“I can’t believe it either!” I force myself to say, but I sound like Moon Zappa in “Valley Girl.”

  “You’re worried,” Glasswell says.

  “I’m not. The wedding will be perfect.”

  “I mean about your podcast. You’re going to be late.”

  “Welcome to LA.”

  “Yeah, this place never felt like home,” Glasswell says. “Maybe the second time will be the charm.”

  I cough in shock. “You’re not—”

  “About to flip coasts? Unfortunately, the network tells me I am.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  I lay on my horn for no particular reason other than I’m trapped in a car with Glasswell, who’s moving back to LA.

  “Don’t worry, Dusk,” he says. “Something tells me we don’t run in the same circles. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  “Can we try that now? This is already far more time with you than I signed on for this weekend.”

  Glasswell slaps his knees. “Let’s abbreviate it then.”

  I unlock the doors. “Cool. Bye.”

  “Ha,” he says, seeming unsure if I’m joking. “I mean, if you skip my stop, and go straight to your recording studio—where is it?”

  “Santa Monica. Way out of your way—”

  “I can catch another ride. The only drawback,” he says, “is you won’t be able to blame me for making you late.”

  “Au contraire, derriere.”

  “Olivia. It’s one less hour of your day spent suffering my presence,” he says. “Don’t overthink it. Just say yes.”

  Chapter Six

  “This is me,” I tell Glasswell, pulling up to my favorite Japanese teahouse. I’m dizzy with exhaustion. Fifty minutes in traffic with Glasswell has frayed my nerves beyond repair.

  He takes in the Santa Monica strip mall, with its upscale pot dispensary, robotics school, and cryogenic therapy center. I sense his question before he asks: “Where’s the recording studio?”

  I don’t tell him it’s in the residential neighborhood two blocks south of where we stand. More precisely, that it’s in the garage of my childhood duplex, where my mom still lives. And since I’m also not saying that my boss is my mother, this is where our two roads must diverge.

  I nod at the teahouse. “First, I drink a gallon of gyokuro. Then I go and dominate the faders.” Clearly, I’ve crossed over into delirium. I tap the Lyft app to end our ride, then I scoop up Gram Parsons, and climb from the LEAF with a stretch.

  Glasswell’s out of the car, too. He looks at the teahouse. “They have matcha lattes in there?”

  My heart sinks. They have miraculous matcha lattes in there. Lazarus would rise from the grave to get one. But Glasswell is not invited to my favorite teahouse.

  “The matcha’s better across the street,” I say, pointing.

  Glasswell squints into the sun, shading his eyes with a hand.

  “Starbucks?” he says like the word is made of broken glass. “Morally unacceptable.”

  “You have morals now!”

  “Are you this way with all your riders?” Glasswell asks. “Is this what you consider . . . five-star service?” He holds up his phone to display the screen that rates his ride, his finger lingering above the lowly single star.

  “Don’t you dare,” I say, my voice rising. I may not be the world’s most graceful driver, but I am friendly and accommodating. I do my best to offer the right ride for every passenger I pick up—Glasswell excepted. My five-star rating is a rare point of light in the dark night of my penury.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, and taps the five stars. “I can tell this matters to you.”

  We stand there, facing each other. I’m steaming inside, and he won’t even meet my eyes. It’s like he can’t see down this far.

  “I’m going to have a matcha latte,” he says, then makes an after you gesture toward the teahouse door.

  When I don’t budge, when it feels as if my jaw has welded together, Glasswell adds: “Let me buy you a drink, Olivia.”

  “Why? Because I’m a broke Lyft driver?” I shout-whisper in the parking lot.

  “Because you gave me a ride from the airport.”

  “Purely transactional.”

  His eyes flick over mine for the briefest instant. I await his next insult, but instead Glasswell reaches out and scratches under Gram Parsons’s chin. Gram Parsons is about to go into his pleasure pose—the chin-clamp, designed to lock the chin-scratcher’s hand in place. And when the clamp happens Glasswell’s hand will be locked against my left breast. Sans brassiere. The unexpected touch will cause my nipple to pop up like it’s trying to tear a hole in the ozone layer. Which will broadcast absolutely the wrong message.

