Chapter Twelve #3
“Very centering. Of course, Diana hated going. You’d cry the whole time. Try new things, I used to tell you, but you were such a homebody.” Her first tiny knife skims but doesn’t pierce my skin.
Oliver shifts the focus. “What do you do, Steve?”
“Call me Stevie, please. My dad was Steve.”
Confusion flits across Oliver’s face. “Right. Stevie.”
“What don’t I do? Main gig is I run a few yoga studios across L.A. Side hustle, I grow cannabis.”
“Oh. Is that how you two met?”
Ava shoots me an annoyed, warning glance. “To be honest, I take yoga at a competitor’s studio in Silverlake, near my place, but of course now I’m thinking about making a switch for Stevie. His studios are the best in L.A.”
“We put in the work. And we grow everything on my property. From strawberries to romaine to marijuana.”
“You should see this property! It’s beyond. Reminds me of a huge-scale version of that little garden we had. You remember?”
“No.” I feel myself descend into petulance. We never had a yard, let alone a garden, and for some unknowable reason this is the piece of revisionist history that is a bridge too far.
“Oh well. You were so little.”
“What’s life like in Texas?” Stevie asks.
“They have a beautiful home,” Ava chimes in. “Just gorgeous. Two stories with the sweetest picture window. You could spend hours gazing out that window.”
Oliver catches my eye: She remembers our house?
And she’s being nice about it? I silently warn him, Watch out.
“It’s perfect for families,” Ava goes on. “Emmy must have a dozen friends right on her street.”
She gives my hand a gentle squeeze. And now, once again, I’m at the top of a ski hill, trying to pick a route.
But they’re all treacherous, too steep and icy.
If I choose to remain vigilant, sit rod-straight in this booth and mostly quiet through dinner, this will confirm Ava’s case that I’m coldhearted and stuck-up.
But at least I’d be steeling myself for her next move.
Or I can exhale. Let my shoulders relax and remind myself that we are both grown-ups, trying in our own ways.
“Thanks, Mom. Emmy loves it.”
Ava takes a sip from the salted rim of her drink, then dabs at her mouth with a napkin. “And you, honey? You still number crunching ?” She scrunches her nose like Stevie has just farted.
“Nope.” Oliver jumps in, thinking he’s helping me out. “She quit!”
“You quit your job?” Ava’s hand covers her mouth dramatically as if I’ve also kept from her that I’m dying and have won a Nobel.
“I did, yep.”
“Wow.” She masquerades her anger with surprise. Here she is, the last to know. “To become what, honey? A math teacher?”
Only Ava could successfully fling this as an insult.
“I’ve started painting again.” This feels nonthreatening enough. I’m not competition for her and I can already see her mind racing, flooded with an image of me selling my wares on a foldout table at an amateur art show where I’m largely ignored.
“Painting. Really.” She lays a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “You certainly are a gem of a guy. Keeping it all afloat.”
“Actually, Diana has a bigger paycheck than I do.” I wish I were sitting closer so I could nudge him under the table.
“Maybe,” I cut in. “But not by much. Oliver is flipping houses! Did you know that?”
“No one cares about my remodels when you’re about to be in Vogue. ”
“ Vogue ?” My mother’s voice is tight and high.
“I’ve been interviewing women who want to share their erotic fantasies, for a website I’ve created.
It’s a project I started in Santa Fe and picked back up.
” I catch an imagined glimpse of myself in her eyes.
Only the top of my head is visible as if I’m being swallowed by the leather booth. “Kind of a side project.”
Ava’s expression goes stony. I watch to see if she’ll blink.
“We’re here talking to a studio about movie rights.” If Oliver has picked up on anything, he doesn’t let on.
“Wonderful!” Stevie exclaims. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Movie rights to what exactly?”
“We’re in the exploratory phase,” I say. “Figuring out the story.” Less is more.
“But they’re not your fantasies? On the website?”
“No.”
“And now someone wants to make a movie about a website?” She emphasizes the word website as if it’s a wholly foreign concept.
“We’ll see.” My mind races for a way to change the subject, but Ava’s gaze has always had this same unnerving effect on me.
“I’m just surprised, that’s all. You were such a prude as a kid.” Here it comes. The knives get sharper.
“Where can we listen?” Stevie asks.
