December 20

CHELSEA ON A PARTICULARLY NOISY MORNING ON CHICAGO’S GOLD COAST...

C HELSEA AWAKENED WITH A START TO BLARING HORNS AND THE chugging sound of construction. City noise , she reminded herself. The sounds of the city used to be welcome energy in her former life in Downtown LA. The area that became known as the Arts District was blocks of potential in abandoned spaces. Chelsea remembered that through art she and her friends managed to make the dingy and discarded come alive with color and welcome. They did art and ignored fear. They brushed aside inconvenience and held on to even the frayed edges of life itself. Not anymore though. After the softening that comes following years with the sea, this level of stimulation felt like disturbance rather than invigoration, and the city noise in Chicago made Jay’s morning music sound more like a delicate symphony in comparison. With the rattling of her mind, she barely noticed her phone buzzing next to her announcing a caller and, evidently, four other missed calls from the same number.

“Hello, Helena,” Chelsea croaked.

“Chelsea, I’ve been trying to reach you all morning!” Helena shrieked above the usual background buzz of her whereabouts.

“Helena, it is morning. I’m in Chicago. What’s going on?” Chelsea could barely imagine what could be so wrong so early, but if it meant an escape from the noise...

“Didn’t you see any of my text messages?” The edge in Helena’s voice was uncharacteristic. Chelsea straightened herself in the bed, putting the phone closer to her ear.

“No, Helena, I just woke up. Is there something wrong at the house? I know I made a mistake with the note I left, it said Latrice, but I realize I’m at Ramona Tucker’s house and—”

“Oh, no, dear,” Helena cut her off abruptly. “It’s much worse than that. Would you have informed your neighbors about a guest staying?”

Chelsea squeezed her eyes as her head swiveled back and forth with one obvious thought. “Joooooan,” she groaned, and Helena continued.

“Joan? Well, Joan , or another one of your, I would assume, overprotective neighbors sent the neighborhood patrol to visit your houseguest, Ramona, on her very first night on holiday. Dreadful .”

At first, Chelea was simply confused. “I’m not sure who it could be other than Joan next door, but I left a lockbox,” she mused. “Why would she...” And then, the sharp gasp came. Chelsea’s thoughts began to catch up in a slow realization. The pictures in Ramona’s home—above the fireplace, on the side table next to the couch, neatly arranged on the walls. It was clear which of the people depicted was Ramona, and more important, that Ramona was... Black. “Oh God.” Chelsea buried her face in her hands, dropping the phone with a thump on the bed.

When she picked the phone up again, Helena’s voice continued in a steady stream of words. “... and in spite of the hour, I had to do my best to try to persuade her to stay, but I’m not quite certain that worked, so—”

“Helena,” Chelsea interrupted. “Did you know that Ramona is... is... Black?”

Helena’s end of the line was suddenly, momentarily silent.

“Oh God,” she finally managed.

“Yeaaah.”

“Well, if it was this Joan... is she...”

At the mere thought, Chelsea felt instantly defensive. “Joan? Oh, no, no, no way. It must have been a mistake. I mean, she’s nosy for sure, but not... not...”

“Hmph.” In a very unusual circumstance, Helena sounded like she didn’t quite know what to say. Neither did Chelsea.

“Well, what should I do?” Chelsea asked finally.

“I don’t know, dear. I did my part. If you say your neighbor isn’t... well, um... isn’t prone to doing this sort of thing, then you’ll have to be the one to make sure of it. I needn’t remind you, if your guest leaves, you’ll have to figure out another means to pay taxes. The late taxes. I’m turning the matter over to your very capable hands.”

After the phone went silent, Chelsea scrolled through her text messages and saw that, aside from the barrage of insistent messages from Helena, there were also three from Joan. Chelsea clicked them open to read the first.

JOAN: Hey, are you expecting a guest? Call me.

Then, she opened the next message.

JOAN: Called the patrol, don’t worry. Will call you if a problem.

Chelsea brought her palm up to her forehead as if she could press reality away. Oh, Joan, why can’t you mind your own business? She took a deep breath before opening Joan’s third and final message.

JOAN: OMG, so sorry! Didn’t know you were doing BnB! Will take a welcome basket in the a.m.

Joan’s words brought a pang to Chelsea’s gut. This was not the welcome committee she envisioned for Ramona or any other guest. In fact, Chelsea hadn’t put much thought into it at all, not even to tell Joan that she’d be gone. She never imagined that Joan would go so far as to call the patrol. And if she did it because Ramona was... No, no, she couldn’t have. At least she didn’t call the police , Chelsea thought with a grimace. She checked the time and let her fingers dance across the screen. She wasn’t sure Joan was up, or what she was up to, but she wanted to stop that basket. She had to. With her house on the line, Chelsea wasn’t willing to risk another brush with Joan’s judgment.

CHELSEA: Joan, please, no basket.

CHELSEA: Ramona just wants to be left alone.

