Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (18 page)

The pounding from the door started to get
louder, so Damen hopped on one leg, with the roach hanging its flat
body off of his right heel, and hobbled his way to the door. He
yelled for Darell to wake up as he opened the door and saw Jose.
Angry that he stepped on a roach, Damen Schultz’s tone caused
Darell’s eyes to flash open and freeze as his pupils looked around
the room, in search of where the noise came from.

Jose ran into the room and shut the door
behind him. “Guys, I have had the most wonderful night of my life.”
Jose showed the perfect cliché of “getting laid,” or in normal
terms, “having sex.” He had a perfect, frozen, permanent smile
engraved on his face, like a little boy getting twenty dollars from
his mother to go into a candy store; Damen knew he got some. The
formation of his smirk, and the rapture that he was entangled in,
caused Damen to be a little angry; after all, Jose had sex with a
beautiful movie star, in a mansion, while Damen had a sticky roach
hanging off his foot.

“Well, tell us on the way to Mr. Fryer’s
office—we’re gonna be late,” said Damen. He rubbed the roach’s
sticky, disgusting body, off of his foot with a tissue that ripped
when it came into contact with the bug’s sharp, broken shell. He
then put on deodorant in a fast motion, like he was painting a
house; Damen’s nervousness about being late was showing.

The guys ran out of the motel and got into a
taxi that was waiting right next to the mirage of a building; it
looked like a nice motel from the outside, but a dump on the
inside. The cab drove off into the morning, passing palm trees that
went by faster as the car built momentum, and drove past legal
speed. That’s when Jose explained his night with the star. But he
left out some very important details.

“We had a long talk ... we had champagne ...
and we had sex,” Jose explained with excitement. The way his eyes
rambled around his head, made him look like he struck gold and
struck love at the same time. This rapture was really making Damen
jealous.

Damen stared at Jose’s wandering eyes,
remembering the word ‘sex’ that wandered around his mind with a big
question mark attached to its small body. Damen Schultz couldn’t
believe it, Jose having sex with a movie star, on the first night
they were there, Damen just couldn’t accept it into his
subconscious; he segregated it from his thoughts. That’s when Damen
gave a small grin, and asked with a disbelieving voice, “Wait a
second, you had sex with Julienne Wells?”

“Yeah.” Jose answered it very quickly and
with a thrill to its motion, like he was a fourteen-year-old
virgin, having sex after a small school dance held in a gym. “We
talked about everything,” he added. His voice sounded like he was
in love.

Damen turned toward Darell, with a smile of
sarcasm, and questioned, “Could you believe that, Darell?”

Darell looked at him, with saddened eyes,
like he wasn’t listening to the sex conversation in the first
place, and replied in a very low, disappointed manner, “Uh, yeah, I
guess.”

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Damen in a
brotherly tone.

“Nothing’s wrong.” Jose and Damen noticed
that he answered with some shakiness to his vocal cords.

Darell knew that they would be mad at him
once they reached Mr. Fryer’s office. They would be mad at him for
not saying that Mr. Fryer was not interested in them, he was only
interested in Darell. So many things went through Darell’s mind at
that point. His face started to turn red as the taxi came closer to
their destination, the destination that would probably end their
friendship.

Just tell them, Darell, tell them the
truth...

That’s what was on in his mind. The thoughts
pounded, pressed, squeezed at his consciousness, and caused him to
close his eyes tight, hoping that his mind would be cleared of
these aggravating and complicating thoughts by obscuring the light
from them.

Okay, I can’t take it anymore, I’m gonna tell
them... All of a sudden he turned his head fast toward Jose and
Damen, like he was ready to say the world is going to explode and
he’s the only one who’s going to survive. He said in a fast manner,
hoping that his mind would hand over the truth to his mouth, “I
think we should make the appointment some other day.”

Damen questioned with a voice of confusion,
“Why do you say that?”

“Well ... maybe this is too soon. I mean,
this is only our second day in Hollywood, or L.A., where ever the
hell we are,” retorted Darell. He turned to look out the window,
knowing that he was only making this complicated problem worse; he
didn’t know what to do. Darell was about to get his foot in the
door in the Entertainment Industry, but he was also ready to get an
ass-kicking by his friends; he was willing to give up the door of
Hollywood for the time being.

