Wrong City (4 page)

Nothing but
silence. “Hello?” His voice sounded thin and muted in the fog. He hesitated, keeping
still, listening for any response.

Everything was
quiet. He was alone. After hesitating a moment longer, heart pounding, muscles
still on high alert, he turned back to his apartment building.

In the
darkness, his sandaled foot struck a sprinkler head jutting up from the patch
of lawn just outside the security gate. He pitched forward and hit the
sidewalk, the pain of impact jolting through his hands and knees.

The flashlight
went out upon contact with the cement. Vish remained on all fours for a moment,
conducting a quick internal diagnostic check. Nothing was broken. His knees
hurt and his palms were scraped, but it all seemed minor.

He rose to his
feet and brushed off his pants, and that was when the back of his head
exploded.

S
omebody hit me. Somebody actually
hit me.

The cold
roughness of cement against his cheek, a curiously dull and imprecise pain
across the entire back of his skull, like a nascent headache that couldn’t
commit to forming. Had he lost consciousness? Had time passed—minutes, or even
hours—since someone had crept up behind him in the darkness and bashed him over
the head? Or had he only been momentarily stunned by the blow, and even now
someone was waiting nearby, watching him, readying for a repeat assault?

He froze in
place, sprawled facedown on the sidewalk, and organized his thoughts against
the mounting wave of adrenaline-fueled panic. He was okay. He was alone, he was
pretty sure he was alone, because surely if someone was planning on hitting him
again, they would have done it by now.

He got to his
feet. Carefully, delicately, bones protesting every move. He couldn’t see
anything, he’d lost the flashlight, but the world around him swirled and
shifted with his every movement. Standing upright was a minor triumph.

The top of his
head grazed something, which sent another spike of panic through him, until it
dawned on him what it was. A low-hanging branch from the quince tree out front,
a branch he ducked under every day on his walk to work. He reached up and
touched it, the feel of the bark reassuring under his fingertips. Okay, then.
He hadn’t been attacked. In the darkness, he’d risen too fast, bonked his head
on the branch, and knocked himself out.

He moved toward
his building, shuffling his feet against the sidewalk to avoid tripping again,
hands outstretched. He touched the security gate, iron and chipped paint
beneath his fingers. He hadn’t shut it all the way when he’d hurried in the
direction of the scream, which was good, because… crap, the pockets of his
sweatpants were empty, which meant he’d lost his keys when he fell. With a
sinking feeling, he navigated his way up the stairs to the second floor.

He hadn’t
locked his apartment door when he’d gone to check on Mariposa. Good news. He
wouldn’t be spending the night on the disemboweled sofa in the swimming pool.
He’d look for his keys as soon as it was light outside…

There was
someone in his living room.

Someone was
sitting in the armchair against the far wall. Even without any light, he could
see his—her?—silhouette, an almost imperceptibly denser blackness than the
blackness of his living room. Vish froze in the doorway.

“Who are you?”
he asked.

No response. No
movement.

He was an
idiot. There was no one in his apartment, just like no one had attacked him.
Nothing more than a trick of the shadows. Still, it took him a moment, kind of
a long moment, before he summoned enough nerve to walk to the armchair, extend
a (trembling, maybe) hand into the darkness to touch the upholstered chair
back, and confirm no one was there.

Yeah, he was an
idiot. Nothing more than that. It’d been a long, strange night, and his
imagination was running amuck. His head hurt, he was deeply confused, and he
had to be at work in a few hours. He went to bed.

T
he power was still out when the sun rose,
but at least now he could see, which was a huge improvement. The coffee table
still blocked the path to the living room, but he shoved it back into place,
picked up a handful of scattered letters and magazines, closed the cupboards, and
returned a toppled lamp to its rightful position. Good as new.

His keys were
on the end table by the door, right where they should be. In the darkness and
confusion following the quake, he hadn’t taken them with him when he went to
check on his neighbors.

His head still
hurt, damn it all. A buzzing in the back of his brain, a dull background noise
that made it hard to think straight. Nothing too acute, but plenty annoying.

