They paused in the shade under the misters that the business district blasted from the concrete awnings in summer; the fine drizzle they produced made them feel like wilting vegetables in the grocery produce section. Patrick eyed a gaggle of tourists puttering by in an ill-fitting pastiche of pastels. A splotch of Grant’s whipped cream sloshed over the side of his cup when he wasn’t paying attention and landed with a splat on the ground. He handed his nephew a napkin.
“What are these thtars?”
Patrick glanced down at the Palm Springs Walk of Stars. “With the people’s names?” The stars honored celebrities with a connection to the city, whether they were residents or frequent visitors. People from Mary Pickford to Clark Gable, Elvis to Sinatra. Even presidents, Eisenhower and Ford. “Those are famous people who lived here.” Or that was the idea, originally, a sister walk to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Lately, they seemed to give a star to anyone, news anchors and philanthropists, or just anyone with money to buy one.
“Can we see your star?” Maisie asked.
Patrick paused. “I don’t have one.”
“But I thought you were famous.”
“I am.” It was a minor point of contention. A bony whippet trotting by looked up at Patrick as if to say, Can you believe it? The dog wore little booties to protect his paws from the hot pavement and Patrick looked back, Can you believe those? and the whippet, in fact, could not. “But in order to get one, I’d have to get involved in the community, and you know me. I don’t like getting involved.”
Clara scoffed, like that was the understatement of the century.
“That’s not fair, you should!” Maisie spun around in front of a gift shop selling vintage-looking (but decidedly modernly mass-produced) knickknacks. “Can we look in here, GUP?”
Her outrage was, apparently, short-lived. “Go for it.” He ushered Clara into the shade until they could watch the kids through the window, then leaned in to whisper, “Whatever they find in there will be total shit, but act excited anyway.”
“You want to know some of the presents I’ve received from Darren’s kids? A tongue scraper. Those bags you use to vacuum-seal sweaters. Paprika, I think, once.” Clara wandered toward the opening of the store and fanned some of the air-conditioning her way.
“I’m glad you’re here, Clara.”
Clara cocked her head, caught off guard.
“This is good. The kids need a motherly presence.”
Clara agreed. This was the easiest they’d been on each other all day and it felt agreeable. “It takes a village.”
“With a thriving gayborhood,” Patrick agreed.
“I’m not sure this ice cream is good for my tummy.”
Patrick groaned, upsetting their fragile peace.
“What now?” Clara had risen early, due in part to the time difference, perhaps more from the sun that streamed aggressively through the guest room windows. She was surprised at how long Patrick and the kids slept; she wondered if that was due to their being up far too late for the party or if this was evidence of a new, bohemian schedule. Up all night, down all day. And he was going to further criticize her?
“If I could genocide one group of people it would be adults who say tummy.”
“What should I say, then? What does it say in Patrick’s Guide to Being Perfect?”
“Stomach. What’s wrong with ‘stomach’? I’m not seeking perfection, I’m just wanting to have a grown-up conversation with another adult.”
Clara shook her head. No, nothing’s wrong with stomach? Or no, I’m not doing that? Even she didn’t seem sure. “Welcome to being a parent.”
Patrick walked to the corner and tossed the last of his milkshake in the trash. “Look over there.” He pointed across the street on his way back. “New Palm Springs. The Rowan, one of our more recent hotels. H&M. Kiehl’s. One of those Starbucks that serves wine.”
Clara followed his arm to see a beautiful new hotel at the base of the mountains and the pristine facades of fresh construction along the main drag. Even the palm trees looked fresh, upright, a vibrant green, perfectly trimmed. The sidewalk on which they stood was comparatively trapped in time, connecting storefronts that mimicked the look of a small-town Main Street from decades ago.
“This side of the street? Old Palm Springs. I like this side, but I’m afraid it won’t be here for long. If it were actually Christmas, we would camp out here for the annual Christmas parade. Local marching bands. The fire department. Floats with drag queens. You’d like it.”
