Lead Me Back

by Reiss, CD

  “Thank you.”

  “And in exchange—”

  “What?” I put the burger down and leaned back. “Don’t.”

  “You talk to Gordon. Explain what happened one last time.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m on career parole.”

  “Poor you.” She pouted. “My husband’s writing sad songs no one will look at because without you, there’s no band. Shane’s trying rock, and he sucks. And Chad? Where is he?”

  I wasn’t answering that. One, because I didn’t know. But also because I wasn’t telling anyone I’d broken parole for Chad, or she’d want the same.

  “I’ll ask her name the next time I call,” she said.

  Of course she had Kayla’s number. I should have shrugged and told her to go ahead, but I didn’t. I sat there with a bundle of french fries half-swiped through my lake of ketchup, frozen as if I had stage fright.

  “Okay, I get it now.” I dropped the fry and wiped my hands. “This is payback. I showed you my ass, and now you know how to fuck it.”

  “It’s your chance to prove having a big dick doesn’t mean you are a big dick.”

  She couldn’t have known how badly I wanted to prove that to Kayla, but I wasn’t going to give her any more ammo by admitting it.

  “Tell you what. If I do this, and he gets back with you . . .”

  I was going to demand a full-page ad in Billboard about what an awesome guy I was. Interviews. Essays. She had to tell everyone.

  But if I was trying to prove I wasn’t an asshole, I should just do what I said I would and let her say what she wanted.

  “If he gets back with me, what?” she prodded.

  “Invite me for dinner at your house.”

  “Done.”

  “And you let my kids in that fancy school you’re running.”

  She forked an asparagus spear and paused before she ate it. “We’ll see how many kids you have.”

  “Fair, fair.”

  Now all I had to do was reach Gordon without going through my handlers.

  When Ken called, I was driving. I figured it was too early for him to know I’d agreed to get Gordon on the phone, so I answered.

  “Justin. You’re done shooting Pride and Prejudice?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. One thirty tomorrow. My office.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Your assistant says you’re open.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good. See you tomorrow.”

  He hung up.

  I did have things to do, but they weren’t appointments I could put on a calendar.

  My intentions were to get my life in order before talking to Kayla again. Reduce drama 80 percent. Clear my name to prevent new drama. I thought I was doing all that already, but she made me see that the problem wasn’t everyone else. To some extent, I had to admit it was me.

  So, fine. Me, I could fix.

  In four hundred feet, turn left.

  On the way to Pietro’s, I’d changed the GPS voice to an Australian dude, but on the way home I changed it back to Kayla.

  That was a mistake. I didn’t need directions to my own house, but I wanted her voice in the car. Hearing her tell me where to go was like having her right there, talking to me with that mouth. She used it like a superstar, and it hadn’t been anywhere near my dick. When she’d groaned, I almost lost it right in my shorts. I mean, not really, but metaphorically. Knowing she liked it, too, was gratifying in a way I couldn’t explain to myself.

  Continue for three-quarters of a mile.

  I took the long way home just to hear her voice in surround sound. The car’s AI even made her a little snippy. Girl like that under me would feel really good.

  I shut off the GPS. If I didn’t stop obsessing, I was going to do something stupid.

  Stupidity was my brand.

  Good thing I could find her place without being told where to go.

  The alley behind the theater was littered with empty beer bottles. The second-floor lights were on, and I could hear girly singer-songwriter music. Mazzy Star, maybe. From below, all I could see were the tops of bookshelves and a movie poster. A shadow moved across the ceiling.

  I texted her.

  —Hey. I’m downstairs—

  No answer. I called, and it went to voice. I texted again.

  —Back alley—

  —Hello?—

  “Kayla!”

  I waited. Nothing.

  “Kayla!” I shouted even louder.

  Nothing.

  No pebbles around. I picked up an empty bottle, aimed it for the brick space between windows, and threw it. The glass exploded in a spray that came down on me like rain.

  “Shit!” I covered my eyes with my arm.

  The music lowered, though. A casement window was cranked open, and she stuck her head out. She was in a pink pajama top with lace around the edges, and her hair was down over her shoulders in a shawl of dark curls.

  “What the ever-loving hell are you doing?” she cried.

  Man, I liked this girl.

  “You should pick up the phone.”

  “It’s off.”

  “Who turns off their phone?”

  “I do. What do you want?”

  What did I want? She was supposed to run down the stairs and fall into my arms. What was with the twenty questions?

  “Just saying hi.”

  Really? What the goddamn hell was that dumbass response supposed to get me?

  She put her elbows on the windowsill.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “Anything else?”

  This game, I knew.

  “Nah.” I opened the car door, and when I looked back, she was cranking the window shut.

  Damn.

  “Hey!” I called. “I got something else.”

  “Okay, what?”

  What? Everything’s what. How could I play this without telling her everything?

  “I’m not supposed to bother you, I know. You said, ‘No, thanks,’ but I wanted to tell you I told Heidi not to call you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She seemed sincere enough, but she was still in the windowsill, where I couldn’t reach her.

  “Do you like me or nah?”

