201 Days
Since entering her thirties, Rhea had spent most July Fourths in her claw-foot tub wearing noise-canceling headphones, with an air purifier on full blast in the corner of her bathroom.
Los Angelenos were enamored with fireworks.
Every year, the city deteriorated into a war zone; pops and explosions rang through the night at an anxiety-inducing pace.
The air quality plummeted; smoke clouded the skies.
Drunk youths with a fetish for arson weaved down the streets looking for something to blow up.
The only reason sensible adults left their houses on the holiday was to show their children the fireworks.
Due to Rhea’s aforementioned lack of children, she spent the occasion soaking and pretending she did not live on a battlefield.
This year, however, Danny invited her to a Fourth of July party at his house.
Rhea had thus far not been to Danny’s house.
Every time she offered to make the trek, he would say he was happy to come west. His nursery was halfway between them; it was much easier for him to go to her than the reverse.
At first, she thought it was romantic and accepted it as part of the courting phase.
As the weeks wore on, however, she began to wonder if maybe he was hiding seven roommates or a secret wife.
She followed the GPS guidance to his Pasadena address with slight trepidation, but she was so completely smitten with Danny, she seriously doubted any revelation about his life could make her want to end the relationship.
She and the seven roommates would start a book club.
She and the secret wife would become best friends, bonding over their shared love of Danny.
If Rhea found a dead body buried in his backyard, she would probably assume they had it coming; nothing could put her off Danny.
Especially since she was making headway on getting him to realize he actually did want to be a father.
She started small, just innocently forwarding him articles that contained good news about the environment. Japanese scientists invented a plastic alternative that dissolved in salt water. A high school student invented a filter that turned carbon emissions into oxygen.
She had to sift through a lot of pretty bleak articles about the environment to find the good ones.
The activity was thoroughly depressing as it dawned on her just how screwed the planet truly was.
But she figured, if Danny felt like the earth was becoming healthier and people were eating fewer credit cards, maybe he would shed his resistance to adding another hundred thousand pounds of garbage to it, or two or three hundred thousand pounds, depending on how many kids they had.
Danny loved the articles. He was delighted Rhea was taking such an interest in the well-being of the planet. It was causing them to have hopeful conversations about the survival of mankind. He even responded to one of her emails with: This gives me so much hope for future generations.
She prayed that meant his subconscious was slowly opening up to the idea of having future generations of his own.
She knew another one of Danny’s reasons for remaining child-free was that he didn’t want to abandon them to go to work. She started researching the pros of working from home, and the results were plentiful.
While eating Thai food in Venice, she casually mentioned reading an article about the benefits of an at-home career: less money spent on commuting, work clothes, and takeout lunches; reduced stress; and, most important, less environmental impact.
“Have you ever considered working from home?” she asked innocently. “Like, letting other people do the physical work and you stay home and just run the business?”
“I mean, yeah, I’ve thought about it, but I love the physical part: designing the gardens, being outside, getting my hands dirty…. Plus, it’s looking like we’re gonna be opening a new nursery in Long Beach, so staying home sounds impossible.”
“Oh, congrats!” she said as their children slowly disintegrated. She tried to buy Danny a bottle of champagne to toast the new nursery, but they had to settle for Thai beers. They held up their beers, and she said a toast in his honor while racking her brain for another parenting plan.
She researched Los Angeles alternative schools and found one that described itself as “primarily outdoor, play-based, self-paced, child-centered, progressive, and fun!” She scrolled through photos of an enormous outdoor jungle gym that looked as if it were built by the Lost Boys: a smiling boy on a tire swing, gleeful children running around covered in paint, a girl laughing and swinging on a rope over a muddy pond.
Surely these kids did not mind being raised by people who were “paid to spend time with them,” and maybe Danny would not have to “wrench their tiny hands off his leg in the morning” because they would be so excited to go to their theme-park school.
She forwarded the school’s website to Danny with the subject Whoa!
And the message: My friend is sending her kid to this school. I had no idea such a place existed…. I wish I could’ve gone here!
Danny wrote back: This looks like kid heaven. Can’t believe it’s a real place.