To Chelsea’s surprise, three dots in a bubble popped up on Joan’s side of the text thread. She held her breath, hoping, for the first time ever, Joan would take no for an answer. To her dismay, the dots disappeared.

JOAN FOX IN HER DOUBLE-LOT, TRIPLE-LEVEL, MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR PALACE BY THE SEA IN MALIBU...

J OAN F OX VOTED FOR O BAMA, TWICE . S HE’D REPEATED THIS FACT to herself approximately thirty-seven times since ten p.m. last night when she shuffled down her well-worn copy of Ina Garten’s The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and flipped to her tabbed page of the recipe for strawberry scones. Her expansive kitchen, equipped with essentially new appliances from Viking, Wolf, and Miele, looked like a disaster area, with remnants of flour, discarded baking sheets, and dough-graffitied mixing bowls, which filled her ceramic farmhouse sink to overflowing. The dishwasher was humming, the microwave was beeping, and her generous hood fan whirred above her head.

Throughout the night—from nearly the first moment she learned of her incredibly unfortunate faux pas until now—Joan had been baking. Out of the long wall of windows facing the sea, she could see the first rays of light change the midnight blue over the ocean to a peachy orange-and-lavender mix of early morning.

Baking was what Joan decided to do with all her nervous energy, the never-ending farmers market–sourced supply of strawberries that usually dotted her yogurt, and the three-quarters-of-a-pound of all-organic grass-fed butter that she’d used precisely chilled (not cold, and certainly not room temperature) in the mixer. Other than the Barefoot Contessa’s signature recipe, she’d used her formerly spotless oven to produce four types of Christmas cookies, two of which had icing, and a loaf of her almost-famous banana bread that used the very last of her breakfast fruit.

Her doomsday thoughts of whether or not she’d proven herself to be the dreaded r-word (she could not, in fact, bring herself to think it, let alone say it) were almost drowned out by the impossibly meticulous attention to detail required by baking. It was four measured cups plus exactly one tablespoon leveled for the flour and five eggs beaten two ways, plus two types of sugar, one in particular for sprinkling on top when everything was finished. Joan needed to measure and mix, bake and pack, not think. Because if she thought, then she’d replay the events of the previous night over and over again, wondering how it was that she wrongly saw the circumstances of Ramona’s reentry into Chelsea’s house so clearly as a home invasion. Wouldn’t anyone, seeing any unfamiliar person entering their neighbor’s dark home, call a patrol of some sort? Wasn’t that the neighborly thing to do? And wasn’t it a virtue to be the keeper of her neighbor’s property, the maintainer of the gates, the last defense between the high-tide line and the private property rights that were so expensive and well-earned? Malibu was small, a tiny community of people who’d made it so easy to determine who and what belonged there, and who and what did not. You just trusted your gut, and anything and anyone out of place just so happened to stick out like a sore thumb. And certainly, Ramona stuck out... but not because she was... well, different. Joan had her eye trained for anything unusual, and Ramona entering Chelsea’s house was simply that—unusual.

And now that all was sorted, what was the harm? And what more to do than simply forgetting it and letting it go? Best to just move on... Joan’s thoughts continued as she lined one of her spare gift baskets in the pantry with a fresh cloth that she just happened to also have. As she learned from frequent entertaining and being even more frequently entertained, you never knew when you’d need to bring a gift basket with you in a pinch, and who had time to head down to the Malibu Country Mart? Oh, and anyway, she’d only called the Sentry Patrol, the private security, not the police. So, was Chelsea’s guest ever in any danger? What was her name again? Rolanda? Regina? Unable to recall, Joan resolved to text Chelsea again just to make sure she had it right, before she marched the fifty feet to next door armed with a basket full of treats and a welcome worthy of Queen Oprah herself, whom Joan had met, of course, several times.

As Joan fumbled around in the space underneath her sink for the basic cleaning supplies for her kitchen, a task usually handled by others without her involvement, she once again replayed the events. It was seven thirty p.m., already dark and with seemingly nobody on the stretch of beach sand behind hers and Chelsea’s houses. So, it could have been anyone who was the shadowy figure lurking along Chelsea’s deck space and who ultimately fumbled their way inside through an open door. Joan would swear it was impossible to tell even if it were a man or a woman, and in the twilight, of course, near impossible to see race—although she could see hair, lots of it. In a puff pulled up on top of the person’s head. But again, how was Joan to know?

Joan looked down at her hands now immersed in warm suds in her sink. Will this dish soap ruin my manicure? she wondered. It was so infrequent that she washed dishes, especially not by hand. The unusual experience briefly recalled her childhood in Bakersfield, California, a place she’d much rather forget, when cleaning was her job, rather than someone else’s. Standing back then in the tiny kitchen of a modest home, not much more than a stationary trailer, reaching barely over the rim of the dingy metal sink, little Joan was familiar with washing dishes. She was charged with cooking for herself and leaving a spotless kitchen before her waitress mother came home from the late shift most nights. When high school ended, Joan couldn’t have run away fast enough from her very small town to come to Los Angeles. She rode the wave of what attention her beauty brought—small acting jobs at first, and then a series regular role on Knots Landing . And then, the grand coup of the time back then, a high-profile marriage to a television producer, the David Fox, which landed her right here, where she belonged, ensconced high on the social ladder of insular Malibu.

