“I don’t think this is a parking space,” I said as I opened the car door and leaned out, inspecting the curb.
“It’s fine,” said Caroline as she stepped out of the driver’s side.
“This curb looks like it’s painted red. As in, don’t park here,” I pointed to the curb to emphasize my point.
Caroline barely glanced at it. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I park on these streets all the time.”
I shrugged. I still wasn’t convinced, but it was pointless arguing with her. Though Caroline was one for appearances, she was also cheap and didn’t pay for valet parking unless absolutely necessary. We had been driving around for twenty minutes before we found this alleged space and I knew she wasn’t about to give it up for anything.
“What time is it?” Caroline asked me.
I dug my cell phone out of my jacket pocket. “9:45,” I answered.
“You have the card, right?” It was the forty-seventh time she had asked me this question. I put my cell phone back in my jacket pocket and produced the card from my back jeans pocket.
“Great,” she said. “Let’s go, we’re late.” We walked down the sidewalk. We had parked on a small residential street off of Sunset. I still felt a little funny leaving the car, but told myself to forget about it so I could concentrate on the evening’s plans.
“Gigi said we should be there after 9:30. We don’t want to look too eager, do we?” I said.
“It is after 9:30, first of all,” Caroline said as she navigated her way around a large pile of dog poop. “Why can’t people pick up after their dogs?” she retorted, getting distracted from her point. “Honestly, these are Joan and David shoes.” She paused. “What was I saying?”
“It’s after 9:30,” I reminded her.
“Right. All I mean is, I am willing to forgo being fashionably late and looking eager if it means getting in will be a little easier.”
“But we have the card,” I said.
“There will still be a process to get in, there always is,” Caroline said knowledgably. “Someone will have to find this Liam guy for us. The card is like a big, silver dollar. It’s shiny and will get people’s attention, but it isn’t a golden ticket to sailing past those velvet ropes and into the club.”
“We’re hanging all our hopes on a silver dollar?” I asked, a bit deflated.
“It’s how it works, trust me. We will get in, it’ll just take a little while.”
Ten minutes later, we were standing in front of what looked like an abandoned warehouse. It stood alone on its own plot of land and was set back a bit more from the street than the surrounding buildings.
“This is it?” Caroline asked. She grabbed the card from my hand and peered at it.
“It’s the right address,” I said as she handed the card back to me.
There was no sign of life anywhere. Weeds were growing out of the cracks in the asphalt and a couple of the dark, grimy window panes were missing glass. There was a rusty chainlink fence around the front, but half of it had collapsed and lay haphazardly against a heap of scrap metal that was piled high against the building.
“Where is everybody?” I looked around.
Caroline shrugged. We were on a no-man’s-land part of Sunset and it was completely deserted. Suddenly, we heard laughter coming from down the street. A couple appeared from around a corner and was headed towards us. The young woman looked like a model. She was rail thin with stick straight hair and slinky dress. She was hanging on the guy, who was tall with broad shoulders and even in the dark it was easy to make out a tattoo of something that snaked up his right arm and disappeared under his black button down shirt.
“Should we ask-“
“No,” Caroline interrupted me quickly. I could see her mental gears turning. The couple approached us, and she started to rummage through her purse.
“I know my ID is in here somewhere,” she exclaimed loudly as they passed us.
“What are you doing?” I asked once they were out of earshot.
“I didn’t want us looking like the idiots who couldn’t find their way into this club,” she said without looking at me. She was watching the couple pick their way around the collapsed fence and disappear down an alley. “Come on.”
As nonchalantly as possible, we followed them. The warehouse went back surprisingly far and even though there was a floodlight at the opposite end of the alley, it was an extremely long, dark walk to get to it. The gloomy warehouse loomed on one side of us, a fence overrun with ivy on the other. The ivy was so overgrown the tendrils reached out quite far. When I deviated even slightly towards the fence, I was unpleasantly surprised by them tickling me in the face. My heels kicked some bottles and other trash but it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. I walked slowly for fear of tripping on something and face planting on the dirty pavement.
