Santa Monica

by Cassidy Lucas

  “I had a terrible night sleep, honey. I’m going to stay in bed so I can be fresh to take you for boba tea later.”

  “Fresh?” Sloane asked skeptically.

  “Mmmph,” was all Mel could manage.

  “Can I have a Pop-Tart?”

  “Um. Sure,” said Mel, blinking in the bright morning light.

  “Yesssss.”

  “Have a great day, Sloanie.” It took every ounce of Mel’s effort to make the sentence sound remotely normal.

  “As if,” said Sloane, and took off for the kitchen.

  Mel curled onto her other side and pulled the comforter over her head, hating herself for being a terrible mother.

  But, she reminded herself, it was only because she had a terrible husband. She commanded herself to get up—get up!—and march into the bathroom, and have it out with Adam, but found she could barely move. Barely breathe.

  She’d have to wait until later to confront him, when her head was clear.

  She pretended to sleep in until Adam left to drive Sloane to her marathon Sunday soccer practice. Only after they’d gone, leaving Mel alone in her perfect house, slouched beneath the twin streams of scalding water in her spa-style shower, did she allow herself to cry: big, shuddering sobs from the pit of her belly. She grabbed the fat at her midsection as she wept and leaned her head against the cool tile of the shower wall, trapped in the wobbly walls of her flesh. Hating her body, hating Adam, and wondering how she would possibly make it through the rest of her life, now that she knew the truth of it.

  Mel had always believed Adam was too self-righteous to cheat on her. A comforting side effect of his moralistic attitude, a by-product of his perfectionism.

  It was a joke she’d used often in their past twenty years of marriage. Too bad you’d never let yourself cheat on me, haha. The joke had gathered extra mileage in Santa Monica where, it seemed to Mel, the majority of couples they met were mid-divorce—usually a result of infidelity, the soon-to-be ex-wives confided to Mel. The women referred to their wealthy, soon-to-be ex-husbands as sociopaths with a teeth-clenching vehemence that disarmed Mel. As if there might be a conscience-less con man hiding behind the gorgeous hibiscus bushes lining the sidewalks of Georgina Avenue. Or, worse, she thought, hiding in plain sight in her matrimonial bed.

  Adam’s too sanctimonious to cheat, she’d actually said to someone recently, and laughed at her own joke.

  Those beautiful, sad Santa Monica moms had warned Mel and she’d waved their caution away.

  Not Adam.

  He simply wouldn’t.

  And yet, clearly, he was.

  Sunday, October 14, 2018

  6

  Regina

  REGINA PULLED A THICK MITT OVER ONE HAND AND REACHED INTO THE oven where three pans steamed with golden rounds of hot cake. She transferred them to the cooling rack and paused to admire her work: the cakes had risen perfectly, borders retracted from the sides of the pan, surfaces lightly browned and crackled. While they cooled, she’d make the raspberry filling and coconut buttercream frosting that would complete her husband Gordon’s birthday cake, which she planned to serve after lunch, when the girls had returned from their Saturday night sleepover. Later, the four of them would head down to the beach, with a soccer ball for the girls and a thermos of mimosas for Gordon and her. It would be a happy, mellow family Sunday, she hoped, the perfect low-key way to celebrate her husband’s forty-sixth birthday.

  If only Regina felt happy and mellow. She’d bolted awake at three A.M. with a speeding heart and clenched jaw. She’d tried all her standard strategies for getting back to sleep—deep breathing, reading on her Kindle, attempting to recall names of kids she’d known in elementary school, even meditating.

  No matter how hard Regina tried to distract herself, her mind returned to money, numbers flashing in her mind like mean little stars, a pulsing clutter of impossible dollar amounts that she needed to pay now. The mortgage. The IRS bill. Their health insurance, supplied by Gordon’s membership in the Writers Guild, had technically been due sixteen days ago, though Regina had learned you could push it to thirty before they canceled the policy. For the past few months, she’d been paying on the thirtieth day.

  That was how they lived now: by the skin of their teeth. (In Kaden and Mia’s case, extremely straight teeth for which the Wolfes still owed their orthodontist three grand.)

