Bicoastal Babe (33 page)

“Danny, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” he asks, staring out at the water.

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” I walk around in front of him. “Look, this is all happening so fast, and I had to make a decision, and it’s been really hard on me, so –”

“You have a guy in New York, don’t you?”

I’m silent.

“Just tell me. I know it’s true. He’s the guy who called that night at the Halloween party.”

“Um…” God, I feel like such an asshole. “Well, yes, I was dating in New York as well as here.”

“Is it serious?”

There is just no good way to discuss this.

Slowly I sit down next to him and put my hand on his arm. “Danny –”

“Lindsey, what the fuck did you think you were doing?” He must be mad. He’s using the F-word. “Me and this other guy… were you just tossing us back and forth like a couple of apples you were juggling? Is that all we were to you?”

“No! That’s not how it was.”

“Well, clearly that’s how it was with me.”

“This is not about you or anyone else. But I’m being forced to make a choice, and I just feel like it’s something I have to do.”

“Why? Why New York? If it’s not about ‘anyone else,’ then make me understand what it’s about. I’d really like to understand.”

As I watch Danny stare out at the ocean, I start to feel myself weaken. I can literally feel my resolve turning into a bowl of oatmeal. So as best as I possibly can, I launch into the explanation I gave to Victor about New York, and its height and the reaching-up thing. But even as I hear the logic leaving my mouth, and I know I’ve made up my mind, my words are starting to sound less and less convincing. And I suddenly realize that I have to leave here, get out of the range of this beautiful man before I change my mind, drive back up to Hollywood, and unpack my suitcase for good.

I lean over and touch Danny’s cheek with my hand, but he won’t even look at me. I don’t know what to say, so I stand up and brush the sand off my legs. I point back up toward the house. “I’m going to get my stuff and…” I trail off.

He still doesn’t move, so I turn and walk through the sand, back up across the boardwalk, and up the stairs to his apartment. As I gather my clothes and things from his bedroom, I look around and feel a sinking on the inside of my stomach. I don’t want to leave this place. This small, cheap attic apartment with its meager furniture and surf paraphernalia cluttered all around… it suddenly feels comforting to me, and all I want is to sink back into his fluffy sheets and fall asleep on his pillow.

But I don’t sink back in. I hoist my bag over my shoulder and walk out into the front room. Danny is standing in the doorway, holding a folded map.

“Here,” he says, holding the map out to me. “Open it.”

I put down my bag and open the pages. It’s not a map of California, but a map of the whole United States. “What’s this for?”

“It’s to remind you that the secret to ambition and success and happiness isn’t here.” He points to California. “Or here.” He points to New York.

Then he places his hand on my heart. “It’s here.”

I put my hand over his on my chest, but I can feel his hand pull away from under me. He steps aside from the door so I can leave.

Clutching my map, I walk out the door. But when I’m halfway down the steps, he calls out my name quietly. I turn back.

“And when you’re busy doing all that reaching up,” he says, “don’t forget that you also have to reach out. Because if you don’t, all you’ll get is a handful of air.”

W
hen I get home I’m too distraught to sleep. Half of me can’t believe I just walked away from Danny. But the other half is on autopilot, commandeering my arms to pack my suitcase so that when I wake up tomorrow, I’m completely and totally prepared to walk out the door and never look back.

Then I lie down on the couch, flip on the television, and zonk out in about five seconds flat.

The next morning I wake up to a banging sound.

“Lindsey!” Carmen is shouting through the door. “Are you in there? You’re going to miss your plane!”

Shit. I jump up to let her in, then begin to run around the apartment, gathering my stuff. The TV is still on, and I can hear Carmen plopping down on the couch and turning up the volume. “Daytime TV is such shit,” she mutters.

“Don’t bother helping!” I call out to her from the bedroom.

“But I
want
you to miss your plane.” I hear her laugh. Then from a far-off distance in my head, I can hear the tune of a jingle that sounds vaguely familiar and strangely unsettling.

“Uh, Lindsey… I think you should come watch this.”

I peek around the corner into the living room, and my eyes slowly focus on the TV screen as I see the opening segment of
DayLine NBC
coming onto the screen. My God. That song brings back such horrific memories that I’ll be happy if I never hear it again.

