by Sierra Rose
The pavement was littered with a mix of designer dogs and tethered bicycles. I smiled to myself as I skirted around something that I’m sure would have been called a ‘labra-doodle-retriever-pug.’ This was one of the reasons I liked working in Westwood. It wasn’t clearly defined by annual gross income the way places like Santa Monica and Pasadena were; it was neutral ground. A safe haven where the two sides could come together and enjoy a simple cup of joe. No need for class warfare when all anybody wanted was to get caffeinated, right? There was enough room on the sidewalks for both the poodles and the Schwinns.
It was with this uncharacteristically sunny outlook that I walked straight into a fight.
“I don’t care what kind of hurry you’re in, just move the damn car!”
I froze stiffly in place and stared in shock at the two men standing at odds before me. One of them had to be some kind of maintenance worker. He wore a nondescript slate-colored uniform with a smudgy name tag and entirely too much facial hair. He was still fisting his keys, and from the way he was hastily double-parked alongside a town car, I was guessing he had just ditched his truck and leaped out onto the sidewalk.
The man standing across from him…was a different story.
Everything about him was sharp, crisply cut. From his suit to his hair, to the rigid way he was clenching the muscles in his angular jaw. His hands were empty, and even though the maintenance guy looked like he could have easily just retired from a life of UFC, his fingers twitched like he was aching for a fight. Two silver rings, one on each hand. And a pair of fucking diamond-studded cufflinks—I kid you not. I bet he came from a wealthy background, had a large house, and even employed hired help.
I was guessing the town car was his.
“Look.”
I could have sworn I saw the man’s eye twitch beneath his heavily tinted sunglasses.
“I’m not trying to make waves, but I was already parked by the time you pulled up behind me. It’s not your spot!”
“Already parked?” A pair of work gloves was hurled to the ground. “Already parked, my ass! You swerved up out of nowhere and took my spot!”
Mr. Ralph Lauren just calmly smiled. “You can have the spot in five minutes. I’m just running in for a quick coffee.”
“Think I’m going to let you out, you stuck-up shallow prick?” he shouted. “I’ll block your car in. I’ll make you late for work. What are you going to do? Call a tow truck? I’ll fuck you up, asshole!”
An ongoing dispute over a parking space? Seriously? I needed to step in. A fight like this could go from 0-100, real quick.
The maintenance guy was on the verge of total system failure. As a health-care professional, I was worried the throbbing vein in the side of his neck might actually explode. Either that or he might just run up and take a bite out of rich boy’s face.
Both interesting possibilities, from a “my first fight” perspective. But both definitely implied me being late for work. The boring pacifist in me kicked into gear, and before they could launch into some serious sixth-grade name calling, I stepped in between.
“Hey, hey there! Calm down!”
Perhaps it was how ludicrously underwhelming my little bird-like frame must have looked, holding up two twiggy arms to either of their chests, but both men took one look at me and took a giant step back. A rush of satisfaction warmed my blood and it was all I could do not to smile. Or perhaps it was how fucking badass I was!
Keep it together, Bex. Here’s where you come off all cool and heroic.
I pulled off my sunglasses with the gravitas of a seasoned detective. “Now what seems to be the problem here?”
The rich man started to speak, but I turned deliberately to his opponent. The maintenance man—Barry, I saw his tag now—had turned the color of boiled shellfish.
“The problem is, this guy cut me off with his damn town car!” Barry said.
“Not me.” The man held up his hands and blew out a long breath. “My driver. Listen, I would love to chat about this more, but I’m late for a very important meeting.”
“Your driver?” Barry took another threatening step forward. “I swear, you rich son of a bitch. I have half a mind to—”
“Listen,” I cut him off soothingly. A bit of a crowd had begun to gather and I was suddenly worried that when the fun was over, they might start pouring into my coffee shop and I would never get to work on time.
Another maintenance worker stepped next to his buddy. “Nothing says, ‘I’m a prick’ like a town car and a sixty-dollar haircut.”
