Held: A New Adult Romance (2 page)

 He lowers his hands and exhales, his lips pouting in a perfect 'whew' of relief. "Wow," he says. "I'm sorry. Those can be nasty, right?"

 "Yes."

 "Is there anything I can do?"

 Despite freaking out I could have kissed him. He's about my age too, the kind of guy I would once have passed up for smiling too much. No tattoos either. "This is gonna sound so stupid," I say. "But could you get me some cigarettes?"

 He raises his eyebrows - black to match his eyelashes. "Do they...help? I thought nicotine increased your heart-rate?"

 Great. Of all times to give me the California boilerplate anti-smoking speech. "I'm crazy." I blurt it out like he's an idiot and it should be obvious. "Crazy people love cigarettes."

 He looks at me for a moment, concerned. "Are you okay right now though? Because I'm not leaving until I know you're okay."

 I catch my breath. "Don't worry. I'm not going to Virginia Woolf myself on your first day on the job, if that's what you're thinking."

 "Virginia what?"

 "Virginia Woolf. English writer. Went swimming with rocks in her pockets. You know - Nicole Kidman played her in the movie. With the nose."

 "Oh, the nose," he says. "Yeah, I think my Mom likes that one. Goes on forever. Lots of talking." He pulls a face.

 "You don't like movies with talking? What are you into? Charlie Chaplin?"

 He shakes his head. "Nah, man. I'm all about the action."

 "You must like this job."

 He grins. "I love this job. I’ve seen all your old man's movies. Even that comedy he did with the dog."

 To my complete amazement I actually laugh. "We don't talk about that one," I say.

 "Yeah. I guessed. He's got framed posters for every movie but that one."

 "It was a mess. I'm surprised it didn't go straight to DVD. And the dog was awful."

 "Really?"

 "Really," I say. "And mean. And it pooped everywhere. I think it had some kind of bowel condition. Every time they thought they were close to a perfect take the damn thing would pop a squat and..."

 He holds up a hand, laughing. "Stop, stop. I get the picture." He looks me up and down. "Listen, are you sure you're going to be okay? I'll get on the cigarette thing."

 "I'll be fine," I say, reminded of my own terrible neediness. "But please - be quick. I only have three left and I'm having a really bad day."

 A bad day. I should hear myself sometimes. I have a private pool and a wing to myself and I'm talking about bad days in front of someone who works for a living.

 "It's cool," he says. "I'll get right on it. Are you sure you don't need anything else?"

 "No. No thank you. I'm fine. Thank you...I'm sorry. I didn't get your name."

 "Jimmy," he says, holding out a hand. I shake it. His palm is warm and dry. I'm sure mine feels like a cooked and cooled lasagna noodle.

 "Thank you," I say again. "You've been very kind."

 "
De nada
. Stay dry, okay?"

 I watch him go. When he turns around I almost want to call him back and I can't quite believe the size of my own need, my hunger. Was that the first normal conversation I'd had since...everything? I think it was.

 Jimmy. Another J. I'm cursed with these J names.

 Chapter Two

Jaime

They always say you should never meet your idols.

 I've no idea who 'they' are and they've obviously never met John Gillespie, because the man is really, really
nice
. It's a weird word to use about a macho action star, but he is; he's nice.

 It was the only word I could come up with when my family asked - as I knew they would.

 "Nice," said Rebeca. "That's all?" She wipes a smear of mashed banana from my nephew's cheek. "He didn't even talk to you, did he?"

 "He did. He..." My brain goes blank. I can't remember a single word of the conversation we had. All I remember was standing there thinking 'I am talking to John Gillespie. This is the coolest day of my life. Will he be pissed if I point out he's shorter than he looks on screen?'

 Rebeca raises an eyebrow and passes a dish of rice to Pops.

 "Okay, he didn't," I said. "Uncle Steve introduced me..."

 I can see her eyes widen in warning and I know I've fucked up. "Esteban!" says Pops. "Your Uncle
Esteban.
That's his name -
I
gave it to him. All this 'Steve' and 'Jimmy' - what's with the self-hate?"

 Shit. "I was born here, Pops."

 "It's easier to find work, abuelito," says Rebeca, who was ever the suck-up of the family. "They don't hire you if you sound too Latin - who gets the most work out of Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen, right?"

