rise up to my new height, complete with four heel-added inches. I feel like a supermodel. Matt comes around to join me, and we start to walk toward the restaurant. I’m already having the time of my life and we haven’t even gone inside yet. We’re almost at the ramp when two guys on skateboards, who’ve been flying down the sidewalk for the last few seconds, clatter to a noisy halt right in front of us. Suddenly we’re inside a blinding cloud of flashing light, surrounded by the sound of camera shutters opening and closing multiple times—I didn’t know a camera could be so loud. Within two seconds the photographers have taken off again.

However, it’s too late for me—I’m officially losing my balance. Lizzie’s heels are surprisingly easy to walk in, and they fit so snugly that up till this moment I’ve felt like a surefooted goat climbing the side of a mountain. But now that I’m four inches taller, my whole center of gravity is in a different place. It had been shifted forward as I walked toward the door, but with the skateboarder ambush I had to make a sudden shift back, and the move was too quick for me to compensate. As I watch Matt halfheartedly chase after them, my arms are doing huge, rapid backward windmills, hoping to grab on to anything,
anyone
. On my third staggering step backward, my heel misses contact with the sidewalk; I list to the side and fall flat to the ground. My cheekbone smacks hard onto the concrete.

For a second, everything’s numb, and then in its place the hard ache of pain comes rushing in. Instead of crying, I close my eyes. When I open them again, I note that I’m face-to-face with a small green shrub.

“Hello, shrub,” I try to say, but my mouth seems to be clogged up with tiny stones. I just ate gravel. Literally. I start to spit the stones out of my mouth. At least I hope it’s gravel and not my teeth. Just when I’m beginning to wonder why no one is helping me out, I feel a lift under my armpits and suddenly I’m sitting upright. A man wearing a well-tailored suit appears to be the one who sat me straight.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I try to talk; a bit more gravel has to come out first.

“I think so. I hit my face on the ground.” Someone comes rushing forward with a glass of water. I take a sip. I’m not so injured that I don’t notice that the glass is very thin with a rim so delicate you could bite it in two if you wanted to. I’m almost back to enjoying myself here.

“Can you stand?”

“Yeah,” I say, and start my shaky ascent upward. Before I get all the way to standing, I feel a release of liquid in my nose and a torrent of blood floods down my face, dripping right onto the middle of my/Lizzie’s dress. Oh, great. That’s going to go down like a cup of cold vomit. Matt comes jogging back down the street and speeds up to a run when he sees me stumbling around, bleeding.

“What happened?” he snaps at the maître d’, as if it were all his fault.

“I’m sorry. Gwyneth Paltrow was supposed to be coming in tonight with her new guy. They must have thought you were them.” Matt seems mildly pissed at this information. I know why—he thought the paps were for him. I, meanwhile, am elated that someone could have mistaken me for Gwyneth! Yup, officially back to having a good time again. I feel a puff of relief that at least we won’t have to worry about the images surfacing anywhere. Once they figure out it’s just little ol’ me, those pics will be trash bound. I revel in the exclusive insight of how annoying it must feel to be in the constant eye of the media. My nose appears to have stopped gushing, and apart from a square lump I can feel rising up on my cheekbone, I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve dealt with worse and gone on to do more demanding things than eat dinner before now. The dress is a darkish blue, so the blood isn’t too noticeable. Let’s do this!

“Come on, Matt, let’s just go inside.”

“Are you kidding me?” he says.

“Er, no. I’m fine. I just need to clean up a bit and I’m good to go.”

“You’re injured!”

“It’s just a tap to the head.”

“You need to get ice on that.”

“So I’ll put some ice on. Inside.” What is his problem? I don’t know why, but suddenly I can see my glorious evening slipping out of my grasp.

“We’re not going inside, Amy. You’re a wreck.”

“I’m fine.” From behind me I hear the valet opening the car door. Wait! Don’t I get a choice in this?

“Come on,” says Matt, guiding me by the elbow into the front seat. “We’ll come back another time.”

No, we won’t.
This was my one opportunity and now it’s gone. Peter would never let me walk out the door looking like this for a night on the town with my millionaire ex. No one who had any interest in holding on to their wife would. It’s like Cinderella got a black eye on the way to the ball and then wasn’t allowed inside the palace because she looked too rough.

This is not fair!

Matt takes off driving pretty fast and he shoots by the on-ramp for the 110.

“You missed the freeway,” I say.

“I’m taking you home.”

“Well, you’re going the wrong way.”

“I’m taking you to my home.”
Oh.
“It’s not far. We can get you cleaned up and have a minute to talk before I have to hand you back over.”

