Ben raised his hands in a show of innocence. “Wouldn’t take a swing without you. Just headed across the way. Need anything?” Sadie didn’t seem the helpless widow sort, but with Gary gone—last Founder’s Day, his heart, no warning, there but for the grace of fruits and veggies—Ben did his best to be solicitous. He’d always been an early riser and had fallen into the habit of walking a mile or so each morning with the Birnams. The morning after Gary’s funeral he’d shown up as usual because he reckoned Sadie could use the company.
Sadie shook her head. “I stocked up last week. My granddaughter’s out for a visit. We’ve just come from the airport. Lily, this is Ben Thales. Best neighbor money can buy.” There was weight and glint to that smile, an invitation. Or maybe not. He had been handy with jumper cables a month back. He was useless at reading these things. Decades since he’d had to.
“Hi.” The girl in the passenger seat raised a hand. Dozens of thin bracelets clattered. Sadie in her prime, perhaps: eyes blue and enormous when she raised her sunglasses, skin clear and smooth, long dark hair, long fine neck, cleavage he should not be looking at. She smiled, and—proof he really, really should not be looking—her teeth were heavy with orthodontia.
“Good to meet you, Lily.” Tara should’ve been Lily’s kind of sixteen. The thought hurt.
“Ben used to be a veterinarian,” Sadie said. “Lily wants to be one, too.” Again, that tone he couldn’t quite get a read on. Marvin Baum, one of his Tuesday golf buddies, liked to remind Ben: Men die younger; it’s a question of odds. But beat those odds and the odds are in your favor, and you know I’m not talking actuarially. Marvin was right. There were six houses on Daylily Crescent: three couples, two widows, and his solitary self.
“I used to want to be a vet,” Lily said. “I’m going to do something in fashion now.” She gave her grandmother a quick, conciliatory smile. “I still want lots of pets though.” There were boys out there, and plenty of them, who were going to wind up with ill-advised lily tattoos thanks to this girl. Her sunglasses slotted back into place, turning the girl inscrutable.
Sadie let the car idle as Ben drove off, and he wondered if she was watching him. He wondered if Veronica had started seeing people, if she’d tell him if she had. He passed the sixth hole and then the fifth, its water hazard glinting like a disco-ball in the sun. He trundled past Main Street, its far end dominated by the achingly pristine Hacienda Central. He crossed a series of artificial creeks, skirted the lap pool and the gym, then turned through a gate and onto the brown and shriveled expanse of nothing that up until the housing freefall had been slated to be The Commons’ Phase Four. Then he floored it. Call him a big dumb lug, but you were never too old for a lead-foot love affair with the accelerator. He passed hundreds of surveyors’ stakes marking out lots that were no longer for sale. He passed the remains of an adolescent bonfire and a midden of broken bottles and burger wrappers. The path turned sharply and dipped down, tunneling toward the shopping center, and Ben held his breath like a child until he came out on the other side.
He parked on the lot’s outer margin, because it never hurt to build a bit more exercise into your day (dogs helped on that front, but Ronnie had kept Musetta). Ben walked each morning and always caddied for himself. He was sixty-eight and trim, firmer in his chest and shoulders than his own son, whose first deskbound years of legal practice were taking their toll. Before the divorce, he hadn’t bought pants in decades—new pairs appeared in his closet at whatever intervals Ronnie deemed appropriate—but he’d been pleased to discover the tags were right and that a thirty-inch waistband fit him fine. Ben did the crossword every day and hadn’t written a shopping list because he didn’t need one; his mind wasn’t going anywhere, thanks. Let’s see. He wanted eggs and butter spray to cook them with. Bread. Oranges. Orange juice, too, now that he was thinking of it, the fortified kind. Chicken and that Cajun rub if they had any.
It was nice and cool in the store. Say what you like about these big-box places, but this one had a real neighborhood feel. Always someone he knew. See? Mona Rosko—Daylily Crescent’s other widow—waited in line for customer service, overdressed and holding a red file folder to her chest. Lee and Joanie Stamp waved from an endcap display of bottled salsa. Ben’s phone rang, the onscreen letters announcing V. Corbin. Though Stephen and Anjali had talked him through it step by step last Thanksgiving, he still hadn’t assigned his ex her own ringtone.
