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Kayla
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Bethany and I had arrived at the airport with very little time to spare. We rushed through security as quickly as possible, with our purses and carry-on bags in hand. We were the last to board the plane.
We found our seats in the far back, sharing our row with a small man that was asleep, leaning against the window. The flight attendants began to do their demonstrations for the cabin, but since I felt confident enough to buckle my own safety belt, I decided to send one last text to Justin before we got into the air:
We’re about to take off. I’ll text you when we land! <3 I’ll miss you! Ttyl
I switched my phone to ‘airplane mode,’ reclining my seat back as far as it could go so I could stretch my legs.
“How did Justin take the news that you were going to L.A.?” Bethany asked.
“He was disappointed that I was leaving him,” I replied. “He said he wanted to spend the weekend with me.”
“Aww,” she said. “That’s sweet.”
“Yeah. I felt really bad leaving him this morning. He’s been great.”
“How did he feel about us going to meet with Leila?” she asked.
As I had done back at brunch earlier that week, I avoided looking directly at her.
“Kayla?”
“Huh?”
“How did Justin feel about you going to meet with Leila?”
“He—uh. Okay, I never exactly told him who the meeting was with.”
“That’s fucking pathetic, dude,” she said, shaking her head.
“I know,” I relented.
“So, what does he think we’re doing, exactly?”
“I just told him it was a meeting about K-Plus,” I replied. “And that we were going to Los Angeles. He asked me if I had heard from Leila recently. I think maybe he has an idea, I’m not sure.”
“All I know is you’re still not being straight with your man, and that’s not cool,” said Bethany. “If I had a guy that looked like him, and knew how to do me like you say he does, well, I don’t know how you aren’t afraid of messing things up.”
“He cares about me too much,” I said. “He trusts me.”
“He won’t for long at this rate,” she huffed.
“If we can get Leila to give us the company back, then I can be totally upfront with him,” I said. “As it is, I’m still worried he’ll be upset that I sold it.”
“While he was basically professing his love to you,” she remarked.
“He never said that he loved me,” I blushed.
“It sounds like that’s all that was missing. And you know how guys are about that stuff. Maybe he didn’t say it, but come on, Kayla. You don’t think he loves you?”
The flight attendants finished their safety demonstrations and the plane began to slowly roll away from the terminal.
“Whether he loves you or not doesn’t matter,” she continued. “You should tell him the truth. If he trusts you, you’re only gambling with it the longer you go.”
“I know! I feel bad keeping this from him, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“Just tell him what happened, that you were conflicted, and that you’re trying to fix the problem,” she said. “Why is that so difficult?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked over at my phone. “We haven’t gotten in the air yet. We probably aren’t going to take off for at least another five minutes. Call him right now! Tell him what’s going on. Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to give him the short version and then have to hang up, unable to answer his questions for eight hours,” I answered.
She relented. “Okay. Now, you’re sure it wouldn’t be a good idea to give Leila a call or send her an email actually setting up a meeting? She could very easily just tell us no and to fuck off.”
“If she knows we’re coming, she’ll have time to prepare counterproposals and defensive strategies,” I said. “I know that sounds melodramatic, but she’s a very calculating and direct woman. You saw how she kept upping her game just enough while she was going for K-Plus. She’s smart, and she’s fierce. If she has two days to prepare for what we might say to her, then she will have the advantage. Us showing up out of the blue—determined and deliberate—might catch her off guard and give us the edge we need.”
“You know her better than I do,” said Bethany. “Your strategy does make sense... I guess I should be looking at this like a battle. People equate business with war, don’t they?”
I shrugged. “I’m still new to all this. I just want to keep my company.”
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WE FLEW INTO CALIFORNIA safe and sound. The sun was out, bright and beaming. The sky was blue and cloudless, and the noises of traffic could be heard from the inside of the airport.
Bethany had never been to the west coast before, so we decided to spend the majority of our first day in Los Angeles riding near the coast to the beach. Fortunately, LAX was only about five miles north of Santa Monica; so, we were able to take a quick, cheap taxi ride from the airport straight to Santa Monica Pier.
I had only gotten to see the beach from the window of cars during my time in California before. Actually seeing it unobstructed by anything, and being able to take it all in was something else entirely.
“This place is beautiful!” cried Bethany.
“It’s Cali, baby,” I said.
