The Co-op

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

One Week Prior

L A RYNN

Whenever someone talks about memory lane, I picture Hwy 17.

There is no relief when you’re trapped on Hwy 17. Its two lanes are unnervingly narrow, with relentlessly winding, rising, and sinking turns that feel endless. Once you’re on it, you can’t turn around, and there isn’t a safe shoulder to pull off to for an eternity. No matter how many times I’ve made the drive into Santa Cruz, this particular redwood-lined stretch always feels longer than the last, and memory lane feels just as jarring.

Nausea grips me hard and fast at the thought. I swerve into the only restaurant parking lot for miles, throw my car into park, shove open my door, and promptly vomit. A humorless laugh escapes me when I’m through. Some things never change, even when everything has. I’ve been sick in this exact parking lot many times before, though the restaurant it belongs to has changed three times over in the twenty or so years that I’ve been making this trip.

I gulp down the fresh air and take small sips of water while I try to recover. The worst leg of the road has been conquered, but there’s still a ways to go, and it’s just as unforgiving, so I eventually cave and call Elyse, my best (*only) friend, and weakly ask for a ride. Throwing up while driving isn’t a risk I’m in a position to take, especially when I’d like to sell this car as soon as possible, for as much as possible.

I plant myself on a low concrete curb, fold my arms atop my knees, and rest my forehead against them, concentrating on the rhythm of my breathing and the cool breeze brushing through my hair. In through my nose, out through my mouth, and though I’d been doing my best to keep them at bay, I’m just as powerless against the surge of memories now.

It’s been one year and four months since the last time I was forced to pull over here, which means it’s been one year and four months since I last visited my grandmother’s home, collected her ashes, and proceeded to fall apart. Her death was the first domino that sent me toppling over a string of things in my life since.

“Reshape it into something new,” I hear her voice say in my mind, a memory from one of my early teen years. I picture her pottery wheel and the sloppy pile of clay that I’d been trying to mold into something vase-adjacent. Feel the same frustrated anger I’d felt the moment I tried to finish it and fucked it up instead. Grandma had heard my huff and peered over my shoulder with a quiet laugh. “Quit trying to force it into looking exactly like what you picture. Let it be imperfect, ma fille. Shape it into something new. Just because it’s not what you thought it was doesn’t mean it’s not made of the right stuff.”

As far as it applies to my life choices since she died, I fear I may have taken the metaphor a bit too far. I think I was supposed to remain the one crafting things, and instead I feel more like the mound of clay. Dried out and useless and misshapen.

At this moody thought, memory lane does another dip and turn. The breeze disappears and the sun aggressively beats down on my neck, reminding me that, while I’ve been here plenty of times to visit, I haven’t spent a summer in Santa Cruz for seven years. My thoughts spin like they’re stuck on that same wheel and plop right back to then.

“ Merde, LaRynn. You are almost an adult. You should have outgrown this—this car sickness,” my father had yelled out the open door, parked in this very same lot. Where my grandmother’s slight French accent added a musical lilt to her voice, Dad’s only deepened the disgust in his tone. It’s not as if I could help the car sickness. A Dramamine and all the pressure points in the world couldn’t make up for the stifling, stilted tension in the car that day. The way my mother stared longingly out the window and leaned into it with her entire body, like she’d rather have been anywhere else. The way my father would make small attempts at conversation before he’d shake his head in dismay when those attempts weren’t met with any level of enthusiasm.

My parents, who categorically did not enjoy one another, who spent more time wrapped up in their resentment—to the point that it took center stage in our lives—traveled every summer from the time that I was eight until nineteen, leaving me with my grandma. Occasionally, I’d been able to visit during other times of the year, too, carted off to Grandma’s for the winter holidays, etcetera. But it was the summers that meant the most to me. And until that final year, those months were always restorative for my parents, too. They’d drop me off at the beginning of the season—usually some weekend in May when school would conclude—and pick me up around Labor Day, just before it would begin again. And things would almost seem better for them, typically until Halloween. A few years we even made it through Christmas.

Until that final summer, Santa Cruz was the place that’d been more home to me than any, with the person who felt more like home to me than anyone had, too. My grandmother Cecelia, with her soft voice and cutting sarcasm and her laissez-faire freedom. Then she married Helena when I was twelve and gave me a second grandmother to love.

I hate that one summer seems to overshadow so many others for me now, and that I let it change things like it did. It irritates me that my mind always manages to make its way back to that collection of months. I have spent years trying to convince myself that it was my age that made it all feel so vital, to justify acting and feeling how I did. Nineteen had felt so much bigger than it was, so much more exposed. I’d burned bright, like the temporariness of it all had made me more unapologetically myself somehow. Like I knew I was on the precipice of the rest of my life before college and the world’s plans for me would take over.

Because while all of that may be true, the story is also very cliché, since seven summers ago, I lost my head (and my pride, among other things) over a boy.

“Your ability to get carsick as a driver is impressive.”

