29. Adaline
You know how when most kids leave for college, and their parents kind of have a mid-life crisis and buy a dog, or a new car, or decide that water sports has always been their calling and suddenly two jet skis sit where their cars did on the drive… anything to replace the hole that’s left in their life because their child isn’t there?
Well, James and Betty Moore’s mid-life crisis purchase to me leaving was a $60 million dollar home in West Malibu.
Although, I’m pretty sure they didn’t buy it to replace me… probably to spite me. That would be more their speed.
It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong. When Goldie turned into the driveway, my exact words to seeing the size of the place were, ‘Holy fucking shit.’ Pristine white walls and clay tile roofs that overlooked the courtyard, the one with a fountain perched right in the middle. The arched windows and outdoor steps that lead to a wrap-around balcony cast a certain Spanish charm over the place.
And this was just the back of the house.
Pulling into the driveway, Goldie turned down the sweet tones of The Foundations, squinting her eyes as she slowed down… as if the absence of the music would help her park better.
My eyes, however, were still taking in the house before me. Not a house… a mansion. A house was what I grew up in. Picket fences and ice cream trucks that drove by at the same time each week. Connected backyards and sidewalks that wouldn’t mind a pressure wash. The school bus that would stop right outside, and would drop me off every night.
That wasn’t this place.
I could hear the ocean like it was only a few yards away, like the waves were crashing against the other side of the house… mansion. The place looked like it had too many bedrooms for the three people who lived here, too much space for a family that wasn’t really a family.
We get out of the car in silence, like she knows I’m taking everything in before she turns and smiles at me as we reach the front door. “It’s stupid, isn’t it?” she asks, punching in the code to the door.
“What is?”
“This,” she says, waving a hand around as the door glides open. “Living like this.”
“I mean… it’s big… but it’s beautiful.”
“The old house was beautiful too.”
It was. It really was.
“Still, waking up to a view like this every morning surely isn’t the worst thing in the world,” I say, nudging her in the side as she ushers me in. And then I feel my breath catch in the back of my throat. “Holy fucking shit,” I whispered, earning a laugh from Goldie, who skips in front of me.
“Better get the curses out of the way now before Mom hears.”
“She’s still weird about that?” The mental image of the swear jar that was one-quarter away from bursting projected in my mind.
“Unless we’re being paid to curse, then yes.”
And then I realised they were nowhere to be seen. Our parents.
I notice Goldie read the question written across my face before I can ask it. “She’ll be outside.” Her chin nodded over to the glass doors towards the back of the house. “Won’t come in until the sun goes away. He’s in the office. The one in the West Wing.”
“You have a West Wing?”
“Yeah. It’s just as boring as the East one.”
The lack of a welcome party didn’t surprise me in the slightest. It would have been weird if there had been a welcome party. But then, if I concentrate hard enough, I feel it. The sadness. The familiar feeling of being forgotten and abandoned by the two people who were biologically programmed to care for me all rolled into one. The sound of the ocean doesn’t help, all that does is remind me of the pier, the waves, crashing against its shore under the faint moonlight.
But I have a feeling the fanfare of a grand welcome would’ve hurt more, weirdly.
Goldie clocks me. “Hey, come see my room. I want to show the college brochures to someone who’ll actually—”
“Adaline!” A voice calls from beyond the foyer, their glossy, high-pitched squeaking of my name bouncing off the marble tiles. “Is that really you?”
My mother had all the gleeful surprise a mother should have when she sets eyes on the daughter she’s barely seen for years, but something about it seemed synthetic, almost careful. As though cameras that were rolling for some family reality show were hidden in every corner of the house.
She was alerted, and now it seemed the grand welcome was taking place.
I knew for a fact that beneath the feather-cuffed robe was a mother. A woman who was built from maternal bones. She cared, once upon a time, she protected me and loved me in a way that made me think she’d stand up to dad one day, put a stop to the auditions and convince him to let my childhood, Goldie’s childhood, be a normal one.