 "Charlie Sheen," says Pops. "The last I heard he'd gone crazy and started yelling about tiger blood and cocaine."

 "That was years ago," says Jo, my younger brother.

 "Years fly by in a minute when you're an old man like me. You'll find out. And what are you doing with those coins at the dinner table?"

 "Magic," says Jo, turning red. "I need to practice my back-palm."

 "You need more practice," says Rebeca, fishing a dime out of the salsa. "Chuy could choke - don't you fire those things in the baby food."

 Jo's elbow lands in my ribs. "Laugh it up, Jaime - quincinearas are gonna be the new bar mitzvahs. I'll be in huge demand..."

 "...and playing Vegas by the time you're twenty-five," says Mom, sailing in with the empanadas. "We've heard it. Maybe shoot for thirty-five, baby. It's more realistic."

 "Thirty-five? I'll be nearly dead by then."

 "And he still won't have learned Spanish," says Pops.

 Jo turns to me. "You can get me in, right? You and Uncle S...Esteban."

 "What do you mean, in?"

 "Hollywood, man. You're hanging with the A-list now, right?"

 I laugh. "I've done two days at the Gillespie place. Two. I don't think I'm joining the movers and shakers any time soon."

 "You gotta have a screenplay," says Beca, hoisting Chuy out of his high chair and into her lap. His face has that squishy, red look that usually means if he doesn't get exactly what he wants he's going to bust out howling. Unfortunately none of us speak Chuy's language. "Isn't that how it goes? You're writing a screenplay or you're hustling for a test. Everyone's an actor, writer, frustrated director - kinda Sunset Boulevard only without the crazy old lady in the big house." She jiggles the baby on her lap but he's having none of it.

 "I'll take him," says Mom.

 "No, Mama - I got him. Eat. I've had mine." She carries him off into the sitting room to walk him around. Little dude's probably just full and gassy.

 "Doesn't he live up Laurel Canyon way?" asks Jo.

 "Olympia, I think."

 "Shit, dude - that area's got some spooky-ass history going on. Wonderland and the Manson murders - that whole deal."

 "Wasn't there something with the daughter?" says Mom. "John Gillespie's daughter, I mean."

 "What about her?" I didn't see her. Uncle Steve showed me her 'rooms' from the outside - a whole part of the house big enough for a family, all for one skinny little white girl. Well, I don't know about skinny, but this is Hollywood we're talking about. I was given to understand that most of those rich girls trained their gag reflexes as soon as they could stick a finger down their throats.

 "I don't know exactly," says Mom. "There was some scandal. An accident. Probably drugs. You know what these kids are like - too much money and not enough sense."

 "I'll give you the too much money part," I say. "She has her own swimming pool."

 "I bet she can't cook." Rebeca's voice floats through from the other room, and I know where this is going. Emily, Emily, Emily - it's all she's talked about lately. Emily is the greatest cook, the greatest dancer. She has the blackest eye, the whitest smile and the cutest figure of all the girls in the room at any given time. Sometimes I feel like asking Beca if she loves Emily so much why doesn't she date her, but I know I'd just get slapped.

 After dinner I go to my room and try to imagine having the kind of space the Gillespie girl has. Empty rooms. When I was growing up if you wanted space you hung your head out of the window. Now it's only me and Jo at home.

 I type in a quick Google search for 'John Gillespie daughter' - it's like the third auto-complete. I hit the image search button and get a bunch of gross pictures, the kind that the paparazzi have to literally lie in the gutter to get. You can see her whole inner thigh and her black panties. Her face is hidden - she's raised her glittery purse to cover it - and her long hair part screens her face anyway. Blonde hair, natural, I'm guessing. It's the kind of blonde that has more than a little red in it - strawberry, I think they call it.

 The pictures make me feel queasy. She looks like a hunted thing, a breakable doll in the hands of heartless, greedy children. No. This is none of my business. Scandal or no scandal, she's the daughter of my new employer, a man who has been nothing but nice to me so far.

 I close down the windows, blurring my eyes against the type. But one thing slips by. Her name.

 Amber.

