Chapter 45 I really wish I hadn’t thrown away my phone.
I really wish I hadn’t thrown away my phone.
Josie
IT’S MORNING IN my new life. I wake up on an inflatable mattress in a one-window rented room with a shared bathroom down the hall.
I hold my pee while I get dressed and rescue a barely cool milk carton out of the ancient mini fridge.
I fill my one bowl with Cheerios and sniff the milk before adding it.
I’m seventy-percent convinced it’s not going to kill me.
No, it isn’t.
Life is definitely not good. Life is a shit show, warmed up.
Outside, I step around the bodies (they’re alive but homeless) on my way to the nail salon in downtown San Francisco where Li Jing hooked me up with a job.
Their cousin owns it, and the salon employees were “excited to have an FX makeup artist on staff.” Now that they’ve met me, they seem less excited.
They speak Chinese to me, and my brain immediately goes to Spanish.
I don’t think I have the will to learn another language.
I barely have the will to get up in the morning.
The upside is they’ve never heard of Chuy the Puppet or Savannah Bateman.
I do nails all day. The first set is therapeutic.
The second set is fun. The third set and my back is already hurting.
The fourth set—is it lunchtime yet? Hurry up and eat because it’s time for the fifth set and a second wind.
More like a second breeze. A second slight movement of air?
I wish the TV was working. Why isn’t the TV working?
I really wish I hadn’t thrown away my phone.
They said there was a hot plate in my apartment.
My rent included a hot plate. But there’s no hot plate, so after work, I head to the noodle place down the street.
Mucho slurping ensues. I don’t want to cry.
Actually, every part of me wants to cry, but I won’t let it.
I brought this on myself, so crying is useless and stupid.
Besides, I don’t have to stay here forever.
On my day off, I’ll go down to the courthouse and fill out the paperwork to change my name.
I’ve got a few picked out. What I want to do is go with something wild and flamboyant and improper.
Persephone Molotov Cocktail of the Nine Fingers.
What I’ll probably do is go with Addison Wade.
Then my initials can spell out the pity party I can have for myself whenever I feel like it. AW.
After dinner, it’s back to my room and reinflating my air mattress by mouth. It’s like sleeping on a pool raft. I fall back on it and hear the moment it pops.
Universe, I swear I will cut you.
But, of course, I have no power here. I am mortal, and I am alone, and I have ruined my life. Again.
I’m pretty sure I’ve pinpointed the moment when it all fell apart.
It was when Sean asked me to do the Date Your Celebrity Crush!
show. Because when he asked me, when my freaking celebrity crush trained those laser-green eyes on me and opened that glorious mouth of his and asked me to please, please be Vera’s replacement, what the hell was I supposed to do? Be strong? I’m not strong.
I miss Sean. I miss Emmy. I miss Peyton. I miss Jason handing me an alcoholic beverage every day at 5:00 in the evening. I miss believing that I deserve to be happy. I miss daydreaming that I could spend that happiness in Sean’s arms.
Did Castillo Studios win the award? Or did the resurgence of this scandal steal it from them? Do they hate me? Did the crossover get canceled? I wish I knew. Or maybe I don’t. Ignorance is bliss. Or at least it’s better than knowledge that makes you feel like crap.
I fall asleep somehow. The next morning it’s the same. Breakfast. Bathroom. Walk. Work. And the next. And the next. Except today, Sunday, the TV in the salon is fixed (yay!), and they turn it on.
It’s Chinese TV, but the news is local, and when I see Sean and Miguel’s faces plastered up behind the anchors, I leap up from the set of acrylics in front of me.
“What are they saying?” I shout. “Someone! Please!”
Everyone in the salon looks at me like I’ve just invited them to join my exciting new cult. Finally, Xiang, a twentysomething nail tech, takes pity on me and translates.
“They went missing three days ago,” she says. “They think the captain guy kidnapped the other.”
“Kidnapped?” Something must have been lost in translation. “Are you sure that’s what they said?”
“Yeah, kidnapped,” she confirms. “Like, when you take someone against their will.”
No, that can’t be true. Sean kidnapping Miguel? Although he does have that locked room in his house.
“Can I look for another channel?”
Xiang hands me the remote, and I click around until I find the entertainment news in English.
Unfortunately, it’s about me. Like a train wreck I can’t look away from, I watch the reporter on the Lost Star set interviewing Lupe.
“She hasn’t spoken to me or my dad in twelve years,” Lupe says with a wry frown.
“And, no, we have no idea what she did with Chuy. The last thing I saw was her running off with him into the night.”
It’s not a lie, but it feels like she’s throwing me under the bus, again. The noodles in my stomach feel like they’ve come to life.
Also, Hugo hasn’t found Chuy yet? Why not?
Thankfully, the next segment is about Sean and Miguel.
NEWS ANCHOR: The whereabouts of actors Sean O’Sullivan and Miguel Angel Aguilar Porras are still unknown.
Police say both men disappeared after a taping at the Lost Star studio in Hollywood on November 2 and haven’t been seen since.
Foul play is suspected based on a security camera that captured footage of Sean urging Miguel into the trunk of his car.
Officials haven’t ruled out kidnapping, especially since Miguel’s phone was found crushed and in a dumpster on the property.
These findings, coupled with the fact that Sean O’Sullivan is still under investigation for the theft of a wardrobe piece from a Broadway warehouse in New York City, are disconcerting. More news as it unfolds.
Stunned doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. This can’t be right. Sean would never do something like this! Dammit, why did I get rid of my phone? I’m completely cut off.
“Xiang, can I borrow your phone?” I don’t have Sean’s number memorized, but I do know Emmy’s. She picks up on the first ring. “Emmy, it’s Josie.”
“Josie!” she squeals with joy and relief. “Thank God! Where are you? Is this your new number? Are you coming home?”
“It’s a friend’s phone. Listen. I can’t come home.” My stomach clenches at the thought of going back to LA, of being swarmed by cameras and people.
“I miss you,” she says. “Peyton misses you.”
“I miss you, too.” Desperately. “Please just tell me what you know about Sean and Miguel.”
“I showed Sean your video, and later that day, this happened. No one’s seen them since.”
My boss comes over and starts reprimanding me in Mandarin. My client isn’t looking too happy, either, sitting at my station with her half-done nails.
I tell Emmy I’ll call her again as soon as I can. “Thanks,” I say, handing Xiang back her phone. But I feel anything but thankful. A witch hunt is on, and Sean is in their sights.
Sean didn’t kidnap Miguel—there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for that locked room and the trunk thing. Sean is nothing like his brother. He’s warm and caring and responsible, and all of this is a huge misunderstanding. It has to be. Either that or they’re both in danger.
My heart stutters.
What if they’re in danger? What if someone blackmailed Sean to do what he did? Or what if there was an accident and they’re both injured, or worse? And what if it’s my fault?
I glance up at the TV. My boss has changed the channel back, and the programming has moved on to a documentary on Chinese shadow puppets.
Puppets?
Seriously?
You’ve got to be kidding me. It feels like a throwdown from the universe.
The kettle on the backroom burner starts to whistle, and I feel a similar hot fury pressing against my insides. Fine, universe. You want a fight? You got one. I told you I’d cut you, and now that you’re going after the man I love, I will.
That’s right, bitches. I’m going back to LA.