by Carol Snow
Pause. “I am not familiar with Santa Fe Springs.”
“It’s in L.A. County.”
“Okay, then.” He sounded nervous.
“Hello? ”
“Yes, good morning, Veronica, this is Rodrigo Gonzo calling about your meeting today with Mr. Sharpie and Miss Rush.”
“Right—I was just about to leave. Eleven o’clock at El Taco Loco, right? And you’ll be driving a green Prius?”
“Yes. I mean no. Mr. Sharpie sends you his deepest apologies, but he is forced to reschedule due to a last-minute conflict.”
“Oh.”
“Tomorrow okay? Same time, same place?”
“I guess.”
“Hello? ”
“Yes, good morning, Miss Veronica.”
“Is this about today’s meeting?”
Sharp intake of breath. “Mr. Sharpie sends you his deepest apologies, but he was called out of town unexpectedly. He is sorry to inconvenience you and was hoping that we could try again on Friday.”
“Try again?”
“Reschedule.”
“Which is it?”
“Heh-heh. We appreciate your humor and your understanding. Eleven o’clock sound okay?”
“Good morning, Miss—”
“Rodrigo? Don’t tell me you’re canceling again.”
“Mr. Sharpie is deeply, deeply sorry for the inconvenience, but—”
“I have a job. Another job. A real job. And this is three times that I’ve missed work for nothing.”
“Mr. Sharpie and Miss Rush sincerely look forward to dialoguing with you at your earliest convenience.”
“My earliest convenience is now. Today. You know what? Just forget it.”
What was I thinking? That I’d really get paid a hundred dollars an hour to go shopping and get my nails done? The first rule of life: when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
“Hello? ”
“Veronica? Jay Sharpie.” So he did know how to dial his own phone.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about canceling our meeting. Honestly. Sincerely sorry. I had to fly to Rhode Island to discuss the next generation of Haley dolls.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Let’s try again.”
“I’ve already missed three days of work, Jay. Trying isn’t good enough.”
There was some crackling on the line. “We won’t reschedule again. You have my word.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Really—any time. Whatever works best for you. We’ll be there. I promise.”
“Fine.” I am such a wimp. “Monday morning. Ten a.m.”
Pause. “Monday’s out. How about Tuesday at noon?”
Chapter Eight
Hello?”
“Yes, good morning, Veronica. This is Rodrigo Gonzo—”
“You’re canceling our meeting.” My voice was flat.
“What? No. Of course not!”
“Really?”
“I just wanted to confirm our meeting place. Eleven-fifteen at . . . El Taco Loco?”
“Yes! El Taco Loco—right. It’s in a strip mall just off the freeway. They have really good carnitas, if you’re hungry.”
Dead silence. And then: “I don’t generally eat lunch.”
I parked outside El Taco Loco, locked my van, and went to stand in front of the smudged glass front door. The dirty air rumbled with freeway sounds.
My cell phone rang: Rodrigo. Damn it. I knew he’d cancel.
“Yes?”
“I’m here.” He sounded tense.
“Where?” I scanned the lot until I saw a hand waving out of the window of a green Prius. “Okay, I see you.”
I shut my phone and crossed the cracked asphalt. I tugged once on the handle before Rodrigo popped the lock. I slid into the car and he locked it again.
Rodrigo Gonzo was exactly what I’d expected, only in miniature: dark hair cut short, gelled into perfect place; sunglasses on the back (not top) of his head; buff, hairless arms; brown eyes with thick black lashes. His blue jeans were faded, his beige T-shirt tight. Even seated, I could see that he was at least an inch or two shorter than me (I’m 5’4”). He weighed maybe a hundred and ten pounds.
“You found it okay?” I said.
“You’re really going to leave your car here?” he asked without answering my question.
“Sure. Why not?”
He raised his eyebrows.
I forced a laugh. “I don’t think any car thieves are going to bother with a five-year-old Dodge Caravan.”
“Good point,” he said with a little too much conviction.
