Chapter 2
Chapter Two
“T hanks.” The line went dead.
Sunny ripped off her headset and tossed it into the corner of her cube. It wasn’t even a real cubicle, not like the one her character, Sadie, had on New York Bomb Squad. Actually, that wasn’t a real cubicle, either, since it’d just been part of the show’s set. But DN-YAY, the real office in Ohio where Sunny worked now, put all the customer service representatives at white laminate desks with half-walls around them that looked like the study carrels at her old high school library back in California.
Why had she mentioned The Brainiac Bunch? She hadn’t thought about that old show in years. And a grump like Gabe Armstrong had probably never seen it. Not many people had, since it had been canceled after only one season. Even though it was all pretend, it was the closest thing to family she’d ever known.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It’d been doing that all day. Texts from her parents. Separately. It didn’t look like an emergency though they demanded she call them. Sunny was at work. They’d taught her work was the most important thing. And she guessed it was true even if that work was for a sketchy DNA testing company and not a role in next year’s blockbuster action flick or swoony rom-com.
She needed her crappy job. To pay for the repairs to her car so she could leave that crappy job behind in the dust and return to where she belonged: the stage.
Toby’s voice startled her. “Sunny, I need to give you some feedback.”
Slowly, she rotated in her chair to face him.
Her boss stood over her, crossing his arms over his thin chest and crumpling the front of his lab coat. He wore the coat even though, as a customer service manager, he didn’t work with DNA samples.
“Did you just offer to send our client’s confidential information to another client?” He also referred to their customers as clients like DN-YAY was a law firm instead of a bottom-tier DNA testing company.
“Well, yeah.” No point in denying it. He must have been listening like a creeper. “I just told a guy his parents lied to him until they died. And that he has two brothers and a sister he’s never met. Shouldn’t he be allowed to reach out to his family?”
“You know we have policies and procedures for that.” He gestured at the dusty copy of the handbook wedged into the corner of her cube.
Gabe Armstrong was not going to go back to DN-YAY’s website and click the button to contact his relatives. To improve her craft, Sunny studied people, and what she’d heard in his voice was confusion and fear. But if the contact information was sitting in his email box, the facts would be harder to avoid. Eventually, he’d open the email, then he’d reach out to his family. Maybe they’d be better than the parents who raised him. What kind of parents lied to their kid about being adopted? Her parents had a lot of flaws, but at least they usually told the truth. Even when it hurt.
His birth family wanted to know him. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have taken the tests and checked the box to be contacted. And Gabe Armstrong needed them. She’d heard the pain in his voice. He was all alone now that his parents were gone.
She knew the pain of being alone.
She sat up straighter. “I was just trying to make it easier on him. It was a lot, you know?”
Toby parked his hands on his hips. “It’s not your job to make it easier on him.”
She shifted in her chair so her back hid the contact sheet she’d printed out before making the call. She stared at the DN-YAY logo on the right front of his lab coat. Apparently, it was her job to tell Gabe Armstrong that he wasn’t who he thought he was. Last week, it’d been her job to tell a woman she had a high risk for breast cancer. A couple days before that, she’d told a guy his biological mother was actually the woman he’d thought was his older sister. And when she’d seen who his biological father was, she’d transferred him to a genetic counselor. That’s why they paid the counselors the big bucks. Sunny wasn’t about to do it for twelve bucks an hour.
Cata, her roommate, had lured her in with stories of the fun workplace—interesting stories, casual dress, and beer on Friday afternoons. Plus, she could ride to work with Cata until she saved enough to pay for the repairs to her car, which was currently coated in ice and parked in their complex’s lot, where it’d been towed after breaking down on the way to Los Angeles.
Cata, a psychology grad student, found customer-service work fascinating.
For Sunny, DN-YAY was a paycheck until she could get back on her feet. It was a good hiding place, too. She hadn’t had to tell her parents about the fiasco in New York. They thought she was still working there.
