Chapter 5
Having twenty-four hours to get her affairs in order before essentially going off-grid for a month made for an exceptionally busy day.
Olivia woke early and planned a visit to Willow Grove both to pay her debts and to break the news to Grandma Ruby that their next four visits would be by phone only. She also had other errands to run like finally shipping the online purchase returns that had been piling up by her front door for weeks, picking up a prescription, and retrieving her dry cleaning. Of course, it was also the last time she would get to see Mansi for a month, so they’d planned to go to dinner that night.
But the first thing she had to do was pack. She didn’t really know what type of wardrobe being locked in a house for a month required, but she planned on piles of athleisure and a few swimsuits, maybe a dress or two. She dug her big suitcase out of her closet and left it open like a gaping mouth on her bed.
Starting from the bottom up, she packed underwear and socks, sweatpants, leggings, tees, shorts, maxis and sundresses, her favorite bathrobe, and three sets of pajamas. When she pulled open the drawer where she kept her swimwear, the sight of a yellow bikini stopped her efficiency in its tracks.
The last time she had worn it was a long weekend in Cabo with Chuck. He’d gotten a room at some mega resort through a friend, and they’d spent three days mostly in bed and occasionally on the beach. And then there was the afternoon in the ocean when they stood in the swelling waves and he put his hand beneath her bikini bottoms. Nobody can see , he’d whispered when she halfheartedly tried to protest for fear of getting caught by the swarms of beachgoers on the shore. Her worry and will to resist evaporated when he moved his skilled hand under the water until she was shuddering and clinging to him to stay afloat.
The memory broke a sweat out over her skin. As if someone had bumped her thermostat up to ninety degrees. Her conversation with Chuck from the night before—their rules—suddenly felt irrelevant. No sex was pointless if four triangles of fabric and a memory had her wanting to call him to come over.
She took a steadying breath and decided to call someone else.
“Hey.” Mansi answered on the second ring. Olivia heard sounds of Mansi’s morning routine in the background: a sink running, soft music playing, a coffee brewer gurgling.
“Hi. I’m having second thoughts,” Olivia admitted.
“What? No. Too late for that. The only thoughts you should be having are of a million dollars, Liv.”
“I know, but—”
“Did something happen?”
“No! Yes, I mean— ugh . I don’t know.”
Mansi paused. “ Olivia ,” she said slowly, drawing out her name. “I know that tone. You’re only this flustered after an encounter with Chuck.” She suddenly gasped. “Did you sleep with him last night?”
“No!” she said, but could not fault Mansi for asking given her track record.
Another silence passed.
“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” Mansi said.
She was right: there was a but . And Olivia didn’t know what to make of it.
Olivia released a breath and confided in her friend. “I don’t know, Manse. I’m packing right now, and I grabbed this bikini I wore on that trip to Mexico, and it made me think of… things we did there, and now I’m worried about what might happen in the house.”
Sounds of dishes clinking filtered through the phone. “First of all, that’s hot that an article of clothing can make you think of him and actually says a lot. And second, what are you so worried about? So what if something happens between you in the house? I’m sure they’d turn off the cameras for the actual act, Liv.”
Heat flooded her body at the thought of what might get caught on camera. “Ew. There better not be one of those creepy night vision cameras in the bedroom.”
“I will sue them into oblivion on your behalf if there is.”
“Thank you. But getting caught on camera is less of a concern than wanting to do something worthy of suing them over catching on camera.”
“I don’t follow.”
“ Ugh , Mansi! You know Chuck and I can’t keep our hands off each other, even when we’re fighting— especially when we’re fighting.”
“You are saying this to someone who has seen your face flushed and clothes rumpled in enough inappropriate venues to have lost count, Olivia. I am well aware of this fact.”
She flushed again and silently thanked Mansi for all the times she’d tucked her tag back in or straightened her earring or offered her fresh lipstick when she and Chuck returned from the bathroom at a party or the dark corner of a bar.
“Right. Sorry. I mean that I’m worried we’ll lose control and do something we regret and end up losing the money—even though we’ve discussed it and agreed no sex.”
