L. A. Candy (2 page)

Scarlett poured a cup of coffee, black, into her favorite mug, which said:
COGITO, ERGO SUM,
her favorite saying by her favorite philosopher, René Descartes. It was Latin for “I think, therefore, I am,” but she liked to tell anyone who bothered to ask that it was Swahili for “I’m shallow, but you’re ugly,” although she actually thought of herself as the opposite of shallow, and she considered beauty—or at least what passed for beauty in Southern California—to be highly overrated.

Scarlett knew that she had a strange sense of humor. It made people a little wary of her. But she liked it that way.

The midmorning sun slanted through the grimy windows and lit up the urine-colored kitchen walls. Outside, palm fronds swayed against the black-and-white backdrop of this week’s billboard: some random teen modeling a thong. Noises rose up from the street: cars honking, rap blaring from someone’s apartment, the guy from the
ground-floor bodega swearing in Spanish. (Scarlett spoke four languages passably, including Spanish, and recognized
mierda
and
caray
.) The window fans whirred silently, stirring up the thick air without actually cooling anything. The cracked white thermometer with the smiley face on it registered 92 degrees.

Sipping her Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf French Roast, Scarlett caught a glimpse of her reflection in the garage-sale mirror Jane had propped next to the fridge to “make the room look bigger.” (Although who wanted to make a urine-colored room look bigger?) Wearing only a faded black tank and American Apparel boy briefs, Scarlett recalled the dozens of times guys had told her how hot she looked in this particular ensemble. But her appearance was not a quality she thought much about. In fact, her attractiveness sometimes got in the way of what she really wanted. It made other girls jealous of her and, consequently, they snubbed her (at best) or acted like sabotaging, PMS-plagued, psycho bitches from hell (at worst). It made guys unable to see past her super-long, wavy black hair, olive skin, and piercing green eyes to actually connect with her brain, which she worked hard to cultivate and was actually quite proud of. This made hookups easy, but friendships with guys nearly impossible. Her good looks made her parents—Mom was a shrink,
gag
, and Dad was a cosmetic surgeon,
double gag
—lecture her frequently and patronizingly about the risks of teen sex, as if only hot girls got pregnant or contracted STDs.

Scarlett had read in some book that Descartes was thought to have had sex only once in his life. Poor Descartes! Maybe Mr. “I think, therefore, I am” should’ve spent a little more time thinking about sex. Scarlett believed passionately in a life of the mind
and
the body—that is, to be brilliant and to hook up as often as possible. It was a good life, as far as she was concerned. Even though it sometimes led to mistakes, like the one she had brought home last night.

“Morning.”

Scarlett glanced up. Jane was standing in the doorway, stifling a yawn. She was wearing her blue robe that made her look about ten years old, and her long blond hair was wet. There was a spot of white moisturizer on her lightly freckled nose, and she smelled like strawberry shampoo. She was, as always, an adorable little mess. She looked like the girl next door, and had the innocence to match. That innocence made some people (like Scarlett) fiercely protective of her. It made other people (like all the assholes of the world) try to take advantage of her.

Scarlett smiled. “Hey. You want some breakfast? Or is it lunch already?”

“Hmm. What do we have?” Jane asked.

Scarlett opened the fridge. Half a questionable-looking lime, one peach soy yogurt with an expiration date of yesterday, and a pizza box containing a few slices from a couple nights ago.

“Hmm. Maybe we should go out,” Scarlett suggested,
frowning at the contents of the fridge.

Jane joined her. Her five-foot, five-inch frame was four inches shy of Scarlett’s. “Well…I wouldn’t want to tear you away from your hunky new boyfriend,” she teased.

Scarlett laughed.

“I had the pleasure of meeting him this morning,” Jane went on. “In bed.”

“Excuse me?”

“He wandered into my room by accident. I don’t know, Scar. He wasn’t up to your usual standards.” Jane grinned.

Scarlett grinned back. “Yeah, well, what can I say? I met him a couple nights ago at that used bookstore around the corner. He was in the literature aisle, reading James Joyce. I thought he might be interesting so when he asked me out I said yes.” She added, “Anyway, he’s gone. Which, as you know, is how I like my men.”

Jane reached into the fridge, opened the pizza box, and grabbed a slice. She leaned up against the counter and bit into it. “One of these days, you’re going to fall in love with some guy, and you’re not going to know what to do with yourself.”

Scarlett took another sip of her coffee and considered this. Love…who needed love? As long as she had her books and her friends and an occasional hookup, she was perfectly content. Real relationships—the kind that were supposed to last but never did—were more trouble than they were worth. What, was she going to be like
her mother, who taught her patients how to get in touch with their feelings but who never said “I love you” to her own husband? Or like her father, who chiseled women into perfect SoCal goddesses but who never told his own wife that she was beautiful? Besides, life was too short to be stuck with one guy and one guy only. There was an entire
universe
full of them.

