Wrong City (7 page)

“I like you,”
she said again. “That’s all there is to it. Just relax and let this play out as
it will, okay?”

She smiled her
nice smile at him, and Vish felt a sense of relief at being forgiven so easily.
“Okay,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Let’s just
walk,” she said. She squinted up at the overcast sky. “Not that it’s the best
day for it.”

They continued
down the Strand until it ended near Redondo, then they walked on the sand until
they reached the pier, which is where they first saw the surfers. Or at least
Vish mentally categorized them as surfers, even though they weren’t carrying
boards or wearing wetsuits. They had on ratty Hawaiian shirts with wild flower
prints, open to the waist and paired with baggy board shorts and battered
sandals. They looked like surfers from a 1970s television show.

Correction:
They looked like
villainous
surfers from a 1970s television show, the
kind who’d antagonize the hero and make uncouth gestures toward the heroine.
There were five of them, hanging out in a pack, passing around a hand-rolled
cigarette. Longish tangled hair, shell necklaces against deeply tanned skin,
their hairy legs and dirty feet incongruous amongst the white-bread affluence
of the South Bay.

As Vish and
Troy approached, their conversation stilled. Vish tried not to pay any
attention to them, but he could feel hostile eyes on him.

A muttered
statement: “Dead man walking.”

Vish didn’t
turn to see which one had said it. Troy stopped and stared at them. Vish wanted
to keep walking, but she squeezed his hand once and pulled him to a stop. “What
did you say?” she asked. Her tone was curious, nothing more.

The one who
appeared to be their leader smiled. He was good-looking, almost classically
handsome, with thick dark hair that reached his collarbone and a strong,
patrician nose. He took a long, slow drag on the cigarette, then cocked his
head to the side and stared at Troy through the amber lenses of his wraparound
sunglasses. “Ah, that’s where you’ve been keeping yourself, huh? You pop up in
the damnedest places.”

Vish looked at
Troy in surprise. She seemed unconcerned. “Did you say something to my friend?”

The leader
tossed his cigarette butt down and ground it out under the heel of his sandal.
“I said he’s a dead man walking.”

“As threats go,
that’s not very good, is it?” Troy asked. She sounded as unflappable and
friendly as ever. Vish thought he should jump in at some point, or lead Troy
away from there, but he couldn’t find any easy way to enter the conversation,
and besides, she looked like she wouldn’t appreciate his assistance. “I mean,
that applies to everyone, doesn’t it?”

The surfer
smiled. “You do have a point there, friend.” He gestured with his chin at Vish.
“His day’s coming quicker than most, though. Bad hoodoo surrounding that one.
Not that you’d know anything about it.”

Troy smiled,
and for once it didn’t look either friendly or pleasant. “Nice chatting with
you boys,” she said. She gripped Vish’s hand tighter. “Let’s go, Vish.”

Vish let Troy
lead him away from the group. “See you soon, Vish,” the surfer called after
him.

Vish’s face
felt hot. “What was that all about?” he asked Troy as soon as they were out of
earshot. “Friends of yours?”

She shook her
head. “No idea. I’ve never seen them before. Just a bunch of stoners, I guess.”
She smiled. It still looked a little tight. “Do kids say ‘stoners’ these days?
I’m not up on my drug lingo.”

“That one guy
acted like he knew you. He said you pop up in the damnedest places,” he said.

She rolled her
eyes. “Maybe he’s a huge
Interstellar Boys
fan. I don’t really know.”
She looked at him. “I’m sorry if they weirded you out, but they were just a
bunch of drugged-up assholes saying shit that probably makes sense when you’re high.
Anybody who happened to walk past them would’ve gotten the same treatment. It
doesn’t have anything to do with me, or with you.” It was a little snappish.

“I’m sorry,”
Vish said. “I didn’t mean to grill you.”

“You weren’t.
Don’t worry about it.” She snorted. “They were kind of creepy, weren’t they?”

It was good to
hear her admit it, because something about the surfers had unsettled him.
“Should we turn around? I have to get back to the shop soon,” he said.

“Sure.” Troy
smiled, carefree and natural. She leaned up and kissed his cheek, and
everything was okay again.

They walked
back to Troy’s place along the edge of the water. Troy dangled her sandals from
one hand and padded barefoot on packed sand, letting the incoming waves splash
over her feet. They detoured around kelp patches and the abandoned ruins of
sand castles. Vish resisted the urge to glance back at the pier, where the
surfers might still be lurking.

