Lucky Break

Lucky Break

Kelley Vitollo

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Kelley Vitollo. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Edited by Stacy Abrams

Cover design by Jessica Cantor

ISBN 978-1-62266-968-4

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition August 2012

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: iPhone, Juicy, Charmin, Etch A Sketch.

To my husband, Dominic. At sixteen-years-old, you gave me a promise ring a month after we started dating. Who would have thought we’d be here thirteen years later, married, with two awesome kids, and still laughing daily? First, we grew up together; now we’ll grow old together. There’s no one else I’d rather have by my side. We are so very lucky.

Chapter One

“I have a new man, and we’re hitting the road next week. I just wanted to let you know.”

As soon as the words left Sidney’s aunt’s mouth, the bus driver happened to slam on the breaks. Sidney’s phone tumbled out of her hand and her head bounced off the seat in front of her.
What the hell?
Where did the damn LA bus drivers get their licenses? And better yet, what was her sixty-year-old aunt doing talking about having a man and hitting the road? Not like she should be surprised. Aunt Mae had always been…eccentric. But, hello? Shouldn’t she be slowing down by now?

People started to stand all around her, and a pair of dress shoes narrowly missed her phone. Sidney leaned forward to grab it, just as a pair of Nikes kicked her cell. “Excuse me.” She tried to squeeze in front of a businesswoman in a crisp black suit and the cutest leopard print shoes she’d ever seen.

“Wait your turn.” The woman pushed around her.

Well,
she
could take her cute shoes and shove them up her— “Ouch!” Did someone just elbow her? Sidney scrambled forward. She didn’t care who she stepped on—she needed to get her phone and find out what the hell Aunt Mae was talking about. And she needed to do it quickly—not only before someone crushed her precious iPhone, but before she ended up late for her audition.

Again.

People shoved their way down the row and she tried to keep up. Once she made it to her phone, Sidney managed to execute a quick swoop and grab maneuver before the herd of exiting people trampled her. Damn, she hated the bus.

Unfortunately, whoever stole her car must have hated it as well.

“Aunt Mae? Are you still there? What do you mean you have a new man?” Sidney pulled her Juicy bag up on her shoulder and tripped down the bus stairs. She sucked in a deep breath. Thank God: air. Granted it was smoggy LA air, but it was air all the same.

“Exactly which part confuses you?” When Aunt Mae laughed, Sidney couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. Leave it to her aunt to be sarcastic when Sidney didn’t have time for sarcasm.

She sped up her walk; she had another two blocks to go before she got to her audition. Her day had started out like hell already. Add in the phone incident, Aunt Mae, and—
shit!
She just broke a stupid heel on the stupid cracked sidewalk. “Why haven’t I heard about this guy you’re dating?” she asked her aunt. As far as she was concerned, all power to Aunt Mae for still being out there, but she also didn’t like the idea of her hooking up with some random guy and frolicking around the United States with him.

“I wasn’t aware I had to— Bob Dylan, get down. Mommy’s on the phone.”

Letting her cell rest between her ear and shoulder, Sidney weaved through the crowd while searching her bag for her lipstick. Her footsteps were awkward, but she tried to walk on her tiptoes because of the missing heel. “Aunt Mae, this is no time to talk to the dog. I’m seriously running late here. I have an audition in, like, ten minutes, I’m not there yet, and I find out you’re running away with some guy. You didn’t meet him on the Internet, did you? Tell me you didn’t meet him online.”

Excitement laced Mae’s voice when she spoke. “Oh, you have an audition! What’s it for?”

Sidney bit back her groan while little flutters of excitement danced through her at the same time. The last thing she wanted to get into was the fact that she’d blown a million chances lately. That she’d been up for a lot of really good parts, but all she’d landed was a tampon commercial. That they always seemed to think she wasn’t quite good enough.

But she still had that hope, too—that little seed of eagerness that always bloomed to life when she went to an audition. They meant possibilities, and even though she grimaced every time she saw herself talking about her period on TV, being in front of the camera was exhilarating.

She tried to push away her thoughts. What she needed right now was a clear head, not to work herself up.
A clear mind is a sharp mind
—that’s what her mom used to say. Not that Sidney wanted to channel
her
right now, either. Ever since her mom left her with Mae when Sidney was little, she’d hardly given her daughter much thought. Unless Sidney was succeeding in acting, and she hadn’t done enough of that for it to matter. Instead she worked as a waitress, struggling to break out of commercials and somehow finding a way to blow every big audition she landed.