Though, to her film-star parents, working in television was only slightly better than working in customer service.
“Sunny, are you even listening to me?” Toby towered over her where she sat. “I’m trying to give you feedback.”
She glanced around at her coworkers in their cubes. Some of them were talking to customers, but others had given up any pretense of working and stared at her, open-mouthed, with their headset cords dangling.
Stand up for yourself. It was what Odile had told her. No one else will do it for you. Though, in the end, Sunny had stood up for Odile, and it had destroyed her career.
Stay cool, Sunny reminded herself. No need to go full-on New York here. Just another month or two, and I’ll have enough for the car repairs. She held out her palms. “I was just trying to offer exceptional customer service.”
Neither one of them had to look at the banner at the front of the room. Foot-high letters proclaimed that DN-YAY provided EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Toby’s upper lip curled behind his wispy mustache. “Exceptional customer service doesn’t violate the company’s procedures. I’m going to have to write you up for overstepping your role.”
She bolted from her chair. With her heeled Tory Burch boots, which were much better suited to the clubs of New York than to a desk job in Ohio, she was nearly as tall as Toby. Three cubes over, Cata’s mouth dropped into a horrified O. She knew exactly what was coming.
“Isn’t it my role to be a decent human being, Toby? Because that’s all I was trying to do.”
“You’re paid to uphold the processes and policies of DN-YAY. Not to meddle in people’s business.” He wagged his finger at her. A smear of something red, ketchup, Sunny hoped, stained his sleeve. “You are an entry-level customer service representative making slightly more than minimum wage.”
Cata’s eyes widened so the brown irises were ringed by white. For half a second, Sunny wondered if the person on Cata’s line was hearing this, too.
She breathed in through her nostrils, hoping it’d cool off her brain. She could still walk out of there with a job reference. She could even sit back down, apologize, and keep her job.
Nope. She’d stood up for Odile in New York, and now she was standing up for herself. She wasn’t about to let Toby and his ridiculous lab coat fire her. Not for trying to do the right thing.
“I don’t think I can support DN-YAY’s procedures if they don’t allow me to show a little compassion for our customers.” She clasped the badge clipped to her favorite T-shirt, the vintage one with the sparkly unicorn on the front, and pulled.
She dropped the badge onto the gray industrial carpeting at his feet. “I quit.”
Whirling, she grabbed the papers next to her keyboard and stuffed them into her purse. Then she shoved past Toby and stomped out of the customer service bullpen in her boots, holding her breath until she reached the street and gasped in the cold winter air.
And that’s when she realized she was standing in front of her former place of employment, having thrown a bridge-burning tantrum, with no prospects for employment, no Plan B. For the second time in four months.
Plus, this time her car didn’t run, she was two thousand miles from where she intended to be, and it was the middle of winter. She squeezed her eyes shut.
A chilly breeze tingled at her chest. Looking down, she saw a hole in her T-shirt, right at the base of the unicorn’s flowy glitter tail. Shit! She’d ripped her favorite shirt, and on the way out, she’d flashed everyone with an eyeful of pink lace bra cup.
Tugging her coat over her chest, she trudged across the street to the bar—the sketchy one they always bypassed for the cleaner, brighter one a few blocks over—to wait for Cata’s shift to end. She needed a drink.
* * *
Sunny plopped onto a barstool and made the mistake of looking up at the television. Hollywood Observer was on, showing celebrities on a red carpet. Not just any celebrities. Her parents.
Her mother, Gwen Lafortune, wore a long red silk gown. Not an ounce of fat broke the line of the unforgivingly clingy fabric. The long, fitted sleeves outlined the gym-honed musculature of her arms. Her hair, the same blond shade as Sunny’s, curled around her shoulders. She posed, elbows bent, hip cocked, chin down, the way she’d coached Sunny so many times. She looked the age she’d claimed for years: thirty-five.
The bartender shuffled in front of her. “What’ll it be?”
“Bud Light in a bottle. Please.”
