The Smart One and the Pretty One

  She found her father standing by the kitchen counter. “Something’s wrong with this machine,” he said without looking up. He was punching at the button on the coffeemaker with short, angry jabs. “I keep trying to start it, but nothing.”

  “It’s not plugged in,” Ava said. She plugged it in and Jimmy pressed the start button again. The machine immediately started making brewing noises.

  Jimmy said, “Why the hell wasn’t it plugged in?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t unplug it.”

  “Everything’s falling apart around here,” he said, putting the container of coffee back in the freezer and closing the door with an unnecessarily loud slam. “It’s because your mother’s not feeling well.” Jimmy was built like a beanpole and was almost a foot taller than Ava and Lauren, who took after their petite mother, but today he suddenly seemed smaller to Ava, a little hunched over and shrunken around the neck and shoulders.

  Ava thought maybe she should hug him, but they had never hugged much. He wasn’t that kind of father. So she twisted her fingers together and just said, “I hate that she’s sick.”

  “She’ll be fine,” he said brusquely. “That’s what matters. Get the orange juice out of the fridge, will you?”

  They carried the food out to the dining room, where Jimmy instantly transformed into what teenage Lauren used to call “Social Daddy!” (and occasionally “SD” for short), smiling and clapping Russell on his shoulder and heartily welcoming him to his house. It amazed Ava how her father could turn it on like that, could suddenly become this cheerful, outgoing guy who charmed everyone he met. He wasn’t like that when he was alone with the family: then he was moody, prone to quiet depressions and unpredictable irritability—and equally unpredictable bursts of kindness and generosity. Her mother, though, was pretty much always the same whoever was around.

  “Those are some muscles you’ve got there,” Jimmy said to Russell as they all sat down. “You work out?”

  “He has a trainer,” Ava said. “The kind who comes to your house.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Russell said quickly. “I’d go to the gym if I had time, but it’s more efficient to have her just come to me—”

  “It’s an efficiency thing,” Ava agreed. “Really, it’s not self-indulgent at all.”

  “Hey, hey,” he said. “Give a guy a break.”

  Nancy said, “I think it’s great. If I had the time and money, I would have a personal trainer. And a masseuse.”

  “Do you have a masseuse?” Ava asked Russell.

  “I don’t keep one in my house, if that’s what you mean.” He picked up a knife and spread the cream cheese a little more evenly on his bagel. “But if the opportunity offers itself, sure, I’ll have a massage.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Nancy said.

  “You want one, Mom?” Ava said with sudden inspiration. “I hadn’t even thought about that. It might really relax you, help you sleep. We could arrange for someone to come here. My treat.”

  “You want me to call the woman I use?” Russell asked. He leaned back a bit and pulled his cell phone out of his hip pocket. “I’ve got her number right here.”

  “I don’t know.” Nancy looked uncertainly at Jimmy, who was putting lox on his bagel and didn’t seem to notice.

  “So you do have a masseuse!” Ava said to Russell. “And you keep her number in your cell phone? Is that in case of a sudden muscle spasm emergency?”

  “I put every number I get in my cell phone,” he said. “Lauren’s number is in here. My travel agent is in here. The crazy guy I met at Starbucks who told me he’s starting an Internet company—his number is in here, although I admit I meant to delete that one as soon as I escaped from him, but I forgot.” He pointed at Ava accusingly. “Your number would be in here if you were ever to give it to me.” He turned to Nancy. “So what time is good for you? You want to do it today? I could see if Summer Rain has any spots open this afternoon.”

  “‘Summer Rain’?” Lauren repeated, her eyebrows soaring up.

  “Hippie parents.”

  “It feels way too indulgent,” Nancy said, still looking at Jimmy, who just took a bite of his bagel. “I don’t know if I should do it.”

  “I mean it, Mom—I want it to be my treat,” Ava said.

  “Mine too,” Lauren said.