“Ugh. Don’t rub salt in my war wounds.” I walk past Carmen and fling open the blinds. Gorgeous and sunny. Of course. Behind me, I hear the new KFC jingle, and assume the show has gone to a commercial. But suddenly Georgia Dunn’s voice cuts over the song.

“We have an interesting show for you today,” Georgia gushes. “The ownership of creative property.”

I stop in my tracks and turn quickly back to the television. “When a writer creates a show or a movie, when a designer dreams up a new dress, when an ad agency has visions for a commercial… who really owns those ideas?”

“Gimme that!” I shout at Carmen as I scramble for the remote, desperately trying to turn up the volume. But instead I end up flipping the channel, and then turning it off. “Shit!” I scream, fumbling to get it back on. Okay, there we go.

“Two weeks ago,” Georgia continues,
“DayLine
ran a story on the new wave of trend-tracking in our marketing culture.” Horrified, I let my eyes focus on the screen behind her, which shows a frozen image of me and Jen from the taping of our show. “Two young trend forecasters were here on the program, telling us about their ideas and methodologies. But when their newsletter became victim of a corporate overhaul, one of the girls filed to start a new business under her own name, taking all their ideas along with her.”

I turn to Carmen. “She did? Already?”

Carmen shrugs.

I glance at the clock. My flight is in one hour and fifteen minutes. I barely have time to make it to the airport. Carmen notices and jumps up. “I’ll get your stuff ready.”

Georgia continues. “As an aside, a
DayLine
producer happened to uncover the real truth to the brains behind the brawn. Take a look at this, captured from the video surveillance in our green room right after the taping…”

Suddenly the video turns a little fuzzy and muted, and from above I can see Liz, Jen, and myself standing in the dressing room after the show.

“You know that half of what’s in that newsletter came directly from Lindsey,” Liz spits angrily.
“More
than half. But you sat out there and acted like the ideas were all yours and she’s just your order taker.”

“What do you care? We came off great.
The Pulse
came off great. Gordon-Taylor came off great!” Jen retorts.

“Oh, really? And now everything that Lindsey says to our clients, they’re going to want to double-check with
you?”

“Oh, Liz. We don’t
really
have to worry about that now, do we?” Jen’s voice drips with heavy foreshadowing.

I gasp as Georgia continues. “That was just a little tidbit we had fun throwing in.” The audience laughs.

“But it got us to thinking about how the business world handles ideas. Let’s take television, for example, since we know an awful lot about it…”

“Lindsey, oh, my God!” Carmen jumps up and grabs me in delight. “Jen is toast! They totally outed her on national television!”

I’m still in shock. “This is good, right?”

“This is amazing!” she shrieks. “And let me tell you something. You owe somebody over at NBC a seriously huge Christmas fruit basket.”

That’s when I realize that Julia Sykes isn’t just the news writer who interviewed me for the
Times,
or just the TV producer who suggested we be shown on the trend segment. She’s my new friend-in-waiting. She’s my Carmen in New York.

Not that anyone could replace the Carmen who’s now standing in front of me, holding the car door open with tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Don’t do that,” I tell her. “You’re going to make me cry too, and my mascara’s packed in the suitcase.”

“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” Carmen asks, her eyes searching my face. I have to look away for a second.

“Hey. It’s not over between us. We can still have cocktails and ciggies over the phone, can’t we?” I ask hopefully.

“I thought you quit smoking!”

“For you, I can make an exception every now and then.”

We grab each other in a tight hug. Then she pushes me into the car and I’m off.

All the way to the airport, I’m thinking about the
DayLine
special, and how, with any luck, I’ll be able to take back every bit of credit Jen stole from me and launch into a new job search with guns blazing. The more I think about it, the more excited I get, and I realize that while I’m supposed to be on my way back to Chicago, I just can’t waste any more time.

“I need to switch my ticket,” I tell the ticket agent. “I know it’s going to cost more, but I have to get to New York.” This one’s coming out of my own wallet, but I’ll just have to suck it up.

