by Sierra Rose
“Morning, Becca—the usual?”
I sank my elbows down onto the counter, gazing bleakly at the latest pop star’s new Thanksgiving album. “Yep. Oh—and let me get that guy Barry’s too.” I pointed to the maintenance worker and he smiled.
“You got it.”
I pulled out a ten and waited as she bustled around. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the rich man walk into the café and take his place at the back of the line. A faint blush rose up in my cheeks and I kept my eyes front. These cinematic takedowns were always best when you could make a clean getaway afterward. And the elevator music wasn’t helping.
“You and Amanda miss another casting?” Kelly asked when she returned, carrying two steaming drinks. “You look tired.”
I handed her my cash. “I just haven’t been sleeping that well.”
She frowned as she handed me back my change. “The dragon dream again?”
“Yes!” I leaned over the counter excitedly, eager to commiserate. “I don’t know what’s going on, but every time it gets close to me, it suddenly—”
“Hey! You in the scrubs!” An impatient voice called out from the line. “Some of us have to get to work.”
I threw back a glare in their general direction. Just like that, my adoring crowd had turned on a dime. Fame was a fickle friend.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said with exaggerated importance to Kelly, “I have to get to work.”
I scooped up my mocha-chino with all the dignity I could muster and walked out of the café with my head held high. I could feel the rich guy staring at me as I swept past him out the door, but I kept my eyes on the sidewalk. With my luck, I’d probably trip or something right as I tried to deliver a last one-liner to seal the deal.
Chapter 3
From the coffee shop, it was only a short walk through the grove to the hospice center where I worked. Half a dozen obese pigeons swarmed around me, and as was my morning custom, I tipped my change into the hands of the elderly homeless man who had taken up residence beneath one of the palms.
By the time I breezed through the doors, I was feeling pretty damn good about myself.
“Morning, Becca.” My overworked supervisor Lisa gave me a tired smile as I swept up to the front counter to sign in. “You look...peppy?”
I flashed her an overly animated smile. “Just performed a virtual citizen’s arrest at our local coffee shop. You know—keeping the city safe.”
“Uh huh,” she answered vaguely, hearing but not listening as she browsed through some papers. “Well, here we go. Mr. Cartivan in 308 needs a blood sugar reading.” Yeah, I was trained to do some stuff nurses do. “Mrs. Wakley is refusing to take a shower, oh—and here’s one you’ll like—Mrs. Diaz in 207 insists that her family is driving across the country right now to see her. She’s been making a Welcome banner all morning.”
Lisa gave me a stack of job assignments that had to be done before I left as she clocked out with a huge smile.
“Um...thanks.”
She winked. “Good luck.” Then she was gone.
Needless to say, my adrenaline buzz was basically gone by 10:05. I paced from room to room, making the familiar circles and seeing the familiar faces. I liked my job—don’t get me wrong. It’s just... I had been at the same facility for about three years now and I hoped that I would have gotten an acting gig by now. Hospice was in no way a permanent position. Patients were divided into two main categories: the people who had been shunted by the health care system and were temporarily using us as a recovery center due to budget cuts, and the people who came here not to recover, but to die.
Either way, no matter how many people you got to know, you wouldn’t end up knowing them very long.
Amanda would ask me about it all the time. She didn’t understand how I could spend my entire life around death and the dying. I was the person in the patient’s life who would see them through to the end, providing palliative end-of-life care. And I wanted to make their last days comfortable. I wanted to be that trusted and nurturing guide, helping patients and families find comfort and dignity. But no matter how many ways I found to describe it, she’d always end up saying that it sounded like a Stephen King movie and demand we talk about something else.
I pushed opened open a door and Mrs. Diaz, a woman I’d talked to every day for the last eight months, asked me my name. I closed it behind me with a sigh.
It was going to be a very long day.
When I finally got home and pushed shut the door of the apartment, Amanda sprang up to greet me like she hadn’t been imitating The Walking Dead all morning.
“How was work?” she asked cheerfully.
I pulled off my scarf and let my purse fall to the floor. I handed her the bag with the stuff she had asked me to buy. “Work was fine.” I felt like I’d given her the same answer to the same question for the last thousand years. It was definitely time for a change. “I got thrown up on.”
“That’s awesome!” she exclaimed, blatantly tuning out everything I was going to say as she waited impatiently for her own turn to speak.
I stifled a smile as she bounced a foot up and down, her heavily charcoaled eyes bursting with excitement. “Why, Amanda, how was your day?”
“I GOT A CALLBACK!” she shrieked.
My mouth fell open, and she danced from side to side like a deranged bobblehead.
“I know! It was for that dystopian Western thing. I’m going to be...” she paused for dramatic effect, “Hot Ranch Chick Number Seven.” She pulled the tequila out of the bag and smiled. “I’m going to celebrate with this! I can’t believe I got this gig!”
“That’s amazing,” I breathed, imagining the possibilities. “And to think, I could have been number eight.”
“No, their quota for white girls was filled,” she said practically. “To be number eight, you’d have to be Asian.”
“Oh.” I mulled this over for a second before saying, “Congratulations! I’m so proud of you!”
