[English] Spin

Author : C.D. Reiss

I mentally rolled my eyes, if such a thing were possible, and kept my physical eyes focused on the woman singing. She had a lovely voice. It wasn’t quite like a bird, but more like a dozen of them layered one on top of the other. The effect was hypnotic.
I glanced at my brother again. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah?”
“You just agreed that the Angels were superior to the Dodgers.”
He looked away from her, and I sensed the air between them rip. I hadn’t felt anything but annoyance with his lack of attentiveness until he looked at me again, and his entire face changed from voracious and single-minded to the usual bemused and arrogant.
“This season?”
“Are you even paying attention?” I asked.
“Look, you have six sisters and me. All your sisters will tell you to forget Daniel Browerpletely. I’m telling you to forgive him if you have to, but if you’re going to, just do it and drop it. I’m the one you keep talking to about him, and I keep giving you the same answer. So it sounds like you want to go back to him.”
He was in love with his ex-wife, who had left him for another man. Of course he’d be the most forgiving, and of course he was the one I chose to be with.
“I can’t. Every time I look at him, I can’t stop seeing him having *** with that girl.”
“Don’t look at him.”
I folded my hands on the table. I shouldn’t see my ex. Ever. But he’d called, and I had lunch with him, like a damned fool. He’d said it was business, and in a way, it was. We had a mortgage together, and bills, and I knew the intimacies of his campaign for mayor about as well as I’d known the intimacies of his body. But with so much...

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one.

h, Jonathan.

I mentally rolled my eyes, if such a thing were possible, and kept my physical eyes focused on the woman singing. She had a lovely voice. It wasn’t quite like a bird, but more like a dozen of them layered one on top of the other. The effect was hypnotic.

I glanced at my brother again. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah?”

“You just agreed that the Angels were superior to the Dodgers.”

He looked away from her, and I sensed the air between them rip. I hadn’t felt anything but annoyance with his lack of attentiveness until he looked at me again, and his entire face changed from voracious and single-minded to the usual bemused and arrogant.

“This season?”

“Are you even paying attention?” I asked.

“Look, you have six sisters and me. All your sisters will tell you to forget Daniel Brower completely. I’m telling you to forgive him if you have to, but if you’re going to, just do it and drop it. I’m the one you keep talking to about him, and I keep giving you the same answer. So it sounds like you want to go back to him.”

He was in love with his ex-wife, who had left him for another man. Of course he’d be the most forgiving, and of course he was the one I chose to be with.

“I can’t. Every time I look at him, I can’t stop seeing him having *** with that girl.”

“Don’t look at him.”

I folded my hands on the table. I shouldn’t see my ex. Ever. But he’d called, and I had lunch with him, like a damned fool. He’d said it was business, and in a way, it was. We had a mortgage together, and bills, and I knew the intimacies of his campaign for mayor about as well as I’d known the intimacies of his body. But with so much dead weight between us, I had trouble eating. In the end, of course, he’d asked for me back, and I’d declined while holding back tears.

“He keeps asking to see me,” I said.

“Jesus Christ, Theresa. He’s stringing you along.” Jonathan tipped his drink to his lips and watched the woman standing by the piano like a hawk observing a mouse. “I thought I had it bad.”

I felt a sudden ball of tension wrap up in my chest. I couldn’t exactly place it, but it irritated me. “Do you know her? The singer.”

“We have a thing later tonight.”

“Good, because I was going to say you might want to introduce yourself before you slobber on her. Maybe dinner and a show.”

He smiled a big, wide Jonathan grin. After his wife left, he’d turned into a womanizing prick, but he rarely let us see that side of him. He was always a gentleman, until I saw him look at that singer. It made me uncomfortable. Not because he was my brother, which should have been enough, but because of an uneasy, empty feeling I chased away.

“Go to Tahoe or something for a few weeks,” he said. “Slap some skis on. You’re giving yourself an ulcer.”

“I’m fine.”

The musicians stopped, and people clapped. She was good. My brother just applauded with his eyes and tipped his glass to her. When she saw him, her jaw tightened with anger. Apparently, he knew her well enough to piss her off.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I know damn well how not fine you are.”

I looked him square in the eyes, and I knew his hurt matched mine. He healed himself by seducing whoever he fancied. I didn’t think I could use the same strategy. It stopped mattering when the singer made a beeline for our table.

“Hi, Jonathan,” she said, a big, fake smile draped across her face.

“Monica,” he said. “This is Theresa.”

“That was beautiful,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“You were incredible,” Jonathan said. “I’ve never heard anything like that.”

“I’ve never heard of a man trying to sandwich another woman between fingering me and f**king me in the same day.”

I almost spit out my Cosmo. Jonathan laughed. I felt sorry for the girl. She looked as if she was going to cry. I hated my brother just then. Hated him with a dogged vehemence because not only was he messing with her feelings, he still looked at her as though he wanted to eat her alive. When I saw how she looked at him, I knew he would win. He would have her and a dozen others, and she wouldn’t even know what was happening. I couldn’t watch.

“I’m going to the ladies’,” I said and slid out of the booth, not looking back.

I leaned against the back of the stall, staring at the single strip of toilet paper dangling off the roll. I had a few squares in my bag, just in case my brother brought me to yet another dump, but I didn’t want to use them. I wanted to dig into that feeling of emptiness and find the bottom of it.

You always have a few squares in your bag. And two Advil. And a tampon.