  Plus, there was Mia’s tuition. Gordon’s car loan. Kaden’s fucking musical theater class. Amex and Mastercard and Discover. The list went on and on. Every item due or overdue.

  She’d reminded herself that relief was on the way. The V2Y! party had been a success. Everyone—with the exception of Mel, who’d never stopped sulking—had had a blast and left exhausted, exhilarated, and thoroughly charmed by Zack. Regina had only received two Venmo payments to secure a spot in Zack’s private training program: one from Lindsey Leyner, naturally, and the other from Sukie Reinhardt, who likely was buying time with Zack for the sole purpose of making her husband, an attorney to the stars who’d had multiple affairs with multiple actresses, jealous. But whatever.

  Two deposits from the twenty participants was less than Regina had anticipated, but a half-dozen more women had promised to sign up, just as soon as they’d talked to their husbands / checked their kids’ schedules / put their gym memberships on hold / etcetera. Regina planned to call and remind each and every one of them tomorrow. Which also happened to be the day she’d instructed Zack to make their monthly transfer from the Color Theory account into the Big Rad Wolfe account.

  Money is coming, she’d told herself at three A.M., curling and uncurling her body beneath the soft comforter, listening to Gordon’s long, slow breaths—the sound of someone deep in a heavy, peaceful sleep.

  She tried not to hate him. It wasn’t his fault, she reminded herself. She was the one who’d encouraged him to forgo the steady income from the TV writing work he’d done since grad school (and had grown to hate), and instead devote himself to his long-sidelined passion project: a screenplay about the War of 1812. The topic sounded painfully boring to Regina, but Gordon’s agent smelled a hit, declaring the idea Hamilton meets Band of Brothers, and had been encouraging Gordon to write the script for years.

  And so, with Regina’s blessing, he’d finally begun.

  That was twenty months ago. Back then, Regina’s Big Rad Wolfe had been netting over $50K a month, thanks to several new clients, including Color Theory, who’d put her on a six-month retainer to work on rebranding. Nearly ten grand a month to fiddle with their stale taglines, forgettable logo, and unfashionable merchandise. Plus, she had the blockchain start-up, the e-scooter company, the pet DNA analyzer . . . Big Rad Wolfe’s client list went on and on.

  Business had been booming. Regina had felt invincible.

  Meanwhile, Gordon was miserable spending fourteen hours a day in the writers’ room, slogging through yet another season of his spy show, The Clue, when suddenly, Regina had realized that she had the power to make him happy.

  “You know what?” she’d said to Gordon, after another exhilarating workday. “Don’t bother getting staffed next season. Why don’t you finally take some time to write Eighteen Twelve? And sell it.”

  He’d looked up from his screen, blinking slowly behind his glasses.

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Can we afford it?”

  “Absolutely.” The word felt so good leaving her throat.

  At the time—in that moment—it had been true.

  Regina had always been the one to handle the family finances. As far as Gordon knew, they were simple: mortgage and car and credit card payments on auto-pay every month, the total amount coming well under budget. They made more than they spent, much more. Every few months, he eyeballed their personal accounts, and what he saw upheld this notion.

  Gordon never asked to look at the Big Rad Wolfe account. Nor did he look at the corporate tax filings, or the business Amex.

&
nbsp; He simply trusted Regina. If she said her business was raking it in, and that they could afford for him to go income-less for a while, he accepted her statement as truth.

  A year and a half ago, Regina had believed her own words. The money had certainly been there, in the form of multiple clients on healthy retainers. Sure, they were short-term contracts—usually a maximum of six months—but she’d just assumed the work would keep coming. That was how business worked, wasn’t it? You got the momentum rolling, won the business, did great work, and won even more business.

  That had not been the case. She’d gotten the momentum and the business, yes, but her clients were not always satisfied. The mistakes were fairly small, certainly not egregious, normal for a fledgling agency like Regina’s: concepts that mirrored a competitor’s too closely, images that tanked in focus groups, language that was inadvertently insensitive. (Regina cringed to think of the Facebook ad they’d run for an herbal sleep-aid company—Wake Feeling Woke!—that had ignited a storm of indignant criticism all over social media.)