“Hello? Veronica?”
“Benji in Elderland!” Ben’s father was dead. Ben’s mother was dead. Ben’s sisters phoned on his birthday and Christmas. Veronica was the only one left who called him Benji. “How’s Camp Commons?”
“Not a cloud in the sky. Raining in Portland?”
“Buckets. That’s what I get for not running off to live in an amusement park.”
“I’ve been meaning to call you. You know there used to be a ranch here? I read the other day that back in the forties they packed off a hundred crates of dirt to Hollywood. You’ll never guess why.”
“Probably not.”
“They used it for Gone with the Wind. On the plantation sets. Actual Georgia clay didn’t look right in Technicolor.” Ronnie loved that movie. Every time she watched it she made the same guilty joke about getting herself kicked out of the feminist clubhouse.
“The red earth of Tara,” she said. They’d been back and forth on Stephen’s name until he was three days old but Tara Ruth Thales had always been Tara.
“The red earth of Tara.” Ben had seen the movie maybe three times to Veronica’s three dozen but he got it, oh man, did he ever get it: Tara the big symbolic heart of it all, Tara for which no sacrifice is too great. “You could come down and see for yourself. I’ve got room.”
“A thousand miles for a bit of dirt?”
He could’ve quoted something then, something from one of the sweeping romantic scenes. God knew he’d learned the whole film through osmosis. Ronnie would laugh. It would be sweet to make Ronnie laugh, but the silence after—these things were hard enough to read in person. “Not just that. There’s tennis and golf and a lake and a brand-new spa.”
“Sounds nice.”
“You’d like it.” He’d met Ronnie their sophomore year at Bucknell. If someone had told that rangy kid this moment was in his future, divorce from Veronica would’ve been harder to fathom than the existence of the cell phones they were speaking on. “I think you’d like it a lot.”
“You sound funny.”
“I’m out shopping. It’s too damn cold in here.” Ben didn’t say he was at Walmart. Veronica had read an expose and had opinions, capital O. Not that it mattered now, but still. Over forty years together. A bit like Pavlov saying, Oh never mind about that bell.
“I won’t keep you.”
“It’s fine. Say, do you think I should get the five-alarm spice rub or stick with the three?”
“What happened to four?”
“Doesn’t seem to be one.”
“Go with the three. You can always add pepper.” Every time they introduced him to someone new, his golf buddies insisted he tell the joke. What brings you to The Commons? Well, I’m newly divorced. And without my ex, I need the HOA to tell me what to do.
“Good call.” Silence from Veronica. They had phones now that could send photographs and articles from the New York Times. You’d think they’d invent one that could interpret those damn silences. “Look, I’ll bring you some of that dirt when I’m up next.” Ben flew back to Portland every six months or so to touch base with his old life. He slept in the guest room, on the now-sagging queen bed that had been their first furniture purchase, and timed his trips with the Chinook run so that time-with-Ronnie didn’t become too-much-time-with-Ronnie. They hadn’t had the best marriage—they’d made an absolute mess of things by the end—but that was no reason not to shoot for the best possible divorce.
“That’d be nice,” his ex said. “Listen, there’s a reason I called.”
“I figured.”
“Not that I wouldn’t just call to—”
“It’s fine, Veronica. What’s up?”
“Rand needs to reschedule. He’s got a lead—”
“A lead, really? Where? What? Should I come home—”
“Another client. No. Shit. Sorry. Ben, I didn’t mean to get you thinking—He’s heading out of town for a few weeks and I’m set smack in the middle. So I’m seeing him either tomorrow or at the end of the month. If the timing matters to you—”
“I’m sure you’ve got it under control.” Rand Danovic. They had to have paid for his summer home by now, not that he was a summer-home kind of guy. The ex-cop looked more like an ex-hippie and drank from a perpetual thermos of hay-scented tea. They’d considered another guy, innocuous and balding, the detective from Central Casting, but five minutes into the interview he’d known they’d go with Rand.
I’m not going to promise I’ll find her. You seem like nice folks and an empty promise is the last thing you need. I can say I’ll do my best and that I’m very good at what I do. I can say that, sure. But I’ll also say this. I get even a hint she’s running from something in this house instead of just running, the three of us are done.