These days, in each of her homes, there was always someone to tend to the kitchen. But in Joan’s childhood, it had been different. And the idea of a dirty kitchen still filled her core with dread. The need for spotlessness was etched as deeply in her subconscious as the memories of her once-threadbare existence that she couldn’t shake. So, as her maid wouldn’t arrive for hours yet, Joan was washing spatulas, spoons, and bowls and scraping the burnt remains of otherwise perfectly baked goods off their aluminum baking sheets. There was so much that little Joan wanted to leave behind that this Joan, divorcée Joan, wealthy Joan, Joan who got the beach house in Malibu and the Westside friends and half the residuals from not only one but two of her ex’s very successful shows, this Joan did not do dishes and was certainly not , well, that dreadful r-word.

Joan had appearances to maintain, after all, truly, after all that had happened with her marriage, which was quite a bit. The whispers started long before David’s assistant became pregnant and decided to stay that way. So, when the news broke it was only a matter of time before the functional fa?ade of the marriage crumbled and divorce followed. By that time, two kids and three decades later, there was no career to restart—her highest-paying and most visible role had been David’s loyal wife. But, as long as she maintained her social status, it wasn’t the worst outcome to get the Malibu house, plus the Cabo house and a condo in Aspen, plus a generous chunk of David’s residuals.

Joan did, however, take special care to maintain her status within her circle of friends. The embarrassment of David’s long stretch of betrayals required her to keep appearances at all costs. There was nothing like a broken woman to leave a trail of blood in the water for a swift social death. So, Joan maintained the fa?ade, and still hosted the most elaborate dinners, the after parties for the Emmy Awards, the midnight brunch that everyone attended after the illustrious Vanity Fair afterparty with a signature eggs Benedict that had even the industry’s most sinewy-limbed action star exposing his appetite rather than his usual public-facing self-restraint.

And now, after all these years of surviving threats to her image, her reputation unscathed, she’d run the risk of one tiny mistake labeling her the most unthinkable thing. The one thing that would get her quietly uninvited to everything she’d fought so hard to maintain not just from the divorce, but in her whole life. Joan Fox belonged here, and she was going to make sure that it stayed that way.

With a clean kitchen and a filthy conscience, Joan loaded her arm up with a cornucopia of baked delights and made her way to formally introduce herself to the new neighbor next door. Joan was absolutely certain she was just one dollop of clotted cream on a fresh strawberry scone away from sweeping the events of the prior night perfectly under the rug.

CHELSEA IN CHICAGO...

I N THE ABSENCE OF A USUAL MORNING ROUTINE, C HELSEA USED her nervous energy to assemble the elements of a late-late-morning first pot of coffee. It wasn’t difficult to find the necessary supplies in Ramona’s kitchen—the mug was in the cabinet over her shoulder to the right, the spoon in the drawer to the left of the sink; the coffee itself was in the pantry, behind the only full-size door in the kitchen. And the filtered water was in the carefully labeled carafe in the refrigerator, written in neat white chalk handwriting on an erasable black panel. Where Chelsea had left her guest a note, Ramona had left Chelsea detailed notes upon notes of how to find everything from a fork to a hammer and an organizational system that was worthy of its own HGTV series.

As worried as she was about the future of the Malibu house and without access to her usual comforts, in particular her studio and wide assortment of painting supplies, Chelsea would have normally channeled manageable anxiety into productivity, perhaps some arranging at her temporary home. But Ramona’s place was already spotless. There wasn’t so much as a tastefully patterned accent pillow out of place on the sofa. Moreover, in the daylight, Ramona’s clear sense of decorating logic spoke in silent volumes of beiges and cream neutrals, slight hints of soft, delicate, barely-there pink and warmed-up grays. She’d either made or inherited a lime-washed brick fireplace, and the blues and white in the area rug perfectly offset the windows that faced a frozen Lake Michigan. Chelsea imagined the view as lovely in the much warmer summer, and her touch of the glass let her know just how incredibly cold it was outside. She shuddered with the thought of it and wondered how it might work to stay within the modest confines of a single bedroom, bathroom, and living room for the entirety of the rest of the week.

And it was there, staring out of the windows at a dreary day in a frozen city with a frozen lake, drumming her fingers against the glass, that Chelsea heard a knock on the door. Expecting no one, she would have ignored it but for the subsequent sound of the lock turning and then the door handle moving, and the door creaking open.

She would have screamed—the noise was stuck right at the back of her throat—but for seeing the biggest, brightest smile that for a second actually took her literal breath away. In front of her was a tall man, six feet at least, of square frame with chocolate curls on the top of his tapered haircut. Thick eyebrows covered bright, friendly dark-brown eyes, whose long lashes nearly graced the top of stubbled cheeks with skin the color of a caramel latte. Remembering the sound of the key quelled some of the panic in Chelsea’s body, and instead she stood in the room still silent with her mouth slightly agape, unable to find a single word to speak.

