“Just a sec! I have to get decent!” I ran to the kitchen and dived into my impromptu junk and/or electronics gizmo drawer to retrieve my tiny recorder. I hastily shoved it in the pocket of my pyjama pants.
More beating-down-the-door bangs reverberated from the front. “Coming!” After a quick mirror-check, I answered the door, a genuine smile on my face this time. I’d have the advantage…unless she just killed me now. In that case, the prosecuting attorney would have the advantage.
She pushed through the door. “Hello, Valerie,” I announced loudly for the benefit of my ponytail. “Shelley,” I added.
Shelley slumped behind her boss, muttering a, “yeaaaaaaaaaaah,” on the way. She stood near a window and typed a no doubt important text.
The clock told me it was seven p.m. local. Too early for Scotch? Or too late? This film would send me to Betty Ford if it didn’t send me to Hollywood Forever first.
“What do you want?” No need to pretend in my own apartment. I’d be damned if she’d get a warm reception here, in my lair.
Captain Taco jumped onto the couch beside her and began snuggling her leg.
Damn that cat.
“She’s so cute!” squeaked Valerie.
Ha! I hoped Taco was suitably emasculated, although, personally, I do not believe that calling a male a female is an insult. Indeed, it is a compliment. But such musings were for another time—a time after I got rid of the evil female person infecting my couch with her cooties.
“What. Do. You. Want?” I stayed standing near the door and crossed my arms.
“Where. Is. My. Cape?”
I rolled my eyes. “Really? Ask Sam, unless his dick already told you through osmosis.”
Her lips pursed, and I mentally kicked myself for having revealed such weakness. In a more musical tone of voice, she said, “His ‘dick’ does love to talk, doesn’t it?” She sat back. “I don’t care who grabs the cape, but I want it. One week—or else.” She practically sang “or else!” like a demented Disney princess.
Shelley lifted her head when the threat rang out. She balled a fist and nodded, which I think I was supposed to take as an incredibly lazy threat.
“And by ‘grab it’, you mean ‘steal it’, correct?”
Eyes narrowing, Valerie shot me a withering stare. “Are you really this stupid?”
“I get it, okay? You’re gonna kill me unless I steal the Mold Cape from the British Museum.”
She shrugged. “There are many people in your life, any one of whom could have a horrible accident if, by some chance, I don’t get what I want. Like this.”
It was the way she said it. My breathing hit double-time as Valerie gestured to Shelley. The moron started for me, and I nearly bolted, but somehow, I stood my ground.
They need me, they need me
, I kept telling myself. I lifted my chin, too damn stubborn to cower before this horrid person.
She circled around behind me and waited. What the hell was she doing back there—texting her idiot support group? I gritted my teeth and stood firm, staring straight into Valerie’s eyes, letting her know that I—
I screamed. I was suddenly on my knees, Shelley’s fist in my hair, holding me up by it, my every root screaming in pain. She had a telescopic bat in her other hand, that was what she’d knocked me down with, and a smile of great joy on her face. Such an unexpected and horrifying expression. I struggled in vain, bent backward and unable to right myself, when a heat like fire seared across my head, and I collapsed to the floor.
The back of my scalp hurt, oh, God how it screamed, and my hands rushed up to cradle it while I rolled onto my side. Shelley held up a long, thick clump of my hair and grinned. She’d ripped it straight out of my freaking head. Hot and fast, the tears streamed down my face and fucking damn it, I’d have given anything to not cry right now.
Valerie leant forward and said, “There’s only one thing our lovely Shelley is good at, and that’s torturing people. And it doesn’t even show! Don’t cross me.”
My blood boiled and my stomach turned to acid. She was like a newscaster—delivering the most horrible of news with a half-smile and a lilt only suitable for speaking to furry animals. See? Taco loved it, as he’d now climbed completely into her lap and was receiving traitorous affection.
“Oh!” She held up a finger and wagged it at me. “And no cops—I’m watching you. Always.”
I sat up and groaned, “Get out.”
She stood, Taco in her hands, and thrust him into my arms. Which he immediately abandoned after scratching my wrist.