Ronnie sighed. That sure as hell was readable over the phone. “I wanted to see if you had anything to contribute. Any questions.”
“There’s only ever the one question.”
They owned a lovely craftsman in the hills off Washington Park; they remodeled the kitchen and hung a calendar on its wall; a housekeeper and landscaper came weekly and Ronnie wrote their names in the appropriate square. E. Mancera, P. Royal. And then, R. Danovic. Their cleaner. Their gardener. The private detective they’d hired to track down their only daughter. Every December 31st, Ronnie chucked the calendar and every January 1st, Ben fished it out of the trash. He squirreled them away, calendars dating back to 1995, R. Danovic appearing every other week, then once a month, every two months, every six. The only proof Ben had that it wasn’t their fault. I get even a hint she’s running from something in this house instead of just running, the three of us are done.
“Ben,” said Veronica.
“Just—fill me in, okay? If he has any new strategies. Maybe with the Internet—”
“Of course.”
“And, you know, tell him hi. Did he ever wind up marrying that girl?”
“Mariah? Yeah, this April. We sent them a beautiful wood salad bowl.”
When she left, Tara was sixteen years old. Rand had been in their employ for nearly as long. The last time they’d met, Ben’s things had been in boxes. I hate to see you split, the PI had said. And frankly, I hate to keep taking your money.
No, said Ronnie.
No, said Ben.
At least they agreed on that much. You had to think of it as tithing. You had to look upon the bank statements as evidence of faith.
AN OFFICIAL DELINQUENT
THE LAWS OF CHEESE DICTATED there were three possible ways for this visit to go down. One: Lily was going to fall hard for the scion of the richest family in town; he’d break her heart; she’d cry, then realize she was meant for the impoverished, edgy, and ambiguously ethnic guy who’d warned her off Mr. Daddy’s Platinum Card in the first place. Two: Lily was going to discover an obscure shrew whose nesting ground was threatened by development, band together with plucky locals, and expose the developer as a palm-greasing old fraud. Or three: Lily would chafe under her grandmother’s curfew; she’d sass and slam doors; she’d wind up learning some old-lady hobby that was an obvious metaphor for life, love, and the passage of time, then call upon her newfound inner strength to see said grandmother through a mild health scare.
Not going to happen. Not in a million years.
She’d invented the Laws of Cheese. Last fall, with Sierra, when they were supposed to be studying the laws of physics. Besides, Gran didn’t knit or quilt anything like that, Arizona was one hundred percent golf courses already, and everyone knew that Lily liked girls.
She opened the fridge and helped herself to a piece of pineapple. It probably didn’t count as a granny hobby, but Gran was really good at cutting fruit. There was a huge bowl full, every slice completely rind-less. Lily popped the pineapple in her mouth, then a piece of mango, then a piece of watermelon, and then something mysterious and yellow that was less tart than she’d expected. She grabbed a bottle of water and shut the refrigerator door. A familiar magnet held Gran’s weekly schedule in place: the acorn-topped crest of the Forest Park Day School. Lily sniffed and inverted it so the pair of acorns hung like a dangling set of (not that she would know) testicles.
According to the schedule, Gran was off at yoga. She’d invited Lily to tag along, but a dozen old-lady butts in Downward-Facing Dog? Thanks, but no. So Lily had the house to herself, miracle of miracles. Better warn the National Guard; Cyber-Bully Birnam was momentarily unsupervised. Lily gave the magnet the finger. A tasteful finger, manicured with OPI’s Mod About You, since being an official delinquent should in no way eradicate the possibility of elegance. Then she smiled, adjusted her bikini straps, slung her bag over her shoulder, and stepped out into the sunlight.
It felt good. Maybe she’d run away and go nudist, ha ha. Talk about an actual scandal. Imagine. An eensy-weensy hint of sarcasm was all it took to turn the collective minds of a rigorous college preparatory program into a wad of chewed up Hubba Bubba. If Lily ever actually did anything, so many heads would explode they’d have to hike tuition to cover the janitor’s overtime.
