Chapter 11
Nairie
I drove to Aunt Lilit’s home in the Hollywood Hills, a high-profile neighborhood where the minimum property value was two million.
She recently purchased it, so I’d never been here before.
The long, windy road was canopied with large overgrown trees as I passed countless ten-foot-high gates undoubtedly owned by celebrities.
Finally, I pulled up to a wrought-iron gate with intricate filigree and pressed the call box button.
Aunt Lilit’s familiar deep voice crackled through the speaker. “Hello?”
“Aunt Lilit, it’s—”
“What? Who is this?”
“It’s—”
“Speak up, I can’t hear you.”
I yelled, “It’s—”
“I’m just fucking with you. I know it’s you, Nairie. Wave to the camera, sweetie!”
I looked up at the top of the gate and saw a camera pointed directly at me. The gates ambled open, and I rolled my eyes.
The two-story Tuscan villa was complete with a fountain in the gravel driveway and hedges trimmed in phallic and vaginal-like shapes. I parked my cheap Toyota near the front, but it felt like putting a blemish on the Mona Lisa.
Aunt Lilit came out with her cane, her long black silky robe flapping behind her in the wind. The feather-trimmed sleeves rippled as she moved. She opened up her frail arms and revealed a matching set of black satin pajamas embroidered with her initials.
I smiled and welcomed the hug with more appreciation than usual, savoring the floral, cinnamon perfume my aunt always loved to wear. I had a rough past couple of weeks, and it was nice to have familial comfort.
“Something tells me you needed this hug more than me.”
I smiled and pulled away, staring at my aunt’s beautiful face. Even though she was in loungewear, her makeup was still flawless.
“Why are you always right?”
Lilit held my hand and led me inside the mansion.
It was like walking into a Nancy Meyers movie set; everything was in tones of cream, black, and beige, but it still felt cozy.
We entered the sunken living room with plush white carpets that led out to the veranda with a view of the Los Angeles city skyline.
“We have psychic powers in our family.”
I raised my eyebrows in skepticism.
“That and I’m old as hell, so I know a thing or two,” she chuckled.
We sat by the floor-to-ceiling windows on large velvet armchairs that seemed to swallow me whole.
A plate of cookies and tea sat on the small table between us, already prepared for my arrival.
Aunt Lilit brought a teacup to her lips and slowly drank, her elegant, large nose dipped down so she could get a better look at me.
I fidgeted and started drinking tea too. This felt more like an interrogation, and I didn’t know what to say.
“Spill,” she said calmly.
“What?”
“You’re dying to tell me about your life.”
“Pretty boring life compared to yours.”
Lilit waved her hand. “Nonsense. You’re young, beautiful, talented, and inherited my mother’s big ass. Somebody with those attributes always has something going on.”
“How much of this will get back to my parents?”
Lilit balked. “I don’t tell those nerds anything. I’ll make you a deal. You tell me about what’s been going on, and I’ll confirm or deny any rumors you’ve heard about me.”
It was a tempting offer. There were so many rumors about Lilit in the family, and I was dying to know more about my mysterious aunt.
“Okay. Well, you know I’ve been living with my best friend, Elspeth, part-time. Her mother recently passed from cancer, so I was helping her take care of things this past year.”
She raised her palms to make me pause. “Never go back, Nairie.”
“But how do I do that?”
Lilit dunked a cookie in her tea and smiled fondly. “You stand your ground. You let your father yell all he wants—he’s good at that. You let your mother shed her tears—it’s her favorite pastime. And you just ride it out. They’ll come around, eventually.”
“Did they come around when you left?”
“You’re their daughter. It’s different.”
I thought over what she said and watched a silver strand of her hair blow in the breeze. “Is it true you met Harrison Ford in a café in Venice and that he fell madly in love with you?”
Lilit grinned. “It was a short-lived affair.”
My mouth gaped.
“What’s going on with your art?”
I shifted in my chair and took a sip of tea. “I’m entering this illustrating competition on Instagram, and I’m taking a figure drawing class now. I didn’t tell Mom or Baba about that either.”
“Figure drawing, you say? So I assume there are nude models in this class?”
I chuckled. “Yes.”
Lilit winked. “There’s nothing like admiring the human form. I myself posed for some of the shrubs out front.”
I choked on my tea and composed myself.
I hesitated to share this next part, but I wanted Lilit to know I wasn’t a complete bore. “I actually hooked up with one of the models.”
Lilit threw her head back on a laugh and clapped. “Well done.”
“Yeah, he’s very hot but very, very dumb. And kind of an asshole.”