The next day I drive across town and up into the rarefied world of the hills. Even the names here are fantastical - Wonderland, Olympia, Zeus. Like in moving up here you really could become a God. Even the smog looks good from up here. On some evenings when the sunset is extra red the moon rises neon pink. Pollution, Jo says, like when Krakatoa went boom and there was so much ash and crap in the air it streaked the sunsets blood red in Europe, half a world away. I tease him for being a nerd but there's no getting away from it - my little brother is definitely the brain of the family.

 The house is kind of modern adobe style, off-white stucco and earth tone mosaic. From outside it looks kind of ugly from certain angles, but the inside is nuts. It's the kind of place you can't imagine anyone would really live - it's too much like a magazine photoshoot.

 Uncle Steve leads me through the giant office/playroom. There's a pool table and a giant aquarium floor to ceiling in the middle of the room. "Wait here a second," he says. "Don't touch anything."

 I feel like I shouldn’t stare either, but I can’t help it. There are famous faces all over the walls – John Gillespie with Ewan McGregor, Sir Patrick Stewart, Julianne Moore. There’s one of him with his arm around a grinning Daniel Craig, and beneath the photo hangs a gun – either real or a prop, probably a memento of John Gillespie’s stint as a Bond villain. He played a Russian assassin who always shot people straight through their left-eyes – like a calling card thing.  

 I watch the fish for a moment and then I realize there's something weird in the tank. It looks like a decorative shell - a curly one, wound round like the shell of a snail, but it's floating. It's hanging there, suspended in the water, and I don't see a wire or anything. Then there's like a weird little
pfff
out the back of it and it moves.

 I think I said 'what the fuck' under my breath because the next thing I know there's a hand on my shoulder. "Nautilus," says a British voice at my ear. "Cool, innit?"

 Shit. I straighten. "Mr. Gillespie - I'm sorry. I didn't see you there."

 "No," he says. "You were looking at the fish. I know." He has a towel around his neck and over his shoulder I can see the open door of a workout room, an exercise bike. His bare upper arms are impressive and he has one of those old-fashioned barbed wire tattoos around one bicep.

 "Not the fish," I say. "The thing. The what did you call it?"

 "Nautilus," he said. "You never see Two Thousand Leagues Under The Sea? Wasn't it the name of Captain Nemo's sub?"

 "Oh. Oh. Yeah. I think so." Why does my brain escape my head every time I speak to him? I've gotta stop acting so starstruck. He must find it really annoying. "I've never seen anything like that before."

 "Living fossil, that," he says, peering into the tank. "Apparently they've been floating about like that since the fucking Cretaceous period or something. Haven't evolved, didn't need to. They got the design right first time. Kind of like sharks. Do you like sharks?"

 "They're...pretty cool, I guess?" This is so weird. His eyes are the same chilly blue that made him such a great draw as a Hollywood villain, only now they're even bluer with the reflection from the fish tank. His scalp is shaved but when he used to have hair it was blond - red blonde. Like hers.

 "You're damn right they're cool," he says. "Amazing animals. I've done the whole shark tank thing a couple of times - with the cage and the chain-mail diving suit. Nothing like seeing them in the wild. One of nature's grand designs - it ain't broke, so she didn't fix it. While we were evolving from little hairy monkey guys to the big hairless idiots we are now the shark didn't change much. Didn't need to. Like these little fellers."

 The nautilus moved again. It kind of puffed its way around the tank - no fins or anything in sight. "How does it do that?"

 "Water jets. Propels itself by sucking in water one end and squirting it out the other. Can go in all directions. Marvelous, innit?"

 "It's amazing," I say, honestly impressed.

 "Have fun," he says, and slaps me on the back. Next thing I know he's off, whistling as he pulls the towel from around his neck and swings it over his shoulder.

 "You ready?" says Uncle Steve, coming back in.

 "Yeah."

 "Same round I showed you yesterday. My old round. It's yours now."

 I cover the perimeter for a couple of hundred yards and then I come round to the private pool and the rooms where his daughter lives. The pool is oval with the same tan and brown mosaic tile edging as the gatehouse. There are potted cacti and succulents all around but there’s nothing to suggest anyone really lives here. The patio umbrella is folded and I don’t think it’s ever been opened – it still has the plastic on it from the store.

 I do the rounds all morning and well into the afternoon. I keep wondering what I’d say if I ever saw her, so much that when I do see her I’m not sure if she’s a figment of my imagination or the real deal.