by Thérèse
“In what ways?” India asked quietly. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve been doing a hell of a lot of thinking and looking back on how it all went wrong. At first I was blaming Stan for absolutely everything, but then I realized that I’ve been so wrapped up in the kids. Well, frankly India… I think I may have gotten a bit boring. I was bored rigid myself and going quietly mad. That can’t have made me a bundle of laughs to be around.”
She started expertly chopping red onion on a marble slab. “I can’t say it’s an excuse for what he did, but I can see that maybe he felt excluded. I’ve been very much in charge, like the house and the kids was my job.”
“But it is your job,” said India, desperately trying to understand and wondering if she would ever get the stench of fish off her fingers again.
“Sorry, I’ve only just started to work this out myself, so I’m not making sense,” Lizzie said, wiping the corner of her eye with a paper towel. “What I mean is, I’m not the kind of woman who can be completely fulfilled just running a house and kids with some projects on the side. I need more. I need my career back.”
“I can sort of see what you mean, but I don’t think you could ever be boring,” India replied, thoughtfully. “Are you and Stan trying to work things out then?”
Lizzie paused for a moment. “I was certain it was over, but listening to some of those women talk in your sessions has made me look at life differently. I’m giving myself permission to imagine that we may be able to resolve some of our issues. Stan’s agreed to come to counseling with me and we’re setting up new ground rules…” Lizzie sniffed, her eyes full of tears. “It’s the onions,” she said, turning away from the countertop and blowing her nose. India watched as she ran her hands under the faucet.
“Are you okay, Lizzie?”
“The thing is, I love him, despite all this…” Lizzie faltered. “I thought after the scare with Sophie that it was just business as usual. He seemed so detached, but now I realize he just doesn’t know how to talk to me anymore and some of that might be my fault.”
She sat down on the Gubi stainless steel chair. “He’s been spending time with the kids lately and Henry is a different boy now that his dad’s actually giving him some attention. Oh, I don’t know, India. It’s all so overwhelming.”
“Well. I’ve never been married or had kids, but I do know one thing,” India offered, sitting down next to her. “I think a lot of people give up too easily. When I look at Annie and Joss I can see that it’s all about seeing it from each other’s point of view. It’s about loving enough and being able to grow together. I really do believe that. If you still love each other and can learn to trust again, then maybe you do have something that is worth hanging onto. It comes down to honesty. So many things do.”
“Yes. Well, we’ll see,” Lizzie said thoughtfully. “We’ll see.”
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“India, I’ve never been the possessive type, but I haven’t heard from you in over a week.” Sarah sounded mournful.
“Oh! Sarah, I am so so sorry! Everyone’s back, the house is full and I’m crazy busy with the workshops and getting the book proposal finished… But tell me, please, how are things?” India put down her pen and got up to stretch the muscles in her back.
“They’ve increased my hours at the hospital. I’m knackered,” Sarah groaned. “I was hoping you could bring me up to speed on life in La-la Land so I can live through you vicariously. Are you certain Adam’s friend isn’t looking for a thirty-four-year-old who’s not scared of vomit and is prepared to become his sex toy?”
“I told you, Sarah, I am not introducing you to Max … not ever.”
“I was kind of hoping they’d lock him up so I could write him long distance and we could get married in jail… I like the idea of knowing a guy’s not going anywhere.”
“Very funny, Sarah. Seriously though, it was a bit nerve-racking. Adam was so relieved they let Max off.”
“I’m sure … only joking. So how’s Bella? How’s Cindy?”
“Great. They’ve come back with a whole new appreciation of home after all those weeks of hard beds and municipal food. I think summer camp’s a brilliant idea. I don’t know why it’s never caught on in England. The kids learn so much independence and the parents get a break.”
“So what are you up to tonight?”
“Adam’s coming over for a swim then we’re all going to an Italian restaurant called Vincenti. Sarah, I’m hopelessly besotted. It’s not just the great sex… He’s, well, he’s so intelligent and kind and funny and…” She trailed off.
“Has anyone used the L-word yet?”
“No … we’re taking it really slowly, but I did tell you about Russia; I’m sure I did.”
“Yes. Near Christmas right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I may have to gate crash that party,” Sarah said. “I’m having visions of you playing Lara in Doctor Zhivago. Though there again, happens not. I could end up with a kid called Boris.”
“That’d be bad. I agree.” India laughed.
“Okay, Indie, gotta go. I’m due in work. I was just checking in. Have a great evening. Love you.”
“Love you too,” India said, closing her phone and running outside to join Annabelle. She spent the rest of the afternoon reading in the shade and napping until Adam arrived early evening and joined Joss and the girls in the pool for a raucous game of Marco Polo. After quick showers they crammed into one car and drove off in the direction of Brentwood.
During dinner, India looked across the table at her two nieces in their ‘mini me’ hippie dresses, sitting either side of Joss, who kept making them laugh through mouthfuls of spaghetti. Annie leaned across and wiped Bella’s chin and Adam put his arm around India. A feeling of pure contentment washed over her. She looked at each one of them and took a mental photograph. I’m surrounded by the people I love most in the world, she thought, my little family and my wonderfully kind, sexy gorgeous man.
