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  “You got to wear a tiara,” she concludes knowingly.

  “Yep. And shiny white satin gloves.”

  “Crap, Gemma, that settles it. You’re coming to stay with me.”

  “No, no! You have classes and performances to think about. You do not need my particular brand of drama to interfere with your life.” I realize what I’ve just said and laugh at myself. “Absolutely no pun intended.”

  “Don’t argue with me. This is perfect,” she insists hastily. I hear more shuffling so I guess she’s exiting the closet. “You haven’t been to my new place so I’ll text you the address and expect you here by lunch.”

  “What about Weebit?”

  “Bring him with you.”

  My hand drifts to the back of my neck. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Get your bony ass and your chinchilla in the car, Sayers!” she yells. Then she’s gone.

  Have I mentioned that Julie Ackerman, best friend, lover of vintage clothing and artisanal pickles, is a tad bossy?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gemma

  The sunlight is coming in through my windshield in a kaleidoscope of burning whites, oranges and yellows. As I head out of town, I lower my dark sunglasses over my eyes and use my hands to brush my long hair away from my face. I’m thinking happier thoughts than I was this morning.

  I’m thinking: Fuck that waitress and her bouncy double-Ds.

  I’m thinking: Fuck Ren Parkhurst and his Cheshire Cat grin.

  I’m thinking: I wasted over two years on that douchebag and I’m not going to give him one more second of my life.

  I’m thinking: Right now, I’m on my way to see my best friend and things are going to be okay.

  For the first time in a long time—longer than the week since everything went wrong with Ren—I feel a sense of freedom. There’s no knot tightening in my stomach. I’m not someone’s sidekick girlfriend. I’m not a wannabe actress who can’t manage to nail any of my auditions. I don’t know who I am exactly, or what I’m going to be, but maybe—just maybe—that’s all right.

  Is this what my dad meant about seeking my bliss?

  “As long as traffic isn’t too bad on the Five, we should be there in like an hour and a half,” I tell Weebit. His travel carrier is centered in the passenger seat with an air conditioning vent directed toward it so that he stays cool. Through the thin black bars, I see that he’s resting on a towel I snatched from the hotel and is chewing on some dried orchard grass.

  When the traffic lightens and the L.A. skyline is just a smudge of smoggy greys and browns in the rearview mirror, I pump the air with my fist and shout at the vanishing city, “Good riddance!”

  I sync my phone to the stereo, start a new playlist, and crank up the volume. I’m singing along with my head thrown back, dark sunglasses jostling on my face, my hands tapping out the beats on the steering wheel. As the tracks slide by, my voice starts to take on a life of its own.

  See, honey, I am not some broken thing.

  I do not lay here in the dark waiting for thee.

  No, my heart is gold. My feet are light.

  And I am racing out on the desert plains all night.

  I’m so absorbed in the sound of the music, I barely take note as I pass by Mission Viejo and San Clemente and Oceanside. It’s not until I hit the right exit that I even bother to glance down at the dashboard. That’s when I see the lurid orange-red light indicating that my car is chugging along on fumes.

  Having no clue how long the light has been on and in no position to be choosy, I pull into the first gas station that pops up along the side of the road. It’s nothing fancy. The lettering on the sign out front is faded and peeling. The metal roof above the gas pumps is sagging in the center. Dry grass pushes up through rangy cracks in the grey asphalt in straggly brown clumps.

  Hell, the place is so beat down that the credit card terminal attached to the pump is out of service. Instead, there’s a strip of silver duct tape and a slip of notebook paper directing me to pay inside.

  Inwardly cursing the pay-at-the-pump gods, I unbuckle my seatbelt and trudge toward the tiny silver shack calling itself “The Gas Mart.”

  The smudged-up glass door tinkles upon my entrance. I stop and look around for a moment. Up by the checkout, a plump woman with a head full of pink curlers is clutching a handful of scratch-off lottery tickets to her large chest and looking at a display of chewing gum. In the far corner there’s a kid jamming out with his earbuds while he sucks a bright red Slurpee up through a clear straw. Just opposite me, a young guy in a dark beanie is using a pair of stained metal tongs to pull a hot dog from one of those rolling broiler machines.

