The flames in my cheeks had expanded, and I could feel the heat spreading to my ears, my neck, my chest. After everything I’d been through, the last thing I needed was some pompous dickhead giving me a hard time, especially when I hadn’t even done anything wrong. Not on purpose anyway.
Dylan was just about to open his door when he suddenly turned back around to face me, looking intrigued. “So, why’d you move back here, anyway? Cali wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be?”
“No,” I said, my blank expression mirroring his. “For the record, I moved back after I caught my best friend in bed with my boyfriend.” I started to head back to my car, then stopped and glanced back at him over my shoulder. “Not that’s it’s any of your business.”
***
I called Beth on the way to Noir to tell her I was running a little behind schedule, thanks to my impeccable driving skills. I ended up on the phone with her the entire drive there because once Beth’s mouth gets going, it stops for no one.
Beth and I had known each other since grade school, and she was a great person to confide in when you were in the midst of a crisis because she never told you what you wanted to hear. She was gut-wrenchingly, whole heartedly, one-hundred percent honest. Always. I hated her candidness when we were younger because my hormonal, sensitive teenage self didn’t exactly take well to constructive criticism, but now that I was older I really appreciated her honesty. Sure, there were certain times when little white lies were necessary, because no one really wants to hear “Yes, you really do look fat in that dress” or “You’re right, your forehead does look like you’ve sprouted a third eye.” But there were also times when you didn’t want someone to sugar coat anything; you wanted them to give you their God’s honest opinion.
This was definitely one of those times.
“So you walked in on them?” she asked, wide-eyed, leaning forward in her seat.
“Yeah, I…”
“What did you do? Did you cause a scene?”
“I just… ran.”
“You left? Why?”
I shrugged. “I was in shock. I didn’t even know what to say. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and try to process what had just happened.”
“So what did Justine say? Have you talked to her? She must’ve called you, right?”
In addition to her honesty, Beth was also infamous for talking a mile a minute. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise when the two of us were together, and even when I was the one talking, she would constantly interrupt with one hundred questions. Beth was very analytical. Conveying a story to her was like being on trial; you had to offer up every single detail so she could analyze every aspect of the story and weigh her opinion carefully.
Beth and I met the summer before we both entered the sixth grade. She lived a street over from me and was the only girl in my neighborhood who didn’t think I was some sort of foreign reptile because I went to Catholic school. Our afterschool rituals consisted of riding our bicycles around the neighborhood and swapping stories about our daily adventures. I was always envious of her public school lifestyle, mainly because nothing exciting ever happened at Holy Family. No one ever got caught fooling around in the locker room or smoking pot in the bathroom. Her stories were like listening to the narrative of a soap opera, which, in my eyes, made her the epitome of cool. I couldn’t believe she actually wanted to be friends with someone who wore knee socks and saddle shoes on a daily basis.
“She’s called, but I can’t talk to her,” I said, answering her question. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to, but right now, I just can’t.”
Beth cocked an eyebrow. “So how did you get your stuff out of the apartment?”
“I went there when I knew she was at work. Took the basics, left the furniture.”
“Do you think they’re, like, dating? Or do you think it was just a one-time thing?”
“I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t want to know.”
“God, I really can’t believe Justine would do that to you,” she said, covering her eyes with her hands. “I really can’t. You guys have been friends for so long.”
I bit my thumbnail nervously, and then asked the question that I had been dying to ask all along. “Beth, why do you think she did it?”
Beth sighed. “Well, I think it could be two reasons. The first reason could be that she’s jealous of you.”
I shook my head. There was no way. The only time jealousy occurred was when someone felt they were being denied something they could have, something that belonged to someone else. Justine could’ve had any guy on the planet. It didn’t add up.
“No way,” I said. “I think I’d pick up on it if she was. I mean, come on, the girl was my best friend.”
Beth gave me that knowing look that told me she knew what she was talking about. “Don’t be so sure. Sometimes people hide things well. Maybe she’s always secretly compared herself to you and you just never realized it.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. So what’s the second reason?”
“Well, the second reason is that maybe she’s in love with him. And I don’t mean some sort of sexual infatuation, I mean serious love, as in marriage. If she doesn’t have jealousy issues with you, then that’s the only thing that would make sense. I can’t picture her ruining a friendship, especially a friendship like the one you guys had, unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life with this guy.”
That was the more logical explanation, the one I had been leaning towards all along. But the thing that bothered me even more than the thought of Justine and David getting married was the fact that Beth used the word “had” when referring to my friendship with Justine. The friendship you guys had.
And even when I returned home later that evening, I still couldn’t get those words out of my head.
Chapter 4
I’m not sure who came up with the brilliant revelation that college freshmen are mature enough to choose their own majors and career paths because – and I can pretty much guarantee this – eighteen year-olds do not have the mental capacity to make such a life-altering decision. And in the city of Los Angeles, if you decline to enter into the shallow world of wanna-be model/actresses, that doesn’t leave you many job options. You either end up a waitress, a receptionist, or become some soulless mutant that crunches numbers for a living.
