“Well?” I asked, frustrated at how silent she had been while I poured my heart out to her.
“Chill out. I’m thinking,” she answered, put upon.
“Are you? Or are you humoring me?”
“I’m humoring you, duh!”
“You’re the second person in two days to use that phrase,” I pointed out.
“Just tell Mom and Dad you’re going to work, and tell your work that you are sick,” she announced. “Do you think I always go to school when I’m supposed to?”
“Ada!” I exclaimed, the big sister in me coming out.
“Phfff, whatever, you were a druggie,” she said defensively.
“Please stop throwing that back in my face.”
“No, you please stop acting like you give a shit. I’m fucking fifteen, Perry. Think I’m going to listen to whatever sisterly advice you try and give me? Wake up and smell the apathy.”
“Oh geez, how emo can you get?”
“You wanted my advice, you got it. You think I’m going to tell you what you want to hear? If you want to be all like smart and adult about this shit then do the right thing. But if you want to do something fun and take a chance, then screw what anyone else thinks. Rock and roll, man!”
I laughed at that last bit and sat up. Ada had gotten out of her chair and was picking up my guitar.
“You never play anymore,” she said wistfully.
“I’ve been busy. And I still suck.”
“Dream big, dream big.” She strummed it absently, chords all wrong but her words resonated in my head. I used to dream big. It seemed like somewhere along the way I had forgotten about that. And gave up.
“OK,” I said, coming to a decision. “I’ll tell Mom and Dad that I’m going to work. I’ll take the bike to the airport and just hang out there for a few hours. Then I’ll tell them that I’m going out after work or something so they won’t worry when I come home late.”
“I think you can be pretty smart when you want, Perry. You didn’t need me to tell you all of that.” She put the guitar down and brushed her long bangs out of her blackened eyes.
“Thanks,” I told her.
She smiled sheepishly. “You only get one compliment from me every couple of months, OK?”
“Got it.”
“Good luck,” was the last thing she said before leaving the room.
I have no idea how I fell asleep that night. My nerves were buzzing and my thoughts were high, but soon enough, the sun came up.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I got on the airplane with my heart fluttering in my chest like some panicked bird and gave the flight attendant the biggest smile I could muster when I handed over my ticket. I felt like a very important person, even though that was not the case. Still, there was a sense of mystery and “fugitiveness” to my actions since everything I did was kind of a lie. I must admit, it was very exciting.
I called Frida at six-thirty a.m. to add to the realism of my excuse. If there was anything I knew about calling in sick it’s that you rarely have the strength to call at the appropriate time. She did sound slightly suspicious, which made it hard to do the dance between sounding too sick to come but not sounding so sick that it didn’t seem like I would come in on Monday. In the end, though, there wasn’t much she could do, and she told me to call her on Sunday night to confirm that I would be OK to work.
My parents were a bit easier. I just got dressed and ready like I always did. I was jittery, though, and my excitement showed even before my morning coffee. While I grabbed my leftovers from the fridge, my mother asked if I was I was OK. Thankfully, Ada was there and she switched the conversation over to her before I could say anything. I almost winked at her in thanks but had my mom caught that, we would have both been toast.
It was a short hop on a small plane before landing at the Sea-Tac airport. The flight was uneventful but I couldn’t stop fidgeting in my seat like a barrel of monkeys. By the time we landed and were coasting to the gate, the quiet old man next to me patted my hand and said, “It’s OK, we’re safe now.” Oh, if only I knew that was true.
When it was time to exit, I grabbed my purse and walked down the aisle to the door, brimming with excitement. I felt like a character in a romantic movie. Again, this was stupid girly thinking on my part, but there was no way I could pretend I didn’t feel that way.
After giving the pilot an enthusiastic salute as I walked into the terminal, I saw Dex.
I wish I could say that he was “just a man” as I had told myself all week, but seeing him standing there by the gate, it just wasn’t true.
He was leaning casually against a supporting pole, a toothpick darting in and out of his mouth. His dark hair was spiked up at the front and the scratch down his forehead had faded. It still added a little roughness to his face, which looked younger and fresher than ever. His eyes were bright and shining, and I could have sworn his eyelashes were longer or something because he almost looked pretty. Even his Errol Flynn ‘stache barely showed and his goatee was groomed as clean as an early ski run.
His attire was different, too—a white long-sleeved dress shirt and black pants. He could have been a waiter if it wasn’t for the oversized army green windbreaker he had on top.
I can’t lie. The sight of him made my heart turn into syrup, swirling around in slow motion in my chest. Our eyes interlocked, and as if I was in some hormonal tractor beam I felt myself being drawn to him. Thank goodness the tractor beam had enough sense to stop as soon as I was within striking distance of him.