“Wait, you guys did like a pre-show pact?”
“Something like that, sure. We thought it would be a good idea to lay some ground rules.”
“That was an excellent idea,” Mansi said, and Olivia could picture her nodding in approval. “Going in prepared will give you the best chance of success. But now you don’t think it’s enough because of a bikini?”
Olivia held up the tangled yellow strings and frowned. Just looking at it, she could feel the pressure of his hands on her body. She began to sweat again. “I don’t think it’s enough because it’s Chuck.”
“That is a valid concern,” Mansi astutely agreed, like she knew full well Olivia was powerless over her desire for him. “Well, what do we need to do to fix it? Cold showers? Chastity belt? You know what, I’ve heard cheese kills sex drive, so maybe have them stock the house with it.”
Olivia quietly laughed. Mansi had never met a problem she couldn’t solve. “I think we’ll have bigger issues on our hands if I move to a steady diet of cheese, no matter how tempting that sounds.”
Mansi hummed again like she was thinking. “Well, what then? Do we need to get you laid tonight, so you go into the house with someone else on your mind?”
“No!” she blurted before she really thought about it. But when she did think about it, she realized that she hadn’t slept with anyone except Chuck for months, and those months had ruined her for wanting anything different because no one else would ever measure up.
“I am so screwed, Mansi,” she said with a sigh.
“Quite the opposite, actually.”
Olivia glared at her suitcase in place of her friend. “Thanks.”
Mansi laughed. “Sorry. Maybe just don’t pack the incriminating bikini, then?”
She looked around at the piles of clothes she’d laid out and realized nearly all of them had some kind of history. Perhaps she’d have to fit buying a whole new wardrobe into her busy day too. But she knew that no matter what she was wearing, ratty bathrobe or ball gown, Chuck would find a way to strip it off her in one fell swoop like a magician or peel it off piece by piece like the delicate wrapping on a very expensive gift. Both tactics drove her wild, as it did when they found creative ways to leave all their clothes on.
“Maybe I should just wear a trash bag,” she said, knowing Chuck would find a way to make her feel sexy even in a pouch of sticky black plastic too.
“How about this,” Mansi offered. “We have a code word, and you can text me when you need to, when you’re in the house and feeling tempted , and I’ll send you pictures of objectively unsexy things, no questions asked.”
A laugh bounced Olivia’s shoulders. “That…might actually be helpful.”
“Perfect. I’ll start screenshotting random stuff to have it ready. What’s our code word going to be?”
Olivia thought about how desperate it was to need a code word and unsexy text messages from her best friend in order to control her desires, but she was willing to do whatever it took to win the money. “How about ‘yellow bikini’?” she said, and tossed the swimsuit in question aside.
“I love it. Now all you have to do is keep it in your pants for a month.”
Olivia groaned.
“You can do it, girl. I’ll see you for dinner later.”
“Bye, Manse. Thank you.”
···
Once she was satisfied with her packing, Olivia took a trip to Willow Grove. For once, she did not enter the serene and sterile care home like a timid bunny darting through the woods but rather marched up to the director’s open door and knocked.
“Olivia,” Dr. Park said, surprised. She sat at her neatly appointed desk reading her computer screen. “How can I help you?”
“Hi. Sorry to barge in on you like this, but I wanted to let you know that I have the money. Part of it, anyway.” She entered the office and extended the check she’d written. It probably would have been more appropriate to send it through the accounting department, but handing it directly to Dr. Park felt like it earned her a few points back for her delinquency.
“You— What?” Dr. Park started and stopped as if she’d been prepared to roll out her customary lecture on overdue bills at the mere sight of Olivia.
“I can pay you now. It’s a long story, but I signed a contract to be on this reality TV show and negotiated an advance as part of the deal. I don’t technically have the money yet, but I will in a few days. So maybe don’t cash this for like a week? But it’ll be there, I swear.” She found herself both smiling and blushing over spilling her life story to someone as esteemed as Dr. Park. She probably needed to get back to work running Willow Grove, not listen to Olivia ramble.
