Chapter Five
The power was still out when the sun rose, but at least now he could see, which was a huge improvement. The coffee table still blocked the path to the living room, but he shoved it back into place, picked up a handful of scattered letters and magazines, closed the cupboards, and returned a toppled lamp to its rightful position. Good as new.
His keys were on the end table by the door, right where they should be. In the darkness and confusion following the quake, he hadn’t taken them with him when he went to check on his neighbors.
His head still hurt, damn it all. A buzzing in the back of his brain, a dull background noise that made it hard to think straight. Nothing too acute, but plenty annoying.
The gas had shut off automatically during the quake, which meant there was no hot water, so Vish couldn’t shower or shave. He splashed his face in the bathroom sink and called it good. There was a little dried blood crusted on his hair; when he dabbed at his scalp with a damp washcloth, he discovered the skin had broken where he’d bonked his head.
At least his cell phone was working. Vish considered for a moment, then called Kate.
She answered on the first ring. Lucky day. Vish hadn’t talked to his sister in a couple of weeks. Between her new baby and her work schedule, pinning her down long enough to have a decent conversation required luck or patience.
“Hey, Vish. What’s up?” Bad connection. Her voice was distant and had an echo, like she was speaking from the end of a tunnel.
“Can you talk? You sound far away,” Vish said.
“I am far away.” He heard the amusement in her voice, bouncing off of satellites from Boston to Los Angeles. Kate was a gastroenterologist, deeply entrenched in a rigorous and hard-won internship at Mass General. Vish felt feeble and marginal in comparison to her radiant intellect and formidable accomplishments. “I’m in the car. I have you on speaker. I can give you maybe four minutes until I reach the hospital.”
“We had an earthquake last night,” Vish said.
“You did? A big one? I didn’t see anything online before I left.”
“Might not have made national news. It felt big to me, but I don’t have anything to compare it to.”
“Are you okay?” Kate asked. “Did anything break?”
“Everything’s fine. Stuff fell, but it was no big deal. The power’s still out.” He paused, considering his words, knowing this would scare her. “I bumped my head in the dark.”
“Really? How?” Kate asked. Yeah, he was right, that was alarm in her voice. “Did you get it checked out?”
“It’s not worth checking out. It wasn’t really anything.”
“Don’t mess around with a head injury, Vish. You know better than that. If your brain swells up—”
“I could die. Yes. I know. It’s not going to swell up,” he said. “I’m fine. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
A long pause, thick with background traffic noises. “Did you tell dad about the quake yet?”
“I’ll email him when the power comes back. He’s probably going to bed now. They’re fourteen hours ahead of me, right?”
“Call him anyway. He won’t care if you wake him. He’d like to hear your voice. I think he’s lonely.”
“He shouldn’t be. He’s got plenty of family there to keep him company.” It sounded snottier than he’d intended. Their father had moved back to his birthplace last year to immerse himself in the warm, comforting nest of his brothers and sisters, their offspring and grandchildren, his aged but still healthy parents. It had been the best possible balm for his vast, encompassing grief. Only a uniquely uncharitable son would begrudge him that bit of comfort.
“He misses mom.” There was a faint reprimand in Kate’s tone.
“Don’t we all?” Bitchy. That was bitchy. Vish dialed back the reflexive defensiveness. “Maybe I’ll try calling him tonight. I have to work this morning.”
“How are you doing for money?” Kate asked.
“Fine. It’s all good,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. The job’s going pretty well. Jamie’s been giving me a lot of extra hours.”
There was another pause on Kate’s end. “Vish, are you happy there?”
“Sure, sometimes,” he said. “Maybe not today. I don’t think I like earthquakes.”
“Los Angeles still seems like the wrong city for you,” she said. “You can publish your book from anywhere. I know New York didn’t work out all that well, but if you’ve given up on the idea of screenwriting, you could always move here—”
“Thanks, Kate.” He had a sudden urge to tell her about Sparky Mother, the big-league Hollywood agent (manager?) who was keenly interested in his book, just so he’d seem a little less pathetic, then reconsidered. Kate had a finely-calibrated bullshit detector, and his story wouldn’t stand up to pointed questions. He cleared his throat. “Look, I need to get ready for work. We’ll email, right?”
“Of course. Take care of yourself, Vish. See someone about that head injury.” The call disconnected without warning. Even in the midst of her concern about her aimless and floundering baby brother, Kate rarely had time to wrap up conversations gracefully.