“You want to do something today?” Jane asked her, offering her some pizza.

Scarlett took a bite. It didn’t taste
too
old. “Sure. Like what?”

“It’s Saturday. We should do something fun. We’re in L.A., and we haven’t done much since we got here.” Jane paused and stared out the window. “Maybe we could go shopping on Melrose? And tonight we could go out to dinner and maybe go to a club?”

Scarlett arched her eyebrows skeptically. “It’s funny how you say that, like you actually know what clubs to go to in L.A.”

“I’m sure we can figure it out.” Jane shrugged as she tossed the pizza crust into the empty sink. Then she narrowed her eyes at Scarlett. “But you have to promise me one thing,” she said very seriously.

“What?”

Jane smiled. “No picking up guys with snake tattoos or an offensive amount of Old Spice.”

“Is there an
in
offensive amount of Old Spice?” Scarlett asked drily. “At least I’m getting some action. Unlike some
people in this room, who haven’t been with a boy since—” Scarlett stopped short.

Jane’s smile vanished. Her blue eyes widened with hurt. Scarlett was mortified.
You idiot,
she scolded herself.
Shut up.

Jane had been in love once in her life, with Caleb, her high school boyfriend. Caleb, who had left the year before to go to college out of state, broke up with Jane a few months ago. They had tried long distance for a while, but a relationship consisting solely of phone calls, emails, and occasional visits hadn’t been enough for him. He had finally ended it, saying that it wasn’t working and that he didn’t want to ruin something that had once been great. In actuality, Scarlett thought it was his way of saying, “I can’t keep cheating on you without you eventually finding out,” but she would never tell Jane that. Jane had been devastated, and she hadn’t been with another guy since.

“Sorry, Janie,” Scarlett said. Besides Caleb, she was the only other person in the world who called her that. She reached over and hugged Jane. “I’m really sorry. I’m a total bitch.”

“You’re not a
total
bitch,” Jane replied. She faked a smile.

“Seriously, I’m sorry. That was really lame. How about I buy the drinks tonight at whatever amazing place you find for us to go?”

“You’re
definitely
buying,” Jane told her.

Jane started leafing through a magazine. Scarlett noticed
that the magazine was upside down, although Jane seemed oblivious. Jane sometimes got quiet when she was upset—unlike Scarlett, who had no problems saying whatever was on her mind, and
loudly.
She wished, not for the first time, that Jane would forget about Caleb already. He may have started out as Mr. Perfect, but he had ended up breaking her heart. He wasn’t good enough for Jane—not nearly.

Of course, the best way to forget about a guy was to meet another one. Maybe Jane would get lucky in L.A.—maybe even tonight? There had to be thousands of cute, available guys in such a big city, right?

Melrose Avenue was lined on both sides with small, funky-looking boutiques with names like Too Cute! and Wasteland and Red Balls. Jane loved the crazy, colorful facades: a Day-Glo pink storefront next to a lime-green-and-purple one followed by a store with an all-black window display studded with different-sized silver spheres. One boutique had a mural of two French poodles French kissing. Another featured a window display of mannequins in goth makeup and straitjackets.

Jane took her phone out of her hobo bag and started snapping pictures. You never knew where inspiration might come from.

“What are you doing? You’re making us look like total tourists,” Scarlett complained, adjusting her black Ray Bans.

“Relax, Scarlett. You can walk ahead of me if it’s that
embarrassing. Hey, is that Jared Walsh across the street? Oh. My. God!”

Scarlett groaned. “Now, you’re
really
making us look like tourists.”

Jane knew her best friend better than that. Scarlett may
act
unimpressed by celebrities. But behind her shades, she was definitely watching Jared and feeling the small rush an A-list celeb sighting gave. In person, he looked a little shorter than he seemed. They watched the actor as he hurried into a parked black Jag. Jane had read a cover story about him in
Gossip
magazine recently. She wondered if it was really true that he had a coke habit, and that he was cheating on his pregnant wife (whose twins were due any day now) with a seventeen-year-old model.

The August sky was a bright, cloudless blue, and the air shimmered with heat. Jane was eager to do some shopping before trying one of the fun restaurants she’d found online. It might take the edge off the mood she’d been in since this morning. Jane kept remembering her dream about Caleb…and then Scarlett bringing him up. Jane hadn’t been thinking about him as much lately. She hated being reminded.

“Hey. You still with us, Jane?” Scarlett said, cutting into Jane’s private little self-pity session.

“Huh? Oh. I was just wondering which store we should try first.”

