The Dimple of Doom (Samantha Lytton)

by Lucy Woodhull

  “I want to go, too.” I pouted and slurped my coffee.

  Sam rolled his eyes. “We are faking a gas leak to evacuate the place—no one will believe you’re a firefighter.”

  “Sexist.”

  “You’re five feet tall! They don’t even make uniforms for hobbits like you.”

  “Sizist.”

  “Do you two ever stop? I’m going to perish of barely witty banter. Go back to bed or something.” Jane threw her napkin onto her plate and sauntered from the room.

  Sam shook his head at me as if it were my fault. Which it wasn’t. “So,” I began, stealing the last piece of uneaten Benedict, “Jolly Roger will pretend to be delivery guy, wander into Steak on a Stick’s lobby and drop the stinky buta—butaneum—”

  “Butanethiol.”

  “Yes, so the guards will think there’s been a gas leak.”

  “That is the plan.”

  “I still don’t see why I can’t—”

  “No.”

  “I’ll drive the getaway car.” He gave me the stare of incredulity. I gave him the stare of death and left to seek out my brand new phone. It was Christmas Day after all—I should call my peeps. Besides, a murderous psychopath might be after them—a holiday greeting was the least I could do.

  I called Ellen—her date with the sexy cop had gone splendidly. I told her in whispers that I’d maybe, sort of fallen in lorvst with Nate who was really Sam. She hung up on me.

  I called my mother, who said it was to be expected that Sam had dumped me. When I told her, amazingly, that I was still with him, she exclaimed in shocked surprise as if I’d told her I was zooming the cosmos with my new friends, the Martians. She’d bought me a year’s membership to LA Fitness for Christmas so that I could maybe hold onto the next man, if there was one.

  I called my father, who wished me Merry Christmas and told me he loved me. He’d heard from Mom that I had a new boyfriend and warned me against sleeping with him before marriage, because of cows and milk and… Whoops.

  My loved ones taken care of, more or less, I sought out Sam. Since I’d already given away my lady milk, I might as well let him churn my butter again.

  I meandered the halls of the palatial, ocean-side villa. Truth be told, it was decorated with too many frolicking dolphins for my taste. This could not have been Jane’s house—she was not the fish figurines sort. The ocean-blue wallpaper melded into beige carpeting, like the beach itself, only much more expensive. Almost all the exterior walls were glorious, tall sheets of glass. Not very practical for a thief hideout, if you asked me. The dolphin sconces glowed, the dolphin knick-knacks sparkled. The dolphin toilet paper holder was just too, too much. I guess we now know what happened to Flipper—he was helping you wipe.

  After breezing through the south wing—or east wing, whatever—I heard Sam’s muffled voice coming through a cracked door. He spoke with Jane in hushed tones. What to do, what to do? I could walk away from a conversation to which I had not been invited, announce myself and enter the room—or eavesdrop. Not a tough choice.

  I shimmied along the wall until I splayed flat against the open edge of the door. They were still talking. I held my breath and pricked my ears.

  Jane said, “You have to consider your future.”

  “I am,” Sam huffed in reply.

  “With your brain.”

  A moment of silence, and Sam said, “What you’re proposing is not an option right now.”

  “You would have jumped at this opportunity a month ago.” Jane’s voice had taken on an undeniable air of incredulity.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? I can’t begin to know what you’re thinking.”

  Sam laughed without humour. “Me neither, actually.”

  “I don’t think she’ll get in any real trouble.” Jane said this almost as if she believed it. I went a little cold.

  “You don’t think? I—”

  Her tone a razor edge, Jane snapped, “Button this up. No more mistakes. No more playing house. End this.”

  “I heard you the first time, Janie,” Sam ground out.

  “Jane.”

  Something slammed into something else, and the sound of feet marched towards me. This was the point at which I decided I’d better high-tail it back to the north wing, where the ocean was. Or the west wing. My heart pitter-patted in my chest unpleasantly the whole way there. Somehow Jane had managed to make me feel as badly about myself as my mother. I ran out into the cool December ocean air and took off down the sand in my bare feet.

