Next In Line: A Cake Series Novel

by J. Bengtsson

  Now I was irritated. Andrea knew as well as I did the quickest way to lose our daily stream of tourists was to cheat them out of the experiences they’d paid for, like snapping that perfect picture of the Hollywood sign or getting up-close-and-personal with celebrity homes.

  “I can see your bus now,” she typed back. “Just hurry.”

  Huh. A truce? Not like her. Why the sudden niceness? Was she sick? Possessed by Ed Sheeran? Whatever it was, I knew Andrea well enough to know she wasn’t giving me a pass out of the goodness of her heart. I wanted to press her for answers, but my sister played dirty, and although I was no shrinking violet, I knew better than to strike a match next to her fuse.

  After instructing everyone to return to their seats, Vern rolled the bus forward another block before sliding into our designated spot along the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Our hole-in-the-wall headquarters was located just above our substandard gift shop. In the ’70’s, Angel Line Gifts & More had been the place to go for cheap Hollywood souvenirs like gold Oscar trophies with ‘Best Dad’ printed on the base and matted photos of celebrities. But as the years passed, competition cropped up on every street corner, and our little shop fell into disrepair. Now we were just an afterthought as tourists skipped over us for the big, flashy shops with giant blinking signs and life-size cardboard replicas of their favorite stars.

  “Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed your tour of the stars’ homes. I can’t tell you how much Vernon and I appreciate you spending this morning with us. We at Angel Line Tours know that you have a choice when it comes to celebrity stalking, and we sincerely appreciate you choosing us to guide you down that slippery slope of harassment and misdemeanors. And listen up, Angels—this is very important. Please don’t forget to fill out the online survey. If you liked our services, I’m Jess and this handsome fella is Vern—yes, the same man who nearly took out the retaining wall in front of Britney Spears’ house with his daring three-point turn. If you didn’t like our services, well, the survey really isn’t all that important.

  “And here comes the part you’ve all been waiting for. If you feel inclined to donate to the Vern and Jess Didn’t-Go-To-College Fund, there’s a tip jar on your way out of the bus that will happily gobble up any and all contributions. Now, gather up all your things, watch your step, and remember, folks, you’re in California. If you go into a Starbucks at nine a.m. tomorrow morning and spot a guy in a baseball cap and sunglasses that looks like Ashton Kutcher—it probably is Ashton Kutcher.”

  Today’s crowd lingered, wanting to have conversations with me after climbing off the bus, and although the tour had officially ended, I gave them all the time they needed. I know I said it was all about the money, but that wasn’t entirely true. I liked being around these people. At the risk of sounding super creepy, I sometimes imagined what it would be like to belong to them, to have a normal, loving family to call my own. It had been too long.

  Once all the stragglers had departed, I climbed back on the bus and shut the door. “Whew… they were a chatty bunch today, weren’t they, Vern?”

  The world’s most unchatty person grumbled something incoherent before dragging his skinny rump out of his seat and reaching for the tip jar. I could almost hear the bones creaking in his skeletal frame. He was up there in age, but this sedentary job combined with a lifetime of hard living had left him with a multitude of health issues that had, inevitably, caught up to him.

  “Maybe you could try harder to be less accommodating,” he said, offering up a condescending tip.

  Most of the other guides feared Vern, groaning when they saw his name on the schedule beside theirs, but I wasn’t so sensitive to his rumblings. Vern was all growl and no bite. One of the lifers—what we called the drivers who’d been working for the company since the disco era—I’d known the old grump since I was a child, so he tended to have more ‘compassion’ with me when delivering his insults.

  “And maybe you could try harder not to hit road signs,” I countered. “But that’s not going to happen either, now, is it, Vern?”

  He showcased a rare grin.

  Emboldened, I pointed to the money Vern had just separated into two haphazard piles on the dashboard.

  “See all that?” I said. “You can thank my winning personality and shapely behind for that bottle of vodka you’ll be buying tonight—and you’re welcome.”

