Hand-Me-Down

And to top it off, there was only enough hot water for one shower. Judging from the steam billowing through the bathroom door, I was in for a cold shock.

I stumbled out of bed and parted the curtains. Another day in paradise—warm and clear, with a light breeze that floated in and kissed me good morning. It made me crankier. Weather should match your mood. This morning, for instance, should be dark and gloomy.

“Morning!” Rip called.

I turned, and he was in the bathroom doorway with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair was wet and mussed, his skin wet and glowing. He didn’t just look like the same guy this morning, he looked better.

“Muh,” I said.

He smiled. “Coffee’s going.”

“Guh,” I said, meaning good. I’d take a man who made coffee over strong-and-silent any day. Still, I stayed by the window. If I was properly backlit, he wouldn’t notice my sleep-puffed face.

“Six months,” he said. “I know what you look like in the morning.”

I finally managed to croak out a real word. “Godzilla.”

“More like Cameron.”

“Cameron?” As in Diaz? Maybe not entirely true, but if that’s how he wanted to see me—

“No. Gamera. Remember the Godzilla movie? Gamera’s the big puffy turtle he fights.”

Forget the lighting, I shot across the room and ripped his towel from him. He raced, laughing, to the safety of the bed before I could whip him with it. I fell in next to him and started smacking his bare skin. He caught my hands and kissed me. “You’re beautiful in the morning.”

I stopped struggling and pressed my face against his chest. My mood was beginning to match the sunshine.

He absently ran his fingers along my back. “What time is Charlotte’s thing tonight?”

Charlotte’s birthday party. Dark clouds gathered—I didn’t want to talk about it. “You used all the hot water.”

“Uh-huh. What time is it?”

I checked the clock. “Almost seven.”

“I mean Charlotte’s party,” he said.

I stood and shrugged into my robe. “Six or something. I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Anne.” He grabbed me by the sash. “What’s wrong?”

“You sleep over, and you—you use all the hot water, and there’s none left for me and I’m—what am I supposed to do? You never think. What about me? I’m stuck with a cold shower, that’s what.”

He mumbled something that sounded like, “You need a cold shower.”

“Oh, I’m not the one who needs a cold shower!” I tightened my robe in a meaningful manner.

Rip pulled his boxers and pants on. He reached for his shirt and I considered slamming the bathroom door, but decided against it. I put my head on his shoulder instead.

“I hate Charlotte’s birthday,” I sniffled.

“We don’t have to go,” he said.

Of course we did. “So now you don’t want to go?”

“Baby…”

“It’s just—she’s all perfect, and her kids are perfect and her husband’s perfect and her life is perfect, and everyone loves her.”

“And nobody loves you,” he said, straight-faced.

“They don’t. Not like—”

I realized where this conversation was going and sobered fast, suddenly terrified he’d think I wanted him to say he loved me. We’d never said “I love you,” and I saw no reason to start now. Especially not if he thought this was a desperate bid for commitment, when it was clearly just a desperate bid for attention.

“I mean she’s, um, loved by one and all,” I said, flailing around for dry ground and sinking deeper. “And I, on the other hand, am, um…”

“Anne,” he said. “I—”

Was he going to say it? I willed him to say anything else: to tell me he was secretly married, or a post-operative transsexual, or moving to Arkansas. I tilted my head back to reveal the full horror of my morning face. No man could say “I love you” to that face.

He must’ve seen the naked terror in my eyes, because he smoothed my hair with his hand instead of finishing the sentence.

“I still haven’t got Charlotte a gift,” I blurted, to change the subject.

He smiled to tell me he knew what I was doing, but didn’t mind. “Take the morning off to shop.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“But that’s favoritism,” I said.

“So? You’re my favorite.”

Couldn’t argue with that. “Are we talking a paid morning off?”

He managed to sigh and smile at the same time. “Just be in before noon.”

“Don’t worry. Everything’s all caught up.”

“No more personal calls?”

“That was serious business,” I said, with dignity. “We’ll see who’s laughing when I get the retirement village built.”

“Uh-huh.” He grabbed his wallet and extracted two twenties. “Speaking of business…”

“Forty bucks?” I shrugged out of my bathrobe and pressed my naked self against him. “You know I’ve raised my prices.”

“That’s not all you’ve raised, Polliwog.” He called me that sometimes—his special love name for me, for reasons I refuse to divulge. He nuzzled my neck and put the money on my dresser. “Let me buy a gift with you. You know what Charlotte likes.”

