He sighed. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
She warmed, hearing the self-recrimination in his voice. “But Indonesia is dangerous, too.”
“If my father ran things over there, it would be safe to walk alone at one, two in the morning,” Jusef said fiercely. “The world’s going to hell, Meg. It’s up to people like my father to save it.”
By taking away everyone’s freedom. Imprisoning anyone who dares to criticize the great Bang Rais, she thought. But she kept her own counsel.
“I will keep you safe,” Jusef said to her. He lifted her hand to his soft mouth and kissed her knuckles. “You’re very precious to me. There’s no one else like you in the entire world.”
“The way you say it, I almost believe you,” she murmured, wanting more reassurance.
“It’s true. I know it for a fact.” He smiled at her. “You’re unique. Irreplaceable.”
She wrinkled her nose, letting go of the bad memories, as he had taught her, concentrating on him instead.
“You make me sound like a Ming vase,” she accused him playfully.
“Or some other kind of precious vessel,” he replied. He stood and pulled her to her feet. “Ready to get to work?”
She nodded.
“That’s my Meg. I’ll call the others back in.” He pulled a cigarette from a pack on a yellow three-legged stool. “Take a moment. Wash your face.”
Jusef crossed the room to the back door, where the others were smoking.
Meg looked at herself in the mirror.
“God, I look like death,” she muttered.
Then she went to wash her face.
CHAPTER THREE
Later that afternoon
“My breath is so fresh,” Cordelia Chase trilled as she clomped up the stairs of the Cooper Building. She was in the garment district, smack in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, and she wasn’t there because it was fun to hunt for bargains. Winding her way among dingy brick buildings missing half their windowpanes and trying on clothes in places where the only dressing room was a blanket thrown over a rope had never been high on her list of “oh yay.”
In the old days I never even looked at a price tag, she thought mournfully. Now all I do is worry about money.
It was a dry and blistering afternoon. It had been a long day, not made any easier by Angel. Just as she’d been getting ready for her audition this morning, he had called and asked her to check the machine throughout the day while he slept. Something about a fire last night, and a hangup phone call, and that it was very important to return any calls from some girl named Nira. No reason why, of course.
Maybe Nira equals he’s over Buffy, Cordelia thought, surveying the mob scene in the first store on her right. It’s only been a couple months here in L.A. but hey, he was the one who broke up with her.
Despite the proliferation of outlet stores, the L.A. garment district was still famous. Still a bargain-hunter’s paradise, too, for Armani and Hugo Boss and all kinds of yummy labels. Tour buses dislodged shoppers from as far away as Las Vegas.
Hope the trip’s worth it. For them and for me.
Hope Nira calls, if that’s what he wants.
She’d had to monitor the phone because he was exhausted. He told her he hadn’t been sleeping well, and really needed to catch up. Like what, if he doesn’t get enough sleep he’ll die or something?
So, maybe not over the thing with Buffy after all.
To be nice and, well, okay, job, she’d agreed to keep checking for calls. But that so wreaked havoc with her preparation for her audition. However, that was business as usual when you worked for a superhero.
She frowned as she looked around at all the other women and girls, bags of bargains at their feet, joyfully snaking Spandex pants on over their workaday pantyhose.
No, no, and no, she thought, shaking her head at the rampant fashion victimization occurring all around her. Y’know, if more people read Wand had, well, personal shoppers, many of these terrible blunders could be avoided.
She looked at a skirt, sighed, and put it back. No place to wear it at the moment. And that suede jacket thingie: too hot for L.A. weather by half.
Meanwhile: Angel. She’d done what he’d asked, but at a major inconvenience to herself and, potentially, to her career. In the old days she would have used her cell phone to make all the calls. And let Daddy pick up the bill. It was awkward to use the pay phone at the casting office, fumbling for change, knowing the others were trying to eavesdrop, learn about their competition, maybe catch a couple hints about another casting call. It kept pulling her out of the moment she was fighting so hard to stay in. Bright and cheery, loving mouthwash more than life.
