The Aeon Star

by Hart, Lauren T.

  Next came the hair dye. She'd never dyed her hair before, but it didn't seem that hard. Until she ran out of dye about halfway through. Only the top half of her head was dyed, and she was concerned that it was a little streaky but there wasn't a lot she could do about it now, she'd just have to buy another box of dye later and finish the job. Unless the red looked bad. Then she could buy a box of brown to dye it back. She rinsed everything off in the shower toweled off and had at her new multi-colored mop with the hairdryer.

  When she saw her new color and style in the mirror — deep burgundy streaks over dark brown — she couldn't help but smile. Not much of a disguise, the red was much darker and much redder than she thought it would be, but she looked good, stylish even. And she liked the way the dark red locks seemed to make her blue eyes stand out, the way she'd always wished they would.

  A little black eye liner, a lot of mascara and some glossy red lips and it would be exactly what someone named Genevieve should look like. Just the thought of Genevieve made her smile. She wanted to say the name out loud, but couldn't bring herself to do it. It felt... wrong somehow, like a betrayal.

  Genevieve wasn't real, at least not for now. For now, it was the spirit that gave her — whoever "her" was — the strength and the courage to do what had to be done in order to survive. But as far as the rest of the world was concerned, she — whoever she was – Jennifer Anne Hollis – was just a girl from Lakewood, Colorado. "Hello, Jennifer Anne Hollis," she said to her reflection. Her reflection smiled broadly back at her.

  Jennifer finished writing down the last important address and telephone number she thought she'd need from the phonebook in her room, slipped on her heels, and took another look at her new self in the mirror. She barely recognized herself. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  San Francisco was a very big city. It was a little bit terrifying, but she kind of liked it. No. She loved it. All the people, all the diversity, it was a million miles away from the life she'd known before.

  She had found a few potential job possibilities as well as some apartment rental options in the paper — of course, she couldn't afford a place on her own, but roommates were something she was used to, and at least she would have her own room. The hard part was going to be finding them all in one day.

  Unfortunately, having no previous work history — at least none that she could give references to — and living out of a hotel weren't exactly the traits most employers were looking for — at least not the more reputable ones.

  Most places had her fill out an application, scoffed at her for not having a résumé and told her they'd get back to her. Not having a phone made this a little problematic. She bought a prepaid phone at a convenience store and activated it. Another hundred dollars down, but having a phone number right now was quickly becoming more important than having a place to sleep.

  A few more blocks down she came to a shoe store. They weren't hiring, but her feet were really starting to feel the pressures of walking around in shoes she wasn't used to wearing long term. Eighty dollars later, she walked out wearing a decent pair of running shoes. She wrapped her heels in the shopping bag and stowed them in her big blue purse.

  A little after two o'clock she stopped at a little sandwich shop called Sammie's at the end of Jefferson Street, near Hyde Pier. She was beginning to feel the utter futility of her job hunt thus far and she was hungry.

  "What can I get for you?" asked a sporty looking blond waitress. Her name-tag said: "LOLLIPOP"

  Poor girl.

  "Chicken sandwich, no mayo, a really large water with lemon, and a job if you've got one." Jennifer smiled at Lollipop.

  And now she had the lollipop song stuck in her head.

  Oh, lolli, lollipop.

  Lollipop – seriously, what were her parent's thinking — eyed her for a second before asking, "What kind of bread?"

  Jennifer shrugged. "Lets go with wheat."

  "Okay," Lolli-Lollipop grinned at her. "Chicken on wheat — extra mayo — and a water coming right up."

  Jennifer didn't even have time to object, Lollipop was already halfway to the kitchen.

  A few moments later Lolli emerged again with a tray full of food. Jennifer tried to get her attention, as she passed, but Lollipop wasn't paying her much notice.

  Jennifer resigned herself to the possibility of a sandwich slathered in oily, coagulated egg yolks and spices — mayonnaise some called it — quite possibly the most disgusting substance ever — but she had too many other things on her mind. Like the fact that she had no job, no place to live and... she needed to pee.

