Chapter 4

Eva was late getting back from the Pier and needed time to freshen up for their dinner reservation. Instead of waiting around for her to be ready, Nadia went ahead to the intimate restaurant that was attached to a bar not too far away from the diner. What better way to wait around than to treat myself to a glass of wine and a book on my phone? She was halfway through the latest Sarah J. Maas book but hadn't read a thing since the plane ride.

Yet when she walked into the dimly lit bar at sunset, she didn't expect to recognize the only other person at the counter.

"My dad was going on about the opening on campus," the waitress from the diner told the bartender, who was riveted by her story. "Says he can get me in for above minimum wage if I come home by the end of the month and put up with his house, his rules. He literally said that."

The woman with a surfer's tan and a buzzcut laughed. "How much is minimum wage in Podunk, Idaho?"

Nadia sat a couple of seats down and pretended she wasn't listening. "Seven dollars. Twenty-five cents."

"Holy fuck! How do they get away with that? Criminally low."

"They get away with it because it's the damn fed wage."

The bartender whistled before acknowledging Nadia's presence. "Damn criminal. Does that go anywhere in Idaho?"

The waitress sighed. "What do you think?"

Nadia ordered her wine and opened the reader app on her phone. She did her best to not interrupt the other woman's after-work break.

"Sorry about that."

Nadia looked up from her phone. That had to have been the waitress since the bartender was grabbing the wine bottle off the top shelf. "No worries. Everyone's gotta bitch sometimes."

A snort landed on the bartop. "You're telling me. Feels like that's all I do." She then did a double-take at Nadia. "Hey, weren't you in my diner yesterday? Loaded hashbrowns? Yeah, with the kid who wanted whipped cream on her pancakes."

"You remember that?"

The waitress took another swig of her beer. "It's my job to remember what people like to order. Don't even do it on purpose anymore, but it's how you get tips. Yeaaaah, I remember. You guys tipped me really well!"

Nadia blushed. She and Eva always tipped fifty percent when dining out at local establishments. Sometimes I tip a hundred percent simply because I can. That was one of Nadia's favorite things about being rich. She could spoil people, including strangers. "Don't mention it."

"Nah, I like mentioning it. People are usually stingy around here. Probably because it's more rich people who roll through this part of town." The waitress was at the bottom of her beer. She shook what was left in its depths. "Rich people are the worst tippers."

"You don't say?" Nadia believed it. She had seen it for herself.

"You're a tourist, right? I'm really sorry, I only say that because I saw you and the other woman walking into that…" The waitress stopped. "That fancy hotel right on the beach."

Nadia grinned. "I tip well because I'm rich. Why shouldn't I?"

Laughter greeted the bartender when she returned with Nadia's freshly poured glass of wine. Before the bartender wandered away to serve a couple who had walked in, Nadia got her attention with a wave of the finger.

"Get her whatever she wants. Put it all on my tab."

The waitress gaped at her. "You're kidding. Nobody's done that for me before."

Her friend the bartender guffawed. "Always a first time for everything, right?"

Although the waitress didn't turn down the opportunity to get more free beer, she didn't let it go without more thanks. "I don't even know your name," she said afterward. "I'm Kenzie, your friendly neighborhood waitress at the kitschy American diner."

Nadia didn't know what name she expected this young woman to have, but Kenzie was suitably apt. "I'm Nadia. That was my niece you saw me with yesterday."

"Really? Coulda swore she was your kid."

"Nah. She only looks like my wife because they're related through her brother. The genes are strong over there."

"Your wife?"

"The woman who came in later."

"Oh. Oh. That's right." Kenzie nervously laughed. "She saw me having a meltdown outside when I was on break. My dipshit of an agent called to tell me I had been looked over for another part. Again." That laughter turned into a sigh. "Call me by my real name: Statistic."

"It doesn't suit you."

"It should! You open the dictionary to ‘Hollywood Wannabe', and you see my dumbass there. It's probably my senior photo. I had braces back then."

"Did I hear you say you're from Idaho?"

"Oooh, boy. Am I. I basically scream it when I talk like this."

Her hick accent was rather exaggerated, but Nadia didn't mind. She knew a thing or two about how people talked in the countryside, coming from a more rural area herself. It's nothing like how Eva's ilk talk. Sometimes, women like Eva pretended to be "hick," but they couldn't pull it off. Rednecks pull off valley girl better than you pull off redneck, Eva.