  Regina and her team had simply been moving too fast. The thrill of growth had trumped attention to detail.

  She got some negative client feedback. The blockchain company demanded she refund 25 percent of her fees.

  There had been the glitch with her corporate tax filing.

  Then the electric scooter company had gone bankrupt and stopped paying their retainer.

  And then she’d gotten some negative feedback on social media, and on Built in LA, an influential business website.

  And then. And then.

  Individually, each issue could be explained. If she’d clued Gordon in early, he might have understood. But she hadn’t. She kept thinking she’d fix it. Turn it around. That the problems were just stumbles, typical small-business growing pains.

  Instead, Big Rad Wolfe plunged into a freefall. Regina had never considered failure a possibility; she was a person who played to win. And now, here she was—failing her family, failing herself. Existing in a different universe from her other Santa Monica friends, whose money worries involved the value of their investment properties and strategies for legally concealing their assets.

  She’d made sure Gordon remained clueless about their situation.

  Regina had finally drifted off at five A.M., and this was when Zack had joined her in bed.

  Her usual recurrent dream, and, it seemed, the only distraction these days powerful enough to shift her mind away from worrying.

  When he arrived, she could not see him in the darkness, but recognized the particular weight of him as he lowered on top of her. Recognized the smooth, waxed skin of his muscular legs, the feel of his weight-lifting calluses running up and down her sides beneath her T-shirt. His lips at her ear, nipping her lobes, murmuring something she could not discern, his breath minty and warm.

  Zack flipped her over, flattening her nose into the pillow, and circled her waist, just below the ribs. He lifted her hips and worked her underwear off, then moved his palms in slow circles over her ass, reached forward to cup her breasts, gently tweaking her nipples in the way she forbade Gordon; ever since breastfeeding the girls, she’d hated having her nipples touched.

  But in her dreams, Regina wanted Zack to touch every part of her, to smother her with his body until she could hardly move or breathe, and then, in a single motion, when he could no longer help himself—

  She jerked awake to the sound of her own voice, a cry half-stuck in her throat, and one hand jammed between her legs, fingers burrowed against the fabric of her underwear, which was still in place. Zack had left too soon. Her body felt hot and tight, her scalp damp with sweat. To wake without him felt cruel, almost tragic. Weak dawn light glowed behind the bedroom curtains.

  Goddammit, she’d thought, her body humming with frustration—why had she woken already—why?

  Beside her, Gordon shifted and sighed. She turned in bed to face him and suddenly animal desire took hold, a leftover force of her dream, and she found herself pushing her husband roughly from his side onto his back and rolling on top of him, where she worked her body against his to rouse him.

  What? he’d muttered, in sleepy confusion. Reg? What time is it? Give me just a . . . I’m sorry I’m just not quite awa—

  She’d come before he’d even gotten hard. He’d sighed and rolled over, falling instantly back to sleep. He probably wouldn’t even remember it had happened.

  Now, hours later in her quiet, sun-filled kitchen, Regina pulled a carton of heavy cream from the fridge and blushed at the memory. What if Gordon did remember? Their sex life had been so dormant lately, her sudden, aggressive desire for him might have actually registered in his permanently occupied mind; these days, if he wasn’t working on his screenplay, he was thinking about it, dictating notes into his phone, scrawling in the margins of fat biographies of Andrew Jackson and James Madison. In fact, he treated Eighteen Twelve with such worshipful fixation, Regina had begun to think of the goddamn screenplay as his mistress. How long had it been since they’d done it? She ticked off the weeks in her mind as she ran scalding water over the mixing bowls and measuring cups she’d used for the cake, landing on four and a half weeks.

  Over a month! Was that normal? Didn’t men—all men, even long-married writers—want sex with their partners frequently? Wasn’t it the women, like Regina, who were supposed to be rolling their eyes in their forties, complaining that their husbands were still horndogs, whereas they had moved on to more enlightened pursuits, like Iyengar yoga or intermittent fasting?

