One

The instructions had been pretty clear. At least I thought they had. Show up at Bix Financial Check Cashing Services in Hollywood at exactly 11:30 a.m. Go inside. Talk to the guy standing behind the counter and tell him the code. Not my name. Not my date of birth. Definitely not my social.

Just the code.

Like I said. Easy-peasy. So why was I so nervous? I’d mentally played out the moment more times than a viral video. Yet the butterflies had taken over my stomach like a studio exec charging to set when their movie’s first-time director was $50 million over budget and getting a little too close with the leading lady.

When the cashier motioned me over with a wave and a “yeah?” I walked up. “Yes, hi, ten. Eighteen.” It came out just as I’d practiced in the car. So far, so good.

Having done my part, it was time for him to do his. I’d had months and months’ worth of dreams about this moment. And in each and every single one, he reached down, extracted a bag from the counter’s nether regions, and handed it to me with a smile. In reality, I got nothing more than a blank look. So I tried again. “Ten. Eighteen.”

I even remembered to smile, but still got nothing. He seemed even more confused the second go-round. Blurg. At five foot eight and greasy-looking, he looked eerily like the skeevy cashiers you always see in movies. The ones who get shaken down by the main character for information. Obviously not one for eye contact, the cashier instead opted to stare at some spot behind my shoulder. At least it wasn’t my boobs.

Not sure what to do, I looked at him kind of looking at me. I’d always been the kid who followed instructions in school. I lined up for lunch when I was supposed to. Held tight to my classmates’ hands as they desperately tried to squirm away. Didn’t so much as think of moving from “that couch” when my mother told me not to. It hadn’t made me popular as a kid. It clearly wasn’t doing much for me as an adult either.

I forced myself not to panic. Instead, I thought it over. The instructions hadn’t covered how to say the number. The paper just listed 1018. Maybe I’d mispronounced it. Just like I could never remember how to say barista or homage, for that matter. I went for it again. “One. Zero. One. Eight.”

I nodded encouragingly while the cashier continued to look like I was trying to bring back Latin as an everyday language. The guy behind me sighed. Very loudly. I ignored that one to still focus on the task at hand. I went for another variation. “One thousand and eighteen.” Another case of the nothings. I’d reached my limit. “Look, I’m pretty sure you have something for me. Right?”

A voice answered. Unfortunately, it came from behind me. “My dude. Just give her the drugs so that we both can get out of here. I only got fifteen minutes left on my break.”

Wait, what? Thank God we were the only people in the store because Old Boy was accusing me of using drugs way too loudly. I whipped around and gave him my full attention. He was close. Too close. Like “you should be professionally cleaning my teeth and assuring me I don’t have any cavities” close.

In all my fantasies about this moment, there had never been a Trevor.

At least that’s what I think Old Boy’s name was. It was the one stitched on his uniform, next to a splotch of grease that oddly resembled a bowl of apples. Don’t ask. I figured him for a mechanic. Or maybe just a really messy eater. If I were casting a movie, he’d get a callback for the jock love-interest’s bonehead best friend. He was as stout as a keg of Guinness and just as hard for me to swallow. I wasn’t a beer girl. At all.

“Do I look like a crackhead to you?” I asked. “In these shoes?”

They were Giuseppe Zanotti.

Trevor looked me up and down. “Nah. Crackheads are normally skinny.”

“Hey!” I said, but my protest was halfhearted. I’d been mistaken for a lot of things in life. Someone who worked at Target when I made the mistake of shopping there in a red shirt. Someone who cared about Facebook statuses about what people had for lunch. Someone who had the slightest clue how to adult. But I’d never once been mistaken for someone who did crack, even when I was skinny.

Still, I attempted a death glare anyway as Trevor turned back to the cashier. “She has a point, though. My dude, you’re clearly the one on something up in here. So how about you give her the money so she can give you the drugs?” I threw him another look. He smiled. “You gotta pay for those fancy shoes somehow, right?”

