Different Circles

He put the phone back in its charger and then walked back to the kitchen, where Laura was scrubbing out the cast iron pan he had used.

“Well?” she asked.

“We’re formally invited to Valdez Manor for swim time and to prepare dinner,” he said.

“Very nice,” Laura said, a twinkle in her eye. “Hopefully, we’ll also have a nice dessert too.”

“Hopefully,” he said, still having doubts that this was a good idea, but hoping that it happened anyway.

Celia’s house was on Broad Beach Road, an offshoot of the Pacific Coast Highway as it ran through Malibu. The two-lane road was atop a sixty-foot ridge that rose above the beach between Zuma Beach and Broad Beach itself. From the street, the multimillion-dollar beachfront mansions did not look all that impressive, Celia’s included. This was because all that one could see from the street was the top level of the homes, which was generally just the driveway and garage. The actual living areas of the homes were built into the slope of the ridge and extended all the way down to just above the beach level itself. All the homes in this stretch protruded out onto the beach and sat atop reinforced concrete pillars driven thirty feet into the sand and the bedrock beneath it. This kept the lower levels—where the decks and family rooms generally were found—safely above the crashing waves when a particularly strong storm blew in and drove its surge beyond the high-tide mark and all the way to the base of the ridge itself.

Casa Valdez had been built in 1990 and owned by a particularly successful local real estate developer who had sold it to Celia for eleven million dollars after he and his wife divorced following the revelation that he was actually gay, had contracted HIV from one of his many male lovers, and then passed it on to her (reasonable grounds for divorce, Jake thought when Celia told him the story). Jake pulled his truck into the driveway at precisely 2:00 PM and stopped in front of the intercom box with its all-weather security camera. He rolled down the window and pushed the button. Celia did not speak to him. She just opened the left side sliding door of the four-car garage. Jake pulled in and parked next to her Mercedes. By the time he and Laura got out, the door was already sliding back down behind them.

They went through a door and down a set of stairs to another door. This led into a large foyer with vaulted ceilings and huge picture windows that looked out to the open ocean to the south and along the beach to Point Dume to the east. A spacious hallway to the right led off to the three-room master suite where Celia slept, the laundry room, and three of the four guest bedrooms, each of which had their own private bath and ocean views. An open staircase led downward from here to the lowest level where the kitchen, family room, dining room, guest bathroom, and one more guest bedroom could be found. They went down the stairs to the family room, which was decorated in a postmodern nautical theme. Two large windows and a huge set of sliding glass doors looked out over the beach and the water. The deck itself sat directly atop the pillars over the beach and was quite large, stretching the entire width of the house from side to side and extended outward for more than thirty feet. Out here was the infinity pool, a built-in hot tub, a large barbeque island, and a collection of expensive patio furniture.

Celia greeted them at the bottom of the stairs. She was dressed in a pair of white shorts and a loose-fitting tank top with her red bikini top underneath. Flip-flops were on her feet. She gave them each a hug even though it had only been twenty-four hours since she had last seen them, and then took the bag of dinner groceries from Jake and carried it into the kitchen. They followed her and helped her put the perishables away.

“Let me get you some drinks going,” Celia said. “Teach, I have a pitcher of iced green tea in the refrigerator.”

“That sounds good,” Laura said.

“What about you, Jake?” she asked. “Should I open a bottle of wine, or do you want a mixed drink from the bar?”

“Actually,” Jake said, “I think I’ll have some of that tea as well.”

She gave him an odd look. “Really?”

“Really,” he said. “I’ll have some wine with dinner.”

“Okay then,” Celia said doubtfully. She had never known Jake to turn down an offer for an alcoholic beverage when he did not have to perform or rehearse or fly.

Jake had his reasons. He and Laura had talked it over and decided that if they were going to do this thing, they were going to do it sober, without plying Celia with alcohol to break down her resistance and mask her judgment. Of course, they could not stop her from drinking if she wanted to, but if neither of them were drinking she would be unlikely to get herself hammered before they had a chance to pose their question to her. The plan worked. Celia poured all three of them a tall glass of the green tea on ice.

“Shall we go out to the deck?” she asked after everyone had glass in hand.