  I lurch away hard, spinning a full 360. Gram Parsons whines dizzily. “Enjoy your matcha, Glasswell.”

  He catches up to me, circling to block my path on the sidewalk. “Olivia.”

  “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

  He sighs. “If it’s that big of a deal to you, I’ll go to Starbucks.”

  “Don’t do that,” I say. “You won, okay? At lattes. At life. First prize goes to Glasswell.”

  “You’re right.”

  I scoff.

  “I mean . . .” He runs a hand through his hair. “You’re right to point out it’s absurd to make this—or anything—a contest. It’s just, you’ve always . . . ever since high school . . . you bring out something in me. Something that wants to—”

  “Be a dick?”

  “Compete.” He meets my eyes. I wonder if the fumes from the pot dispensary next door have found their way into my blood. Because now I’m frozen in place staring into Glasswell’s green eyes. My body warms, centering in the area just below my navel.

  What the hell?

  Glasswell looks away, and everything neatens back to normal. Everything but my racing heart. I push past him toward my mom’s block.

  “See you tonight, Dusk,” he calls.

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  When Gram Parsons and I reach the house where I grew up, my mother is puttering around the garage. She’s facing the storage rack with my duffel bags from summer camp, my rolled-up Jonas Brothers posters, the box with every Halloween costume I’ve ever worn. When she hears the door open, she waves to me over her shoulder:

  “How was the bachelorette? Did you trick Mash into thinking you were taking her to get twerked on?”

  “Mom,” I say, hoping to communicate everything to her with that single grounding word.

  She turns to look at me, concern practically tattooed on her face. Dressed in pink and orange ombre jeans and a matching flowy shirt, Lorena looks like a human mai tai—a comparison that can’t be lost on her, seeing as she has a purple orchid tucked behind her ear.

  “Liv. Baby,” she says tenderly. “What is it?”

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I say, a tremor in my voice. “And full disclosure, I come sans latte. This morning has been an absolute—”

  I break off because suddenly my mom comes forward to place a fragrant, steaming gyokuro latte like a miracle in my hand.

  There, her smooth familiar caress tells me. You are loved, and everything’s okay.

  I close my eyes and take a sip, swallowing the lump of relief in my throat.

  My mom lifts her own latte and takes a luxurious slurp. “It’s my week to pick up the drinks. Did you forget?”

  “I guess I did.”

  “What’s the matter? Did you accidentally take the 405 again?”

  I nod. “And that’s not the worst of it.”

  “Honey!”

  Gram Parsons yelps his impatience at not being greeted yet by his grandmother. Lorena remedies her oversight and picks him up.

  Part of me wants to be Gram Parsons, blanketed in my mother’s embrace. Part of me just wants to move on, to feel the weight lifted from my chest now that Glasswell’s gone.

  But I don’t feel lighter. I feel loser, which is how Glasswell always makes me feel. I picture him inside my teahouse, generously tipping my favorite barista, firing texts to former high school friends.

  You’ll never guess who my Lyft driver was . . .

  “So,” my mother probes. “What happened?”

  “It’s just . . . the wedding.”

  “No. It isn’t.” Lorena shakes her head. “You’ve had that wedding locked down for months. This”—she points at me—“is something else.”

  When I don’t answer, because I cannot lie to my mom, and because I wouldn’t know where to start, I feel her gaze run over my body, my face, my head.

  She grabs my hat—then gasps in horror.

  “You left the dye on too long, Liv! I told you to set a timer because you always get distracted. Ever since you were a toddler. Your father used to say—”

  “I have an appointment to fix it, okay?” I say with more hostility than I intend.

  “Thank God,” she says. “Now, you don’t have to take my advice—”

  “Here we go,” I tell Gram Parsons.

  “But your dad, may he rest, loved curls for a wedding.”

  “Curls, great. On it.”

  She takes my shoulders in her hands and studies me. “You’re not going to tell me what’s really going on?”