  I toy with the idea of a cup of coffee, but when I reach the coffee machine and actually see the black goo necrotizing in the bottom of the pot, my stomach immediately turns sour. Lovely. How do you take your radioactive feces? With cream and sugar?

  Grimacing, I quickly return the coffee pot to its hot plate and make my way through the narrow aisles to the cash register. Near the potato chips I accidentally bump into a glum old man in a dark green trucker hat.

  “Sorry!” I squeak, flattening myself against a display of Cool Ranch Doritos.

  His response is a muffled curse followed by an icy glare.

  Tough crowd.

  Head bent, I slink past him to the counter. Once there, I give a forced smile and tell the teenage girl working behind the register that I’d like to put twenty dollars on pump seven. Then I pull my phone from my purse and check the time. The stop for gas was unexpected but I should still be at Julie’s by lunch. Unless I ma—

  “Declined.”

  Distracted from my thoughts, I glance up. “Hmm? I’m sorry?”

  “Declined,” the girl repeats. She’s wearing a red collared shirt and a bored expression. The overhead fluorescents highlight a small mole on her face and wispy dark hairs coating the white fleshy skin above her upper lip. Her nametag reads Lindy.

  “Excuse me? I don’t…?”

  “Your card,” Lindy clarifies, wagging my silver debit card in the air. “It’s been declined. It didn’t go through the machine.”

  “Oh.” Oh. Colors swim across my vision and my stomach rolls so violently that I have to brace myself against a wire shelf filled with kitschy California-shaped key chains and gleaming postcards of the Pacific Ocean.

  My brain is quickly flicking through the numbers in my bank account. I start with the meager check that was automatically deposited ten days ago. I subtract the withdrawal of my cell phone payment, the things I purchased this week off the Home Shopping Network, and my daily hotel bill.

  I wince.

  That massage chair was definitely not part of my budget. And neither were those stupid holiday sweaters I bought two nights ago. Not to mention the solar-powered patio lights and that cheese cutter that supposedly can turn Havarti into a work of art. Shit—what was I thinking?

  “Ma’am?”

  Shit, shit, shit. “I…uh…”

  “Do you have another?”

  I continue to stare at her stupidly. My heart is banging wildly in my chest, pumping buckets of blood to my face. “Another what?”

  Someone behind me releases an annoyed grunt. I do a full body cringe and risk a peek over my shoulder. Sure enough, Trucker Hat is glaring at me again. He’s got his bag of chips now and he’s tapping one yellow, mud-spattered work boot against the floor to make sure I’m aware that he doesn’t have all day to wait on me. Pink Curlers and Slurpee Kid are also watching to see how this whole thing plays out.

  “Another card,” Lindy says, dragging my attention back to the counter. This time there’s a definite prickle in her voice.

  “Oh, yeah. Hold on a sec,” I say, my chest heaving and my heart throbbing painfully. I push my hand into the black leather bag clamped to my side and rummage around for my wallet.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Pink Curlers take a step closer and cock her head to one side. I wonder if anyone recognizes
me—if any of these people are fans of Ren’s, have seen the bathroom sex video, or read the reports online and are now connecting the dots from point A to point B.

  I’m probably being a little paranoid.

  “I, um… I’ve got my other card here.” I have to work to keep my voice calm as I wrangle with the zipper and hand over my American Express. If Lindy notices my arm shaking or the way my voice cracks and the words spill out of my mouth all at once, she doesn’t acknowledge it.

  She takes the new card, swipes it and taps the corner of the hard plastic against the register while she waits for it to process.

  One second.

  Two.

  She lifts her head, touches that mole on the side of her face with the pad of her thumb and gives me this you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look.

  “Declined.”

