Page 17

Palm Springs

November 19, 2022

Grant was so tired when he came back from his first long hike that he passed out on the patio chaise with his shirt off, and his socks still on. He wore socks over socks and shoes over mini-gators. Still, he’d worn holes through the toes, and his feet were covered in painful blisters.

It was late afternoon, the time of day when I noticed that all the desert birds and animals came to life. Roadrunners skittered seemingly straight out of cartoons and across the lawn, ravens swooshed dramatically across the sky, and brave rabbits approached me where I sat on the porch reading—or trying to read—my book club’s latest selection, about reindeer habitat. I wasn’t excited about the topic, but I was tackling it in solidarity with my beloved group. I was feeling down because I’d miss the discussion that night with my friends, most of whom were moms I’d met when our kids were young. For over twenty years, we’d gotten together without fail every month. We generally choose books that make us better people for having read them. Our last book was about the petroleum industry in Brazil, and the one before that was a fictionalized story of a woman with one arm who’d lost her entire family during Partition.

We’d show up at one another’s houses to discuss these weighty topics armed with our own slippers in plastic bags. We’d talk briefly about the latest selection and move on to our spouses or divorces, our kids, our aging parents, and whoever had the latest bad diagnosis.

I’d been so excited about our winter away that it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d be struck with pangs of FOMO for my Madison routines. I felt this way as a kid, when I’d go to the camp and worry that all of my friendships in Chicago would fall apart while I was gone, and here I was in my fifties feeling as if I had two lives: this one, the one that still felt fake, and the one that was real and was going on without me.

I heard my name from beyond the bushes. “Kim? Is that you?”

Then a higher voice: “Kim-a-lim-a-ding-dong?”

It was as if a bomb of sunshine and energy detonated when two men stood on our patio. Before I knew it, Grant was awake and we were all caught up in a flurry of hugs and conversation. I couldn’t even keep track of who was speaking. Oh my God, oh my God! You’re here! Basil has told us so much about you!

“I’m Thomas,” the tall, blond, older man said, forcing a bottle of prosecco into my hands. “Welcome!” He was pale and clean-cut, in a nice suit and bow tie. He looked as if he could play a doctor on television.

The younger, smaller man wore tight yellow pants, a muscle tee, and a gold chain with a giant cross. He gave me a big hug. “And I’m Raul, your new best friend.” He pointed at Grant. “And you must be Dr. Duffy. Look at that hairy chest! Basil didn’t tell us you’re a bear. We looked you up, you know. Now I see why you have almost as many red-hot chili peppers on Rate My Professors as I do.”

“I do?” Falsely, Grant tried to appear modest. His chili peppers were a point of pride for him. He challenged and provoked his students, but some still found him dorkishly adorable and often developed schoolgirl crushes on him. It’s easy to fall for someone who tickles your brain when you’re young, when you get excited about all these new ways of thinking that make you feel impressive and deep. The thing about philosophy, according to Grant, is that it’s better when you first get into it, when you consider the big existential problems that could puzzle anyone, the wealthy or the impoverished, the young or the old. Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the meaning of life?

And here I was in middle age, still wondering the same things.

Grant would never admit it, but a big part of what made him feel terrible about losing his job was the loss of his legion of admirers. Off campus, there were no chili peppers, no blushing students at office hours, no adjuncts who would have given their eyeteeth for his tenure-track position. Now, he was just another guy.

“Where do you teach?” he asked Raul.

“Pomona. And then I come here to have fun.”

Thomas looked me over in a generous, completely uncritical way. “And look at you, girl, so tall. Like Basil. You’re strong! You can lift a school bus, can’t you?”

Raul studied me. He said to Thomas, “Doesn’t she look a little like Sigourney Weaver? Remember that queen we met at Oscar’s?”

“Sigourney Beaver? Oh yeah, she does!”

Raul picked up my reindeer book from the coffee table and scrunched up his nose in displeasure. “Eew! What on earth are you reading?” He skimmed the back and dropped it back down like a dirty diaper.

Thomas said, “You and Basil? I can’t see it. But you two? You look good together.” People often said that about Grant and me. What they meant was that we were equally attractive, or in March’s parlance, there was no “reaching” or “settling.”

“Grant and Kim,” Raul said. “We’ll call you… Grim.”