A dull pain in his gut to match the one in his head. He was too old to feel this homesick. He was home, here in Los Angeles, and if he was somewhat less than happy, it was his own fault. He was an adult, wholly capable of carving out his own rich, satisfying, fulfilling life. Even if it didn’t always seem like it.
The sun was out in force, burning off the last of the fog that had rolled in during the night. Saturday mornings were never bustling in Venice. Today, in the aftermath of the quake, it seemed even quieter than usual.
The power must be back, at least in places. The streetlights were operating; traffic flowed as it should. There were a few cars on the road, signs of the city waking up and returning to life, though Vish was the only pedestrian. He felt exposed, examined, under scrutiny from unseen observers.
The static in his head did weird things to his thoughts, lending credence to Kate’s worries about his brain. Sometimes he could almost see someone walking beside him, a shadowy figure matching pace with him, visible only out of the very corners of his eyes. A figure that vanished whenever he turned his head.
Stupid. A flight of fancy, brought about by an eventful evening and not nearly enough sleep. If he could make it through the day, he could crawl onto his creaky futon, burrow under his scratchy comforter, and not rise until Monday. It was a good thought.
Jamie’s shop was on Abbot Kinney. A freshly-painted blue storefront with crisp white awnings, as precious and picturesque as a cottage in the English countryside, wedged in between a tattoo parlor and a bicycle repair shop. “Comestibles” was scribbled in curly gold letters above the door. Though the bulk of Jamie’s revenue came from catering gigs, they sold coffee and pastries and sandwiches to walk-in customers.
Here, the power was still out. Vish flipped the fuses in the back of the store, just to be certain, then called Jamie.
“Crapola,” Jamie said as soon as Vish filled her in. “Power’s been down the whole time? We only lost it for maybe twenty minutes here in Brentwood.” She thought for a moment. “It’s been more than four hours since the quake. That means everything has to be tossed. Food service rules.”
“The refrigerator hasn’t been opened. Everything in there will still be cold,” Vish said.
“Doesn’t matter. Even if the power comes back right now, I can’t risk it. Just lock up and go home. I’ll come in tomorrow and toss everything.”
She sounded glum. Vish couldn’t blame her. “Want me to do it?”
“Thanks, sugar, but I’ll need to do an inventory. How bad was the quake where you were?”
“Alarming,” Vish said.
“Weird. We barely felt it here. It woke me up, but that’s about it.”
After a few more commiserating words, he hung up. As badly as he felt about Jamie’s ruined inventory, the prospec
t of going home early was a relief. His head still hurt, and he still felt weird, overexposed. He needed rest, safe in his apartment, protected from the outside world.
The shop door opened. A young woman in a baggy sweater and leggings stepped into the dark store. She had a pointy chin and a dainty curve of a nose, with a shiny helmet of chin-length reddish-blonde hair. She removed her oversized sunglasses, glanced up at the lights, and smiled at Vish. “No power?”
“No. Sorry. I was just getting ready to close up,” he said.
She winced. “I was supposed to stop in this morning for a tasting? I’m throwing a tea party next Saturday.”
Jamie had mentioned that yesterday. “Right. I’m sorry. Would it be possible to reschedule?”
She hovered in the doorway. “Not really. This is my only free morning. Can we do it right now? The lady I talked to last week said everything would be pre-made, right?”
“It’s all ready, but…” He shook his head. “It’s been in the refrigerator, and the power’s been down since the earthquake. I can’t serve you anything.”
“It’d still be cold, though.” She smiled. No makeup, clear skin, small white teeth. She had a tiny mouth like a peach satin bow. “It’ll be fine. I won’t get food poisoning. Or if I do, it’ll be my own fault.”
“I really can’t—”
She stepped further into the shop. “Please? It would be a huge help. I’d really appreciate it.”
It wasn’t his call. Jamie had said to close up, and this was Jamie’s shop. But this woman seemed friendly, and she was very pretty, and that was a debilitating combination. He took a deep breath, then nodded.
“Sure. Okay. Just give me a minute.” He disappeared into the kitchen and opened the fridge. The light didn’t come on, but a reassuring blast of cold air flooded out of it, which chased away any lingering worries that he was about to poison this friendly, pretty stranger. Right in front was a little white box with “TROY” scrawled on top in Jamie’s curly handwriting.