The minivan had been Hank’s doing. Ben was a year old, and my car, a ten-year-old Camry from my parents, was giving out. I’d been eyeing Volkswagen station wagons and Honda CR-Vs, debating the merits of each. But when I came home from the playground one Friday afternoon, there was an enormous red minivan parked in front of the house.
“Who’s here?” I asked Hank, who was sitting at the kitchen table, watching TV.
“Just us.”
“Then whose van is that?”
“It’s yours.”
I didn’t ask him why he’d bought me a car without consulting me first. I didn’t ask him why he hadn’t traded in the Camry. The only thing I could think of was: “How’d it get here? Your car is in the driveway.”
“A guy from the dealership drove the van. I thought you’d be excited. You said you never had a new car.”
“I am excited.”
All I could think was: why so big? Of course, now I needed the van to drive the Mott kids. Maybe Hank was just thinking ahead.
“Are we going to Haley’s house?” I asked Rodrigo.
He shot me a side glance. “Didn’t Jay tell you?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes. We’re going to Haley’s house.”
“Okay. And . . . where does Haley live?”
He shot me another look. His lips tightened. “I’m not authorized to tell you.”
“Unless you’re going to blindfold me, I’m going to figure it out,” I joked.
He bit his lip, as if considering. Dear God—was he really considering a blindfold? And then I remembered Rodrigo’s size: I could take this guy.
“Beverly Hills,” he said finally.
“Oh. Of course.” I thought about Ben and the Mott kids, who would be waiting for me after school. Beverly Hills was pretty far away. “I’ll need to be back at my car by two-thirty.”
“Two-thirty . . . today?”
“Um, yeah.”
He pursed his lips. “That may be difficult to accommodate.”
Most people associate Beverly Hills with money, stars, and glamour. Southern Californians associate it with traffic. To get there, Rodrigo drove on the I-5 freeway from horribly congested Orange County to ridiculously crowded Los Angeles. As always, the traffic stopped and started to its own inexplicable rhythms. Once we reached the city, we veered off onto the I-10 Freeway, Rodrigo’s little green Prius engulfed in a canyon of loud, smelly trucks, along with a swarm of jacked-up pickup trucks, towering SUVs, and testosterone-powered sports cars. Next to us, a gray-haired man in mirrored sunglasses drove an Audi convertible with the top down, all the better to bask in the sunshine and carbon monoxide.
We picked up speed briefly before stopping dead. The dashboard clock read 12:03. I had three hours to get back to the elementary school.
When the silence became unbearable, I asked, “You from L.A.?”
“Tucson.”
“What brought you out here?”
“The entertainment industry.” He put on his blinker, and snuck into the next, faster lane. Traffic stopped immediately.
“Are you an actor?” I asked.
“Screenwriter.”
“You wrote a screenplay? What’s it about?”
His mouth tensed with indecision. I couldn’t read his eyes because he had moved his sunglasses from
the back of his head to his nose. Finally, he told me. “It tells the story of an artistic young man from Arizona struggling against the constraints of a conservative Mexican-American family. My Beautiful Launderette meets Real Women Have Curves.”
“I haven’t seen those movies,” I admitted.
Even through his sunglasses I could detect disgust.
Finally, we lurched off the freeway onto surface streets, working our way past boutiques and restaurants and many, many stoplights before climbing a long, leafy hill.
Rodrigo broke the silence. “Beverly Hills is known for its many species of trees. Each street is lined with a different kind.”
I said, “Really? Fullerton has that, too.”
He had no response to that.
At the top of the hill, we turned on to Mulholland Drive, a windy, patchy road with a flimsy guardrail and sweeping views of the San Fernando Valley. We passed cypress trees, oleander hedges, and fortress-worthy fences. Finally, we reached a stone gatehouse shaded by ficus and magnolia trees. The gatekeeper recognized Rodrigo’s car and waved us through. Immediately I saw . . . more gates. And big trees.
“How many houses are in here?” I asked Rodrigo.
“A lot.” Helpful.
The gate in front of Haley’s house was probably ten feet tall, dark wood supported with darker metal. Rodrigo squeezed a remote control, and the gates swung open, revealing . . .
