As for his youngest … He would not have recognized her if she were standing right next to him.
Which she was.
Kit had left Ricky behind when she heard her brothers yelling and made her way to the front of the crowd. She was stunned to see that not only was Jay pummeling Hud … but that her father was standing there watching him do it.
She stood, frozen, next to him. Her eyes were wide, her fingers were stiff as her pinkie grazed the arm of his jacket. She could not believe she was in the presence of this larger-than-life figure who had hovered over her her entire life, and yet had been so long out of reach. There he was. She could extend her pinkie just … one half a centimeter … farther … and … touch him.
And then in an instant, he was gone, lunging forward and pulling his older son off his younger one. It wasn’t difficult for Mick to get hold of Jay—Jay’s body was all limbs, easy to grab and throw down onto his back.
Hud put his hands to his nose as Ashley ran toward him. He looked up to see who had stopped the fight.
Jay got ahold of himself and looked up to see who had pulled him off.
“Dad?” the two of them said at the same time, with the same inflection.
Kit found this sort of preposterous. Dad?
Some of the crowd began to disperse now that the fight was over. But a lot of people stuck around, shamelessly gawking at Mick Riva, in the flesh.
“Will you sign this napkin?” Kyle Manheim asked, the second he could get close enough. He handed Mick a pen he’d scrounged up from some girl’s purse.
Mick rolled his eyes and scribbled across the cocktail napkin and handed it back. A line had started to form. Mick shook his head. “No, no, that’s it, no more autographs.” Everyone groaned, acting as if they had been denied a basic human right, but still, they began to wander off.
“All right, get up, you two,” Mick said, offering an arm to each of his sons. This, too, mystified Kit as she watched, that he could offer a boost now, having offered so little for so long.
Hud and Jay each took the arm he offered and pulled themselves onto their feet.
Hud took a quick catalog of his injuries: He was pretty sure his nose was broken and could feel he had a black eye, a nicked eyebrow, and a sliced lip. His ribs were bruised, his legs were sore, his abdomen tender. When he tried to breathe deeply, he almost collapsed.
Jay had a gash on his chin, a bruised tailbone, and a shattered ego.
Ashley moved closer to Hud, as if to try to take care of him. But as she took a step in his direction, she saw him flinch. And she understood that her presence, at least right now, could only make things worse.
She turned from him and Hud breathed her name. But she kept walking, pushing through the onlookers.
She wanted a place to cry alone. As she made her way into the kitchen, she considered going out to her car. But it would take forever for the valets to extract it from the maze of vehicles they had parked on the front lawn. Instead, she cut in line to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet lid, and bawled her eyes out.
• • •
“What are you doing here?” Jay asked his father. His chin stung as the air hit the fresh cut and he wondered just how bad Hud was feeling.
“I got an invitation,” Mick said.
“There are no invitations,” Hud said. “And even if there were …” He didn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t. He didn’t know the man in front of him well enough to insult him to his face.
“Well, I got one,” Mick said. “But who cares about that? Why are you two beating the life out of each other?”
“It’s not …” It’s not any of your business. “It’s a …” Jay found himself at a staggering loss for words. He looked over at his brother.
Hud looked back at him—bloodied and purple and hunched over, trying hard not to breathe too deeply—but clearly just as confused. And in Hud’s confusion, Jay found solace. He was not crazy. This was, in fact, beyond comprehension.
“You can’t just walk in here and start asking questions like that,” Kit said. Mick, Jay, and Hud all turned at the sound of her voice. Her stance was wide, her shoulders were squared, her face showed neither awe nor shock.
“Who are you?” Mick said, but then the moment it came out of his mouth he knew the answer. “I mean, I—”
“I’m your daughter,” Kit said with a tone of amusement. It did not surprise her, his not knowing. But she found herself desperate to hide how much it still stung.
“I know that, Katherine,” he said. “I’m sorry. You grew up even more beautiful than I envisioned.” He smiled at her in a way that she assumed was supposed to convey some sort of charming embarrassment. And in that smile, Kit saw the magnetism her father wielded. Even when he failed, he won, didn’t he?
