by P. Dangelico
As I’m leaving, to begin the torturous journey back home, someone I recognize from class rushes in. “Group has moved off campus. Room is flooded. There’s a sign-up sheet if you forgot to leave your cell number.”
His shoulders slump. “Shit,” he grumbles under his breath.
I know what you mean, bud. I know what you mean.
Chapter 6
Alice
Being a transfer student, I’ve been exiled to the dorm of cast-offs. I share a suite with six other girls. Each of us with a single room since we’re all upperclassmen.
Out of the six, four of us have struck up a fledgling friendship, bonding over our mutually obsessive love of reality television, Netflix, and sarcasm.
Here’s the rundown: Zoe Mayfield, tall, blonde, extrovert (to put it mildly), likes to curse a fair share, grew up in Beverly Hills and is presently slumming it in the dorm as punishment. Some business about being kicked out of her mother’s ritzy beach condo for throwing a party, during which somebody walked away with her mother’s favorite Andy Warhol painting. A real one. That’s the abridged, sanitized version. Zoe’s was a lot more descriptive.
Blake Allyn, medium height, bears a striking resemblance to Halle Berry with long braids. She’s another rich kid from Beverly Hills, reserved, the total opposite of her best friend. From what I’ve observed, they balance each other nicely. Operating in lockstep, Blake is the conscience of the two, and the only thing standing between Zoe and the possibility of a mug shot.
She was living with Zoe in the condo, and from what I’ve been able to suss out, she’s only here out of friendship. Which is seriously admirable considering the mattresses (relentlessly hard). She also wears a medical bracelet and I haven’t worked up the nerve to ask why yet.
And then there’s Dora Ramos. Shy, studious to the point of being obsessive. Small, curvy, redhead. Has a tendency to stutter. Dora, like me, is a scholarship kid.
Together we’re the merry bad of misfits.
On Friday, I hobble back to the dorm and go in search of Zoe, the only person I know who has a functioning car. Hearing the sink running, I knock on the bathroom door in our suite.
“Zoe, you in there? Can you give me a ride to the trailer park?” The unmistakable sound of a sniffle rides above the running water. “Zoe? You okay in there?”
The door bursts open and out steps miles of long tan legs set off by a tiny denim miniskirt. Her large, heavily lashed hazel eyes glisten with unshed tears and her slender nose looks rubbed raw.
Zoe’s supermodel features are so distracting that most don’t see the odometer reads a thousand hard miles in the depths of her eyes. There’s a weight to her stare that says Zoe’s seen and done things she’d rather not have. I don’t know…maybe it takes someone who’s faced their own dark matter to recognize it in another.
“Are you crying?” her red-rimmed eyes compel me to ask.
Dabbing at the corners, she gives me a look that says are you high? “Allergies.” Avoiding closer scrutiny, she looks down, adjusts her off-the-shoulder t-shirt. I don’t press her for more. I don’t know her well enough for that.
She pulls out a tube of lip gloss from the micro Chanel purse hanging across her slim torso, swipes some on, and exchanges it for a set of car keys.
“You wanna take my car?” A Mercedes fob is thrust in my face. Her car costs as much as my dad’s saltbox house in New Jersey. No, I do not want to be responsible for her car.
“Not a chance,” I say, expression horrified.
“What’s the big deal?”
“What’s the big deal? What if something happens to it? It would take me till I’m dead to pay you back.”
“It’s just stuff,” she tells me, her tone implying I’m the densest idiot on the planet. “Come on.” She motions for me to follow her out the door.
Minutes later we’re barreling down Pacific Coast Highway in her customized AMG black-on-black Mercedes G wagon.
“Slower!” I practically shout as I cling to the door handle with a death grip. “Do any of you California drivers have any respect for the basic rules of the road?”
Ignoring my harried expression, Zoe’s gaze darts to the ACE bandage on my ankle. “What happened to you anyway? You never explained.”