“I see,” she said with a hint of doubt as she took the check. “Well, this is great. I was actually going to call you today to let you know that our financial hardship grace period will expire at the end of this month. At that time, we’d have to move Ruby—”
“That won’t be a problem,” she said, cutting her off. “I promise.”
“Oh. Okay, then, Olivia. Please let me know if anything changes.”
“I will, Dr. Park. Thank you. And also, I won’t be able to visit in person for the next month. I’m going to go let my grandmother know right now, but I wanted you to know too since you won’t see me. I’ll still call every week, and you can still contact me for any reason. I just won’t be able to come here in person unless there’s an emergency.”
Dr. Park eyed her suspiciously but didn’t press. “Okay, Olivia. We’ll be in touch if anything comes up.”
“Great. Thanks. I’m going to go see my grandma now.” She skipped out the door before the intimidating woman could make her feel any more inadequate by simply existing in her esteemed white coat with her degrees mounted on her office wall, or before she could ask Olivia any more questions about the strange update that she’d just given her.
Willow Grove was quiet on a Tuesday midday. Olivia passed through the calm, airy halls and out onto the property. Grandma Ruby’s cottage stood third to the left down a short pathway.
When she arrived, she knocked and then stepped inside. Her grandmother’s small home was decorated in soft earth tones and smelled like fresh lemons and sugar. Ruby sat in her favorite living room chair facing out her front window. She held a pencil and worked a Sudoku puzzle from the thick book that Olivia had stuffed in her birthday gift basket.
“Hi, Grandma,” Olivia gently said as she came around into view.
Ruby looked up with a welcoming smile. “Olivia, sweetheart. What a pleasant surprise.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners.
Olivia sat on the sofa adjacent to her. “Yes, sorry for just dropping in, but I needed to visit today.”
Ruby used her pencil to mark her page in the book. She gave her granddaughter her full attention. She wore the soft pink sweater from a shop in Venice Beach that Olivia had also stuffed into her birthday gift basket. “Well, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Seeing that she had taken great pains to keep her grandmother in the dark about her money problems, Olivia had thought carefully about how to tell her about the TV show and why she had to say yes to it.
“Remember when I was here on Sunday, and I told you Chuck and I broke up?”
“Oh yes. I was so sorry to hear that. Have you two made up yet?” Hope danced in her voice with as much spirit as the shine in her eyes.
“No, we haven’t,” Olivia said, and knew it would disappoint her grandmother. “But we did get invited to be part of this TV game show.”
“Oh! How exciting. What are you going to do?”
Olivia braced herself to navigate explaining the strange premise. “Well, that’s what I’m here to tell you. To be on the show, we have to go away for a month, so I won’t be able to visit you each weekend—but I’ll still call! And you can call me for anything, like always.”
Ruby blinked at her. “Where are they sending you?”
“Not far, Grandma. And I can come see you if anything urgent happens. Dr. Park knows she can call me for anything important.”
Ruby reached across the table and lovingly cupped Olivia’s cheek with her soft hand. “I’ll be fine, my dear. You and Chuck go off and do what you need to do to repair your relationship, hmm?” She gave her a little pat.
“Oh no. Grandma, that’s not what we’re—”
Ruby pushed herself up out of her chair with a soft grunt. “You know, the first time I met that boy, I knew there was something special about him, and something special between the two of you. I could see it on both your faces.”
The comment landed oddly on Olivia. There might have been some truth to it, but the time for granting it any importance had passed.
Ruby motioned for Olivia to stand with a wave of her hands. Olivia obeyed, and she folded her into a hug. “Listen, you go take care of your business, and I’ll be here. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay, Grandma,” Olivia said once she had her breath back from being squeezed.
Ruby cupped her cheek again. “I’d rather see you work things out with Chuck than waste your time with this old lady.”
A cynical laugh burst from Olivia’s lips. “The first of those things is impossible and the second isn’t even true. You aren’t old.”
Ruby echoed a laugh. “You never were a good liar, my dear. Don’t try to flatter yourself out of your guilt for abandoning me for a month,” she said with a wink.
