December 10

CHELSEA FLINT ON AN OTHERWISE LOVELY MORNING IN MALIBU, CALIFORNIA

I N S OUTHERN C ALIFORNIA, SUNLIGHT SIMPLY IS . F ROM MAJESTIC daybreaks until orange sherbet sunsets wash the sky, the sun is everywhere. Its warmth kisses the tops of the swaying palm trees and lays a blanket across the sable-colored beach sand. Its light tickles the rippling surface of the ocean and makes it writhe in sparkling delight. And in Malibu, a sleepy beach town just up the Pacific coast from the bustling metropolis of Hollywoodland, the sun makes a glorious daily procession to each of the 10,500 residents. That’s why they’re there—for the sun and the sea. But where our story begins, at this daybreak, the sun was having a very hard time finding its way to Chelsea Flint.

Flanked by modern coastal mansions, a modest beachside cottage sat, stuck in time like a weathered shipwreck. At its bedroom window, the sun’s rays wiggled through thin gaps in closed shutters to create their soft strokes on a still-sleeping Chelsea Flint’s freckled face. Outside, the Pacific roared gently, with white-capped waves lapping the sand at low tide. A lovely morning it was, but Chelsea remained blissfully unaware of the obvious: from her ocean-facing bedroom, the developing splendor outdoors made a view so remarkable that it should never, absolutely never, ever be covered. But her shutters were shut as tightly as her eyes, while she was bundled cozily—red hair extending like a fountain of lava—into an avalanche of bedding, piles of comforter and pillows engulfing her slight-bodied frame like a bath of meringue. She was deep, deep in a forgetful slumber, far away from the realities that would shortly come to call with the sudden shriek of her cell phone.

The blaring sound of the ringing phone made a stark contrast with the calm and rhythmic whoosh of the ocean. The phone was rude and insistent and would not be ignored. Chelsea awoke with a start, fumbled around to find the device, and eventually stopped its cacophonous assault. She finally croaked a groggy “Hi, Helena” into the closest end, which she hoped contained the microphone. For Chelsea, it was much too early for any reasonable conversation, but that was when Helena, Chelsea’s art gallerist and agent, most liked to call. Helena was a Londoner and respected absolutely no other time zone than the one that she herself was currently in. And that was to be expected, because Helena’s time was literally money, and she had little of the former to spare, unless you happened to be a member of such and such royal family, lately rumored to be her biggest clients. She was also one of the absolute best at what she did, and if you were lucky enough to fall into a coveted spot in her tightly curated client list, you would certainly tolerate this minor disruption. Because when Helena called, money followed, or at least it was supposed to. What artist with even an inkling of ambition wouldn’t want a direct line to the director of the Guggenheim or the Tate Modern? Helena had the sort of enviable Rolodex that could only be built through decades of experience and a healthy dose of Je ne sais quoi and Je m’en fous. Once, Helena was even able to convince the notoriously crabby curator of the Centre Pompidou to house her American client’s neon-light ’80s retrospective with full-on repeated reruns of Family Ties .

For Helena, however, Chelsea was no ordinary client. She was family, or at least considered so, as much as a person like Helena would ever acknowledge. But unlike Helena’s regular clients, Chelsea was far from the top of her career. In almost every regard, it was much more like the bottom. A bottomless bottom. Nonetheless, she was given special attention on this morning, addressed by the brusque staccato tone coming through the phone that was only very slightly softened with the sporadic melodic highs of Helena’s British accent.

“Darling, darling, you must wake up. Can you hear me?” Helena shouted over sounds of the blaring horns of traffic in London, or wherever on earth she happened to be that day. Helena certainly had her choice of locales.

Chelsea, still in a state of half sleep, managed to coax her mouth to utter raspy words into the hyperactive phone at her ear. “You... sold the painting?” Bracing herself for what response might come, her hand came up to cover her eyes. The money from a sale was money that Chelsea urgently needed, a fact with which Helena was intimately familiar.

“See, darling, that’s just it. I haven’t sold any of your paintings. None. They simply won’t sell. Frankly, it’s quite frustrating. I’m not even sure I could give them away at this point...”

At these words, Chelsea felt the pang of panic begin to build in her gut, bubbling right next to a familiar shock of rumbling hunger coming from her empty stomach. Over the phone speaker, Chelsea heard Helena say to someone else, “You can leave me just there.” She wasted no opportunity for efficiency and had clearly called Chelsea while in transit.

Chelsea, more awake now, managed to feign an awkward disbelief. “None? Not any of the oceanscapes?” Of course, not the drab brown landscapes she’d painted in the style of Georgia O’Keefe but with the absence of the same level of color mastery. “I worked so hard on those!” (Actually, she had not.) “Not the Endangered Wildlife series? You said you loved those paintings.”

