Split Ends (7 page)

T
he elevator door opens to a sprawling, loft-style apartment with wide views of the city—the line of brown smog embracing us in its choking grip. It's the first wave of homesickness I have. I miss the mountains and the expansive blue back home.

“It's the air, isn't it? You didn't even look at the loft.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“No.” Scott laughs. “It was the first thing that struck me, too, when I came. I felt claustrophobic at first.”

Scott's loft exudes fresh money with restraint. Its color scheme is rich, dark chocolate and black. It employs every schmaltzy, carefully placed (by someone else) hallmark of a bachelor pad. The modern equivalent to Rock Hudson's place in
Pillow Talk
, and I can't help but wonder if the bed pops out. For one thing, it's entirely too clean for a guy's place. I'm certain he employs a team of people to keep it looking as it does.

I wander in and take in all of its design details. “The kitchen is cherry.”

“Stained nearly black. It's gorgeous, isn't it?”

I nod. “I can't believe you did this in six years, Scott. I am just so proud. Is this really all yours?”

“All three thousand square feet,” he boasts. Not in his typical bravado, but in that quiet, human side of him that shows his humble upbringing.

I wander around the room, shocked at all his space. I never thought we'd see the inside of a place like this, much less that it would belong to Scott. “I should have known when you were able to buy yourself the Camaro, you'd accomplish whatever you wanted.”

He smiles at me. “Your room is back there down the hallway. Let me get the jeans. You're a 4?”

“I'm a 5,” I say with confidence.

“Designers don't use Montgomery Ward sizing, all right? You're a 2 or a 4, if asked. Four if asked by a woman, 2 if asked by a man in front of a woman.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Four makes a woman feel more at ease.”

“Why?”

“Because it's more real-woman-sized than a zero or a 2, and it will put women at ease with you, make them think you're their friend. A 2 in front of a man, though, lets them know you plan to compete and says you're armed to do so.”

I roll my eyes. “I don't plan to compete for that type of shallow man, and where on earth is a 4 real-woman-sized? Besides starving countries in Africa?”

“Look, you can't be judging the way things are here.”

“Why not? You know, the rest of the world judges, and it's not like Hollywood doesn't put itself on display for that very thing. Heck, I bet every ten-year-old in America is capable of copying the Paris Hilton pose. Besides, America thinks that sickly skinny look is disgusting. We want to hand those girls a hamburger and an oxygen mask so they can think clearly.”

“This is not the rest of the world. This is LA.”

I know I brought this on myself, but it's like getting accepted at a Washington think tank on the basis of image. Except without the Washington or the think part.

“I'm not stupid, you know? I know about misses sizing.” Quite frankly, I don't agree that LA is all that much more sophisticated if everyone's lying about who they are. That's no better than your average bar in Sable. Of course,
there
everyone knows your business and knows you're lying. But they allow you to go on anyway out of respect for how shamefully boring your life really is.

“I never said you were stupid,” Scott yells from the other room.

“My first priority will be to find a church.”
It sounds
like I'm going to need one. Mrs. Gentry and gang are probably
praying for my soul at this very moment.

“Whatever. You want to try Kaballah with me?” he yells.

“That's not really Kaballah, what you have here, and, no, I don't. Christianity actually works for me, and I don't have to buy any red strings.”

Scott sticks his head in.“Scientology?”

“I'm not looking for a new religion, all right?”

“Jesus is so yesterday.”

“Can we talk about something else? I'll go to church alone, all right?”

“Suit yourself.” He goes back into the bedroom.

The elevator doors open, and I turn to look.

Wow.

I blink a few times, rubbing my eyes, but when I look back the image is still there, etched into my mind as though I've walked into 1940. Like out of a time-traveling machine—or in this case the elevator—steps a man from a more romantic era. He's tall and angular and wearing a fedora, just like Humphrey Bogart.

“‘Here's looking at you, kid,'” I blather.

“Pardon me?” he asks, pulling his hat off to reveal deep
brown eyes and a forehead that's creased in confusion.

