I put Jacob down and he ran over to Mom and hugged her legs.
“Hey, baby,” she said, absently patting his head while she glanced around the kitchen. “Where are the hot dog buns?”
“In the bag on the table. Whole wheat.” Carlos was bald, but shaved bald, and his eyes were younger than his mouth and chin. He was somewhere between forty and sixty, but I had no idea where. He came twice a week and cooked lots of dishes, which he left in the refrigerator so we could heat them up whenever we wanted a meal; he also prepared food for special events like this. “I wanted to get sea bass for the fish but I didn’t like the way theirs looked, so I got cod instead. I made a romesco to go with it. All Luke has to do is grill it and then put the sauce on. But tell him not to overdo it. Fish should always be slightly undercooked. Now, let’s talk about the corn.”
“As fascinating as this is . . .” I said, and left them to it.
nine
I deliberately didn’t run downstairs when I heard the guests arrive. I took my time, not wanting to seem too eager to see Aaron—I knew that Luke and Michael were into the idea of matching us up and didn’t want to encourage them. It was one thing for me to joke about how he was my future husband and another thing for them to try to make it true.
I waited about ten minutes, and by the time I came down, they’d all already traipsed through the house and gone out back.
In addition to an enormous lawn, the swing set Jacob loved so much, an Olympic-sized pool, a hot tub that could fit fifteen people, a guesthouse, and a still-under-construction combination exercise and screening room, we had an entire outdoor kitchen and living room in the backyard. I think Luke enjoyed the idea of himself grilling slabs of meat like any American dad, but I kind of doubted that most American fathers had the setup he did: a built-in propane-fed grill, a wood-fired pizza oven, a full-sized outdoor refrigerator, an ice cream freezer/fountain—complete with spouts for hot fudge and caramel—and a farmhouse sink with hot and cold running water.
“Is this a thing?” I said to Mom when the real estate agent first walked us through the house and grounds almost four years ago. “Do people have stuff like this?”
“Not many,” she said.
“Come the revolution, we are so guillotined.”
“I’ll show them photos from the studio you and I shared back in Philadelphia,” she said. “They’ll let us go.”
Luke was busily firing up the grill when I joined everyone outside. Jacob was relaxing in Mom’s arms, gently wiggling his fingers in front of his eyes. (He liked to do that. Lorena called it “making pictures in the air.”) Michael and Crystal were talking to Mom, and Aaron was watching Megan the nanny give baby Mia a bottle. Apparently the Marquands didn’t go anywhere without her.
I said Aaron’s name and he looked up and instantly came running toward me. There was no hesitation or awkwardness: he just threw his arms around me and gave me a big hug.
“Can you believe I’m here for the whole year?” he said happily. “How lucky is LA to get me?”
I laughed. “I don’t know about LA, but I feel lucky. And your father’s incredibly excited to have you here—he hasn’t stopped talking about it.”
“You can’t blame me,” Michael called from a few feet away. “Here I was, thinking about how my son would be heading off to college soon and probably be too busy to ever visit me again, and suddenly I have him living with me for the next nine months. It’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”
“He seems to like you,” I said to Aaron.
“That’s because I haven’t been around lately,” he said. “I’m most likable when I’m not here.”
He was just as good-looking in person as in his Instagram selfies. Better, because his smile was warm and directed right at me. He was wearing blue board shorts (basically the adult version of what Jacob had on) and a dark gray tee with an unbuttoned oxford shirt over it and flip-flops. Simple black Ray-Ban sunglasses blocked what rays were left from the almost-setting sun. Most guys my age didn’t know how to dress—they tried too hard or not hard enough. Aaron seemed to have effortlessly found the simple but classy sweet spot.
I wanted to talk to him more—preferably alone—but that wasn’t going to happen. Jacob had left Mom’s lap and made his way over and now he was reaching his hands up for me to take him. I held him while Michael interrogated me about what kind of cars my friends were driving; he said he needed to buy Aaron one. Then Mom said she thought we should go swimming before we ate because it wasn’t a good idea to go swimming after.
I wasn’t too concerned about that from a safety standpoint, but it did occur to me that a big salty hot dog would probably make my stomach puff out, and I wanted to look good in my bikini, so I seconded the “let’s swim now” idea.
Crystal turned down the invitation to join us, which didn’t surprise me, since she was wearing a ton of makeup and her long, thick hair had been blown silky smooth. Mom also passed: she would have killed for a pool to paddle around in during the hot Philadelphia summers, but now that she actually had one in her own backyard, she’d taught herself to loathe it by doing too many laps for exercise.
Megan was taking care of the baby, and Luke was busy grilling, so that left me, Michael, and Aaron up for a swim.
The pool and hot tub were on the other side of the backyard, on a lower level overlooking the canyon and separated from the rest of the house by a rose garden and an iron fence. We walked back there together, then separated at the pool house, which was divided into four small chambers: three changing rooms, each lined with a mirror and a chest of drawers, and a bathroom with a shower. The changing rooms were stocked with towels, sunscreen, pool toys . . . even swimsuits, in case a guest had forgotten to bring one. Lorena checked once in a while to see if anything needed to be replaced.
It took me about three seconds to pull off my cover-up, toss it on top of the chest of drawers, put my hair in a bun, and grab a towel. Back outside, I dropped my towel onto a chaise longue and then sat down at the edge of the pool and waited for Michael and Aaron to emerge.
We kept the pool at eighty-five degrees, which today felt almost too warm. I dangled my feet in it and leaned back on the palms of my hands, keeping an arch in my back and neck—it was the most flattering way to sit wearing a bikini, and I wanted to look good when Aaron appeared. Which he soon did, since all he had to do was take off his shirt and flip-flops.
He dropped down into a sitting position next to me. “How’s the water?”
“Nice.”
He put his feet in. “Ahh. It’s been way too long.”
“When was the last time you swam in a pool?”
“About an hour ago. Right before we left to come here.”
His father emerged, looking lean and toned in his bathing suit, and dove right in the deep end, then emerged in a crawl, which he continued down the length of the pool.
Aaron stood up. “Are you a jump-right-in kind of person or a slowly-get-acclimated kind of person?”
I clambered up. “Slowly get acclimated. Or not get acclimated at all and stay dry in the sun.”
“In that case, let me help you.” He caught me around my waist and spun me out toward the pool. “Ready?”
I nodded, so he gave me a gentle shove and I let myself tumble in. He jumped in right after and I scolded him for splashing me inadvertently, and then when he apologized, I splashed him right in the face.
He mock snarled and whipped his head back to get the wet hair out of his eyes and dove under the water. I turned, trying to see where he was going, and felt him touch the back of my leg. I turned again, in that direction, just as he surfaced on the other side and flicked a palmful of water right at me.
We fooled around like that for a while, splashing and laughing and sinking down and springing up until we were out of breath. Then we swam over to the edge of the pool, where we clung on, slowly cycling our legs in the water, while we talked about stuff like movies and restaurants, and Michael steadily did laps behind us—another adult who saw the pool as exercise, not fun.