Santa Monica Read online

  Zack steered his gaze back to the window, blinking, hard and fast, to stop the memory of last night from bearing down on him. It was a tactic he’d been using lately, blinking furiously to ward off unwanted thoughts, and found it actually helped. He wanted to forget all of it: the beachy smell of her skin, the slick feel of her thighs as she bounced on top of him, saying goddamn over and over, a word he hated so much it had made him want to shove her to the floor.

  Except that he hadn’t.

  Blink blink.

  Outside, sunlight was beginning to throw citrusy hues over the canyon.

  Zack needed to get out of this house. Now. Before Joanna/Deanna woke up. He had a group workout to teach at nine A.M., in the backyard of another lavish Santa Monica home, this one just north of tony Montana Avenue, owned by a woman named Melissa Goldberg, whom Zack had never met. The event—a morning of “intense exercise and healthful delights”—was the brainchild of Zack’s fitness client and sort-of business partner, Regina Wolfe. It was essentially a sales pitch for Zack’s personal training services: he’d teach a free, invitation-only group workout to twenty women, each hand-selected by Regina (including the hostess, Melissa Goldberg) based on their levels of vanity and disposable income. After the workout, Regina reasoned, the women would feel so exhilarated, so high on endorphins and Zack’s training methodology (he’d been told he had a gift), that they’d enroll, on the spot, in an individual eight-week training program with him.

  Regina had named the program, which cost $5,000, Version Two You!

  She and Zack would split the profits. It was a clean, fast, honest way to make money. Far preferable to their current business venture, which was fast, but far from honest or clean. Sometimes, when he forced himself to face the hard facts of the “solution” (Regina’s word) he’d gotten involved in, he was shocked by the truth of it: that he was engaging in a crime that technically qualified as felony embezzlement, an offense punishable, according to the Wikipedia page he’d read with rising panic, by up to three years in a jail, plus a fine of around ten grand.

  Regina never uttered any of the scary legal terms. No, when she’d pitched him the idea, one chilly night as they’d walked on the bluffs in Palisades Park, her arm managing to press against his, no matter how much distance Zack tried to keep between them, she’d made the plan sound like a minor administrative adjustment. Just a bit of temporary “shallow skimming,” as she put it, off the top of the Color Theory gym franchise’s vast reserves of corporate wealth. All Zack had to do, Regina had explained, was process a few of her phony invoices while he worked his usual part-time gig in the gym’s back office—just a few keystrokes, a click of the mouse—and ta-da!, they’d have some of the extra cash each of them so desperately needed.

  Of course they’d replace the money, Regina had assured him that night on the bluffs, her breath shooting in cottony puffs. It was a short-term solution. Imagine how good it would feel, she’d said, to take the pressure off, just like that. She’d snapped her fingers for emphasis, a sharp sound that nearly made him jump, and he’d heard himself say, Okay. I’m in.

  That was five months ago. The “solution” no longer felt temporary. Now, both he and Regina wanted a change, to find projects that would allow them to sleep better at night and Version Two You!, if it worked, would be a step in the right direction.

  Zack knew Regina would kill him if he was late. Most of the Santa Monica women he trained were type A. Regina was type A–plus.

  He scanned the bedroom for his clothes; his gym shorts and dry-mesh T-shirt were nowhere. Only his red-and-black-plaid boxers lay crumpled on an armchair on the far side of the big room.

  As quietly as possible, Zack eased off the bed and onto his feet. He took a small, cautious step in the direction of his boxers. The sheets rustled and the woman began to stir, stretching her bent arm over her head before turning away from him and resettling on her opposite side. Zack hopped off the bed to the armchair and snatched his underwear. He tugged them on and scanned the room for his possessions, but there was nothing on the gleaming dark wood floor or the brightly patterned area rug or the surfaces of the woman’s expansive dresser, which was suspiciously free of clutter—surely the work of a housekeeper. Zack knew, from his half-sister Lettie, who cleaned houses all over Santa Monica, that wealthy women were the biggest slobs.

