The cop, who’d only a moment ago advised Sara that petty theft was a low priority—discouraged her from thinking she’d ever see her belongings again—practically saluted Jared. The LAPD would get right on it! He would personally call with a status report in a few hours.
“I can’t tell you how much we’d appreciate that,” Jared responded politely.
What Patrolman Ortega did next could’ve knocked Sara over with a feather. “I know this is kinda strange … circumstances and all,” he said haltingly, “but, if you wouldn’t mind, sir, there’s this, uh, screenplay I’ve been working on, and y’know how it goes. …”
Jared held his hand up. “Say no more. Just send it to my summer house in the Hollywood Hills, and I’d be happy to get it to my father right away—with a special note about how cooperative you’ve been.”
Sara got into Jared’s car numbly. What kind of strange place was Hollywood? “W-what,” she stuttered, “was that all about?”
“Nothing that doesn’t happen every day. Mr. Policeman needed extra incentive to find the thief who stole your suitcase.”
She thought for a moment. “Incentive? Don’t take this the wrong way—I’m grateful for everything—but wasn’t it more like bribery?”
“No way. It’s just how things work in this town. Quid pro quo.”
“Quid pro what?” Sara was even more confused.
“You do something for me, I’ll do something for you,” Jared explained. “And let me tell you something—a cop with a screenplay to sell? That’s just a cliché. Who doesn’t have a screenplay to sell? Or a headshot to get to a casting director. A tape or DVD, a dream of fame and …” He trailed off, probably realizing he was about to describe Sara.
“So you really will send his script to your father?”
He shrugged. “Let’s see how fast he comes up with your suitcase.”
Sara was speechless.
“Anyway, at least they didn’t get your money,” Jared said, changing the subject. “Unless you had a cash-stash in the suitcase?”
Sara shook her head. “Something more valuable.”
“Jewelry?” Jared guessed.
“My Bible.”
This—this!—shocked him. Not that she’d been mugged. Not that he’d just bribed, and probably lied to, the police. He coughed, a poor attempt to cover up a laugh.
Sara wasn’t angry. She had good instincts about people—well, if you didn’t count that little girl at the phone booth—and she believed, deep down, Jared was a good person. She turned her head, sized him up as he drove. He was a looker, too, if you liked skinny boys with fancy cars who could sweet-talk their way out of any situation. They weren’t her ways; she wasn’t sure if they were virtuous.
But she felt safe, for the first time all day.
“You hungry?” Jared asked her now.
“No.” Her stomach growled, giving her away.
He laughed. “Hang on, we’re coming up to In-N-Out Burger. Best burgers in the West.”
She brightened.
“With fries and a shake, that’s what we’ll get you,” Jared was a mind reader.
“I’m on a kind of tight budget,” she admitted, salivating.
“No worries, it’s on me. Your trip got off to a bad start. This is comfort food—you’ll feel better, promise.”
He pulled up to a fast-food place that resembled a glossy country diner. IN-N-OUT BURGER, the sign above it, painted fire-engine red with a blazing yellow arrow, advertised.
While they waited on the ten-car-long line, Jared informed her, “This place is a California legend. People drive sixty miles each way for their famous double-doubles.”
“What’s a double-double?” Sara’s stomach rumbled so loud, she was sure folks in the cars behind them could hear it.
Jared just grinned.
The minute she found out, she became an instant convert. They sat at an outside picnic table for what Sara believed was the tastiest meal she’d ever had. The heat no longer bothered her, nor was she fretting about how her sweaty clothes were clinging to her. She felt sure her suitcase would be returned. Life was all about the burger—or, burgers. A “double-double” turned out to be two juicy cheeseburgers, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions stacked on a big ol’ toasted bun.
She was too hungry to be embarrassed about the way she practically Hoovered it, washing it down with a rich chocolate shake. Not until she wiped her face and released a huge sigh of contentment and relief did she realize Jared was staring at her.
“Welcome to Los Angeles,” he said with a wink.
Sara was charmed by the orange and blue house. “It’s like a little gingerbread cottage, right out of a fairy tale … so colorful!”
Jared admitted he’d never quite thought of it like that.