  Vern didn’t bother thanking me, instead handing me my portion of the loot before opening the lid to his cooler and rummaging through his stash until he found an acceptable food item. So eager was he to shove the sandwich into his mouth, I swear he got pieces of the plastic wrap in that enthusiastic bite.

  “What was that back there, anyway?” Vern asked through a mouthful of processed meat. “With that security guard on Goldfinch?”

  “Nothing worth mentioning.” I shrugged, not wanting to get into it with Vern and his sandwich. “Some jerk I knew in high school.”

  “Ah. High school,” he responded, conveniently looking away.

  I resisted the urge to smack him upside the head. How long were these people going to hold that against me? My god, it had been nine long years. Give it a break already.

  An awkward silence settled between us as Vern chewed on an oversized bite longer than seemed necessary.

  “Okay, well, good talk,” I said, arranging my money by denomination before counting my share.

  “One hundred and twenty-five dollars!” I exclaimed, resisting the urge to high-five myself. “Damn, I’m good.”

  “I’ve seen better,” Vern mumbled, but I knew he was just as pleased.

  “And you know what that means? I don’t have to drive neurotic strangers around in my car this afternoon,” I said.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. After last week’s baby abandonment fiasco, I’ve been especially weary.”

  “Do I even want to know?” Vern asked, which I took as code for Tell me, tell me, pretty please, tell me.

  “This lady I picked up actually left her baby in the car with me while she ran into the pharmacy. She was like, ‘I’m just gonna leave him a second. You don’t mind, do you?’ And then she was gone.”

  “Like I said. Too accommodating.”

  “How is this my fault?”

  “You have a nice face. You think anyone in their right mind would leave their kid with me?”

  No, I supposed even the most neglectful of mothers would think twice about Vern.

  “Anyway,” he said. “I wouldn’t give up your second job just yet because you never know what’s going to happen.”

  Something in the tone of his voice told me he wasn’t speaking rhetorically.

  “What does that mean?”

  Vernon’s eyes shifted away, purposefully avoiding my question.

  “Vern?”

  He refused to look up. “I don’t want no trouble, and technically you are related to management.”

  I winced. Technically he was right. Angel Line Tours had once been my birthright… and the promise with which I’d laid my head on the pillow each night as a young girl.

  “Someday, Jesse,” my father would whisper into the dimness of the night. “It’ll all be yours.”

  “Mine?” I’d replied, wide-eyed with wonder.

  “Yes. You and your sister, side by side.”

  And I’d believed him, every fantastical word. Hey, I was just a kid. How was I supposed to know his promises were nothing but wishful thinking? See, Angel Line Tours was never his to give. My father ran the operation, but he didn’t own it. That title went to Andrea, who had inherited the company from her grandfather on her maternal side. Our father had been a placeholder until Andrea was old enough to run the company herself.

  What no one had factored into the equation was Andrea’s lingering resentment toward our father for the affair that had produced me. Before the smoke had even cleared from the candles on her twenty-first birthday cake, Andrea had kicked him to the curb, leaving him—and me—penniless. We lost everyt
hing. The house, the car, the dog… my mother. But what was worse was that my unsuspecting father never saw it coming, nor did he ever manage to recover from Andrea’s heavy-handed betrayal.

  “Related in the very broadest of terms,” I said, fighting the emotion that came with remembering my beloved father’s destruction. “Now spill.”

  My driver scanned the empty bus for spies before lowering his voice and replying, “There’s been talk that Andrea’s fixin’ to sell.”

  I blinked. Then blinked again, trying to make sense of his words. That couldn’t be. Could it? Tension coiled in my muscles as I grabbed a pole for support. Was Andrea planning Operation Jesse’s Destruction 2.0? If she sold the business, I’d have… nothing. No security. No job. Just like before. And if I had nothing, how would I provide for him? No, Andrea wouldn’t do that to us again, would she? Maybe the better question to ask was, why wouldn’t she? My half sister had no loyalty to us. She’d only given me the job with the company after I’d arrived at her doorstep as a desperate teen and literally begged on my hands and knees for mercy.

