The Last Beach Bungalow (10 page)

Jackie threw her arms around me. “Thanks, Mom!” she said.

“I expect to meet this boy before you go on a date with him,” Rick said from the couch. “And church counts.”

Jackie disappeared into her room, sealed off from us by her iPod earplugs. We’d given her the iPod last Christmas. It was the only thing she’d asked for—that, and the requisite dog that she had never received. Over the years, her dog requests had become more specific:
a spaniel poodle mix; a rescue dog named Sam who’ll be ready at the Redondo shelter in four weeks; a five-year-old pug named Peanut that the Krolls’ friends found without tags in the Village and who they say they’re going to turn in if no one takes him this week.
This year, she hadn’t even bothered with a list. She was getting a new room in a new house that would be the house she left behind when she went away to college and would be the house she came back to when she came home. She was getting the chance to live in a modern vision her dad had created for her mom when it was unclear whether or not her mom was even going to live.

I sat on the couch next to Rick. We were planning on leaving that couch on the curb when we moved into the new house. It was Santa Fe plaid. It had been the first big piece of furniture we’d bought together, with money my parents gave us for our wedding. It had been on sale for $350 (a floor sample) and we were thrilled at our great good fortune when we found it. We hauled it home in Rick’s pickup truck and muscled it through the door of our little duplex—the duplex we traded for a nine-hundred-square-foot starter home in North Redondo Beach, which we then traded for the ranch house on Vista del Mar, which we had gutted nine months ago to build a three-story modern mansion with sweeping views of the sea because Rick had built dozens of beautiful custom homes in this town, and it was our turn, now, to show the world through the quality of his craftsmanship and the creativity of our design that we had made it.

“I saw a house today.” I could feel my heart beating against my collarbone. It sounded like a drum.

“A house?”

“An old beach bungalow down on Pepper Tree Lane. This old lady is selling it in a contest and I went to the open house.”

Rick folded a towel. “You’re writing about it?”

“Yeah,” I said, the lie coming without a single hitch. “But the thing that was weird is I could picture us living there.”

“Sweetie,” he said, setting the towel down and turning to face me. He put his hands on my shoulders. “You need to stop feeling nervous about the new house. Everything’s going to come together in the end, I promise. I ordered the paint today and Ruben’s starting on doorknobs tomorrow. We’re so close to the end. We’re going to be in for Christmas. It’s going to be perfect.”

“Remember how I said the other day that I thought I’d seen a ghost?” I asked.

Rick just stared at me.

“There’s something about the house. I’m not sure I want to live there.”

“We can paint the bathroom blue if it means that much to you,” Rick said.

“The bathroom’s fine.”

“Then what is it?” Rick asked. He raised his arms as he said this and let them slap back down on his thighs. “Just tell me what you want and I can make it happen. You want me to move the whole damn bathroom? I can do anything if you just tell me what will make you happy.”

I moved a pile of just-folded jeans onto the coffee table. The football game was still going on, the dull buzz of the crowd.

“You know how they say that cancer changes you?” I said. “I’ve been wondering the whole time what that means because I don’t feel any different than I did before. I actually feel worse, to tell you the truth. We lived through all that. We were so young, Rick. It was so awful. And look at us. I have a brand-new body, we have a brand-new house, but do we even like each other anymore? Are we any better off?”

“So that’s what this is about?” he asked quietly.

Tears started to roll down my cheeks. “I know it sounds stupid,” I said, “but I never stopped thinking I was going to die. I know you wanted this house to be a kind of fortress against the possibility of that, but I never stopped thinking I was going to die.”

He leaned over to me, then, and took me in his arms. I wanted to let my weight fall against his, to let myself melt into him. It felt exactly the way it had when I first met him and we couldn’t, physically, stay away from each other. I turned my shoulder toward him and could feel his chest, his thighs against mine. All I would have had to do to set our lovemaking in motion was to raise my chin. I lifted my eyes, and in the next instant, he was kissing me. I opened my mouth to welcome him—just as Jackie stepped out of her bedroom.