“Grandma, you just said not to worry about you—”
“I’m kidding! Now, go on,” Ruby said. “I’m sure you’ve got a busy day you need to get back to.” She kissed Olivia’s cheek and motioned her toward the door. “Send Chuck my love.”
Olivia waited until she’d turned away to roll her eyes.
···
At long last, Olivia finished all her chores and ended up out to dinner with Mansi. They landed at a trendy bistro on the Westside with an outdoor patio strung up with twinkling lights and an abundance of ferns. It felt like an enchanted jungle.
“So, how does it feel? Your last night of freedom,” Mansi asked as she sipped a glass of red wine the same color as her lipstick. Olivia had always been envious of the bold colors she could pull off. Where Olivia opted for pale pinks, peaches, and roses, Mansi stocked up on colors called Crimson Lust and Deep Merlot and those with vague though somehow still apt labels like Goddess.
Olivia sipped her own wine and felt it go down like a smooth tonic. One of her favorite parts of dining with Mansi was her impeccable taste. “Like I’m being sent upstate to a penitentiary tomorrow.”
“Yes, but instead of being locked up with all women, it will be only one hot guy you can’t stand.”
“Not helping, Mansi.”
“Sorry. But I did bring something to help!” She bent and reached for the gift bag nestled by her feet. Olivia had seen her carry it in and could only imagine what was inside. Mansi extended the white bag sprouting with pink tissue paper. “Some survival supplies.”
Olivia took it with a curious smile. “You didn’t have to get me anything, Manse.” She shoved her hand into the puffy present and pulled out a wad of tissue.
“Of course I did. I’m not going to see you for a month, and I know you will need more help than code ‘yellow bikini’ texts while you’re in there.”
“Well, I don’t think it was necessary, but thank you anyway,” she said, and grabbed the first solid object she felt. A small plastic box filled with two rows of round balls of wax. “Earplugs?”
“Indeed,” Mansi said, and sipped her wine. “I did extensive research. Those block out snoring, traffic, and problematic ex-boyfriends.”
Olivia snorted a laugh, not having expected her gift to contain anything so pragmatic, though she was dealing with Mansi, so perhaps she should not have been surprised. She stuck her hand farther into the bag and felt two more objects: one, a smooth box taking up the whole side of the bag, and the other, smaller with a sharp plastic edge that she wrapped her fingers around. She pulled it out with another laugh.
“A padlock?” she said at the sight of the little metal box with a U-shaped hook inside plastic packaging she’d surely need scissors to open.
“You might need it!” Mansi blurted with a grin. “There’s nothing in the contract saying that creating restricted access zones inside the house is against the rules, I checked.”
Olivia chuckled and set it on the table next to the earplugs. Installing it would require tools and hardware, but honestly, she might be up for it, especially if it meant locking Chuck in some small portion of the house while she had access to the rest of it. Perhaps there was a cellar.
“You are nothing if not practical, Mansi,” she said, and reached for the final item in the bag.
Mansi winked at her and coyly sipped her wine as she watched her lift the narrow box.
Olivia got it halfway out of the bag before she dropped it with a gasp. Her face flooded with heat. “ Mansi ,” she hissed in embarrassment at the sight of a label in metallic pink script. She recognized it from a high-end adult toy store.
Her friend cackled like a delighted witch. “What? You have needs , Olivia. And if we’re running Operation Yellow Bikini while you’re in there, you are going to get lonely, not to mention frustrated and all pent-up. This is meant to help keep you from doing anything with Chuck you’ll regret. Plus, it’s rechargeable, so you won’t have to keep replacing batteries when you inevitably kill it.”
“Mansi!” Olivia scolded again. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was witnessing their wildly inappropriate exchange. She stuffed all her gifts back in the bag and buried them in tissue paper. “You couldn’t have given me this at home ? Or even in the parking lot ? This isn’t exactly a dinner table gift.”
“You know, for someone who has made out with Chuck, if not done more, in public all over this city, you’re being awfully prudish about this,” Mansi said with a laugh.