Sitting at my gate, waiting to board, I try to call Liz. I turned in the newsletter yesterday morning before going over to Danny’s, but I never heard anything back on whether or not she liked it. I left two messages at the agency, but she hasn’t called me back yet, which is unlike her.

“She isn’t here, Lindsey,” Liz’s assistant, Patricia, says sympathetically. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been trying to reach her.”

“Patricia, will you tell me where she is? I know you know.”

“Actually, Lindsey, it’s probably best if you just leave a message.”

I don’t understand. Now that she’s got the final copy of
The Pulse
in her hands, is Liz blowing me off too?

My cell phone beeps and I see that the battery’s about to go dead. I quickly thank Patricia and hang up, just as the phone goes blank and dies. No phone and no Liz. Well, okay. I’ll just have to go to New York and do it on my own.

•   •   •

When the cab drops me off on the curb of Christopher Street, I practically run down the block toward the brownstone. Not because it’s pouring rain, which it is, but because I can’t wait to put my stuff down and pour a nice glass of wine. When I get to the building, I push open the front door, and it crashes shut behind me, almost toppling me over.

“Keep it down!” one of the neighbors yells, and I remember that it’s almost midnight. I schlub my bags up the five floors, and this time I don’t even mind the climb. But when I get to the top, I’m slammed with something unexpected and really quite unfriendly.

A padlock on the door. Accompanied by a red sign that says, “For Lease By Owner” and a phone number.

Oh, my God. My apartment is gone.

Leaving my bags on the ledge, I clank back down the stairs in a frenzy.

“I said keep it down!” the neighbor screams.

Outside, I’m horrified to see the same red sign on the front of the building. I was in such a hurry when I came in, I must have missed it completely. I walk slowly up to the mailbox. The tiny space that used to read, SAVAGE/MILLER is now bare, with nothing but a couple of scratches from the leftover sticker glue. I stare at it for a moment in disbelief, then I fall back on the step, which soaks my ass in dirty rainwater. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.

And my cell phone is dead. Which leaves me only one more option.

Fifteen minutes later I hand the cabdriver a ten and pull my suitcases out of the trunk. I look up at Victor’s building, in all its wet beauty. No padlocks on the doors here. But maybe this is better. His apartment will definitely have nicer wine than mine would have.

Standing at his door, I swat at my butt, which is still soaked, and some twigs and other debris fall to the carpet. I’ve had a really long day, and I’m sure I look like a pile of cow pie, but Victor will be happy to see me. How could he not?

I knock on the door. No answer.

But I can hear music inside. Maybe he’s in the bathroom or something. So I knock a little louder.

“It’s open!” I hear him call. I turn the knob and tiptoe in. U2 is playing on the stereo (Victor’s favorite music for makin’ whoopee), and I can see a bottle of wine already on the counter. A little birdie must have whispered in his ear.

“You can leave it on the table,” he calls out from the bedroom. “There’s forty bucks under the mat. Just keep the change.”

I’m confused. Does he think I’m a delivery guy?

And just then I hear footsteps behind me. “Ray’s Pizza,” a voice says, and I turn to see the real delivery guy walking up with a large pie and a six-pack of Heineken.

“Here – I’ll take that.” I reach over for the money.

“It’s only twenty-three bucks,” he says, looking at the two twenties. That is a rather large tip.

“Okay, yeah. Give me ten back,” I tell him.

“I only have ones.”

“That’s fine.”

As the pizza guy starts to count ones in my hand, I suddenly hear Victor’s bedroom door creak open and what sounds strangely like a high-pitched giggle. I freeze.

“Wait – here’s two more dollars.” The pizza guy fumbles in his pocket as I look over my shoulder in horror to see the frozen faces of Victor and Jen, standing in the hallway in their underwear.

“Lindsey.” Jen smiles sweetly. “We thought you weren’t coming back.”

I stare at them in shock, until the pizza guy taps my shoulder and jolts me out of my stupor. “Hey, lady,” he says, holding out the six-pack. “Don’t forget your beer.”

•   •   •

By the time I get back to JFK, it’s two in the morning. The building is closed-up and the doors are locked. As I stand outside in the cold, watching the janitors push their mops around the terminal, I can’t help but feel invisible. I don’t know what I was thinking.