Caroline blazed along unabashed by potential stumbling hazards and focused entirely on the couple ahead of us, though twice she did stop, realizing how far ahead of me she was. Both times her impatience got the better of her and she turned around to carry on before I had completely caught up to her.
The faint pulse of music emitted from inside the warehouse as we neared the end of the alley. I looked up from my futile attempt at seeing where I was going to watch Caroline, silhouetted in the harsh floodlight, half skip her way after the couple we were following, who disappeared around the corner of the building. When she reached the edge of the building she stopped and waited for me.
“Here we are!” pronounced Caroline when I finally caught up to her.
The alley opened up into a large oval driveway. The back of the building looked like your typical warehouse loading dock – there were two docking stations that shared a raised cement platform, which had been converted into a large balcony area. The edges were cordoned off with solid black barricades to prevent people from club crashing. The dock’s rolling gates gaped open and we craned our necks as we walked by to get a look inside the club. But there were so many clubbers using the balcony to smoke that we couldn’t see very much.
Past the loading dock was the main entrance – a wide metal door that was propped open with a cinderblock. All the people who were waiting in the long line just outside the door could get a peek of what they were missing and hoping to eventually experience for themselves, if it wasn’t for the enormous man that guarded it. His massive body obscured most of the view.
“What do you think?” I asked Caroline.
“Come on,” she said after a moment. With a brazen gait, she walked right up to the bouncer, with me closely behind her.
“Can I help you?” he asked curiously once we got to him. He wore a hunter green button down shirt and black dress pants. He was stereotypical in his size as far as bouncers go – he looked like an ex-sumo wrestler. His neck was as big as my thigh and he was so tall Caroline would have to sit on my shoulders in order for either one of us to pat the top of his shaved head. Not that we were in the habit of patting random strangers on their heads. However, if we were, this would’ve been a two person job, not just in terms of height but also surface area. It was like a beach ball.
He chewed on a toothpick and stared intently at us, rolling it around from one side of his mouth to the other as if that were the only thing keeping him from punching someone out of sheer boredom. I caught a nervous look from Caroline, but it was fleeting and in the next moment she smiled sweetly at him.
“Um, yes. Hello. My friend and I-” she gestured to me as she said this, which was my cue to smile at him as adorably as she was. I tried as hard as I could, but the sheer size of him was intimidating and I was afraid my smile looked more like a grimace.
“We have this card,” Caroline continued and she again gestured to me. I let my awful smile fall as I jammed my hand in my jeans pocket and held up the card, now slightly bent, for him to see.
“We were told to ask for Liam,” I said quickly.
The bouncer took the card from me with a beefy hand. He looked at it for a moment, then turned it over. He stared at the two of us.
“Someone gave you this card?” he asked skeptically.
“Yes,” I said.
He looked back and forth between the two of us. “Wait in this line right here,” he grunted finally, gesturing behind us. We turned and eyed the long line of people watching our exchange.
“Sure, yeah. You’ll tell Liam we’re outside?” Caroline asked. The bouncer didn’t answer her, he just handed the card back to me.
“Okay, thank you,” she said earnestly. “We’ll be here. Waiting. Because…that’s what you do in a line…” Her voice trailed off as I caught her arm and steered her towards the back of the line.
“Can you believe that? He didn’t believe that anyone would give us that card. He thought we found it on the street or something. Or stole it.” I retorted.
Caroline shrugged. “That’s his job,” she said plainly. “He’s the bouncer of the most exclusive club in Los Angeles, what did you expect?”
“I guess I expected to be believed,” I said as I slid the card back into my pocket.
“This is Hollywood, honey,” Caroline said. “Everybody lies in this town. You want to survive here you’ve got to stop expecting the truth. It can get you into trouble. Especially in a place like this.”
“That’s messed up,” I said.
“Yep,” replied Caroline nonchalantly.
I studied the warehouse. “The most exclusive club is in a dump like this? You’d think they’d be able to afford better real estate,” I mused.
“The location moves around, it never stays in one place too long. The owners find places that the usual club goers wouldn’t suspect. Word gets around what the new address is to the people who are deemed worthy of going.”
“Adding to the exclusivity and pretentiousness of it all,” I offered.