“Your hat. It reminds me of Humphrey Bogart in
Casablanca
. I thought maybe—” No, we're not going to go there. No need for him to think I'm crazy in the first five minutes. There will be plenty of time for that.

He walks toward me and slides the fedora atop my head. “Finally, a woman who didn't think I was trying for Indiana Jones. I think I'm in love.” He lifts an eyebrow in the most self-assured and entrancing way and smiles sideways. Actually, not unlike Harrison Ford, so I see why people think of him instead of Humphrey.

“It's not the hat. You smile like Harrison. There's more warmth in your eyes than Humphrey had.” I grin up at him, cocking the hat to the side the way Ingrid Bergman used to wear it in her promo shots. The hat
smells
good— like expensive cologne—and it's still warm from his head. I close my eyes and drink the moment in, as this is probably the closest I'm going to get to my Hollywood moment.

“‘I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray. You wore blue,'”
he says in a deep, Bogart baritone.

My eyes pop open and I meet his gaze. “I wanted one good Hollywood scene, and you made my dreams come true all on my very first day. Now what will I have to look forward to?” I fall into the chair against the wall and he walks closer.

“A Hollywood moment? You're here to be an actress, I suppose,” he says disappointment.

“I can't act, and I currently weigh more than eighty-nine pounds and like to eat, so no, not an actress.”

“
Actor
,” Scott corrects me as he returns. “They don't call themselves
actresses
. They want to be taken seriously.”

Shut up, Scott. You're ruining my moment
. “Who might you be, so I know who to send a thank-you note to for my Hollywood moment?”

“Such formality, and I gave you my hat.” He pulls the fedora from my head, and I get another straight shot into his searing brown eyes.
Yummy.

From the corner of my eye I can see Scott staring at me, and I wish I could shoo him away as he used to do with me when he wanted to be alone with a girl. I give him my best “Go away” look.

“So you've met each other,” he says.

“Ilsa, is it?” my stranger says, referring to the movie.

Now, I'm a practical girl. Yes, I have my Hollywood visions, but unlike my mother, I have never expected a man to to rescue me from anything. It's a great idea in theory, but I've sobered my mother up too many times to think it was possible.

Suddenly, I think it's possible, and I'm giving my mother a tiny bit more grace.

“Sarah Claire.” I reach out my hand as I stand up. We're still awkwardly close, so I step back to shake his hand properly.

“Dane Weston,” he replies.

Dane Weston. Dane Weston. Sarah Claire Weston.

“It's perfect!”

“What's perfect?”

“Your name. It suits you.”
It suits me.

“I was going to tell you we all call him Lurch. Lurch, this is my cousin Sarah Claire. She's from New York City,” Scott says with confidence, even though probably a good eighty percent of the sentence was a lie.

I'm still holding Dane's hand. There's a pulse shooting up my arm, and quite frankly, I'm not inclined to give it up any sooner than I have to. There are some moments you'll remember forever. If I never see Dane Weston again, I will remember holding his hand, staring into his incredible brown eyes, and smelling the scent of his hat.
Here's looking
at you.

“New York?” Dane asks, looking quite confused, as I'm sure I look about as New York as a Wyoming mule deer.

“By way of Wyoming,” I counter.
Let's talk about you!

“Stopping at the airport is not by way of Wyoming, Sarah Claire.”

I may not be LA-sophisticated, but I'm not sure anyone is going to fall for the necessary stopover in Wyoming. Lucky for me, Dane chooses to ignore the obvious, and I take the hat from his left hand again, not relinquishing my grip.

“You're not Scott's roommate?” I ask in a mere whisper. Exactly the voice I used to ask Steve Harris to the Sadie Hawkins dance in high school. He turned me down cold in front of the school cafeteria, so I choose a stronger voice now and try again. “Because I'd pictured you more . . . well, more like Scott.”

“Likewise,” he says. “You are his blood. I was expecting you to have three cell phones on your person, at least. And I never expected the blue eyes.”

