“Celia is not Molly,” Jake said. “I don’t think that would work on her. She knows us too well and we know her too well.”
“What then?” she said. “Do we just ask her?”
Jake considered this for a moment. “Well ... in most other aspects of trying to obtain something you desire in life, just asking is usually the first, simplest, and most basic step.”
She thought this over and then nodded slowly. “That is true,” she said at last.
Jake made the phone call the next morning, just after they ate the sausage and red bell pepper omelets he had prepared for breakfast. Laura was cleaning up the kitchen from his efforts. Celia picked up on the third ring, as it was her private line and she recognized the number on her caller ID screen as that belonging to the Kingsleys’ Granada Hills address.
“Hello?” her voice said in his ear.
“Hey, C,” he said lightly. “Jake.”
“What’s up?” she asked, her voice all business. Laura, in the way of females of the human species, would often call just to chat with her, but Jake, in the way of males of the human species, only called to discuss business or to convey or request information.
“Just calling to see if you have any plans for the day,” he said.
“Nothing at the moment,” she told him. “I’ve been strumming out some tunes lately, but nothing that can’t be put off. Something going on?”
“No, not really,” he told her. “Laura and I are still here in LA and decided not to fly back home until tomorrow.”
“Really?” she asked, surprised. She knew that the two of them tried to spend as little time as possible in Los Angeles.
“Yeah,” he said, preparing to tell a rather large lie, though he was much better at that sort of thing than his wife. “Elsa’s grandkids are visiting for the week and we figured we’d let them have the place to themselves for another day. Anyway, we were thinking that if you were up to it, we’d come over and visit you. We really want to try out that pool of yours and I’m willing to make you dinner in exchange for some swim time.”
This was a perfectly reasonable attempt at fishing for an invitation in exchange for a service. Celia was not much of a cook, had yet to hire someone to do it for her, and was generally in the habit of ordering food to be delivered. Jake and Laura, on the other hand, had not installed a swimming pool at their Oceano home as it was considered a major (maybe even impossible) project due to the rock that their cliff was composed of. The Granada Hills house had a pool, but they rarely used it. Celia’s new house, however, had an infinity pool that looked out over the ocean. Both of the Kingsleys were envious of it and had been dying to swim in it ever since first seeing it.
“Uh ... sure,” Celia said. “That sounds like a good deal. What are you going to cook for me?”
“Anything you want,” he said.
“Oooh,” she said, delighted now. “How about some of those ribeye steaks that you grill? I have this fancy-schmancy barbeque island out next to the pool and it hasn’t been used yet. You can break it in for me.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “How about some baked potatoes and asparagus to go with it? I can do both of those on the grill as well.”
“You read my mind,” she said. “What time?”
“How about we come over around two o’clock or so? We’ll swim for a few hours and then have dinner at six?” Maybe have a threesome with you in between the two events, he did not say.
“It’s a date,” she said.
“Cool,” Jake replied.
“I guess if I’m going to put on my bikini in front of other people I should shave the fuzz off my legs and armpits.”
And in other places too, he thought lasciviously. “I’ll let you get to that then,” he told her. “See you at two-ish.”
“See you then,” she said and then hung up.
He put the phone back in its charger and then walked back to the kitchen, where Laura was scrubbing out the cast iron pan he had used.
“Well?” she asked.
“We’re formally invited to Valdez Manor for swim time and to prepare dinner,” he said.
“Very nice,” Laura said, a twinkle in her eye. “Hopefully, we’ll also have a nice dessert too.”
“Hopefully,” he said, still having doubts that this was a good idea, but hoping that it happened anyway.
Celia’s house was on Broad Beach Road, an offshoot of the Pacific Coast Highway as it ran through Malibu. The two-lane road was atop a sixty-foot ridge that rose above the beach between Zuma Beach and Broad Beach itself. From the street, the multimillion-dollar beachfront mansions did not look all that impressive, Celia’s included. This was because all that one could see from the street was the top level of the homes, which was generally just the driveway and garage. The actual living areas of the homes were built into the slope of the ridge and extended all the way down to just above the beach level itself. All the homes in this stretch protruded out onto the beach and sat atop reinforced concrete pillars driven thirty feet into the sand and the bedrock beneath it. This kept the lower levels—where the decks and family rooms generally were found—safely above the crashing waves when a particularly strong storm blew in and drove its surge beyond the high-tide mark and all the way to the base of the ridge itself.
Casa Valdez had been built in 1990 and owned by a particularly successful local real estate developer who had sold it to Celia for eleven million dollars after he and his wife divorced following the revelation that he was actually gay, had contracted HIV from one of his many male lovers, and then passed it on to her (reasonable grounds for divorce, Jake thought when Celia told him the story). Jake pulled his truck into the driveway at precisely 2:00 PM and stopped in front of the intercom box with its all-weather security camera. He rolled down the window and pushed the button. Celia did not speak to him. She just opened the left side sliding door of the four-car garage. Jake pulled in and parked next to her Mercedes. By the time he and Laura got out, the door was already sliding back down behind them.
They went through a door and down a set of stairs to another door. This led into a large foyer with vaulted ceilings and huge picture windows that looked out to the open ocean to the south and along the beach to Point Dume to the east. A spacious hallway to the right led off to the three-room master suite where Celia slept, the laundry room, and three of the four guest bedrooms, each of which had their own private bath and ocean views. An open staircase led downward from here to the lowest level where the kitchen, family room, dining room, guest bathroom, and one more guest bedroom could be found. They went down the stairs to the family room, which was decorated in a postmodern nautical theme. Two large windows and a huge set of sliding glass doors looked out over the beach and the water. The deck itself sat directly atop the pillars over the beach and was quite large, stretching the entire width of the house from side to side and extended outward for more than thirty feet. Out here was the infinity pool, a built-in hot tub, a large barbeque island, and a collection of expensive patio furniture.
Celia greeted them at the bottom of the stairs. She was dressed in a pair of white shorts and a loose-fitting tank top with her red bikini top underneath. Flip-flops were on her feet. She gave them each a hug even though it had only been twenty-four hours since she had last seen them, and then took the bag of dinner groceries from Jake and carried it into the kitchen. They followed her and helped her put the perishables away.
“Let me get you some drinks going,” Celia said. “Teach, I have a pitcher of iced green tea in the refrigerator.”
“That sounds good,” Laura said.
“What about you, Jake?” she asked. “Should I open a bottle of wine, or do you want a mixed drink from the bar?”
“Actually,” Jake said, “I think I’ll have some of that tea as well.”