But her overall mood had not been the best. The Santa Ana — the hot winds that whistled down the canyons of Los Angeles and sucked the moisture out of every pore she owned — had given her a sinus headache. And, well, truth to tell, she had had the jitters. It happened when you constantly got rejected for every single thing you tried out for.
It almost made her feel sorry for the losers she used to routinely turn down when they’d ask her to dance at the Bronze.
On blistering, burning feet — stupid cheap shoes! — she left the Cooper Building behind. She started meandering around Fashion Alley, where the racks of clothes were crammed together right out on the street. It was a jostle, people milling and squeezing by. The B.O. level was instense.
Some touristy-looking women in oversize T-shirts and leggings — so over, even in the land of over, which had to be someplace like Michigan — posed for photos in front of a slightly more picturesque building than the others. Most of them — the buildings, not the women — were warehouses and factories built in the twenties, of brick, which you did not see much of in Southern California because of earthquakes.
One of the women in the group said, “Let’s eat at the Pantry! Their mayor owns it.”
Cordelia wondered if she’d ever be able to afford a vacation again in her life. She said again, with feeling, “My breath is so fresh!”
She slumped. “But basically, I stink.”
There was not going to be a callback on this audition. Cordelia could tell by the way the casting director had glazed over while she was auditioning. Or maybe it had been the way she interrupted Cordelia and said, “Next.”
What was it this time? Cordelia had almost demanded. Is my nose too big? Is my nose too small?
It’s always something in this town.
She stopped along the street and wiped her hair away from her forehead. Her calves were aching. The balls of her feet were on fire. Stupid shoes. It was going to be a stupid commercial, anyway. She would have been embarrassed to be in it.
In Sunnydale I was the standard by which all other Sunnydale High girls were judged. On the Cordelia Chase scale of one to ten, I was a twelve.
But in Hollywood — just two hours away from her hometown, but truly, on another planet, and she didn’t mean the restaurant chain that Arnold, Bruce, and Demi owned — she was not being treated like the Rainbow Fish, the one everybody hated because it was so much more beautiful. She barely rated guppy attention. One casting director had told Cordelia’s manager that her eyebrows were too bushy. Her eyebrows, which were totally waxable.
Noses were loppable. Teeth were capable. You could get your eyelids permanently tattooed. You could add collagen to your lips, suck the fat out of your chin, do a tuck, a lift, or a total sculpture. In Los Angeles you could do just about anything to the human body — if you had the bucks — to improve your looks. Or unimprove them, even, with all that gross piercing and stuff.
So she had to believe it wasn’t any part of her body that was actually wrong, since she was basically gorgeous, and more than willing to do the plastic surgery thing. None of her rejections ever included anything about her acting ability, so it had to be something the casting directors couldn’t put into words.
She could.
It’s my clothes.
In the old d
ays — that was to say, when she used to live in Sunnydale, and her parents had not lost all their money to the greedy IRS, who for sure had plenty of other people to shake down for whatever tiny deficit her non-taxpaying father had accumulated — she had shopped for many reasons. For fun. To maintain the high standards she had previously set. To raise the fashion bar at Sunnydale High (so not difficult).
She had also shopped because hey, let’s face it, hanging out with Buffy and the rest of the “Scooby Gang” — quote marks added to not display amusement — had been very tough on her wardrobe. She didn’t know how many beautiful things she had tossed because she couldn’t get the bloodstains out.
So maybe Buffy and Willow had had something going with their cheesy outfits. Demon slime and monster guts were much easier to remove from polyester blends than natural fibers. And if they weren’t, no big trauma if you dressed for less.
But now, when the people around her really mattered, when they knew fashion as well as she did, she didn’t have the money to look like a million bucks. She didn’t have the money to look like fifty cents.
