Chapter Ten
The beach is hot, and, yes, the water is cold. The Pacific Ocean should be warm—it’s the water of sunny California—but the circulation patterns mean the sea filters from Alaska, and it’s always a little bit biting.
I dip my toe in and am pierced by that immediate, icy thrill. In California, we surf all year long. I remember forty-degree days when we’d be out on the water. You just grin and bear it. It only hurts on the way in, not the way out, and eventually, you just get used to it.
Wading in is torturous, even in the summer, and as soon as the tide exhales I push past the break and dive under the waves. It feels delicious—like swimming in the deep, deep sea even though I’m nearly at the water’s edge.
I come to the surface and shake out my hair and see my dad taking the steps, following my trail.
I watch him lumber down, pausing once to rub his knee.
He sits on the bottom step and sips from a blue ceramic water bottle.
He has a T-shirt on I recognize—three pineapples, all in sunglasses.
When he sees me seeing him, he waves. I wave back.
“You coming in?” I call.
He shakes his head. “Just watching ya!”
I do a few laps, back and forth, letting my body glide through the water, feeling the thump and hum of my blood as my heart rate accelerates.
There’s a sweet spot once you’re in where your body adjusts to the temperature and it feels like gliding through velvet.
Stay in too long, and you start to pickle.
When you’re surfing, it’s all action. You’re running a marathon out on the water. Even without a wet suit, I never think about the temperature when I’m in motion. But just my own body in the waves is a different thing. The clock runs out fast.
I get out of the water and wring my hair into the sand. Dad waves again, and I walk up and take a seat next to him, wrapping myself in the towel he hands me.
“Sorry,” I say, as water drips all over his blue T-shirt and board shorts. He responds by slinging his arm around me and pulling me into a wet shoulder hug.
“I’ll live.”
We watch the beach. The waves are usually choppy midday—shitty surf condition—but today the ocean is almost pancaked.
“It’s nice to have you back,” Dad says, releasing me.
“It’s nice to be back.”
“Silver lining to your husband being away—your old man gets a revival.”
When I first introduced my parents to Leo it was at Taverna Tony—Malibu’s resident Greek restaurant in the Cross Creek shopping center.
My parents almost never eat out. For one, all the restaurants in Malibu are overpriced, and for the other, my dad says the best spot in town is the one they’ve got.
The food is spectacular, and you can’t beat the view.
Marcella can arrange a salad, and Dave knows his way around the barbecue, but they get their restaurant-quality meals because of Sylvia. I don’t blame them for wanting to stay put.
But my parents knew Leo was special and insisted their first meeting should be somewhere special, too.
Taverna Tony is a huge restaurant complete with a bougainvillea-twined terrace and belly dancers after dark.
“It’s an experience,” my dad likes to say. He loves it there. The waiters all know him by name, and he gets the dip for free—which in and of itself, for him, is a reason to go.
That first night, Leo and I were early, and we were shown to a table on the patio.
It was a cool summer night—Malibu never gets that hot in the evening, not even in the dead of July.
I had on a silver slip dress and a denim jacket.
Leo was wearing khakis and a short-sleeved button-down.
I remember thinking he looked handsome—better than I’d ever seen him—and then chiding myself that I liked when he was dressed out of the norm for him.
When he was buttoned up, playing at someone else—a collar, a pant with structure.
“They’re going to love you,” I told him. I gave his hand a firm squeeze.
“I hope so.”
“Why wouldn’t they? Everyone loves you.”
Leo shrugged. “Most people like me. But your parents are serious.”
“Who said that?”
Leo looks at me. “I can just tell. You wouldn’t be this nervous otherwise.” Leo took my face in his hands. He kissed me.
My parents came then, so I didn’t have time to tell him he was wrong.
They weren’t serious. At least, my dad wasn’t.
It’s just that so few people had folded into my family before.
That it has been me and them for such a long time.
That I was worried about including him this late in the game—when so much had already happened, so much he’d never be able to experience because it was context now.
“Honey!” My dad threw his arms around me. My parents had come without Sylvia, who had her standing card game. Her card game is serious: If you miss two in a row, you’re out for good, and the month before she’d been down with a cold.
