This Is Not Over Part 7

Thad has remained dead to Larry. I don't even say his name. I can't imagine what would happen if I told Larry that I've been bringing in more money than I let him believe and transferring the surplus to Thad. That's not just a lie of omission. That's true betrayal.

But I couldn't kill off my son. He'd have to understand that, wouldn't he?

I can't help but notice that I haven't heard from Dawn, or from any potential renters. I find myself wanting to write to her and say, Are you alive? I've gotten so used to thinking that no communication might mean death, because of Thad.

Having a child is supposed to change the whole way you think, but I never expected to wake up each day checking my son's social media to confirm his continued existence. I tell myself this, by way of rea.s.surance: no dead man has ever tweeted.

But Dawn is not my child. No news from her is good news for me.

I tell myself that, but the tense feeling in my stomach persists. I actually can't wait for dawn to come. The real dawn, that is. Daylight. Because it really does feel the darkest right now.

Then something amazing happens.

I was just thinking about Grandma, how she used to bake those Purim cookies with me. You know the ones with the apricot and the prunes in the middle? I'm too tired to spell them.

He's tired. Not cras.h.i.+ng, just tired. Maybe he really was simply inspired to paint. It actually was an art all-nighter, not a meth binge. Stranger things have happened.

Hamentashen, I text back. She always said you were a great helper.

How was she yesterday? Any better?

She knew who I was. But she wasn't saying much.

I miss her.

I miss her, too.

And I miss you.

I let out a choked noise, then I clamp my hand to my mouth. I don't want to wake Larry. What would he say if he knew Thad and I were in touch?

My boy misses me. I've already given him the money he asked for, and yet, he's texted me, out of nowhere. He has no ulterior motive and here he is, being loving, when I most need that.

I miss you, too, I tell him. More than he could ever know.

15.

Dawn

This is an open letter to the city of Santa Monica. As one of the landlords here, I know I speak for many when I say please, PLEASE, crack down on all the people who are violating the ordinance against short-term rentals. Take a quick look at Getaway.com. There are so many listings allowing stays of less than thirty days that you wouldn't even think Santa Monica has an ordinance. I have tenants who I've caught subleasing my unit for long weekends. How are people allowed to just flout the rules like this?

It's because there's practically no enforcement. The city attorney's office says they only prosecute the cases that are referred to them. Right now, they don't have a single case pending! They say they don't have the manpower to go out and find these people since the listings don't contain exact addresses.

That's their excuse? Just because something's hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing. The citizens need to start applying some pressure to City Hall if we want to keep Santa Monica special. Are you with me?

Sincerely, Arnold F. Giraldo I am definitely with you, Mr. Giraldo.

The funny thing is, I liked Santa Monica-the city proper-the most. More than Mendocino for sure, or Santa Barbara, or even Monterey. I liked the people, the way you could hesitate on the street, looking the tiniest bit lost, and they'd ask if you needed anything. I liked the pedicabs to Venice Beach and back, and I liked the buskers at Third Street Promenade, especially the handsome, floppy-haired one who played electric violin to an instrumental soundtrack and rendered pop music poignant, and the pier, and the beach itself, so clean and beautiful.

But Miranda's house . . . I would never admit this in my review, it would make me sound nuts, but I felt like that house didn't like me. Like in a cheesy horror movie: "Something wanted me out." Like it was inhabited by a not-so-friendly ghost. Or like I was possessed by one.

There's no other explanation for my behavior that trip. Normally, Getaway Dawn is the best Dawn there is. She's the most relaxed, and happy, and s.e.xual. She hasn't a care in the world, because (the illusion of) money is buffering her from the irritants of life.

The Santa Monica trip was full of highs and lows, in what I came to realize was actually a very consistent pattern: Outside of the house, I was Getaway Dawn. Inside the house-beautiful as it was, another thing I didn't want to admit in my review-I was someone else. I was critical of Rob, and b.u.t.toned-up s.e.xually. I felt . . . watched. I felt judged. I kept going to the window and looking out, half expecting to find people on the street, peering in, their noses scrunched in distaste. Now I think it was the house itself, the spirit of Miranda.

Again, how else to explain the way I treated Rob? Everything he did, inside that house, struck me as wrong. Worse, he seemed boring. Our conversation was like a limp d.i.c.k, and our s.e.x was just as uninspired.

On the second day, after visiting a farmers' market full of produce so gorgeous it was nearly pyrotechnic, I decided to cook us lunch. It seemed very vacationy, indulgent, as I only cook dinner at home. Breakfast and lunch are cereal and leftovers, respectively.

We had this amazing peach puree from the farmers' market, and Rob mixed it with champagne as I gazed at the bounty of vegetables spread out over the center island. I was so sure it would be a good trip for us, the best yet.

