Chapter 1
Jo
I give Dottie a push. When she stutters and growls, I hold back the urge to curse. Like me, she’s almost forty-three years old. I ease up on the clutch and give her a little gas. She resumes her climb.
“Good girl,” I whisper, because even ancient Datsun pickup trucks deserve love.
To celebrate, I turn up the radio. An over-enthusiastic DJ announces, “Home of classic hip-hop and R and B!” The busted speakers buzz, and I sing along, bopping my head. “‘My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard…’”
Higher and higher, the narrow road rises above Sunset Boulevard and snakes into the Hollywood Hills. I’ve only been driving for an hour, but my scruffy little apartment in Long Beach feels a world away.
I crank my window down. The morning air hums with summer heat.
Now that I’m deep enough into the hills, I turn off the radio.
The city sounds have faded. I hear Dottie’s sputtering engine, the occasional hawk screech and the low blare of leaf blowers as gardeners go about their business behind thick hedges and very high walls.
Soon I reach the cul-de-sac at the end of the road. There’s another truck parked in my usual space. It’s a newish F-150 with a gleaming toolbox, tinted windows and some plastic buckets in the truck bed. I ease in next to the truck, and Dottie gently shudders to a stop.
After I haul my rucksack over my shoulder, I notice my sister Rowena standing on the bottom step of the red tiled stairway leading up to her house.
In her long white sundress and artfully messy bun, she looks expensive.
When she gives me a hug, she smells expensive too.
Her perfume is sweet and strange—star jasmine, maybe, with a hint of brushfire. Very Hollywood.
“Favorite auntie, reporting for duty,” I announce.
“I missed you,” she says with a soft sigh, sagging into my hug like she used to when we were little. “Thanks for coming.”
“What? How could I miss the most important thirteenth birthday party of all time? Are you all set for tomorrow?”
“Everything is ready. And I can’t believe you’re actually taking time off. Who’s watching the shop?”
“I’ve got it covered,” I say, as breezily as I can.
“Good. You need a little vacation.”
Rowena knows running my vintage store has been my life for the last seven years.
But she doesn’t know about the pack of worries I’ve carried with me here.
The building’s owners are about to raise the rent, foot traffic is down, and it will be a miracle if sales cover the bills at the end of this month.
Rowena doesn’t know I’ve been having nightmares about closing the store and losing my only source of income.
Shaking off these thoughts, I give her another squeeze. Her hairdo gets a little disheveled. “Look at this. So nice.” I run my fingers through one of the honey-streaked locks. “Highlights? Balayage?”
“I think it’s called foilyage.”
“What are you, a tree?”
She lets go and rolls her eyes at me for the first of many times this weekend. “Come on. The twins are already in the pool.”
We climb the steep steps until we reach a heavy wooden door.
I look up. Rowena’s house is a multi-level Spanish revival beauty with wrought-iron details, painted wood beams and original tiles.
Big windows frame old olive and oak trees.
Bougainvillea, climbing roses and trumpet flowers drip from oversized terra-cotta planters and balcony railings.
In the last year, she’s spent a fortune on landscaping.
I drop my bag in one of the guest rooms and take off my cowboy boots. I’m sweating and grateful when Rowena hands me a cold bottle of mineral water in the kitchen.
“Where’s Thomas?” I ask, taking a swig to hide the automatic grimace I usually make at the thought of my brother-in-law.
“He’s in London checking in on one of his projects. He’ll be back for breakfast tomorrow.” Rowena adjusts some white roses in a vase by her kitchen sink. She gives me a sideways glance. “I talked to him about last time, Jojo. He promises he’ll watch what he says.”
I hope she doesn’t see my eye twitch.
“I’m just a guest here,” I say. “He can say whatever he wants.”
Rowena frowns. She and Thomas have been married for thirteen years, but sometimes she behaves like a guest in her own house too.
Even though she and I are close, I remind myself not to pry.
I don’t want to force her to divide her loyalty between her husband and me.