Daniel’s voice listing the stuff I carried for emergencies; his face, smiling as we went out the door for some charity thing; him in a tux, me in something, holding a satin clutch into which a normal woman couldn’t fit more than a tube of lipstick and a raisin.

“You got your whole kit in there?” he’d asked.

“Of course.”

“Space and time are your slaves.”

I’d been pleased at the way he looked at me, as if he couldn’t be more impressed and proud, as if I ruled the world and his servitude was the natural order. Pleased as a king opening a pie and finding the miracle of four-and-twenty blackbirds.

But though I’d been with him for seven years, he’d never looked at me the way Jonathan looked at that singer. Never. Maybe that was why Daniel had had *** with his speechwriter. He didn’t revere her; he f**ked her.

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Daniel had always called me Tink, short for Tinkerbell, because of my curvy, petite frame. A sprightly, delicate fairy. Not someone you looked at hungrily.

I saw the singer in the hall, looking distant and resolute at the same time, as if she was convincing herself of something. She stopped short when she saw me.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was rude and unbecoming.”

I was going to deny it, but I was struck by a distraction that cut me to the core. I smelled pine trees, deep in the forest, damp in the morning after a night of campfires and singing. The burning char and dew mingled in the song-like trails of cigarette smoke, rising and disappearing. And then it was gone.

“My brother’s an ass**le, so I don’t blame you.” I regretted that almost immediately. I didn’t talk like that, especially not about family. I took her hand and squeezed it. “We both loved your voice.”

“Thank you. I have to go. I’ll try to see you on the way out.” She slipped her hand away and walked toward the dressing room.

I caught the scent again and looked in her direction, as if I could see the smell’s source. It could have come from anyone. It could have been the gorgeous black lady with the sweet smile. It could have been the plate of saucy meat that crossed my path. Could have been the waft of parking lot that came through the door before it snapped closed.

But it wasn’t.

I knew it like I knew tax code; it was him. The man in the dark suit and thin pink tie, the full lips and two-day beard. His eyes were black as a felony, and they stayed on me as his body swung into the booth.

The smell had come from him, not the other man getting into the booth. It was in his gaze, which was locked on me, disarming me. He was beautiful to me. Not my type, not at all. But the slight cleft in his chin, the powerful jaw, the swoop of dark hair falling over his forehead seemed right. Just right. I swallowed. My mouth had started watering, and my throat had gotten dry. I got a flash of him above me, with that swoop of hair rocking, as he f**ked me so hard the sheets ripped.

He turned to say something to the hostess, and I took a gulp of air. I’d forgotten to breathe. I put my hands to my shirt buttons to make sure they were fastened, because I felt as if he’d undressed me.

I had two ways to return to Jonathan: behind the piano, which was the crowded, shorter way, or in front, which was less populated but longer.

I walked in front of the piano. The less crowded way. The longer way. The way that took me right past the man in the pink tie.

I wanted him to look at me, and he spent the entire length of our proximity talking earnestly to the baby-faced, bow-lipped man next to him. I caught the burned, dewy pine scent that made no sense and kept walking.

I felt a tug on my wrist, a warm sensation that tingled. His hand was on me, gentle but resolved. I stopped, looking at him as his hand brought me to his face. He drew me down until he was whisper close. A sudden rush of potential went from the back of my neck to the space between my legs, waking me where I thought I’d died.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t speak.

If he kissed me, I would have opened my mouth for him. That, I knew for sure.

“Your shoe,” he said with an accent I couldn’t place.

“What?” I couldn’t stop looking at his eyes: brown, wide, with longer eyelashes than should be legal, hooded under arched brows proportioned for expression.

Was I wearing shoes? Was I standing? Did I need to take in air? Eat? Or could I just live off the energy between us?

He pointed at my heel. “You brought yourself a souvenir from the ladies’ room.”

He was beautiful, even as he smirked with those full lips. Did I have to turn away to see what he was talking about? It was that or put my tongue down his throat. I looked down.

I had a trail of toilet paper on my stiletto.

“Thank you,” I said.

“My pleasure.” He let go of my hand.

The space where he’d touched felt like a missed opportunity, and I went to the bathroom to return my souvenir.

two.

After I’d kicked Daniel out of my loft, Katrina moved in. Living alone had thrust me hip deep into depression, and her things around the house changed my feeling of complete emptiness into a feeling that something was right even when everything was wrong.

For her part, she was dealing with a career that had crashed and burned when she filed a lawsuit against the studio that had funded her Oscar-nominated movie. She said there were profits she was entitled to share; they insisted the production operated at a loss. Fancy, indefensible, and legal accounting proved them right, leaving her bank account empty and her career in tatters.

She and I were cars passing on opposite sides of the freeway. As a nearly-but-not-quite-famous director, she was on set at odd hours, and when she wasn’t, she was trying to hold her production together with spit and chewing gum. She couldn’t pay much, so her crew left for scale-paying gigs and had to be replaced, or they dropped out of a day’s shooting with grave apologies but no replacement. Set designers, assistant camera people, gaffers did it for love and opportunity. Production assistants, also called PAs, were the unskilled and barely paid necessities on set, and most likely to drop out.

Her script supervisor, the person responsible for the continuity of the shots, couldn’t work nights or weekends. After Katrina fired her line producer, who was in charge of keeping ducks in rows, she discovered he hadn’t hired a second script supervisor. She shrugged it off as the risk one takes in “the business,” then segued into a long pitch about my attention to detail, my love of consistency and order, and my eagle eye for continuity. She’d asked—no, begged—me to step in for evenings and weekends.

