Malibu Rising

by Jenkins Reid, Taylor

  “I was agreeing with y—”

  “I don’t care! Hud can fuck all my ex-girlfriends ten times in front of me and I’d still like him more than I like you.”

  Mick felt a pinch in his chest.

  “Hud and Ashley, huh?” Kit said. Sometimes, she just couldn’t stop herself from poking at things to see if they twitched. “I don’t quite see it. She seems a little … I don’t know … boring.”

  “Would you quit it, Kit?” Hud snapped. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. She’s not boring, she’s shy. She’s sweet and thoughtful and funny. So shut up.” Hud wasn’t going to bring up the fact that she was also the mother of his child. He needed to wait until that would be received as a good thing. He needed that news to make people happy, not furious. “I love her. I am in love with her.”

  Jay turned to his brother, finally listening to what Hud had been trying to tell him all night. He loved her? Jay had never loved Ashley. Not even close. “How long have you two been”—Jay wasn’t quite sure of the word he wanted to use—“going around behind my back?”

  Hud looked at the sand, stared at how his toes got lost beneath it. “A long time,” he said.

  Mick watched his sons. He himself had punched little shits that so much as looked at one of his dates. He’d also screwed almost all of his friends’ wives.

  “The two of them seem pretty serious,” Nina chimed in. “Doesn’t seem like something Hud just did on a whim.”

  “You knew?” Jay said, his blood starting to boil again.

  Nina shook her head. “No, but I saw them in the yard a few hours ago.”

  “You should have told me,” Jay said.

  “Jay, it’s not her fault,” Hud said.

  “Shut up, Hud,” Jay added.

  “Seriously? You’re arguing over Ashley?” Kit asked.

  “Shut up, Kit,” both Hud and Jay said.

  “Sorry,” Kit said. “I’m just saying that of all things for the two of you to get in a fight over, I’m surprised it’s some girl.”

  “She’s not just some girl,” Hud said, exasperated. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I want to marry her.”

  To Mick, this seemed like the mad ravings of a pussy-whipped twenty-something. “Hud, you’re twenty …” Mick paused, realizing he didn’t know exactly how old his son was.

  “I’m twenty-three,” Hud said.

  “Right,” Mick said. “That’s what I was going to say.”

  “You don’t know how old he is. You don’t know how old any of us are,” Kit said. “Just admit it. You don’t need to pretend so much.”

  “I’m not pretending. They are twenty-three,” Mick said. “I knew that.”

  Jay corrected him. “I turned twenty-four two weeks ago.”

  “Right,” Mick said. His shoulders slumped. “Sorry. I forgot you two aren’t actually twins.”

  Kit shook her head. “You are ridiculous. But at least now you’re telling the truth,” she said. “How do you ration it out? You get four honest moments a day?”

  Mick laughed, despite himself. “Yeah, but I try to keep a couple in the reserve,” he said, grinning out of the side of his mouth.

  The sound that came out of Kit’s mouth was somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. Mick locked eyes with her and could tell she was almost about to smile. “What do you want me to say, all right? We all know I’m a shit. It’s not news. I’ve been a shit my whole life.”

  Kit looked him in the eye now. He knew she was finally, actually listening. “I wish I was a better man,” he said. “But I was just never capable of it. I really did try, sometimes. But it was like putting lipstick on a pig. Some people are just shits, and I’m a shit.”

  Hud found it hard to be mad at someone who was suddenly being so transparent. Jay found it refreshing, the idea that it was OK to admit you suspected yourself of being a dickhead, deep inside. Nina had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

  “Honestly, it never quite made sense why a woman as good as your mother picked me, but, you know, I did lay it on pretty thick when I met her,” he said. “The second I saw her, with her big brown eyes, I thought, Let me just try to be whoever she wants. Let me just pretend I can be good enough for her. And I really did become that person for a little while there. I know I failed at the end but … I did try.”

  Nina turned and looked at her father. Mick caught her eye and relaxed into the softness of her gaze. “She deserved better,” he said softly. “I hope she knew that.”

