“The light in the main bedroom is exceptional,” Brendan said, appearing in the kitchen doorway with his clipboard. “South facing. Buyers go mad for south facing.”
“Great,” she said flatly.
“And the courtyard is genuinely unique for this price point. We’ll lead with that.”
“Whatever you think is best.”
He looked at her with what she was pretty sure was concern. Or was it pity? “We’ll take very good care of it,” he assured her. “The right buyer will love it the way you have.”
She thanked him, picked up her keys, and let herself out while he finished the measurements. She drove to her mother’s without looking back in the rearview mirror because she’d decided in advance that she wasn’t going to do that, and she was a person who kept her commitments, even the ones she made only to herself.
Her mother opened the door before she knocked, which meant she’d been watching from the window.
“Come here,” she said, and pulled her in. Jasmine let herself be held in the doorway of the condo for a moment longer than she normally would have, and her mother didn’t say anything, and that was exactly right.
Inside, the little table by the window had two mugs on it, coffee waiting. Jasmine sat in the chair that was hers by long habit and wrapped her hands around the mug and looked out at the courtyard below the balcony, the birds of paradise vivid. Even with everything that had happened — losing Nate, losing her career, now losing her home — there was still some beauty in the world.
Jasmine didn’t know whether to be grateful or angry about that.
“Brendan finished?” her mother asked.
“He’s still measuring things.” Jasmine stared at the courtyard. “He says the south-facing light is exceptional.”
Her mother was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure about the house?”
“No.” She turned the mug in her hands. “But I’m sure about the mortgage, and the fact that I need the money.” She paused. “And I might leave.”
Her mother looked at her. “Leave.”
“LA.” She’d been thinking about it for days without saying it out loud, but now that she was putting it out there, it felt almost like relief. “There’s nothing keeping me here right now. No production, no project, nothing in the pipeline that Marco hasn’t already warned me will be slow in coming. I could go somewhere quiet for a while. Arizona, maybe.” She glanced over. “Be closer to home.”
Her mother’s expression did something careful. “That sounds like running.”
“Maybe.” She looked back at the courtyard. “Maybe running is the right move sometimes.”
There was a knock at the door, so sudden it made Jasmine jerk in her chair. She’d been doing that a lot lately, spooking at the most normal sounds. To say she was on edge would be putting it lightly. She’d probably slept a total of ten hours in the last four nights.
“That’ll be Eden,” her mom said, going to open the door.
Eden appeared carrying a paper bag that smelled of garlic and something warm and substantial.
“I have dumplings,” she announced. “And spring rolls. And that soup you like from the place on Vermont.” She set the bag on the counter and turned around and looked at Jasmine with eyes that were already too full. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Jasmine said.
Eden crossed the kitchen in three steps and hugged her. Jasmine held on and pressed her face into her best friend’s shoulder and didn’t cry, but only because she’d run out of tears two days ago and her body hadn’t restocked yet.
They ate at the little table, all three of them, the dumplings shared between mismatched plates, the soup poured into the mugs her mother preferred over bowls for reasons she’d never explained. Outside the window, the afternoon moved slowly toward evening.
“Have you talked to him?” Eden asked after a while.
Jasmine picked up a dumpling. “No.”
“Are you going to?”
“No,” she said to the dumpling.
Eden looked at her mother and her mother looked at Eden, the look of two people who had a shared position on a matter and were deciding who would present it.