  So. Sam’s future prospects in the thief corporate ladder hung in the balance while he played house with dippy little me.

  What kind of fantasy had I been harbouring, anyway? I told myself I hadn’t, but I knew damn well that every time I gazed into those eyes, those amazing eyes that told me everything I would ever want to hear, I wished for him to be mine for good. I wished for it with every fibre of my short being. I pulled the bathrobe tighter around, to shield me from the chilly breezes flowing in from the Pacific and the chilly thoughts in my head.

  Why would I even want a criminal for a partner? He was probably wanted in forty-eight out of fifty states, so we’d be forced to live in one of the really boring ones in some little town named Repugnance or something with Mayor Hicky McCombover the Fourth. I’d come from one of those and moved to LA for a reason.

  I plunked down hard in the sand, which didn’t give way at all, but jarred me straight up through my butt to my head. Time to focus.

  When I was able to return to normal life, I’d say goodbye to Sam and nurse my wounds by attempting to win at said life. I hadn’t been giving it my all, not really, not lately. I’d fallen into a coma-inducing routine involving takeout and secretary work. Second time was the charm, right? There was nothing like near-death to make you appreciate the small amount of win you might have carved out that one time, in a pickle commercial.

  Would I miss Sam? The lurch in my aching chest said I missed him already.

  “Hey.” As if conjured by the power of my forlorn ponderings, the object of my affection lumbered towards me, feet spattering bits of sand everywhere, looking gorgeous and completely at ease with the world.

  “Hey,” I replied, smiling up at him.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sure.” I patted the ground next to me, and he sat. “As okay as I can be. My mother says hi. She also told me to tell you I’ll lose some weight.”

  Laughing, he fell back in the sand, his head cradled in one hand. “Don’t you dare—I demand you retain every square inch of that butt. You should turn your mother into a movie. A horror movie.”

  “One horror movie at a time. If I survive this one, I’ll start on the next.” I flopped back to lie beside him, the sand cool through my designer robe.

  He rolled onto his side and gazed at me. A thousand words flashed in that look, but I couldn’t interpret any of them. “You and I will walk away from this. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  “Thanks.” I believed that he believed what he said. Jane had told him to leave me to the wolves, but he’d refused.

  Maybe my lying liar had developed lorvst for me, too.

  Taking my hand, he stood us up and, with a sly smile, brushed sand off my behind with lingering hands. He led me back to the house and made love to me like it was the last time.

  * * * *

  I got my wish. Late that afternoon I sat, five blocks away from Steak on a Stick headquarters, waiting for Sam to return from his fake gas leak escapade so I could drive the getaway. Unfortunately, they hadn’t given me a good car to use—no pretending I was Bullitt. I’d got an LA-ubiquitous Prius. I felt twenty per cent more smug just sitting behind the wheel.

  I’d been playing with my new phone for an hour when the neighbourhood rang with the sound of sirens. As planned, firefighters appeared in force to investigate the ‘gas leak’. I couldn’t even ogle them, for I was around the corner. I sat for ten, twenty, thirty more minutes. I should’ve as
ked for a bacon cheeseburger to chomp away the time.

  Surprisingly, I was calm. I didn’t know whether I’d finally got used to being criminal-lite, or if Jane’s leadership made the entire caper more…dignified and sure, somehow. I pictured her at Studio 54—sexy, bold, glamorous. I wondered if she took on mentees. Nope, I didn’t really want to be in charge of an international art ring, but I could use a few lessons in not being a fuck-up and/or how to stick it to The Man.

  My second phone chirped once. They’d given me one of those walkie-talkie cellphones. One chirp meant that Sam was on the way to me. Excellent.

  Bang, bang, bang! A large shape loomed at the driver’s side window. I screamed and cowered over the centre divide of the car console.

  “Ma’am, this is the LAPD. Please get out of the vehicle.”

  Oh.

  Shit.

  I peeled my eyeballs from behind my chicken hands and smiled at the cop at my window. My head exploded in a series of OHGODOHGODOHGODs. I smiled wider—step one to not looking guilty. I pawed at the window button until it slid downward, much like my stomach was doing. “Hi, hey, how are ya? Is there a problem, officer?”

