“Okay, enough.” Billy gagged. “We don’t need to see the photo.”
CHAPTER 32
“HI, MOM, I WAS ABOUT to call you.”
“Sure you were, Nicola, and I’ve got a used bridge to sell you.”
Nicola took a seat under a tree outside an Ojai boutique selling children’s clothing at prices children could never afford.
“So what’s new, Mom?”
“Don’t play games, Nicola. Biscuit told me you’re dating a movie star.”
“Fucking Billy!”
“Don’t cuss, peanut. At least he’s keeping us in the loop, missy. So why don’t you tell me where you are?”
“Okay, Mom. I’ve been seeing Seamus O’Riordan, and I’m in Ojai.”
“I’m not sure which one he is. Biscuit showed me a photo, though; he’s handsome enough.… Wait, did you say Ojai?”
“Yeah, Mom, why?”
“Oh, Nico! That’s where the bionic woman lived with her lovely dog. I used to dream about living there when I watched that show.”
“This is where she lived? How the hell do you even remember things like this?”
“Oh, I assure you, it was a big deal. Everybody wanted to live in Ojai in the seventies.”
“Well, they come here to die now. It’s like Florida with oak trees.”
“So is it serious with this boy, then?”
“No, Mom. We’re just dating. And he’s not a boy, he’s a man.”
“Whatever you want to call him, I’m sure he’s a step up from Tony. He treating you good?”
“Yes, Mom. He’s very kind. He … uh … yeah, actually, he treats me good.”
“Nico, it’s okay to trust someone again.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mom. How’s Biscuit doing?”
“He’s doing so well. He got his one-year sobriety medal thingy and he’s real proud. I told him that if we save up, he and I might come visit you next year. How would that be?”
“I’d love it, Mom.”
“Maybe we could meet your movie star boyfriend!”
“Mom, you’re breaking up. Are you still there? I can’t hear you. Love you. Good-bye.”
Nicola put her phone back into her purse and looked up and down the main drag of Ojai. She couldn’t imagine the bionic woman sprinting along this dusty two-lane highway unless she was trying to get the hell away from the society matrons who cluttered the sidewalk with their strollers and their dogs while they window shopped and gossiped.
She pulled her phone back out and texted Kara, whom she hadn’t seen since dinner last night. Some girls’ weekend this was turning out to be.
Her clock and the sun beating down on her told her it was almost two p.m. Seamus was in sword training until five and they’d arranged to meet back at the house then. Nicola couldn’t remember the last time she’d been bored like this.
She got up and headed back to her car. There was a pool somewhere on Prairie Blossom, and she decided to find it.
* * *
The sun was lower in the sky when Nicola woke up, wrapped in a towel on a lounge beside an azure pool. She blinked behind the vintage Ray-Bans that had been her mom’s until she stole them, and surveyed Prairie Blossom. The estate rolled out in every direction around her, rising into the hills, and bees buzzed in the heat haze over the valley. There were no signs of life. One of the spaceship’s metal fins rose incongruously behind the terra-cotta roof of the main house, a sprawling mansion of oranges and reds.
She looked at her phone. It was dead. Crap. She’d forgotten to charge it last night. Standing, she let the sun warm up her skin. It felt glorious. She stuck a toe into the pool, happy to find that it was still deliciously warm. Fuck it, she thought, and dove back in. She swam all the way to the other end underwater, surfacing to a view of the mountains around her. Maybe her mother hadn’t been wrong about Ojai.
She dipped her head back into the water, wringing it out with both hands as she stood. She got out and let the air dry her skin. She decided to walk back in her wet scarlet ASOS bikini. She pulled on her Prada slides, threw her towel over her shoulder, and put her shorts and tank inside her purse with her phone. It was after five. She looked at the road that she had taken to the pool. It wound down through an orange grove, around the polo field and the catering tent, and then back to their guesthouse. Probably take her ten minutes to walk. Another road extended to her right, and around several barns. It would probably be shorter, or she could at least cut through the field behind their house.
The road was little more than a worn, dusty trail by the time it hit a pair of old wooden barns where the owners pressed olive oil. Nicola could smell the scent of wood-soaked oil on the afternoon breeze. There were wildflowers amid the grass by the corner of one of the barns, and she walked over to pick a small bunch, either for Seamus or for her hair, she wasn’t sure which yet.