“Maybe he’s right,” Jose said with a voice
that sounded like he was hiding something. Jose hoped, prayed in
his mind that Damen would agree with Darell. If he did, then Jose
could rush over to the address that Julienne gave him and begin his
trip to success in this industry.

The battle of thinking began for Darell and
Jose, both with a chance of stepping through Hollywood’s steel
doors, but both trying to hide their reasons for it.

“No, no, no, we’re going to the agent, this
doesn’t happen every day you know. We’re going and that’s final,”
said Damen, still confused as to why Darell didn’t want to go, and
why Jose was actually agreeing with his semi-decision. The taxi
stopped right in front of Mr. Fryer’s building, allowing the small
argument to end, go to the point of no return, making Darell know
that he had to face this lie that he made-up so his friends
wouldn’t be jealous.

Damen walked up to his office as fast as he
could, but Jose and Darell took their time. When Damen reached the
designated floor of Mr. Fryer’s agency, he turned around and
discovered that Jose and Darell weren’t behind him. He waited
patiently in the hallway, pointing his eyes down the painted veins
of the building, looking to see if his friends were coming; he
started to get antsy and very impatient. When Damen finally saw
them coming down the hallway, he busted into the agency’s room and
approached Vivian. He had sweat on his face, some build of panic to
his boyish smile, hoping that he wasn’t late for the appointment.
He looked at Vivian, trying to calm his nerves, but asked in a
nervous way, “Hi, we’re here to see Mr. Fryer?”

“Okay, what’s your name?” Vivian’s question
had some tenderness to its tone, allowing Damen to notice her
more.

Damen was very attracted to this woman, and
his instincts returned to him by him replying in a very flirtatious
voice, “My name is Damen Schultz, but the appointment may be under
my friend’s name. His name is Darell O’Conner.”

My God, Damen, she’s hot...

“Yes, here it is, Darell O’Conner. But I
don’t see your name,” she stated with a disappointed tone. Still
staring at the computer, trying to find Damen’s name, her hands
stopped trying, allowing Damen to know that the search was over
with; he never had an appointment in the first place.

He saw Jose and Darell finally stepping into
the agency, and abruptly said, “Darell, tell this beautiful young
woman that we all have an appointment here.” Jose approached Vivian
as Darell dallied behind him, like a little frightened boy going to
the dentist. This was it for Darell: either they would find out
about his lie, or some miracle would happen. He decided that it
would be best to tell them the truth.

“Yes, we all have appointments here,” said
Darell. He lied again, the truth still waited in his fairly dumb
mind—he hoped that somehow Jose and Damen’s name would magically
appear on the computer.

“I do remember a Darell O’Conner. And I
remember Mr. Fryer saying you have a few friends who are interested
in this agency,” Vivian mentioned. She just stared at Darell for a
moment, waiting for him to say the reason why they were not on the
list, and then looked down on the list, to see if maybe their names
were under some other file.

Vivian gave up the hunt, looking at all of
them, waiting to hear a reply from her, and then said the one thing
that Darell was hoping wouldn’t travel through her mouth, past her
tongue, and into their ears. “But, your names aren’t here. Darell
O’Conner is the only name I see.”

“There must be some kind of mistake. Could
you please check again, Miss?” Damen asked, hearing Jose give out a
huge yawn.

“Man, I’m feeling awfully tired.” After Jose
spoke those words, he sat down in a chair, right next to Vivian’s
desk. His feet felt pale, tired, like bricks were cemented to his
two heels; the Valium was kicking in its full effects and kicking
Jose’s ass in the pursuit.

“Nope, it’s not here. Let me check with Mr.
Fryer. Please have a seat,” said Vivian. She called Mr. Fryer on
his speaker phone and stared at Darell at the same time. Vivian
knew the truth, Damen and Jose were never on the appointment file,
and Vivian knew that Darell was the one with an appointment. She
also realized, felt once again in her tired mind that Darell was
against her in the race to get Tom Fryer as an agent. But, just as
Shakespeare was good at oxymorons, so was Vivian, with the craft
she chose. So, she made sure to use her acting craft, and not show
any fear or nervousness toward Darell’s eyes; only when he turned
away from her, that’s when she let her mask down.