Five years and three major switches later, I didn’t find my calling. It found me.
I was browsing the classifieds for internships when I saw it.
“Pace Magazine is looking to bring on interns to assist with our new music column, ‘Sound Bites.’ Responsibilities will include article fact-checking and assisting with weekly music reviews. Journalism and Communications majors only. All interested candidates should send their resume to [email protected].”
The words danced before my eyes. Bright lights and heavenly choir music engulfed me.
A music writer. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of this before? For all those years I’d lived and breathed music, it had never occurred to me that there were other professions inside the music industry besides solely performing music. I’d long since come to terms with the fact that, in light of the many things I was good at, singing was not one of them. Writing, however, was a completely different story.
My eagerness had clearly shown through on the day of the interview, when the entertainment director hired me on the spot. I’m not sure if she hired me because no one else had applied for the job or because she saw the undying love for music glowing from my eyes, but either way, I was told to report to the lobby on Monday at nine and bring two forms of ID.
When my first day arrived, I was sitting in the lobby, pretending to be engrossed in the latest copy of the L.A. Weekly, when I noticed him. He strolled across the room steadily, his white polo hugging him just tightly enough to show off the outline of his biceps.
“You must be Renee Evans,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m David Whitman, Pace’s sports editor. It’s nice to meet you.”
&n
bsp; I stood up and shook his hand, still stunned by the beauty of his dark, deep-set eyes and perfectly chiseled frame.
“The HR team is in a meeting, so they’ve asked me to bring you up to the conference room to get started with your new hire paperwork,” he continued. “Follow me.”
I grabbed my purse and followed him down the corridor. I had to increase my speed to keep up with his brisk pace. One of my college professors had taught us that, when in a business environment, there were three things you should always remember: make eye contact, have a firm handshake, and walk with a straight posture, with confidence, “with a purpose,” as he’d called it.
David Whitman walked with a purpose.
After recovering from the initial intimidation of his beauty, I felt instantly at ease with him. By the end of my first day, that budding feeling of lust had already started to form in the pit of my stomach, and I found myself humming on the way home from work like a teenage smitten schoolgirl.
By the end of the second day, he had already asked me out.
I can remember our first date as clear as you’d remember anything else of significant importance in your life: your first kiss, your first love, your first heartbreak. He picked me up in a black Lexus RX, wearing a white baseball cap and a light green shirt that showed off the tanned tone of his skin. He took me to dinner at Katsuyah on Hollywood Boulevard, then for a walk down the Santa Monica Pier. When he leaned in and kissed me, all I could think of was how long it had been since I’d felt like this.
Naturally, at first, I thought it was love, as everyone does when they’re blindsided in the initial relationship stages. I even held out on sex for as long as physically possible, because I was “waiting for the right time.”
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Justine had asked. “Singing angels to come down from the sky?”
“Hey, we don’t all put out on the first date like you,” I’d joked, but in truth, I really did want it to be perfect, just like everything, up until that point, had been.
But after the honeymoon stage fizzled out, I began to have my doubts. For one, if things didn’t work out between us, I knew the inter-office romance drama at work wouldn’t go over well, and could possibly cost me my newfound dream job. And I had also slowly started to come to the realization that David and I didn’t have a whole hell of a lot in common.
Pace’s entertainment director had just assigned me my first research piece, where I was instructed to review the album charts for the past ten years and compile a list of the most popular rock bands of the twenty-first century. After coming up with a pathetically weak list of bands not even worthy of mention, it was of no comparison to the bands like Nirvana and Radiohead that had severely impacted the music world a decade prior. I began to wonder if the entire music scene had gone seriously downhill in the last ten years, as the only band I could think of that had emerged over the past decade and was worth adding to the list was Muse.
When I presented my frustration to David, his lackluster attitude gave way to the realization that we were definitely lacking in the common interest arena, as David’s only passion in life was sports, which was like a foreign language to me. For the first time since we started dating, I began to think that maybe our relationship didn’t exactly have the longest shelf life. Common goals and passions may not be important to some people, but they were to me.
“Cornell is still around,” he’d argued when I vented about my article.
“My point exactly. Cornell was one of the talented artists who evolved in the nineties. Name at least one of your favorite bands who evolved over the past ten years.”
Silence.
“See?” I pointed out. “It isn’t easy, is it? I literally sat my desk for hours today trying to come up with some great bands that have formed in the last few years and I ended up having to include bands that I didn’t even like. The only one worth adding to the list is Muse.”
“Who’s Muse?”