The TV screen drew Sunny’s gaze again. Her dad, Gene, looked every inch the action hero he played in films. But instead of jungle fatigues or jeans and a ripped T-shirt that showed his muscled chest, he wore a tux. The camera flashes lit up the gray he’d started to allow to show at his temples.
Wait. The light was all wrong for Los Angeles. The building they stood in front of, too. There were outdoor heaters everywhere, and the photographer crouched in the corner of the screen wore a black parka. They must be… She scanned the background of the shot and spotted One World Trade Center’s distinctive antenna.
Shit.
They were in New York.
That explained all the messages.
The bartender plunked down her beer. He wiped a stained rag across the sticky bar and left her alone. Slumping over the wooden surface, she tried not to touch anything but the cool glass of the bottle.
Slowly, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket. Three messages from Mom. Two texts from Dad. They never called her just to check in. They knew. Her stomach hollowed.
If she called now, while they were at the premiere, they wouldn’t pick up. She’d fulfill her duty while delaying the criticism. She hit the button to dial her mother. It rang a few times, but after the fourth ring, instead of an outgoing message, her mother picked up.
“Susan, isn’t it wonderful?” No hello, no how-are-you. But at least she sounded happy.
“Oh. Yeah, Mom. I saw you at the premiere. You look fantastic.”
“Thank you. Did you see my shoes?”
“Sorry, I missed them. What’re they like?” Good. She could distract her mother like this all day.
“They’re Jimmy Choo. Nude slingbacks with rhinestones across the pointed toe. They wear like a dream.”
“They sound gorgeous, Mom.” Sunny swigged her beer. “Whose premiere is it?”
“It’s an Oscar contender. Starring—wait. Did you listen to my messages?”
“No?” Sunny glugged down the rest of her beer and signaled for another. “I just got off work.” Permanently.
“And you haven’t spoken to your father?”
“Not yet.”
Her mother’s voice dropped. “It’s the most fabulous opportunity for you.”
“For me?” She hadn’t called to yell at her for wasting her last fabulous opportunity? Gene wouldn’t hesitate to do it. He was the one who’d gotten her the audition for New York Bomb Squad.
“A role. Back in LA.”
“A role for me?” As her parents had told her countless times, you got only one chance to impress people. Why would Gwen offer her a role after she’d walked out on her last one?
“Of course for you. Who else?”
Who else? Sunny could name a dozen actresses about her age who were more talented, more beautiful, and less likely to walk out of a table read because of something that wasn’t even her business.
“Really, Mom? That’s great. What’s?—”
“Gwen and Susan Lafortune, together on screen. Pure magic!”
Those tingles in her belly had to be excitement. Not disappointment that her mother was more excited to be seen on screen than to have her daughter return home. Or maybe it was just all that beer. Sunny held the phone away from her ear and burped.
“—you can’t be late. Understand?”
Sunny straightened on the stool. “Of course. When?—”
“Your father wants to talk to you. Here he is.”
“Susan.” Her father’s voice sounded strained. “What’s this I hear about you walking off set?”
She winced. “They were about to kill off my friend’s character. And I couldn’t let them?—”
“You couldn’t let them? Susan, you are the talent. Not the money. Not the power. Until you’re a producer, you say your lines and keep quiet. Understand?”
“Yes, Dad.” Sunny’s finger trembled as she lifted it to swipe away the moisture from the corner of her eye. Standing up for Odile seemed like the right thing to do, but she hated the note of stern disapproval in his voice.
“Now, for this project of your mother’s. Did she give you the details?”
“No. What’s?—”
“Where are you?”
“In a bar.”
He huffed out a long-suffering sigh. “Are you still in New York?”
If she lied and said yes, they might ask to meet her. She had to give him the humiliating truth. “No. I’m in Ohio.”
“What the hell are you doing there?”
“Visiting a friend?”
“If someone had asked me yesterday, I’d have said you couldn’t find Ohio on a map. We need you home next month. Shooting starts on the thirteenth of February. Understand?”