Troy helped him
carry his supplies to the van and kissed him again before he climbed behind the
wheel. “So…” Vish said.

“So Freddie
still wants to talk to you about the show, but last week got crazy for us, and
he didn’t have time to get in touch with you. This week, for sure,” Troy said.
“I’ll call when I know more and let you know what’s up.”

“Thank you,”
Vish said. “Thank you so much.”

“I’ll call,”
Troy said again. She stepped back and waved from the curb. He backed out of the
parking space, then headed up to Sepulveda, back toward Venice, away from Troy
and the surfers.

F
reddie Halterman, the lauded creator of
Interstellar
Boys
, was in his late thirties, early forties maybe. He was quiet and
contained, almost bashful. He wore a striped button-down shirt over stiff, dark
jeans that somehow looked wrong on him: too new, maybe, or too high at the
waist, or maybe Freddie just felt uncomfortable and unnatural in them, the way
Vish felt whenever he wore a suit. Which is what he was wearing today, because
this was a job interview, or something like it, and he wanted to look
professional.

Freddie had a
receding chin and a thick mustache that swamped his upper lip. When he smiled
at Vish, the mustache moved up to smother his nostrils in brown fuzz.

“Troy really
talked you up and down, and I have to say, I think she picked a winner.” He
pawed through a mess of loose papers on his desk, picked up a script, squinted
at it, tossed it aside. “I thought I had your book here…”

There was
nothing on his desk that could possibly be his book, which ran to about six
hundred pages. Vish waited, smiling politely.

Freddie gave up
the search with a shrug. He smiled at Vish again. “I thought it was really,
really neat. Really… thick. So I guess you’re from India, huh?”

“Born in
Detroit,” Vish said. “I’ve actually never been to India.”

“That explains
why you don’t have an accent.” Another smile, somewhat nervous. “You’re a good
writer. You don’t have any television experience?”

“No. I just
moved here at the start of the year. From New York. I’ve been trying to get a
foothold into the industry, but I haven’t had much luck.”

“We can set you
up on a trial basis.” Freddie folded his hands together on top of one of the
piles of paper. “We could use another staff writer. I don’t think it’d take you
long to get the hang of our format. Are you familiar with
Interstellar Boys
?”

“Yes, I am. I
think it’s an amazing show,” Vish said. This was only half a lie. He’d watched
the entire series over the past week, streaming it online on his laptop in
preparation for this meeting. They were currently in the middle of the third
season, and the first season, if not quite amazing, had been fun and trashy in
a cheerful and mostly inoffensive way. Troy was great in it, even though her
role as a spaceship commander-slash-astrophysicist wasn’t a meaty one. She was
sexy yet practical, managing to seem plausibly brainy even while scampering
about a spaceship in silver hotpants and matching knee-high boots. The show was
undeniably cheesy, but it was knowing, deliberate cheese with some wit behind
it.

In the second
and third seasons, though, it had derailed. Vish continued watching with a
sinking sensation as interesting characters stagnated or vanished, as promising
plotlines were abandoned or burdened with nonsensical complications. He’d
slogged his way through the most recent episodes, because of course he’d need
to be familiar with those, but it had been a struggle.

Season Two was
when the bumblebee girl joined the cast. Kelsey Kirkpatrick, the girl who’d
teetered on the patio railing at that party in the hills the night of the
earthquake. She’d come on the show, bringing her cachet as the star of a number
of tween-oriented films, playing a nubile young stowaway with psychic powers,
and as soon as she appeared, the focus shifted further away from Troy.

Still, though,
he could write for it, warts and all. Maybe he’d have some positive effect. He
could provide a fresh outside perspective. He’d already scribbled down a
handful of ideas to help nudge the characters back in the direction of the
roles that had been originally established for them.

“Well, then.”
Freddie smiled at him. “I’m excited about this. Start on Monday?”

A quick pang of
guilt. Jamie had always been good to him, signing him up for extra hours
whenever he needed them; he should return the favor by giving her more than a
couple days’ notice. “Absolutely.”

Freddie rose to
his feet and extended a hand. Vish shook it. “Welcome to
Interstellar Boys
,
Vish. Good to have you with us.”

When Vish
emerged from Freddie’s office, Troy was waiting for him in the reception area.
She sat cross-legged in an overstuffed chair, leafing through her script,
oblivious to the gigantic framed promotional poster of herself looming above
her head. She looked up, her face expectant. “Well?”