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I met her on set under a viaduct downtown at six a.m. The food truck was set up, and the gaffers and grips were just arriving.

“Let’s face it, Tee Dray,” she said, pointing the straw of her Big Gulp at me, “it’s not like they gave me enough money to pay union for weekend calls.” She wore a baseball cap over a tight black pixie cut that only she could pull off. A Vietnamese Mexican with an athletic build, she carried herself as if she owned the joint. Every joint. When we were at Carlton Prep together, she was a bossy outcast and the most interesting person at school.

“You’re paying me on the back end,” I said.

“Sure,” she said with a strong smile. “Forty percent, but I keep the books.”

We hovered over the coffee and fruit. It was still dark, the ambient hiss of the freeway above as low as it would ever be.

“You know what to do?” she asked.

“I have the binder from last time. Track shots, cuts, who’s wearing what, where their hands are, off-book dialogue, et cetera.”

“I really appreciate this,” she said.

“You deserve a comeback. I’d finance the whole thing, you know.”

“Then I’d feel obligated to sleep with you.” She winked. A flirtatious bi***ual, she’d offered herself to me more than once, joking, then not, then joking again.

“I think I’m getting to the point I’d take you up on it,” I joked back.

We’d lost touch during college then reconnected when she got representation at WDE, where I ran the client accounting department. She had directed an action movie with heart and suspense that filled theaters for months. It was in the lexicon of greats, nominated for awards, watched and rewatched years after release. When she’d lost her contract with Overland Studios because of her lawsuit, I knew all the intimate fiscal details because I worked for her agent. She could cry on my shoulder or vent her frustration without explaining the nuances of studio math, or as she called it, ass-rape on a ledger.

A studio like Overland loaned a production company money to make a film then billed themselves interest. The interest compounded for the months of production then into the years following release until a blockbuster like Katrina’s wound up with no profits. No amount of litigation could erase the foul and totally legal practice.

Her current self-made episodic piece, to be shot in diners and under viaducts, was financed through a tiny holding in Qatar. Written, directed, and produced by Katrina Ip, it could put her back on the map. I couldn’t have rooted harder for anyone’s success.

“You need a man,” she said. “A rebound c**k to f**k the sad right out of you.”

“Nice way to talk.”

“The truth isn’t always nice. Let me set you up with my brother, and you can set me up with yours.”

“You don’t have a brother.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying. What about Michael?” She raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. The lead actor in the production had made it clear he was interested in me and a couple of other attractive women on set. He was a man whore, but a nice one.

“I’m not ready,” I said.

“I know, sweetheart. It’ll come back. Some time.”

I pressed my lips together, and though the sun was just peeking over the skyline, it was light enough for her to see the prickly heat brush my cheeks.

“Theresa,” she said, “call is in four minutes. I’m going to have no time to talk. So tell me now. And fast.”

It was a miracle we’d even had time to talk already. Directing a movie was like having a wedding every day for four months. You threw the party but couldn’t enjoy it.

“I went out with Jonathan last night, and there was a guy. A man. I had toilet paper on my shoe and—”

“You? Miss Perfect?”

“Yes. I was so embarrassed.” I dropped my voice to a near whisper when Edgar, her assistant director, approached with a clipboard and a problem. “He was breathtaking.”

She leaned on one hip. “Los Angeles is wall-to-wall breathtaking.”

“He was different. When he touched me—”

“He touched you?”

“Just my wrist. But it was like ***. I swear I’ve never felt anything like that.”

“You tell me this now?”

Edgar got within earshot, and I dropped my eyes. Even thinking about that man in range of a stranger made me feel shameful.

“Kat,” Edgar spoke fast, “honey, the LAPD—”

“Give them the forms,” she shot back.

“But they—”

“Can wait five minutes.” She pulled me behind a trailer. The hum of the generator almost drowned her out. “You cried on my lap for hours over Danny Dickhead. Now you have a hundred-twenty seconds to tell me about this new one.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“I will cut you.” She didn’t mean it, of course. Even coming from the wrong side of Pico Boulevard, her threats were all affect.

“Brown eyes. Black hair.”

“You must be off blonds since Dickerino Boy.”

“Six feet. Built. My god, his hands. They weren’t narrow or soft. They were wide, and... I’m not making any sense. But when he looked at me, my skin went hot. All I could think about was… you know.”

“You got a number?”

“Not even a name.”

Her phone dinged, and three people approached at once. Her day had begun. She turned away from me but flipped her head back. “You just got woken up.”

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three.

en years ago, I couldn’t have gotten a donut three blocks away from my loft without getting jacked. In Los Angeles at the turn of the second millennium, the wealthy moved from the city’s perimeter back to the center. And if anyone was “the wealthy,” it was me.

We lived in an old corset and girdle factory. It had been abandoned in the sixties, used as a warehouse by a stonecutter and cabinet maker, then expanded and converted into lofts just before the Great Recession. The units had gone at fire sale prices. I could afford whatever I needed, but Daniel had insisted on paying half, and the recession hit him hard. So a short sale downtown loft at a million and change it was.

And I was stuck with it. He moved to Mar Vista after I kicked him out, and I commuted across town to Beverly Hills to run client accounting at WDE.

Studios did not cut checks to talent; they cut checks to their agents. The agents deducted their ten percent fee and sent the client the rest. Thus, Hollywood agencies were the beating heart of the industry, the nexus through which all money circulated.

And most of them were still cutting paper checks.

