Bend

by K. Bromberg

  He took a step closer. I didn’t know why he’d get close enough to touch me, so I didn’t back away, and when he slapped my ass, I was so stunned I didn’t move. He ended the slap with a pinch.

  “What did you…?”

  But he was already waddling off, elbows bent, as if someone else’s life needed to be miserable and he was just the guy to make it so. I stood there with my mouth open, seventy percent mad at him for being a complete molester and thirty percent mad at myself for being too shocked to punch him in the face.

  four

  I had pride. I had so much pride that heeling at Jonathan Drazen’s beck and call for a “chunka change” was the most humiliating thing I could think of doing. But there I was, in front of his ajar door on the thirtieth floor, knocking, not because I needed the money (which I did), and not because I wanted him to look at me like that again (which I also did), but because I couldn’t have been the first waitress ass-slapped, or worse, by Freddie. If Drazen wasn’t aware of Freddie’s douchebaggery, he needed to be.

  The office looked onto the Hollywood Hills, which must have been stunning in daylight. At night, the neighborhood was just a splash of twinkling lights on a black canvas. He stood behind his desk, back to the window, the room’s soft lighting a flattering glaze on the perfect skin of his forearms. He wore a fresh pair of jeans and a white shirt. The dark wood and frosted glass accentuated the fact his office was meant to be a comforting space, and even though I knew the setting was manipulating me, I relaxed.

  “Come on in,” he said.

  I stepped onto the carpet, its softness easing the pain caused by my high heels.

  “I’m sorry I spilled on you. I’ll pay for dry cleaning, if you want.”

  “I don’t want. Sit down.” His green eyes flickered in the lamplight. I had to admit he was stunning. His copper hair curled at the edges, and his smile could light a thousand cities. He couldn’t have been older than his early thirties.

  “I’ll stand,” I said. I was wearing a short skirt, and judging from the way he’d looked at me on the roof, if I sat down, I’d receive another stare that would make me want to jump him.

  “I want to apologize for Freddie,” he said. “He’s a little more aggressive than he should be.”

  “We need to talk about that,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow and came around to the front of the desk. He wore some cologne that stole the scent of sage leaves on a foggy day: dry, dusty, and clean. He leaned on his desk, putting his hands behind him, and I could see the whole length of his body: broad shoulders, tight waist, and straight hips. He looked at me again, then down to the floor. I felt as if he’d moved his hands off of me, and at once I was thrilled and ashamed. I wasn’t going to be intimidated or scared. I wasn’t going to let him look away from me. If he wanted to stare, he should stare. I placed my hands on my hips and let my body language challenge him to put his eyes where they wanted to go, not the floor.

  Because, fuck him.

  “Freddie’s a douchebag.” I could tell from his expression that was the wrong way to start. I needed to keep opinions and juicy expressions to myself and state facts. “He said you’re going to try and sleep with me, for one.” He smiled as if he really was going to try to sleep with me and got caught.

  “Then,” I continued, because I wanted to wipe that smile off his gorgeous face, “he grabbed my ass.”

  The smile melted as though it was an ice cube in a hot frying pan. He took his hungry eyes off mine, a relief on one hand and a disappointment on the other. “I was going to offer you severance.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “Let me finish.”

  I nodded, a sting of prickly heat spreading across my cheeks.

  “The severance was in case you didn’t want to continue working here,” he said. “Even though I can’t stand the smell of the gin you got on me, I don’t think you should lose your job over it. But now that you told me that, what should I do? If I give you severance, it looks like I’m paying you off. And if I unfire you, it looks like I’m letting you stay because I’m afraid of getting sued.”

  “I get it,” I said. “If he said you’d try to sleep with me, then you’ve got your own shit to hide, and nothing would bring it out better than a lawsuit.” I waited a second to see if I could glean anything from his eyes, but he had his business face on, so I put on my sarcasm face. “Quite a terrible position you’re in.”

