A Likeable Woman

1

Kira

Midmorning sunlight winks through the glass-slat windows, but I'm still lying in bed, the black paper invitation shouting at me from across the room. It's sitting upright, resting atop a stack of junk mail on my wooden café table, where it's been since Friday evening after I retrieved it from the mailbox.

20 years and still going strong!

We'd be delighted if you'd join us,

Chad & Genevieve Greer,

as we re-tie the knot with a

Vow Renewal Ceremony

Saturday, October 15th, at 6 p.m.

The Walters's Farm

7328 Evergreen Road

Longview, Texas

Please RSVP by September 15th

The envelope it came in-black on the outside, bloodred on the inside-is gashed open, the tiny RSVP card peeking out like the tip of a cat's tongue.

I can't pull it out yet and mark "Attending" or "Not attending" because I can't decide.

Of course Genevieve wants to throw herself a bash. She's always been attention seeking, and from the group text I've been ignoring since Friday night, it's clear that it's not just the ceremony itself but a weekend full of eye-rolling events she has planned for us.

Friday night at the bowling alley, kids welcome. Saturday morning ladies' brunch at The Farm (no doubt some farm-to-table BS), followed by crafts of some sort (WTF, are we five years old?), ending with a spa day complete with manis and pedis and a wine tasting.

The guys, of course, get to do the fun stuff on Saturday-canoeing, archery, and duck hunting. Chased with a private uncorking of a local distillery's batch of bourbon made exclusively for the occasion.

I'm certain the entire event will be just a giant Band-Aid on what has, from all accounts, been a very nasty marriage. But it's not just the spectacle that's making the pit of dread in my stomach expand. It's the prospect of having to go home again. A place I fled over twenty years ago, after I lost her. Mom.

I've returned only the one time, for my father's funeral.

All eyes were on me the entire day, to see if I would shatter. I'm the fragile one, the potentially unstable one. Just like her mother, they shout-whispered. And also, I'm the only one who believes my mother was murdered, that she didn't die by her own hand.

I've put acres of auburn desert land between me and East Texas, moving as far west as I could without plunging into the Pacific. But every so often-especially for events like these-East Texas tugs at me, threatening to yank me back to its pine-soaked atmosphere and engulf me. Just reading the invitation has landed me in bed for virtually the entire weekend.

Especially because of the venue: The Farm. The last place anyone saw her alive.

She wandered into the woods. She'd been having one of her spells, they said. Sadie. Always quick to tears. Hysterical. They glanced up from the bonfire and saw the shock of her platinum hair, her russet-colored fox-fur coat, before she slipped into the forest.

Now I'm up, pacing the thinly carpeted length of my six-hundred-square-foot apartment in the Hollywood Hills. I make a pass by the invitation, wanting to snatch it and shred it into tiny pieces, but instead I continue on into the galley kitchen, where I open the fridge and drag out a paper carton of pad Thai. I eat it cold from the container as I lean against the counter.

When I opened the mail on Friday evening after work and my cell started exploding with the group texts from my childhood friends-Genevieve being more frenemy than friend-I ordered four servings of pad Thai and three bowls of coconut and mushroom soup, knowing I'd be moored at home for days.

I sat, parked at my tiny café table, staring at the invitation, swirling the steaming noodles around on a plate, forcing myself to eat small forkfuls.

And I texted Jack. Jack Sherman, my childhood best friend and former crush. We were each other's first kiss, four years old and zipped up inside his Incredible Hulk sleeping bag. An odd kiss where our teeth knocked together. We only ever text now to wish each other a happy birthday-his on October tenth, mine August third-and I took this as an excuse to check in. Pathetic, really, since he's been blissfully married for a decade now and has a real life, unlike me. He's a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins and has a three-year-old son.

Me: Umm . . . You guys going?

Jack: Umm . . . Hi! And hell no .

A sinking feeling spread over me. Even though I didn't want to return home, the chance of seeing Jack again after all this time cast butterflies across my chest.

A few seconds later, the three dots started leaping again, letting me know he was writing more.

Jack: Why? Are you?

Me: Don't know yet. Probably not.

Jack: Well, Melanie's going. I told her she could have a girls' weekend, but she's pissed. Wants me there with her. I'm just . . . not really like those guys anymore, y'know? And I can't imagine you want to go either?

This was the most we had texted in years, and my pulse jangled in my neck, my face flush from this new contact with him. I could hear his voice across the line, as if he were speaking in my ear. That rich oaky voice, which was never bent with the twang of the region but always sounded sonorous and kind. And yes, sexy.

Also, Jack was the one who came to my side the night they found her. When I was shaking, when I wouldn't let anyone else near me, he asked my father if he could see me. I remember him standing in the doorway to my bedroom, his fifteen-year-old bulk filling the space. A silhouette of strength leaning against the frame. I was in bed, buried under my floral-printed bedspread, eyes bloated from wailing.

He'd been at an out-of-town football game that night, a few hours away. He was a second-string running back, usually sitting on the bench-sports were never his forte; he only played football because the rest of his friends were doing the same-and he told me he'd come as soon as he'd gotten off the bus and heard the news.

He crossed the room, slid into bed, and roped his strong arms around me.

"You're not alone, you're not alone," he whispered in his soothing voice, over and over again, as more hot tears gushed out of me. Somehow, he knew those were the very words I needed to hear then, because my mom and I had been simpatico. Best friends. Tethered by our artistic souls-misunderstood by Katie, my older and more sensible sister; and my cold-faced father, Richard. We had existed in a kind of bubble, and Katie had been part of it at first, but then she grew out of it, drifted away from us.