  The woman was moving again, making mewling sounds, coming to life. Shit. He’d have to bolt and risk leaving behind something essential he’d have to return for later. He’d rather deal with that than speak to the woman now. On the balls of his feet, stepping lightly as possible, he hurried across the room to the door, holding his breath, asking God for the small favor of keeping the woman asleep, just for a few more minutes. He reached for the doorknob and turned it softly. As he crossed into the hallway, a light snapped on, and he recalled her telling him last night that since her husband had moved out, she’d had “smart lighting” installed all over the house. You never know just how chickenshit you are until you live alone in four thousand square feet, she’d said to him, her voice bitter-bright.

  Zack had not mentioned that, actually, he lived alone in about four hundred square feet, and was perfectly aware of just how chickenshit he was. Instead, he’d jammed three fingers between the woman’s taut thighs and caught her earlobe between his teeth, losing himself in her wet heat.

  No. No. He blinked over and over, the smart light of the hallway stuttering in and out of his vision as he moved toward the staircase.

  “Wait.” The woman’s voice reached him just as he’d set foot on the top step. His breath caught in his throat; he’d lingered a few critical seconds too long.

  He stood still but did not answer.

  “Zack. Come here.” There was a command beneath her childish whine.

  He turned and stepped back onto the landing. “I gotta run,” he called to her. “I have an important class to teach.”

  He began to descend the stairs.

  “Hey, you. Where do you think you’re going?”

  Zack turned to see the mystery woman standing above him at the top of the stairs. She was entirely naked, breasts fixed on him, hair wild over her shoulders. Her bare face, which he’d found pretty last night, now appeared unnaturally whittled by “work”: too severe at the jawline, the skin over-smoothed with Botox, lips over-plumped by a needle. If Zack had to guess, he’d put her at forty-six. It was the older women he found hardest to resist.

  “Sorry to bail.” He gripped the banister, keeping his eyes away from her breasts, and summoned what he hoped was an apologetic smile. “It’s just that I have to—”

  “Zack,” she purred. “Get back up here.”

  What could he do? Every muscle in his body resisting, he trudged back up the stairs, gripping the banister. On the landing, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his bare torso, sidling against him. He looped his arms around her in return, but loosely. The woman began to gyrate against him, her pointy hipbones driving into his crotch. Any other man—any normal man—would have instantly responded, Zack knew, would have lifted her off her feet and carried her back into the bedroom and consumed her body, which she was now offering him with gusto.

  But he was not normal. He was a slimy, weak fuck.

  If only he could pry her off and disappear. He pulled back slightly and caught sight of the thin gold necklace she wore around her neck, displaying the name Arianna in cursive. Arianna! At least he could use her name. Leave her with some modicum of respectfulness.

  “Just come back to bed,” Arianna murmured. “It’s Saturday.”

  “I have to work.”

  “Call in sick. I’ll make it worth your while.” She slipped a hand into his boxers and pressed it against his dick. Her fingers were freezing. “I’m sore from last night,” she whispered. “And I don’t mean from running the stairs.” She kissed his neck, just above his collarbone. “God, you’re so hot.”

  He cleared his throat and, gently as he could, pulled her hand o
ut of his underwear by the wrist. “Look. Arianna.”

  Her face snapped up toward his, crossed with anger.

  “Arianna?” she hissed, releasing him from her grasp completely.

  His body chilled with the knowledge of some unacceptable error.

  “I’m sorry—” he fumbled.

  “Arianna,” she said, her delicate nostrils flaring. “Is my fourteen-year-old daughter.”

  She crossed her slender arms over her breasts and narrowed her eyes at him, defiant, demanding a response. Zack turned and ran down the stairs, nearly howling with relief when he spotted his car keys on a sideboard by the front door, then burst out into the chilly, clean morning air, wearing nothing but boxers, barefoot and shaky, tears burning behind his eyes.

  2

  Mel

  THE DOORBELL’S DIGITAL PULSE CAME JUST AS MELISSA GOLDBERG WAS losing a battle with her new leggings in the upstairs master bedroom of her five-bedroom Tudor on Georgina Avenue.

  A year and a half into her new life in Santa Monica, Mel still hadn’t grown accustomed to such a large space; back in Brooklyn, she and her husband, Adam, and their ten-year-old daughter, Sloane, had lived in an apartment so small they could practically hear each other breathing. A claustrophobic but happy home.

