by Reiss, CD
“I wasn’t going to, smart-mouth. And get your feet off the table. Your father raised you like a wild animal.”
She never said stuff like that. She wasn’t strict about manners, and she didn’t get on my case. I knew she dug Ned, but he was going to be fine. He’d be his usual self in no time, doing all the things I didn’t want to know about.
“It’s all right,” I said. “He’s gonna be fine.”
She shot me a death look. I took my feet off the table.
“I know that.” She honked into her tissue. I slid down in my seat and tried to rest while keeping my feet off the furniture.
“Your grandfather died of a heart attack,” she said. “After dragging us all over the world, he up and has a coronary right back home on Tremaine. Your father was in seventh grade and behind in math, again, of course, because we’d just spent two months in Cambodia on a garbage hunt. So he was with a tutor, not home to help move that stupid, stupid chest.”
“I thought he had a heart attack reading the paper?”
“He was forty-five. Did you know that? Stupid thing wasn’t that heavy either. It had a carved top with these birds that had stones for eyes. Camphor lined with brass fittings. He had a dozen of them in the store, but this one? Had to move it into the house with no one to help, because it was ‘too good to sell.’ We had a house full of crap that was too good to make money on.”
I moved to her side, grabbing her a tissue as I sat.
“I wanted to stay home. Let him hire a buyer to run all over. But no. It was him, him, him. And I went along with it until it killed him. He died the next day . . . yes, smart-mouth, reading the paper . . . with that damn chest under the window. But it was the life before that did it. The life I allowed. Well, I’m not allowing it again. We’re taking it easy from now on. Ned and I are going vanilla.” She dabbed her nose.
I rubbed my eyes as if that could erase the visuals. On one hand, I wanted her to live forever. On the other, if she and Ned were swinging from the chandeliers on a regular basis, she’d probably outlive me. The words Stay kinky, Grandma were absolutely, positively not coming out of my mouth.
“Frankly,” she said, considering her balled-up tissue, “you might want to give your dick a vacation too.”
“I’ll give you a million dollars to stop talking like this.”
“You can shove your money. I was talking about your life. You’re here. You’re there. Up. Down. Have you thought . . . maybe . . . that this problem with your career is a gift you should accept?”
“No.”
A knock at the door preceded a woman in a white coat poking her head in.
“Louise Beckett?”
We stood.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m Dr. Jackson,” she said. “If you want to see him, you can.”
Louise straightened herself, sniffed one last time, and followed the doctor. Left alone with the fruit trays and the view of Olympic, I sat on the couch and propped my feet on the table to text Kayla.
—You up?—
—No—
—Just letting you know Ned’s fine. Louise
is too. TMI but fine—
—Thank you—
—Hey. You’ve inspired me to take the van to work.
The alley’s fine but it’s all night shoots this week
and the buses don’t run late—
Honestly, I’d wanted to drive her, because I wanted to see her, but whatever. I wasn’t going to push it. She wanted to go herself. As long as she was safe about it and I’d see her again, I had no objections. I didn’t think for a minute she wouldn’t want to see me again. That kind of thing just didn’t happen.
—They say I’m pretty inspiring—
—You’re five-eighths less dirtbaggy than
I thought you were—
—You’re half the nasty bitch I thought you
were. But that’s my favorite half—
—Good night, dirtbag—
—Have nasty dreams—
The green dot by her name went gray as she signed off. No long goodbyes for this one. No social media, and she didn’t turn texting into an endurance sport. She was going to take some getting used to.
Bored, I stretched out on the couch and flipped on the TV. If I’d been home, I wouldn’t have seen it. I avoided the entertainment celebrity-news bottom-feeders because I didn’t need the aggravation. Ken had people to watch TV for me. But in the waiting room, the channel was preset, and I was knocked on the side of the head by three things at the same time.
One, Gordon coming out of St. John’s Cathedral in a tux and an actual haircut next to his bride, Heidi. He looked really happy, and that was what stopped me, because I hadn’t seen him with a smile in too long. I was behind them in my DITA sunglasses, doing the best man thing while cameras flashed like the worst lightning storm on record.
Two, the chyron said SUNSET BOY GORDON DAWS FILES FOR DIVORCE.
Three, the damn words the host used made me want to hurl the couch at the TV. Infidelity. Justin Beckett. “Soul Mated” was written for Heidi Collins. Assault. The Roosevelt Hotel. Drugs.
I hunted for the remote’s channel button as the news lady went on and on about how the band had broken up because of my “bad boy behavior,” which—to me—boiled down to an indictment of my complete disregard for anyone else’s feelings.
Of everything, that was what really put my balls in a vise.
Gordon was hurting. He had to be. He loved that girl like he’d never loved another thing in his life.
Finding the button, I looked up to change it to something more palatable, like a slaughterhouse exposé or the Dodgers going oh for four. Before I could, the video had changed to me on the Grammy red carpet, pre–Roosevelt Hotel. Sunglasses. Backward cap. Cigarette behind my ear even though I didn’t smoke. I’d left the bow tie undone and pushed the tux jacket sleeves up my arms as if I didn’t give a shit, but getting that to look right had taken forty-five minutes.