Only, she’d last about eight seconds as a nudist. Consider the size of her suitcase. “Seriously?” Mom had said at the airport. “We’re going to have to pay to check this. Gran has laundry. Who are you trying to impress, anyhow?”
No one. Everyone. Herself. Mom would never get it. Just because she was into girls didn’t mean she had to stop looking like one.
Lily was pretty: petite, even-featured, bulge-less, zit-less.
And it mattered, being pretty. She worked on it.
Which apparently made her Little Miss Vapid.
Even Sierra had thought so, at least a little bit. “You’re different than I thought you’d be,” she’d said, maybe a month after starting at Day. “I thought you’d be all does-this-mascara-make-my-eyelids-look-fat?”
“Nah. My eyelids are perfect.”
“They are. You should do a whole post about how to get eyelids like that.”
Sierra had been following Lipstick Lillian, Lily’s beauty blog, since before she’d even moved to St. Louis. When someone—someone’s troll mom, probably—picked a fight, Sierra had fully slaughtered her in the comments.
NRBeautyFly: You are so much more than your looks, girls!
Secanthelpit: f*ck u. we know. im in honors math and my GPA is 3.82 and guess what? i look gooooood doing it. u can be good at math AND makeup and its nobodies business if u r.
Lily liked Secanthelpit. Like Secanthelpit, Lily was equally adept at math and makeup. She began to keep an eye out for Secanthelpit in the comments. And then, let the trumpets sound, there she was, Secanthelpit herself, Sierra, the only other sophomore in AP Calc and a girl who got it: Pretty wasn’t everything, but it was enough of a thing to be worth the effort. Lily had thought about using something like that as a new tagline but didn’t. The least little change turned her readers rabid.
Or once upon a time it had, back before the All-Powerful Parentals canceled her cell service, confiscated her iPhone and laptop, and made it clear they’d be monitoring Lipstick for new content.
They hadn’t even let her post a farewell.
Classic case of parental amnesia. Up till the minute Headmistress Brecken phoned them, they’d been going on about how key it was to be conversant in the new media, how pleased they were she was coming out of her shell, and how the blog probably had something to do with her stronger grades in all those classes that required essays.
She was going to flunk them next year on purpose, just to show them.
Well, not flunk. Not consid
ering how important junior year grades were. But she’d fudge a little in her footnotes.
Lily shut the front door with more force than was wholly necessary. Across the street, that guy, the vet, Mr.-Thales-but-you-can-call-me-Ben, came out of his house and waved. He’d come along on her walk with Gran this morning, bringing with him the distinct vibe that it was actually Lily coming along on his walk with Gran. He’d asked all these weird questions. Where did she go when she wanted to be alone? Had she ever hitchhiked? Did her PE classes cover self-defense? What a creep. You could tell even before he opened his mouth. A veterinarian without pets of his own, enough said. And then Gran had gone and invited him over for barbecue. Lily scowled. He waved again and called her name. She didn’t wave back. They’d had a self-defense speaker last semester. Don’t feel you have to be nice. That’s conditioning. Trust your instincts. Better rude than dead. Pretending he wasn’t looking—but she could tell he was, the guy was probably going to wind up in the ER with one of those four-hour Viagra erections, God, penises were disgusting—Lily approached the trellis beside her grandmother’s front door. The Commons’ map showed a pool nearby, but there was no way she was going to walk past and give the vet, no, wait, the per-vet, a free show. Lily shook the frame, tested her weight against it, and climbed. When she’d first moved down here, Gran had tried to train wisteria—a cutting from the old St. Louis place—up the trellis, but the vine had shriveled in the Arizona heat. Midascent, Lily kicked away a last, thirsty, brown coil.
The roof was flat and so hot she could hardly touch it, but the towel she’d snagged from the guest bath was spongy and thick. She unrolled it and lay down. Spring had come late in St. Louis and she was pale enough to signal ships at sea. In the interest of avoiding lobster mode, she’d lie out for thirty minutes per side at the absolute max. Or as close to thirty minutes as humanly possible, considering she didn’t have a phone to keep track of time. Think how bad the parentals would feel if she died of melanoma because they’d thought one little blog post was a back-to-the-Bronze-Age worthy offense.
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