“Exactly,” answered Caroline.
“How did you hear of it?” I asked.
“From a friend at USC,” she said. “The hearing about it isn’t hard, most people who live in Los Angeles and frequent the clubs know it exists. It’s finding someone who has actually been and knows how to get in, that’s the tricky part.”
I nodded. “How did you find out that Lola and Gigi had a connection here?”
“I didn’t know they had a connection, I just knew they had been before. I overheard them talking about it one day at Coffee Bean,” she said. “They had been the night before and were rehashing some argument they had gotten into with one of the Olsen twins. The next time they came in, I gave them their coffees on the house. Told them I had a friend moving out here in a few weeks and if they could get us into Green, there’d be a lot more free coffees coming their way. They seemed amenable, but had to meet you first. Had to make sure you weren’t a total nerd.” She reached into her purse and dug out her phone, checking the time as I absorbed this information.
“Why does getting into this club matter to you so much?” I asked. Caroline paused and looked at me, trying to find the right words.
“You remember my roommate sophomore year, Gillian?” she asked.
“Was she the one who had the alarm clock that screamed in Chinese?”
“No, that was Vicki, my freshman year roommate,” Caroline said. “Gillian was sophomore year. She was also a film major. She had a crazy obsession with Mark-Paul Gosselaar?”
“Oh yeah,” I said as the memories came screaming back to me. “Now I remember. Crazy obsession. Honestly, it was unhealthy.”
“Yes. Anyway, we stayed friends, even more so junior year when we weren’t living together and I didn’t have to fall asleep listening to the endless episodes of Saved By the Bell she used to watch on her computer. About two weeks before the end of spring semester, she tells me she wrote a script. She wanted to know if I would read it and give her any thoughts I had.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Was it any good?”
“Not only was it not even a little bit good, it was horrible. The dialogue was clichéd, the plot was contrived and felt like it was taken directly from an after school special.”
“Probably one Mark-Paul starred in,” I said.
“No doubt,” replied Caroline. “There was not a single redeemable quality about that script.”
“What did you do?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the whole truth, so I decided upon a few choice criticisms. I picked the things that made me want to poke my eyes out with ninja stars and chose my words carefully when describing them to her. The weird thing was, she actually listened to me. She made some changes and when I read her next draft, it wasn’t as God awful. Still wasn’t great. But at least it wasn’t as bad as before.”
“No ninja stars necessary?” I asked.
Caroline smiled. “No. Thank goodness.”
“So what does this have to do with wanting to go to this club?”
“I was getting to that. I didn’t see Gillian all summer, then once fall semester started she called me and asked me to lunch. Over our goat cheese salads she told me that she spent her summer making her crappy script into a movie.”
“What!” I said. “But you said it was horrible.”
“It was,” Caroline answered. “I asked her how she got the money. And she said she met a guy in a bar a couple of weeks after summer vacation started. He was a computer software engineer who liked financing small budget movies on the side and was looking for a new project. She gave him her script and he gave her the money to get it made. Even let her direct it.”
“But, you said it was horrible,” I insisted.
“That’s not the point,” she said dismissively.
“What is the point, then?”
“She was going to one of the most prestigious film schools in the country. And how did her film get made? Because she met some guy in some bar. And it wasn’t even a real bar, it was the bar at the Cheesecake Factory. If that can happen there, who knows what we can find here. That’s why I want to get in. In this town, you never know what opportunity awaits you. You just need to be patient and keep your eyes open for it.”
I smiled at her. I had to admit, she could pull a really solid inspirational speech right out of her ass. She was born a film producer.
“Okay, fine. So this is worth the wait.”
“We’re probably not going to wait very long anyway,” she said as she studied the bouncer. He was talking to a guy in a Kelly green shirt. After a few moments, he went disappeared back into the club. The bouncer caught us looking at him and didn’t seem too happy about it, so we quickly looked the other way.
“What happens when the bouncer finds out that we don’t really know this Liam guy? Think he’ll be mad?” I asked.
Caroline shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll care one way or the other. Just as long as Liam doesn’t care.”
“You think Gigi called and told him we were coming?”