“Or, Kant, as I prefer to think of us,” Grant said. “He was one of my favorite philosophers, although he was a virgin his whole life.”

“He wouldn’t last one night on Arenas.”

“Arenas?”

“Otherwise known as Uranus. It’s the street with all the bars. We’re going to take you there.”

Grant was overwhelmed. “Can we back up? I’m sorry, but… who are you?”

“The Arnold-Littles,” Raul said, “Everyone around here calls us the Husbands.”

Raul squeezed Thomas around the waist. “I love us.”

“We put the fun in dys fun ction.”

“Basil asked us to show you around and clobber you with our charm, so here we are, all sparkles. But seriously, we’re very sorry we weren’t here when you arrived. We had a trip to New York and we spent the last few days at the monument.”

“The what?”

“Joshua Tree. Are you finding everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is great,” I said. “Basil’s condo is awesome.”

Raul collapsed dramatically in one of the rotating chairs next to the table, crossed his legs, and spun around a few times. “Basil could live anywhere—Mesa, the Movie Colony—but he chooses to be here with us. It’s like the real estate version of being held back a grade.”

“I wish he’d let us stay in his place for free all winter. He’s hardly ever here. This is the nicest unit. Well, this and Hobie’s.” Thomas said Hobie’s name with spite.

“Our place is over there. We’re in eleven. It’s tiny, but you won’t hear me complain about a two-butt kitchen.” Raul had a way of creating intimacy when he spoke, making us feel that we were part of an inside joke. “We’d buy something bigger, but prices are through the roof, and there’s no way we’re moving to DHS.”

“DHS?” Grant asked.

“Desert Hot Springs. It’s come a long way, but it’s still filled with tweakers.”

I’d never heard of DHS. I was just beginning to learn about the various towns in and around the area, which was a little like trying to remember the order of the planets from the sun outward: Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Thousand Palms, La Quinta, Bermuda Dunes, Indio, Indian Wells, Coachella. Before, I thought it was all just Palm Springs.

Thomas eyed the bungalow like an appraiser. “Do you have any idea how much it costs to rent a place like this? Thousands for a week in South Palm Springs, never mind an entire month. Three months? Four? In season? Are you kidding me?

“We should have bought right away when we moved here from LA in 2010. This town was tumbleweeds after the Enron fiasco. But now the whole world has fallen back in love with Palm Springs, and why not?” Thomas pointed at the mountains in the distance and gestured for us to step out into the courtyard. “Everywhere you look you get an eyeful of wow. Especially my umbrellas.”

Raul said, “Baby, don’t get started on Umbrellagate, please, not again.”

Thomas said, “The ones we had before were so tacky.”

Raul added, “Tacky tacky tacky.”

Thomas said, “So I ordered new umbrellas and paid for them out of the HOA reserves. I had them custom designed. And in fairness, they were a little bit more expensive than your average umbrellas, but they’re fabulous, right? The stripes are so elegant.”

“And the pink fringe!” Raul added. “The pi è ce de r é sistance!”

“Old-school glamour all the way. Hobie wants us to pay for the extra out of our own pockets and bend to his pedestrian taste. I designed dresses for Angelina Jolie. Please. Hobie says the umbrellas remind him of Candyland, and I’m, like, explain to me what on earth is wrong with that? Everyone loves Candyland. What is wrong with whimsy ? This is Palm Springs, not San Quentin—”

“—where we’re sure Hobie has served some time.”

“He covets the enormous power of the HOA,” Thomas said dryly. “Just wait until you see him walking around the place like the superintendent visiting a school.”

“He has a clipboard,” Raul said. “And a checklist.”

“And a lot of rocks loose.”

Raul said, “You’ll see. People here have too much time, that’s the problem. They’re willing to battle to the death over trivial nonsense. It’s Armageddon if someone leaves a sock in the dryer in the laundry room. We all complain constantly, but we love it here too much. Le Desert is so special, it’s like a baby being passed around a bunch of old aunties who just squeeze it to death.”

Grant and I were learning that the complex was not the utopia it had seemed at first. The place had layers of history and tension. It reminded me of the summer I was twelve when I overheard the counselors complaining about the camp—how little the staff were paid, how hard they had to work. Until that moment, I’d thought of Camp Jamboree as the most perfect place in the world.