  Perhaps reading my distress, Vern asked, “Is it true?”

  Forcing a smile of reassurance, I resorted to the little white lies that got me through my daily tours. “Everything’s fine, Vern. Eat your salami sandwich.”

  But as I turned to leave, I pulled up the drive-share app on my phone and signed in for my shift. It was going to be another long day.

  3

  Quinn: Enemies in High Places

  My march off stage was not well received. In fact, not one person appeared to be in favor of my hasty retreat. Some tried to grab hold of me as I passed, while others called my name, but the vast majority of onlookers just stood off to the side, their wide, disbelieving eyes glued to my exit. Maybe I was still too worked up from the performance to fully appreciate the shitstorm I’d just unleashed on myself, but at that moment I was feeling pretty damn good. Free, actually. Free from expectation. Free from judgment. Free from the forces that sought to control me.

  Although exactly how I was going to be free and still be relevant in the music business, I had no idea. This might very well be the end of the road for me—professional suicide. So why then wasn’t I more freaked out? Why wasn’t I panicking? Maybe this was what I’d wanted all along—a clean break. No more music. No more comparisons to Jake. No more struggling to be relevant in a world that didn’t want me in it.

  I glanced over at Morris, one of the fellow contestants I’d been friendly with during the competition, hoping he might be able to shine some light on my unraveling epiphany, but he couldn’t even meet my eye. Really? What kind of a friend was he? Then it occurred to me; he wasn’t my friend. He was my competition. When it came to push and shove, these situational acquaintances would have no problem pushing and shoving me right off the fucking stage.

  Not that I really cared what Morris thought of me, or anyone else I’d been up on that stage with. There was only one person I was in competition with… and it wasn’t myself. No, I’d spent my life competing against the one person I had no chance of ever catching. Jake. And the older I got, the more I realized I couldn’t compete with a superstar. I didn’t have the talent, the bravery, or the tragic backstory. More and more it was looking like my choice was to spend the rest of my life getting kicked around like an unwanted dog or to change courses completely and find something else to do… something that wouldn’t put me in direct competition with any one of my noteworthy brothers.

  Sounded awesome. Sign me up. Community college, here I come.

  I sighed. What was I even saying? Give up music? For better or worse, I loved it too much to ever walk away. Eventually I’d crawl back, tail between my legs… like I always did. See, the thing about being a McKallister was we never knew what was best for us. It was almost like we were genetically predisposed to screw up our lives—as if rash decisions were hardwired into our DNA. I suppose you could say it was a family curse, really. If only my brother Keith had said no to drugs or if my mother could have kept it together when we’d needed her most. Or hell, I might as well get to the root of the issue: if only Jake and Kyle had gone to the skate park like they were supposed to that day, their lives—all of our lives—would’ve been so different. But they hadn’t. We hadn’t. And now here I was, adding to the family’s compost pile.

  Speaking of family… what the hell was I going to say to mine? I couldn’t exactly admit that I’d opened the portal to hell up there on stage. Evading capture seemed the best way to stay one step ahead of the genetic firestorm coming my way. Although to be fair, bolting off the stage in front of a live audience really wasn’t that far out of character for me. I had a reputation in my family for being unpredictable—the squirrel in the road. You never knew in which direction it would run until it was either under your tires or safely across the street. It was too early to tell whether I’d be roadkill or burying my nuts by morning.

  What I needed now was guidance, and there were three members of my family that might see my point of view. First was my baby sister Grace. She’d always been able to talk me through a crisis. But Gracie was currently overseas on a semester abroad, and until I figured out how to tell time in other countries, she was not a viable option.

  My brother’s wife Sam was like a sister to me too, but involving her in my drama in her current state wasn’t a good idea, seeing she was so pregnant at this point that any undue stress might set her off like a shaken can of carbonated soda.

