“That was amazing!” Rosalie said. “Totally amazing!”
Angela was a bit more perceptive, though, and was looking back and forth between me and Grace, who looked as if someone had punched her hard in the gut. “What am I missing here?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t believe…” Grace said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I can’t believe it,” she choked out, then bolted from the room, leaving Rosalie looking completely lost.
“Seriously, what’s going on?” Angela demanded, her face showing her concern.
“Em, you have to tell her,” I said. As Rosalie got up to follow Grace and find out what was wrong, I repeated myself. “Tell her, Em. It’s not fair to keep this a secret.”
“What?” Angela asked, growing more and more agitated. She could tell something serious was happening, but she just didn’t know what it was.
Emmy stood and took Angela’s hand to lead her to the bedroom. “Leah is correct. There is something that I need to tell you- I should have told you already.”
I sat there on the couch, feeling sorry for myself. I wished for the millionth time that there was something I could do to change Emmy’s mind on seeking medical help, but that was a discussion that I was never going to win.
The lines from the last refrain kept running through my head as I sat there. “I never wanted to make you cry, but baby, I was born to die,” just felt like a knife wound to my heart. A wound that I knew was coming, but could do nothing to prevent.
Eventually I got up and made my way to the bedroom to check on Angela and Emmy.
Emmy was sitting on the edge of the bed, Angela’s head in her lap. Angela was curled up in the fetal position on her side, sobbing. Emmy was gently stroking Angela’s hair and face, murmuring softly.
I sat down next to the two of them and put my hand on Angela’s hip. I didn’t say anything, because there was nothing I could say. I knew just how she felt- I felt the same way.
Angela kept crying for a long time, actually crying herself to sleep, her head still on Emmy’s lap. When I was certain Angela was completely out, I asked Emmy, my voice quiet, “Why hadn’t you told her before?”
“I… I did not wish to hurt her,” Emmy said, her voice quavering a bit. “And I was afraid. Afraid that if she knew that I…”
“Em, she loves you,” I said. “Keeping secrets from her, even if you think it’s for her benefit, well, that’s gonna hurt her more than the truth would.”
“I know you have been trying to- trying to have me tell her, but I could not do it,” Emmy said, unmistakably on the verge of her own tears. “I want her to be with us, and… and to be with you, later,” she said, confirming my suspicions. “We cannot lose her, Leah! We cannot!”
“You won’t lose me,” Angela said from Emmy’s lap. “But I’m going to lose you,” she said, and started crying again.
“Shh, baby, shh,” Emmy cooed, trying to soothe Angela, even as her own tears were sliding down her inky black cheeks.
I helped the two out of their clothes and tucked them into bed before I did the same for myself. I spooned Angela from behind as she clung desperately to Emmy, the two whispering to each other, crying and kissing each other’s tears away.
I understood Emmy’s reluctance to tell Angela, even as I was a chicken, too, for not forcing the issue earlier. I knew for a fact that Emmy played that song for us tonight to bring the whole ‘Moon Kissed’ thing out in the open, but it was a terrible way to broach the subject.
After Emmy and Angela’s breathing evened out and the two relaxed with sleep, I rolled over on my other side. Somehow I just didn’t feel like dealing with either of them any more and needed a little break. Turning my back figuratively as well as literally, I did my best to shove the emotions (and that damned song) out of my mind so I could sleep, too.
The next morning I rose at my usual time, but Angela showed no sign of getting up, so I went down to the gym without her. Still feeling raw from the night before, I buried myself in my workout but that song just wouldn’t leave me alone. For the first time in my entire history of time in the gym I really wished I had a set of earbuds to pump some other music directly into my brain, but no. I had that song to keep me company, and it just would not go away.
I was almost done with my speed squat superset when Angela finally made her appearance at the gym. She spotted me immediately and came over to talk. Finishing my last reps, I racked the bar and started to remove the weights.
“You’ve been trying to get Emmy to tell me, haven’t you?” she asked. She was done up like usual, but I could see her eyes were still red from all that crying the night before, and she looked close to tears at that very moment.
“I did,” I agreed. “I wish she’d told you some other way.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No, she didn’t. I know it’s no consolation, but I learned in a pretty shitty way, too. I found out about it from somebody else entirely, and it wasn’t until I asked Emmy directly that she explained everything,” I said, wiping my face with my gym towel.
“You wanted me to do that,” Angela said. “You told me to ask her.”
“Yeah, I did. I felt shitty about you not knowing, but it wasn’t my thing to tell.”
“I get that, I do,” she said. “All those times you said that we need to have a talk, all three of us, but we never did- I thought it was about your, um, you know, but really it was the whole Moon Kissed thing, wasn’t it?”
“Honestly, both things,” I admitted. “I wanted to be honest with you about my stuff, and I wanted Emmy to explain her thing, too.”