  He took a step away and scanned the back seat of the car, then the surrounding area. Fingering his holstered gun, he turned his cop sunglasses towards me and repeated, “Please get out of the vehicle.”

  OhGodohGodohGod. This was it. The jig was up. I would go to jail, and Sam wouldn’t be there because I would go to lady jail where the outfits were bland, and the company was hardened. I smiled again, even though Officer Sunglasses wasn’t buying it. You won less prison time with honey than with vinegar, right? I stepped out of the car and onto the numb bricks that used to be my feet.

  He kept one hand on his gun and with the other handed me a folded paper. “You’re the woman from the news, right? You dyed your hair—is that correct, ma’am?”

  Over the cop’s shoulder, I saw Sam hurry around the corner. He stopped dead, took one look at the officer, and vanished the way he had come.

  Mother.

  Fucker.

  My hands shaking, I unfolded the paper the cop had handed me—a missing poster starring my face. “No reward?” I squeaked. What kinda budget rescue operation was this?

  “Are you all right, ma’am? Have you been injured?” He still kept one hand on his gun. That was not as reassuring a gesture as one might have thought. Was it a rule that every cop must sport a giant, unattractive moustache? I wondered if it was real, or distributed each morning at the daily briefing. On a good day, you’d get the coolness of Tom Selleck or John Oates. On a bad, the skeeviness of Geraldo Rivera.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes, officer. I am fine. I haven’t been missing. I’m right here. Don’t I look fine?” I laughed and shrugged cute shoulders. He did not laugh. Robocop had more warmth than this guy.

  “Ma’am, there is an open investigation as to your whereabouts.” His shoulders tensed in his navy blue uniform, ironed as crisp as my story was flimsy. With another long scan around the neighbourhood, he removed his hand from the firearm, took a step towards me and said, “Whose car is this?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Whose car is this?”

  A smart person would have considered this possibility before she had driven around in her thief boyfriend’s boss’s vehicle. A not-so-smart person would say, “I want my lawyer.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cabernet, Take Me Away

  Int. Los Angeles County Courtroom, the Honourable Judge Judy Presiding—Day

  The courtroom is packed for the trial of Samantha Lytton, accused of lying to the police, stealing a priceless work of art and not respecting how important driving a Prius is to the environment.

  Angle On: Judge Judy, resplendent in black robes with a dainty white lace collar. She stares down at the pathetic defendant.

  Angle On: Samantha Lytton, wearing an orange jumpsuit three sizes too tall for her.

  Graphic: Samantha Lytton, Guilty.

  Samantha Lytton: Hey! We just started!

  Graphic: Samantha Lytton, Defendant.

  Judge Judy: Miss Lytton, Why did you steal this Picasso painting?

  Samantha Lytton: I didn’t.

  Judge Judy: That’s baloney. Don’t pee in my coffee and call it International Delight.

  Samantha Lytton: I’m an innocent bystander in these shenanigans. Sam stole the painting! And put it back. And then he stole it again. I think. It wasn’t my plan.

  Judge Judy: But you’re Sam.

  Samantha Lytton: I’m Samantha.

  Judge Judy: You couldn’t find anyone else to sleep with besides a guy named Sam?

  Bailiff Byrd: It’s a sad cry for attention, Judge Judy.

  Judge Judy: Samantha and Sam. Geesh! Who does she think she is, Kate Hudson?

  Bailiff Byrd: No one wants to watch a rom-com called Samantha Lytton, Blotchiest Girl in the Room.

  Judge Judy and Bailiff Byrd high-five each other.

  Judge Judy: How can you possibly accuse Sam of being a thief? He’s so handsome!

  Bailiff Byrd: You said a mouthful, JJ.

  Angle On: Sam the Handsome Innocent, sitting on Judge Judy’s desk. He is very handsome. He smiles towards camera one while a twinkle of light glimmers off his blindingly white teeth. Everyone in the courtroom sighs.

  Sam the Handsome Innocent: Samantha, just admit what you did. Judy and I have dinner reservations in half an hour.

  Angle On: Suzie Lytton, shaking her head in the witness box.