“I don’t want to talk about my audition. Who’s the guy? What’s he like? How old is he? And where the heck do you think you’re going with him?” She and Aunt Mae had always been like this—as close as sisters or friends. She was always there for Sidney. And even though Sidney was thousands of miles away from her now, she wanted to be there for her aunt, too.

Aunt Mae sighed. “It’s Mr. Watson. I don’t know if I told you, but his wife passed last year. We’ve been…friendly, and now we’re more than that.”

“Old Man Watson?” Her aunt was dating
Old Man Watson
? Sure, they were about the same age, but Mae was fun, young. Old Man Watson was the grumpy old man who used to freak out if she or her two best friends, Rowan and Kade, walked on his lawn. He’d gotten so pissed when they used to steal his newspapers. She stifled a giggle and wondered if the kids still gave him a hard time.

“Don’t you laugh at me, Sidney Marie! He’s a nice man. He’s loosened up a lot since he lost the biddy. I think it was more her—”

“Aunt Mae! Don’t call his dead wife a biddy! Isn’t that, like, bad karma or something?” The last thing Sidney needed was bad karma by default of being on the phone with the guilty party.

This time it was Aunt Mae who laughed. “You’re so grumpy before your auditions. I’ll let you go. I just wanted you to know I leave next week. Call me when the audition is over so I hear how fantastic my girl did.”

Again, negativity tried to push its way in. Fantastic? Yeah, right. After five years at this, Sidney didn’t feel like she was any closer to making her dreams come true than she had been when she jumped ship and left Shamrock Falls. When she’d run with her tail between her legs from the most important people in her life. It had been the right thing to do, though. She knew it.

And anyway, Sidney couldn’t let herself think about that right now.

Every time she reminisced about her childhood friends, she missed home more. So over the years, she’d realized it was easier to stop thinking of them at all. She needed to concentrate on her life in LA, and on nailing this audition today. “’Bye, Auntie. I’ll call you soon.”

“’Bye, kid. I love you.”

“I love you, too. And I still can’t believe you’re dating Old Man Watson.” Sidney hung up the phone before Mae could reply.

She walked up to the old building where her audition was and paused to pull herself together before going inside. The building was worn down; trash littered the streets, so different than the Hollywood she’d imagined before moving here. She’d thought it would be posh, with movie stars on every corner. Stars that
she
’d know because she’d be one, too. A smile pulled at her lips. Yes, she wanted that—to be one of the people she’d grown up admiring from afar.

She wished she could talk to Kade about it—he always knew what to do. But after she’d taken off without a word, she couldn’t make herself call him. The longer it was, the worse she felt, but the harder it became.

Damn…everything kept leading back there today.

Audition, audition, audition.

Her heart kicked up a notch as she tried to concentrate on how alive she felt onscreen. Sidney took a couple deep breaths to calm herself. She could do this. She
would
do this. She’d go in this building, act her ass off, and land this part. Then she’d go home, celebrate with Steve, and call Aunt Mae to tell her she finally did it. She’d show everyone who ever doubted her. She’d show her mom she shouldn’t have abandoned Sidney.
She’d
be the Williams girl who
really
made it. And finally everything she left behind would be worth it.

She’d finally be who she was supposed to be.

The first thing Sidney did when she stepped into her apartment was to kick off her shoe with the broken heel, pick it up, and launch it across the room. It narrowly missed Steve’s purple lava lamp—though it would have been just her luck if she’d broken it. How she ended up with a boyfriend obsessed with the seventies, she didn’t know, but he had the collection to prove it.

Sidney let the other shoe slip from her foot as she padded across the hardwood floors. Her purse fell off her shoulder and to the ground. She didn’t even stop to pick up her cell when it clattered to the floor.

All she wanted was to curl up on the couch with a container of rocky road. Over the years, she’d gone to hundreds and hundreds of auditions, and she knew exactly when someone wasn’t interested. And they hadn’t been interested in her. Again.

Her eyes pricked with tears, but she fought them off. She would not let herself cry over this. Eat eight hundred calories in one sitting, yes. She could work it off tomorrow. But cry? No.