We grew up in a world marked by marital chaos.
The last thing I want to do is disrupt her house—and anyway, who am I to give advice?
My last long-term relationship ended in a million pieces.
A huge splash in the pool breaks the silence. My nieces screech with laughter.
“Never mind what happened last time. We’ll both behave.” I pat her bare shoulder. “I’m happy to be here with you. Come on. Let’s go swimming with your babies.”
Sometime in the afternoon, Rowena switches out my bottles of mineral water with bottles of Modelo.
I don’t drink often, so now I’m doing a Disney sing-along in my psychedelic Pucci bikini with my nieces Lily and Rose on a portable karaoke machine.
They’ve painted my nails with every bottle of nail polish in their makeup caddy, so there’s a damp, rainbow-clawed creature on the patio joyfully belting out “Poor Unfortunate Souls” on a glittery pink microphone when a man steps out of Rowena’s pool house and pauses to stare at me.
There was a man in Rowena’s pool house this whole time?
Yes. Of course there was.
My voice falters. He’s dressed in work coveralls with a bandana tied around his head. There’s a little gray in his longish dark hair. He’s wearing a dust mask, so if he’s amused by any of this, I can’t tell.
Rowena, back in her perfect white sundress, is standing by the barbecue grill minding the vegetable kabobs. Lifting her Celine sunglasses, she waves, and the man strides over to talk to her.
I can’t hear their conversation. Quickly, I hand off the mic to Rose and sit my ass down to eavesdrop. The man has taken off his dust mask, but he’s turned away from me so I can’t see his face.
I throw on my hot pink floral muumuu. I found it at an estate sale. I’m so short it skims the floor, but Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company would be proud.
“Who’s that?” I ask Lily.
“That? Oh, that’s just Hiroki,” my niece says casually. “Mom hired him to retile the pool house. He’s doing a…what? I forgot. What’s that thingy called, Rosie?”
Rose pauses her search for a new karaoke song. “Mosaic. He’s an artist.”
“Kiss the Girl” is Rose’s selection, with Lily helpfully adding seagull squawks in the background, and now I really can’t hear what my sister and the man are talking about. I drink the rest of my beer as fast as I can and saunter over to casually toss the bottle into the recycling bin.
“You should stay for dinner,” my sister insists.
“No, no, I don’t want to interrupt your family time.” His voice is deep, and he has a slight accent. “Especially since you have a guest—”
“But I’ve made so much food—oh, Hiroki, meet my sister, Jocelyn. She’s staying with us for the birthday party tomorrow.”
Hiroki turns to me. “Nice to meet you.” He wipes his hand on his coveralls and holds it out. “Jocelyn?”
“Call me Jo.” I shake his hand. It’s big and rough as sandpaper.
“Jo.” Faint wrinkles crease around his dark eyes as he smiles.
“Hiroki did some work at our neighbor’s house down the canyon,” Rowena says.
“He makes amazing mosaics all over the city—private homes, metro stations, museums, even city hall.” She raises an eyebrow at me before she puts her glasses back on.
“Wash up in the house,” she tells him in her most mom-like voice. “We’re almost ready to eat.”
Without protest, Hiroki gives me another shy smile and heads into the house.
My sister grins. “He’s single. Lives in Torrance, near you.”
“So?”
“No wife, no girlfriend.” Rowena turns the kabobs.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Weenie,” I whisper-growl.
Rowena cracks up at my childhood nickname for her. “What’s the problem? Are you seeing anyone right now?”
“Absolutely not. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
“But why?”
I can’t tell her about my money troubles, and I don’t want to bring up my ex who went scorched-earth on my self-esteem. So I fumble an excuse. “I’m not…suitable. For him.”
“Suitable?” Now Rowena is openly giggling at me. “What is this, Regency England?”
“Why are you playing matchmaker? This is so awkward.”
“It’s not. You’ll like him, and you deserve to have some fun. Now stop arguing and bring me the big platter.”