I decided not to tell him I was already splitting a gift with Emily and that going three ways wouldn’t work, Emily being Emily. “I know what she likes,” I said. “And she has all of it.”

“Yeah?” he said, touching me. “Well, I wouldn’t mind a little something, myself.”

Rip left for work thirty minutes later, leaving me drowsing in post-coital contentment. I lay there a while, then went to open the kitchen door and release Ny. He followed me back to the bedroom, his claws clicking across the wood floor. I collapsed into bed and he eyed me dolefully.

“Don’t blame me,” I told him.

He stares when I have sex, intent and focused as a canine Kasparov trying to outthink Big Blue. I don’t mind—he’s just a dog, for God’s sake—but men seem to find it unnerving. I think they think he’s judging. Of course, Ny’s hardly in a position to judge, as the only action he gets is with the has-sock in Charlotte’s family room, but I still lock him in the kitchen when things heat up.

“It’s your own fault,” I said. “Pervert.”

He hopped onto the bed and licked my face.

The day was still bright and warm, and the next time I got out of bed, I smiled. No reason to live in paradise and not enjoy it. I had the morning off and plenty of time to walk Ny before shopping for Charlotte—for both the gifts I was splitting.

I showered and dressed and gulped two stale cups of the coffee Rip had brewed. He’d put the dinner dishes away, too, and probably would’ve made my bed if I hadn’t still been in it. He’s sort of terrific. But six months was scary—had it really been six months? We were closing in on my record.

“I dunno, fatboy,” I told Ny. “Maybe me and Rip are meant for each other. What do you say?”

Ny eyed me for a long moment, then farted. He craned his neck around, peering dubiously towards his tail, like, what was that?

“That was you,” I said. “Thanks for your input.”

We got in the truck and drove through the upper village in Montecito. We passed the Pharmacy, and I considered stopping for some scrambled eggs—it’s not just a pharmacy, it’s also a celebrity-magnet coffee shop. The story goes that one morning Michael Keaton looked up from his paper at the corner table, and caught Dennis Miller’s eye—he was at the counter—and the bell at the door jangled and in walks Michael Douglas. They all looked at each other and started laughing. They were the only three people in the store.

But if that’s true, who told the story? If celebrities meet in a forest, do they make a sound? Plus, there must’ve been someone working behind the counter. I guess he doesn’t count. Nothing like celebrity to render the non-famous invisible.

Ask me, I know.

So I didn’t stop. I drove up to Cypress Road and parked by the wooden fence. Beyond the fence, there’s a patch of woods and hill known only to dog-walkers, set behind and above the houses. It’s an unofficial off-leash trail, a one-mile loop. At the top there’s a view of the ocean, and although it’s a bit of a climb, the property is stunning. It would be a phenomenal place to build a house—or a whole neighborhood—and I figured the only reason it hadn’t been developed was because it was the forgotten edge of someone’s sprawling estate, or county land of some sort.

I opened the door and Ny leapt from the truck and anointed the wooden fence and the manzanita tree beyond. There was a rocky gully to the right, with olive-green live oaks, a few blooming yucca, and a halfhearted blanket of magenta ice plant.

Ny startled a scrub jay, and barked happily as it flew away. An answering bark sounded from up the trail, and he cocked his head for a moment before bolting out of sight.

I followed the path around the hill and saw him playing with a yellow Lab named Tag. I knew the dog—and her owner. But I didn’t know Tag’s owner’s name, even though we met at least once a week and knew intimate details of each other’s dog’s lives. He was a middle-aged man with a long, patrician face who always seemed slightly surprised.

“Mornin’,” I said.

He glanced at the sky. “Beautiful day.”

“Sure is.”

We watched the dogs play for a minute. “Did you see the sign?” he asked.

“What sign?”

“Down at the bottom. For Sale. They’re selling the land.”

“This? Here? They can’t be!”

“Already on the market.” He seemed to take gloomy satisfaction in the bad news. “Lot for sale. Nine acres.”

“I didn’t even know it was private property.”

“A shame to see it go.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s what the sign said. Villa Real Estate.”

I knew the name—a Montecito-based company we hadn’t worked with much. They were a small office, just a broker and two agents, who mostly did commercial stuff.

