She turns left off the main boulevard and into a pocket neighborhood of small houses and large trees, and pulls up in front of a white house with large windows and a dying lawn out front. “This one needs a little rehabbing, but it’s got good bones.”
She trails me as I walk through the house, pointing out original features. When we’re back outside, she says, “What’d you think?”
I wrinkle my nose and say, “It’s a little too much of a fixer for me.”
The next property is in Venice. “My mother and I lived in and around this neighborhood when I was growing up,” she says as we navigate through downtown Santa Monica, the buildings growing shabbier the further south we travel.
The admission catches my attention. “Really? Where?”
“Never anywhere long enough to memorize an address.”
“Have you always lived in Los Angeles?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I was in Michigan for the past ten years. I just moved back.”
“Must be nice to be home.”
She gives a rueful laugh. “Yes and no,” she says. “You have this vision of how your life back home used to be, and you think that’s what it’ll be like when you return.” We’ve hit a red light, and she looks at me, her expression sad. “But it’s not. No one is in the same place. Nothing is as you left it. It’s disconcerting. The people I knew before are gone. I’ve not only had to start my business from scratch, I’ve had to find a new community. A new group of friends.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I miss my mom,” she admits. “Even though I lived here for a number of years after she died, the hole she left feels bigger somehow. More obvious.”
I know how loneliness can seep into your life, the realization that there isn’t anyone who understands you, or the things that keep you up at night. “How old were you when she died?” I ask, though I already know the answer, having tracked down her mother’s death certificate several years ago.
The light turns green, and we accelerate. “It was December of my senior year in high school. Close enough to eighteen that I could fake it for a few months. My biggest regret is that she died thinking she’d failed me.”
What a heartbreaking thing to have to live with, if it’s true. “In what way?” I ask.
“We lost our house,” she says. I notice how her hands grip the steering wheel, white knuckles visible beneath the skin. “We ended up with nothing.” She gives me a quick glance. “We lived in our car for a while.”
Scott had warned me Meg would do this—make herself vulnerable by telling me something that would elicit sympathy, and I work hard to step around it. Her admission explains why I couldn’t find them, but her words don’t match what happened. They didn’t lose their house; her mother signed a quitclaim deed over to Ron Ashton.
“Enough about my sad story,” Meg says, gesturing to the engagement ring on my finger. “Do you have a date set?”
I glance down at the one-carat solitaire on a platinum band that took us six months to pay off, and twist it on my finger. “Not yet.”
“What’s his name? How did you meet?”
“His name is Scott and he used to work with me at the bank,” I tell her.
“How long have you been together?” she asks. “Does he get a say in what you buy?”
It’s so easy to take the truth and turn it a few degrees, shifting things just enough to rewrite our struggling finances. Paying rent on our credit cards turns into an inheritance from an aunt. An engagement that’s been dragging on for two years is suddenly new and exciting. “We’ve been together five years, and no, he insists this is my money, my decision.”