Free The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith Page A

the phone between my shoulder and ear as I stuff West Coast Editor’s groceries into her cupboards. Her dog yaps and dances around my ankles.
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    I’m sorry I’m not there with you, Dad.
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    Don’t be, sweetie. I’m doing great. The doctor said today that he can already tell that the tumor is shrinking. I want to make sure you’ve got an old man to look after for a few more years.
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    He chuckles again and I smile into the phone. The dog is starting to paw at the dry cleaning that I tossed over a chair, and I shoo him away from it, nudging him gently with the toe of my high heel.
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    Dad, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.
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    I hang up and take one last glance around the house. It’s a small one bedroom, and even in the daytime there’s not a lot of light. I try to imagine West Coast Editor at home here, lounging around in her pajamas, but three days into the job and I can tell that she’s hardly ever here.
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    I go home after that, driving up Fairfax, turning right on Hollywood Boulevard and driving past Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, past the bums sleeping on the stars on the sidewalks, past the sex shops and the palm trees, turning left on Ivar and up to the top of the hill where I share an apartment with my boyfriend, Colin.

    COLIN AND I HAVE BEEN together for six years. We lived together for the whole four years that I was in New York, and he’s part of the reason I moved to LA. Colin is an actor and thinks he’ll have better chances of finding work here.
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    Hey, I say, as I step through the entrance to our apartment. Colin is in the living room, smoking a cigarette, watching CNN. He’s always watching CNN.
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    Hey, he calls back, without turning around. I kick off my heels, a pair of black Isaac Mizrahis that I shelled out for when I got the job. I’m hoping no one at work will notice that I’ve worn them every day.
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    How did it go today? Colin asks, still focused on the television.
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    I walk into the kitchen, where I remove a bottle of beer from the fridge.
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    It was okay, I sigh. I got her the wrong kind of smoothie.
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    So?
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    So, she didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day.
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    Fuck her, Colin says.
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    Colin is good at saying things like that. He’s always angry. I’ll never know if his rage was there from birth or if it is a product of his sister’s murder seven years ago.
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    I’m going outside, I say.
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    â€™K, Colin says without turning around.
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    I walk between the two columns that mark the entrance to the living room. The hardwood floors gleam in the late afternoon sun and the rushing sound of the freeway is a distant thrum through the French windows.
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    Outside I sink down onto an old set of wooden steps that lead to the little backyard. In the middle of the yard sits a tree, fat with waxy blossoms that fill the air with the scent of orange and vanilla. My neighbor told me that he’s only seen trees like it in Hawaii, and this bit of information makes me like LA a tiny bit more.
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    My beer bottle drips condensation into the railing, and I gaze out across the cityscape of Los Angeles. I can see the Capitol Records Building, and beyond that Hollywood dips down into a maze of squat buildings crosshatched by palm trees. The early evening air is balmy, like a warm swimming pool.
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    I let out a sigh. Nothing in my life is the way I thought it would be. Not my relationship with Colin, not my dependent and elderly father. Not this strange city or the aching loneliness that keeps me from falling asleep at night, despite the warm body next to me.
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    I think about the morning we left New York, almost three months ago. It was a bright, hot Monday, and we drove through the Holland Tunnel and out of the city. For five days we streamed across the flat plains of the country, through cornfields and long, empty desert stretches. I curled against the