L.A. Woman

by Cathy Yardley

  “Sorry,” Sarah muttered.

  “Who the hell was that? I thought you were at home.”

  “I am,” Sarah replied. “That was…well, I couldn’t quite make rent just on my salary. So I took on a roommate.”

  There was a pause as Benjamin digested that fact.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” Sarah assured him hastily. “Besides, Martika knows that it’s month-to-month…”

  “Martika? What the hell sort of name is that?”

  “I don’t know. Danish, I think.” Okay, that was a shot in the dark.

  “I told you that I’d make it down to Los Angeles as soon as Richardson gives me a goddamn chance, Sarah. I didn’t tell you to get a roommate.”

  Sarah frowned. “What you told me was that I had to cover rent on this apartment—this considerably more expensive apartment, I might add—by myself. Since you’re not living here yet. Really, realistically, what would you have had me do, Jam?”

  “Dammit, Sarah, I didn’t…don’t get all touchy on me, okay? I really don’t need this right now.”

  Like I do?

  She sighed. “I’m just saying I didn’t have a lot of options.”

  “I see.” He made a low grumbling sort of sound. “Well, you’re right, of course. It’s better that you got a roommate. Just… Did you do a thorough search?”

  Sarah crossed her fingers—childish, granted. “Sure I did. She’s a friend of a friend of mine, so it wasn’t like getting a complete stranger.”

  “Huh. What’s she like?”

  She thought about Martika’s late night sex-a-thons. “Um, she’s very social.”

  “Social?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said hastily, “but responsible. I mean, she’s kicked in for half of the bills already, on time, and she’s a graphic designer.”

  “I see.” He didn’t, obviously—his tone said that much. “Did she just say something about drinking?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I think she wants me to go out with…them.” She was going to say her and Taylor, but she suddenly didn’t want to explain Taylor. That whole incident was something Benjamin would definitely frown upon.

  Too late. “Well, I think you might want to consider before you go out.”

  “Consider what?” Sarah felt a little burn of anger. “You’re going out for beers with the guys. I’d just have, I don’t know, a drink or two with Martika.”

  “L.A. isn’t Fairfield, you know. It’s a more dangerous city.”

  Sarah thought of Martika and Taylor, the imposing duo. “I think I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re so naive sometimes,” he said. “Fine. Do whatever you think is best. I have to go.”

  “I’ll be sure not to boink any coeds,” she replied, wanting to lighten the conversation a little.

  He laughed, as she hoped he would. “I’ll talk to you next week.”

  “Love you,” she said quickly.

  “You, too,” he said. He clicked off.

  What was that all about? Sarah hung up the phone, pensive. She wanted to believe he was just being protective—but part of her felt like he was just maintaining some sort of double standard.

  He’s going out and having beers with the guys. Why shouldn’t I go out?

  After all, he was the one who said that she just clung to him like a vine. If anything, this would be…asserting her independence, she thought.

  She went out to the living room. Martika was in the labor-intensive process of lacing up her knee-length black leather boots. “Martika?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Is that invitation still open?”

  Martika looked up from her boots. “Really? You’ll really go?”

  “Just for a little bit,” Sarah hedged. “I’ve got a big day at work tomorrow.”

  “It’s Friday. Who does much on Fridays?”

  Sarah bit her lip. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  “You don’t do anything much your first week,” Martika said, as if countering Sarah’s resistance. Then she flashed her a quick, mischievous grin. “Besides, I told Taylor you weren’t going to come anyway. You’d probably just curl up with a book and be asleep by ten or whatever.”

  Martika was doing everything but calling her chicken. She really didn’t… “What, do I have ‘Shirley Temple’ written across my forehead or something?”

  “You don’t need it,” Martika answered with a wink. “You practically introduce yourself that way. So, out to 5140 with me and Taylor? Just a few drinks, and I promise we’ll get you home early since it’s a school night.”

  “All right,” Sarah said, ignoring the tail end of Martika’s statement. “Just let me get my coat.”

