Chapter 3
We make the call for help. And in less than half an hour—the blink of an eye, considering morning rush hour traffic in LA—help shows up at the door.
While Liv and I are still wearing our pj’s, Heather Mancini arrives from her place in West Hollywood fully styled, made-up, and coiffed. Of course. Even back when we worked together at Pete’s, she dressed for the job she wanted—and eventually landed. She left the bar about a year ago to work full-time as a wardrobe assistant on a big network procedural crime drama.
This morning, her long, brown hair with blond highlights is curled into perfect beach waves. Bronzer gives her flawless skin a natural-looking glow. And her curvy, statuesque figure is draped in flowy, wide-leg pants and a boho-style blouse expertly French tucked. From the looks of it, the job she wants next is seaside resort goddess queen.
Heather gets a glimpse of me and my newly pumped-up physique, and the skin beneath her carefully applied bronzer turns a ghostly white. “Shit,” she says. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”
***
“I don’t understand,” says Heather a few minutes later.
The three of us are standing together in my bedroom. Once my other bestie got past the initial shock of seeing me in all my muscle-bound glory, Liv and I brought her in here to show her the fire damage.
“She was trying to make spiderwebs,” Liv starts to explain.
“Spiderwebs?” asks Heather.
“But instead,” continues Liv, “she made fire.”
“I don’t understand,” says Heather.
“It was like a whatchamacallit,” says Liv. “A katana? Like in Kill Bill ? A samurai-type sword? Except completely made out of flames. One minute, nothing. Then— poof! Inferno.”
“I don’t understand,” repeats Heather.
“That makes three of us,” I say.
Liv looks across Heather to me. “You have to show her.”
“What?” I shake my head violently and wave my hands in a gesture of absolute freaking refusal. “Oh no. No way. We were lucky I didn’t burn the place down the first time.”
“But now we know what to expect,” says Liv. She somehow manages to sound reasonable in the middle of all this. “We can take the necessary precautions.”
***
A couple of minutes after that, we’re all crowded into the bathroom.
“See?” Liv says to me. “You can stand in the shower stall and…you know… manifest . Then if things get out of control, I can reach in and turn on the water. Instant sprinkler system.”
I frown doubtfully. “I don’t know about this.”
Liv jerks her thumb toward Heather. “If she’s going to help,” she says, “she needs to see it.”
I look at Heather. Clearly, she knows something wicked strange is going on here. I mean, the overnight change in my body is real. Ditto the state of my bedroom. So it’s not as if she thinks we’re lying to her.
But still, I can tell she’s skeptical. Who wouldn’t be?
I sigh. Liv’s right. If I want Heather’s help, I need to show her the extent of the… problem .
“Okay, fine,” I say to Liv. “But if we don’t get our security deposit back when we eventually move out of here, don’t blame me.”
Still clothed, I pull the glass door open. I step into the stall, leaving the door ajar. I face the showerhead.
“Just like before,” coaches Liv. “Aim and concentrate.”
But this time, it’s different. I’m nervous and afraid, and not just for the obvious reason. Not just because I could quite possibly torch our apartment and the three of us along with it. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I’m actually a little scared of disappointing my friends, of not living up to their expectations.
I feel the same kind of fluttering in my gut, the same kind of wobbliness in my knees, the same kind of wooziness in my head that I feel right before pretty much every audition. It’s like, even though I know I can do it, I suddenly start to doubt myself. Can you say performance anxiety?
“Carrie?” Liv prods gently.
Right , I think. Concentrate.
So same as last time, I stretch out my arm. Focus. Aim at the ceiling of the shower stall, and—
“Holy fucking shit,” says Heather. Her face is like a surprise emoji as she stares at the mysterious sword of fire that I have, for the second time this morning, somehow conjured into being.
Liv dives for the faucet.
The shower rains down on me. Oddly, though, the water doesn’t douse the flame. But it drenches me and fogs up my glasses, so I lose my concentration—and bam! Once again, the fiery blade vanishes.
As Liv turns off the water, I remove my glasses and push my dripping bangs out of my eyes. And I can’t help thinking that, not for the first time after a performance, I’ve ended up all wet.
***
Once I towel off, pop in a fresh pair of contacts, and change into some sweats, I join my two friends in the kitchen. I try not to think too much about how the normally loose pants and shirt are now hugging my figure, fitting much snugger than usual. I’ve got bigger issues after all.
Liv hands me a cup of coffee. Hazelnut, with a splash of oat milk. Just the way I like it.