“Is it this hot at Christmas?”
“No. It’s downright cold. Highs in the sixties.”
Clara scoffed again; on what planet was sixty downright cold? Still, that did sound pleasant—even with wise men in drag.
“You know who’s been on my mind a lot lately?” Patrick’s hand was wet from the condensation on his cup he’d tossed, so he wiped it on his shorts.
“God, you’re chatty.”
“Exhaustion. Coupled with sugar.”
Clara used her free hand to pull on her blouse and fan some air between the silk and her skin. “No, who?”
“Mom.”
“Oh,” Clara said. She swiped her milkshake cup in a smooth arc across her forehead, then looked like she wanted to throw it at an older, lumbering man wearing a lock her up tee. “Why?”
“I have a new appreciation, I guess. It’s a lot of work.”
“You should have her come out,” Clara suggested.
“No.” Patrick turned his face upward toward the misters; the water evaporated as quickly as it hit his skin.
“No?”
Patrick closed his eyes. “If they can’t have their mother, I don’t get mine. Sort of a bargain I made.” He stood on his toes and waited until he could feel water bead on his face like dew. “What prompted you to come?”
Clara pretended not to hear. She tucked her napkin into her blouse to wipe under her armpits as she looked into the store after the kids. “I don’t know how you live like this.”
It was as neat a bookend as this conversation would have.
* * *
The house was sparkling by the time they returned, and Rosa had even made sweet coconut and pineapple tamales for their holiday dessert, her own mother’s recipe. Patrick thanked her with a handful of cash he’d withdrawn in town and instructions to go home and “spend Christmas with her family”; Clara’s eyes rolled so far back in her head Patrick feared they might come all the way around.
By late afternoon Clara had made an about-face on celebrating, but she insisted if they were going to celebrate Christmas, they should do it right. There was no wrapping paper in the house, so they made do with pages they tore from old magazines for the smaller gifts, then cut up several paper shopping bags he had from the Saks outlet in Cabazon for the larger ones. The kids had to use kitchen scissors, but for some unknown reason their uncle had plenty of tape. He let Maisie and Grant draw snowmen with markers they picked up in town and Grant even attempted reindeer, although they looked more like some twisted lab creation—otters on stilts, with horns; Patrick looked forward to putting them out of their misery in the act of zealously opening a gift.
Clara argued for eating their turkey dinners in the formal dining area, a corner of the house Patrick was certain had never been used, and she set his table to look surprisingly festive. The candles he recognized, he’d burned them exactly once during a massage, but the rest of the table setting was a bit of a mystery.
“Where did you get those?” Patrick asked, pointing at both the cloth place mats and decorative runner. It was almost accusatory. Had she brought them with her in some attempt to assert parenting will? Children should eat off of proper place settings, or not eat at all?
“I found them in a drawer under all those shelves.”
“Those shelves?” Patrick pointed at the shelving unit he
had constructed on the far wall in the living room.
“In the drawers. Under that funny paperweight.”
“MY GOLDEN GLOBE?”
“Whatever you call it.”
“Huh.” Perhaps Rosa smuggled them into the house in one of her early attempts to civilize him. Or maybe he’d moved them from a previous house, they could have even been Sara’s or Joe’s.
Clara taught Maisie about setting a table, including four different ways to fold napkins (in addition to rectangular and triangular, there was something called a cone fold, and a presentation with diagonal pockets in which to tuck a small flower or name card), and Maisie seemed to relish in learning. As much as she eschewed girls’ swimsuits, she seemed to have no problem indulging in tasks ripped from a housekeeping primer back when marriage for women was a career. An enigma, that one, Patrick thought.
When they were seated, Clara asked if they should say grace.
“No,” Patrick said, quickly squashing the idea.
“We can at least say something we’re thankful for.”
