City of Mirrors Read Free Page B

exactly feel a chill, but her expression brought me up short.

CHAPTER FOUR
    H ollywood is like smog: it moves and settles wherever it wants to. Right now Malibu was the place to be. Once again.
    The houses that line Pacific Coast Highway are a buffet of styles: new Spanish, board-and-batten cottages, expensive stone chalets, and some that have all the warmth and style of a bank building. Shoulder to shoulder, like a phalanx of bunkers, they stand against the constant loud rumblings of the cars and trucks speeding along the highway. The back sides of the homes face the beach with only a strip of sand between them and the ocean. It is of course the interiors of the houses and their views that make them desirable and very expensive. My seventies-style, dark-brown wood-and-beige one-story was squeezed among them. In need of repair, it was in Celia’s vernacular a teardown.
    Unlocking my front door, I stepped into the small pavered foyer. The house smelled damp, and the air hung heavy and undisturbed. From the kitchen a twenty-four hour news cable station blahed, blahed, blahed, filling the stillness that permeated my life. Even after a year, I couldn’t make myself come home to deathly quiet. I needed the sound of a human voice even if it came from a TV.
    In the living room, I threw my purse on the sofa and opened the sliding glass doors to let in the salty air and the sound of the crashing ocean. Colin’s two Oscars on the mantel stared at me blindly, proud in their art deco nudity. I took my iPhone from my bag and checked for messages. I had a text from Celia telling me she couldn’t make dinner. Something had come up. Robert Zaitlin, I thought. And then I wondered what I always wondered: Why wasn’t I seeing someone? Hell, why wasn’t I having sex with someone? Anyone. Pathetic.
    Exhausted, I took a shower. Pondering why Jenny didn’t fear being fired by Zaitlin, I watched as my heavy makeup mixed with the water at my feet, turned it beige, and swirled down the drain. I was shedding my actor’s skin.
    Wrapped in Colin’s silk paisley robe, I scrounged in the refrigerator for food and wine. I collected some low-fat cheese that tasted like cardboard and some low-fat crackers that tasted like the low-fat cheese and put them on the kitchen table. Then I opened a can of low-fat minestrone soup and heated it in a bowl in the microwave. While it was being nuked, I opened the door to Colin’s office, which was just off the kitchen. The air was undisturbed and cold. His computer sat on his desk. Shelves of books that lined the walls waited to be thumbed through by him. The old twin bed he used for naps, which he called “thinking time,” was wedged next to a back door. It looked as if nobody had ever laid down on it, or punched the pillow into submission. His chair was swiveled toward me as if he’d just heard me come in. As if he were just looking up from his work to see me.
    â€œMy mother died last week.” I paused, then I quietly closed the door.
    Filled with too much wine and uneatable food, I stood on my rotting redwood deck breathing in the cold night air and feeling the sea wind tugging at my hair. The moon, as big as an actor’s ego, draped the sand and water in a silvery glow. A groaning noise coming from the pathway I shared with the house next door startled me. Owned by Ryan Johns, the screenwriter, the massive white cement structure rose high above me like a giant marshmallow with windows: a model to self-aggrandizement and no taste.
    I moved closer to the sound. In the moonlight I could make out the form of a man lying half under a giant hibiscus bush. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and Ugg boots. Moving quickly to the corner of my deck, I grabbed the hose, turned it on full force, and aimed it at him.
    â€œ Tsh unami, Fuckn’ Tsunami ,” a drunken Ryan bellowed as he struggled to sit up against the blast.
    As I turned off the water, he thrashed around,