Adult Assembly Required, page 13
“I’m not sure what you mean,” said Laura carefully. “Someone knocked his side mirror off.”
“Yeah, I saw,” said Maggie, putting tea bags and sugar in the mugs. “I wish I could say that rarely happens, but actually little fender benders like that happen all the time here, largely because we’re all in our cars so much.”
“Not me,” said Laura, without thinking.
“No,” said Maggie neutrally, “not you.” She looked over at Laura and pushed a little. “It must have been shocking.”
Laura nodded and said nothing. Maggie waited patiently.
As if sensing his presence was required, Oliver the cat sauntered in and jumped onto the table, taking a circuitous route across the top in order to demonstrate his mastery of foot placement and tail arching. Laura visibly relaxed, reaching out to pet the plush and friendly head.
“I think I was surprised at how loud it was,” she said, “and I guess I freaked out a little bit. More than I should have, I mean.” Oliver pushed against her hand, and she tipped her head a little to let him sniff her chin.
“More than you think you should have,” corrected Maggie gently. “There isn’t an actual international standard for freaking out.”
Laura looked at the clock. Still time before she needed to go to Nina’s. Then she said, “I guess you’re right. I feel like I should be recovered from the accident, and I thought I was.” She shrugged. “It’s fine.”
Maggie poured the hot water into the mugs. “So you keep saying.” She carried the tea over to the table and nudged Ollie out of the way to put down the mugs. She settled herself at the table, then got up again to go fetch cookies from the cupboard, shaking the sleeve out onto the table and helping herself to a couple. She sat in a chair and curled her feet around the legs comfortably.
Then she looked at Laura and said, “Tell me about it.”
One of Laura’s plans when she came to Los Angeles was to investigate seeing a therapist, but so far she had avoided it as carefully as she had avoided getting a car. She knew those two things were related; she wasn’t totally in denial. But Maggie wasn’t precisely a therapist, she was a doctor, her mother would probably approve . . . not that it mattered . . . Suddenly Laura found herself talking.
“After the accident,” she said, “I didn’t have to drive or be in a car for months, so it never occurred to me it would be a problem. Once I was out of the hospital we took the subway all the time.”
“Reasonable,” said Maggie. “New York has a largely functional transportation system.”
Laura smiled briefly. “You know, the LA buses work fine.” She frowned. “Maybe if you all got behind the system, it would work better.”
“Are you saying we have the public transportation we deserve?” asked Maggie.
Laura shrugged. “You said it, I didn’t.”
Maggie laughed, and took another cookie. “Fair enough. Well, carry on with the story. Presumably you eventually needed to get in a car.”
Laura nodded. “Yes, my parents and I were driving to visit a family friend who lived upstate.” She cleared her throat. “It wasn’t far.”
Maggie’s face remained neutral, and everything about the position of her body expressed still and focused listening. It made Laura want to continue.
“Anyway, as soon as we crossed the George Washington Bridge and got on the parkway, I started to flip out.”
Maggie leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry if this is hard to talk about, but can you define flipping out?”
Laura took a deep breath, trying to control her body. “It started with a smell, the smell of the brakes. I was back in the accident, in my head, and I couldn’t pull myself out. I started feeling really sick and we had to pull over.” She flushed. “I threw up all over myself, it was terrible.”
Maggie shrugged. “They’re your parents, it probably wasn’t the first time you’d puked in their car.”
“Sure, but I was twenty-three. They probably thought those days were over.”
Another shrug.
“Besides,” said Laura, still blushing, “it was embarrassing. I couldn’t make myself get back in the car for an hour, and then I had to keep my eyes closed the whole way home.”
“And then?”
“Then I started having nightmares and random panic attacks on the street.”
“Were they really random?”
Laura looked at Maggie sharply. “No, not at all. I looked online about, you know, problems after things, you know, when you can’t deal with . . . when you’re not strong about . . .”
“Post-traumatic stress disorder?” said Maggie helpfully.
“Yes,” said Laura, stammering a little, always feeling intense embarrassment about that term, which she’d thought only applied to soldiers who’d risked their lives, or victims of terrible crimes. “That kind of thing, and I realized the attacks were always triggered by something. A siren, a screech of brakes, a horn . . .” She shrugged. “But there’s an awful lot of that in New York, so it happened all the time.”
Maggie nodded and waited patiently.
Laura took a deep breath. “But anyway, I pushed myself and pushed myself, and it got better. I reached the point where I could take a cab, and thought it was done. Then I got here and planned to get a car but I keep putting it off and then the thing in Bob’s truck . . .” She looked at the table, and pushed a crumb around with her fingernail. “I don’t know what to do.”
Maggie was reflective. Then: “Can I ask you something?”
Laura nodded.
“Why Los Angeles? It’s famous for its traffic, not famous for its public transportation, and it really is quite difficult to exist without a car.”
Laura sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”
Maggie smiled very sweetly. “Give it a whirl,” she said.
