Page 23

Sunday, May 14

FOR A WHILE after my mom died, I was panicked about all the pieces of her I was starting to forget. I could feel her slipping away, the sound of her laugh became less clear in my mind, the once-strong scent of her Estée Lauder perfume now fading from the collars of her T-shirts that I’ve saved.

Recently, it’s started to feel like she’s become something bigger, too, something all-encompassing and intangible. That final orange sliver of the sunset or the stillness that settles on the courts when the last client leaves the club for the day. The longer she’s gone, the more I feel her all around me. It’s no replacement for the real thing, obviously, but it’s a small comfort and something I cling to.

But tonight, as I lock up the club before my real date night with Niko, I’m reminded of how she’s here in every dusty corner, every crack of this place. The pressure I feel to keep the racquet club up and running tangles with the overwhelming fear of losing it, and I bounce between the two worries in my head all day long. It all feels dangerously close to losing her all over again, and anxiety ripples through me, a familiar nervous feeling I haven’t been able to shake since I realized how much money we’ve been bleeding over the last couple of years.

This is the unease that races through my thoughts most of the time, and tonight it’s especially bad. We have less than a week until the tournament and exhibition match, and so far, winning and walking away with the prize money is the only solution I’ve come up with to turn things around. It’s a shot in the dark and nothing even remotely close to an actual business plan. But right now, it is my best option for quick cash, even though it isn’t guaranteed. We should be practicing tonight , I think to myself. Doing everything we can to make sure we win. And not running around goofing off on a fake date.

I’m so distracted by these thoughts as I press the buttons on the door lock pad that I don’t notice Niko already there outside until I hear his voice behind me.

“Hey, you.”

I spin around to find Niko leaning against his car, all casual elegance in a crisp white button-down shirt and dark gray pants. If we weren’t in the middle of a landlocked desert, amid the rustle of scurrying lizards and fan palms, I could almost imagine him just stepping off a yacht somewhere. I watch as he saunters in my direction—okay, fine, I’m ogling him; I can’t help it—until he’s inches away from me, lips on my cheek with a quick kiss. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” The sight of him makes my stomach somersault, and I smooth down my vintage Dries Van Noten sundress—a hall-of-fame-worthy thrift store find—with jittery, clammy hands. His presence instantly washes away all my other, persistent worries. “I’m very impressed that half of you is dressed in something other than white.”

“Lucky for you, I don’t own white pants,” he says as he slides a hand down to the small of my back, guiding me over to the passenger side door. “Yet.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Niko,” I say as he opens the door for me, and I slide into the seat. I glance up at him as I turn to grab the seat belt, and he’s smiling down at me, elbow hooked on the edge of the open door. Just the sight of him is reassuring now—so different from how it used to be a few weeks ago—and it puts my pounding heart at ease.

“Well, now I know what I’m wearing on our second date,” he says playfully.

“I’ll make sure to bring the red wine then,” I reply with a wink, before he shuts the door and jogs over to the other side of the car. This feels new but also intimately familiar, like our usual back-and-forth has gone through a makeover and come out on the other side, sparkling and bright.

We drive under a sky splattered with stars. It’s the kind of darkness that makes you believe in UFOs or the possibility of something bigger than humankind. There is a magic that comes with nighttime in the desert. It’s so vast and endless that sometimes you almost forget you’re just two and a half hours from one of the largest cities in America.

If Niko is nervous, he masks it with an easy confidence, both hands draped casually on the wheel as he drives. I, on the other hand, am buzzing with that frenetic feeling that comes with being on a first date, something I haven’t done in a long, long time.

Years, actually.

“So, where are we going?” I chatter nervously, watching street lights blur by outside the window. “Let me guess. Loretta’s for game night? No, wait. In-N-Out? A secret pickleball practice?”

“Even better,” he promises, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement. “Prepare to have your vintage clothing–loving mind blown.”

We drive through the quiet streets—almost everything here shuts down by eight at night—and after about ten minutes, the car slows. He steers us into the parking lot in front of the Sunset Springs Design Museum, an architectural relic itself and an icon of fifties architecture with its long rectangular shape and clean lines.

There are only two other cars here, but sure enough, the museum appears to be open, its soft lights beckoning us inside. “Isn’t this place closed at night?”

“I made some special arrangements,” he says coyly. “Come on.”

Outside, the air is heavy with the scent of blooming jasmine and crisp, clean eucalyptus, and they mingle together like some sort of potent aphrodisiac. Niko laces his fingers through mine, and everything about it feels just as intimate as two nights ago, if not more so. Together, we make our way up the steps of the museum. He releases me briefly to open the door before grabbing my hand again once we’re inside.

The lobby is cavernous, and our footsteps click and echo on the marble floor. A woman in a black suit sits behind the information desk, and Niko nods a greeting in her direction, then leads me off into a room filled with bold, abstract paintings.

“So, what, you’re secretly the mayor of Sunset Springs and never told me?” I ask, glancing back at the security guard as she resumes scanning her phone. “They’re acting like you own the museum.”

“I know people in high places” is all he says, his expression smug.

“How the hell did you manage to pull this off?” I ask as we walk slowly though the dimly lit hall. Being in a museum normally makes me feel like I have to whisper, but I can’t contain the awe in my voice.