“Look, there’s our spirit guide.”

Cassie approached our patio, utterly gorgeous and cool in her midriff-baring top, flowing low-slung pants, cowboy boots, and beaded bracelets. I felt so plain in my jeans. Up close, I could see that she had delicate little tribal tattoos on the pads of flesh above and below her knuckles, and a large one running up her forearm said BELIEVE in a fancy script adorned by snakes, skulls, and flowers. I once framed a photo of our family and hung it in the dining room with the word FAMILY engraved in the frame. Dort moaned with disgust when she saw it. “Oh God, Mom, how cheugy. ” Was Cassie’s tattoo cheugy?

Raul hugged her and laid his head on her shiny shoulder. “Mmmm, Cass.” He was dramatic, open, and adorable. I already had a soft spot for him. Thomas hugged her from the other side. Cassie didn’t mind a bit; her body seemed as if it belonged to all of them.

“Cassie performed a healing ceremony for me,” Thomas said, “and at the end, she touched my feet and said our baby was coming to us. The next day, we found out we were taken off the surrogate waiting list.”

“Don’t call her a surrogate,” Cassie said. “She’s a bridge to life. A loving vessel.”

Thomas said, “Our baby is due in March. We can’t wait.”

“A Pisces,” Cassie said. “Astrology is limiting, but in my experience, Pisces swim deep. He’s going to be a soulful mess.”

“Which one of you is the dad?” Grant was clearly fascinated.

Raul was visibly offended. “We both are! What a question!”

“Sorry,” Grant said, embarrassed. “This is just new to us.”

“Compared to most of the people around here, our relationship is as perfect and boring as they come. You swing?”

“We don’t do that,” I clarified. “Swing.”

“We more like… stand in place,” Grant said, in a way that made clear it wasn’t really a joke.

“Too bad. See how all the doors have little brass pineapples next to them?” Raul tapped the one next to Hobie’s door. “They’re from the old days when this place was rocking. Some are upside-down. That’s how you know who’s up for some fun.”

“Whatever, we’ve all got our kinks. Speaking of, Basil told us we had to show you a good time, which is why we’re here,” Thomas said. “We’re about to hit up some happy hours with Cass. Want to come?”

Grant said, “Kim does. I’ll pass.”

Thomas pointed at Grant’s eyes with his index and middle fingers, then his own. “I feel you, Grant. This town is too much for me sometimes. But Raul here loves to mix it up, and I figure I’ll indulge him before I become a Little League dad. Come on, we’ll give you a Jell-O-shot taste of Palm Springs nightlife.”

“Smells nothing like teen spirit, I’ll tell you that much.” Raul grabbed my hand. “We’re going to have the best time.”

“I think you’ll have more fun without me,” Grant said.

I groaned inwardly. Couldn’t Grant just try?

“One drink,” Thomas said. “I promise, this is a very straight-friendly town.”

I looked at the reindeer book and felt my homesickness lift. Maybe I wasn’t missing out on anything at all.

We walked down Arenas, eyeing the bars on both sides. An incredibly built man in a G-string danced in the front window in one of them. Another bar was called Dick’s. It was next to a store called Bear Wear, where they sold tight netted shorts, leather, and armor. The music was thumping, and Cassie swayed with the skill of a natural dancer, loose and unencumbered. She noticed that Grant seemed uncomfortable. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Streetbar is more chill than these other places. You won’t have a dick wagged in your face just yet. You have to work your way up to the Tool Shed. That place is rough.”

“Rough?” Thomas rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. A bunch of old queens in leather harnesses standing around discussing china patterns is not rough. ”

It was all so new to me, and so thrilling. Back home, I loved going to bars. Octavia and I went dancing a few times a month while Grant stayed home because nightlife confused him. He didn’t understand the fun in being packed together with so many people, and with so much noise you couldn’t have a decent conversation. He preferred small groups, cozy dinner parties, or, better yet, probing one-on-one conversations. He often pointed out the irony that we met at a keg party.

We went inside, and I snapped Grant’s photo with my phone, thinking the girls would find it funny to see him next to a threesome in matching metallic jumpsuits while he stood with his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his safari shorts.