Neither of us had ever dipped our toes in the Pacific Ocean before, so that was our first destination. As we walked down the pier, we were being bombarded with smells both intoxicating and odd. There were some smells, mainly cigarettes and weed, that were unpleasant to us; but the smells that drew us further down the walkway were the scents coming from the glistening water, and the aromas from the different restaurants, all cooking and baking things that tempted us to constantly reach for our wallets.
“I smell incredible seafood,” said Bethany. “I smell funnel cakes.”
“I thought we were trying to lose weight, remember?”
“Shit, I’m on vacation,” she said. “You can go on a diet if you want. I’ll run on the treadmill when I get back to grey and gloomy Newark. While we’re here, I’m going to treat myself.”
And, treat herself she did. While I showed some restraint, she got herself a fluffy funnel cake with ice cream on top, though admittedly, I had a few bites, too. We took the funnel cake down the stairs and walked across the sand over to the shore.
“You can actually see the bottom through the water,” said Bethany. “Point Pleasant looks like a swamp compared to this.”
“The Jersey Shore isn’t that bad,” I laughed.
“Yeah well, by now we’d have run into at least two groups of assholes that talk shit about our weight,” she reminded me. “By the time we’d reach the waves in Jersey, some stuck-up bitch would’ve made some crack to some other dumb cunt about me. But look around you, Kayla.”
I obliged her, looking around at the colorful sea of bodies and faces. Everyone was doing their own thing. Lying in the sand, looking at their phones, walking down the shoreline, making out under the dock, or swimming in the ocean. The sense of relaxation and chill was palpable.
“You see it, don’t you?” Bethany asked, rhetorically. “Everyone is minding their own business. Nobody gives a fuck. The beach belongs to everybody, and everybody can do with it as they please. Tell me that the Jersey Shore is better than this—you can’t.”
In that moment, I couldn’t think of a strong enough retort. Maybe it was the hotness of the sun or the sand, but I had no desire to defend Jersey right now.
She finished her funnel cake, throwing it away in a nearby garbage can. We kicked off our sandals, grabbed some towels out of our bags, and headed for the water.
We didn’t stay by the waves for more than a few seconds—we had no idea how cold the water was going to be. The extreme heat and brightness from the sun was deceptive.
“Okay, way too damn cold!” shrieked Bethany. “Now I know why California doesn’t get hurricanes.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “We put our feet in the ocean, though. We’ve been to both oceans, we can say that now.”
We ran back up to our towels, sitting down and soaking up the sun just long enough to turn our pale skin red.
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OUR TAXI TOOK US DOWN Wilshire Avenue, all the way from the beach to downtown. We were able to see the sights—the stores, the parks, the dining, the highways, the schools, and the skyscrapers—scattered from Westwood all the way to downtown.
“I could totally live here,” said Bethany. “I could move here. I’m telling you, Kayla, you’ve got a good man. Anyone that would leave here to go back to Newark is crazy. That’s how I know he loves you.”
“Hey, I could move here too, you know,” I said. “I thought about it.”
“I’m thinking of doing more than thinking about it,” she said.
“And who are you going to live with? Rent is insane out here.”
“Uh- fool,” she went, “We could move out here together. We’ll get a place downtown near Justin’s place! He still has all his stuff out here, right?”
“Yeah, I guess he does. I keep forgetting that. He still has the lease on his apartment out here, I think.”
She smacked my arm. “Then it’s not too late! What are you doing? Whether we get the company back or not, you’re going to have something to fall back on. Either money or a company that’s going to make a shit ton of money in the future. You’ve been looking to get out of Donnie’s agency for months. You and Justin are together. He hates his accountant job, and he never liked Newark that much, anyway. And, he’s still got his place, with all his shit just sitting here. Girl, I think the answer to both of your problems is obvious. And, I’ve been looking to trade up, too. Fuck it, let’s all move out here!”
“As much as I would love living with you, Bethany, I’m not sure if L.A. would be a good fit for me,” I said. “I don’t have the connections or friends out here that I do back home. And, what if we get the company back? If we’re restarting production of our clothing lines, we’re going to need a place to set up shop. It’d be a lot cheaper to do that in Jersey than over here in L.A.”
Bethany frowned, groaning, “I want to move out here.”
“If we don’t get the company back, we’re going to make a lot of money here soon,” I reminded her. “A lot of money can get you far enough over here. You never know.”
She took out her phone, taking random pictures of the L.A. scenery. “Well, let’s not talk like we’re not getting the company back. We’re going to crush it, Reid. You and me.”
I took a deep breath. “I sure hope so. Monday can’t come soon enough for me.”
