Читать книгу L.a. Woman - Cathy Yardley - Страница 9

“Well,” Martika murmured, “it’s not much, but it’s home.”

“I think we moved you in record time,” Taylor drawled, surveying her new digs with the air of one bored with the process. “What, five hours?”

“I’ve unloaded a lot since last time.”

“You mean, besides Andre?”

“Let’s not be bitchy,” Martika chastised, then stuck out her tongue at him before arranging her peacock feathers in a tall wooden vase in the corner. This looked much more homey. The way this Sarah chick had decorated—ick. It looked like corporate housing. She was surprised the girl hadn’t put a Sanitized For Your Protection banner across the toilet.

Kit glanced around, muttering incoherently.

“Sorry?”

He half smiled at her. She didn’t think he ever full smiled. “I said, there’s no place like home.”

“Wizard of Oz,” Taylor said promptly.

Martika simply rolled her eyes. “You two still playing that game?”

Kit shrugged. Taylor started babbling. Martika grabbed her last moving box, labeled Private in big block print, and moved to the bedroom. This was always the last part of her unpacking ritual—the nightstands. She wondered how Andre would fare tonight, getting his bed out of storage, since the three pieces of furniture that she had since she was twenty-two was a California king bed and two nightstands. Girl’s gotta have her necessities, she thought. She loaded up the nightstand on the right of the bed with condoms and a variety of oils and other lubricants, her handcuffs, and a few other knickknacks she’d picked up along the way. The one on the right was always for guests. The one on the left…she put her chicken-scratch-filled journal, loaded with the most disgustingly self-pitying poetry ever spouted on earth, a few Chunky bars, several boxes of cigarettes, a vibrator and a pack of gum.

That drawer wasn’t for anybody else.

She closed it with a nod, and headed out. The guys were on the couch. Sarah was giving them glasses of lemonade. How very Martha Stewart, Martika thought with a grin.

This was already weird. She hadn’t roomed with a girl in longer than she could remember—and a girl like this, the native version of F.O.B. She supposed Sarah was F.O.F… Fresh Outta Fairfax. Or whatever the name of her Podunk town was.

“Well, looks like I’m all settled in,” Martika said.

Sarah was nodding as she looked around, clearly bewildered. “It’s…more than I expected.”

Was that disapproval? Martika smiled. God, she hoped so. “Well, when I move someplace, I like to…”

“Take it over?” Luis, Taylor’s boyfriend, commented with a nasal whine.

Martika grinned at him, feeling her anger start to turn over a little. She usually couldn’t take Luis for longer than, oh, fifteen minutes. She’d now been with him for over six hours, and if the man realized how close to death he was…

She shrugged it off, searching for lemonade. At least the asshole moved the bed in. You made allowances.

“Well, everything looks great,” Sarah said in a soft voice behind her.

“Thanks.” Martika smiled a little more easily. Kid’s shy, she thought, but there’s potential there. “I’m a graphic designer, did I mention that?”

“No.”

“Well, I am. I like to have artistic things around me.” She noted that almost all of the prints up were hers. “It’s all about atmosphere, presentation…you know.”

Sarah nodded, although Martika doubted she understood a damned word. She was doing that agreeing-to-be-agreeable thing.

“I mean, what did you think you were saying with the apartment before?” she pressed.

“Um….” Sarah blinked, very deer-in-headlights, at being put on the spot. “This space for rent?”

Martika laughed. Definite potential.

She wandered back out to the living room. “Well. I’m starving.” Translation: We are now going out to eat. She looked around expectantly.

Taylor looked happy at the proclamation, Luis looked sour at spending time with her (ah, but I’m so looking forward to bonding with you! she thought with a smile), and Kit…well, Kit just looked the same as he usually did. She had tried getting him to sleep with her, but she suspected he must actually bat for Taylor’s team, no matter what Taylor said about him being a DSF. She just had a feeling about this sort of thing.

“So. Where are we eating?”

Luis spoke up. “Why not Trader Vic’s?”

