by Karina Halle
“Communications,” I mutter. “Majoring in journalism.”
He waves his hand at me, stopping to admire his nails as they catch the light. “That’s good enough. Half the people in here don’t even have degrees. I don’t. Just blind luck and a pretty face.”
“Well.” I lean against his desk and give him a pleading look. “Can you give me some pointers?”
Neil spins around in his chair, hands folded at his stomach over his crisp, deep purple shirt. His lips twist into an amused smile and I’m reminded of a villain in a movie. “First, honey, you need an angle.”
“I just told you the angle. Rich guy does good.”
He makes a sound of disgust and throws his head back. “Boring!” he yells. Someone in the background yells at him to shut up but he just waves at them dismissively. He props his elbows on his knees and points his fingers at me. “No. No rich guy does good. No one cares about rich dudes, and unless they’re an Oscar-winning actress by the name of Susan Sarandon, people generally don’t care what rich people are doing, good or not.”
“Not true,” I point out. “All the gossip mags are about the rich and all they are doing wrong.”
“Find another angle,” he says.
I try and rack my brain. “The city needs this though. Everyone is always complaining about the lack of affordable housing. People all over the world poke fun at our homeless populations. This is a solution. It should be a good thing no matter who does it.”
“Look, there are tons of people doing good every day. Most people don’t care unless you make them care. We’re all too trained to shut down from all the shitty, shitty details of life and the billions it screws over. We’re all selfish and self-centered, serving our own needs until someone makes it affect us personally. So, how can you do that?”
Jeez. All these years I worked with Neil, partied with him at clubs, held his hand while he cried over some guy with a mustache, and he’s never seemed as smart as he is right now.
“Well, Bram is hot.”
“That helps…” he says, perking up noticeably.
“And his partner is even more so,” I tell him, and I find myself smiling dreamily as Lachlan filled my head. “He’s a rugby player from Scotland.”
He sat up straight. “Is he a big deal?”
“Oh,” I say with a smirk. “He’s big.”
“You know this personally? What about your vow?”
I exhale, loud and exaggerated. “No, I do not know this personally. I just saw him last night at the bar. And he…he’s…just such a man. I can’t explain it. He’s probably the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. And he’s built like a redwood.”
“Like a North Cali redwood?” he asks excitedly.
“Just like,” I tell him, happy I have someone to talk about my sudden obsession with. “He’s covered in tattoos, he’s got money, he’s got lips you just want to suck on.”
“Amongst other things.”
“And I think someone mentioned he’s good at what he does. He was in the World Cup for Scotland a few times I think.”
“Shiiiiit,” Neil says with a grin, waving his hand in the air like he’s sprinkling pixie dust on me. “Kayla, there’s your angle. The hotness. And the celebrity.”
“You just said no one cares about celebs doing good. And I’m not sure he’s a celebrity just because he was in the World Cup of Rugby. No one watches that.”
“Well, he’s a celebrity back home, maybe. And if he’s not, you’ll write him as one. That’s always more interesting. Besides, you know the audience for this magazine—women and the gays.”
I smirk at him. “Has anyone ever told you that if you weren’t so gay and cute, you’d be totally offensive?”
“That’s how I get away with it,” he says with a wag of his brows. “So, go and do this. Interview him. Forget the other guy. And see if you can get some photos of Mr. Redwood. Nude, preferably. You know lots of rugby players pose for nude calendars. It’s, like, their thing.”
My smile suddenly fades. Interview Lachlan? “Can’t I just, you know, write about him without actually talking to him?”
He stares at me like I’m a moron. “How will you know what to write if you don’t know him at all?”
“I could ask Bram,” I say hopefully.
“No,” he says. “You have to interview the guy. Why is this an issue? You should be jumping all over this. And then him.”
I tug at my hair nervously. “Well, it’s just that…he’s not, like, super friendly. Or talkative. And I don’t think he likes me.”
