Good Rich People(20)

A light comes on in a far window, as if her landlord can hear us. I will never see a garden like that, not even in a magazine.

It takes us ages to wrap around it, but finally we reach an intricately carved wooden gate. It looks like it was taken from a church, wrenched from God’s hinges and stuffed inside a wall of concrete.

“This is it!” She squeezes my elbow. “Hey, do you want to have a drink with me? Do you want a drink?”

I haven’t had a drink in a long time. It’s such an expendable expense. And even though I’m on edge, even though I feel wary of her, like she might switch and swing on me suddenly, I think, When will I have this chance again? I remember a time when I had a job and a place to live, how I used to say to myself, You need to go out more! You need to do more! But instead I stayed in. I tried to save money, but it spent itself anyway. Now I am never invited anywhere.

“Hey, we can talk about the job, huh? Maybe I can help you.” I am half sure it’s drunken bullshit, but it’s the best offer I’ve had all year. Maybe all my life.

I take a step toward the gate, then feel a chill. I have never been inside a house like this and I imagine myself crossing the threshold, looking out over the city like it’s something I can see all at once. And my chest aches, and I can’t breathe. I’m scared.

“Come on.” She throws her arm around my shoulder. “Let’s have a drink.”

I lick my lips. “Okay.”

She unlocks the gate and shepherds me into a courtyard. An enormous fountain gurgles at the center. It’s lit from below, so it glows with an extraterrestrial tint. The house beyond it is this modern glass concoction. It looks less like a house than a work of art. You can see inside, all the tight lines of furniture, like a game of Tetris, perfectly stacked.

“Wow,” I say.

She frowns. “Not this one. It’s down below. This is where Graham Herschel lives,” she says like I know who that is. “I haven’t met him yet but he’s so fucking hot. He’s, like, this scion. I heard his wife is totally bonkers, though.”

She leads me along the side of the house, then down a steep, crooked stairwell until we reach another house, surrounded by a long, dark porch encased in trees, underneath.

“It’s kind of a weird place,” she says. “But I couldn’t pass up the chance to live at the Herschels’. They’re, like, the cream of the cream or whatever. We’re talking billions.” She fumbles with her keys, hoveringly lucid, unlocks the dead bolt. The door creaks open. “Take off your shoes.” She sniffs and then steps inside, slips off her heels.

The light is murky when I step inside. She flips the switch and it stays murky. The bulbs emanate a weak yellowy color, soupy, strange. The living room is filled with eccentric objects. Everything is half a work of art, shockingly functionless: a marble statue of a woman that looks like an animal, two tall column bookshelves on either side carved with intricate shapes like scales or dead leaves.

The rug is modern spatters of red and blue and black, so it looks like blood—but not fake blood, not the blood you see in movies, but the real, thick dark blood, the blood no one ever talks about.

“It would look nice if there was any fucking light in here.” She heads to the kitchen, opens the fridge. “There’s beer, red wine, gin.” The light from the fridge is white bright in the doomed house. “Make what you want. I’m going to the bathroom.”

It’s only when she doesn’t come out right away that I realize she is probably doing heroin in there. The bathroom is in the center of the guesthouse, between the living room and the bedroom. I hear her puttering around inside. I pour myself a glass of wine, but I am so hungry, I gulp it down, and then I feel sick, like I can’t even enjoy normal things anymore.

I go to the living room, walk along the perimeter, from the windows to the walls.

The place is so strange. One side is suctioned to the steep hill and the other side is open, with rows of small windows looking out into the slanted yard, where mismatched trees wind high, high above it. Between their trunks you can see little glimmers of the other houses on the hill across the canyon: white, sleek, modern, walls of windows, but this place is sunken; this place is clawing; this place is burying itself in the hillside.

I pour myself another glass of wine. I know I am just drinking because I am hungry. I think of all the food in the refrigerator, how she probably wouldn’t even notice if something went missing, but she didn’t offer me anything, so I can’t take it, can’t even open the door to look at her food, and I think how much I hold myself back, how polite I am, how it has contributed to my downfall. As I walk around her guesthouse, I think, God, if I didn’t care so much what people think, even now, even when they have proved, again and again, that they don’t care about me . . .

What if she won’t help you? What if you do something wrong and she won’t help you? When I know better, know enough to know that won’t be the reason she doesn’t help me.

I put the empty glass down. My head feels expanded and dizzy, like a balloon tug-tugging away from me.

I hear my dad’s voice in my head, Fuck her. Take what you want. Take everything. Fuck ’em all.

I force myself to open the fridge. I blink in the brightness of the blue-white light. Everything is packaged exquisitely, like little food gifts. There are premade salmon salads, boxed sushi, sliced prosciutto ham, buttons of cheese with sprigs of rosemary. It’s almost too pretty to eat. I could just take one thing, just one sleek little box. She would never know. She probably wouldn’t even care.