“Max?” Lizzie asked. “Max is here?”
“Yes, yes, he’s downstairs. Didn’t you know? He too wanted to keep an eye. We could have a tea party with the principals at this sale!” Miller gave a shot of sharp laughter. “I can take you downstairs, if you’d like. I prefer to wait until everything is over, but if you’d like to see what’s sold, we can go over inventory. Perhaps something to drink? I have some sparkling water, my secret stash of Pellegrino.”
“Oh no, that’s not necessary,” Lizzie said. The faster he spoke, the more tired she felt. Maybe she should go downstairs, lie down on the sleeper couch in her old room, close her eyes for a while. (Was the couch still there?) She watched a Perkins employee bang Joseph’s exercise bike up the stairs. “I’m sorry for barging in like this.”
“No, do not be silly! This is your house; these are your things. I take my stewardship very seriously.” He patted her bag and lowered his voice. “And you know, you can always change your mind.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
He leaned in conspiratorially. “The canisters.” He gave her bag a firm tap. “Would you like the whole set? They’re yours, after all. I would hate for you to feel as if you were reduced to the role of petty thief.”
“Oh.” She felt her face redden. “This? It’s just—”
“Please, there is no need to explain.” Perkins flashed her a well-practiced grin. “I’m going to get back to it. I’ll give you a call later, if you’re not still here!”
“Okay,” she said. She felt less embarrassed than deflated. She didn’t want the sugar canister after all.
Perkins headed down the stairs and squeezed past the employee with the exercise bike. He took care not to come into contact with his employee or the customer trailing him, a rangy man in fraying jeans and orange flip-flops who had a tenuous grip on the bike’s back wheel. At the top of the stairs, the man let go of the wheel with a thump. Lizzie felt her heart thump with it.
She knew that man. She knew that head of rich dark curls. She knew that lanky body.
For a fleeting moment, she thought of not saying a word. But how could she not? “Duncan Black,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder as if asking for directions.
He gave her a slow smile, then a look of dawning recognition spread across his face. “Lizzie Goldstein? Is that you?”
“Indeed,” she said, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my father’s house,” she said, oddly confused. Did he really not recognize it? “What are you doing here?”
“You know, I thought it might have been the same house, and then I thought, no, it couldn’t have been. But I was driving up the hill, and I thought—swear to God, I thought, ‘Lizzie Goldstein used to live in a house just like this.’ Sometimes, I have the worst memory.”
She smiled ruefully, and it was like being back in high school, where a decent memory was a liability, proof that you thought too much, had too much time on your hands. “You just came for the sale?” She gestured at the bike. “A burning need to exercise?”
He flushed slightly, bobbing a bit, he still had that loose fluid way with his limbs. “The bike’s for my dad. He’s wanted one for months now. I got a great dinette set at a Westside sale in Hollywood last month.” He was still attractive, emphatically so, but he also looked worn; his face was sharper than in high school, a fine web of wrinkles fanned off his eyes. He looked as if he’d spent too much time on the beach over the last decade, and she tried to recall what she had heard about him through the years—playing for a band in Ashland? Working for a tech company in the Bay Area? No, no. “My wife thinks it was a terrible idea,” he continued. “The table is a beautiful marble and she thinks the kids are going to scratch it up.”
Of course. She felt a faint sting, but she smiled and said: “How old are your kids?”
“Five and three. Zoe and Marlon. Zoe’s around here somewhere, with my wife.” He swiveled around. “Jo,” he called loudly. “Jo!”
A couple of heads turned in their direction—none Jo, from what Lizzie could see, and she said, “It’s okay.” He didn’t seem at all self-conscious that other people were looking at him. She remembered that from high school, the principal reason she was drawn to him. Duncan Black was more comfortable in his skin than anyone else she knew.
“No, no. Hold on, she’s here, somewhere.” He called her name again. The slim woman in a sundress with the blond girl Lizzie had seen earlier now emerged from the hall. “I thought you guys had abandoned me, alone on this mountain,” Duncan said.
“No such luck,” Jo said. She had a surprisingly deep voice and a delicate face, dark hair, pale skin. Her coloring was not unlike Lizzie’s, but she was taller, more graceful.
“This is a friend from high school,” said Duncan. “Lizzie Goldstein, this is my wife, Josephine Black.”
They shook hands, Josephine smiling easily. The little girl tugged at her mother’s dress. “Can’t we go? I’m bored.”
“Zoe,” Duncan said sharply. “Please.”
Lizzie stooped down, thinking of how Zoe had played against the windows in the living room. “It’s nice to meet you. I knew your father a million years ago, when he wasn’t so much older than you.”
The girl stared. “So?” she said, then ran off.
“I’m sorry,” Jo said. “Manners: we’re working on those.” She went after her.
“She can be a handful,” Duncan said to Lizzie.
“It’s okay.”
“You don’t have kids?”
“No, I don’t,” Lizzie said, and she blushed. Was it obvious? Was she that awkward with them?
She asked where he was living, he spoke about Culver City, its schools, how he had always wanted to try New York. “It’s nice to see you, really,” Duncan said. “Maybe we could have you over for dinner one of these days.”
“That would be great. We’ll figure out a time,” Lizzie said. She made a gesticulation, first at her watch, then in the other direction, as if there were this thing, a great unnamable thing, that threatened to claim her if she did not leave.
Duncan cracked two of his knuckles, a dull pop. “I just wondered, about your father—Joseph, right?”
Lizzie shook her head, wanting to shake away the question that he couldn’t seem to bring himself to ask. “He died,” she said. “Two months, nearly three months ago.” It felt strange to put a time frame on it. But in nine days, it would be three months. She knew, of course.
“Oh, Lizzie. I thought that might—” His lean handsome face darkened. “But I hoped—I don’t know—I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well,” she said, and she felt the tears start up. “It’s okay.”
He bit his lip. “How?”
“Car accident.”
“Jesus, Lizzie.” He pulled her into a hug.