Rhea smiled. She was finally getting somewhere. Danny could keep the job he loved, and their children could go to school in Neverland.
As she pulled into his Pasadena neighborhood, she prepared herself for whatever side of Danny he had been keeping from her; it turned out to be the side that owned a stunning Craftsman.
She stared at the mansion and double-checked the address.
With her eyes glued to the facade, she parked in front of a house that made the one from her vision board look like a hovel.
It was two stories with olive-green wood siding.
The high, pointed roof was smugly covered with solar panels.
The wide wooden door stood out on a large front porch, complete with a porch swing.
Rhea pictured Danny driving home from her filthy little wayside shack to this architectural gem. How did he stand being inside her tiny cottage? Why hadn’t he made her drive across town every single time? If Rhea lived in this house, she would never leave.
Rhea watched a few people she didn’t know walk up to Danny’s porch carrying containers of food and a case of beer, and realized she was showing up to a party empty-handed.
She had been so nervous about going to his house for the first time she’d forgotten basic human etiquette.
She was pulling out of her parallel spot to race to a liquor store when she heard, “There she is.”
She looked up at her beautiful boyfriend. The sun shone on him as he smiled down at her from his front porch. She pulled back into her parallel spot.
“I didn’t bring anything! I’m so sorry!” she shouted as she walked up his porch steps, showing him her empty hands. She preferred to call attention to the things she was insecure about; that way, they didn’t fester in secret. This rule did not apply to her nose.
“Yourself is more than enough.”
“I just totally spaced—so sorry.”
When he hugged her, his solidity made her realize she was slightly shaking.
“Your house is so nice!” she yelled.
“Oh, thank you…. You look great.”
“I can’t believe I haven’t been here yet, it’s, like, so nice!”
“It wasn’t when I bought it, it’s taken a lotta years to get it here.”
“Well, you did a phenomenal job!”
She had to stop yelling about the house, but she couldn’t. She knew he was successful but had not realized he was this successful. She knew he’d gone to Wharton and had three million TikTok followers but was still unprepared for this.
All wealth made her nervous, but this was deeper. She was standing in front of a mansion she might someday live in while also preparing to meet Danny’s friends, possibly his family, and watch fireworks; it was all too much. She started blinking.
“Do you live in this giant place all alone?!” she yelled.
She stood next to herself, leaned in, and whispered, Rhea, stop talking about the house.
“No, I live with my wife…and my girlfriend.”
She pretended to glare at him.
“Of course I live alone. Don’t you think I would’ve told you by now if I didn’t?”
“I meant, like, roommates or something. It’s just so big! I can’t imagine living here alone!”
She tapped herself on the shoulder. Shut the fuck up.
“Yeah, when I moved in, I thought it would be fun to remodel an old house, but now it’s done and I’m like, wait, this place is way too big for just me.”
Rhea tried not to take that as an invitation to move in with him immediately. She held a neutral expression as he guided her toward the front door, then he abruptly stopped and turned to face her.
“Man, I’m nervous.”
“You are? You don’t seem nervous at all,” she yelled while blinking rapidly.
“Well, hosting always makes me anxious—and I don’t know, you’re here now and I…want you to…think I’m cool.” He laughed. “I almost said ‘have a good time,’ but I’ll just be honest.”
Rhea smiled. His honesty always made her feel like less of a freak. Whenever he shared a piece of his inner world, she felt a kindred connection with him that tethered her to the ground.
“How could I possibly not think you were cool?” she asked at her normal volume; his vulnerability bolstered her enough to stop yelling.
“Wait ’til you meet my sisters.”
“Oh God, they’re here?”
As they entered the house, Rhea wished she had a case of beer to shield herself with and a bottle of wine to hold out in front of her like a sword. Her empty, shaking hands made her feel utterly exposed.
Three women screamed from somewhere inside the house, and Rhea jumped.
The women ran toward her, and she resisted the instinct to hide behind Danny.
She felt reality folding in on itself as she took in three women who looked identical to Danny.
Rhea was clinging to Danny’s arm as three other Dannys with long black hair ran at her, screaming:
“Rhea?!”