Chapter 35
Somewhere between my mad dash out of Mike’s house and sprint to Avenida Cresta, I manage to put on my sneakers and sports bra.
“What happened?” Cheryl says when she and Mitzy and the new kitty, Sasha, open the front door.
I launch into the story of how I lost my phone and keys and crashed at a friend’s house and didn’t have my alarm set because right now my phone is fish food.
I leave out the part about how the man I’ve fallen hard for is nothing more than fiction.
Cheryl hands me Mitzy’s phone. “Make some calls. Go on.”
“But your yoga class and errands.”
“I hate Buti yoga. And the errands can wait. Holler if you need anything.”
Mitzy meows, and Sasha, who’s smaller, rises on her hind legs to bump her head affectionately to hers. “I mean, how could I possibly leave this?” Cheryl says. “Come on, girls. Let’s go lay out by the pool.”
I call Adam. No answer. I call Mom. No answer. I call Julie. It goes straight to voice mail. I’d call Portia, but she changed her number when she moved out to Boston, and I don’t have it memorized. So I call my dad’s office. Nadeen answers.
“Is George McKinney in?”
“Mr. McKinney is with a client at the moment. May I take a message?”
“It’s fine.”
“Beatrice?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought that was you. You should have led with that. Hold a moment, dear.”
I start crying when I hear my dad’s voice. “Hey, Bea. Everything okay?”
“No. I lost my phone and my keys. I’m locked out of my apartment, and I can’t get ahold of Mom.”
“Okay,” Dad says. “Okay. These things happen. And truth be told, you come by the lost keys honestly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost my own. Remember when I drove around Del Mar all day with you guys, looking for my keys?”
“And they were in your back pocket the whole time.” I laugh, my tears subsiding. “Yeah.”
“So do we need to form a search party?”
“No, they’re at the bottom of the Pacific.”
“I’ve done that one, too, but in Hawaii with my wallet, shoes, and pants. One time in law school, I put my passport and wallet on top of my car, along with my briefcase. Drove off with them still on my car. Never saw them again.”
“Why have I never heard these stories?”
“I was hoping to spare you from the burdens of your family legacy.”
“That’s ironic, considering how I’ve been nothing but burdened by my family legacy.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line, and then I hear my dad’s honking laughter.
“True, true. Can you hold tight for forty-five? Give your old man enough time to finish this deposition and get down to La Jolla, and then we can get you to an Apple Store, a locksmith, and whatever else you need.”
“Let me check with my client and get the details to Nadeen.”
“Deal,” Dad says.
“I didn’t see it,” Dad says. “But you did. Of course your mother needs to finish law school. Of course your development was stunted in my firm. Of course whiffs of nepotism would attach themselves to all your hard work and achievements. But, sweetie, you don’t throw any of that foundation out in an emotional tirade and start from scratch. There’s good bones there.”
“Dad.” I hand him a ginger ale from my fridge.
After we got my new phone and account set up at the mall, I saw the text from Mike. On the off chance you’ve sorted your phone, your new key is under the cactus pot, and the spare is again safe and sound in the safe-deposit box.
“I was both drowning and suffocating. I hate corporate law. I hate the hours. I hate the futility of one enormous conglomerate suing a second enormous conglomerate to settle in or out of court just to do the whole song and dance again. Nothing changes. Nothing matters.”
“That’s the fun part. It’s like a game of chess. The stakes aren’t personal, and even if you lose, you can still bruise your opponent and know you can play again.”
“It’s a game to you, but it was personal to me.” I search my junk drawer for my spare car keys. “I want what I do to matter.”
“I hear that.” Dad takes a sip of his ginger ale. “This studio apartment is insane. How did you find it?”
“Adam,” I say.
Dad smiles and then does his tell of biting down on his lips.
“I know that look,” I say. “Tell me.”
“I’m not going to part with this valuable intel for nothing.”
I laugh. “You want to make a deal. Let’s hear it.”
“I get to drive your Porsche to the dealer when we go to make another set of keys.”
“The Porsche you told me not to buy and did your best to make sure I never drove to the office?”
“Okay, yes. But only because it is an impractical car, and you can’t fit anything in that glove box of a trunk except a pair of sneakers.
It does telegraph a devil-may-care attitude, which, if you are already suffering from unwanted attention by being the boss’s daughter, doesn’t help matters, and it is the coolest car.
They’re hard to find in the prime condition that yours is in.