“You mean he hasn’t fallen for your charm yet?” he asks caustically.
I give him all the glares. “Not yet,” I tell him. “But it’s not like I was even trying last night.”
He shrugs. “So go try. You want this story, you have to work for it. Looks like writing it might be the easiest part.” He wiggles in his chair, all self-assured, seeming happy that I’ll learn what a hard job he actually has. I won’t give Neil the satisfaction.
“Fine, I will,” I say, then strut back to my office. I hear him hollering “Good luck!” behind me.
It isn’t until I get back to my desk that the butterflies start swarming in my stomach, and not the good kind. The nervous kind. Ugh. This is so unlike me.
Before I can think it over, I dial Bram’s number and hope I don’t catch him in the middle of doing something with Nicola. You can never predict her hours, nor their horniness.
“Kayla?” he asks, obviously surprised.
I plop down in my seat and wheel it away from Candace who is pretending not to watch me. The girl watches everything I do, like she’s taken job shadowing just a little too far.
“Yeah. Hi, Bram.”
“Did you talk to your boss?”
“I did, but listen…I’m going to write the article.”
“That’s fucking fantastic.”
“But I have to interview Lachlan, not you.”
He pauses. “Lach? Why? What’s wrong with me?”
“Because you’re not newsworthy.”
“And my cousin is?”
“Well yeah. I mean, have you seen him?”
“Have you seen me?”
“I have Bram. Sorry. You’re not my type.”
He snorts in disbelief. “Anyone with a cock is your type.”
“Hey!” I yell into the phone. Candace jumps and a pen clatters on her desk. “I’m telling you how it is. Now give me Lachlan’s number or there won’t be any kind of story on your apartment at all.”
“Okay, okay, fine,” he says quickly. “Calm your tits.”
“You calm your tits,” I retort. He gives it to me, and I write it down. It’s international, obviously.
“Can I just text him, since it’s long distance?” I ask.
“Sure,” says Bram. “But I think you’ll get more out of him if you talk in person. He’s not very talkative on the phone.”
“You don’t say.”
“Aye,” he says. “But listen, whatever you guys end up talking about, don’t ask Lachlan anything too personal, okay?”
I straighten up, my interest piqued. “Why?”
He sighs, loud and exaggerated. “Just don’t, Kayla. I know you. You’re all up in everyone’s faces and privates lives, and we all think it’s cute, but he’s not like that. If you be yourself, you’ll just scare him. He’s a private person. He’s got…well, just be professional. If you dig too deep, he’ll probably snap at you and you won’t get anything.”
“Snap at me?” I repeat. “Is he a dog?”
Or a beast?
“Eh,” Bram says. “He’s just guarded, and he has no time for bullshit. So keep the focus on what’s important.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Which is…”
Those lips. Those hands. Those eyes. But I say, “The housing situation.”
“Correct. Hey, did I ever say thank you for doing this?”
“No. You didn’t.”
Then I hang up on
him before he gets a chance to say anything. He deserves it for that dig about how I shouldn’t be myself around Lachlan, as if my personality is some sort of plague.
Before I lose my nerve again, I enter the long ass number into my iPhone and text him. Well, actually I stare at the screen for a few minutes, then I type a few different sentences and erase them, and then I stare some more. Everything that Bram said about him makes me even more anxious than I was before. I mean, I can handle people. Believe me. I’m not afraid. But I’m out of my element here. I’m not a journalist, despite what I learned in school, and suddenly I feel a whole load of pressure on my shoulders.
Finally I text him: Hey, it’s Kayla, Nicola’s friend. I met you at the bar last night. Bram wanted my weekly magazine to do a story on the housing situation and my editor thought it would be a good idea if I interview you. Is that okay?
And then I wait.
And I wait.
And I wait.
Hours pass.
“Expecting a call?” Candace asks a little too brightly.