  “Wha...?” My stomach drops to the scuffed terrazzo floor with a sick thud. I wrap one arm around my chest and suck in an uneven breath. This is wrong. All wrong. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t—”

  Everything looks smeared and far away like the entire gas station has been bombed with a vat of petroleum jelly. Disoriented, I take a wobbling step back from the counter. My phone tumbles from my limp hand and makes an unpleasant cracking sound as it clatters to the floor.

  Oh God. How could I let this happen? How could I pile stupidity on top of irresponsibility? As if I didn’t have enough problems already.

  Lindy sniffs and scratches at her nose. “Do you want to try calling your bank? Or I could go get my manager for you.”

  “I’m not sure,” I croak and wipe at my face. Just perfect. Now I’m crying. Crying!

  “Let me get that for you,” a voice says from behind me. Gravelly. Deep.

  I whip my head around. “What?”

  The guy I saw over by the hot dogs places a blue sports drink and a bag of peanut candies on the counter. As he closes in, his front brushes my back and his left hand whispers underneath my bare elbow to steady me. Hot Dog Guy looks at Lindy and says, “Just put our things together.”

  Acrid heat is clawing its way up the back of my throat. I’m leaking. I’m blubbering. I’m snotty. I’m gross.

  “You really don’t have to do that,” I murmur, my voice trembling and weak. Could this moment be any more embarrassing?

  “It’s not a problem. We’ve all been there and, hey, I like your shirt.”

  My shirt? “What are you—” I glance down and quickly realize he must be talking about the band. “Oh, right,” I finish, my voice sounding like it’s been weighted down with cinder blocks.

  He smoothly bends to pick up my phone from the floor and turns it over to make sure the screen is still intact. When he presses it into my open palm, his blunt nails scratch lightly against my too-sensitive skin and a fizz of warmth races up the length of my arm. Surprised, I wrap my fingers tightly around my phone and pull away from him sharply.

  “You should really be more careful with that,” he says, still not looking at me. “Those phone screens are a bitch to change out.”

  Hot Dog Guy is tall and tanned. A faded grey knit cap is pulled low on his head, covering his brow and shading his eyes. Worn black flip-flops cradle his long feet. There’s a skin-colored brace on his knee. He has elbows. A nose. A week’s worth of dark bristle over the bottom half of his face. To be honest, that’s about all I can process through the haze of wetness clouding my vision.

  “You really can’t pay for me,” I say pathetically.

  “I can. I did actually.” Without taking his eyes off the counter, he slips the receipt into his back pocket.

  I know I should offer up some kind of reasonable explanation, but what can I say? Hello person that I have never met. My life is in a downward spiral because my boyfriend cheated on me and there’s a viral video to prove it. To top it off, I’ve apparently depleted my bank account because I’ve wasted an entire week buying crap I don’t need in a misguided attempt to fill the gaping black chasm of sadness inside of me.

  Honestly.

  With a sniffling and barely audible thank you, I retreat.

  “You’re welcome,” he calls out.

  I turn back to nod and this time Hot Dog Guy tries to catch my gaze, dipping his head the way tall people do when they want to make eye contact. “Are you going to be okay?” he asks, taking a careful step toward me.

  With my keys and phone clutched tightly in my hand and my back against the glass door, I say, “Yeah.”

  “Because I could call someone for you.”

  Holding my breath inside my lungs, I shake my head and make a hasty exit. When I reach the pump, I untwist the cover of my car’s gas tank, slide in the nozzle and say a silent prayer to get me through the next few minutes without anything else going wrong.

  “Faster please,” I urge the gas pump in a low voice.

  Three dollars and fifty-two cents… six dollars and eighty-four cents… ten dollars…

  I release a groan and tilt my face skyward. That’s when I see the magazine rack in front of The Gas Mart and the bold headlines screaming at me in shouty black capitals.

  PARKHURST SEXCAPADE

  Howl Fans React to SCANDALOUS Video!

  NEW, Shocking Revelations Surface

  Propping the gas pump in my tank, I inch around the back of my car to get a better look. Right there, jammed between a bridal magazine and a gluten-free recipe guide is a photo of me. Me! I take another step and the full headline becomes visible.