The last few days have been an exercise in sleep deprivation. Every time I move, my ankle reminds me it’s injured. And I’m one of those people that needs at least seven hours to function. The consequence of this lack of sleep is that I’ve been steadily growing grumpier by the day. It was so sore when I woke up this morning to leave early for class––having prepared myself for the extra hour it was going to take for me to get there on time––that when I passed Zoe going into the shower I basically growled at her.
“The short version is my car broke down at the bottom of the southside entrance and a water polo player almost ran me over as I was walking home.”
Her face goes unnaturally still. “A water polo player?”
“I don’t think it’s broken, but it’s still really swollen and sore. So now I’m crippled and without a car.”
“Which one?”
“Reagan Reynolds––”
She gets quiet for a beat, the tension in her shoulders softening. “Word of caution if you plan to sue, the water polo players are gods on this campus.”
“Sue?” I practically shout, my heartbeat suddenly racing as fast as Zoe’s G wagon down Pacific Coast Highway.
I hate conflict. I hate it. It would never even cross my mind to do such a thing. “I would never…I…I mean, regardless of who he is. I can’t…I couldn’t––”
“Relax, Alice. I only mentioned it because Reagan’s parents are well-known Beverly Hills doctors.” Although she shrugs casually, there’s nothing casual about this conversation. The weight is back in her stare. “Every one of us who’s grown up with money has been drilled since birth that anything we do could bring on a lawsuit.”
What an awful way to live. Never knowing what someone’s true intentions are. Never knowing if all you’re valued for is your money.
“Do you know him?” I have to know if he’s anticipating me coming after him for money. If that’s the reason he’s been charming me. Or, whatever––stalking me.
“My mother knows his parents. She’s sold them a lot of art.”
Zoe had mentioned that her mother was one of the biggest art dealers in the world.
“But I don’t know him personally, if that’s what you mean. Only of him. Everybody does. He was on two championship winning water polo teams. The first when he was only a freshman, and he scored the winning goal against UCLA.” Then gleefully adds, “And he’s hot as fuck, so pretty much every girl on the West Coast knows who he is.”
“I guess.” Staring out the passenger window, the side-by-side beach houses, most of which look like they were built in the seventies, blur into a streak of color.
“You guess?” She’s all big eyes and feigned outrage. “Have you seen that face? Have you seen that body?”
The reverence in Zoe’s voice makes me chuckle. I’ve never been much for school athletics. I don’t get the crazy obsession with it. And I definitely didn’t peg cynical Zoe as a Speedo chaser.
“Fangirl, much?” I tease.
A slow grin transforms her face. “We have baseball, basketball, soccer, and water polo teams at this school and only one of those has won seven national titles. Those guys get a lot of love.”
“Warm fuzzies, or bumping uglies?”
“Both.”
“What’s his deal anyway?” I can’t deny I’m a little intrigued––regretfully.
“Who, Reagan?” Zoe clarifies and I nod. “Sounds like someone’s nursing a cru-hush.”
This earns her an exaggerated eye roll. I’m not crushing on anyone. It’s a mild interest. A fleeting curiosity. I haven’t entertained a legit crush since the third grade. I had one long-term boyfriend in high school and we parted ways as friends because we were both smart enough to understa
nd that there was a life to be lived out there, somewhere, and hanging on to each other would’ve only held us back. Since then I’ve had one thing on my mind and one thing only. Get my film degree. Live my dream.
“Hey, don’t get me wrong. I one hundred percent agree. I fully support your mancrush.” She raises a manicured hand, stacks of skinny sparkly rings on her long fingers. “He can run me over anytime.”
“I don’t have the time for a crush. I have two years and just enough money saved up to graduate. It’s that he’s been super eager about giving me rides to class since the accident and I want to make sure I don’t need to invest in pepper spray and a set of brass knuckles.”
She snorts. “He’s a good guy. I’ve seen him with a couple of different girls in the last two years, but not the worst by far in that crew.” A sneaky smile appears. “And FYI, I have a Taser gun in the glove compartment in case you ever need it.”
