by Melody Mayer
“It's the truth.” Jonathan defended himself. “It wasn't what it looked like.”
“Then why don't you tell me what it was?” Esme knew her voice was cutting, but she didn't care. She'd never been in the habit of letting guys take advantage of her, and she wasn't about to start now. On the other hand, she was curious to see what kind of lame-ass excuse Jonathan would concoct.
“Here's what happened. I was home. I heard my buzzer. It was her, downstairs. She sounded totally polluted. I let her in. She was polluted. Seriously drunk. We didn't do anything. I mean it, Esme. Nothing.”
Esme just sat there for a minute, thinking. It was bullshit. It wasn't bullshit. It was bullshit.
It was bullshit.
“You were in your bathrobe!”
Jonathan's response was instantaneous. “Because she'd just barfed all over me.”
“Prove it,” she challenged.
“I can't.”
“Knew it.”
“I would if I could,” Jonathan said. “But I can't. Since Tarshea has gone back to Jamaica.”
Well then. For the first time since Jonathan had sat down at her table, Esme felt surprised by something he'd said. This couldn't be bullshit. It was too easy to check. But if that was the case, why hadn't her parents told her?
The answer was self-evident, even as he looked at her expectantly, waiting for her reaction. She'd made it so clear she didn't give a rat's ass about what was happening at the Goldhagen estate that they'd adopted their own bilingual don't-ask, don't-tell policy. That had to be why.
“When?” Esme asked.
“After I told my folks that she showed up at my place drunk,” Jonathan explained.
“Nice. You cost Tarshea her job.”
“No, Esme. Tarshea cost Tarshea her job. Now, my parents have no one. The girls have no one.”
He looked at her with those deep-set eyes, and for a moment she felt herself back under his spell.
But no. That was an Esme who was no more. Since that night, everything had changed. She'd decided not to be a nanny. To be a tattoo artist instead. To make the kind of money and have the kind of business that would give her the kind of financial security she'd never had, and even security for her parents. She'd done the late-night calculations. Even with rent on her office space, even with buying the car she'd need to get back and forth and to do the occasional home visit (if it was safe, of course), she'd be in a position to make a down payment on a house inside of eighteen months.
Not for herself. For her parents. To get them out of the Echo, and into South Pasadena or Alhambra. Someplace where Spanish was still the first language, but where you heard the LAPD midnight sirens and choppers a lot less often.
“You should have told me right away.” She could feel herself biting her lower lip. It was a nervous habit from when she was younger. She hadn't done it in ages.
“Maybe. But you'd quit. My parents were pissed.”
“I was pissed,” Esme retorted.
“It left them with no one. They've been using a service, but the twins are flipping out.”
“I'm sorry to hear that.” That was no exaggeration.
“So I'm here for two reasons.” Jonathan puffed some air loudly between his lips. “One, to see if you'd be willing to talk to my parents about coming back.”
“Does Diane know about this?” Esme interjected, before Jonathan could get to his second point.
He shook his head. “I thought I'd sound you out first.”
This was it. A moment of decision. She knew it. He was basically offering to run interference for her in case she wanted her job back. But so much had changed. Working with those twins for a relative pittance seemed so long ago. Was she ready to roll back the clock?
“What's the other thing?”
“You're dodging,” he said. “You answer the first one, I'll answer the second.”
She couldn't help it. She smiled for a brief instant. “This is my turf. I'll decide.”
“Fair enough. Decide on your own time.” He stood. “But you should know that my stepmom said you had a week. Otherwise, she's going to go to the club and poach someone's nanny.”
“Hold it.” She stood too. “I thought you just told me that you hadn't talked to Diane and Steven about this.”
He shrugged. “Sue me. I lied. Anyway, I gotta get back. I promised the twins I'd take them out for ice cream.”
“At this hour?” She looked skeptical.
“Got me again. Anyway, the stuff about Diane saying you had a week? That's no lie. You know where to find her. And you know where to find me.”