“This has nothing to do with drugs!” I was practically screeching. I hated myself for it. Trevor looked at me. I, in turn, looked at the cashier. They were both extremely lucky I practiced self-censorship when it came to curse words. At least the really, really bad ones. “Reward money,” I said. “I’m here for the freaking reward money from the LAPD.”

The cashier came to life, like someone must have changed his batteries. “Oh, right. That envelope of cash with the four numbers scribbled on it. My boss has the worst handwriting. Be right back!”

And with that, he disappeared into the back. Thank. Goodness. The last time I’d tried to collect a reward, I’d messed up big time by not calling the tip line as instructed. I was determined to get my money this time.

“Why not start off with that and save us all a bunch of heartache?” Poor Trevor sounded exasperated.

I shrugged defensively, mainly because I was wondering the same thing myself. “It’s my first time actually picking up a reward, okay? Sue me for not knowing the instructions are actually more like suggestions. Besides, it’s supposed to be anonymous.”

“You’re that chick on TV shucking and jiving for fried chicken. That ain’t anonymous, sweetheart.”

Yet another one of Trevor’s many valid points.

“Perhaps, but I’m retired.” Not exactly my choice, since Chubby’s Chicken canceled my spokesperson gig almost two years ago to go in a “different direction.” At the time, I still had a year left on my contract, but they cited a small clause that I couldn’t be seen eating anything other than their two-piece combo deals. A photographer caught me during brunch and Us Weekly ran the pic in their “Stars Are Just Like Us!” section. I would have mentioned all of this to Trevor, but I doubted he cared that my agent really should have removed the clause from the contract.

“So you went from shucking and jiving to snitching for money?” Trevor asked.

Not only was he offensive, but he was getting on my already-frayed nerves. “I’m not a snitch and I’m not an actress. I’m a private investigator.” An investigator’s apprentice, but still. Trevor looked me up and down, then laughed. “I solved that big hit-and-run a few months ago,” I continued. “The one all over the news. The story garnered millions of Twitter impressions.”

I had no clue what that actually meant, but my friend Emme did. And she sounded ridiculously impressed when she told me. Trevor, however? Not so much.

The cashier saved me from further conversation when he came back holding a sealed white envelope. The LAPD’s tip line was anonymous, which meant that they couldn’t just send you a check for your reward money.

When he handed it to me, I resisted the urge to rip it open and make sure every penny of the $1,000 was accounted for. Instead, I managed to play it cool. I could always celebrate in the car. Maybe even become one of those obnoxious people who pretend to fan themselves whenever they get their hands on a significant amount of money. It was hot out, after all.

I waved goodbye to good old Trevor, got in my hot pink Infiniti, checked to make sure the money was all there, and drove off.

At least that was the plan, if Sienna had been in the front seat where I’d left her. She wasn’t. Looking around, I didn’t see her outside the liquor store. Or the other liquor store. Or the brand-spanking-new but seriously out of place Kendall Davis Gym—current Los Angeles workout spot-du-jour. I heard it was nice in there. Emphasis on heard. No way could I even afford bottled water in a place like that.

The mere thought of exporting all those calories only made me want to import calories. I definitely was hitting Tommy’s Original Hamburgers. One was a few blocks east on Hollywood Boulevard. I could practically taste the oodles of chili they plastered on their cheeseburgers. I just needed to find my best friend first.

I was just starting to get worried when Sienna came out of liquor store number two holding a travel-sized bottle of vodka. Luckily, it was unopened. She slid into the front passenger seat as I glanced at the time on my iPhone. “Remember when you told me I should stab you in the clavicle if you ever started drinking before noon? You plan to wait eight minutes or should I start looking for a sharp object?”

Sienna didn’t exactly cower in fear. “The vodka’s not for me, silly. It’s for the glycerin.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, since there was really nothing else I could add to the conversation.

She reached into the back to grab a spray bottle also filled with a clear liquid. I assumed it was the aforementioned glycerin but honestly was afraid to ask. She opened it and poured the vodka in, then noticed me staring. “I’m supposed to use water but the liquor store didn’t have any.”

