by Ava Lore
I blew a raspberry into the phone and she laughed, somewhat nastily. “No one stole my phone,” I said. “I do need advice.”
“Advice that can’t wait until tomorrow?”
“It is tomorrow.”
“No, dear, I mean tomorrow. When I’m out of the country.”
“Hawaii is a US state.”
There was another silence. “Fuck you,” Rebecca said finally. “I ain’t giving you nothing.”
“Wait!” Why did the worst in me always come out when I talked to Rebecca? I could never help but needle her, and she could never help but needle back. “Please, I really do need your advice, and no, it really can’t wait until tomorrow.”
She sighed. “Okay, fine, what is it?”
I took a deep breath. I knew that coming out and saying it would make it sound even dumber than it actually was. “Manny...” I licked my lips. Just tell her, jeez. “Manny invited me to go to Hawaii with the band.”
Rebecca dissolved into a coughing fit that I knew was just a cover for her giggles. I scowled. “What’s so damn funny?”
“You,” she said. “What kind of advice do you want from me? You forget, I once went to Vegas during a job interview. I’ll go anywhere if someone offers me enough candy.”
God, why couldn’t anyone take anything seriously? “I want to know if you think he’s a good guy,” I said. “I’m not going to go to Hawaii as some guy’s guest if I don’t know him!”
“Hmm,” Rebecca said. “I’m not seeing the dilemma here.”
“I already told you, he’s a stranger.”
“No, he isn’t,” Rebecca replied. “He’s my friend and the band’s drummer.”
“Yeah, but until tonight I hadn’t said more than ten words to him the entire time we’ve been acquainted.”
“So?”
“So don’t you think it’s a little weird? For a guy to ask a girl to go on vacation with him when he barely knows her?”
My sister seemed to ponder this. “Sounds like Manny to me,” she said at last. “That’s just how he rolls. He’d invite anyone to go with him if he thought they’d be interesting enough.”
Oh. Why was that so disappointing to me? “So he’s not, like... there aren’t any rumors about him or anything, right?”
“God, Rose, no! Manny? Hell no. If he’s inviting you to come with us, then he has his reasons.”
“What kind of reasons?”
She giggled. “How should I know? I’m not the artsy fartsy creative type. I just keep a clean house and a clean schedule.”
I sighed. “You can’t give me a hint?”
“He probably likes you.”
I like you. His words fluttered across my mind, and I sucked air through my teeth. “I suppose,” I said after a second.
“Maybe he wants to fuck you. My advice is to let him.”
“Rebecca!”
“Rose!” she mocked. Then she made a strange noise. “Hey, wait a second,” she said. “I seem to remember him saying something about taking you outside so you guys could make out. Is that what this is about? Oh my god, he does want to fuck you!”
“Jesus, Becca,” I said. “You are so crude.”
“So did you make out with him?” she asked. “Was it good?”
I squeaked with barely repressed outrage. “Rebecca! What kind of question is that?”
“An honest one? Holy shit, you did make out with him!”
And more. “Shut up.”
“So you want me to tell you if you should go on vacation with a great guy who happens to be really cute and who wants to fuck you?”
I groaned. “I want you to tell me if you think Manny and I would be...compatible.”
A roar of laughter came down the line, so loud that I had to hold the phone away from my face. It took a full minute for her to stop laughing at me. “What’s so damn funny?” I demanded when the giggles finally faded.
“Aaaaaahhhh,” she sighed. “Nothing. Just you. You want to know if you’re compatible with a guy before you fuck him?”
“Only seems sensible,” I said, offended.
“Yeah. Sensible. Okay, Rose, you want my advice?”
“Yes. I don’t remember why I wanted now, but I do.”
“Okay. Here it is. You ready for it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s really good. You might want to write it down or something.”
“What?”
“Real annals of history stuff here. I promise. You’ll want to note the date, too.”
“Rebecca...”
“Haha! Okay, no seriously, you ready?”