That was a little over three weeks away. She didn’t have much time. “Shooting? When do I audition?”
“As soon as you can get here. Is there going to be a problem?”
Before she’d left for the audition in New York, he’d warned her to save her money. It was a bit part at the lower end of the pay scale. And she’d done what he said, as much as she could considering the sky-high rent on even a tiny apartment in Manhattan. At first. But as her role grew, when she got that opening credit and the salary bump that came with it, she caved to the expectations to wear the right clothes, eat in the right restaurants, and be seen in the right bars. Even the higher salary seemed to slip through her fingers like water. Then, when everything had gone to hell, her cash evaporated.
Just like he’d warned her, she’d exhausted her small savings during the three months she’d looked for another acting gig. Unsuccessfully. Because the New York Bomb Squad producers had blacklisted her from the casting list of every television show, movie set, play, and toothpaste commercial in New York.
She couldn’t ask her parents for cash to come home. Not while her father still had a little faith in her.
“No. No problem.” She’d figure it out. She’d get to LA despite the sad balance in her bank account and her nonfunctional vehicle. She could do it without groveling for his help and fracturing the fragile bubble of his confidence.
She couldn’t let her parents see her like this. Hell, she didn’t want to see herself like this. She pinched her shirt together where it had ripped.
Still, she had to remember Leslie Odom, Jr., who said, “The path to moments of greatness in your life will be paved, in part, with your spectacular failures.”
Mr. Odom would’ve been impressed by the spectacle Sunny had made of her failure.
“Good.” Her dad’s voice broke her out of her wandering thoughts. “Looking forward to seeing you.”
“Really?” Suddenly, she wasn’t in the skeezy bar anymore. She was a little girl wearing her prettiest, ruffled dress, and the housekeeper, Nadia, had curled her hair into long, shiny ringlets. Her parents had just come home from their latest projects. Sunny thundered down the enormous staircase into the foyer, and her father bent at the waist, picked her up, and spun her around. It was the last time she could remember getting a hug from her father.
“I have to get back to the party,” he said. “See you no later than the thirteenth.”
“Okay, Dad.” But her father had already hung up the phone.
She’d find a way. She always did. She’d be there in plenty of time to audition, even if she had to waitress in the 24-hour truck stop by the highway to do it. Even if she had to hitchhike.
If she was going home, she had to close the curtain on her life in Ohio. She’d already quit her job. She’d try to find Cata another roommate to split the rent. She didn’t have any other strings to cut.
Except one.
Before she left, she’d hand those papers to Gabe Armstrong. In LA, she’d make her parents proud. He deserved a family reunion, too.
* * *
Sunny was peeling the label on her fourth beer when Cata ducked into the bar. The dim lights shone on her dark skin, and her braids swung as she shook her head.
“I know, I know,” Sunny said, sliding from the stool. After four beers, she wasn’t sure if what she knew was that the bar was too skeezy to be inside or that she’d made a terrible life choice by quitting her job. The one Cata had gotten her at her lowest point. The one she needed for cash to get to LA.
Cata held out her arms. “Bring it in.”
Sunny stepped into her embrace. In three months, Cata had become a good friend to her. After her ancient Mercedes sputtered to a stop on I-70 in Columbus on her way back to LA to make a fresh start, when the repair shop told her the car needed more repairs than the car was worth, she’d texted everyone she knew. One of her New York friends responded with the name of her former NYU roommate, who was in the graduate psychology program at Ohio State.
Sunny had only been looking for a safe place to tow her car and then sleep in it until she got herself together, but Cata had an extra bedroom. And a job. And the emotional support she so desperately needed. Now she’d screwed up the job her new friend had been kind enough to recommend her for.
“It’s okay, honey,” Cata said. “Let’s get you home.”
Sunny laid a couple of bills on the bar and wobbled out behind Cata.