“My bad,” the entrant said midstride with his hand still on the doorknob. “I knocked, but thought you might have run out real quick.”

“I’m not Ramona,” Chelsea said. It was ridiculous and also the only thing she could convince her mouth to say.

He laughed, and Chelsea felt herself smiling back. She wanted to be angry at the intrusion, but his smile was so friendly, disarming, and inexplicably familiar.

“I’m not Ramona either.” The big smile smiled bigger. “I’m Carlos.” He reached his hand toward Chelsea as if to shake it, extending his long, winter-insulated arm in a bundle of coat. And then he halted suddenly as if to change his mind. “My bad...” As he continued, his cheeks started to redden a bit. “I’m Ramona’s play brother...” Seeing the immediate confusion in Chelsea’s face, he searched for a different reference to describe their relationship. “Her... let’s just say cousin? You know, brother from another?”

Chelsea shook her head slowly with recognition. She’d seen this man, Carlos, before. Now, with context, she recognized him from several of Ramona’s pictures.

“I’m Chelsea. Ramona’s guest, I guess? She’s staying in my place in Malibu.” It felt like the words were stumbling out of her mouth.

“Right. Her West Coast hideout. We’re all accomplices. I’m taking care of her dog.” He started to close the door behind him, completing his entrance, but hesitated and turned to Chelsea. “You mind if I step in and grab a few things, actually? For the pup?”

Chelsea nodded her consent. By now, the level of quite obviously unnecessary fear was settling into something that more resembled excitement and an unmistakable and quite unexpected current of attraction. She managed to take a staggered deep breath as Carlos first tapped then wiped his Timberlands against the thick macramé floor mat and finally continued his long strides toward the kitchen.

“She always keeps it so warm in here.” Carlos zipped down the top half of his coat, loosened the tan-colored wool scarf that perfectly accented his complexion, and completed his short trip across the compact space to a position in the center of the kitchen. “I just stopped by to get some treats. Evidently it has to be the exact treats she gives him. He literally won’t eat anything else and needs to be bribed to do everything.” Carlos’s words floated to Chelsea as an echo from the cabinet under the sink, as he was bent down rummaging through another of Ramona’s meticulously arranged spaces. Seeming to find what he was looking for, he popped back up with the energy of a kid who’d just won a prize, admiring the brightly colored plastic bag of dog treats he’d been looking for. He then turned to fully examine a still somewhat listless Chelsea.

“Sorry about the intrusion though. I’m sure you didn’t expect anyone to come through the door. You good?” Carlos paused and raised an eyebrow, looking at her. Chelsea nodded, and then, seeming satisfied with that answer, he continued. “So you’ll be here a week...” he said, with the consideration of a scientific discovery. “California time, that’s right. You’re probably still pre-coffee, right? You got anybody here in Chicago?”

“I don’t know anybody here,” she said quietly.

“Now you do.” Carlos punctuated it with an even bigger smile. “Coming from the West Coast, you don’t know about this Midwest winter. Got a warm coat?”

Chelsea remembered the Burning Man special she’d stuffed in her luggage at the last minute.

“I guess I do,” she said. “It worked for me in the desert.”

Carlos’s face scrunched. And then he shook his head. That glorious head full of lush chocolate curls. He beckoned toward her with his fingertips.

“Let me see it.”

“You want to see my coat?”

“Yeah, let me see it.”

Chelsea hesitated but decided to comply. “One sec,” she told Carlos and headed into the bedroom and returned with the coat. Somehow then, in Ramona’s contemporary dream of a living room, it looked much more ratty and matted than it ever did within her own walls. She held the coat up between herself and Carlos. It resembled a dingy tan roadkill animal, if the roadkill animal was dripping small cascades of sand into tiny dunes on the wood-paneled portion of the floor beneath her.

“What is that?”

“My coat.”

“It looks dead.”

“It’s faux. It was never alive. I don’t wear dead animals.”

“Now, that’s some LA shit,” Carlos said with another generous laugh, as if Chelsea had said the most ridiculous thing in the world. “This is Chicago . You wander around downtown wearing a roadkill robe dripping actual sand everywhere you go, and the cops are gonna pick you up, for sure .”

Chelsea looked at the coat again. It truly had served her just fine in the desert. But Chicago was a different kind of cold, that much was made clear even in the brief moments of her exposure to it when she arrived. This kind of cold was far more intense, not like the desert at all. And so, although, she had no certain plans of ever leaving Ramona’s place, Carlos had a point.

“You know where to go to get a coat?” His right eyebrow lifted as he waited for her to reply.

Chelsea knew absolutely nothing about Chicago. She didn’t even remember exactly how she’d gotten to Ramona’s condo the night before other than plugging an address into her rideshare app. She gave no answer, but pulled her arms up, crossing them in a tangle with the coat across the front of her body.

