by Meili Cady
The only thing she’d never wavered on, however, was telling me how important I was to her and how much she loved me, how much she needed me. She said once that she would rather burn in Hell than not have me in her life. I couldn’t bring myself to cast her aside when I believed in my heart that her intentions were good, though her follow-through was often nonexistent.
I reconciled the changes in Lisette’s behavior in my mind by thinking of our relationship in more of a familial way, as if she were my older sister. If your sister lets you down, it doesn’t make you love her any less, because that kind of love is unconditional. I believed that was the kind of love Lisette and I shared.
When I got Lisette’s invitation, I told her that of course I’d meet her at the Ritz. Thankfully I’d already bought her a birthday card. I didn’t have any money to buy her a gift. I’d left my job at the marketing company a few weeks back, when I got burned out and couldn’t sell anymore. I’d become distracted. I’d signed with a new acting agency and paid to update my photos, and I was starting to get calls again, so I’d stop work in the middle of the day sometimes to sneak out to auditions. I tried for weeks to get back into a sales groove, but something was off and people could smell it on me when I pitched them. I’d come home after a full day of work and have sold fewer than five spa packages, sometimes zero, though when I started there I was selling up to twenty packages a day—I’d lost whatever magic touch I had in the beginning.
I’d been looking for work again but found it to be just as difficult to get hired as it was before, and now I had rent to pay every month. The effects of the recession were still painfully evident in the job market. I told Lisette the gist of my circumstances, and she said that she was sorry to hear I was having a hard time.
From the Ritz-Carlton, Lisette and I went to dinner at a seafood restaurant on Ocean Avenue, next to the waves in Santa Monica. Lisette had a Lincoln Town Car pick us up, which was odd because in the four years we’d been friends she’d never paid for a driver when it was just the two of us. Come to think of it, she’d never paid for a hotel room for just the two of us. There always had to be someone else there when she did something showy, like her boyfriend or one of her boys on the side. I’d routinely been the third wheel when she stepped out on her boyfriend to be courted by some poor sap who was about to have his heart run through a garbage disposal. Tonight felt like a special occasion that extended beyond just her birthday.
Back at the hotel, Lisette and I sat on queen beds in the oceanfront room. I gave her the birthday card. She read my message and appeared moved. “Thank you,” she said, setting my card aside. “Thank you for being here tonight. I wasn’t sure you’d come.” She looked at me in a rare moment of humility. “I know that I haven’t been a very good friend to you—”
I cut her off. “I know you’ve been busy.”
“No,” she said, “you’ve always been there for me, and I know that I haven’t been there for you in the same way. But you never left me. You stayed with me when no one else in their right mind would have. You’ll never know how much that has meant to me.” She pulled me into a hug. “You deserve better. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
Lisette told me that she and her boyfriend had broken up but were still living together. I wondered why she wouldn’t want to move out and get a place of her own. With her family’s wealth, she had plenty of money to support herself. She announced that David, whom she’d been seeing since they met at the music producer’s house, was coming to the hotel to meet her soon. I wondered where she’d found time to see him when she hadn’t made time for me in two months, but I held my tongue.
I’m sure it would have shocked a lot of people to see Lisette with David, a drug dealer with tattoos up to his neck, but it didn’t surprise me. Lisette had told me that her father’s entire body was covered in tattoos, even more so than David’s. Her father wore suits every day, so no one could see his tattoos when he was working. I knew from the way that she spoke about him that Lisette admired him enormously. She said that he had “built an empire” in Asia, and that she would like to one day build an empire of her own. Lisette had always been drawn to ambitious men who had the “bad boy” persona, but who were driven by a business mind-set. To Lisette, that was the definition of a hustler.
“Sweetie, can you wait in the bar downstairs for David?” she asked. “I told him that my family is throwing me a party in a suite, but that I rented this room to see him.”
I laughed. “Oh God.”
“What?” Lisette said playfully. “It’s fun. It’ll keep him on his best behavior. Can you wait for him downstairs? Just order a drink and put it on the tab for the room.”
I ordered a dirty martini and read a book by the fireplace while I waited for David to arrive. Being here with Lisette gave me a giddy feeling that I hadn’t had in a while, like an old spark coming back. It was just the two of us staying here tonight. Whenever we spent time alone, we almost immediately reverted back to existing in our own little world, like childhood playmates who’d make up silly games and inside jokes together. I loved that feeling, and I needed it right now with all the stress and uncertainties in my life. It was like returning to a time when things were much simpler, and all you needed to do was play with your friend.
I noticed David right away when he walked into the lobby. He seemed to be the only person at the Ritz tonight with neck tattoos. “Meili,” he said as I stood to greet him. “Nice to see you. How’s the party?”
“Er, great,” I said. I led him upstairs to Lisette’s room. After I returned downstairs, I had time to read almost an entire chapter of my book while he was up there. He stopped into the bar to say bye to me before he left. I went back upstairs and knocked on the hotel room door. Lisette opened it with a naughty smirk. She looked sweaty and her hair was tussled. “Have fun?” I asked her as I stepped inside.