“Thanks! And thanks for stopping by the store.”
“Not a problem. Oh my gosh!” I suddenly remembered. “I saw a fight today!”
“Wow,” she raised her eyebrows, looking impressed. “Your first genuine fisticuffs. What was it about? Was it gang-related?”
“It was over a parking spot,” I said impressively. “Well, actually I stopped it before they came to blows...but I’m sure it was headed that way.”
She gave me a long look. “So you finally see the makings of a fight, a long-standing life ambition, but you stop it before it can actually get there?”
I felt as though I literally deflated. “...yeah, I guess so.”
She patted me sympathetically on the shoulder. “Come on, I ordered Chinese.”
“Thank you. I’m starving!”
I followed her into the kitchen and was shocked to discover an elaborate setup. She’d pulled out our finest silverwear, and for once, we weren’t eating on paper plates. There was even a chipped tea light or two for ambiance.
“What the—”
She clicked a button and Florence and the Machine started screeching in the background.
My eyes narrowed and I turned to her suspiciously. “All this for Hot Ranch Chick Number Seven?”
“Well, not exactly.” Anxious and excited, she pulled out a chair and shoved me down in a way she obviously took to be endearing. “The thing is, Bex... I actually got the two of us a gig. But it has nothing to do with hot ranch chicks.”
“Really? That’s wonderful.”
“It is, and it isn’t.”
I cocked a brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we don’t get paid like normal.” She grinned as I frowned. “But it’s great for our image. And we have the potential to meet some big names. And we can earn a big bonus by mentioning the agency. If we bring in work, we get a big, fat bonus. Think of this as fun work. We’re going to a party! And it’s tonight!”
“A party?”
“Who doesn’t want
to party on a Friday night? I’ll tell you more at the salon,” she said. “They’re getting us all fixed up!”
“Who?”
“You just got to trust me. Now come on, girl. It’s time to go primp! Of course, after we eat this wonderful meal I got us.”
I laughed. “We’re not eating on paper plates, so that’s five star dining to me.”
“Not to mention, we’re not using plastic forks.”
Chapter 4
“You know, I can’t begin to tell you the hypocrisy of what’s happening right now,” I said.
Amanda and I were sitting in a hair salon in Beverly Hills, getting prodded and fussed over by an army of gay men and one heavily primped woman. The acrid smell of nail polish remover was enough to make me almost light-headed. But I stayed carefully on guard as Paulo came at me with a dozen different aerosols and one or two lethal-looking instruments I believed were modeled after something used in the Spanish Inquisition.
I momentarily vanished into a sticky fog as he let loose with one of the bottles, and emerged a second later, stiff and sad, feeling like an unfortunate Botox survivor.
“There go the Wetlands,” I muttered, wondering how many pounds of toxins we’d just released into the atmosphere.
Amanda twisted awkwardly to look at me, her head trapped beneath something that looked like it was attempting to harvest her brain. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing.” My chair tilted back of its own accord, and suddenly I was looking at the ceiling. “Was that supposed to happen?” I asked nervously.
“Silencio!” Paulo commanded, rushing forward with another comb. I closed my eyes with a grimace as he pulled and twisted and corralled whatever was left of my hair into a tight knot on top of my head. When he was finished, he shot me upright again and disappeared into the back to get more supplies.
I sighed. “So tell me a little more about this party. But first let me tell you, I’m having a great time already—just with the prep.”
Amanda snorted, waving her nails to dry their thick, gold-dusted polish. “I heard about it at that casting—you know—the one where my entire life changed for the better?”
“The dystopian Western?” I guessed. I’d been hearing about it quite a lot, actually.
“Yeah, well, Billy asked me to go. Said that the agency needed some representation at this playboy trillionaire’s house party.”
“Right. The trillionaire. Is that even a word?”
“Of course it is.”
“You made it up!”
“I so didn’t. I heard his name is Marcus Taylor, and he’s fucking gorgeous! I wish I could land him. But from what I hear, no woman can. He’s untamable.”
“Hmm. Untamable? Is that a challenge?” I asked. “I mean, I did tame our mean cat.”
She laughed. “I bet you could lasso in the wild buck.”
“I’m just kidding. I’m not in the mood to tame some wild billionaire.”
“Why not? Still hung up on the cute coffee guy you told me about?”
“Hung up? I just met the guy this morning.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, Marcus Taylor might not be as gorgeous as the guy you keep going on about. But I’m sure he’s a hunk. I at least want to say hello to him before the end of the party. I bet he’s a great host and will greet every single one of his guests.”
“I haven’t been going on about coffee guy.”
“Yes, you have.”
“C’mon! He was hot!”
“Then you should have bought him the damn coffee too.”
“I should have. Boy, I screw everything up. If I could go back in time.”
“I’m sure you could have another shot. Just strike up a conversation the next time you see him at the coffee shop.”
“He’s drop dead gorgeous, but he’s too rich for my taste. He wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
“Well, forget him for now. Think about Marcus’s extravagant party. He’s hosting it in his fancy mansion!”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Marcus loves the women so he’ll totally be approachable. Just smile and flirt.”