“I cannot say I share that recollection, dear. Of the latest collection, love as a word was certainly not used.”

“Maybe it’s just the season?” Chelsea made her weak offer of an excuse even though several seasons had already passed, all with the same outcome. It wasn’t the season; it was her work. And it wasn’t her talent—it was her mood. To put it lightly, she was in a funk.

“I’ve no doubt of your talent, Chelsea. I just hate to mention it, because it’s distasteful to discuss... but, oh dear, given the amounts outstanding, it’s best to be honest. And not just as your gallerist, love. Your parents, may their souls rest peacefully, were such dear friends, and I certainly realize how difficult it’s been—even after all this time. But as of now, I’ve made quite an investment to cover costs for the Malibu house. And... well, I should just get on with saying it, the winter taxes are due.”

Chelsea groaned. “How much time do we have?”

“None, I’m afraid. As of exactly today, the first installment, which came due in November, is officially delinquent. And the second installment is due in February.”

The house that Chelsea occupied wasn’t quite hers. On paper, it was, but the responsibility it had come with was unwelcome and chaotic. Seven years ago, when her parents died suddenly in a boating accident during their last “field trip” to Costa Rica, Chelsea simultaneously became both an adult orphan and a homeowner with the mounting problem of a heap of poorly managed debt. And as she’d been an only child, there was no one to share the burden or the grief.

Chelsea’s parents were the quintessential “fun” parents, never the model of responsibility. And they didn’t need to be the latter. They’d left a rather posh life in stodgy, aristocratic London for a much livelier time on the West Coast of America, fueled by the remnants of crusted and aged-over family wealth. Such wealth, after generations of spending rather than earning, and of comforts rather than constraints, had dissipated by the time it reached Chelsea. Still, she’d been raised for adventure. Her mother told her that she could always come home. Her father always had strong arms to hold her when she fell too far or made too big of a mistake. And now, before she’d learned enough, before she’d painted enough, before she’d paid enough attention, they were gone. She was in trouble, and whereas before, she could always return home if she needed to, she already was home.

Chelsea sat up in the bed to think more clearly, pulling the sheets up around her with her free hand. In her other hand was her phone and her ongoing call with Helena. Feeling pressure to offer a solution, but entirely empty of even the slightest idea, she sighed loudly. The house had become more like a confinement at this point, the only place she could afford to live. At one time, her earnings as an artist were plentiful enough to fund an independent life in a much more dynamic part of town. Now, the cost of property taxes had come to outpace her earnings, even without a mortgage. And this was because, despite the denial, she was still making but no longer selling her works.

“And there’s nothing you can sell?” Chelsea asked, although she knew before the start of a careful and measured response what Helena’s reply would be.

“Chelsea... your work lately... you must realize it’s uninspired, bland, dare I say it... dystopian is perhaps the right word . You may be going for Georgia O’Keefe, but you are coming dangerously close to Beksiński. Well, there now, I think I did say it quite clearly.”

“ Dystopian, really?”

“Yes, dear, quite . I’m so sorry to say.”

Chelsea let her bare arm flop down on the bed, resting in the froth of mangled comforter. If not for the sun trying to reach her through the covered windows, without the clear sensation of its warmth on her bare shoulder, she’d think that this was another vivid anxiety dream, the bad sort of dreaming that she’d tried to push away with everything from Ambien to ketamine. The fitful dreaming led to the latest bout of oversleeping. A phase , Chelsea thought to herself and tried to shake it off and make sense of it to Helena.

“It’s only been a few months. This will pass. It’s just... temporary.”

Chelsea squeezed her eyes shut tightly, hoping that she could somehow escape back into trouble-free sleep, even if just momentarily. Helena’s next words were unrecognizably garbled in a moment of static, until the voice over the phone line returned as clear and insistent as ever, but this time leaving Chelsea struck with disbelief.

“Darling, listen to me. I’ve decided to let the house, just for a bit, until we can get things sorted with selling your work.”

“Let the house? Helena. You cannot rent out my house. I live here.”

“But you won’t , dear, if you can’t pay the taxes. Just for a short while, let the house earn the money that... unfortunately, your art cannot. The rental value for just one week is all you’ll need. And for one week, you can stay literally anywhere else. Chelsea, I’ve been sparing you, certainly, but we had an arrangement. You were supposed to be paying me back in earnings. You were also supposed to be supporting yourself in earnings. Earnings that—as I need not remind you—you currently aren’t making. Perhaps you have a better idea?”