Grant liked to think of himself as open-minded and progressive. He and Basil got along well. When he found Dort fooling around with a girl in our basement when she was in high school, he was supportive of her sexuality to the point of embarrassment, ingratiating himself with her and her girlfriends. He developed an appreciation for the micro-aggression training he initially didn’t think he needed. He sat on the transgender student alliance, and he volunteered at Cooking with Gays, an event that Dort had organized when she was at the college to protest an inflammatory guest who ran a private militia who was giving a talk at the same time. Grant signed off his emails Dr. Grant Duffy, him/his.

Now, he was taking in the scene of this particular experience like a tourist. We both were, but I was trying to act cool, as if I went to the bars on Arenas all the time.

Thomas went to get us drinks, and Raul gestured for Cassie, Grant, and me to follow him as he weaved through the crowd looking for a table, stopping briefly to kiss a bald man with massive biceps—Raul really kissed him, tongue and everything. Their hips pressed against each other. Grant and I exchanged questioning glances: Weren’t Raul and Thomas married?

Neither of us cared whom the men had sex with; what was disconcerting was such an open display of desire. Where we’re from, sex happens behind closed doors, and promiscuity usually comes with a high social price. We’d landed in a place where you could be horny in public, and it was just fine—welcome, even. You could sleep with whom you wanted, young and old, and invite new people into your relationship. It all seemed very adult and open. It was disorienting to not know what was appropriate, to not have even known that our lives, to that point, had been governed by so many rules, and here we’d thought of ourselves as unconventional.

The ambient noise suddenly struck me as strange. It was low and deep, like the hum of a men’s choir. Then it hit me. Aside from a drag queen in a bright yellow wig and sequined dress, Cassie and I were the only women in the whole place. Not even at a Packers game had I been so outnumbered.

“It’s all men here,” I said to Cassie, whose hair swung gently as she swayed to the music.

She smiled. “It’s all men everywhere in this town.”

To Grant I said, “I feel so safe. Do you have any idea how liberating this is?”

“Not at this exact moment. I think someone just gave me a prostate exam.”

I started to shake my shoulders to Bananarama’s “Venus.” “I love this song!”

I felt so young again—until Cassie, looking ethereal with her shimmery gold eye shadow glittering in the blue lights, said, “I’ve never heard it.”

“Look at us!” I smiled and gave Grant a kiss in the hopes it would loosen him up. He seemed as if he were made of cement.

“Yay.” He waved his finger in the air, feigning excitement. “ Woot woot. Can we go now? I’m still beat. Murray Peak was my Mount Everest.”

“But we just got here.” I loved being in a place that was so new and so different, so lively and bright. I gathered energy from all the activity, but I could see that it drained Grant. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant just weeks after meeting him, would our differences have emerged organically and ended us?

“Our bars in Wisconsin are nothing like this,” Grant said to Raul. “We have free popcorn machines. Meat raffles.”

“Meat raffles? I don’t know what that is, but maybe we need to reverse-snowbird and spend the winter in Wisconsin.”

A group of older, shirtless men in leather vests, chaps, and cap tain’s hats stood next to us, and the bar smelled suddenly of a tannery. “Why do I feel like I’m in a Village People reunion?” Grant said. “Is there a dress code?”

“Some holdovers from Leather Pride.”

“What’s Leather Pride?”

“An entire weekend of meat and heat,” said Raul. “There’s always something. Pride, the White Party, Outfest. If you’re hard-core, you can go to Burning Man.”

Cassie said, “Stagecoach. Coachella.”

Raul said, “Coachella? Girl, please. You’re better than that.”

She shrugged.

Thomas arrived and set some red drinks in front of us. “This is the Rose Kennedy, the official drink of Palm Springs. Careful, they make them strong here.”

Grant nudged his glasses up his nose. “Tell me, is fifty the minimum age?”

He was right. Almost every man had gray hair and bald spots. And they all seemed smart, interesting, and successful.

“Oh, that’s Palm Springs,” said Cassie. “Boomer gays.”

“Gay and gray, baby,” said Raul.

“Silver city,” said Thomas, who planted a kiss on his younger husband’s lips just moments after Raul had kissed the owner. “Except for us.”

Cassie leaned in and looked intently at Grant and me. “Basil told me something about you guys.”

