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At least, I thought it had. But the years had ground by one after another, and my career had gone nowhere. Neither had my love life, because L.A. was full of narcissistic jerks. In a way, I was just existing, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Most of the time it didn’t feel like anything much was wrong, but that was because I was intentionally numb.
Then my grandmother died and I found out she’d left her house to me. She was still mad at Mom, so she’d cut her out of the will—everything she had skipped a generation and went to me.
And I hadn’t thought twice. I’d taken it. I’d packed my bags and left without a backward glance.
If your goal was a modeling career, then leaving L.A. was not in alignment. Perhaps you should re-center and reconnect with your inner self.
Nancy was heartless, and she was full of L.A. bullshit-speak, but part of me wondered if she had a point.
I sighed and dropped my robe. It was time to see if the Cheesecake Factory was hiring.
FOUR
Tessa
“Millwood isn’t so bad,”the woman from down the street said. “I mean, we’re not rich, so we’re not assholes.”
We were standing in my driveway. I’d been about to get into my car and drive to the nearest batch of big box stores and chain restaurants to apply for jobs when these two women had walked by. They were in their mid-thirties, both wearing capri-length yoga pants and tank tops, their hair tied up in ponytails. In L.A., these women would be wearing $500 yoga outfits and weigh around ninety-five pounds. In Michigan the outfits were Walmart and the number on the scale was higher, but it turned out they were both pretty cool.
“This neighborhood is nice,” the woman named Amy said. “There are a lot of older people that have been here for years. And then some of them have started to pass away, like your grandmother. So then you have the younger people, like us.”
“I’m around the corner that way,” the other woman, Jan, said. “Amy is four doors down from me. We like to take our walk after we drop the kids at day care.”
“I organize the community barbecues,” Amy said. She was mixed race, with big brown eyes and a nice Meghan Markle look. “You missed the Fourth of July one, but there’s another one in a few weeks. You can meet everyone there.”
I pushed my sunglasses higher on my nose. I was sweating under my tank top. “Community barbecue, huh? I’m not sure I’m into those.”
Jan looked me up and down, not unkindly. “I guess they don’t have those in L.A. You should try it, though.”
“What about that house?” I said, nodding to the house across the street. I’d noticed it before—a place with a ramp on the front porch to accommodate a wheelchair. “Who lives there? One of the old people?”
Amy and Jan traded a look, and then they both laughed.
“What?” I said.
“Andrew Mason lives there,” Jan said. “He isn’t old. He’s maybe thirty.”
“Oh, shit. And he’s in a wheelchair?”
“A drunk driving accident a few years ago,” Amy said, more seriously. “Left his legs paralyzed. It split the family apart, too. It created some kind of falling-out with the parents. He moved into that house alone, and he’s been there ever since. He almost never leaves.”
I looked at the house again. It was tidy, well-kept. The blinds were closed. There was no car in the driveway. But still, I got the feeling that someone was watching. I was probably just being paranoid.
“That’s sad,” I said. “A young guy getting paralyzed like that. I feel bad for him.”
“We all do,” Jan said, “and then he always goes and wrecks it.”
I looked at her, feeling my eyebrows go up.
“Andrew Mason isn’t much of a neighbor,” Amy explained. “When he moved in, we tried dropping off welcome gifts. Flowers and whatnot. He never answered the door, and we’d find the gifts jammed into the garbage can at the foot of the driveway.”
“Henevercomes to the community barbecues,” Jan said.
“Halloween is the worst,” Amy said. “We have a lot of kids in this neighborhood, and Halloween is a big thing. Everyone gets into it, but not him. He actually puts a sign up in his window that saysKIDS FUCK OFF.”
I couldn’t help it—I laughed.
“You can laugh, but people get mad when their kids see that kind of language,” Amy said primly. “The Masons are some of the richest people in Millwood, so he has plenty of money. But does he give to the annual neighborhood charity drive? No, he doesn’t.”