  Jennifer eyed two sea blue doors at the end of the dining room one was marked "BOUYS" the other "GULLS."

  Ridiculous.

  "It's the one marked 'Gulls,'" Lolli chimed in from out of nowhere as Jennifer made her way towards the two blue doors. "I've told Brett he should change it, but I don't know, I guess he thinks it's quaint." She shrugged and disappeared into the kitchen again.

  How nice of Lolli-Lollipop to point out to her which bathroom to use, and give her that little tidbit of utterly useless information. Who cared which bathroom she used? Pee was pee. Mayonnaise or no mayonnaise... now that was something to have some concern about.

  Jennifer eyed herself in the mirror. She looked tired. Older. And it wasn't just the make up — the stress had aged her. She shot herself a smile in the mirror, if she didn't know herself so well, it was almost convincing. But she had more important things to do than dwell. She peed, washed her hands, checked her make up one more time, and then went back to her table.

  A few minutes later Lollipop arrived with her chicken sandwich and water, with a lemon wedge stuck in it. Jennifer hated mayonnaise, but she was almost too hungry and too tired to care. She took a tentative bite. It was delicious — and completely mayonnaise-free.

  She had just taken a second — and also huge — bite of her sandwich when a tall brunette whose name-tag read "FRANKIE" slid himself into the seat across from her and asked, "So when can you start?"

  She held her finger up to her mouth in what she thought was the universal sign for 'just a moment' and chewed as quickly as she could.

  "Sorry," whispered Frankie. "When can you start?"

  Jennifer covered her mouth with her hand. "Sorry, no, I wasn't shushing you." Jennifer swallowed, "Sorry. My mouth was full of food."

  "How's your sandwich?" Lollipop piped in.

  "It's delicious." Jennifer nodded and smiled at her then turned back to Frankie. "I can start as soon as you want."

  "Okay, how about now?" Frankie asked.

  "Like, right now?"

  "Yeah. Grab your plate; employees eat in the back."

  Of course it had occurred to her that Lolli and Frankie were a little on the crazy side but a job was a job. She picked up her plate and glass and followed Frankie through the kitchen door.

  "That's Caleb, Rauly and Sam," he pointed to three guys in the kitchen.

  Caleb was making sandwiches, as was Rauly. Caleb had the same athletic, sporty look that Lollipop had, and was also blond. Rauly was short and stocky, and his hair was short, black and spiky. Sam was older — much older — in his seventy's maybe, with silver-white hair, and he was washing dishes. He waved at her with a soapy plate. She waved back.

  At the far end of the kitchen near the back door was a booth lined with velvet ropes and a sign that read "VIP's"

  "My name's Jennifer," she offered.

  "Brett." Frankie smiled at her, holding back the velvet rope to the VIP table.

  "But I thought—." She pointed to his name-tag.

  Brett pointed to a corkboard on the wall next to the VIP table. It was littered with name-tags. "Who would you like to be today?" He read a few of them to her. "Madonna? Marvin? Licorice? Butterfly maybe?"

  "Orange Jello?" she asked.

  "It's pronounced Or-aunge-ello." Brett mocked offense, then grinned and handed her the ORANGEJELLO name-tag.

  "Orangejello?" Lollipop
scoffed, joining them at the VIP table. "No, no, no, I think you should go with Foxxy." She handed Jennifer the FOXXY tag, which had a number of shiny fox shaped stickers on it. "I'm Ashley by the way."

  "Jennifer."

  Another waitress came back just then. She had light brown hair that was pulled back into a high ponytail. She glanced briefly toward the VIP booth then picked up her next order and hurried back out again.

  "That was Jamie." Ashley offered. "She sort of hates me so she'll probably wait until I'm not here before she comes to say hi."

  "She doesn't hate you, Ash." Brett consoled, "I hate you. Jamie's just... afraid of you."