She shot Taylor a glance. He shrugged, embarrassed. She rolled her eyes, communicating quite clearly: Well, you’re the one fucking him. She shook her head. “Let me try this again. So. Where are we eating?”

“What? What?”

“Too tacky,” Taylor explained.

“If I wanted to spend that kind of money to see a bunch of old white men, I’d go to Le Dome,” Martika added, causing Luis to pout.

“How about Le Dome?” Kit put in sardonically.

She thought she heard Sarah giggle at that, again softly, but when she turned around Sarah’s face was impassive.

“Hmm…obviously I’m going to…ooh! How about L.A. Farm? I haven’t been in ages.” There! A viable alternative. “They’ve got a great vegetarian spread.”

“So you’re vegetarian this week?” Kit asked.

She frowned at him. “Like you’re even going, Kit.”

Kit shrugged. “Nope. Working a shift at the coffeehouse.”

“Didn’t anybody tell you? The grunge scene is over.”

“It’s retro.”

Taylor shook his head. “Working at a coffee shop on a Saturday night seems just wrong, somehow. Going to the club with us later? I thought Asylum, just for kicks.”

Kit shrugged. “I guess. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Lovely. So L.A. Farm it is,” Martika said, and glared at Luis, who looked ready to dissent.

“Sure,” Taylor said, and Luis did not look pleased. “Just give me time to run home and change…I’m not going all sweaty and stinky like this.”

She laughed, then looked at Sarah. She was standing there, very wallflowerish. Well, now was as good a time as any to test the new girl. “What about you? I’ll give you forty minutes to get ready, but only because I’m going to use the bathroom first.” She winked, to show she was kidding. Although she really wasn’t.

Sarah cleared her throat. “No. I’m sorry. I’d love to, but I can’t.”

“You’re just saying that,” Martika said. Sarah sounded so polite it was painful. “Come on. It’ll be fun, and I really do want you there. Think of it as an initiation ritual.”

“Like hazing,” Kit offered. “I name you…Pinto.”

“Animal House,” Taylor interjected.

“Shut up.” Martika studied Sarah’s face. “So how about it?”

“I really can’t,” Sarah said, and there was a trace more firmness in her voice. “My boyfriend—that is, my fiancé, is going to be calling me tonight.”

“Oh?” She raised her eyebrow, then glanced at Taylor. He rolled his eyes, and formed a small “W” with his thumbs and index fingers. She didn’t think that Sarah caught it, and even if she did, she doubted she’d put it together.

Whatever, Taylor was telling her. And he’d fill Martika in on the rest of it later, no doubt.

“Fine,” she said, shrugging. So her new roommate was…boring. Well, hell. It’s not like she had to sleep with her. “Wouldn’t want to get in the way of true love. I’m going to use the bathroom, sweetie, so if you’ve got to pee, better do it now…I could be a while.”

“I’ll be back here in an hour, Tika,” Taylor said with a tone of warning.

“I’ll be ready,” she said, shuffling the boys out the door. After she closed it, she turned to Sarah, only to find her still staring. “You sure? You could always call him back later. Or tomorrow.”

Sarah just gave her a cool smile. “Thanks anyway.”

She shrugged, then headed for the bathroom, remembering belatedly to shut the door before she started stripping. She doubted Sarah would be amenable to her relatively exhibitionist ways.

Well, Martika thought as she stepped into the shower, I’ve shacked up with a nun who’s pining away for some absentee boyfriend. Joy. Fun.

Two choices: get ready to move again, which was unpalatable. Or start corrupting the girl.

Martika smiled against the force of the water hitting her face. Like there was even a question there.

It was Saturday night…rather, it was Sunday morning, Sarah thought, blearily looking at the clock. She had woken up, and initially she wasn’t sure why: 3:00 a.m. What the hell?