“We call her Kit,” Jay said.
“Her name is Kit,” Hud added.
“Kit,” Mick said, directing his attention back to her and putting his hand on her shoulder. “It suits you.”
Kit moved away from her father’s hand and laughed. “You have no idea what suits me.”
“I was the first person to hold you the day you were born,” Mick said to her gently. “I know you like I know my own soul.”
Kit found his intensity—his presumed connection with her—unsettling. “I’m the one who has invited you to this party for the past four years,” she said.
Hud looked at Jay and said, under his breath, “Did you know that?” Jay shook his head.
“Why are you only here now?” Kit asked.
Kit had looked forward to writing that invitation every year. She felt powerful doing it, as if she was both brazen and valiant. She was daring him to show up. Daring him to show his face around here. She felt vindicated every time he didn’t.
Every year he ignored that invitation, it renewed her indignation. It was one more good reason to dislike the motherfucker. It was one more reason not to bother worrying if he was OK or if he missed them. It was one more reason she wouldn’t have to show up at his funeral. And it felt good.
But him here, now. This wasn’t how it was all supposed to go.
“I want to see if we can … be a part of one another’s lives,” he said. “I’ve missed you all so much.” He looked directly at Kit as he spoke, and his eyes misted, and his mouth turned down. For a split second, Kit’s chest ached, imagining a world of pain that her father might have lived in without them. Did it hurt him? To be away? Did he think of them? Did he feel their absence every day? Had he picked up the phone a hundred times but never dialed?
But then Kit remembered that her father had taken a stab at acting back in the late sixties. He’d been nominated for a Golden Globe—that’s how good he was.
“No,” Kit said shaking her head. “Listen, I’m sorry,” she said, sincerely. “I know that I invited you. It was my mistake. I think that you should go.”
Mick frowned but remained undeterred. “How about this?” he said. “Let’s all go someplace quiet and talk.”
He could see that Kit was about to reject this plan and he put his hands up in surrender. “And then I’ll go. But despite everything we’ve been through, you are my children. So, please, let’s just talk for a moment. Maybe down by the beach, away from the party. That’s all I’m asking. You all have a few minutes for your old man, don’t you?”
Kit looked to Jay, Jay looked to Hud, Hud looked at Kit.
And then the three of them took the stairs down to the beach with their father.
Casey was telling Nina the story of the time she got stuck on a Ferris wheel with her first boyfriend when Nina heard people in the hallway saying Mick Riva had broken up a fight in the backyard.
“Did you hear that?” Nina said to Casey.
“Hear what?” Casey asked.
“It sounded like someone said Dad broke up a fight outside.”
Nina got up and walked to the window and Casey followed.
Casey had never experienced that: the use of “Dad” as oppose
d to “my dad.” There had been only herself growing up, no one to compare notes with, share parents with. And then here Nina was, sharing the word with her.
Nina stood at the window and looked down at her yard.
The pool was half-empty—all of the people who’d been splashing in it had transferred much of the water onto her yard. There were plastic cups all over the place. Huge areas of her lawn were covered in broken porcelain. Blue and white chargers and dinner plates and teacups and saucers were all in pieces around her palm trees. Nina thought it was sort of fitting that her wedding china had been destroyed.
“I never liked that china,” she told Casey. “Brandon’s mother insisted that I had to pick out something floral but I think having fine china is sort of silly. And anyway, I wanted the bird pattern.”
“Why didn’t you get the birds, then?” Casey asked.
Nina looked at her and frowned. “I …” she began to say, but then changed the subject. “Do you smoke?” she said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from her nightstand drawer. She offered one to Casey.
“Oh, no but, uh … OK,” Casey said. She took the unlit cigarette from Nina’s hand and put it to her mouth.
Nina lit it and then lit her own.
Casey took a drag and coughed. “You were saying …” she said once she caught her breath. “About the birds. Why didn’t you get them?”