I pulled away.

“What’s for dinner?” she asked.

“Your mom and I are going out with Vanessa and CJ,” Rick said.

“We are?” I asked.

“Vanessa twisted my arm,” he said, clearly pleased that he allowed it to be twisted. “We’re going to the golf club.”

“What’s the occasion?” Jackie asked.

“A clean mammogram,” I said. “Five years.”

Jackie came over to where we were sitting on the couch and flung her long, lean body across our laps, and her arms around my neck. “That’s awesome, Mom,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek. She smelled like man-goes, from her shampoo. She was surprisingly heavy in my lap, and her hair—the same apricot color as mine, but longer and straighter, the hair I’d always wanted— tickled my arm where it brushed against my skin. “I’m so glad you didn’t die.”

I laughed. “I’m glad I didn’t die, too.”

She kissed me again, then Rick tickled her feet and she squealed and got up and went into the kitchen to find something to eat.

I knew exactly what I was supposed to wear if I wanted to look polished and put together—something in a fall shade to complement my reddish hair, something with a wide neckline to emphasize my strong shoulders. Having been bathed in the wisdom of women’s magazines my whole adult life, I could reel off the best ways to apply eye shadow, the best shoes to wear with a pair of pencil pants, a dozen different ways to camouflage an extra ten pounds, but the truth was that knowing how to dress was completely different from being able to do it. Most days, I wore the same pair of jeans and a T-shirt, but that was hardly going to work for a dinner at Donald Trump’s new golf course. The chairs in the restaurant were heavy brocade. The drapes that framed the ocean view were deep blue velvet.

I pulled out a pair of black pants and a red silk knit sweater I’d worn for Christmas parties for at least eight years. They were a uniform, a safe bet. The only thing that would add any pizzaz whatsoever would be accessories. Scarves, shoes, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, belts— the list of things that could bring salvation were endless. I picked up two pairs of earrings and went and knocked on Jackie’s door.

“Yeah?” she asked, ear buds still in her ears.

“Which ones, do you think?” I asked, holding up the earrings.

She pulled the ear plugs out. “I’d definitely go with the gold,” she said, in a voice that was too loud for the real world but just perfect for me.

We had an appetizer of walnut and shrimp sushi and California rolls made with crab that had been flown in from Maryland. Rick ordered warm sake, which we both love. For dinner, we had pecan-crusted salmon with baby bok choi and for dessert, there were three kinds of crème brulee. Rick ordered a bottle of champagne and raised his glass to make a toast. “To five great years,” he said. He leaned down to kiss me and presented me with a blue Tiffany box. Inside was a silver heart-shaped key ring with a key to the new house, and a small card that said, “Here’s to forever.”

“Here, here,” CJ said, and drank another sip of champagne.

I squeezed Rick’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you, sweetie,” I said. He looked at me and winked.

Vanessa produced a small white oblong box.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Just a little something,” she said.

It was a gift certificate from a spa that had recently opened in the Village. On a line at the bottom of the coupon were the words “Energy Healer: One Session.” Vanessa was a connoisseur of healing treatments. She’d had massages in red rock canyons and pedicures designed to cure every ill known to the foot. She’d had people manipulate the bones in her skull and wrap her entire body in seaweed. Some people thought that there was a pill or a prayer to heal every ill, some people turned to shopping or to drink, but Vanessa thought anything could be made better with a treatment at a spa.

“What magical powers will this bring me?” I asked.

“It will help you stay calm through the big move. I booked you an appointment for Monday.”

“Calm sounds good,” I said.

“Plus,” Vanessa said, “it will ignite your sexual energy.”

“Oh, la la!” CJ said.

I slapped his forearm.

“Ouch,” CJ said. “She could do some serious damage with that right hook.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Rick.

“No need to have any security guards with her around,” CJ went on.

“Or
Ghostbusters
,” Rick said.

“Halloween is long past, buddy,” CJ said. “You’re good with the ghosts.”

Rick drained his glass. “April thinks there’s something wrong with the house. Evil spirits, that kind of thing.”