  His nod told me he understood me. His position was privileged. He got to make choices about my life based on his convenience. “What do you do, Monica?”

  “I’m a waitress.”

  He smirked, looking at me full on, and I wanted to drop right there. “That’s your circumstance. It’s not who you are. Law school, maybe?”

  “Like hell.”

  “Teacher, woodworker, volleyball player?” He ran the words together quickly, and I guessed he could come up with another hundred potential professions before he got it right.

  “I’m a musician,” I said.

  “I’d like to see you play sometime.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

  “Indeed.” He walked behind his desk. “I assume no one witnessed this alleged ass-grab?”

  “Correct.”

  He opened a drawer and flipped through some files. “I hired Freddie, and he’s my responsibility to manage. Your responsibility is to report it to someone besides me.” He handed me a slip of paper. It was a standard U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission flyer. “The numbers are on there. File a report. Send me a copy, please. It would protect both of us.”

  I stared at the paper. Drazen could get into a lot of trouble if enough reports were filed. I intended to tell the authorities what happened because I couldn’t stand Freddie, but I felt a little sheepish about getting Drazen cited or investigated.

  “You’re not an asshole,” I said.

  He bowed his head, and though I couldn’t see his face, I imagined he was smiling. He took a card from his pocket and came back around the desk. “My friend Sam owns the Stock downtown. I think it’s a better fit for you. I’ll tell him you might call.”

  When I took the card, I had an urge I couldn’t resist. I reached my hand a little farther than I should have and brushed my finger against his. A shot of pleasure drove through me, and his finger flicked to extend the touch.

  I had to get away from that guy as fast as possible.

  five

  Los Angeles weather in late September was mid-July weather everywhere else—dog’s-mouth hot, sweat-through-your-antiperspirant hot, car-exhaust hot. Gabby seemed better than the previous night, but Darren and I were on our toes.

  Gabby said she was going for a walk and, trying to make sure she wasn’t alone, I suggested she and I get ice cream at the artisanal place on Sunset.

  We sat on the outside patio so the noise would mask our conversation. I poked at my strawberry basil ice cream while she considered her wasabi/honey longer than she might have a week ago.

  “It’s good money,” she said, trying to talk me into a Thursday night lounge job. “And no pay to play. Just cash and go home.”

  “I hate those gigs. I hate being background.”

  “Two hundred dollars? Come on, Monica. You don’t have to learn any songs; one rehearsal, maybe two, and we got it.”

  Gabby had spent her childhood getting her fingers slapped with a ruler every time she made a mistake on the piano. Her playing became so perfect she barely had to work at it. She was so compulsive her every waking moment was spent eating, playing, or thinking about playing, so the word “rehearse” couldn’t apply to her because it implied an artist taking time out of their day to get something right, not a compulsive perfectionist basically breathing. She was a genius, and in all likelihood, her genius plus her perfectionist nature drove her depression.

  “I only want to sing my own songs,” I said.

  “You can spin them. Just, come on. If I don’t bring a voice on,
I’ll lose the gig, and I need it.” That hitch in her voice meant she was swinging between desperation and emotional flatness, and it terrified me. “Mon, I can’t wait for the next Spoken gig. I’m twenty-five, and I don’t have a lot of time. We don’t have a lot of time. Every month goes by, and I’m nobody. God, I don’t even have an agent. What will happen to me? I can’t take it. I think I’ll die if I end up like Frieda DuPree, trying her whole life and then she’s in her sixties and still going to band auditions.”

  “You’re not going to end up like Frieda DuPree.”

  “I have to keep working. Every night that goes by without someone seeing me play is a lost opportunity.”

  Performance school rote bullshit. Get out and play. Keep working. Play the odds. Teachers told poor kids they might be seen if they busted their violins on the streets if they had to. Dream-feeders. Fuck them. Some of those kids should have gone into accounting, and that line of shit kept them dreaming a few too many years.