It’s about 4:30 p.m. now and I just looked at my phone for the one millionth time. I’ve also rechecked the phone number I wrote down. I’ve barely done anything today except wait for that damn response. I’m not very good at multi-tasking.
With my face propped up by my hand and my shoulders slumped, I can’t even bother giving Candace a look.
The phone beeps.
“Nope, not at all,” I say, grabbing the phone like it’s precious and I’m Gollum.
A response from Lachlan: All right.
The fuck? Just all right?
I quickly text back: Okay, great, thank you. When would you like to meet? Where?
I press send and pray it doesn’t take another six hours for him to respond.
It doesn’t. You know the city better than I do. I’m free anytime.
Okay, so we’re making progress here.
Do I feel giddy? I feel giddy.
My office is near the ferry building, so I ask him to meet me at Blue Bottle Coffee at noon. It won’t give us all the time in the world, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because I’ll probably get right down to business and not do the things that Bram thinks I’ll do (aka ruin everything). A bad thing because it means I only get an hour to stare at him.
I’ll take what I can get.
CHAPTER THREE
Kayla
After work I swing by my mother’s house. She lives across the bay on Alameda Island, just outside of Oakland, in the same house where I grew up. It’s a gorgeous narrow Victorian with gables and iron details. Out front there is a rose garden bordering the small yard that looks out onto the road where people and tourists bicycle past on warm days. It smells like childhood and sunshine and peace. The garden was always my mother’s pride and joy, but these days the roses are overgrown and pretty much fending for themselves.
A lot of the house is slowly succumbing to decay. My mom isn’t young and isn’t in the best of health. She turned seventy-one this year, something I hate to think about. My parents were much older when I was born. In fact, my oldest brother Brian is fifteen years older than me. My youngest brother, Toshio, is six years older. I wasn’t even supposed to have been born at all—my mother would describe me as a miracle surprise. The girl she had always wanted.
And I’m glad I was that miracle. My parents gave me so much love growing up to the point where I was spoiled, while my brothers acted overprotective, babying me to a fault. But shit, if it’s not hard having an aging parent, especially when you’ve just turned thirty and still feel like a kid—like you still need them.
My father died from prostate cancer when I was just twenty-three years old. It’s something that haunts me every day. He was sick for a long time and in a lot of pain, so when it happened we were glad he was no longer suffering, but even so…nothing can replace that loss. My father, for all his faults, was someone I loved without question, someone I idolized for as long as I could remember. I didn’t think I could ever get over his death, but little by little, year after year, I tried to move on. I had to.
My mother never had such luck. Her health has been testing her ever since. It was like she lost a part of herself when he died, and she hasn’t been the same. I worry about her all the time now and try and stop by the house as much as I can, which is way more than my brothers do. They only come by when I force them to, either to say hello and check in, to give her money, or to do repair jobs on the house. I know what they want for her—to move into a small apartment, or maybe even assisted living. But my mom hangs on to the house for dear life. She’ll never ever leave.
And I know the minute she goes into a home, that’s the moment we’ll lose her forever. The house is all she has left.
So even though it’s out of the way, I head on over there. She’s lonely and alone, and it’s something I understand a little too well.
It’s the start of August and even though summer is fickle in the city, on Alameda it’s warmer. I water her roses, run out to get groceries from the closest store, tidy up, and then settle down on her couch with her white fluffball of a cat, Mew Mew, to tell her the somewhat good news.
“So guess what?” I say.
She looks up from her knitting and gazes at me with so much…devotion…that I suddenly feel, I don’t know, unworthy of it. Funny how your mom can do that to you.
“What is it, sweetheart?” she asks in her gentle, lilting accent.
“Well, I’m branching out at work. I’m writing an article, and it looks like if all goes well, they’ll print it.”
She smiles broadly and I’m struck by how flawless her skin still looks for her age. Despite everything, she looks like she’s decades younger. I hope those Japanese genes have been passed down to me.
