by Reiss, CD
“I was tired.” She stirred her coffee—her scarf wrapped around her neck in a florid, perfect bow.
“I just want to make sure. Eddie didn’t do or say something to upset you?”
“No.” She shook her head sharply, brows furrowed. “Not at all. He’s really nice, actually.”
I believed her, but I was also sure I wasn’t asking the right question.
“Um, you’ve been running away from him at a full sprint.”
“No, I haven’t.” She looked down, as if she couldn’t face me when she lied. “Not a full sprint, anyway.”
“Well, no one said you had to like him.”
“I do!” she protested. “It’s just that we were talking about something, and I started getting all melty, and I was sure he could see it.”
I was about to encourage her, but the intercom at her belt squawked to life.
“Darcy’s fussing with his jacket,” Francine said through the static.
“I have it,” Evelyn replied.
“Send Kayla,” Francine said. “Sleeve cap’s pulling.”
The radio beeped out.
“Can’t have that,” I said, gulping coffee before I went into the house.
The crew bustled around, fixing lights that were bright enough for a parking lot. Justin stood on a piece of blue tape stuck to the Persian carpet, jerking his shoulder.
“Costume’s here,” the assistant director recited when I came in.
“About time,” Justin said.
“How did you stand waiting ten seconds?” I stood in front of him and inspected the fit of his coat, adjusting the lapels forward to shift the shoulders, trying to keep my mind on the costume instead of the way he looked at me.
“It was like an hour,” he said.
“Where does it hurt?” I ran my fingers along his shoulder seams and down the armholes, looking for excess in the cap. And yes, feeling the hard muscles underneath.
“When I do this.” He shifted his right arm forward as if he were about to embrace me, with the blast of light melting his ice-blue eyes.
A woman put a beige device up against his cheek and pressed a button.
“So don’t do that.” I pushed his arm down and waited for the woman with the light meter to move. When she checked his left cheek, I moved to his right side and put his arm back up so I could see the problem with the sleeve cap, running my hand along the inseam.
“It’s going to be hard to seduce Miss Bennet with my arm down.”
The light meter woman moved away.
“You can do with one arm what most men can’t do with their whole body.”
“They can hear you.”
“Who?”
“The mics are on.” He smirked at me. “They pick up everything.”
I looked behind me, and a bearded guy with a boom tapped his headphones and smiled.
“Well then,” I said, blushing. “Take the jacket off so I can feel stupid and busy at the same time.”
Justin unbuttoned it, and I slid it off him, letting the offending sleeve go inside out. He looked over my shoulder as I snipped open the fill inside the cap.
“What are you doing?” he asked. I could feel the deliberateness of his breath on my neck, and I leaned into its minty warmth.
“There’s too much fill, and it’s sewn too tight.” I looked up at him. “It’s fine if you’re standing there, but if you want to seduce a woman like her you need to be open.”
“Open to what?”
“To her saying yes.”
“How’s it coming, Kayla?” Francine asked, appearing suddenly.
“Done.” I held the coat up. Justin turned his back to me, and I slid it over his shoulders.
“Better,” he said, shifting his arm and facing me.
“Let me know how it goes with Miss Bennet.” I buttoned the jacket. The assistant director called the scene, and camera and sound announced their readiness.
“I will.”
After a few days of quick conversations, smiles, and stolen glances—but no more major on-set alterations—he called while I was in the grocery store.
“Hey, Kaylacakes.” Crickets in the background. The hum of a pool filter.
“How did Darcy do today?”
“He was about to get some, but it’s a PG movie, so he has blue balls now.”
I laughed, checking a dozen eggs for cracks.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Trader Joe’s. Where are you?”
“Chilling by my pool.”
“Sounds nice.”
“I have to get into the studio soon.”
“Okay.”
“Do I get to see you or nah?”
“See me? I guess I’ll be on set.”
“Not like that. Not with people eyeballing us. Just me and you hanging out.”
“Like a date?”
There was a pause from the other side. I was pushing the cart, but I’d passed the peanut butter two aisles ago, as if I couldn’t choose a condiment and hold down my end of the conversation at the same time.
“Justin?”
“Yeah,” he said as if woken up. “Let’s take a drive or something. I can pick you up tonight.”
“It’s almost nine o’clock.”
“You gonna turn into a pumpkin?”
“I’m a morning person.”
“Call is late.”
“I’m free Saturday. Take it or leave it.”
“You’re fucking with me, right? You’re doing that thing where you put the guy off.”
“Do I seem like a game player to you?”
“No. No, you don’t.”
“Saturday, then.”
“All right. But it’s gonna be hard to wait.”
“I find it hard to believe you have nothing to do until then.”
“Maybe I really want to see you,” he said with an audible shrug that stopped my cart-pacing. “I like you, so I want to hang out. It caught me by surprise, but it’s got me like . . . fine. Whatever. I’m going with it. I like you.”
“That makes me happy.”
“Why?”
“Against my better judgment, I like you too.”
