Everything Leads to You(72)

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Charlotte says, walking toward me from the office. “He’ll let us rent up to thirty plants for $15 a day, but we have to keep them really healthy, or else he’ll make us buy them. How does that sound?”

“Good.”

“Choose what you want and put them on this cart, and then I’ll do all the paperwork with him and get directions for when to water them all while you go across the street to get pots.”

“This is why I need you,” I say.

“We still have three other tasks on our list for the day.”

I nod and select my thirty plants of various sizes and textures and shades of green. I choose one with yellow flowers to put in a prominent place, and then I let Charlotte deal with the business side while I start looking for pots. But I only find a few that are right, because Juniper would not have matching sets—she would have whatever she could find at the time.

I talk the woman at the register into giving me a deal and then I head back as Charlotte is loading the plants into the back of my car.

My phone rings. Ava.

“Hey,” she says. “Guess what? Everything went through. I have access to the bank account.”

“So cool,” I say, setting the pots in the backseat. “Are you rich?”

“Yeah. I think I am. I just bought myself a forty-dollar lunch.” She laughs. “And I got a manicure.”

“That’s awesome,” I say.

“So I need to find a place to live.”

I wait, but she doesn’t mention getting kicked out so I just say, “We have a couple more errands right now but you could come over after and we could start looking.”

“I have a better idea. I’m going to get a room at the Marmont. Meet me there when you’re done?”

“Looks like Ava came into a lot of money,” I tell Charlotte as she shuts the trunk. “She’s checking into the Marmont this afternoon.”

She widens her eyes.

“Long term?”

“I don’t think so. Just until she finds a place.”

“Still,” she says. “That’s expensive.”

“Seriously.”

“Did she say anything about last night?”

“No. I guess she doesn’t know we went to look for her.”

I call Jamal to let him know I heard from her.

“Yeah,” he says. “She left me a message when I was at work. Said she was getting a room at some fancy hotel. You gonna go check it out?”

“Yeah, a little later.”

“Cool. And remember to keep last night between us if that’s all right.”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

“I don’t want her feeling weird about it.”

“Makes sense,” I say. “It was no big deal.”

“All right, cool. See you later then.”

~

When I get to the Marmont, I find Ava leaning against the outside wall of a poolside bungalow, wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses shaped like John Lennon’s, her hair cascading down her shoulders in loose waves. She is still in the green camisole and cutoffs from yesterday but she is barefoot. I’ve never seen her feet before. All slender and graceful, like they aren’t even used for walking.

She leads me inside, where her boots are kicked off across the floor and her purse is hung over a chair. She doesn’t have any bags and even though I don’t ask her why, she says, “Jamal’s coming later to drop off my stuff.”

She stands at the center of a red rug. Orange light beats through the window; the edges of her glow.

“Is this what you pictured?” she asks me.

I don’t know what she means. But, no, I could have never pictured anything quite as glamorous as this. She is almost too bright to look at.

“When you had me come here the first time. You thought I might come back. Right?”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“When I was booking the room I asked the man where Clyde used to stay. He said this one so that’s what I chose. Come here,” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Clyde slept here. All those years ago. Can you believe it?”

I kick off my sandals and join her on the bed, unsure of where this is headed.

“I wonder how many women he brought to this room,” she says.

Our bodies are so close. I watch as she moves her hand even nearer, until her fingers with their short, perfectly smooth nails are almost touching the soft underside of my knee.