  Ashley rolled her eyes at him, picked up her next order and headed out of the kitchen.

  "Let's get your paperwork started." Brett ducked into a small office disguised as a closet just off the kitchen and after a few minutes of rifling through file drawers he returned with a stack of papers and a pen. "Can I ask you a few questions?" he asked as he slid into the booth across from her.

  "You're the boss." She shrugged.

  "I didn't mean as a boss." He sounded uneasy. "As a boss I can really only ask you about your qualifications."

  She took a sip of her water. It seemed like a perfectly good opportunity to practice the story she had invented for herself this morning while she was waiting for her hair to bake. "Well then, lets stay away from those because as far as qualifications – I really don't have any," she laughed, uneasy.

  "It's not rocket science." He shrugged. "So are you new in town?"

  "Very new."

  "That's cool, that's cool." He nodded and repeated — the way grownups did when they were trying to relate. Not that he was that old, he was probably only in his thirties. "So... where are you from? If you don't mind me asking."

  "Lakewood, Colorado," she said taking another bite of her sandwich. She couldn't answer questions like, 'is that near Denver?' yet, so her best tactic was to avoid them.

  "Cool. Do you ski?"

  She chewed and shook her head.

  "You got family out here?" he continued.

  She shrugged and shook her head.

  "Friends?"

  She kept shaking.

  "Okay." He shrugged. "So just out of curiosity what brings you to the City by the Bay? The lifestyle? The fog? The earthquakes?"

  "Its just where I ended up," she said. The best lies always came from the truth.

  She squeezed the lemon wedge into her water, getting its juices on her fingers in the process then she bit into the lemon, savoring its sour succulence before she rubbed the juice on her fingers into her hands. Yum. Lemon. Then she took a long drink of lemony water.

  Brett watched her with a look of bemusement through her little routine. "Uh..." he said with a quick shake of his head, "You don't have to answer this either," he started, "but why'd you leave?"

  "I overstayed my welcome."

  "In Colorado?"

  "People don't know this, but Colorado's a very particular place," she said sarcastically.

  "Are you over eighteen?" he blurted.

  She had suspected that this was where this conversation had been headed when it began. She let him stew over her answer. Just long enough for him to become really suspicious. She used Ashley's re-entry to the kitchen as an additional stall tactic.

  "Ryan's here." Ashley announced to the kitchen, and then settled herself in the booth next to Brett. "So?"

  "I don't know." Brett said through his teeth.

  Ashley flashed an expectant smile at Jennifer.

  "My birthday's on the twenty-fifth," she took an extra long pause, just long enough for them to misunderstand before she continued. "I'll be twenty."

  "Twenty?" Brett reaffirmed.

  "That's what is says on my ID." She reached into her purse to retrieve it.

  "You don't need to do that," he said quickly. "I believe you."

  "You owe me twenty bucks," Ashley smiled at Brett, patted him on the leg then headed back out of the kitchen with her next order.

  Jennifer pulled the brand spanking new ID and Social Security card from her wallet and set them on the table in front of her. "That's okay," she smiled at him, "I'll need it for all this paperwork. But, is it okay if I get back to you on the whole current address thing?" she asked. "I haven't been able to cross that one off my to-do list yet."

  He nodded then added, "Jamie's got a roommate that's moving out in a week or so, I don't think they have anyone set to move in yet, if you want to ask her about it."

  "Cool," Jennifer nodded.

  A week or so. Yikes. She definitely didn't have enough money to last her a week or so... maybe if tips were really good — or if she sold an organ, or something.

  Jamie entered the kitchen with a tray full of dirty dishes. Brett took the tray from her, tossing his head in Jennifer's direction.

  "But Ryan's here."

  "It'll be fine," he said. "I was just telling Jennifer here, that you were looking for a new housemate."

  "Were you?" Jamie put her hand on her hip.

  "Uh... Yeah. Hey, she's cool. Jennifer went to school with my sister, Jessica," he lied. "And... she really needs a place to stay."