I’d been hired to move the company from paper to wire transfer, and I’d done it. I’d convinced old guard agents, grizzled actors, below the line talent, banks, and business managers to get into the twenty-first century. Many of our clients still insisted on bike-messengered and armored-trucked paper checks, but they were more and more the minority. New clients weren’t given a paper option.

I was still necessary to manage the rest of the paper trail, chase studios for payment, and run the department, but I felt my job was done. The only thing worse than the idea of living with my job was the idea of living without it, of drifting into a life without purpose. My sister Fiona had made an art form of it in her youth, and I’d watched her slip into debauchery. I’d do anything to not be her.

But there I was, closing my eyes and seeing those hated checks. I heard the tones of my follow-up call to the messenger service, the tip tap as Pam logged them in one by one, and I thought, I want to burn it all and then slip into oblivion. I never did. I dreamed about it sometimes while I spaced off looking at the numbers or listening to one of the agents throw his anxiety on the table when a client’s check was a day late.

I thought about law school then dismissed the idea. If I became a lawyer as well as an accountant, I’d be so valuable I’d be miserable.

“Hey, Fly Girl.” Gene stood over my desk. “Rolf Wente’s business manager needs you to follow up with Warner’s.”

I tapped my phone log. “We have calls out to them.”

“You look tired. How was the weekend? Do the whole party thing?”

If I didn’t answer, and if I wasn’t specific, he’d spend fifteen minutes telling me about his party habits. “Went to dinner the other night. We saw this lounge act. The singer was terrific. Faulkner. Something Faulkner. Like the writer.”

“Never heard of her,” he said.

“Nice voice. Original.”

“Whyncha send me the deets? Maybe we’ll get out there on the WDE dime. Bring the assistants. Make them feel loved.”

“Okay.” I turned back to my work, hoping he’d leave.

“And get on Warner’s, okay? We lose old Rolf, and we’re up the ass on the dry highway. Let me know about the singer by the end of day.”

I didn’t realize that by suggesting a musician, I was obligated to ride the company dime to yet another show at Frontage. I was exhausted even thinking about it, until I remembered the man with the pink tie. I grabbed my phone and went outside.

I walked by Barney’s. It was bridal month, apparently. High end designers had their white gowns in the window. Jeremy St. James had a jewel-encrusted corset over a skirt no more modest than a strip of gauze. Barry Tilden layered dove white feathers on skirt worthy of Scarlet O’Hara, topping it all with a bodice made purely of silver zippers.

“Deirdre?” I said when I heard her pick up. “You there?”

“What time is it?”

“Ten. What are you doing next Thursday night?”

Sheets rustled. “I have to be at the shelter late.”

“Wanna go out?”

“I can’t do anything fancy, Tee. It makes me sick.” My sister Deirdre despised the consumptions of the rich. She lived in a studio the size of a postage stamp and put every penny of her trust fund interest toward feeding the hungry. It was noble to the point of self-destruction.

“It’s not fancy. Kind of dumpy. I don’t want to go with just work people. They all look at me like they’re sorry for me about Daniel. I hate it.”

“I’m not a good buffer.”

“You’re perfect. You keep me on my toes.”

She sighed. “All right. You’re buying, though. I’m broke.”

“No problem.”

We hung up, and I fist-pumped the ivory Sartorial Sandwich in the last window. I needed Deirdre there to give me a reason to escape the WDE crowd, especially if the breathtaking man was there.

four.

ow many have you had?” I asked Deirdre.

“My second.” She took her hand off her mop of curly red hair to hold up two fingers. All eight of us shared the red hair, but only she had the curls. “Not that it matters.”

“It matters,” I said.

“No,” Deirdre said, putting down her glass. “It doesn’t. Do you know what matters?”

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“Let me guess. The poor and hungry?”

Deirdre huffed. I’d caught her before she could make her speech. She hated that. “You’ve got more money than the Vatican. You’re cute as a button. Yet you think you have problems.”

“Looks and money aren’t the whole of a person.”

“Don’t pretend they don’t matter. They do. If you saw what I saw every day.”

My sister was sweet and compassionate, but she was a belligerent drunk. If I let her, she’d tell me my sadness came from material idolatry and that it was time for me to give all my money to charity and live in service to the poor. I’d often considered the possibility that she was right.

The musicians had come by and then disappeared again. The lights dimmed, and she appeared by the piano singing “Stormy Weather” as if she wanted to rip the clouds from the sky but couldn’t reach high enough. Monica Faulkner, a nobody singer in a town of somebodies, stood in front of the piano singing other people’s songs in a room built for other purposes. She moved from “Stormy Weather” to something more plaintive. My God, she was fully committed to every word, every note.

There was no halfway with that woman. I’d seen her sandwiched between my brother fingering her and f**king her, and I’d felt bad. But not today, she had control over me. She sang in the tempo of keys clacking and printers humming. There was an open place inside me, past where the professionalism cracked and the weariness fissured and the sadness throbbed. She caressed that place then jabbed it.

I missed Daniel. I missed the hardness of his body and the touch of his hands. I missed his laughter, and the way he cupped my breast in his sleep, and the weight of his arm on my shoulder, and the way he brushed his light brown hair off his face. I missed calling him to tell him where I was. I was an independent woman. I could function fine without him or anyone. But I missed him, and I missed being loved. Once he’d cheated on me, all my delight in his love drowned in bitterness. I was wistful for something dead.

“You all right?” said a male voice.