"You win the award for ‘actor of the year' in your drama departments in high school and community college and think that means you can make it in showbiz." Kenzie shook her head. Stringy brown hair fell limp before her face. "Like an idiot, I packed up my things in my beater car and drove to Hollywood because I had an online friend who convinced me to try it out with them. I blew all my shitty savings on that first apartment and acting classes." She turned to the bartender when she said, "Did I ever tell you I took classes with Lance Richardson? I can't believe I did that. I really thought it would be great on my acting résumé."

"Didn't he turn out to be a hack?" the bartender asked.

"Probably. I ran out of money and had to quit to do jobs like waitressing."

"You said you moved here with someone. Aren't they helping?"

A look of disgust twisted all of Kenzie's features. "Some boyfriend he was. That's what you get when you meet someone on Discord and believe them when they say they'll take care of everything. What a scam."

"Oh, sheesh, he scammed you?"

Kenzie was blushing more than ever. "Not technically, I was really dumb and na?ve. The moment he got a job in a commercial he met a bigger actress and moved in with her within two months. Two months! It was like I never existed. Had to sell a bunch of my things. Including my plasma. All so I could afford a studio in the shittiest part of Thousand Oaks because it was close to my job."

"So we're clear," the bartender said. "There's no ‘shitty' part of Thousand Oaks. It's where everyone tired of living next to a Kardashian in Calabasas moved."

Nadia only vaguely recognized the names of these places. LA is as complex as New York. Locals knew everything – including how to spot a tourist from a mile away.

"Yeah, I know that now, thanks. Which is why I live in the dilapidated ADU some retired lady has in her backyard. Waitressing pays for most of it, but barely. I finally managed to get an agent after making it through the first round of several auditions, but nothing's stuck. I get the occasional local modeling job or super bit parts on public access. I didn't even know public access existed anymore."

"What do you think PBS is?" the bartender asked, before heading toward someone else.

"I don't get PBS," Kenzie muttered. "Anyway, your wife saw me all in my feels yesterday because I got another rejection, and I'm pretty sure my incompetent agent is gonna fire me when he's the one who keeps putting me up for jobs either way out of my league or so out of my wheelhouse that I feel like I'm in a foreign country."

"What kind of acting gig would you like?"

"Oh, the dream is a good pilot that gets picked up by one of the networks! Or streaming! Or I wouldn't mind a great indie movie. They don't pay as much long-term, but I want some steady enough work I can get by. Maybe qualify for the union. Stuff like that."

"I think you have the look for it."

"Huh?"

Nadia's fingers clung to the stem of her wineglass. She had barely touched the red liquid cradled inside. "Indie movies. You've got a real down-to-Earth natural beauty."

"You think so?"

Wait, am I flirting with her? Nadia hadn't meant to upon offering to buy Kenzie a drink, but she also didn't expect things to veer in this direction. Assuaging her insecurities, trying to make her feel better… God dangit, am I turning into Eva?

Except she couldn't deny that Kenzie was lovely beneath the hair that needed washing and the wrinkled waitress clothes that could use a good laundering. She didn't look unkempt or unhygienic – if anything, her good skin and bright eyes should have been a knockout in any casting agent's arsenal of headshots. I know how this works, though. For every fairy-tale story out of Hollywood, there were a hundred more hopefuls who eventually returned home because they ran out of money or the will to keep subjecting themselves to auditions. Kenzie seemed like she was on the verge of quitting. Even if she eventually quit for her sanity, didn't she deserve a quick pick-me-up in the form of Nadia buying her a drink and hearing her tale?

"My background isn't so different from yours," Nadia said, thinking back on her childhood in the rural Northeast. "I know many of the same kind of people you knew back in Idaho. Sure, lots of people love to get lost in the glitz and glamor of otherworldly beautiful actors, but they also love seeing folk who remind them of themselves. You've got a real girl-next-door look. It's a shame people aren't giving you the chance to show them what you can do."

Kenzie was caught off guard by Nadia's flowery compliment. When she slowly came back down to Earth, her big eyes shrinking into contemplative thought, she said, "Thank you. That means a lot coming from you."

"Huh?"

"Ah… nothing."

"It's fine. You can say what's on your mind."

Kenzie blushed with the same intensity as Nadia's undrunk red wine. "You're a really beautiful woman. I'm not used to pretty people treating me nicely unless they're total tourists."

"To be fair," Nadia said with an awkward chuckle, "I'm a tourist."

"You know what I mean. You and your wife are fantastically pretty to look at. I don't mean that in a weird way… please don't take it the wrong way!"

