“What?” Elise asked with a large smile and a hint of curiosity. She wanted to be let in on the joke.
Justine clutched her stomach and laughed even harder. Her laughter was contagious, and Elise giggled, too. “What? What is it?”
“You have lettuce stuck in your teeth!”
Jimmy zoomed in to see.
Wasn’t she aware of the universal hand gesture of subtly scratching your tooth? That was usually enough to inform someone.
After the lettuce incident Elise kept her distance. Luckily, Stan had stopped by a couple times to hang out with her, so she wasn’t left entirely by herself with them.
She decided to call her brother to see if he wanted to meet for lunch, and was disappointed when she reached his voice mail. She remembered that he was strapped for cash after paying off the damage to the U-Move and had been taking on extra shifts at the Wild Animal Park. Elise could hear the rough and raunchy voice of a female rapper. “Lick me . . . lick it good . . . lick it like you care.” It was, after all, lunchtime. She grabbed her keys from her desk.
Jimmy wasn’t around when Elise entered the living room. It was Justine’s day off, so perhaps they’d actually peeled themselves from the couch. Just as she started to think by some miracle she had the apartment to herself, Justine emerged from her bedroom, holding a box of Marlboro Reds and a lighter.
“Hey,” she said as she prepared to light a smoke. Apparently, her little talk with Jimmy about smoking outside had only applied to him. It had also only seemed to apply to him on that particular evening, because she suspected that he was still smoking in the house as well.
She was tired of going to lunch with Carly or running errands and catching nauseating whiffs of cigarettes, thinking how gross it was and then realizing moments later that the smell was actually coming from her. Every article of her wardrobe had taken an ashy scent, and Bella smelled as if she were one of the Cheechers’s ashtrays. Confronting Justine about the smoking would be like ripping off a Band-Aid. Though painful, she needed to do it. Quickly.
Should she say something now? It might be the perfect opportunity, while she was smoking. She could just casually bring it up. She took a deep breath and braced herself. “Um, Justine.” Her voice was low and weak when she spoke. “Would you mind, um . . . Would you mind smoking outside? It’s just that, well . . .” For a moment Elise thought that Justine might light her instead of the cigarette. “. . . And it makes my eyes water, and I just think it might be better . . . maybe it would be better if you smoked outside or just in your room with the door closed and your window open on days when there is a manhunt.” She still held the lighter midair, frozen. “Well, and Bella is allergic to it, too.” Where this had come from, she had no idea.
She shoved the lighter in her jeans pocket. “Bella is allergic to it? Why didn’t you say something?” She touched Elise’s arm. “No wonder she’s been hiding under the couch lately. I’m sorry, sweetie. Of course I’ll smoke outside. From now on.” She turned and headed for the front door, her auburn mane swishing across her back.
A small sense of relief came from this triumph. Now, if she could just avoid getting mugged, this might not be such a bad place to live. While grabbing her keys and wallet, she considered Max’s offer to join him at Paesano. He’d said to stop by the shop anytime. But what if she stopped by and he was going to lunch with another girl? Only her imagination could explain how awkward that would be. Or what if he had only told her to stop by, just to be nice? What if she interrupted his work?
Elise could hear Glorious D outside. “Cuz she’s smokin’. Smokin’ outside. Take it outside.”
She had the courage to confront Justine about the smoking, but yet she couldn’t find the guts to spontaneously drop by Max’s shop. She’d always been a wimp when it came to the male species. This was probably why she could count on just a few fingers the number of men she had slept with. Carly was much more brazen than Elise and probably would’ve stopped by Max’s store only a couple of days after he’d made the offer. They probably would’ve had lunch and sex by now. However, the mere idea of walking in his store unannounced made her palms sticky.
Glorious D was still singing to Justine when Elise left for lunch.
“The smell. It’s like hell, she say. No it ain’t okay. Take it outside.” Elise wished he didn’t have to rub it in so much. Also, she felt a nip of guilt for making Justine smoke outside.