“I’m giving her free coffees for a week, she better have,” Caroline said with an edge in her tone.
“He could be the delivery guy for all we know,” I said. “What if he doesn’t have any pull?”
“He has some pull, he got Lola and Gigi in,” she replied.
The moments passed. The line got longer and longer as more hopeful young Hollywood wannabes drifted in from the darkness of the alley and joined the line behind us. There was some movement – a group of pretty and barely legal-looking young girls were practically lassoed by some hot shot musician whose name neither Caroline nor I could remember. He shooed them into the club like a flock of geese while they squealed uncontrollably. Most of the patrons who were let in and spared the look of scrutiny from the bouncer – who Caroline and I nicknamed Maximus – were people who I recognized from bit roles on both TV shows and movies. Many of them had entourages so big it was like they owned their own baseball team.
“Why is it all the people who have big entourages are B-listers?” Caroline wondered aloud as yet another posse was granted access by Maximus.
“I bet there are a fair share of A-listers who big entourages too,” I said.
“True. But none of those people are getting in over me right now,” replied Caroline.
There was no sign of Liam anywhere. At least, we didn’t think so. Truthfully he could have walked by us several times and we would’ve never have known it since we had no idea what he looked like. Regardless, every time someone popped their head out of the door to talk to Maximus, our hearts would leap with possibility. As time wore on, my enthusiasm for this outing started to wane. My feet were aching in the heels I was wearing and after nearly an hour, I was ready to go home.
“Caroline,” I started.
She could read my tone, and wasn’t going to go down without a fight. “Come on, we can’t leave now,” she protested.
“Then we have to do something,” I replied.
“Like what? Bribery?”
“I’m not bribing Maximus,” I said.
“Okay, fine,” she said. We brainstormed in silence for a moment. “All right, how about we just talk to him? Like we’re checking in to see what’s going on?”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But if it doesn’t work, we go home. Deal?”
“Yeah, fine.” Caroline held up the rope guiding the line so I could duck under it.
Maximus watched as we approached, nonplussed. When we were almost to him Caroline gave him a little wave.
“Hello,” she said cheerfully.
He grunted back.
“We just thought we’d check in, see if Liam was able to make it out here to come and get us,” she said pleasantly.
“We know he must be very busy,” I said, trying to contribute.
“Yes, of course,” agreed Caroline.
Maximus peered down at us. “He is. Very busy,” he said as he stuck a fresh toothpick in his mouth. He folded his arms and looked straight ahead, away from us. There was a finality in his demeanor so I turned to leave, but Caroline wasn’t ready to go home quite yet.
“Look, can I speak frankly to you?” I heard her say. I whipped back around. This piqued the interest of Maximus too, because he was also looking at her.
“Go ahead,” he said finally.
“First off, we haven’t been introduced properly. I’m Caroline. What’s your name?”
He stared at her a moment, sizing her up. “Balthazar,” he said reluctantly.
“Wow. Cool name,” she said genuinely.
“Say what you came over here to say,” he said sharply.
“Yeah. Listen. I know you think we don’t belong in there. And you’re probably right. We’re just two girls from Massachusetts trying to make our dreams come true out here in Hollywood. All we want is to get the chance to interact with people who maybe could help us with that.”
“And by interact with, she does not mean sleep with,” I jumped in.
“That’s true,” said Caroline. “You might have guessed by now that we haven’t actually met Liam. But I’m paying this girl I know unlimited coffee beverages for a week for the opportunity to get into this club using him as our contact person. I’m not asking you to let us in, I’m simply asking for information so we can figure out if all this waiting is going to pay off, or if I’m going to be paying for these coffees with my own tip money for the next week for nothing. Can you please do us a solid and let us know one way or the other?”
Something Caroline said must have gotten through. Balthazar unfolded his arms and stared at her.
“I honestly don’t know if it’s worth your wait,” he said. “Liam is a bartender here. And tonight, he’s late. Really late.”
Caroline nodded, soaking in this information. “And there’s no way to contact him.”
“He’s not picking up his cell,” Balthazar said. “We don’t know where he is.” Something behind us caught his attention suddenly. “Although,” he continued, “It looks like that information just changed.”