A house. It was a big house, sure, about the same size as Darcy’s (oops—Darcy and Hank’s), but it was kind of generic: beige stucco, stack stone, clay tile roof. It was like a larger, more upscale version of the tract house Hank and I once shared.
Rodrigo parked his little car between a Mini Cooper and one of two black Cadillac Escalades. Two extremely large men in black pants and black sport shirts leaned against the more distant SUV. They wore sunglasses and clutched small walkie-talkies. Or maybe the walkie-talkies weren’t small; maybe they just looked that way because the security guys’ hands were so big.
I followed Rodrigo to the tall front door, which was made of some glossy, caramel-colored wood. He pushed a button next to an intercom.
“Jes?” came a tinny voice.
“It’s me, Esperanza.”
Static, and then: “Who?”
“Rodrigo.” His mouth tightened and his lips grew white. “She knew it was me,” he muttered.
There was more static and then a click. Rodrigo pushed open the door, and we stepped inside to . . . Frontier Land. Seriously. It looked like a lodge in Montana or Colorado—or maybe in Anaheim. There were enormous log pillars and shed antler chandeliers. Indian blankets draped the leather furniture. An enormous grizzly bear stood next to a towering stone fireplace, arms raised and teeth bared—a moment of ferocity frozen forever. Horse paintings—lots of them—decorated the knotty pine walls.
“Veronica! Welcome!” Jay, standing in front of the fireplace, wore his usual too-sloppy-for-preschool attire.
A messy blond woman, not Haley, sat on the couch.
Jay said, “Veronica Cza . . . Cza . . . Veronica, I’d like you to meet Simone LaPlante. Haley’s stylist.”
Simone remained seated (or planted—har, har) on the biggest of the leather couches. By way of greeting, she tilted up her pointy chin and raised a hand, countless gold bangles weighing down her skinny wrist, chunky rings crowding her surprisingly stubby fingers. She wore a loose gray sweater, black leggings, and slouchy suede boots.
She brushed her wild blond hair out of wide, tired-looking eyes rimmed with smudgy gray eyeliner and looked me up and down. “Size six,” she declared in a monotone.
It took me a moment to realize that she was talking about me. I straightened in my brown turtleneck dress, feeling svelte and possibly even stylish—though I wished I had worn a little more jewelry.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s right.”
Her mouth turned down. Judging by the lines on her face, her mouth turned down a lot. “Haley’s a two.”
“Haley’s really excited about meeting you,” Jay told me.
I glanced around the vast, high-ceilinged room. “Is she here?”
“She’ll be down any minute,” Jay said.
“I need to be back at my car by two-thirty,” I said. That was two hours from now—traffic had made us late.
“Would you like something to drink? Mineral water? Pomegranate iced tea?” He turned his head and called, “Esperanza!”
“Water would be great. Thanks.”
The blond woman continued to study me. I looked at her straight-on, expecting her to smile with embarrassment. She didn’t.
“Esperanza!” Jay called again, louder than before. When she still didn’t appear, he lowered his voice. “Rodrigo, get Veronica some water.” He turned to me. “You want fizzy or flat?”
“I don’t really need anything,” I said.
“Bring both,” he told Rodrigo, who slumped out of the room.
“She’ll do,” Simone announced, rising from the couch and slinging an enormous suede patchwork handbag over her shoulder. She was shorter than I would have guessed, not much bigger than a skinny eleven-year-old.
She continued, “Bone structure, features, coloring—all a good match.” She looked me up and down. “But it would be better if she lost a little weight.”
“I wouldn’t worry about the weight thing,” Jay assured me once Simone left. “Haley’s actually packed on a few pounds in the last couple of months.”
Rodrigo returned with two bottles of water. A stout, middle-aged Latino woman followed him bearing a wood tray. She wore bright white Reeboks, black stretch pants, and a tight, black Ralph Lauren T-shirt, the signature “RLL” emblazoned in rhinestones across her ample bosom. A knockoff Chanel clip—at least, I assumed it was a knockoff—held her burgundy hair off her face and out of Haley’s food.