I consider protesting, but seeing as I’m not the one driving, I don’t think it will get me very far. Plus, it must be said, I am a little intrigued to see his fancy house. We make a left on a nondescript street and start to climb. Then we start to wind. Within about thirty seconds we’ve left the urban sprawl of an American city and have entered the south of France. I’m starting to enjoy myself yet again. The windier and narrower the road, the more my spirits lift.

“How does anyone ever get out of this rabbit warren in the morning?”

“It’s not exactly a bunch of commuters living up here.”

Welcome to the Hollywood Hills. We slow down outside a nothing-special black iron gate. He punches in a code and the gate rolls back, revealing another steep incline. I think all this incline/decline business would actually get on my nerves after a while. I suddenly wonder what Kimberly’s going to think about Matt bringing home his beaten-up ex-girlfriend. Does she even know I’m his ex-girlfriend? I never did find out about the presence, or lack, of my legendry in the Colburn household.

“What are your kids’ names again?” I ask, subtly reminding Matt that his family resides alongside him inside his fancy home.

“Jessy and Asher. The nanny will have them down by now. Kimberly’s at a retreat. We’ll have the place to ourselves.”

That sounds ominously presumptuous. And why is it that the people who least need an exotic retreat are always the ones to get them? Most people would consider Kimberly’s daily life a retreat from the real world—what on earth is it that she needs to retreat
from
?

Finally, we get to the top of the slope and I see it, Matt’s home. This is how Elizabeth Bennet must have felt the first time she laid eyes on Pemberley:
this could have been mine.
It’s huge. It’s architecturally beautiful. A mass of glass boxes piled one on top of the other. Every light in the place is on, illuminating the whole spectacle like a dollhouse on display. I’d be worried about people looking in and seeing me in my underwear, but I suppose it’s not like anyone can just walk or drive by. Considering we’re right in the middle of Los Angeles, this place feels surprisingly isolated.

“I guess you don’t care much about the size of your carbon footprint.” I hope that didn’t sound as snarky as I’m feeling. We drive up toward the garage. One of four garage doors starts to rise as we approach. It’s completely soundless.

“Actually, this place is pretty eco-friendly. All the bulbs are energy efficient, and we get most of our power from the solar panels on the roof.”

“Still, doesn’t help matters if you leave all the lights on.” I pout.

We enter the house and I try not to stare at everything. This place is a shrine to modern living at its most perfect. And it’s so neatly ordered, I can’t believe that anyone lives here. Let alone two kids. I know Matt’s watching for my reaction. I’m not going to show him even a flicker of the explosion of admiration that’s going on inside my head.

“Where’s her retreat?” If I’m looking through the window into this life, I may as well get the full picture.

“Bora Bora,” he says. “She always goes to the same place with her sister. She says she couldn’t get through the year without it.” Oh,
please
. Matt opens up a door to reveal a bathroom the size of my living room. “I’ll bring you some ice,” he says.

“Make sure it has whiskey surrounding it.”

“Got it.”

Twenty minutes later all traces of blood are removed from my face, my mouth is gravel-free, and I’ve held an ice pack to my cheekbone for long enough to satisfy Matt’s inner nurse. We’re sitting outside on one of the decks by the pool. I’m sipping on one of Matt’s posh whiskeys and I feel completely relaxed, probably for the first time since I gave birth to Billy. The trees above us are strung with rows of soft fairy lights, and Matt’s lit a collection of oversize candles at the center of the table. The surface of the pool looks like it’s covered in dozens of tiny lights floating on lily pads. Below us the nighttime hills edging the canyon roll out over the landscape. The air is soft and still and exquisitely silent. I feel like I’m queen of a kingdom. I don’t want to talk about Peter. I don’t want to talk about anything. I just want to capture every moment of this so I can close my eyes and replay it anytime I need to.

“What are you thinking about?” asks Matt after a while. I always used to be the one who asked him that. He’d usually answer me with a strained “nothing.” He’s changed. A lot.

“I’m thinking about Kimberly,” I say, because I am. I’ve thought about her quite a bit since our meeting. And now, seeing her palace, everything that she has garnered for herself, I’m thinking about her some more. And wondering aloud: “Why her?”

Matt stretches himself out long on the seat. My question seems to have made him more comfortable rather than less. It’s like he’s been waiting for me to ask it ever since I met her. The mellow lighting, the whiskey on an empty stomach, the shared loveseat, the bang to the head, the new turn in conversation—we’re on dangerous ground here. Regardless, we press on.

“She’s nice,” he says.

“That’s it?”

“You were never that nice.”

“With me you sacrifice a percentage of nice in exchange for smart.”