“Tomorrow, Cali girl, we go and get you a coat.” Carlos gestured good-naturedly in her direction. “And some real coffee. That stuff Ramona keeps here, that ain’t what you want.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned to the door, quickly doubling back on his path. Half out of the door, before closing it, he squeezed his head and shoulders back inside.

“Nice meeting you, Chelsea.”

The door shut behind him, and Chelsea could still see his smile as if she’d just looked at a lightbulb. She realized that while she never agreed to needing a coat, already she found herself looking forward to tomorrow.

“Nice meeting you too,” she said finally, while the remnants of Burning Man continued to build in tiny piles of sand on the ground beneath her feet.

RAMONA BURIED NECK-DEEP IN THE BEDCOVERS IN MALIBU...

R AMONA SPENT THE ENTIRETY OF HER FIRST NIGHT TOSSING and turning, reviewing events moment by moment like a long grocery receipt, leading up to the unthinkable tally of a patrolman confrontation at the door of her vacation rental. This, at minimum, was a development as inexplicable as seeing a ghost. There’d been no natural cause to connect to the series of events, thus creating the impossible puzzle that Ramona confronted—how could she find an explanation for what seemed to be the wrongdoing of simply being. Being somewhere, somewhere , being Malibu. Not that she’d thrown a loud party. There’d been no ruckus, no noise, not even an eventful entry, as she’d managed to retrieve the key with only minor pause and difficulty. And yet, nonetheless, she had to confront a patrolman. Why? Was it that she was Black? Or was it something else? Bad luck? Unfortunate timing? Circumstances beyond her control?

Ramona Tucker had no idea. So, without answers, she fretted. What demands the mind makes after trauma, requiring an explanation at least, an assurance that what felt dangerous won’t happen again. Shall I file this in the drawer labeled “unusual”? the mind asks, begging for its return to safety. Ramona’s mind did, certainly. But this kind of disturbance couldn’t be labeled as unusual because it simply wasn’t. And so, after all the consternation, without explanation, Ramona did what she did best—worked the numbers.

She counted the number of times that she’d been stopped by police. The number of times she felt afraid when she saw a uniform in front of her or the black-and-white pattern of a standard patrol car behind her. The seconds of panic she’d felt in her life hearing a siren or seeing lights flash, perhaps only to go around her in pursuit of someone else. How many times she’d double-checked the location of her driver’s license and wallet in her car. The number of eyes that stared at her with suspicion when she was minding her own business. How much extra time she spent trying to be unbearably acceptable. She even calculated how much this rental, this time in Chelsea’s cottage, was costing her by the minute and started to think about Helena’s offer. Could she determine how much she was actually owed for this situation, this experience and all of its dissatisfaction? In the end, she basically figured that the numbers weren’t adding up.

This was how she decided that she should depart this place. And this was how the day greeted her, as Ramona watched the sky change from midnight blue to royal blue with a hint of periwinkle, with the thought in her mind: I should leave . Lying in bed, Ramona blinked into the developing sunlight and contemplated closing the shutters. But, waking up to the ocean was still a glorious view, even with just the few winks of sleep that she’d managed.

Despite Ramona’s thrashing, Chelsea’s bed was still a comfortable mess of expensive down comforter, a generous king-size memory foam mattress, and stacks of pillows. In the last hour, Ramona’s body had sunk into an exactly Ramona-size indentation. She needed the rest. With effort, as she turned away from the windows, rotating her body in the groove beneath her, Ramona’s satin sleep bonnet made a whoosh of friction against the soft cotton pillowcase. Somehow, she’d managed to keep it on despite fitful tossing and turning, restless with the mental replay of her run-in with the Sentry Patrol. Someone phoned a complaint , she recalled him saying. Nosy-assed people , she thought to herself, feeling the acute sense of not belonging. It just seemed like, already, Malibu was going out of its way to be clear that she wasn’t one of its own.

“I should just go back home,” she said aloud to no one.

In reply, she heard the distant whoosh of the surf interrupted by the sudden start of the thump and high-pitched synth of electronic music that was much closer.

“Oh my God, it gets worse,” Ramona mumbled, bringing her hands up to her temples and squeezing her eyes shut. She should leave, but couldn’t leave, not without somewhere else to go, and a new plan. And so, the only thing she really could do was to call Latrice and hope that in this one instance, she would not be the voice of reason. One very deep breath later, she began fumbling around in the layers of bedding for her cell phone. Pulling up the screen for recent contacts, she dialed.

“Latrice, why did I let you convince me to do this?” Ramona could hear the sounds of the city in the background on the other end of the line.

“Girl, I’m about to get on the L,” Latrice replied, sounding like she was also shivering. “Are you okay? It’s cold as shit out here.”

“I think I need to come home,” Ramona said.

“What?”

“It was a mistake to come. I should have known.”

“Known what—that someone would call the patrol on you? How would you?”

“Latrice, it’s Malibu. We both should have known.”