She hadn’t had a great Saturday night, frankly. She had waited for Benjamin to call…then had left a message on his machine at work and at home, and still waited. By eleven, she had made herself a hot chocolate, thought about it, dumped a little rum in and went to bed. She’d plowed through Bridget Jones and enjoyed it thoroughly, then switched gears and was now reading Harry Potter. She had gone to sleep, curled in a ball by eleven o’clock. Now, 3:00 a.m., and she was…

“Oh… Oh… Oh, yeah, baby, like that…”

Sarah went still, like a frightened mouse. The sounds were growing louder. They reminded her of Martika’s shower singing, all low and throaty.

Sarah got up and crept to her half-opened bedroom door. She peeked out. It was dark, and Martika’s bedroom door was closed. She could hear the bedsprings creaking wildly, picking up in speed.

Horribly embarrassed, Sarah shut her door quietly, all the way. In the deathly stillness of the early morning, she could still hear the noises, which were starting to gain a bit in volume. Looking around, she saw her fuzzy terry-cloth bathrobe hanging from a hook on her closet door. She threw it down across the crack of the door, hoping to muffle some of the sound. Still no help. She crawled back into bed, yanking a pillow over her head and pushing it against her ear. And the flannel and fleece lap blanket her mother had given her for Christmas from Costco, saying that it did get cold at nights.

Martika, Sarah reflected, might not have been the great idea Taylor thought it’d be.

On that Thursday night, almost a full week of work at Salamanca and a paid month’s rent behind her, she felt downright jubilant.

“Benjamin Slater.”

“Jam, it’s me. Sarah.”

“Sarah.” She thought she could hear the smile in his voice. “Hey there. How are things going in L.A.? I was going to call you Saturday.”

“I figured I’d jump the gun,” she said. “Guess what? I got a job!”

“I knew you would,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m an assistant account executive at Salamanca Advertising Agency. That’s where Judith works, but I’m not working with Judith—she’s in production. I’m on the account management side.”

“That’s great, honey.”

“I’ve been really busy, and it’s only been the first few days…”

“I’ve been swamped, myself,” he said, with a heavy sigh.

She paused. “Any luck with Richardson? I’m not trying to push.”

“None. I have to make the assumption that Andrew—the V.P., you know?—that he’s making good on his promise to get me out of there. So Cal could use somebody like me. That’s what he said.”

“That’s great, Jam.”

“So just a few more months, and then I’ll be able to move down,” he said. “I just have to make it up here in the meantime.”

“I’m sure you will,” she said warmly.

“Actually, I can’t talk long,” he said. “Paul Jacobs and, well, some people from the L.A. office are up for a visit—I promised I’d go out for a few beers with them. You know, blow off some steam.”

She bit her lip. “Um, okay.”

“It’s just a few beers, Sarah.” He sighed again, this time a little more irritably. “It’s not like I’m going out and boinking a bunch of coeds.”

“I know that!” she replied. What, did she expect him to stay in every night, just because she wasn’t up there with him?

Still, a little more pining would be comforting, she thought, then brushed the thought aside.

“Sarah! Saaa-rah…” Martika called from the frame of Sarah’s bedroom door. “You wanna come out with us? We’re drinks.”

Sarah frowned, then motioned to the phone that she held to her ear. Martika huffed irritably, then retreated to the living room.

“Sorry,” Sarah muttered.

“Who the hell was that? I thought you were at home.”

“I am,” Sarah replied. “That was…well, I couldn’t quite make rent just on my salary. So I took on a roommate.”

There was a pause as Benjamin digested that fact.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Sarah assured him hastily. “Besides, Martika knows that it’s month-to-month…”

“Martika? What the hell sort of name is that?”

“I don’t know. Danish, I think.” Okay, that was a shot in the dark.

“I told you that I’d make it down to Los Angeles as soon as Richardson gives me a goddamn chance, Sarah. I didn’t tell you to get a roommate.”

Sarah frowned. “What you told me was that I had to cover rent on this apartment—this considerably more expensive apartment, I might add—by myself. Since you’re not living here yet. Really, realistically, what would you have had me do, Jam?”

“Dammit, Sarah, I didn’t…don’t get all touchy on me, okay? I really don’t need this right now.”

Like I do?