"I don't. I'm simply not used to hearing such compliments about me." Eva? Sure. Even if people didn't say anything about Eva's appearance, it was there in the way they gaped at her height or unfathomably natural blond hair. She looks like she bleached it. It's ridiculously light. Naturally, Nadia was used to the same people not believing that her red hair was natural. One of her friends, Rebecca, had the kind of coppery red hair most people associated with redheads. Not Nadia. Not only was she mostly devoid of freckles, but her hair had been cherry red as a child and had only faded to a slightly blonder hue as an adult – instead of brown, which was what her mother had expected.

She still burned within two minutes of being in the sun, though. Which was why she always carried what she called "industrial strength, government-grade" sunscreen.

"That's crazy," Kenzie said. "You're like really pretty."

"Thanks. I really appreciate that."

"Of course…" Oh, here it came. "You'd still be denied as many roles as I am. Your hair would get you through the door, but you're really curvy, aren't you? Yeah, casting agents hate that unless you're a perfect hourglass shape, which almost nobody is."

"I know some women like that…" Speaking of Rebecca, her girlfriend Caitlyn was a perfect hourglass shape. Yet Nadia wasn't surprised to discover that, considering Caitlyn was a former Midwestern beauty queen who often made it to national competitions.

"Do you know many who are here in Hollywood? Hmph. I think part of it is because I'm short. I work hard at maintaining my weight to get my foot through the door and don't ask me my skincare regimen because I can barely afford it to begin with. My Sephora account is astronomical, but my dumbass agent thinks it's worth it."

"Can you get another agent?" Nadia realized how silly that sounded the moment she said it. "Sorry. That's probably not possible."

"It's tough," was all Kenzie said.

Voices rose in the corner of the bar. A stolen glance told Nadia that Adrienne and Amber had arrived, both dressed in skintight dresses with colors that complemented one another's style. Every other head in the bar turned toward them, including Kenzie's.

"Those are my friends," Nadia admitted. "Suppose I should go get my table with them. It was lovely talking to you." She passed her credit card across the counter the moment the bartender reappeared in her peripheral. "I hope you have a better day tomorrow, and that you get the next role you audition for."

Nadia was prepared to leave it there, but the moment she stood up from her stool and readjusted her outfit, she heard Kenzie say, "Hey, thanks."

A few minutes later, Nadia was with her friends, and Eva wasn't that far behind joining them in the main restaurant. They ascended to their private balcony where they enjoyed the balmy night breeze while sipping drinks and eating locally caught seafood, but Nadia couldn't help but think about the girl who had already probably gone home to Thousand Oaks shortly after meeting a stranger she found "unfathomably pretty."

Wasn't it interesting, the people she met on vacation?

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"Let's all be grateful I'm not going to Disneyland tomorrow." Eva shut off the bathroom light before getting into bed next to her wife. "Got off the hook on that one." She slammed her head onto her pillow, jostling Nadia beside her. This bed wasn't much smaller than theirs back home, but for some reason, Nadia's elbow kept brushing against Eva's side. "It was a nail-biter, though. Really had to fight for the right to spend a day in Malibu with my wife."

Nadia finished applying her moisturizer and grabbed a tissue off the table next to her head. As she dabbed at the wetter parts of her arm, she said, "Who's going instead of you? I can't imagine your mother surviving Disneyland on her own with a grade-schooler."

"Some friend of hers that is also bringing her granddaughter. Surprisingly, Henry signed off on it after he heard who it was. I've never heard of the woman, let alone the kid, but if Henry says it's okay for his daughter to go… well! What shall we do tomorrow?"

Eva's hands landed on her stomach when she said that. Nadia was too caught off guard to properly reply.

"We could stay around here…" Eva said. "Hang out on the beach. Go check out the boutiques. Definitely eat some good food." Her arms stretched out above her, knuckles cracking. "Or we could go farther out. Maybe take a private cruise out to Catalina."

"Catalina? The island?"

"The one and only. You ever been?"

No matter how many times Nadia was asked that, she always had the same eye-rolling answer. "No, I've never been to Catalina Island. When would I have ever been there before meeting you?"

"I don't always know where you go even when we are together?"

It was a good thing Nadia knew that was a joke, because jeez.

"I'm sure it's beautiful," she began, "but it probably takes a while to get there."

"One hour by ferry from Long Beach. I think that's the nearest departure point."

"What would we even do there?"

"Lots of things! Great shopping, great food, great views. Babe, I'm in my thirties. I want food and views."

"What's wrong with the view right here?"