  What a sap I was. What a wuss. Asking this chick if she liked me. She should be begging for it. That was the rule. But no. She just stood up there thinking, “Maybe yes, maybe no,” while I waited.

  “I like you,” she said, final-fucking-ly. “I like you a lot.”

  “Yeah?” The good feeling of hearing it made me even derpier. And if she did like me? I was okay with it.

  “Yeah. I’m glad you’re here. I missed you.”

  “Arright, so . . . uh . . .”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  When the window cranked shut, I wished she’d do it faster. It took forever for her to get down, but when she opened the rolling gate in a blue shirt and jeans, I knew she’d taken a minute to get dressed.

  Too bad.

  “You shouldn’t leave that car in the alley,” she said, then, with a still-bandaged hand, waved at the narrow space next to her white van. “I think you can fit here.”

  I pulled the Tesla in, and she rolled down the gate. My plan was to kiss her after she locked it. Just get on her and show her how much I wanted her, but I stopped myself. She knew, and if she didn’t, I could tell her again.

  “So,” she said. “Welcome to the CineSquare Theater, closed ten years over a lack of parking. As you can see.”

  “Seems nice. Why’s the van door open?”

  “Couldn’t get the bolts out and didn’t want to put them back in.”

  The bolts were a few inches past the edge, on a blue tarp.

  “Huh. Well.” I climbed into the back, because this I could do. I pointed to the wheeled cart leaning against the open door. “You trying for that dolly?”

  “Yeah.”
<
br />   I crouched behind the bolt. “Let’s do it.”

  She put the dolly handles against the edge and took the front end of the cylinder.

  “On three,” I said. “One. Two.” I braced my arms. It was too heavy for her to be on that side. “Wait.”

  She looked at me quizzically, and I hopped out.

  “Let’s switch,” I said. “The weight’s gonna come down on this side.”

  “You think I’m too weak?”

  “You wanna ask that flesh wound you got?”

  She held up the hand with the bandage and extended her middle finger.

  “Come on, man,” I said. “Let me shoot my guns.” I made a muscle and kissed my bicep.

  She laughed so hard she bent over with her shoulders shaking. When she climbed into the back of the van, she was still giggling, which made me smile a little.

  “On three,” I said again, bracing my feet on the cart’s wheels so it didn’t roll away. “One. Two. Three.”

  She pushed. I pulled, managing the weight so the bolt landed squarely on the dolly.

  “Hey!” she cried, hopping down. “I’m mobile!”

  “Boom.” I swung the dolly away from the van. “Where’s this go?”

  “Here.” She pulled the tarp out and laid it on the floor, in a space against the wall. We maneuvered it into place, and I held the end so it didn’t drop too hard.

  “I have a ride!” She slapped the van doors closed. “I don’t have to leave my only asset in a parking space. Yay!”

  She leaped into my arms, and with a whiff of the coconut hair stuff and the feeling of her body against mine, my senses exploded like fireworks. Doing something to make her happy, though . . . that was like a nuclear bomb of unicorns and rainbows in my heart.

  Too lame to put in a song. Still true.

  “Want to see the theater?” she asked with her dark eyes glittering in the garage light.

  “Sure.”

  “Whoa.”

  The theater part was a little bigger than a gym, with ceilings about the same height. The part that whoa’d me was the floor. It was flat. Front and back—same level.

  “Yeah,” she said, as if she knew exactly what I was talking about. Then she proved she did. “Being short must’ve sucked.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “No parking. No money to renovate.”

  “It’s a great space.”

  “I’m not really interested in owning a movie theater, either, and we can’t sell it. So, there’s that.”

  “Denim factory,” I said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You got concrete floors and enough ceiling for ventilation. A loading dock. You can do a storefront facing Santa Monica. Cut out the middleman. All profit.”

  For a second she looked at me and through me at the same time, calculating in her head.

  “I never thought of that.”

  “You don’t dream big enough, Kaylacakes.”

  “I’d need to make sure the water pipes and electric can handle the stonewash machines.”

  “Doable.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It is. With money.”

  The money comment wasn’t self-pitying or hopeless. More the definition of an obstacle.

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I will. Come on. Let me show you the upstairs.”

  I followed her up to the top floor. It was pretty nice, in an old-guy-lives-here kinda way. Big space with no walls between rooms. The kitchen and the bed were in the back, overlooking the alley where I’d been standing fifteen minutes ago. Couch and chairs in the middle. The other side of the space was just boxes.

  Over an old desk, scraps of paper and magazine pages had been stuck to the wall with the same blue tape she’d used on her cut hand. I leaned into them. The white scraps were quick sketches, some were stitch details, others were body shapes for jeans and jackets. She was serious about being a designer, and I didn’t know anything about making clothes, but I knew what worked and what didn’t. This stuff worked.

  “That’s not finished,” she said. “It’s for a meeting Friday.”

  “Do you mean the outseams to be this long?” I pointed to a sketch with uneven leg openings. “Or is that just a drawing-style thing?”

  “They should be that way so when you do cuffs it makes little triangles with the selvedge edge.”

  “That’s cool. Yeah. I get it. You could put a rivet to hold it.”