Rob has a tendency to propose toasts, and normally, I like that about him. He's trying to make ordinary things an event. I guess it's in keeping with his commemorative line of work.

So we were at the kitchen island and he handed me a Bellini and lifted his own. He started talking-rambling, really-about how far I'd come, and how I'm going to graduate soon, and how proud he is of me, and how he's so happy he could make it possible, and at first, it was sweet, but then it started to turn. I felt like he was really toasting himself. I set down my gla.s.s, and I went to the sink, ostensibly to wash the vegetables. I hoped he'd pick up my cue and stop f.u.c.king talking already, but he kept going.

I couldn't take it anymore: "I'm not a stray you rescued!" My ferocity startled me as well as him.

He set his gla.s.s down and came up behind me, snaking his arms around my waist, and I wanted to tell him to get off me, which is not at all like me, not at all like us, so I stifled myself. But it was surprisingly hard.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I can barely see the ocean through that tree!" I said tearfully.

"No, really, what's wrong?"

I didn't know then. I really thought it might be the promise of a full view that was then obstructed. A promise that's never delivered on is a lie, isn't it?

Now I know: It was the house. It was Miranda, and her miasmic negative energy.

I forced myself to lean back into Rob so that we could breathe together. Then I said, "Let's go out for lunch." We were on vacation; money was no object; we could even waste this rainbow of produce, if we so chose. Something in me sensed that we needed to leave that house to be at all okay.

I could tell he disapproved of that idea, of the potential waste, and normally I would, too. (Ultimately we didn't waste it, I made dinner later, which didn't feel vacationy but like a ch.o.r.e.) Rob agreed, reluctantly. We got out of the house for a while, and the day turned around. Until dinner, that is.

Every time we were in that house, it seemed like I was the one scrunching my nose at him, finding fault, and on the last night there, he snapped. "Quit being such a b.i.t.c.h for six hundred dollars a night. Be a b.i.t.c.h at home, if you need to." I was stunned. He'd never called me a b.i.t.c.h before. Now that I think of it, he didn't exactly call me a b.i.t.c.h then, but that's how it felt. He wasn't done either. "I do all this for you," he said, and there was an undercurrent, an undertow, of resentment that I'd never heard, never even suspected, before. He was the one who'd insisted we could afford the getaways, and that I shouldn't work until after graduation, even though a big part of me wanted to work, to contribute, to never be dependent like my own mother had been.

I hissed at him, "Don't you ever call me a b.i.t.c.h again, a.s.shole!" and he stormed out of the house.

It was the first time I was alone in that house, and I felt like it was laughing at me, like it wanted this to happen.

All of this seems so crazy that I couldn't even identify it at the time. But now, with all this s.h.i.+t with Miranda-it seems almost, well, plausible. Possible, at least. Houses have personalities, right? They have the personalities of their owners. Miranda's malevolence seeped into the walls and the floorboards, and into me.

So maybe when she charged me for that stain, my reaction wasn't entirely about the stain, but also about the experience. We were unhappy in that house, Rob and me. We gave Miranda $2,400 to inhabit her funhouse-a hall of mirrors, distorting us and our relations.h.i.+p into a grotesquerie. Then to add insult to injury, she stole another $200.

After Rob took off that final night, I couldn't stay there by myself. I was too frightened. I walked the beach and eventually found him. "Great minds think alike," he started to say, with a pained smile, and then we were holding each other tight. I think he was frightened, too, and we found a relieved communion underneath the lifeguard station. Our s.e.x was fevered, and I was so glad we were going home the next day. I wanted to never think of that house again, or that trip, but then Miranda did what she did, and how could I just let it go? Really, after everything?

And now I've been vindicated. Miss Self-Righteous Upstanding Citizen has been routinely violating the rental code of Santa Monica, where she's on the board of the Homeowners a.s.sociation. She attends regular meetings (her name is all over the minutes, which are available online), and meanwhile, she's lining her pockets with short-term rentals. This proves she's a hypocrite, as well as a thief, a liar, and a snotty rich b.i.t.c.h extraordinaire.

I e-mailed the city attorney's office, including a link to Miranda's listing on Getaway.com along with the supporting proof that she rented to me for four nights. They'll shut down her little operation.

There she was, pretending to be so ethical. Telling me about all the good she does in the world, all her volunteer work, as if her character were above reproach. Ha!

I'm thinking all this as I lie in Rob's arms, trying to fall asleep. "Wouldn't it be amazing if there was a baby inside you, right now?" he asks dreamily.

"The IUD is like ninety-nine point nine percent effective."

"We could be the point one percent."

