This Story Might Save Your Life(2)

The house judders with another violent gust, and several cracks fire off outside. I spin around and regard the spray of dead palm fronds littering my private terrace. Detritus from a neighbor upwind. Xander and I don’t even own a palm tree. We all watch a plastic bag zip past the window and tangle in a nearby bush.

“Give me anything, any other weather but the Santa Ana winds,” Mallory says. She’s wearing her go-to outfit: training joggers with a tank top and Birkenstocks. Crossing her arms, she rubs her bare shoulders and shudders. “Makes my skin crawl.”

My gaze lingers on her as I return to my seat. Throughout most of my marriage to Xander, my sister-in-law has remained an enigma—the distant, unflappable younger sister with whom he emigrated from Denmark as a child. It’s only since she relocated to Los Angeles for our assistant producer job six months ago that she’s begun to reveal these flashes of vulnerability, these tiny chinks in her armor.

She’s probably worried about the dry sagebrush lining the canyon between our house and hers, perfect kindling for a wildfire. I open my mouth to tell her it’ll be okay—the fire department hasn’t even issued a red flag warning yet. But then I remember the last time I lost power during a Santa Ana storm and keep quiet. They don’t call this hot wind Satan’s breath for nothing.

Superstitiously, I rub the bronze-plated head of our Arthur Fonzarelli desk statue. The Fonz. Fonzie. He beams at me with both thumbs up: Ayyy. He’s been our lucky charm since Benny and I first topped the podcast charts, and I make a silent wish for a dose of his laid-back Happy Days mojo right now.

“Well.” Mallory shakes her limbs as if sloughing off a bad memory, and then she’s back to business. “Since we’re just sitting here, Xander asked me to knock a few things off the to-do list.”

Benny turns to me. “Where is he, anyway?”

“Another damage control meeting with the lawyers,” I say. Waking from my midmorning nap, I’d watched from our bed as he styled his sleek blond hair, one shade darker than Mallory’s, while whispering his arguments to his reflection in the mirror. He looked tired. Tired but handsome in his slim-fit navy suit. “You just missed him.”

Mallory clears her throat, shifting our attention back to her. She reminds us that our deadline for new advertising partnerships is quickly approaching. We have multiple possibilities to choose from: furniture e-tailers, website builders, emergency survival gear brands. “And there are at least a half dozen meal kit delivery services on the table.”

“No food ads,” I say.

Mallory looks like she’s about to counter, but Benny beats her to it. “You heard her.”

She jots this down, and Benny and I agree on our top choices with minimal discussion. The room is growing warmer without air-conditioning. The windows in this hundred-year-old hillside Spanish home are single-pane, and the draft snaking through them smells of earth.

“One more thing,” Mallory says, and her ice-blue eyes soften, like she might not want to say what she’s about to say. “Xander had a call from the Comedy Store. A main room act canceled, and they asked if you’d be willing to fill the gap for three nights.” When we don’t answer, she adds, “Xander and I thought it might help move negotiations along if Apex Plus saw you getting back out there.”

Negotiations. Getting back out there. The words are thorns in my side. The eye-wateringly lucrative distribution deal we’ve been thrashing out with Apex Plus has been in a holding pattern since the disastrous events of August. But a live show is not the answer.

“When do they want us?” I ask.

“Two weeks from Thursday.” She consults her phone. “October eighteenth.”

Benny watches me, waiting for my response.

Mallory moves closer and takes a seat on the desk beside my computer. “I know what you’re thinking, but we could hire security. Eyes everywhere.”

A laugh bubbles out, and I cover my mouth.

“That means no.” Benny sounds disappointed.

“You haven’t even considered it,” Mallory says, more to me than him.

“We don’t have to.” His tone is firmer now. I meet his gaze, thanking him with my eyes, and he nods. “We’re not ready.”

They volley arguments for a while. Benny reminds her that we’re still cleaning up messes. That we wouldn’t have to find new ad partnerships if business was operating as usual. Mallory points out that we’re back in the top ten as of last Friday. Neither outright mentions the “incident,” as we’ve taken to calling it, or the resulting social media storm. The fact that I haven’t left the house in six weeks. Instead, they talk around the situation using words like delicate and optics.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Mallory says finally, glancing down at my laptop, which has remained on, unaffected by the power outage. I follow her gaze to the tabs at the top of the screen.

“Great. We’ll pick this up later, then,” I say too quickly, just as a thwap-BANG ricochets throughout the house.

“What was that?” Benny asks, already standing.

This time I know it’s not a palm frond. My limbs jellify when the sound repeats, and I stay rooted to my chair, pulse thumping in my throat as Benny and Mallory charge upstairs to the main floor. Outside, the dogs bark fiercely at something in the yard.