“Do you guys want to go to Mama’s with me?” Elise asked.
Justine shook her head. “No, thanks. I have a lot to do today.” She grinned. “I need to get one of Jimmy’s little gifts ready for him. I still have fifteen lighthouses left to give him before I get to the final one.”
“I just ate,” Glorious D said. “Or else I’d go wit you.”
“All right. I’ll see you later.”
On the way to the restaurant she thought about Max again. She could always use Stan as a resource. He could set something up for them to all hang out. However, being her older brother, he’d been known to turn weird and protective and had never let her become involved with any of his friends when they were growing up. This was mostly due to the fact that he knew what they were all capable of. However, he seemed to like Max and think highly of him. But there was also the risk that Stan might do something to embarrass her. She decided it was probably best to leave him out of the plan.
As she neared Max’s street, her heart began to race. Should she drop in? Yes? No? Yes? At the last second she slammed on the brakes and screeched down his street. As she approached his shop, she debated speeding past and forgetting the whole thing. Eventually she’d see him again, and they could make official plans to go to Paesano then. But who knew when she would see him again? She was tired of waiting for Jimmy to ask her for a ride to his shop or eavesdropping on all his conversations to see if he mentioned Max. It was time she took matters into her own hands.
She pulled up to the curb. There was no turning back now. He’d probably seen her from the window. As she turned off the ignition, she went over what she would say in her mind. Hi, Max. I was just taking a break from the book. Thinking of heading to Paesano by myself, and then I remembered that you said to stop by if I was ever going. So I thought you might want to come along. No. Too much explaining. He’d definitely know she had rehearsed. Hey, Max. Just heading to Paesano for white pizza. Want to come? That was cooler and more casual, but it would be calmly getting those words out that would be hard. She’d sweat and probably stumble over a syllable or two, and end up saying something completely different.
As she exited the car, she realized there was no turning back now. Her eyes wandered over his shop window and came to a screeching halt on his front door. Closed? His shop was closed—lights off, doors locked, and a sign that said he’d be back later. Her nerves stumbled over a tumultuous path of relief and disappointment. She had mentally prepared herself for this moment. And now she’d go to lunch alone before heading home to a life of daydreaming and wondering when Jimmy would need his guitar fixed again. Who knew when and if that would ever happen? Possibly never. Perhaps she should leave him a note, casually offering a rain check. It was totally against that rules book and very forward, but she couldn’t sit around for the rest of her life, wondering. She found a Nordstrom receipt in her purse and wrote on the back of it.
Hey Max,
Stopped by to see if you were up for white pizza. Guess we’ll have to take a rain check. See you soon.
Elise
For a moment she held the pen midair, wondering if she should write her phone number on there. Too desperate, she decided. If he wanted to find her, he knew where she lived. She stuffed the note under the door and drove to Mama’s for lunch alone.
The Lebanese restaurant was crowded when she arrived. Mama’s was truly a hole in the wall. There was no indoor seating or friendly waitresses that told you to take a seat wherever you wanted. Instead, there was a walk-up window for placing orders and a tiny patio that offered a few beat-u
p picnic tables. Mama’s was a diamond in the rough—a wonderful discovery—that attracted its regular patrons through word of mouth. People didn’t drive past Mama’s and stop because of its appealing décor. In fact, it was a place most people drove past daily and had no idea what they were missing. She ordered her falafel in saj bread to go and took the same path home.
While driving, she pulled out her lunch. As she stuffed her face she didn’t think much of the two police cars parked in front of her apartment complex. After all, seeing the black-and-white vehicles, their lights spraying fruit-juice-colored beams over their neighborhood, was just another part of the scenery in City Heights. She pulled into her parking place, then brushed a few crumbs of falafel from her jeans. When she looked up, adrenaline shot through her veins. Her front door was wide open. Two police officers stood in her foyer.
