Coveted

by Ryleigh Stone

  She saw the pink hat in the crowd and she smiled. What if that really was Jack the Liker showing up with one moment to prepare after their conversation? She started to focus on the person wearing it just out of curiosity, but then locked her attention on the outline of blue bells stitched on the pink front. They were overlapped and turned at canted angles as if they were ringing just like on her little league uniform. That hat couldn’t exist. The outlines were like the foundation of the building from the parking lot where she waited for the limousine – it was the after image of a life that no longer existed. That hat couldn’t really exist.

  She froze and tried to focus on the face, but the flashes from cameras kept washing the color out of the world. Don held her arm at the elbow and said, “We need to go in. Come on.”

  She looked toward Don and back into the crowd in the stands across the street. The hat was lost like magic and she started to wonder if she had seen it at all. Gia turned and they swept inside.

  They circled the room making nice with invited guests with money to invest and Don moved to the center with Gia as they waited for everyone to gather and the catering staff to pass out the flutes of Champaign.

  Gia whispered, “Will I take your name?”

  “Whatever you want,” he whispered back as he took two glasses from the tray and handed Gia one. “You might want to keep Gia Sorah at this point now that you are getting real attention and notice.”

  She smiled. “Sure, as a screen name, but legally, I mean.”

  “You want to be Gia Blackheart?” He smiled and looked away. “That’s not a bad screen name either. We could be a Hollywood, Horrorwood, power couple, huh?”

  “Would I not be Gina Blanchard in real life though? Like on a marriage license?”

  Don frowned. “You can be whoever you want, but I’m not using that name anywhere.”

  Her real name, her Kentucky name as Don Blackheart aka Donald Blanchard called it, was Gina Sullivan. Sometimes she looked at her Hollywood name on posters, on boxes, or online and wondered if her real name wasn’t the better name in many different ways. She thought about outlines of buildings and bells.

  Don rang one of his skull rings against his glass and everyone drifted to silence.

  Ding Dong, the career is dead, she thought.

  He looked good in his grey tuxedo with tails. He was smiling in a way that could have been happiness or anger, but since he was a center of attention, she assumed he was happy.

  He gave his speech about the movie and then announced that he and Gia were engaged. The crowd made the noise of surprise and clapped. The flash from cameras increased exponentially and they kissed on cue just like he had directed.

  She graciously took everyone’s congratulations on the way into the screening. Gia fought the temptation to ask each of them if they had been paid yet. The movie got laughs and gasps at all the right places. Gia cringed at her own dialogue. She was going to get blasted by critics. She could feel it. Love Splatter would have been a better title, she thought again.

  They took more questions and congrats afterward and returned to the limo. A few of the dates of the important men were stumbling on their heels with the drunk walk of baby giraffes. Don gave them dirty looks as photographers took their pictures like he was surprised they were acting like that.

  The couple gave one more wave and smile before disappearing inside the limo.

  “You want to go back to my place?” he asked.

  He was already scrolling for another number.

  “I’ll need to go back to my apartment to pick up some things.”

  He shook his head. “Just order what you need after we get back.”

  She frowned. “What happened to whatever I wanted?”

  She expected him to relent, but he said, “Just do what I said. I need to return these calls.”

  She pulled his phone hand down away from his ear. “I’m not sitting around your place in this uncomfortable dress all night while you talk on the phone.”

  He shook her hand off and said, “Stop it. This is important.”

  “Just take me back to my place. All the way back. Not to an abandoned parking lot for me to wait on a stranger.”

  “Fine. Tell the driver. I need to take this call.”

  “You still need to pay me for the movie,” she said.

  He froze. “Wow. Is that what this is about?”

  “It’s about giving me more than a brush off between phone calls, Donald Branchard.”

  He grimaced as if she had blown the onion smell into his face. “I’ll take you home, we’ll talk tomorrow, and I’ll do a proper night out on the town to celebrate our engagement.”

  She smiled, but looked away, so he would think she was still angry. He saw it though. He said, “That’s my Gia. Put on a nice dress and heels for tomorrow.”

  She frowned and shook her head.

  ***

  He was still on the phone as the driver let her out. The limo pulled away and she sighed in the dark outside her building. It really did stink. The actual smell of her surroundings as well as the whole situation she found herself in.

  Gia turned and scrolled through her messages seeing lots of notes from acquaintances about the engagement, but nothing about the movie. There was nothing from back home either. She punched in the code from muscle memory and went inside.

  No photographers had bothered to follow her home.

