Chapter 9 Miles
MILES
I need to fire my gardener. He’s not trimming these hibiscus shrubs properly. He isn’t trimming anything properly. I have to do everything around here myself, or nothing gets done right. Can’t believe I’m out here on a Monday evening. When I could be inside, working.
“I see you there, Mr. Brodie.”
Shit.
My neighbor, Mrs. Wilson, reminds me of Angela Lansbury, and I always feel like I’m in trouble whenever she speaks to me.
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Wilson. How are you today?”
“Lovely to see you skulking about on a warm summer’s eve, instead of toiling away inside as usual.” She narrows her eyes at me.
“I was just—"
“Doing some gardening, yes, I see. Aria here was just telling me you’ve offered to let her park in your garage. That is ever so kind of you.” She gives me a knowing look. Like she knows something. She doesn’t know anything.
“Well, there’s already so little parking available on our street, I thought this way—”
“Yes. So thoughtful.” She’s standing just outside her guest house, on the other side of the five-foot-high fence that separates our properties.
The guest house that Aria may or may not move into—not that it makes any difference to me aside from how it might benefit Macy.
“Look who’s here, Aria,” she calls out in a sing-song voice.
“Look who is here, engaging in such vigorous groundskeeping that it was necessary for him to remove his shirt!” My eighty-year-old widower neighbor winks at me.
I’m wearing a tank top. What am I supposed to do—trim the shrubs in my Tom Ford dress shirt when it’s seventy-eight degrees out here? Come on.
“Well, hello there, Mr. Brodie,” comes another sing-song voice.
A woman who makes me feel like I’m in trouble in a totally different way.
She’s beaming. Radiant. Aria steps out onto the tiny patio of Mrs. Wilson’s guest house in cropped pants, a loose blouse, and flip-flops, but she somehow looks glamorous without even trying.
I wipe my sweaty brow with my forearm—not because I’m trying to look like a model in a diet soda commercial but because it’s warm and I’m working up a sweat. I don’t even look at her when I ask in a super-chill whatever tone, “What do you think of the guest house?”
“I love it. It’s perfect. I mean, I’ll miss the one I’m living in now, but this is a wonderful property.”
“I was just telling her that I never use the pool, so she’s welcome to enjoy it whenever she’d like. You may swim, you may sunbathe, you may sing and dance around the yard in a bikini if you so desire, my dear,” she says to Aria.
I grunt. “It’s a quiet, family neighborhood though,” I add. “No pool parties.”
“Well, I’ve got a show going up in a month and a half and some vocal coaching to do, so I doubt I’ll be spending too much time out here in my bikini.
” She smiles at me. She could be making so much money off that smile.
On the other hand, she should also reserve that smile just for me.
“Anyway, I’d love to move in here by the end of the week, if you’ll have me,” she says to Mrs. Wilson.
“Oh, my dear girl. Consider yourself had. Like I said, Mr. Brodie vouched for you. I’ll run that credit check, but we can sign the papers tomorrow.
Now, I’m off to meet the girls for dinner.
Miles, you may take care of her from here.
” She spins on her sensible heel with a flourish and disappears into her house.
I go back to trimming the hibiscus shrub—because that’s why I’m here.
“Thanks again for setting this up for me,” Aria says as she walks closer to the fence.
“Welcome. Part of the deal.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her looking around my backyard.
She’s probably noticing that there’s a clear view of the bedroom of that guest house from the room upstairs that happens to be my room.
But I’m way too busy to look out that window.
She can prance around in a bikini to her carefree heart’s desire.
If she wants me showing up for rehearsals and shows, then I’ll be working every other waking hour of the day, and that’s fine by me.
“Is Macy home?”
“She was with her mom today, but the nanny’s bringing her back in a bit.”
“Cool. She has her first session with me in half an hour, you know?”
“I know. It’s in my calendar. That’s why I’m at home.”
“Right. Well, since you’re here and I’m here and Macy won’t be here for half an hour…I was thinking maybe I could give you a little lesson while we wait. Unless you have a deadline to finish trimming that shrub. Nice job, by the way.” She isn’t being facetious, because it’s true.
I am doing a nice job.
I heave a sigh and drag my veiny forearm across my glistening forehead again.
“Sighing will actually be one of the exercises we’ll do as part of the lesson,” she says.
“Fine. Hang on.” I put the clippers and shears back in the garage and grab the extra garage door opener. When I come back out, I tell her, “You can come around the back way over here.”