  “Oh,” she said, grabbing a pencil from a cup. “That’s good.”

  She leaned over the desk and drew a flipped cuff with a rivet on the margin, then quickly erased one cuff on the body and flipped up the edge.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Cool. Signature detail.”

  “Now I want to put it everywhere.”

  “Take it easy, tiger. Don’t go wild with the eraser yet.”

  “Right.” She put the pencil back in the cup. “I have soda in the fridge.”

  I joined her in the kitchen area. The avocado refrigerator rattled like a diesel engine.

  “It’s like you’re living in a vintage store,” I said, coming out with two cans of cola.

  “Yeah, like, check this out.” She opened a drawer, and I went for the ice, coming out with two handfuls. When I got my head out of the freezer, she was holding up a short fork with fat, hooked tines. “Like what is this?”

  Blood soaked through her bandage.

  “I got no idea.” I put the ice in the glasses and held my hand out for hers. “But you’re bleeding.”

  “I . . .” She saw what I was talking about. “Oh. It must have opened when we moved the bolt. Let me go take care of it.”

  She headed for the bathroom, and I joined her. She raised an eyebrow at me but unwrapped the blue masking tape around the bandage instead of telling me to get the hell out.

  “Nice,” I said when the wound started bleeding down her arm. I got the faucet going, and she put her hand under it. “Did you put antibiotics on this or nah?”

  “Nah,” she said. I opened the medicine cabinet. “Under the sink.”

  The plastic container I found had gauze and tape from the Dark Ages. I ripped open a brown paper gauze package.

  “Apply pressure.” I pushed the gauze to the cut, but instead of letting her apply the pressure, I kept my hand there. “I’m getting you a first aid kit. This place is just a bunch of sharp edges and flesh-eating bacteria.”

  “I got cut on the van.”

  “That changes nothing.” With my free hand I knocked around the box for an old tube of Neosporin and some Brave Soldier. “If you get infected, they have to cut the entire arm off.”

  “They do not.”

  “Sure they do.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “My mother. You want to tell her she’s wrong? I fucking dare you.”

  I pulled the gauze away and aimed the Brave Soldier.

  “That might—” I squirted it.

  “Ow!” she cried.

  “—sting.”

  “Who taught you how to dress a wound? The Marquis de Sade?”

  “The chain-link fence between Gordon’s house and Elysian Park.” I unscrewed the tube of Neosporin. “This won’t hurt. Promise.”

  She held her hand out, looking at me suspiciously, and relaxed as it turned out I was telling the truth.

  “Thank you,” she said as I wrapped it back up with fresh blue tape. “I almost didn’t let you up here.”

  “Now you have a ride, and you get to keep your arm.” I ripped the tape with my teeth and stuck the edge down. “I feel like that makes us even.”

  “If I round up. Sure.”

  “How did you get so hard?”

  The words came out before I could think about them. She wasn’t hard, and even if she were . . . no one wanted to be called that. My apology was about to follow my insult, but instead of reaming me out, she took the question the way I meant it.

  “You want to kno
w?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll tell you over flat soda.”

  She took my hand and drew me into the kitchen, handed me my soda, and went to the living room space, where she sat in a mustard velvet chair. I sat on the matching couch and lifted a foot to put on the coffee table, but stopped myself in time.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Take your shoes off first, though.”

  As I kicked my sneakers off, she sat next to me on the couch where I could reach her.

  “I didn’t mean to call you hard,” I said.

  “But I am.”

  “Still.”

  “We’re close enough for you to make a true observation.”

  Jeez, when she said we were close, I lost control of my face and smiled so wide I swear my cheeks hurt. I put the cold glass of flat soda against my bottom lip before it split.

  “If you’re not hard,” she said. “You get walked on. Let someone get away with stuff once, and they try again. And the more I have to offer, the more I get screwed. Two hours’ free overtime? Make it four. Stick your neck out and your head gets chopped off. Every time. A certain kind of dog can smell weakness. Let them sniff out someone else’s butt.”

  “’Cos you got your hard-ass deodorant on.”

  “Yup.” She laughed a little. “I’m not here to be your doormat. And if that means I’m a bitch sometimes, oh well.”

  “Did I treat you like a doormat?”

  “Until I turned bitchy.”

  “You were never bitchy. Nasty, yeah.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Bitchy is fake. Nasty’s scary. Bitchy wants you to cry. Nasty wants you to bleed.”

  “Poor boo-boo,” she said, putting her hand over mine and whispering. “Where did I hurt you?”

  “Right here.” I pointed to my forehead. She shifted closer and kissed the spot.

  “Better?”

  “And here,” I said, indicating my chin. She kissed that too.

  “Don’t you dare point to your dick next,” she said.

  “You want to hurt that?”

  “No. But someday I might kiss it anyway.”

  My dick reacted to the possibility. When she let me kiss her, it felt as if it would never go limp again. We stretched out on the couch, attached at the mouth. I got on top of her, and she wrapped her legs around me, groaning that way she did when I pushed my permanent hard-on against her. She arched her back, eyelids fluttering.