Chapter Fifteen
There was a hair tie in the cup holder with two strands of blond hair wrapped around it.
And I could not stop staring.
“Vera?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“The boxes,” Eli said as we pulled out of downtown. “What’s up with the boxes?”
“Good Vibes Only. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but it’s—”
The corner of his lip twitched upward. “I’ve heard of them.”
My mouth was dry and I was still sweating even though his air-conditioning was cool enough to give me goose bumps. “The owner is coming out to do a seminar on sex toy safety and those are for her pop-up shop.”
“So you’re bringing out someone to sell sex toys to our residents?” he asked skeptically.
“Well, you thinking it’s a bad idea is the least surprising thing ever.”
“I didn’t say it was a bad idea. Did you hear me say the words ‘bad idea’ even once?”
Reluctantly, I shook my head. “Well, not technically, but I heard it in your tone.”
He turned right down the long residential street leading to Starlight Palms. “You think you really know me, don’t you?”
“I do, don’t I? Or at least I did.”
“College was a long time ago, Vera.” The security guard named Amanda, who I’d snuck past that first day, waved us through the gates.
“I like the idea,” he said as he parked just outside the main entrance in a reserved staff spot.
“Definitely not what people expect when they set their parents up at a retirement facility.” He took off his Ray-Bans like they were armor and looked at me, his gaze earnest and steady. “That’s a good thing.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He got out of the car and piled the boxes from the shop on top of each other. “You want these in your office?”
“Uh, yeah. That’d be good. I’ll grab the stolen cannolis.”
A quiet laugh escaped his lips and he shook his head. It reminded me of the few times he would drop the grimacing and let himself be entertained by me and Brody.
There was something deeply satisfying about getting a reaction out of Eli. My smile quickly faded, though, when I remembered the hair tie and the silly grin on his face as he looked at his phone on the sidewalk.
Eli Buckley—my husband—had someone.
And that was totally okay.
So completely fine.
* * *
Memoirs and Martinis was held in community room three, which was already full of residents—mostly women—wearing furs and huge sunglasses.
As Eli walked in, a cheer rose through the crowd along with a handful of whistles.
“Was all that for me, the cannolis, or James Gandolfini?” he asked.
“James Gandolfini?” I asked under my breath.
Eli took the box from me and walked it over to the table that was already set with water, coffee, and martinis. “We’re a celebrity memoir book club,” he explained. “Sometimes autobiographies or biographies, like in the case of James Gandolfini.”
I pulled some plates from the cabinet behind the table. “So the mob wife theme is an ode to The Sopranos, I’m guessing?”
“Sometimes the ladies really commit,” he said with a slight grin. Then he waved to a man in short running shorts and a matching tank top. “Well, it’s not just ladies.”
“I’m glad to know your fan base is so diverse.”
I had so many questions. When I’d heard Eli led a book club here at Starlight Palms, I assumed it was some kind of boring nonfiction book club or a club for spy-thriller books whose characters were constantly calling Langley and slapping hysterical women to calm them down.
But this felt completely unserious and like nothing the Eli I knew would actually enjoy.
I took a cursory glance at the book club picks listed on the calendar handout.
I must not have hid my reaction very well, because all Eli said with a sly grin was: “Surprised?”
“Yeah, this looks like actual fun,” I told him. “I remember how much you loathe fun.”
He side-eyed me, his gaze lingering for a moment, and then shook his head as he began to place cannolis on platters.
“Well, I guess I should go. Just put the sign-up sheet in my inbox before you leave for the night.”
“Or,” he said without looking up. “You could stay.”
“I haven’t read the book,” I said.
“Here are the CliffsNotes: He starred in the greatest TV show ever and then died before his time. Besides, we don’t really talk about the book. It’s mostly an hour-long name-dropping session.”
“Sounds like my entire childhood,” I said.
He handed me a cannoli. “Take a seat. It’ll be a good way to get to know more of the residents.”
Eli ran Memoirs and Martinis like his own personal royal court.
Just as he said it would, the conversation rarely stuck to the topic and often strayed into rumor and gossip territory.
Eli was seemingly the only person who could redirect the conversation—and had to a handful of times, including when a woman named Melinda gave an eight-minute monologue about auditioning for The Sopranos, being offered the role of someone’s mother, but ultimately turning it down to narrate a documentary that Maggie Smith had backed out of.
That wasn’t the part that Eli interrupted, though.
It was when Doreen called Melinda a lying tart.
According to Doreen, she was at the callback for that same role and Melinda had been cut in round one.
It was truly the most entertaining book club I’d ever been to, except for the time my mom got her nurses to read an opossum-shifter romance with her during an extended hospital stay.
As book club ended, Eli announced, “Next month, we’re reading the Leah Remini book, so let’s think of what desserts I can bring for that one.”
“I was courted by a Scientologist once,” Doreen said. “He always ordered key lime pie for dessert.”
Eli nodded, his lips in a thin line, his unbiased doctor expression in full effect. “I’ll take that under consideration.”