  “Oh, are you chipping in?” Ava said. “And the money for your part will be coming from—?”

  “Shut up. I have enough for this—how much could it be? Seventy, eighty bucks? Split in half?”

  “Um,” Russell said. “She’s a little more than that. A little more than twice that actually. But she gives you way over an hour and comes to your house, and she’s really good. If you just give me a time frame—”

  “I shouldn’t,” Nancy said. “It’s too expensive. It’s a lovely thought, but—”

  “I want you to do it, Mom,” Ava said. “Make the call, Russell.”

  “Yes, but what time?” he said.

  “Jimmy—?” Nancy said.

  Jimmy looked up from his bagel. “Do it,” he said. “You deserve something relaxing like that with all you’re going through. And I can afford it—the girls don’t need to treat you.” Ava started to protest, but he shook his head at her and she closed her mouth. “Any time after four this afternoon,” he said to Russell. Then, to Nancy again, “That’ll give you time to take a nap after brunch.”

  “All right,” Russell said. “I’m making the call.” He pressed a couple of buttons on his phone, then got up and went into the next room to talk. He returned in a minute, snapping the phone shut. “Done,” he said. “She’ll be here at five.”

  “Wonderful,” Nancy said, beaming. “Thank you.”

  Russell slid his phone back into his pants pocket and sat down. “You’ll love Summer,” he said. “She’s incredible.”

  “I know why he likes Summer,” Lauren said.

  “Why?” asked Ava.

  “Because Summer is hot!” Lauren said with glee, and the others groaned in chorus.

  On the drive back to the apartment, Lauren said, “See? Russell’s a good guy.”

  “He’s okay,” Ava said quietly.

  “The more time we spend with him, the more I like him. That’s a good sign. I think if you and he spent some quality time alone together—”

  “I’m not his type.”

  “Did you notice he didn’t even mention Corinne? I think she’s out of the picture.”

  “Why don’t you go out with him?” Ava said. “You guys are perfect for each other.”

  “I’m only interested in him for you,” Lauren said.

  “It’s not going to happen,” Ava said. “I’m not flashy enough for him. And I’m not sure I want it to,” she added quickly.

  Lauren was silent for a moment. Then she said, more to herself than to Ava, “I just need to get you guys to spend some time alone together.”

  “You don’t need to do anything,” Ava said. “Unless you want to date him yourself.”

  Lauren was studying Ava’s face. “Would you let me do your hair and makeup the next time we see him? And pick out something for you to wear? I could make you look so great—”

  “First of all,” Ava said, “I think I look fine the way I am. Second of all, I don’t want a guy who cares about how I dress and do my hair.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Lauren said. “I’ve never even seen you go shopping for clothes just for fun. Or fool around with different hairdos. Or put on makeup. Or buy shoes that look pretty but hurt your feet and it’s worth it because it just is. Or—”

  “Clothing should keep you clean and covered and presentable,” Ava said. “All the rest is just fluff and expense and bother.”

  “And walls should keep the rain out,” Lauren said. “All that art stuff people put on them is just fluff and expense and bother.”

  “That’s different,” Ava said.

  “It’s not.”

  Ava felt sure she was right, but not at all su
re of the argument she could make to prove it, so she switched to a different point. “I’m not going to change myself to get a guy. I want to be appreciated for who I am.”

  “Yeah?” Lauren said. “Why don’t you just grow a mustache and stop shaving your legs while you’re at it? Any guy who falls in love with you then will be really great. Or blind.” She snickered.

  “I believe in being hygienic,” Ava said. “That’s a different issue.”

  “Oh, you’re just making up distinctions now. It all falls on a sliding scale of trying to make yourself look good. Why not just slide a little further up the chain?”

  “First of all, you’re mixing metaphors like crazy. Second of all”—Ava pointed out the window—“it looks like the new Pinkberry is finally open. Should we get some?” Lauren assented enthusiastically, and pretty soon the girls were plunging into large scoops of frozen yogurt covered with fresh strawberries, their conversation forgotten.