Then, with a professionally developed grin, I turned to the bank of cameras and flipped them the bird.
I clicked off the TV and tossed the remote on the table. It skidded off the polished wood and landed on the other side.
Chad had disappeared into the desert of the 15 freeway and fallen off the earth. Shane was just back from knocking around Scandinavia with a bunch of metalheads. Gordon was probably at the bottom of a bottle of tequila. I wasn’t supposed to talk to any of them. Shane had an order of protection. Even if I could find Chad, he was off-limits. Gordon hated me. They were all trouble. I had a career to start over. Things to do. I wasn’t getting caught up in this garbage again.
I called Gordon anyway. He wouldn’t know my new number, so he didn’t pick up. His VM was a slow walk of who I’d reached and what I had to do.
What I had to do was hang up before the . . .
BEEP
“Hey, Gord. Ah, fuck. Dude. I’m . . .”
Not sorry.
Not “I feel bad.”
“. . . I’m bummed for you.”
Even that was probably too easily twisted. It was time for me to shut up.
I cut the connection and stretched out to wait for my grandmother.
CHAPTER 11
KAYLA
Clearly, Justin wanted all the same things I did. I wanted him to drive me home in his spaceship every night. I wanted to make out in the front seat and invite him upstairs.
What I didn’t want was all the other stuff that went with the rides. I didn’t want to be associated with his reputation. I didn’t want his entourage or “Beckettes” around, looking at me. I’d already endured being well-known for the wrong things, and the thought of doing it again made my chest constrict.
Outside the Justin-specific reasons for my anxiety, I didn’t want to depend on a savior for what I should be able to do for myself. So the morning after he dropped me off to meet Louise, I went down to the loading bay and opened my van.
The back was empty except
for an empty water bottle in the corner and four bolts of Japanese selvedge denim that had been wrapped in plastic in the Josef Signorile sample room. The bundle was deceptively heavy. I knew that from getting it in the van in the first place, which didn’t keep me from trying anyway. I rolled it, angled it, and tried to ease it out the back without letting it drop on the dirty ground, where I’d have to roll it out of the way. The only way to do it was to lower it onto the dolly I placed against the back edge of the van. I should have unwrapped it so I could do the four bolts individually, but then they wouldn’t stack, and I was an idiot.
“Okay, big guy.” I grabbed each side and spread my legs on either side of the dolly. “One. Two . . .”
On three, I pulled. My right hand slipped off and flew away, hitting the edge of a detached part of the back door.
“Ow!”
Worse than “ow,” I was bleeding from a gash on the side of my hand right below the pinkie.
Maybe Signorile had cursed the fabric when he’d found out it was gone. Or when his wife told him she’d released it to me out of guilt. Maybe the fabric wasn’t cursed, and it was just me.
By the time I got to the apartment my forearm was covered in blood. I washed it off and found some gauze and tape from the 1970s in Grandpa’s stuff. The tape wasn’t sticky anymore, but I had some masking tape in my things.
I was about to go back down to attack the bolts again when my phone rang.
Dad. I picked it up.
“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Fine. I just lost a quart of blood.”
“What?”
“Joking. It’s nothing. What’s up?”
“So,” he said, as if—less like a father and more like a best gay friend—he was ready to spill a cup of juicy gossip. “I ran into Steve from Butter Birds last night. The guy I was telling you about.”
“By ran into him, do you mean you called him?”
No denials were forthcoming.
“I told him all about you. He wants you to come in and talk to their creative director.”
“Really?”
“Would I lie?”
“Okay, but do you know for what? Informational meeting? Job opening?”
I said the last word in pieces, as if overstepping the possible.
“Just go.”
My portfolio was six months old. I had no samples. No current sketches.
“Your personality speaks for itself,” he said with all the confidence of a father.
“Dad, come on.”
“I’m not wrong. I know we practically just met, but you’re special, and that’s the truth. Get yourself out there. Let everyone see it.”
He was right on that point. Whether I was special or generic, I still had to leave the house. And there was no reason I couldn’t schedule the meeting in enough time to whip up some ideas.
“Okay. It’s not Vasto or anything, right?”
“What’s that?”
Vasto was an Italian investment firm known for picking design winners, providing financing, mentoring them, picking them up, and kissing their boo-boos when they slipped.
“Dream investor, but inaccessible,” I said. “Doesn’t matter. Butter Birds does the same thing, and so thank you.”
“Listen, Kayla . . .” He paused as if he had to take a breath before finishing.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“I don’t . . .” He laughed at himself, as if remembering something. “I have this friend, Ari. I hope you meet him sometime.”
“What kind of friend?” I said with a touch of gossip in my voice.
“Friend-style, friend. But he always says you can convince yourself there’s a relationship that isn’t there, but you can’t convince the other person. Because I can get a little . . . let’s call it enthusiastic. And right now, I’m enthusiastic about you, and, really, we don’t know each other.”
It was surprisingly painful to hear that particular truth.
