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CHAPTER TWO

THE MALDONADOS

The ascent is bumpy, but David doesn’t mind. It’s rare that he gets to fly private, so he can’t complain. His wife Nina sits tight-jawed next to him in the luxurious cabin. He decides not to call her on the pouting, lest they get into a fight in front of their hosts, Brad and Jade, who sit across from them in buttery leather seats. Jade is stunning in an overdone way—plunging neckline, contoured makeup, short skirt with tall boots. Brad, with his meaty face and paunch, is much less so. But that’s often how it goes, David has learned in his twenty years as a plastic surgeon.

“Thank you again for the lift,” he says to the couple.

Brad and Jade raise their champagne flutes in acknowledgment. A leggy flight attendant mistakes it as a signal that they need a refill and ambles over and tops off their glasses.

“I was headed to Frisco for business, so it’s no problem,” Brad says.

David can’t remember the last time he’d heard someone call San Francisco “Frisco”—probably in a movie from the seventies. With his shirt unbuttoned too low, laying bare his dark mat of chest hair, Brad has that vibe. A relic from another era.

Brad continues: “And after what you did for Jade—for me —how could I not?”

David is unsure what he means.

Jade cups her breasts with her hands. “They’re perfect, absolutely perfect. All my friends are asking about the artist who sculpted these masterpieces.”

David doesn’t need to look over at his wife to know the expression on her face. He simply smiles. His father taught him to always accept a compliment.

“The best part,” Brad says, “is that they’re so damn upright.” He removes something from his shirt pocket. It takes David a moment to realize that it’s a vial of white powder. Brad sprinkles a jagged line on his wife’s chest, leans over, and snorts the coke.

David can’t help but look at Nina. Her eyes are wide. David and his wife aren’t prudes, but they’re not drug people, either. When David looks back, there’s already another line on Jade’s chest. Brad gestures for David to take it.

“Oh, thank you,” David pauses, trying to formulate his excuse, “but Jade is a patient and it wouldn’t be appropriate as her physician to—”

Before he finishes the sentence, Nina has leaned forward and buried her face in Jade’s cleavage.

Jade arches her back, laughing as Nina does the line.

“ Now we’ve got a party!” Brad says.

Nina peers at David as she wipes her nose with her index finger and thumb, then falls back into her seat.

“What’s your business in San Francisco?” David asks, if only to restrain his astonishment at what just happened. To contain the anger rising in his chest.

“The usual bullshit with one of my tech companies,” Brad answers. He swallows another glass of champagne. “Jade said you’re visiting your kid?”

“Yes, college Parents Weekend. Our daughter, Stella, is a freshman.”

“Where? Stanford?”

The question always irks David. Santa Clara is a small but elite school without the brand recognition.

“SCU, a private school about an hour from Frisco,” David says, using Brad’s lingo and hating himself for it.

Brad shrugs and holds up his flute to signal to the flight attendant. “Top you off? Or get you something else to drink? She makes a mean Old Fashioned.” Brad looks toward the flight attendant, his eyes fixing on her ass.

“You two don’t look old enough to have a college student,” Jade says, reclining back in the seat now. “The benefits of marrying a master surgeon,” she adds, like it’s an afterthought.

Nina smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I guess,” she says. It’s true, Nina is a beauty, but not by the scalpel. She practices yoga, eats healthy, and seemingly drinks gallons of water every day. With her glowing skin and bohemian style, she has the air of an aging-gracefully, girl-next-door fashion model. She’s never said so, but she’s always disapproved of David’s chosen profession. These days, she disapproves of everything about David.

She still hasn’t forgiven him, and probably never will.

His mind flashes to that night. Naked in the back seat of his Range Rover. The anesthesiologist frantically tugging up her scrubs, tears streaming down her face, her husband standing outside the vehicle in the woodland near where she and David parked. The husband saying he called Nina and told her. Then—

Brad’s voice mercifully breaks the memory. “You guys in the club?”

“Club?” David asks.

“The mile-high one.” Brad cocks one of his thick brows.

David offers a polite smile. “Can’t say that I am.”

“There’s a small bedroom in the back. Feel free to…” He makes a clucking sound with his tongue.

David turns to Nina, who is downing another glass of champagne and seems out of it. Even after the coke, there’s no way she’d want David to touch her, much less join “the club.”

But then his wife surprises him. “Will you be joining us?” she says to Brad and Jade.

Brad’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down.

What in the fuck? David glares at his wife. “Nina’s a kidder,” he says.

“Damn,” Brad says, “this was just getting interesting.” He leans forward, slaps David on the ball of his shoulder.

“I’ll take that drink,” David calls out to the flight attendant.

Later, Nina doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or satisfied that David hasn’t spoken to her since they landed and escaped that awful couple. Not a word in the back of the town car waiting for them at the airstrip. Not at the rental car place. Not now, waiting for their daughter to meet them in front of the fountain at the center of campus. That’s David’s specialty. The silent treatment. A Maldonado inheritance passed down generation after generation, from father to son.

To be fair, she was acting out. But what does he expect?

Still jittery from the cocaine, she downs a bottle of water. Nina was a party girl in college, but usually just booze. She tried coke two times and never liked it. She’s remembering why. The brief euphoria is dwarfed by the anxiety. The need to chatter, an urge she’s had to fight, given David’s cold shoulder. And honestly, it’s his fault she acted that way.

She stops herself from the internal rant. This weekend isn’t about them. Isn’t about their marital problems. It’s about Stella.

“Are you going to give me the silent treatment all weekend?” she asks.

David ignores the question, stares out at the campus church, a sand-colored Spanish-style structure with a bell tower. David is a lapsed Catholic with all the guilt that carries.

“Can we at least try to get along for Stella?” she continues.

David turns to look at her. It’s a beautiful day, seventy degrees, warm for March. The sun is beating down on them, highlighting his thinning dark hair, the lines etched in his face. He’s still damned handsome, but this afternoon he’s showing his age.

David looks like he’s about to let loose on Nina for her behavior on the plane. But then his eyes jerk to something behind her. Maybe it’s their daughter, arriving in the nick of time.

No, his face is drained of color. Something’s wrong.

Nina whirls around. That’s when she sees him. She rubs her eyes in an almost cartoon-like gesture to make sure it’s not the coke playing tricks on her. But it’s him .

How?

Why is he here?

David grabs her by the hand and yanks her away.