“Hi,” I said, my voice squeaking more than I would have liked.
He took the toothpick out with one hand and flicked it on the floor in front of a woman walking by. She gave him a dirty look. He gave her a sleazy grin in return and wagged his eyebrows at her suggestively. Then he turned to me and grinned.
“You came.” He sounded surprised.
“Yup,” I replied, adjusting the purse on my shoulder, a bit unsure if I should hug him or not.
“You’re more foolish than I thought,” he reached out and smacked my arm. “God bless the youth.”
Before I could even process what he meant by that, he took his pocket watch out of his pant pocket and glanced at it.
“We better get going, hmmm?”
And he was off like a shot down the terminal. I trotted after him, starting to wonder if I had made a mistake. I also found myself wishing his coat was a bit shorter so I could see his ass better. Yup. I was pretty done for at this point.
The drive downtown was fairly long, with traffic jams and construction zones clogging up the I-5. During that time, I was filled in on what had come out of the footage.
“At first I thought we were fucked because a lot of the shots were just black with the occasional sound coming through. But then I realized if I could at least save the audio and then play them at other parts then it would add to the whole ambiance. And then if I could get your narration at certain points it would fill up the blank spots.”
Watching Dex speak about the film made me realize how much he actually cared about the whole thing and how he knew exactly what he was talking about. He could see the big picture, whereas I couldn’t imagine how anything we shot would become remotely interesting. If I had the camera myself up in Old Roddy’s face, it would have been a different story. But Dex seemed so confident that he had something amazing on his hands, even if I didn’t believe it myself.
He must have seen the cynicism on my face because he turned to me and said, “Believe me. It looks good. We’ve got a good thing going on here.”
“One of those instances where I’m going to have to just trust you, right?”
“I would hope you’d always trust me,” he answered rather seriously.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I looked out the window. It’s not that Dex wasn’t trustworthy. He saved my life, in a way. But because he was so unpredictable, I had a hard time accepting everything he said. There was also the whole self-admitted liar/bipolar thing, and the fact that I wanted nothing more than for him to pull the car over so I could climb on his lap and molest the crap out of him. Well, I knew from experience that you weren’t supposed to trust the guys you thought were as sexy as hell.
Dark, brooding and mysterious? Handle with care.
And of course there was the term “always,” as if he knew for a fact we would be working together indefinitely. As much as I wanted to, the responsible adult side of me needed to know exactly what I was getting into. Would it interfere with my job? How much would I get paid, if anything? Basically, what was in it for me? The last thing I wanted was to be taken advantage of.
I mulled these things over during the rest of the drive and even until we were in an elevator going up one of Seattle’s skyscrapers. I guess for a little internet company they were actually doing quite well for themselves.
We got off of the elevator and turned left at a sign that read “Shownet.” We paused in front of a French door made of pebbled glass.
Dex reached for the handle and then stopped. He looked at me.
“You OK?”
I nodded. I was OK, though each step toward the door had me feeling more and more anxious until I was shaking in my boots.
“Just a bit nervous,” I admitted. “But I always get nervous. Always. No matter what.”
“Let’s hope he finds that as endearing as I do,” Dex said, with his tone not as promising as I would have hoped.
We entered the room and said some polite introductions to their receptionist Leigh, who responded to Dex with all the sparkle of a Barbie doll but whose eyes turned positively demonic as soon as she spoke to me. And I thought I was a bad receptionist. Sheesh.
Then we went into a small but pleasantly attired boardroom. A fancy-looking espresso machine sat in the corner, which I eyed feverishly.
Dex caught my stare. “Do you want some?”
He was about to go to it when the door swung open and a slender, balding Korean man with hipster glasses stepped into the room.
Dex promptly sat down in a chair and motioned for me to do the same. The bald man walked to the other side of the glass table, threw a binder down with a loud clank and leaned across it, peering at me.
“Jimmy, this is Perry Palomino,” Dex said quickly.
I was about to give Jimmy my hand but he just nodded dismissively and sat in an overstuffed swivel chair. If he had a cat in his lap, he would have been the perfect arch villain in a comic book film.
I glanced over at Dex for support. He reached out under the table and squeezed my knee. Slightly inappropriate but comforting nonetheless.
“So you’re the one,” Jimmy said slowly, his voice high and careful.
“That’s me,” I agreed brightly, hoping I was projecting some kind of charm.
“You know, I was going about my business, making some money,” he started, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. Dex and I waited patiently while he did this. He slipped his glasses back on his face and looked me straight in the eye.