Zoe pulls the G wagon into the trailer park. Yes, there’s a trailer park in Malibu. Granted, it’s rather ritzy for a trailer park. The trailers look more like cute little bungalows. Some famous people even live there from time to time. Still a trailer park, though.
“We’re going to the next home game,” she tells me. “If you’re going to be here for the next two years, you should at least see one.”
In a momentary bout of madness I picture Reagan Reynolds in a Speedo. “I’ll think about it.”
I knock on the sliding glass door to my aunt’s royal blue trailer with white trim and get no response. The minute I let myself in her scarlet macaw squawks. That bird hates me. I’m no bird expert but I’m almost positive he’s hurling parrot profanity.
A voice coming from the back room breaks into the squawking. “Oh, don’t…no, don’t do that. Goodness’ sake…”
“Aunt Peg?”
“Alice? Is that you?”
“Hi.”
“Back here, sweetie, I’m watching the Outlander.”
In the den I find her seated in her favorite armchair. My aunt Peg is a big, beautiful woman and her home and clothing definitely reflect her style––a mash-up of seventies Hawaiian prints and eighties fluorescent colors. Somehow she makes it work.
Unlike me, she’s a real girly girl. She works from home as a virtual assistant and yet she’s got on a full face of meticulously applied makeup, her red chin-length bob is perfectly blown out, and she’s wearing what can only be described as a very fancy caftan in a jungle print.
Smiling brightly, she stands to her full five-eleven height and sashays over to me with open arms. Then her head whips around, something on the television screen catching her attention. “What a little brat that daughter is.”
I’m fairly certain she’s speaking to the television. Aunt Peg does that a lot. Her smile dies as her gaze falls to my crutches. Hugging me, my face buried between her breasts, my senses drowning in roses and vanilla, she rocks us side to side. “That bad, huh?”
“I can’t put any weight on it.”
She pulls out a kitchen chair and pats it. “Have a seat. We’ll have Wheels take a look.” She makes her way to the refrigerator. “Want something to drink?”
“Water is fine.”
“No soda?”
“No…I try to eat healthy.”
Grabbing a pitcher filled with water out of the refrigerator, she sets it on the table before opening the cabinets to retrieve a couple of glasses. No sooner has she set those down that she opens the window right behind her chair at the kitchen table. “Wheels!” she shouts. “Alice is here and she banged up her ankle. Come take a look.”
“Aunt Peg, I don’t think––”
She purses her bow-shaped lips and waves her polished red nails at me. “Don’t be shy. He worked for the Dallas Cowboys as the team doctor, knows a thing or two. He can tell you what’s wrong with it.” Joining me at the table, she regards me with an indecipherable look on her face. “How’s your father?”
The way my father tells it the nine-year age gap between my aunt and dad was a big enough difference that they grew up virtual strangers. Then, at seventeen, Aunt Peg ran off to California to join a hippie commune and that was the last they heard of her for a good long time. That was, until she was arrested for dealing pot and sent to the “big house”(my father’s words) for five years.
“Good,” I answer. “He and Mom may come out for Thanksgiving.”
“It’s nice that you think of Nancy as your mom.” Peg’s gaze grows distant. As if she’s dredging up all the regrets she’s tried to forget. “You know I’ve always felt terrible that I couldn’t help when Jennifer died.”
Aunt Peg was a guest of the California Department of Corrections when my mother died so my father had to fend for himself. Working full-time and raising a five-year-old was nearly impossible, as he tells the story. Two years later he met Nancy.
“I know,” I say to soothe her guilt.
Her gaze slides over my features. “You look so much like her…” Her smile is weak and sad. “Anyway…” Clearing her throat, she pokes her head out the window again. “Wheels!”
“I’m comin’, goddamnit. Got myself stuck in the mud!” drifts in through the open back door. Wheels enters, gives me a curt nod. “Alice.”
“Hi, Wheels. You don’t have to––”
“Nonsense.” He pushes the wheelchair to the kitchen sink––now that I take notice I see it’s lower than a regular kitchen sink––and washes his hands. A moment later he’s by my chair and pats his lap. “Let’s see whatcha got.”