We turned to see what he was looking at. A young man with dark hair was running towards us like a bat out of hell. He was wearing a mint green button down shirt that was half tucked into a pair of dark jeans and he was carrying a backpack by the top handle.
This had to be Liam.
“Dude-“ Balthazar began as Liam stopped when he got to us.
“I know,” he panted. “I got pulled over, the cop took forever to write a ticket-“
“Yeah, great excuse,” Balthazar said sarcastically. “Jean Paul is furious.”
“Yes, I bet he is,” said Liam like he didn’t really care. As his breathing slowed, he noticed Caroline and I looking at him.
“Hi,” he said with a little wave.
Balthazar pointed to us. “You know these chicks?”
Liam looked at us blankly. Aside from his vague stare, he was quite handsome. He was short and slight but had a strong jawline and dark eyes that glittered in the floodlights.
“We’re Gigi and Lola’s friends,” Caroline said and she stuck her hand out to shake Liam’s hand. He was a little slow on the uptake and Caroline almost had to put her hand in his so he could shake it.
His eyes lit up with hazy recognition. “Oh, right. From the Coffee Bean. I completely forgot you guys were coming by tonight,” he said.
“So they’re cool?” Balthazar asked. He seemed eager to get us on our way.
“Yeah, they’re cool,” answered Liam.
“Super. IDs please. And it’s a fifty dollar cover.” Balthazar held out his hand to collect.
“Fifty bucks? Are you crazy?” I retorted.
“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” Caroline said as she elbowed me in the ribs. Then to me she added, “Control yourself and show the man your ID.” I did as I was told and after inspecting our IDs thoroughly, he stepped aside and allowed us to enter.
“Thanks for all your help,” said Caroline earnestly to Balthazar. He grunted in return and we didn’t waste any time going into the club.
Inside, the space was vast. As dilapidated as the warehouse looked on the outside, the inside was a stark contrast. It looked clean and spruced up. The floor had a nice sheen to it, though the space still retained the minimalistic charm of its warehouse roots. It was easy to appreciate since the place wasn’t even close to capacity. It only looked that way from the perspective of the waiting line because most people gravitated towards the loading dock area so they could smoke. Most of those who weren’t smoking had gathered around the square-shaped bar that stood a little off center in the middle of the room. Against the wall towards the front was a DJ, who was playing elevator techno and the two longer walls were lined with booths with low tables in the center of them. Most of these were taped off with signs that read “Reserved,” though no one really seemed to be interested in sitting in them anyway. Liam was already behind the bar, he had slipped in when Balthazar was inspecting our IDs.
“Bar?” I asked Caroline.
“Hell yeah,” she replied.
As we approached, Liam was amidst placing a sign on one corner of the bar. It read, “RESERVED.”
“Sorry, ladies,” he said to the group of four young women who he was kicking out. “This area is now reserved. There’s plenty of seating over there, though.” He pointed across the room to where the non-reserved booths were. The women were annoyed, but reluctantly gathered their purses and drinks and moved over.
“Wow,” Caroline said to me out of the corner of her mouth. “This is pretty awesome.” I had to admit that the idea of the bartender kicking out a bunch of pretty girls so we could sit at the bar was indeed awesome. The evening was getting unexpectedly better. We hopped up on the free stools. He smiled at us as we sat down.
“What’ll it be, ladies?” he asked.
“Long Island iced tea, please,” said Caroline, bouncing excitedly in her seat.
“I’ll have a martini,” I declared. “With extra olives.” I didn’t really drink martinis. The truth was I didn’t drink that much period. But after the evening we had thus far, a martini seemed to be in order.
“All right,” said Liam and he got to work.
“So, Liam. How do you know Gigi and Lola?” I asked as we watched him make Caroline’s drink.
“I used to go out with Lola,” he said.
“Really,” I answered without really thinking. He laughed. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“It’s okay,” he replied as he set Caroline’s drink in front of her.
“You’re still friendly, it seems,” said Caroline. “That’s good.”