“Yes!”
“Okay. Here’s my advice: don’t ride a bike to Hawaii.”
Then she hung up on me.
I pulled the phone away from my face and glared at it as though it was my phone’s fault that everything was stupid and sucked. My phone just looked back at me, its battery blinking low. Of course.
Quickly, before it could crap out on me, I pulled up the number Manny had punched into it only a half hour before. “Call me when you know your answer,” he’d said. Well, now I knew. I’d always known. There was no way I could go to Hawaii. Trips required planning, organization, packing, notifying, all that stuff. I couldn’t just pick up and go. For one, where would I keep my car? I couldn’t leave it out, full of all my worldly possessions, ripe for the pickings. It just wasn’t practical to go jet-setting off to Hawaii. I didn’t know Manny, no matter how great his tongue had felt on my clit—and even now that memory seemed hazy and far away and I wondered if it had been some sort of drunken fever dream—and going on a trip with a guy I didn’t know was a recipe for awkwardness.
Even if he thinks you’re hot? Even if he wants to get to know you better?
I stuffed those thoughts down. They weren’t practical.
The ring tone buzzed in my ear as I waited for Manny to pick up. Or not. Actually, I decided, a voicemail would be better. That way he couldn’t change my mind by being sexy and Latin.
So why was I so disappointed when the voicemail picked up?
“Yo, you’ve reached Manny, leave a message.” The tone beeped.
I swallowed around a suddenly dry tongue and took a deep breath. This was it. This was where I disappointed him and myself. It was for the best really.
“It’s Rose,” I said. “I’m going.”
Then I hung up.
And stared at my phone, which promptly winked off as the battery ran out.
Right, I thought. Hawaii, here I come.
* * *
Approximately four hours later my car shuddered around me as the gas gauge needle approached zero.
“Come on, come on,” I begged. I could see LAX up ahead of me. I could practically smell the rank, recycled air of the terminal. It was right there. I could taste the day-old muffins sitting in their Cinnabon boxes. It was so close I could feel the hard, unforgiving plastic of the chairs digging into my ass.
My car gave another lurch.
“Shiiiiiiit!” I shrieked. I was pulling toward the entrance. I was going to make it, if I could find a parking spot close enough...
Wait. Parking.
Shiiiiit.
My only excuse was that, at this point, with the exception of the thirty minutes or so spent asleep in Manny’s car, I had been up for well over twenty four hours and I had been drunk for at least half of them. My head was starting to pound and I couldn’t think straight to save my life, as evidenced by the fact that I had somehow forgotten, in my frenzy to figure out what clothes I still owned were appropriate for Hawaii, that I needed to pay for parking.
I didn’t have any money to pay for parking. I’d barely had enough money to put gas in my car to get to the airport, never mind how I was going to get home. Fuck. All my stuff was still in the car, too. I was probably going to come back to a car full of nothing after we returned from Hawaii. Then I’d have no job, no money, and nothing but the clothes and shoes I’d managed to stuff into the backpack I’d still own
ed. I’d had to sell my luggage on Craigslist for rent money back when I’d first lost my job. I’d thought, like an idiot, that I could find another job immediately, but as it turns out there are no more jobs for lawyers, and even if there were jobs no one wanted to hire someone who got fired from her last firm, thank you for enquiring.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Please,” I begged my car as it wheezed up the drive toward the entrance. I just had to make it to the parking garage just beyond. Then I could relax. Then I could figure everything else out. Maybe I could sell something else to pay for parking. Maybe I could blow my tires out trying to escape.
Maybe I could just live in the LAX parking garage. Move my car every few days. Never leave. Brilliant.
The airport loomed beside me, the parking garage on the other. I was so close...
Then I saw it. A dusty white station wagon. A very familiar dusty white station wagon.
Manny?
It couldn’t be. There had to be a ton of old Cutlasses on the road still. However, the odds that one would show up here and now were astronomically low. It had to be him. Right?
