by Ani Gonzalez
Lily stood on tip-toe. "Who?"
But she couldn't see anything. The place was too crowded.
"The actor guy. What's his name? The one who played the really good-looking cannibal."
Lily's heart froze. Her happy alcoholic buzz dimmed.
"Sebastian," Cassie said. "Yes, that's his name. Sebastian Franco."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"PERU?" SEBASTIAN shouted. "I turn around for one second and she's on her way to Peru? How is that possible?"
His brother smiled cheerfully and pointed to his companion.
"It's Caine's fault," Zach said, and went back to drying glasses. He was wearing a black shirt with a white inscription that read "Survival Tip #14: Don't Kiss the Succubus."
Caine, still wearing his winter camo fatigues, with night-vision goggles perched on his head, frowned at Zach. They were sitting around the bar at Pepe's Pizza. The restaurant used to be called Franco Pizza and Sebastian remembered it as a tacky, happy establishment with plenty of colorful Formica and a glowing neon sign with a malfunctioning letter "r" that flickered listlessly.
But all that had changed.
Zach had refurbished the place to fit the town's ghostly reputation. The restaurant now had a horror movie theme, with Alfred Hitchcock murals, body-shaped chalk outlines on the floors, and Hammer movie posters on the walls. The drinks had names like Satan's Sidecar and Ripper's Rum Punch, and today's special was Janet Leigh Lasagna, which seemed to be a chicken lasagna in a white sauce. The Christmas decor consisted of a giant evergreen decorated with sparkling lights and gremlins in Santa suits holding wrapped presents with tags that said "Don't Feed After Midnight."
But the place still had remnants of the old Franco Pizza. The familiar smells of freshly baked dough and simmering marinara sauce lingered in the air. The wall behind the bar was still decorated with a framed American flag and photographs honoring fallen servicemen. And a battered bulletin board, covered with local announcementsstill hung beside the photographs. The high school football team, the Blazing Banshees, was organizing a food drive and the drama club was doing Into the Woods in the spring.
A wave of nostalgia hit him. How many times had he tagged along as Lily visited the local businesses and badgered them into putting up drama club posters? And how many times had he cajoled her into neglecting her duties and making out behind the diner?
Good times.
He took a sip of his Bela's Boulevardier. He was unfamiliar with the drink, but it had bourbon and right now it was exactly what he needed.
He grimaced when he tasted, not bourbon, but Campari. He hated Campari.
"It's not my fault," Caine said, glowering at the youngest Franco sibling. "How the hell was I to know that she'd take off with my team?"
"She left just like that?" Sebastian asked.
Zach was putting the clean glasses away. He looked up, his eyes sympathetic.
"They left the Christmas party," Zach explained. "And passed by her house and picked up her passport and a bunch of sketchbooks. The plane was waiting for them."
Sebastian leveled a questioning glance at Caine.
"Something spooked her," Caine said, rubbing his beard. "And it wasn't the devil monkey."
They both turned toward Sebastian who ignored their accusing glares and took another drink. The Campari was unappetizing, but alcohol was still alcohol.
They still stared at him.
He emptied the glass and set it down.
"She saw Ariel kissing me," he confessed.
Zach frowned. "I'm confused." He crossed his arms and aimed a disapproving glance at Sebastian. "I thought you said you'd broken up with Ariel months ago on account of her sleeping with your director. Not that you bothered to tell us about it at the time, because, hey, we're only family. No need to keep us informed or anything."
"It was a publicity thing, Zach."
"Right. It wasn't because we all knew Ariel was bad news and we all warned you about her and you were too stubborn to admit we were right. It was not about that at all."
That hit a little too close to home. "Shut up, Zach."
"But, why were you kissing the batshit blonde? I mean, if you were with Lily..." Caine's voice trailed off.
Now that was unfair. "I didn't kiss her. She kissed me."
"I don't like to say 'I told you so.'" Zach shook his head. "But I totally told you so. Many times. In several languages."
"Shut up, Zach." He didn't have to take this from his reprobate brother.