“Yeah?” Grant was curious; I was nervous. Basil had a big mouth, and he loved to gossip.

“He said that you don’t want to be here.” She looked at Grant, and then she looked at me and added, “Grant likes winter, and you hate it. You two are like two different elements. It’s hard for fire and water to coexist. You need to find a common ground so you don’t become steam.” She reached for our hands and squeezed them tight. Her rings, one for each finger including her thumbs, most with moonstones and exotic rocks, cut into my skin. “You can do your inner work sepa rately, your shadow work. Then you can open up in a new way and validate each other’s needs.”

“What exactly did Basil tell you?” I asked.

“Just that I should help you.”

“We’re good,” I said.

“That’s not what you said on the way out here,” Grant added.

“I can be your guide on a loving journey,” Cassie said. “Let me know when you’re ready.” She was so confident that it was hard not to believe we would be in good hands.

Raul said, “People used to come to Palm Springs to recover from tuberculosis, asthma, skin disorders, alcoholism. Now they come here to trip in the desert and become totally new people.”

Cassie said, “Creating novel experiences is a really, really great start. Congratulations to both of you for taking the first step. You’re on the right path.”

“I don’t know about that,” Thomas said, raising his glass to make a toast Grant did not participate in. “You’ll have a hard time working on your relationship in a place where everyone starts drinking at three in the afternoon.”

After Streetbar, we went across the street to Hunters, although Raul peeled off for a place called the Barracks because it was “underwear night”—he explained you pay twenty-five dollars and strip at the door. You can wear underwear, a harness, a jockstrap, or fetish gear. “Sorry,” he said to me and Cassie, as though we were begging to join, “I don’t think women are even allowed.”

Hunters was packed wall to wall. The room was lit with neon, and a DJ wearing giant angel wings and a SAY KGAY hat (KGAY was the radio station that played everywhere) was remixing Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls.” I ordered a tequila sunrise, a drink that tasted sweet and stupid, and lost myself in a crowd of dancers, emerging a while later—an hour? Two? I had no idea—to find Grant.

But he wasn’t at the table where he and Cassie had been sitting. The Husbands and I looked everywhere for Cassie and Grant—at the bar, in the bathrooms. They weren’t waiting for us outside. I hadn’t received any texts, and he didn’t return my calls.

By the time Thomas and I Ubered home, I discovered, to my relief, that Grant was propped up against the headboard, asleep, looking so dear with his messy hair and his reading glasses on the tip of his nose. I walked over to him as I usually do in the evenings, took off his glasses, and put them on the nightstand. I didn’t dare touch his journal. Without opening his eyes, he said, “You’re back.”

“Where were you? Why did you leave without me?”

“Cassie wanted to go. And so did I.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?” I started to hiccup.

“I did tell you. I guess you couldn’t hear me over ‘It’s Raining Men’ or whatever.”

I vaguely remembered Grant shouting something in my ear that I hadn’t thought was important.

“You were dancing with the blond drag queen in fur boots.”

“Oh, that’s Mariah Scary, isn’t she great? Raul says she’s an institution here. She taught me how to waack.”

Mariah told me that the dance was big in the underground LGBT club scene in the seventies but died out during the AIDS crisis. Now, thanks to TikTok, its popularity has surged again.

I tried to impress Grant with my new moves, starting in my shoulders the way Mariah had taught me, waving my arms in a propeller motion. I accidentally knocked a paperweight off the desk and onto the floor, where it landed with a thud. Grant groaned. “Kimmy, I was sleeping.”

For Grant, the night was long over, but it was still happening for me. The woofers were vibrating in my ears, and my poor mangled foot and ankle were beginning to throb from dancing—I knew I’d pay for it tomorrow.

I was still a little wasted and I wanted Grant’s mood to soften. Usually, this was easy. I swung my arms in front of me. “Take up space!” Mariah had told me. I never took up space, and there I was, drunk and abandoned. I had the best time. I was just another dancer, not a middle-aged woman with relationship issues, grown children who didn’t need me anymore, a future that terrified me, and a job I didn’t care to go back to. It felt amazing to let go, to be somewhere, and someone, new. “Be confident, honey!” Mariah had said. “Pretend you’re an old Hollywood star. Look at you! You’re a natural!”