  That night, Ava clipped her shoulder-length hair out of the way to wash her face, then stopped and looked at herself. Feeling a little silly, she removed the hairclip, then experimented with pulling her hair back into a twist and clipping it into some semblance of an updo. It fell out immediately, so she tried pulling just the front pieces of hair back, the way Lauren often did, but no matter how she played with the different bits of hair or repositioned the clip, it always looked uneven and a little silly to her. She finally just pulled it severely back and out of the way again and scrubbed her face clean.

  Chapter 8

  Nancy met Lauren at the front door, purse already in hand, sunglasses pushed up on her head. “Let’s go,” she said by way of greeting.

  “Am I late?” Lauren asked. It was Tuesday and she was picking her mother up for chemo.

  “By most people’s standards, yes,” Nancy said.

  “Time is relative, right?”

  Nancy wasn’t amused. “It tends to be fairly constant when you’re talking about hospital appointments. We’ll be okay so long as we leave right away and traffic isn’t terrible.”

  “It’s not great,” Lauren said, having been stuck in it on the drive there. Nancy was letting her use her car so long as she made herself available to run errands on demand.

  They headed down the uneven walkway and she had to resist the urge to reach out and support her mother’s arm; she suspected that Nancy would only resent the attempt. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” Nancy said. “Really fine, at the moment. Just in time to feel worse again. That’s the hardest part about going—knowing it will make me feel sick tomorrow.”

  “But ultimately it will make you better.”

  “One hopes.”

  Her mother’s gloomy mood made Lauren feel guilty about the fact that she was kind of looking forward to going to the hospital. Looking forward to seeing Daniel again.

  Being back in L.A. and living with her sister had been bad for Lauren’s social life. She was used to going out a lot, either on dates or with friends, and all these evenings she’d been spending at home eating dinner and watching TV with Ava managed to be simultaneously quite pleasant and intensely boring—sort of like a walk down a tree-lined dead-end street.

  Daniel had piqued her interest. There was something dark and angry about him that appealed to her worst instincts. She was well aware that those instincts were likely to lead her in a self-destructive direction—but she was bored. A small, manageable amount of self-destruction trumped boredom, in her opinion.

  She had once been bounced right off a motorcycle by a date who had insisted on riding drunk and without a helmet. Since Lauren had also been drunk, she had willingly thrown on a helmet and joined him on the ride and had paid the resulting stupidity tax with a large portion of the skin on her right arm and thigh. Her date was less fortunate and ended up in the hospital for two weeks with a fractured skull. She waited until he had healed and then she broke up with him, making a silent vow to stick in the future to men who were clean-cut and well-scrubbed. And who didn’t ride motorcycles.

  Daniel was well-groomed enough, so that was good, and she doubted he had a motorcycle—he didn’t have the oversized adolescent vibe peculiar to guys who rode bikes—but even so, she suspected he wasn’t likely to be good for her emotional health. On the other hand, Lauren thought, to hell with health. She was spending her days being a dutiful daughter and a supportive sister, and she needed something risky to balance out all that goodness.

  “We’re going to be late.” Nancy snapped the windshield shade down peevishly. “Look at all this traffic. We should have left earlier.”

  “Sorry,” Lauren said. The car in front of her moved forward and she stepped eagerly on the gas but had to brake almost immediately as the other car stopped again.

  “Don’t lurch,” her mother said. “It won’t get us there any faster and it wastes gas.”

  “Backseat driver,” Lauren muttered. But she was careful not to overaccelerate the next time the traffic started moving, just took her foot off the brake and let the car roll gently forward. The space between her car and the one in front widened, and another car suddenly darted in front, cutting her off so tightly that she had to slam on the brakes even though she was barely moving. The car that had cut her off made it through the next intersection just as the light turned from yellow to red. Lauren had to stop and wait. “Damn it,” she said. “I could have made it if it hadn’t been for that jerk.”