There wasn’t much to clean up since the residents went feral for the cannolis. I regretted grabbing only one for myself and resolved to return to the bakery when I had a day off. And a working vehicle.
“I’ll save you the trip,” I told Eli as I took the sign-up sheet from the clipboard and tucked it into my bag.
“Let me drive you over to Ruby’s,” he offered. “It’s late.”
I glanced at my phone. “Yeah, the Starlight Palms is notoriously dangerous after eight o’clock.”
“You could get stalked by someone with a squeaky walker,” he said. “Tennis balls dragging along pavement as they draw closer to their prey.”
I shivered. “Chilling.”
Once we were in his car again, backing out, he said, “I was thinking. You’re still sleeping on the couch and Morgan is—”
“Getting impatient,” I finished. “And also being pestered by residents who have the kind of grandkids who live in basements and don’t have bank accounts.”
“Yeah, Morgan said she planned on talking to you again this week . . . but I told her I’d handle it.”
“Oh, you’d handle it, would you? I bet you’re going to take a great deal of pleasure in evicting me from my own grandmother’s couch.” I leaned back, preparing myself for the kill. “Well, let me have it, Dr. Elias Buckley. Maybe I’ll sleep in my car until more employee housing becomes available.”
He shook his head. “What the fuck, Vera? You’re not going to sleep in your car.
The real estate around here is just as bad as LA, if not worse.
And the last time an employee apartment became available, there was a lottery.
The insider trading happening made The Wolf of Wall Street look like The Boss Baby, okay? ”
“Thank you for dashing my hopes.” Now it made sense why Morgan had laughed when I said a place might become available.
“What I’m getting at is that my apartment has a second bedroom.”
“You live here on property?”
He nodded. “Sort of.”
“That was more of a yes-or-no question.”
He stopped in front of Ruby’s building. “I’m trying to offer you my spare room, Vera.”
The air rushed out of my lungs, leaving a burning sensation. My heart stuttered in my chest as I waited for him to say he was kidding. But seconds turned into moments, and all that passed between us was silence.
“Like a room in an apartment?” I asked. “Where you currently live?”
He nodded slowly. “That’s how spare rooms work.”
“An apartment you sort of live in?”
“I do live there,” he said definitively.
“How many bathrooms?” As if I had room to be picky .
. . How was I even entertaining this? But god, Ruby and I were one bicker away from accidentally killing each other during a violent sleepwalking episode.
On top of that, I couldn’t think of anything more humiliating than being formally reprimanded by a boss who I was technically old enough to parent.
“One and a half,” he said. “A half bath off the kitchen and the two rooms are linked by a full bathroom.”
Sharing a bathroom with Eli? No way. I could barely share a bathroom with my own grandmother. There had to be another solution. Maybe I could rent a spare closet-size room from some college kids.
I opened the car door and got out, but before closing it behind me, I said, “That’s really kind of you to offer, but I’m good.”
“Think about it.” He opened his console and then handed me a small paper bag, his fingers brushing mine. “I may have saved you a cannoli when no one was looking. Tell a soul and I’ll deny it until my dying day.”
“Thanks.” My voice was too soft as I held the bag to my chest and closed the door.
Had Eli Buckley been nice to me today? On multiple occasions? Was I actually in a coma at Cedars-Sinai and this was just my brain pulling together some desperate fantasy of an alternate reality version of Eli?
Real or not, I couldn’t bring myself to even consider his offer.
The thought of living with him only reminded me of all the times I’d come over to see Brody and Eli would leave the room like my presence had suddenly ruined his mood.
But mostly, I didn’t think I could handle reliving the disastrous morning after our nuptials every time I saw him with a hint of bedhead or toothpaste on the corner of his lip.
Inside, I had the apartment to myself. Ruby had texted earlier to say she was at a friend’s place and wouldn’t be in reach of her phone—whatever that meant.
For the first time in weeks, I sat down with the small crate I’d packed full of notebooks and photos and little remnants of the past. The same crate that I had intended to pack my old laptop inside of had I not left it on my car.
There were photos of me and Tess at her first baby shower and Mom at Disneyland and even Ruby, a birthday cake full of sixty very melted candles lighting up her face.
There were pages upon pages full of notes on my abandoned script.
Most of them were deeply embarrassing and full of half-formed questions and thoughts that I still had no answers to.
I didn’t know that there was any way I could rebuild what I’d lost. And maybe the best path forward was to just stop.
To just give up this half-baked dream of writing.
I had a handful of partial drafts, but The Wunderkind had been my one sole completed project.
My whole identity as a writer was wrapped up in a script I hadn’t even managed to properly back up and a degree I had done nothing with.
But this was all so much bigger than just a script.
With a sigh, I took my cannoli out of the bag and licked the powdered sugar off my fingers.
Once upon a time, I’d had a life and it was time to get it back.
The first terrifying step was getting off Ruby’s couch by whatever means possible.
Fucking fuckity fuck.
INT. HER ROOM—EARLY MORNING
She lies in bed. His hoodie is on her chair.
POPPY (V.O.)
He leaves pieces of himself like litter.
And I gladly pick them up.