  Now, three thousand miles and a spiritual galaxy away from Brooklyn, Mel’s new house was so big, she’d joked to Adam that she could probably be murdered in one of the upstairs bedrooms, and no one downstairs would hear her screaming. Don’t let your mind go to such a morbid place, Adam had responded, without cracking a smile. It’s not healthy. This was the new, California Adam: earnest, health-obsessed, disciplined with a whiff of New-Agey judgment in his voice. Since they’d moved, he’d shed every ounce of fat on his body, and along with it, Mel thought, his sense of humor. Brooklyn Adam would have grinned at her murder joke and mentioned their excellent life insurance policy.

  “Lettie!” Mel called out, breathlessly, in the direction of her bedroom door. “Sorry, but can you get the front door? I’m . . . busy with something.” Mel bent over, wincing at the popping sound in her knees—she was only forty-two, wasn’t it a little early for all the involuntary sounds her body had started to make?—and yanked at the waistband of the skintight Lycra pants stuck just below her dimpled knees.

  The leggings did not budge.

  The doorbell trilled again.

  “Kill me now,” Mel muttered. Then she called at a cheerful volume, “Lettie! Sorry, but are you able to get the door?”

  Mel knew Leticia, her housekeeper-turned-friend (at least Mel hoped the feeling was mutual), was somewhere downstairs in Mel’s large house, likely immersed in some ridiculous task assigned by Mel’s friend, Regina Wolfe. This morning, Regina was hosting some sort of “fitness party” in Mel’s yard, an arrangement Regina had proposed just days ago, after declaring her own backyard too small for the event. Mel had only a vague understanding of the nature and purpose of the party, beyond the fact that twenty women would soon be arriving for a “high-intensity workout” on her property, and she was expected to wear these evil leggings, currently gripping her legs like a boa constrictor.

  The leggings were a gift from Regina, to thank Mel for hosting the event, which Regina was calling Version Two You! a name that made Mel cringe, though she’d complimented Regina on its cleverness. It’s good, right? Regina had responded, with a knowing smile.

  This was the obsession in Los Angeles, Mel had learned. Everyone, it seemed, no matter what their age or level of success, was on some quest for transformation. No one’s Version One was good enough.

  Even her own husband had joined the quest. Adam had once been an unknown indie filmmaker in Brooklyn who considered bodega coffee and a bagel a perfectly fine breakfast, and the five-block walk from their apartment to the F train “exercise.” Then, two years ago, Rewriting the Stars, the low-budget feature he’d written and directed, became a sleeper megahit, earning over a hundred million at the box office and a Best Picture nomination from the Academy. Mel still had trouble believing that a single movie—a quirky time-travel romance that bounced between World War I and the near future—had changed their lives so profoundly. Adam had become an A-list Hollywood darling, one of the most sought-after film directors in the business. Once a man who hated to fly, Adam began to travel between New York and LA frequently, where studio execs clamored to take him to lunch, desperate to know what blockbuster ideas might be kicking around in his head. After nearly a year of “commuting” between the East and West coasts, Adam had convinced Mel to move to Los Angeles, luring her with the promise of an actual house (no more cramped apartments!) and real outdoor space (front and back yards!), instead of the one sad balcony she’d lined with mismatched flower pots in Brooklyn. No more winter!

  Shortly after they’d moved, Adam, a man who hadn’t stepped into a gym since college, became a person who “trained” at a jiu-jitsu academy four days a week, and ran frantically up and down steep flights of stairs at the beach. He’d renounced all “white foods”—no more toxic bagels!—and restricted his alcohol consumption to a single drink in “social settings only.” He’d also adopted a new style involving shirts with whimsical patterns—hearts, skulls, horseshoes—purchased at boutiques in Venice, plus black-framed glasses and sneakers that belonged, Mel thought, on a high school skateboarder.

  Where had her Adam gone—the same version who had practically worshipped Mel for almost two decades? A measly eighteen months in the California sunshine couldn’t change that. Could it? Surely, beneath his newly chiseled muscles and condescending suggestions, he was still the sensitive, creative, evolved man she’d fallen in love with.