Grant wasn’t amused. “Would you stop it?”

“You never go dancing with me.”

“I went tonight, Kim, and you ignored me the whole evening.”

“I didn’t ignore you. We just did our own thing. Like always.” I spun around and stopped, dizzy. I wondered if I might throw up and sank down on the edge of the bed, my back to Grant, staring at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I was a mess.

“Getting drunk and going clubbing? That’s not you, Kim.”

“How do you even know that? What if it is me? What if it’s just not who you want me to be?” I wondered what my life would be like if I were in Palm Springs alone, just as I’d gotten used to being in Madison alone. “Your idea of fun is talking with Sasha about bourgeois idealism.”

“Why are you bringing up Sasha? Every time we have an argument it’s Sasha this, Sasha that. I haven’t called or spoken to her since we arrived.”

“I’m entitled to resent Sasha, Grant. Our whole life you’ve run to her for everything.”

“Our whole life you’ve pushed me away!” He slammed his journal shut and set it on the nightstand. “For years, you complained that I was gone all the time, but do you have any idea what it felt like to come home and have you shoot out of the house like a bat out of hell? And now, ever since the college closed, you look at me like I’m an intruder. I feel like you resent my presence.”

“That’s not true.” But it was, and knowing that he’d picked up on it made me feel terrible. And yet if Grant was gone, I didn’t have to worry about his leaving. It was the logic that had made our semi-long-distance relationship work. It made no sense, but without that framework, I was worried that we made no sense.

“And since you bring up Sasha, let’s play fair. Should we talk about Basil? Look where we are right now. I’m sleeping in his bed. He seems to know everything about our lives. What did you tell him? I swear, Cassie is a virtual stranger and she knows more about us than I do.”

Everything he said was true. I tried to deflect. “You’re not really mad, are you?” I peeled off my clothes and slid into bed. “I’m sorry.” I nuzzled my face in his neck. I tried to tickle him. Nothing. “Is it because everyone was gay? As a straight man, I could see how you’d be—”

“I spent the last two decades at a liberal arts college. I’ve spent more time with gay and trans people than you’ve ever known in your life. How many of your friends are Black?”

“My best friend! Octavia!”

“That’s one. Aside from Basil and Greg, how many are gay, Kim, huh?”

“I just meant that you were outnumbered tonight. As a woman, I know how it feels to be in a room full of men.”

“Like at a gay bar? You were outnumbered, too.”

“Grant, I’m trying to be sensitive.”

He rolled his eyes. “Sensitive? You didn’t even care that I was there tonight. Admit it.”

“You could have stayed back if you didn’t want to go. You’re an adult. Just because I want to do something doesn’t mean you have to do it.”

“You just said you want us to do more together! And I could tell you wanted me to go. What do you want, Kim? Tell me! Please, throw me a bone. I can’t win.”

I rolled off him and stared at the fan hanging from the dramatic sloped and beamed ceiling.

“Did you only bring me with you to Palm Springs because you felt sorry for me? Are you unhappy with me, Kim? Did you tell Basil we’re unhappy?”

My head was spinning. Was I unhappy? What did I want from Grant? “I just told him that we needed a change, that’s all.”

“You keep talking about change. We’re here, this is change. This is different. Tell me, how big of a change do you want?”

I said nothing.

“You’re scaring me.”

I paused. “I’m scaring myself.”

“What if I want change, too?”

“We could talk about that.” We lapsed into a tense silence.

“Maybe Cassie can help us,” Grant said.

“She doesn’t even have a partner. How much could she help? She’s all about the divine feminine and she hasn’t had the whole experience of being a woman. She’s never had a kid or a hot flash. I like her. I mean, who wouldn’t? But she’s, like, fourteen.”

“Even if she’s young, so what? Young people are smart. They have the energy and focus we lack. Look at my students, they amaze me. Look at Dort and March.”

“Grant, listen to yourself. Would you trust our girls to be your life coach? Remember when we were watching that news story about the guy who cut off his finger while he was snow blowing and they used leeches to keep his finger alive, and March asked how leeches got into the snowblower?”

But Grant was already asleep.

I rolled out of bed and grabbed Basil’s silk smoking robe from his closet. He’d emailed earlier that day to thank me for having lunch with Melody.

