Page 9 of The Paradise Problem

“Didn’t your family live in the area?” I ask. “I haven’t seen Jake in like two years.”

“They’re down in Orange County, yeah. Jake is in Newport Beach working for the family business.”

“Cool.” Other than the sound of Conan grunting on the TV, silence falls, and I’ve lost the thread of why West is here.

He adjusts his posture on the sofa, turning slightly to face me. Oh, right. He came here to ask me for help. I sit up, too, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. Focus, Anna.

“Okay, so here’s the situation,” he says. “You remember, I’m sure, the circumstances of how we came to be roommates?”

Indeed I do. At the end of my sophomore year, my two roommates graduated, and I couldn’t afford the rent for our one-bedroom apartment near campus alone. In fact, I couldn’t afford any rent on any apartment within biking or walking distance. Jake already had a roommate; Vivi lived at home with her parents and commuted a half hour to school every day from Playa del Rey. Even though the Amirs offered me a room, I didn’t have a car and LA public transportation is so deeply shitty that if Vivi and I didn’t carpool, it would take me nearly two hours to get to school from their house every day. Given my penchant for oversleeping, I knew it wouldn’t work.

But Jake’s older brother was working on his doctorate and needed graduate housing; unfortunately, he’d been offered only family housing, which required him to be married. So Jake had the idea to connect the two of us for a little harmless rule-breaking. A legal lockdown on my vagina was well worth the pennies in rent I’d have to pay. I met West for the first time at the courthouse, where we had a brief ceremony. I signed some papers when he moved in and some papers when he moved out, and that was that. Easy.

For two blissful years, I had cheap housing and an apartment all to myself most daylight hours. West had been one of the best roommates I’d ever had—certainly I had never caught him with his ankles tied to his wrists on the couch.

“I do remember,” I say. But then something occurs to me and panic washes me out for a second. “Wait. Are we in trouble for fraud or something?”

“No, no, nothing like that.”

I deflate back into the couch. Adrenaline plus gummy is a heady combination. “Thank fucking God. Believe me, that is the last thing I need.”

“No, this situation is entirely of my own making, unfortunately.”

“And you think I can help you? I can barely feed myself a balanced diet.”

West eyes my soggy bowl of Froot Loops. “I think only you can help me, in fact.”

“Is this my Chosen One moment?” I flatten a palm to my chest. “I thought it would come sooner than my twenty-fifth year.” Pausing, I add, “I also thought there’d be a sword. Maybe dragons.”

“Maybe we should wait to have this conversation.”

“No, no.” I reach for my mixing bowl. “This is perfect timing.”

He seems unconvinced, but continues anyway. “As you likely remember, my family owns a large company.”

Swiping a drip of milk from my chin, I admit through a bite of Froot Loops, “I honestly have no idea what your family does.”

He looks surprised. “Even being friends with Jake?”

“I knew what Jake ordered for lunch and what kinds of stupid movies would make him laugh, and I could predict all his pickup lines at parties, but we didn’t ever, like, sit down and do backstory. He didn’t even mention he had a brother until he suggested I marry you.”

West coughs out a dry laugh. “Okay, well, in that case, my grandfather Albert Weston founded a grocery stand back in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1952, and—”

“We’re starting in 1952! Oh my God, I am so high.” I take another bite.

“And that grocery stand eventually became a storefront, and that storefront eventually became a grocery store chain, which—”

“Wait.” I set the bowl back on the table. Understanding is setting in. “A grocery store chain? Are you talking about Weston’s? Like the giant supermarket two blocks from here that has the good cheese I can’t afford?”

“I am.”

“Are you shitting my dick right now?”

West squints at me. “I—no? My father is Raymond Weston, son of Albert, and current owner and CEO of Weston Foods.”

West is the grandson of the Weston Foods empire? “You guys are like one of the biggest grocery chains in the country.”

“The sixth, in fact.”

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