  Pregnant Girlfriend Reduced to TEARS!

  To fully comprehend just how humiliating this moment is for me, you need to have an understanding of how I look in the photo. 1) I’m wearing an awful yellow shirt with a ruffle collar because it was the first thing I could get my hands on. 2) My hair is a jungle of frizz and dirty, brown tangles, my mouth is open, and my eyes are partially closed. 3) I don’t have on any makeup and there’s a visible zit on my right cheek.

  It’s like the magazine people got together with the picture people and were like, “Can you get us a shot where she looks like a SARS patient wearing a tulip?”

  As I reread the headline, my mind starts to spin. I’m so out of sorts, I worry I’ll faint. Pregnant? Why would they think that?

  The shirt, the hair and the lack of makeup tell me that the photo was taken four days ago when I went to my doctor’s office to be tested for STDs. Smart move is what Julie had called it at the time. Now I’m not so sure.

  I grab the magazine from the rack and furiously flip to the full story. It’s four pages long. At the top of page one, the title of the article reads: I’m Having His Baby Alone! Below that, there is a wide, glossy shot of me in a parking lot with a dark-haired woman in blue hospital scrubs. Now I remember that during my doctor’s visit, I left my phone at the reception desk and one of the nurses chased me down to return it.

  “Oh no,” I whimper. I’ll admit that in the photo, it does look like I’m running and she’s chasing me.

  I flip the page and the dull pounding in my head and heart increases. I clutch the magazine, my sweaty fingers crumpling the thin pages, and read on. In the center of the page there is a photo of Ren and his Howl co-star, Sierra Simms, locked in an embrace. The caption says that the photo was snapped two days ago.

  Fuuuuuck!

  With a sob welling in my throat and panicky tears dangling from my lower lashes, I step sideways and promptly collide with a wall of cotton and jiggling flesh. I blink and see that I’ve knocked into Pink Curlers. Her lottery tickets are scattering from her fingers like leaves in a strong wind. Her face is squished up and she’s yelling at me in accented English, “Watch where you goin’!”

  “I’m sorry!” I wail in a choked, cracking voice. My body is reeling so fast that my heart can’t seem to catch up. She says something else that I can’t understand and shakes her head. I drop to the rough asphalt and scramble to recover two of the rectangular lottery tickets from the ground.

  “I-I’m so sorry,” I repeat, face on fire, tears openly s
treaming down my face now.

  I push myself up from the ground and that’s when I see that Hot Dog Guy is watching all of this go down from the door of The Gas Mart. When our gazes lock, his mouth moves silently over that same question. Are you okay?

  A fresh jolt of humiliation rips through my core.

  Am I okay? Absolutely not. I’m shaky and exhausted. I’m mentally fried. I’m ashamed. I’m broke. I just want this day, this week, this lifetime to be over.

  Pushing through another hysterical surge of emotion, I thrust the salvaged lottery tickets at Pink Curlers and cram the magazine back to the rack. Then I’m stumbling to my car, wiping the tears from my face and ripping the gas pump out of the tank. In the very next second, I’m in the driver’s seat turning the key. I take a deep breath, throw the car into drive and jam my foot on the gas pedal, whipping Weebit and me out of the station in a blizzard of dust and gravel and unhinged mortification.

  ***

  Two and a half years ago, when I made the decision to drop out of school and take my chances in the steaming pressure cooker that is L.A., I was a girl with a dream in my hand and a song in my heart, and nothing else mattered to me. I had been through a lot of heartbreak and survived. I figured I could handle anything that life threw at me.

  And for a while, I did handle it. All through that first year and a half of failed auditions, blistering rejections and disappointments, I didn’t lose sight of what I wanted.

  It wasn’t until Ren landed his first major gig—a commercial for whitening toothpaste—that I really started to question what I was doing. One night, after a particularly brutal pass from a pompous director, I took an honest look in a full-length mirror. I pulled no punches. I catalogued the glaring contrasts between myself and ninety-nine percent of the aspiring actresses I was up against, and that’s when I knew.