Her appreciation grew when Jared led her into the living room. “This is just so homey!” she exclaimed. “It’s like a huntin’ lodge, only with guitars on the walls instead of deer heads.”
A throaty, staccato laugh rat-tat-tat-tatted from behind her. Sara spun around. The cackling was coming from a pretty, freckled girl with long reddish hair. Tucked comfortably in the corner of the sofa, she balanced a thick fashion magazine on her lap and held a glass filled with ice and a clear liquid.
“If you’re waiting for her to stop, best sit down and get comfortable,” Jared advised.
“Is she laughing … at me?” Sara was confused.
“Guitars instead of deer heads! That’s … priceless!” the girl squealed, slapping the cushion with her free hand.
Jared leaned over and took the drink away from her. “Sara, I’d like you to meet Lindsay. Tragically, she is unable to help herself. She’s afflicted with TAS: Tactlessly Annoying Syndrome. Exacerbated by alcohol.”
Tears were sliding down Lindsay’s scrunched-up face as she continued to hoot. “Hunting lodge!”
Just then the sliding glass door from the far end of the room opened, and someone started toward them. Sara gasped and turned scarlet. ’Cause this boy must have jumped down off one of the billboards on Hollywood Boulevard. He was dark-eyed, curly-haired, and what a build! He was the hunkiest guy she had ever seen. The most naked, too. But for a teensy black boykini, he wasn’t wearing a lick of clothing. She could not stop staring.
Above his swimsuit, his flat stomach formed a V shape. He was all ripples and muscles, biceps, triceps—what they called six-pack abs. He didn’t have any chest hair. And he was dripping wet.
Something went flippity-flop in her tummy. She forced herself to look away.
So it was a moment until she could respond to his greeting. He walked right up to her, held his hand out. A large hand, she noticed, with slim, well-defined fingers. “Hi, I’m Nick,” he said in a big, booming voice. “You must be Sara, right? I was just in the Jacuzzi. Welcome to Casa Paradise!”
Her voice wavered. “Thank you. This … sure is … some house!”
“Too bad it could skid down the mountain in a mudslide, be swallowed up in an earthquake, or flame out in the flick of a wildfire.” The worried-sounding voice drifted down from a loft area that overlooked the living room. Sara peered up into the bespectacled, round, friendly face of another boy, this one skinny and frizzy-haired, leaning over the wood railing.
“Hi, I’m Sara—and I sure hope you’re not the building inspector or anything?”
Nick interjected, “He’s Eliot, our resident worst-case-scenario worrywart, and all-round pain in the butt.”
Eliot. Nick. Jared. She gulped. She’d be living with three boys. Surely something Jared had not told her pop.
“You just get here?” Eliot asked. “I’ll help you with your luggage. Is it outside?”
“You could say that,” Jared responded dryly. “Very far outside.”
A little while later Sara found herself on the low-slung striped sofa, between Nick and Eliot. Jared had settled into an easy chair, Lindsay’d fled to the black leather love seat. What surprised Sara was how friendly everyone seemed, even Lindsay�
��how comfortable they were with each other. And they’d only started sharing the house the day before.
What truly astounded her? She practically felt like one of them already. Completely the opposite of how she was only a few hours ago. Settled, secure, among folks all around her age. Everything was gonna work out just fine. Maybe being robbed her first day was God’s way of testing her.
“What if you don’t get your suitcase back?” Nick was asking her now.
“That’d be okay.” Sara pictured the little girl who’d been used as bait. “They’re just material things. Those people probably need those clothes more than I do. I’ve already forgiven them in my heart.”
“You have?” Jared was astonished.
“You’re taking this really well,” Eliot put in, also surprised.
This time Lindsay didn’t let loose peals of laughter but leaned forward and asked, “Are you one of those teens for God or something?”
“I’m a Christian, if that’s what you mean.”
Lindsay smirked and pointed to the bottled water on the coffee table. “Best not drink that. It’s Kabbalah water. It’ll turn you Jewish.”
Eliot chuckled; even Nick couldn’t hide his amusement.
Jared frowned. “You’re being a jerk, Lindsay.”
She turned to Sara. “Only if you drink the whole thing.” Lindsay found herself highly amusing, but Sara didn’t get it. What’d Lindsay find so funny?