  Jamie came to stand at the edge of the table. Her name-tag read: "ELVIS" she tilted her head to the side and surveyed Jennifer for a minute. "Ummm," Jamie hummed. "Do you smoke?"

  "No."

  "Drugs?"

  "No."

  "Are you a criminal?"

  "Not that I'm aware of."

  "Insane?"

  "Maybe just a little bit."

  "Okay." Jamie sighed. "Rent is four hundred a month plus one-third of the utilities, clean up after yourself, no smoking, no pets, no wild parties. Yeah?"

  "Okay, sounds good." Jennifer nodded. She had no idea if that was good or not, but it was better than a hundred dollars a day.

  "One of my roommates is getting married next week." Jamie sighed, as if it had been a huge ordeal for her. "You could move in earlier if you wanted, crash on the couch until she officially vacates."

  "Okay, thanks." Jennifer nodded. "I have a place for tonight, but would tomorrow morning be okay?"

  "Sure." Jamie wrote the address and her cell number down on an order slip and handed it to her. "I'm supposed to have tomorrow off," she explained. "I probably won't. I've been filling in for Erin, who's also a roommate. She's been sick with some stomach thing — either that or she's pregnant, but I doubt it, she's kind of a prude."

  "Cool cool," Brett said. "And after you get settled at sofa de Jamie, stop in here and we can start getting you trained in the high art of waitressing," he grinned.

  Chapter 5

  Etched In The Stars

  Jennifer met Erin the next day, still sick. She had long auburn hair that was pulled back into a lazy ponytail and a pale, freckle-smattered, complexion. Erin kept her distance; her arms wrapped securely around an empty juice pitcher as she showed her around the apartment and introduced her to Emily, the bride-to-be.

  Emily had shoulder length dark hair and deep brown eyes. She was almost too happy and very talkative. Fifteen minutes after meeting her, Jennifer was sure she knew more about Emily than she'd known about Mike after 15 years.

  Emily was just telling her how she had decided, and was now struggling to be, a faux virgin when she married. The idea was that a couple that had been having sex stopped having sex weeks or months before they got married. Jennifer never really understood this concept. She knew Quincy promoted it, and she'd known girls who had done this. Like Amber Jessup, who thought it would make the wedding night more special or some such nonsense. And Katie Reynolds, who thought that by abstaining for a couple of months people might actually believe that she was a virgin when she stood at the altar.

  Ridiculous.

  Not that there was anything wrong with being a virgin when you got married — or not being a virgin — for that matter. But why was that anyone else's business?

  When Erin was feeling better she went with Jennifer
to get her food handler's permit and a California driver's license, and then introduced her to some really good thrift stores. Jennifer was immensely grateful, as her current wardrobe selection was so ridiculously small.

  Jamie had a computer, and Internet access. Jennifer logged into Jenny Taylor's online email account and fired off an email to Mike.

  'Like I promised...' was all it said. She didn't know what else to say. Mike really had been a good friend, even if he had been a lousy boyfriend. But she decided that she didn't want to look back, or go back to the life — or the person she was before. She had never really wanted to be Jenny Taylor; it's just the way things were. But things were different now. Not that being Jenny Taylor had been such a bad thing, but it wasn't who she was anymore.

  Jennifer Hollis spent as much time as she could at work, learning everything that she could. She was a quick study, but there was a lot she had to learn and remember. Balancing trays loaded with food was harder than it looked. But it was easy when compared to the task of memorizing the menu and all its different options. Even so, it didn't take her very long to get into the groove of things, and for the most part, her days were happy ones.

  Nighttime was another story. There weren't as many distractions at night. She had taken to reading Jamie's smutty romance novels late into the night, which were far more graphic than she'd expected, but they were somewhat... educational... in a completely glamorized and unrealistic sort of way. She liked them.

  A couple of nights her late night reading worked and she would sleep without dreaming. But most nights, it didn't work and she was plagued with night-long nightmares.