I place my injured leg on his jeans-covered lap and watch as he removes the ACE bandage and prods the swollen ankle. In the process I get a bunch of “Hmms” and a few nods.
“Well?” Aunt Peg prompts.
“Not broken. Looks to be severely sprained, however. Grade two…” His gray eyebrows hike up. “Could be six weeks recovery––four, at the very least.”
I’m stunned. And lightheaded. “You’re sure?”
“Yep,” Wheels confirms before he wraps my ankle back up.
I want to cry. What am I going to do about my job? I’ve called out sick for the last three shifts. I can’t stall much longer. “What do I do in the meantime?”
“Stay off of it. Soak it three times a day in Epsom salts. Take arnica––that’ll help. But mostly it’s a matter of time.”
Chapter 7
Alice
“Mr. Howard, it’s only a sprained ankle.”
The thump, thump, thump my crutches make as I follow Mr. Howard, the manager of the Slow Drip, the coffee shop where I work, is the drumroll reminding me that if I don’t get back to work soon I’ll probably go broke and be forced to drop out of my dream school.
“I’ll be off the crutches in a few days,” I add. Granted it’s a lie, a bald-faced lie––diagnosis courtesy of one Artie “Wheels” Webster, former MD––but I’ll say anything to keep this job.
Howard stops short and his hipster haircut, a blond shellacked wave of hair, sways. He takes a good hard look at my injured leg then slips behind the counter and starts cleaning out the multiple coffee machines lined up against the wall.
“I need someone that can actually do physical labor,” he tells me in a flat tone, not bothering to give me his undivided attention as he dumps used coffee grounds into the trash.
A marked heavy pause happens. Instigated by me. Because what’s there to argue? He’s right. How am I supposed to maneuver on crutches behind the bar with three other baristas? Impossible. Not to mention this place is always wall-to-wall packed with customers.
“Let me get your check.” Without waiting for a response, he walks away, toward the back office.
Standing behind the counter at the cash register, Josie, the girl I usually work with, gives me a sympathetic smile as she hands the surfer dude picking up his four megabeverages his change.
“How are you, Alice?”
My entire life is on the precipice of destruction. That’s the ugly truth about poverty. Even when you
have a job, you’re only a paycheck away from total annihilation. The anxiety never goes away.
I’m legit about to start hyperventilating when Peg’s words come back to me. “Take life with a grain of sugar, Alice.” It’s a marvel how she always manages to see the glass as half full, despite her personal experiences.
“Wonderful. You?”
“I’m working a double.” Looking put out, she shrugs. Josie’s the type to stand around picking away at her lilac gel nail polish rather than do a minute’s worth of work. I don’t mind Josie. She’s not a bad person. I just won’t miss working with her.
Gaze aimed at someone beyond my shoulder, her eyes stop blinking. She sweeps away a stray corkscrew curl and performs a quick inspection of her nails. That and the fire-engine red flush makes me think it’s a boy she likes.
“Rea, get me an extra large with a triple shot,” an unfamiliar male voice yells over the others. I may not know the voice but I do recognize the name.
With as much nonchalance as I can marshal, which isn’t very much at all, I glance over my shoulder and find Reagan Reynolds parting the crowd in the coffee shop. And he’s headed straight this way.
Necks start snapping in his direction. “Reaaa, great match last weekend,” unfamiliar voices call out.
“Thanks, dude,” I hear a couple of times. He drags most of the attention in the place with him.
I turn my back, curl my shoulders inward, pray he doesn’t see me.
Howard returns, holding up an envelope. “Look me up after the ankle’s healed,” he offers. “If I haven’t filled the position, I’ll take you back.”
Hard to believe when there’s zero sympathy anywhere to be found in his expression. Besides, with campus only a mile away it’s unlikely this job will be here in the next thirty minutes let alone in six weeks. Plenty of able bodies around to fill my shoes.
“I had to dock your last check for the three days you called out sick.” He hands it over.