She said you need a haircu t , Basil wrote in his last email. Buckle up, Kimmy. You’re about to get the treatment.

I slid open the patio door and stepped into the courtyard. The breeze was warm and forgiving. I had had no idea that the temperature would drop dramatically in the evenings. This still felt pretty nice to me, but we’d seen California hipsters sporting massive puffers as soon as it dipped below seventy. In Wisconsin, we had a different coat for every ten-degree temperature difference. Here, it was either tank tops or goose down.

I sat at the edge of the pool with my legs submerged to my knees. The water was surprisingly warm and felt great on my sore foot. Grant was right, I had acted like a jerk tonight. The fight we’d had was uncomfortable, but it also felt necessary, like the small earthquakes that release some of the pressure before the big one hits. I closed my eyes and tried to let go of the guilt and frustration I felt, which was easier than it would have been if my blood were running clear of alcohol.

The mountains were dark. Their tops were jagged and raw, as if they’d been ripped from a piece of paper. Off in the distance there was howling, a sound that was eerie and menacing but also beautiful and wild.

Was it too soon to say I loved it here?

I wanted to swim but didn’t have my bathing suit. I didn’t see anyone, so I slipped the robe off my shoulders and lowered myself into the pool. There was nothing more sensual than the feeling of water against my skin. I swam from one end to the other. I stopped and practiced the water ballet moves I’d learned at camp when I was little: the clam, the crane, the fishtail, and the knight. Emboldened by my nakedness and the privacy, I floated on my back and stared up at the sky. It was as if someone had poked thousands of holes in a giant black sheet with brilliant light behind it.

I stopped, stood in the shallow end, and tilted my head to clear the water out of my ears. That’s when I saw Hobie sitting on a lounge chair watching me. He had a drink in his hand and casually waved as I slowly slipped back under the water, saying, Oh my God, oh my God, in my head. I propped myself up on the edge of the pool close to where he sat so that I could use the wall to cover my body. There may as well have been a million miles between me and my robe, sitting on the ground just out of my reach.

I had no choice: I maneuvered myself out of the pool, butt in view and boobs swinging, reached for the robe, and wrapped it around my wet body. I was too drunk to be mortified—but drunk enough to be titillated.

“Do you hear that?” he asked. There was that mournful howling in the distance again. “That’s the coyotes.” He said ky-oats, reminding me that I was no longer in the Midwest, where everyone lingers over their vowels. We say ky-oat-ees. “You can hear when they make a kill. Some mornings I’ll walk along the wash and find rabbits with their guts torn out.”

“I didn’t know you were here.” I felt embarrassed.

“Relax, people swim naked all the time, especially at night.”

“What about Gene and Jeanie?”

He smiled. “Oh, hell no. In the summer, when this place is empty, the guys outside who sleep in their cars hop over the back fence and wash themselves in our hot tub. There’s a lot that goes on here when nobody’s paying attention. That’s why I make it my job to notice everything. It’s pretty thankless, I’ll tell you that much. Nobody appreciates me.” He paused and jumped to the next thing he was thinking about. “You’ve got a hot bod. I don’t know why you cover yourself up all the time. Really nice tits.”

“Hobie, you can’t say that. It’s inappropriate and totally offensive.”

“It’s a compliment. And honestly, I can’t help it. Ever since I hit my head, I’ve had a bad case of the mouth runs. I might say too much, but I always speak the truth. I enjoyed watching you goof around in the water. You wouldn’t believe how much we pay to maintain this pool and it hardly gets used. You’re still like a kid. You haven’t let the world break you down.”

“Oh no, believe me, I have.”

“Nah. Even just now, when you looked at the stars, you were in awe. Some people lose that sense of wonder. Let me show you something.” He stood behind me, put his arm over my shoulder, and with his other arm pointed at the sky. Part of me wanted to melt into him; the other part wanted to roll away. “There’s Taurus the Bull above the horizon. And up there”—he turned me gently to shift my gaze—“there’s the Seven Sisters. Pleiades. Want some water?” He handed me his giant Nalgene that went everywhere he did. I wouldn’t normally share someone else’s water bottle, but I was thirsty all the time here.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you for taking Grant under your wing,” I said. “He hated hiking at first, but now he really connects with it. He seems like he’s more, I don’t know… balanced.”