As though my frantic thoughts had summoned him, I saw the driver’s side door open and then Manny unfolded himself from inside his car. I’d forgotten how tall he was. He had seemed really tall last night, but I’d thought that was just my drunken brain distorting the facts. If he actually was very tall, well, I suppose I was a very lucky girl. Very lucky indeed.
My car wheezed and started to slow just as I signaled and aimed for the spot just behind the Cutlass. I rolled down the window and tried to lean my head out.
“Manny!” I yelled. I had no idea what he could do to help me, but I knew that if I could get to him, it would all be okay. I’d be on a plane out of here if I could just get his attention. I nearly wept with relief when he turned his head and his eyes lit up.
I slid my car in behind him with one last wheeze and cut the engine. My car gave one last thankful shudder and was still.
Awesome. Now I was stuck in the middle of the departure lane with a car that wouldn’t depart no matter how much I begged it to do so. Still.
“Hello beautiful.”
I blushed hard as I looked up to see Manny standing next to my window. He was grinning down at me, his golden eyes shining with humor. “Hey,” I said.
“Your car sounds like it could use a tune-up,” he told me as he opened the door for me, just like a gentleman. I ducked my head as I climbed out.
“It needs gas,” I told him in a low voice. My cheeks were burning with embarrassment. “Can you help me?”
He looked at the car and tilted his head. “We could push it to the side of the highway and put a for sale sign on it,” he suggested.
“What? No!”
Manny just laughed. “It would get you out of parking fees and then you can just bring gas back to it when we return.”
I stomped my foot. “No!” I said. “I’m serious here. I can’t put it up for sale...what if someone takes it?”
“But it doesn’t have any gas,” he reminded me.
“I know that, but if it gets impounded...where will I live?”
He stared down at me for a long moment, and his eyes were sad. Then he nodded. “Don’t think about it,” he said. “I will take care of this problem. You get your luggage, okay?”
I swallowed, feeling stupid. Now that I wasn’t in the middle of the panic any longer, I realized that only an idiot would have come all the way here without enough gas or enough money to park her car. I should have found an outlet and plugged my phone in. Not for the first time I cursed the fact that my car didn’t have a port for me to plug into. It was the only thing I truly needed that I didn’t have. If I’d been able to call, none of this would have been a problem. I wouldn’t have become a problem for Manny to deal with.
Miserably I dug my backpack and purse out of the back and rearranged the sheets over my meager things, keeping them hidden from view, then rounded my car and headed to the overhang, clutching my bags close and keeping my head down.
What had I been thinking? This was a terrible idea. Absolutely, mind-blowingly awful. I stared at the asphalt beneath my shoes, wishing it would open up and swallow me.
“Hey, why so sad?”
I jumped and looked up. Manny was walking toward me with a huge grin on his face.
“I...” I tried to summon my thoughts. “I ran out of gas,” I said. “I feel like an idiot.”
“Nah,” he said. “You’re just poor.”
I bristled. “What?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. “That’s not an insult, you know.”
It wasn’t. My pride just hurt, that was all. It was tough being poor and stupid instead of just being plain old poor. I looked away.
Manny just put his hand on my shoulder and began to gently guide me inside. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Rose. I have everything under control.”
Especially me, I thought. My body, so tired and exhausted, had no defenses against him, and I felt everything in me flare up at his touch, like embers touched by the wind.
But all I could say was, “Okay,” while my head whirled. I was already fretting about how I was going to make it through a six hour plane flight without making a total fool of myself. The happy, floating feeling of last night had been completely obliterated by the harsh reality of the day and sobriety, and now that my drunken self had got me into this mess I only wished I could turn back time and punch my drunk self in the face. Present-me would have a huge shiner, but that didn’t matter. It would be a good reminder not to get drunk and accept candy—or oral sex—from strangers.
I barely registered the airport around me, and only belatedly did it occur to me to ask Manny how he had solved my car problem.