But Chelsea did not. The money supporting her was the dwindling remains of a prior sale and a generous advance of funds from Helena. The amount of delinquent property taxes couldn’t be made up in weeks or even months of gig work. But it probably could be made up in just one week of rental income. Helena had a point. Letting the house go, even if just for a week, was really the best option for keeping it.

“I’m all out of ideas,” Chelsea admitted.

“Very well, then. My assistant will set it up on a site, and perhaps quickly someone will come calling... even though it’s offseason. I should hope so.”

Chelsea fought the urge to protest. It seemed so sudden, so unfair, so overwhelming. And yet, renting was an obvious solution, considering the circumstance. And if she was perfectly honest, even with more time, she simply wasn’t in the problem-solving state of mind. For years now, she’d been grappling with the consequences of decisions she hadn’t participated in. The worry of it all was enough of a distraction that she could never find herself on the upward side of grief. There was always something new to try to get over. And Helena seemed to pick up on the thought.

“We’ll tackle just one thing at a time. Taxes first and then the debt. I do wish your parents had... Well, there’s no point to that, is there? Misfortune can’t be the ruin of everything you’ve worked for. You’re so talented it literally makes me ache, and to see it waste away in that little box on the beach, it’s unbearable, really.”

At this, Chelsea rolled over, taking a wad of the bed coverings with her in an expanding cocoon.

“Are you there, dear?” Helena’s voice crackled in her ear, sounding more like ah (crackle)... yah (crackle)... th (crackle)... deee , fading off into complete distortion and ending with the disconnection of the call, abruptly silencing the phone. Chelsea struggled forward to a seated position in her bed and listened for a moment to the waves of the ocean making sounds like static against the sand. Deep breath in... 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... She practiced the breathing exercises that her last therapist taught her. A technique for the overwhelm of her more intense moments of anxiety.

Chelsea had told no one, not even Helena, about the therapy or the years of anxiety that precipitated it. Anxiety wasn’t even a name Chelsea had available for the feelings that followed her back from Scotland, having spent the funeral rites in a complete blur. At first, she had no idea what was wrong, shaking like she was nervous in public, a dwindling appetite that caused her to lose so much weight that it actually changed her appearance. Not feeling herself, she gradually dropped out of social settings, removing herself from the stimuli that also fueled her creative inspiration. The house in Malibu became a retreat at first, and then, when her work stopped selling and she couldn’t afford to live elsewhere, it became home. A forty-minute drive from LA, Malibu wasn’t just a commute, however—it was a commitment... to stay. Eventually, frustration led her to an internet search of her symptoms, and then to a therapist who finally stated the obvious for Chelsea, that she’d endured too much trauma all at once. The breathing tools so far were the only thing that worked to calm her body, those and the smallness of a familiar place, maybe the proximity to the ocean, maybe holding on to what she could of the past.

With the exercises completed, a calmer Chelsea decided that it was time to meet the day. It was the earliest she’d been awake in weeks, but there wasn’t a chance of falling back to sleep. Questions bubbled inexorably into her thoughts. Who would come to sleep in this bed? Who would look out from this window at the ocean? And if they were here, where would she go? Even if Helena managed to reconnect the call, whether they spoke now or later, with blooming trepidation Chelsea understood that change was already on its way.

RAMONA TUCKER ON AN ESPECIALLY COLD AND PARTICULARLY DREARY MORNING IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS...

L EANING AGAINST FLOOR-TO-CEILING WINDOWS IN HER OFFICE on the twenty-ninth floor, Ramona Tucker wrapped brightly manicured brown fingers around her Santa Claus coffee mug as she stood viewing the downtown winter skyline. At Denton, Lord, and Orwell—Chicago’s largest architecture firm—it was easy enough to look out over the city and find at least one of their projects. But although Ramona was at work, that wasn’t the focus of her thinking. And although she was looking at the window, she wasn’t looking through it. Ramona was seeing her own reflection and thinking about escape. In that reflection, she saw a woman in her earliest thirties, conservatively dressed, with the silhouette of a well-defined twist-out hairstyle on naturally textured hair. She saw cheekbones and full, plum-tinted lips. She saw the curves of her shape, round up top and down below her waist, curves that she’d been trying to tame for what was supposed to be the biggest event of her life. On the fourth finger of her left hand that steadied her mug sat an engagement ring, a tiny disco ball reflecting the light of the room. The wedding planning had gotten out of hand. And it had gotten out of hand because, as things currently stood with her now “ex” fiancé, there wasn’t going to be a wedding.