“Can you meet Henry in the bar?” Lisette dabbed her face with makeup.
“Who’s Henry?” I asked, a little surprised.
“I never told you about Henry?” She explained that Henry was a valet at the new building she lived in. That’s how he’d met her: parking her Bentleys on Wilshire Corridor. “He’s really sweet. I think you’ll like him,” she said. “I told him that my parents were throwing me a party, but he asked if he could stop by to wish me a happy birthday.”
When I met Henry in the lobby, he looked like a college kid, around my age, much younger than I’d expected. He was built like a football player and wore a button-down shirt and jeans. He was Mexican, but when he spoke, it was clear that he was raised in L.A. “Lisette’s told me so much about you,” he said, shaking my hand as he gave me a warm smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” He cleared his throat.
He spent almost an hour in the hotel room with Lisette. I’d nearly fallen asleep next to the fireplace in the bar when Lisette texted me.
COME UP ANGEL! HE JUST LEFT!
When I reentered the room, the air inside was hot and balmy. Lisette was sprawled out on the bed looking like a Tijuana hooker after a rough shift. “Holy shit,” I said as I walked in. The bed comforter was piled on the floor a few feet from the bed, and Lisette lay on a mess of sheets. “Henry might seem shy,” Lisette said, out of breath, “but that boy is a fucking animal in the sack.” I silently thanked God that there were two beds in the room, and I gratefully plopped down on the one that appeared untouched.
Lisette broke into the minibar and mixed makeshift cocktails for us since the bar downstairs was now closed.
“Angel, I want to talk to you about something serious,” she said as she sat next to me on the bed. “I’m sorry for not loaning you that money before.” I put on a confused face, like I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but she stopped me. “I know it hurt you. I’m sorry. I hope that you can forgive me and that we can move past that.”
I was stunned that she would bring up the loan—we hadn’t spoken about it since it happened. The memory was still a painful one, and
I needed a moment before I could accept her apology. I sucked my emotions in enough to look at Lisette with a straight face. “Thank you” was all I could say. Apologizing wasn’t her style, and I knew that it took a lot for her to do it tonight.
“I know that you need a job,” Lisette said. “I’ve never been in a position to hire you before because I’ve always worked for my family. But I have an opportunity to help you now. I’m starting a new business with David.”
“Isn’t he a drug dealer?” I asked. Lisette shook her head.
“Sweetie, that’s just a side thing. David is smart, and he doesn’t want to do that forever. Our business is going to be a private one, so I’m going to need someone I can trust. I have to be honest; you’re not qualified for the job. I’m willing to stick my neck out for you, but you’d have to just keep your head down and trust me. How would you feel about being my executive personal assistant?” She glowed with happy anticipation, as though she’d just told me that I’d won a prize.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s like a personal assistant, except that I can send you to work when I’m not there, so you can represent me if I can’t make it. Are you interested?”
“Well, yeah, of course. I need a job.”
“I can pay you in cash, and I’d give you time off whenever you have an audition.”
“That would be amazing,” I said.
“You’d have to travel with me on a private plane. But you cannot act like you’ve never been on a private plane before. Just act like it’s nothing; otherwise, it will be too obvious that you’re green and underqualified. Don’t act too excited, because you’ll be working. The best part is that I’d finally be able to see you more often. You’ll be working for your best friend.”
I remembered the conversation I heard between David and Lisette when they met, and I assumed that her new business would involve casinos. The casino industry was a foreign world to me, but one that I knew Lisette was passionate about. She’d confided to me many times that if she could choose to do anything with her life, she would want to run casinos, like her father did in Japan. Lisette was a member of the Samsung dynasty, so if there was anything she understood, it was business. I trusted her judgment.
When Lisette asked me to work for her, I felt as though she was once again coming to my rescue. With her help, I could continue to pursue my dream. I’d be able to afford my apartment, pay my bills, and escape the guilt of potentially asking my parents for more money. I told her that I was interested in her offer, though I still had no idea what the job would entail. All I knew is that it was a job, and I definitely needed one.
6
TEAM LL
Less than a week after our stay at the Ritz-Carlton, Lisette asked me to meet her at the bar of a quiet Beverly Hills hotel. She texted me beforehand with explicit instructions to park my Volkswagen Beetle around the corner from the hotel, “a few blocks away”; she didn’t want anyone we would be working with to judge me for driving such an inexpensive car. “It’s none of their fucking business,” she said. Her request didn’t surprise me. When I first met Lisette, she told me to tell anyone she introduced me to that I had known her since we were children, and that I’d initially met her when I traveled to Los Angeles with my family many years ago. I wasn’t comfortable going along with a fake story, but her argument for it was compelling. It was to protect me from people in her life thinking that because I was a “new friend” I must only be “after her money.” She’d said it would be “cruel” to subject me to such unfair suspicion. “Friends since childhood” had been our story ever since.