Olivia glared at her.
“Oh, don’t give me that look. You’ll thank me when you’re not wound tighter than a guitar string for having had no physical contact for weeks—I know how you get. Who cares if the contact comes from a piece of robotic silicone.”
Olivia realized that Mansi, in her endless wisdom, made an excellent point.
Until she met Chuck, Olivia had never been a voraciously sexual person. Her appetite had been moderate at best, but she had realized after their first night together that that was because she hadn’t known the full extent of what existed. That someone could make her feel so desired with a single look that satisfying that desire took precedence over everything else. That her own desires, her wants and needs and indulgent fantasies, could be put front and center with no expectation for reciprocation. But that she would want to reciprocate so badly, to unravel him the way he did her, that the satisfaction of it was greater than what he made her feel. That all of that would add up to the need for his presence becoming physical and his absence intolerable.
Sometimes she hated him for how much she wanted him. For what he’d done to her by showing her what was possible. For the fire he’d lit in her blood that made her ache.
She pulled Mansi’s gift bag into her lap and gently hugged it with a repentant smile. “Thank you for the gift, Mansi,” she shyly said.
Her friend laughed, and they enjoyed the rest of their dinner.
When they left the restaurant, they’d just hugged goodbye on the sidewalk when Olivia heard someone shout her name.
“Olivia!”
She turned just in time to see a bright flash pop in her face. It left her reeling and blinking stars, and she didn’t realize what had happened until she heard Mansi bark.
“Hey! Leave her alone!”
“Just trying to get a few shots of the infamous love child , sweetheart. Don’t worry about it,” the voice behind the flash said. It was a man Olivia didn’t recognize, but she knew in a heartbeat that he was a photographer who’d sell pictures of her to the tabloids. And hearing the name he’d called her bottomed out her stomach at the thought of what story they’d print with them.
Another flash went off, and Olivia held up her hand to block it.
“I said, leave her alone, asshole!” Mansi shouted. She wrapped a protective arm around Olivia and turned them the other way.
“Come on! I’m not hurting anybody,” the man said, and followed them. His flash continued throwing sparks into the dim night as he spoke. “Olivia, want to pop off your top again like you did in the video?”
Her body went rigid, and she froze for half a step.
Mansi squeezed her arm around her. “Ignore him. Just keep walking.”
“ Olivia ,” the man taunted. “Come on, honey. Turn around for me.”
Her chest had grown tight, and each breath came with more effort. It took everything in her power not to take off running down the sidewalk, but that was what he wanted. A scene.
“Fine. You’re not nearly as friendly as your mother. Didn’t she sleep with like half of Hollywood back in the day? We all know she hooked up with at least one person’s husband.”
At this, both Olivia and Mansi stopped walking. Before Olivia could react, Mansi whipped around and stabbed a finger in his face.
“Listen, motherfucker. If you say one more word , I will throw a harassment suit at you faster than you can blink. I will bury you in charges so deep, there is no amount of trashy tabloid photos you could sell to dig yourself out. I said: Leave. Her. Alone. Hear me?” She said it with such malice, Olivia shivered in the warm night.
She could see the fright on the photographer’s face. He’d gone pale and his eyes were as wide as the full moon. Olivia was surprised he managed not to pee his pants.
“I hear you,” he nearly whispered.
“Good,” Mansi said just as quietly, which was somehow ten times scarier than her screaming at him.
Olivia still stood like a statue on the other side of them, and just as Mansi turned back around to her, the man lifted his camera and snapped one last photo of her surely looking like a deer in headlights.
Mansi froze, and a look like she wanted to turn around, smash his camera, and beat him with her Prada bag flitted across her face, but he’d taken off running. She returned to Olivia’s side and gave her a tight smile. “Well, congrats on surviving your first paparazzi,” she said in a breezy but sarcastic tone.
“Thank you,” Olivia quietly murmured, still stunned. She tossed a final glance over her shoulder at the man retreating down the street. She got a sinking feeling in her gut that those photos would end up online, and nothing good could come out of that.