  “Calm down,” Nancy said. “It doesn’t do any good to get annoyed.”

  “You’re the one who keeps telling me we’re going to be late.”

  “I said that once.”

  The light changed again and Lauren quickly zipped through the intersection—only to be slowed to a standstill again half a block later, within sight of the hospital. “L.A. traffic sucks,” she said. “I better drop you off before I park. That way you can go up and get started.” As Lauren pulled into the hospital drop-off lane, she saw the car that had cut her off pulling away from the curb, heading toward the parking garage—and this time spotted Daniel in the driver’s seat. “I should have known,” she said, amused.

  “What?” Nancy looked at her, hand poised on the door handle.

  “Nothing,” Lauren said. She pulled up to the curb. “I’ll meet you upstairs. You going to be okay?”

  “Fine,” Nancy said. She got out of the car and Lauren watched her walk up to the entrance. She looked a little more slumped about the shoulders than usual, but she still walked with the same fierce determination she’d always had. She passed a woman in a wheelchair being pushed by a volunteer up the ramp, and Lauren realized that the seated figure was Daniel’s mother. She felt a strange and uncharitable sense of relief that her own mother was striding along on her own power when Daniel’s mother couldn’t even walk the few feet, but then was hit by a sudden superstitious fear that her selfishness would bring on her own mother’s decline. She shook her head to get rid of the thought.

  She lingered in the drive-through for a moment, waiting for Nancy to enter the front doors, and realized just in time that a security guard was bearing down on her, waving his hand with a “move along” gesture. She responded with a deliberately obtuse cheery wave and pulled back out into the street. She continued on to the parking garage but didn’t see Daniel down there.

  She had to go down five levels to find an empty parking space, so by the time she made it up to the chemo ward, a nurse was already settling her mother in the public reclining chair area.

  “Actually, I kind of like it here,” Nancy said when Lauren wondered out loud whether there were any private rooms available. “If I get bored, I can look at the other people and decide whether or not I look better than they do.”

  “I can tell you right now you do,” Lauren said.

  “That’s because they’re all old.” Once she was hooked up to the IV, Nancy closed her eyes with a sigh of exhaustion, then immediately opened them again. “I’m sorry. Did you want to talk? Something about bei
ng here always makes me so sleepy.”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” Lauren said. “You relax. I’m going to go do a little exploring.” She gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and walked over to the snack area.

  And there was Daniel, sitting in a chair, leafing restlessly through a newspaper. The second she entered, he looked up and tossed the newspaper aside.

  “There you are,” he said. So he had been waiting for her. She was glad.

  “Hi,” she said. “Did you know you cut me off?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In your car. You cut me off.”

  He stared at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Never mind. Is your mother all settled?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We got a private room this time.”

  “So no yelling?”

  “What do you mean?” he said again.

  “You know. You were screaming at the nurses when you didn’t get one last time.”

  “I wasn’t screaming,” he said. “I was just pointing out that they had promised us something and not delivered it.”

  “Very loudly,” Lauren said. “It was very loud pointing out.”

  “I wasn’t that loud.”

  “Not by monster truck rally standards.” She sat down in a chair near him and blessed the addition of spandex to snug-fitting jeans as she crossed one denim-clad leg over the other. “Ready to play cards? I’ve been sharpening my skills by watching poker tournaments on TV all week.”

  “You have way too much time on your hands,” he said. “You need a hobby.”

  “Watching TV is my hobby,” Lauren said. “I’m very good at it. I may even go pro.”

  “I’m hungry,” Daniel said, springing to his feet. “Can we get something to eat before we play cards? But not just cookies and orange juice. I didn’t have lunch today.”

  “There’s a cafeteria downstairs. According to the sign in the elevator they have chicken soup just like Mom used to make.”

  “My mother never made chicken soup.”