  I don’t keep secrets from my mom. We’re the kind of close that talk on the phone multiple times a day, picking up in the middle of things. She hears about every bad date, recalls the names and personalities of my favorite former students. She knows which dogs bark at Gram Parsons when I hike with him at Runyon Canyon. She knows all my regrets. Except this one.

  It was a timing issue. I devoted my post-prom life to the darkness of my room, and then my dad died four days later, and the force of gravity doubled overnight. After that, things were different. My mom and I suddenly had so much to deal with, and somehow the disaster of Glasswell and prom night never came up.

  I sit down at the mixing board and put my headphones on. “Let’s just do the show.”

  My mother doesn’t press—for the time being anyway. She moves to her desk and puts her own headphones on. But her eyes never leave mine as she takes a long sip of matcha and then flips on the mic.

  “Helluva Friday to you, Future Listener of the Past,” my mom gives her standard greeting, but her eyes are watching me.

  “Helluva day, Lorena,” I say my line. It was my idea to have a second mic, for chemistry and banter. Over time, my role on the podcast has evolved to something of a droll hypewoman, Tig Notaro meets Flavor Flav. But today, I’m having trouble staying inside my skin, let alone inhabiting a character. And my mom knows it. She’s had my number since before I was a twinkle in her eye.

  All I’d wanted to show Glasswell this weekend was a passable facade of me. Then I’d gone and been an asshole to him on the ride from the airport. But he’d deserved it, hadn’t he? For catching me off guard like that? For invading my space and seizing every opportunity to condescend to me? For making me feel inferior in the special way only he can do?

  I rub my eyes and banish him from my mind. Why am I thinking about Glasswell when I only just got rid of him? Is my guilty conscience gnawing away at my mind?

  “Have we got an absolute treat for you this Friday,” Lorena interrupts my thoughts. “Our very own Olivia, my daughter for those who don’t know, vowed that she would actually read this week’s fabulous selection, Get Out of Your Inner Hero’s Way—”

  “Mom.” My voice breaks and I take my headphones off, resting my head on my desk. “I can’t do this.”

  My mother hits the button to stop recording. And waits.

  “I. Hate. Jake Glasswell.” There. I’ve wailed it. And I don’t feel any better.

  “The talk show host?” my mom says, and then, catching up, “Oh, the boy from high school?”

  “He’s the best man at Masha’s wedding,” I croak. “The worst best man.”

  Slowly I lift my head up to meet my mother’s eyes. She’s waiting for me to go on. She’s in no rush to ferry me out of my discomfort the way Masha’s mother does. I used to envy the way Mrs. Kuzsova would rush to coo over the smallest scrape or hurt feeling Masha felt. My mom would never do that. I’ve come to learn it’s both a strength and a weakness, her ability—sometimes her tendency—to sit with pain.

  “You’re going to ask me what’s fanning the flames of my hate?” I say, quoting one of Lorena’s favorite self-help lines.

  She nods. I sigh, and so does Gram Parsons.

  I think for a moment, heat building in my core. I try to think of every smug thing Glasswell said to me today, but all that comes to mind are the insults I slung at him.

  “Envy,” I admit. “Resentment. Ugly things he has a special skill for bringing out in me.”

  I see a light go on in Lorena’s mind. Then she’s on her feet, moving toward her bookshelf. “This might call for Brené Brown. She has an atlas of the heart—”

  “I don’t want Brené,” I say so forcefully that my mom stops and turns around. “I want you.”

  “Oh honey.” My mom comes to me, padding quickly in socked feet. We meet halfway across the garage. “I’m here,” she says and takes me in her arms. “I’m right here.”

  And I cry.

  She helps me toward the beanbag chair, which is the only place to lounge in the garage. I collapse on it. She folds around me. Gram Parsons hops up, and sits in both our laps.

  “What did Jake Glasswell do?”

  I have to think before I speak, because can I really still be this mad about what happened ten years ago at prom?

  “He . . . got everything he wanted.”

  “Everything you wanted, too?” my mother asks.

