Chapter 9: The Aftermath in the Kitchen
The kitchen’s silence amplified the hum of the refrigerator until it felt like a vibration in Matt’s teeth. He stared at the empty doorway where Dasha had vanished, the ghost of her words—That’s the problem—echoing in the stainless steel stillness.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen blinding in the dim room. His thumb hovered over her name in his contacts. He typed Can we talk? Not here. Somewhere else. His finger paused over the send button. He saw her face, that new, composed distance in her eyes. It was a look that didn’t invite pleading. He deleted the message, then shoved the phone back into his pocket as if it had burned him.
Rejoining the laughter and clinking glass felt impossible. He turned instead to the French doors off the kitchen, slipping out onto the cool stone of the back terrace.
The night air was a relief, carrying the dry, herbal scent of sage from the canyon. Los Angeles glittered in the distance, a silent galaxy of sprawl. He gripped the cold railing, the rock of the cliff face dropping away into blackness. He replayed the last twenty minutes, each of her polished sentences a tiny cut. She had expertly dismantled him with politeness. It was worse than anger.
Inside, the party glowed like a diorama.
Dasha settled back into her chair, a fresh glass of wine in her hand. The studio head, Gerald, was deep into a story about Warren Beatty.
“And he says to me, ‘Kid, the problem with most directors is they think with their eyes, not their guts.’ Can you believe that?” Gerald chuckled, awaiting her response.
“Sounds like he was confusing guts with something else entirely,” Dasha said, her smile wry. Gerald barked a laugh, delighted.
Across the table, Simon watched her. He noted the precise curve of her smile, the alert angle of her head as she listened. It was the same performance she’d given at sixteen, hiding a broken heart after her first real boyfriend. The efficiency of it worried him. He caught her eye during a lull, raising his own glass slightly, a silent, unspoken question.
She met his gaze and gave a single, almost imperceptible shake of her head. Don’t ask. Then she turned back to Gerald, launching a question about practical effects that she knew would hook him for another ten minutes. She was a fortress, and her drawbridge was firmly up.
On the terrace, Matt didn’t hear the door open.
“She’s good, isn’t she?”
Simon’s voice, low and gravelly, came from a few feet away. He leaned against the railing, a cigar between his fingers, unlit.
Matt startled slightly, then sighed. “She’s terrifying.”
“That’s my girl.” Simon took a long, slow breath of the night air. “Berlin gave her titanium plating. I’m not sure if I should be proud or concerned.”
“She hates me.”
“No,” Simon said, striking a match. The flame illuminated his thoughtful face for a moment before he touched it to the cigar. He took a puff, the ember glowing orange. “She doesn’t hate you. If she hated you, she’d have thrown a drink in your face, made a scene. That would be easy. This?” He gestured with the cigar toward the bright windows. “This is harder. This is her protecting the thing she actually cares about.”
Matt was silent. A coyote yipped somewhere far down in the canyon, a lonely sound.
“I made a mess of it,” Matt finally said, the admission ripped out of him.
“Yeah. You did.” Simon said it without malice, a simple statement of fact. “You were scared. She was scared. The timing was a disaster. It’s a familiar song.”
“What do I do?”
Simon studied the ash on his cigar. “You respect the titanium plating. You don’t try to pry it off with your bare hands. You show up. Consistently. Without agenda. You be the friend you always were, before everything got complicated. And you wait for her to trust you enough to show you the cracks.”
“That could take years.”
“It might.” Simon looked at him. “You got somewhere else to be?”
Inside, Dasha excused herself to the bathroom. She locked the door and leaned against it, closing her eyes. The face she saw in the mirror was flushed from wine and the effort of performance. She splashed cold water on her wrists, the shock of it grounding her.
She could see the terrace from the hallway window. Two dark shapes, one haloed by the occasional glow of a cigar. Her father and Matt. Talking. A fresh wave of something—panic, vulnerability—washed over her. She felt outmaneuvered. The careful control she’d built, first in Berlin and then in that kitchen, felt suddenly fragile.
When she returned, the party was winding down. Coats were being fetched. Gerald kissed her on the cheek, calling her a “secret weapon.” She smiled, thanked him, her eyes drifting back to the terrace. The figures were gone.
She found them in the front foyer, Matt shrugging on a leather jacket. He looked more settled, the tightness gone from his shoulders.
“Heading out?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral.
“Early call tomorrow,” he said. “Thank you, Simon. It was a great night.” He turned to her. “Dasha. It was… really good to see you.”
He didn’t try to hug her again. He just held her gaze, and in his eyes, there was no demand, no unresolved pressure. Just a simple, steady acknowledgment. It unnerved her more than his frustration had.
“You too,” she said.
“Lunch?” he asked, the word casual, thrown away almost as he opened the front door. “Sometime. As friends. I want to hear about the Berlinale archive project. The one you mentioned in your email.”
It was so specific. So ordinary. A perfectly engineered entry back onto safe ground.
She hesitated for a second too long. Simon, behind her, said, “She’s free Thursday.”
Dasha shot him a look. He smiled innocently.
“Thursday works,” Matt said, stepping out into the night. “I’ll text you.” He gave a small wave, a shadow against the porch light, and was gone.
Dasha closed the door and leaned her back against it, staring at her father.
“What was that?”
“A peace offering,” Simon said, walking back toward the kitchen. “And a very sensible one. You have to work with him eventually. He’s still a client.”
“You’re meddling.”
“I’m facilitating a professional relationship.” He paused, looking back at her. The facade was gone from his face, replaced by gentle concern. “The titanium’s great, Dash. But don’t let it weld shut.”
She stayed by the door long after his footsteps faded, listening to the empty house settle around her. The quiet felt different now. Not like an escape, but like a held breath. Thursday loomed, a simple lunch, a professional conversation. It felt, terrifyingly, like a beginning.