My Share of Sand (A Calabasas Fable)

3-The Millionaire Waltz

still Wednesday, August 24

Nobody lives in Calabasas. They hide in Calabasas. Going home means to scurry up the hill, past the trees, and slip inside a gate so you can forget the rest of the world even exists.

Housing subdivisions are the glazed cherries in the Calabasas fruitcake. And dozens of them are gated to keep the undesirables. As the students of Las Virgenes High left school that day, you could determine the status of their family simply by seeing the gates of the communities they were headed back to.

Colinda put on her air filter-like helmet and biked back to Cloud Vista. The name implies tall frilly gates attached to columns adorned by giant gleaming pearls, with harp-playing angels skipping to and fro, but that was far from the case. They weren't too bad, though. Two chest-high slats of wrought iron that open and close with the input of a code, at the end of a cobblestone driveway, flanked by brick retaining walls on which hung cursive lettering that read CLOUD VISTA. In most communities, it would seem luxurious.

Jaxon Self waved to the guard as the gates pushed inward at Yuba Blanca at the Cove. The basic dividing line for wealth and status in this town is whether your gated community has a guard or not. The guard shack isn't really that impressive: a small stucco building with a pointed roof and a covered bay for vehicles to drive through. You wouldn't be surprised if someone turned in there thinking it was a drive-in coffee shop. The gate is nice, though: black, polished and arch-shaped, with a nifty YB monogram in the center.

The shack that Holden Fickler and Templynn Treat drove past on their way to Golden Crest Estates would be a cool place to live by itself. About twenty feet tall, made of molded sandstone, it has a fountain in front of it. Golden Crest is considered the elite gated community in Calabasas; name a random young celeb, and the chances are strong that they live there. Even if you're just visiting, to be seen going through that gate marks you as someone important.

But to get to Templynn's house, Holden had to drive through a second set of gates. This is the entrance to The Sanctuary at Golden Crest Estates. Yes—a gated community within a gated community. There are no guard shacks here, but none are necessary. Only fools would dare approach the Sanctuary gate without permission, and no fools live at Golden Crest. There are rumors about some poor sap who touched the gate without permission and fell over dead like he touched the Ark of the Covenant—not serious rumors, but most people would believe it anyway.

And Darius? His grandmother drove him to Spice Islands Point, and its gate...

It doesn't have a gate.

It's a handsome neighborhood all the same, built in the 1960s in a Mid-Century Modern style. She'd been widowed for two years, and inviting her daughter and grandson to move in with her was understood on all sides as an act of mercy to keep everyone sane.

The theme of the street names in Spice Islands Point is readily apparent when you glance at the signs as you drive past: Cardamom Causeway, Coriander Court, Fennel Fork, Poppy Plaza, and, yes, Sesame Street.

Grandma lived on Sesame Street.

As soon as he found out he was going to live with her, he dreaded it. He hoped they wouldn't stay too long. He could imagine applying to a prestigious university, and they look at his application, and after just one peep at the address 22367 Sesame Street, they toss it in the trash with a hearty "screw you, Elmo!"

OK, maybe he was being a little melodramatic there.

"How did it go?" asked Asha Nanima (Nanima is the word for a maternal grandmother in Gujarati, the traditional language of the Parsi people) on the commute back home.