“Bye!” trilled Valerie on the way through the door. I had to actually nudge Shelley so that she’d look up from her phone long enough to follow—I guess now that the torturing was done, she was bored again. I slammed the door unnecessarily, locked and re-locked it, and threw open my windows to air away the stink of Valerie’s over-zealous perfume. “You’re getting dry food from now on, Taco,” I muttered. “Fancy canned food is for loyalists to the cause.”
I lifted my hand to my poor, poor scalp and came away with blood. Suddenly Shelley didn’t seem so silly. Vain being that I am, I rushed to the bathroom to check the hole in my hair. The. Hole. In. My. Damn. Hair! Argh! But she’d snatched it from underneath so the damage was only obvious to me and my pain receptors.
Coffee. I needed coffee to wash away the memory of Valerie, psychotic princess and friend to fink cats.
While I held a towel to my bleeding head and stared at my French Press as if my eyeballs would make it brew faster, my phone rang. The phone in the apartment—I had to search around a bit until I remembered where it lived. “Hello?” I asked in a terrified manner.
“Why don’t you answer your cell? I thought you’d been kidnapped!”
“Ellen,” I nearly screamed into the phone. “Oh, I need to talk to you.”
“You
have
been kidnapped. I told you!” She yelled that last bit away from the phone, so she must have been gossiping about me to Nicolette.
“No, no, I’m not kidnapped.” Merely tortured a little. Torture-lite. Ugh. I rooted around for some pain medicine. “I may have lost my phone…”
“Is it in the toilet?”
“I hope not.” But these things will happen.
My mouth opened to spill my heartache, but I bit the story down just in time. I’d vowed not to tell Ellen, or she’d rush back to London to help me, and I couldn’t have her or Nicolette on my conscience again. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I just miss you. Where are you guys?”
“We’re in the French Riviera! On the Riviera? I don’t know, but it’s spectacular and we look gawgeous in our bikinis.”
We talked about her trip so far, and she gushed over Versailles and Paris and everything that was happy. Tears slipped from my eyes, and I swallowed them silently. How I dreamed of taking such a trip with Sam,
sans
bad guys. I mean Danny. But also without bad guys.
Ellen served as a good reminder of why I needed to play along with Evil Princess. I told my bestie I loved her, and we hung up. That’s when I fell into a full-fledged crying fit, heaving and sobbing so hard and loud that Taco stalked closer to me and lay down a foot away, just watching, a sympathetic loaf of cat. I swooped him into my arms and held him while I cried it out some more, and he even allowed me to for five whole minutes.
Did I really believe that I would die soon? The fear—and the pain, dammit—forced me to do what she said, but still, in my heart, I knew I would never give up. I’d fight to the bitter end, and do my best to enjoy whatever time I had on this Earth, be it a week or a decade or five.
I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually I flopped onto my back, my tear-stained face staring at the ceiling. There’s an emptiness after a good cry that’s unlike anything else. I floated in space, not thinking, not feeling. The neutrality was the most delicious thing I’d experienced in days.
Knock knock!
The door again. “Are you kidding me?” I asked the universe. It did not deign to reply.
Whoever it was could just stay in the lonely hall. Samantha Corp., a subsidiary of Where Did I Put My Vibrator, Inc., was officially closed for outside business. There were much, much better things to do, like revisit that amazing dream.
Although why I’d given Sam a mean parrot is beyond me.
“Samantha?”
I bolted upright. This new person was not Valerie, returned. The truth was a horror so unreal, so unexpected, I ne’er could have imagined its dark revelation.
“Mom?”
The hall echoed with the loud, distinct echo of a North Carolina drawl. “Did she send me the wrong apartment number? Just like her! She was always terrible at math.”
Yup. Only my mother has enough confidence in my lack of abilities to think I don’t know where I live.
Why the hell was she in London? I crawled to the door, banged my head a couple of times and eventually made it to my feet. The door swung wide and there she was, the NASCAR queen of Vegas, Suzie Lytton—model, spokesperson, supportive mother figure.