When I came home from Dr. Kroy's with my IUD intact, I was hoping he would recognize that as a kind of answer.

It's not only that I don't feel ready to try for a baby. I feel sure that it just can't work out for me. Either I won't be able to get pregnant, or I'll have a miscarriage, or the baby I'll produce will have some terrible defect, like taking after one or both of my parents. Dr. Kroy says that I'm in good shape, but some part of me doesn't believe her. I think that we have to pay for our past sins somehow, and this seems the most likely time for the bill to come due. It's even called a due date.

"Let's defy the odds," Rob says, slithering down my body. When he goes down on me lately, it's always a means to an end. It's foreplay, not the main event. Now he's fantasizing that the main event could lead to a baby.

Much as I thought I wanted one when Rob and I first got married, nothing could be less erotic to me right now than evoking a baby. Long before him, I used to say that squalling, screaming parasites are the best birth control. If teenagers had to f.u.c.k to a soundtrack of needy infants, that condom would be on so fast the c.o.c.k would have rug burn.

"I'm pretty tired," I tell him, stilling his hand on my pajama bottoms.

He rests his face against my hip bone and stares up at me, appearing oddly cherubic with his steady gaze under those thick lashes. "I can wake you up."

"I need to sleep. It's been an exhausting day."

"Let me guess. You turned her in." He sounds none too pleased, but that could be spillover from his failed seduction.

"She was breaking the law."

"It's not like it's a real law. It's a don't-remove-this-tag-from-your-mattress law."

"People should not be renting her house." It's like he's forgotten what happened there. Doesn't he get that I'm doing this for us, and for the other couples who shouldn't be subjected to the same situation?

He sighs. "Let's not talk about this."

"You brought it up." He was the one inviting Miranda into our bed this time. I s.h.i.+ft my weight, and he takes the hint, moving from between my legs.

"Are we okay?" he asks as he resettles on his pillow.

I don't look at him as I adjust the sheet. Just the word "sheet" . . . How do I get Miranda out once and for all? Hopefully, that e-mail will do it. I've given the city of Santa Monica conclusive proof, so it's in their hands now. This is not exactly rea.s.suring, seeing as they've never prosecuted anyone under the ordinance. She could get off with a warning. They could see her sw.a.n.ky address and decide not to mess with a doctor's wife. She could be laughing at me right now, at my feeble attempt at justice.

"Yes," I say, twining my fingers in Rob's hair, "we're okay."

"We can do better than that," Rob says with a grin as he a.s.sumes the m.u.f.f-diving position once again. This time, I know better than to protest.

I do something that always works in a pinch. I remember the others. The bad boys that got away, for good reason. I shouldn't do it but sometimes I have to.

Because it turns me on. Because I want to be turned on. Because I want to have the most cataclysmic o.r.g.a.s.m, the kind that obliterates stained sheets and babies and poverty and failure and injustice and an uncertain future.

I lie back and scream.

16.

Miranda

It's not like Rothko in terms of the subject matter; it's how I layer the color.

Rothko was one of those dark painters, right? All somber blues and browns.

Suicidal blues and browns is what I mean, but I'm just happy that Thad is still talking to me. For the past few days, we've been engaged in a running conversation, spanning hours, a connection of our hearts and minds. It's been unprecedented and wonderful. I never knew texting could be so beautiful.

There used to be a Rothko collection at MOCA. You should go.

Let's go together someday, I text back.

I'm thinking ahead. If we keep talking like this, maybe I can convince him that he should move into a sober living house and start taking the drug tests. If he's clean anyway, why not prove it to his father? I'll remind him that Larry is a scientist, and they like their data. Suck it up for six months, Thad, and I'll do my darnedest to convince Larry to let you through our front door. We'll be a family again.

I spy Violet walking toward me along the beach path. I've got to go. Talk later?

It takes a few beats for him to respond, and I think, Oh, no, I've lost him again. But then he tells me: Yeah, talk later.

I smile as I turn off my phone and greet Violet. She takes the seat opposite me. I'm in high spirits, and I hope it shows.

Violet's never asked me to lunch before. She let me pick the spot, one of my favorite restaurants alongside the beach, with white shutters and blue awnings. Similar to my parents' home decor, I just realized. A tandem bike cruises by, with a fit mom and dad towing a child behind. It's vacation mode over here, all the time, which is why I love Santa Monica. It's probably why Larry is so unmoved by it. He vacations only under duress.

Violet's eyes scan the beach in front of us-the original muscle beach, where a skinny Asian kid is doing pull-ups, the ocean a cerulean blur in the distance-and when they light on me again, the pupils are meth-jumpy.

"Is anything wrong?" I ask.