Chapter 8: The Homecoming Dinner
The heat of Los Angeles was a physical weight, a thick, perfumed blanket after Berlin’s crisp austerity. Dasha stood in the guest bedroom of her father’s house, smoothing the lines of a simple black dress. Through the window, the sunset bled orange over the canyon. She could hear the low rumble of arriving cars, the crunch of gravel, Simon’s booming laugh from the terrace below.
She had taken the job at the agency for the right reasons: a senior archival consultant role, crafting legacy projects for classic film clients. It was a logical step. It had nothing to do with geography, with proximity. She repeated this to herself as she applied a faint stroke of lipstick, her eyes in the mirror giving back a look of cool skepticism.
The dining room was a spectacle of Simon’s particular showmanship. Crystal glinted under the chandeliers, casting tiny rainbows over the faces of minor studio heads, a respected director, a few agents Dasha remembered vaguely. It was a welcome party, but every gathering here was a negotiation.
And then, there he was.
Matt stood by the fireplace, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass of bourbon. He was tanned, his hair sun-bleached at the ends, dressed in a linen shirt that seemed casually expensive. He looked relaxed. Whole. He was laughing at something the director said, that easy, familiar charm turned up to its perfect, social wattage.
Dasha’s heart performed a hard, single thump against her ribs. She felt it everywhere. She willed her feet to move, her face to arrange itself into something pleasant and neutral.
“Hey, you,” she said, stepping into their circle.
He turned. The laughter in his eyes didn’t vanish, but it shifted, softened into something more recognisable. “Dasha.” Her name, in his mouth, felt like a held note. He moved forward and hugged her, his free arm wrapping around her shoulders. It was brief, warm, smelling of sun and sage and his particular cologne. A friend’s hug. She let her hand pat his back twice, firm and sisterly.
“You look amazing,” he said, pulling back, his eyes scanning her face with an intensity the moment didn’t require. “Berlin agreed with you.”
“It did. You look like you just walked off a ranch.”
“Montana,” he nodded. “It was good. Quiet.”
“I heard.” She let that hang for a beat, then pivoted smoothly to the director, extending a hand. “Mr. Ebersole, a pleasure. I admired your last film immensely.”
She slid into the conversation like a key into a well-oiled lock. She asked intelligent questions. She laughed at the right places, a light, genuine sound. When Matt mentioned his next project—a small, indie thriller shooting in Vancouver—she teased him about the weather, about his notorious hatred for the cold.
“Remember that time in New York,” she said, sipping her wine, “when you wore that ridiculous fur-lined aviator hat to a read-through? You looked like a confused WWI pilot.”
The table laughed. Matt’s smile widened, but his eyes held hers, a flicker of confusion in them. “You remember that.”
“I remember the producer’s face. Priceless.”
She was good at this. She had learned in Berlin, in sterile conference rooms and bustling galleries, how to wield conversation as both a shield and a tool. She was informative, charming, utterly detached. She felt his gaze on her throughout the first course, a tangible weight on her skin as she discussed film preservation techniques with the studio head to her left.
By the main course, his own easy charm had begun to solidify. His responses grew shorter. He stopped trying to draw her into his anecdotes. He just watched her, his fingers slowly turning his wine glass by the stem.
Simon, at the head of the table, observed it all with the quiet precision of a chess master. He told a long, funny story about Dasha as a stubborn child, refusing to eat anything but asparagus for a week. Dasha played along, rolling her eyes. Matt offered a tight smile.
As dessert plates were cleared, Dasha stood. “Let me help,” she said to the server, collecting a few dishes.
She felt him before she saw him. The air in the sprawling, stainless steel kitchen changed, charged and still. The server vanished back to the dining room with a stack of plates.
Dasha set her load by the sink and turned on the faucet, letting the water run hot over her fingers.
“What are you doing?”
His voice was low, close. He stood in the doorway, blocking the light from the hall, his form a silhouette.
She didn’t turn. “Washing my hands. It’s generally what one does after eating.”
“Dasha.”
She finally looked at him. The relaxed facade from the terrace was gone. His jaw was taut, a muscle feathering in his cheek. His blue eyes were dark, searching her face for a crack.
“What are you doing?” he repeated, the question narrower, sharper.
“Acting normal,” she said, reaching for a towel. She dried her hands methodically, finger by finger. “You should try it. You’ve been staring at me all night like I’m a traffic accident.”
He took a step into the room. The hum of the commercial refrigerator filled the space. “Normal. Right. So all that… in there. The ‘Mr. Ebersole, your film was brilliant,’ the story about the hat… that’s just you being normal.”
“It’s me being polite. It’s me being professional. It’s me not making a scene at my father’s dinner table.” Her voice was calm, a flat pane of glass.
“You think that’s what I want? A scene?” He ran a hand through his hair, frustration breaking through. “I haven’t seen you in two and a half years. You left. You built a whole life. I get an email about your work. A text on my birthday. And now you’re here, in this kitchen, acting like we’re… colleagues.”
“What are we, Matt?” She tossed the towel onto the counter. The sound was sharp in the quiet kitchen. “You tell me. You’re the one who said it was a huge mistake. You’re the one who got married. You’re the one who went to Montana to ‘clear your head.’ So what do you want from me tonight? What would feel normal to you?”
He flinched, as if she’d struck him. The truth, laid out so baldly, seemed to steal the air from the room. He looked away, towards a rack of gleaming copper pans, but his shoulders slumped. The fight went out of him, leaving something raw in its place.
“I don’t know,” he said, quiet now. Almost helpless. “I saw you walk in and you were… different. You are different. And all I could think was that I caused that. The distance. This… performance.” He gestured back towards the dining room. “And I hated it.”
The water still ran in the sink. She turned it off. The silence was absolute.
“You don’t get to hate it,” she said, but the edge was gone from her voice. There was only a weary honesty. “This is who I am now. The performance, as you call it, is what got me through. It’s what keeps me from…” She stopped, shaking her head.
“From what?”
She met his gaze then, her own defenses finally down. “From wondering what would have happened if you’d called me from Montana. From thinking about it at all.”
He moved then, not towards her, but to lean against the opposite counter, putting the width of the kitchen between them, as if he needed the barrier. “I almost did. A hundred times. I’d pick up the phone, and then I’d remember the look on your face when I pulled away. I’d remember I had no right.”
They were quiet for a long moment. The murmur of the dinner party was a distant, separate world.
“Linda and I…” he began, then stopped. “It wasn’t about you. It had been over for a long time. But it wasn’t about you.”
“I know.” And she did. That was what made it so unbearably pointless.
“I’m sorry,” he said. It wasn’t a grand apology. It was simple, dampened by regret.
Dasha nodded, accepting nothing, absolving nothing. “We should get back.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t move.
She walked towards the doorway, where he still stood. She had to pass him to leave. As she drew near, his hand came up, not to stop her, but to hover near her arm. A ghost of a touch. She stopped.
“I missed you,” he said, the words so quiet they were almost lost in the hum of the refrigerator motor.
She looked at his hand, then up at his face. All the practiced composure, the Berlin discipline, threatened to crumble. It would be so easy to let it.
“I missed you, too,” she whispered. “That’s the problem.”
And she slipped past him, back into the glow of the chandeliers, leaving him alone in the cool, dark quiet of the kitchen.