No escape from here, she thought, while simultaneously calculating the December wind’s velocity along the length of the company high-rise. On the ground, the same wind would whip strongly enough to bring tears to her eyes. This far up, it would send her all the way to Kansas. And maybe Kansas wasn’t so bad of an idea. The glistening of her engagement ring caught her eye again as she brought her hand up for a zip of energy from the fragrant dark roast. It was surely time to wake up. The vapor from the mug flushed her face with warmth, and she blinked away sentimental tears. It was the cusp of the holidays, and there was no such thing as a holiday with her family without Malik. And there was no such thing as a holiday with Malik so long as they were broken up.

A sound at her door commanded Ramona’s attention. Startled, she drew in a quick, deep breath. It was still the middle of the workday, and final review of the company’s end-of-the-year financial reports was her responsibility. Every comma, figure, and dollar sign needed to be perfectly placed before they went to the CFO for signature. She looked up quickly and smoothed her skirt, hoping with these minor adjustments she could discreetly swipe away any sign of sadness or disorder before her visitor noticed. Emotion was certainly not their office culture.

“Hey, Moe!”

Ramona’s eyes traced the voice back to bright red lips underneath a wide round fluff of hair. Ramona’s colleague Latrice stood positioned in the middle of the doorframe, with sparkling brown eyes and a disposition much sunnier than the day called for.

“I was looking for a coffee accomplice,” she said. “But I see you beat me to it.”

Latrice was an architect. A dope one. She was so dope she could be fearless at work in ways that Ramona couldn’t fathom. Where Ramona was all curves, Latrice was all lines and proportion—lean, angled, and perfectly tailored. With her slim-cut slacks, she wore Jordans. Under her blazers, on the days she chose to wear one, was a hoodie when she felt like it, and other times a bow tie, and sometimes a T-shirt. Already promoted to a project manager, she managed a team and still outworked everyone. But excellence didn’t stand between her and coffee or the time she decided was hers for a break.

Things for Ramona were much more steady in all respects as an accounting director, but with steadiness came a certain lack of flexibility. She’d translated her studies into a more certain and immediately lucrative take on her passion for buildings and design. After six months of art school and mounting bills, Ramona decided that she’d be better off utilizing her undergraduate minor in finance as the surest way to pay her school loans. Ramona’s career in finance placed her in a world away from what the creatives did, on different floors, on different schedules, but most important, at a higher starting salary. It wasn’t living her dreams, but it was stability. Her family was from Chicago’s South Side, working class with no room for generational missteps. Nonetheless, despite their dissimilar roles and penchants for uncertainty, Ramona and Latrice became fast friends in the way that so often happens between friendly brown faces in a company when diversity is slim. This was especially so at Denton, where the two ladies were the only chocolate-brown faces to be seen at their workplace in the executive hallways.

“Sorry, girl.” Ramona sighed. “I needed a pick-me-up. The mornings are still rough.”

Latrice’s eyes widened. “ Still? Please tell me that S-T-I-L-L doesn’t mean M-A-L-I-K.” Latrice punctuated it with an eye roll so brief and so smooth, it seemed like a part of his name. Appropriately, the eye roll landed her gaze on Ramona’s left hand. “And we’re not even going to discuss why you’re still wearing—”

Ramona raised a warning eyebrow with a tilt of her head. “There is no need to talk about the ring... or Malik, or whatever is going on at his new place... or even that he has a new place .”

Latrice squinted back at her with the expert examination of a close friend. Suddenly, she seemed to find what she was looking for.

“Okay. Then, why is your cheek wet?” Latrice launched a dramatized whisper while moving farther into the office, closing the door behind her. “Is that a tear?” She continued her approach with the care shown toward a wounded animal. “You and Malik broke up almost a month ago. What happened now that has you crying at work ?”

“First of all, Latrice, I am not crying.”

“Yes, Ramona, yes, you are. I can see the streak on your cheek.”

Ramona quickly reached her hand up to swipe against her face and confirmed Latrice’s observation. Even after the flush of warmth in her cheeks, however, she wasn’t ready to concede. “For the record, a single tear is an almost cry. I refuse to give him the satisfaction.” Ramona walks back to her desk.

“If you say so. And then if not Malik, what has you almost crying in your good clothes... at your desk?”

Ramona looked down at her outfit: well put together, but all black like she’d been wearing every day for the past two weeks. She drained the last of her coffee and set the mug down between two stacks of number-filled papers on her desk.

“Just that... You know how my family is... Melba Tucker is the queen of Christmas. And Christmas Eve? Everyone comes, everyone.”

“Am I invited this year? ’Cause I didn’t get the memo.”