  “This is historic,” Martika said from the living room. “Next thing you know, I’ll have you dancing with male strippers.”

  Sarah came back, tugging on her coat and then clutching her purse. “Just a few drinks,” Sarah hastily added. She didn’t want to do anything that would make Benjamin right about her being naive. “No strippers, nothing like that.”

  “Careful, Shirley,” Martika said with a wicked smile. “You’re backsliding.”

  “Maybe 5140 wasn’t the best place to take her for her first time out,” Taylor said with a note of concern.

  Martika leaned back against the slick red vinyl cushion of the booth they were sitting in. The lights were dim enough to cause your pupils to dilate like dinner plates. Sarah sat huddled against one corner, trying as hard as she could to blend into the scenery.

  Martika sighed…5140 was a fairly rough-and-tumble bar, nice and seedy, with none of the Hollywood club kids or the college pricks from West L.A. and Santa Monica. As good a testing ground as any.

  “So, can I get you another drink?” Martika asked as politely as she could, considering she needed to yell to get over the blasting jukebox.

  Sarah shook her head vehemently, clutching her piña colada with a weak smile. “I’m fine. Thank you, though,” she said politely, doing her Martha Stewart impression again. She glanced around, as if she were sightseeing in a demilitarized zone.

  Taylor scooted next to her. “Don’t worry, girlie-girl, Martika just likes dives.” He grinned at her. “Trashy.”

  “Drama,” she said back, blowing him a kiss. “I do like dives. Less pretentious.” She turned her gaze on Sarah. “What do you think?”

  Sarah bit the corner of her lip, looking around. “It’s…surprisingly roomy,” she offered, with a hopeful look.

  “Roomy,” Martika repeated, as Taylor roared with laughter. “That’s a good description. Roomy. Well, I’m going to go see if I can’t make it over the vast expanse to the bar,” she said, tilting her empty glass. “I could do for a refill. Taylor?”

  “Another currant martini, please.”

  She smiled, heading over to the bar, noticing several of the guys at the bar were watching her as she walked. She was used to it, sending them a killer smile then ignoring them.

  She’d finally taken Taylor’s advice and decided to live with somebody she wasn’t planning on sleeping with, and she wound up with a virgin schoolgirl. Irony. Like a continual cosmic joke.

  Still, the kid had potential—and she got the feeling that that phone conversation Sarah had been on was with her boyfriend/fiancé/whatever. And that it hadn’t gone well, if she was going out with Martika & Crew.

  “One watermelon shot and one currant martini,” she said to Bill, the bartender. He nodded, quickly making up the drinks. “Oh, and another piña colada,” she said. “Strong.”

  He added the third. “You gonna pay off that tab anytime soon, Tika?”

  “I get paid next Friday,” she said, with a wink, and deftly balanced the three drinks, carrying them while still managing to wiggle her hips. She put them down on the small table in front of the chatting Sarah and Taylor with a plunk. “Bottoms up, people.”

  “I’ve still got half a drink,” Sarah protested.

  “Well then,” Martika drawled, “you’d better hurry, huh?”

>   Sarah’s eyes grew round.

  “Taylor…would you care to show her how?”

  Taylor grinned. “Not really, as I’m forced to drive during this excursion. Besides, I’m supposed to see Luis later this evening, and he hates it when I’m plowed without him.” He sipped genteelly from the martini glass instead, then made a florid gesture at her own shot glass. “You show her. You’re the pro, anyway.”

  Sarah said, “You want me to just chug this, don’t you?”

  Martika was surprised into a real smile. “Chug?”

  “I know. I’m not that sheltered,” she said. “I’m not good at that sort of thing, though, I have to warn you.”

  “Well, show me what you’ve got.”

  Sarah screwed up her face for courage, then took the half-drunk piña colada and finished it off in about eight manful swallows. Martika grinned at Taylor, watching the debacle.

  Sarah took a deep breath. Her pale cheeks were flushed and pink—from the alcohol or from the time that it took her to drink it without pausing for air, Martika wasn’t sure.

  “There. I did it.”

