This One Is Mine: A Novel (6 page)

This one Sally would play right. She pulled her knee into her chest, then twisted so her back was arched and her breasts were well showcased. A classic sexy pose, like those early shots of Marilyn Monroe, only Sally wasn’t so fat. “Well, did you like it?” she purred.

“Yes.”

“Don’t make me do it again,” she said with a tease. She didn’t want a big wet spot on her dress. She grabbed something from the bed and cleaned herself off. Whoops. It was Maryam’s scarf. Sally kicked it under the bed and got dressed.

There was a knock on the door. The knob rattled. Sally ignored it. “Would you like to do it again sometime?” she asked.

“Yes.” Jeremy patted his pockets. Sally could relax: he wanted a pen to write down her number.

“Sally! Jeremy! Are you in there?” It was Maryam, of course.

“Maybe we could go on a date.” Sally fixed Jeremy’s collar. “You could send a car to pick me up.”

“That could happen.” Jeremy had a sweet submissiveness that was starting to grow on her. Sally’s type was usually hot guys with hot cars. Like Kurt and his white Jeep Wrangler. How she had loved driving around LA with him, her hair flapping in the wind, a Starbucks
venti
in one hand, the other clinging to the roll bar for dear life. If Don Henley had ever seen them, she was convinced he would have starred them in his next music video. Sally smiled now just remembering it.

“Sally! Are you in there?” Maryam again.

Sally grabbed her coat and swung open the door. “There you are!” she said. “Jeremy had to pee and I was just getting my coat.” Sally turned. Jeremy stood in the dim light, flipping a quarter in the air, slapping it on his hand, then doing it again. He must have not found that pen after all. . . .

“If you want a ride home,” Maryam said, “we have to leave now. I’m sure my cat is peeing all over my comforter as we speak.”

“God, okay. I’m ready.” Sally tossed Maryam her jacket. “Here you go.”

“Where’s my scarf?”

“You didn’t have it on when you came in,” said Sally.

“But —”

“It’s in the car,” Sally snapped. She reached into her pocket and found the single business card she’d tucked in especially for this occasion. She slipped it to Jeremy. “Call me.” She gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Mmwwaa,” he said.

CHAPTER TWO

From One to Ten

T
HE SPLASH OF COLD WATER HELPED.
A
T LEAST IT WOULD MASK THE TEARS
streaming down her cheeks. Violet opened her eyes and stared at herself in the mirror, something she normally took great pains to avoid. She obviously wasn’t beautiful, or people would have said so. But was one feature in particular the culprit? She had big eyes, long lashes, high cheekbones, a nice-enough nose. Maybe it was her mouth. Her mouth might be too small, her lips too thin. Or was it her chin? In some pictures it looked pointy and witch-like. Violet had always wanted to know what number she’d be on a scale from one to ten. She once asked David. “Whoooaaa,” he had said, “there’s no right answer to that question.” She promised not to get all weird on him. He relented and told her she was an eight. She thanked him for the compliment but secretly went wild with insecurity. Why just an eight? Was she really a six, and he added two to keep the peace? Would he someday leave her for a nine? God knows he was surrounded by them. Years back, when one of his bands was playing the Coliseum, Violet went to find David in his makeshift office, the production trailer. In the tiny bathroom, she saw a
Perfect Ten
magazine. It made her want to collapse.

Thump. Thump. Thump.
The swift pounding of David’s heels heralded a confrontation. This one promised to be a doozy. An hour ago, in the middle of their private yoga class, David had spotted the dead gopher at the bottom of the Jacuzzi. The one Violet had completely forgotten to take care of. David castigated her in front of the yoga teacher. Ten minutes later, Violet excused herself to the bathroom, and had been here ever since.

“Honey!” David entered, sweaty from yoga. “What happened? Why didn’t you come back?”

“I couldn’t deal with yoga today.” Violet blotted her face.

David took a breath. She knew he was trying to control his temper. All she could do was wait and hope. “Shiva wanted to confirm our place at the yoga retreat next month,” he said.

“I’ll call her about it later.” Violet opened the shower door and turned on the steam.

“Wait a second,” he said. “Are you crying?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Is it the gopher?”

“No, it’s —”

“What the fuck else am I supposed to do? I’m standing there trying to balance on one leg, and Shiva says pick a spot to focus on. So I look into the Jacuzzi and I see the
same dead gopher
that was there — what — two weeks ago?”