In the end, I think the resentment of what she’d never achieved for herself won. The dreams she’d never handled controlled her every move when it came to me… that’s why I think she never questioned my dad. Why she never will.
Once she pads her way over to me, manicured feet shimmering over the tiles, she reaches for me, wrapping her still-warm arms around my neck, pulling in for a hug.
“Oh, darling!” She breathes into my hair, her fingers lightly tugging at the ends, before slipping her hands down my arms. “How’ve you been, Adaline?” She asked, in a sincere, almost like she’d missed me, way.
“Umm,” I shuffle under her stare. “I’ve been… okay.”
“Okay?” She laughs, full of amusement, before gripping both of my hands. “Darling I think you’ve been doing more than just okay. Look at you, the biggest actress in the whole world, my daughter. It’s the stuff of dreams!”
Yours or mine?
I want to question her, badly, but I bite my tongue, not wanting to spoil the surprised niceties too soon. So I nod, and let a smile glide onto my face. “It is.” I agree, earning me a head tilt and longing look.
“Now,” she starts as she drops my hands, and in a quick movement, she takes Goldie under her left arm, me under the other. We both grunt as she pulls us towards her. “I’ve got both my girls home, my talented, successful, and beyond wonderful girls. Both of you get settled and join me outside, dinner will be soon, and your father will join us too. We’ll eat on the sun terrace, under the sunset, sound good?”
Goldie blows out a huff of air. “Which part? Because the sunset dinner sounds nice… having Dad there doesn’t—”
“Marigold.” Mom warns… sweetly. “You know he’s been busy lately, which makes him stressed. It’s not personal.” she reminds her, as Goldie mutters ‘feels personal’ under her breath.
“Right, I’ll check with Maddie on how long dinner will be,” Mom says, letting go of Goldie and turning to me, warm hands in mine again. “I’m so happy you’re home, Adaline. Really. We’ve… missed you, my darling.” The homely fire that lived in her iris’ took me in for a second, before a smile tightened her lips. “See you in a bit!” She sings as she pads back over to the door, which I’m assuming leads nowhere to the kitchen, but my guess is the sun terrace.
I turn to Goldie, feeling windswept, like mom was an emotional hurricane and we’d just spent a minute too long in the eye of it. “Did that seem—”
“Like she’s been a victim of those fucks from Invasion Of The Body Snatchers? Yes. Yes, it did.” I laugh at my sister, as she guides me up the stairs, the central feature of the room, laid with cream carpet and mahogany handrails.
It was a good thirty-second walk to reach her room, passing no family photos on the walls, instead, there were awards. Well, pictures of awards, me at award shows and snapshots of my acceptance speeches I didn’t want to read. There are a few of Goldie too, namely the one that she won at that kid’s award show.
And I feel it then, as I step foot into her room, like something chipped away at my heart, breaking for the girl who’s just launched herself onto her bed.
Despite the size, it reminded me of my room when I was her age. Band posters and disposable photos of her and her friends adorned the walls, a vintage gold jewellery stand that I think is mine was sitting on her dresser, along with a framed photo of the two of us from when we were younger, and a collection of lip balms.
Then there were the Liberty Grove brochures, sprawled across the floor, sticky notes with scribbles and annotation tabs sticking out from the sides of them. Without asking, I kneeled beside them, my fingers grazing the front covers like they were treasured artifacts, before flicking through them and gazing at her notes.
It was like she’d laid her dreams on there, like this was her dream journal. She’d made notes of the places she thought would be good to study, with a key on the side about which season would be best. She’d tabbed some of the courses she thought she’d like, mainly the ones that had the word psychology in them somewhere.
That was her thing, Goldie, forever curious about the mind, and why people make the choices they make. Hers, our parents, mine… anybody’s really. Like when we were driving down the 405 to get back here, she decided to give me a masterclass on the psychology behind car colours.