“Ed’s on the board of trustees,” he explains, giving me a mischievous wink. “I might have begged him for a favor. Or, you know, asked Loretta to beg him for a favor. He seems to do whatever she says.”

“Are we the only people here right now?” I marvel, basking in the soothing stillness of it all. I’ve walked these halls before, many times over the years, but to be completely alone, surrounded by nothing but the spectacle of art, feels entirely different and downright magical.

“Yup.” He shoots me a pleased look, tugging me a little closer to him with each step.

It’s thrilling enough to simply be completely alone in a museum, but it’s the next room that truly takes my breath away. It’s an exhibit I’ve seen before, years ago, that documents the rise of mod-style fashion and architecture in the 1960s. Inside each glass case, mannequins dressed in striking vintage outfits pose next to large photographs of Sunset Springs architecture from the same decade, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between fashion and design.

Sunset Springs may currently look like a time capsule, but back in the day, it was a celebrity resort town, a warm, hedonistic escape from the chaos of Hollywood. This exhibit captures everything I treasure about my hometown, the vibrant colors and unusual shapes of the homes and buildings here contrasted against the rugged, raw beauty of the mountains and arid landscape. And of course, the outfits . I’ve admired them since I was little, and in an instant, I am a wind-up toy spinning with emotions, longing for sweet moments from my past, mixed with the pure, unadulterated pleasure that comes with being truly seen by another person.

I don’t know how Niko found out about this place, but the fact that he has brought me here tears open a blocked-off room that lives just beyond my heart, and so many feelings spill out into me at once. This, it dawns on me, is what it means for someone to take care of you.

“Did you know this is my favorite room in this whole museum?” I ask, my voice breathy with surprise.

“I didn’t, but I took a guess,” he says, gesturing to a gorgeous Hawaiian-inspired muumuu styled next to a photo of one of the first tiki bars in the area. “I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to know you’d love a room full of colorful old clothes.”

He’s looking at me like I’m both the sun and moon, wrapped into one. The sight of his eyes sparkling like this erases the pragmatic voice in the back of my head that just a few minutes ago was desperately trying to remind me that I have more pressing things to do than melt in the presence of this man.

We have a deal, a bargain, a plan that benefits both of us—not a relationship. Nothing about this is real, and in a few weeks, Niko won’t even be here.

I’m trying so hard to stay laser-focused on us winning the tournament so I can keep the club afloat. And yet, I don’t want to worry about those things right now. I want to bask in the glow of this night, to relax and enjoy myself. I can get back to worrying tomorrow.

“How did you even know about this place?” I ask as we wander slowly around the room. His hand is a comforting presence in mine.

“It gets kind of lonely living with your seventy-year-old aunt,” he says as we stop in front of a black sequined A-line gown positioned next to a photo of the long-gone Sunset Springs Steakhouse with its infamous bright green awning and giant neon road sign. “I’ve tried to do some touristy things in Sunset Springs in my downtime.”

“Weird. I thought you quite literally only played tennis all day long,” I say, giving him a playful nudge with my elbow as we move on to the next section. “This movie theater is now a Sephora,” I say with a wistful sigh, pointing at the photo of the wonderfully angular building, complete with a sea-blue Cadillac parked in front of it.

“I can see you in this,” Niko replies, pointing at the minidress and pillbox hat on the mannequin in front of us, in a floral pattern the same color as the car in the picture. “Behind the desk of the racquet club.”

“Telling you to wrap up on the court?” I suggest, imagining some of our snippy conversations from the past month.

“Putting me in my place, probably,” he replies, “which I’m sure I deserve in this imaginary scenario.”

We slowly make our way around the room until Niko tugs me toward one of the images we haven’t looked at yet. “Apparently, this one is new,” he says, pointing at the photo displayed on a wooden easel.

This mannequin is bare, no outfit on it yet, and so I turn to look at the photograph positioned next to it. The image is of a gray stone building buttressed by overflowing succulents and towering cacti in front of it. It’s an older photo, but the tall sign in front of the building is the same, and a small gasp escapes my lips as I fully process what I’m looking at.

It’s a photo of the racquet club.

“The picture is from 1968, when the club first opened,” Niko explains. “I asked the museum if they had any of the club, and it turns out, they have a lot. I told them you might have an outfit you could lend to go with it. If you want to do that, of course.”

I’m flustered by his thoughtfulness, so overwhelmed that it takes me a second to figure out what I even want to say to him. This is the same man who growled at me across Loretta’s hospital bed, but the more I get to know him, the clearer it is that he is all softness behind a prickly exterior. And the truth is, I like both sides of him, whether it’s his death-laser focus and the way he always plays to win or planning something extraordinary and sentimental for this fake real date.

“Niko, this is…” I clasp his hand to my heart, pulling him into me as I stumble over my words. “This is the best date I’ve ever been on.”

He clears his throat. “Would you like to go get something to eat? Drinks? I made us a reservation at—”

I bring my free hand up, pressing my index finger against his lips, which break into a small smile.

“I want you to take me home.”

I give him the most serious look I can muster, trying to project with my mind just exactly what I mean with this command. His eyes widen, and then squint, and widen again, as he figures out exactly what I have in mind.

“Oh,” he says, finally getting it.

“Take me home, Niko,” I repeat. “Right now.”