Cata’s car was still parked in the DN-YAY lot. While they scraped the crusted ice off the windows, the fresh air and movement sharpened her brain and brought with it a stab of guilt. What could she say to make it better? What could she do to ensure Cata kept the job she inexplicably loved and didn’t experience any consequences from what she’d done?
Finally, when the heat blasted over her chilled cheeks inside the car, she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blown up like that. I should’ve waited until the end of my shift and then resigned.”
Cata snorted. “Toby’s an ass. Hell, sometimes I want to quit, too. I would if I wasn’t so fascinated by our weird, wonderful customers and our even weirder employees.”
“I hope he doesn’t take it out on you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can handle Toby. But,” Cata tilted her head, “this makes you two for two on big, dramatic exit scenes, you know.”
Sunny felt Cata’s words like a knife in her chest. But she kept up the sunshiny veneer over the guilt her father had planted, which had grown into a full, leafy tree of poisonous shame. “I’m an actress. Big, dramatic scenes are what I do.”
“You’re not an actress right now.”
“Of course I’m an actress,” Sunny snapped. “Just because I don’t have a role at the moment doesn’t mean I’m not.”
“Ah.”
“No.” Sunny held up a hand. “I know what that ‘ah’ means. No psychologist Cata.”
“Hmm. Let’s unpack all this at home.” Cata turned the key in the ignition. “Wine, ice cream, or both?”
“Definitely both. And pizza? The greasier, the better.”
It was only when they settled on Cata’s blue velveteen sofa, a glistening slice of pizza in one hand and a glass of Spanish red in the other, that Cata asked, “So what are you going to do now?”
Sunny sipped the bold, fruity wine. She wished Cata had waited until they’d opened the second bottle. She set her slice on her plate and wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Actually, I’m going back to California. My parents have a role for me.”
“Acting? TV or film?”
Sunny shrugged. “They were light on the details. All I know is, I have to be back in LA in three weeks.”
Cata’s eyebrows winged up. “And this is what you want to do?”
“Of course. I’m an actress, and they’ve gotten me an audition.”
“Why ‘of course’?” Cata tilted her head. “You walked off your last show, and you haven’t looked for another acting job since.”
“I just—I’ve been in a slump, okay? Besides.” She laughed, bitter. “Where would I audition in Columbus, Ohio?”
“There are casting calls,” Cata said. “I checked. And you did that weekend gig at Beach Island over the holidays.”
Sunny raised her eyebrows. “I dressed in a ratty period costume and sang Christmas carols with high school choir kids.”
Cata pointed at her. “And you loved it.”
“The boots were a size too small.” But she forgot all about the pinch in her toes when she sang in front of a live audience and conducted those high school kids.
Cata squinted one eye. “And yet, that wasn’t the job you walked out of. Have you considered that you sabotage yourself when you hate what you’re doing?”
“I didn’t hate New York Bomb Squad. It was the best job I’ve ever had.” That’s what her parents would have said. Sunny almost believed it. She poured another glass of wine and topped up Cata’s glass. “And now I have another fantastic opportunity. Maybe if I sell my Mercedes for parts, it’ll be enough to buy a plane ticket.”
“Don’t you need your car in LA for auditions?”
“Crap.” Though she’d rather take the bus than borrow one of her parents’ flashy cars and remind everyone she was one of those Lafortunes. The one who wasn’t box-office bank.
She knew, down to the penny, how little had accumulated in her bank account. “I have enough money saved for the starter, especially if I sweet-talk that guy at the shop. I can get to LA on what’s left of the brakes.”
Cata’s forehead crinkled. “That doesn’t sound safe.”
Sunny shrugged. “She’s a tough old girl. She’ll make it.”
“What about you?”
She wiped her face blank. “I’ll be okay, too.”
“Okay? After that flame-up at DN-YAY?”
Cata’s straight talk called for ice cream. Sunny picked up a spoon, scooped out a giant chunk of double chocolate fudge, and shoved it into her mouth. Lafortunes didn’t talk about feelings. They talked about success. She let the creamy sweetness melt on her tongue.