She sighed. “I’m just saying I didn’t have a lot of options.”

“I see.” He made a low grumbling sort of sound. “Well, you’re right, of course. It’s better that you got a roommate. Just… Did you do a thorough search?”

Sarah crossed her fingers—childish, granted. “Sure I did. She’s a friend of a friend of mine, so it wasn’t like getting a complete stranger.”

“Huh. What’s she like?”

She thought about Martika’s late night sex-a-thons. “Um, she’s very social.”

“Social?”

“Yes,” Sarah said hastily, “but responsible. I mean, she’s kicked in for half of the bills already, on time, and she’s a graphic designer.”

“I see.” He didn’t, obviously—his tone said that much. “Did she just say something about drinking?”

Sarah shrugged. “I think she wants me to go out with…them.” She was going to say her and Taylor, but she suddenly didn’t want to explain Taylor. That whole incident was something Benjamin would definitely frown upon.

Too late. “Well, I think you might want to consider before you go out.”

“Consider what?” Sarah felt a little burn of anger. “You’re going out for beers with the guys. I’d just have, I don’t know, a drink or two with Martika.”

“L.A. isn’t Fairfield, you know. It’s a more dangerous city.”

Sarah thought of Martika and Taylor, the imposing duo. “I think I’ll be fine.”

“You’re so naive sometimes,” he said. “Fine. Do whatever you think is best. I have to go.”

“I’ll be sure not to boink any coeds,” she replied, wanting to lighten the conversation a little.

He laughed, as she hoped he would. “I’ll talk to you next week.”

“Love you,” she said quickly.

“You, too,” he said. He clicked off.

What was that all about? Sarah hung up the phone, pensive. She wanted to believe he was just being protective—but part of her felt like he was just maintaining some sort of double standard.

He’s going out and having beers with the guys. Why shouldn’t I go out?

After all, he was the one who said that she just clung to him like a vine. If anything, this would be…asserting her independence, she thought.

She went out to the living room. Martika was in the labor-intensive process of lacing up her knee-length black leather boots. “Martika?”

“Mmm?”

“Is that invitation still open?”

Martika looked up from her boots. “Really? You’ll really go?”

“Just for a little bit,” Sarah hedged. “I’ve got a big day at work tomorrow.”

“It’s Friday. Who does much on Fridays?”

Sarah bit her lip. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“You don’t do anything much your first week,” Martika said, as if countering Sarah’s resistance. Then she flashed her a quick, mischievous grin. “Besides, I told Taylor you weren’t going to come anyway. You’d probably just curl up with a book and be asleep by ten or whatever.”

Martika was doing everything but calling her chicken. She really didn’t… “What, do I have ‘Shirley Temple’ written across my forehead or something?”

“You don’t need it,” Martika answered with a wink. “You practically introduce yourself that way. So, out to 5140 with me and Taylor? Just a few drinks, and I promise we’ll get you home early since it’s a school night.”

“All right,” Sarah said, ignoring the tail end of Martika’s statement. “Just let me get my coat.”

“This is historic,” Martika said from the living room. “Next thing you know, I’ll have you dancing with male strippers.”

Sarah came back, tugging on her coat and then clutching her purse. “Just a few drinks,” Sarah hastily added. She didn’t want to do anything that would make Benjamin right about her being naive. “No strippers, nothing like that.”

“Careful, Shirley,” Martika said with a wicked smile. “You’re backsliding.”

“Maybe 5140 wasn’t the best place to take her for her first time out,” Taylor said with a note of concern.

Martika leaned back against the slick red vinyl cushion of the booth they were sitting in. The lights were dim enough to cause your pupils to dilate like dinner plates. Sarah sat huddled against one corner, trying as hard as she could to blend into the scenery.

Martika sighed…5140 was a fairly rough-and-tumble bar, nice and seedy, with none of the Hollywood club kids or the college pricks from West L.A. and Santa Monica. As good a testing ground as any.

“So, can I get you another drink?” Martika asked as politely as she could, considering she needed to yell to get over the blasting jukebox.

