“Sonofa—” Dana lifted off the table, her right foot kicking in the air, connecting squarely with the tub of wax in my hand. Which tipped over, spilling white, sticky stuff all over the floor.
And all over me.
I looked down. My pink blouse and pinstriped skirt were completely covered in wax, not to mention my hands, legs, and cleavage.
Dana pulled the lavender pillow off her eyes. “Oh, wow. Sorry.” She frowned. “Maybe next time I should just ask for Olga.”
Ya think?
“I’ll go get her now,” I promised, feeling the wax set up as I slipped out the door.
I looked down at my watch. Twenty minutes until the Informer edition closed for the day. If I sped, there was a slim chance I could make it to the office before we went to print.
I ripped off the white coat (taking a few waxed arm hairs with it) and took my sticky self back out through the lobby.
“Allie?” Marco looked up, a wrinkle of confusion on his forehead. “What are you doing here again?”
Oops. I’d forgotten about him.
“Uh. Hi. I, uh, forgot something in the back…” I said, trailing off. I ducked my head down to cover my terribly delivered lie and made for the front doors.
Unfortunately, with my head ducked in shame, I failed to see the edge off Marco’s desk, bumping into it. Which jostled the sign he’d been making. And the bottle of glitter. Dumping the entire thing down the front of me.
Glitter stuck to the semi-hardened wax, turning me into a kindergartener’s project.
“Oh, honey,” Marco said, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “Look at you sparkle, girl!”
I closed my eyes, thought a really bad word then plowed my sparkly self out through the doors.
I looked down at my watch—4:42. I had 18 minutes left. I ran to my Bug, revved the engine and pulled into traffic down Wilshire while I simultaneously flipped my laptop open on the passenger seat beside me and powered it on. At the next red light, I opened my speech-to-type program. “A shadowy figure was seen outside Chester Barker’s estate the night of his death, and we have an exclusive on his identity,” I said out loud, watching the words appear as type on my screen.
The light changed, and I surged forward, continuing to dictate what I’d learned at Fernando’s as I crossed town.
Exactly sixteen minutes later, I screeched into the lot of the Informer, grabbed my laptop and flew out of my car, not even bothering to beep it locked behind me.
I shoved through the building’s front doors, stabbing the up button on the elevator. I waited a two count. Too long! I took the stairs two at a time in my heels, hit the second floor and ran into the newsroom, weaving through the cubes toward Felix’s office. 4:59. Thirty seconds left. I didn’t bother knocking, shoving my shoulder into Felix’s door and pushing my way in.
Felix was behind his desk, Tina hovering just to his right, a piece of paper in hand. No doubt, her take on Barker’s shadowy figure. I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping for once my informers trumped hers.
“Stop the presses!” I yelled. Cliché, I know. But I’d always wanted to say that. I dropped my computer down on Felix’s desk with a thud.
He looked down at my laptop. Then up at me as I panted like an Olympic sprinter (The Stairmaster at the gym was one thing, but have you ever tried to run up metal fire stairs in three-inch heels and a miniskirt? I think I deserved at least the silver for that.).
Felix raised an eyebrow at the wax and glitter covering my entire person (and, incidentally, now all of my car upholstery), but had the good sense not to mention it. Instead, he gestured to my laptop and asked, “What’s this?”
“The Chester Barker story you’re running in tomorrow’s edition.”
He raised the other eyebrow but reserved comment, looking down at the copy typed on the screen.
Tina, on the other hand, never reserved her comments. “What the hell! Barker is my story, New Girl.”
I hated it when she called me New Girl. I’d been here almost a year. And just because I was new didn’t mean I wasn’t good. New was fresh. New was hungry. And, I thought, not able to hide my smirk, new had just beaten her to the headline.
“Then I’m sure you know who the figure outside Chester’s house is,” I countered.
She opened her mouth to respond, did a couple guppy faces, and shut it. Clearly she did not.
“I take it you do?” Felix asked me, his eyes quickly scanning the copy.
I nodded triumphantly. “I do, indeed. Alec Davies.”
Felix glanced up at me. “The producer?”
“Correct. And he was Chester Barker’s partner.”
“How did you get this information?” Tina asked, dancing around Felix, trying to read my copy over his shoulder.
I shrugged. “I have my sources.”
“What kind of sources?” Felix pressed. “This is a pretty big accusation to make blind.”
“The hat,” I said. “The one with the snake on it that the figure was wearing in the photo? They gave them out to the cast and crew of Lady Justice. Davies worked on that show. He owns the hat.”
“So must dozens of other people,” Tina jumped in. “If they gave them to everyone on the set, it’s hardly a one-of-a-kind.”
“True,” I conceded. “But, it’s quite a coincidence. What are the chances anyone else on the set had that close of a connection to Barker?”
Felix paused a moment, taking in both of our arguments. Finally he said, “Well done, Allie.”
I felt my chest swell with pride. “So you’ll print it?”
Felix nodded slowly. “Let me read it over first, but if it’s solid, yes, it’ll lead tomorrow’s edition.”
