Strut

by Susan Diplacido

  She shrugs. Says, “This is Hollywood.” As if that explains everything. And, I suppose it does. Somewhat.

  “I’m sorry. I have to get going, though.”

  “So you have seen them,” she says.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “And you didn’t not say it. Are they awesome?”

  “Pretty awesome, yeah.”

  “I have to see them.”

  “Absolutely not,” I tell her.

  “Come on!”

  “No. It’s not going to happen.”

  “Just one peek! Take me with you the next time you go there.”

  “She’s not usually around,” I tell her. “And she’s always wearing them. So if she’s not there, neither are the shoes.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” she begs as she slings her backpack over her shoulder. “Just let me go with you and see if I can get a glimpse.”

  “That wouldn’t be very professional of me.”

  Her jaw drops. “You’re a freaking pool cleaner, Lisa. Not a studio CEO.”

  I can feel the slight frown on my face as she says that, but I stick to my guns. “There is no way I’m taking you to her home.”

  ***

  Erica is craning her neck, squinting and trying to see through the blinds and back into the living room that we’d passed through as I tug on her elbow to propel her forward across the pool deck and toward the equipment housing area at the Smithton-Moore home.

  Of course I let her come. She’s very persuasive. And ambitious. She comes to the screenwriting workshops even though she wants to be an actress. She comes to them because, she says, it’ll teach her how to spot better scripts. There’s a big difference between coming out to L.A. to chase your dream and coming out to L.A. and doing everything in your power to beat it into submission. Erica definitely falls in the latter category, which I respect, perhaps because I never really had that much drive. And she seemed not just eager, but actually star-struck by a pair of shoes, so I figured why the heck not. And as I’m pulling her along, noticing how she jiggles in all the right places and how her hair bounces perfectly, I feel good about my decision to bring her along, because it’d definitely be easy to hate her for being so beautiful. That’s one of the disadvantages of living in L.A. It’s easy to get bitter or spiteful because there’s always someone younger, prettier, more talented, smarter, more driven, luckier, or just plain seemingly better than you are.

  Maybe it’s because I don’t have the desire to be an actress that I’m able to push those competitive and jealous feelings for the nubile young blondes aside. Or maybe it’s because I also know that most of them, they’ll end up twice as bitter, used and abused with even more broken dreams than I have before their youth is even spent. I’m not sure what it is that keeps me in check. But I’m glad something does, otherwise you could drive yourself crazy out here.

  “I think she’s here,” Erica rasps as I push her toward the pool shed.

  “Look,” I warn her. “I brought you here, and if she comes out here to check on us, you’ll see them. But there is no way you are going sneaking through her house, spying on her.”

  “Lisa,” is all she says.

  “Erica. I mean it. I could lose her as a client. You stand and wait right here in front of me.”

  I check the pump and see that it has already pushed over the pressure limit and the heater has turned off. That wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I swear I can smell some gas in the shed, too.

  “Actually,” I tell her, “I rescind that. Take a few steps back.”

  “Why?”

  And that’s the part of youth that does drive me crazy. Questioning everything, even when it’s mundane crap. Instead of answering her I repeat, “Step back.” After she does, I take the grate off the front of the heater and reach in and start monkeying with the thermostat. There’s a loose connection in the bi-metal wire which is causing the heater to not ignite. That’s when Mrs. Moore’s dogs come sniffing around, first circling Erica’s feet, and then yapping at me. I shoo them away, too, and then I stand back and do some swishing with my arms in case my nose wasn’t deceiving me and there is some lingering gas from when the valve opened up and failed to ignite. These heaters are fairly safe. If they don’t ignite within twenty seconds, the valve closes back up and cuts off the gas, but this is a small room and isn’t well ventilated so if it’d been trying to click on repeatedly, there could be enough residual gas to cause some serious flames. I exhale roughly a few times, blowing to get circulation going, and then I reach back down and manually make the connection for ignition. Sure enough, it’s a forceful WHOOSH that sweeps across the front burners, strong enough that I feel the extreme heat upon my legs and know I won’t have to wax for a couple of weeks.

