We wound through Malibu Canyon, approaching the tunnel. We passed Our Lady of Malibu, the church where Steffi and Nicole sometimes went. Tumbleweeds bounced along the side of the road and disappeared over the cliffs. It was unseasonably hot for winter. Santa Anas were gusting, and the wind swallowed my words as soon as I spoke them.

“Mom? Should I call her Granny or Grandma or what?”

My mother shrugged and licked a bead of sweat off her glossy upper lip. “Someone once painted a picture of Lady Godiva up there.” She pointed to the worn rock above the tunnel’s entrance. “You can still make out the place where they covered her up.”

“Why did they cover her up?”

“She was naked, dum-dum.”

I put my arms up and let out a long “hoooooooooot” until the tunnel filled with my echoes. We plowed back into the bright sun, my voice still bellowing behind. On the valley side of the tunnel, the canyon flattened with miles of parched, grassy meadows and rocky hills with horses and cattle pastured in the distance. As the temperature rose, the inside of my pantsuit heated up. I wouldn’t give my mother the satisfaction of predicting my discomfort, so I pretended to brush a speck from my chest as I pulled the burning metal of the zipper away from my skin and unzipped the top down as far as I could without her noticing. I caught my reflection in the side mirror; the wind had completely and mercifully unraveled my coif.

As we neared the freeway, my mother swerved around a long train of trucks and motorhomes lined up on the road, their rear ends sticking out.

“Goddamn it,” she muttered. “Think they own the world.”

“Who?” I asked, and when she didn’t answer, I repeated, “WHO?”

“TV people. That’s where they shoot Bonanza.”

“Really?”

“Mmm-hmm. You know little Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“He was one of my regulars at the coffee shop.”

“Wow. Was he on horseback?” It wasn’t a stupid question. Lots of people rode their horses on the beach and in the fields next to the Colony.

“Well, he drove a Mustang. Close enough, I guess.” My mother laughed at her own cleverness.

My grandmother lived off Van Nuys Boulevard in the same eraser pink, stucco condo complex my mother had grown up in. though she’d downsized to a studio apartment.

“Welcome to paradise,” my mother smirked, pulling into a vacant parking space. The temperature had shot up to over a hundred and the smog and humidity blanketed the valley air. We entered through an iron gate that led to a kidney-shaped pool. Several young mothers stood in the shallow end, smoking and chatting, holding their beers and cigarettes out of the way every time one of their screaming children splashed too close. I ached to strip off my sticky pantsuit and dive in.