“Well, the Jardins are a bit like the mafia. Once you’re in, there’s no getting out. We’re better as friends anyway. I know that’s a little cliché, but it’s the truth.” He poured the ingredients for my martini into a mixing glass.
As he continued to make my drink, I looked around the bar and studied the people who surrounded it. No one was over thirty. The women were all tall, thin and pretty with long hair and low cut dresses. I began to feel very underdressed in my fancy jeans and short-sleeved black blouse. It had some frills around the collar that flounced around with the slightest movement. This was annoying because it felt like there was a bug crawling up my neck, and no matter how many times it happened in the course of five minutes I would inevitably at some point jerk instinctively. Caroline tried vehemently to veto me wearing this shirt as a general rule, calling it “The Spaz Shirt,” but it was the fanciest piece of clothing I owned. Instead, she attempted to talk me into wearing a dress, but I wasn’t interested. I wanted to be somewhat comfortable and the only thing I was willing to sacrifice in the name of fashion was my patent red leather heels. Even though they killed my feet, they were glorious.
The men, who were slightly outnumbered, looked like the casting session for a Pert Plus commercial. All of them had fabulous heads of hair that were mussed just so. It made me wonder if there was a hair product dispenser in the mens’ room. They were all cute and buff and most of them were with girls, though I did spot some all male groups in the crowd.
“You here to troll for celebrities?” Liam asked. He was watching me looking at the room as he slid my martini in front of me.
“No,” I said, trying not to sound defensive.
“It’s okay if you are, I really don’t care. I should, but I don’t,” he said with a wink.
“It doesn’t seem like there are any here anyway,” said Caroline as she looked around and stirred her drink with her straw.
“Yeah, tonight’s not the best night for celebrity sightings,” Liam said casually.
“The night is still young though,” I said. He watched me as I raised my glass to him and took a sip.
“How is it?” he asked.
“Strong,” I answered as the gin coursed through my bloodstream. I put the glass back on the bar. He laughed.
“Yeah. That’s how I roll. You want to get your money’s worth, don’t you? That drink is thirty dollars.”
“Good lord,” I exclaimed loudly. He laughed again. I spotted a bowl of peanuts on the bar a few seats down from us and reached over to pick it up. If I was going to consume a strong alcoholic beverage, I needed something else in my stomach. Liam saw me struggling to reach the bowl and picked it up. He landed it right in front of me. He watched as I took a handful of nuts and practically shoved them in my mouth.
“So seriously, if you aren’t here to gawk at celebrities, what are you here for?”
“To network,” Caroline said. “You know anybody here that you could introduce us to?”
Liam bit his lip as he peered over at Caroline. “This really isn’t that type of place. Besides, I’m working. I could point out a few people who you could accidentally on purpose bump into.”
“All right,” said Caroline. “Who you got?”
Liam looked around the room carefully, scanning the crowd. “Well,” he said finally, “You see that girl over there?”
We looked to where he was pointing and spotted a blonde in a light blue silk dress chatting with some friends at the opposite corner of the bar.
“Yeah. What about her?” I asked as I inhaled a couple more peanuts.
“She’s the daughter of one of the top dogs at Paramount. If you have a script you want read, she’d be your girl,” he said. He paused for a moment, more to continue looking through the crowd than for dramatic effect. He spotted someone else.
“And that guy with the leather jacket,” he said as he nodded his head in the guy’s direction. He was talking animatedly to a group of people by one of the rolling gates. “He’s the son of some big record producer, I forget his name. You got some songs written? He may be your guy to sing them to.”
“I see,” I said. “So, when you say you meet people here who could help you get ahead, you mean the sons and daughters of those people.”
“No, not always. You want someone whose really in a position to help you?”
“Please,” said Caroline.
“It’s not as glamorous,” warned Liam.
“That’s fine,” I said. “Who is it?”
He gestured across the room towards the area with the reserved booths. Sitting in one of them was the same girl who we followed down the alley and into the club. She was with the same arm tattooed guy and was having a hard time not sloshing her drink around everywhere.
“Well, we could definitely take advantage of that,” I joked. “We just need to find out where she works and show up Monday morning insisting she offered us jobs.”