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India squeezed her book proposal into the padded white envelope. “Fingers crossed,” she said, smiling and handing it to the FedEx guy, who looked at her blankly. “You have a wonderful day, ma’am,” he said.
India sank down in the kitchen couch and gave a deep sigh. She’d sent the proposal off with the working title Tuning In to Your Teens. She felt it needed more work, but she had exhausted the process.
Now what? she thought, recalling yesterday’s call with the immigration lawyer, a friend of Lizzie’s who’d charged her an inordinate amount of money for ten minutes of his time. At that rate she’d be working just to pay his fees.
“I take it you are a nonresident visiting alien,” he’d said.
“An alien?”
“I’m assuming you are an alien who has not passed the green card test,” he continued.
What was this? Avatar? she thought, outraged. What else was he assuming? What was a green card and how could she have failed a test she hadn’t taken? It was all horribly offensive and confusing.
She would need a visa, and would be required to file taxes. Then apparently there were different rules if you were a visiting “consultant” or an “international writer.” I have to make this work, she thought. I can’t face the idea of going back to London. I belong in LA even if they think I’m an alien.
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“I fucking HATE you. You’ve RUINED my life,” screamed Trules.
Trules and Mimi were standing at the far side of the studio in front of the rest of the group, who were sitting cross-legged on mats on the floor.
“Tell me, Trules, are you playing the mother or the daughter here?” India asked, then waited a few seconds for a couple of women who were convulsed in the corner to stop laughing. “What we are trying to do … is to remember how it feels to be physically out of control. We learn to deal with our hormones better as we get older.”
Trules and Mimi exchanged looks.
“Okay, you remember I said ‘better,’” India said. “What I’m getting at is that our hormones get into a relatively, and I stress relatively, more stable rhythm eventually. But a teen’s raging hormones are chronically unpredictable and put together with their emotional immaturity you have a time bomb that can go off without warning at any point, as you all well know.”
“That’s for sure,” interjected Amber, who today was sporting pink and green hair extensions.
“So I want you to find another partner now, decide which one of you is playing the teenager, and when I say stop, describe exactly how you’re feeling and, most important, tell your ‘parent’ what they could do to make you feel better. Do this, then I’ll let you swap around so you each get a turn.”
India watched in amazement as they all went into character.
There’s something in the gene pool of Americans. They’re just natural performers, she thought.
Stan’s ex-wife Joan had joined her Wednesday classes. India was happy that she and Lizzie were getting on okay. Lizzie seemed to be making strained efforts to communicate, and India had deliberately paired them this morning.
Summer was a brilliant actress. India watched as she mimicked her daughter’s outbursts and flung the contents of her purse across the room, shrieking and pulling at her hair with tears streaming down her face. It was getting a bit too realistic for India’s taste; it was almost as if she were channeling. Maybe she is clairvoyant after all, India thought. Didn’t Annie tell me that at her card reading in Malibu she told her to go see a doctor?
“Great job. Great job,” India said, waiting for them to catch their breath.
“Is anyone in any doubt now just how exhausted these kids must be? So … if you remember the ‘terrible twos,’ you’ll realize that this is simply a version of the same thing. It’s a temper tantrum when they can’t have what they want instantly.”
She gave two sharp hand claps.
“Okay. Now change partners. Get with someone else and tell her how you felt in the middle of your rant. Ask your partner to describe what it was like being yelled at.”
She paused to let them move around the room, then gave the signal to begin.
To close, India invited them to lie down, stretch out on mats, and enjoy Tchaikovsky’s Valse-scherzo, opus 34. Although her trip with Adam was months away, India had been immersing herself in things Russian. When the piece ended she quickly ejected the Rimsky-Korsakov CD, which she sensed would do nothing to calm Summer, who was lying with her arms outstretched and appeared to be jabbering in tongues.
“Okay, people. Thank you. You’ve all worked very hard today.” “Have a lovely week and remember … a teenager is just a friend you haven’t met!”
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“Shit. What time is it?” India grunted, dragging herself out of bed, tripping over a shoe and whacking her head on the night-stand. “Shit … six thirty,” she muttered, hurling the offending footwear across the room.
India now did the school run three mornings a week. This involved getting the girls up and out in time to be on campus by eight o’clock; a tactical operation only marginally less complicated than the Apollo 11 moon landing. Going from the house to the car was about as easy as shoveling cement. Somebody always forgot something, lost something, needed something, or had a crisis over what to wear. (Often, that was India.)
India had observed that, although there was no school uniform for the kids, there did seem to be one for the parents. As dropping off also involved getting out of the car to help unload all the bags, musical instruments, and general sports paraphernalia, she felt it was important to have “the look,” especially now that she was something of a celebrity herself and knew so many of the mothers.
She pulled on her Bottega Veneta cashmere sweatpants. “Three hundred and sixty dollars and they still do nothing for my butt.” She sighed, glancing in the full-length mirror briefly before running across to the kitchen, where the girls were finishing their breakfast and Maria had their backpacks stacked by the door. India grabbed a quick cup of coffee before steering them out of the house. Luckily today they were ready to leave.