Ramona looked down at her phone on her desk. “You would have if she had your phone number. You know my mother is technology challenged. She sent another reminder today... in a massive group text.”

“Keep me off the group text... but forward the details—last year was epic.” Latrice patted her entirely flat stomach. “I had to pop the top button on my pants.” Christmas was an institution in the Tucker household, as Latrice had observed firsthand at the family’s enormous once-a-year gathering.

“Sending it now, a Melba Tucker Holiday Spectacular...” Ramona picked up her phone to navigate the screen with her fingertip. “And, of course, she’ll expect Malik at Christmas Eve. If I show up solo, she’ll be devastated. Everyone will.” Ramona flopped into her desk chair. “My brother, my sister-in-law, my cousins will be there, and of course Carlos will bring a date...” Ramona watched Latrice’s screw-face start to soften, and so continued layering her much-deserved self-pity. “What if this is just a temporary breakup? Couldn’t be at a worse time. And this ring...” Ramona pulled her hand up between her and Latrice. “If it was really over, wouldn’t he ask for it back?”

Ramona’s friend shifted on her high-top tie-ups and placed a hand of perfectly manicured, unpainted fingertips on the clean lines of her narrow hip. Her fingers tapped a slow cascade, one at a time. Meanwhile, Ramona turned toward the window to look at the snow that had started to fall. “Now all I can think of is how to escape this Christmas,” she mused. “I wish I could just disappear now and reappear on December twenty-sixth.”

Latrice positioned herself in Ramona’s guest chair and brought her hand to her chin, turning her eyes to the ceiling for a long pause.

“Well...” Latrice said finally, her voice full of mischief. “Why don’t you?” She stood up and crossed the remaining distance to Ramona and took a seat in one of the few open spaces on top of the desk. She leaned in to touch Ramona’s shoulder, squaring their eyes. “When’s the last time you took a vacation?”

“And miss the holidays with my family?” Ramona punctuated with her best “come on, now” look. “I’ve never missed a Christmas Eve. No matter where I went, they’d be sending search and rescue.”

“They can’t come get you if they don’t know where you are...” Latrice looked particularly pleased with her brilliance.

“Girl. As much time as you’ve spent with them, you clearly don’t know my family!” Ramona threw her hands up. “And even if I could somehow escape, this is the most expensive time possible to travel! I’m not trying to spend my entire bonus on a hotel stay and airfare.”

“Moe, haven’t you ever heard of Airbnb? Or what about people who do that... what’s it called, home swap ? You have a fabulous downtown condo in the heart of Chicago, right in the center of everything . I’m sure some lovely couple would want to spend a little holiday time making memories in front of your exposed brick fireplace.”

“Latrice, the Hawk is out and it’s cold as a witch’s titty. What earthly stranger would want to come here from what would have to be their warmer place, to come stay in mine during Chicago winter?”

“Oh, Moe, that’s easy—someone who wants to see some real snow for a change. This isn’t just Chicago, it’s a magical winter wonderland! It’s the warm, sweet and salty, buttery crunch of Garrett’s cheese and caramel popcorn and the tinsel of the State Street Macy’s holiday windows. It’s shopping on Michigan Avenue. It’s ice skating next to the Bean.”

Ramona sighed. “Latrice, you missed your calling as a marketer.”

“Let us not forget that I design dreams that people can inhabit,” Latrice corrected. “And even if I have to set it up myself, you’re going.”

Latrice is crazy , Ramona thought. But the idea of escape was starting to creep into her doubt and nestle into the realm of possibilities.

“Wait, but what if Malik changes his mind? We lived together; we were engaged. Maybe all it’ll take is a little more time for him to realize he made a mistake. What if—”

Latrice ticked her tongue against her teeth.

“Ramona, I hate to be the one to say it, but it’s a real possibility that Malik’s not coming back. Maybe he is exploring his options. Maybe he has moved on. And maybe you need to do the same. Girl, live you some life.”

Even if Latrice was right, Ramona wasn’t ready to accept her take. So, instead, she thought about Malik. In all the preparations for the wedding, they’d both discovered that they weren’t as ready for marriage, at least to each other, as they each orig inally thought. Ramona was a saver, focused on the inevitable rainy day. By the end of the month, Malik had spent very close to his last dime. Ramona owned her condo and sweated every dollar of her HOA fees. Malik felt fine renting. Ramona had a sweet tooth. Malik was a personal trainer and a strict vegan. Ramona liked her evenings in with a glass of wine and the fireplace. Malik would rather be in a sports bar. But still, they’d made plans together for the future. She told herself that together they made one whole, each compensating for what the other was missing. But Malik didn’t see it that way. After one particularly contentious counseling session and two days of brooding, he told Ramona that he didn’t think that love was enough. And then, by the fifth session, he said he didn’t think he wanted to get married before he stabilized his life on his own. Ramona didn’t believe him until two weeks later and only after he walked out of the door of the condo with the last box of his things.

