She baked a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and ate half of them for supper. She put the rest of the cookies in a straw basket, wrapped it in cellophane, and tied the cellophane together at the top with a yellow ribbon. She packed two small suitcases with summery clothes and set them beside the front door. She hadn’t canceled her paper or emptied her refrigerator. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be gone. She painted her nails in bright red to bolster her self-confidence and went to bed.
Louisa’s mother looked at the newly polished houseplants sitting in her foyer, at the little black car sitting in her driveway, and at her daughter, dressed in a lemon-yellow linen suit.
“Let me get this straight,” her mother said, holding the basket of cookies. “You’re going to California.”
“Yes.”
“This is very sudden.”
“It’s something I have to do,” Louisa said.
“Like when you were seven and you had to see how a bathroom scale worked so you took ours apart? And when you were nine you had to see if you could climb to the top of the Szalagy’s oak tree, and the fire department had to come get you down?”
“Yup. Just like that.”
“I don’t suppose this has anything to do with your screenwriter friend?”
Grandma Brannigan stood in the kitchen doorway. “You aren’t going to go out there and live in sin, are you? You know what they say about giving out free samples, don’t you?”
“He’s asked me to marry him,” Louisa said.
“He don’t look like the marrying kind to me,” Grandma Brannigan said. “Besides, I saw that flashy car he drives. You know what they say about men who drive them fast cars. They say their body parts aren’t all what they should be.”
Louisa handed her mother a set of keys. “These are for my car and my house. I’ll call tomorrow and let you know where I’m staying.”
Grandma Brannigan made a disgusted sound with her tongue. “You hear that, Katherine? She don’t even know where she’s going to be staying. I wouldn’t let a daughter of mine go off like that.”
Louisa’s mother sighed. “She’s thirty years old, for goodness sakes.”
Grandma Brannigan looked confused. “How’d she turn out to be so old?”
Louisa smiled and hugged her grandmother. “I’ll see you when I get back. Try to behave yourself.”
“Are you going to marry him?” Louisa’s mother asked.
Louisa took a moment to answer. “I don’t know.”
She walked to the rental car counter at Los Angeles airport with shaky legs-but also with a sense of accomplishment. The plane hadn’t fallen out of the sky ahead of time, she hadn’t lost control of her body functions and embarrassed herself, and she’d barely whimpered on takeoff and landing. She’d even looked out the window once. It took two tries before she managed to sign her name to the rental agreement.
“I’m not a good flier,” she explained to the girl behind the counter. “I get a little nervous.”
“No kidding.” The girl gave Louisa a set of keys. “Flying’s the easy part. Wait’ll you try to drive yourself out of this airport.”
An hour later, Louisa was on Route 101, passing through Ventura. The air was warm and the sky was dusky. The Pacific Ocean rolled away to her left, as far as the eye could see. She was driving a new little compact, and she was feeling like Ferdinand Magellan.
California was more dust and dirt than she’d imagined. There were splotches of green where lawns had been watered, but the gentle hills that lay to the east were parched and sun bleached. Vistas were open, buildings were low.
Santa Barbara felt Spanish and upscale with its stucco buildings and red-tiled roofs. She rolled through town and headed east into Santa Barbara County, following Pete’s map. Fields were colored with wild poppies and lupine, and the sky melted into the land in a lavender haze as the sun sank lower.
She quickly realized she would never have found Pete without the map. Small roads snaked off into darkening woods. There were no names to the roads, and she suspected they were private drives. She passed several avocado orchards and an Arabian horse farm and hit another section of woods and little feeder roads. She scrupulously counted off the dirt roads and turned right where the map indicated.
After an eighth of a mile she came to an adobe gate house. The gate was open, and Louisa continued driving. Woods gave way to wild grasses, the road smoothed into a flawless ribbon of crushed yellow stone, and on a rise ahead of her she could see an adobe house. It was a sprawling ranch, capped in red tile, anchored by a thick profusion of flowers. It wasn’t especially large-two or three bedrooms, she guessed. She held her breath and prayed she was at the right house. Her stomach settled when she saw Spike sprawled on the front porch.
She felt a moment’s panic that Pete might not be alone or that he might have changed his mind. He hadn’t called as he’d promised, and neither had she. She’d been afraid the conversation might not go exactly right, and she’d chicken out. Now she wished she’d at least phoned from the airport and warned him.
She pushed the panic away and parked in the circular drive. She straightened her suit and marched up to the front door.
Pete answered on the second knock. He was wearing shorts and a gray T-shirt with cough syrup spilled down the front. “Oh no,” he said. “Not you.”
The panic came back in a hot wave that hit her square in the chest. “I should have called.”
He sneezed. “Stand back. I’m contaminated. I thing I’b god the flu.” He sneezed again and wiped his nose with the bottom of his T-shirt. “Sorry,” he said, “I’b run oud of tissues.”
“Is anyone taking care of you? You have a housekeeper?”
“Jus’ me and Spike.”
Louisa smiled. He needed her. The Hollywood Husband was out of tissues. No one was making him chicken soup or custard. No one was listening to him complain about how lousy he felt. “Why didn’t you call?”
“I’b been sick!” he wailed.
She looked around. This house was much more spacious than his Washington apartment. The furniture was southwestern. The floor was wide pine, and the aroma of flowers and baked grass drifted through the open patio door.
He sniffed, and she gave him some tissues from her purse. “Stay right here,” she said. “I’ll get you some toilet paper.”
“Don’t have any,” he said sadly. “Blew my nose in it all.”
“Okay, how about napkins.”
“None.”
“Paper towels?”
“All gone.” He flopped in a chair. “I’b a failure, Lou. I’b no gud ad being sick.”
“How much of that syrup have you had?”
“Nod enough. I ran oud, so I switched to brandy.”
“Oh boy.”
“And I’be been lonely, Lou. I’b missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
“Did you come to marry me?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“I’b glad,” he said. “I’b waited a long time for you. Years and years.” His eyes dropped closed, and he sighed. “I lub you.”
Two weeks later she was still thinking about marriage. She was thinking that it might not be so bad. Tom Hanks hadn’t called with a barbecue invitation, and she hadn’t met any women named Bambi. Not that it mattered, she told herself, because she was the new Lou, and she could handle whatever.
She was sitting on the front porch with Spike, and she was waiting for Pete to come home from the day’s shoot.
“No different from working at AT &T or General Dynamics,” Louisa said to Spike. “He goes out in the morning, and he comes home in the evening, just like any other man.”
A limo cruised by the gate house and began the climb to the top of the hill. It stopped in front of Louisa, and Pete got out, holding his laptop and the latest version of the script. He closed the door, and the limo took off down
