Page 30 of Find Me in California

“Benjamin Stromski, the kid next door.” She picks up his phone and nearly drops it when the screen lights up. She puts it back and rubs her fingertips as if the device made them tingle.

“What about Benjamin? Did he want to marry you?”

“I’d say so. He proposed. We were engaged almost three months.” Magnolia points out their exit, and he pulls off the highway. “Benjie’s a good guy. I do love him. But he isn’t exciting. That sounds terrible, I know, but I wanted more out of life than a picket fence, meat loaf on Sundays, and vanilla sex on Saturdays.”

“Don’t we all?” he scoffs.

“I flipped out the night before our wedding and went to this dive bar where nobody I knew would look for me. I met Sam, and we started doing shots. Keep going straight,” she tells him when they reach an intersection. She angles her body toward him, tucking one leg under the other. She traces circles on his thigh. “Sam was everything my parents didn’t want in a husband for me. They see sex, love, and marriage as a package deal. Not Sam. He’s all about free love and living life in the moment, and I feel exactly the same. Sam understood me. He didn’t judge. He accepted me as me. We fucked in his van. Best sex I’d ever had. The things he did with his tongue.” She displays some tongue acrobatics and laughs deeply at Matt’s mortification.

“Whoa. TMI.” Matt gently nudges her hand off his thigh, shifting uncomfortably in his jeans.

“Long story short, Sam crashed my wedding. He pulled up in his van, threw open the door, and I was out of there. Haven’t looked back since. Your turn.”

“My turn, what?”

“Your parents. What were they like?”

“Already told you. Don’t want to talk about them.” Especially not with a woman he just met. Come to think of it—this woman, theoverall strangeness of this situation ... He looks out the windows, not recognizing the landscape. “How much farther?” he asks.

“Almost there. Hey, I know this song.” Magnolia turns up the music, a Bob Dylan tune, and hums along.

It doesn’t take long for Matt to get caught up in the lyrics. His thumbs tap along to the beat.

CHAPTER 14

MAGNOLIABLU

July 6, 1972

Two weeks have gone by and I still haven’t met Liza’s husband, Matty, but Liza’s staff, Sally and Adam, already treat me like family. Liza and I have fallen into a comfortable friendship and routine. We meet on the patio for breakfast each morning and discuss the day’s projects, what section of the yard I’ll work on, what flowers to plant or bushes to trim. By 10:00 a.m., when I’m well into my day, Liza leaves to do whatever it is she does. Tennis at the club. A luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Or a meeting to plan a charity function.

Adam brings me lunch around noon, and I have a couple of hours of personal time before I cook dinner for myself in my studio. I visit the beach or go to the library. I walk the neighborhood and study the landscaping, collect ideas. My notebook is already bursting with sketches and plant lists. I imagine pairing rosebushes and hedges like pairing fine wine with cheese. I treasure these hours, as well as the quiet ones before bed. There isn’t anyone around to interrupt me or invade my personal space. No one to demand my time to ease their minds or needs. I can sit quietly, play my flute, and just be me.

But today was interesting. I was kneeling in the dirt, digging out a particularly aggressive ground cover that was choking a gardenia when a man I hadn’t seen before threw open the glass sliding door and stalked onto the patio in a rant. An amber liquid sloshed in his glass tumbler, and he shoveled the hair draping his forehead back over his head. His shirt was fully unbuttoned and wrinkled, his jeans low waisted, hanging on narrow hips, so that I could see the full expanse of his chest and abdomen. He was barefoot and intoxicated, but he was gorgeous. I couldn’t look away from him.

Liza followed him outside and dogged him around the patio, arguing about something. I wasn’t comfortable witnessing their fight, so I collected my tools and got up to leave.

“Who the fuck are you?” the man yelled.

I almost dropped the spade on my foot.

I started to explain that I was the new gardener and to just ignore me, but Liza beat me to it. Hand on her hip and looking utterly exasperated with him, she said, “Magnolia’s our new gardener. I told you about her.”

“You never told me anything.”

“I did. But you don’t listen to me.”

He glared at Liza. “I don’t want some stooge snooping around here.”

Liza rolled her eyes. “Magnolia wouldn’t dream of it.”

I told him that I didn’t hear what they’d been arguing about and that I was going to the shed to give them privacy.

“Just leave. I don’t want you here when I’m around.”

“She lives here, Matty.” Liza sent an apologetic look my way to soften the blow of his dismissal before doing a quick round of introductions. “Magnolia, this is Matty, my husband. Matty, say hi.”

“I didn’t agree to this.”

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