"Is that why she brought the photographer?" Caine still seemed confused and who could blame him?
"Pretty much." Sebastian pushed the empty glass at Zach. "Make it bourbon this time."
"The tabs got pictures?" Zach took out a bottle of bourbon and refilled the glass. "That's not good."
"No," Sebastian reached for the glass. "The pictures didn't make it to the tabs."
"How?"
Sebastian looked to Caine who shrugged.
"The chap lost his camera," Caine said, grabbing one of the highball glasses Zach had dried. "Pass the bottle."
Zach pushed the bottle at Caine.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked Caine as he poured ice into the glass. "You look like you met Bigfoot in a dark alley and didn't manage to get a picture."
Caine glared at him and poured out his bourbon.
"I don't want to talk about it," he said taking a long a drink.
"Yes, let's not talk about that," Sebastian interjected. "Let's discuss how your PRoVE loons kidnapped my girl and took her to South America."
"Marcus, the head of that team, was in Special Forces, Bastain. She's perfectly safe. Let's talk about how you fucked up and hurt your girl so badly she decided she'd rather live in a hut and listen to endless lectures on the alien founders of the Inca Empire."
Sebastian stared at his drink. Caine was right. This was all his own stupid fault. He'd spent precious minutes neutralizing Ariel and her paparazzo. He'd cared too much about the Hollywood crap. He should have let the entire movie industry go hang itself and followed Lily and explained. Now she was in the freaking Andes with no cellphone reception and no internet. Hell, Caine's vaunted Green Beret expedition leader wasn't even carrying a satellite phone.
How was he going to get Lily back?
"I have to find her." He reached for his phone. "Have they arrived in Peru yet? Can we contact them?"
Caine scratched his head.
"Well, see, that could be a problem," he said.
"You don't even know where she is?"
"Marcus is a bit of a ninja," Caine explained with an apologetic smile. "He has his own routes."
"A ninja?" Sebastian growled.
Caine backed away.
"Don't worry, she'll be fine," he said, eyeing Sebastian warily. "Although she won't be having any fun. That Cassie girl will make sure of that. She'll overanalyze and deconstruct everything and then make them eat quinoa brownies. Anyway it's a short trip. They'll be back in two weeks." He frowned at his glass. "I wanted them to go for a month, but Marcus refused. He said he couldn't spend more than two weeks with Cassie. The guy can spend an entire winter in the Himalayas drinking his own pee, but he draws the line at Cassie Jones." He grimaced. "Actually, I can totally believe it. That girl is a pill."
"Two weeks?" That didn't sound short at all. It sounded like thirteen days too many. "Then they come back home?"
"Well," Caine drawled. "I guess that's negotiable."
"What's negotiable? The two weeks or returning to Virginia?"
Caine smiled, a wolfish gleam in his eye, and Sebastian recalled that his friend had taken a quirky, local hobby and turned it into an entertainment conglomerate.
This was going to be expensive, and, knowing Caine, not the kind of expensive involving dollars and cents.
He leaned forward, and looked Caine straight in the eye.
"What's your proposal?" he asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
GO TO South America, they
said. It will be fun, they said.
Lily leaned back against the limo's plush seat and relaxed. She wasn't in South America anymore. She was, in fact, in L.A. She looked out the window at the towering palm trees and sunny skies. It was eighty-four degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. She smiled.
"So where are you coming from?" the driver asked.
"Peru," she answered. "I spent the last two weeks in Peru."
"That sounds nice," he replied. "It's summer down there, isn't it?"
Summer in Peru. Didn't that sound nice? Didn't it sound like a great way to escape her disastrous weekend with Sebastian? Didn't it conjure up visions of warm days, lovely walks through exotic locales, and delicious food?
Not.
Summer in the Andes meant rain. Cold, unrelenting rain. Icy rain that froze you down to your bones.
Nothing but rain.
And, thanks to El Niño—or was it La Niña now?—she'd had the good fortune to experience the coldest, wettest summer the altiplano had seen in more than a century. Oh, joy.