  Upstairs in her apartment, the garbage onion smell was still there. She realized that she had left her bedroom window open and she groaned. As Gia walked through the dark, unlacing the corset behind her and taking her first deep breath of the night, she froze staring at the shape of a man’s head in the open window.

  She wanted to scream, but her throat felt tight and she couldn’t find her air. She was a scream queen with no scream left.

  Gia turned on the light and saw it was only a hat sitting on the sill. It was the pink hat with the outline of the blue bells on the front. It was the hat that couldn’t exist. She almost wished it had really been a person instead of this.

  “Hello?” she called.

  The apartment was tomb silent except for distance traffic noise drifting in the window on the cool night onion air. She finally made herself walk forward and picked up the hat. It felt new like it had just been made. She brought it to her face and smelled the inside for sweat. All she could smell was the onion odor that was everywhere now.

  She closed the window and knew that if this was one of her movies, he would already be inside and waiting on her. She would need to check all the closets before she went to bed. Gia wasn’t sure what she would do once she found someone though.

  Not someone, she thought, Jack the Liker and the magic hat maker.

  She traced the blue bells with her finger. It was the foundation for a life that wasn’t there anymore – her Kentucky life. It would be the outline for her career soon.

  Gia moved the hat farther away from her face even though she still held the thing. She whispered. “Not possible.”

  She still held the hat by its brim as she pulled out her phone. As she did, she intended to call Don to come back and get her, but then she realized she would never get through his string of calls. He would assume she was calling to fight and not return her call until morning. She thought about calling the police like any sane woman would do, but then, she opened Jack’s message thread.

  He had given one more response. It was longer than the screen would allow and she had to scroll as she read it: “I found the hat. I swear they had one on the wall in the store. After I bought it, I thought about how weird it would be if you actually saw me. I left early from the premier and drove by your place. You have location on for your Periscope videos. You might want to turn that off. I gave the hat a toss toward your window as a joke, but then it landed on the sill. I freaked out and almost looked for a ladder, but then thought I had already crossed all of the lines as it was. I swear I am not hiding in a closet, although I guess that is exactly wha
t a dude that hides in closets would say. I swear I’m the harmless kind of creepy. I’ll go away and leave you alone both virtually and in the real world. Hope you enjoy the weird engagement gift and congratulations on the movie. I was going to pirate it, but I decided to preorder the Blue Ray, so you will get your cut like you deserve. Sorry I’m so weird. – Jack the Liker.”

  She looked up and out across her bedroom. “Jack?”

  Her voice echoed and rang off the metal in the apartment coming back to her empty.

  “Like ringing bells,” she added and then shivered.

  Jack the Stalker was the only one that congratulated her on the movie. He was also the only one that bought her a present tonight including her own director/fiancé. He might be the only one in the world that gave a damn whether Gia got paid at all.

  “The movie is already up for preorder?” Gia shook her head.

  She tapped the message to give a reply. Her fingers hovered over the keypad on her screen as she considered the oddity of it all. She typed: “That’s okay. You don’t have to vanish. Cool gift. We all get creepy sometimes. Splatter Love, Gia.”

  After she hit send, she still considered calling someone. Gia set her phone and clutch aside. She clawed her way out of her corset and pulled her dress over her head and cast it all onto the floor.

  Gia lifted her breasts and let the tepid air of the apartment dry out the sweat. The skin around her stomach and sides was a map of red and purple creases leading to some magical, alien land. She was sure her back looked the same way. She needed someone to give her a rub down, but she was alone – she assumed.

  Don would be too busy, but she bet Jack or one of the junk pic dudes would gladly do it for her.

  Gia let her breasts drop from her hands and she walked over to her vanity. She lifted her phone and shut off location in her settings. She realized she was standing naked by her window, so she turned off her light.

  She used the glow of her phone to find her way to the bed. The dress gave an odd shimmer in the darkness and shallow, blue blaze from her phone. She could almost imagine a body sprawled on the floor of the bedroom in that dress.

  Gia laid down and knew she must be exhausted physically and emotionally because her bed was not as comfortable as it felt in that moment.

  She woke up the next morning naked and staring at the ceiling. She realized in the morning light that she had forgotten to check the closets. She was still holding the phone in one hand and the pink hat in the other.

  Her memory tried to tell her that she hadn’t been holding the hat when she fell asleep. Gia got up and held her aching head between the heels of her hands. She had not drank enough the night before to feel like this. Her calves were trying to cramp up on her and gave her an odd gate as she walked. She went to take a shower because she smelled as bad as the neighborhood.

  Gia checked the phone and had no new messages from Don or Jack. She set her phone aside and put on the hat. Gia turned on the shower waiting as she wore nothing but her pink hat and falling curl ringlets. She took a cigarette out of a nearly empty pack by the sink and held it between her lips seeing how long she could go before she lit it.

