“Layla, I’m not going to marry Tom.”
“Why not?”
“He lives in LA.”
“LA? So what, you’re gonna start spending all your time there now?” Layla looked testy. “Also, he’s a gardener and he lives in LA? Why is he out here?”
Zia tried not to flounder. “He’s more like a landscaper. He, um, designs gardens for famous people.”
Layla’s face lit like a match. “Famous people like who?”
“No one.”
“Famous people like who?”
“No one.”
“Like who?”
“No one! I don’t know!”
Layla laughed. “Calm down! I don’t actually care.” She sipped her wine, amused. “Look at you. Getting all riled up.”
Zia took their lunch plates to the kitchen.
Layla trailed her, wiping the nose of a whiny Mateo, whose leg cast was covered in wonky Sharpie scrawls. “Omigod, what if he knows, like, Beyoncé. We can pretend to be his assistants.”
“What? Why?”
“We can swipe a coaster or something. You know how much people will pay for celebrity shit online?”
“Layla!” Zia popped the trash can lid. “You can’t joke like that.”
“I ain’t joking.” Her sister’s eyes glinted. “I think this is dope. You want my advice? Keep Tom happy. The closer you are to insane wealth, the better chance we have to catch some crumbs.” She leaned against the doorframe that separated the living room from the kitchen. “You still have the looks.”
But Zia was only half hearing the words. On top of the trash was a scrunched-up bill: Layla’s credit card. Fifteen thousand four hundred and twenty-two dollars. Zia stood frozen with her foot on the pedal of the trash can, staring at the ungodly amount.
She was used to her sister having problems. But this was a different kind of problem.
“Zia?”
Zia jumped. Panicked, she slid the scraps into the trash. “What?”
“When are we gonna meet Tom?”
Layla had insurance. The bill was probably for the emergency room visit for Mateo’s broken leg, and she just hadn’t been paid back yet. Because her sister didn’t have a spare fifteen dollars, let alone fifteen thousand. “It’s way too soon.”
For the first time, Zia didn’t just feel apprehensive about her sister finding out about Clay. As she started on the dishes, the kids clambering over her like a jungle gym, Layla making more bad jokes about stealing Tom’s clients’ stuff, Zia actually felt afraid.
31
Sam wanted to call Liv and ask her out to dinner, so he procrastinated by cooking. Mole sauce, from scratch.
Each step a small, fragrant piece of the puzzle. Dry roasting the chilis and tortillas. Blackening tomatoes and tomatillos. Blending both with chicken broth. Onion, garlic, peanuts, raisins, thyme, cinnamon, cloves, and spices sautéed, then blended. Mixing everything together with hunks of dark chocolate, more salt, more broth. He’d learned the recipe from his host family when he was living in Oaxaca in his twenties. The trick, his abuela insisted, was timing. You couldn’t rush a single step. Todo tiene su tiempo. Everything has its time.
Finally, the rich, red-brown sauce was finished and simmering, making his newly rented garden-floor apartment smell rich and deeply delicious.
Pick up your damn phone and call!
He paced the kitchen as her cell rang. It’d been so long since a woman had made him feel this way: anxious, elated, slightly obsessive, slightly scared. He was almost hoping it’d go to voice mail when she picked up. “Hello?”
“Sam!” he said, a little too loudly. “Is me, and I’m calling you, Liv.” He leaned against the counter, eyes squeezed shut, wincing. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she replied, sounding a bit surprised. “How are you?”
“Grunderful.” Oh, for Pete’s sake. “Great. Wonderful. You?”
“Busy. Which is also grunderful.” Then: “Savannah, don’t mix up those name cards, they’re for two different weddings.” Back to him. “Sorry. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if”—you’d like to have dinner with me. You’d like to grab a drink. You like Mexican?—“you got the menu I sent you. For the Fitzpatrick-Maple wedding.” Coward!
“Yes, I sent my notes back. Didn’t you get them? Savannah set up a new email, and she probably didn’t—”
“Oh, no, sorry—here it is. Went into my spam for some reason.” It hadn’t. “Good call on the lobster. Perfect time of year. And green-pea risotto for the vegetarians, nice.”
“Well, you’re so good at it. You’re a very talented chef, Sam Woods.”
In pleased surprise, he brought his free hand down hard, hitting the wooden spoon sitting in the mole, flipping it out. Dark red sauce sprayed all over the ceiling, like a savory Jackson Pollock. “Oh, fu—antastic. That’s fantastic you think that.”
“That one.” She was talking to Savannah again. “That’s really cool, actually. But maybe change the font color to that red you had before?” Then back to Sam. “We’re designing a new logo. It’s a madhouse in here. Training someone new, et cetera.”
“I’m jealous,” Sam said, wiping up a puddle of mole. “I wish I had a partner. In work,” he hurried to clarify. “It gets lonely on my own. In the kitchen,” he rushed to add. “I’m not a sad, lonely guy or anything.”
Liv let out a laugh. “Well, I’m a sad, lonely woman, so if you want to join my club, you’re absolutely welcome.”
Was that an invitation? Before he could figure out what to do with it, he heard a doorbell at Liv’s end.
“I have to run,” she said, “Client meeting. Guess I’ll see you at the Fitzpatrick-Maple wedding. Looking forward!”
“Me too! Bye, Liv.”
“Bye, Sam.”
He hung up.
Well. That was an epic failure. But she did say he was a good cook. Very talented were her exact words. And dating post-divorce would be baby steps. And stepladders, Sam thought, turning his attention to cleaning a ceiling decorated in red mole.
32
Darlene Mitchell liked being in control. Of her brain. And her body. And of her heart. She did not like feeling as if her heart was bounding around outside her body. She wasn’t even going to think of the reason’s name. She needed to think about herself. Her career. Her future. One she was not going to threaten with a preposterous “fake relationship” that’d drag on for months. “Dating” a privileged white guy as some kind of tokenized prize would destroy her integrity. She’d make that twenty-five grand on her own, even if it took another ten years of working bougie weddings and crappy open-mic nights.
She’d played with he-who-should-not-be-thought-about at a half dozen gigs since the night at Babbo, but had skillfully managed to avoid one-on-one conversation, as well as his many texts. Instead, she focused on translating the effect of he-who-should-not-be-thought-about’s kiss into something productive. Lyrics. A hook. A feeling, a tone. It was so much easier for Darlene to write about feelings than to feel them. Writing about feelings gave some distance, and some practical use, to the messy, complex, vaguely embarrassing experience of having them.