The gas had
shut off automatically during the quake, which meant there was no hot water, so
Vish couldn’t shower or shave. He splashed his face in the bathroom sink and
called it good. There was a little dried blood crusted on his hair; when he
dabbed at his scalp with a damp washcloth, he discovered the skin had broken
where he’d bonked his head.

At least his
cell phone was working. Vish considered for a moment, then called Kate.

She answered on
the first ring. Lucky day. Vish hadn’t talked to his sister in a couple of
weeks. Between her new baby and her work schedule, pinning her down long enough
to have a decent conversation required luck or patience.

“Hey, Vish.
What’s up?” Bad connection. Her voice was distant and had an echo, like she was
speaking from the end of a tunnel.

“Can you talk?
You sound far away,” Vish said.

“I am far away.”
He heard the amusement in her voice, bouncing off of satellites from Boston to
Los Angeles. Kate was a gastroenterologist, deeply entrenched in a rigorous and
hard-won internship at Mass General. Vish felt feeble and marginal in
comparison to her radiant intellect and formidable accomplishments. “I’m in the
car. I have you on speaker. I can give you maybe four minutes until I reach the
hospital.”

“We had an
earthquake last night,” Vish said.

“You did? A big
one? I didn’t see anything online before I left.”

“Might not have
made national news. It felt big to me, but I don’t have anything to compare it
to.”

“Are you okay?”
Kate asked. “Did anything break?”

“Everything’s
fine. Stuff fell, but it was no big deal. The power’s still out.” He paused,
considering his words, knowing this would scare her. “I bumped my head in the
dark.”

“Really? How?”
Kate asked. Yeah, he was right, that was alarm in her voice. “Did you get it
checked out?”

“It’s not worth
checking out. It wasn’t really anything.”

“Don’t mess
around with a head injury, Vish. You know better than that. If your brain
swells up—”

“I could die.
Yes. I know. It’s not going to swell up,” he said. “I’m fine. I shouldn’t have
mentioned it.”

A long pause,
thick with background traffic noises. “Did you tell dad about the quake yet?”

“I’ll email him
when the power comes back. He’s probably going to bed now. They’re fourteen
hours ahead of me, right?”

“Call him
anyway. He won’t care if you wake him. He’d like to hear your voice. I think
he’s lonely.”

“He shouldn’t
be. He’s got plenty of family there to keep him company.” It sounded snottier
than he’d intended. Their father had moved back to his birthplace last year to
immerse himself in the warm, comforting nest of his brothers and sisters, their
offspring and grandchildren, his aged but still healthy parents. It had been
the best possible balm for his vast, encompassing grief. Only a uniquely
uncharitable son would begrudge him that bit of comfort.

“He misses
mom.” There was a faint reprimand in Kate’s tone.

“Don’t we all?”
Bitchy. That was bitchy. Vish dialed back the reflexive defensiveness. “Maybe
I’ll try calling him tonight. I have to work this morning.”

“How are you
doing for money?” Kate asked.

“Fine. It’s all
good,” he said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. The
job’s going pretty well. Jamie’s been giving me a lot of extra hours.”

There was
another pause on Kate’s end. “Vish, are you happy there?”

“Sure,
sometimes,” he said. “Maybe not today. I don’t think I like earthquakes.”

“Los Angeles
still seems like the wrong city for you,” she said. “You can publish your book
from anywhere. I know New York didn’t work out all that well, but if you’ve
given up on the idea of screenwriting, you could always move here—”

“Thanks, Kate.”
He had a sudden urge to tell her about Sparky Mother, the big-league Hollywood
agent (manager?) who was keenly interested in his book, just so he’d seem a
little less pathetic, then reconsidered. Kate had a finely-calibrated bullshit
detector, and his story wouldn’t stand up to pointed questions. He cleared his
throat. “Look, I need to get ready for work. We’ll email, right?”