I glowered. There weren’t many places in Santa Barbara for off-leash dogs. It was a pretty anti-dog town, which made me gnash my teeth. I mean, all the Santa Barbara dog owners I knew were religious about poop-scooping. There were even two guys who went around with extra bags to pick up strange dog-poop, which I believe in many countries is illegal.

“There’s always Butterfly Beach,” he said sadly.

“Not at high tide.”

Tag and her owner said goodbye, and Ny and I continued through the purple and white wildflowers lining the trail. The colors were often muted from dust, but it rained last night, leaving the world fresh and clean. At the top of the trail was a messy meadow with wild lavender and a riot of California poppies, and it was vibrant this morning. A hawk was circling above and bees were busily feeding, and Ny was adorable romping among the flowers and tall grass. I loved spring in Santa Barbara—way better than summer. I walked to the edge of a small overhang. The ocean sparkled in the distance, like it was winking at me.

Ny flopped at my feet, his spotted tongue hanging three feet from his mouth, like a cartoon wolf ogling a woman. I said, “Cool down, sailor,” and fed him some water and caught myself gibbering baby-talk at him. I glanced furtively toward the meadow, but I was alone. Thank God. Nothing’s more embarrassing than being overheard declaring your undying love to your dog. And was it normal that the only males to whom I’ve ever said “I love you” were my father and my dog?

Was it normal that I could neither commit to a man or a career?

I used to think I was missing the ambition gene, but actually it’s the success gene. Specifically the “fame and fortune at a young age” gene which my sisters got in such abundance. One famous for her beauty, the other for her brains. I wasn’t as beautiful as Charlotte or as clever as Emily—though I was prettier than Emily and smarter than Charlotte. So what was left for me—to be famous for my spirituality? Sports? My personality?

Great. My idea of spirituality is a chocolate éclair, my only sport is dog-walking, and my personality is composed of one part sibling rivalry and two parts vague dissatisfaction.

Ny barked and startled me from my self-indulgent gloominess. I was standing on a California mountain overlooking the ocean on a beautiful morning. I had a good man, a steady job and a loving family. It was time to stop whining about Charlotte and Emily.

Well, except I had to pick up Charlotte’s gifts and be back to work by noon. Maybe I’d stop whining tomorrow.

CHAPTER 07

Tazza Antiques, scourge of all things new and improved, was located in El Paseo, a slightly old-world marketplace downtown. Traditional Spanish architecture and winding adobe hallways led to quaint gift shops and jewelry stores. It was old-world meets tourist trap. There were a few good restaurants, though—the always-delicious Wine Cask, the cheesy-but-fun Mexican restaurant—and a couple gift stores worth the visit, plus a scattering of offices on the second floor. Natives rarely entered the place, but Emily and Charlotte had stopped at the Wine Cask to buy a few bottles of wine, and had window-shopped the antiques store as they passed.

Tazza was my worst nightmare. Well, actually a thrift store was my greatest horror. I’d spent a decade and a half trapped in “vintage clothing,” so the last thing I wanted was to see it displayed on a rack, advertised as if it were a good thing. Antiques were supposed to be better than Goodwill left-overs—valuable, chic, possibly elegant—but when you got right down to it, they were just thrift-store gunge from a previous era. Maybe there were no recent stains and fluids, but that’s about all you could say.

Still, I mustered my familial loyalty, took a deep breath, and pushed my way inside.

The shop was cool, with stone floors, pale peach walls and a wide wooden staircase leading to a loft. A bell over the door jingled pleasantly, and despite the invisible clouds of noxious old, the shop smelled clean, of lemon and lavender. There were flowers in a pretty blue-and-white vase on a rich mahogany hall table which I pretended was new and perfectly hygienic. There was a set of Asian-looking chairs and a glass-front cupboard with jugs and spoons and things, and a couple rugs on the floor that were fairly gorgeous—just so long as you didn’t start wondering how many generations of sweaty feet had tread upon them.

I stood awkwardly, afraid to venture too far into the sheer agedness of the place. “Hello?”

Movement in the loft. “Be with you in a second,” a man’s voice floated down. “Feel free to poke around.”

The last thing I wanted was to poke. But hovering in the doorway wasn’t polite, so I crept inside. I’d come straight from the walk with Ny, and was fairly repulsive and sweaty. I was wearing a gray T-shirt, black shorts, and last-gasp sneakers which were shedding mud from the wet trail onto the expensive aged rugs.