In time, she just knew he’d come to his senses and miss the life they’d had together. She had to admit that it didn’t bode well that she’d hardly heard from him beyond logistics and that they hadn’t seen each other at all. Maybe Latrice was right, about leaving at least, but how could she sneak out of town under the nose of her very own family? And what would she tell her mother?

“It’s a good idea,” Ramona said finally, with considerable hesitation. “But...”

By now, Latrice had turned her attention to her phone, alternating between aggressive scrolling and frantic tapping on the screen. Seeming to have found what she was looking for, she turned back to Ramona.

“You may not know it now, but you’re going. Just leave the details up to me.”

Ramona settled deeper into her office chair and made a thinking steeple with her fingers. Latrice looked at her expectantly. She hesitated before responding, knowing that Latrice would interpret anything that wasn’t an absolute no as a yes.

“Latrice,” Ramona said with a semi-defeated sigh, “I have no idea how this could possibly work. It’s a nice idea, but I can’t just go missing for a week. What would I tell my family?”

At this, Latrice jumped to her feet, waving her arms excitedly, knowing that somehow, she had won. “How about you tell them nothing ! Try that for once! Everything about your life isn’t family business!”

“Ha! Try telling that to my mother.”

CHELSEA IN MALIBU...

C HELSEA’S EARLY-MORNING CALL WITH H ELENA SENT HER INTO a restlessness that persisted into the evening. With the bubbling energy building within her, it was impossible to sit and focus on painting, and even harder to sit with the truth. Chelsea had never told Helena about her anxiety, and she never told the whole story about the core of her artistic inspiration. She painted moments of her childhood at the beach, the bright colors of her memory, a redheaded child in the surf kicking up a spray of water, laughing with smiling cheeks covered with freckles. She painted what she remembered of her mother’s hands in the kitchen with tomatoes and hard pasta strewn on the counter. She managed the reds of the tomatoes and the exact yellow-tinged color of the noodle pieces so realistically, but also made them so much more beautiful and vibrant than in life. That was her expertise. She captured her first first kiss , two people in the height of new passion, and called the painting Heartbreak , just for knowing that it would end, that it did end. She’d painted love as its loss. So, what could she paint when her heart was already broken? When it hurt too much to remember, and when it felt like everything there was to lose was already gone?

Chelsea’s answer was a retreat to her formal training, inspiration from artists she studied. She tried landscapes, colors that were less bold, more classic. She tried channeling the passion of other people’s interests, hence the Endangered Wildlife series. All because she no longer had access to her heart.

“You’re living in some sort of a shell.” Helena had said this to her when she phoned back.

Although Chelsea responded with a knee-jerk “What shell?” she’d been reflecting on Helena’s sentiment all day. Chelsea knew that Helena was trying to push her, to pull out of her the Chelsea that she used to be, but it was no help to be confronted by the old you when the new you was faring so poorly.

“You used to live in Los Angeles. Downtown in the heart of things,” Helena said. “You were once in the movement of all that was happening, all that was changing. You made the world come to you, and you never hid from anything.” Helena also said, which struck Chelsea particularly deeply, “Malibu is not the rest of the world.” Chelsea had tasted the rest of the world and knew how much this was true. And although she insisted again that it was just a phase, she worried that she actually might have changed, and that growth for her was perhaps wisely looking for security. What if the risk of adventure was the risk of erasure? Adventure hadn’t fared so well for her parents, after all. So, why trust a world that can’t be controlled when you can stick to what you know? That was Chelsea’s plan, and she’d just been focusing on the “what you know” part in particular.

But Helena had called her work dystopian. To Chelsea, that meant a world that didn’t work. A world that was falling apart. Dystopian? She looked down at her drafting table at her latest piece, dark colors in sharp contrast to the stark white of the surface she’d taped the watercolor paper to. Her colors used to pop off the page like Technicolor. Uninspired, maybe? Chelsea thought. But still, Helena’s word haunted her like a ghost as she walked out of her studio into the hallway in quick steps to the back of her house. She slid open the glass door and stepped out to pace the wood slats of her deck. It was her place to commune with the ocean, especially when the tide was high and swept all the way around the piles underneath her, as if she were on the bow of a ship. She loved to hear the wind and the roar, the sound of the birds, to feel the energy of the ions in the air. There was an electricity here that she could plug into just by being present. It delivered a calm that she could access just by walking along the creaking planks. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... She counted her breaths and reached inside for stillness and for answers. And the only place available was to reach back in time.

