Have to Have It Page 10

  “Who's playing here tonight? U2?” Tom quipped.

  Lydia took a sip of her horchata. “Dee-lish,” she pronounced, then put her elbow on the table and her chin on her closed fist. “So, Kiley, here's what I think. You ought to let yourself get poached.”

  “Poached as in … eggs?” Kiley ventured.

  “Poached as in by another family. Blow this job off. Take another one.”

  “What other one?” Billy asked.

  Lydia laughed. “Surely you jest.”

  “Isn't that… unethical?”

  Lydia went wide-eyed. “Isn't it unethical for Evelyn to ask you to do her filing? Isn't it unethical that your boss wouldn't sit down with you and her kids and tell them who you are?”

  “Well, yes,” Kiley allowed. “But the way I see it, she's in the power position.”

  “And again I ask: what other job?” Billy repeated.

  Lydia waved him off. “I'm getting to that.” She leaned in toward Kiley. “Now, here's what I want you to do. If you wake up tomorrow and find yourself in Brentwood's version of hell, call me, and I'll take care of the rest.”

  Kiley raised a skeptical brow. “Lydia, no offense, but you couldn't even get your nanny business off the ground.”

  Again, Lydia waved a hand. “Do not clutter my head with past details,” she decreed. “I have a brilliant plan that will—”

  Suddenly, loud Latin music filled the air, drowning out the rest of Lydia's sentence. Kiley realized it would be futile to try to shout over it. She'd just have to wait to hear the rest of Lydia's “brilliant plan.”

  The lights in La Verdad dimmed; two spotlights illuminated the small stage, which featured a deejay booth and two standing microphones. The music lowered and an unseen announcer boomed out over the sound system: “¡Las señoras y los caballeros, residentes de nuestra aldea, es mi placer introducir a usted, Los Reyes Latinos d'Echo Park!”

  The crowd applauded and whistled. It was so dense that Kiley had to crane her neck to see the stage, where a trio of Latino guys, led by Jorge, bounded up onto the stage. They were dressed identically, in black jeans and black cotton long-sleeved shirts—a real departure from the hip-hop groups that Kiley was used to from MTV, where the rappers sported oversized, diamond-dusted gold jewelry and bizarre, baggy, or just plain over-the-top outfits. This looked more as if Jorge and his friends were making a deliberate statement of group solidarity instead of personal stardom.

  “Now, which one is Esme's friend?” Lydia asked over the crowd noise.

  “In front,” Kiley yelled back.

  “Very tasty,” Lydia opined, lightly licking her pouty lips.

  Kiley found herself mentally agreeing with that assessment.

  The deejay started scratching; Jorge and the other guy went to the mike.

  “Una época vendrá, cuando se presentará el pueblo

  Una hora especial, un rato especial de la noche.

  Una época vendrá, cuando la gente estará libre.

  Una hora especial, un rato especial de la noche.”

  “Anyone speak Spanish?” Lydia asked.

  “A little,” Billy said. “It's something like, A time will come, when the people will arise, a special time of day, a special time of night. A time will come, when the people will be free. A special time of day, a special time of night.' Or something like that.”

  “Wow,” Kiley murmured, extremely impressed. She'd never been a fan of rap music; the macho-posturing, gay-bashing, and girl-demeaning lyrics made her sick to her stomach—that is, when she could understand the lyrics at all. But clearly the Latin Kings were different.

  Jorge's rap continued, the deejay's scratching propelling the words along. The crowd started clapping their hands and whooping on the words “libre” and “noche.” Then they started chanting along with Jorge.

  Kiley couldn't help herself. She found herself chanting too, even though she had only the barest idea of what she was saying because of Billy's translation.

  Suddenly, the rap stopped in the middle of a verse. At first, the crowd applauded and cheered, thinking that this was a deliberate artistic choice. Then there was booing, which grew louder and louder. Most of the patrons of La Verdad got to their feet, which blocked Kiley and her friends' view.

  “What's going on?” Lydia demanded.

  Billy climbed up onto his chair to try to get a better look. “It's three people in firefighters' uniforms. They're talking to Jorge and someone else. A really tall skinny guy with a mustache.”