“Are you serious, Ramona?” Latrice sounded frustrated. Ramona saw her pinch the bridge of her nose with her gloved hand in the frame of the camera before the hand unfurled palm forward, taking up most of the view. “Hold up. Let me calm down.” A very long exhale followed. “So, we’re just sup posed to stick to the boxes someone else has drawn? Just lie down flat, accept this simple bullshit that we know is bullshit? Because those people in Malibu don’t want you there? Is that what you’re saying, Moe?”

Ramona hesitated. “I mean... I might have said it differently, but—”

“But what? If you leave, period, point blank you’ve let them win. They win and you... lose. That’s it. Have you ever searched the news for Malibu?”

“Didn’t you when you picked this place?”

“Yeah, I did. And I still picked it because it’s beautiful and affordable for your hardworking ass in the offseason, and you deserve it. Because it is damn gorgeous . And yes, it’s a place where rich, white-minded people live, who’ve come to think the world revolves around them. Do I know what it means to have so much money and so much time that you’d spend it inventing ways to try to literally own the beach? No. Do I know what it means to design fences to cover walkways, or expand driveways and move dumpsters so people can’t find walkways to enjoyment? Girl, I don’t have the time. And neither do you.”

“The ocean, the beach, the palm trees, Latrice, the weather even—it’s all so beautiful here. So beautiful that I wouldn’t even try to describe it—I just want you to see it for yourself. I wish that everyone could see it, be touched by it like I was. My first feeling was wanting to share. I guess that means no, I just don’t understand.”

“So, imagine thinking, for some reason, you have the right... or the duty even, to ruin all that beauty for someone else? What kind of person wakes up to that view, miserable ?”

“Honestly... today? Me.”

Latrice sighed aggressively. “Moe, you can’t let whoever infect you with their unhappiness. That shit is contagious, for real...”

“Let’s just say it worked,” said Ramona, growing more irritated and frustrated all the same. And she didn’t mean to take it out on Latrice. She didn’t mean to take it out on anyone... other than herself. But the words were there, and they kept coming. “I was so close to happy, Latrice. So close... last night, I could feel it. Happiness, right there, peace, right there. Just one moment, to relax... to enjoy what I could provide for myself. I work so much, so hard...” Then, she had to stop talking. Because the moment that she spoke the word hard , she thought about it and how much she actually did work—the responsibility that she shouldered, what that took from her, and what she didn’t and couldn’t get back—the rest of the words caught in her throat. Now was the time for her tears again, and the weariness. She sniffled and then sobbed the rest of what she needed to say, everything that had been pent up from the night before, when she’d cried herself into the little bit of sleep she’d managed. “The enjoyment is gone . Now all I can think about is, Who called the patrol? Why did they do that? Who else is going to come in the middle of the night? I mean, Latrice, am I even safe? Why can’t I just be here ? Why?” Ramona wailed. It was as if the pain she felt had cracked through an opening and now could only pour out. Ramona wasn’t even sure if the phone line was still connected, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop until it all came out.

“All I wanted to do was to come for a week, let Christmas pass, and go back with a little more time. That’s all, Latrice. But then, when I got here, and felt the sun and the breeze, and my goodness... saw the great big ocean, I hadn’t felt that good for so long. For one moment, I exhaled, like I spent good money for a good reason. That somehow, after everything, I needed this —that there was something here for me.

“And then, for absolutely no reason, when I’m where I’m supposed to be, some stranger comes in the dead of night trying to force his way in to snatch my ID? Like I owe him some kind of explanation? I don’t have to explain anything. And I’m tired of pretending that I’m okay. Of taking polite phone calls and saying ‘Hmmm, I’ll consider it’ when someone offers to pay me back a night. Seven hundred dollars for my troubles, right? So, then I guess I’m not hurt anymore? But I am hurt. When do I get to say something bad happened to me? And who do I say it to, Latrice, if not you?” Ramona had finally run out of words. She was breathing hard now, with tears streaming down her face, onto her hands, into the sheets and comforter below her, like rain on the surface of the sea.

For a moment, the line was silent on Latrice’s end. Very uncharacteristic of Latrice, who always knew what to say, except when there was truly nothing to say. Because the pain that Ramona expressed deserved space, as well as acknowledgment. After a few seconds passed, Latrice did reply. In a much softer tone, she said, “I’m sorry that happened to you.” And it was a tone that carried empathy, understanding, and the tacit commiseration of knowing exactly what had happened, exactly how she felt, because it was commonly experienced and, in another place and time, it had happened to her too.

In the silence between them, Ramona breathed. She gathered and soothed herself. She pulled sheets and comforter and her own arms around herself and hugged tightly. “Thank you,” she said, wiping her tears. Then, as her body calmed and quieted, the outside noise assaulted her ears again, and she recounted the lesser ills of Malibu. “He also ruined what might have been the best burger I’ve had in ten years, and now some kind of thumping electro-house DJ has taken over my morning.”

“Well, this gets better,” Latrice said with a voice now full of intrigue. “Somebody’s playing house music?”