That was it. Twenty seconds later, the door of La Verdad swung shut behind him.
Marlene was on Esme in a minute. “¿Oye, quién fue el chico? ¡Wow! ¡Muy lindo!”
“Yeah, he's fine,” Esme agreed. “The problem is, I don't know what he is after that.”
“I just wanted to tell you,” Susan began, looking deep into Kiley's eyes, “how relieved I am that you'll be here for the kids after the colonel and I are gone.”
They were standing in front of the house. The colonel was supervising as the chauffeur put their packed bags in the limo's trunk. Although Platinum's sister made it sound as if she was dying, what with her dramatic after the colonel and I are gone thing, in actuality Kiley knew that she and her anal-retentive husband were simply moving out and moving on.
Bruce, Sid, and Serenity were about as happy as three kids could possibly be. At the moment, Bruce was off with his friends riding dirt bikes, Sid was in their home theater eating junk food and watching Johnny Knoxville movies, and Serenity was in her room with what had formerly been a black leather skirt of Plat-inum's, which she was cutting into clothing for her Barbie doll. Platinum herself was out at a Rolling Stone photo shoot.
No one in the entire family had bothered to show up to say goodbye.
Kiley felt kind of bad about that. She truly loathed the colonel. And she thought Susan was a wuss who refused to stand up for herself. But they had stepped into the breach after Platinum had screwed up her life and the lives of her children. Not to get a thank-you for it? That was cold.
Kiley waved as the limo disappeared out the privacy gate. And that was that.
“Kiley, dear. Can I get you some lunch?”
Kiley turned to see Mrs. Cleveland had come in from the kitchen.
“No thanks. I'm meeting my friends.”
Kiley hesitated. She'd asked Platinum for the afternoon off so that she could hang out with Esme and Lydia. Esme was trying to decide whether or not she wanted her nanny job back, so her hours were her own. Lydia's aunt Kat had taken Jimmy and Martina to San Francisco for a much-needed sit-down with Anya on neutral ground after Anya had left several messages about needing to see the kids, and a deeply hurt Kat realized that she needed to put aside her anger to do what was best for them. Which meant Kiley was the only one who had been scheduled to work. Platinum had easily agreed. But Kiley was now so concerned that something terrible would happen with the kids if she wasn't there, she hated to leave.
“If you're sure about staying with the kids …”
“Of course.” Mrs. Cleveland waved away Kiley's concerns. “Go have fun.”
Kiley went back to her guesthouse, put on her well-worn Converse All Stars, a pair of shorts, and a T-shirt, and took off in Platinum's pearl white Bentley for the spot where Esme had dictated they all meet—at the very end of Beachwood Canyon Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Kiley had MapQuested the driving directions. She had no idea why Esme had asked her and Lydia to meet at this location.
Enjoying this particular car's smooth ride, she was delighted to avoid the freeways and took local winding streets to this intriguing choice of location. She traveled upward on Beachwood Canyon, past beautiful homes that resembled the French countryside more than Los Angeles; Kiley found it charming. As she crossed such streets as Glen Holly, Glen Oak, and Cheremoya, the houses gave way to rolling green hills, and then … the street ended.
“Hey,” Kiley called to them. “Interesting place to meet.”
“I don't get it any more than you do, sweet pea,” Lydia said, lifting her oversized sunglasses to make eye contact. “Just something Esme got into her head.”
“It's actually something I've always wanted to do,” Esme countered.
Lydia cocked one blond eyebrow. “Park at the end of a street in the Hollywood Hills?”
“We are not there yet, smart-ass,” Esme informed her. “We have to walk. That way.” She pointed to a dirt path that led upward.
“Sorry, but I left traipsing in the hot sun behind with the mud hut and fire ants,” Lydia said.
Kiley saw Esme set her jaw. “Fine. You don't want to come—”
“We'll come,” Kiley said quickly. “Won't we?” She made pointed eye contact with Lydia. Ever since Esme had quit her nanny job, she'd been … what? Kiley considered for a moment. Sad. That was it. She was sad. Not that she admitted it. She claimed that her life was perfect and she was glad to be rid of all things Goldhagen, but Kiley felt that in Esme's heart, she didn't really feel that way at all.