“She apologizes,” my mother said, and I wondered if it was strange to Leo to note a grandparent’s absence from a meet-the-parents dinner.
Marcella took in Leo. “It’s really nice to meet you,” she said.
Leo ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, same. You, too.”
Dad ordered a beer, Mom a glass of Sancerre.
“Lauren tells me you’re a photographer,” my mother said. She sipped her wine, two interlocking shawls cascading over her shoulders. That night she had on a mauve linen dress under the outerwear. She looked softer somehow.
“Sort of,” Leo said. “I mean, yes. But I’m a DP.”
My mom looked at my dad. Neither of them had any idea what he meant, and I felt momentarily annoyed that Leo had used the acronym. Just tell them. This isn’t their world.
“Director of photography,” I said.
“Right,” Leo jumped in. “I help a director shoot the film, or television show—whatever it may be. I’m responsible for a shot list—really the whole creative direction of the piece.”
Leo was prideful about his art, sometimes it came off as slightly arrogant.
I didn’t care—hadn’t cared—because I assumed this was how all photographers felt.
This was how all artists felt. But sitting there with my parents I felt like I suspected they did—that he was being purposefully obtuse.
Leaving us out of an experience we clearly couldn’t relate to.
“How exciting,” my mother said.
“It will be,” Leo said, and I felt his affability creeping back in. “I’m working on building my career, truth be told. I was an assistant director for a long time. And only moved into photography recently. It’s really where I belong, but I have to pay my dues.”
I felt instant relief at his vulnerability. My mother smiled.
“I don’t know if Lauren has told you but I was a teacher,” she said.
Leo leaned his elbows on the table, grateful, I thought, to have the spotlight off him for a moment. “No, she didn’t mention it.”
My mom nodded. “Webster Elementary. I started when Lauren was about sixteen.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
Dave laughed. “What a question!”
Marcella smiled. “Loved it. Taught second grade. It’s a really interesting time. Children are becoming so aware of their environment and each other. There’s a lot happening, and so much of it gets formed in the classroom.”
Leo picked up his beer and took a sip. I could tell he was trying to follow her but wasn’t sure where she was going with this, how it related to what came before.
“I always felt like it was where I belonged, in that classroom,” she said. “I got a late start, but once I got there it was like everything clicked. It saved me, in a way.” She took a small sip of water. “So I think it’s wonderful when people pursue their passions.”
Leo smiled. Ah. “Thank you, Marcella. I appreciate your sharing that.”
One thing about Leo is he means what he says. I felt his genuine warmth pervade the table. I put my hand on his knee and squeezed.
“Why did you end up retiring?” he asked.
Marcella shook her head. “I don’t know—it just got harder. I probably shouldn’t have, if you want to know the truth, but it’s tough these days. Parents want their kids to be guaranteed Harvard admission at eight.”
I remember thinking it was funny she’d critique that because that was how she felt, too, wasn’t it? She wanted me to go to a good college, wanted me to succeed at something. Academics was important to her—more important than it was to my dad.
“It’s nuts,” Leo said. “You’d think with rising depression rates they’d just want them to be happy.”
Marcella nodded slowly. “I didn’t feel like I could connect with students in the way I was used to. I found myself watching too many of my words. Maybe I stopped trying as hard.”
I remember the years when my mom taught.
In many ways teaching was the thing that helped her reconnect to the world, that gave her a path forward after the accident.
She’d come home with stories about her classroom—the kids loved her, and rather than feeling jealous I felt proud.
I loved that other students saw her, saw the parts of her that made a great instructor—that made her a great mom.
Because she was that. No one knew how to impart the rules quite like my mother.
She taught up until I was out of college, at least. Although in that moment at dinner, I remember thinking I didn’t remember when she stopped.
A waiter came by and delivered sheep’s milk cheese with triangles of warm, doughy pita, and Taverna Tony’s signature spread—half hummus, half cream cheese and olives. Dave beamed proudly.
“Thanks, Ivan.”
We dug in. Leo is not a shy eater—he loves food.
On one of our first dates he took me on a taco crawl of the east side of LA.
I have a strong stomach, always have, and I liked the way Leo respected my appetite.
I didn’t feel like I had to be shy taking down tacos or pulling apart ribs with him. The more I ate, the more he loved it.