  “Damn!” Erica shouts from outside the shed.

  “That’s why I told you to back up.”

  “Got it all fixed?” she asks hopefully. “Do we leave through the house again?”

  “Not quite yet,” I tell her. “I have to tell them about this.” I turn everything off for the evening and gather up the couple of tools I’d brought and replace the grate on the heater. Then, keeping Erica close to me as I head inside, I linger inside the sliding doors at the outer periphery of the living room, hoping that Herman or someone else will pass through shortly.

  Instead, it’s Mr. Smithton who comes to greet us, asking me if I’ve got the problem sorted out. As I start explaining to him that I don’t exactly have it fixed yet, his eyes focus instead on Erica and he smiles at her. I pause as he introduces himself and takes her hand, holding it much longer than necessary. Erica, as expected, is beyond gracious, but manages to remain a notch above abject worship. She’s appropriately polite and effusively complimentary, immediately launching into a fawning fan speech about her favorite movies of his.

  I know her heart must be racing, because for an actress, meeting a director of his caliber is an accomplishment in and of itself.

  Mr. Smithton smiles, accepting the praise, nodding, still holding her hand, and I can see his eyes moving and slowly assessing—and deeming worthy—every separate part of her body. As Erica gushes about one of his movies, he leans close to her and offers, “Would you like to see my Oscar?”

  Her eyes go wide and before I know it, he’s got his hand on the small of her back, leading her into another room. I call after them, “Mr. Smithton, the pool?”

  “Herman will be right with you,” he says over his shoulder and gives a dismissive wave of his hand.

  So I stand there, waiting. After several minutes, Herman finally arrives, so I start explaining to him that he should leave the pump and heater off tomorrow, but he’s not having it. “The children,” he insists, “need the water heated. Madame was very explicit about that.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know they had kids,” I say before I can stop myself.

  “Chester and Chelsea,” Herman says. “The Chihuahuas.”

  Right.

  “Well, I can come turn it on in the morning and make a few stops to check on it during the day,” I say. “But that’s a lot of service calls.”

  “They need to take their afternoon swim,” Herman insists. On cue, both dogs come trotting into the room, both of them focusing on me, and I swear, snipping accusingly at me. “I’ll see you out,” Herman says and begins walking toward the foyer.

  “I, um, I have an associate here with me,” I say, my face reddening, mentally cursing Erica.

  “I saw her,” he says coldly. “You can wait for her outside.”

  I get the message loud and clear and don’t make more of a fuss. Outside, I put the tool bag in the backseat and then climb in the driver’s seat to wait. I lean my head back and gaze up at the nighttime sky, taking in all the stars, somewhat amused by them.

  This is the only place on earth where a sight as dazzling as a clear, starry night sky could be eclipsed by the Hollywood stars. In this city, at certain moments, the stars seem to actually shine brighter than the real stars. O
r, at least, they think they do.

  That makes me think of my dad. He wanted so badly for Mom to make it as a singer. He said he always felt guilty, like he was hoarding her all to himself when someone as special as her should be able to shine for everyone to see. And all he ever wanted to do was help her, and then, eventually try to help me, rise to those heights.

  That makes me feel bad, and almost ashamed. He worked so hard for us, and now I was letting it slip away with even his business starting to fail. I haven’t been able to afford to give the guys on the crew a raise in over a year now, and I’ve had to lay off two-thirds of them. We’re down to only the one vehicle, as I had to sell off the other two to help cash-flow. Now, I’m getting dangerously close to not clearing enough money each month to meet all our expenses. And if the business goes under, so will everything else. Dad had worked years to build us a lovely home, and now I was putting even that in jeopardy. All he ever wanted was to take care of us, and now, not only was I not achieving the highs he’d hoped for, but I was possibly going to dig to new lows and lose what he’d built. I feel hollow and dim, lost and insignificant below all the stars winking down at me.

