Jane went inside and took her place in line. As she waited, a memory surfaced.
When she was twelve and her brother was ten, their mother took them to a McDonald’s for lunch. Transporting John—especially in the winter in Chicago—required a lot of planning and effort. He usually preferred staying home, but today he was excited about the prospect of a burger and fries, so they hoisted him and his wheelchair into their specially outfitted van.
As they navigated the McDonald’s parking lot, the car right in front of them pulled into the one remaining space with a very clear disabled parking sign. Her mother’s hands—icy white with blooms of red at her knuckles—clenched the steering wheel as a gaggle of teenage girls poured out of the car, brimming with youth and vigor, giggling and shrieking.
“Should we say something, Mom?” Jane asked.
“We could, but you have to learn to live with these things. Even if you hate them.” Her mother turned to John in the back seat. “How about we do drive-through?” She smiled encouragingly. “We can eat in the car, or take it home? It’s so cold anyway, sweetheart.”
“I’m good with whatever,” John answered, genuinely unperturbed.
Jane had burned with shame as well as anger at the injustice. She hadn’t done anything wrong, so why did she feel ashamed? Did she wish her mother had done something? Did she wishshehad? She was relieved they didn’t have to go inside the McDonald’s and watch those girls enjoying themselves, sipping milkshakes and munching fries.
This memory was so vivid that Jane hadn’t realized she was next in line to order. The woman ahead of her was dithering, unable to decide between a cinnamon dolce latte and a caffè misto. Why oh why did she wait until she got right up to the counter to decide what to order?
Jane checked the time, then sighed audibly.
The woman turned around. “Would you like to go ahead of me? I’m still deciding.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m worried about being late for work,” Jane explained.
“I wouldn’t have offered if I minded,” the woman replied with a smile, but in a tone that could be either friendly or tetchy. Now Jane was the one who couldn’t make up her mind.
Ventura Freeway was reputedly the busiest highway in the country and if there were actually a busier one, well, good luck to it. The freeway’s eight lanes were perpetually clogged by battalions of vehicles, all shapes and sizes, belching exhaust, baking in the sun. Treacherous long-haul trucks, primed to pulverize anything in their path, barreled ahead. Growling motorcycles perilously darted in and out of traffic, like frantic gnats with a death wish.
It was November. The hellish scorching months of September and October, the time of Santa Ana winds and days that threatened wildfires and apocalyptic clouds of eye-stinging smoke were, Jane fervently hoped, over for the year. Still, it was very hot.
She was headed to Hidden Hills, an enclave at the west end of the San Fernando Valley protected by imposing walls and fences and gates. It attracted a lot of celebrities, so the aptly named Hidden Hills were actually a place for people to hide. But from what?
Today’s client was Tracey Biggs, the wife of the Clippers star Derek Biggs. Jane didn’t believe it was her duty to care about the Lakers and the Clippers just because she lived in LA. But Teddy would have been very excited to know about this particular job; Teddy and Keith got so caught up in the games. As long as a ball was in motion and men were pummeling or elbowing or spitting on each other, they were all in, bellowing at the TV as if somehow they could be heard. Part of Jane longed to experience that abandonment of self, turning herself over to mindless, unfettered fandom, but to her it often seemed like nothing more than a gleeful celebration of toxic masculinity. Besides, she couldn’t even turn herself over to a yoga flow, so it was never going to happen. Maybe what Teddy needed was one of those girls who liked eating nachos and understood the difference between a quarterback and a running back.
Jane put aside all thoughts about Teddy, ball games, and nacho fangirls as she pulled up to an enormous gate surrounding sprawling houses. She gave her name to the guard perched in a booth by the entrance and prepared to meet Tracey Biggs. As clients, trophy wives could go one of two ways: some were grateful and appreciative; others were entitled and demanding. Jane was hoping for the former.
Tracey would be stunningly gorgeous, which seemed to be a prerequisite to becoming a baller’s wife. Not that Jane was opposed to women bartering beauty for money or status; if men could, they would do it too, and in point of fact, some gay men did.
The guard waved her through, and Jane wound her way up a long driveway where she sat waiting for Lindsey to arrive.
“The guard gave me a really hard time at the gate. I guess they only had your name on the list, but like—do I look like a criminal?” Lindsey dithered. “It’s because I drive a Hyundai. I mean, really.”
“It’s fine. The traffic was a nightmare. I needed a few minutes to decompress.”
Lindsey breathed a sigh of relief, then scanned the grounds, acres and acres of serene, lush lawn, a vast expanse of flat land surrounded by rolling hills.
“I wonder if this place started out as a horse ranch or something?”
“I think it started out as a marketing scheme by a clever developer.”
“Oh Jane, you are so cynical!”
Jane shrugged. “Maybe I’m just a realist.”
Lindsey laughed. “You crack me up. But you know, we make our own reality, right? Mine is all sunshine and lollipops!”
If it weren’t for its massive scale—well over ten thousand square feet, maybe closer to twenty thousand—the sprawling postmodern farmhouse, an assembly of sections with A-frame roof lines, some faced with stonework, some with wood siding painted a blue-gray, would be unassuming. Enormous, black-framed windows and glass sliding doors, large apertures that a one-percenter would only tolerate in a sheltered enclave, fostered an illusion of openness.
Jane pressed the doorbell, conscious of its hidden camera, of being observed and judged, before being granted access to the inner sanctum. Today she wore khaki pants and a powder blue blouse, a deliberately simple ensemble that she thought lookedsmart next to Lindsey who, as per usual, was in jeans and a T-shirt, looking like a dorky high-schooler. But now the scrutiny of the glass eye was making Jane wonder if she looked like a cater-waiter or worse, a Scientologist. She was glad that at least she was wearing her elegant black Chloé flats, shoes rescued from the closet of an exasperating alcoholic starlet—gorgeous, not yet thirty, but already a dissolute disaster, squandering her beauty and talent, entirely incapable of taking care of anyone, including herself, or anything, most egregiously the Chloé flats.
Tracey Biggs, breathless, swung open the door. She wore a lilac athleisure ensemble and her hair was in a ponytail. Somehow, she made this look like the height of elegance.
