Page 83 of Malibu Rising

Nina shook her head. “Everyone’s invited. Sounds like you might even belong here.”

Casey gave a downcast smile. And Nina did, too. And their smiles were completely different, nothing alike.

“My mother died, too,” Nina said. “She was the only parent I had.Wehad. So I … I’m sorry. No one should have to go through that. What you went through.”

Casey looked at Nina and felt like she wanted to melt into her arms. Maybe this had been all she wanted. Just someone who understood, someone to tell her she didn’t have to pretend to be OK.

Nina reached out and took Casey’s hand for just a moment. She squeezed it and then let it go.

And then the two of them—somewhere between strangers and kin—watched the party in silence from the second-floor window.

Midnight

Mick Riva was standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom straightening his tie.

He looked good for fifty and he knew it. His once jet-black hair was now more salt than pepper. His once smooth face now creased at his forehead, eyes, and mouth. His good looks had not faded but instead had grown roots.

He was wearing a black suit and thin black tie—the look he had been known for for decades, the look he had perfected.

Beside him, on his vanity table, was the demo of three songs he’d recorded for his new album. All of them had been softly rejected by his record company. They’d sent a mostly sycophantic note that included the veryunsycophantic kicker “We worry these tracks are too ‘classic Mick Riva.’ But what excites us is looking forward: Who is the Mick Riva of the 1980s?”

Just looking at the thing made him mad. How had it come to pass that someone like him—a luminary—was expected to listen to the musings of a twenty-something A & R guy with pierced ears and a preoccupation with synthesizers?

Angie would have fought back and made them release thetracks—and any others he decided to record. But unfortunately, they were no longer together.

Angie, as both his manager and his sixth wife, had always understood that Mick just needed to be allowed to do his thing and the world would come running. It had been working for the past thirty years. Angie always got that.

He wished he could go back in time and warn himself not to cheat on her, or not to let her find out, or maybe, perhaps, not to fall for her back in 1978, when she was just the young new redhead in his manager’s office. Because now he was not quite sure who was supposed to fight his battles for him.

When you fall in love with your manager’s assistant, fire your manager, promote his gorgeous assistant, marry her, and then divorce her, you’re left with no wife or manager.

Which is how Mick got to be fifty years old and living alone with his butler, Sullivan. Just him and Sully in this white-brick and ivy mansion that Angie had picked out and decorated. She had loved the oversized eat-in kitchen. Now Mick refused to let Sully make him dinner because he didn’t want to feel pathetic sitting at the table all by himself. It was a table for six.

The other day he’d had the thought that it would be nice to have a big family, have all of his kids come over for Sunday dinner. They could fill the place up, make it feel alive in there again. He thought about calling them. Nina, Jay, Hud, and Katherine.

They were young adults now. He could understand them, maybe offer them advice, or be useful to them all. Maybe they would like that, too.

He had been considering picking up the phone.

But then he had received a handwritten letter in the mail.

• • •

Despite the fact that there were no invitations for the Riva party, Kit did actually send one invitation every year.

Sometime in mid-August, she would take a piece of notebook paper and write down the date and the time and the address. And then she would write, “You are cordially invited to the Riva party.”

And she would address it to her father.

Mick Riva

380 N Carolwood Drive

Los Angeles, California 90077

After decades on the road, he had settled down in a home in Holmby Hills, less than thirty miles from his children. Five years ago, Kit had tracked him down. And since then, every single year, she addressed that envelope the exact same way.

This year was the first year he’d noticed.

---