“Of course.
Take care of yourself, Vish. See someone about that head injury.” The call
disconnected without warning. Even in the midst of her concern about her
aimless and floundering baby brother, Kate rarely had time to wrap up
conversations gracefully.A dull pain in his gut to match the one in his head.
He was too old to feel this homesick. He
was
home, here in Los Angeles,
and if he was somewhat less than happy, it was his own fault. He was an adult,
wholly capable of carving out his own rich, satisfying, fulfilling life. Even
if it didn’t always seem like it.

The sun was out
in force, burning off the last of the fog that had rolled in during the night.
Saturday mornings were never bustling in Venice. Today, in the aftermath of the
quake, it seemed even quieter than usual.

The power must
be back, at least in places. The streetlights were operating; traffic flowed as
it should. There were a few cars on the road, signs of the city waking up and
returning to life, though Vish was the only pedestrian. He felt exposed,
examined, under scrutiny from unseen observers.

The static in
his head did weird things to his thoughts, lending credence to Kate’s worries
about his brain. Sometimes he could almost see someone walking beside him, a
shadowy figure matching pace with him, visible only out of the very corners of
his eyes. A figure that vanished whenever he turned his head.

Stupid. A
flight of fancy, brought about by an eventful evening and not nearly enough
sleep. If he could make it through the day, he could crawl onto his creaky
futon, burrow under his scratchy comforter, and not rise until Monday. It was a
good thought.

Jamie’s shop
was on Abbot Kinney. A freshly-painted blue storefront with crisp white
awnings, as precious and picturesque as a cottage in the English countryside,
wedged in between a tattoo parlor and a bicycle repair shop. “Comestibles” was
scribbled in curly gold letters above the door. Though the bulk of Jamie’s
revenue came from catering gigs, they sold coffee and pastries and sandwiches
to walk-in customers.

Here, the power
was still out. Vish flipped the fuses in the back of the store, just to be
certain, then called Jamie.

“Crapola,”
Jamie said as soon as Vish filled her in. “Power’s been down the whole time? We
only lost it for maybe twenty minutes here in Brentwood.” She thought for a
moment. “It’s been more than four hours since the quake. That means everything
has to be tossed. Food service rules.”

“The
refrigerator hasn’t been opened. Everything in there will still be cold,” Vish
said.

“Doesn’t
matter. Even if the power comes back right now, I can’t risk it. Just lock up
and go home. I’ll come in tomorrow and toss everything.”

She sounded
glum. Vish couldn’t blame her. “Want me to do it?”

“Thanks, sugar,
but I’ll need to do an inventory. How bad was the quake where you were?”

“Alarming,”
Vish said.

“Weird. We
barely felt it here. It woke me up, but that’s about it.”

After a few
more commiserating words, he hung up. As badly as he felt about Jamie’s ruined
inventory, the prospect of going home early was a relief. His head still hurt,
and he still felt weird, overexposed. He needed rest, safe in his apartment,
protected from the outside world.

The shop door
opened. A young woman in a baggy sweater and leggings stepped into the dark
store. She had a pointy chin and a dainty curve of a nose, with a shiny helmet
of chin-length reddish-blonde hair. She removed her oversized sunglasses,
glanced up at the lights, and smiled at Vish. “No power?”

“No. Sorry. I
was just getting ready to close up,” he said.

She winced. “I
was supposed to stop in this morning for a tasting? I’m throwing a tea party
next Saturday.”

Jamie had
mentioned that yesterday. “Right. I’m sorry. Would it be possible to
reschedule?”

She hovered in
the doorway. “Not really. This is my only free morning. Can we do it right now?
The lady I talked to last week said everything would be pre-made, right?”

“It’s all
ready, but…” He shook his head. “It’s been in the refrigerator, and the power’s
been down since the earthquake. I can’t serve you anything.”

“It’d still be
cold, though.” She smiled. No makeup, clear skin, small white teeth. She had a
tiny mouth like a peach satin bow. “It’ll be fine. I won’t get food poisoning.
Or if I do, it’ll be my own fault.”

“I really
can’t—”

She stepped
further into the shop. “Please? It would be a huge help. I’d really appreciate
it.”