She jumped from the car and ran up the path that led to their apartment. Something had happened to Justine. And it was Elise’s fault for making her smoke outside. Her eyes scanned the lot for Glorious D. She wanted to see a familiar face, someone to tell her what happened before the police did. She needed to be prepared.
Out of breath, she darted toward the front door. She should’ve just endured the smoke. Bought an air humidifier. She could’ve found a new apartment or roommate.
Two officers and Justine stood near the couch. They stopped speaking when Elise entered and eyed her as if she had just interrupted something very important. Justine’s thin arms were folded over her chest, and her cheeks were tear-streaked. She clutched a snotty-looking Kleenex.
“Oh my God. What’s happened?” Elise said, throwing her arms around her roommate.
In between sobs, Justine managed to choke out a few muffled words. “It’s . . . ahuuuh ahuuuuhhhh ahuuh. Awwful.”
“Just take your time.” Elise rubbed her shoulders. “Were you hurt?”
“No,” she squeaked. Taking a deep breath, she blotted her eyes. “Oh, it’s the worst thing ever. Just awful.”
“Is it Jimmy?” The suspense was killing her.
“It’s the lighthouses,” she said before bursting into a full-blown crying frenzy, choking on hiccupping cries. “They’re all gone! They’ve been stolen!”
Elise stopped rubbing her shoulders for a moment. Did she just say the lighthouses had been stolen? Elise understood disappointment. In college, her entire collection of eighty CDs had been ripped off from her bug. She’d been so angry that she wanted to hunt down the thief himself and rub honey all over his body before rolling him over a bed of bee-infested ice plant. But getting the police involved had never crossed her mind. Didn’t they have murderers to track down?
“Okay,” Elise said, still rubbing her shoulders. She suddenly felt conscious of the police watching them and wondered what they must think. Were they relieved that they didn’t have to deal with regular City Heights crime—domestic violence, gang warfare? Or did they think Justine was insane? Elise hoped the police weren’t forming the same opinion about her. She didn’t own any lighthouses, not a single one. She looked at the coffee table and was confused when she noticed several ceramic lighthouses still decorating their living room. Then she remembered Justine had a whole other box of them in their storage space outside.
“When were they stolen?” Elise asked.
“Sometime last night,” she said in between sobs. “Someone cut the lock on our storage space and took the whole box of lighthouses. There was even an old VCR and some jumper cables in there, and they didn’t touch those. Just the lighthouses.”
Elise could’ve sworn she saw one of the officers holding back laughter from the corner of her eye. When she looked at him, the smirk fell from beneath his mustache and his features immediately turned stoic. “They were probably after something they could sell to get money for drugs,” he said. “Maybe someone walked up on them and they grabbed the box and ran. Or maybe it was all they could carry, and they thought there was something more valuable in there.”
“They are valuable,” Justine hissed. “Sen-ti-ment-al value.”
“I understand,” the officer said. The officers asked a couple of more questions and filled out some stuff on their clipboards before saying they had another call to respond to.
“Aren’t you going to take fingerprints?” Justine asked, following them to the door.
“That would require calling in our forensic team, which is usually only done if there has been grand theft or a homicide.”
“But this is grand theft.”
“Well, you estimated the worth to be about . . .” He flipped through a small notebook. “One hundred and twenty dollars. Grand theft is typically thousands of dollars.”
“So, you’re not going to do anything?”
“We took a report. And if it happens again, call us. In the meantime, get a better lock for your storage space.”
Elise imagined a crusty drug addict who, for some reason, had the same physique and hairdo as Jimmy. She imagined the pleasure this person must’ve felt after busting into the storage space and finding a box filled with what they assumed to be the kind of valuables their crack dealer would gladly swap for drugs. This smelly individual had probably run for blocks, believing he held a treasure large enough to keep him satisfied for weeks. She could only imagine the disappointment the crackhead must’ve endured after he opened the box and found a bunch of trinkets worth less than a bag of chips on the black market.