Damen questioned, in a confused and angry
way, “What the hell is going on, Darell?”

Jose heard the question very vividly through
his stoned ears, but still he caught on to Damen’s aggravation.
Even though he didn’t really care if his name was on the list or
not, only because he had Julienne Wells on his side, he still felt
that he should say something, to not make Damen suspicious of his
silence. So, Jose jumped in the question and added, “Yeah, um, what
the hell is going on?”

“I have no idea, guys, we just have to wait,
I guess.”

Jose was hesitant on telling them about
Julienne, only because he wanted to become, as he put it, “famous
first.” So, he still kept his secret inside of him, and allowed
time to take over the destiny of all three of them.

“Mr. Fryer, there seems to be a problem out
here,” Vivian said, staring at the guys from a distance while
holding the phone to her ear.

Young Peter Welch, with Tom’s special
interest in him, still sat and talked in Mr. Fryer’s office,
hearing Vivian’s voice over the intercom. Mr. Fryer punched a
button on his phone, and said, while showing Peter a photo of some
old clients that became stars, “What’s the problem, Vivian?” Mr.
Fryer then offered Mr. Welch another cigar.

“I don’t know exactly. Darell O’Conner is
here and he brought his friends,” she replied, staring at Damen
with interest.

“Send them in ... I’ll get to the bottom of
this.” Peter then got up from his chair and headed toward the door;
Mr. Fryer had some aggravation in mind, he didn’t like to be
interrupted during a meeting.

The guys walked to Mr. Fryer’s office and
knocked on the door. The door opened by the second knock and Peter
walked past them, aiming his gaze toward all of them, wondering the
reasons why they came to Mr. Fryer’s office. They all walked in,
with Darell asking in a jumpy manner, “Hello, Mr. Fryer, do you
remember me?”

“Yes, you’re Darell, but who are these
people?” Mr. Fryer asked in a voice of perplexity. Tom stared at
Damen and Jose, looking at them as if they were a pile of manure
that had been sitting out for three weeks with dead flies attached
to its surface.

“Um, well, these are my friends, Jose and
Damen,” Darell replied. Darell then closed the office door, hoping
that they all could talk for a while.

“I thought I told you I only wanted to see
you for now?” Mr. Fryer’s question was strict, but true, and
Darell’s face started to fall, aware of the honesty with which Tom
spoke to him, but with a sinister feel to it.

“Darell told us you wanted to see us today,”
Damen affirmed. He then turned to Darell and added, “Is that
right?”

Darell slowly began to move his head in an
upward position, like the truth rising in his mind, and heading
toward his mouth. He looked at Mr. Fryer, and then at Damen and
Jose. He gave a deep sigh and responded in a scared, but sincere
voice, “Not exactly ... I told you he said to come in today, I
never told you who he said he wanted to see...”

“I don’t believe this—you lied to us.”
Damen’s voice showed hurt to it, but anger as his pitch rang
through Darell’s ears and entered into the guilty zone of his
mind.

“No, I didn’t,” Darell said in a higher
pitch. For some reason, even though Darell really did put it like
that, he still stretched the truth, and in a sense, he really did
lie to them; but Darell still wanted to use reverse psychology to
try and get out of this one.

“Yes, you did,” yelled Damen.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, you just didn’t understand what I
meant.”

“Yes, I did understand, and you did lie to
us.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes, you did. Didn’t he lie to us,
Jose?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it lying,
maybe stretching the truth,” Jose replied. Jose Rodrigo knew this
was a way out so he could see Julienne. But, he didn’t want to look
too suspicious at his wanting to go.

Mr. Fryer, not caring about who lied or not,
stepped in the middle of this dispute, war, this argument of
stupidity, and spoke before anyone could start rambling on again.
“Listen, I’ll only talk to you guys for an hour. Now, I’m a very
busy person who doesn’t have time for these childish fights. So,
I’ll talk to all of you for an hour, giving you some of my precious
time, but after that, you all have to go and leave me and Darell
alone.” Tom waited for a reply, adding, “Alright?”