Tina threw her hands up on the air. “Oh, come on! You gave me this story.”
“Did you know about Davies?” Felix asked, turning on her.
“Well, no, not exactly. But I have some very good feelers out there right now.”
“Great. Let me know when those pan out. In the meantime, Allie, I want you to follow up with Davies tomorrow at the studio. Find out what he was doing there and what he knows about Barker’s death.”
“Yes, sir!” I did a mock salute, glitter raining down onto his brown carpet.
Tina rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe this shit. You’re giving my headline to the glitter queen.”
“Tina,” Felix warned.
But she plowed ahead. “Though, why should I be surprised? It’s no secret she’s editor’s pet.”
“Tina…”
“I mean, we all know the only reason you even hired her was because she waltzed in here with her shirt unbuttoned to her navel and her skirt hiked to her doo-dah.”
“Bender!” Felix shouted. “That’s enough.”
Tina shut her mouth with a click.
“If and when your leads get back to you, type it up,” Felix barked. “Until then, Allie is lead on Barker. Do I make myself clear?”
Tina shot me a look that could freeze Mt. Saint Helens. “Crystal,” she spit out.
“Good. Dismissed, Bender.”
Tina turned and stalked out of the office, clomping her boots all the way back to her cube. I watched her go, feeling my satisfaction at besting her slowly slip down a notch. Felix never raised his voice. In fact, I’d only heard him do it once in all the time I’d known him. He was forceful, yes. Commanding, yes. But in true Brit fashion, he always kept a tight reign on his emotions.
So the fact that Tina had rattled him meant she must have hit a nerve.
I paused in the doorway. I knew I should just take my story and go. But instead of turning to go, that hit nerve had me turning back to my boss.
“Um, Felix?”
“What?” he asked. His eyes were still dark, flashes of navy shooting through them as his chest rose and fell faster than normal.
I bit my lip. “I have to ask…you gave me the story because I’m a good journalist, right?”
He gave me a blank look.
; “What I mean is…what Tina said has no merit, right? When you hired me, it was totally because you knew what a great writer I was and that I would deliver copy and sell papers for you. And not…” I trailed off, feeling my cheeks burn, wishing I’d just left it alone.
Felix’s eyes met mine, his sandy eyebrows still hovering menacingly over his blue eyes. “And not what, Allie? Spit it out.”
I took a deep breath. And spit. “And not because we slept together?”
Chapter Three
My history with Felix was complicated, at best. Completely fucked up, at worst.
I’d first met Felix two years ago when he was the Informer’s top reporter and I was still studying journalism at UCLA. He’d been covering a story at the time, and I’d been fascinated at his information-gathering tactics, none of which they taught in my classes. Hacking databases, picking locks, breaking and entering. I was intrigued. Throw in the fact that Felix was not entirely hard on the eyes, and I’m woman enough to admit I’d had a teeny tiny schoolgirl crush on him.
Unfortunately, he’d also had a crush of his own at the time, and not on me. There was this fashion designer who was also involved in the story he was working on. And she was everything I was not—sophisticated, worldly and stylish enough to have walked out from a magazine cover. It wasn’t hard to see how a college kid suddenly became invisible in her shadow.
Still, when Felix had let me tag along on his story, I’d jumped at the chance. In fact, I’d jumped so much that I ended up getting myself kidnapped by a killer, bound, gagged, and shoved in the back of a bakery van. I’d spent a day and a half surrounded by stale muffins and pure fear before Felix had tracked the killer down and come to my rescue.
That was when things had really become complicated between us. The fashion designer Felix was into? Well, as soon as the story wrapped up, she ran off to Vegas and married another guy. Felix was crushed and, lucky me, I was the closest blonde at hand when he went on the rebound.
The blonde he’d just swooped in and rescued action-hero style, causing my little crush to swell to ridiculous proportions. Ridiculous enough that I’d gone home with him, let one thing lead right into another, and I’d ended the evening between Felix’s 500-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Naked. On top of Felix.
Of course, in the morning we’d both realized with startling clarity what a mistake it had been. Felix was clearly still in love with the fashion designer, and I had acted like the pathetic equivalent of a journalism groupie.
So, we’d parted ways.
Or, more accurately, I’d dressed in the dark, claimed an early class and slunk out with my tail (and inside-out panties) between my legs.
It wasn’t until a year later, after I’d graduated and was desperate for a job, that I’d contacted Felix again. He’d been promoted to managing editor by then and was the only person I knew working at an actual paper, even if it was a tabloid. I’d pleaded my case, telling him he was the only thing standing between me and certain starvation. Despite my lack of experience, he’d finally relented. Probably out of guilt. Possibly out of lust. For sure out of pity.
No matter the reason, I’d gratefully taken the job, and we’d maintained a professional editor/reporter relationship ever since, never once speaking of The Night.
Until now.
And, I could tell by the look on his face, he wished as much as I did that we’d maintained that silence.
“What?” he asked blinking at me.
