“Where do you live?” I ask.
“I’m south of Sunset on Swarthmore.” She finishes her glass of wine. “In the Pacific Palisades.”
“Oh no,” I say gravely.
Claire signals the bartender for another round. “Yeah.”
“Have you heard anything?”
“Just a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors on Nextdoor that everything is gone.”
“I mean, it’s Nextdoor.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself,” she says, but she does not sound optimistic.
“I’ll give you your space,” I tell her, but Claire shakes her head.
“Have a drink with me. Keep me from doomscrolling, please.”
“What are you having?”
“Some thirty-dollar glass of Pinot Noir that is dangerously drinkable.”
“I’ll do the same,” I say to the bartender.
“Would you like to just get a bottle?” he suggests, and Claire and I look at each other, say in unison, “Sure.”
I shimmy my tote bag off my shoulder and go to hook it under the bar but find that Claire has taken them all. I don’t want to ask her to remove any of her things, so I sit down with my large tote in my lap. I make a tremendous amount of noise doing this, all my rings and bracelets and charms clinking and clanking together. Claire looks me over with a laugh.
“You’re like that episode ofFriends.”
“Which one?”
“The one where Joey puts on all Chandler’s clothes. Except, it’s jewelry.”
“I can’t find my travel case anywhere.”
“I use this one from Amazon that I got the last time I was evacuated, because I was like you. Wearing everything. I’ll send you the link. Super cheap. Apparently it’s what all the jewelers in the diamond district use.”
“God bless a good Amazon find.”
“So,” Claire says as the bartender pours her a half-inch taste of the wine. “Your pitch today.” She swills her glass, knocks it back. “Great,” she tells him, then turns to me. “I need to know something.”
My heart bangs in my ears. We should not be having this conversation, Claire and I. She knows it too. But her mouth is stained purple, our city is burning to the ground, and there is the sense that we can say anything to each other without consequence.
“Is it true?” she wants to know.
I clear my throat, itchy with my toxin-tour through the westside of Los Angeles. “What part?”
“That your husband didn’t fuck you.”
My smile is rueful. That’s the part I would want to know, if I were on the other side of the conference room table. “My agent would tell me to tell you that I took inspiration from my marriage, but that the events and characters themselves are fabricated.”
“And would that be true?”
I stare at the bartender’s modest pour. That’s how you know it’s a nice bottle of wine and not just an expensive one. Carefully meted-out splashes that ensure you’re always sipping, savoring, but never drinking.
“No,” I say.