  Well, at least I’d be able to get a little extra cash from all the work I’d be doing here over the next couple of days. Just so long as I get it handled to their satisfaction and don’t end up pissing them off and losing them as customers in the long run. Speaking of pissing them off, where the hell is Erica?

  It didn’t seem like Mrs. Moore was around, and I know Mr. Smithton is a real lech, and I know it’s a big break and tempting for Erica to schmooze him, but if she’d get caught messing around with him, I could definitely kiss this customer goodbye.

  As I’m mixing up a frothy batch of nervousness and irritation at her, out she comes, nearly running toward the car, swinging her backpack, with both Chihuahuas close on her heels, yipping and chasing after her.

  “Go!” she yells at me as she starts pulling on the door latch.

  “What the hell?” I ask.

  “Start the car! GO!”

  I turn over the ignition and get it in drive as she pulls the door closed behind her, still yelling at me to move it.

  I assume she’s panicked about the dogs chasing her, and I don’t blame her. On more than one occasion, I’ve been concerned they were going to nip at my ankles. But I’ve also lost track of them with the sound of the engine and her yelling at me. “Are the dogs clear?” I ask her.

  “YES! GO! NOW!”

  As I pull out the driveway, I glance over and see she’s flushed and excited. “Did you get bit?”

  “What? Oh. Them. No.” She turns and looks over her shoulder as I pull out onto the street, and that’s when I start to get a really bad feeling. What if Herman walked in on her and Mr. Smithton doing...something?

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “Oh Lisa. You won’t believe it.”

  “Oh my God!” I shout. “You did Smithton, didn’t you?”

  “Better!”

  “Better? Oh my GOD! You did Mrs. Moore?”

  “Better! I didn’t need to do anyone. I found them.”

  “What?”

  “I found them,” she repeats, and this time, she unzips her backpack and reaches in and pulls one out, holding it by the long, thin heel. “I found the shoes!”

  “OH MY GOD!”

  “They were sitting there, at the foot of her bed. These are the ones, right?” Before I can answer her, she keeps babbling while I feel like my brain is going to liquefy. “He went into the bathroom to get his Oscar to show me. Can you believe that? He keeps it in the bathroom. He was saying that he sees it first thing every day, and I was standing there looking at them, and I swear, they were screaming out to me to be liberated, so I did it. While he was in there, I popped them in my backpack and I got it zipped up and then when he came out, I don’t know, I said some things about the Oscar and then I said I’d better go look for you and then I left!”

  “LIBERATED?” I shout at her and pull into the next driveway to turn around. “You didn’t liberate them! You stole them! From my customer!”

  “What are you doing?” she asks me as I back up and head back toward the Smithton-Moore house.

  “Going back. You’re taking those back right now!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I can’t do that. We’ll get caught!”

  “She’s going to know it was you!”

  “No, she won’t. She’ll think it was one of her staff. I swear, Lisa, I passed a butler and two housekeepers as we were walking toward the bedroom. And Smithton will never admit to her that he took some young actress into their bedroom!”

  As pissed off as I am, I have to admit that she may have a point. If we go back now, at least it will be over. But I also don’t see any way that I can make the return without being suspicious, or worse, getting caught. Erica keeps talking, trying to convince me while my brain starts whirring. I have to go there tomorrow anyhow. Maybe I can get there early enough in the morning and deposit the shoes somewhere in the house so that she thinks they’d gotten misplaced and then, when she finds them, it won’t be a big deal.

  “This is my ticket!” Erica says triumphantly.

  “The hell it is!” I inform her. “This is my job! I’m taking them back!”

  “Come on. It’s done. Forget about it.” I glance over at her and see the happiness cross her face as I don’t turn into the Smithton-Moore driveway.

  “Absolutely not. You’re giving them to me, and I’m returning them first thing tomorrow.”