There was a muffled reaction next to me, but I ignored it.
“I hear you,” I said, trying to calm both of them before a riot broke out. “But let me tell you what, why don’t we get inside and I’ll buy Barry an espresso—just for keeping the peace?”
I threw in a wink for good measure and watched as Barry’s coloration returned to normal.
“Make it a double,” he muttered, but he marched obediently inside.
I defused a bomb! She shoots, she scores! First no dark circles, and now this? I’m on a roll today!
The crowd around me cheered. I took a small bow, and a man let out a long whistle. Was this what fame felt like?
“Way to go!” a woman shouted. “That was so sweet of you!”
“Paying it forward,” another man said.
“You rock!” somebody shouted.
Maybe Barry should find a proper parking spot. He wasn’t going to stay double-parked, was he? Oh, well. At least I stopped the fight. Practically glowing with my accomplishment, I started to follow Barry when a cool voice suddenly made me turn.
“Don’t I get an espresso?”
The rich man had taken off his sunglasses and my automatic reproach was delayed for a second or two as I lost myself in his green-gray eyes. They were the exact color of the ocean, but not the crayon blue oceans at the overcrowded beaches here in Southern California. No, it was one of those ice-cold oceans with big boulder beaches instead of sand. The kind of ocean where I could sit for hours in perfect isolation, staring into the water as salty spray misted my face.
My gosh. The man was absolutely gorgeous. I was taken aback by how hot he was and no words would come out of my mouth. “I’m sorry.” I shook my head quickly and returned my attention to the man. “What?”
I had been thinking about oceans, you see.
The corner of his mouth twitched up and he cocked his head to the side. “I said, don’t I get an espresso?”
I glanced back to where his driver had finally exited the car and was staring at the man with anxious expectation. Cufflinks—again! Even the help made me want to rip my hair out.
The ocean-eyes spell wore off and I slipped on my own glasses. “You’re late for a very important meeting. You said so yourself.” My eyes flickered back to his driver and I smiled. “Besides, you can obviously afford it.”
He smiled back at me as I turned to go inside the shop. As a champion for the common man, the crowd parted in solidarity appreciation and it was only a few moments before I made it up to the counter. My favorite barista, Kelly, was already flying around—setting a timer here, sprinkling cinnamon there, but she looked up and smiled when she saw me.
“Morning, Becca—the usual?”
I sank my elbows down onto the counter, gazing bleakly at the latest pop star’s new Thanksgiving album. “Yep. Oh—and let me get that guy Barry’s too.” I pointed to the maintenance worker and he smiled.
“You got it.”
I pulled out a ten and waited as she bustled around. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the rich man walk into the café and take his place at the back of the line. A faint blush rose up in my cheeks and I kept my eyes front. These cinematic takedowns were always best when you could make a clean getaway afterward. And the elevator music wasn’t helping.
“You and Amanda miss another casting?” Kelly asked when she returned, carrying two steaming drinks. “You look tired.”
I handed her my cash. “I just haven’t been
sleeping that well.”
She frowned as she handed me back my change. “The dragon dream again?”
“Yes!” I leaned over the counter excitedly, eager to commiserate. “I don’t know what’s going on, but every time it gets close to me, it suddenly—”
“Hey! You in the scrubs!” An impatient voice called out from the line. “Some of us have to get to work.”
I threw back a glare in their general direction. Just like that, my adoring crowd had turned on a dime. Fame was a fickle friend.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said with exaggerated importance to Kelly, “I have to get to work.”
I scooped up my mocha-chino with all the dignity I could muster and walked out of the café with my head held high. I could feel the rich guy staring at me as I swept past him out the door, but I kept my eyes on the sidewalk. With my luck, I’d probably trip or something right as I tried to deliver a last one-liner to seal the deal.
