“Like today?” he said. “Or this minute?”
“Sooner. I have a situation. Can you come by? Hey, why are you talking so low?” She lowered her voice, too. “Who’s listening?”
Ashton appeared next to his shoulder. “What the hell? We’re not done.”
“Be right there.” Julian hung up and turned to his friend. The two men were alone in the store. “Where’s Riley?”
“She left,” Ashton said. “She couldn’t wait around for you to be done with your call. She said we weren’t finished with our conversation.”
“Oh,” said Julian, “of course not.” He jingled his keys. “Can you hold the fort for a bit? I gotta run out. Be back in a jiff.”
“How long is a jiff in Julian-speak, two days? It’s your day to open the store, remember? I’m supposed to be in bed. Slumbering. And why did you tell Gwen about the coin toss? What the hell, man. And who was that on the phone?”
“Tell you later. Move.” Julian tried to get around Ashton.
“Where are you going?”
“To see a man about a horse.”
Ashton didn’t budge. “Who was that on the phone?”
“Nobody. Move.”
“Make me.” Ashton bumped Julian.
Julian pushed him back, not hard. “Do you want me to make you?”
Ashton’s light blue eyes blinked merrily. He kept trying to grab the phone out of Julian’s hands. “You blew me off for lunch yesterday,” he said. “Was that when you met this somebody, who’s now calling you at all hours of the morning? Are you ever coming back, or do I have to call Bryce?”
Bryce was one of their college friends who thought he was Ashton’s other best friend. “Don’t threaten me with fucking Bryce,” Julian said. “I’ll be back.”
“By the intense horny look on your face, I don’t think you will, no.”
“Drama queen,” Julian said. “We have a wardrobe appointment at Warner.”
“Yes. At eleven.”
“Probably won’t be back by then,” Julian said. “Can you push it to this afternoon? Ashton—can you please—” They continued to bump and deflect, a well-rehearsed pantomime of friendly combat.
“Jules, please don’t tell me you met some chick yesterday and after one afternoon with her broke up with your long-time girlfriend and are now racing off like you’ve been summoned for a breakfast booty call.”
“So stop cockblocking me if you’re such a genius.”
“Wait!” Ashton said. “I have one very important question—”
Impatiently Julian waited.
“What does she look like?” Grinning, Ashton finally let Julian pass. “You know she’s only using you for your body.”
“I should be so lucky.” Julian didn’t glance Ashton’s way, not wanting his friend to see even a reflection of the wet impression the girl had left on the dry sponge that was his heart.
AT NORMANDIE, JULIAN TOOK THE STAIRS TWO AT A TIME, though he still managed to glance at the maximum-security house across the street. It didn’t look right, even in daylight.
“Good morning, Julian,” Josephine said, opening the door. She’d just stepped out of the shower and was flimsily dressed in a tank and sleeping shorts. “Isn’t that what they say in Hollywood, no matter what time of day it is—good morning?”
“Yes,” he said, “but it’s actually morning.” They hid their smiles.
Zakiyyah’s apartment was small and clean—an open plan kitchen/living room with three half-open interior doors, one bathroom, two bedrooms. A small Formica round table, an old light beige sofa, a couple of bookshelves. A TV. A treadmill. A guitar in the corner. Magnets on the fridge, a stack of bills and magazines on the counter. The apartment of a working girl who was never home. It was sunny and quiet, except for the constant hum of the freeway.
“Who plays guitar?”
“Zakiyyah. I have a favor to ask you.” Josephine tilted her head.
Julian would’ve done it without the head tilt.
“So the good news is,” she said, “I got a callback for Dante. Shocking, I know, given yesterday’s Shakespearean debacle.” But the bad news was, the callback was for the part of the narrator, an old man in a historical wig and glasses.
“You’re an expert at the old man part,” Julian said. “Just channel your inner Housman.”
“It’s the wig that’s the problem. Callback’s at eleven. How do I become a gray-haired old dude in an hour?”
Looking over her pink scrubbed face, Julian agreed it was not the easiest of tasks.
She held out a can of aerosol. “Can you spray paint my hair?”
Shaking his head, he stepped back. He didn’t like to do things he’d never done.
“Come on, I need your help. You can do things other than sit in front of a computer, can’t you?”
“I do plenty of those.” He wished that hadn’t sounded as suggestive as it did.
“Is one of them color a girl’s hair?” She flung around her damp dark mane for him to see. It smelled of foamy coconut. “Do it, do it,” she said. “And afterward, I’ll take you to the top of the mountain to amaze the crap out of you.” Her body smelled freshly washed of foamy coconut, her arms and throat glistening with lotion. The muscles in Julian’s legs felt liquid.
He had another idea. “Why don’t we just get you a wig? Seems a lot simpler.”
“Audition’s in an hour.”
“I know a place.”
“I’m broke.”
“It’s free. Can you get dressed in five minutes?”
“What do you mean? I am dressed.”
No makeup, tiny shorts, ripped gray crop top, no bra (do not think about that) bare feet, hair all over the place. She looked dressed for after-sex waffles, not a callback. He said nothing.
“Okay, fine.” Two minutes later she emerged from door number two in denim shorts, boots, and a see-through white shirt over her crop top. Her bare stomach showed. “Better?”
He said nothing.
In the car as she did her makeup she told Julian Dante’s play paid real money! Rehearsals began in a few days. It ran a month. “Though I’ll have to memorize ninety-nine cantos. Doesn’t seem possible.”
“You can do it,” he said. “They’re such romantic cantos.”
She grunted. “Realms of the dead are romantic?”
“Sure,” Julian said. “Clad in weights, Dante searches for Beatrice in heaven and hell because he cannot find her here on earth. That’s not romantic?” He smiled.
“I dunno,” she said. “Does he find her? See, even Mr. Know-it-All is not sure. And the endlessly mutilated sowers of discord