  I wipe my eyes. “A version of it, maybe.”

  “He went to New York,” she says. “He got discovered. You stayed here and gave up your dreams to help me.”

  “Don’t say it like that. I couldn’t have left you. I didn’t want to. You know that.”

  She nods. “I also know that if things had been different, if Dad were still here, you would have gone. And who knows what would have happened? I understand. Here Jake Glasswell is, big fancy boy, flying in for your best friend’s wedding, rubbing his success in everyone’s face, that he’s the one who gets to show the world his light.”

  I cringe. “You did not just say his light.”

  “I watch the show sometimes,” my mom says. “He’s good. Though I don’t trust that sexy baby Aurora.”

  I snort.

  “Jake’s always had that spark,” she says, softer than before.

  “We hate him, Mom, remember?”

  “Sure, honey,” she says. “But . . . do we need to? This weekend? Aren’t there bigger things to feel?”

  I snuggle closer to my mom in the ridiculous beanbag, not yet ready to say she’s right, but we both know she is. And this, right here, is the support I’ll call upon tonight if Glasswell dares pull any shit with me.

  My mom snickers. Then she breaks into a proper laugh.

  “What about this is funny?” I ask, even though I’m already halfway smiling.

  Practically in stitches, my mom says, “I knew that all I had to do to get you to open up was to hold you accountable for this week’s reading!”

  I elbow her, and she elbows me, and we laugh until finally, I’m crying the right kind of tears.

  Chapter Seven

  “Corner!” a voice shouts above me on the stairway to the roof.

  This is restaurantese for Coming through with something heavy. I flatten myself against the brick wall—harder to do in a tiered gold dress than in my usual server’s uniform—just in time for Joy, our best busser, to pass with a crate of clanking cocktail glasses.

  “Livvie D, looking fine,” she says, noting my curled hair as she descends.

  I know I look good, with my hair saved by Pierre and the dress Mash helped me pick out to accentuate my legs, but do I look good enough to blot from Glasswell’s mind the pathetic mess I was earlier today?

  Not that I care.

  “This your party tonight?” Joy asks.

  “My best friend’s.” I smile. “She’s getting married tomorrow.”

  Since I got rid of Glasswell this afternoon, time’s been flying. I’ve got a list of thirty things to check before Masha gets here in half an hour. I glance roof-ward and ask Joy, “How’s the Treehouse looking?”

  “It’s not the worst place to watch a sunset,” she says as she backs through the downstairs kitchen door.

  I take the stairs two at a time. We call the roof the “Treehouse” because instead of tall chairs, it’s got rope swings hanging from rustic wooden beams around high marble tables. And tonight, when I come upon it, empty and an hour before sunset, it takes my breath away.

  The space is rectangular, bounded by waist-high baby citrus trees—yuzu and kumquat and funky, fragrant Buddha’s-hand. Their branches are draped in white twinkly lights, and they’re pruned tight, so they don’t interfere with the 360-degree views. No matter where you sit atop Mount Olympus, you face majesty, from the spires of downtown to the ever-edging shadows of the Hills, all of it perfumed by the buds of exotic early summer citrus.

  To the east, landmarks fan out like postcards from the spinner rack: the opulent mansions of Beverly Park, the Hollywood Sign in profile, the grand white dome of Griffith Park Observatory. And to the west, when it’s clear like it is tonight, you can see out across the ocean to Catalina Island and beyond.

  The Treehouse legally seats twelve, though if Shonda or Tarantino calls, Werner will cram in thirty-five, fire codes be damned. I’ve never seen it set for a party of four, and I have to admit, it’s never been more enchanting.

  I check my list. Incredibly, everything seems in order. Coral ranunculus rest in a dozen scattered vases. Candles on the bar cast shadows on Mendocino seashells carried from the beach where Eli proposed. Sonance speakers softly stream my Rehearsal Dinner playlist—Angel Olsen and Darlene Love for Masha, a spray of MC Yallah and gospel songs for Eli. Here and there I’ve hung photos of the happy couple through the years.