“I don't own a cell phone.” I laugh coquettishly. I'd like to be Ingrid Bergman-smooth, but I'm more Shelly Winters-forward. Screw Steve Harris and the silly Sadie Hawkins Dance. Steve now shovels cow manure for a living, and I am staring into the deepest brown eyes I have ever seen.

“Sarah Claire?” Dane squeezes my hand, and I swallow hard.

“I'm sorry. I was just thinking about my interview at the salon. I'd better get dressed for it.” I pull my hand away, wondering if Dane sees what Steve saw. Does he see a swine in pearls, or has Scott done a better job of covering up my past?

God, if ever someone saw me as I want to be, let it be Dane Weston.

“I'm pleasantly surprised you're not more like your cousin.” Dane grins. “He's far too full of himself.”

“Isn't he, though?”

“Excuse me!” Scott tosses a pair of jeans my way. “Get into these and quit your whining. Save that attitude for Yoshi's. Did you want to see the rest of the place?”

I pull myself away from Dane. “Not right now. Just point me to my room.” Because I really want to be alone. I want to replay this moment in my head so that I never forget it and how I felt like a starring role for one moment in time.

He points to a hallway. “At the end, turn right.”

I wander into the back room, where it hits me. I'm
going to be living with this, my very own Humphrey Bogart
. Me, who hasn't been around men my entire life—except for Scott, and he doesn't count. Now, I became a Christian at thirteen. I made my vow of chastity at fourteen (not that there were a lot of suitors at that point, but it was heartfelt), and yet for the first time in my life, I can imagine how my mother fell victim to men.
It wasn't that I'm better than her, it was that I have better taste than her!
Dane could point his little finger and I'm afraid I'd follow where he led.

I stick my head back out the hallway and look in Dane's direction just to see if I didn't make him more handsome than he really is, but he sees me and lifts that sexy eyebrow. “Did you forget something?”

I shake my head in double-time and slam the door. “Nope. Definitely didn't imagine it.” Ah, to be dignified and elegant like him, rather than the bumbling, colt-like fool I am. Isn't it just my luck I finally meet the man of my dreams and I'm going to be rooming with him? I mean, there is no way I can pretend all the time. I'm not that good of an actress
. Actor.
For once I see what I want in life, only to have it plucked from my world.

“Dane Weston,”
he said in his beautiful, eloquent way. I allow the name to ferment in my brain. I know this is so eighth grade, but I can't help repeating the name with my own.

I scan the back pocket of the jeans Scott threw at me. Naturally, they're stitched with an emblem I don't recognize and ripped randomly in small patches. If these were dropped off at the Sable Salvation Army, I would think their condition had rendered them rag material. Here, that random shredding is worth money, according to the tags.

Who cares about jeans? For that matter, who cares about hair?

There's a knock at the door, and I zip myself into the curve-hugging denim. They are comfortable, but as I look into the mirror, they're not exactly keeping any secrets either.

I open the door, hiding my bottom half behind the door. “They're Chip & Pepper jeans,” Scott says. “In case you're asking.”

“My t-shirt is from Kmart,” I say, sticking my tongue out ever so slightly.

“Is this your way of holding out for an Armani blouse? It's in the closet behind you, along with a pair of Chanel heels. But don't put heavy wear on them; I have them saved for a big client. I put everything I thought might work for you in the closet before you got here. We'll see how you do after today.”

“Is he married, Scott?”

“Is who married? Yoshi? Yeah, to his business.”

“Not Yoshi. Dane.”

“Sarah.” Scott shakes his head. “You're here for a career, am I right? Let's focus on the image.”

I pretend to refocus, but inwardly I'm thinking how I can get my answer without him. “Hey, I read
People
. Mixing expensive pieces with cheap ones is very chic.”

“You can pave the way all you want once you're set up at Yoshi's. For now, you play by my rules. Dane is perfect practice; use him to see what works. If you can get past him with a look, you're good. He has classic taste.”

“Chip & Pepper is classic?”

Scott sighs again. I seem to make him just one big expulsion of air. “Now, your former salon was on Fifth.”