“You heard me,” I said, sticking to my guns even as a thick film of awkwardness settled over the room. “Did you hire me because I can write, or because we slept together?”
He didn’t answer me right away. Instead his eyes narrowed, assessing me. So intently that I began to fidget, picking at the waxy glitter under my fingernails. Then finally he moved from the barrier behind the desk, crossed the room until he was standing in front of me. Close in front of me. So close I could smell warm coffee on his breath.
I licked my lips, fighting off the instinct to take one giant step back. The awkwardness in the air had shifted to something else. Just as thick. Just as potent. Ten times more uncomfortable.
Felix leaned in, coming almost nose to nose with me. His voice was low, intimate, barely audible above the humming newsroom just outside his door. “You might be good in bed, Allie, but if all you were was a great lay, I’d have fired you months ago.”
I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but his frank language took me by surprise. I swallowed, opened my mouth to respond.
But he cut me off, stepping away and diffusing the moment as quickly as he’d charged it. “Go home. Quick. And tomorrow I want an interview with Davies on my desk by five. Sharp.”
I cleared my throat and nodded. “Right. Five.”
“And this lead better pan out,” he warned me, “or the story is Tina’s, no matter how low your necklines go.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but it died on my tongue as I saw the corner of his lips quirk up. He was mocking me. Jerk.
“You’ll have your story by four,” I countered. Then pushed out of his office.
* * *
As much as I was itching to get to Davies, I knew Felix was right. The best time to catch him would be at the studios tomorrow. And it would probably be a good idea to conduct the interview sans glitter. So instead of diving into my headline story, I hopped in my Bug and headed toward home for a much-needed shower.
I lived in a one bedroom on the bottom level of a fourplex on the outskirts of Glendale, tucked up against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It was as rural as you could get in L.A. Which didn’t really mean rural rural, but trees lined the streets, the hills provided a backdrop of green when you could see them through the smog haze, and at night I only heard the distant hum of a single freeway instead of four. All in all, it was the most peaceful escape I could find on a tabloid reporter’s budget.
I parked in my reserved spot beneath our building and took the stairs up to my place on the ground floor. While the outside of the building was standard Southern California grey stucco, I did my best to make the interior my own. The brown renter’s carpet on the floor was covered in colorful throw rugs in shades of purple and pink. The free couch I’d gotten off Craigslist was covered in a white slipcover, accented by hot pink pillows I’d sewn myself, featuring little gold tassels at the corners. A vase of gerbera daisies sat on my pink coffee table, and I’d hand painted the plain wooden kitchen table and chairs with pink flowers and yellow smiley faces. My last boyfriend had said walking into my place was like walking into Barbie’s dream apartment. I’ll admit, it was a lot of pink. But pink made me happy. And if you can’t be happy in your own home, what have you got?
I set my keys down on the pink end table by the door and grabbed the stack of mail that had been shoved through my door slot while I’d been at work. A Macy’s bill, a Banana Republic bill, a Limited bill, and a coupon for half off graphic T’s at Old Navy. I ripped the coupon out, put it in my purse then shoved the bills into the heart-shaped cookie jar on my counter. Seeing bills did not make me happy.
I took a quick shower, removing most of the glitter (though a couple patches of stubborn wax still clung to my ankles) then dug into the refrigerator for dinner. Half of a pizza and a salad with low-fat dressing stared back at me. I did a mental eeenie meenie minie moe, but it was pretty clear which one was going to win out. I opened the pizza box and indulged in a Hawaiian with extra pineapple. While it always made me feel better about myself to buy salad, it usually just sat in my fridge until it wilted, died, and I went out to buy more. I mentally calculated how much time I had to do on the stepper at the gym to make up for the Hawaiian calories and decided it was well worth it.
I took my pizza into the living room and plopped on the sofa. Immediately my lap was filled with a white, fluffy ball of purring fur.
“Well, hello, Mr. Fluffykins,” I said. Yes, out loud. Call me crazy, but I talk to my cat. I fed him a piece of Canadian bacon a
s he pawed at my thighs, creating himself a nice little nest. I flipped on the TV and went to my DVR, scrolling through my recorded shows.
“Are we in the mood for Wolf Blitzer or Katie Couric?” I asked my cat.
Mr. Fluffykins cocked his head to the side and mewed.
“Couric it is.” I selected the program and settled in to get my fill of what was going on in the news world that didn’t revolve around a teenebrity’s hair color.
* * *
I was jolted awake by a splash of water hitting my face and the sound of something slamming into the side of the building. My eyes shot open and I bolted upright in bed, adrenalin immediately pumping through my system. It was pitch-black. I blinked through the darkness, trying to get my bearings. Finally shapes came into focus…my Hello Kitty alarm clock, the flower-shaped mirror on my wall, Mr. Fluffykins dozing at my feet.
I was just about to write off my jolt as a bad dream when the sound erupted again. Water, hitting the side of my building with the velocity of a firehose. Instinctively I turned to the window… and felt water raining down on me.
Hollywood Confessions Page 3
