L.a. Woman
Sarah felt stunned, but found herself shaking her head slowly. “No, of course not,” she said, thinking about her bank account…the way the savings number slowly decreased. Rent was coming due soon. “I’m twenty-five.”
“That’s not so old,” Becky said dubiously, then laughed. “You’ve got plenty of time, I guess. And maybe advertising is just what you’ve been looking for.”
Sarah took a deep breath, feeling as if she’d somehow passed a test. “That’s what I’m hoping.”
“Great. How’s your Excel? PowerPoint? We do a lot of presentations here.”
Sarah nodded. Now she was on familiar ground. “I’ve got a lot of experience in all of the Microsoft Office Suite.”
“How do you feel about overtime?” Becky asked. “We work on big projects for important clients here, Sarah. I need somebody I can count on.”
Sarah felt her spine straighten, and she nodded her head proudly. “I am willing to work overtime if a project needs finishing. I want to do the best possible job I can.” She wondered if that last touch was a little too kiss-ass, then decided she didn’t care. Besides, a little overtime wouldn’t kill her. It wasn’t like she had a social life to speak of in this town.
Becky’s eyes flashed. Sarah had obviously jumped through the second hoop. What else… “We ask people to do things that are outside of their job description here. I’m going to need you to be versatile, and really think outside the box. Are you willing to do that?”
Sarah nodded. “Of course.” Outside the box. Good grief. Next thing, she’d be saying, We need someone who’s a people person and a team player who displays over-the-line accountability.
Becky leaned back, all but putting her hands behind her head as she smiled triumphantly. “I don’t usually do this, but I have a really good feeling about you, Sarah. What would you say if I offered you a job, right now?”
Sarah goggled, then got a hold of herself. “We might want to discuss pay,” she said instead, feeling shaky.
Becky laughed. “Well of course! Well put, shows you’re paying attention.” She named a figure. Sarah did some quick math. It would cover her rent…if she lived very, very spartanly.
And, say, didn’t turn on her lights.
I don’t know what the next job offer’s going to be, either. Or when. And Benjamin isn’t going to help me.
Sarah weighed, decided. Nodded. “That seems fine.”
Becky’s quick smile sealed the deal.
Sarah would be starting work that following Monday. It was now Thursday. Rent was coming due Tuesday.
She needed help.
How do you expect to survive in L.A. without me? Benjamin’s voice rang in her head.
She’d find help somewhere else.
There, on the coffee table in her barren-looking living room, sat Taylor’s business card, with “Martika” written on it. Taylor’s friend, Martika—the one looking for a roomie.
Possibly the help she was looking for.
She finally dialed Martika’s number. It rang five times. She was about to hang up on the sixth when she heard a deep, sultry voice say, “This is me. And you are?”
“I’m sorry?” Sarah looked at the number. “Maybe I’ve misdialed…”
There was a pause on the other line. “Maybe you have. This is Martika.”
Sarah winced. This was not starting off well. “Um, Taylor asked me to call you…”
“Taylor! That bitch, he hasn’t called me, and he missed Beer Bust. Well, you can’t be his new flame, unless something weirdly radical has changed in his life that he’s not telling me,” she said, all in a rush. Sarah thought she could hear her puffing cigarettes…there was a crackle, and Sarah realized that she had called Martika’s cell phone. “So, what did he want you to call me for?”
Sarah paused. “Well, ah, he seemed to think you might be looking for a place to live, and I’m looking for a roommate…”
“Great! As a matter of fact, I am,” she said. “Where are you?”
“Santa Monica and Robertson.”
Martika squealed. Sarah had to pull the phone away from her ear. “Perfect! I’m right around the corner…and this is my spot. I hadn’t realized Taylor would find me something so convenient. How do you know Taylor again?” Sarah started to answer, but was quickly cut off. “Dumb question. I’ll be over in ten minutes. What’s your address?”
Numbly, Sarah gave it to her, then heard her say “Be there in a sec. Byee!” and quickly clicked off.
Please, let her not be a psycho.
She still didn’t quite know why she trusted Taylor as much as she did…maybe it was still gratitude at the fact that he’d at least given her one positive experience in this strange new world. She would have had a truly miserable night if she hadn’t bumped into the flamboyant giant.
It was less than ten minutes when her intercom buzzed, and Martika announced her presence. Sarah buzzed her in, praying even as she walked to the door. When she opened it, she felt her jaw drop.