Or why, a bit later, when she innocently said, “So are you fixin’ to be an actress too?” Lindsay forgot to laugh. She turned purple.
The View from the Jacuzzi
Jared pressed his lower back into the pulsating jet of the Jacuzzi, luxuriating in the powerful water massage. He rested his elbows on the blue marble lip of the hot tub and inhaled the sweet, orangey California air. This was his real life, not sweltering in some pissant classroom in Ojai making up his loser classes. If he cared about medieval times, he’d rent Gladiator, not read Beowulf. Advanced calculus? And God created accountants … why?
Jared didn’t need college, he needed to fast-forward to his real life. The one where he eventually ran Galaxy, where he made business deals from the Jacuzzi, swilling Corvoisier.
The bubbly in his glass today was beer. It worked for now; he was buzzed, and flush. The hicks from the sticks, Nick and Eliot, had ponied up their share of the first month’s rent. Sara had paid for June in advance. He’d even guilted La Lindsay into giving up some coin.
He looked at his ex-girlfriend now, across from him in the hot tub. The Jacuzzi floozy, barely covered in a tiny string bikini, was flirting outrageously with red-faced Eliot, who was probably pitching a tent in his Boba Fett boxer swim trunks.
Eliot had to know he was out of his league, but better she cast her spell on this yokel than on Jared. He was relieved he and Lindsay had gotten interrupted on Friday—his resistance had been low, her persistence set on max. He was over her, over the hurt of unread e-mails, unreturned phone messages, unacknowledged gifts. He could duck and weave with the best of them, but backward was not a direction Jared ever moved. It was Lindsay who slammed the door on them three years ago, and Jared had no interest in ever opening it again. He ignored the twisting in his gut as Lindsay playfully flicked Eliot with water, regaling the bug-eyed yutz with tales of her glory days playing Zoe Goldberg-Wong.
She hadn’t been quite so playful last night. That moment Sara had innocently inquired if she, too, was “fixin’” to be an actress? Priceless! Lindsay’d gone bat-shit. She’d taken Sara’s cluelessness as a deliberate insult. Poor Sara. She couldn’t know it, but she’d cut Lindsay in the worst possible way—(a) for not recognizing her! and (b) suggesting the two of them were equals, both trying to break into the business.
Sara’s gaffes would not go unavenged. War had been declared at that moment. But was it truly war when only one side was playing?
Lindsay had refused to share a room with Sara.
Sara had graciously agreed to sleep in the loft. It lacked privacy, but she was a total Anne Frank, and believed no one would spy on her!
When Sara realized the landline phone in the house had been disconnected, Lindsay had refused to lend her a cell phone to call her folks.
Eliot came to the rescue, insisting Sara use his.
Lindsay wouldn’t lend her any clothes to sleep in.
Sara had laughed it off. “That’s all right, you’re such a teeny little thing, they wouldn’t fit me anyway.”
That’d placated Lindsay for the moment.
Jared held out no hope for a lasting peace.
But at this moment, twenty-four hours later, all good. His third beer was icy cold, goin’ down smooth. A soft southerly breeze caressed his shoulders, his hair. Neil Young’s classic album Harvest Moon wafted through the outdoor speakers. The sun cast an orangey glow as it began its descent beyond the mountains.
Nick was stretched out on a towel next to them, letting what was left of the sun dry him. Pious pageant-girl Sara, in a borrowed pair of shorts from Nick and a T-shirt from Eliot, was sitting on the grass a few feet away, hugging her knees. And, he couldn’t help noticing, totally devouring Nick with hungry eyes. Hmm … be interesting to see how that played out. No way had Nick not noticed blond Sara’s ample curves and sweet demeanor.
Soon the housemates would be in for the ultimate Cali-sunset experience, gloriously dizzying, pinks, corals, and tangerines, a first for his newbies. Feeling generous, Jared picked up his cell phone and lazily ordered dinner from Tuk Tuk Thai for all of them. He was just about to recite his credit card number into the phone when Lindsay kicked, splashing water at him, and shook her head.
Reminding him that his credit cards had been cut off. “Wait, it’ll be C.O.D. Twenty minutes? Great.”