  “He's the manager,” Kiley reported, remembering her meeting the day before when Jorge had tried to get her the waitressing job.

  “Must be overcrowded in here,” Tom guessed. “Well, that's no shocker.”

  Two minutes later, after remonstrating unsuccessfully with the firemen, Jorge was back on the mike.

  “I'm speaking in English so our friends the firefighters can understand me,” Jorge announced. “We've got a problem here tonight. Too many of you wanted to come hear the Latin Kings!”

  The crowd cheered.

  “Problem is, capacity of La Verdad is seventy-seven, and we're way over,” Jorge continued. “The law is gonna shut us down for tonight.”

  The crowd booed and pointed their thumbs downward.

  Jorge motioned with his hand for them to quiet down. “But here's what me and the boys are gonna do. We'll play two shows tomorrow night, nine and eleven. We'll hand out passes on the way out. Come back with your passes,” Jorge advised, “and you can come in for no cover. For right now, let's ease on out of here sin problemas. Okay?”

  “Keep playing!” someone shouted from the back of La Verdad to thunderous applause. “What they gonna do, teargas us?”

  “Know what?” Jorge asked rhetorically, gesturing toward the other guys on the stage. “Me and the boys, we're the first to go. Come on, cholos. We show some respect to our firefighters. Someday they may have to save your life.” And with that, they marched off the stage and into the cheering crowd.

  “He's leaving the stage,” Billy reported. “He's out the door.”

  With Jorge and the Latin Kings gone, the crowd began to disperse. Tom insisted on picking up everyone's check, and soon Kiley and her friends were out the door too.

  But an image of Jorge up onstage stayed in her mind. There was something so compelling about him. So … so admirable. And somehow—Kiley couldn't quite figure out why—it was damn sexy.

  After the aborted outing to La Verdad, the group went to a diner in Silverlake that Billy had suggested called Millie's. He said it had been around forever. He was right; their waitress told them that the place first opened in 1926. Judging by her grizzled face and gruff voice, Kiley suspected that the waitress had been working there since the beginning.

  The food was excellent, though. Kiley had ordered something called the Devil's Mess, which was scrambled eggs, turkey pieces, cheese, and spices, all topped by an enormous dollop of homemade salsa, plus guacamole and sour cream. Far too much food for Kiley to eat by herself, but luckily Lydia—who, despite her thin frame, had never met a plate of food she didn't like— finished it off, in addition to her cheeseburger deluxe with a double order of fries. Where the girl put it, Kiley had no idea. Evidently she was blessed with a fast metabolism, thanks to years of running around the Amazon jungles. Lydia claimed she was making up for all those years of eating monkey meat.

  After dinner, they'd gone their separate ways. Billy and Lydia decided to go shake their tail feathers at LAX (the nightclub, not the airport); Tom and Kiley opted to take in the Alexander Payne film marathon at the Grove. When the back-to-back showings of Election and Sideways were over, Kiley expected that Tom would drive her back to Brentwood, back to Evelyn Bowers's house. She found herself dreading the thought. What would she find when she let herself back into her room? A living pile of hungry red ants? Essence of rotten eggs? Mud-covered livestock?

  Just as she was contemplating this depressing scenario, she realized that instead of going wes
t on Wilshire, Tom was driving north on La Brea.

  “This isn't the way to Brentwood, is it?” Kiley asked.

  Tom's eyes flicked to her, then back to the road. “I was thinking we could go to the Hotel Bel-Air”

  That statement hung in the air between them. The Hotel Bel-Air was where Tom lived. Kiley knew that only too well, having briefly occupied the suite next door to his during the shooting of Platinum Nanny. In fact, that was how they'd met, after she'd heard him through the wall during the night, making what had sounded like insanely passionate love. The next morning, they'd walked out of their suites at the same moment. She'd been almost too embarrassed to make eye contact.

  “Kiley?” Tom questioned.

  “Yes? I mean, that's my name.” She giggled at how ridiculous she sounded. “Okay that was an idiotic thing to say. I'm just…” She could feel her cheeks burning.

  “We can listen to music, watch TV or … whatever,” Tom explained. “It'll be your call. So … we good?”

  “Good,” Kiley managed to squeak, her lips suddenly feeling parched.