Chapter 3
From the coffee shop, it was only a short walk through the grove to the hospice center where I worked. Half a dozen obese pigeons swarmed around me, and as was my morning custom, I tipped my change into the hands of the elderly homeless man who had taken up residence beneath one of the palms.
By the time I breezed through the doors, I was feeling pretty damn good about myself.
“Morning, Becca.” My overworked supervisor Lisa gave me a tired smile as I swept up to the front counter to sign in. “You look…peppy?”
I flashed her an overly animated smile. “Just performed a virtual citizen’s arrest at our local coffee shop. You know—keeping the city safe.”
“Uh huh,” she answered vaguely, hearing but not listening as she browsed through some papers. “Well, here we go. Mr. Cartivan in 308 needs a blood sugar reading.” Yeah, I was trained to do some stuff nurses do. “Mrs. Wakley is refusing to take a shower, oh—and here’s one you’ll like—Mrs. Diaz in 207 insists that her family is driving across the country right now to see her. She’s been making a Welcome banner all morning.”
Lisa gave me a stack of job assignments that had to be done before I left as she clocked out with a huge smile.
“Um…thanks.”
She winked. “Good luck.” Then she was gone.
Needless to say, my adrenaline buzz was basically gone by 10:05. I paced from room to room, making the familiar circles and seeing the familiar faces. I liked my job—don’t get me wrong. It’s just… I had been at the same facility for about three years now and I hoped that I would have gotten an acting gig by now. Hospice was in no way a permanent position. Patients were divided into two main categories: the people who had been shunted by the health care system and were temporarily using us as a recovery center due to budget cuts, and the people who came here not to recover, but to die.
Either way, no matter how many people you got to know, you wouldn’t end up knowing them very long.
Amanda would ask me about it all the time. She didn’t understand how I could spend my entire life around death and the dying. I was the person in the patient’s life who would see them through to the end, providing palliative end-of-life care. And I wanted to make their last days comfortable. I wanted to be that trusted and nurturing guide, helping patients and families find comfort and dignity. But no matter how many ways I found to describe it, she’d always end up saying that it sounded like a Stephen King movie and demand we talk about something else.
I pushed opened open a door and Mrs. Diaz, a woman I’d talked to every day for the last eight months, asked me my name. I closed it behind me with a sigh.
It was going to be a very long day.
When I finally got home and pushed shut the door of the apartment, Amanda sprang up to greet me like she hadn’t been imitating The Walking Dead all morning.
“How was work?” she asked cheerfully.
I pulled off my scarf and let my purse fall to the floor. I handed her the bag with the stuff she had asked me to buy. “Work was fine.” I felt like I’d given her the same answer to the same question for the last thousand years. It was definitely time for a change. “I got thrown up on.”
“That’s awesome!” she exclaimed, blatantly tuning out everything I was going to say as she waited impatiently for her own turn to speak.
I stifled a smile as she bounced a foot up and down, her heavily charcoaled eyes bursting with excitement. “Why, Amanda, how was your day?”
“I GOT A CALLBACK!” she shrieked.
My mouth fell open, and she danced from side to side like a deranged bobblehead.
“I know! It was for that dystopian Western thing. I’m going to be…” she paused for dramatic effect, “Hot Ranch Chick Number Seven.” She pulled the tequila out of the bag and smiled. “I’m going to celebrate with this! I can’t believe I got this gig!”
“That’s amazing,” I breathed, imagining the possibilities. “And to think, I could have been number eight.”
“No, their quota for white girls was filled,” she said practically. “To be number eight, you’d have to be Asian.”
“Oh.” I mulled this over for a second before saying, “Congratulations! I’m so proud of you!”
“Thanks! And thanks for stopping by the store.”
“Not a problem. Oh my gosh!” I suddenly remembered. “I saw a fight today!”
“Wow,” she raised her eyebrows, looking impressed. “Your first genuine fisticuffs. What was it about? Was it gang-related?”