“Cool. I’ll see you Saturday.”
We said our goodbyes. I hung up and went back for the peanut butter with a smile on my face.
On Friday, Talia’s Audi waited a block away from the set. I got into the back seat and closed the door.
“Hey, Soley.” I leaned over the seat and kissed my sister’s girlfriend, Soledad, on the cheek. “How’s it hanging?”
“Low and heavy.” She had long, dark curls pinned against the back of her neck and cheekbones for days. “You have your bathing suit?”
“Yup. Ready to laze by the pool like a champ. Hey . . . ,” I said, noticing a sparkle on Soledad’s finger. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” Soledad replied. I reached forward and grabbed her hand so I could confirm the sparkle was a diamond solitaire.
“Holy crap! You guys are engaged?”
“You didn’t tell her?” Soledad pushed Talia’s shoulder.
“She’s at work all the time now.”
Soledad rolled her eyes and held her hand to the back of the car so I could admire the ring. It sparkled even in the low light of the streetlamps.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“She picked it,” Soledad said.
“Congratulations. Does Dad know?”
“No,” Talia said, then corrected quickly. “Yes. About the engagement. Yes.”
“What doesn’t he know about?”
“Nothing. Sorry. Stop asking questions when I’m driving.”
Talia looked at me through the rearview, and I stuck my tongue out at her.
Dad lived in a three-bedroom house made of concrete and heavy sliding doors up in the Hollywood Hills. His friends Adam and Darren were over. They were in their thirties, married, in love. Adam was in real estate finance, and Darren was a drummer. They discussed how much salt went on the
rim of a margarita glass, and I wondered if Dad would feel like a fifth wheel if I wasn’t there.
Dad got on the edge of the diving board. I sat in the separated hot tub with Soledad—my half-finished margarita on the ledge and my toes touching the far wall—thinking about that drink, and my father, and how we’d missed the stage where he told me not to drink, then got mad when I did, and eventually accepted it as part of my adulthood. We’d skipped an important part of the process, as if we were jeans that had skipped a trip to the washhouse. We were well cut and sewn, but without the wash we were stiff, uncomfortable, working too hard to fit.
“Did you get the fabric out of the van?” Talia splashed me out of my reverie, reaching her arm over the barrier that separated the hot tub from the rest of the pool.
“Not yet. It’s freaking heavy.”
“If you need guys to help, I got guys,” Dad said from the diving board on the deep end, then leaped in, swimming underwater until he got to our side.
“Who needs guys?” Darren asked.
“No one,” Adam chimed in. “Call a mover, Raymond.”
“Not a big deal,” I said when Dad popped up. “I was thinking of just unrolling a few yards to make samples. But I have to find a small-run factory first, and before that I need cash, so . . .” I sipped my margarita. “Not an emergency.”
“We should hook her up with Steve,” Darren said, handing Dad a margarita. “His company invests in hot young talent.”
“Stop.” I kicked water at him. “I’m not hot.”
“Of course you are,” Adam said, stretching out in the sun. “You look like your father.”
Dad was hot, apparently. I guessed he was, in a fiftyish guy sort of way.
“Steve’s the CFO of Butter Birds,” Darren said, sitting in a dry patch. “Your friend Justin Beckett probably wears them.”
“He’s not my friend, and duh.” Everyone knew Butter Birds. Their jeans ran seven hundred a pop and were the hottest thing around, mostly because they kept production runs so small they were priced for scarcity. Even celebrities had to buy on the secondary market, where they were even more expensive.
“What’s going on with him?” Talia asked.
“Nothing.”
“I can make a call . . . ,” Dad started.
“Talia told me you and Justin are like this.” Soledad twisted two fingers together.
“We’re not.” I hadn’t even told her or Talia about Club NV or the kiss that wasn’t. And until he showed up on time, bathed and dressed for our date, I wasn’t mentioning that either.
“I was talking, hello?” My father snapped his fingers in my direction. Did normal parents do this? Or was it me? Was it because he actually hadn’t parented me that I could ignore him so easily?
“Sorry. Yes, Dad?”
“I know the CFO, if you want a meeting.”
“Really?”
“Unless you want to tap your friend Justin.”
“Yes, I do want a meeting, and he’s not my friend.”
“Okay, enough.” Adam held his hands up as if he were stopping traffic. “The lady doth protest too fucking much.”
“No—”
“Yes,” three of them chimed in together.
“If he was an asshole to you,” Dad said, “we can call DMZ and end him.”
“You’re so cute when you’re protective,” Adam said.
“He wasn’t an asshole to me. At least, after the first time he was. Then he was nice.”
My father’s eyes narrowed.
“This is fascinating.” Adam had gotten to a sitting position on the edge of the chair. “Look at him.”
“He’s really pissed,” Darren added. “The vein in his temple’s pulsing.”
“Kayla,” my father said.
“Dad.”
“I will end him.”
“Can you imagine if you had kids?” Adam was now crouching behind Darren. “With that woman you dated when you were delusional? Monica? Oh, your face would get like that.”