Her Pepto-pink lips frowned. “You look terrible! Well, that’s what you get for spending so much time in Europe. Please tell me you’re still shaving what you ought to.”
I jerked her into a fierce hug. She smelt of powder and a perfume almost as assaulting as Valerie’s. But she felt like Mom, and I suddenly needed her immensely, insults and all.
“Hi, Diego,” I said when I finally let Mom go. My stepfather Diego was younger than me, but it was only creepy in every way possible.
“Young lady,” he intoned with the authority of a middle-school guidance counsellor. “Have you been crying?”
“Um…” I rushed them inside, taking a quick look down the hall to made sure I wasn’t about to get any more unexpected visitors. “I was rehearsing! For my film.”
“I thought it was a comedy,” Mom said, perching delicately on the couch. “Those are what you do, not real movies. I mean, Nicole Kidman isn’t in it.”
I rocked from that barb—a recent addition to her arsenal. If Nicole Kidman wasn’t in the film, my mother usually wasn’t interested. She considered the Aussie actress the perfect example of good taste and success. When I’d got my first big studio role, Sam had told me that Suzie would finally be proud of me. I’d known better.
I said, “There’s an element of tragedy in every work of humour. You know—a delight of sorts when life beats the heroine down.” I sat next to her. “It makes you feel better about your own life to see someone else flailing in theirs.”
“I’ve never had that feeling, but then again, I work hard to be a winner.” She shrugged, and her blonde hair fluttered in its attractive bob. “Anyway, Diego had the wonderful idea to surprise you with a visit! There’s a dance troupe here in London he’s always dreamed of seeing, so here we are.”
Diego is a hot, blond, handsome professional dancer. Yeah, my mom got game. Too bad game ain’t genetic.
I stood. “Let me get us some coffee.”
“I’ve gone off coffee. Diego recommended I try green tea instead.” Diego rushed to her side and kissed her hand. “It’s so much healthier. Do you have any green tea?”
In my opinion, green tea tastes like boiled ass. The only thing it has in common with delicious, beautiful coffee is that they both exist in this solar system. “No, I’m afraid not.”
“Mmmmmm. That explains why your teeth need to be bleached.”
My hand flew to my mouth, and then to my crusty, aching eyes. Urgh, why even bother? “So, do you want to do something tonight? My whole evening is free!”
“No friends here yet? It was always so hard for you.”
“But keep trying!” Diego added. “I’m sure there are some people who would be lucky to have you as a friend.”
Perhaps Valerie would be willing to return and improve my evening by putting bamboo shoots under my fingernails.
A series of
knock-knock-knockety-knocks
thudded upon the door.
I take it back! I take it back! Jesus Lord, it was just a joke!
My mother observed, “Someone is here, Samantha.” I turned panicked eyes to her, but didn’t know what to say. “Diego, will you be a dear and answer it?”
Diego’s muscles rippled a moment or two for the audience before he jumped to his feet to do his wife’s bidding.
Was there an open house sign outside? “Come one, come all to the Samantha Lytton Shit Show!
See
a grown woman drool Cheez-It crumbs onto the carpet!
Hear
her cries of terrorized sorrow!
Experience
her inability to function like a normal human adult!”
Where were these people coming from? And why would no one allow me a moment to put on a bra and check my hair for blood?
“Did you order Chinese food, young lady?” Diego asked, the door open a crack.
My mother tsk-ed. “So salty. That must be why you’re puffy. You’ve always been a bloater.”
Puzzled, I pushed aside Diego. “Danny! Wh—what are you doing here?”
I pulled him inside while he gave the stink eye to Diego. My entire soul slunk into my feet—
Chinese food
. Even though the man carried no bag whatsoever and wore a suit and tie. Holy shit. Could this damn night get any worse? “I’m so sorry,” I whispered before saying, louder, “Daniel Zhang, this is my mom, Suzie Lytton, and her husband, Diego. They’re visiting me as a surprise. Mom, Danny is the co-star of my movie. He is one of many people of Chinese descent who don’t work in the food industry. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”