“It was over a parking spot,” I said impressively. “Well, actually I stopped it before they came to blows…but I’m sure it was headed that way.”
She gave me a long look. “So you finally see the makings of a fight, a long-standing life ambition, but you stop it before it can actually get there?”
I felt as though I literally deflated. “...yeah, I guess so.”
She patted me sympathetically on the shoulder. “Come on, I ordered Chinese.”
“Thank you. I’m starving!”
I followed her into the kitchen and was shocked to discover an elaborate setup. She’d pulled out our finest silverwear, and for once, we weren’t eating on paper plates. There was even a chipped tea light or two for ambiance.
“What the—”
She clicked a button and Florence and the Machine started screeching in the background.
My eyes narrowed and I turned to her suspiciously. “All this for Hot Ranch Chick Number Seven?”
“Well, not exactly.” Anxious and excited, she pulled out a chair and shoved me down in a way she obviously took to be endearing. “The thing is, Bex… I actually got the two of us a gig. But it has nothing to do with hot ranch chicks.”
“Really? That’s wonderful.”
“It is, and it isn’t.”
I cocked a brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we don’t get paid like normal.” She grinned as I frowned. “But it’s great for our image. And we have the potential to meet some big names. And we can earn a big bonus by mentioning the agency. If we bring in work, we get a big, fat bonus. Think of this as fun work. We’re going to a party! And it’s tonight!”
“A party?”
“Who doesn’t want to party on a Friday night? I’ll tell you more at the salon,” she said. “They’re getting us all fixed up!”
“Who?”
“You just got to trust me. Now come on, girl. It’s time to go primp! Of course, after we eat this wonderful meal I got us.”
I laughed. “We’re not eating on paper plates, so that’s five star dining to me.”
“Not to mention, we’re not using plastic forks.”
Chapter 4
“You know, I can’t begin to tell you the hypocrisy of what’s happening right now,” I said.
Amanda and I were sitting in a hair salon in Beverly Hills, getting prodded and fussed over by an army of gay men and one heavily primped woman. The acrid smell of nail polish remover was enough to make me almost light-headed. But I stayed carefully on guard as Pa
ulo came at me with a dozen different aerosols and one or two lethal-looking instruments I believed were modeled after something used in the Spanish Inquisition.
I momentarily vanished into a sticky fog as he let loose with one of the bottles, and emerged a second later, stiff and sad, feeling like an unfortunate Botox survivor.
“There go the Wetlands,” I muttered, wondering how many pounds of toxins we’d just released into the atmosphere.
Amanda twisted awkwardly to look at me, her head trapped beneath something that looked like it was attempting to harvest her brain. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing.” My chair tilted back of its own accord, and suddenly I was looking at the ceiling. “Was that supposed to happen?” I asked nervously.
“Silencio!” Paulo commanded, rushing forward with another comb. I closed my eyes with a grimace as he pulled and twisted and corralled whatever was left of my hair into a tight knot on top of my head. When he was finished, he shot me upright again and disappeared into the back to get more supplies.
I sighed. “So tell me a little more about this party. But first let me tell you, I’m having a great time already—just with the prep.”
Amanda snorted, waving her nails to dry their thick, gold-dusted polish. “I heard about it at that casting—you know—the one where my entire life changed for the better?”
“The dystopian Western?” I guessed. I’d been hearing about it quite a lot, actually.
“Yeah, well, Billy asked me to go. Said that the agency needed some representation at this playboy trillionaire’s house party.”
“Right. The trillionaire. Is that even a word?”
“Of course it is.”
“You made it up!”
“I so didn’t. I heard his name is Marcus Taylor, and he’s fucking gorgeous! I wish I could land him. But from what I hear, no woman can. He’s untamable.”
“Hmm. Untamable? Is that a challenge?” I asked. “I mean, I did tame our mean cat.”
She laughed. “I bet you could lasso in the wild buck.”
“I’m just kidding. I’m not in the mood to tame some wild billionaire.”