Sarah shook her head vehemently, clutching her piña colada with a weak smile. “I’m fine. Thank you, though,” she said politely, doing her Martha Stewart impression again. She glanced around, as if she were sightseeing in a demilitarized zone.

Taylor scooted next to her. “Don’t worry, girlie-girl, Martika just likes dives.” He grinned at her. “Trashy.”

“Drama,” she said back, blowing him a kiss. “I do like dives. Less pretentious.” She turned her gaze on Sarah. “What do you think?”

Sarah bit the corner of her lip, looking around. “It’s…surprisingly roomy,” she offered, with a hopeful look.

“Roomy,” Martika repeated, as Taylor roared with laughter. “That’s a good description. Roomy. Well, I’m going to go see if I can’t make it over the vast expanse to the bar,” she said, tilting her empty glass. “I could do for a refill. Taylor?”

“Another currant martini, please.”

She smiled, heading over to the bar, noticing several of the guys at the bar were watching her as she walked. She was used to it, sending them a killer smile then ignoring them.

She’d finally taken Taylor’s advice and decided to live with somebody she wasn’t planning on sleeping with, and she wound up with a virgin schoolgirl. Irony. Like a continual cosmic joke.

Still, the kid had potential—and she got the feeling that that phone conversation Sarah had been on was with her boyfriend/fiancé/whatever. And that it hadn’t gone well, if she was going out with Martika & Crew.

“One watermelon shot and one currant martini,” she said to Bill, the bartender. He nodded, quickly making up the drinks. “Oh, and another piña colada,” she said. “Strong.”

He added the third. “You gonna pay off that tab anytime soon, Tika?”

“I get paid next Friday,” she said, with a wink, and deftly balanced the three drinks, carrying them while still managing to wiggle her hips. She put them down on the small table in front of the chatting Sarah and Taylor with a plunk. “Bottoms up, people.”

“I’ve still got half a drink,” Sarah protested.

“Well then,” Martika drawled, “you’d better hurry, huh?”

Sarah’s eyes grew round.

“Taylor…would you care to show her how?”

Taylor grinned. “Not really, as I’m forced to drive during this excursion. Besides, I’m supposed to see Luis later this evening, and he hates it when I’m plowed without him.” He sipped genteelly from the martini glass instead, then made a florid gesture at her own shot glass. “You show her. You’re the pro, anyway.”

Sarah said, “You want me to just chug this, don’t you?”

Martika was surprised into a real smile. “Chug?”

“I know. I’m not that sheltered,” she said. “I’m not good at that sort of thing, though, I have to warn you.”

“Well, show me what you’ve got.”

Sarah screwed up her face for courage, then took the half-drunk piña colada and finished it off in about eight manful swallows. Martika grinned at Taylor, watching the debacle.

Sarah took a deep breath. Her pale cheeks were flushed and pink—from the alcohol or from the time that it took her to drink it without pausing for air, Martika wasn’t sure.

“There. I did it.”

Taylor made a polite golf clap. “Brava.”

“Now the other one,” Martika said. “A little faster, this time.”

“But…I have to go to work tomorrow!”

“Two piña coladas isn’t going to put you under the table,” Martika said, with an exasperated sigh. “Besides, we haven’t even gone to a club yet. This is just warm-up.”

As Taylor started to protest that he needed to make this an early night (“I promised Luis!”) Martika noticed that Sarah was going from flushed to pale.

“I think I’ll just nurse this one.”

Martika shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She took her watermelon shot, and with a quick snap of the wrist threw it back, feeling more than tasting the quick tang of Midori before being hit with the slight flame of alcohol. She put the glass down, smiling at Sarah. “One piña colada, and you’re trashy. This is downright epic.”

“I didn’t say I was trashy. I just said I had to go to work tomorrow.”

“What is it you do again?”

“I’m an assistant account executive,” she said. Her dilated eyes were beginning to look a little out of focus. “At Judith’s…that’s my friend.” She took another sip of the piña colada, as if she weren’t thinking about it—like she was just thirsty. “My friend Judith, who you haven’t met.”