I was scuffing at the dirt, trying to conceal it among the ornate blue and gold pattern of one of the rugs, when the man cleared his throat on the stairs behind me.

I swiveled. My sweaty hair spun. My shoes flaked. I said, “Hi.”

He was familiar but I couldn’t place him. His hair was dirty-blond, his eyes dirty-blue—and they held a glint of mischief. He stood on the stairs, hand on the railing, looking self-confident and regal—the master of this ancient decrepit domain. He wore gray flannel trousers and a soft blue dress shirt, a thick cotton oxford that looked like it had been worn and washed into perfect comfort. He looked hot. I looked overripe. If I’d been between boyfriends, I would have felt self-conscious. Good thing I had Rip.

“See anything you like?” he asked, walking down the stairs toward me.

Oh, yeah. One thing I wouldn’t mind taking home. “I, um—my sister saw an old pot—I mean, an old box. A lacquer box—”

He smiled at my words, and I realized who he was. Ian.

Oh, my God. Not in my loose gray tee and baggy soccer shorts. I crammed my hair behind my ears in a desperate attempt to tidy myself, and toed the ground. Knocking more mud to the floor, of course.

“Anne Olsen!” he said. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in years.”

“Oh, um—years,” I said, thinking: don’t invite him anywhere, don’t invite him anywhere.

Ian hugged me, manfully unafraid of my pig-sweatiness. “You look great,” he said, fudging the facts.

“Oh, um,” I said. He smelled good, too.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Of course I do.” What I didn’t know—after all this time—was why he’d rejected me when I’d propositioned him eight years ago. I may not be Charlotte, but I’m not repulsive. And he was a man—he wasn’t supposed to have standards. Especially not so high that I didn’t meet them. “How are you?”

“You don’t,” he said. “You have no idea who I am.”

“I know exactly who you are.”

“What’s my name, then?”

He looked so pleased with my faulty memory that I couldn’t help saying, “Does it start with a D?”

“Sort of,” he said. “I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

“Oh, c’mon. How could I forget?” I smiled vaguely. “We had such…great times together.”

“Sure did,” he said, growing thoughtful. “Remember that time we went skinny-dipping at the reservoir?”

“When we what?”

“What a crazy summer that was.”

We had never gone skinny-dipping, and he knew it. I tilted my head and said, “How could I forget?”

He nodded, eyes twinkling dangerously. “We’d been downtown for Fiesta, dancing to one of the bands. Back when the lambada was big, remember?” He curled his hands around an imaginary dance partner and rocked his hips—his leg between her imaginary thighs, his hand on her imaginary waist. “Dancing until dark. Midnight in August, one of those hot, steamy nights…”

I steadied myself against a worm-eaten coatrack.

“That’s right,” he said. “The full moon and the clear sky. We were hanging out on the hood of my car, edge of the water, and you suddenly said, ‘That’s it! I’m going in.’”

Well, two can play that game. I smiled wistfully, as if remembering. “We were high on Tecate and churro sugar. All sweaty from dancing. The air was sticky and warm and I needed to cool down.”

“You took off your shirt….”

“I never! I mean, I never take my top off first. Bottoms up, for me. I took off my skirt, then my panties—”

His eyebrow twitched at panties. Men. “That’s right,” he said. “Bottoms up.”

“Then you started stripping down….” Because I refused to be the only imaginary naked person in the game.

“Top down,” he said. “Unbuttoned my shirt and tossed it on the hood. Then my jeans and underwear.”

“Boxer briefs,” I said, in a reverie. “You remember how I prefer boxer briefs.”

“The breeze picked up and we walked toward the water and—”

The bell jingled and a middle-aged woman with her teenage daughter entered. Ian and I sprang apart—I was surprised to discover that I didn’t need to straighten my clothes or search for an errant bra. I halfheartedly smoothed my T-shirt anyway and remembered I looked like shit. Hair in ponytail, no makeup, and soccer shorts. Is there anything designed to make a woman’s ass look bigger than a pair of soccer shorts? Yeah: an inner tube.

I resolved to keep my front to Ian. Not that I cared. And I mean, who has this kind of conversation with a relative stranger? I hadn’t seen the guy in eight years. I couldn’t even blame it on alcohol. Must be Wren’s influence, awkward flirting. Except it hadn’t felt awkward…

“Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with,” Ian said, looking at the customers but definitely talking to me.