“Like I can afford anything better than last season’s knockoff of the trend two years ago,” she huffed as she pulled a strangely green silk blouse from an overcrowded circular rack marked with a cardboard sign AS IS — ALL SALES FINAL.
No wonder it’s on sale. It’s the ugliest color I’ve ever seen. It would make me look like a zombie.
And I know what I’m talking about.
Tears welled in her eyes. She was dying for nice new clothes and shoes and to have a latte whenever she wanted one. Shopping was just one more pleasure denied her, and it only served to remind her that she was on the fast track to nowhere.
“Ibu, please, no,” said a man.
Cordelia jerked and looked up.
Whoa. She blinked in astonishment. Hello, exciting new taste sensation.
The young man who took the blouse from her was incredible to stare at. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and he was extremely well put together despite his casual appearance. She knew a fifty-dollar cotton T-shirt when she saw one. His black jeans were bun-hugging tight, and his scuffed cowboy boots were perfect. He reeked of money, and a hint of Bijan for Men. Tall, his unlined skin was the color of cocoa butter, and his features were Brad-Pitt sharp and angled. Beneath short, spiked black hair, his deep brown eyes were almond-shaped. He looked like Harrison Ford, only if Harrison Ford was still in his mid-twenties and had been born in, say, Japan.
“That color’s going to kill your complexion,” he said. Smiling gently to take the sting out of his criticism, he shoved the blouse back into the tangle of coat hangers dripping with more ugly blouses and yet uglier sweaters.
“Uh,” she said, too mesmerized to respond. Was someone shooting a movie? Was she on The Cordelia Show?
Had she died and gone to heaven?
He cocked his head. “Vous me comprenez?”
He’s French, she thought, delighted. Oh, why did I ever think French was a dead language? Why didn’t I at least do my nails in a different class?
“Um, I’m an American,” she replied, in English.
Moving back into her native tongue, hunkily accented with, well, an accent, he said, “Sorry to be so blunt. But my family’s in the rag trade, and I know clothes.” He shrugged. “But of course, it’s up to you.”
He inclined his head and started to walk away.
“Wait!” she cried. “I knew that color sucked.” She cleared her throat and gestured at the rack. “There’s too much yellow in it.”
He brightened. “Too much yellow.”
“I’d go all sallow.” She nodded eagerly.
“It would be a disaster.” He smiled and touched his palms together. “I’m Jusef Rais.” He said it like she should know who that was; which, if he had been someone big in the entertainment industry, she would. She read Ted Casablancas’s E! Online gossip report on Angel’s computer every day.
“Hi.” She started to copy his gesture, but about halfway through it, she decided that would be hokey. So she just kind of gave her hands a little wave and smiled.
“There’s nothing on this entire rack that would suit you,” he said. “These are clothes for bank tellers.” He sniffed. “Clerical workers.”
No need to mention I’m a receptionist, she thought. Especially since it’s just to help Angel out until I hit the big time.
And, well, okay, so I can eat.
She ventured, “So you’re here to . . .?”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Oh.” She was disappointed. Figures.
He smiled at her. “And I have.”
She shoots, she scores, Cordelia thought happily. At last!
“Do you shop here often?” she asked, flirting.
He chuckled. “No. We own a lot of businesses in the area, though. I come in here now and then just to keep up.”
A lot of businesses? A lot of them? Despite her euphoria, she wrinkled her nose. “Keep up with what? What people should not be buying?”
“You could say that. I stopped you from buying that blouse, didn’t I?”
She was mildly defensive. “Like I said, I knew it sucked.”
“You should come by our showroom sometime,” he continued. “We specialize in Indonesian fabrics. Batik. It’s coming back in.”
“Yes.” She nodded, although she didn’t have the slightest idea what “batik” was. “It’s really, um, beautiful. I love it.”
“We’re teaching our employees how to make it here.”
As opposed to where? “Great,” she enthused.