"It's technically summer," she answered.
She opened the window and leaned out. She basked as warm sunlight fell on her head.
Bliss.
The driver laughed. A shirtless guy on a bike rode by, almost hitting her, and she ducked back inside the limo.
"I guess you're glad to be in L.A," the driver said.
"Glad is putting it mildly," she said.
Her ratty wool hat with the rainbow braids had been unceremoniously consigned to a trash can. She didn't need it anymore and as soon as she got settled in, she was going to buy a pair of strappy sandals and a sundress.
She settled on the limo seat and reached for her handbag, a colorful, handwoven tote with a mutant purple alpaca embroidered in the front. She took out a bottle of soda, opened it, and took a sip of carbonated goodness. The bubbles tickled her tongue and she sighed.
Ah, civilization.
"So you work in film?"
She giggled. She couldn't help it. Could her work for PRoVE qualify as "working in film"? Probably. After all, there were cameras involved.
"You could say that," she said.
"I can always tell," the driver said, swerving in front of a European convertible. "You have that out-on-location air. Do you want to grab an In-n-Out burger before I take you home?"
"Thanks, but I'm okay."
She wasn't hungry right now, but she made a note to add the local burger delicacy to her itinerary. She sipped her drink and relaxed. She still couldn't believe she was sitting in a luxurious limousine, listening to a cheesy pop song, and enjoying the taste of artificial sweeteners. Only a few hours ago, she was trudging through the Andes, wearing borrowed clothes, drinking bitter mate tea, and munching on Cassie's homemade carob/cranberry/sawdust health bars. She shuddered in remembrance.
There must be a circle in hell where the souls of people who spent too much time online shopping for Louboutin knock-offs get to spend eternity climbing rocky hillsides in second hand hiking boots and eating carob-sweetened oatmeal.
And the devil in charge would be Marcus, Satan's own drill sergeant.
But she'd survived it. She'd made it through the Andes in one piece. She'd come up with a killer alien skull design made of faux obsidian, she'd eaten her own body weight in ceviche, and she'd lost at least ten pounds.
Not bad for a girl who, until two weeks ago, had never left Virginia.
True, she now had a serious addiction to lip balm, and she never wanted to see another bottle of pisco, but these were trivial inconveniences. She'd done it. She'd survived two weeks in the wilderness. Well, actually ten days because Marcus had cut the trip short for unexplained reasons.
Still, not bad at all.
And, the best part of it all, no time to think. The truncated schedule meant a lot of work in a very short period of time, and Marcus had kept her busy. She scouted locations, sourced props and even appeared as an extra in a couple of shots. So, ice-cold Peru had one thing going for it, no time to think about Sebastian Franco.
And now PRoVE had brought her to L.A. to build sets for the post-film work. She had a full two weeks in paradise. True, she was staying in L.A. with one of Cassie's college friends, so paradise would probably include lectures on semiotics and whole grains, but who cared?
She had two whole weeks to come up with an extraterrestrial, yet recognizably Andean, setting for the reenactments, visit the Universal Studios lot, and have her picture taken in front of the Chinese Theatre.
And answer Sebastian's e-mails.
She had three electronic missives from him, all titled "Apology." She noticed them when PRoVE's private plane landed at LAX, but hadn't yet opened them.
But she was already drafting an answer in her mind. It would be cool, measured and mature. Sophisticated even. A brief salutation, very polite, would be followed by a short sentence acknowledging his apology. Then a paragraph reassuring him that he didn't have to apologize, that these things happened, and that she wished him and what's-her-name the best of luck.
Sincerely, Lily-Who-Is-Getting-On-With-Her-Life.
PS: Don't contact me again.
She planned to write it up and send it as soon as she arrived at her destination. Which, making allowances for the vagaries of L.A. traffic, could be a couple of minutes or a couple of days.
But that was fine, she was in no hurry. She was happy sightseeing from the comfort of her limo. She was probably staying in a crowded bungalow in Van Nuys with Dr. Who posters on the walls and almond milk in the fridge. So, why rush?