Which meant … that Esme really needed her friends right now. Esme never asked either of them for anything; Kiley always got the feeling that asking was a hard thing for Esme to do.
Lydia sighed. “Fine. But just so you know, I'm wearing four-hundred-dollar Chanel ballet flats, which were not made for hiking.”
Kiley looked down at Lydia's shoes. “Please tell me you didn't pay four hundred dollars for those.”
“Of course not,” Lydia said primly. “I'm a nanny. I'm broke. My new friend Flipper bought them for me.”
“Swimming guy, senior class, great kisser, washboard abs,” Esme recited. “Although I don't know why you're letting some guy you just met buy you shoes.”
“Well, see, Flipper turned eighteen last week,” Lydia explained, clearly unbothered by Esme's criticism. “His real generous parents—they own this bathing suit empire—gave him his inheritance. Twenty-something million.”
“You're kidding,” Kiley said.
“If I'm lying, I'm dying,” Lydia sang out. “To not let a boy with that kind of change buy me one little pair of shoes seemed downright criminal.”
Kiley had to laugh. One thing about Lydia—she could always make Kiley laugh.
As they made their way up the steep narrow path and Kiley began to huff and puff, she noticed that Lydia, even in her non-climbing-friendly four-hundred-dollar shoes, was moving forward like a freaking gazelle. Esme filled them in on the fact that Jonathan had come to her, claiming he had not had sex with Tarshea at all, that in fact she'd shown up at his place drunk. And that his stepmother had fired Tarshea, who was already back in Jamaica.
Kiley was amazed. Was it possible that Jonathan hadn't really cheated on Esme? “Do you think he was telling you the truth?”
“I don't know and I don't care,” Esme insisted.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Lydia sang out. “Hey, what is this mountain we're climbing, anyway?”
“Mount Lee,” Esme replied. “And we're almost to the top.”
“What's at the top?” Kiley called up to her.
“You'll see,” Esme called back.
Finally, they came to a fence. Above the fence was a ring of security cameras. Kiley smiled, because she now realized where they were, even if she didn't know why they were there. Behind the fencing was the fifty-foot-high Hollywood sign.
“The Hollywood sign!” Lydia exclaimed, delighted. “Dang, girl, I would never have expected you to take us to the Hollywood sign. I know all about this place. The sign was put up something like eight decades ago and it originally said Holly-woodland, to advertise some new apartment complex.”
“Don't tell me you read that in the Amazon,” Kiley said.
“Did too. Vogue did a photo shoot and got permission to actually use the sign. It used to be lit up with something like four thousand lightbulbs. And let's see, what else … some actress jumped off the H and killed herself.” She blanched. “You weren't planning to off yourself, I hope.”
“Of course not,” Esme replied. She leaned her back against the fence. Kiley watched emotions flit across her face. “This sign? It meant something to me. A world so far away from the Echo it might as well be Mars.”
Kiley nodded, feeling terrible for Esme, who no longer had a job that put her inside that world.
“Diane asked me to come back and work for them,” Esme said quietly. The edge of her mouth ticked upward. “She even offered me a raise.”
“Tattoos pay a whole lot better,” Lydia pointed out.
“That's not what's important!” Kiley insisted. “If you go back to the Goldhagens, you can do senior year at Bel Air High with us, and go to college, and … if you want the high life, you can earn it for yourself.”
“I can earn it doing tattoos,” Esme said angrily. “Ain't nothing magical about the Goldhagens.” She turned to face the fence, lacing her fingers through it, staring out and up at that giant sign. “It feels just like this at the Goldhagens'. Like everything huge and magical and rich is just out of my reach. But I'll always be behind a fence. I'll never belong there.”
“Well, hell's bells, girl, none of the three of us belongs there!” Lydia exclaimed.
