by Reiss, CD
“So she said a few things?”
“I did hers. She did mine. It was fun.”
Stay to the right, then turn right.
“That’s uncanny,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s cool. This is my favorite kind of voice. Tons of undertone. You got the same thing when you talk.”
“Thank you.”
“But not when you’re calling me an asshole. Then you go flat.”
“And fuck you.”
He laughed, then stopped the car at a crossroads so he could tap the screen.
“Check it out.” A waveform opened up. “Just say what’s on the screen up here.”
“Are you serious?”
“When I tap this button, you start.”
He tapped and started driving again. I was curious and flattered enough to play along.
ANACONDA
“Anaconda.” The waveform rose and fell as I spoke.
HIGHLIGHTS
“Highlights.”
BROOMSTICK
“Broomstick.”
I said symphony, egregious, vase, tomato, and shouldn’t before a progress bar came on the screen and a smoother, more default voice asked us to wait.
“Are we going all the way up?” I asked. The houses up the hill had thinned, and smog covered the city below.
“Almost.”
He turned right without being told and stopped at a black metal gate. He put a code into a keypad to open it and drove through.
The lot was scrubby and pitted with a T-shaped hole in the middle. Rebar lined the edges of the pit like scaffolding on a building.
“Home sweet home, baby.” Justin parked the car and got out before I could ask who it was home for. He came around to open the door for me, but I beat him to it.
“Let me show you the view.”
I followed him to a narrow outcropping that overlooked the city. The sky was striped with colors, and a last crescent of sun hung at the ocean horizon. Lights flickered in the squares between the warps and wefts of brake lights on the streets.
“Wow. This is a view.”
“Best in the city.” His skin glowed in the sunset, and his eyes were darker and deeper in the warm light. He’d always have whatever he wanted. Even in solitude, he’d have the best of everything.
“Of course it is.” Just below us, in the brush, something rustled. “What’s that?”
“Just coyotes.”
“Just coyotes?” I stepped away. “Aren’t they dangerous?”
I was wearing a bikini top, flip-flops, cutoff jeans, and a T-shirt. There was nothing between me and the sharp teeth of a feral animal.
“Only if you’re a little yippy dog.”
“Ugh.”
“There’ll be coyote fencing all around.” He waved outward, indicating the massive perimeter of the space, then to a corner of the little overlook. “I’m putting rows of benches right here and a . . . like a planter over here, but low so you can sit on it. And when they pour the concrete, I’m putting a fireplace over here so it lines up with the Santa Monica Mountains.” He karate chopped the horizon.
I looked back at the property. The rebar was oxidized, and the porta potties had a layer of dirt on the roofs and in the crevices. There were no yellow digging trucks or new boot prints.
“Why’d you stop building?” I asked.
“You know.” He ran his fingers through his hair, dipping his head to do it as if he didn’t want his arm to go all the way up. “Dumb stuff. Band broke up. Everyone hates me. I don’t know if what I got is what I got or if more’s coming. I might not work after this.”
I didn’t mean for a short laugh to come out. He hadn’t said anything wrong or funny, but my filter went down with the sun.
“What’s funny?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was just a reaction to something else. Nothing to do with you.”
“Okay? So? You’re not gonna tell me? I mean, I’m showing you my house. I don’t just bring people up here.”
His hair flicked in the breeze, lifting away from his face in all its dissatisfaction.
“It’s just . . .” I exhaled. “The idea you’ll never work again because people know you and they know what you did.”
“They think they know.”
“I worked for Josef Signorile.”
“Were you there when some girl me-tooed him up the ass?”
“My point was . . .” I cut him off. “He survived it when someone accused him. Business is better than ever.”
“I don’t like that preppy shit anyway.”
I managed not to laugh out loud but had to scoff.
“I’m trying to tell you you’ll come out on top. I know your pain is real to you. But when you said you don’t know if you’re going to work again, I want you to just know that you’re going to be fine. People like you don’t face consequences the way the rest of us do.”
The last of the day had moved west, leaving a chill in the air. In the final gasp of orange light, I could plainly see the hurt in his face.
“I’m not saying you’re a bad person,” I said. “But you have a charmed life. All you have to do is understand that and make sure that what you do doesn’t create consequences for other people.” I crossed my arms and rubbed my biceps to warm me against the sudden cold I wasn’t dressed for.
“Sorry,” I said. “You didn’t bring me up here for a lecture.”
He took his jacket off, leaving him in a T-shirt that six months before would have been four inches too long and a size and a half too tight. He put it around my shoulders and tenderly smoothed the collar down. I was turned away, watching the horizon.
“You came out here because of Signorile,” he said, fingers drifting from the collar to my bare neck.
“I couldn’t take it anymore. The whole scene. Sure, his wife came out with an alibi, and he got off, but he stopped hiring women because we were too much trouble, and everyone said they didn’t blame him. It was so toxic.”
“So you came to Los Angeles, and you met me.”
“You were such an ass.”
When I turned to face him, he put his hands on each side of my jaw, as if cradling a bowl.