  ***

  Chapter 2:

  What Do You Have in Mind?

  Her heels were more sensible than they had been for the premier. She had underwear on this time. It was a thong which was barely more than nothing, but enough to make her wish she was wearing nothing. It matched her bra and silver dress. She even had a silver purse for this outfit that could hold more than a key and a phone. That all had to count for something.

  Don had put away his phone finally as they ate a corn and crab soup. Seller’s Creed was a new restaurant that featured southern and Cajun dishes served with an upscale twist. She had almost ordered the shrimp and grits, but she assumed that it would be a disappointment. Now she was wishing she had gone with the shrimp and grits. How often could a person get a grits dish in Los Angeles?

  She dragged her soup spoon through the cream cutting a furrow through the bottom of her bowl. The town across the bridge from her hometown was called Mount Seller. She wondered if there might not be some connection. She thought probably not. LA and Kentucky were on two different planes of existence really.

  Don brought her out of her thoughts by saying, “That’s the same dress you wore to the Hoboken Hellmouth premier.”

  Gia looked down her own cleavage as she looked at her dress. If she owned the dress, she assumed she would have worn it more than once. Isn’t that what normal people did with dresses? She barely remembered that movie much less the premier. Gia had been drinking more that night and smoking more than just cigarettes. She hadn’t exactly gone clean since then, but she had slowed down a little. In LA terms, slowing down was practically the same as becoming a Southern Baptist. Don Blackheart had just been an assistant director then and Gia had been butchered by the killer clown gang at the end of the first reel. It was a confusing script, but they had gotten the rights to the books cheaply.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. It’s sweet that you remembered.”

  “People are taking pictures, Gia.” He shrugged. “You should wear something new, if we are out and about the town.”

  “Are you serious?” She shook her head. “I thought tonight was about us and maybe you not being a dick.”

  “Ouch.” He smiled and took a drink of the white wine he had ordered. “We are a power couple now, right? People pay attention to the stupid things like what we are wearing and where we are going. It is all promotion for us now.”

  “Well, then you should have bought me something new to wear.”

  He laughed and snorted before wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I have a condo on the beach and all my money tied up in the next monster movie. Am I supposed to buy you dresses now too?”

  “Until you pay me, I guess you better,” she said.

  He groaned and looked up to the ceiling. “I’m buying a really nice dinner for us. Do I have to hear this every night too?”

  “I thought the dinner was promotion,” she said. “And I am going to get paid what I’m owed for that movie, right?”

  “Yes, it takes time,” he said. “That’s how it has always worked. You think money comes faster because we are sleeping together?”

  “Being engaged is more than just sleeping together, Don. And money coming slowly is fine, I guess. It is not coming at all that concerns me.”

  “Our money is shared, if we are married, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “If?” Gia set down her spoon in her soup bowl and raised her eyebrow.

  “When,” he said.

  “Fine. Give me all our money including my pay for the movie and I’ll watch it for us.”

  He laughed and stopped staring into her blank face. He laughed again and waved a finger at her. “Okay. I got you. I’ll have your money soon. I’ll put it in an envelope and tell you the drop point like all the other wannabe gangsters trying to roll me.”

  “Screw you, Don. Asking you to pay me what you owe me for an acting contract isn’t rolling you. I shouldn’t have to ask at all.”

  He held up a hand. “I said, okay. Don’t be like this. I don’t want to have to live with this negativity every day. Be cool, girl.”

  Don brought the phone up to his ear and Gia snatched it away from him. He sat staring at her with his mouth open and his fingers still curled around the shape of the phone next to his ear. It was as if he could not fathom that she would do such a thing and his mouth and hand didn’t know what to do without the phone.

  “What the hell, Gia? That’s a business phone. Give it back.”

  She slid it down between her breasts covered in a double layer of silver. “If you need something to do with your mouth and hands tonight, I’ll show you what to do later.”

  “Give me the phone. Stop playing around.”

  “You know where it is. I’ll let you earn it back later … if you are good and you do a good job.”

  H
e reached for her dress front and she slid around the booth out of his reach. “Oh, Don, you can’t even wait until we are out of the public eye to have your way with me?”

  Photographers out on the periphery of the restaurant and the dance floor turned their attention on the commotion in the booth. More than a few of them lifted their cameras and started snapping shots. She thought they were supposed to wait outside. Maybe Don had arranged to let them in. Don cut his eyes in their direction and back at Gia.

  “People are watching. Don’t make a scene.”

  “I thought this was all about the scene, Don?”