“I wish we had,” Angela said. “Learning like this… it sucks.”
“It does,” I agreed. “It really does.”
“That fucking song!” Angela said. “I can’t get it out of my head, you know? I just keep hearing ‘Baby, I was born to die’ and it’s killing me!”
“Me, too, Ange. Me, too.”
“She said she was afraid I wouldn’t love her if I knew,” Angela said, her eyes glistening. “How- It just makes me love her more, you know? Knowing that we only have such a short time together?”
“I know,” I said, because it was true.
Angela’s heart just wasn’t in her workout, so when I finished, she called it quits and returned to the condo with me.
Grace and Rosalie were at the kitchen counter, eating scrambled egg sandwiches.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“You guys still want to go see the new house?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Grace said, somewhat unenthusiastically.
Angela was in no mood to go and neither was Emmy, so it was just the two girls and me. I parked in the ‘motor court’ in front, well out of the way of the crane which was lifting trees into position on the far side of the pool.
“Wow, this is really a house?” Rosalie asked, looking around.
“What you’re seeing is mostly not the house part,” I explained. “This was an old movie studio from the Forties that got decommissioned in the early Sixties. It’s been used as a house, a private rehab center and then a house again in the years since then. We’re having it remodeled back into a film and recording studio, but a lot of what used to be offices and things like that are being converted into a house, built into but separate from the studio part.”
“I don’t understand,” Rosalie said, looking confused.
“Alright, look at this. That big part there, that’s the sound stage, for filming, right? And that, that’s the front door for the studio. Anybody that came to film or record would park out here and then go in through there. That over there? That’s the lounge. The pool is on the other side. If we have parties, that whole area is perfect for it. Now, you see that door there? That is the only part of the front here that has anything to do with the house part.”
“Can we see the sound stage?” Grace asked.
“Sure,” I said, and led the two inside. The soundstage was dark, but a flick of a switch lit it up enough to see the enormous space.
“Holy shit! This place is huge!” Grace said, gaping at the big, black, empty room.
“Language,” I said, giving her a gentle swat on the back of the head.
“Sorry, Mom,” she said sulkily, but with a smile on her face.
The two girls wandered around the vast space, looking up at the catwalks, marveling at the fact that the room didn't actually echo despite the sheer size.
The novelty finally wore off, so I led them to the recording studio downstairs. A heavily tattooed woman in torn jeans and a black tank top and a middle-aged guy with Buddy Holly glasses and sideburns were hooking up the main board electronics when we stepped into the production room.
A vaguely remember her name was something animal-like, but I didn’t recognize the guy at all.
“Hey, Leah,” said the woman. “Emmy coming in today?”
“Honestly, I doubt it,” I said, remembering her name was Snake. “She’s not feeling that great this morning.”
“That sucks,” Snake replied, handing a cable to the guy, who slid under the control board. “Me and Riggo had some questions on how she wanted things run.”
“Honestly, I think Lee’s the real mastermind. He’s probably the one to talk to,” I said.
“Uh, yeah, in general, sure, but it was specifically how she wanted her equipment rigged. Hey!” she said, surprised when Riggo tapped her ankle to get her attention.
“I’ll tell her to give you a call,” I said as we walked out.
Grace and Rosalie followed me down to the basement. “These used to be the film vaults,” I explained, pointing out the heavy steel fireproof doors. “But now they’re just gear storage. Check this out, though,” I said, pressing the button to call the elevator down. When it arrived, we stepped into the cargo-sized elevator car, much roomier than the tiny little elevator in the Manhattan townhouse.
I inserted a key into the button pad and pressed ‘B’ for basement.The doors shut, then the opposite side of the elevator opened into a different hallway, but on the same floor.
“What the eff?” Grace asked. “What just happened?”
“And now we leave the studio and enter the house,” I said. “This is the house basement, and the vault on this side is,” I said with a pause, “the wine cellar.” I waved dramatically, ushering the two girls into the concrete space lined with glass racks with room for thousands of bottles, as well as shelves for cases and the like. The table and chairs hadn’t been delivered yet, but it was easy to see how the cellar would look loaded with wine.
“This is…” Rosalie began, but Grace finished for her.
“Awesome!” Grace said, looking at the little iPad stand that would keep the bottles organized.
Back into the elevator, we went up another level to the middle floor. Thanks to the building’s location on a slope, what was below the level of the parking lot on the other side of the structure was well above grade on this side, a detail our architect had used to our advantage. Basically the entire side of the house facing southeast was composed of sliding glass doors that opened onto an enormous deck (actually, the roof of the new garage) with a view down the canyon and to a little slice of Hollywood in the distance. The view was screened a bit by the ancient eucalyptus trees, but that meant a certain degree of privacy, too.
“Leah, this place is just incredible, you know? I mean, I liked our house in Palo Alto- it was obviously much nicer than the little house in Arcata I grew up in, right? But this- this is completely another level. I mean, seriously,” Grace said.