I pick my head up from between my knees and squint at Elyse. “Thank you,” I say to her, my summer friend since age ten. She smiles down at me, and it’s the same bright grin she wore the first day she marched up to me on the beach, told me she liked my sandals, asked if I wanted to collect seashells with her, and became my friend forever.

I spot what must be the Uber that dropped her off pull away and back out onto the road. “I’ll pay you back for the ride,” I say. “Jensen on rotation?” Her long-term, live-in boyfriend is in his last years of medical school.

She snorts a laugh and rolls her eyes, folding me into a hug when I stand. “No, but he’s been on nights so he’s sleeping. And you don’t need to pay me back, weirdo,” she says. “You’ve spent more on me in the past than the twenty-three dollars it took to get here.”

But that was back when I had money. These days I measure every red cent I have, let alone anything anyone else might spend on me. I exhale a long sigh and squeeze her a bit tighter in return. I only have to hold out a few more months, I hope… and then I can find some comfort again. Can shed this unsettled, hunted feeling I’ve been carrying around for the past year.

I just need to take care of some business first.

“Just take it out of my tips later?” I say with a small laugh. Since she’s also giving me a job.

“Do shut up,” she replies with a bright smile.

We climb into my beat-up Accord and start the remaining drive home, Elyse in the driver’s seat now. I try to settle into the peace of my surroundings. Let my mind focus on the scenery around me rather than any lingering sick. I note the familiar bent and broken stalks of pampas grass lying in scattered piles across the hillside, like the Pacific’s discarded toothpicks. The sight of the glittering ocean on the horizon stirs up a different kind of sick—this one a mix of excitement, dread, and longing. The same way I’d feel every few years when my parents would buy a new house and leave the old, and I’d think to myself, at least Grandma’s will still be there. At least somewhere will stay the same. Some variant of homesickness.

As I feel the car make the final descent into Santa Cruz, I try (and fail) to keep other memories submerged.

The smell of cotton candy and sun-soaked skin.

Vanilla custard and deep-fried artichoke hearts.

The ringing of arcade games and bare thighs shifting on leather, car windows open to the sound of waves crashing.

Hunger and frustration blurring together over three heated, sticky months. Deep brown eyes that cut right through me. Dark, silky hair sliding between my fingers. Broad shoulders under shaky hands.

The scent of a boy’s bodywash, the taste of his ChapStick, the tear of a wrapper—

“Are you okay? Is this okay?” whispered against my neck.…

“Rynn—Jesus, are you going to be sick again? You need me to pull over?” Elyse shouts, and I’m catapulted back into the present.

“What? Oh—no. No, I’m okay. Sorry.” I gesture feebly before my hand falls to my thigh with a clammy slap.

“Your lips are back to being all pale.” She frowns, her gaze bouncing around me in concern before it darts back to the road. “Are you sure? Maybe we should stop for something to eat?”

I search her right back, gratitude blooming in my chest at having her here with me. That she took time off from her well-managed life just to come help me settle this whole mess. It’s a miracle she could even get the time away from her beloved café. I certainly would not have been able to afford the time, had I still been attending school. Thinking even vaguely about law school does not help my nausea.

“Yeah, let’s grab a bite if you don’t mind,” I say. I should sort myself out before I face what (who) I’m about to face.

Shortly after we arrive, Elyse and I are seated at one of the tables outside at the same harbor restaurant where my grandma would take me for special occasions, which could’ve been any regular Friday night for Cecelia Lavigne. It’s weird that noticing how much my body wants to relax here makes my brain do the opposite. I catch myself closing my eyes to the sun and craving a nap, then snap myself out of it and chug my ice water. I think about how everything seems to taste better this close to the ocean, like maybe it’s been seasoned by the salt air, then proceed to gulp down some more in response to those thoughts. My heart continues to stutter and jump long after I’ve finished my fourth glass and pushed my food around my plate for the seven hundredth time. I turn to stare out at the boats bobbing lazily in the harbor and try to reset its rhythm once more.

Elyse’s fork clatters against the table and I jolt in my seat, chair legs scraping against the worn deck.

She sighs. “Alright, are you okay? You’re fidgety as hell and have barely eaten,” she says.

I attempt a smile and nod, but let it semicircle into an honest shake when her eyebrow quirks above her sunglasses. She chuckles and tilts her head. “Wanna get it out of the way and talk about him?” she asks.

“Who?” I ask, feigning innocence. “The ghost of my virginity currently haunting the property we inherited together?” I force a laugh.

Her head tilts the other way now. “Your own personal poltergeist, huh?”

I sniff. “It was a bad metaphor.” I don’t say that I was trying to act unconcerned. Casual about this whole thing. Because while our grandmothers are not, Deacon Leeds is very much alive.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she says, charging onward as ever. “Let’s just go and assess what needs to be done and take things one step at a time. You both loved your grandmas and you both love the house. You’ll get it worked out. You’re adults now.”