“That’s my fault. I didn’t—”
“No, no. That’s not why I started saying uncomfortable things. What I’m saying is . . . I’m going to do you favors because I can’t help myself. But I don’t want you to feel obligated to accept or . . . you don’t have to fill some role in my life. I mean I want you to, but it’ll be what it’s going to be, and you can’t . . . I don’t want you to feel pressured.”
He always seemed so at ease, it never occurred to me what this meant for him. He’d lost us, and though Talia was found, I’d been a love he’d never recover.
Then I was back.
If that happened to me, I’d be enthusiastic too.
“I’m glad you’re in my corner,” I said. “Enthusiastically in my corner.”
“And that’s where I’m staying.”
“Good.”
“Go get ’em, tiger.”
He was giving me exactly what I needed, but I hadn’t given him what he needed. I’d never wanted to fill that gap for him. Maybe that was a relationship, or the beginnings of one.
“Dad?” I said before he’d have the chance to hang up.
“Yes?”
“I missed you sometimes. Not ‘having a dad’ so much as I missed . . . I don’t know. You smelled nice and you danced with me at Aunt Judy’s wedding. Remember that?”
“I do. And you cried when I put you down to dance with Talia.”
I didn’t remember him ever putting me down.
“Just wanted to tell you . . . I didn’t forget.”
“If you don’t hang up right now, I’m going to cry.”
I laughed, because he needed that too.
We hung up after a few goodbyes.
I started sketching right away. I had two more days of shooting, then set breakdowns. I didn’t have time to get the denim out of my van. I’d have to get a cab home.
The costume trailer was half-unloaded into the truck that would haul everything back to a warehouse. We were getting ahead of the last day of shooting by getting rid of what we didn’t need anymore in the cracks of time we had available.
Francine was going through the night’s rack when I came back from the set, where I’d tightened the stitching on a button.
“Kayla,” she said, punctuating my name with the click of hangers. “Good. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
“What are your plans after we’re done here?” She flipped a tag, checking to make sure it was correct, and went to the next one.
Ambition was nothing to be ashamed of, but my plans seemed so tenuous and overreaching I felt silly.
“I’m setting up some meetings,” I said. “With backers. For my own line. So, making samples and stuff.”
And stuff. People like Francine never said “and stuff” to describe their job.
“Interesting.” She checked the last tag and, finding it acceptable, let it drop with a nod. “You don’t need a job, then?”
That was a complex question, because I needed money, but accepting a job in costume meant less time to pursue what I came to Los Angeles for in the first place.
In the pause I took to find my answer, she continued.
“I still don’t have a fitting person for Treasure Hunt. Not one I trust. You’re calm under pressure. You work fast, and the players look good.”
“Thank you.”
“Fittings only. I can get someone else to manage tags and racks. You take it and a forty percent increase.”
Working with the garments was always a good thing, and the money would be decent, but I’d been caught in this trap before. Taking the job now meant indefinitely delaying what I really wanted, because a related job would come after. And another. Then I’d be fifty with a 401(k) and nothing I wanted out of my life.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You think about it.” She slung her bag over her shoulder. “This is a huge opportunity. Huge. You’ll learn a lot and meet people.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Good.” She nodded. “I
’ll be in the studio. Check on Evelyn, would you? She gets lost in the truck sometimes.”
“Will do.”
The truck was actually a shipping container that would be hitched to a tractor once it was loaded. The door was ajar.
“Evelyn?” I said as I came in. The racks were packed tight, and the lights were on.
“Here,” she said from the back.
“Just checking—” I stopped short when I saw her. Her hair was down, and she was wearing Regency underwear—a plain white shift and petticoat. What made me stop was her change in demeanor. Her head was high, her shoulders were back, and her glasses didn’t slip down her nose. She looked sexy as hell when she was clothed in confidence.
“Francine gives us first shot at buying costumes she’s passing to resellers.”
“Buy that,” I said. “Buy it right now.”
“You like it?”
“It’s you. I mean you to the bazillionth degree.” I inspected the fit as she spun for me. “How did you get the stay on?”
“I have ways.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Oh my God, yes. I do cosplay events. Meetups. Reenactments.” She flicked through a rack. “There’s a Regency ball at the Roosevelt Hotel in a couple of weeks.”
Even the way she pushed the hangers around was more assured, as if she’d know what she was looking for when she saw it.
“You know what I loved?” I slipped behind that rack to the one behind it. “Susan had a summer dress with tiny stripes.”
“I loved that one, but she’s a size six.”
“Here it is.” I pulled the dress out and pushed it to her over the rack. “Look, I can take some out of the skirt and add panels to the sideseam. Boom. It’s a ten. Just like you.”
“You think?” She ran her hand over the fabric.
“Totally. And dropping an armhole on a sleeveless is nothing.”
“I can pay you. How much do you want?”
“I just want to see you in it.”
“You should get one and come! My friend had a last-minute job she has to go to, so we have an extra ticket!”
Taken aback by the invitation, I shook my head.
“I’m not a big cosplay person.”
“So?”
“I don’t know the dances.”