Scarlett glanced around. “I don’t know. There’s the
S&M place over there with the dog collars and whips. Or the Sluts-R-Us place with the dresses with the nipples cut out. Or—”

Jane rolled her eyes. “Stop it, Scar,” she begged. “I’m serious.”

“I’m serious, too. I just want a pair of jeans,” Scarlett said.

“Because you don’t have enough of those? Maybe it’s time to branch out, sweetie.”

But even as Jane said this, a scruffy-looking guy passed them, stopped on the sidewalk, and glanced appreciatively at Scarlett’s denim-covered behind. He was about the fiftieth person to do that today. Scarlett always got a lot of attention wherever she went. She never even had to try.

Jane and Scarlett continued down the street. It was Saturday afternoon, and Melrose was mobbed. Jane loved to people-watch, and she checked out everyone they passed. There were couples holding hands (guys with girls, guys with guys, girls with girls), teens, tweens, middle-aged gawkers with money belts and brand-new white sneakers, and cute Japanese girls traveling in packs. There were dozens of women who all had the same look. Jane was beginning to realize they were an L.A. cliché: bleached blond hair, plumped lips, fake tan, boob job. It was like being in the land of the blond clones.

Jane also noticed a few homeless people. One of the men had a sign attached to an empty Marc Jacobs shoebox
that said
WILL WRITE SCREENPLAY FOR FOOD
. Jane stared wistfully at the man’s German Shepherd puppy—it was curled up at his feet, looking at her with its sad eyes—and impulsively dropped a crumpled five into the shoebox. She hoped they wouldn’t run into more homeless people with puppies, or she would go broke very quickly.

“That puppy’s homeless,” Jane whispered to her friend. “I wish we could adopt it.”

Scarlett frowned. “That
man
is homeless. Do you want to adopt him, too?”

Jane sighed and shook her head. She had always wanted a puppy (her mom was allergic, which, growing up, meant no dogs), and had settled for a series of hamsters, guinea pigs, and goldfish as puppy substitutes. At home, she had volunteered down at the local animal shelter on weekends. She had wished she could rescue them all.

Jane felt Scarlett’s arm around her shoulders. Scarlett always knew when she got into a mood about animals. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go spend some money.”

“Hmm.”

Scarlett dragged her away from the puppy and after a while the shops started looking less pop art and more subdued, minimalist. Jane pointed to an elegant white storefront across the street. “That place looks nice. Wanna look inside?”

“Sure,” Scarlett agreed.

They made their way across Melrose, past a sleek yellow
Ferrari and a couple of Harleys that had stopped at a red light. The two biker dudes made a point of calling out to Jane and Scarlett; it sounded like an invitation to do something obscene on the backs of their bikes. Scarlett grabbed Jane’s elbow, and the two of them hurried into the store, laughing and pretending to gag.

The inside of the store was as white as the outside. White Japanese rice paper covered the walls and the floors were a rough, unpolished white marble. A dozen or so white outfits hung on sleek white racks. At the white mod counter stood a saleswoman—wearing white, what else?—and a single customer: a short (about five-foot-four) guy with spiky black hair and Asian-looking features who was dressed in tight jeans, a black muscle tee, and red sneakers.

“She needs that dress by tonight,” the guy was explaining to the sales clerk in a loud, dramatic voice. “If she doesn’t have it by then…well, you know.” He raised a hand to his neck and made a violent slicing motion.

“Of course,” the sales clerk replied apologetically. “I’ll call our other store and see if they have it in her size. She’s a four, right?”

The guy gasped. “A four? Eeeeek! Don’t ever,
ever
let her hear you say that. She’s a two. Write that down—two, two, two!”

Jane tried not to look so obvious about the fact that she was eavesdropping.

Scarlett leaned over to Jane. “Can we get out of here?”
she whispered. “This place is a little, um,
white
for my taste.”

Jane grinned. “I know what you mean. Wait a sec, though. I want to look at that cami over there.”

She headed to one of the racks near the counter and the gorgeous white cami. It was made of some airy, gossamer fabric that looked impossibly soft, like angel wings. Jane reached out to feel it.

“Please don’t touch that!”

Jane practically jumped at the sharp tone of the sales clerk’s voice. “Excuse me?”

“I said, please don’t touch that,” the woman repeated, narrowing her eyes at Jane.

Jane could feel heat rising in her cheeks. “Sorry, I was just looking for the price tag,” she mumbled.

The sales clerk raised her eyebrows. “It’s twelve hundred dollars.”

Jane flinched—not just at the woman’s rudeness, but also the insane price tag. Twelve hundred dollars? For a cami? She started twirling a lock of her hair, winding it around her index finger. It was a nervous habit she’d had since she was little.
Nice attitude for someone working retail,
Jane thought.

Scarlett opened her mouth to say something—probably a sentence beginning with the words “Listen, bitch!”—but Jane spun around and shook her head quickly, silencing her.