  “Just tonight, then. Let me just wear them tonight.”

  “No way.”

  “You’re being ridiculous!”

  “You’re a thief!”

  Erica, she goes, “These shoes are Hollywood royalty.”

  “And now you’re being insane. They’re just shoes, Erica!”

  “They’re legendary!” Clutching them tightly, she seems dreamy as she says, “Just one break. If I could just get noticed at one big audition.”

  “You’re crazy. And you’re not going to make me lose a client over some ridiculous, urban legend, fairytale dream.”

  With that, she hugs them close to her chest and speaks softly. Says, “I’m not giving them up. I found them. I took them. You’ll have to pry them away from me.”

  I just sigh.

  That’s an advantage to age. And working my whole life at a semi-physical job. And not being an ultra-thin, star wannabe. I pull over to the side of the road, put the car in park, and reach over and forcefully pry the shoes from her arms, one at a time. She squeals and puts up more of a fight than I’d expected, but I’m still able to overpower her and get them released from her grip. Her chest heaves and she huffs with anger, but once I get them wedged away from her, I tuck them next to my left leg and then put the car back in gear and head toward Sunset to drop her off.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, I’m up earlier than usual. I let Rick take the van last night, so that means I have to bike to the first few service calls. I don’t mind biking around. L.A. is big, but I make sure to schedule the stops according to area so that I don’t have too far to go in between. I usually have Mom drop me off at the first place, and then I can get myself to the other calls without much problem. It makes more sense because the guys out building need the van to carry more equipment. Plus, I know Rick likes to use it sometimes to haul his instruments to gigs, and since I haven’t been able to give raises, I figure it’s a reasonable perk to offer. If any of the other guys ever want it for a move, I let them have it, too.

  This morning, I plan on having Mom drop me off at the Smithton-Moore place so that I can return the stolen shoes and get the pool heating for the comfort of the Chihuahuas first thing. Then I’ll do some other service calls in the area, and then return to check on their pump again. With a little luck, it’ll all go smoothly. Maybe Mrs. Moore will have suspicions, but as long as the shoes are returned, I don’t think she’ll actually fire me.
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  All night long, those damn things kept me awake. I wish I could say it was the romance of them, that I was imagining some grand future if I’d put them on and wear them, but in reality, I think that whole myth about them is silly and I was freaked out and worried about getting caught.

  I set them down on the kitchen table as I pour myself a glass of orange juice and grab a yogurt for lunch later. I go outside and pop my bike in the trunk of Mom’s car, and when I come back in, Mom is hovering over the kitchen table, seemingly transfixed by the shoes.

  “Not you, too,” I say.

  “Are these…?” She hesitates and then starts again. “These aren’t...are they?”

  “Those are a very expensive pair of shoes,” I say.

  “They are, aren’t they? They’re hers. They’re the shoes. Miriam’s shoes.”

  “Mom,” I sigh.

  “How did...no, I don’t want to know. Do-do you think they’ll fit me?” she asks.

  “I’m returning them. Now. Let’s go!”

  Once I get her hustled to the car, I think the subject is closed. But it’s not.

  “At least tell me you wore them last night,” she says.

  “Mom,” I sigh. “It’s not real.”

  “Then why’d you take them?”

  “I didn’t! Erica did. She stole them last night.”

  “I always liked that girl. She’s got guts.”

  “She’s going to have a felony on her record if I don’t get them returned.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know how you could let an opportunity like this pass.”

  “How do you think this works? I put on those stupid shoes and then just like that, poof, all my dreams come true?”

  “From what I hear, no. You don’t get everything. But you do get an opportunity for what you want the most.”

  “Right now, all I want is to get these shoes returned without getting caught.” I tuck them into my tool bag as I tell her that. Part of me, a small part, wishes I could believe in magic. Because if I did, I’d give them to my mom to wear. But I know better. There aren’t any shortcuts or tricks in this town, and even when there are, it doesn’t have to do with shoes so much as schmoozing.