  I looked at Gabby and her big blue eyes, pleading for consideration. She was mid-anxiety attack. If it continued over the coming weeks, the anxiety attacks would become less frequent and the dead stares into corners more frequent if she didn’t take her meds regularly. Then it would be trouble: another suicide attempt, or worse, a success. I loved Gabby. She was like a sister to me, but sometimes I wished for a less burdensome friend.

  “Fine,” I said. “One time, okay? You can find someone else in all of Los Angeles to do it next time.”

  Gabby nodded and tapped her thumb and middle finger together. “It’s good,” she said. “It’ll be good, Monica. You’ll knock them out. You will.” The words had a rote quality, like she said them just to fill space.

  “I guess I need it too,” I said. “I got fired last night.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Spilled drinks in my boss’s lap.”

  “That Freddie guy?”

  “Jonathan Drazen.”

  “Oh…” She put her hands to her mouth. “He also owns the R.O.Q. Club in Santa Monica. So don’t try to work there, either.”

  “Did you know he’s gorgeous?”

  A voice came from behind me. “Talking about me again?” Darren had shown up, God bless him.

  “Jonathan Drazen fired her last night,” Gabby said.

  “Who is that?” He sat down, placing his laptop on the table.

  “He didn’t do it. Freddie did. Drazen just offered me a severance and referred me to the Stock.”

  “And apparently he’s gorgeous.” He raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged. Darren and I were over each other, but he’d rib me bloody at the slightest sign of weakness. “I haven’t heard you talk like that about a guy in a year and a half. I thought maybe you were still in love with me.” I must have blushed, or my eyes might have given away some hidden spark of feeling, because Darren snapped open his laptop. “Let’s see what kinda wifi I can pick up.”

  “I don’t talk like that about men because I prefer celibacy to bullshit.”

  Darren tapped away on his laptop. “Jonathan Drazen. Thirty-two. Old man.” He looked at me over the screen.

  “Do not underestimate how hot he is. I could barely talk.”

  “Earned his money the old-fashioned way.”

  “Rich daddy?”

  “A long line of them. He makes more in interest than the entire GDP of Burma.” Darren scrolled through some web page or another. He loved the internet like most people loved puppies and babies. “Real estate magnate. Our Jonathan the Third…” He drifted off as he scrolled. “BA from Penn. MBA from Stanford. He brought the business back. Bazillionaire. He’s a real catch if you can tear him away from the four hundred other women he’s getting photographed with.”

  “Lalala. Don’t care.”

  “Why? It’s not like you’ve had sex in…what?” Darren clicked around, pretending he didn’t care about my answer, but I knew he did.

  “Men are bad news,” I said. “They’re a distraction. They make demands.”

  “Not all men are Kevin.”

  Kevin was my last boyfriend, the one whose control issues had turned me off to men for eighteen months. “Lalala… not talking about Kevin either.” I scraped the bottom of my ice cream cup.

  Darren turned his laptop so I could see the screen. “This him?”

  Jonathan Drazen stood between a woman and man I didn’t recognize. I scrolled through the gossip page. His Irish good looks were undeniable next to anyone, even movie stars.

  “He has been photographed with an awful lot of women,” I said.

  “Yeah, he’s been a total fuck-around since his divorce, FYI. If you wanted him, he’d probably be game. All I’m saying.” He crossed his legs and looked out onto Sunset.

  Gabby had a faraway look as she watched the cars. “His wife was Jessica Carnes,” Gabby recited as if she was reading a newspaper in her head, “the artist. Drazen married her at her father’s place on Venice Beach. She’s half-sister to Thomas Deacon, the sports agent at APR, who has a baby with Susan Kincaid, the hostess at the Key Club, whose brother plays basketball with Eugene Testarossa. Our dream agent at WDE.”

