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Ricky Esposito knew only two ways to woo a woman. One was reciting Shakespearean sonnets. And the other was doing a magic trick.
“Pick a card, any card,” he said, and as he said it, Kit regretted every single choice she’d made that had brought her to this moment.
But first, she needed to fuck two rock stars in a Jacuzzi while everyone watched.
He’d never thought it before, but maybe Nina was wrong for him. Maybe that was why she made him feel so small.
He went straight to the closet. He had to move fast; he had to get this over with quickly for the both of them. And he did not think he could bear to look at her. He was not sure he’d keep his nerve. “I’m sorry, Nina,” he said. “But I’m leaving.” “What are you talking about?” she said, the bubbliness still in her voice. He did not remember what she said after that. He had simply run away.
Brandon considered her words and realized she was right. No one had made him sleep with her. No one had made him leave his wife for her. He’d done it all himself. But he simply could not, for the life of him, remember why any of that had felt like such a good idea.
He came back to me but left his sweatband with her?
“You woke up this morning after making love to me the night before and when I got off the phone with room service to order us raw almonds, you said, and I quote, ‘Oh my God. You’re awful. What the fuck have I done?’ And then you left.”
In that moment, Nina was not mad or jealous or embarrassed or anything else she might have expected. Nina was sad. Sad that she’d never lived a fraction of a second like Carrie Soto. What a world she must live in, Nina thought, where you can piss and moan and stomp your feet and cry in public and yell at the people who hurt you. That you can dictate what you will and will not accept.
Her husband had slept with Carrie last night and then Nina had taken him back this evening. What was wrong with her?
Nina rested her famous ass on a stack of paper towel rolls
Ricky looked up at her and felt even more drawn in, the way her eyes looked so warm and bright, the way her smile created little dimples on her cheeks. He had been so close to the girl he’d always wanted. And now he understood it truly was never going to happen. But that’s how life goes, Ricky thought. You don’t always get the things you want.
He had to get one of them back.
His hand slipped and the record scratched.
Vaughn nodded. And then as Nina turned away, he grabbed her arm. He took his other hand and brushed the edge of her shirt, just at the top of her rib cage. “This one isn’t as soft to the touch as I was hoping,” he said with a smile, then he winked at her.
Nina looked at her and frowned. “I…” she began to say, but then changed the subject. “Do you smoke?” she said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from her nightstand drawer. She offered one to Casey. “Oh, no but, uh…OK,” Casey said. She took the unlit cigarette from Nina’s hand and put it to her mouth.
“Vickie, let me take you to dinner!” he said. And then he swung himself across the room, hanging on for dear life. He hit the opposite wall and then let go, crashing onto the sofa with the howl of an injured animal.
Nina spoke again. “You are a big somebody to the world, Dad. We all know that. We live with it every goddamn day. But let’s be clear about one thing, you are not anybody’s father.”
“I don’t care! Hud can fuck all my ex-girlfriends ten times in front of me and I’d still like him more than I like you.”
“Will you listen to me? I’m trying to answer your question. I’m trying to explain something to you. I tried my best to be responsible about it. I always told women I slept with that I didn’t want any children. I said, ‘If I had any interest in being a dad, I’d go home to my kids.’ ”
“This is something you have to understand about being a parent—some people just aren’t cut out for it. Some people don’t have what it takes. And I didn’t. But I’m here now. And I’m hoping that we can make something of all this. I just…I simply couldn’t before. But now I think I have what it takes. And I want to be a part of your lives now. I want to…get dinners and, I don’t know, spend holidays together or whatever it is that families do. I want that.”
“I think the problem, Dad,” she said, with an unexpected warmth in her voice, “is that your love doesn’t mean very much.”
Somehow, knowing her father wasn’t all bad made her like herself more, made her less afraid of who she might be down in the unmined depths of her heart.
But it was not, Nina saw just then, her job to carry the full box. Her job was to sort through the box. To decide what to keep, and to put the rest down. She had to choose what, of the things she inherited from the people who came before her, she wanted to bring forward. And what, of the past, she wanted to leave behind.
But she would understand that it was one fire, in a long line of fires in Malibu since the dawn of time. It had brought destruction. It would also bring renewal, rising from the ashes. The story of fire.
6. Malibu Rising is also about sibling relationships. Discuss the nature of sibling rivalry. Why do you think sibling dynamics can be so complicated? How do we use our siblings to define our own personalities? 7. Mick is essentially the villain in the book, but he’s also portrayed with sympathy and humanity. Why do you think that is? What did you make of his character? Do you think he got what he deserved in the end? 8. Talk about the structure of the novel. Why do you think the book takes place in twenty-four hours? How does that influence the pacing of the story? 9. Destruction and renewal
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