Page 77 of Malibu Rising

Nina felt a bit nauseated at the thought of having to explain. She wanted to make a joke. But Tarine was not someone you could brush off. Nina wondered, for a moment, how one became like that. What did it take? To say exactly what you meant? To feel comfortable in the middle of causing discomfort? To not feel—so intrinsically as tobe as vital to yourself as your blood—that it was your responsibility to make things smooth and pleasant for everyone?

Tarine looked at Nina more pointedly, waiting for Nina to explain herself. Nina shrugged and said, “I love him.”

Tarine turned and looked at her, furrowing her eyebrows, not buying it.

Nina rolled her eyes and tried a different answer, one closer to the truth. “It’s just easier this way,” she said.

“Easier?” Tarine asked.

“Yeah, just, like, not as complicated and … just easier.”

Tarine frowned and then pulled a bottle of Opus One. “I am taking this,” Tarine said. “All right?”

Nina nodded. Tarine shut the door and pulled Nina through the crowd of people to the kitchen counter. She ruffled through Nina’s knife drawer and cooking utensils until Nina found a wine opener.

A cocktail waitress came by offering wine on one tray and lines of coke on the other and Tarine waved her off. “I have what I need, thank you.”

Nina stared at the tray of coke as the cocktail waitress snaked her way farther through the kitchen. She wondered when, exactly, that had happened. People couldn’t just do coke off the coffee tables anymore?

Tarine turned the corkscrew and then pulled the cork out.

The people around them turned at the sound. Some of them watched for a moment too long, these two beautiful women standing next to each other. Both tall and tan and lean and sparkling. Then they all went on with the rest of their conversations.

Nina saw the girl in the purple dress again, standing alone near the chips. She’d noticed her earlier, coming in the door. Now, the girl met her eye, somewhat timidly. Nina got the distinct impression the girl wanted her attention, would have loved the opportunity to talk to her.

Increasingly, Nina was feeling like the party attracted people who wanted her to provide them a good story to tell. They wanted tobe able to say they met “the girl from the poster” or “the girl from the T-shirt ad” or “Mick Riva’s daughter” or “Jay Riva’s sister” or “Brandon Randall’s wife” or whatever other way they wanted to define her.

“Do you ever wish you could be invisible for five minutes?” Nina asked Tarine.

Tarine looked at her, considered her. “No,” she said. “That sounds like a nightmare.” Tarine poured herself a glass and suddenly, Kyle Manheim pulled up between the two of them.

“Hey, Nina,” he yelled over the music. “Great party.”

“Thanks,” Nina said.

“Can I get in on that?” Kyle called to Tarine as he held out his empty cup.

Tarine looked at Kyle, sizing him up, and then said, decisively, “Not going to happen.”

Kyle walked away and Tarine took a sip of her wine. She closed her eyes as she tasted it, as if everything else could wait. When she opened her eyes back up, she said to Nina, “Today has not been easy. I found wrinkles between my breasts.”

Nina laughed. “What are you even talking about?”

Tarine put her wineglass on the counter and surreptitiously pulled the top of her dress down. Nina had to admit she could see the faintest set of lines along her friend’s cleavage.

“I am getting old. The offers are going to start to dry up,” Tarine said.

“Oh, stop it,” Nina said. “You still have plenty of time.”

“Three more years, tops,” Tarine said, and Nina knew this was probably right. In the world they lived in, they had to make hay while the sun shined because once the sun set, it got very cold and dark indeed.

But part of Nina ached for that time, the time when people stopped looking, stopped caring. Part of her wished she could take her beauty and hand it over to someone else, someone who wanted it.

“Three years is still a long time,” Nina said.

“I am not sure I agree,” Tarine said.

“So is that why you’re with Greg?” Nina asked, quietly. “Some security?”

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