BACK AT HIS CAR, THEY LINGERED. SHE CALLED HIM chicken for telling the director he had nothing prepared, and he agreed, not wanting to take her home. She tied up her hair and put away her fake glasses. She looked like herself again, simple and perfect. The ends of her sheer blouse swayed in the breeze.
“I wish it wasn’t so late in the day,” she said, glancing at the hills around the theatre. “We could take a walk up there. I could show you something.”
“Show me anyway,” he said. “Wait—up where?”
“What, you agreed too fast? No, no backsies. I’ll have to show you another day.”
“Okay—when?”
She laughed. They leaned against his gray Volvo, drinking from the same water bottle. Julian’s thoughts were racing. “What’s your favorite movie?”
“Dunno. Why?”
“Come on. What is it? Titanic?”
“Ugh, no, I don’t care for all that dying in icy water, don’t care for it one bit,” she said, peering at him through slitted eyes. “Apocalypse Now.”
Julian did a double take. “Apocalypse Now is your favorite movie?”
She stayed poker-faced. “Sure. Why is that surprising?”
“No reason.” He fake-coughed. “I’ve never seen it.”
Now it was her turn to do a double take. “You’ve never seen Apocalypse Now?”
“No. Why is that surprising?”
“Because it’s such a guy movie. We should watch it sometime.”
“Okay—when?”
She laughed. They lingered a bit longer.
“Listen—I gotta head back,” she said.
“I thought you were hungry,” Julian blurted. “What do you feel like eating? We can go anywhere. My treat. I may not know about Vietnam movies, but I know my L.A. food. Are you in the mood for a taco? Factor’s on Pico? A pizza? Marie Callender’s coconut pie?”
Her mouth twisted as she struggled with some internal thing. “Don’t think I’m nuts,” Josephine finally said. “But I feel like breakfast for dinner. Hash browns?”
“I know just the place. Best hash browns in L.A.”
“Am I dressed for it?”
“For IHOP? Absolutely.” Julian opened the passenger door.
“You know what they say,” she said, getting in. “When the guy opens the door for you, either the girl is new, or the car is new.”
“Ha,” Julian said. The girl was new.
“So who do you stay with when you’re in L.A.?” he asked. They were sitting across from each other, their second plate of hash browns half eaten between them on the blue table.
“My friend Z.”
Did Julian dare ask if Z was a Zoe or a Zachary? He dared. “Who’s Z?”
“My best friend Zakiyyah.”
“Ah.” An exhale. “Is she in the business, too?”
“She used to be.” Josephine drummed her fork against the table. IHOP on Sunset was empty, because what kind of fool came to IHOP at night.
“What’s her actual name?”
“Zakiyyah Job. Job as in Bible, not employment. And Zakiyyah like pariah.”
“You two have incredible stage names. You’re lucky.”
“You should talk, Julian Cruz,” she said. “Anyway, Z is lucky. Jury’s still out on me. Seven years ago, we moved out west, paradise is here, the whole thing. We set up house, started going to auditions. I thought we’d be all right—me being white and her being black and all—but with colorblind casting, the agents were bending over themselves to hire her, not me. Sometimes she was better. Sometimes I was better. It was hard to tell, because she always got the part, and it got between us.” She sighed. “One of us had to choose a different life if we were to stay friends. So we flipped for it.”
“I should think,” Julian said, “that first you’d want to flip on whether or not you wanted to stay friends.”
“Nah. We’re from the same hood. Z is like my sister.”
Julian knew something about flipping for it. When they first met Gwen and Riley, he and Ashton flipped for Gwen. Because tall, gorgeous, California girl-next-door Riley with glossy blonde hair and glowing skin looked too high-end for mortal man, even Ashton, who was no slouch himself in the looks department. Ashton said that no one who was that put-together on a Wednesday night happy hour at a local dive in Santa Monica would ever be easy on a man’s life. She looked and moved like a movie star. And Gwen looked like the movie star’s best friend. So they flipped for Gwen. Ashton lost. That was shocking. Because Ashton never lost anything.
“I was pretty confident,” Josephine continued, “because I never lose a coin toss or even a game of rock, paper, scissors. But Z won. I said, let’s play best of five. She won again. I said, best of seven. She won that, too.”
“Was this major life decision fueled by tequila by any chance?”
“A whole bottle full.”
“Thought so.”
“She won every time. Finally I said, okay, one last time, winner take all, sudden death. We fortified ourselves with the rest of the tequila. And guess what happened?”
“You won?”
“Why,” she said with a half-smile full of whimsy, “because you believe in the Willy Wonka philosophy on lotteries and life in general?”
Julian laughed. “I do, actually. You stand a better chance if you want it more.”
Josephine nodded in deep agreement. “And no one wanted it more than me. Yet I still lost. Sometimes, no matter how much you want it, you still lose.” She didn’t look upset, just philosophical. “After I threw up and calmed down, Z told me I could have it. She would become something else.”
Julian was impressed. After he won, he did not give dibs on Gwen to Ashton. “Why would she do that?”
“She said because ever since I was old enough to recite ‘Three Blind Mice,’ I stood on every table,” Josephine said. “I invented a stage everywhere I went.” She fell silent, poking the remains of the cold potatoes. “Of course, now Z is doing fantastic, and I’m still waiting for my big break.” Zakiyyah was an art therapist for the California public school system. She traveled to districts around the state and trained elementary-school art teachers how to apply their craft to the Special Ed curriculum to help troubled kids who could not be reached by conventional therapy methods. Julian thought Zakiyyah’s newfound career was an ocean away from the stage. One job: me, me, me. The other: you, you, you. How did one make a quantum leap like that?
“Why do I plow on, you ask?”
“I didn’t ask. I know why,” Julian said. “Because the theatre is all there is.” His throat tightened.
“Yes!” Josephine exclaimed, her bright eyes gleaming. “It’s not so much a career as