Lindsay grinned. “Have you thought about how you’re going to pay for a pool-cleaning service? Or a lawn boy? It’s a mess out here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Sara tilted her head. “You mean, hire someone to clean the pool? And to cut the lawn? Why would y’all do that?”
“Because that’s how we roll in these here parts,” Lindsay mimicked.
Coloring slightly, Sara said, “But why spend money when we can do it ourselves? There’s five of us. If we all pitch in, we’ll get it weeded, cleaned up in no time.”
“Pitch in?” Lindsay was flabbergasted.
Sara shrugged. “I’ll just go ahead and get it started. I cut the grass at home, anyway, and what’s a pool if not a bigger bathtub? I can handle that. Besides, I’ve gotta have something to do between auditions and job hunting.”
Lindsay, who’d moseyed over to Jared’s side of the hot tub, was amused. “What kind of job will you be huntin’ for? And will there be a shotgun involved?”
“Knock it off, Lindsay.” Jared was getting bored with her snarkiness. Lindsay’s deep-seated insecurities always came out as jealousy. But of Sara? That made no sense. To make polite conversation, he said to Sara, “You said you had an appointment with an agent. Which one?”
“It’s the Wannamaker Star Agency in Hollywood. I’m set up for Thursday at three. I’m hoping to have a waitress job by then so I can pay the fee.”
Jared blinked. Was Sara really that naive? “Don’t do that! That’s a scam. No reputable agent charges up front. An agent only gets 15 percent of what you make for a job he or she has gotten for you.”
Sara’s face fell. “Really? Mr. Zinterman didn’t say that. Guess I should cancel the appointment, then,” she said dejectedly.
Just then the sound of a car horn blared. “Tuk Tuk Thai delivery!”
“Be right there,” Jared shouted. As he jumped out of the Jacuzzi and made for the front door, he looked up: The sky was already painted with coral, pink, and tangerine stripes. Timing was everything.
A dozen empty Thai food containers and several downed beer and wine bottles later, the vibe was lighter, freer, the buzz shared by all as they ate al fresco, grazing, gazing into the sunset. Yeah, even Lindsay had mell
owed.
Eliot, who’d settled next to Sara, sharing her towel, was trying to cheer her up. “Maybe Jared’s father can get you an interview at his agency,” he suggested. “That’s one of the biggest in town. Very reputable.”
Lindsay was about to open her mouth but Jared clapped a hand over it, silently declaring the hot tub a “no insult” zone. Then he got an idea.
“That’s the suckiest idea I ever heard!” Lindsay exclaimed as soon as her mouth was freed. He hadn’t even finished explaining it.
“Chill, Lindsay—and listen. You both need agents, you both need jobs. I need rent from the two of you. And I’ve got pull at Galaxy. …” He was about to say, “What’s the downside?” but he knew: Lindsay didn’t do “competition” well, perceived or real. Sara was the enemy. Enemies don’t share turf.
“What’s your plan?” she asked coldly, arms folded.
Sara said nothing. Hope was written all over her face.
Jared flipped open his cell phone. First, he left a voice mail for Amanda Tucker, one of Galaxy’s senior, most respected, and most feared agents. “Hi, Mandy, it’s Jared. I’ve got an amazing opportunity for you. That assistant position you’ve been looking to fill? Wait’ll you hear who I got you! Call me.”
Nick, Eliot, and Sara traded glances. They had a lot to learn.
Now Lindsay was grinning big. She got it. Jared was multitasking. Amanda would get an assistant with cachet, a name in this town; Lindsay would net a powerful agent. Once said powerful agent got her an acting role, buh-bye, shitty assistant job! So win-win.
Jared’s next call was to Lionel Mays, a junior agent. His tone was assured. “You’re gonna be kissing my butt for this one, Li—I’m sending you a fresh new talent. Every agency in town’s gonna want her, and you get the first shot at repping her. You can thank me later.”
Sara leapt up off the ground as if she’d been launched and threw her arms around Jared, practically burying his face in her bust. “You got me an agent? You could do that with one phone call?” she squealed. “Bless you! Bless you!”
“Down, girl,” Lindsay warned, though her tone was mischievous, not malevolent. “Jared set you up with an interview. You’ll have to prove yourself.”
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