  Wasn’t he?

  Lately, Adam’s favorite topics of conversation, to Mel’s annoyance, were how well he was eating and the stats reported by his Fitbit. Just that morning, he’d waved the lit-up strap in her face, triumphant over the news of his resting heart rate (Or was it his blood pressure? Mel’s brain switched to Off when Adam assailed her with health-talk), and offered yet again to buy her a Fitbit, adding, It’s important to start watching these things. Positive role-modeling for Sloane.

  Thanks, but I can already see that I’m fat, Mel had replied, with false merriment. No purchase necessary!

  Adam had sighed, tying his sneakers with a sharp yank to the laces. All I’m saying is that you might want to consider a little more self-care—

  Before Adam could finish, she’d beelined into the bathroom and shut the door hard before starting to cry.

  Mel missed her old life in Brooklyn, where she could hardly walk a few blocks in their artsy, bohemian neighborhood without bumping into someone she knew. There, she’d run a popular letterpress store-and-workspace, Dogwood Designs, known for its unique, handmade wedding invitations, greeting cards, and birth announcements. Her best friend from college, Jo, a curator at the Guggenheim, lived just a few subway stops away, in the shabby but artfully decorated brownstone Mel visited frequently for lethally strong coffee and interesting conversation.

  In Brooklyn, where the Version One of Mel had felt like plenty, she and her friends had agreed that cresting forty felt like entering a new phase of self-acceptance, a time to settle into the person you’d already spent decades becoming. An era of new freedom.

  Isn’t it nice, Jo had mused, to be old enough to stop giving so many fucks?

  Amen. Mel had nodded vigorously.

  But Santa Monica had begun to erode Mel’s middle-aged brio. First, there had been her failure to transplant her business to Santa Monica. Dogwood Designs West, despite its primo location on Montana Avenue, the city’s swankiest retail street, never got off the ground. Three months after she’d opened, sales were nonexistent, the daily count of walk-in customers routinely in the single digits. Still Mel had continued to work alone in the empty store five days a week, in a state of disbelieving paralysis. Finally, at the end of the opt-out window on Mel’s staggeringly expensive lease, she forfeited the space and shuttered Dogwood De
signs West.

  I forbid you to view this as a failure, Adam had coached her, his voice teeming with new LA-positivity. It’s just a different demographic here, babe. You couldn’t have known.

  Maybe he was right. Perhaps Santa Monicans were incapable of appreciating Mel’s work. Still, it didn’t stop her from feeling like a failure. All people noticed about her in California, she’d declared weepily to her therapist, Janet, was the extra twenty-five (okay, thirty) pounds she carried, and her tendency to speak her mind. So what if she blurted out her opinions, unedited, or struck up debates with strangers? So what if she liked to “overshare,” as Regina put it, her voice tinged with disapproval?

  In Brooklyn, Mel had been considered interesting and outspoken.

  In LA, it seemed, she was just considered messy.

  And that’s how she’d begun to view herself: as a messy nobody. Invisible among the willowy women of Santa Monica who consumed bowls of kale with gusto, as if it were ice cream, and considered Instagramming about “school campus beautification day” a valid form of volunteer work.

  Help, Mel had moaned to Jo on the phone. I’m surrounded by vain, malnourished thoroughbreds.

  Find something real to do, advised Jo, who was preparing to spend a year at the University of Nairobi, where she’d won a fellowship to study contemporary African painting. You’ll find your people.

  So, Mel had made a foray into real volunteer work. She’d joined an all-women’s political canvassing group (WOMEN WHO WILL!) she’d seen on Facebook. The group was focused on electing a few up-and-coming young Democrats to Congress in the midterms, and Mel had set out on her first door-to-door assignment full of jittery excitement over the prospect of making even the smallest dent in Trump’s malignant regime. She’d been instructed to meet the other members of her “squad” at a Starbucks in their assigned neighborhood of Santa Clarita at “nine A.M. sharp” on a Monday morning, and had made sure to check the Waze app on her phone the night before, to learn that Santa Clarita was approximately thirty miles northeast of Santa Monica, and would require a reasonable forty-five-minute drive on the I-10 and I-405 freeways.