“He hired me,”
Vish said. He sounded dazed.

“Fantastic!”
Troy unfolded herself from the chair and stood up. She hugged him and gave him
a peck on the chin. “I knew he would. I didn’t want to tip my hand too much,
but I knew Freddie wanted you. Congratulations.”

“It’s all
thanks to you. I wouldn’t have been able to get in the door without your help,”
he said.

Troy waved this
aside. “You got this on your own. You’re an amazing writer. We could really use
you right now.” She had never spoken about
Interstellar Boys
with
anything other than high praise, bordering on hyperbole. This was the closest
she’d come to acknowledging the current troubles.

She took his
hand. “Come on. I want you to meet everyone.”

The production
offices and the stages were located in the same facility on the dingy southeast
end of Hollywood. Troy had been due on set at six that morning, so Vish had
shown up for his afternoon meeting with Freddie by himself, surprising the
guard at the gate by approaching on foot instead of driving.

He and Troy
crossed through the studio lot, which was vast and empty and silent. Vish had a
mental image of what it should look like: costumers wheeling racks of clothes
to and from trailers, stagehands hauling gigantic props and backdrops,
construction workers hammering away at sets, production assistants fetching
coffee for their high-powered bosses. This, however, was a ghost town.

“What else
films here?” he asked. “Other television shows?”

Troy shrugged.
“Back in our first season, there were three or four other series shooting here.
Right now, there’s not much. Sometimes they do infomercials, stuff like that. I
talked to a girl last week who was taping a pilot on the stage next to ours.”
She glanced around the silent lot and frowned. “It comes in waves, I guess.”

She led him
through the side door of a monstrous white windowless building with “STAGE 3”
painted on the side in story-high block letters. Inside it was dark and
cavernous. In the center of the room, plywood backdrops surrounded three sides
of a set. It was the bridge of the starship, where most of the action on
Interstellar
Boys
took place. On television, it looked sleek and airy and ethereal, with
pale backlit monitors and sculpted chrome chairs and frosted translucent walls.
Up close, vacant and unlit, it looked flimsy and silly, just painted plywood
and acrylic sheeting.

Large men in
work shirts and jeans bustled around the studio, coiling cables and setting up
lights. “What’s happening today?” Vish asked Troy. He kept his voice hushed,
even though it was obvious no cameras were rolling. “Are you going to be
filming?”

Troy shook her
head. “We did some location shooting in Riverside this morning, and now they’re
setting up for the shoot later this afternoon, but I’m done for the day.” She
wore street clothes, a long sweater over leggings, but there were dark smears
in the corners of her eyes, lingering traces of the heavy makeup she wore while
filming. She glanced around. “I don’t see anyone. Let’s try Ridpath’s trailer
first.”

That must be
Ridpath Washburn, who played the ship’s engineer, Dudge. Vish had boned up on
the cast members and production staff before his meeting. He followed Troy
outside and around to the back of the stage, where a half-dozen trailers were
parked in two parallel rows. Troy climbed up the lightweight metal steps of the
nearest trailer and rapped her knuckles on the screen door. “Hey, Ridpath? You
in there?”

The door flew
open. Ridpath, bare-chested and in track pants, ran a hand over his shaved head
and squinted at her. “What’s up, doll?”

“Got someone I
want you to meet.” She beckoned for Vish to step forward. “This is my friend
Vish. Freddie just hired him as a writer. Vish, this is Ridpath.”

“Hey, man.”
Ridpath held the door open and stood to the side. “Come in, y’all. I was just
lying down, so it’s kind of messy in here.”

Ridpath’s
trailer was small and comfortable, with a kitchenette on one side and a
built-in sofa running the length of the other. Ridpath scooped up a fleece
blanket and a couple of throw pillows and stuffed them into a mesh overhead
bin, then gestured at the sofa. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink…
was your name Fish? Did I hear that right?”

“Vish. With a
V.”

“Vish, sorry.
Cool name. I’m going to make myself some coffee, want any? I’ve got bottled
water, too.”

“Coffee would
be great. Thank you.”

Ridpath ran
water into an electric kettle and plugged it in, then measured grounds into a
French press. His movements were precise and contained. He looked burly and
bulky on television, with a thick neck and a powerful upper body, but in the
flesh, he was surprisingly compact. He was an inch or so taller than Vish,
which put him just under six feet, and his shoulders, while sculpted with
well-defined musculature, were narrow. Petite, even.