“Girl, not Chicago house. Definitely not Chicago house. More like... New Jersey house. And I barely got any sleep, and the ocean is noisy, and—”

“Ramona...” Latrice let out another very loud and very long sigh. “I know this is hard. But I have to be honest with you. For real. Whatever it is that is there for you in Malibu, whether it is just to sit for five minutes in the sun, or wade into the ocean with your bare feet, or splash in some water up to your neck so you don’t mess up your hair, you need this. And yes, before you say it, I’ll say this . Look, you can come back to freezing-cold Chicago, but if you do, just remember, it’s not going to be any easier. And now, Malibu owes you something. It’s up to you to figure out what that is... and take it back. Because nobody ever offers you what you’re worth.”

Ramona covered her eyes again with her hands and vigorously rubbed the sides of her face. She needed to wake up.

“Latrice, I—” she began. Interrupting her reply was the sound of her doorbell. Dinnnng... donnng , it rang, as ominous as ever. Not again , she thought. As if pulled by an invisible wire, Ramona shot straight up to a seated position in the bed. Immediately, the jolt of panic arrived, deep in her gut. Heart rate increasing, she felt her breath come faster as she looked around for some reassurance of safety. But there was none, just Latrice on the phone. Other than the ocean outside and the music that continued to play, she was alone.

“Ramona...” Latrice echoed back.

“No, not Ramona. Someone’s at the front door.” This pronouncement Ramona whispered, even though she wasn’t quite sure why she did. She began bunching the bedding around her, looking to find her way out of it. Preparations for whatever was about to happen.

“Is it the Sentry Patrol again?” Latrice sounded concerned.

“I have no idea, I’m in the bed.” But, as Ramona spoke, she was making her way out of the bed, pulling the bunched covers off her brown legs, dropping her toes down to meet the rug covering the wooden floor planks. Shifting her weight slowly to standing, she strategized her next move.

“Don’t you have a doorbell camera or something?” Latrice offered.

“This isn’t my house, remember?”

“Right. Go see who’s there, then. I’ll stay on the phone with you.”

Latrice’s last words gave Ramona a sinking feeling. They brought reality all too close to bear. That here, in the presence of the sea and sand and witnessed by the majesty of the ocean herself, Ramona couldn’t just be a guest in a house. That it must come traumatically, that she would have to find courage somewhere that didn’t belong on vacation. “Why is this happening to me?” she whimpered. “Should I just stay here and hide?”

“You think they’ll just go away?”

“Latrice, this is serious.”

“I am being serious. Turn your camera around and at least go see who it is. I’ll be your witness.”

With a loud groan, enough to echo the near totality of all her frustrations, Ramona pushed herself to move. She shuffled her feet into her slippers and pulled a robe around her sleepwear.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this... again ,” Ramona whispered into the phone. On the screen she could see Latrice leaning forward, seated on the train, silent but watching diligently. Ramona crept forward, tensing further with each step, stress rising through her body like steam. It wasn’t a long distance from the bedroom in the back of Chelsea’s house to the front door on the other side of the living room, but the thirty steps felt like an eternity for Ramona. Finally, she got close enough that she could see the outline of the figure of a woman, no longer ringing, but now physically rapping a staccato knock on the door with her knuckles.

“Don’t answer,” Latrice whispered. “I bet it’s the neighbor who called the po-po on you.”

Ramona took a step closer to get a better gauge. “It’s a woman,” she told Latrice.

“Does she have on a uniform?”

“It looks like she’s holding a wicker basket.”

“Are you sure it’s not a gun?”

“A gun doesn’t look like a basket.”

“True dat. But still. And she’s alone?”

“I think alone, from what I can see. Should I answer?” The knocking continued, and the bell rang once again.

“ Hell no you shouldn’t,” Latrice said. “Back up from the door and just wait. If it’s a basket, maybe she’ll leave it and go the hell away.”

Ramona peeped carefully around the corner of the sofa. She still saw the silhouette standing there, seemingly shifting the outline of a large loop-handled basket from one hand to the other. Finally, the basket fell out of her field of vision and a folded piece of paper slid under the door. The woman’s silhouette reappeared, then started to shrink and, eventually, disappeared.

Ramona pulled the phone back up to eye level. Latrice was still sitting on the train with the phone’s camera at an unnaturally close distance from her face, distorting her features.

“She’s gone,” Ramona said, turning the camera setting to face her again.

Latrice on her end leaned back into the seat and slouched with a loud exhale of relief.

“That was intense.”

Ramona remained silent while she tiptoed to the door to take a closer look. The folded paper lay calmly next to the door, reduced now to just an artifact of Ramona’s dread and the unwanted visit that caused it. The second unwanted visit.

“Should I read the note?”

“Do you even need to ask? Girl, read the note!”

Ramona bent down and reached for the carefully creased white paper on the ground in front of her. It was folded exactly in half, and the paper seemed to be one of those very fancy stationery types, with texture and unfinished edges. Ramona opened it to reveal a plain stamped monogram on top, FROM THE DESK OF JOAN FOX , and a swirl of signature on the bottom. Written in the middle in a mixture of elongated swoops and elegant lines was a note. Ramona read it out loud to Latrice.

