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Rachelle’s legs quivered beneath her. She tried to look nonchalant.
“I can see it written all over your face,” Eddie teased. “You’d freak.”
“I would not,” Rachelle shot back as her face quivered into a smile.
Eddie clucked his tongue. “That’s right. You’re one of those power-hungry girls, aren’t you? I forgot.”
That night around one, Rachelle got home to find Darcy still awake, wearing a face mask as she clicked through Netflix on their large-screen television. She sipped a glass of wine, nibbled on dark chocolate, and wore a soft, fuzzy robe.
“You look so comfortable!” Rachelle said with a laugh, dropping onto the couch beside her.
“Join me, Sis,” Darcy said, yawning. “I have plenty of face masks and wine to go around.”
Rachelle hurried to her room to change into pajamas. When she re-emerged, Darcy had one of their favorite films playing, Four Weddings and a Funeral. They loved to imitate the English accents and fall in love over and over again with a young Hugh Grant. They could quote nearly every line.
“I have some news!” Rachelle said as she broke a piece of chocolate from Darcy’s bar.
“All right. Out with it!” Darcy cried in an English accent.
Rachelle cackled. “Chef Matthew is leaving!”
Darcy’s jaw dropped. “Does that mean…?”
“That I’ll be the new head chef?” Rachelle finished. “I sure think so!”
Darcy leaped to her feet. Rachelle followed her lead, and the two danced across the living room, bobbing around happily.
“You’re going to be head chef!” Darcy cried before flinging open the window and calling out to the darkness. “You hear that, everyone? My sister’s going to be head chef!”
Chapter Two
The bowl of oranges on the kitchen counter was for display only. Diana couldn’t remember the last time she’d casually picked up an orange, sat on the veranda, and peeled it for a luxurious snack. She couldn’t remember when someone hadn’t handed her a specific dietary menu, one meant to uphold her “sleek and television-friendly” figure, and told her, “You still have a few inches to lose, Diana. Remember to keep your eye on the prize.”
Who ate the oranges, Diana wondered now. She hoped the maid slipped them in her bag, muttering how “ungrateful” Diana and Ryan were. She hoped the maid and her children ate them on a beach somewhere with their faces lifted toward the sun.
It was morning in late March. In Santa Monica, California, that meant seventy-eight-degree weather, tanned and muscular couples darting across the beach outside, and a gorgeous, eggshell-blue sky above. There wasn’t a puffy cloud to be seen. Diana filled her mouth with coffee that had gone cold without her noticing. How long had she been in the kitchen, daydreaming? How long had she been strategizing her defeat?
She could still hear Ryan’s voice drifting in and out from upstairs.
“I don’t think I can just tell my wife she’s contractually obligated to be on a show she called ‘the bane of her existence’ just a few hours ago,” Ryan said. “I don’t think anyone in America needs to see what kind of ‘movie magic’ is created after that.”
Diana poured her coffee into the sink and wrapped her arms around her body. She realized she was shaking, which frightened her because she wasn’t sure how long it had been going on. Had she lost all connection to her body?
There was a creak on the staircase. Bleary-eyed, Diana fled the kitchen, too frightened to face Ryan again. All night and into the morning, they’d screamed at one another—saying everything they’d been too scared or unwilling to say for the better part of ten years. It was hard to remember when the marriage had officially begun to disintegrate. It felt as though she’d shoved their problems under the bed for so long that she’d accidentally grown a monster.
Diana was on the sun-drenched veranda, watching the Pacific Ocean crawl toward her and recede. The ocean always seemed on the brink of taking hold of them, washing over them, and making them into nothing. For whatever reason, it always stayed in place.
The door burst open to reveal Ryan. He was sleep-deprived, as was she, and enormous bags were noticeable under his eyes. His hair was scraggly, and he waved his phone around manically as though he was trying to put a spell on her.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he bellowed.
Diana walked backward, away from him, with her hands raised in front of her. Didn’t she know exactly what she was doing? Wasn’t she finally doing what she knew was right?
“I mean, come on, Diana,” Ryan said, his voice cracking. “Don’t you remember all we’ve built together? Don’t you remember how hard we’ve worked?” He put his phone on the veranda's railing and reached for her. But Diana slipped out of his grasp.
Ryan slapped his thighs. “So that’s it, then? You’re just going to go?”
Diana clenched her jaw so tightly that she gave herself an immediate headache.