  Tom nodded, turning onto Sunset Boulevard. “What time do you have to be up in the morning?”

  “Nine,” she squeaked again. Why was he asking her that if they were going to watch TV? Obviously they weren't going to watch TV all night. She would only still be there in the morning if… So that had to mean that he wanted to … maybe even expected to …

  Oh God.

  “Nine it is,” Tom said easily.

  They didn't talk the rest of the way back to the hotel. Tom popped a White Stripes CD into the player and music filled the air, covering the silence between them until Tom pulled into the hotel's roundabout.

  It wasn't as if Tom had a roommate. It wasn't as if his parents or her parents could knock on the door and interrupt them. That saying, be careful what you wish for? Well, this was what Kiley had wished for. Now that the moment appeared to be at hand, all she felt was petrified.

  She wasn't technically a virgin. At least she didn't think she was. There was that horrible night with her then-boyfriend, Stuart. Everything had happened so fast; she wasn't really sure what had happened at all. If he had or if he … hadn't. They had used a condom—Stuart had had one. It hadn't hurt. Right after it—whatever “it” was—Stuart had wanted to get up and go right back to the party at his next-door neighbor's house. That was the first and only time they'd done it, and they'd broken up shortly thereafter.

  That couldn't have been sex, could it? It had been just so … so nothing. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Anatomically. Or emotionally. Or—

  “Kiley?”

  Tom and the parking valet both stood at her side of his truck. The door was open, meaning one of them had opened it, and she still sat in the cab.

  Tom held out a soft hand. Kiley took it and allowed him to help her out.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “Lost in thought.”

  “No problem.”

  Tom put a hand at the small of her back to guide her into the hotel. Kiley wondered if he could feel the pudginess protruding slightly out the top of her jeans, the jeans she had had so long, they were grayish instead of blue on the butt and knees. She was five foot six and a hundred and thirty-six pounds, which wasn't fat but was also a long, long way from Los Angeles norm, which was probably a good ten—no, twenty—pounds thinner. She sucked in her stomach as she preceded Tom past the hotel's luscious wooden entry and into the plush lobby. Its opulent creamy walls with golden and walnut finishes were matched only by the vibrant gardens that bloomed all year round.

  Probably she looked reasonably skinny standing up. But what about sitting, when her body sank into the feather-soft furniture? Would her stomach pooch out? Would Tom touch it and be repulsed? Wasn't he used to skinny, perfect supermodels like Marym?

  Tom guided her past another couple, she in a sleek black cocktail dress held up by an art deco diamond brooch over one shoulder, he in a tuxedo. The woman looked utterly serene, with a swanlike neck and mile-long legs that ended in black satin open-toed Jimmy Choo pumps. Sure, she could look serene. She probably looked like a goddess naked. Whereas Kiley—

  And then it hit her. What if Tom wanted to have sex with the lights on? He'd be able to see every imperfect pudge on her body. He'd see her remove her cheap cotton Kmart undies. Or maybe he'd want to remove her cheap cotton Kmart undies. How embarrassing would that be?

  Stop it, she told herself. Stop it right this damn second. Tom Chappelle could be with a million girls. He's here with you because he wants to be with you. And you want to be with him.

  “After you,” Tom offered, after he slid his key card into the door's security slot and held the door open for Kiley.

  “Thanks.” She walked past him and entered his suite.

  Kiley had been in the suite before; she'd gone there the night Platinum had been arrested. But of course, that visit had not been about sex. It looked exactly the same: white Italian couches in the living room with a glass-and-gunmetal coffee table. Persian rugs on the floor, twentieth-century art on the walls, big-screen TV with DVD system. Kiley remembered that there were two bedrooms, plus a full kitchen with Swedish modern appliances. When she'd been here before, there had been a fresh fruit basket on the kitchen table. Now, there was an extravagant tiger lily floral arrangement on a side table in the living room.