Laura nodded, and tried. “My family is . . . a little bit hard-core. Expectations are high, and standards are even higher. I was a good student, but I also enjoyed things my parents didn’t understand, like sports. They thought sports were a waste of time, time I could have spent studying. But if I always won, if I was the best, they could understand why I did it. So that’s what I did. I pushed myself really hard.” She made a gesture of frustration. “Ironically, the time in the hospital after the accident was the first time I could remember where my days weren’t scheduled to the last minute. I realized I didn’t want to spend my life studying, and ever since, my parents and I have been fighting about it. When I started to have these . . . issues . . . my parents used it as ammunition to try and stop me from doing what I want. I decided to get away from home and convinced myself I could manage.” She looked at her hands, which were trembling slightly. “So here I am. And now I’m worried that they were right and I was wrong and I’m going to fail and have to go home and they’re going to tell me they told me so.”
Maggie sat back and stretched out her arms. “Good lord,” she said, “that’s a lot of pressure to put yourself under.”
Laura laughed nervously. “My mom used to say pressure makes diamonds and irritation makes pearls.”
Maggie made a face. “Well, sure, but pressure also makes nervous breakdowns and irritation makes ulcers.” She looked at Laura and patted her hand gently. “Let’s find you a therapist and put getting a car on the back burner for now. Take things one step at a time.”
“Maybe,” said Laura. Or maybe I can push harder and make it work. She looked at her phone. “Oh crap, I have to go to Nina’s house.”
“Nina from the bookstore?” asked Maggie.
Laura got up, nodding. “Yes. She wants me to join her trivia team.”
Maggie smiled up at her. “Try not to focus on winning.”
Laura frowned. “I think that’s the point of asking me.”
Maggie pushed herself to her feet and gathered the mugs. “Well, sometimes it’s enough to simply do your best.”
Laura nodded, but doubted Nina would agree.
“I’ll pull together a list of possible therapists,” said Maggie, heading back to the sink. “You’ve picked a challenging city for yourself, but at least it’s stuffed to the brim with anxious people and highly qualified therapists.”
You’re moving to crazy town, her mother had said. You’ll be balancing your chakras and putting crystals in your colon before you know it.
“Thanks,” Laura said to Maggie, and headed to her room to get ready for Nina’s. She felt shy and exposed now, and wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Someone offering to help you doesn’t mean you’re helpless, does it?
Maggie watched Laura leave the room and sighed. It was a sad truism of her work that not everyone who needs help wants help, and not everyone who gets help uses it. She leaned over and stroked Ollie, who squeezed his eyes encouragingly at her. You did your best, he seemed to say, keep that shit up. Then he added, And I’m hungry, if you happen to be passing the cupboard.
NINETEEN
Nina Hill lived in the neighborhood immediately surrounding Larchmont Boulevard, commonly referred to as Larchmont Village or, more occasionally, Windsor Square. It was less formal than Hancock Park and the houses were smaller. However, it had actually been built earlier and its more casual appearance—a wide variety of styles, differently sized lots—was equally as studied as its sibling. Many of the houses had guesthouses, largely small, separate buildings in the back gardens, giving rise to the phrase back house. Nina lived in one such back house, and it took Laura quite some time to find it. And when she did find it, there was a large tabby cat sitting on top of the gate, judging her.
She paused, but when he didn’t move, she pushed the gate gently, expecting him to jump off. He kept his eyes locked on hers the whole time as he slowly moved with the gate, maintaining a cast-iron loaf position without a single wobble. Apparently he had fur-welded himself to the gate some time earlier and had been hoping someone would trickle along so he could show off his skills. Once this strange experience had played itself out, Laura nodded her appreciation and headed up a flight of stairs to a red front door.
Nina swung it open and Laura was about to step forward, when the tabby shot underfoot and caused her to stumble. He’d disengaged his docking clamps, clearly.
“I see you guys have met,” said Nina. “That’s Phil, he’s showing off because there are people here.”
“Hmm,” said Laura, hesitating when she realized there were two other people in the room. But she went in, because her mother didn’t raise a quitter.
Nina Hill’s apartment was basically a bookcase with a bed and a chair in it. Laura gazed around, impressed.
“So,” she said, “books then?”
“Mostly,” said Nina, “but also movies and TV.”
Laura came all the way in and found a place to sit on a rug with a tiger on it. She smiled at the other two women. “Hi there, I’m Laura.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” said one, looking at Nina. “Another L name?”
Nina shrugged. “I didn’t even notice.”
“Firstly,” said the woman, “you notice everything, it’s one your defining characteristics, and secondly, hi, my name’s Lauren.”
“And I’m Leah,” said the final woman, who was sitting up against the end of Nina’s bed. The room was beautiful, but with four people it was a little cramped.
Lauren had dark hair with a natural wave, and a sardonic sense of humor. She wrote for TV and mined everyone’s life for material. She was single and generally horrified by the human race, particularly that segment of it that lived and dated in Los Angeles. Leah, on the other hand, was recently engaged and currently freaking out.
“Also,” continued Lauren, “Leah, Lauren, and Laura sounds like a singing trio from the 1960s.”
“I think it would be Laura, Lauren, and Leah,” said Nina, interrupting. “Alphabetical.”
“Or Lauren, Laura, and Leah, that’s the best one,” said Leah.