Patrick had plated their take-out turkey dinners, including mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce—the works. He cut his own turkey in small bites for Marlene and placed it in her bowl with a dollop of potatoes, then steamed himself an extra serving of vegetables. They were all more than ready to eat. “It’s not Thanksgiving.”
“It’s not Christmas either. It’s not anything!” Clara grabbed on to the table with both hands to calm herself. “Something we’re happy for, then. Before we eat this food.”
Patrick slammed his fists on the table and the silverware jumped. “Dammit, Clara.”
“What? I didn’t say before we put this food in our tummies!”
“It’s not . . .” Patrick reached for the salt and pepper. He ground pepper over his food like he was a server waiting for someone, anyone, to say Stop. “They just lost their mother. You and I lost a sister-in-law. I lost a friend. We’ve been getting comfortable in our unhappiness, with the fact that life is often unpleasant, and we don’t need to pretend otherwise tonight.”
Clara removed the napkin from her lap and set it forcefully on the table like she was about to get up. She hovered for a moment a few inches above her chair before deciding, for the sake of the children, to sit back down. “Well, the food looks delicious. We can be grateful for that.”
Patrick softened. “Amen.” He placed his hand on Clara’s forearm, an acknowledgment that he was the one on edge.
“Are dogs supposed to eat turkey?” Maisie asked, peering down at Marlene. If this was of genuine concern or if she sensed the need to change the room’s tone, Patrick wasn’t sure. But he could have kissed her for dialing the temperature down.
“Are people supposed to eat turkey? That’s the question.”
“YETH!” Grant bellowed with a mouth full of potato mush.
“There are certain people foods that are bad for dogs, I think onions for one, and raisins and chocolate. But for the most part, table food is fine. Turkey is fine. But no drumsticks. She could choke on the bones. We can check the list tomorrow if you like.”
“Do you think maybe we should check now?”
“No.”
“Patrick,” Clara scolded.
“I think we should eat our food while it’s hot.” He took a bite of his cauliflower.
Clara cleared her throat to get her brother’s attention.
Patrick looked at her, annoyed. “Are you choking on a turkey bone?”
“Maisie is asking you if you’re sure because she’s concerned about potential harm to someone she’s become attached to.” Clara gestured toward the dog by nodding her head several times to the left.
Patrick’s face grew hot, embarrassed that it was Clara who clocked this after the outburst he’d just had. They were actually not a bad team; it was clear why parenting was often done in pairs. “Turkey is definitely fine. Let me tell you a story. When I first moved to Los Angeles I was working as an assistant to this producer guy. Real asshole.”
“PATRICK.”
“It’s fine,” Maisie said, twirling her fork in her stuffing. “We’re used to it.”
“I wanted to quit every day, but, I don’t know—I guess I thought he could help me get auditions or something. Anyhow. He used to send me to pick up food for his dog at this gourmet dog food place. All the meals were made with people food but, you know, it was packaged especially for dogs. Low sodium, real ingredients. All that nonsense. But they had turkey. Turkey with whole wheat macaroni. Lima beans. Brussels sprouts. Something like that.”
“Gross!” Grant interjected.
“Not for the dogs! Compared to what they’re used to eating? This was not for the hoi polloi.” Patrick glanced down at Maisie. “Regular people. Anyhow, his dog loved it! A few weeks later, this guy’s wife gives birth to their first child and before you know it he’s asking me to find him a private chef to make gourmet food for the baby. At this point he’s on my sh—naughty list because he hasn’t helped me get one audition. So I’m picking up the dog food one afternoon, thinking, ‘Where on earth am I going to find a private baby food chef?’ This was, I don’t know—before smartphones. Then it dawns on me. Why not just blend up the dog food? Put it in little jars. It’s really people food anyway, and without any preservatives or sodium. So, I do it.”
“You did not.” Clara’s jaw was practically on her plate.
“I most certainly did! I drove to the Container Store, which I was already familiar with because a month prior he told me to replace every plastic container in his house with glass because of the PVCs, or the CFCs, or the CDCs, or MTVs, or whatever. So I got these little glass jars, blended up the dog food and, voilà! Instant baby food.”