She pointed out the two black sports cars in front of us, speeding and drag racing like they were the only two cars on the highway, telling me that people make a beeline for black cars because they represent power, and rebellion. Then she pointed out the Barbie pink mini, the one that wasn’t merging and sitting idly as a million cars drove before it, and told me that it’s usually the emotional, child-like, and whimsical ones that go for the pink ones.
I nudged her when she told me that, and I told her how I hated the stereotyping, but she told me to blame science, not her.
“So what does a yellow car say about someone?” I asked her, gesturing to the car we were sitting in.
“They represent optimism, and positivity, obviously. They show that a person isn’t afraid to be true to themselves.”
And right then, I knew I’d done well by buying her a yellow car.
Naturally, I was curious at that point and asked her what the silver Audi TT I’d rented said about me. And the way she glanced at me told me all I needed to know.
“Silver is the most common car colour.” she swallowed. “They represent a lack of risk-taking, staying comfortable, and not straying from what you know because you’re afraid.”
“Oh,” was all I managed.
That was when I let the playlist that reminds me of her take the reigns for the rest of the journey back here.
“I got accepted.” My sister blurts out from across the room. “To Liberty Grove.” she clarifies, her big golden eyes staring back at me.
“Are you serious?” I get to my feet, my knees red from the carpet. “Why didn’t you say anything?” I reach the bed and sit across from her, golden hour sunlight blanketing the room around us.
“Because you were busy with the shoot and I didn’t want to disturb you, and… I don’t know.” My hand rose to her face, pushing back a baby hair. “I figured that I was never actually going to be going anyway, so there was no point getting me and other people excited for something that was never going to happen.”
I tilt my head toward her, my heart cracking the more her doubts spew out of her. “Oh, you’ll be going, Goldie. They cannot drag you halfway across the world when you don’t want to.” I swallow, my words getting caught in my throat. “Not if I’ve got anything to do about it.”
The guilt I kept locked away for leaving Goldie to take my place only crept higher up my throat. I had a job, as her older sister, to protect her in the ways she was too young to do herself, and what did I do? I left. Selfishly. I ran away to fend for myself and left Goldie to the sharks.
But if I’ve learned anything while orbiting the sun for twenty-five years, it’s that dwelling on the past won’t change it, it’ll only darken the future. Trying to paint over the imperfections will only make the whole painting look untrue. It’ll discolour its natural beauty, and before you know it, you’ll realise how fine it was to begin with.
I can’t think about how I left Goldie all on her own, without thinking about what my life would look like if I hadn’t.
Stupid hindsight, always being 20/20.
Which is why I won’t leave this house until I know Goldie’s future is taken care of, that it’s hers and only hers to carve.
“I’m so, so proud of you, Goldie. You are meant for so much more than this, I knew that from the moment you were born. That you’d change the world.” Through my teary eyes, I focused on her. “Because you changed mine.”
Her head fell forward, golden curls falling over her shoulder, tears dropping onto her blue jean knees. Then her shoulders shuddered, only a few times before she took a huge breath and lifted her head to face me again. She wiped her tears before she could let me see them, the suit of armour she wore over her heart rattling as she shook herself.
“Don’t make me cry, you’ll make me want to go and buy a pink car.”
We both breathed blubbery laughs before I cradled her in my arms for a moment or two.
I don’t think I’d be the person I was without my little sister. I don’t think I’d see the world the same way. It moulds you, the duty of it. The natural protectiveness that casts a spell over you when they come into the world. You know you’re not wholly responsible for them, but in a way, you are. So instinctive that those without younger siblings wouldn’t be able to explain it.
I think that’s what drew me to Florence when I met her.
Here was a girl who’d been failed by the guide she was born with, betrayed, and set aside like an abandoned child. It felt natural, to take her under my wing, to be the beacon she’d lost. And it’s funny how fate works, how cruel of a mistress she can be; because without Flo going through that, I wouldn’t have found a soul sister that I had no idea I needed.
And now that she was okay, it was time to focus on the sister I should have been there for. It was time for her moment in the spotlight that mattered.