I wanted more than anything for there to be another answer, but the thought of even holding a needle with the countless cuts in my hands made my eyes water.
“I guess I don’t really have any other option, do I?”
Angel shook his head. “You and me at the end of the world,” he said.
Chapter Four
Angel Fletcher loved apocalyptic movies. It was his favorite genre of movie. He watched them for comfort in the same way I watched ice skating compilations on YouTube or rom coms from the ’90s and early 2000s. Or The Little Mermaid and Mulan.
(The Little Mermaid for Ursula, my inspiration in all things, and Mulan for Li Shang, the hottest cartoon character of all time.)
But nothing soothed Angel more than a blockbuster end-of-the-world movie. He especially loved the sad ones where the world really did end. So yesterday, when he looked all earnest and told me it was me and him until the end of the world, I wanted to kiss him and punch him at the same time.
Of course, I had a painfully hard boner all night, and I couldn’t even tend to it with my new mummy-hands.
Today we were shooting on-site, using a run-down strip mall in Sherman Oaks for our Rodeo Drive store, except in our version the iconic scene would end in a dressing room ménage between the two leads and the bitchy sales clerk.
Last night, I got a frantic text from Sunny asking me to load up my trunk with “fancy lady shit” to fill the store set. When I asked why the set department hadn’t taken care of that, I was met with silence, which was so rich of her considering she had yet to apologize for locking me in a hostile environment with the enemy.
However, when I walked into the dilapidated former Jean Sue’s Hallmark card store, it wasn’t a good look.
“Cody thought I meant a rodeo store when I told him a Rodeo Drive store,” Sunny said frantically.
I looked around at the wall lined with dusty boots surely found at thrift shops—and not the good kind. There were racks full of the kinds of jeans that had back pockets imprinted with dip canisters and threadbare pearl snap shirts with sweat stains.
“Please tell me you brought the goods,” Sunny said, her hair piled on top of her head in a knot and the cobalt blue strap of her bra hanging off her shoulder. And this was only day two.
“You’re asking me to turn Mountain Dew into wine here.” I felt a little too righteously proud of myself for choosing not to hold her accountable for her actions yesterday at this moment. “And yes, my trunk is full. But first we have to get this stuff out of here. It smells like a serial killer’s storage unit in this place.”
Sunny nodded. “Not sexy. Not sexy at all. Cody!” she yelled. “Take this shit back to the hellscape from whence it came.”
“Please note that it was no easy task to load my personal collection of fine goods without opposable thumbs,” I told her as I passed off my car keys. “Cody and his crew can unload when they’re done clearing this out, but they must handle my things with care and use latex gloves.”
“We’re all about gloving it up here at Uncle Ray-Ray’s,” Sunny said.
“I don’t need them getting their grimy sebaceous oils all over my goodies.” And it was true. I’d never had a lot of money, but sometimes in the fashion game, time trumped money and I’d spent thousands of hours of my life combing secondhand shops for the kind of collection most LA stylists would kill for. So much of it I hadn’t even used, but the only thing I loved as much as I did creating beautiful things was collecting them and surrounding myself with them.
After leaving Sunny with my keys, I went to what was the old employee break room.
I braced myself to find Angel waiting there for me, but he was nowhere to be seen. However, the day’s wardrobe was already unpacked and neatly labeled. Maybe if he continued to help me out while managing to remain unseen, we’d survive this shoot after all.
“Lucaaaaa!” Mackenzie said as she teetered through the door, her makeup half done and her red hair in curlers. “Can you run my line with me?” she asked as she attempted to hand me a single sheet of paper that I, of course, could not grasp with my bandaged hands. This morning, I’d had to brush my teeth by holding the toothbrush between my gauze paws. It had been the second clumsiest thing I’d ever done, aside from a regrettable footjob I’d once given a cellist.
Mackenzie watched me struggle until finally I said, “Let’s just put it on the table.”
I sat as she placed the paper down, patting it on each corner like it was a good girl.
After a quick glance, it became clear that most of the page was blocking save for Mackenzie’s one single line. I cleared my throat. “Um, ready when you are.”
She closed her eyes and stretched her mouth before standing up with her arms held out, holding imaginary shopping bags. “You’re making a real mistake,” she said in her best pouty voice. Dropping her arms, like she was carrying actual weight, she turned to me. “How was I?”
“Well, considering the line is actually ‘Big mistake. Big. Huge.,’ I’d say you could use some work.”
She plopped down in the chair across from me. “But doesn’t my version work so much better?”
“Mackenzie, babes, this is the most iconic line in the original movie. You kind of have to get it right.”
“I just really want to make this role my own. My agent thinks this could get me a performer of the year nomination at the AVNs this year.”
The thought of Mackenzie ruining one of the most important lines in cinematic history made my body feel like curdled milk. “You’ve seen the original, right?” I dared to ask.
“Parts of it,” she said with a shrug. “Sunny asked me to watch it, but my acting coach, WeHo Hank, said I should avoid the source material because of bias or whatever.”
“Mackenzie, with all due respect, WeHo Hank sounds like a fuckwad. How have so many people on this set not seen Pretty Woman?”
“I mean, if I’m being honest, I don’t really think any good movies were made before Iron Man 3.”
My brain made a record-scratching sound. “I’m going to go ahead and rewind back to thirty seconds ago when those cursed words had yet to leave your mouth.” I pulled out my phone and searched on YouTube for the iconic scene. “Scoot over a little closer.”
She obeyed and I hit play. We watched as the deeply early ’90s saleswomen refused to tell Vivian the price of the dress she was looking at, and then told her to leave the store. I paused the video.
“Look at her,” I said. “Vivian is so vulnerable at this moment. These shopkeepers have no idea how important this singular event is in the story of her life. To them, she’s just another customer. To Vivian, this is a make-or-break moment.”
I pressed my gauze-wrapped hand to my chest, wishing I could massage away the sudden ache there. I had been Vivian so many times before—not the least when I fell in love with an artsy boy who clearly saw me as someone only fit for a good time in Vermont before pursuing his computer animation dreams with his porn star ex.
Tale as old as time.
And like Vivian, I wasn’t taking the world’s cruel nonsense lying down. Angel could tell me all the French-flavored excuses he wanted, but that didn’t mean I was ready to forgive or forget. Pas de pardon!