Eva turned over, a smarmy grin already illuminating the darkness of their suite. "Absolutely nothing. I'm enjoying it right now."

She said that while Nadia lay with the covers up to her throat and her hair up in its nightly bun to keep the tangling from being too overwhelming in the morning. After years of working as the receptionist for one of the richest people in her city, Nadia had learned every trick possible to keep her long hair as low-maintenance as possible. There was no way she was the spitting image of eternal beauty right now.

"You are such a ham," Nadia said for the umpteenth time in her marriage.

"Good thing you love ham. We have it every Christmas."

"Please don't compare yourself to a Christmas ham. It's weird."

Eva lay back down with her head on the pillow, one hand behind her as her elbow stuck up in the air. "So, we won't go to Catalina. And I already went to the Santa Monica Pier today which is way closer. I mean, I could go again, if you wanted to. There's a cute amusement park there that is free to enter. You only pay for each ride you want to get on."

"Honestly, Eva, there are plenty of low-key places around here that are nice. We could spend the whole day on the deck enjoying the weather while we read a book or something."

"Together? Like you read a chapter, then I read a chapter?"

"It sounds like you want to get out and do something."

"We could go parasailing," Eva mused. "Charter a yacht. Party in West Hollywood. Hike Point Dume."

"Remember when we went to Hawaii and talked about having a picnic on the beach? Except we never got around to it because of time constraints?" Nadia sighed. "Maybe we could do something like that here in Malibu. I want to relax before winter kicks in back home."

"You know that's a very last-minute thing to arrange, Nads. I can't just walk into a place and say, ‘Hey, set me up a picnic,' like I can charter a yacht or close down an amusement park. Besides… that would be using my privilege, and you hate that. Not that it stops you from taking advantage of it…"

"You're the one who knows what is possible. Besides, the way I see it, it's expensive to live around here and whatever bonus money you pay for someone to put that together for us at the last minute might save their butts."

"Yes, you never know."

They lay in silence while the AC kicked back on by the window. Nadia was liable to fall asleep to the sounds, but her stomach was slightly uncomfortable after a dinner that consisted of fried food and cheese. Her mind wandered back to dinner, which ended early when Amber and Adrienne announced they were meeting someone for post-supper drinks at another bar down the beach. While Eva had let them go, Nadia asked for more details, and Amber eventually spilled they had met some more surfers who wanted to party.

Women like them always seem so much younger than me. Not only was Adrienne older, but Amber wasn't that much of an age difference from Nadia, who had always been more of the introvert who stayed home or only made it one hour in the club before she wanted to leave. It was one of many reasons she wasn't sure a relationship with Eva would work out in the long run. A woman like Eva wasn't easily convinced to become a homebody, let alone domestic.

"Do you ever wish we hung out with more people?" Nadia asked.

Eva stirred beside her. "We hang out with lots of people."

"We definitely hang out with fewer people than you may have when you were younger."

"I still party from time to time, babe. I simply don't get drunk if I can help it."

Nadia bit her lip. "You know me. I worry I hold you back from doing what you want."

"If this is about Catalina, I'm not married to it. It was only an idea."

"Yeah, but you like to go out and do things. I like to stay home or keep it low-key." Ugh! How many times was she going to say that one word? I sound like a broken record. Someone had dropped the needle on Nadia's voice box but walked away the moment she stuttered.

"So? Both are good." Eva sighed. "Haven't we hashed this out a million times?"

"Doesn't hurt to check-in and see where things are now. Before we… you know."

"What?"

Eva sounded so genuinely confused that Nadia didn't have a choice but to respond. "Have kids, I guess."

"That's still a ways away. No sense dictating our lives around it."

"I'm going to be the kind of mom who gets so involved in her kids' lives that I barely have time to talk to my own mother, let alone my friends. Going out will be such an event that whole months will go by before we realize we haven't been out to dinner in so long."

"You make it sound like we're having triplets in a log cabin. We'll have plenty of opportunities to get out and be ourselves."

"You never know, right?"

"Nads," Eva said, "is this one of those things that you do to rile up your brain so you can convince yourself to miss out on sleep?"

"Maybe. You know me. I always think about these things."

"I know you do. It's my job to tell you everything will be fine."

Nadia snuggled up beside her wife. "You always sound so confident when you say that."

"Because I know it's true. We'll be fine. Isn't everything always fine in the end? We survived getting married, we can survive anything."

Nadia eventually fell asleep against Eva's chest with those words echoing in her head. If they played through her dreams, she might believe them.