He just winked at me as he pulled me into the security line. “That’s a secret,” he said. “I can’t reveal all my secrets right away.”
“Why not?” I said as I bent to take my shoes off. But Manny put a hand out and stopped me, and I had to repress the shiver he inspired in me. To my immense disappointment he didn’t seem to notice my reaction to him, or perhaps he was too polite to mention it.
“We’re in the VIP line,” he told me with a smile. “No shoes off, no laptops out, nothing. Just stick your stuff there and we walk on through.”
“What?” I blinked and looked around me. Sure enough, we were in the first class line. “Wait, how did we end up in first class—” I started, then I realized that of course the label would send them first class. I stiffened and turned to Manny. “Did you buy me a first class ticket?”
He shrugged, which was neither yes or no, but was clearly a yes, because he handed me my boarding pass and I looked down at it, my jaw dropping. “First class?” I said incredulously, just in case he hadn’t heard me the first time.
He put his hand on the small of my back and guided me through the security line, as gently as though he were shepherding a child. “Of course,” he said. “I couldn’t invite you on a trip and then leave you to fend for yourself in the back. That would be rude.”
“But...I can’t pay you back...”
The TSA agent waved me through, and I realized that Manny had somehow divested me of my things and they had already run the X-ray gamut. What? When did that happen? I was far more tired than I thought if I was losing track of my things. The moment they tipped down the slide, I leapt forward and grabbed them, pulling my backpack on and slinging my purse over my head so that no one could take them from me again. That was something I’d learned in the one night I’d spent in a shelter—guard your things, or they’ll be gone.
Manny came up next to me after submitting cheerfully to a frisking. “You’re not paying me back,” he said. “You’re a guest.”
I could hear him not saying, “Duuuuuuh,” after that.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m, um, not used to being a guest. I usually pay my own way...”
“Stop, you are harshing my buzz.” He slung his own bag�
�a hiking backpack—over his shoulder and I wondered where his other luggage had gone. I hadn’t seen him check anything or even take anything out of his car other than the backpack. That was...odd.
“Let’s go,” he said. “The plane is waiting.”
“What?” I said. “Already? I thought we had an hour before boarding started!” Panicked, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, but it remained dead.
“But my car clock...”
“Daylight savings?” Manny asked.
I blinked. Holy shit. Of course. Daylight savings. I hadn’t bothered to fix my clock on my dashboard because I didn’t have anywhere to go, and I was usually so good at remembering it was the wrong hour.
The terminal tipped around me, and I staggered.
“Whoa!” Manny’s arm stole around my shoulders and I had only the briefest moments of leaning into him before we were at our gate. Boarding had already started. Manny flashed our tickets and we were ushered through to the glares of other passengers. I pressed a hand to my forehead as we walked down the Jetway. My head hurt something fierce, and my stomach, calmed by a few snack bars, was now revolting at the mistreatment I had rained down on it last night.
“I don’t feel so hot,” I muttered. The walls of the Jetway narrowed, pressing in on me, and suddenly I was hot, hot, hot, and not in a pleasant way.
Should have stayed in LA and become a heroin addict, I thought. That, at least, had been a long-term strategy. A very bad strategy, but a strategy nonetheless.
“Once we’re on the plane you can sleep,” Manny said from behind me, and to my addled brain it seemed like he had read my mind. Suddenly I was very sleepy. Very sleepy. So tired.
Faces flashed by me—the pilot, the flight attendant, Kent Hudson, Rebecca, Sonya, other passengers—and I tried to smile but my body wouldn’t cooperate. I barely made it to my seat before I collapsed, and my last memory was of a bottle of cool water pressed into my hand. Then I was out like a light.
Chapter Five
Dark, cool room. Neon lights. Plastic fish on the walls. The scent of paprika, thyme, pepper, garlic, onion. Wide booth, green pleather. Rebecca sitting next to me. Carter Hudson across from her. And directly in front of me is Emmanuel Reyes.