The guy in the black tee glared at the sales clerk. Then
he turned to Jane and put a hand on her arm. “You don’t want to shop here, hon,” he whispered. “It’s overpriced, overrated, and”—he raised his voice a notch—“the hired help needs to learn some manners so she can keep her day job. Otherwise, how else will she pay for her Botox treatments, her leased Lexus that she pretends to own, and her sad Louboutin knock-offs?”

The sales clerk looked shocked. “I heard that!” she snapped. “And you can forget about that dress for your boss. You can tell her that—”

“—the clothes here look almost as cheap as the help, and that she should take her business elsewhere?” The guy smiled at her. “Consider it done. Have a nice day!”

As Jane and Scarlett were both trying not to laugh, the guy turned to them and said, “Come on, girls. Let’s go to the store across the street. It’s way better than this place.”

“Now
this
would look amazing on you,” Diego told Jane. He held up a teal silk minidress. Rows of tiny, delicate gold beads accented the low (but not too low) neckline. “And for you,” he added, turning to Scarlett, “well, why don’t we talk about that purple blouse? Not very many people can pull off that color, but it would look sick on you.”

The guy in the black tee—he had introduced himself as Diego—had escorted Jane and Scarlett to a small but stylish boutique called Madison, where the clothes were
fun, fabulous, and beautiful (and they came in colors other than white). Jane spotted trendy, classic, and everything in between.

“How do you know so much about fashion, Diego?” Jane asked him as she sorted through a rack.

“Call me D,” he insisted. “Everyone calls me D. As for fashion—well, I know a little about everything, Miss Jane. Including the fact that you’re a natural blonde, which makes you practically an extinct species in L.A.”

Scarlett fingered a black silk blouse that was hanging on a mannequin. “So, Diego…D…what was that about just now? Across the street? Who were you buying the dress for?”

D fluttered his hands in the air. “Oh, that’s
so
not important. The boss lady wanted a dress. She sent me over there to get it; she’s not going to. End of story. What about you two? Wait, wait, let me guess!
You
”—he scanned Scarlett up and down—“moved to L.A. to be a model. Well, I can assure you that Ford and all the rest of them are going to be clawing each other’s eyes out to sign you first. I’m sure you’ve seen the competition. Not many exotic girls like you. Just a sea of underfed blondes. And as for you”—he turned to Jane—“you’re hoping to be the next Drew or Reese, aren’t you? You’re like the perfect California golden girl, and there’s not an ounce of silicone or acrylic in you.”

Jane and Scarlett glanced at each other and laughed.
“We just moved to L.A., like, a week ago,” Jane explained to D. “Scarlett’s a freshman at U.S.C. I’m going to intern for an event planner.”

D’s eyes widened. “Oh! You girls actually
do
something! Well, good for you! So you’re new to L.A.? Do you just love it?”

“We’re still kinda getting settled,” Jane replied. “Do you know of any good places to go out? We’re a little clueless. I heard there’s a great place on Las Palmas. I forget what it’s called. My cousin used to go there last year and—”

“Last year? Well, then, you can’t go there,” D interrupted. “For the most part, club life in L.A. is six months, max. It’s probably overrun with cheap extensions, midriffs, and Ed Hardy by now.”

“Club life?” Scar said skeptically. “Last time I checked, vodka didn’t expire after six months.”

“Well, in L.A., the clubs do. They’re only hot till they’re not, ya know? I’m sure the place was fabulous for the first couple months, but most places are in and out faster than Juicy track suits. When they open, you’re fighting to get a table. A few months later, you wouldn’t be caught dead there. They keep the places open as long as people show up. Then they paint the walls, change the interior, and pick a new name.” He added, “Okay, so maybe some of them
do
last longer than one of Jared Walsh’s marriages.” He smiled mischievously.

“Well, we were thinking of going out tonight,” Jane said. “Any suggestions?”

“Hmmm…I don’t really go out on weekends. It’s a little desperate. Hyde just got a new promoter though. That could be fun.”

D’s comment was cut off by a loud, insistent buzzing. “Oh, F,” he muttered, reaching into his shirt pocket for his BlackBerry. He glanced at the screen. “Oh, double F. It’s the boss lady. I’ve gotta bail, sweets, or she’s going to serve my private parts on a sushi platter at her dinner party tonight.”

Jane giggled. D was one of the funniest guys she’d ever met. He was quick and sassy, but friendly. “Okay, well, it was really nice meeting you,” she told him.

She was about to ask D for his number, but he was already on his way out the door, punching buttons. “Take care of my friends, okay, Sabrina?” he called out to one of the sales clerks. He held his BlackBerry up to his ear. “Hi, Veronica. Yes, yes, I’m so, so sorry. She said what…?”

And then he was gone.