“Not her,” said Liam. “Him. He’s the executive assistant to Marnie Farnsworth. That would be the vice head of production for 20th Century Fox.”
“Wow,” I said, legitimately impressed.
“Yeah. He’s definitely got his finger on the pulse of the film industry. Could get you places. Be careful, though,” he warned. “He loves helping out the young women who come into this town. But it comes with a price, if you know what I mean.”
“You talking about me again?” a male voice boomed from behind us. I jumped, startled by the guy who had seemingly yelled right into my ear. I turned around, about to give him at the very least a dirty look, but once I laid eyes on him, all my anger just melted away.
This guy reminded me of what you dreamed the captain of the high school football team would look like at your ten year reunion. Still fit, has grown into his looks and has ditched the braces. He towered over us as we sat in our stools.
Liam fisted bumped the new guy and it became obvious in their interaction that they were friends. “This is Sebastian Cross,” Liam said to us after a moment. “Sebastian, these are my new friends.”
We introduced ourselves and I tried not to stare. Sebastian flashed a brilliant smile as he shook our hands, his deep brown eyes almost dancing in the lights that hung low around the bar.
“So nice to meet you,” he said.
“Yes,” I stammered, suddenly very aware and embarrassed by my peanut breath. “You too.”
“Cross…like Martin Cross?” Caroline asked.
“Yes,” said Sebastian as he flashed another killer smile. “He is my father.”
Now I had two reasons to act like an idiot around him. Not only was he gorgeous, he was also connected.
Martin Cross was a television producer who peaked in the late 80’s and early 90’s with shows like The Grovers, Three’s a Crowd and Ellen’s Place. I had grown up watching them. At one point, he was producing four that were on the air at the same time. For the first time since I’d been in Los Angeles, I started thinking like Caroline and began to scheme about what we could possibly get from this chance meeting. I glanced quickly over to her and could tell she was way ahead of me. She stabbed the straw of her drink into the ice as she gave Sebastian the once over.
“And I wasn’t talking about you,” Liam said to Sebastian. He jutted out his chin towards the tattooed guy and his drunk date. Sebastian turned and glanced at them.
“Ah yes, Mighty Mouse with yet another damsel,” Sebastian said as he turned back around. Liam handed him a beer.
“He doesn’t look that small,” I said, trying to study him without staring.
“No, I mean he likes to help women get their foot in the door. He makes them think he’s doing it out of the kindness of his heart, but sooner or later, he comes back to them wanting favors.”
“But isn’t that how it works? I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine type thing?” I asked.
“It is, but he’s not asking to have his back scratched. He’s asking for something a little south of the border.”
“Ah. Got it,” I said.
“Yes,” answered Sebastian. “And it’s not like that kind of thing doesn’t happen, but believe me, it’s not how you want to get into this business. Am I right?”
“Absolutely. We draw the line with sexual favors,” said Caroline.
“Good. Then stay away from that guy,” said Sebastian. He raised his beer bottle towards me. I picked up my martini glass and nearly sloshed it all over myself.
“To newfound unexpected friends,” he said. We clinked glasses.
“Cheers,” I answered, and took another sip of my martini.
Sebastian took a sip of his beer and sat down in the empty seat next to me. I turned to face him and for the first time noticed he had arrived with a few other friends, all guys. They were cute but nowhere near as good looking as Sebastian. It was then that I realized Liam had not saved the seats for us, he had saved them for these guys. They didn’t seem to mind standing and were talking amongst themselves, drinks in hands.
“So, have you been enjoying Los Angeles thus far?” Sebastian asked me.
“How did you know I was new here? Is it that obvious?” I asked.
“Knew it the second we met,” he answered, grinning.
“How?”
“You were eating the peanuts,” he said simply. He gestured around the room with his beer. “Look around,” he said. “No one is eating the peanuts. Particularly the girls. You might as well have tattooed a sign on your forehead, I’m new here.”
“Wow. This is embarrassing,” I said. I took a sip of my drink.
“No, no, no. I think it’s endearing. You just have to be careful, that’s all. You need to keep those newbie tells to a minimum.”