“On her website,” Oliver pipes in; I know he’s trying to help, but I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks and the word website feels more and more absurd every time someone says it—like we’re playing a game where everyone takes a shot of tequila whenever someone says “website.” “You have to see her paintings.”
“Love to,” Stevie says enthusiastically. “Your mother didn’t tell me you were an artist.”
Cue my mother. “Well, that’s because her mother didn’t know!”
“Well. Surprise,” I say softly.
“Hmm,” Ava says and the table goes quiet.
Finally, even Oliver has acknowledged the tension and can’t politely fix it.
We crunch on chips and salsa for over a minute before my mother finally breaks the awkward silence.
“Maybe I just don’t get it. I go on the Bank of America website every day, but I would never make it into a movie! ”
Stevie’s face falls. She’s gone too far, even for her. Her autocorrect blinks on immediately. “I mean. I’m probably missing something. I guess I’ve never understood your art.”
—
At the valet stand, Stevie and Oliver hand over their tickets and pretend to admire a cherry-red Ferrari.
Ava is quiet. She’s waiting for me to come to her.
“Well. This has been great,” I say flatly.
“Very nice.”
“You okay?”
Ava sniffs. “I’m just a little hurt. This is my business, you know. I sacrificed a lot so you could grow up in L.A. and I have to hear about your new career over tacos. I was the one who planted the seed.”
“You did. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t patronize me. I could have helped you. You could have come to me.”
“For what?”
Ava rolls her eyes and pulls her sweater closed. “I know the entertainment world better than you do! You clearly have no respect for me. If you did, you would have reached out.”
“You’re forgetting that we don’t talk! You don’t call me. It’s what we do.”
“Right. You don’t need anything from me. No need to put a finer point on it.”
She will always be better at this than me—fighting without fighting—she’ll stay calm while I try to push away the red-hot temper of twelve-year-old me.
I take a deep breath and exhale. “Thanks for coming out, Mom. Emmy loves ballet and art and she plays soccer but doesn’t like it.”
Ava snorts. “Please don’t make me out to be the bad guy, Diana. I’m so sorry that I grew up in a time when we couldn’t talk about our vaginas for a living. I had to survive on my own. I didn’t have a single person in my corner to help raise you.”
“You’re right. But thankfully you’re in a good place. Acting jobs. And Stevie seems mostly normal. Go do yoga even though you hate it and you can’t even touch your toes.” It’s low and silly and if my own anger weren’t knocking me so off-kilter, I would have stooped even lower.
“My friends can’t believe how poorly you treat me.”
“You know, it’s dangerous. To always change who you are to be with people. It’s a dangerous message.”
“To whom ?”
“Me?”
She throws back her head and laughs like I’ve told the funniest joke of the evening, only barely a “ha” escapes her. “It’s called survival, dear. And every woman does it. Isn’t that what your whole project is about? Women pretending to be someone they’re not?”
Stevie’s shiny black Lincoln pulls up and he opens the door for her. Ava kisses Oliver on the cheek then fixes her eyes on me and smiles, too brightly. “Thank you for dinner.” She gives me a brisk hug, says “I hope we can do this again soon,” then disappears into the passenger seat of Stevie’s car.
Watching her pull away, my jaw relaxes. The air comes back to my lungs. I play a game I haven’t played in thirty years and whisper to myself. Brilliant.Whatawonderfulidea.Youhavealwaysbeensobravesocreative.HowcanIhelp?Iamjustsoproudofyou.
Oliver slips his arm around my waist. “You okay?” he asks softly.
“Yeah. Same old script.”
“Still.” Our rental car pulls up to the curb. “L.A. is definitely losing some of its charm.”
There is a haunted apartment complex on Wilshire that I visited when I first moved to L.A.
The rent was astronomical but I pretended I could afford it just to see the apartment where Charlie Chaplin once lived.
The new manager was showing me the available units and told me that the previous manager, who lived there for like thirty years, would sneak into the penthouse after dark, stay there for a few hours, and leave looking totally disheveled.
Turns out a spirit was visiting him every night and they were fucking.
It became their ritual. She was horrified but I was intrigued.
I don’t know if I’d have the nerve to do it, but in my fantasy I’d sneak into that same penthouse, lie on the bed in my skimpiest lingerie, and see what happens.