  Nina watched her father’s face. She watched his long eyelashes as he blinked, remembering looking at them as a child.

  “She didn’t,” Nina said, her voice almost as quiet as breath. “She didn’t know that.”

  Mick nodded, his eyes to the ground. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  Nina watched as his eyes turned glassy, as the corners of his mouth turned down. She began to understand something she had never suspected. He was sorry. For what he’d done to all of them.

  Nina started to open her mouth, to say something, when she heard a rustling from behind her.

  Everyone turned their heads to see a girl in a purple dress coming down the stairs.

  4:00 A.M.

  Tarine Montefiore was—for a brief moment in the chaos of the night—looking at her paramour, and wondering if she wanted to spend her life with him. He had, just earlier that day, asked her to marry him.

  She had always liked older men and always liked spending her time with people who knew more than she did. She figured it came down to the fact that her father had been such a brilliant man. Tarine’s father was a linguistics professor who brought his whole family on his journeys, teaching in universities on three continents. And, through David Montefiore, Tarine had come to learn about the world. She felt she understood so much about life and culture that no man her own age could keep up with her. Also, her father was twenty years older than her mother.

  So she liked that Greg’s skin was a bit rougher, that it hung differently on his body. She liked the taste of decades of cigarettes on his tongue, the creeping gray in his hair. She liked that when he put his hands on her ass, she knew that he could feel its relative youth.

  So maybe, Tarine reasoned, there was a future here.

  Tarine would retire from modeling soon. She would plan their wedding, plan their honeymoon. Maybe they could travel the world for a while, then settle down in a Santa Barbara Spanish–style home in Beverly Hills. They would have no children—about this Tarine was adamant. And then, soon enough after their wedding, she would get back to work. She needed a second act.

  She had already had an offer for her own daytime talk show. She thought that could be a great next step. She was also considering designing a line of aerobics wear. There were a lot of things that might be interesting.

  Tarine knew that Greg would be a good partner in all of this, in anything she decided to do. He would be behind her, he would believe in her and support her. They would have so much fun together, every day of their lives.

  As she thought of it, a smile spread across Tarine’s face. She leaned over to Greg while the two of them stood behind the record player.

  “If we do this—marriage—you should know … I will not always be faithful. I do not expect you to be either.”

  Greg smiled and nodded. “All right. I understand.”

  “But I will promise to be by your side for the rest of our lives. That will be my promise.”

  “That’s all I’m asking. It’s all I want.”

  She kissed his earlobe. “OK, then I will marry you,” she whispered.

  Greg smiled wide and grabbed her shoulders. He kissed her. “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too,” Tarine told him. “With all of my heart.”

  Just then, someone flung a Waterford crystal vase into the sliding doors of the kitchen, where it shattered everywhere.

  “OK,” Tarine said. “That is enough!”

  There must have been a million tiny p
ieces of crystal all over the floor. Clearly, it was time for Nina to shut down this party. Tarine looked around for Nina, but she couldn’t find her. Then, she checked for any of Nina’s siblings and found none of them, either. And Brandon was gone, too.

  There was no one in charge.

  Vanessa came up to Tarine. “Are you looking for the Rivas?” she asked.

  “I can’t find a single one of them.”

  “Neither can I. I’ve been looking for Kit for a half hour. Can’t find anybody. But I don’t think Nina will be happy.”

  Tarine frowned. It would have to be her that put a stop to this.

  “Greg,” Tarine said. “Turn off the music, please.”

  Greg nodded and cut the sound. People groaned but no one headed for the door. They didn’t really need the music anymore.

  There were models crying in the corners and rock stars smoking weed on the stairs. There were writers fighting in the dining room and pop stars having sex in the bathrooms and studio execs passed out on the sofas. There were surfers puking on the lawn. Actors throwing wineglasses like footballs. TV stars putting on Nina’s clothes and pocketing her jewelry. One of the kids from Family Ties was lying in the middle of the fallen chandelier singing “Heart of Glass” and staring up at the hole left in the ceiling.

