Two

August 18th had indeed been a Tuesday. I was in my friend Emme’s car trying to stop my skirt from hiking up to my privates and wondering why I’d had that fourth Whiskey Sour. My excuse was that we were celebrating and I wasn’t paying, so down it went.

Yes, I was drunk on a weeknight. It was a Tuesday, but it was also Hollywood. Anywhere else, being drunk on a Tuesday would’ve gotten you a pamphlet extolling twelve steps. In the land of the nine-to-five, Tuesdays were for watching Law & Order and calling your parents to babysit. In the land of make-believe, it was for auditioning for Law & Order and calling your parents for money. So my being drunk was no biggie. Besides, I wasn’t the only one.

Sienna had somehow commandeered Omari’s cell phone and was using it to record herself giving a “newscast.” “This is Sienna Hayes reporting live from Omari Grant’s celebration party.”

Sienna also was drunk, but then she was slightly better at it than I was. Probably because she had much more experience. She was riding shotgun because of one slip-up when she had to throw up but was stuck in Emme’s backseat. After Sienna paid for the car wash, she’d been granted lifetime front-seat privileges, which meant Omari and I were squeezed into Emme’s sorry excuse for a backseat.

We’d dubbed it the Black Hole, because once in, you were lost in a sea of darkness and it practically took the Jaws of Life to get out scratch-free. Emme’s car was the size of a closet—a Manhattan studio closet, not a Beverly Hills one. Those things were bigger than a tour bus and had just as many compartments.

Emme was driving and ignoring Sienna as usual, so Sienna turned the phone to face us even though she couldn’t see a thing. Her faux-newscaster voice was in full effect. “Mr. Grant, anyone you’d like to thank for this lovely evening?”

“Jack,” he said.

“Nicholson?”

“Daniels.”

He was in a good mood, but then he should have been. He’d learned he’d be playing Jamal Fine on the new CBS show LAPD 90036. The role had needed to be quickly recast a month before its premiere when test audiences found the previous actor’s nose unlikable. His loss had been Omari’s gain. He was scheduled to start filming in two days, the same time his predecessor was probably visiting a plastic surgeon.

I was happy for him. I needed some good news—even if it was once-removed. “Any particular highlights tonight?” Sienna asked.

“There were so many … ”

He started naming them, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy wondering about the hand that had suddenly appeared on my thigh. I looked at him, but he was still facing the window and talking to Sienna.

I shifted, figuring maybe he’d mistook my thigh for the seat, since it was also brown and smooth. I expected him to remove it as soon as he realized his mistake. It moved all right, but not the whole thing. His thumb made the slightest circular motion on my thigh. My hands, in turn, got sweaty.

The seventeen-year-old in me was having a conniption. She was the one who had crushed hard on Omari in high school, when he’d transferred from Brooklyn and provided her first kiss courtesy of our high school production of Guys and Dolls.

Back then, I would’ve given anything to be in the backseat of a car with Omari Grant feeling me up. But that was almost ten years ago. He’d moved to the friend zone—mainly due to a seeming lack of interest on his part—almost as soon as I moved to Los Angeles. I was glad he had. At least I thought I was, but then this.

The shock finally wore off and I realized I was not upset about the hand’s sudden presence. I just wasn’t sure what to do. Put my hand on his leg? Put my hand over his? Cross my legs, thereby holding it hostage? I selected none of the above and just sat there while the hand moved an inch north. I was excited and nervous and several words rappers have yet to invent. Luckily, Sienna and her interview skills moved on to Emme. She turned to face her. “Ms. Abrams, what was the highlight of your evening?”

“IDK. Probably beating Chazmonkey69 for the eight kabillionth time on Trivia Crack.”

We continued like this for another minute. Them talking. Him feeling. Me freaking. Then Sienna suddenly turned around. “You guys are awfully quiet back there. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were both up to no good.”

Busted. Fudge. Omari didn’t say anything. Unfortunately, I did. “Please. Who knows what he has.”

I regretted it as soon as I said it. It was meant in a playful way, something silly like cooties. As usual, in my nervousness it came out wrong. And just like that, the hand was gone. I missed it instantly. “I was joking,” I said.

But he didn’t hear me because at that moment, Emme suddenly slammed her brakes. “WTF?” She leaned hard on the horn.

I tore my eyes away from my hand-less thigh in time to see a car crossing the street not even three feet in front of us. It had to have come from a cross street, slicing across the four lanes of traffic with zero regard for the fact we were also on the road.

It happened so fast all I noticed were the custom-tinted windows that had recently become so popular with the a-hole set, AKA seventy-five percent of Hollywood. This particular productive member of society had gone for an etching of a rose. My heart would have started beating fast if it hadn’t been already. Why couldn’t anyone in Los Angeles drive? Sienna rolled down the window and waved Omari’s cell phone. By then the car had disappeared down the side street, but that didn’t faze her one bit. “We got you on tape, buddy!”