Especially when they were driving through such a nice neighborhood. The main road was lined with luxurious boutiques and tall, attractive people in very little clothing meandered aimlessly, all sipping from colorful cardboard cups. The palm trees swayed, and a lithe young woman in a metallic fringed vest played guitar on a street corner. The tune was quite catchy, something about sunshine and margaritas and bare feet in the sand.
She added the Santa Monica pier to her mental to-do list. She was going to have a busy time. She was going to work hard, and play hard. She wasn't going to cry, she wasn't going to brood, and she wasn't going to think.
She was going to have fun.
The limo slowed down in front of a house. Well, in front of a large metal gate, she couldn't even see the house.
"We're here," the driver said.
Lily frowned. This was not what she expected. The neighborhood was clearly expensive, with large homes sitting behind discreet wrought-iron gates. The few houses she could see all had perfectly manicured lawns, lots of tropical flowers and travertine marble terraces.
"Are you sure this is the right address?" she asked. Maybe the driver had gotten lost on the way to Van Nuys.
But the driver had already pressed the intercom. The gate opened slowly and the driver steered the limo up the driveway, toward a large Spanish-Revival home. The house was Architectural Digest fabulous—all white stucco, with wood shutters, wrought iron balconies, and a red tile roof. The xeriscaped yard was both tasteful and expensive. Heck, even the cactus seemed pricey.
The heavy wood door opened and a man walked out. He was dressed in jeans and a gray shirt. He stood on the porch with arms crossed, waiting for the limo.
She couldn't see his face, but his body language was clear, he was not pleased.
Lily cringed. She was going to have to explain to an annoyed homeowner that the driver got the address wrong.
The limo stopped and she opened the door and got out, ready to apologize.
She looked up at the homeowner and the excuse died on her lips.
It was Sebastian.
And she was one-hundred percent right. He wasn't at all happy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"PERU? YOU went to Peru?" Sebastian demanded.
He instantly regretted it. He didn't want to raise his voice at Lily. He wanted to apologize—grovel, actually—and convince her to stay with him.
But when she steppe
d out of the limo she looked pale as a ghost and at least ten pounds thinner. She was wearing ripcord cargo pants that were at least two sizes too big for her and her hand clutched a can of soda, as if it were the One Ring.
He was going to kill Caine. Kill.
But then Lily smiled. It was a small smile, at first, a mere curl of the lip. But it widened, growing into a full-fledged grin.
It was the smile of pride, of achievement. He stared at her in disbelief. The crazy girl was proud of her sanity-defying adventure.
"I did," she said, laughing. "I even learned to do my hair. Check it out."
She pointed at one of her braids. The hairdo made her look like a Bavarian waitress who had somehow taken a wrong turn and ended up in a commando mission, but he kept that to himself. No more critical comments. He'd learned that much in the past couple of weeks.
"Can you believe it?" she exclaimed. "I hiked the Andes with an alien-obsessed Green Beret. I ate raw fish. I built an extraterrestrial mummy out of sticks and llama wool."
He smiled. He couldn't help it. Her joy was infectious.
"And I've learned so much. Well, not the extraterrestrial colonization conspiracy theories. I wouldn't call those knowledge per se. But, I can make a causa potato roll, and," she rubbed her arm, "I learned I am violently allergic to ungulate fur."
She paused and there was an awkward silence.
He tried to think of something to say, but all he could come up with was "I'm sorry." It seemed woefully insufficient. Damn it. He could really use a scriptwriter right about now.
"So," she twirled her braid nervously, "how was your Christmas vacation?"
He dug his hand in his pockets and tried to think. What to say? Suddenly, he realized he was rocking on his heels. It was a nervous tic and he'd spent years, and countless acting lessons, eradicating it.
Well, it was back.
"It started great," he said. More rocking. "I met this girl..."
Lily's eyes were dark and wary.
"Go on," she said softly.
"And she trapped me in bungee cords and force fed me brownies."