  Once a week sounded normal to Regina. Not once a month.

  It wasn’t just the sex she missed, but the conversation, too. As recently as six months ago, they’d debriefed with wine on the couch nearly every night before curling up to watch a show. But gradually, as Regina’s business problems escalated, and Gordon’s dedication to his screenplay crossed into unhealthy obsession, they talked less and less.

  Every relationship is a dance, she’d read in some pop-psychology book. Between two active and accountable parties.

  The metaphor had stayed with her. She pictured herself break-dancing furiously, throwing flips and spinning on her head, while Gordon drifted in a slow waltz. Sometimes, when she was angriest, she fantasized about asking Gordon why he was willing to let her dance so much faster, so much harder. To utter exhaustion.

  Then she remembered he had no idea she was exhausted. Regina had become a professional hider. Gordon knew nothing of the stress she was under, or the truth of their financials. Yes, he looked the other way. But Regina had trained him to do so. Which was worse: Gordon’s willful cluelessness, or Regina’s chronic lies of omission—how she withheld the truth in order to allow her husband to remain cozily in the dark?

  Probably the latter, she thought. At the core, she was a much worse person than Gordon.

  Today, though, she was going to be better. They would celebrate Gordon’s birthday like the stable, comfortable, enviable family they used to be not long ago.

  Regina shook flaked coconut into a bowl of softened butter.

  “Do I smell my all-time-favorite cake?”

  Gordon stood at the kitchen island, holding a stack of paper, smiling and blinking at her in the room’s bright sunlight from behind smudged glasses. His hair was still mussed from last night’s sleep and his Rustic Canyon Day School T-shirt had a coffee stain.

  “Hey. I didn’t even hear you walk in. Yep, that’s the cake.” Stable, normal, she reminded herself, moving around the island to slip her arms around him. “Happy birthday.”

  “Aw, thanks, hon. You’re the best.” Gordon pulled her tight against him. His body felt soft and burly. So different from Zack’s. “What did I do to get a wife who bakes my favorite cake and tries to take advantage of me while I’m sleeping?” He nuzzled her neck. Apparently, he was in a good mood, which meant, Regina knew, that he’d had a good morning of writing.

  “Just born lucky, I guess.”

  “Seriously,” Gordon murm
ured in her ear. “What was going on with you this morning? You were so hot. Sorry I couldn’t keep up.”

  “Um, I’m not sure. I just woke up, and—” Regina trailed off.

  “Oh, hey!” Gordon released his grip and stepped back, grinning at her. “I almost forgot. I have a surprise.”

  “The suspense is killing me,” she said, grateful for a topic change.

  He produced an envelope from the back pocket of his jeans.

  “It’s my birthday present. To all of us. It’s no fun if I don’t get to celebrate with my whole family. I know I haven’t exactly been in the mix lately because of the screenplay. I miss you guys. So . . . I got us this.” He handed the envelope to Regina. “Open it. Happy birthday to us.”

  Inside the envelope was a folded piece of paper. She opened it slowly, feeling Gordon’s anticipatory gaze. Her heart rate shifted gears.

  It was a printed certificate. For an all-inclusive, seven-day “luxury cruise” to the Mexican Riviera in March.

  “A cruise?” Regina blinked at him.

  “A cruise!” said Gordon happily. “To Cabo! For the four of us. Over spring break. We haven’t been to Mexico in ages. I know it’s a splurge, but it’s been so long since we’ve done anything really special like that together. And I picked spring break because I’ll probably be done with Eighteen by then, and we can really relax.”

  Regina stared at the paper, unable to speak, trying to will away hot tears of disbelief.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Gordon. “Cruises are cheesy. Cruises are for fat midwesterners who want to lie in chaise lounges and stuff themselves at the buffet. Normally I agree with you. But not this cruise, Reg. It’s high-end with gorgeous cabins and a whole wellness program and tons of healthy food options.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the kitchen floor. “You won’t even have to miss a workout.”