“Are you sure it’s not your fear of failure that’s leading to self-sabotage?”
“What? No! DN-YAY sucks, but New York Bomb Squad was a fantastic career opportunity.”
“Was it, though?”
“Of course it was. I’ve wanted to be an actress as long as I can remember.” She waved the spoon. “Quitting DN-YAY took away my last reason for not going back to acting. I’m sure it was my subconscious telling me it’s time.”
“Now who’s the psychologist, talking about her subconscious?”
She set down the spoon. “That last call really bothered me. Gabe Armstrong.” She rolled the name around on her tongue. A good name, with weight to it. “His parents lied to him all his life. They never told him he was adopted. He had no idea he had another family. And now he has a chance to meet his siblings, and he turned it down. I always wanted to have siblings.” A brother or sister would have eased the loneliness of growing up as the Lafortunes’ only progeny. She’d cried for weeks when they’d canceled The Brainiac Bunch, as if she’d lost her actual siblings and not her coworkers.
Cata’s tone was gentle, but her words weren’t. “You can’t project your own desires on other people.”
“Why wouldn’t he want to meet them?”
“He must have reasons. And DN-YAY has policies. Procedures. For everyone’s protection. Besides, he could probably find them himself.”
“But I have the papers that’d make it easy.”
Cata gasped. “You didn’t.”
“What?” Sunny gave her an innocent, wide-eyed stare. “I had the papers. It’d have been a waste to leave them at DN-YAY.”
“So you’re going to find this guy and hand him his relatives’ information? What if his biological family doesn’t want to be found?”
“They want Gabe to find them. They took those DNA tests and checked the box to make their results public. I bet you anything they know he’s out there and want to reunite.” Just the thought of it filled her heart with warmth. “Besides, he’s local, lives over by Beach Island. I probably passed his place a dozen times while I worked there in December. It’s got to be some kind of destiny for me to help him.”
“Destiny?” Cata narrowed her eyes. “Why are you the one to say what he needs?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? His parents are dead. And he’s got this whole other family, and all I need to do?—”
“All you need to do? Why is this your problem?”
“Because he’s lonely. I could hear it in his voice. And I can fix it.”
Cata pressed her lips into a thin line. “Maybe you should start with your own?—”
“Can I borrow your car tomorrow?” Sunny wasn’t about to let Cata get started on that again.
Cata flattened her lips. “You can drop me off at school and then take it. But you’ll be safe, right? I mean, you’re the one acting like a stalker, but you don’t know this guy. Just drop the papers in his mailbox and leave.”
She snorted. “I promise I won’t go inside. I’ll just hand him the papers. Or leave them on his doormat. I need to do this before I go home.”
“Okay.” Cata reached over and squeezed Sunny’s shoulder. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’m sorry about the rent. I’ll put up some flyers?—”
“No.” Cata held up a hand. “I don’t need help finding a roommate. I mean, I’ll miss you. My friend.”
Sunny sniffed and grabbed the TV remote off the coffee table. “Movie?”
“Sure. What do you want to watch?”
“Duh. Quitting a job calls for a musical.”
“No!” Cata knew what was coming.
“Karaoke-style. So do your vocal exercises or whatever.”
“You know I can’t sing.”
“Everyone can sing. The louder the better.”
Cata stood. “I’ll need a lot more wine for this.”
“Wine isn’t good for your vocal cords.” Sunny scrolled through the list of musicals.
“But it’s much better for my inhibitions.”
Sunny scrolled through the list. All the feelings Cata had stirred up called for bittersweet, angsty power ballads.
Cata sipped her wine and choked. “No. Not Rent. Too sad.”
“No, it’s not!” Sunny held the remote high over her head. “It’s about seizing the day. Friends. Family.”
“Fast-forward through the part when Angel dies.”
“Deal.”
“You’re my family now, you know.”
“I know.” Sunny covered up her sniffle by hitting play.