  Taylor made a polite golf clap. “Brava.”

  “Now the other one,” Martika said. “A little faster, this time.”

  “But…I have to go to work tomorrow!”

  “Two piña coladas isn’t going to put you under the table,” Martika said, with an exasperated sigh. “Besides, we haven’t even gone to a club yet. This is just warm-up.”

  As Taylor started to protest that he needed to make this an early night (“I promised Luis!”) Martika noticed that Sarah was going from flushed to pale.

  “I think I’ll just nurse this one.”

  Martika shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She took her watermelon shot, and with a quick snap of the wrist threw it back, feeling more than tasting the quick tang of Midori before being hit with the slight flame of alcohol. She put the glass down, smiling at Sarah. “One piña colada, and you’re trashy. This is downright epic.”

  “I didn’t say I was trashy. I just said I had to go to work tomorrow.”

  “What is it you do again?”

  “I’m an assistant account executive,” she said. Her dilated eyes were beginning to look a little out of focus. “At Judith’s…that’s my friend.” She took another sip of the piña colada, as if she weren’t thinking about it—like she was just thirsty. “My friend Judith, who you haven’t met.”

  “I have,” Taylor said, also noticing that Sarah was slowly working down her drink. “Judith makes this one look like you.”

  “Wow. Guess I’ll have to not meet her, then.”

  Taylor chuckled. Sarah sipped.

  In an hour, Sarah had sipped her way through another piña colada and was getting surprisingly talkative. The club idea was out—the girl was weaving as they got her into the car, something Martika thought completely hysterical and Taylor found “charming.”

  “I’ve gotten so used to you stereotypical Irish two-fisters that it’s been a while to see a ladylike, girl-drink-drunk,” he said. Martika frowned at him.

  “I’m ladylike.”

  “Sure,” Taylor patted her cheek. “And I’m Keanu Reeves.”

  “Good night, Keanu!” Sarah said, and abruptly started hiccupping. “Oh, God. Hope I don’t yuke.”

  “You and me both, sister,” Martika said, propping her up in the elevator. “Four piña coladas and you’re a mess. This is so funny.”

  Martika guided her back to the apartment. She was still talking in that little girl voice of hers.

  “So I’m waiting for Jam to move back,” Sarah confided earnestly. “Well, not back, it’s not like he’s lived here before. But you know what I mean.”

  “Sure.” She grinned as she undid the top two dead bolts and finally got the door handle. “Although, if I hadn’t heard the details from Taylor, I’d guess that Jam was your invisible friend rather than your fiancé.”

  “Well, he’s sort of my invisible fiancé,” she said, with a hiccupy little laugh.

  “You said it,” Martika pointed out, closing the door behind the wobbling Sarah. “Not me.”

  “I know. I don’t mean to complain. I just miss him, that’s all. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like he misses me,” she said. The tone was so matter-of-fact, Martika felt a pang of pain on her behalf. She wondered if Sarah were sober if she would have felt the pain. Then she realized—if Sarah were sober, she wouldn’t be saying all of this. “So why do you stay with the guy?”

  Martika knew she probably shouldn’t counsel her roommate on her love life—but hell, she counseled all of her friends. And if anyone ever needed a mentor, it was this little drunk girl with the long blond hair—like a misplaced Norwegian waif.

  Sarah stopped by the arm of the couch, in the middle of a very amusing tableau of trying to kick one shoe off with the other foot. “Why what?”

  “If he’s invisible, and you miss him, why do you stay with him?”

  “Can’t walk away,” she mumbled, finally successfully kicking off one shoe and sighing. “I mean, you can’t just give up on something like that. Besides, I love him. I couldn’t walk away from somebody I loved.”

  “I can understand that,” Martika said. Not about relationships. But say Taylor—she’d never walk away from him. “But the question is, does he love you? He seems to be hurting you an awful lot.”

  Sarah seemed to sober for a moment—like a kid at a high school party who had suddenly realized that her parents had come home. “He’s not hurting me,” she said, struggling with the other shoe. “He just…he’s just busy. He needs me to understand. I’m trying to be very, very understanding.”