What if it got keyed in the parking lot or dinged on the road? ”
“I’m sorry I was rude after your birthday. I didn’t have to storm out or block your texts.”
“You needed some space. I see it now. I also see how overbearing and blind I was.” He tugs on my ponytail, just like old times. “Am I still blocked?”
I check my phone. “No.” I toss Dad my car keys. “Now tell me what you know.”
Dad grins. “Adam is bringing Sarah to Thanksgiving dinner.”
“No way.” I beam.
“And Eaton and I have already met her.”
“How?”
“Adam mentioned she just got a promotion at Fit Gym 24 in PB. Julie, who knows everything when it comes to the under-twenty-four-month population, heard about her kids club, and we may have signed up for memberships and showed up on a Saturday just to meet her.”
I laugh. “That’s diabolical.”
“She’s amazing. Passionate, talented, kind, driven, and focused.”
“Plus, she’s a knockout.” I saw a picture Adam posted of the two of them at Homecoming.
“She’s perfect for Adam. And she’s great with kids. Eaton loves her.”
“A very good sign,” I say.
“Oh, we’re past signs. This is endgame.”
“You don’t get to call endgame for other people.”
“Well, if I could, I would.”
I grab my sun hat. I changed into a sundress when we got back. “And if you had it your way, Adam would be neck-deep in legal briefs and would have never met Sarah.”
“And you would have never met Mike?”
I give Dad a look as I’m locking up the house.
“What? You think I don’t know? I’m married to Molly McKinney. I’m her accomplice in everything. So is he coming to Thanksgiving dinner too? And before you roll your eyes, let me remind you that I raised your older sisters. I can talk about boys, and I have the receipts to prove it.”
“No, Dad. You don’t understand. There’s nothing there. He’s a flirt and a handsome face. That’s all.”
I hold open my back gate, but Dad smiles. “I’ll take the stairs. I want to see the view.”
“So let me get this straight,” Dad says.
We stopped for lunch, and he’s tucking into blackberry pancakes with glitter.
“Someone kissed him after he spent all night flirting with her to make you jealous. Then he chased you on a motorcycle so he could apologize. Then you got sick and overheard him talking with Adam about how you’re beautiful but difficult.
Then he texts Adam when he doesn’t see hide nor hair of you, asking if everything is okay.
Adam texts Mom, who shows up to rescue you and flags him down to carry you to your bed after you fell asleep in her car.
Then he gets you flowers and tickets to his show, where he apologizes again and says he wants to be friends.
And he has been a friend, but none of this matters now because why? ”
“Because he’s not real. It was all his grandmother. All the time. They’re her books. Her insights. Her everything.”
“You’re in love with his dead grandma?”
“No. I’m in love with a fictional man written by a dead woman. Keep up, Dad.”
“So you feel betrayed. You feel like the foundation of your attraction and regard was built under false pretenses. You thought Mike was the author of all these insights, and then you learned it was Grandma. And that changes everything.”
“Exactly. He’s not the man I thought he was. He’s not as deep as I thought he was. I thought he was a generational talent, but when he’s onstage, he’s just pulling from all of Grandma’s insights. Her little puppet.”
“I know enough about theater to know I know nothing about theater. So I’m tabling all arguments as relate to his craft and being a generational talent.”
“But, Dad—”
Dad wags a finger. “‘He’s not the man I thought he was. He’s not as deep as I thought he was.’ Maybe, but I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. So what if he didn’t write the notes? He read them. He kept them. I don’t have to originate an idea to value it or understand it. You see my point.”
“I concede.”
“I love this edible glitter. Where do I get some? I’m going to start adding it to my Saturday waffles.”
I giggle.
“Bea, honey, if you like this boy, the books don’t matter.”
“Maybe, but my connection to them was so strong. It felt different. It felt like it mattered. For a hot second, I was sure we were soulmates.”
“Soulmates. I hear that phrase, and all I can think about are worn-out shoes. Who on earth would aspire to that status?”
“Cute, Dad.”
“Well, I better be going. I have to pick up your mom. But she’ll be delighted to hear that you lost your keys and ended up at Mike’s house.
I wouldn’t have put it past her to have orchestrated this entire event.
Persuaded some mermaid to do her bidding when she came across her and started chatting about Mercury in retrograde. ”
Dad rises to give me a kiss and leaves a large stack of dollar bills on the table. “Love you, Bea. Give it some time, and don’t slam any doors. Not just yet. Are we going to see you at the house for Thanksgiving next week?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”