It wasn’t his
call. Jamie had said to close up, and this was Jamie’s shop. But this woman
seemed friendly, and she was very pretty, and that was a debilitating
combination. He took a deep breath, then nodded.

“Sure. Okay.
Just give me a minute.” He disappeared into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
The light didn’t come on, but a reassuring blast of cold air flooded out of it,
which chased away any lingering worries that he was about to poison this
friendly, pretty stranger. Right in front was a little white box with “TROY”
scrawled on top in Jamie’s curly handwriting.

He returned to
the main room of the shop and held up the box. “Are you Troy?”

“That’s me.”
She seated herself on one of the high stools at the front counter. Vish
arranged the contents of the box on a doily-lined porcelain plate. A
lemon-rosemary tart, a cocoa meringue kiss, a caramel
petit four
, a
passion-fruit
macaron
, a puff filled with lavender custard and topped
with a crystallized violet. After giving up on her dreams of film stardom,
Jamie had trained, and trained well, under a pastry chef in San Francisco.

“Normally I’d
serve you tea or coffee with this, but…” He shrugged. “No hot water. Sorry
about that.”

Troy nibbled on
the side of the
petit four
. “No worries. Oh, yum,” she said. “Oh, that’s
fantastic. Wow.”

She set it down
and picked up the tart. She took mouselike nibbles from each pastry in turn,
tiny teeth flashing, not eating any treat in its entirety, even though they
were scarcely more than a bite apiece. Vish hovered behind the counter and
tried not to stare at her too openly. She was lovely, in a way that stood out
even in beauty-glutted Los Angeles, luminous yet unfussy.

“Fantastic,”
she said at last. “Everything. Just as it is.” She looked up at Vish. “Are we
set for Saturday, or do you need anything else from me?”

“I’m not sure.
Let me make sure Jamie has your information,” Vish said. Jamie kept her events
schedule tacked to the back wall. He turned away from Troy.

She inhaled
sharply, almost a gasp. When she spoke, her voice sounded funny. “Do you know
you’re bleeding?”

He brought his
hand up to the back of his head, which was damp with fresh blood from the cut
on his scalp. A few drops had drizzled down the back of his neck and stained
the collar of his shirt, which was probably what alarmed Troy. “Excuse me,” he
said.

He headed to
the small bathroom in back. No windows, no lights, so he kept the door open
while he ran water over a wad of paper towels.

As he wiped
away the blood, Troy popped her head through the doorway. She held up a
dishtowel, which she must have pilfered from behind the front counter. “Here,”
she said. “Let me.”

She wedged
herself into the tiny room, sliding around the sink to get closer to him. Vish
turned his back to her and let her dab at the cut. This close, he could smell
her perfume, some mixture of grapefruit and thyme, both astringent and
comforting. At her touch, his headache felt a little better, and the static in
his brain receded. “What’d you do to yourself?” she asked.

“It’s silly. I
bumped my head when I was exploring in the dark after the earthquake,” he said.

Troy clucked
sympathetically. “That’s why your pupils look funny,” she said. “At first I
thought you might be high, but you didn’t seem like the type.”

“My pupils look
funny?” Vish checked himself out in the mirror. Huh. His pupils seemed their
usual size. Maybe a little on the small side. Hard to tell in the dim light.

“You might have
a concussion,” Troy said. “You should get this looked at.”

“No, I’m fine,”
Vish said. “It looks more serious than it is. Scalp wounds always bleed a lot.
I just have a very mild headache, that’s all.”

“Humor me,”
Troy said. “Let me take you to the hospital. You shouldn’t mess around with a
head injury.”

She sounded so
much like Kate that Vish had to smile. “No, really, it’s nothing to worry
about. Thank you,” he said. He paused. “In any case, I don’t have health
insurance right now.”

Embarrassing to
admit that, coming as he did from a family of medical professionals. Troy just
shrugged. “So they’ll send you a bill. Sucks, but is it worth risking your
life?” She placed a hand on his wrist. Her nails were short and unpolished. His
skin tingled at her touch, as though some kind of energy passed between them,
and he could feel himself starting to fall for her.