“Yeah, I’d do that if I knew what they were,” I said dryly. Sebastian laughed. It was a big booming laugh that reverberated throughout the entire room.
“Well, I just helped you with one,” he said.
“What are some other ones?” I asked.
“Don’t get too drunk.”
“Hence the peanuts,” I said and pointed to the bowl.
Sebastian laughed again. “I think part of not getting too drunk means not being such a lightweight. You got to get some stamina, girl. How’d you get through college without being able to hold your liquor?”
“I’m holding it just fine,” I exclaimed.
“You’ve had what, like four sips? It’s not even half empty, and you’re chowing down on those peanuts like your sobriety depends on it.” He smiled at me, his eyes twinkling. “I’m just having some fun with you, you know that, right?” he said.
“I know,” I answered. I took a big sip of my drink as I watched him over the rim of my glass.
“Good,” he said amusingly. “Now it’s just about half full.”
“Any other tips?” I asked.
He thought for a moment, then leaned in close to me. He looked me right in the eyes. “Don’t ever be intimidated by the other women. I don’t care how skinny they are, how pretty they are or how expensive their clothes are. Believe you are hotter than them. It’ll go a lot further than any expensive dress.” He lingered there for a moment, his nose just a few inches from mine. For a split second I thought he was going to lean in to kiss me. But then he pulled away and took a swig of his beer.
At that moment, I felt Caroline bump my elbow.
“You ready to go?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah in a second,” I said holding up my martini glass to indicate I wasn’t quite done. Caroline nodded as if to say, Well then finish it. This was a method of hers. Get a guy interested, and then leave with them wanting more. I always thought it was a gamble and I didn’t like doing it, though it almost always worked. I stared at Caroline as I finished my drink to signify my doubt.
“You’re leaving already?” asked Sebastian disappointedly.
Caroline’s eyes snapped from him back to me as if to say, Ha! It worked! I slid the olives from my glass off the toothpick and popped them in my mouth.
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “Early workout tomorrow.”
“Can I…get your number or something?” he asked tentatively.
I smiled as I dug into my purse and looked for one of my business cards. They were cheap looking and I was a little embarrassed to give him one. But as I searched, I realized I didn’t have any.
“You can just text it to me,” he offered.
Then I remembered the card I’d been carrying in my back pocket. I pulled it out, still a little bent. Our shiny silver dollar. I grabbed a pen from Liam’s shirt pocket and wrote my name and number on the front, right under the word Green.
“So you don’t forget where we met,” I said as I handed him the card.
“Oh, I don’t think I would,” he answered, and he slipped the card into his wallet. At the same time he produced his own card, black with white ink.
“Just in case,” he said as he handed it to me. “It was nice meeting you,” he added.
“Yes, you too,” I answered. “Goodnight.”
He nodded back as I got up from the bar. Caroline was sliding the bill back over to Liam, and I waited for her to gather her purse. Then we were out the door.
“See ya around, B,” she said as we passed Balthazar.
“See ya around,” he responded flatly.
We walked back through the tunnel of darkness, only this time I wasn’t as nervous. The gin must have helped with that, because I was able to keep up with Caroline quite easily. In fact I felt like I could’ve just as easily outrun her. It wasn’t until we got back out to the street that both of us started squealing with excitement from the experience we just had.
“I can’t believe it, do you know how connected Sebastian is? And he’s cute. And he’s interested in you!” Caroline exclaimed. “This is perfect, just perfect. You’ve got to play it cool when he calls you.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” I said, smiling in spite of myself.
“He’s going to call you,” Caroline said. We continued to walk down the street in the direction of the car.
“Yeah, I have faith that he will,” I said.
We turned the corner onto the street we had parked on. But as we approached the spot that our car was supposed to be parked, it wasn’t there.
“Is this the right street?” I asked.
“Yeah, this is where we parked,” said Caroline slowly. We stood there for a moment, unsure about what to do. For the first time that evening, Caroline looked down and checked out the curb.
“I’ll call information,” she said. She got out her phone and started to dial, “It probably got towed.”
“Aha!” I said triumphantly. “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me when I tell you we’re parking on a red curb.”