Page 14
I miss her.
This is the first big thing that has happened to me in my adult life I cannot discuss face to face with my cousin, and it hurts. Elsie and I have shared every stupid thing since we were little, lying or sitting beside each other. Every crush, every first kiss, every disappointing boyfriend, every argument with our parents, every job interview.
Growing up, our houses were only two streets apart so we saw each other at school and after. Our dads are brothers who spent every weekend together. Elsie is truly like a sister to me. Sharing an apartment after our parents moved back to Michigan to be closer to our aging grandparents, drew us even closer.
I let the dough rest. Cover it with a warm cloth. Wash my hands. Look at the clock above the sink.
Half past three.
The sky above LA is still the dark end of night, but I know from two years of my body running on this schedule that gray is coming in about an hour, and gold about twenty minutes after that.
I bake the bread. Take my time with it because time is the one thing I do not have a shortage of tonight. I have cleaned and double cleaned everything I can. I have checked the supplies and the rotas of the two staff members who work one day a month to keep the grounds neat and take care of anything that might need servicing around the house.
Even though I work seven days a week, I have a lot of free time as it takes very little time to run Vincenzo’s household. The smell of freshly baked bread fills the small kitchen and I stand at the window and watch the rain end. By the time the loaf comes out of the oven the eastern edge of the sky is starting to turn gray.
I wrap some of the bread in a linen towel, grab my knitted throw, mug of coffee and e-reader. On the way out, I take the small chipped plate my mom sent me with a hand-painted apple on it, because eating still-warm bread while watching the sun come up on a plate that has my mother’s handwriting on the back, always makes me think of her.
I head to the loungers outside. They are my favorite things at the house.
They are wide teak things, tucked at the far corner of the pool, half-shaded by a lemon tree. They face east. I have watched the sun come up over the wall of the yard from the loungers nearly every morning since I moved in.
I settle into it. Wrap myself in the throw. Set the plate on the small side table. Break off a piece of the warm bread. Chew. Wait.
The rain has stopped. The sky above the wall is going from black to the dark gray that means the last hour of night. There are still stars, but only the strongest ones.
I let my head drop back against the teak and close my eyes.
I can do this, I tell myself. I can say yes to him and mean it. I can be a woman who takes something for herself for a change.
I’m just worried I might become addicted to the brand of pleasure the man who watched me come apart over a piece of furniture and then, patient as anything, straightened me up and told me to decide, will offer me.
I hear him before I see him. The other lounger creaks. He sits down on it.
I open my eyes and glance at him.
He is in dark gray sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt. His hair is a little rumpled and his feet are bare. And somehow, those nude feet make us being alone out here more intimate.
“You come out here every morning?”
“Most.”
“Why.”
“I like watching the day start. It feels like proof.”
“Of what?”
“That another one did.”
He holds my eyes for a second longer then looks back out at the sky.
I break off another piece of bread, hold it out to him.
His fingers brush mine when he takes it.
He eats it watching me instead of the sky.
“I used to watch the sunrise with my dad,” I blurt out, a little nervous about how he’s just lying there, as if he’d be happy spending hours just lying beside me. “He used to say it’s proof we have another day to spend with our family.”