Nina looked at Casey and then out the window, considering the question. The crowd was starting to shift, and as it did, Nina saw something startling. Her brothers, her sister, and her father, all together, walking down the stairs to the beach.
“Because I’m a doormat,” Nina said. “I’m a human doormat.” She put her cigarette out. “Fuck it. You stay here. I’m gonna go talk to Mick Riva.”
3:00 A.M.
Ted Travis was hell-bent on self-destruction.
He was the biggest, highest-paid star on network TV but none of that had mattered to him since his wife died last year. He felt like he was falling apart inside—sobbing alone in his huge house, hiring hookers, shoplifting, upgrading from the occasional coke binge to a full-blown speed addiction—but all of the chaos of his soul wasn’t showing on the outside.
When he looked in the mirror, he could see he was just getting handsomer and handsomer. Turns out, he looked even better with gray hair than he had with brown. Sometimes, when he looked at his own reflection, he could hear the ghost of Willa’s voice in his head, laughing, telling him he had no right to age so well without her. Drinking quieted it.
At Nina’s party, Ted had already downed half a bottle of whiskey, lost four grand on a bet to that girl from Flashdance, and then fallen asleep fully clothed in the shallow end of the pool. Someone had cannonballed into the water and woken him up. He climbed out.
But then: her.
A forty-three-year-old script supervisor named Victoria Brooks.
He came across her in the living room when his clothes had just stopped dripping. She was tall and lean and didn’t have a single curve on her body. She had bleached blond hair and dark eyebrows and a face that was positively breathtaking in profile.
“Ted,” he said, putting out his hand as he walked up to her.
Vickie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know who you are.”
“And you are?”
“Vickie.”
“Beautiful name. Let me get you a drink,” Ted said as he gave her his TV smile.
Vickie blew her cigarette away from both of them, her left hand pinning a highball of vodka and soda against her right arm. “I have one, thanks.”
“What do I have to do to get a smile out of you?” he asked her.
Vickie rolled her eyes again. “Sober up, maybe. You’ve embarrassed yourself about ten times already tonight.”
Ted laughed. “You’re right about that. I keep trying to find a way to enjoy myself. But it’s pointless. I’m too goddamn sad all the time.”
Vickie finally looked Ted in the eye.
She was sad, too. God, she was sad. Her husband had died in a boating accident seven years ago and she had resigned herself to loneliness since then. She was not willing to love again, if this was how it felt.
“One drink,” Vickie said, surprising herself.
Ted smiled. He got her a fresh vodka soda, straightened his damp clothes, and went back to her.
“I want to take you out,” he said. “So what should I do to convince you? Are you a grand gesture sort of lady?”
Vickie sighed. “I guess so? But I’m not going on a date with you.”
Ted smiled exactly the way he did on Cool Nights. He was just going through the motions but he was good at pretending. That’s why they paid him so much money to do it.
“C’mon, I might just charm you. Watch this.” He started looking around for the easiest way to make a scene. He settled on swinging from the chandelier.
Ted handed Vickie his drink and started climbing onto the mantel. He pointed at a surfer by the coffee table. “Hey, man, pass me the chandelier, would you?”
The guy, content to play along, stood on top of the coffee table and grabbed the base of the chandelier, slowly moving it toward Ted. Ted grabbed a handful of the crystals on the bottom.
“Vickie, let me take you to dinner!” he said. And then he swung himself across the room, hanging on for dear life. He hit the opposite wall and then let go, crashing onto the sofa with the howl of an injured animal.
Vickie found herself running to him.
“Are you OK?” she said. “Come on, get up.” She put her arms around Ted to help him.
The warmth of her hands made him feel, for one half second, no longer alone. Instead of standing up with her, he pulled her down to him. “Can I kiss you?” he said and when she smiled, he did it. She felt his soft lips on hers and she did not balk. A thrill ran through her like a bolt.