  Suzie Lytton: I knew you’d never hang onto him, Samantha. Just go to jail quietly and maybe a blind murderess will take a shine to you.

  Samantha Lytton: But I didn’t do anything wrong!

  Sam the Handsome Innocent: Didn’t you, Samantha? You slept with me under some very questionable circumstances. And why did you steal that painting?

  Sam turns to Judge Judy.

  Sam the Handsome Innocent: Not that I wanted to sleep with this woman. You’re the only shorty I ever yearned for, Judy. Convict me of love in the first degree, Judge Sexy.

  Courtroom: Awwwwwww.

  Samantha Lytton: I only wanted to make out with someone at the office Christmas party. Is that so wrong?

  Judge Judy: Yes.

  Samantha Lytton: Bu—

  Judge Judy: ‘Bu’ is not an answer. I convict you of being a waste of everyone’s time. Byrd, put her where the TV cameras don’t shine.

  Bailiff Byrd: You know what’s really criminal, Judge Judy? Her in that orange jumpsuit.

  Everyone in the courtroom laughs.

  Graphic: Samantha Lytton, Unattractive in Citrus Tones. And Guilty.

  For future reference, when you’ve gone missing for days and days in mysterious circumstances, saying to the officer who finds you, “I want my lawyer,” does not bolster confidence in your innocence. Judge Judy wouldn’t buy that shit, and neither did he. Oh, God—no judicial system would ever believe my tale of potato balls and woe. And I really did look heinous in orange.

  He put his hand back on his gun—just when we’d made so much progress!—and said, “You need to come with me. You can call your lawyer on the way if you want.”

  And that was how I took my first trip in the back of a squad car. It was as dingy as one might expect, but with eight hundred per cent more terror. He called in my being located—he described it as a ‘capture’, which I thought had a very negative connotation—as we drove a few blocks to a neighbourhood precinct.

  I didn’t actually have a lawyer. I didn’t know why I’d said it, except that everything I knew came from TV.

  “Am I being arrested?”

  “Why would I arrest you?” he asked.

  Ah ha! That was a trick question. “I have no idea, sir. I haven’t done anything wrong. Do I need to come with you? As you can see, I’m a-okay.” I flashed two thumbs up, the way innocent people do.

  His eyes flicked to me in the rear-view mirror. They conveyed a certain lack of faith in my honesty.
How insulting. I decided to lie more. “I was on the way to meet a friend. They’ll be worried…”

  “Ma’am, we’ve had a search going for you for some time now. I would strongly recommend you come with me to the station to clear up the whole matter. You can call anyone you want from the precinct. We have many phones.”

  Laugh-riot, my cop. It was nice the way he made it seem like I had a choice, me trapped in the back of the car like so much meth-head.

  Sam’s face swam in and out of my vision. Mostly out because of the way he’d freaking damn it blast him abandoned me just now. After all we’d been through! After all his pretty words! After that amazing blow job I’d given him this morning! Bastard. I was such a patsy I should have been named…Patsy!

  The car glided through the sunny streets of downtown LA. The inside of it seemed a different world, like an alien dimension in which you could observe normal life continuing around you, but no one saw or heard your pathetic cries for help. “Whose car was that?” said the cop, suspicion oozing from his Tom Selleck ’stache.

  “It’s just one of many owned by the glamorous head of a shadowy international art theft ring named Willie Nelson,” I said. Actually, I didn’t. I had no idea what to say or what to admit—it seemed super unfair that out of everyone who’d tried to ruin my life in the last week, I was the asshole in the police car. “My boyfriend’s,” I said with only a hint of question mark at the end.

  “His name is…?”

  I laughed. I shouldn’t have, but I did.

  It was at that moment that we pulled into the precinct parking lot. “Shit,” said the cop. By this hissed proclamation, I could only surmise that the array of TV news vans and reporters with maniacal grins jostling around our squad car was an unusual occurrence. They swarmed against my window, flashbulbs popping. Or so I imagined. Really, it was just big lights in my squinting eyeballs. Holy crap. Good thing I’d put on makeup that morning—my mother had shamed me well. Juries in California convict on unflattering haircuts alone.