“And why do I want to approach some stud who has his choice of a million women?”
“To talk about the agency, of course. I’m getting myself a big, giant, fat bonus. If anyone says they’re coming to the agency through us, well, we get a $1,000 bonus. Isn’t that awesome?”
“Sweet!”
“Apparently Marcus just got back to LA from like, Nepal or somewhere, and it’s the social event of the season.”
I snorted in laughter, earning me scandalized looks from every corner of the salon. “I’m sorry, it’s just—is that a real thing? Does our season have social events?”
Amanda faltered, but then continued with confidence. I could tell she had obviously read this somewhere reliable like the Internet in anticipation of my resistance and was ready for any question I could throw her way.
“Of course it does.” Her voice took on a slightly higher, hollower tone—vowels sagging weakly from all the weight she was putting on them. “There’s a ribbon cutting at Tiffany’s in the Grove, Barneys’ opening on Rodeo—and no, Bex, if you make a joke about a dinosaur exhibit it won’t be funny—Karl Lagerfeld is launching his new line so it’s looking for models, and then there’s that huge Los Angeles Diabetes Fundraiser Gala.”
“Thank you, Google.” I rolled my eyes. “And here I thought it was just Thanksgiving.”
Amanda frowned critically as Veronica Violet (and she’d hit you if you asked if that was her stage name) arranged her curls so they spilled down the back of her neck. “I don’t think they have that here.”
“Of course not,” I said bleakly. “Why would they?”
Amanda ignored me and beamed at her reflection in the mirror. “It’s perfect, Veronica, exactly like the picture.”
Veronica took a step back. Her eyes dilated hungrily and she poked at the curls as if she took her work very seriously. Either that or she was actually just as hungry as she looked. “It is perfect, isn’t it? Well, there are going to be at least ten other girls with the same style at the party tonight, so you can rest assured that it’s very fashionable.”
Amanda nodded seriously in response, and I looked at the two of them like they were nuts. I was about to say something along those lines, but at that moment, Paulo returned, and I was forced to duck for cover.
“Actually, Veronica,” Amanda frowned, “haven’t we seen you somewhere before?”
“She was Confused Cashier Number Four,’” I volunteered from beneath a tangle of steam and wires. I was surprised Amanda hadn’t immediately recognized her.
“Number Three, actually,” Veronica corrected me coolly. “But who’s counting?” She flashed Amanda a bitchy smile and disappeared with a cartoonish clicking of the heels.
“I can’t believe we live in a city where that wasn’t just said ironically...”
Amanda shushed me with a warning look, and I dragged my weary eyes back to the mirror to see what new nonsense Paulo was up to.
I had wanted to move to Portland—not Los Angeles. It was a given that anywhere we’d like to live in San Francisco was going to be way out of our price range, and I had decided that Portland was the next best thing. The music and arts scene was on the rise, and all the pictures I looked at online had at least one person with a wizard beard. I was intrigued. But Amanda reminded me that cinematic glory wasn’t going to come to us, we had to seek it out ourselves. And the best place to do that, unfortunately, was in the belly of the beast.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have been so quick to move if she’d known about Mrs. Wakowski and the three parking tickets we’d get within the first two weeks of living here. Then again, perhaps she would. It was hard to tell with Amanda. You never knew which things she’d choose to desperately care about, and which things she’d let thoughtlessly slide.
“Anyway,” she answered my question from hours before, “you would have gotten an invite too if yo
u’d come with me to the casting.”
“I told you—some of us have to work for a living. Not everyone can rely on their parents for rent.” I threw a hair tie at her playfully and pretended that Paulo didn’t slap my wrist.
Three hours later, we were back on the streets. Not the streets I would have preferred, mind you. Not my dear Westwood where I was still a local folk hero. No—we were prowling around the high-price shops and oxygen bars (yes, they’re real) of Beverly Hills. The agency that employed us to be unemployed actors had set aside a bit of a budget to make a good impression with the social elites at the party tonight. Since two of the four girls going had to drop out due to food poisoning (a lucky break for us, according to Amanda) that ‘bit of a budget’ had grown into more money than either she or I had ever spent in one afternoon.
Even I had to admit that after we left the chemical stench of the salon and stepped back into the sunshine, I actually started to have a little fun.
“Let’s grab another coffee, courtesy of the agency,” Amanda drawled in a Southern aristocratic accent she’d adopted specifically to pose that very request a million times. We’d already had three espressos and had stopped “just for a bite” at two different sushi restaurants. Still, we’d barely dented the funds assigned to ingratiate us into the land of giants.
“I can’t.” I grabbed her wrist and tugged her away from the Starbucks she’d started drifting into. “There’s so much caffeine in my system, I seriously feel like I’m having heart palpitations.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s just your heart being excited, Bex. It’s jumping for you.”
I stopped in my tracks and stared at her in awe. “You are a scientist; you know that? The medical profession has got nothing on you.”
She laughed and pulled me suddenly into a store with the scariest looking mannequins I had ever seen. “Fine, if the sponsored charm is beginning to wear off, let’s just get our dresses and find some shoes. It’s already coming up on five, and we’re supposed to be there no later than seven-thirty.”