She pulled back, speechless. And then, drunk and confused and momentarily desperate for the very thing she thought she’d never want again, she kissed him once more. It may have looked absurd from the outside, but it felt sort of magical to the two of them. The surprise of sincere desire.
The people around them cheered as another idiot decided to try to swing from the chandelier.
But Ted was already planning his next escapade. “Have you ever stolen something, Vickie?” he asked, as his eyebrows went up and a smile crept over his face.
Ashley wiped her eyes, pulled herself together, and walked out of the bathroom. She stepped over broken glass and crushed pita, hummus smeared across the tiles of the floor. She went out to the front stoop and gave her ticket to the valet.
For some reason, she felt strongly that the baby was a boy. And she liked the name Benjamin. If it did turn out to be a girl, maybe something like Lauren.
The rest of it … who knew? Jay would forgive Hud or he wouldn’t. Hud would come back to her, or he wouldn’t. They would be a family or they wouldn’t. This would all work out or it wouldn’t. But there would be a Benjamin or a Lauren. She and her Benjamin or her Lauren … they’d be OK.
The valet brought Ashley her car and she got in and drove away.
As she pulled out onto PCH, “Hungry Heart” started playing through her speakers and Ashley felt just the tiniest bit of hope. Your whole world can be falling apart, she thought, but then Springsteen will start playing on the radio.
• • •
Ricky Esposito was back hanging out near the food, eating plain crackers since the cheese plate was gone. He was trying to decide if he should just leave. He’d struck out with the girl of his dreams and he wasn’t yet in the mood to set his sights on another.
Vanessa de la Cruz walked into the kitchen.
“Oh, I’m starved,” she said, grabbing a cracker. “Who took all the cheese?” Her hair was a mess, her eye makeup was smudged. Ricky had seen her around with Kit before. There was something so quirky about her.
“Fun night?” Ricky asked.
Vanessa nodded. “Greatest night of my fucking life,” s
he said.
Ricky laughed.
“I’m serious,” Vanessa said, eating a cracker. “I spent so much time thinking I was in love with one guy. One guy! And I just decided to get over it and it was like the whole world opened up. I made out with five dudes tonight. Five. They will tell legends about me one day.”
Ricky laughed again.
“None were a love match, unfortunately,” she said. “But, you know, I have to be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Ricky laughed once more—she was funny. “No, I guess not.”
Vanessa looked at him, actually looked at him, for the first time since they’d started talking. “You’re the one! Kit’s guy!” Vanessa said suddenly. “Did she kiss you?”
Ricky nodded. “But I don’t think she saw fireworks.”
Vanessa bent her head to the side, surprised and disappointed. “Really? She seemed into you.”
Ricky smiled and shook his head. “She’s definitely not into me.”
Vanessa considered him. “She should be. You’re cute.”
“Oh, well, thank you,” Ricky said, unconvinced.
“No, I’m serious. I didn’t see it before, because you dress like a middle schooler.”
“Thank you?”
“I just mean, you know, you could dress cooler.”
Ricky looked at his T-shirt and khakis. “I guess so.”
“You’re sure Kit’s not into you?”
“I’m positive. She said all we will ever be is friends.”
Vanessa cocked her head to the side again. “I’m sorry. Those Rivas will break your heart.”
Ricky took a sip of the beer he’d been nursing. “I’ll be all right.”
Vanessa nodded. “I can tell you from experience that you definitely will.”
“Good God, Nina actually lives on the edge of a cliff,” Mick said, as he moved down the stairs.
“Yeah,” Jay said. “It’s a pretty great location. Sick waves.”
“Sick waves?” Mick asked. “Oh, right. Yeah. I bet.”
Mick didn’t surf. He didn’t get the appeal. It seemed like an odd way to spend your life, riding a piece of wood in the ocean. It certainly didn’t seem like a thing to bank your fortune on the way it seemed his children had. Had none of them considered that talent like Mick’s might be hereditary? Surely one of them must have a voice. He would have been happy to help them break into the industry.
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