He returned to the main room of the shop and held up the box. “Are you Troy?”
“That’s me.” She seated herself on one of the high stools at the front counter. Vish arranged the contents of the box on a doily-lined porcelain plate. A lemon-rosemary tart, a cocoa meringue kiss, a caramel petit four, a passion-fruit macaron, a puff filled with lavender custard and topped with a crystallized violet. After giving up on her dreams of film stardom, Jamie had trained, and trained well, under a pastry chef in San Francisco.
“Normally I’d serve you tea or coffee with this, but…” He shrugged. “No hot water. Sorry about that.”
Troy nibbled on the side of the petit four. “No worries. Oh, yum,” she said. “Oh, that’s fantastic. Wow.”
She set it down and picked up the tart. She took mouselike nibbles from each pastry in turn, tiny teeth flashing, not eating any treat in its entirety, even though they were scarcely more than a bite apiece. Vish hovered behind the counter and tried not to stare at her too openly. She was lovely, in a way that stood out even in beauty-glutted Los Angeles, luminous yet unfussy.
“Fantastic,” she said at last. “Everything. Just as it is.” She looked up at Vish. “Are we set for Saturday, or do you need anything else from me?”
“I’m not sure. Let me make sure Jamie has your information,” Vish said. Jamie kept her events schedule tacked to the back wall. He turned away from Troy.
She inhaled sharply, almost a gasp. When she spoke, her voice sounded funny. “Do you know you’re bleeding?”
He brought his hand up to the back of his head, which was damp with fresh blood from the cut on his scalp. A few drops had drizzled down the back of his neck and stained the collar of his shirt, which was probably what alarmed Troy. “Excuse me,” he said.
He headed to the small bathroom in back. No windows, no lights, so he kept the door open while he ran water over a wad of paper towels.
As he wiped away the blood, Troy popped her head through the doorway. She held up a dishtowel, which she must have pilfered from behind the front counter. “Here,” she said. “Let me.”
She wedged herself into the tiny room, sliding around the sink to get closer to him. Vish turned his back to her and let her dab at the cut. This close, he could smell her perfume, some mixture of grapefruit and thyme, both astringent and comforting. At her touch, his headache felt a little better, and the static in his brain receded. “What’d you do to yourself?” she asked.
“It’s silly. I bumped my head when I was exploring in the dark after the earthquake,” he said.
Troy clucked sympathetically. “That’s why your pupils look funny,” she said. “At first I thought you might be high, but you didn’t seem like the type.”
“My pupils look funny?” Vish checked himself out in the mirror. Huh. His pupils seemed their usual size. Maybe a little on the small side. Hard to tell in the dim light.
“You might have a concussion,” Troy said. “You should get this looked at.”
“No, I’m fine,” Vish said. “It looks more serious than it is. Scalp wounds always bleed a lot. I just have a very mild headache, that’s all.”
“Humor me,” Troy said. “Let me take you to the hospital. You shouldn’t mess around with a head injury.”
She sounded so much like Kate that Vish had to smile. “No, really, it’s nothing to worry about. Thank you,” he said. He paused. “In any case, I don’t have health insurance right now.”
Embarrassing to admit that, coming as he did from a family of medical professionals. Troy just shrugged. “So they’ll send you a bill. Sucks, but is it worth risking your life?” She placed a hand on his wrist. Her nails were short and unpolished. His skin tingled at her touch, as though some kind of energy passed between them, and he could feel himself starting to fall for her.
Kind-hearted pretty people. Vish went to jelly around kind-hearted pretty people every time.
“Come on. I’ll help you close up, then I’ll run you to the hospital to get you checked out. Okay?”
Somehow, almost against his will, Vish found himself following her to her car, a sporty gold two-seater. Compact yet glamorous, the perfect vehicle for Troy. She hauled an enormous leather shoulder bag filled with a wadded-up jacket and what looked like a stack of screenplays off of the passenger seat and shifted it to the floor. “Sorry if your legs get kind of scrunched. Hop in,” she said.
Vish obeyed, even though he wished he could put a stop to this. Despite her mild, friendly appearance, she must have some force of will behind her, because he found himself following her without arguing. He didn’t want to go to the hospital, now or ever. He felt fine, albeit a little groggy. Head was maybe a little sore, but not enough to warrant all this fuss and bother.
It seemed important to make Troy happy, though, so he leaned back in the passenger seat, closed his eyes, and let her take charge of his life.