“I am an ass,” he said. “But I think you like me.”
“Sometimes you’re not repulsive.”
“Am I repulsive right now?” He spoke so softly he had to lean forward.
“No.” An inch of tingling air separated our lips.
“I want to kiss you.”
“Permission granted.”
He didn’t dive right in. I did. He pulled back a little, brushing the length of his lips along mine, taking it slow, touching my cheeks as a boundary for his mouth. My brain shut everything down except processing the way he felt, waiting for the flick of his tongue against mine. He calibrated the slow build of desire with impeccable precision.
We’re going to do it in the Tesla.
Yes. I put my hands on his hard chest, accepting that if we could manage to have sex in the car, there was going to be sex in the car. Like teenagers with nowhere else to be alone, we’d wrestle on the leather seats and regret it later.
A crunch and a breath that wasn’t Justin’s or mine made me leap a few feet, gulping air.
Two coyotes were standing between us and the car, eyes glowing, low growls coming between sharp rows of teeth. I clutched Justin’s arm, testing the hardness of the muscle by digging in my fingers.
“Hey!” he barked at the top of his lungs. “Out! Out! Out!”
They backed up. Justin stomped and shouted. “Get the fuck outta here!”
They ran into the darkness.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I squeaked.
“Can you . . . uh . . .” He tipped his chin to his arm.
“Oh. Sorry.” I let him go. “That was . . . Is that all you have to do? Yell at them?”
“Works once or twice before they wise up.”
“Oh.”
“You’re shaking.”<
br />
“I’m fine.”
“Come on.” He put his hand on my lower back. “I know what’s going to chill you out.”
He led me to the car. The doors opened like wings, and the lights flicked on. When I started for the passenger side, he stopped me.
“You have a license?” he asked.
“A driver’s license?”
“I hear you don’t bother with them in New York.”
“In Queens you do.”
“Good. You can drive.”
“Really?” I sounded like a kid finding out she was going to Disneyland. I was surprised at my own delight. Fancy cars weren’t my jam. I didn’t fantasize about anything besides getting where I was going.
But I’d never ridden in a Tesla before, and I never thought I’d drive one.
“Go on,” he said in the white flood of the headlights. “Get in.”
If it was a hovercraft from the passenger side, it was a spaceship from the driver’s. Justin leaned over me to show me the obvious turn signals and the less obvious button to make the seat fit my body. It shifted around me silently, tucking me in a cushion of ergonomic comfort.
“The gate opens automatically,” he said, tapping the screen. “Go up here, and you can pull a U-turn—”
I popped the gears into reverse, slung my arm over the back of the seat, and twisted around to see behind me.
“There’s a back camera,” he said.
“I gotta see with my eyes.”
The gate opened. Halfway into the dark street, a husky voice I recognized despite the fact that it wasn’t famous came from the speakers.
Exit and turn left.
“Whoa!” I cried at the sound of my own voice.
Justin cracked up and clapped his hands twice.
“You should see your face. Gold. Twenty-four-karat gold.”
“That’s creepy.” I sat straight and went to change it, but he slapped my hand away.
“Nuh-uh. It’s perfect.”
“I can’t listen to me bossing me.”
“You know the way back?”
“No.”
“Come on. You backed out, so left is that way.” He pointed down the hill. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I put the car in drive and went up the hill.
Recalculating route.
In four hundred feet, turn left.
“See, you know your way around like a native.”
“Really?” I turned right onto a curved, overgrown street.
“Whoa whoa . . .”
I snickered.
Recalculating route.
In one thousand feet, turn left.
“If you don’t know right from left, you can follow the map.” He tapped the screen with a knuckle.
I turned right.
“What’s the fun in that?”
Recalculating route.
In three hundred feet, turn left, then make an immediate left.
I turned right.
“Where are you going?”
Recalculating route.
Go straight for one-quarter mile.
“Left.” I turned left into absolutely nowhere. It was my turn to laugh hysterically as I cut a hairpin turn and slowed for a coyote crossing the dark road. I was as lost as I’d ever been and joyfully pushing deeper and deeper into the glorious unknown, where I could be anyone I wanted, and anything could happen.
Stay to the right onto Canyon Drive.
“You won’t even listen to yourself,” Justin said.
“Because I have no clue where I’m going, and I know it.”
“We’re going to end up at a . . . ah. See?” A reflective yellow triangle hovered with a black END in the center floated over a smaller red diamond. “Like I said.”
“I may not know where I’m going . . .” I slapped the car into park. “But I wound up exactly where I wanted.”
He regarded me as if for the first time, with a lopsided smile on those sensitive, careful, precise lips.
“All things considered,” he said, “you’re pretty evil.”
“I’d like permission to kiss you again,” I said with a shrug.
Bending forward, close enough to see the late-day growth on his cheeks in the reflection of the headlights, he put his hand on my left thigh.
“Permission granted.”