“Actually, I was thinking we should do it in the guest house.”
I clear my throat.
“Have the lesson in the guest house, I mean.” She smirks. “It’s empty, so the acoustics are good for vocals. Good reverb. Macy will probably sound better in there. It’ll build her confidence. Like singing in the shower—although you don’t sing unless you’re drunk, right?”
“Fine. I’ll text the nanny to let her know where we are. And grab a shirt.”
“Oh, don’t worry about the shirt. It’s helpful if I can see your neck and chest and abs.”
I don’t even bother giving her the side-eye for that because I can tell she’s messing with me.
“So I can determine where you’re breathing and singing from,” she explains. “Physiologically. So I can show you the muscles that are involved.”
Right.
I text Nanny Cho to tell her where to bring Macy when they get home and then go through my back gate to the alley. “You have to unlock the gate for me,” I call out, just as she unlocks the gate.
She’s so fucking pretty I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face.
I hold out the garage remote to her.
“Awww,” she coos as she takes it from me. “Thank you.”
“Don’t loan it to anyone.”
“Why would I loan it to anyone?”
“I mean if you…have anyone over or whatever.”
“Oh, you mean an overnight guest.”
“None of my business what you get up to over here. Just don’t lose my garage remote.”
“Like I said, I’ll be too busy with the show to—”
“Like I said, it’s none of my business. And keep it in your glove compartment.”
“I shall. I promise.”
“Also, if you have a spare key for your car, you should give it to me. So I can move your car, if necessary.”
“Sure. I can do that.”
“Great.” I make my way past her, holding my breath as I do. I don’t want to inhale her enchanting, ethereal scent and I don’t want to emit a wistful sigh and I don’t want to stick my face in her long, soft hair and start weeping. “Let’s get this over with,” I mumble when I’m safely upwind of her.
“Yes. Let’s.”
I stomp onto the patio and wait for her to lead the way into the guest house, because I’m a gentleman.
“Right this way,” she says, opening the French doors to the living room.
There are a lot of windows in this little house. A lot of natural light. I wonder if she’ll put up curtains.
She shuts the doors and drops her shoulder bag to the floor.
And then she tosses her hair over one shoulder and bends forward to riffle through it.
She isn’t wearing a bra and she is an evil, beautiful demon and I don’t have my fucking sunglasses on and I can’t look away.
She may be oblivious to the fact that she’s flashing me, or she may not care that some divorced dad who tucks his dress pants into his socks is getting a peakaboob show, and I.
Don’t. Care. This is what I will see every time I close my eyes from this day forward until the day I die.
This is the best and the worst thing that’s happened to me since the first time I saw her.
If I wrote songs, this is what I would write about.
If I wrote poems, I would write a fucking haiku about this.
Fuck it, here goes:
Beautiful woman
Perfect petal pink nipples
Fuck me, I’m in hell.
She finally pulls out a tube of Chapstick, applies it, smacks her lips together, and then tosses it back into the bag.
I just experienced mild euphoria and composed my first ever haiku, but she was only thinking about moistening her lips.
This is pointless.
She removes a spare car key from a key chain. “Okay. Let’s do this,” she says. “Here you go.” She places the car key in my hand, and I put it in my pocket.
“Thank you. Are you still going to go surfing every morning?”
She smiles as she steps away from me again, sliding her hands into her pockets. “Well, I don’t surf every morning. But I’ll probably check out the breaks at Topanga Beach while I’m living here. Are you still going to go running at Zuma every morning?”
“I don’t go running at Zuma every morning.”
“Well, there are a lot of rocks at Topanga. Probably not a great beach to run on.”
“I know that,” I snap. “There’s nothing to sit on in here.”
“We can sit on the floor, if necessary, but it’s better to stand. Good posture is important.”
I square my shoulders and straighten my spine. I already have good posture. I carry myself like a winner—always. “Okay. What do we do? Sighing exercises?”
She laughs at me. So amused by me. I’m sooo amusing to her. “Can I see your Cheshire Cat grin for a second?”
I cross my arms in front of my chest. “No.”
“You need to get the grin right. It’s the Cheshire Cat’s defining physical characteristic.”
“This isn’t a rehearsal. I’m not doing it.” I’ve been practicing in the mirror since yesterday, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“Just do that thing you did that first time we met. When I asked you if you were okay and you assured me in such a genuine way, with that toothy grin, that you were great.”
“I was great. Still am.”
“Then you should smile more.”
“I smile when I’m happy.”