I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW beautiful she looked on that drive into the city. It was like the old days again. Lacey’s hair shone with an almost metallic sheen. She was wearing one of her little black dresses. She hadn’t bothered with all the shit Rob had been giving her, and she looked like the natural beauty that she was. She was even wearing the same perfume she used to wear back when she was in high school. I wondered if that was a coincidence or not. It drove me wild.
For a few hours, we were friends again. All the awkwardness of our frolic in the hayloft was forgotten. She played her music on the radio and I drove, winding through the valleys and vineyards she loved, skirting cliffs that looked down on the Pacific Ocean from precarious heights.
“So,” I said, “you’re really going ahead with this?”
“With what? The wedding?”
“Yeah, and your relationship with Rob.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she said.
I shrugged. I didn’t want to argue with her so I dropped it. It felt so good to be friends again and I wasn’t willing to ruin the morning just to tell her what I thought of her fiancé.
“Just seems to be moving fast, is all,” I said.
She nodded. She was thinking about that. I’m not sure what she felt about Rob, but from the look on her face, she had some doubts about the relationship. I changed the subject.
“Turn this song up,” I said.
“You hate pop.”
“I like it when I’m with you,” I said. “It’s more fun. It reminds me of when we were kids.”
“You always hated my music back then.”
“I didn’t.”
“You always made me turn it off and put on your stuff.”
“I was just being a jerk,” I said. “You’ve always had cool taste in music. Secretly, I liked your songs.”
She smiled and turned up the volume. I drove along, entering the edge of the city.
“So where is this flower market?” I said.
She typed into her phone and found the address. Then she entered it into the car’s GPS. It was down near the port. I guess they exported and imported a lot of plants. As we drove toward it, we passed through some of the most rundown neighborhoods of the city.
“We’re very lucky,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we live in a beautiful, big house, surrounded by some of the finest vineyards in the country.”
“We do live in luxury,” I said.
“And now I’m going to marry a rich, plastic surgeon.”
“Living the dream,” I said.
She shook her head. “We’ve done some good things though, haven’t we?”
“Sure we have,” I said.
“I hope I’ve lived a good life,” she said.
I looked at her. There was an expression of seriousness on her face that I hadn’t seen before.
“What’s got you feeling so melancholy?” I asked.
“I don’t feel melancholy.”
“You’re talking as if your life is already over, Lacey.”
“Well,” she said, “I guess getting married to Rob has got me thinking like that. It definitely means my youth is over. Once I’m married, I’ll be a woman. Anything I wanted to achieve on my own will be over. I’ll be with him from now on, helping him pursue his goals and dreams.”
“Well, ideally, you’d both be helping each other pursue both of your goals.”
She nodded.
“What are Rob’s goals, anyway?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
I turned off the freeway even though it wasn’t our exit. I had an instinct that she wanted to drive through a few real neighborhoods. She always liked doing that. We passed rows of brick residential buildings. They were mostly African American or Hispanic, clearly rundown.
“Pull over here,” she said, outside a big, old mansion that looked like it had been the grandest house on the street a century ago. Now it looked more like an abandoned, haunted house.
I pulled over to the curb and looked up and down the street, making sure it was safe. Lacey opened her door and got out. I watched from my window as she walked up to the gate of the house. There were some kids on the front porch, six boys, all of them in their teens. I opened the passenger window to hear what she wanted to say to them.
“What is this place?” she said.
“Who’s asking?” one of the kids said back to her.
“I am,” she said, and smiled at the kid, taking the charm approach.
The kid who’d spoken to her climbed down from the porch. His friends watched.
“It’s a house.”
“Your house?” Lacey said.
“Yeah.”
“Are those boys your brothers?”
“Yeah, they’re my brothers.”
“You must be all twins,” Lacey said.
“They’re my brothers from other mothers, lady,” the kid said.
“I see. And I suppose you all live in this house together?”
“Yeah, until the city kicks us out. Then they’ll take us to child services.”
“What about your parents?”
“Lady, eight boys live in this house. If any of us had parents, we wouldn’t be here.”