Patrick Bloom, I guess.
I knock, willing my stomach to untie itself from its knot. After a moment, Patrick Bloom, the world’s most renowned health writer, opens the door and looks out, not in an unfriendly way, just a little blank, until he sees my shirt and bag and realizes that I am the grad student there to house-sit.
“Mariana?”
I nod and he lets me in. It’s the kind of house designed to feel like a home. I’d seen it featured in a magazine before. In addition to Patrick Bloom’s writing, his wife designed book covers, a few of them famous. Their home has long been the subject of public interest.
Patrick Bloom shows me how to work the oven, where to find the bathroom, how to access the deck with a view of San Francisco. His famous mop of curly white hair is even bigger in person; a thin spot burrowed at the back of his head makes it look a little like a halo.
Patrick Bloom stands for something that intrigues me. Cleanliness. Health. Wholesomeness. The idea that your life can be better if you eat quinoa and listen to your body and walk more. Not that his work isn’t based on science, just that the resulting advice is so simple and smart that you hate yourself for not thinking of it first. I devoured all of his books while I was living in New York, bartending and filing the odd music review for an alt-weekly. I applied to journalism school at Cal, where Patrick Bloom is a professor, with the assumption that I wouldn’t get in. When I showed up for the new student tour, the admissions officer flashed a crocodile smile and told me that she thought my essay was excellent. I don’t remember what I wrote, though I do know that I mentioned Patrick Bloom.
Patrick Bloom’s assistant is a second-year student named Eloise. She’s blond and so skinny that the bones of her knees show through her jeans. She snacks on baby carrots and hummus while she uses the school computers to plow through research for Patrick Bloom’s upcoming book. She must use the printers ten times as much as any other student. She delivers his reading material in hard copy. Hulking scientific studies, long articles, entire e-books.
There are only a handful of teaching assistants in our program. Most of them, well, teach. But Eloise is entirely dedicated to Patrick Bloom. The university covers her tuition. That’s how much he’s worth to them.
Eloise was handpicked by the TA before her and someday she, too, will pass the torch. It’s competitive — rumor has it that a recommendation from Patrick Bloom will snag you a job at any top magazine. Eloise was the one who suggested my house-sitting for Patrick Bloom when she was called away for her grandfather’s funeral in Connecticut.
“Is that something you do a lot?” I asked. “House-sitting?”
“Yeah, but it’s not weird. And his house is amazing. So it’s, like, fun.”
Patrick Bloom leads me upstairs. Photos of him and his wife posing with various celebrities, feminine touches in a throw pillow here or a watercolor painting there. We walk past his children’s rooms. Nautical theme for the boy, with model ships lining his windowsill. The girl’s is painted ballet-shoe pink.
It looks like a family of four still lives here, but his children are off at college and his wife died three years ago. I know this because he wrote an award-winning memoir about cooking for her as she was dying. She designed the book cover as her last major piece. I thought it was kind of ugly and maudlin, if I’m being honest, but the writing was some of his best.
We pass a room with a big wooden door. His study. The door is locked. He doesn’t have to tell me that it’s off-limits.
I think he’s going to show me to a guest room, but instead he leads me to the master bedroom.
“This is where you’ll stay.”
I drop my duffel. The walls are painted brown and there are wide windows with no blinds. It’s like the mouth of a cave.
“A little unconventional, I know,” he says. “The design of the room is based on scientific research on the optimal sleeping environment. I’m writing about it in my next book.”
He doesn’t seem to think it’s odd that I just smile and nod at everything he says. I’m a terrible journalism student — I don’t ask nearly enough questions.
Downstairs, he drums the refrigerator with his fingers and tells me to eat anything I like, he doesn’t mind. He shows me back out to the garden and tells me to harvest.
“Whatever you don’t pick will go bad.” He considers a zucchini, small but plump. He yanks it from the vine. “It will rot. Especially in this heat...”
A car pulls up out front and honks lightly. Patrick Bloom dashes inside for his luggage. He can’t possibly be leaving already, I barely know anything about his home. But, indeed, he is. He shakes my hand and thanks me. His skin is still sticky from the zucchini.
“If anything comes up, my number is on the fridge,” he tells me.
And then he is gone.
I go inside. The zucchini remains on the table where he left it. I pick it up and sniff. It smells green. I hate zucchini. I put it down and retrace my steps from the tour, exploring for a second time at my own pace. I realize I’m holding my breath. No one is here monitoring me. I don’t know why I’m afraid.
I go to the bathroom and see a flash of highlighter-bright urine in the bowl. Jesus. I flush the toilet before sitting down. A rack of magazines flank the toilet. Food, lifestyle, travel. Do all rich people keep their magazines in the bathroom? Has he ever run out of toilet paper and had to rip off a page to use on his ass?
It’s nearly dinnertime and the sun streaming through the windows turns orange. I only brought two things to eat — a jar of peanut butter and a box of granola bars. I had planned to bike to the grocery store. I’m grateful I can eat his food. Fuck dealing with that hill again. Plus, how many people can say they’ve eaten something from Patrick Bloom’s garden?
I text a photo of it to my brother Jack. We are not related by blood, but we grew up together and I’m an only child, so he’s the closest thing to a sibling I have.
Got any tips about picking this stuff? I write.
I know zilch about gardening, but Jack does, in a way.
When Jack was fifteen and I was eleven, my mom found pressed pills in his backpack. He told me they weren’t for him, just something he was selling. I don’t know what explanation he gave my mom, but it wasn’t good enough. She went ballistic. The next day, we woke up and Jack was gone.
Two weeks later, a farm worker visiting family in Oakland saw the poster with Jack’s face and called us with a tip. We drove an hour and a half to Gilroy, where we found Jack kneeling in a strawberry field. He had grown tan enough that, with his bandanna and hoodie, he fit in with the dozens of scrawny Mexican guys out there. The biggest difference was that, while they wore steel-toed work boots, he had on his scuffed-up Doc Martens.
The car ride back to Berkeley started out quiet. Even from the backseat, I could see that his hands were dirty and blistered.
“You stink,” my mom said finally. It was true. A cloud of stench, sweet and earthy.
“If you’re not going to let me make money my way,” Jack said, “I’ll make it another way.”
“I don’t give a fuck about what you do on the street, you’re not my kid. But don’t bring that shit into my home. I find anything else and you’re out.”
After that, Jack took odd jobs doing yard work for frat houses and rich professors near campus, though I’m fairly certain he kept dealing on the side.
Now in Patrick Bloom’s garden with the late-day sun beating on my bare shoulders, I stare at my phone. I know Jack isn’t going to respond to my text, but I wait for a few minutes anyway.