Gene had left the table to come talk to me at the bar. He was my “type”: dark blonde, straight-laced, ambitious, easy smile, confident. But he was awful. Just the most awful Hollywood douchebag.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“She’s good. The singer. ”

“Great.” I felt an absence to my right, where Deirdre had been standing.

“I think we could do something with her. Little spit and polish, shorter skirt. Use the body. Sammy’s got Geraldine Stark under contract. She’s trying to move into fashion. Could be a tight package.” He winked as if I might not get his double entendre.

“I hope it works out,” I said. “I’m off to the ladies’.”

“See you back at the table.” He picked up his glass. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Deirdre wasn’t in the bathroom. I ended up looking at the same roll of toilet paper from two weeks ago. Still one square hanging. A different roll, obviously, but the same amount. Not enough.

Just not enough.

The hall outside the bathroom led outside, where a little seating area with ashtrays was blocked off from the parking lot. I heard yelling and repeated calls of “bitch.” Though I normally avoided disagreeable behavior, I went to look.

A red Porsche Boxster was parked in the handicapped spot, and on the hood, all five-eleven, hundred-and-fifty pounds of her, Deirdre sprawled on her back. The man yelling was six inches shorter and twenty pounds lighter—if I didn’t count the weight of the petroleum in his hair products. He wore head-to-toe leather and had a voice like a car screeching to a halt.

“Get. Off. The. Porsche.” He pushed her as he yelled, but she was dead weight.

“Excuse me,” I said.

He may have heard me. I had no time to think about that; the rest happened so fast. He pulled at Deirdre’s lapels, yanking her forward. Like a baby with a bellyful of milk, she projectile vomited. It splashed on his jacket, the ground, and the car. He squealed and let her go. She rolled off the hood, puking as she went, and landed on the ground.

“****!” he yelled as I tried to sit my sister up against the wheel. “****. God. Puke? Puke is acid! Do you know what that’s going to do to the paint? And my f**king jacket?”

“We’ll pay for the damage.”

I was too busy with Deirdre to bother looking at the creep. She was unconscious. I squeezed her cheeks and looked into her mouth to see if she was choking. She wasn’t, because she threw up right down my shirt. I leaned back and said something like ugh, but it was drowned out by the man in leather.

“This is a custom paint job. ****! Bitch, the whole car’s gotta be redone. And I got a thing tomorrow.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, tapping Deirdre’s cheek.

If he hadn’t been blinded by his rage and stupi***y, Leather Guy probably wouldn’t have done what he did in front of me. Holding his arms so they didn’t touch the puke on his chest, he came around the car and kicked Deirdre in the hip.

“Hey!” was all I got to say.

I didn’t even have a chance to stand and challenge him before he fell back as if an airplane door had opened mid-flight. Then I heard a bang. I looked back at Deirdre, because in my panic, I thought she’d fallen or gotten hit by a car.

A voice, gentle yet sharp, said, “Does she drink like this often?” A blue-eyed man with a young face and bow lips crouched beside me. He didn’t look at me but at Deirdre. “I think she’s got alcohol poisoning.”

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Another bang. I jumped. A splash of vomit landed on my cheek, and I looked up at the hood of the car. Leather’s cheek was pressed against the hood of the Porsche.

“Spin,” Bow Lips said, “take it easy, would you?”

Above him, with his arm pinning down Leather’s face, was the breathtaking man, ignoring his friend. “Tell this lady you’re sorry.”

“He should apologize to my sister, not me,” I said.

“**** you!” The douchebag wiggled. He got thumped against the hood for his trouble. “I ain’t saying ****.”

Spin pulled Leather up by his collar and slammed his face on the hood until he screamed.

“I’ll call 9-1-1,” said Bow Lips.

“But I—” I thought you were this guy’s friend. I stopped myself, realizing he was going to call about Deirdre, not the creep getting his face slammed against a car.

“Say. You’re. Sorry,” Spin said through his teeth.

Leather’s face slid to the edge of the hood, wiping puke, until I could see the blood and paint-shredding stomach acid mixing on his cheeks from my crouching position. He spit a little blood.

He was a douchebag and he’d kicked my sister, but I felt bad for him. “It’s okay, really, I—”

“Yeah, we have an emergency.” Bow Lips. Unflustered. Into the phone “Alcohol poisoning.”

Bang.

“I’m sorry!”

“Do you believe him, Contessa?” Beautiful. Even beating the hell out of some guy on the hood of a Porsche. “Do you think he’s sorry?”

I caught a hint of an accent in his voice. Italian? He was speaking to me, one eyebrow arched like a parabola, his face closed with resolve, impassioned with purpose, yet calm, as if he was so good at what he did he didn’t need to break a sweat.

“Yes,” I said, “I believe him.”

“I believe he regrets it,” he said. “But I don’t believe he’s remorseful.” He leaned toward me on the owner of the Porsche, who was crying through a bloody nose. “What do you think?”

I don’t know what came over me. The need to be truthful turned me and that gorgeous man into cohorts. It was intimate in a safe way, and the creep in leather needed *****ffer. “No, I don’t think he is.”

His smirk lit up the night. I feared a full-on smile might put me over the edge.

“Show her you mean it,” he said in Leather’s ear but looked at me. “Get the puke off this ugly f**king car.” He wouldn’t let the guy move. “Get it off.”

“Female,” Bow Lips said, all business. “Mid thirties. Built like a brick ****house.”

“Lick that **** up, or you’re kissing the hood again.”