“Hello, Esperanza,” Jay said. “You can just put the tray on the table, and we’ll keep Miss Haley company while she has her . . . Is that a meal-delivery meal?”
“Is pancakes,” Esperanza hissed, ignoring his instructions and heading for the staircase.
“Because Miss Sasha was supposed to talk to you about that,” Jay told Esperanza’s retreating back. “Miss Sasha says Miss Haley should stick to meal-delivery meals from now on.”
Esperanza disappeared up the stairs without turning around. “Haley hasn’t had breakfast?” I asked Jay. It was now a quarter to one.
“It’s her favorite meal,” he said. “Sometimes she eats it three times a day.” He cleared his throat. “Will you excuse me?” He headed up the stairs.
Rodrigo was still holding the bottles. “Here.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.” I took the plain water because fizzy stuff makes me burp. When I went to twist off the top, I realized that my hands were shaking. The silence felt unbearable.
“Have you written any more screenplays besides the one you mentioned?” I asked Rodrigo.
“I’m working on another one.”
“What’s it about?”
He wrenched open the mineral water. Some foam erupted out the top. He took a long drink before he finally spoke. “It’s about an artistic man who moves to California from a small Arizona town only to have his dreams dashed by the corporate Hollywood machine.”
I did my best to come up with a witty response. “Kind of like A Chorus Line meets Erin Brockovich?”
He wiped some fizz from the side of his mouth and narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“Put it on the table, please, Esperanza.” Jay’s voice echoed through the high-ceilinged room. Esperanza came down the stairs first, still holding the tray. Muttering in Spanish, she placed it on an enormous wooden farm table and then stood there, hands on hips, waiting.
“You can go, Esperanza,” Jay said.
Her nostrils flared. She didn’t move.
The first thing I saw of Haley was her hair. It was blond, it was big, and it was sticking out in some really weird directions. She wore a purple tank top and dark
plaid flannel pajama pants. Her slippers were pink and fuzzy.
“Wanna sleep,” she whined.
“I make pancakes, Miss Haley!” Esperanza trilled. “Chocolate chip—es muy delicioso! You want whipped cream tambien?”
Haley shook her head.
“You want I make bacon?” Esperanza asked.
Haley nodded, and Esperanza hurried out of the room.
Jay muttered something about “meal-delivery meals” and then put on his happy voice. “Haley, you big sleepyhead! This is Veronica, the woman I’ve been telling you about. Don’t you think she looks like you?”
Haley didn’t answer, just folded herself into a log chair upholstered in Buffalo plaid. She leaned over her plate, elbows unapologetically planted on the farmhouse table, her pale, messy hair skimming her coffee cup.
“She’s not a morning person,” Jay told me. (It wasn’t morning.)
“What are meal-delivery meals?” I asked, just to say something.
Jay cleared his throat. “Meal-delivery meals are healthful and tasty food options delivered daily to meet optimal dietary requirements.”
“They’re shit,” Haley said, finally looking my way. Kitty Kilpatrick would never say such a bad word. “Yesterday they sent me fish. For breakfast.”
“Fish is commonly served for breakfast in many Asian cultures,” Jay said evenly.
“I’m from Montana.” Haley shoveled a forkful of pancakes into her mouth.
Okay, now I understood why Jay made me sign a legal document before I set foot in this house.
“Why don’t we sit,” Jay suggested, directing me to the table.
“Are you hungry, Veronica? Esperanza would be happy to make you something.” Sure she would.
“Thanks, I’m fine.” I couldn’t tell whether the sensation in my gut was anxiety or hunger.
Jay pulled out the chair at the head of the table for me, an oddly formal gesture for a guy wearing ripped jeans and red high-tops. At this level, I could see Haley’s face better. On TV, she looked like a prettier version of me. In person, not so much. A line of pimples ran along her jawline, mixing with her freckles. Last night’s eyeliner formed a murky half-moon under her eyes. Her blond hair was greasy and dark at the roots. She looked neither fresh-faced nor perky.