Then we were all silent. I looked at Omari as Emme continued driving, but it was too dark to see his expression. I willed him to look at me. That way I’d know we were okay. I got nada. A few hand-less minutes later, Emme finally spoke. “Something’s up.”

Ahead of us, a small crowd had gathered on the opposite side of the street. Everyone was looking down at something or someone. They all blended in with each other, save for the one with a shock of pink hair. We got closer. I still couldn’t make out much, but I did see a pair of jeans-clad legs attached to heels lying on the ground. We did the obligatory rubbernecking. It didn’t look good at all.

My nervousness kicked in. Again. “She probably couldn’t hold her liquor and passed out. Amateur.”

I regretted that one as well. Not as much as the first, but still. I really needed to learn to shut up. If I was hoping no one would acknowledge my bad taste, I was in for more disappointment.

“A girl’s passed out. On the ground. And you assume she can’t hold her liquor.” It was the first time Omari had spoken since Hand-gate. “Real nice.”

I didn’t appreciate his tone. At all. So I refused to admit he was right. “It was a joke.”

He kept his eyes trained on the window as he spoke. “I know. Everything’s a joke with you, Dayna.”

My full name. He was really mad. “Better to laugh than cry,” I said.

“Sometimes it’s better just to be quiet.”

His being pissed off made me really pissed off. “Now it’s my fault you can’t take a joke?”

Sienna and Emme were quiet, but I knew they were listening. Did they know what we were really arguing about? He started to speak again, but I cut him off before he could get out half a syllable. “How about you stop talking to me? I’d hate to offend you with any more jokes.”

“Not a problem.”

We dropped him off that night and he gave me his usual quick hug and promised to call me tomorrow. Except, he didn’t. And so I didn’t. And we both didn’t for six weeks now. He was obviously mad. He had a right to be, but still.

Being a glutton for punishment, I mentally replayed everything a couple more times. And just when I thought I couldn’t feel any worse, I realized something else. Haley Joseph was the girl on the ground that night. Omari was right. I’d seen her dying and I’d made a joke. A horrible joke.

It was a slap in the face but one that I desperately needed at that moment. Talk about putting your own problems in perspective. I gave the billboard one more glance and said a quick prayer that the police caught the a-hole who’d hit her, and soon. Then I got in my car to see if I could make it home on three dollars’ worth of gas.

It turns out three dollars is in fact enough to get you to Beverly Hills. I was sure that knowledge would come in handy the next time I ran out of gas. Considering my tank was already back on E, it probably would be sooner than later.

Sienna and I lived in a two-bedroom condo off Burton Way, a few blocks west of the Beverly Center shopping mall and Cedars-Sinai hospital. The button in the elevator claimed we lived on PH, aka the penthouse floor, but that was just a fancy way to say “five.”

Sienna wasn’t home when I got there so I went straight to the “bloset,” my nickname for where I slept. It was a combination closet and bedroom. A month earlier, I’d temporarily moved into Sienna’s spare bedroom. Two years ago, she’d turned it into a shoe closet. Three walls featured shelves upon shelves of shoes. Imagine if Foot Locker only sold stilettos and you’d get the picture.

No sooner had I plopped on the bed and turned on the television for the early afternoon showing of Judge Judy than my cell rang. I sighed. The only people who still used a phone for anything besides texting and photoshopping pictures for Instagram were my parents and bill collectors. And my mom and Visa’s representatives were neck and neck when it came to people I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with.

Luckily, it was Daddy. “Hey, baby girl, you’re looking beautiful as ever,” he said, despite the fact that he couldn’t see me.

I instantly felt better. “Thank you, kind sir. You like my dress? I wore it just for you.”

“Sure do,” he said. “I don’t know what that eye doctor is talking about saying I need glasses. I’ma let him know I got 20/20,000 vision.”

“I’ll be happy to be your reference,” I said. “Amazing vision aside, how you feeling?”

He’d suffered a stroke the year before that had left him temporarily paralyzed on his left side. Scariest time of my life. It took him longer to recover than either of us would’ve liked but he did, finally getting full use of the left side of his body. I was so proud of him.

“Can’t complain. I don’t want to keep you long, baby girl. I just wanted to tell you how beautiful you look today.”

“I appreciate it. I love you, okay?”

“I know you do, baby girl.”

“I’m glad your memory is just as good as your vision,” I said. “Talk to you soon, Daddy.”

I was about to hang up when he spoke again. “Oh, forgot to tell you, I heard from the bank.”

“Oh great. Did they say they spoke with NorthWest?”

“They said they’re foreclosing on the house. Plan to sell it by Thanksgiving unless we catch up on our payments.” His voice was so casual he might as well have been saying that he was out of milk.