This kiss wasn’t slow and steady. We crashed like waves on the shore, groping and grasping, exploring and tasting, until he slipped his hand under my left knee and yanked upward, pulling me onto his lap with a leg on each side of him. I dug my hands under his sleeves to feel the smooth hardness of his arms. He slid down and jerked up his hips until I felt his erection between my legs. I groaned into his mouth. He reached under my shirt and probed under my bikini top.
So we were back to doing it in the Tesla, because I was an out-of-control wildfire, 100 percent contained.
Then. Naturally. My phone rang.
We ignored it, grinding our hips together.
Ring number two. He pulled the string holding my bikini top together. When he found my hard nipple, I buckled under the hot crack of pleasure.
“I want you,” he said, using his free hand to push my lower back down hard against him. “I want you so bad. But don’t be pissed.”
He slid my phone out of the compartment between the front seats.
“Jesus.” I leaned my forehead on his shoulder while he looked at my screen over my shoulder. “It’s not Chad.”
“Kayla.” He shrugged me off as the phone rang again. “Open it. It’s Louise.”
With a sigh, I put my thumb on the home button, and he swiped to answer.
“Hey. Weeze. Whaddup?” He looked out the side window as he listened. “Did you call an ambulance?”
I leaned back to give him room. Justin had great instincts. I would have let it ring.
“I’ll be right there,” he said, then hung up.
“Is she all right?” I asked, taking the phone back.
“She’s fine.” He slid from under me and got into the driver’s seat. “She gave Ned a heart attack.”
“Oh my God.”
“He’s not dead.” Hand on the gearshift, he gave me one last appreciative look. “Buckle in, baby. I’m driving now.”
CHAPTER 10
JUSTIN
Everything was under control before I even pulled off the 405. My handler was taking care of the hospital. They’d have Louise in a private waiting room and me in a parking spot near the executive elevator by the time I arrived.
Kayla heard the entire thing over the Bluetooth. I didn’t think it was that big a deal, but she made a shaky jazz hands motion and said, “Whoa, watch out. We got a big shot here.”
“What?”
“That was super uncomfortable.”
“You want me to walk in the front door? I wouldn’t get past the lobby.”
“I know. Never mind.” She tapped the center screen for music. “Oh, you have good stuff.”
“Duh,” I said. “You can pull up my Instagram on that. Make me follow you.”
“Why?”
“So I can keep track of you? I don’t know. Why do you follow your friends?”
“I don’t have Insta.” She put on Mazzy Star and sat back.
“Twitter?”
“Nope.”
“You do Myspace or something?”
“What’s Myspace?”
“You have no social media?”
“I used to, but now I don’t. I’m much happier. And besides, if you want to know what I’m doing, you can call me and ask.”
I pulled into the alley behind the theater and stopped under the painted NO PARKING sign.
“Thanks for showing me your foundation,” she said. “I’d kiss you, but I don’t want to keep you.”
Up ahead, two guys turned into the alley. Kayla reached for the door handle. My hand shot out and grabbed her forearm like it had a mind of its own.
“Keep me,” I said, pulling her close.
&nbs
p; “One minute,” she said, putting her finger to my lips. “Louise needs you.”
“Sure.”
As I kissed her, I peeked at the guys coming down the alley. I didn’t stop until they’d passed.
“You on set Monday?” I asked. “Late call for night scenes, I think.”
“Yes.”
“You taking the bus?”
She bounced out, slipping her keys out of her bag.
My favorite kind of girl knew what she wanted and didn’t play games about it. That was already 100 percent Kayla, but what made her even better was the complete lack of starstruck desperation. She’d avoid me, go about her day, and take the bus home to Creeper Alley.
Once she got the door unlocked, I pulled up and rolled down the window.
“Kayla,” I called.
“You better get going.”
“I’m driving you home from set next time.”
She put her knuckles on top of the door and leaned down.
“I stay after you prima donnas are all gone.”
“This alley’s shady. And you gotta walk under the 405 from the bus. I don’t like it.”
“I’m fine.”
She went in for a short peck on the lips. I grabbed her by the back of the neck and gave her more than she asked for, but not more than she was willing to give.
“You better go,” she said. “Say ‘hi’ to Louise for me.”
“Done.” I turned on my GPS, and her voice came on.
Enter destination.
“Hi, Louise,” I said.
Hi, Louise.
Kayla laughed. I pulled her in and kissed her one more time.
“Go,” I said.
Destination unavailable.
After a final wave, she closed the door. When the upstairs apartment lights went on, I split.
I found the waiting room near the top floor, behind a closed wooden door they’d given me a code to open. My grandmother’s feet were propped up on a sage couch with clean lines and spotless cushions. Behind it, windows looked out onto Olympic, and in front a mahogany coffee table was dressed in flowers and fruit trays.
She was more broken up than I thought she’d be. Eyes puffy. Hands wringing a damp tissue. Foot bouncing so hard her slipper was nearly off.
“We weren’t doing anything, really.” She kneaded her tissue. “We were just—”
“Don’t tell me what he does.” I dropped onto the sofa and kicked my feet up onto the table. “I’m good.”