“Cool,” I said, because again, what could one really say to that. “Can we go now?”

“Not yet. Razzle’s running a bit late.”

Razzle. Ugh. He was a paparazzi—pap for short—which meant he made money chasing down celebrities so he could take pics of their “everyday lives.” I’m talking mundane things like walking into clubs, walking out of clubs, walking into gyms, walking out of gyms, and—on a good day—covertly making out with their very married costars.

I wasn’t his biggest fan. Frankly, he gave me the heebie-jeebies. “I didn’t realize we were meeting Razzle.”

“Me neither, but I figured since we were out anyway—oh look, he’s here!”

Sienna jumped out of the car to greet him. You would have thought she’d spotted Santa Claus. Or at least a free Celine purse. She had taken to occasionally enlisting Razzle’s services in her pursuit of a world record for only wearing red. Dubbing herself Ms. Lady of the Red Vine, Sienna had developed quite the fan base. Someone—my money was on Razzle—had her believing that paying him to take paparazzi pics to sell to major news outlets would help with her eternal quest for fame. So far, the shots had only made it onto low-level gossip blogs and a Ms. Lady of the Red Vine Instagram appreciation account run by her biggest fan—me. Posting pics is actually a great way to pass the time when on surveillance.

By the time I got out of the car, they were mid-conversation. “Gotta make this quick,” Razzle said as I walked up. “Oscar Blue drops off his recycling in twenty minutes.”

Sienna handed him a wad of cash. “There’s an extra fifty bucks in there. You better get me at least on Us Weekly’s site or I’m calling Jesus next time. He has an in over there, sleeping with one of the assistants or something. He says he also has an in with Anani Miss.”

I rolled my eyes at the name. Anani Miss was my former all-time favorite anonymous gossip blogger, but we’d had a one-sided falling out after she started a false rumor about my now-boyfriend. I hadn’t visited her site since.

Razzle didn’t respond, too preoccupied counting the money Sienna had just given him, his lips slowly moving as he struggled mightily to do the math. It must have all been there, because he stuffed the lot of it in his back pocket and reached down to grab his fancy photographer camera. “Ready?”

Sienna shook her spray bottle, then sprayed her boobs and torso, careful not to get any on her face. It instantly looked like she’d spent sixty minutes in a boxing ring. The fake sweat glistened like she’d had a run-in with a glitter bath bomb. She did one final spritz before finally speaking. “I’m always ready.”

And with that, she walked over to the gym. It suddenly made sense why she’d been so eager to accompany me to Bix.

Razzle and I stood in awkward silence for a few more minutes before Sienna walked back toward us. In grade school, we’d always seen composite pictures of the world’s races and ethnic groups mashed together. Well, that picture looked just like Sienna. Light brown eyes. Long dark hair. She was the color of desert sand and probably weighed just as much. She’d definitely be cast as the femme fatale. Razzle ran up and took her picture as she pointedly ignored him. She looked great, minus one thing.

“Fix your strap,” I yelled.

She did without missing a beat. Perfect. Our 24,871 Instagram followers would love it. She stopped in front of the driver’s side of a Bentley that none of us owned and put her hand on the door like she was about to get in. Guess my hot-pink twelve-year-old Infiniti wasn’t quite Us Weekly-worthy. Just when I thought Sienna was actually going to attempt a carjacking, she stepped away. “Scene,” she said.

Razzle put his camera down. She came over as he and I looked at the photos on his digital screen. “How’d I look?”

Razzle grunted as he turned the camera off. “Left is definitely your better side.”

He ignored my evil side-eye as she and I both got into my car. Sienna did not have a bad side, thank you very much.

“Us Weekly! Or I’m calling Jesus,” she called out.

“You need to call Jesus anyway,” I said. Razzle overheard me, which had been the plan.

“You’re going to need me one day, sweetheart,” he said to me.

“We’ll have a blizzard in Los Angeles first.” I stuck the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. My car didn’t make as much as a whimper. Fudge.

Guess I needed to buy a snow jacket.