Page 20 of For The Record

I hold back my sigh. Of course, he wanted something. Apologies always come with strings attached. Then again, there’s no such thing as a free green juice. Especially not in Los Angeles. “What do you need?”

“Can you draft a press release for this band? One of the members is leaving the group,” he explains. “For their mental health.”

“You want me to break their fans’ hearts for you?” I say as my computer dings with an email from him. A four-piece girl group is being whittled down to three members.

“Well… when you put it like that…” He wears a sheepish look, rubbing the nape of his neck. Dark circles shadow his eyes, and he looks exhausted.

“I’m just not interested in doing your work for you, Mark,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

“I would normally never ask you to… I just have a lot on my plate right now.” He sighs, resting his chin on his palm. “You know what, you’re right. I can do it myself… it shouldn’t take that long.”

I wheel my rolling chair closer to his. He does look like he could use a break, and maybe some coffee. But couldn’t we all? “No… It’s okay. My schedule probably isn’t as heavy as yours, since you’ve been working here longer.”

Mark tucks his phone in his pocket, and something changes in his face, going from steely professionalism to something almost soft, almost vulnerable. “I just want to explain, so you don’t think I’m just loafing around doing nothing.”

“Go ahead,” I say, feeling a throbbing headache bloom at my temples.

He stares at his hands, folded on the desk. “The truth is, I didn’t want to tell anyone this, but since I’m asking you to help me… I guess I owe you the truth.” He rubs at his jaw. “My mom has breast cancer. I’ve been trying to go to her chemo appointments and other stuff with her since her English isn’t that great. That’s why I’ve been leaving work at odd hours and all that. It’s been pretty rough, I’m not going to lie.”

My jaw drops. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, Mark. I can’t imagine how hard that must be… Of course, I’ll write the press release for you.”

“Thanks, Skye. I don’t want your pity or anything. I just wanted to be open with you about that, since it affects work.” His expression is inscrutable.

“No, totally, I get it. Well, not completely, but you know what I mean,” I say. “Um, and, I don’t mean to pity you or overstep my boundaries, but I do have a family friend who’s the best oncologist at Cedars-Sinai. Great guy, I could ask him to take… Take a look…” My voice trails off. I’m not exactly BFFs with Mark, but my heart goes out to anyone in that situation. “Have you told Leo? I’m sure he would understand.”

Mark looks uncomfortable, scratching the nape of his neck. His gaze dodges mine. “I don’t want to be a burden on anyone. Thankfully, they caught it early enough. She should be okay. Thanks for everything, Holland. I appreciate it. "

“Of course. I would do this for any friend.” A white lie, but it’s a hazard of the job, really.

He leaves a few minutes later. I open his email and get to work writing the press release, carefully tweaking the tone until it sounds like the perfect combination of warm, professional, and sad. My work consumes me once more, and an hour flies by. I call it a day around 6. On my way out the door, though, Leo beckons me into his office. Annabelle’s already left for the day.

“Close the door behind you, please.” I do it, hands fisting in my pleated green skirt, out of this burning curiosity to know whether his summons is a work thing… Or something more. But why should I care? “What’s up?”

“Did you see Mark leave early?” he says.

My stomach tightens. The first test of my fragile alliance with Mark, juxtaposed with the butterfly-from-chrysalis state of my relationship with Leo, if you could even call it that. “I didn’t really notice when he left.”

“Hmm.” He makes a note on a yellow post-it. I’m absurdly, unreasonably infuriated by his complete lack of a response. What do I want from him, anyway? “Well, I guess it would be rude of me to ask co-workers to snitch on one another. I know I wouldn’t want that. You’re dismissed.”

Heat flushes my cheeks, and my nails dig into my palms. Just as I turn around to leave, staring at the door, I wonder if the eyes I feel on my back are real or wishfully imagined. Then I hear him say, “Oh, and Skye?”

“Yes?” I don’t turn around, putting my hands on my hips.

The sounds of his footsteps reach me as he gets up from his desk and walks toward me. One of his hands brushes my elbow, the other my throat, as he reaches past me to close the blinds. “I had a great time on Saturday night, and I’d like to take you out again sometime.”

Involuntarily, my lips curve up and I spin around. But I refuse to be so easily won over. “I’ll consider your offer, Mr. Perez.”

#

That night, I open my laptop, tucking my feet under me on the purple futon that Poppy lovingly refurbished from the dumpster of a frat house. It was in seriously dire straits when I first saw it, but she nurtured it back to health like a baby bird. The thought of birds reminds me of the birdhouse I made. Maybe I could try my hand at a birdbath next.

Scrolling endlessly through the web results, I sigh. Architecture internships. I double-majored in Communications and Architecture at UCLA, the latter like a dirty secret that I never let my family know about. Why would I, when my older brother made it clear that architecture was worse than a pipe dream and lower than a goal? When Isabelle smiled sadly, this pitying, patronizing look on her face like she knew I’d never amount to anything? When even Heidi looked at me with my sandcastles and crayon drawings like they were little hobbies, little diversions, but never anything to be taken seriously? They all made it abundantly clear, my father especially, my father especially, that if I wasn’t going into the movie business, then I was nothing.

So I didn’t bother. I stopped drawing. I stopped trying. I stopped any dreams at all from taking root in my heart, and I told myself I had nothing. I told myself I was nothing. That all my dreams were only dreams, and all my wishes were only whispers, and that when I turned twenty-one it was time to put those things away and become an adult. Accept my reality. I was a nobody, managing the lives of somebodies.

But when I was little, I remember chucking out the dolls to be tied to Aaron’s hot wheels tracks—he watched a lot of Westerns—and playing with dollhouses. I would take apart the walls and roofs and put them back together in new ways., or paint them over in nicer colours other than pink and purple. Aaron, of course, eventually got bored with running over my Barbies, Bratz dolls, and Polly Pockets, so he turned his attention to my dollhouse re-creations, stomping on them with his transformers and chucking Legos at them. I cried. Isabelle offered me a creamsicle to distract me from the pain, but she never stopped him. She never stood up to him, even when I was five and they were nine.

I scroll through more job applications.Architecture internship. Unpaid.

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