Chelsea had at one time built an enviable career for herself, and remarkably early on. At only twenty-three, she’d happened upon the right collective of young contrarians, some of them graduates like her, and some dropouts of her fine arts program at USC. In pre-gentrification Downtown LA, the entire city center was a canvas, with so many available building walls, empty warehouses, and retail spaces. What others had abandoned made way for opportunity, a place for creativity to nestle and for youthful energy to be directed. Chelsea and her crew converted a cheap loft into home. There they lived together when it was still too dangerous to walk the darkened streets alone at night.

Chelsea and her friends began to produce a series of “secret shows” that did everything that conventional galleries weren’t. Anywhere could become a venue. They used deserted auto-repair shops, with rusted car parts hanging on the walls; an old barbershop once, with the chairs still in place and mirrors on the wall. They took advantage of warehouses and unused floors of office buildings. Anything and any place could be put to use, especially when they brought people together with the perfect combination of the hottest DJs, the city’s best drugs, and a well-curated guest list. Once, a particularly reclusive rock star was spotted at one of the shows, and then everyone wanted to go. The artists reclaimed downtown, made it better. And as they did so, developers started to make it more expensive. Just as downtown Los Angeles was becoming an international des tination, Chelsea was becoming a darling rebel of the burgeoning international art scene.

Just out of art school, her piece Heartbreak scored a rare and entirely unexpected feature on ARTnews . From there, her career exploded. The entire underground show, including Chelsea’s work, was featured in the Los Angeles Times. Then, the blog of a top young fashion designer picked up the hashtag #HeARTbreak, which became the It phrase of the spring/summer season. All of a sudden, the influential crowd was all over it with viral fervor. Love was heartbreak, heartbreak was art—a first kiss was a tragic reminder of the end of youth and beauty, and Chelsea’s art piece Heartbreak had started it all. Patrons, brands, and collectors couldn’t get enough of her. Helena jumped in to manage the swarm of new business opportunities, and it seemed like Chelsea was destined for her own solo show at Gagosian.

As more pieces sold, Chelsea moved from the heart of the city into her new loft without roommates. More and more, she began to live her life as a series of blurred moments—unfocused, just like her work was becoming as well. She partied, air-kissed, and slept with famous men whose faces she’d sometimes forget but whose names everyone else used frequently. And being grounded didn’t matter, because she was on an adventure. But that was all before Malibu.

Chelsea’s parents had lived in Malibu all her remembered life, as artists and bohemians. From diapers to high school, she grew up there. She felt secure and protected in that small world, the tiny community where it seemed like there were no strangers. It was so safe, it was almost stagnant, and it gave the illusion that not only would it never change, but also that it shouldn’t. And in part that was why everything fell apart so chaotically. After the sudden passing of her parents, grief became a wall between her and the details of her prior life, a lost connection between the old Chelsea—the fierce and fearless one—and any aspect of how she presently lived, ensconced in a... What had Helena called it? A shell?

Once she moved to Malibu, her world shrank, as did the demand for her work. Art buyers aren’t particularly motivated by sympathy, and with absence and distance, the tethers were stretched so far on her social connections that eventually they snapped, one by one by one. Her “new” place now, in Malibu, which was the oldest one she’d ever had, was a long drive and a world away from the downtown energy where the pack of wolves she used to run with ran on along without her.

After a mess of insurance and paperwork and debt, she was left with Helena, a house, and enough self-doubt to fill the entirety of the Pacific Ocean. And of course, the panic attacks. They were frequent and unpredictable at first, until Chelsea finally learned how to regain some sense of control, over her body at least. But those tools hadn’t been tested in the broader world, in challenging places and new circumstances. And she didn’t have any tools to recapture the lightning in a bottle that launched her work.

For two years she languished until she tried again to pick up her paintbrush. After three sketches and four painted studies, Chelsea thought she’d produced a Munch-esque piece of just enough sorrow that it was beautiful. To her it was so moving, it brought her to tears. Chelsea congratulated herself for the effort. It felt momentous, like she had finally re-created Heartbreak . Helena flew in personally to view it and promised she’d present it to all of her most important buyers. But it never sold. After that, what felt like giving her all, Chelsea stopped trusting her instincts and started trusting structure instead. She’d spent the last two years after that sinking deeper and deeper into a routine, convinced that would be life enough. She slept as long as possible, woke up begrudgingly, made her coffee, and spent her days watching the waves of the ocean, something that never changed and always changed. And she stayed the same.

