Chapter 2 #3
She heard Mickie’s key turn in the lock shortly before four.
By then, Billie was wearing clean jeans and a T-shirt.
Her hair was wet and hanging down her back, and her feet were bare.
She looked up and saw a vision enter the apartment that made it feel more than ever that she was in a movie and not real life.
The tall, beautiful blonde woman standing in front of her was wearing a lavender linen Chanel suit, an expensive handbag, and six-inch high heels.
Everything Mickie was wearing was easily recognizable as a luxury brand, and she had little diamond studs glimmering on her ears.
She looked straight out of Vogue, or like the wife of a successful Beverly Hills executive who had wandered into the wrong address.
Billie laughed and looked up at her sister.
She looked incredible, and her makeup was flawless as she tossed her modeling portfolio onto the small dining table and grinned at Billie.
“When did you win the lottery?” Billie asked her, and went to give her a hug. Mickie towered over her older sister in the Louboutin heels, and allowed herself to be hugged.
“I have the best secondhand shop in the world in Beverly Hills. There’s some woman exactly my size who sends them fabulous stuff, never worn, with the labels still on, and they sell it for a fraction of what she paid for it.
I have a closet full of Chanel. I buy it with my tips, and pay the rent from the trade shows,” Mickie said proudly.
On closer inspection, Mickie looked like the daughter of a wealthy Beverly Hills executive, in sharp contrast to Billie’s student wardrobe of faded T-shirts and jeans. “How was the flight?”
“Long. All three of them,” Billie said with a groan.
For a minute, and for the first time, she felt as though she had a sister.
Mickie looked happy to see her, and seemed relaxed.
She had never looked better. She got more beautiful every day.
And not seeing her very often, Billie noticed her looking even more glamorous and sophisticated than she had at Christmas.
She had developed a whole new look in L.A.
“I’m glad you took that bedroom,” Mickie said, noticing.
“I put my clothes in the closet of the other one. I’ve run out of room.
With just the two of us here, I was thinking of turning that whole bedroom into a closet,” which meant that she’d be using two of the bedrooms, but only paying half the rent, Billie realized quickly.
Mickie still thought of her own needs first, and no one else’s, but she was young, and she was much nicer to Billie than the last time she’d seen her.
“I just called the employment agencies. I have two appointments tomorrow and one the day after.”
“And you’re coming to work with me tonight,” Mickie reminded her, and shortly after changed into thigh-high black leather boots, a black leather miniskirt, and a cropped red sweater that bared her midriff.
She was wearing bright red lipstick and her long blonde hair was piled on her head and held with a clip.
Billie didn’t say it, but she thought Mickie looked like a hooker.
Billie was wearing a denim skirt with a pink halter top Mickie had lent her, and pink high-top sneakers.
She wondered what the restaurant was like, and she was quiet in the Uber on the way there.
Mickie had always been a lot wilder than she was. She hoped it wouldn’t be a rough crowd.
As it turned out, it was a restaurant and bar called Harry’s.
They had Billie busing tables for her first night, clearing away the dishes.
The waitresses got tips, the bus girls didn’t.
All of them were scantily clad, and the customers were mostly male, and loud, and heavy drinkers.
But nothing inappropriate happened. There were no bar fights.
There were some couples in the back. It wasn’t a family restaurant, but it wasn’t terrible either.
Just a lot of drunk guys in downtown L.A.
It wasn’t the kind of place Billie enjoyed, but Mickie was at home there.
Despite her delicate looks, she wasn’t intimidated by a room full of men checking her out.
A few asked for dates or her phone number and she ignored them.
She cleaned up in tips at the end of the evening.
The other girls were pleasant, but they weren’t overly friendly with Billie.
They were busy all night, and at two A.M., they left and had earned their money.
The trays were heavy, and the bar was loud.
The manager divided up the tips at the end of the evening, and the other women left quickly.
Even Mickie admitted that she was tired, and she had a go-see booked the next day.
Billie had the two employment agencies to go to.
The two sisters said good night and went to their rooms when they got home, and all Billie could do was pray that she would find a job soon.
She hadn’t gone to MIT to be a waitress in a scuzzy bar in L.A.
She turned off the light and fell asleep instantly, and she couldn’t believe how fast morning came.