  And then there was Emma. She was available, yes, but my older sister had a tendency to be a tad opinionated. And by ‘tad,’ I didn’t mean like a pinch of salt in the cookie dough. No, more like an entire tablespoon of judgment. Emma was always good to have around in someone else’s crisis, but in my own? Uh… no thank you. I’d rather get my life advice from my brother Kyle, the guy who routinely referred to broccoli as tiny trees.

  Sprinting past all the stage-side naysayers, I booked it down the long narrow hallway until I arrived at the dressing room door. Sidestepping one of the PR ladies, we did an awkward dance before I grabbed her shoulders and physically moved her aside.

  “Sorry,” I apologized as I slipped past her and then through the door. There was no time for further niceties because, by my estimate, I only had about two minutes to vacate the premises before the powers that be pounced all over me. I aggressively shoved Lucia, my most prized possession, into her guitar case before grabbing my belongings out of my locker and hastily ramming them into my backpack. Hold up. How the hell was I going to blend in with the tourists on Hollywood Boulevard in shiny performance pants and a frilly pirate shirt? Dammit. I was going to have to change.

  Snagging my jeans out of the bag, I’d just begun the laborious process of peeling the skintight vinyl down past my waist, much like I might extract a fruit rollup from its plastic wrap, when the door blasted open on its hinges.

  “Don’t you dare take those pants off, McKallister!”

  I froze as a group of well-dressed, middle-aged men filed into the room, each one more red-faced and fuming than the next. And as if they’d choreographed the entire intimidating performance just for my benefit, the men stepped aside to make way for the head producer of the show and Satan himself—Andrew Hollis.

  Hollis beelined it straight for me, waggling his pointer finger in the general direction of my shaft. “I swear to god, Quinn, if I see dick, I will destroy you.”

  Phillip, the mild-mannered lawyer without the clout or backbone to stand up to anyone, jumped into the fray. “Oh, um, Mr. Hollis, that’s dangerously close to sexual harass—”

  “Zip it!” Hollis shut him down with the rise of a steely fist before lowering his voice to a menacing growl. “Here’s what’s going to happen, shithead. You’re going to pull those pants back up and get your ass out on that stage. And once you’re there, you’re going to extend your sincerest apology to the audience and the judges for having the mental capacity of a dishrag. Now, let’s go!”

  Before
I could get a word in, Marvin, the stage producer, chimed in with his own useless chatter. “Quinn will need to give some excuse, Mr. Hollis.”

  Hollis flung his arms in the air in a show of frustration, and I watched in fascination as the broken, dilated capillaries beneath the surface of his skin turned his nose bright red.

  “Assclown here can tell the crowd he had an urgent call with the Pope for all I care,” Hollis blasted before turning his vitriol back on me. “But hear me now, McKallister, you will fix this! And then, once everything is under control, I’m going to take you around back and beat some sense back into you.”

  “Oh, now that really is inappropriate, sir,” the lawyer tried to arbitrate once more. Not that anyone but me was listening. I had the distinct feeling that Phillip was the type of person who got picked last for every activity. But today, somehow, this slightly built man had become the captain of my team. “We really can’t be threatening the contestants with bodily harm.”

  “Says who?” Hollis scoffed.

  “The Penal Code, sir.”

  “If you have an issue with how I run my show, Phillip, you can go back to your five-figure salary chasing ambulances.”

  And that was the end of Phillip. He shrank back into the corner he’d briefly ventured out of, offering me a demur shrug of his narrow shoulders as an apology for his cowardliness. So much for my savior. But I didn’t need him to speak for me. I didn’t need anyone to speak for me. Never had.

  Shoving my dick back into the vinyl pants, I hastily buttoned them back up and took a step closer to the prince of darkness before delivering a daring reply. “No.”

  His eyes rounded. “No?”

  I stood taller, towering over Hollis and letting him feel the full weight of my conviction. “You heard me. I’m leaving, and you can clean up my mess. How’s that sound?”