“He’s never going to be a Zen master, but he’s coming along. And now I know enough about Heidegger to be dangerous.”

We sat back on the loungers facing each other. Hobie looked annoyed, stood, and walked over to a glass sitting on the table. He held it in his hand, scowled, and pointed at the pool rules sign. “No glass in the pool area, says right there. Did you know that if a glass breaks in the pool, we have to drain the entire thing to clean it out? That’s a state law.” He walked over to the garbage, tossed the glass, and rejoined me. “I’m on fire watch the next two weeks.”

“That’s your job?”

“Nah, I volunteer. I like to look for smoke—and shenanigans. It’s wet on the other side of the San Jacintos. Hardly anyone goes back there, but sometimes you’ll encounter the cartels. Their operations are more sophisticated than you might think. They sprinkle these blue-and-green pellets around the perimeter of whatever they’re growing to keep the deer away. Looks like fertilizer. Stuff is outlawed in most countries. Any warm-blooded animal will have their nervous system shut down if they touch it. People here playing golf and pickleball have no idea how much goes on in the places they can’t see.”

“What will Grant do while you’re gone?”

“There are hiking clubs. There’s no shortage of retirees and tourists he can head out with—not to mention the tech bros looking for a new thrill after they’ve made their billions. When they aren’t in Madagascar or Majorca, they’re hiking the most insane terrain in Death Valley. Why are you so worried about Grant? He’s a big boy. He’ll figure his shit out. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Grant says he wants to marry you, but you aren’t so sure. You’ve had a lot of time to think that one over.”

“We have our issues, like every couple. Have you ever been married?”

“Have I ever. Three times.”

“Why’d you split up?”

He held up three fingers and folded his index finger down. “First one, drugs. I hardly remember being married to her. Second one?” He folded down his other finger. “Now, she was loony tunes. Crazier than I am. That lasted about ten minutes.” Finally, all three of his fingers were folded into a fist. “Last one was Coco.”

“You were married to Coco?” I was astonished. She’d given me a pedicure in her RV the other day, the best pedicure of my life. “What happened?”

“I couldn’t keep it in my pants. There are so many women—and men—looking for a good time in this town. I can’t say no. Coco could put up with me and all my bullshit, but she didn’t want to share. She was the best thing that ever happened to me, but my doc says I have impulse-control issues. I’m basically like a four-year-old boy.” He reached for the tie on my robe and ran the silky fabric through his fingers. “A very naughty boy. How about a nightcap, Kim?” He tugged the tie. “No strings attached.”

I’d slept with four men in my life. Keith Turnbaum, whom I’d lost my virginity to in high school. Basil. Some guy I hooked up with twice before I met Grant, and Grant. All these years I’d watch characters in movies and television shows fall into bed with each other, and I’d wonder, Was it really so easy? Did that happen in real life? I found hookup culture unfathomable. Octavia’s stories about sleeping with people she hardly knew struck me as strange. At my age, spontaneous sex seemed laughable, and Grant was the only man I’d ever wanted to be with.

But Hobie wasn’t joking around. It felt good (if wrong) to be desired. I was in a new kind of world where moments like this were possible.

“If you want to have some fun,” he said, “it’ll be just between us. I won’t ask for anything from you but pleasure.”

Suddenly, the spell was broken. I burst into laughter. “A naughty boy? You won’t ask for anything but pleasure ?”

“I’m not going to take that as a no, but a not right now. ” He smiled, let the sash go, and stood up. “Look, I don’t mind if you laugh at me. I don’t mind if you don’t want to sleep with me. But I do mind if you don’t believe that I find you attractive.”

I shrugged.

“You can come by my place anytime. I won’t say a word to anyone. No commitment, no entanglements. I’m really talented.”

I tried to compose myself. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Please do.”

He reached for my chin with his two fingers, tilted my head, and gave me a kiss so light it reminded me of the “butterfly kisses” the girls gave me with their eyelashes when they were little. “Enjoy the stars, Kim. It’s a great time to see the Taurid meteor showers. If you think that’s cool, just wait until next month when the Geminids peak. Look!” He pointed at the sky. “A fireball. Just for us.” He brushed my shoulder with his fingertips ever so lightly.

And despite myself, I felt a bit of a thrill.