“You were right to yell,” Violet said, instantly regretting it.

“Yell? I would hardly call that yelling.”

“I know, I know.”

“Really. Let’s get Shiva on the phone and ask her if I
yelled
at you. I was merely expressing my very authentic and justifiable shock. You said you’d take care of it
two weeks ago
. Come on, Violet, what’s going on? I used to be able to rely on you.”

“I’ll go fish it out now.” Violet headed out.

“Violet, stop.” She froze in place, as if playing red-light-green-light. “Every time I come home,” he said, “there’s some truck in the driveway and a Mexican I’ve never seen before walking around scowling. Have one of
them
get the gopher out of the Jacuzzi.”

Violet couldn’t stand him looking at her fat ass anymore. She turned around and walked toward the shower. “Okay, I will.”

David intercepted her and gave her a big hug. She stood on her tiptoes and looked into his eyes. They were so gorgeous and mournful, even when he was angry. “It’s just that I trust you,” he said. “When you say you’re going to do something, you usually do it. I’ve grown to expect it from you. Remember, you’re UV-A, not UV-B.”

UV-B: Violet despised being called that. David’s first nickname for her, Ultraviolet, was endearing. Ultraviolet had morphed into Ultra, and then UV-A. One day, many years ago, when she accidentally locked her keys in her car, Violet had jokingly referred to herself as UV-B. Even though it had originated with her, UV-B struck her as unspeakably cruel coming from her husband.

David got undressed and stepped into the steam. The door sealed shut behind him.

Violet knew she deserved this. She hadn’t worked in five years. She didn’t
have
to quit her job, but the hours were brutal and she had grown to despise the executives with their idiotic notes. As David had put it, she was too rich to let people dumber than she was have power over her. Plus, it was time to get serious about getting pregnant. She’d been off the pill for a year and nothing had happened. Before she resorted to in vitro, Violet decided to quit her job. A week later, driving down Mulholland, she saw an open-house sign at the bottom of a long driveway she’d always wondered about. On a lark, she went up. She got out of the car and found herself pulled up the exposed aggregate stepping-stones, through the Aleppo pines, and into a glass box on five acres overlooking Stone Canyon Reservoir. The realtor was in the yard talking to a client, so Violet walked through the house alone. It was as if a benevolent force guided her from room to room. Violet had been in a few Richard Neutra houses before and knew instinctively that this was his and arguably one of his best. The place had been neglected since the sixties and needed a ton of work. Still, she raced down the hill to David’s office, alive with images of David and her living in the house, entertaining in the house, bringing their elusive baby home from the hospital to the house. Without removing his headset, David had said that if she really wanted it, she could offer full asking price. He didn’t need to see it. He trusted her. She was UV-A.

How could she have foreseen that the house would be her undoing? The restoration and addition cost four times the estimate and took three times as long. Overnight, Violet shape-shifted from in-demand, Emmy-winning writer to resident dunce. Every day David pummeled her with questions she couldn’t know the answers to. Why didn’t the electrician show up? Who scratched the brand-new floors? Why did the decorator charge twenty grand for a throw rug? How did that window get broken? Why did they deliver the wrong tile? But the house was Violet’s big idea, so she stoically accepted her role as human bucket for David to vomit into. In addition to the daily drubbings, she was paying for the remodel with her own money and ended up burning through her entire savings. When they finally moved in, Violet was pregnant and, for the first time in her life, unemployed and without a penny to her name. David had no reaction to the news that she’d need to start sending her bills to his accountant. She knew it was a fair trade. Lots of women would gladly get called a dumb fuck a couple times a week in exchange for not having to work.

Steam hissed from the cracked shower door. “Ultra?” David stuck his head out. “Aren’t you coming in?”

“One second.” Violet opened the medicine cabinet and lifted the colorful Venetian glass votive they’d gotten on their honeymoon, crammed tight with Q-tips. Underneath was the business card she couldn’t throw away but hadn’t dared touch.

TEDDY REYES

BASS PLAYER

Violet closed the cabinet door and gave her face a hard look. Her skin was holding up well. From one to ten, she’d give herself a seven, with room for improvement.

CHAPTER THREE

Goodnight Nobody   
Kate Mantilini   
   Hamburger Hamlet / El Torito

Learn to Park   
   Where Would It Be?   
The Putting Green

Flatland   
   What Positions Do You Like?