I'd spend bottomless hours in Mom's art shed as a little girl, our knees touching as she guided wax over cotton sheets for her batiks while I moved globs of paint around on poster board. I can still hear her voice in my head, sometimes singsongy, sometimes frantic, sharing things with me she probably shouldn't have been. Always followed by a "Don't mention that to your father, Kira."

She named me Kira after Olivia Newton John's character in Xanadu, one of her favorite films. She'd seen it at the drive-in years before I was born and loved the music, the mythology, the story of nine muses who cross back and forth between time. When it finally came out on VHS, she made me watch it over and over with her.

After I couldn't stomach any more pad Thai, I peeled the plastic lid off the soup as I considered how to respond to Jack. I knew what he meant by And I can't imagine you want to go either. He was referring to Mom, but I didn't want to get into that with him, to prick at that old wound again, so I dodged the subject.

Me: I need time to figure it out. But I was thinking about it.

Jack: Well, I'll only go if you go, so let me know.

I sent back a simple thumbs-up emoji and placed my cell facedown, cradling my chin in my hands.


I woke early this morning, before the birds started their chirping and when the sky was still a deep indigo, and dragged my laptop into the bed. I emailed in sick to work. I sat there, cross-legged in bed, my laptop baking my thighs, looking at flights, before slamming it shut without booking anything.

I shouldn't go. I shouldn't put myself through all that, but as pitiful as it sounds, I want to see Jack. I want to see myself reflected in his face, the strong girl I was once was, his neighborhood friend who he admired. I'll only go if you go. Sounds like he wants to see me, too. And now I have to decide if it's worth it. My vision blurs around the edges when I think about facing the others-Genevieve, Katie, not to mention Jack's wife, Melanie-and also returning to The Farm.

I refold the carton of pad Thai, shove it back in the fridge. Drag myself the few steps back to bed, where I wilt under the covers and feel myself sinking back down into sleep.

2

Kira

It must be past noon, because the garbage men are here; I'm yanked from sleep to the sound of the windowpanes rattling as the trucks rumble past.

The air inside in the apartment is hot and still. These old-timey windows-which have a dozen glass slats on them that you hand-crank open-are great for maximizing air flow, but wretched for noise control.

I can hear the twist of a key in a neighbor's lock or the fumes of an argument from the couple in the house across the street if they're out on their front lawn. And on trash day, the tiny panes practically flutter as the hulking vehicles squeeze along the tiny streets.

Usually, I'll open the windows and the smell of jasmine will float through the room, but today I leave them shut. The Santa Ana winds are already gusting from the east, carrying the scorched-earth heat of the desert with them, so I lie under my sheet, damp with sweat, my studio now a tinderbox.

My cell starts to chime, small pops of sound that cause my anxiety to surge with each ping, and I glance at the sender.

My grandmother.

A second text lands right on top of the first.

Insistent dinging.

It's so like her not to give me a chance to respond before launching another round at me.

But I don't swipe and clear them; I let them rest for now. She'd be able to tell from the "Read" notification if I checked them, and then my window of time for replying would slam shut.

I've thought about changing that in settings-making it so she can't tell if I've seen her texts or not-but she would notice, and then we'd have to have a guilt trip-induced discussion about why I'm trying to avoid her. Not worth it.

Ah, my grandmother. Granny Foster. Still in control of me all these years later, even though there are fifteen hundred miles between us.

Some of it has to do with the money. She established a trust fund for me when I was little, and when I turned eighteen, I was eligible to start drawing off it.

I never have. I consider it blood money. Hush money. Granny is the one who has gaslit me the most over the years about Mom, ushering me off to boarding school right after she died so I would quit asking questions, quit being such a hassle for my father. I was a basket case, erratic, and all the other labels she was able to get her shrink to slap on me.

I was a basket case, but who wouldn't be?

So I leave the money untouched. I don't even open up my statements anymore; I just drop them in a file. It's not like it's enough to quit my dead-end job over, but I could probably do something nice for myself with it, like upgrade apartments or take a year off and focus on my art. I haven't touched my paintbrushes in years now. They just languish on the top shelf of my closet, throwing shades of guilt at me each time I reach up there for a hat or a bag. They rest next to Mom's batiks-which I haven't touched since shortly after her death; I can't bear to.

Anything to do with art has gone mute in my life. I haven't really painted in earnest since college. Pathetic. But without the structure of classes, and faced with the harsh reality that most painters don't make a living from their art right out of the gate, I chose the safe route, taking dependable office jobs. I wouldn't allow myself to touch Gran's money then, and I still won't. To do so would feel like I'm going along with their narrative, being complicit in their lies.

I loved my apartment when I first moved in over two decades ago. The off-white stucco exterior, hugged by walls of fuchsia bougainvillea. The spindly grapefruit tree out back, always pregnant with fruit, its peach-colored orbs rolling on the floor of the quaint parking lot.

I live on Cheremoya Avenue in Beachwood Canyon, a winding street that sits right underneath the Hollywood sign.

Moving here felt so exotic, so different from home, with its ranch-style houses and forested land. If I step out onto my playing card-size balcony and crane my neck just right, I have a sweeping view of the canyon below me-more stucco homes lining twisting streets that rise and fall and switch back so sharply that it almost feels Mediterranean.

I love it still, but when Granny showed up about ten years ago, uninvited and unannounced, when she crossed my threshold she proclaimed, "Oh my, Kira, you have sunk so low."

The industrial carpet with its edges frayed from my vacuum, the settling cracks and peeling plaster in the dining area, the absence of a dishwasher, the lack of AC on one of a handful of blistering days when we have a heat wave, like today: all of these made Granny's hit list, which she ticked off to me over dinner that night, and then I started to view my abode through her judgemental lens.

If Granny had her way, I'd be living back in East Texas, married to a good local boy with connections, floating from room to room in a white-carpeted house while a nanny attended to my babies. She thinks I deserve more than what I have now.