“That is wonderful. Oh Kayla, that makes me so happy for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yes. Look at you. You’re practically glowing. I was wondering if you would find that passion again.”
I purse my lips. I’ve always thought of myself as a very lively, passionate person. Had I really been lacking it that much?
“Well,” I say, trying to downplay it, “I mean it all depends on how well I write it. They don’t usually run articles by people who aren’t staff writers…or writers. You know, in general.”
“Yes, but when you were younger, I remember the stories you would write for the school paper.”
“Yeah, but those stories were, like, movie reviews and what band was in town that weekend.”
She shakes her head, still smiling elegantly, and goes back to her knitting. “It does not matter, sweetheart. I read every article, and I knew you had a talent. I knew you would go back to it.”
“Even though I’m old now.”
Her face falls slightly. “You are not old, Kayla. I am old.”
I sigh. “I’m sorry…I don’t mean that. It’s just, I felt like at this age I would have had my shi…my stuff sorted out. My life on track.”
“Your life is on the track it is meant to be on. This is not a contest or a race. Don’t compare yourself to others, only to the person you were yesterday.”
Yeah, but how do I explain that sometimes I feel worse than the person I was yesterday? Like I’m spinning my wheels before going backward. Losing character instead of gaining it?
But I don’t want to trouble my mother with that. I try not to trouble myself with those kinds of thoughts either, it’s just that they sneak up on you sometimes.
“I know,” I tell her. “I guess it’s never too late.”
“No, it’s not,” she says. “Just remember to keep an open mind. To take chances.”
I manage a smile. “Oh, believe me, I do.”
She studies me for a moment, seeing something inside me. I’m not sure what it is.
“I loved your father very much,” she says, her needles clacking against each other. The statement seems to come out of left field. “Very, very much.”
&
nbsp; “I know you did. And he loved you.”
“He still does.” She gives me the sweetest, saddest smile. “Even though he’s changed his residency to heaven, I still hear from him from time to time. I know he’s okay. I know he’s waiting for me.”
My eyes begin to water. We don’t talk about my dad too much, maybe because every time he’s mentioned, the tears start to flow. My mother doesn’t cry though. She takes it all so gracefully, even though I know how sad she is, how half of her soul is missing.
“Don’t cry, sweetie,” she says gently and leans over, putting her hand on mine. “It’s okay, really. I’m just telling you because I don’t want you to be afraid of love.”
“I’m not afraid of love,” I say defensively, wiping a tear away with the palm of my hand.
She gives me a thin smile. “It’s been a few years since Kyle.”
Freaking Kyle. Why is she bringing him up? Kyle is my ex. Ex-fiancé. We started dating in college and stayed together for a long time after that. But things just weren’t working between us. There wasn’t anything wrong with Kyle, it was just that…I don’t know, I guess I got cold feet. But it wasn’t because I was afraid of love. He just wasn’t what I wanted from life.
“I’m happy, Mom,” I reassure her. “I loved Kyle, too. He just wasn’t the one.”
“Oh, I know he wasn’t. I know that. You did the right thing. But when you do meet the right one, I just don’t want you to run away. I don’t want you to be scared. Love is something you have to fight for.”
I roll my eyes. “Once again, Mom, I’m not afraid of love. I love love!”
It’s just that I happen to love fun and sex more.
She watches me closely. “Good. I’m just trying to say that even though I love your father and I’ll never be the same without him, the bad outweighs the good. Even if I knew I would lose him, I would have still fallen in love. I don’t regret a thing. I just want you to know, to realize, that even if you lose love, it’s never really gone. It stays in you forever. The risks of love are always worth it.”
I sigh, feeling a brick in my chest. “Okay, okay,” I say, but I’m not sure what else there is to add. I know how it must look to my mother, always perpetually single ever since I left Kyle. But I swear, I’m not afraid of love. There’s just no one out there for me and I’ve made peace with that. If you can’t find a man to share your heart with, well…share your vagina with him instead.