“I have,” Taylor said, also noticing that Sarah was slowly working down her drink. “Judith makes this one look like you.”

“Wow. Guess I’ll have to not meet her, then.”

Taylor chuckled. Sarah sipped.

In an hour, Sarah had sipped her way through another piña colada and was getting surprisingly talkative. The club idea was out—the girl was weaving as they got her into the car, something Martika thought completely hysterical and Taylor found “charming.”

“I’ve gotten so used to you stereotypical Irish two-fisters that it’s been a while to see a ladylike, girl-drink-drunk,” he said. Martika frowned at him.

“I’m ladylike.”

“Sure,” Taylor patted her cheek. “And I’m Keanu Reeves.”

“Good night, Keanu!” Sarah said, and abruptly started hiccupping. “Oh, God. Hope I don’t yuke.”

“You and me both, sister,” Martika said, propping her up in the elevator. “Four piña coladas and you’re a mess. This is so funny.”

Martika guided her back to the apartment. She was still talking in that little girl voice of hers.

“So I’m waiting for Jam to move back,” Sarah confided earnestly. “Well, not back, it’s not like he’s lived here before. But you know what I mean.”

“Sure.” She grinned as she undid the top two dead bolts and finally got the door handle. “Although, if I hadn’t heard the details from Taylor, I’d guess that Jam was your invisible friend rather than your fiancé.”

“Well, he’s sort of my invisible fiancé,” she said, with a hiccupy little laugh.

“You said it,” Martika pointed out, closing the door behind the wobbling Sarah. “Not me.”

“I know. I don’t mean to complain. I just miss him, that’s all. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like he misses me,” she said. The tone was so matter-of-fact, Martika felt a pang of pain on her behalf. She wondered if Sarah were sober if she would have felt the pain. Then she realized—if Sarah were sober, she wouldn’t be saying all of this. “So why do you stay with the guy?”

Martika knew she probably shouldn’t counsel her roommate on her love life—but hell, she counseled all of her friends. And if anyone ever needed a mentor, it was this little drunk girl with the long blond hair—like a misplaced Norwegian waif.

Sarah stopped by the arm of the couch, in the middle of a very amusing tableau of trying to kick one shoe off with the other foot. “Why what?”

“If he’s invisible, and you miss him, why do you stay with him?”

“Can’t walk away,” she mumbled, finally successfully kicking off one shoe and sighing. “I mean, you can’t just give up on something like that. Besides, I love him. I couldn’t walk away from somebody I loved.”

“I can understand that,” Martika said. Not about relationships. But say Taylor—she’d never walk away from him. “But the question is, does he love you? He seems to be hurting you an awful lot.”

Sarah seemed to sober for a moment—like a kid at a high school party who had suddenly realized that her parents had come home. “He’s not hurting me,” she said, struggling with the other shoe. “He just…he’s just busy. He needs me to understand. I’m trying to be very, very understanding.”

Martika was understanding this whole thing a bit, herself. She frowned. The guy was an obvious asshole. Sarah really ought to dump him, move on. Maybe she’d start that campaign, too, as well as her campaign to “corrupt” the kid. “Well, as long as he’s away, it doesn’t matter how often you’re out, right?”

Sarah thought about this for a minute, then grinned. “Nope. Doesn’t, really. I’m sure he might mind if it were like every night or if it were interfering with my career…”

“Well, it won’t.”

“I’m just saying,” Sarah said…then slumped into the couch. “I think I’m going to sleep right here.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” Martika said, tugging her to an upright position. She’d never seen somebody decompress quite this fast. “Shit. Come on, Sarah. You take Martika’s advice—a few vitamins, a few aspirins and one huge glass of water. Then brush your teeth, and go to bed.”

“What day is it?”

“Thursday, sweetie. Remember?”

“I think I have something important to do tomorrow, but I can’t remember what.”

“You’ll remember tomorrow,” Martika promised. “I swear, honey. Now get up and brush.”