***
The lobby to my apartment building was lined with a horizontal row of silver mailboxes, each of which held a small lock in the center. Every afternoon, like clockwork, I’d spend at least ten minutes trying to force my key to unlock the damn door, which usually resulted in my fist beating it repeatedly until the door swung open.
Which was exactly what I was doing when Dylan came strolling through the front door.
“Well, if it isn’t Miss California herself,” he greeted, sidling up next to me. His mood seemed to have slightly improved since our last encounter.
I groaned and continued to toy with the lock. Dylan watched me for a good thirty seconds before reaching out and taking the key from my grasp. “Allow me,” he said, unlocking the door in one swift move. I stared at him in bewilderment.
“Try turning the key to the left and then to the right,” he explained. “Works every time.”
I nodded and scooped up the pile of junk mail into my arms.
“A thank you would be nice.”
I feigned a smile and mumbled “thanks” before turning to walk away. I could feel his glare as I began to ascend the stairs.
“Why are you such a bitch all the time?”
I spun around to face him, but said nothing.
“Christ, I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot,” he continued. “But I’m trying to be cordial and say hello and you act like a stuck-up snot and walk away.”
I felt like I had suddenly teleported back to middle school, back to when the class bully would poke fun at you in front of everyone, and instead of coming up with a wise comeback, you’d be too frazzled to think of a good response. I remember racking my brain for something clever to come back with, but I always ended up sputtering off at the mouth and sounding like a complete idiot.
Which reminded me that in most circumstances like these, it’s better to keep your mouth shut.
Without another word, I turned around and stomped up the stairs to my apartment. Somehow, I could feel Dylan laughing at me as I made my way up the stairs. I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t hear him, but I could feel him. And the bastard was laughing.
Chapter 5
Being unemployed whisks you into this magical world where you lose all concept of reality. You never know what day it is, what time it is, and can’t understand why you’re still constantly late for everything when you have no job. People have a tendency to blame everything on work: the reason they’re behind on chores, the reason they’re late to events, the reason they need to go home early after a few cocktails. Ironically, all these things still take place when you’re jobless, except now, you have nothing to blame it on.
My life, up until a few weeks ago, had consisted of cramming in school work, actual work, and time with my then-boyfriend and then-best friend.
My life now consisted of sleeping until noon, checking my email, applying for jobs, watching reruns on Soapnet, fielding calls from my long lost friends and relatives, and running the occasional food shopping or laundry errand. I’d lose count of how many days it had been since I last showered until someone actually invited me out into the real world.
I came to the realization it is not impossible to become extremely busy doing absolutely nothing.
I also came to the realization that I was in desperate need of a job.
***
Surely there are worse things in life than going from a music writer to a resume writer. When I find out what they are, I’ll let you know.
With my minimal experience, the only job that I could find was writing resumes for Staffing Pros, a recruiting firm that occupied the fourth floor of the Fiduciary Trust Building in South Station. In addition to the fact that I had now been demoted from an entertainment industry expert to a corporate suit, I was also forced to take public transportation, since ninety-nine percent of places downtown didn’t provide on-site parking.
When I arrived, Elaine Curtin, my new boss, barely said two words to me before leading me to a cubicle-infested room and pawning me off
on my co-worker. The girl, a short brunette who didn’t look much older than me, pulled up a chair beside her and motioned for me to take a seat.
“I’m Angela,” she said, peering up at me through her purple Vogue eyeglasses. “I’ll be going over your job duties with you, but they’re pretty easy. You’ll speak to candidates over the phone, ask them about their job responsibilities and put together a nice, formatted resume that highlights their experience.” She handed me a stack of sample resumes. “You’ll also need to provide them with a cover letter, as well as a thank you letter that they’ll send to clients post-interview.”
She wheeled her chair towards the computer screen and opened a resume template. “Basically, you want to make sure to emphasize how the candidate’s role affected the business as a whole, instead of just listing their individual responsibilities. I always recommend searching for similar resumes and job postings online to get ideas.”
I nodded. “Sounds easy enough. Is this what you do, too?”
She shook her head. “I’m a recruiter. Basically, after you’re done with the resume, it’s my job to find the candidate a job with one of our clients.” She pointed to the row of cubicles to our right, where two middle-aged women were typing on their computers. “That’s Nancy and Linda. They’re the other recruiters. And over there,” she said, pointing to our left, “is where Kerry sits. She’s the other resume writer.”
“What about the girl in the front?” I asked, motioning to the six-foot tall Asian woman who was seated in a desk in front of the entrance. She looked like she weighed about ninety pounds, and her hands were the size of my entire head.
“Oh, that’s Kim. She’s a temp who’s working as Elaine’s assistant.” She leaned in closer to me and whispered, “But we call her Shanghai Surprise.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because we’re convinced she’s really a man.” She grinned, then looked over her shoulder at the clock. “Do you want to go grab some coffee before we get started? There’s a great little café downstairs.”
Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story Page 2
