“Get out of the car,” he commands, ignoring my question.
I shut off the vehicle, plunging the world into complete darkness as the headlights disappear and the night immediately swallows us up. I can barely see anything now, what little desert flora there is suddenly transforming into barely tangible black shapes against an even deeper, darker black. In the distance, the city lights still twinkle in a long straight line, a razor of shimmering gold, and up above us the moon hangs in a glorious silver crescent. Their presence doesn’t help me feel better, though. If anything, these distant glimmers only serve to make me feel more alone.
I climb out of the car. Moments later, I hear Eddie’s passenger-side door open up and I watch as a vague figure emerges.
“Ten steps back,” he commands, every drop of razzledazzle now alarmingly absent from his tone.
I follow Eddie’s instructions.
“Turn around,” he says, his voice deep and emotionless.
I turn.
My hand carefully slips down into my pocket, finding the knife handle and gripping it tight. Now that I’m moments away from actuallyusingit, I realize just how ridiculous this little blade is in the face of someone, or something, so powerful.
Maybe, just maybe, I’ll go out as a bit of an annoyance, but that’s hardly the legacy I want to leave behind.
As I gaze into the grand, endless nothing, it begins to sink in that this might be the last thing I ever see. I alwaysthought that final image would be Marlo, some distant future version of my daughter sitting beside my deathbed, her grown hand in my frail old claw. She’d be the CEO of some Fortune 500 company, beautiful and strong and dangerously smart and ruthless as hell. She’d be surrounded by children who’d grow up to be just as powerful as their mother and their grandmother.
I’m going to fight to make that happen, scratching and biting like a wild animal if I have to, but deep down I know the truth. Even with this silly little knife, I’m no match for Eddie Michaels.
The silence is broken by a loud, horrible retch that spills through the night behind me. It comes sudden and sharp, followed immediately by a breathless, animalistic pant that gradually builds into another terrible heave. It sounds as though Eddie is throwing up, or at least trying to, his body producing noises that one rarely hears outside of an all-night bender or a legendary battle with food poisoning.
His groans fill the desert, a mixture of agonizing pain and guttural, bodily rejection. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was projectile vomiting, but there’s no splatter to follow the moans, only the terrible spasms of a broken throat.
“Huhhgh,” Eddie grunts, then spits. He hesitates, as though building up for one last attempt at something truly disgusting, then lets out a terrible scream.
My body clenches and my hand grips the blade a little tighter.
Eddie pants a bit more, then mumbles something under his breath. In any other context, I wouldn’t be able to hearhim, but in the silence of the desert I can just barely make out a simple two-word phrase. “Well … fuck.”
I hear footsteps walking back around to the passenger side of the car. The door swings open, then slams shut.
“I need one more. That’s bare minimum,” Eddie says. “Drive.”
I muster up the biggest smile I can before turning back around and strolling to the vehicle. I climb into the driver’s seat and start the car, the brilliant glow of our headlights slicing through the darkness once again.
“That was fun!” I announce.
“Knock it off with the cheery stuff,” Eddie gruffly retorts.
I settle, putting the car in drive and pulling out onto the road.
The radio stays off this time.
Date Night
Iknow the Fimi Date Farm well enough. Marlo has already taken a few trips here, and I’ve generated my fair share of content by showing up in a cute outfit and chatting about their famous date shakes.
There’s a handful of these date ranches spread out across the greater Palm Springs area, and while the others have admittedly tastier produce, Fimi Farm is the most aesthetically pleasing of the bunch. The grounds are meticulously maintained, not for the sake of the harvest, but to give tourists a hip, well-branded experience. It’ll have them pulling off the freeway and enjoying an ice-cold shake for years to come.
I’ve never been here at night, though, and suddenly the familiar setting has transformed into something ominous.
The majority of the grounds are covered in toweringdate palms, their thick trunks aligned in perfectly even rows that stretch on and on for what seems like forever. This pattern gives our surroundings a quality that’s both natural and surreal, the elements tamed into some vast mathematical grid for the sake of agriculture. Strategically placed lighting shines up at the massive palm fronds from below, creating an otherworldly atmosphere.
A long gravel road extends straight into the heart of the massive plot, culminating in a parking lot and a large ranch house that serves as a gift shop, a restaurant, and a launching point for their tractor-pulled farm tour. It leaves every half hour from sunrise to sundown, and Marlo begs to go every time we’re here.
What I didn’t realize until now, however, is this structure also serves as the real-life home of Mary Fimi—current owner and operator of the decades-spanning date empire. This place has been so thoroughly transformed into a tourist destination that I assumed everyone in the family had long since left, retiring to various sprawling mansions around Southern California.