Leather choked and sobbed, blood pouring from his nose. I stood up and looked at the guy who had kicked my sister. I felt something pouring off the two men locked together on the car. Heat. Energy. Something that crawled under my skin and made it tingle. And when the creep stuck his tongue out and licked the vomit off the hood, the tingle turned to a release from anxiety I hadn’t realized I carried.

“That’s right,” Spin said. “You believe him now, Contessa?”

“Yes.”

Spin yanked the man up, and I knew from the look on his face that he was going to make the guy kiss the hood again. The distance and force applied would not just break, but smash bones.

I stood. “I think you’ve made your point.”

Spin’s face, so implacable, breached into something gentler, more open, as if an understanding reached not his intelligence, but his adrenal glands. He smiled. “I thought you’d enjoy a big ending.”

“My sister will be bruised. His face is cracked open. Justice is served.”

“Come volevi tu,” he said, yanking the creep back again. “Keys.” He held out his hand as Leather cried, tears streaking the mass of blood.

“No, man, don’t take my car.”

“This car?” He pulled the keys out of Leather’s pocket and hit a button. The doors unlocked, and the lights flashed. “You’re taking this low-class piece-of-**** car out of my sight.” He pushed the man inside and closed the door.

In a few seconds, the car started and screeched away.

“Ambulance coming,” Bow Lips said from behind me, his voice strained.

He had stood Deirdre up and was about to fall under her dead weight. His friend intervened and helped carry her to the smokers’ benches. From inside, I heard clapping. The singer was done. People would come out for their cigarettes soon. The breathtaking man pulled the sleeves of his jacket straight and touched his tie. Nothing was out of place.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yes. You?” He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered me one.

I refused with a tilt of my head. I glanced at Deirdre, who leaned against Bow Lips. He’d need to be rescued.

“I’m fine. Covered in throw up, but fine,” I said.

“You didn’t get upset, seeing that. I’m impressed.” He poked out a smoke and bit the end, sliding it out of its sardine-tight box while absently fingering a silver lighter.

“Oh, I’m upset.”

He smiled as he lit up, looking at me over the flame. He snapped the lighter shut with a loud click, taking his time. I had a second to run and sit next to my sister, take a step back. But I didn’t.

“You don’t look upset,” he said. “You’re flushed. Your heart is racing. I can see it.” He stepped forward. “Your breath, you’re trying to control it. But it’s not working. If I saw you like this in a different time or place, I’d think you were ready to f**k.”

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Just watching me, he let the smoke rise in a white miasma. My lungs took in more air than they ever had in such a short period of time. Foul language usually put the taste of tar and bile on my tongue, but from him, it sent a line of heat from my knees to my lower back.

“I don’t like that kind of talk.” It was out of my mouth before I realized I didn’t mean it.

“Maybe.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a white business card. “Maybe not.”

I took the card. Antonio Spinelli, Esq., and a number in 213. I glanced up to ask him what kind of lawyer made douchebags lick puke off a car, but he was already walking toward a black Maserati. Bow Lips gently leaned Deirdre against the wall.

“Thanks,” I said, pocketing the card.

“Take care of her.” He indicated that I should sit next to Deirdre before one of the many smokers exiting the club did. “She’s dangerous.”

I smiled at him and watched as he got in the passenger side and they drove away. I sat next to my sister and waited for the ambulance.

five.

put the card in my pocket and rode in the ambulance with Deirdre. My sister was chronically depressed, and she medicated with alcohol. We all knew the drill. She got wheeled in. People shouted. They took her vitals. A nurse gave me scrubs so I could get out of my puke-covered clothes. The V-neck top had wide sleeves and teddy bears in a cloudy sky. My dressy heels were absurd with the pink pants that were four sizes too big.

They gave Deirdre B vitamins, and once they’d determined that she hadn’t done any damage to her brain she couldn’t afford, they left me in the room with her. My stink-soaked clothes were in a plastic bag under my chair. Before, I’d call Daniel. But my new roommate and I had agreed that she’d be the person I checked in with, since checking in was what I missed most.

—I’m at the hospital with my sister. Everything ok. Won’t be home.—

The text came immediately.

—Breaking down the set in three hours. Need me to come?—

—Sure. Sequoia—

My jacket was crumpled in the plastic bag. I’d moved the lawyer’s card to the pocket of the scrubs for reasons I couldn’t articulate. It weighed forty pounds in my pocket. It had gotten warmer when the paramedics asked for my sister’s stats, her insurance, her age, how many drinks she’d had. It vibrated and buzzed as I waited for her to regain consciousness.

—Ok. Which sister?—

—Deirdre. She’s been in sri lanka. You never met her.—

—Boozy left-wing freedom fighter?—

—LOL yes—

I went out to the ER waiting room. Sequoia was a nice hospital, but the next few hours were going on the “really bad times not interesting enough to even talk about” list. The waiting room was active late at night, but slower, as if the horrors of Los Angeles took a break for a few hours. Babies fussed, and the TVs screamed joyful network news. I went to the vending machine and stared at the library of packages, unable to decide what I didn’t want the least.

A kid of about seven jostled me out of the way and jammed a dollar into the slot, punched buttons as if it was his job, and stood in front of me while the machine hummed. But nothing happened. No goodie was forthcoming.