“The baby ate dog food?” Maisie’s eyes were so wide, they might as well have been propped open with toothpicks and Grant spit out some of his food.
“Dog food, baby food. The kid loved it! So much so, this guy, my boss, he started bragging to all his celebrity friends about this great new baby food chef that I found him. And how they had to hire him, having no idea the whole time it was me! So I bought a couple of those, I forget what they’re called—NutriBullets, Vitamixes, whatever they had at the time—and picked up a trunkload of supplies from the pet store, several cases of glass jars, and fired up my blenders. I jacked the price, my profit margin was insane! I swear, for like six months I had every famous baby eating dog food.”
Clara had had enough, and leaned over to cut the meat on Grant’s plate.
“Did anyone ever find out?” Maisie asked.
“What? No. I started getting auditions on my own and quit that stupid job. Soon after that I booked my show. Guncle Rule number ten: Don’t trust any label you don’t know. Labels should have a good, recognizable name, like Tom Ford, whether it be his own label or his work for Gucci or Yves Saint Laurent.”
Clara added some cranberry to another bite of turkey. “You’re filling these kids’ heads with nonsense. Don’t listen to your uncle.”
“Oh, it’s not nonsense. It’s practical life advice.”
“And how many of these . . . Guncle Rules . . . have there been? Ten?” Clara looked around the table for confirmation.
“I think so. Maisie could tell you. She has them written down.”
“Well, how about Auntie Rule number one: Labels don’t mean anything.”
“For people, yes. For consumer goods, god no.” Patrick chuckled. “Unless you want to eat dog food or buy everything off the rack.”
Grant threw his fork down on his plate with a clang. “No!”
“No, what?”
“I don’t want to eat dog food.”
“Okay, well, finish your people food, then. I tipped the Postmates guy extra because it was Christmas.” Patrick winked at Clara because he knew she was dying to scream that it wasn’t. She set her silverwar
e down and took a deep breath. “Besides. ‘After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody.’” He kicked Clara under the table. “‘Even one’s own relations.’ Oscar Wilde.”
Clara was amused in spite of herself and worked hard to stifle a smile.
“Oh, look, here comes Marlene for seconds.” The dog circled to Patrick’s side of the table and sat wagging her tail. He leaned down to scratch her between the ears. “We should take her for a walk afterward. I think the pavement will finally be cool.”
“PRETHENTS!” Grant screamed.
“A walk, then presents.”
Grant slouched, defeated, but pleasant conversation resumed and everyone cleaned their plate.
* * *
Patrick let Marlene choose the route as they weaved their way through his Movie Colony neighborhood; she led them dutifully around the cul-de-sac with the old Tony Curtis estate. There were other Hollywood-star homes in a several block radius—Cary Grant, Gloria Swanson, even Frank Sinatra camped out in the neighborhood for a time when his Twin Palms home became a notorious party house—but Patrick forgot whose was whose, and many homes were hidden from view by high walls and ficus. The streets were wide and empty; they walked straight down the middle of the road and the air was eerily still. Clara stayed behind to do the dishes.
“Is Aunt Clara mad at you?” Maisie asked.
“Who, me? Noooooo.”
“Is she mad at uth?”
Patrick stopped and put his hand on Grant’s head, leaned against him as he lifted one leg off the ground to adjust his Prada slide. “Absolutely not. She loves you guys. Your aunt Clara and I . . . Well, she’s my sister, your dad’s sister. There’s a lot to unpack there. You know how you guys are brother and sister? Sometimes you annoy one another, but you’re not mad at each other. Frustrated, maybe. But not mad.”
“I’m mad,” Grant said.
“Then stomp your feet.”
Grant stomped and growled and was instantly agreeable again. Marlene swerved back and forth as they turned onto the main road, hot on the scent of something. It looked like she was navigating an obstacle course set up with invisible traffic cones.
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