“Thanks,” I say with a small smile. I take a sip. With everything that’s happened this morning, I don’t really need the caffeine to wake up anymore. But the taste and the smell of it are at least a comfort.
Heather is already seated at the island with a mug of the French roast. Liv grabs her own steaming mug and hops on a stool. I sit too.
At first, no one says anything.
“Avenging angel?” says Liv, breaking the silence.
“Stop it,” says Heather. “We need to look at this logically.”
And just like that, I start to crack.
“Logically?” I ask. The pitch of my voice goes up so many octaves I’m surprised it’s still audible to the human ear, surprised every dog in the neighborhood doesn’t come running. “ Logically? I woke up with giant bodybuilder muscles and I’m a walking cigarette lighter. How do you look at that logically ?”
“Okay, okay,” says Heather. “Calm down. You just said it. You woke up like this. Right? So what happened yesterday?”
I shake my head. “Nothing,” I say. “I mean, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would have caused this .” As if there’s anything that could have caused this .
“Walk us through it anyway,” says Heather. “And start from the beginning. On Robbery-Homicide Division , the writers always have the characters look at the timeline leading up to the incident to figure out what happened.”
“Telekinetic fire starter?” says Liv.
Heather shoots Liv an annoyed look.
“What?” says Liv. “Clearly, there’s a lot more going on in this world than we know.” She shrugs. “Plus, on Dystopia Now , the writers just make shit up.”
Heather pulls a face at Liv, then turns back to me. “Yesterday,” she says. “Tell us, what did you do?”
I take a deep breath and try to pull myself back together. It’s good we called Heather. Maybe this rational, step-by-step, recreate-the-timeline approach of hers will actually get us somewhere.
“It was a totally average day,” I say. “I got up. Had my usual breakfast. A cup of plain nonfat yogurt and a cup of fruit. Went for a run down by the beach. Showered. And then I just ran some errands.”
“What errands?” asks Heather.
I take another sip of the coffee and think back. “I picked up the dry cleaning,” I say. “Then I had to go to my agent’s office to get my audition sides because they weren’t allowed to email them. I swear, the production company is treating this J.Lo script like a classified document. I even had to sign a nondisclosure agreement.” I shake my head. “Anyway, afterward, I stopped and got gas. Grabbed a salad, dressing on the side. Then I just came home and ate and prepped for the audition until it was time to leave for my shift at Pete’s.”
“What happened at Pete’s?” asks Heather.
“I mean, it was Tuesday, so it was a pretty slow night,” I say. “I was working with Nick.”
“Nick?” asks Liv.
“Nick Stokes,” explains Heather. “He took over my job when I left the bar. I trained him. Cute wannabe rock star.”
“He’s not cute,” I mutter.
“Oh, he’s cute,” says Heather with a knowing nod. “ Very cute. Some might even say hot.”
“Please,” I say. “He’s not cute and he’s not hot. Mostly, he’s just a ginormous pain in my ass.”
As Heather and Liv exchange a look, I realize how angry I sound.
Then I remember how angry I felt . At Nick.
“And oh my God, the guy was getting on my nerves even more than usual last night,” I say. “First, he totally made fun of me for having an audition to play a bartender.”
“Well, that is kind of funny,” says Liv.
“And then,” I continue, getting pissed off all over again, “I caught him making out with one of the customers when he should have been working. I mean, who does that?” My fury dials up another notch. “I’ll tell you who does that. Nick. Nick does that.” And suddenly, just like it did the night before, my vision changes, and it’s as if I’m looking at the world through a blood-colored haze. “I swear, I could have killed him.”
“Did you catch that?” asks Liv.
“Sure did,” says Heather.
As my eyesight clears and settles back to normal, I see my two besties staring at me with a mix of apprehension and concern. And now I’m pretty sure that this seeing-red thing has nothing to do with my contacts. “What?” I ask, even though I don’t think I want to know the answer. “What is it?”
“Your eyes,” says Liv. “They just did this freaky flashy thing.”
“While you were talking about wanting to kill Nick,” adds Heather.
“Maybe you’re a Terminator sent from the future to eliminate this Nick guy,” says Liv. “Before he becomes the leader of the human resistance against artificially intelligent overlords.”
“She’s not from the future,” says Heather. “She’s from Philadelphia.”
“And Nick couldn’t lead anything,” I grumble. “He wouldn’t even want to. He’s a total slacker.”
Heather studies me, her eyes becoming little green slits. “You know, you really do have an awful lot of hostility toward Nick,” she says.
Okay. That’s it. Time for a new topic.