Joining the back of the endless line at the school gates she watched one of the mothers climb down from a Mercedes SUV, her Alexander Wang sweats clinging as tightly to her backside as Saran wrap.
Years of tantric sex and liposuction must have solved the problem for her, India thought. Oh! I give up. I really do.
She dropped her nieces off and looped around Sunset, grateful for the slow-moving morning traffic. It was still a challenge for her to drive on the right side of the road.
“I thought Labor Day was supposed to mean the end of summer,” India said when she was finally back, pouring a glass of Voss and collapsing onto the kitchen couch. “The air isn’t even moving and it’s not nine o’clock yet.”
“It usually stays in the nineties right through September.” Annie said, pumping strawberries and soy milk into a blender. “Like those ‘false summers’ in England. Don’t you remember going back to school in the heat in winter uniform; those awful pleated wool dresses?”
“Yes. I do remember. It’s called an Indian summer … a late blooming,” India said. “But it’s so dry and dusty here. My hair’s clinging to my head.”
“Smoothie?” Annabelle asked, pouring the thick liquid into a tall glass.
“No thanks. I’ll get a croissant in a minute when I get some energy back. What’ve you got on today?”
“I’ve my trainer at ten.”
“In this heat? Annie, you’re insane.”
India had observed that Annabelle was tackling “not working,” with the same intensity and focus she brought to working. Power Pilates three mornings a week, ballet classes on the other two weekdays. Saturday was Tae Kwon Do, and Sunday a drive downtown to a Buddhist meditation center. Her afternoons varied, but usually included a full body massage or solving some general maintenance issue: nails, hair, waxing.
The days were short, because the girls needed to be collected at three. That left several hours during which they had dancing classes or extra tutoring for math. As India was the teacher in the family, she spent part of her evenings helping the girls with homework. And what a ridiculous amount of homework, she thought. When do these kids get to hang out?
She discovered they didn’t. Everything was scheduled.
While there was no chill in the air or falling leaves, India did notice the beginning of a “social” season. Annie and Joss went out at least three times a week, sometimes to dinner with friends and often to political fundraisers. Most days Adam was on set at Universal Studios or downtown at the Institute of Modern Russian Culture looking at archives. They rarely went to Malibu now, but there was a whole new scene opening up, with swish private gallery receptions and fashionable art shows. They went to the Huntington Library gardens in Pasadena to see the Rousseau landscapes, the Hammer Museum in Westwood for a book signing, and to a Tibetan installation at LACMA. Adam always took her somewhere wonderful for dinner afterward; Mr. Chow’s monochromatic kitchen for crispy skinned Peking duck or the Little Door, India’s all-time favorite French restaurant, where they sat on rustic iron chairs in romantic candlelight sharing steamed black mussels and sipping sweet Moroccan tea
“Omygod … Adam, this is terrifying.”
Straightening up in the oversize armchair, India uncurled her legs, adjusted the cushion behind her back, and swiveled the computer screen toward him.
Gazing at her over the top of his reading glasses, Adam marked his place in a battered copy of The Brothers Karamazov.
“What is?”
“This Pro-Ana website. The girl’s emaciated and she just purged. It’s gross; gag reflexes, bingeing. I’d no idea. Look. Look at her rib cage. They actually call it a ‘lifestyle choice.’ Some lifestyle.”
“That’s pretty scary.” He shuddered. “Why are you on there, anyway?”
“I just found out Farrah’s daughter’
s down to ninety pounds.”
“Angel was talking about the exact same thing yesterday.” Adam nodded.
India squirmed and looked fixedly at the screen. Yesterday?
“She was saying her Pilates classes are full of anorexics killing themselves to break a sweat.”
Well, I hope Angel’s not getting her cardio in on you, India thought, noting down the number of a help line. “Okay. I’m done,” she said, pushing her laptop across the coffee table then coming over to snuggle up next to him on the couch.
Adam leaned forward and poured a cup of Earl Grey. “I admit it, tea tastes better in a teapot.”
“Thought you’d appreciate it; it’s an Emma Bridgewater.” India smiled, stretching out her legs across his lap and cradling her cream china mug. “So what’re you up to tomorrow? I have to leave around eight.”
“You don’t want to hear. That’s the fun bit,” he said nodding at the stack of books at his feet and picking up a schedule. “It all starts this week. No carbs, protein drinks, four hours’ training a day, and that’s not counting the boxing classes.”
“That’s intense,” India said, flicking through the schedule’s pages. “Are they sure it has to be such a strict regimen? I mean, you’re pretty ripped to begin with…”
“Thank you.” He grinned. “But I don’t look like I’ve spent my life hauling bricks up and down the Volga River yet. I don’t mind the weight training, but the diet’s brutal.”
“Well, things could be worse, I suppose. At least you only have to pretend you did it. That was poor Yegor’s real life.”
“True and that wasn’t the worst of it … homeless in London isn’t much fun either.”
“That must be awful; home’s so important. I love your apartment. Actually, in a way it’s a bit like my flat in London. I’ve a ton of books, too, and a baby grand piano. I got to keep our mother’s things, and I’m a hoarder. I love flea markets.”