“Dad,” I said. “There’s no ending anyone. He’s very nice to me, and overall he seems like a decent person.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course not. But as of this moment, I believe he’s all right.”
“A lawyer’s answer,” Soledad said.
“Quit it.” I put my arms behind me on the ledge and pulled myself out. “I’m not some delicate flower. I’m serious, Dad. Thank you. But until I come through the door crying, just assume I’m fine.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” Talia added. “Let’s pick another celebrity for her to date.”
“Mija,” Soledad cooed, splashing water on her. Her fiancée kicked an arc back. A water fight ensued, and I slipped away from further questions.
After dinner, Talia drove me back to the theater. It was late, which meant that, even in July, it was chilly.
A Tesla was parked in the alley, blocking the loading bay door under the words NO PARKING.
“The rich can’t read,” Soledad grumbled.
“I’m too tired to call a tow on them,” I said.
“That’s what they’re betting on,” Talia said, pulling up nose to nose with the Tesla.
I kissed her and Soledad on the cheek.
“Later, sisters.”
As soon as I got out, the Tesla door opened like a seagull wing. Justin fit in the driver’s seat like a custom-made component.
“Hey, Kaylacakes.”
“What are you doing here?” I looked into the glare of my sister’s headlights and waved.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
The Audi pulled up next to us, and Talia rolled down her window. She looked at Justin suspiciously, then at me.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, this is—”
“I know who he is.”
Justin got out of his car and extended his hand to my sister.
“Hey, you must be Talia.” They shook. “I’m Justin, and I know this looks weird.”
“It does.”
“I’m just saying hi. We . . . Kayla and I . . . we’re friends, so.”
“So you just parked here and waited like a stalker?”
“Two minutes. Just now, I was texting her to see if she’s around, and here she is.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Seriously, he’s harmless.”
Talia had plenty to say between “two minutes” and “harmless” but kept her lips sealed.
“Bye, guys,” I said, waving my fingers. Soledad waved back, significantly less bothered than my sister.
“Be good,” Talia said before she rolled up the window and pulled away.
“Harmless?” Justin said when the taillights disappeared.
“If you were evil, you’d be a better liar.”
“I’m an excellent liar.”
“You’ve been here two minutes?”
“How long do you think I can stay still before someone recognizes me?”
“So you show up a day early, unannounced—”
“Is it not Saturday? Damn. My bad.”
“—wait ‘two minutes,’ then start texting me to see if I’m around?”
“This is an abandoned theater. I was trying to figure out if a person could even live here.”
“How did you even know where I live? I was going to text you in the morning. Saturday morning.”
“You wrote your address on Ned’s flower receipt.” He shrugged as if to beg the question of what a guy like him was supposed to do with information like that.
“Maybe you are evil.”
“So . . .” He let the rest of the sentence dangle, as if I should know how it ended.
He pointed upward without looking, and I followed. The second-story lights of the building across the way were out, but the stripes of the blinds were bent as if someone was holding them open.
“So,” I said. “There’s that.”
“Wanna go for a drive?”
The Tesla was more like a hovercraf
t than a car. The leather seat felt as if it were built for me, and the ride was so smooth it didn’t feel as if there were a road under us. The screen in the center dash mapped our location, and a husky female voice came from every corner of the car in surround sound.
In three hundred feet, turn right.
He obeyed with dangerous enthusiasm. Somehow, I wasn’t thrown against him. I stayed straight in my seat as if Elon Musk had suspended the law of inertia.
“You all right?” Justin asked after a shockingly hard left through a yellow light.
“Is there an emergency you need to get to?”
It didn’t feel like we were going fifty on a side street, but numbers don’t lie.
“This thing stops on a dime.” He swiped the screen at a stop sign. “You like music?”
“No. I’m an animal.”
He put on EDM that thumped and bumped.
“Where are we going?” I shouted.
“What?”
“Where . . .” I turned the music down. “Where are we going?”
“I wanna show you something cool.” He turned the volume up. “The drop here is murder. Check this out.”
The tempo rose, and the tension built up; then, as he moved his hand like a conductor at a rave, it dropped, and he spread his fingers like an explosion. I laughed. He was obnoxious but kind of funny. Not that he deserved big points for that. It was easy to be charmed by a man caught in the act of loving something.
In three hundred feet, turn left.
“She sounds like Catherine Keener,” I said in the split second between the direction and the music coming back up.
“It is. Good ear,” he said as he whipped the left with one hand on the bottom of the steering wheel.
With one turn, we’d moved from wide commercial boulevard to a darker, narrower street that went up into a hilly residential neighborhood. I turned the music down.
“Did you just say that your GPS is in Catherine Keener’s voice?”
“Yeah, I like it.”
“She sat in a studio and recorded lefts and rights for you?”
At the fork, stay to the right.
“Nah. You say a few specific things, and it does it.”
The streets got twisty and so narrow there was only room for one car. On the right, houses rose above. On the left, the city looked blue under the orange sunset.