“They almost always are. Why was he an asshole?”
“He didn’t take our breakup well, but my friend William punched his lights out.”
“And you thought your life was boring.”
I scooted closer to her in my chair. “Did a sheik really give you all that money?”
Lilit smiled. “No. Prince Abdul was just a very good friend. He taught me all about investing and stocks. Pointed me in the right direction. All this money was made by yours truly.”
I was in awe and looked at my surroundings to see the evidence of everything my aunt had accomplished.
“Tell me about this William.”
I sank deeper in my chair and grabbed a cookie. This was one subject I wasn’t sure about revealing. Nobody knew about my lifelong crush on William except Elspeth, and that was more of an unspoken understanding. It wasn’t typically something I vocalized.
“He’s Elspeth’s half brother from Scotland.”
Lilit hummed knowingly. “The Scots make great lovers.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Lilit looked at me without blinking. It felt like minutes passed, and my palms started sweating.
The words bubbled up before I could stop them.
“Okay, alright. We hooked up once. It was incredible. I’ve been in love with him since I was seven, and now he’s living with me and Elspeth, and every time I look at him, I want to jump his bones, but he doesn’t want to take my virginity because he’s going back to Scotland in a few weeks and he’s emotionally unavailable. ”
Lilit whistled in exasperation. “Okay, we’re going to need something stronger than tea.”
A glass of sangria later, I told my aunt everything about William and all the ways I loved his silent strength, selflessness, and good heart.
“That’s quite the pickle, Nairie, but I’m proud of you.”
“For what?”
“You’re pursuing your dreams, dating, exploring your sexuality. I have a feeling William will come around.”
“I don’t know. He’s so against us being together.”
“He’s just scared. He’s probably been hurt before, and you mean a lot to him. He doesn’t want to leave you high and dry. Or rather, wet.”
“Ew.”
“Have you ever considered moving?”
“Moving? I’m already living with Elspeth.”
“To Scotland, of course.”
I coughed on my sangria. “Um, no.”
“Could make for quite an adventure. Normally, I wouldn’t condone moving for a man, but let’s face it, you’ve got nothing else going on for you here.”
“The whole family is here, and I have my job at the shop.”
“Yes, organizing filing boxes must be integral to the business.”
“Mom and Baba would freak. How would I make money over there? Where would I live?”
“You worry too much about your parents. And you’ll figure the rest out.”
I huffed. “Yeah, right.”
“The thing you have to focus on now is making that handsome devil mad with jealousy.”
“Already ahead of you. Mom’s been trying to set me up with some guy from church, and I finally said yes.”
“Perfect.”
I finished the last cookie on my plate and wiped my hands. “Is it true that you have a boyfriend in every country?”
“It wasn’t always that way. I was in love once too. Well, a few times. But one very big one.”
“Who was he?”
“Her name was Rebecca. She died in a car accident years ago.”
I paused, not realizing how much of my aunt’s life no one really knew.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “I’m so sorry.”
She squeezed back. “I’m glad you asked. She was incredible. She challenged me, inspired me, took care of me. Everything you’d want in a partner.” Lilit’s eyes glistened with tears. “It reminds me of you and William. He seems like a good man, Nairie. Sometimes, those are worth all the risks.”
I smiled sadly at my aunt. There was so much more I wanted to know, but I had to help at the church bake sale.
I gathered my things by the door and waited for Lilit to reappear from one of the back rooms. “Can I see you again? Or will you be gone soon?”
She smiled warmly. “I’ll stay long enough for the church banquet, and then I’ll be off again. But you can always call me or, better yet, visit me wherever I am.”
I hugged her tightly. “I’ll come by again soon, then.”
“Good. And take this.”
She slipped me a folded-up paper. “Consider it an accumulation of gifts for all the life events I missed.”
I unfolded the paper and saw that it was a check for $10,000. “No, no, no. You can’t be serious.”
I pushed the check back to my aunt, who refused to take it back.
“I’m an investor, Nairie. And you’re my next project. I want this money to fuel your art career, to give you choices.”
“No.”
Lilit stared at me stubbornly. “And I want to commission a piece.”
I paused. “You really want a piece by me?”
“It better be good.” She winked.
I didn’t want to accept the money at all, but trading it for actual work was better than taking it for free. Denying was also useless. My aunt would find a way to deposit the money in my account anyway.
“Okay, thank you.”
As I pulled away from the grand mansion, Lilit’s advice niggled in the back of my mind. Would I ever take that leap to make my own path in life?
***