My brow lifts doubtfully. “We’ll see.” Helena’s grandson has aggravated me since I was sixteen, and has historically brought out a less mature side of me. That, and plain stupidity, demonstrated by the fact that he also happens to be the boy I attempted a no-strings fling with for a summer when I was nineteen. Attempted, and failed, because I managed to magic enough strings to tie myself up in knots over him, misreading things entirely. Ugh, the embarrassment makes me wince even now. I suppress the urge to bury my face in my hands, and turn to watch the water lapping against the dock instead.

Being lumped together by them feels like a cosmic prank from the beyond.

“Being back here,” I say to Elyse, “makes me miss them that much more.” The absence of Gran and Helena is already glaring, and I know that the house itself will be worse. Thinking of the house brings my thoughts back to Deacon, which makes my temper flare. He’s been there more frequently than I have these last years, so much so that in a way it feels as if it belongs more to him than it does to me. I latch on to the anger, happy to feel something other than the crush of sadness. “I still can’t believe he threatened to sue me,” I say.

“Oh good. We are going to talk about him, then.”

“It’s only been a year since Helena passed.” Four months to the day after Grandma, in her sleep, like she’d simply expired without her love. I make a fist and rub at the knot in my chest.

I can’t imagine how much could’ve gone wrong with the home that they left us in that amount of time. “It cannot be that bad. And if it is that bad it’s probably his fault.” Great, I already sound petulant to my own ears, like I crossed the border into Santa Cruz County and banana-peel-slipped back in time, too.

Elyse sighs and leans onto her elbows. “Babe, I hate to break it to you.” She takes off her sunglasses and looks directly through mine. “From what I’ve gathered, the house is in shambles. He has been keeping it together. I don’t think he’s been doing much else, in fact, other than also taking care of Sally. And you share ownership, so you do share the responsibility.”

“What’s wrong with Sally?” I ask, the panic thick in my voice.

“Nothing other than she’s old and cranky,” she laughs.

Many of the older buildings in the part of Santa Cruz where my grandmother’s home stands started out as large single-family houses that were reconfigured into multiunit structures. As a result, some of them have odd layouts. My grandma’s has one single staircase with a shared laundry-slash-hallway area and a garage on one side, plus one unit on the other side, all on the first floor. Sally, my grandma’s best and oldest friend, has lived in that first-floor unit since before I was born. She delighted in terrifying Elyse and me when we were younger, popping her head out into the hallway to admonish us for being too loud running up and down the stairs. We made up for it by playing dominoes and card games with her, or occasionally helping with her small courtyard garden.

Cece and Helena’s place—well, mine and Deacon’s now I suppose—is on top, the second unit. It originally began as two, until they fell in love and tore down the wall that separated their places, fully converting the building into a stacked duplex, with one shared main entrance. There’s a veranda above the garage on the second floor, plus two small balconies off the living room and master bedroom that look out onto the ocean.

“What did you mean exactly,” I ask Elyse warily, “when you said that the place is in shambles?” I desperately hope my favorite balcony off my old room is okay. The one that looks like a little cutout from the side, like the ocean came up and took a bite out of it.

She frowns and snakes a hand through her short blond bob. “Have you not talked to him?”

“Not in depth, exactly,” I say. “I was hoping you had.”

“I only know what I get through Jensen, really,” she says. Since her (in all likelihood) future husband is also Deacon’s closest friend. “But it doesn’t sound great. What have you talked to him about?”

This is the part where I have to come clean. I shift in my seat, embarrassed again. Any time I spend in Deacon’s orbit seems to leave me embarrassed. Or irritated, or out of my mind in some other type of way.

“I only called him when he told me he was going to sue me and then sell the place,” I admit. It wasn’t the plan to always ignore his calls and texts six months ago when they started, but then his messages became increasingly demanding and I continued putting them off. I also upended my life in the meantime and have barely been staying afloat while I’ve been adrift.

“So he has no idea you’re coming?” Elyse asks, poorly suppressing her mirth.

“He knows,” I say. “I just didn’t give him an exact day.” My stomach dips when I remember the sound of his growled “Finally” when I broke down and called him after getting his last text. LaRynn. either gonna have 2 sue u or sell. Can’t afford this. 4 real , it had stated. I nearly texted him back something shitty about spelling out full words if he wanted to be the most effective, but, as someone with dyslexia, poking any fun at spelling or punctuation has always been sensitive for me. Plus, something about him using my name, that infinitesimal effort it took to also capitalize the R, had nagged. I’d proceeded to scrounge around my mostly empty cupboards in my furniture-less apartment until I found a bottle of Sailor Jerry from who knows when or what, threw back a shot, and hit call. “Finally,” he said when he answered. Followed by his terrible nickname for me. “Larry.”

I scoffed. “I’m coming,” I told him. “Give me a month.”

That was one week ago, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping to catch him off guard or inconvenience him in some way by showing up this early. I’ll take any advantage I can get.

“Well, this’ll be interesting,” Elyse says with a cackle.