He cocked his head. “You’re an actress, aren’t you? I’ve seen you in something.”
“Probably not. I do a lot of indie stuff. Independent,” she amended. “Like you see in Landmark Theaters.” If only. “But not, um, you know, movies about lesbians or anything like that.”
“We have a small studio back in Indonesia. In Dakarta.”
“Oh.” She raised her brows. A studio? He owns a whole studio? Indonesia . . . where the heck’s Indonesia? They must not have a Club Med or I’d know. Who could have guessed some of the useless factoids they taught in high school would actually be useful?
Like French? Or geography?
“Any movies I would have seen?” she asked him.
“Not really.” He grinned at her. “We produce a lot of indie stuff, as you say, only in foreign languages. Mandarin. Tagalog. And of course, Bahasa Indonesia.”
“Oh, of course.” She nodded as if she had a slight clue what he was talking about.
“I’m serious. I’m not trying to hit on you. I’m sure you meet guys all the time who tell you they’re in the industry.”
“Oh, of course.” She made a careless gesture. “At all the parties. That I go to, with lots of other working professionals. You know how it is.” Yeah, the parties she wasn’t getting to attend anymore because she worked for Angel. Who could only work at night. When the parties were.
“Maybe you could work with us on something.”
He reached in his pocket and handed her a business card. Their fingers brushed, and she nearly dropped it.
Talk about sizzle. As in, good thing it’s a bone-dry day, or I’d get electrocuted.
From the look on his face, he’d felt it, too. Cordelia looked down at the card to mask her reaction. She used to be the Queen of Cool, until she got rusty from being ignored in Los Angeles. The lettering was gold and impossible to read. There was a rooster or something on it. She decided to examine it more closely later; she unzipped her purse and cheerily dropped it in.
“Well,” Jusef said. He looked around. “It looks like my cousin isn’t going to show.” There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. His eyes narrowed and disapproval rolled off him in waves.
“I’ve kept you from your shopping,” he added.
“No, that’s okay,” she said. “Like you said, there’s really nothing here and . . .” Her eyes widened. He was
wearing a Rolex. A beautiful, expensive Rolex.
When she realized he was noticing her noticing, she said, “Oh, my, look at the time. It’s almost sundown.”
“Your Filofax is calling.” He paused. His eyes glittered as his face shifted back into flirtatious mode. “Have you got a date?”
As if. Talking to him was the closest thing she’d had to a date in months.
It’s just gotta be my clothes.
“Slamet, there you are,” Jusef said as a guy rushed up to the two of them.
“Jusef, where the hell have you been?” new guy demanded.
“Waiting right here, just as we agreed.”
“Don’t be stupid. I was at the front door.”
Cordelia stared. He could almost be a twin of Jusef — in other words, incredibly good-looking — except that he looked way beyond shut down. His eyes were swollen — from crying, she guessed — and his clothes, a really beautiful gunmetal gray business suit, looked like he had taken a spinning class in them.
New guy — Salami? — said gruffly, “I don’t mean to be rude,” he began, then stopped. He blinked at Cordelia. “My God, she looks exactly like Meg,” he said.
Jusef shrugged. “A little. And it occurs to me I don’t even know her name.”
“Cordelia Chase,” she told him and Salami.
“An actress,” Jusef filled in.
“Oh.” Salami cared less than not.
There was a pause. Then Jusef said, “My father died earlier today.”
And you’re not sorry, she thought. Still, because it was the right thing to do, she touched her chest and said, “I’m so sorry. Truly.”
He put on a sad face, too. “My dad was getting on. But it’s always shocking when death snatches a soul from the world. You know what I mean?”
“Um, yes.” Unless it’s a monster’s soul. Although most of them don’t have souls. Which is part of what being a monster’s all about. Besides killing people.
He regarded her intently. “Somebody like you, what would you know about death and dying?”
Got a few hours? she thought, but she said, “I might surprise you.”
“We must go,” Salami announced.