On this day, Helena’s call sparked the rattling engine of Chelsea’s imagination. Helena was right that this couldn’t be her forever. Financially, she couldn’t afford it, and the only way she’d ever learned to earn a living was broken at best. Outside, on the deck, the breeze of the ocean ran invisible fingers through her hair, soothing her, calming the rising panic as she considered it: the idea of leaving and all the accompanying fear. But even after hours of staring, the fear persisted, of where she would go, and would she make it back, and would the sameness she’d come to rely upon still last.

RAMONA IN CHICAGO DURING THE FIRST-GLASS-OF-WINE TIME OF THE EVENING...

I N THE EVENING, R AMONA SAT IN HER CONDO, DOING SOMETHING that she would die from embarrassment over if anyone knew about it. As the snow came down in gentle flurries outside her window, across from the gaslit fireplace ensconced in a faux-salvaged exposed-brick wall, she reclined in her most comfortable chair, scrolling through pictures in her phone. She and Malik on the waterfront two summers ago. She and Malik at their one-year-anniversary dinner that he took her to before a surprise jazz concert. Malik flexing his carefully hewn muscles at the new gym where he took the trainer job. Malik... shirtless on the sofa... and another one that made her blush so deeply that she scrolled past it in a blur. Ramona felt like these were more than just memories, they were meant to be promises. She believed the good times that were shared meant of course they should continue. An instilled sense of Midwestern values weighed heavily toward marriage in that regard. Some part of Ramona, a very small part, did wonder what else there was other than marriage for a couple. Her parents had been married over three decades. Her brother was married, as were many of her friends from high school and college. It felt like something she was just supposed to do if she loved someone, and the rest was worked on, together.

Malik’s retreat made no clear sense to Ramona, and sometimes looking at the pictures, the smiles as captured proof of happiness, she scoured them for any clue there that things weren’t meant to work out. But there was nothing more she could see. Ramona clicked away from her photos and checked just one more time, first for any work emails, and then with more hope, for any text messages that perhaps she’d missed. Beside her, Wookiee licked her hand, the usual signal for food or more affection, and then sat and looked at her, tilting his irresistible face. Wookiee, a five-year-old caramel-colored shih-poo, was her constant companion and much more predictable than any human. Unable to resist the face of her own four-legged Star Wars –esque alien, Ramona freed one hand to bury it in his silky fur as he nuzzled his nose into her thigh. With her other hand, she shifted her scrolling screen navigation to her thumb, looking for treasure. Most noticeably absent was any ongoing communication from her ex, not even for something forgotten or left behind in the home they once shared together. Not even to ask about the dog. The extremely thin line that remained between her and what was likely complete insanity was the sole fact that he hadn’t asked for the ring back. To Ramona, that meant that somehow, at least in some small way, he was still holding on as well.

Disillusioned by the phone, she stood to make her way to the kitchen, imagining some other happy couple spending the holidays at her place. She pulled down a wineglass and grabbed the bottle nearest to her on the counter. The cork stood up from the neck at attention, a reminder of prior glasses during nights past. Her shih-poo made himself known at her feet, snuggling close for more attention.

“You don’t want me to leave, do you, Wookiee?” Ramona reached down to pet her dog as she spoke. “You think Latrice is crazy and Mommy should stay here with you, right?” Wookiee cocked his head to the side and looked at her as if she had a treat. The text message ping from her phone startled both of them, but it sent Ramona scrambling back to her still-warm seat.

Hope rushed through her body, and her fingers fumbled through the unlock code. Her stomach dropped as she saw the message waiting for her.

MA: SHALL WE GO LOOK AT MORE DRESSES ON SAT? Looking FORwaRd to your TIME OFF!

Ramona’s mother somehow always managed to trip the caps lock, and all her messages came as a ransom note. Ramona sighed, let the lids of her eyes drop closed, and felt her head turning back and forth involuntarily as if her neck were trying to get her to change her mind. Just go ahead and cancel the wedding , her conscience dared. But as had happened so many times since Malik left, Ramona looked down and saw the ring on her finger, the ring she still had, and opted for hope. Just give him a little more time , she told herself. But Ramona knew still, at some point, she’d have to face the bigger truth and ask herself the deeper questions—like, how could she be so sure about a man who was so unsure about her? And for the ring that she wore, what of herself was she trading away? But for now, she’d let hope sparkle on, and the disco ball on her finger glistened as if on cue. After thinking a bit and swallowing down the swell of guilt, Ramona typed her reply to her mother.

RAMONA: Saturday is perfect.