The woman said she was looking for creamwear pitchers. Ian murmured something about Wedgwood Queen’s Ware, and escorted the woman to a rubbish heap in the corner. I didn’t tell the poor woman that there was a Macy’s down the block, if she was looking for a pitcher.

The teenage daughter and I rolled our eyes at each other, and I looked around for the lacquer pot Emily said Charlotte liked. There were a lot of pots. None were new. Beyond that, I had no idea.

I glanced at Ian. He’d grown. I mean, he wasn’t taller or anything, but he’d grown—he was a man. Nothing boyish about him, except for the glint in his eye. And his voice, talking about skinny-dipping. God, that was embarrassing. How could I have let this happen? With Ian! He was undoubtedly still in love with Charlotte, too. He was just…used goods. Definitely incestuous. Disgusting. I can’t believe I—Okay, calm down. It was only words. No fluids were exchanged.

Still. Can’t believe I had virtual fake memory sex with my sister’s ex-boyfriend.

Evidently the woman found what she was looking for, because Ian quickly rang up the sale and came back to me.

“Still don’t remember me?” he asked.

“You’re starting to ring a distant bell,” I said.

“I’ll give you a hint. You asked me to your school—”

“I know who you are, Ian! Last I heard, you’d moved to New York.”

“Small-town boy lost in the big city. And did you know—” he tried to look horrified “—they have no beach there?”

“Get out!”

“Yeah, and all their malls are inside. It’s no Santa Barbara, I’ll tell you that.”

“But it’s the place to be if you want to learn—” I waved a hand at the moldering goods he had on display “—all this?”

“Took a couple years, but I finally wandered into Sotheby’s training. What’ve you been up to? What has it been—six years?”

“Eight,” I said, then was sorry I’d let him know I’d been counting. “This and that.”

“Married?” he asked.

“Divorced.”

He eyed me. “Liar.”

“Well, I could’ve married. I had offers. How did you know?” He was probably still following Charlotte’s career, like a cyber-stalker or something. Probably knew her birthstone and exactly how many centimeters she dilated when she had her kids.

“You’re not the marrying type,” he said.

“I am too. I just never—”

“Met the right man?”

“Found the right dress. How about you?”

“I don’t wear dresses.”

“So not married?”

“Nope. I’m engaged, though.”

“Engaged? Now? Currently?”

He nodded. “All of the above.”

“You can’t be flirting like that when you’re engaged! Where is she? Who is she? What are you thinking? Skinny-dipping at the reservoir. You oughta be ashamed, flirting like that.”

He laughed. “It’s harmless. I dated your sister, so we’re like siblings.”

That stopped me. “Yuck.”

“Well, I wouldn’t flirt with my actual sister, Anne.”

“Uh-huh. Anyway, Charlotte’s why I’m here. I’m supposed to buy some old pot for her birthday.”

“Some old pot?”

“Yeah, and if I don’t get it Emily will kill me.”

“So Emily hasn’t changed?”

“No, she’s mellowed. These days, she’d kill me painlessly.”

“We can’t have that. When’s Charlotte’s birthday? Wait, I should know this—must be this weekend.”

I nodded. He still knew her birthday. Pathetic.

“How is she?”

“Good. Three kids. Happily married.” I looked at him. “Very happily.”

“Mmm. Pity I missed her. She came into the store? My assistant must’ve been here—I’m surprised she didn’t mention seeing Charlotte Olsen.”

“Maybe she was wearing a scarf and sunglasses. It’s some kind of lacquer pot. Asian or something.”

“The Japanese Three Friends teapot?” He moved toward a display of Zen-looking kitchenware in a bright nook under the stairs. “The bamboo, pine, and plum design represents the Confucian virtue of integrity under—”

“No, no,” I said. “Not a teapot. No virtues. It’s a box, I think.”

“Oh! The lacquerware cosmetic box?” He moved the teapot aside. “An interesting piece. Made from bamboo which is coated with layers of lacquer—twenty-five, thirty layers. The lacquer’s a resin secreted by a plant at points of injuries—so they cut channels in the bark of the Rhus verniciflua, the sumac trees which…” He babbled on as he searched for the box—then suddenly stopped. “Oh, I forgot—it’s gone.”

“You sold it?!” I said. “I’m dead. I was supposed to come in two days ago.”