I ran through the next day in my head. Katrina would have to drive me back to Frontage. I’d get my car, make it home, and—

There was a loud bang, as if a bullet had hit fiberglass, and I jumped, not realizing I’d spaced out. Antonio Spinelli, still in his black suit, touched the machine and, finding the spot he needed, banged again. Two bags of chips fell, and the kid jumped at them. The lawyer smirked at me and shrugged. He was more gorgeous in the dead, flat fluorescents than he’d been in the dark parking lot.

“You want something?” he asked.

He kept his eyes on my face, but I felt self-conscious about my scrub-clad body and dress shoes. “What are you doing here?” I sounded small and insignificant, probably because I was trying to speak while holding my breath.

He shrugged. “Getting you a late dinner.” He indicated the array inside the machine like a tall blonde turning letters. “Cheese chips? Ring Pop?”

I felt alone on a Serengeti plain with a cheetah circling. “You waited for me all this time?”

“I noticed you might need a ride home, so I followed the ambulance.”

“A lawyer. Chasing an ambulance.”

He smirked, and I wasn’t sure if he got the joke or if it was outside of his cultural matrix. “What kind of gentleman would I be?”

“Again. What are you doing here?” My mouth tasted as if a piece of week-old roast beef had been folded into it. I was wearing scrubs that wouldn’t have fit even if they were the right size, and my spiked heels felt like torture devices. My head hurt, my sister was in the hospital for alcohol poisoning, and a beautiful god of a man wanted to share a Ring Pop with me.

Antonio took out a bill and fed the machine. “I think I made a bad impression in the parking lot.” He punched more buttons than any one item required.

“Your intentions were good. Thank you for that.”

“My methods, however?”

Things dropped into the opening. Chips, candy, crackers, cookies, plop, plop, plop, plop. He must have put a twenty in there.

“I’m trying not to think too hard about it.”

“You were very composed.” He crouched to retrieve his pile of packages. “I’ve never met a woman like that.”

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“Except for looking aroused?” I crossed my arms, feeling exposed.

“That, I’ve met.” He handed me an apple, the one piece of real food available in the hospital vending machine. He looked at me in a way I didn’t like. Not one bit.

Except I did like it. I took the apple. I became too aware of the teddy bears on my shirt and my hair falling all over the place. My lips were chapped, and my eyes were heavy from too many hours awake. Maybe that was for the best. Looking early-morning fresh would have made his gaze seem ***ual rather than intense.

He stepped back next to an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair, indicating I should sit. Holding my apple to my chest, I sat. He dumped our meal into the seat next to me and sat on the other side of it.

“How’s your sister?” he asked.

I sighed. “She’ll be fine. I mean, she won’t, because she’ll do it again. But she’ll be up and running by afternoon.”

He looked pensive, plucking a bag of nuts from the chair and putting it back. “It’s impossible to change what you are. You drink like that when you fight yourself.”

“How did you get so educated on the matter?”

“I had an uncle.”

He opened a granola bar, and I watched his finger slipping into the fold of cellophane, exerting enough pressure to weaken and split the bond between the layers. It took exactly no effort. A child could do it. But the grace of that simple thing was exquisite. I pressed my legs together because I kept imagining those hands flat on the insides of my thighs.

“It was my job to collect him in the mornings,” he continued. “He supported my mother, so he had to go make money. Every morning, I had to look for him. I found him in the street, in the piazza, wherever. Passed out with wine all over his shirt. I splashed water on his face and sent him to work at the dock. I mean, he called me a stronzo first, but I got the job done.”

His story opened doors and corridors to further questions. The possibility of spending hours in that waiting room with him was a little too appealing. I’d seen what he’d done to the man who’d kicked my sister, and I had the feeling he wasn’t a normal lawyer. Something was up, and finding out was akin to stroking a snake to feel the click of the scales.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “In Los Angeles?”

He shrugged. “The California bar is easy. And the weather’s nice.”

“My name is Theresa.”

“I know.” He smiled at my shocked expression, looking about as concerned as a cat on a windowsill. “I used to see you on TV during Daniel Brower’s campaign for mayor. Part of it, at least. I think he might win.”

I must have turned purple, though my face didn’t shift and my shoulders stayed straight.

He cast his eyes down as if he’d said too much. “It’s not my business, of course.”

“It’s Los Angeles’s business, apparently, that my fiancé was having *** with his speechwriter. Any details in the paper you missed and want me to fill in?” I was having a complete emotional shut down. Not even his full lips or the arch of his eyebrows could pierce my veil of defensiveness. “That’s why you were watching me at Frontage that first night. Trying to put the face with the story.”

“No.”

“I’m not interested in your pity, or in you proving yourself, or anything for that matter.” I stood. I’d talked myself into a deep enough hole, and the shame of the entire incident swelled inside me. “Thanks for dinner.”

I spun on my heel and walked to the nearest door that led outside. I should have headed back to Deirdre. I should have gone to the ladies’ room. I should have gone to the desk. But outside looked so appealingly anonymous, as if I could walk into the darkness and disappear. Once I got there though, I had nowhere to go, and the cars speeding down LaCienega didn’t slow enough for me to cross. In any case, I couldn’t go far. Deirdre needed me.

I walked down the block as if I had a destination. I’d been foolish. I’d wanted him, spine to core, but he knew who I was. I couldn’t run away from what had happened with Daniel. Everyone knew, and any relationship I had would be painted with the brush of my humiliation. I felt that beautiful hand on my elbow, and part of my body continued forward despite his best effort.

“Wait,” he said, “you never let me finish.”

“I don’t want you to,” I said, letting him hold my elbow while I caught my balance.