  Martika was understanding this whole thing a bit, herself. She frowned. The guy was an obvious asshole. Sarah really ought to dump him, move on. Maybe she’d start that campaign, too, as well as her campaign to “corrupt” the kid. “Well, as long as he’s away, it doesn’t matter how often you’re out, right?”

  Sarah thought about this for a minute, then grinned. “Nope. Doesn’t, really. I’m sure he might mind if it were like every night or if it were interfering with my career…”

  “Well, it won’t.”

  “I’m just saying,” Sarah said…then slumped into the couch. “I think I’m going to sleep right here.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not,” Martika said, tugging her to an upright position. She’d never seen somebody decompress quite this fast. “Shit. Come on, Sarah. You take Martika’s advice—a few vitamins, a few aspirins and one huge glass of water. Then brush your teeth, and go to bed.”

  “What day is it?”

  “Thursday, sweetie. Remember?”

  “I think I have something important to do tomorrow, but I can’t remember what.”

  “You’ll remember tomorrow,” Martika promised. “I swear, honey. Now get up and brush.”

  Chapter 4

  Unhappy Girl

  “Walker! Where the fuck have you been?”

  Sarah stood stock-still, as if she’d been shot. Her slight headache made her feel as if she had been shot. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I told everybody they needed to be in here early today!” Becky’s eyes were glinting like gunmetal, and if she’d shot red lasers out of them, Sarah would have been no less surprised. “Early! What time is it?”

  Sarah glanced at her watch, unsure if that was a rhetorical question or not. “Eight?” she said, glad that she’d set the alarm before she went out on the town.

  “Goddam eight. Jacob has been in here since seven. Michelle has been here since goddamn six.”

  Jacob and Michelle had not been hazed at 5140, either, Sarah reflected. She knew there was something she was supposed to do today. “I’m sorry,” she said instead. Just when she was trying to make a good impression, too! She needed this job. She really, really needed this job!

  Becky was not appeased. “I need you to input all of these—and double check this time—and Raquel’s going to be busy doing copying for me, so I need you t
o go to the cleaners and get my suits. Goddam presentation is first thing Monday morning, we’ve got absolutely nothing worth showing yet, I need to pull off a goddamn miracle. If you’re not careful, Sarah, you’re not going to be staying here. Off the top of my head, I can think of twenty people who’d give their right arm to work for a place like Salamanca.”

  Oh, no. Sarah felt herself go clammy with shock. “I’m really very sorry,” she breathed. “I know you’ve got a lot to do, and I want to make sure that everything gets done. No matter how much overtime it takes, I’ll make sure you get what you need. On time.”

  Jacob and Michelle were staring at her with expressions of abject horror. Becky, on the other hand, looked speculative.

  “Now there’s team spirit. Much better,” Becky said, with a smooth, pleased tone that gave Sarah the willies. “Why don’t you come to my office after I finish up this conference call, and we can talk about that?”

  “Sure,” Sarah said, but Becky was already on her way. Once she’d left the room, Jacob turned to Sarah.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I’m trying to get a little more in my paycheck. I’m not going to prove anything by coming in hung-over,” she said, rubbing at her temples. “I’m just trying to show that I’m good at my job.”

  “You could come in here with a gun and they wouldn’t fire you,” Michelle said. “You’re in for a world of pain, Sarah.”

  “You’ve got absolutely no idea,” Jacob said, in sepulchral tones. “Brand review is coming. You’re going to be in hell.”

  Sarah shrugged. “Aren’t you exaggerating just a bit?”

  Michelle looked at Jacob. “Cavalier little thing, isn’t she?”

  “You can’t say you weren’t warned,” Jacob replied to Sarah instead. “I put five dollars on you cracking like a walnut in two weeks.”

  “I give her a month,” Michelle said. “She looks like a scrapper.”

  Sarah sighed. “I’m going to go scrounge up some Tylenol before she gets finished with that call. And believe it or not, I’m going to make it.”