Page 93 of Malibu Rising

Maybe she didn’t belong here. Maybe she didn’t belong anywhere, wouldn’t belong anywhere. Ever again.

Nina walked back into the house trying to pretend she had not just suffered the indignity of her husband’s mistress on her front lawn. And then she went right through the kitchen, opened up the pantry door, and walked in.

There, among the bags of rice and the cans of tomato sauce, Nina closed her eyes and settled herself. While the pantry door hummed with the sounds of the Eurythmics and the noise of people talking and laughing still penetrated the space, it was quiet enough to find stillness. Nina rested her famous ass on a stack of paper towel rolls and pulled her shoulder blades in toward each other, fixing her posture, releasing some of the tension from her back.

For fuck’s sake.Her husband had returned, his mistress had shown up, she might have a long-lost sister, and her brother was sleeping with her other brother’s ex-girlfriend. She just wanted the night to be over.

The pantry door opened, showering Nina with light and sound. She looked up to see Tarine standing in front of her with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“Hi, doll,” Tarine said as she slipped in and shut the door behind her. She pulled on the cord hanging above their heads. The light went on.

“Brandon is upstairs, packing up your things,” Tarine said. “He is drunk, obviously. And he thinks he is kicking you out of the house.”

Nina laughed. She had no choice but to find it funny.

Tarine sat down next to Nina and grabbed a corkscrew from her jacket pocket. She started opening up the bottle of sauvignon blanc. Once the cork was popped, she poured some wine into a glass and handed it to Nina, then poured one for herself.

“Someone took the rest of the Opus One,” Tarine said. “These people are animals. I got us a white this time.”

Nina took it but didn’t drink out of it yet.

“Drink up,” Tarine said as she took a sip of her own. “We are celebrating your Declaration of Independence.”

Nina looked at Tarine and a small smile crept out of the corner of her mouth. She took a sip. And then she drank some more.Good God,she could drink the whole bottle right now.

“I didn’t expect him to come back,” Nina said.

“I know.”

“Once he left … I don’t know, our relationship felt over for me. I was mourning it.”

“Rightfully so.”

“And I’ve been really sad,” Nina added. “That I … that I meant so little to someone who had made me believe I meant so much.”

Tarine grabbed Nina’s hand and squeezed it.

“But there was no part of me that wanted him back,” Nina said, finally looking Tarine in the eye.

Tarine smiled. “Good,” she said with a firm nod.

Nina lifted her wineglass to her lips again. She could smell the sweet astringency of the contents of the glass and she felt like she could get lost in it. And then she had this image, suddenly, of her mother on the couch in front of the television. Her blood ran cold.

Nina put the glass down. “When he showed up here tonight, do you know what I thought?” she said.

“What?”

“I went,Oh fuck, now we have to do this whole song and dance?”

Tarine smiled. “But you do not.”

“No,” Nina said. “I don’t, do I?”

She didn’t have to do any of this. The victimization, the acceptance of bullshit, the leaving your heart in the hands of an asshole yet again. She could just decide not to.

Nina smiled. She had to sit with that one for a moment. It was almost too good to be true.

Jay dropped the photos back into the glove box and tried to pretend that he hadn’t seen them. That it hadn’t happened. That it wasn’t true. That his brother wouldn’tdo that.

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