“Jimmy will never even get to see the final one. The one that played ‘You Light Up My Life.’ This is so horrible.”
Elise put her arm around Justine’s shoulders and told her about the time all her CDs were stolen. “I can totally understand your feelings of disappointment. All of my favorite CDs were gone. Fleetwood Mac, Lenny Kravitz. All my Ramones CDs. Over a thousand dollars’ worth of music.”
Justine cried even harder. “It’s not the same,” she said. “CDs don’t have the same kind of sentimental value. You can replace those. This was a gift with special meaning.” Justine blotted her eyes and looked up at Elise. “So, does Carly have a boyfriend?”
What did this have to do with anything? “No. She just broke it off with someone. She’s single.”
“Hmmm. So, she’s on the rebound then?”
If she thought for a minute that Carly was interested in Jimmy, she was even more insane than Elise had thought. One, Carly would never go for Jimmy. An unemployed couch potato, aspiring rock star. Not a chance. Not only were they night and day, but Jimmy wasn’t even close to her type.
“No. She’s not on the rebound, Justine. She doesn’t need to have a man in her life every minute. She’s fine by herself.” Unlike you.
11. Special Mail
Several days later Elise tortured herself with images of Max opening the front door of his shop, her Nordstrom receipt getting blown by a gust of air and carried to a hidden location behind a guitar, lost until the next time he cleaned the store. Ten years from now he’d rearrange his guitars and find a shriveled receipt covered with two inches of dust and enough dog hair to stuff a small pillow. He’d read her faded writing while one of his children played with a vintage Les Paul behind him, and he’d rack his mind wondering who the hell Elise was.
She checked her e-mail and was pleased to see one from her agent’s assistant. Perhaps something was brewing on the book front.
Hi Elise,
I’ve tried to call you twice this week. Maybe you’re out of town? I left a message with your roommate. Anyway, maybe he forgot.
Well, exciting news here. Jennifer Bloom has signed on to represent the film rights for your book. She absolutely loves it, and she is one of the top film agents in Los Angeles, so you’re in great hands. I’ll keep you posted when we know more. Hope all is well!
Best,
Carissa
She popped from her chair. “Oh my God,” she breathed. This was news. She called her parents first but made them promise not to tell a soul. “Everything is so iffy in this industry. Just because
I got signed on with a film agent doesn’t mean anything yet. It just means that a very well-connected person is going to try to sell the movie rights. So just try to keep it hush-hush, okay?”
“Of course,” her mother said.
“Our lips are sealed,” Hal chimed in from the speakerphone.
“I mean, you can tell Melissa and Brice, but just don’t go spreading the word everywhere. I don’t want to jinx anything.”
“We won’t say anything.”
She called Stan next, but he didn’t answer his cell phone. Unable to contain her excitement, she left the news on his voice mail, emphasizing that it was top secret. She dialed Carly next.
“Oh my God! What if Julia Roberts is in it? Can I come to the premiere?” She yelped. “This is great!”
She repeated the same secrecy lecture she had given her parents. “Nothing is ever certain in this business, and besides, I don’t want to have to explain to fifty million people that nothing ever happened with it if the movie rights aren’t sold. I’d rather just keep it between my close friends.”
“I know. Have I ever repeated anything you’ve told me?”
“No. You haven’t.”
“But we can at least discuss the cast? Does that jinx it?”
“Probably. But it’s just too hard to resist. So, I’m thinking Julia or Sandra Bullock.”
“Yes!”
Carly threw out a few more ideas before her boss neared her cubicle, and she had to go.
After she hung up, she went to the kitchen for a cup of green tea and found Justine curled beneath a blanket on the couch, watching Cribs by herself. Elise decided not to tell her roommates about the latest twist in her career but wondered if they would notice the perma grin that had now taken control of her face. She was about to ask where Jimmy was when he came bursting through the front door with a huge smile on his face. “Guess what? I got a job!”
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