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“What do you think?” I say, holding the phone up to show him the dress. “First one.”
“Green is always a great color on you,” he answers, apparently on the back patio of our house around the fire pit. “I see you found the place okay.”
“This is brilliant, Dad. Thank you.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Celeste calls.
I spin around to let her wave at the camera.
“Who’s that with you? This one of the roommates?”
I suddenly get a seriously stupid idea. One of those suddeninstincts that takes hold of my better judgment and commandeers my mouth until I’m a helpless bystander trapped in my own body.
“Say hi to Jamie, Dad.”
Celeste’s eyes shoot to mine in alarmed confusion. Then like osmosis, she gets it.
It’s a dastardly ruse, drawing her into my web of lies. I’m ashamed of myself as soon as the plot is underway.
“Sue’s gonna take great care of you,” Dad promises as I hand off the phone to Celeste so I can slip into the next dress.
“How do you know her?” Celeste asks him.
He chuckles. “Funny story. I ever tell you this one, Abbey?”
Three sets of hands pick and peck at me, getting me into this dress. “Don’t think so.”
“It was during the Gibson fire. Some Sony Music exec’s Grammy party out in Malibu. I was about your age,” he tells us. “Took home three awards that night and was feeling pretty invincible. The house is filled to the beams with rock stars, suits, and half-naked women. Music so loud they could probably hear us in Van Nuys. Then suddenly there’s screaming, loud enough to drown out the music. People go from looking around to running aimlessly for the doors. Diving through windows. That’s when we realize…”
“What?” Celeste says, nodding as I model the blue and yellow scoop-neck dress. “What was it?”
“We smelled the smoke. So we go outside, and the sky is bright red. Ash falling on our heads. The fire is maybe a hundred yards behind this house, coming up over the hills, and charging right for us. People are panicking, trampling each other to get out, find their cars. No one has their keys because the valet guys bolted at the first sirens, so now there’s hundreds of keys scattered on the driveway. People start picking up random Porsche fobs.”
Celeste is wide-eyed. “That’s terrifying. What’d you do?”
This dress is nice, but it isn’t tearing at my heart. It still feels a little avant-garde for a royal ball. Mori’s crinkled eyebrow saysI’m not pulling it off. We peel me out of this one and on to the next.
“My buddy Scott finds us and shouts, ‘We need to get outta here, man.’ Only we’re so trashed, we have no idea where we are or how we got there. So Bobby, he climbs up on the wall around the yard, and he says, ‘Hey, the neighbor’s got a pool.’”
“Seriously, Dad?”
Sometimes it’s astonishing to think how improbable it was that my dad lived long enough to contribute to my creation at all.
“We hop the wall and dive in, watching the flames climb down the hill toward the house. Then this angry old Japanese lady comes out with her two huge angry dogs. She’s shouting at us, like, ‘Hey, you dumbasses. Get in my Range Rover if you want to live.’”
“Sue Li rescued you from a wildfire?” Celeste shakes her head in amazement. “Woman is literally a superhero.”
“We spent the night on the beach with half of Malibu. Some billionaire had his yacht offshore waiting to ferry people if the flames jumped the road. People had their horses and goats and even some dude with a miniature zebra—all wading into the surf because the heat from the flames was so intense.”
Celeste laughs. “No offense, Abbey, but your dad’s a lunatic.”
And I realize then, as I’m sliding into the third dress, why I’m lying to my father. Why I’m digging myself deeper into the hole that will eventually fill with water.
I want my own stories.
I want to wind up trapped in a death-defying predicament only to escape with some preposterous adventure.
To have no idea what’s coming next and emerge on the other side by the skin of my teeth.