Martika was an Amazon. Easily five-ten, she had deep maroon hair that cascaded in curls down past her shoulder blades. She was wearing a pair of hip-hugging bell bottoms in a deep black, and a maroon top of a sort of silky material that sported some sort of Indian embroidery design at the bottom. She had on a black leather coat over it. She was wearing sunglasses perched on her head, ostensibly to keep the curls out of her face. Her face…it wasn’t necessarily pretty, not in the vogue sort of way. She had large hazel eyes and a pug nose that looked odd on her. She had a strong chin, and a round face. She stared back at Sarah.
“I don’t bite,” she said pointedly. “At least, not until I get to know you.”
Sarah shook herself. “Oh! Sorry. You must be Martika.”
“I must be,” she drawled, and walked in, her stacked heel half-boots making her stride seem even more impressive. She gave Sarah a little questioning look as she walked in, then let out a low whistle as her attention shifted from the owner of the apartment to the apartment itself. “Nice. Empty, but we could fix that in a minute. All yours?”
“Um, yes. Although it’d have to be month to month…”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Martika said, eliminating that possible bone of contention. She went out to the balcony. “I guess this would be my smoking area…I can’t stand smoking in the house, strangely enough. I like smoking, but hate smelling it all the time.”
“Okay,” Sarah said.
Martika turned around, and studied Sarah again. Sarah felt…dowdy. And old, although she knew the woman was probably older than she was. “And you’re Taylor’s friend?” Martika asked.
“I know,” Sarah said. “I have trouble believing it myself.”
Martika laughed, a leonine laugh that matched the rest of her. Sarah was torn between admiring her and being intimidated by her. “So which room’d be mine?”
Sarah showed her. “I’d move the boxes, of course…”
“Oh, this would work out fine, just fine,” Martika pronounced on the spot. “Great! So when could I move in?”
“Um…” Apparently, this was more of a done deal than she’d expected. “Don’t you want to ask any questions about me?”
Martika looked at her, a sarcastic, wry expression on her very expressive face. “You look like…” She paused, as if editing her words. “Let’s just say I trust you to pay your bills on time, sweetie, and leave it at that.”
Sarah knew that wasn’t a compliment, but didn’t know what she could say to counter it. “I might need a little time to think about it.”
Martika looked at her, curious and amused. “You don’t like me, do you?”
“I don’t even know you,” Sarah protested. “How could I not like you?”
“I can just tell that about people. They get this poochy-faced little look that says, ‘I may not know you, but you’re definitely not my kind of people.’ You haven’t gotten that look yet,” Martika said, ducking her head to meet the level of Sarah’s face, “but you’re working on it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarah said, even though she did. “I just…I’m new to L.A.”
Martika laughed. “I’d guessed, sweetie.”
Sarah glanced around, trying to buy some time. She needed a roommate, but she’d already made one snap decision out of desperation this week. She was starting to develop a habit.
“It’s just that I’m very linear,” she said slowly, looking at Martika. “I get the feeling you’re very…organic.”
Martika stared at her, then burst out into another round of raucous laughter. “Oh, sweetie, if you keep popping out with gems like that, I may have to live here!” She chuckled. “No wonder you’re a friend of Taylor’s. You’re so cute, I could eat you up with a spoon.”
Sarah wasn’t sure how to handle that comment. Things were already getting less linear by the minute.
“This will work out perfectly,” Martika said with a flourish. “I’ll have Taylor and the boys move me in on Saturday. Do you have a spare key?”
“Wait a second. I hadn’t decided yet.”
Martika shot her a skeptical look. “You’ve got rent on the first, right?”
“Well, yes.”
“Where else were you thinking of looking for a roommate?”
Sarah fidgeted. “I hadn’t…well, I’m still in preliminary stages,” she hedged.
“In other words, you don’t know,” Martika said, cutting through her excuse. “Let me fill you in—if you advertise in the L.A. Times, you’re going to get the crème de la crème of freak shows. If you go through an agency, you’ll get the freaks that are willing to pay some clerk at a Mailboxes Etc. to put their name on a list…and you’ll have to pay to find them. If you’re going for someone who’s willing to go month to month, you’ll get somebody who probably likes to turn young Asian boys into patio furniture in his spare time.” She did a slow twirl. “Or, you can get me—who’s vouched for by Taylor.”
Sarah winced.
“I don’t even really think it’s a question, do you?” Martika said mildly.
Sarah sighed. “I…er. I’ve got the spare key somewhere.”
Martika smiled sweetly. “Wise choice.”
Sarah smiled back uncertainly. Glad one of us thinks so.
Chapter 3
People Are Strange
“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.