“Is Kelsey
still around?” Troy asked.

Ridpath shook
his head. “I don’t know, doll. She left to tape an interview a while ago. I
haven’t seen her come back.”

“I’m going to
see if she’s here. I want her to meet Vish, too,” Troy said. She patted Vish on
the wrist. “Keep Ridpath entertained, okay? You boys can swap gossip about me.
I’ll be back in a minute.”

She gave Vish a
kiss on the cheek, fast and affectionate, then left. Ridpath sat on the narrow
couch beside Vish while waiting for the kettle to boil. “So you’re writing for
us, huh?”

“So it seems. I
just got the offer a few minutes ago, so it doesn’t quite seem real yet. I’m
looking forward to it, though. The show’s great.”

“Yeah. Sure
is.” Was Vish hearing things, or was there an undercurrent of sarcasm there?
“So. You and my girl Troy are friends, huh?” Ridpath leaned over and ran a
brown thumb lightly over Vish’s cheek where Troy had kissed him. “Good
friends?”

Vish could feel
himself blushing. “Yeah. Pretty good.” He’d better follow Troy’s lead on this.
Maybe she wouldn’t want her costars and coworkers to know she’d snagged her
under-credited and under-qualified new boyfriend a job as a writer.

Ridpath smiled.
It was a nice smile, full of charm. He had very straight, very thick eyebrows
and a strong, magnificent nose. “How long have you known her?” he asked.

“Just a couple
weeks,” Vish said. It seemed ridiculous that so much could change in such a
short time. “I met her the day after that earthquake.”

“She’s happy
about you,” Ridpath said. He shrugged. “I’m assuming it’s you, at least. She’s
been a different person over the past week or so. Much less neurotic. I mean, I
love Troy, we all do, but most of the time, girlfriend needs to chill. Lately,
though? She’s been a dream on set. If that’s thanks to you, we owe you one.”

Vish blinked.
Troy was about the least neurotic person he’d ever met.

“Were you the
one to get her to quit smoking?” Ridpath asked. He shook his head. “Cold
turkey, man. That couldn’t have been easy.”

The kettle
boiled; Ridpath got to his feet and dumped steaming water over the coffee
grounds. Vish stared at his back.

“Troy doesn’t
smoke,” he said. He frowned. “Does she?”

“Up until last
week, she sure as hell did. After every single take, she’d scurry outside to
light up, which kind of sucked for those of us who just wanted to finish our
damn scene. Freddie sat her down last season and had a talk with her about it,
and she ripped him a new one. ” Ridpath shrugged. “And then last week, she
stopped. No fuss, no drama. Didn’t even mention it until I asked her what was
up, and then she just said something about how it was time to clean up some bad
habits.”

“I can’t take
credit for that,” Vish said. “I’ve never seen her smoke before. I had no idea.”
Huh. Maybe the interior of Troy’s car had smelled a bit like stale tobacco on
the day they first met, now that he thought back on it.

Ridpath
depressed the plunger on the French press in one slow, steady motion. “Maybe
she did it on the sly because she thought you wouldn’t want to date a smoker.
People do incredible things when they’re in love.”

Love. Maybe
Ridpath was exaggerating, but Vish still felt a small tingle in his spine at
the word and all it contained.

The trailer
door burst open, and Troy came in, pulling Kelsey Kirkpatrick, minus the
bumblebee dress, behind her. In an oversized t-shirt over sweatpants, Kelsey
seemed an even more unlikely object of adult lust than she had at Maryanne’s
party. With her crop of lemon-colored hair and her round cherub face, she
looked tiny and fresh-scrubbed.

“Vish, this is
Kelsey. Kels, meet Vish. He’s the one I’ve been telling you about.”

Kelsey gave
Vish a friendly wave. “He’s cute,” she said to Troy. There was a faint note of
surprise in her tone. She turned to Vish. “You’re so not like the guys Troy
usually dates. And that’s a really good thing.”

“Kelsey…” Troy
rolled her eyes.

“Seriously.
She’s gone through this whole string of beefheads. They all blend together in
my brain.”

Troy’s cheeks
went pink. “I think that’s probably all Vish wants to hear about that
particular subject,” she said.

“You’re
bringing him to my birthday party, aren’t you?” Kelsey asked.

Troy frowned.
“That’s, what, next month?”

“Yeah. The
seventeenth. But I need to have the guest list in stone, so let me know for
sure if you’re coming. The restaurant’s kind of small.”