“I was watching you because yes, I wanted to place the face.” I started to object, but he put his fingers to my lips and said, “And when I did, I was... how do you say?” He squinted as if trying to squeeze the word out of his brain. “Awestruck.” I pulled away and he let go of me. “Don’t go. It’s not what you think. Yes, I saw you on TV with Brower. You always stood so straight, even when they attacked you. Reporters, the other side, even your own people. And you never cracked. Then tonight, you stand up and tell me to stop hurting that man, like it’s your right under God to do it. You could run the world. Do you realize?”

I said nothing. I hated that he had observed my shame with Daniel so closely in such one-sided intimacy.

“Let me take you out,” he said. “My attention isn’t going to hurt you.”

“Look, I’m sorry. You’re nice enough. And I have to be honest, you’re handsome. Very handsome.” I couldn’t look at him when I said that. “But I’m a curiosity to you. To me, it’s still very real.” I folded my arms so he had to release my elbow. A bus blew by us with a shattering roar, sending a warm breeze through our hair. “I’m just not ready.”

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“Let me take you out anyway.”

“Tee Dray!”

I spun around. Katrina jogged toward me from the parking lot, carrying a huge satchel and wearing Uggs with her leggings. She was early, and not a minute too soon.

“I’m sorry,” I said, backing away toward Katrina. “I can’t.” I felt her at my back, panting.

“Hi,” she said.

I turned around and realized she wasn’t saying hello to me. “Katrina, this is Antonio.”

“Ciao,” he said with a nod before he directed his gaze back at me. “You have my card, Contessa.”

“I do.”

“Ciao then.” He smiled, nodded, and walked toward the parking lot entrance.

Katrina spun around to watch him as he turned and waved. “Holy f**king hot fire.”

“Yes. Holy hot fire.”

“That’s not the same guy, is it?” she asked.

“It is.”

“Is he an actor? I could use him. ****, I could write feature films about the way he walks.”

“Lawyer. Italian. Which is nice if you’re into that sort of thing. You’re early, by the way.”

“We actually got **** done.” We started back toward the hospital. “Michael was a bruiser. He asked about you,” she said.

“Not interested.”

“How’s your sister?”

“Should be awake by now. Can you wait for me?”

“An hour. Then you drive yourself home,” she said as if she meant it. She put her arm around my shoulder and walked me in.

six.

hey’ll send a priest if you want to see one,” I said, sitting by Deirdre’s bed.

“I don’t need counseling.” My sister looked flush and healthy and energetic, despite being waist-deep in sheets. Nothing like a mainline of B vitamins to bring a woman to the peak of health.

“They can’t release you without it. And I’m sorry, but I agree with the policy. You could have died.”

“I’m a grown woman.” She threw off her sheets, exposing a blue hospital gown that matched my scrubs.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Dee, please. I’ve got your vomit all over my clothes. We can get Dr. Weinstein back if you want.”

She tucked one curly red lock behind her ear, where it would stay for three seconds before bouncing in front of her eyes again. “I want to go to work.”

“You need a break from that job. It’s turning you into a grouch.”

“I can’t do anything else,” she said. “I don’t know how.”

One of the downsides of being incredibly wealthy was the ease with which one could go through life without marketable skills. The only ability she’d developed was compassion for people who didn’t have what she had and contempt for those who did. Self-loathing went deep, a trademark Drazen trait.

“There’s a trade school around the corner,” I said. “You could learn to fix cars.”

“You think Daddy would buy me a shop in Beverly Hills?”

“Anything to get you out of social work. Heck, I’d buy you a shop.”

She put her face in her hands. “I want to do God’s work.”

I held her wrists. “God didn’t build you to see what you see every day. You’re too sensitive.”

She took her hands away from her face. “Can you go to that thing with Jon tonight? At the museum? I don’t think I can take it.”

Jonathan was only seen in public with his sisters in the hope of drawing back his ex-wife.

“If you give the counselor one hundred percent, I’ll go.”

She leaned back in the bed. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“You smell like a puke factory.”

I kissed her head and put my arms around my crazy, delicate sister.

seven.

atrina was in the waiting room, sleeping on her binder and drooling on the breakdown script for the next day.

I sat by her head and put my hand on her shoulder. I felt guilty for calling her while she was in production, and I felt lonely for needing her so badly. “Come on, Directrix. I’m driving.”

“Five minutes, Mom,” she whispered.

By the time Katrina dropped me at Frontage, my little BMW was the only car in the lot, and condensation left a polka dot pattern on my windshield. It was a 1967 GT Cabrio with chrome detailing that wasn’t happy about water drying on it. I shouldn’t have bought it. The car was a death trap. But Daniel had gone to the automotive museum’s auction to show his face, and I’d walked out with what he called LBT, the Little Blue Tink. He’d been annoyed, but I’d fallen in love.

I wasn’t ready to end the night. Though the rising sun would end it for me, I wasn’t ready to process it. It was almost six in the morning, and my brother never slept, so I called him.

“Hey, Jon,” I said. “I saw your singer last night.”

“I heard.”

I could tell by his sotto voice and cryptic words that he wasn’t alone. “You want the good news or the bad news?”

“Bad.”

“Everything’s fine, before you panic.”

“Okay, I’m not panicked.”

“Deirdre again.”

“Ah,” he said.

“And I didn’t just pour her into bed. She had to be hospitalized. Nothing a few B vitamins couldn’t fix, but honestly, I think she has a real problem. I saw her have two drinks, but she had a flask and she went to the bathroom, I don’t know, fourteen times.”