“Now none of them sound like names at all,” said Nina. “Can we get back to the point?”
Laura realized she’d walked in on the middle of something. Nina turned to explain.
“Leah got engaged a month ago.”
“Congratulations,” said Laura, because that’s what you say.
“Thanks,” said Leah, because that’s what they say.
“But,” continued Nina, “now she’s flipping out because she isn’t sure she wants to get married.” She sat down in the armchair and pulled her legs up under her.
“To her fiancé, or at all?” asked Laura.
“She doesn’t know,” said Nina.
“I don’t know,” said Leah.
“Both,” said Lauren.
“Huh,” said Laura. They all looked at her, as if waiting for her opinion, which they couldn’t possibly want. She plucked at the fabric of her yoga pants and looked down.
“Well? What do you think?” asked Nina.
They did want her opinion. Laura swallowed. “Uh, well, being engaged and being married are two different things. Do one at a time.”
Leah gazed at her, then looked at Nina. “You didn’t say she was Yoda.”
“Or Forrest Gump,” said Lauren, raising her eyebrows. “No offense meant,” she added.
“Never saw it,” said Laura, “so no offense taken.”
Leah sighed. “I think that’s probably good advice, though.” She smiled at Laura. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” said Laura, not sure how she’d managed to say the right thing.
“Right, then,” said Nina, “here’s the deal. Trivia teams play in leagues, and theoretically the winner of each round in the league goes forward, but in practice it’s largely disorganized and ad hoc.” She leapt up and pulled a T-shirt from a basket under her bed. It read First Loser in a classic baseball-type script. “This is the T-shirt my boyfriend, Tom, got when they came in second last year.”
“They call second place First Loser? Wow, that’s harsh.” Laura was surprised. Who knew trivia could be so competitive?
Nina shrugged. “I guess someone thought it was funny.”
“And you guys won?”
Leah hooted derisively. “We did not win, we did not even get through the semifinals because someone caused a minor riot and got us banned from one of the few venues that had a working Galaga machine.”
“I’m sure they’d let us in now.” Nina sounded confident.
“No, I tried last week.”
Nina changed the subject. “So, anyway, the point of this meeting is to introduce ourselves to Laura, learn a bit about her, her strengths, trivia-wise . . .” Her voice trailed off. “What?”
The other women all looked at her, wide-eyed.
“This is a meeting?” asked Lauren. “I brought beer.”
“I brought cupcakes,” said Leah.
“Is there going to be a test?” asked Laura. “I have not prepared for a test.”
Nina started laughing. “Alright, it’s not a meeting. It’s a new team member party, with beer and cake.” She explained, “Leah’s ex-boyfriend, Carter, got a new girlfriend who was jealous of him spending one evening a week with his ex-girlfriend . . . but Carter wasn’t any better than any of us at sports or science, two areas I’m hoping you can crush in.” She paused to take a breath, having not taken one for quite some time.
Laura was impressed by her aerobic capacity. She grinned at Nina. “No pressure.” Lauren handed over a cold beer and Laura took it. “When’s the first competition?”
“Next week,” said Nina. “Next Friday.” She reached for a cupcake and started peeling the paper liner using the pinch and pull method. “We have seven days to practice.”
Laura nearly spilled her beer. “Practice? How do you practice?”
“By asking a lot of questions in rapid succession, of course.” Nina raised her eyebrows. “It’s not like American Ninja Warrior or anything, but you do need to warm up your brain.” She paused. “And potentially your buzzer finger. You never know how tech savvy the organizers will be.”
“What if it turns out I know nothing?” Laura was starting to feel anxious.
Nina shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll see who’s more embarrassed about it, you or me.”
Laura was surprised. “It’s going to be me, you don’t seem to get embarrassed.”
Nina made a face. “Oh, don’t be fooled. I’m completely mortified seventy-two percent of the time.” She tugged down a sock and scratched a bug bite. “Honestly.”
Leah nodded. “It’s true, she’s deeply awkward on the inside.”
“I’m doing better,” said Nina, “but, you know, we’ve all got something, right?”
The three women gazed at her expectantly.
Laura smiled back at them and held her tongue. Suddenly, Nina pounced.
“So, what’s the deal with Impossibly Handsome Bob?”
Laura felt herself getting red. “Nothing, there’s no deal. I just got out of a relationship, I’m not interested in dating.”
“You don’t have to date him,” said Leah. “You could . . . you know . . .”
“Hook up?” asked Laura. “Nah, no interest in casual sex, either.” There was silence in the room. “Sorry, never been that kind of person.” More silence. “So far, anyway.”
Leah turned to Nina. “We’re talking about the same Bob that came to trivia that one time?”
Nina nodded.
“The supercute one?”
Nina nodded again. Leah turned to Laura. “You have enviable self-control.”
Laura shook her head. “No, I’m . . . taking a breath. I was with my ex since high school. I really want to be single for a while.”
“But you admit Bob’s a good-looking guy?” Leah seemed keen to reassure herself she wasn’t wrong about this.
Laura nodded. “Sure, if you like tall men with dark eyes and incredible bone structure.”
