The Comeback(44)
“I was just . . . going for a walk. I didn’t realize . . . I’m actually living down in Coyote Sumac at the moment. Dylan and I . . .” I shake my head.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I heard that.” Emilia puts her head to one side and pushes out her lips slightly in the universal expression of sympathy for when your marriage has rotted. “You just missed Able, but come in for a coffee?”
Emilia gestures toward the house with her head because she’s carrying four canvas bags full of groceries and two huge Fred Segal bags. When she sees me looking, she rolls her eyes, pretending to be embarrassed.
“Christmas shopping. This is conspicuous consumption in action, Grace—it’s disgusting, I know. Come on.”
I follow her into the house.
* * *
? ? ?
The front door opens straight into the living room, which stretches all the way through to the back of the house, flanked by a double staircase leading to the bedrooms upstairs. Everything in the house is as rich and ornate as a private members’ club, in contrast to the usual expanse of empty white space and driftwood so common to mansions in Malibu. The walls are forest green, surrounding velvet sofas and a hissing, glowing wood burner. First-edition leather-bound books with gold embossed titles line the shelves, punctuated by expensive candles and framed black-and-white photographs of the family on the beach in Nantucket or skiing in Verbier. And the smell—still that suffocating sandalwood, after all these years.
My legs feel like jelly as I follow Emilia, unable to stop. I realize now that I haven’t seen her since the Lights of Berlin premiere, where I threw up twice in the toilets before the film had even started. She seems calmer, happier than I remember, and I wonder if she’s on meds like everyone else with any sense in this city.
The Christmas tree in the center of the room shimmers with gold and white baubles, and thousands of tiny lights on an invisible thread. Hundreds of porcelain carolers stand around the tree, staring up at it, frozen with their mouths half-open and their eyes glazed. The figurines also line every available surface, all dressed in red and green, some holding mini instruments and gifts. Emilia catches me staring at them and laughs quickly.
“When my grandmother died I had this ridiculous fight with my least favorite cousin over who got to keep her collection of carolers. As you can see, I won and am now cursed to display every freaking one of them until the sweet release of death. At this point I don’t care if it’s hers or mine.”
I touch one of them on the head. The caroler is wearing a red skating outfit, and she seems stricken by my touch. We walk past the door to Able’s office, and I wonder whether Emilia can see the beads of sweat forming above my lip, whether she can hear the shudder of my pulse as I place my hand on the closed door. I follow Emilia into the kitchen, wishing I’d brought my bottle of Percocet with me. Sometimes just knowing the pills are in my possession is enough to stop the panic from catching hold like a wildfire.
The kitchen is different. They have redone it since I was last here, and everything is tasteful and overt at the same time, like Emilia. There is no sign of Able’s touch left in the house. I lean against the marble island, looking anywhere but Emilia’s eyes. Adrenaline courses through my veins and I suddenly, urgently, need the toilet, but I don’t want to be alone.
“When was the last time we had you over? I’m always saying how much I miss having you around. It’s crazy that we’ve known you since you were just a kid, really, even though you never acted like one.” Emilia unpacks the shopping methodically as she speaks, making piles of similar items and then distributing them among the fridge, freezer and pantry. I take the opportunity to look at her now, taking in her unfashionably thin eyebrows and even thinner nose, her pale eyes the color of the Atlantic Ocean in winter. I realize now that I undervalued her beauty when I was younger—she is attractive in that subtle, fleece-and-jeans, country club way that grows every time you look at her, rewarding you for having noticed it in the first place.
Please be aware that I recognized this as a mistake as soon as I walked through that door. For once, every single level of my consciousness seems to be united and they are all singing at me like a Greek chorus, instructing me to remove myself from the situation immediately, but of course I don’t know how. Emilia’s composure is unnerving me; I’ve always believed that the people who feel the most comfortable are the most dangerous to be around.
Emilia picks up a light blue box and hands it to me. “Marrons glacés. We used to have them in Connecticut when I was a child, and they are absolutely the only thing that gets me in the holiday spirit in this furnace of a city. You must try one.”
I open the box to find six round globes in individual foil packaging. I unwrap one with trembling fingers, pressing it into my dry mouth. The sweet icing crumbles instantly, coating my tongue so that I don’t have to speak. My heart is beating so hard in my chest that I’m surprised it’s not visible through my shirt.
“Isn’t that just heaven? Able brought them back from Paris for me. He may be useless in every other way, but my beautiful husband would never dare forget my marrons glacés.”
“How’s the . . . writing going?” I ask, struggling to swallow. Emilia used to be a journalist at LA Weekly, but she gave it up a few years ago to write celebrity biographies and brightly colored airport novels. I cough slightly, acrid sugar caught at the back of my throat, and Emilia hands me a small bottle of water from the fridge.