Page 28 of Malibu Rising

With every move Mick made, as he held her, as he kissed her,June lost sight of the exact moment to speak up and then resigned herself to the pain of having never spoken up at all.

And soon, on the horizon appeared a resolution—one that even June started to welcome if for no other reason than needing the return of normalcy, even if it was a lie.

At midnight the following night, Mick whispered sweet nothings into June’s ear. June, despite herself, relished the feeling of his breath on her neck. And the two of them talked it through, in the hurried and hushed tones reserved for secrets.

Mick would be forever faithful and they would raise Hud as one of theirs. They would intimate that Jay and Hud were twins. No one would dare question it. After all, they were about to enter another social stratum with Mick’s second album. They would have new friends, new peers. They would be, now, a family of five.

June felt, that night, as if she and Mick were mending their own broken bones together. Laying the cast perfectly in the hope that one day she would not even remember she had been broken.

• • •

And the crazy thing was that it worked.

June loved her children, loved her older girl and her twin boys. She loved her house on the water and watching her kids play on the shore. She loved people stopping her at the market, two infants and a toddler in the cart, saying, “Aren’t you Mick Riva’s wife?”

She liked the money and the Cadillac and the minks. She liked leaving the kids with her mother and putting on one of her smartest cocktail dresses and standing backstage for some of Mick’s shows.

She liked hearing “Warm June” on the radio and having Mick’s attention when he was home. He always did make her feel like the only woman in the world, even when she knew—knew for certain now—that she wasn’t.

So, despite the ulcer she was growing, June had to admit, she could stomach it all more easily than she thought. Vodka helped.

Unfortunately, Mick simply couldn’t stop himself.

There was Ruby, whom he met on the Sunset lot. And then there was Joy, a friend of Ruby’s. They meant nothing to him and so he saw no real betrayal.

But then, Veronica.And oh my God,Veronica.

Black hair, olive skin, green eyes, a body that set the standard for hourglasses. He’d fallen again, despite every attempt to keep his heart out of it. He fell for her crimson smile and the way she liked to make love in the open air. He fell for her slinky dresses and her sharp wit, for the way she refused to be intimidated by him, the way she made fun of him. He fell for just how famous she was getting, maybe more famous than him, when she starred in a hit domestic thriller calledThe Porch Swing.Her name was above the marquee in big bold letters and yet still, in the quiet of the night, it was his name she called out.

He could not get enough of Veronica Lowe.

And June knew exactly what was happening.

When Mick didn’t come home until four in the morning, when Mick had a tiny trace of lipstick behind his ear, when Mick stopped kissing her good morning.

Mick started having dinner with Veronica in public places. Sometimes, he stopped coming home altogether.

June had her hair done. She lost weight. She humbled herself to the level of asking her girlfriends for sex tips. She made his favorite roast beef. In the rare moments she held his attention, she tried to subtly remind him of the duty he had to his children.

And still, he could not be torn away.

Mick told himself he was nothing like his own father. His own father who would come home smelling like other women’s perfume, his own father who would leave for weeks at a time, his own father who would smack his mother for asking too many questions.

He told himself he’d done right by marrying June, a woman nothing like his own mother, who would smack his father back. But hewas lost in Veronica’s hair, the way it smelled like vanilla. He was lost in her laugh. He was lost in her legs. He was lost.

And then one night, when the boys were ten and eleven months old, Mick came home at four in the morning.

He was drunk but he was unconfused. He bumped into his nightstand pulling out his passport. The lamp crashed onto the floor.

June woke up and saw him there, hair flopping in front of his face, eyes bloodshot, jacket draped over his arm. There was a suitcase in his hand.

“What’s going on?” she said. But she already knew. She knew the way people know they’re about to be robbed, which is to say acutely, right at the last second.

“I’m taking Veronica to Paris,” he said, before he turned and left for the door.

June chased him to the driveway in her sheer nightgown. “You can’t do this!” she screamed. “You said you wouldn’t do this!” She mortified herself, begging for something she never wanted to beg for.

“I can’t be this person!” Mick yelled at her. “Some family man or whatever it is that you thought I was. I’m not! I’ve tried, all right? And I can’t do it!”

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