Dearest Ramona,

Chelsea told me that she’d have a guest for the week. Please accept these simple treats to welcome you to our community. I hope this will be the start to a wonderful time. There’s so much to enjoy. Please do call me anytime. I’d love to treat you to lunch or dinner and would be thrilled to show you our little town by the sea.

Most sincerely,

Your next-door neighbor, Joan

Ramona looked up to see Latrice staring at her intently. “And then she left her number. Oh, and a ‘P.S.’ It says, ‘The banana bread is gluten-free.’”

For a second, they both sat in silence, contemplating the developments. Of course, Joan was a suspect, but the note was so friendly and the situation so unfamiliar. If she knew Ramona was coming, why would she call the patrol? Perhaps Chelsea sent Joan? And would the same person who called the Sentry Patrol on an innocent Black woman care enough to make gluten-free banana bread? People do want to believe the best of things, as Ramona did, except that Blackness is a cynical teacher. You must question all, even smiling faces, and what might happen without warning. Nonetheless, Joan’s disarming note—so full of friendliness and an invitation to the other side of Malibu, its welcoming side—did the work as intended. Finally, it was Latrice who spoke first.

“Well, the banana bread is gluten-free,” she said haltingly. “ And it said ‘treats.’ So maybe you should open the door and just see.”

“What if she’s waiting for me to open the door?”

“You really think she’s ready to pounce?” Latrice laughed. “Ramona, c’mon. She’s probably harmless.”

“Or not,” Ramona shot back. As much reluctance as she felt, already she was reaching for the door handle. Despite all the circumstances, curiosity had won. Ramona pulled the door open, looking around from left to right for any sign of her visitor. Seeing no one, she cautiously bent down to retrieve the basket. It was huge, at least one foot high and made of heavy woven reeds, lined with a beautiful gingham-printed fabric and filled to the brim with what looked and smelled like freshly baked goods. Ramona pulled herself and the basket inside, closed the door, and headed straight for the kitchen island. Placing the basket on the surface, she gave herself the opportunity to examine the contents more closely.

“There really is banana bread in here, Latrice.”

“Girl, let me see.”

Ramona held her phone over the top of the basket, letting the view fall over each item carefully nestled in place inside the generous cavity. She could smell the butter and sweetness of sugar and vanilla, strawberries, and of course the unmistakable perfume of banana and cinnamon. She had to admit that the room had been immediately filled with the smell of heaven, and she was having a hard time keeping herself from indulging in a bite.

“Are you going to try one?”

“I don’t know.” Ramona took a deep whiff. “Food from strangers and all... but it smells so good. When I moved into my place back home, the condo board didn’t send me so much as a pizza.”

“Maybe you’re getting to see how the other side lives. But, double-check—do you see a teacup and a spoon in there?”

Ramona stifled a laugh but actually looked. “Nope, don’t see either.”

“Then it seems like you don’t need to get out ,” Latrice pronounced.

“Goodbye, Latrice.” Ramona maneuvered to end the call but hovered her hand over the screen.

“So, you’re staying, then?” Latrice leaned forward again, face open and eager for Ramona’s response.

“At least now I have enough carbs to fuel a wash day,” Ramona replied begrudgingly.

As Ramona and Latrice discussed their plans for the rest of the day and Ramona eventually reached for a slice of the irresistible banana bread, little did she realize that Joan had positioned herself in her usual place on her deck, behind her usual sunglasses, underneath her usual hat, to wait.

JOAN BACK AT HOME (NOT IN THE BUSHES)...

T RUE THAT J OAN DID ACTUALLY LEAVE HER BASKET OF TREATS and her carefully crafted note. She was not lurking around any corners, especially since she could just as easily see nearly all of Ramona’s goings-on from her perch at home. She felt satisfied with what she’d done, even as she walked away without Ramona answering the door. She had of course hoped that she would answer the door, having come bearing such a perfectly handcrafted welcome gift, but nonetheless left nothing to chance. Maybe she was sleeping late , Joan explained to herself and congratulated herself for leaving her number in the note.

She made it back to her own door just in time to look over, down at Chelsea’s place, and caught her first daytime glimpse of Ramona Tucker as she collected the basket. Joan felt herself smile as she closed the door behind her. Ramona Tucker , she thought to herself. By now, after learning it from Chelsea, she’d committed Ramona’s name to memory and had googled her twice. She saw that Ramona had graduated from DePaul (from LinkedIn) and that she’d evidently once won some kind of youth scholarship. She found her social media page, which was private, but she did see what she thought was a wedding registry? Strange, but she resolved to find out. Because she would most certainly meet Ramona. Looking at her cell phone, Joan thought, any time now and awaited the imminent ring or a ping of a message. When it didn’t arrive right away, she resolved to keep her phone close by, because even if it took all day, Joan would make sure that Ramona Tucker knew that she was welcome, and that Joan Fox was not r—.