  “One day, Gabster, your obsession with Hollywood interrelationships will pay off.” Darren clicked his laptop closed. “But not today.”

  six

  I think one could be at Hotel K, get blindfolded, taken to the Stock, and believe they’d been driven around and dropped in the same place they started: same pool, same chairs, same couches, same music, and same assholes clutching the same drinks and passing off the same tips. What was different was that there was no Freddie. The Stock had Debbie, a tall Asian lady who wore mandarin collar embroidered shirts and black trousers. She knew every superstar from just their face, and they loved her as much as she loved them. She could tell a movie mogul from an actress and sat them where they’d have the most professional friction. She coordinated the waitresses’ tables according to the patron’s taste and coddled the girls until they worked like a machine.

  She was the nicest person I’d ever worked for.

  “Smile, girl,” Debbie said. I’d been there a week and she knew exactly how many tables I could handle, how fast I was compared to the others, and my strong suit, which appeared to be my magnetic personality. “People look at you,” she said. “They can’t help it. Be smiling.”

  It was hard to smile. We’d had three good shows in a row, then Vinny disappeared into thin air. We’d banged on his office door in Thai Town, went to his house in East Hollywood, and called four hundred times. No Vinny. Every gig he had lined up for us fell through. My momentum was slowing and I didn’t like it.

  “What’s your freaking problem?” said one dude as he threw a dollar bill and three dimes on my tray. “You need a blast of coke or something?” He’d looked like every other spikey-haired, fake-blonde, Hugo Boss-wearing douchenozzle who namedropped from zero to sixty in three beers. But Debbie had put his name on the ticket, probably as a favor to me. His name was Eugene Testarossa, the one guy at WDE I’d wanted to meet for months. In my depression over stupid Vinny, I hadn’t recognized him.

  I stalked toward the bathroom on my break and bumped into a hard chest that smelled of sage green and fog.

  “Monica,” Jonathan said. “Hey. Sam told me he hired you.” His green eyes looked down at me and I wanted to break apart under the weight of them. As he looked at me, his face went from amused to concerned. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine, just a bad day. Whatever.” I stepped toward the bathroom, but he seemed disinclined to let me go so easily.

  “I got your report. Thanks. It was very professional.”

  “You assumed a waitress couldn’t put together a sentence?” His glance down told me I’d been a bitch. He didn’t deserve my worst side. I tried to think fast; I didn’t want a barrage of questions about my life right then. “The Dodgers lost and I’m from Echo Park and all, so I got a little down.”

  “The Dodgers won tonight.” His pressed lips and bemused
eyes told me he understood I was half joking.

  I shuffled my feet, feeling like a kid caught lying about kissing behind the gym. “Yeah. Fucking Jesus Renaldo pulling it out in the ninth like that.”

  “He’s got five good pitches in him per game.”

  “He tends to throw them in the bullpen.”

  “Or trying to pick a guy off.” He shook his head. He looked normal just then, not like the guy behind the desk undressing me with his eyes.

  “I’m sorry I was such a bitch just now.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  “No, you’re not. Come on. People are nice to you all day.”

  He shrugged. “You lied about why you were upset. I get to lie about how people treat me.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “I have season tickets on the first base line.”

  I felt my eyes light up a little, and getting so excited over something someone else had embarrassed me.

  “I could bring you sometime,” he said.

  “You haven’t seen a Dodger game until you’ve seen it from the bleachers. Six dolla seats, yo.”

  He laughed, and I laughed too. Then Debbie showed up at the end of the hall.

  “Monica!” she called out, tapping her wrist.

  “Shit!” I cried out and ran back to my station, turning to give Jonathan a wave before rounding the corner.

  I put on a smile and made myself as intensely personable as I could. I saw Jonathan at the head of the bar, talking to Sam and Debbie, laughing at some joke I couldn’t hear. When I went to the station to pick up my tray, he looked at me and I felt his sight. He was gorgeous, no doubt. I could write songs about that face, those cheekbones, those eyes, that dry scent.

  I wished he’d go away. I tried not to look at him, but he and Sam were still talking at one in the morning. Debbie stood at the end of the service bar, counting receipts, when I came by with a ticket, and I couldn’t take it anymore.