“Uh-huh,” Kurt grunted, clearly not falling for Penny’s shtick. “Your boyfriend in Illinois? You need someone here, someone who can show you the ropes, teach you the tricks. Give you the connections you need.”
“I’m really not interested, thank you.”
Penny slipped one hand against the door handle and discreetly tried to pull. It had gotten locked somewhere along their drive. Her heart rate rose, pumping in her throat as panic set in. It was happening to her.
All those movies she’d seen where pretty young girls got kidnapped. All the awful newspaper clippings her friends had taped to her notebooks to scare her into staying put. She was going to die, here in Hollywood, as an unknown. At the hands of a man who smelled like stale Doritos.
“I think I’ll walk from here,” Penny said. “If you could let me out—”
He leaned over, aimed his sticky lips at Penny’s. She managed to dodge the worst of it, but still his mouth pressed against her neck, and she felt the disgusting heat of him as it played over her skin in a filthy little orchestra of sweat and shock.
She gasped, unable to scream. Penny knew she should scream, knew she should pull out the pepper spray her mother had fastened to her backpack, but she was too startled. Frozen.
Finally, her brain clicked back on, and she fumbled for the door handle, her fingers toying with the lock. They shook so thoroughly she’d never understand how she managed to depress the button, but eventually, she fell through the doorway and piled in a heap on the pavement. Her backpack landed on top of her, though the larger suitcase remained captive in the trunk, put there by Kurt himself in what Penny had wrongfully assumed was a display of gentlemanly manners.
“Don’t you dare come near me.” Penny crab-walked backward, not caring that her pale-pink panties with hopeful little sunflowers embroidered on them were exposed to the world. She was oblivious to the fact that gravel had dug into her hands and knees, leaving tiny trails of blood as she scraped herself away from him. “I’m calling the police! Help!” Finally, Penny found her voice and screamed again. “Someone help!”
“Whatever, you fat fuck.” Kurt merely shrugged, reached over, and shut the door. He rolled down the window, stared at her with vacant eyes that told Penny he’d done this before. “You’re all the same, you know. You come here with big dreams, but none of you make it. You just take the shit jobs nobody else wants, thinking one day it’ll pay off and you’ll be famous.”
Penny scrambled to her feet, her hand finding the pepper spray and pulling it out. She aimed it at him but couldn’t bring herself to press the trigger. A part of Penny still couldn’t believe this was happening.
“None of this will pay off, honey,” he said. “You’re not pretty enough, not talented enough, not lucky enough—none of you are. Y’all come in here by the busload with big shiny eyes. Some of you last longer than others. You?” He scanned Penny from head to toe. “You won’t last longer’n a week.”
Penny depressed the trigger. The pepper spray shot forward, but Kurt was already screeching out of the parking lot, leaving Penny to cough, tear up, and hunch in pain from her own defense.
She crumbled then, right there on the ground. Bloody knees, broken spirit. She pulled out her phone, intent to call the cops. She wouldn’t be weak! She was strong, confident, beautiful—despite what he’d said. She was different. She refused to fade into obscurity like the others.
But as she typed the numbers 911 into her phone, her eyes blurred. What would she tell the cops when they arrived? That a man named Kurt had attacked her? Kurt probably wasn’t his real name. The best description she had of him was that he smelled of Doritos and had sweat on his brow.
Dark hair, average build, a standard face. She had no clue of his license plate, and the best she could do on the car make and model was that it was a maroonish sedan and wasn’t brand new. She’d never been one to have a knowledge of cars or to care, and tonight was no different.
As for the attack—what attack? Penny thought back, her face flushing with embarrassment. He’d rested a hand on her leg and tried to kiss her. She’d gone berserk. What woman hadn’t had a man do something of the sort? It happened all the time. Every day.
Her mind went through all the scenarios, and eventually, they all circled back to the same thing. The police wouldn’t lift a finger. This was Los Angeles. There were television shows made about the LAPD and their wild cases. A young woman who was brand new to town and offended because a man had tried to invite her up to his apartment for a cup of coffee? Not even a blip on their radar.
Her suitcase was the biggest issue. The bastard had taken nearly everything she owned. He’d cleaned her right out. Her clothes, her pajamas, her underwear. The pillowcase she’d brought to remind her of home. Her little diaries filled with musings about what it would be like moving across the country—alone. Her diary hadn’t included anything like this.
Penny’s hands dampened with perspiration from anger and frustration. It wasn’t as if she could just replace everything she owned with the snap of her fingers. While some things were priceless, others cost money. Thankfully, Penny had smartly stashed her valuables—keys, wallet, phone—in her backpack to keep them close. But that wouldn’t help her get dressed in the morning. The only article of clothing she had left was the dress on her back.
She’d need to replace her lost items with something, and at the moment, that task felt impossible. Penny would have about $52 to her name after paying the deposit, along with the first and last month’s rent, on her apartment. She’d have to choose between restocking her closet and eating food until she could find a job. Not exactly the warm welcome to the city that she’d anticipated.
Why was it? Penny mused. Why was it that mothers spouted such nice, pretty phrases to their little girls about having big ambitions and bigger dreams? They were conditioned to plump their daughters full of confidence and excitement and then set them free in the world. But they forgot to warn their baby girls about men like Kurt.
Why bother carefully crafting Jenga-like formations of hope in their daughters’ hearts if only to have the pieces toppled by men smelling of stale chips? Penny had rolled into the City of Angels hoping to see stars in the sky, expecting to see stars beneath her feet. Stars, stars, stars.
But as Penny looked up, the sky was dusty with pollution and flooded with artificial brightness. There wasn’t a glimmer of natural light. And beneath her feet were nothing but cigarette butts and discarded liquor bottles, the famed walk of stars somewhere far, far away. Penny couldn’t help but feel that the very dream that had carried her here had dissipated in an instant. Vanished like the stars.
Then again, Penny was different. Kurt would find out soon enough that Penny wasn’t quite as innocent as she looked. With a twinge of guilt, she reached into the pocket of her dress—a nifty little feature for Penny’s nifty little hobby—and pulled out an expensive watch. She raised it to her nose and took a sniff. The faint scent of Doritos lingered, though it was nothing a little polishing couldn’t take care of.
She wiped the clock face against the fabric of her clothes and wondered how a man as awful as Kurt had secured an authentic Rolex. Another familiar twinge of guilt nudged Penny into remembering that she had a conscience. But Penny wasn’t in the mood to deal with her conscience, so she talked back.