“I didn’t say that,” I said.

“It’s just the bathroom wall color she doesn’t like,” Vanessa said.

“That’s not true, either,” I said, my voice getting higher pitched.

“She’s fantasizing about another house,” Rick said.

Something about the way my husband said the word
fantasizing
made my belly go cold. Was Rick having an affair? Is that why he had remained so cheerful through all these months when we’d barely touched each other? I scanned my mind for any suspicious comments, any unexplained late-night meetings. An image flashed through my mind of Rick in bed with another woman— a faceless woman, but with dark hair and smooth skin, and hunger in every move she made. Anger welled up in me, as if I’d caught him with his pants down.

“Rick, that’s not fair,” I growled.

“But it’s true,” he said, and then turned his face toward CJ. “She keeps talking about some house down by the beach.”

“She’s writing about that house,” Vanessa said. “It’s the house from the contest.”

I thought of what it had been like to walk through the front door of the beach bungalow, confronted suddenly with the trellis, the trees and the fireplace that was so much like my grandmother’s. I thought about how often I had wished that my mother hadn’t sold Gram’s cottage by the lake. I could swim all the way across that lake, from her dock to the dock of the boys’ camp on the other side. There were blueberries to pick on the old dirt road and thick novels on the shelf in the den, and even though it made no sense whatsoever to have a grand piano in a house in the woods, Gram had one. That house had a presence to it that, had I been older, I would have fought to keep. “I’m not writing about it,” I said. “That was a lie.”

There was silence at the table, even from CJ, whose face was flushed with drink. Even he could tell that some line had been crossed.

“You lied to me?” Vanessa said.

Rick sat back in his chair and crossed his arms in front of his body. “So you’re saying that you went to that open house because you actually want a different house?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t go looking for a different house,” I said. “It just happened.”

“This is ridiculous,” Rick spat, and turned his body, slightly, toward the thick curtains on the window beside us.

“I know you want our house to save me,” I said quietly, “to be a fortress against anything bad ever happening again, but I don’t think I believe a house can do that. I don’t think anything can do that.”

No one said anything. CJ just kept staring at his glass of champagne, Vanessa was looking at Rick and Rick was looking out the window as if he were watching Tiger Woods teeing off the first green and didn’t want to miss a second of the swing.

“Who said anything about being saved?” Rick asked.

“You didn’t have to say it,” I said.

“Guys,” Vanessa said. “Time out. This is supposed to be a party. Come on. Let’s finish our champagne.”

We sipped our drinks, but the evening was clearly over.

When we got home, I slipped out of my clothes, got into bed, turned away from Rick and quickly closed my eyes as if I couldn’t possibly stay awake another minute.

S
UNDAY

When I woke up, Rick was gone from the bed. He was showered and dressed and sitting at the kitchen counter reading the sports page.

“Do you want some eggs?” I asked.

“I already ate,” he said.

I nodded and poked my head into Jackie’s room. She was leaning close to the mirrored closet doors and brushing mascara onto her eyelashes. “Do you want some eggs?”

“Already ate,” she said. She glanced at my flannel pajamas. “Max will be here soon,” she said.

It seemed too much trouble to make eggs just for myself. I put two slices of toast in the toaster and heated water for tea. I stood at the sink with my back to Rick and ate so fast it seemed like I wasn’t even chewing.

“Mom?” Jackie said from her doorway. She was staring at my wild hair and my pajamas, “It’s eight forty-five.”

I tossed my crusts in the garbage, dashed to the shower, threw on a black skirt and a white blouse, dried my hair and came out just as Max knocked on the door.

Jackie let him in and introduced us. He held out his hand to shake mine, and I felt instantly nervous, which seemed utterly unfair. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one whose hands were sweaty?

“Your church sounds interesting,” Rick said. “Jackie told us a little about it.”

Max nodded. “It’s pretty cool.”

“Have you been going there long?”

“Pretty much all my life,” he said, “but I don’t go that often anymore because of swimming.”