She didn’t even bother to turn on the TV once she’d crumpled to the brown leather couch. Sidney hated leather. Always had, but Steve thought it looked classy. How his seventies obsession and classiness met she didn’t know, but that was Steve. Unique. Fun. And determined to make it in this business, just like she was. They fit. Had the same goals and dreams. She would never feel like he sacrificed anything to be with her, the way she had with Kade.

Kade, her best friend. The boy who’d wanted to save the world—or at least her. The one who’d kissed away her tears when her mom had been a no-show at Sidney’s high school graduation. And then he’d told her he’d go with her. He’d leave Shamrock Falls—his home—so she could chase her dreams.

And she’d disappeared without a word.

“Ugh!” Sidney yelled into a pillow.

When Steve got back, she’d tell him all about her day and he’d understand.

Just then the front door creaked open. Steve with his wild, curly hair bounded inside, a huge smile on his face. “You’re never going to guess what happened to me today!” He didn’t give her time to reply before he answered. “I landed an impromptu audition and I got it. They gave me the job on the spot.”

Sidney’s heart sank. Sure it might make her bitchy, but she couldn’t help it—it hurt to see everyone succeed except her. “What product is it for?” The excitement she willed to the surface didn’t even sound true to her own ears.

Steve stood behind the couch, looking down at her. His blue eyes sparkled. “Not a product. A
movie
. Made for television, but still! A movie! I have to be in New York by tomorrow. It’s all very last minute, but…”

The rest of his words trailed off to the fuzz in her ears. New York? He was leaving for New York? The same place her mom went to follow the dreams that didn’t include Sidney? “Wait, what? You’re going to New York tomorrow? What about the apartment? How are we supposed to…”

His eyes diverted from hers and right then, she knew.
They
weren’t supposed to do anything because
they
weren’t going anywhere. Sidney pushed from the couch to stand up. Okay. She could do this. It wasn’t really a big deal. Steve could go shoot his movie; it wouldn’t take any more than a couple months. And as long as he still helped her with the rent, she could handle it until he came home. Not a lot would change, really. It wasn’t like they spent a ton of time together—they were both so busy. She could keep working and auditioning and soon she’d land something, too.

“So how long will you be gone? We can worry about bills and stuff later. I want to know about the movie!” She tried, really tried to be happy for him. And part of her truly was. It wasn’t like she wanted anyone to fail just because she had. Not completely, at least, and Steve worked really hard at what he did, too.

Sidney smiled and walked toward him. But her heart dropped somewhere to her feet with the frown Steve gave her. He rubbed his hands together. Steve always rubbed his hands together when he was nervous.

“Listen, Sidney…I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.”

No. No, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. It wasn’t like she was head over heels in love with Steve, but
now
? “Been thinking about what for a while?” She crossed her arms, determined not to let him get out of this easily.

“I think you know…”

“I think if you’re going to do it, you should have the balls to say it,” she countered.

“Jesus, you don’t have to be like that. You must have been able to tell I haven’t been happy for a while. We’re heading in different directions. I can’t keep dragging you around behind me or eventually you’re going to pull me down.” He looked at the ground.

Every one of her insecurities fought to make it to the surface: her fear of dragging someone down, of not being good enough.
No.
She wouldn’t let herself do this right now.

“Drag you down? You landed your first movie five minutes ago, you smug son-of-a-bitch. Before that you were doing shampoo commercials!” She didn’t give him time to say anything. “Would you be saying this if you hadn’t fallen into this movie? Hell no. All of a sudden you don’t need me anymore, and you’re just going to toss me aside?” Tears threatened her eyes again, but she was too mad to let them fall. How could he do this to her? They’d been together for a year, and he chose the week her car got stolen and she blew two auditions to walk out on her? “You’re an asshole, Steve.”

He didn’t give her the reply she wanted. She needed to argue, to yell at him, but instead Steve just shook his head. “Thanks for making this easy on me.” With that he turned and walked out.

Sidney stood frozen for she-didn’t-know-how-long. She was being left for New York, again. She wasn’t good enough to make someone stay. Again. This time she didn’t even score a guilt-ridden offer to choose her. She scrambled to her phone on the floor and dialed. Without getting up, she waited for an answer. “Auntie Mae…I need you.”