I was nowhere near as cool. I felt my heart drop to the first floor. “That can’t be right! I just spoke with David over at the firm. He said everything was on track!”

“Probably a mistake, then.”

“Has to be. I’ll call him right now.”

I hung up and forced myself to breathe. Daddy was right. It had to be a mistake. No way was the bank foreclosing on the house. Daddy’s stroke had forced him into early retirement from his job as a city bus driver. Unfortunately, it was six months shy of his pension kicking in, leaving him struggling to keep up with the house payments and not telling a single soul. My parents had me in their forties and my father was the epitome of an old school Southern black man. He’d have rather sold his kidney on Craigslist than ask his only child for help.

Even when I’d been pulling in serious bank from my Chubby’s gig, he still sent me “spending” money on the first of each and every month. I’d told him I didn’t need it. In fact, I’d even begged to give them money, going so far as to mail each of them checks. My mother cashed those suckers within thirty minutes of the mailman dropping it off. My father, on the other hand, just sent his checks back to me.

So when he called a few months ago to ask for “a little something” for that month’s mortgage, I knew things had to be dire. Considering I’d been living off savings for almost a year at that point, I wasn’t in much of a position to help. Of course, I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I went straight to the bank and took out what was left in my savings account.

Knowing that would only buy us a couple months at most, I found NorthWest after googling loss mitigation firms that specialized in foreclosures. Their website was filled with client testimonials and pictures. Their clients all looked happy and, more importantly, non-homeless. I spoke with a David, who promised me that for the tidy sum of $2,500 they’d work a miracle and save my parents’ house. I borrowed the money from Emme. To her credit, she didn’t ask any questions.

I was happy that my parents were taken care of, but unfortunately I was a completely different story. Without any savings to fall back on, my finances looked worse than someone doing the walk of shame after twenty-four hours of straight tequila shots. I didn’t regret giving the money to my dad, though. Instead, I turned in my Lexus .02 seconds before it was repossessed, broke the lease on my beachfront Santa Monica apartment, and took any and every nine-dollar-an-hour temp job I could get. It still wasn’t enough. I’d started speaking to bill collectors more than I spoke to my own mother.

As soon as I calmed myself down, I called NorthWest. David picked up on the first ring. I quickly explained the mistake and waited for his reassurances. They didn’t come. “I’ve been meaning to call you with the bad news,” he said.

Um, I didn’t pay him $2,500 of Emme’s hard-earned money to have bad news. “I’m a bit confused, David. Last time we spoke, you assured me that my parents’ house would be fine.”

“And I thought it would, but unfortunately this may be one of those rare instances when we came in too late in the process. If only you’d contacted us sooner.”

I wanted to barf. David obviously didn’t hear me start to gag because he continued on. “Of course, I’d be more than willing to speak with the bank again.”

Thank. Goodness. “Can you call them now?”

“Sure thing,” he said. “I just need an additional $1,500.”

That’s when it hit me that good old David was running a good old scam. You’d think I’d have really lost it but instead I was remarkably calm. I even made a mental note to give myself a pat on the back later. “How do you sleep at night knowing that you’re taking advantage of hard-working people when they’re at their most vulnerable?” I asked. “Lying to them. Taking their money.”

David must’ve heard that spiel before because all he said was, “I’m sorry you see it that way, Ms. Anderson.”

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

My threat was as fake as my boobs. David knew it, too. “Please be sure to point out to him the part of our contract where it clearly states there are no guarantees.”

He hung up and that’s when I lost it. So much for that pat on the back. I threw the phone across the room, knocking over one of Sienna’s prized Louboutins. Then I ran over and grabbed my cell so I could call him back and break my no-cursing rule.

This time the call rang once and went straight to voicemail. I’d dealt with enough lame dudes to know what that meant: he’d blocked me.

The tears began to fall, enough to end the Southern California drought. I knew I had to be upset because I didn’t even care that I was messing up my makeup. Instead, I slid down to the floor and forced myself to count my breaths. It took me to 146 before I was finally able to regain control. I needed to fix this. Immediately.

There had to be a way to get my hands on a big amount of cash. But how? I didn’t possess the inner-thigh strength needed to work a stripper pole and didn’t even have enough physical money to buy a lotto ticket. Not to mention that it’d be mighty tough to make a bank robbery getaway with less than three dollars’ worth of gas in my tank.

My rapid descent into the depths of depression was interrupted by a commercial for LAPD 90036. It was one of those cookie-cutter shows where beautiful people delivered clichés while solving gruesome murders in sixty minutes or less. The ad ended with a close-up of its biggest star: Omari Grant.

He slapped cuffs on an anonymous baddie and said his catch phrase. “It’s time to pay for your crime.”

Seeing Omari made me think about that night. Which made me think about poor Haley Joseph. Which made me think of the billboard. Which made me think of the $15,000 reward.