Page 13 of Counting the Days

An embarrassed heat flashed across Rhea’s face as she thought about humbly asking Tiny for his number.

“Rhea, help,” a frazzled woman said as she hurried through the door. “Look, look at me, I’m a disaster.”

Rhea and Louisca took in the coffee stain covering their favorite regular’s left breast and cringed on her behalf.

“I don’t have time to go home and change, I’m already late for work.”

Rhea sprang into action; this was her favorite part of the job. She loved helping anyone in a crisis: the insecure woman with nothing to wear, stressed about an important date, or the college kid trying to find ways to dress more like an adult without accruing even more debt.

Rhea guided her regular back to the dressing rooms and stood outside the closed curtain.

“Do not worry, all will be well, give me the shirt,” Rhea said.

She tossed it over. Rhea caught it and added, “Louisca will bring it to Canyon Cleaners around the corner, and you can pick it up whenever.” Rhea threw the blouse to Louisca.

Rhea walked through the store like an athlete in flow, picking out button-ups and silk blouses, all a perfect match for the pants, shoes, and bag her regular had walked in wearing. She quickly slipped all the options through the curtain.

“I think the light blue silk is the best choice,andit’s on sale, but try them all if you have time.”

“I don’t, but I trust you.”

She came out moments later wearing the light blue silk and looking a good deal better than when she’d arrived.

“Pay next time,” Rhea said, waving away her Amex.

“Oh, thank you so much,” she said, and raced out the door. Louisca and Rhea watched her sprint to her waiting Mercedes and peel out of Pine Tree Circle into the rush of Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

“You did a good thing,” Louisca said, “but I can’t bring this to the cleaners. I hooked up with the guy behind the counter, and he ghosted me.” He said this joyfully, as if being ghosted was exciting, and handed the stained blouse back to Rhea.

311Days

Rhea watched the morning sunbreak through the haze. She stood on a deck constructed with uneven planks of decaying pine. The weight capacity was exactly one person and one mug of tea; with even an extra ounce, the ancient deck would ominously creak.

She was bundled in a plaid Isabel Marant wool coat, her favorite coat, despite it hanging on her frame like a lumpy blanket. The sheepskin Prada boots on her feet and giant mug of hot green tea in her hand were thawing the morning chill off her bones.

She took her cellphone out of her coat pocket and stared at it. Sometimes her phone was a pacifier, a warm, glowing comforter, soothing her nerves when she slid her fingers along its inviting surface. This morning, however, her phone was a cold metal box, a border-crossing station at the beginning of a treacherous journey. In order to continue onward, she had to summon the bravery to press the intimidating glass screen.

She had decided to take matters into her own hands. The days had worn on her, and she’d officially lost hope in the Edible Gardener ever tracking her down, but she decided that wasinconsequential. She was living in themodern twenties,goddammit. She was not some damsel, too feminine and delicate to make the first move. Louisca was right; this would show Danny how confident she was. He would never have to know her heart was pounding and her knees were gelatinous.

She could not bring herself to ask Tiny for his cellphone number, but she easily found the next best thing. Each taunting beep, symbolizing a ringing phone on the other end of the line, made nausea swell in her stomach. Three hundred and eleven short days before her eggs fell off a cliff. The image of splattered yolks on craggy rocks gave her the motivation to stay on the line.

“Edible Gardener,” a woman’s voice said.

“Oh, um, yeah, hi, I was wondering if…Danny Beckett was there?”

Rhea cleared her throat, reminding herself of a twelve-year-old boy asking a father if his daughter could come to the phone.

“Oh, no, not right now, do you wanna leave a message?”

“Um, no, I actually…I want to make an appointment to have…a garden installed.”

“Okay, sure, we can add you to the schedule for a consultation.”

“With Danny?”

“No, Danny doesn’t do the initial consultations. We would send Patricia. She’s amazing though, you’ll love her.” Did the woman have a slight tinge of annoyance in her voice? Was she growing tired of middle-aged women calling to lure Danny to their home?No,Rhea decided, she was just being paranoid.

Lacking an alternate plan, Rhea found herself telling the woman her address and phone number and agreeing to have a stranger named Patricia come to her house to give her a quote on a garden bed she did not want.