“You need to spend some time in the New York house,” I replied, but secretly, I did agree. The townhouse in Manhattan was old-school cool, elegant in a way this place could never be, but the conversion that had been done on the old movie studio was truly amazing, and so very, very California.
Upstairs were the bedrooms, which were great, but nothing particularly unusual except for the balconies with a better view than the deck below. Finally, I led Rosalie (who really hadn’t spoken much, just gazed in awe) and Grace up to my new home office in the tower.
“Yeah, I think we’re gonna like this place,” I said in satisfaction, looking down at the electricians who were installing the solar panels on the main flat roof, having already covered the sunny side of the sound stage roof.
On the drive back to the condo, Rosalie finally spoke up. “Um, Leah, I grew up in a small town out in the desert, you know? Ever been to Wickenburg? Probably not. I mean, why would you? Anyway, your apartment- it was the nicest place I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t think, like, there’s anything even close to that nice where I’m from. But your new house? It’s a whole ‘nother level- and it even has its own freaking movie studio! How Hollywood is that?”
“Yeah, it’s peak Los Angeles, alright,” I agreed.
Returning to the condo, I had to look around to find Emmy and Angela. Led by the sound of soft voices, I found them in the tub. Emmy was gently washing Angela’s long, black hair while the two of them talked quietly.
“Are you two doing alright?” I asked, leaning down and kissing Angela and Emmy. I knelt down next to the tub so I could look at them at eye level. “How are you guys feeling?”
“O.K., I guess,” Angela replied.
“We have been talking,” Emmy said. “I think that Angie and I are all caught up. I have told her everything.”
“That’s good,” I said. “You know I hate secrets.”
“I know,” Emmy sighed. “But secrets are… my cultural imperative. It is a very hard thing to break away from.”
“Angela,” I said, stroking her cheek with the back of my fingers. “Does this change anything for you? Do you still want to be with us?”
“I do,” she said with a sigh. “I wanted it to be forever, you know? But even if it’s only for a few more years, I’ll take what I can get.”
“And that is exactly how I think of it,” I agreed. “I won’t lie and say it doesn’t hurt to even think about it, though.”
I gave them each another kiss, then left them alone. Angela needed time with Emmy, and I respected that.
When I got home after class that night, the two were already asleep, cuddled up together. Emmy mumbled a quiet hello when I slid into bed, trying not to wake them.
“Thank you,” she mumbled.
“What for?”
“For giving me time with Angela,” she said, still not fully awake. “It was important.”
“I know it was, babe,” I said, giving her a kiss. “Now go back to sleep.”
The office was closed for the next few days for Thanksgiving but I hadn’t cancelled my workout with Jody, so I got up early and went to the gym to train. Sure, I would have preferred to stay in bed, but as Jody had said, you need to sack up when you least want to.
“I talked to Grant last night,” Jody said during a break. “He wants me to come out to Montreal for a few weeks.”
“Well, he’s your boss now,” I said. “Pack a good coat.”
“So, you’re O.K. with him, um, just telling me to move out like that?”
“Like I said, he’s our head of security. If he thinks they could use you there, I’m not gonna second-guess it. Did he explain how to get tickets and all that?”
“Uh, yeah, he did,” Jody said. “I guess I’m supposed to fly into Boston and rent a car and drive up to Montreal. I gotta say, this gives me, um, ‘covert operation’ vibes.”
“Because it is,” I said. “If Grant thinks it’s time to stop chewing gum, that means it’s time to kick ass. He probably wants to fit you into the team, show you how things are done, see where your strengths lie. He absolutely knows his shit.”
“He seems really, um, no-nonsense,” Jody agreed.
“Jody,” I said. “Don’t take this wrong, but one of the first things he’s gonna do with you is take you clothes shopping. He’s going to buy you a bunch of new outfits, some new shoes, even a nice watch. He’s going to take you to a barber, get your hair done. It sounds strange, but this is important.”
Seeing the puzzled look on his face, I explained. “Like I said, the biggest part of all this is recruiting, right? You need to look as if you have life by the balls. You need to walk into a room and have people look at you and think, ‘This guy has money and class. He has it made’.”
“And I don’t give off those vibes now?” he asked, but it was clear he wasn’t actually offended.
“To be fair, I’ve only seen you in your gym rat clothes,” I admitted.
“I’ve seen you when you leave the gym to go to your office,” Jody said. “You look like a high-priced lawyer. A lot of guys here are really curious about you, you know.”
“What do they want to know?”
“Well, mainly why a rich babe like you is here at all. The dudes have seen you working out, and they can tell you aren’t some Instagram poser, which only makes them even more curious.”
“What have you told them?”
“I told them to fuck off and mind their own business,” Jody said with a snort.
“That’s the right answer,” I said and held my fist up, which he bumped.