  But this time, she wasn't too distraught over the trauma of the evening's events to think about the lust symphony she'd heard coming from this very suite: moaning, screaming, bed-bouncing, window-rattling, wall-shaking sex. Kiley remembered lying there, and what she had been thinking about. First, she had sincerely hoped that her mother couldn't hear what she was hearing. Second, she had sincerely hoped that the erotic variations on a theme in ecstasy would come to a mercifully rapid conclusion. Last, when the serenade went on, and on, and on, she had thought that whoever was in that room was having a hell of a better time than she had experienced with Stuart. Also: One day, I hope that's me.

  Well, maybe this was the day. Night. Whatever.

  “Are you okay?” Tom asked her. They were in his living room now.

  “Fine, sure, just super!” Kiley chirped.

  Tom frowned. “Your cheeks are all red. Do you feel okay?”

  Oh crap. Why did she have to blush like the almost-redhead she was? “No, no, I'm fine. How about a drink?” Kiley asked boldly. There. That had sounded normal. She hoped.

  Tom grinned. “The girl who doesn't drink asks for a drink?”

  Oh crap again. He remembered that she didn't drink. “I'm full of surprises,” she uttered, trying to sound mysterious. All she sounded, however, was insipid, at least to her own ears.

  Tom moved to the suite's bar, which was stocked with top-shelf liquor: Stoli vodka, Maker's Mark bourbon, rum from some obscure Jamaican distillery, and the like.

  “Vodka tonic?” Tom asked. “And sit down, please, you're making me nervous standing there in the middle of the living room.”

  Flustered, Kiley sat down on the couch and looked for something to do with her hands. There was a copy of Los Angeles magazine on the coffee table between the couch and the love seat, so she picked it up and started to leaf through it. Then she remembered that Tom had asked her about a drink, and stood expectantly at the bar.

  “A vodka tonic would be fine,” she told him, though she'd never had one in her life. “Tonic” made her think of hair tonic, some ancient chemical concoction her grandfather used to use on his hair. The last thing she could remember drinking was champagne with Esme and Lydia, a couple of weeks before. Her father's affinity for the product of the brewery where he worked made her very, very leery of alcohol. Yet, nervous as she was to be alone with Tom in his suite, a drink seemed like the thing to do. When Tom brought her the highball glass—he'd made one for himself as well—she drained a quarter of it in one slug.

  “Easy there, girl,” he cautioned.

  “I'm fine,” she told him breezily, as if she threw back vodka
tonics every day.

  “I'd have to agree. Say, hold on a sec. I want to show you something.”

  Without waiting for her answer, he bounded up and went into his bedroom. It made her nervous all over again. What was he doing? Would he come back in a robe? Was he in there lighting candles and putting on mood music? Would they end up on the same bed where he and whoever-it-was-who-was-having-a-terrific-time had made beautiful music together? Would he—

  Oh God. What if he came back naked?

  Please-please-please don't let him come back in here naked.

  She took another huge gulp of her drink and stared at the blank big-screen TV.

  I don't know if I'm ready for this.

  “Hey,” Tom said softly. “Look at this.”

  Kiley turned, half-shutting her eyes. Whew. He was fully dressed, a leather-bound album under his arm.

  “Photos,” he explained, almost shyly. “From Iowa. Me and my family, me growing up. I was thinking that you might want to see them.” He scratched his clean-shaven chin. “There really isn't anyone else here in L.A. who has any interest in—”

  “I'd love to see them,” Kiley said; it was the first honest thing she'd uttered since he'd informed her they were heading to his hotel. He really wasn't so different from her, she reminded herself. Until just a few months ago he'd been living on his parents' farm.

  He grinned and sat next to her. “Well, all right, then.”

  For the next fifteen minutes or so, Kiley looked through Tom's photos. His enthusiasm and nostalgia for home was heartwarming to her, even if she didn't share the sentiment about La Crosse. Tom clearly loved and missed his big, rambunctious, incredibly photogenic family. Kiley missed her mom sometimes, and her best friend, Nina. Sometimes she wished she could sleep in her own bed. But other than that… no. Few things made her happier than being out of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

  Tom closed the photo album. “So, that's me.”

  “If you weren't so handsome, you'd be normal,” Kiley kidded. She was pleased that she could even make such a joke. Maybe it meant that she actually was relaxing. Relaxing would be good. Plus, she felt warmer, but in a good way. That had to be from the drink. It tasted bitter and vile, though.