I wonder why Chrissie moved. I never thought she’d leave Santa Barbara again. Perhaps the memories are too painful to live in the house she shared with Jesse. Perhaps she just wants to be closer to Jesse’s family because of their kids.
I turn up the narrow tree-lined road to her house and pull into Chrissie’s long, circular driveway. Her modest Pacific Palisades estate is surrounded by only a four-foot-high, two-bar white fence. There are no high stucco walls with a gate for privacy or security.
I park the car and sit for a moment, staring at the house. This is not wise, Chrissie. This house may have the look of your house in Santa Barbara, the feel of continuity might be a good thing for the kids, but it is not wise and certainly not safe.
This is fucking LA. Don’t you ever think, Chrissie? It’s charming. But it’s charmingly stupid.
I climb from the driver’s seat and go to the door. I ring the bell. I wait. Why does it always take forever for someone to answer the front door?
I’m about to head back to my car for my phone to call her when the front door is opened wide. Oh fuck. I stiffen. It is Grace Harris, Jesse’s mother.
“Oh my God,” she exclaims in disbelief.
“Close. Lucifer,” I tease and force a laugh.
Grace smiles. “I’m sorry. You surprised me. I was expecting the pizza delivery boy.”
“A welcome surprise, I hope?” Tentative. Careful. Cool. We used to be on friendly terms, but I’m feeling grossly uncomfortable with her today.
“You are always welcome, Alan.” She struggles to adjust the infant in her arms. “Why would you even ask such a thing?”
“I wasn’t certain I would be after a year. I’m terrible at keeping in touch.”
Grace gives me an exuberant hug, which she manages with the baby in her arms. “Year or not, you are always welcome.”
The pizza delivery boy has the unforgivable timing of arriving while we are still passing pleasantries at the door.
“Jesus Christ!” He shouts too loudly from behind me. “Aren’t you—?”
“No, Dave Grohl is touring and American.”
The boy stares at me. I feel my head start to throb again. I just want fucking inside the house so I can see Chrissie.
“Would you mind signing my hat?”
Crap. I stare at the boy. He looks like a nice kid, fresh-faced Boy Scout type, and deserves to be treated politely. It will give him something to amuse himself with while delivering pizza.
How amusing can that be?
“Sure. No problem,” I tell him.
The pizza is dumped on the porch. His hat and a pen are shoved at me. Grace goes into the house, fishes through her purse in the entry hall for money, and pays him.
“Grab the pizza when you’re done, Alan.”
I give the cap back to the kid. He won’t stop talking. It doesn’t feel like he’s leaving here anytime soon without rudeness. I don’t want to be rude to the kid. Fuck, I’ll outflank him.
“I don’t play in the LA area for another eight months. Scribble out your name and address and I’ll send you two backstage passes. Would you like that?”
The boy’s jaw drops. I take his information, shove it into my pocket and watch him leave.
“You better not disappoint that boy, Alan,” Grace chides as I follow her into the kitchen. “He’s a nice boy. Lives up the road. Plays with Ethan and Eric in the front yard when he has the time without being asked to.”
Ethan and Eric. Chrissie’s six-year-old sons reduced to playing ball with the neighborhood scout/pizza delivery boy. Jesse had been a devoted father. It’s impossible to comprehend the size of the void in their lives without him.
I settle on a stool at the island counter in the center of Chrissie’s gourmet kitchen. “How are the kids doing?”
“The kids are doing well. We’re a strong family.”
I nod. I don’t know what to say.
There is silence between us as she settles the baby in the bouncer on the counter. She puts a plate of pizza and a beer in front of me. I’m not hungry but I start eating anyway to be polite.
She sits on a stool across from me and gives me a thorough study. She starts fiddling with her elegant, silvery chin-length hair, a nervous gesture, then the smooth skin of her face tightens inch by inch.
She frowns. “What’s wrong, Alan? What is going on in your life to make you so unhappy?”
Sincere concern. God, I love this woman. Would I be the man Jesse had been if I’d been raised by this tender woman?
I shrug. “There’s nothing wrong. I’m tired, stressed, working and drinking too much, I’m sure you’d think. But I’m good.”
She shakes her head. “Call me. I mean it, Alan. Call me. Even if it’s only to tell me goodbye and that you’re leaving LA.”
I stare. Both that speech and her tone were odd. “I’ll call. I’ll be in LA for the next three months. I’m not on the road again until April. We can do lunch. Dinner. Think about it so it’s decided before I call.”
“A gauche, trendy restaurant in the Hollywood area would be so amusing. There are times your life is a circus, Alan. I don’t know how you live in it.”
I laugh. Somehow I just got chided for my lifestyle without her saying a single direct word. Damn, she must reading the tabloids. Absurd and sweet.
“With twenty-two grandchildren, Grace, your life is a circus, too.”
“Twenty-three.” She picks up the baby and turns her so she faces toward me. “Meet Khloe. She joined us in August. Isn’t she beautiful?”
The baby is beautiful. Dark hair, flawless olive-toned skin and what would surely be enormous blue eyes.
“All the Harris grandchildren are beautiful. It’s good that they are since your family procreates in excess.”
She gives me a sharp rebuke with her eyes. I tense. Shit, maybe I offended her.
“There is not a time a baby is born that it is in excess.”
She abruptly leaves the room.
I shake my head. Fuck. Good one, Alan. Marvelous way to start this visit. Piss off Jesse’s mother. That’ll go over great with Chrissie.
I go into the family room with its wall of glass overlooking the back lawn. The room has a cluttered and whimsical charm. Oversized cream couches. A large-screen TV. A table scattered with the half-joined pieces of a puzzle. The two Pulitzers that are Jesse’s hanging on the wall with Chrissie’s gold and platinum records. The mess of the kids is everywhere. I navigate through toys, books, and an odd assortment of shoes in varying sizes.
I stare out through the French doors at the shadowy, covered back patio and across the yard. My gaze locks on my target.
Chrissie is sitting near the patio on the grass beneath a tree with the twins flanking her sides. She is reading to the boys. She looks more beautiful than any woman has a right to look in faded jeans, a black cotton tank top, blond hair in a ponytail, no jewelry except her wedding band, and her delicately featured tanned face without makeup. She looks stunning.
I take a moment to enjoy the sight of her and struggle to put back into order my internal arrangement. Now that I’m here, I realize I should have called her first, but I always used to drop in on the fly during her marriage to Jesse.
But this is different, I remind myself. The last time I saw her we were in bed together. And I can feel there is a lot going on inside this house that isn’t good. Nothing has felt normal, the way it used to, since I arrived here.
I hear a loud bang, and turn to find a tote bag lying on the tile entry floor. Kaley is standing across the room, staring at me. She’s changed a lot in a year. She’s taller. Must be nearly five feet eleven. Her hair has grown. Her dark curls are halfway down her back. She looks more mature, less like a teenager. She is strikingly beautiful.
She pulls her earbuds out. “How long have you been here?”
My eyes widen. The combination of the unexpectedly hostile stare and the tone of her voice makes me tense.