The hotel was located just off Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. I was struck by how deserted it looked when I walked into the air-conditioned lobby. From the entrance the only other people I could see were a receptionist and one lone bartender who was wiping down already clean glassware behind the bar. I passed the front desk and followed a dangerously polished floor into the lounge, where Lisette was waiting for me in a booth. She looked more like a madam than an entrepreneur, with her shimmering purple eye makeup and form-fitting black tank top. A bejeweled medallion was woven into her shirt, drawing attention to her chest beneath an already plunging neckline. Her B cups had been pressed together by the godlike effect of a push-up bra. Lisette’s hair was perfectly styled as usual and fell down over one shoulder. “Sweetie!” She got up and hugged me. “Frankie and Henry should be here any minute.” Henry? She saw my confusion and explained that she had invited him to work for her as “kind of like a second bodyguard and driver, someone to carry luggage.” “It’s better than being a fucking valet,” she said, sipping her Bombay Sapphire gin and tonic. “When David gets here, I am seriously going to die laughing. You have to help me because this shit is too much.” She could barely contain her excitement about watching them meet for the first time. I was happy to see her enjoying herself, but I tried to keep some distance from thinking about the hearts I knew she would likely break. It’s like when a dog owner sees that his beloved pet has bitten the head off a mouse. The carnage can be disturbing, even if you always knew it’s in the dog’s nature.
From what Lisette told me, it seemed that David and Henry had each fallen for her, hard. David didn’t know about Henry, and Henry only knew that David liked Lisette. He had no idea that David had been seriously dating her for months. Lisette was delighted that the two men would be forced to work together, oblivious to the web that she had spun them into. The mere thought of it gave her a childlike joy, entertaining and impressing herself with her ability to play with men as if they were toys.
I’d had friends who had cheated on their boyfriends in the past, but Lisette took it to another level. Her sommelier ex-boyfriend who still shared a condo and a bed with her didn’t know about either of her new lovers. I imagined that he’d be surprised to learn that one of the valets at his building had been making house calls upstairs.
Henry arrived and sat next to Lisette in the booth. Frankie, Lisette’s Samoan bodyguard, was the next to show up. He was about forty years old. In his twenties he was a semiprofessional basketball player in Europe. He had the height and bulk to make you believe it. When we saw his six-foot-eight frame walk into the lobby of the hotel, Lisette whispered quickly in my ear, “Angel, remember what I told you.” I nodded.
I got up from the table and met Frankie with a big hug. “Frankie!”
“Ah, Meili,” he said, “nice to see you, girl. You, uh, ya been good?”
“I’ve been great!” I said. I sat back down and glanced at Lisette. She looked satisfied, which told me I’d done my job. I had never met Frankie in my life, but Lisette didn’t want anyone to know that. “Frankie has been a bodyguard for my family since I was five years old,” she explained to me before the meeting. “If anyone finds out that you two haven’t met, they’ll find it pretty fucking hard to believe that you’ve known me since we were kids. Don’t worry, sweetie, I already told Frankie what to do when he sees you.”
David and Ko were the last to join our meeting. Ko, David’s close friend, was a Korean man in his early forties who had been starstruck by Lisette since hearing from David that she was the Samsung heiress. Samsung has enormous power in Korea, and to Ko, Lisette was like royalty. Whenever he was around her, he anxiously tried to make conversation. This tended to irritate her, which led him to talking more to try to appease her, which usually led to Ko getting his ass handed to him when Lisette silenced him with some kind of verbal venom. But her insults always seemed to bounce off Ko. I think in a way he enjoyed their routine. Maybe he liked to get a rise out of her.
Since Lisette started dating David the four of us had gone out to a few dinners together. I’d heard from Lisette that Ko used to be in a Korean gang; he kept the nails of his pinkie fingers long. I asked him once what it meant and he said, “It means I can get down.” His response didn’t entirely answer my question, but it did stop me from asking him anything further.
David walked a step ahead of Ko
into the lounge. Lisette introduced them to Frankie. She kept a straight face as David shook Henry’s hand. Soon after this meeting our group would come to be called “Team LL,” for Lisette Lee, a nickname thought up by LL herself.
Our time at the hotel was short, and halfway through the meeting Lisette asked me to step outside with Henry. “Sweetie, go sit by the pool. I’ll text you when to come back.” I got up from the booth and leaned over to share a kiss on the cheek with her. She smiled at me and said, “That’s my girl.”
Henry and I sat idle on lounge chairs outside by the pool. I still didn’t know what it was that we would be doing on the upcoming “trip,” and it seemed that Henry didn’t either. I didn’t even know where we would be going, beyond a brief mention from Lisette that it would be “east.”
Henry and I got along, maybe because we were the same age, twenty-three, and perhaps because we shared a similar adoration of Lisette. Neither of us had much in common with anyone else here. We were also both apparently not invited to be in the know with regard to Lisette’s new business, but I don’t think either of us really cared. We were just happy to be a part of Lisette’s orbit, however unusual it was.
COME INSIDE ANGEL.
When I received Lisette’s text, I returned to the meeting with Henry. David was ready to wrap things up with the “need-to-knows.” “Okay, we leave on Friday,” he said. “We meet at my place downtown. Ko is gonna fly with Henry and Meili on the jet, and I’m gonna meet them over there. The next morning, Meili and Henry fly back to L.A. on commercial and we take care of everything from there.”