“Why are we even talking about Nick?” I ask. “None of this has anything to do with Nick.”
“I don’t know about that,” says Heather. “It seems like the guy might be some kind of a trigger for you. I mean, he certainly gets you all hot and bothered.”
“Do you like him or something?” asks Liv.
“What?” The question hits me like a sucker punch to the jaw, knocking me a little off my balance. “No. Of course I don’t like him,” I say when I recover. “I already told you. He irritates the crap out of me.”
“And you said he irritated you even more than usual last night,” says Heather, still poking at the sore spot that is Nick. “What else was different between the two of you?”
I sigh, frustrated that she won’t let this subject go and move on. I’m about to say that nothing was different, that Nick was just his typical everyday super annoying self. But then I start to recall all the curious little details. Like how his skin felt cold as ice when we accidentally touched. And how he seemed to move with lightning-fast speed when I wasn’t looking. And how he didn’t appear to cast a reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
I tell all this to my friends.
“Nick’s a vampire!” exclaims Liv. “And you’re a…a… a vampire slayer !”
Liv raises her mug in triumph and smiles at Heather and me, quite satisfied with this latest deduction. Then she takes a big gulp of her coffee.
Heather frowns and rolls her eyes, unconvinced.
I’m equally dubious, mostly because vampires and vampire slayers don’t really exist. But also, I remember something else. “No, I think it was just me imagining things,” I say. “Because of the fever.”
“Fever?” asks Heather.
I nod. “I thought I was getting sick,” I say. “But then I came home, went to bed…” I let my voice trail off, thinking.
“And you woke up like this ,” says Heather, finishing my thought. “Well, that’s something real at least. A clue maybe.”
“But what does it mean?” I ask.
“You were accidentally dosed with a top secret military drug that creates flame-throwing super soldiers?” suggests Liv.
Heather and I turn to her. I hate to admit it, but so far, that’s the first explanation that seems even remotely plausible.
Just then, Heather’s cell phone pings .
She glances down at the screen and sighs. “Shit,” she says. “I need to get to work. I have to do a wardrobe fitting.” Her eyes dart between me and Liv. “Is everything going to be okay here?”
“Absolutely,” says Liv. “ Dystopia has a night shoot today, and I’m late PA. I’m not scheduled to work until after dinner. I can stay with Carrie until then.”
“Good,” says Heather with a nod. “I can swing by on my way home tonight.”
“Uh, excuse me,” I say. “I appreciate the concern and all, but I don’t need tag-team babysitters. And besides, I have an audition in Beverly Hills at four.”
Liv and Heather look at me like I’ve completely lost my mind.
“Carrie,” says Heather. “Be serious. You can’t go to your audition like this.”
“You mean because of the extra bulk?” I ask. My voice cracks with anxiety on the last word.
“Oh my God, I’m not talking about the extra bulk ,” says Heather. She gestures at her plus-size figure. “As if I would ever be critical of a little extra bulk. I’m talking about the weapon of mass destruction that you seem to be able to call up at will.”
“Think about it,” adds Liv. “What if you accidentally go all CGI on the casting director? It could be a huge catastrophe. You could end up in Quantico or Area 51 or something.”
So far, even if I do say so myself, I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of keeping my cool in the middle of this whole supernatural shit show. But at the prospect of missing a chance at what could be my big break? That’s it. I start to unravel like a cheap freaking sweater.
“No,” I say. I get up and start pacing around. “No, no, no, no, no. I can’t be a no-show. I just can’t be. I’ve been trying to get in front of this casting director for months. Months. If I cancel now, I may never get another shot. And you know how it is.” I stop pacing and look at my friends, who are also in the early phases of their Hollywood careers, still paying their dues. “You both know how this business works. My agent got me this appointment. If I blow it off, she’ll think I’m not serious about acting. She could stop submitting me for roles. Drop me as a client. I mean, we all know there’s basically an endless supply of hopefuls out there who are exactly my type, who would be more than happy to take my spot on her roster. And then, after two years of busting my butt, I’ll be right back where I started. I’ll be back to mass mailings and open cattle calls and doing student films for free. And crossing my fingers that something will somehow pay off. And I’m already twenty-four,” I add. “Almost twenty-five. In Hollywood years, that’s practically ancient. I already look too old to go up for the teen parts.”
I pause to catch my breath. My body is shaking. I’m on the edge of hysterics, but I’m also more resolute than I’ve ever been in my life. “So I don’t care,” I tell my friends. “I don’t care if I’m shooting fire out of my arms or my eyes or my ass, goddammit. I am not flaking on this audition.”