  “Let’s get rid of the caterers,” Vanessa said. “Maybe stop the flow of booze at least.”

  Tarine nodded and the two of them proceeded to tap every single bartender and cocktail waitress on the shoulder and send them home.

  But as the last one was out the door, Vanessa and Tarine turned back to the party and saw no discernible difference. It was still loud, things were still getting ruined.

  “THE PARTY IS OVER,” Tarine yelled, cupping her hands to her mouth to project her voice.

  No one moved but Kyle Manheim. He ran out the front door, sheepishly waving goodbye to Vanessa as he did so. She winked at him as he scurried by. The rest of them barely even looked up.

  “Do you all care about anything other than yourselves?” Vanessa asked.

  Tarine shook her head. “Of course they do not,” she said. “You people are revolting.”

  Greg came up behind her and grabbed her hand. “Maybe we should go, honey,” he said. “This isn’t your problem.”

  Just then, a bullet came through the living room door and hit the mirror above the fireplace.

  Vanessa and Tarine ducked. Greg followed suit, putting his arms over the both of them. Then the three of them stood back up to see Bridger Miller with a rifle in one hand and his other hand up in the air, as if showing he meant no harm. “I found it in a trunk upstairs. I thought it would shoot BBs,” he said, laughing. “I didn’t realize it was a real gun, I swear.”

  “Everyone out, now!” Tarine yelled. “Or I’m calling the cops.”

  Two girls got scared and ran out the door. Seth Whittles came running in after hearing the gunshot and grabbed the gun out of Bridger’s hand.

  “What the fuck are you doing, man?” Seth yelled at him. “You could have killed someone.”

  “I wasn’t going to kill anyone!” Bridger said. But then he walked away, no longer interested.

  “Yeah,” Seth said, turning to Tarine and Vanessa. “Call the cops.”

  Vanessa walked right into the kitchen, picked up the receiver, and dialed the police.

  “Yes, Officer?” she said, suddenly at a loss. “We need you to … come here …. Well, we need someone to … There’s a party, you know? And it’s …” She could not seem to figure out what to say that wouldn’t get Nina in trouble. “Can you just come?”

  Tarine grabbed the phone out of Vanessa’s hand. “Please send multiple police units to 28150 Cliffside Drive. There is a party here of over two hundred people and it has gotten out of control.”

  Casey had been making her way down the rickety stairs when she noticed everyone looking at her. She lost her focus and took a wrong step, tumbling the last few feet. Mick instinctively caught her.

  And, because he caught her, Casey thought for a moment that Mick must be her father. But by the time Casey straightened herself out, she remembered that life doesn’t work that way.

  “You OK?” he asked her.

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. She stood up, but couldn’t put weight on her ankle. “Thanks.”

  “Casey, are you all right?” Nina asked, running to her.

  “Who the fuck is Casey?” Kit mouthed to Jay. Jay shook his head, No idea. But both of them felt a twist in their chests, watching their sister take such special care of someone they had never met before in their lives.

  Hud wasn’t paying attention. He was calculating how long he could bear it before he had to get to the hospital. His nose needed to be reset. He could just tell. He tried to pinch the very top of the bridge of it, wondering if that would stop the throbbing. It didn’t. So he let go and looked up to see Casey hobbling toward him.

  He was unclear on exactly who she was. But by the time Nina got Casey safely seated next to her on the surfboard, Hud had figured it out.

  Maybe he was intuitive or maybe he saw Casey’s lips. Or maybe the reason Hud made the leap was because he, of all people, knew there had to be more children like him, Mick’s kids who weren’t from June.

  “Sorry, everyone,” Casey said. She was overwhelmed, somewhat from the shock of the fall but mostly from trying to take in the faces of the people she had been anticipating meeting all night. Jay was skinnier, Hud was … much more beat up. And yet, Kit seemed to match perfectly with the picture Casey had had in her mind. She always assumed there would be at least one Riva who looked at her with suspicion. And here she was.