“You do,” Kiley reminded her. “You were born on the other side of this fence.”
Lydia didn't say anything. She knew it was true just as much as they did.
“Tom's going to Russia,” Kiley said softly. She hadn't told them yet, as if saying it out loud would make it more true. Yesterday, Tom had called to tell her that the offer for the movie had been made. That he'd be leaving for Russia in ten days. Kiley hadn't seen him since the night they'd made love. He didn't seem to be in any particular hurry to see her. It was almost as if what they'd done together—which was such a huge thing for her—had never even happened. Or as if it simply didn't mean to him what it meant to her.
Leaning against that fence, staring up at the sign, Kiley told her friends all of this. She felt tears form but willed them away.
“Okay, well, you'll miss him,” Lydia agreed. “But he'll be back.”
“You don't even get it,” Esme said, the words hard in her mouth. “Kiley gave him something precious. He's treating it like it's ninguna cosa grande, no big thing.”
“Admittedly, I didn't consider it so grand when I did it,” Lydia said. “I'm just saying maybe you're reading more into it than you should, sweet pea.”
“And maybe I'm not,” Kiley countered. “Look, I can't tell you what to do, Esme. But if you want my opinion …?”
“Yeah,” Esme finally said.
“Your tattoo talent isn't going anywhere. But if you quit school now, you'll probably never go back. Never go to college. And I realize college isn't everything,” she added hastily. “But it kind of is to your parents.”
Kiley wondered if she was about to go too far with what she was about to say. What the hell. She was going to say it anyway.
“No matter how much money you make, Esme, if you don't go back and finish what you started, I think you'll spend your whole life feeling like you're still behind this fence.”
It was quiet for a long time. Finally Esme mumbled, “I have to think about it some more. Jorge wants me to go back,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
“He's in love with you,” Lydia said. “You know that, right?”
“Kind of,” Esme admitted.
“Well, do you want to jump his bones or be his buddy?” Lydia probed.
Esme shrugged.
Lydia sighed. “You don't give a girl a lot to go on.”
“Diane gave me a week to decide,” Esme said.
Lydia smiled slyly. “Did Jorge give you a we
ek, too?”
Esme laughed. “No. All I know is, I can't be with Jonathan. Whenever I'm with him, I feel like I'm trying to sneak into a country where I don't belong. No matter how I feel about him, or how much I think I want him, I can't live like that anymore.”
“Maybe you should give yourself a week on that decision, too,” Kiley ventured.
“Okay, y'all, how about this,” Lydia said. “One week from today we meet right back here at the sign. Esme tells us what she decided.” She pointed at Kiley. “You tell us if Tom is a good guy who got a great job offer, or he used you and he's lower than a pregnant duck. And I'll tell y'all just what Flipper can do with his…flipper!”
Kiley cracked up. There was really no one like Lydia.
They agreed to meet, one week from that very moment, at the exact same spot.
As they climbed down the hill, Kiley was lost in thought. She really had much more in common with Esme than she did with Lydia, in certain ways. She didn't feel as though she belonged in the rarefied world in which she now found herself any more than Esme did. Maybe she just hid it better.
But she did know this much. Whatever happened with Platinum—who could start doing drugs again at any moment; and whatever happened with Tom—who might not care about her nearly as much as she cared about him—some way, somehow, Kiley would find her own way to the other side of that fence.
She impetuously tugged on a hunk of Esme's hair, recalling a phrase Jorge had taught her when she'd briefly lived in the Echo herself.
“Mi vida loca,” Kiley said.
Esme smiled. “Yeah. My crazy life, too.”
“Right back atcha, sweet pea!” Lydia called as she led the way down the hill. “It's a crazy-ass life, but someone's got to live it! I guess that's the three of us.”
Kiley found herself laughing with her friends all the way down the hill.
Raised in Bel Air, Melody Mayer is the oldest daughter of a fourth-generation Hollywood family and has outlasted countless nannies.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either