  “What, exactly, is going on?” Kit asked.

  Mick, too, was confused.

  “This is Casey Greens,” Nina said.

  Casey waved and half smiled, not looking directly at any of them.

  Nina lacked the energy to ease them all into it. She had spent so much of her young life being tactful and gentle and making things OK. But Nina couldn’t fix everything, could she? For fuck’s sake. “She’s probably our sister.”

  Everyone was surprised, but it was Jay who spoke up. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Mick ignored Jay’s incredulity. “Casey?” Mick said to the girl.

  Casey nodded.

  “Care to fill me in here, hun?”

  Casey began searching for the words. But Nina jumped in and Casey felt taken care of, like she was being wrapped up in a soft blanket.

  “She was adopted in 1965,” Nina said. “She was raised by the Greens family in Rancho Cucamonga.”

  Nina nudged Casey and put her hand out. Casey handed her the photograph of her mother.

  “This is her mom,” Nina said. “I mean, her birth mother. You can see on the back, someone wrote a note that you are her father.”

  Hearing the phrase birth mother gave Hud the very strong instinct to stand up and sit next to Casey. He had so many things he wanted to ask her.

  Nina offered Mick the photo and Mick took it from her hands gently, as if he was reluctant to touch it. He looked at it, front and back.

  “Her name was …” Nina realized she had forgotten. “What was her name?”

  Casey found her voice. “Monica Ridgemore,” she said, and it really sank in that she was talking to Mick Riva. One of the most famous men in the world. A man she’d seen on billboards and on TV her entire life. “She would have been eighteen. Apparently, she told people that she was carrying Mick Riva’s baby. Your baby.”

  Hud wondered just how many other children his father had fathered. Jay wondered whether the girl was lying. And Kit wondered how they all could possibly be descended from the man in front of them. They were nothing like him.

  “I don’t want anything from you,” Casey said. “Any of you. Well, not money or anything like that. I have enough money.”

  She had so much less than any one of the Riva kids had at that very moment. She had such a small fraction of wh
at Mick had that you couldn’t calculate it in whole percentages.

  “I’m here because …” Casey found it difficult to keep going. She knew the words she wanted to say, she just didn’t know if she could withstand the ache of saying them. I don’t have anyone else. Mick looked up from studying the photo and saw that Casey had her mother’s eyes.

  “She’s looking for family,” Nina said. “Sound familiar?”

  Mick gave a shy and bittersweet smile, his eyes downcast. He looked at Nina and then Casey. And then back down at the photo.

  He tried to place the face in the picture. Had he slept with this woman—Monica Ridgemore—in 1964 or ’65? Those were big years for him. He’d toured all over the world. He’d slept with a lot of women. Some of them were groupies. And, yes, some of them had been young.

  Mick looked up from the photo and at Casey, at her eyes and her cheekbones and her lips. There was something familiar about her—but that was a feeling Mick had all the time. He had met so many people in his lifetime that, years ago, it had begun to feel like there were no strangers anymore. Just different versions of the same person over and over.

  It was just as likely that Mick had slept with Monica and forgotten about it as it was that Monica had made it up.

  “I don’t know,” he said, finally. He watched Casey’s eyes close and her chest fall as she understood she would find no answer tonight. “I’m sorry, Casey. I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear. But the truth is that I just don’t know.”

  It broke them all a tiny little bit—Nina, Jay, Hud, Kit, and Casey. There was no end to the ways he could disappoint.

  Six police officers arrived in three squad cars.

  They drove through the quiet streets of Point Dume, their sirens off, their lights silently cascading over the high fences and hedges.

  When they got to Nina’s door, they knocked. If they’d been at an out-of-control party in Compton, they would not have knocked. Leimert Park, Inglewood, Downtown, Koreatown, East L.A., Van Nuys, they would have walked right in. But this was Malibu, where the rich white people live. And rich white people get the benefit of the doubt and all of its many benefits.