Split Ends (11 page)

I slink out of the car, and he quickly pulls the door shut and peels away from the curb amid a few annoyed honks.

I can't even be the blackness in someone's universe.

I asked for this.
I have to remind myself this is not Scott's fault. Enjoy the moment, right? I'm in Hollywood, California. Swimming pools. Movie stars. And currently, I'm as Clampett as they come—without the bank account but certainly rivaling Ellie May with my new 'do. I wish I
had
enough hair for pigtails.

It's a mind-clarifying thing, being dumped on a bustling city street. I almost feel invisible, and it's actually sort of freeing. No one's expecting me. No one will get drunker if I don't show up when I'm supposed to. I could break out into dance, and not one person would care. Sure, they might stare a bit, but not one person would call the church and tattle on me. I don't even have a church yet!

“Cary Grant's star is at Hollywood and Vine!” I say out loud. Two guys in jeans and tight t-shirts stare me down, but they just keep moving. See? Being crazy here is no big deal. I am invincible!

“Hollywood and Vine!” I yell after them. “I'm going to see greatness!”

They just shake their heads at me. I feel powerful and mighty. I can be anything I want to be here! I feel like seeing Cary Grant's star, Clark Gable's, William Holden's!

“Excuse me,” I ask a passerby, a woman of about fifty. “Do you know where Hollywood Boulevard is?”

“To the left up there. Toward the hills. Take North Highlands until you reach the Boulevard.” She clicks her tongue. “Tourists.”

My heart starts to pound in my ears as I get closer to the infamous Walk of Fame. Sure, I know it's just a bunch of stars' names on a sidewalk, but to me it represents hundreds of dreams coming true. To me, it's proof that Archibald Leach truly became Cary Grant. At least in the eyes of the world.

Even at the height of ski season, Wyoming didn't have this many people. Everything is gray here, except the hills in the background, with their dilapidated fifties-era homes. I'm sure they're worth a fortune, but wow, are they a blight on the land or what? For this place to be concerned with the environment really is the epitome of irony.

Although it seems we only just left Beverly Hills, I'm rapidly discovering Hollywood is a different cup of tea. It's . . . um . . . scary, actually. The pristine streets and well-dressed patrons are long gone. The shops are selling fast food—or things I've never seen before that, let's just say, don't seem necessary in my life. There's a lot of cheap lingerie and tools for heaven knows what. Certainly nothing in my future. I'm sure they must be illegal in the state of Wyoming.

There are more people
lying
on the sidewalk than actually walking on it. Each one of them holds a sign: “Veteran. Need help
.
” “Homeless. Need work.” Some of them wave them at me. Some of them just prop them in front of their sleeping selves.
All
of them unnerve me.

I kick off my heels and start to walk a little faster along
the filthy concrete, knowing I'm probably subjecting myself to multiple bacterial infections but needing to feel like I'm moving. As evening is closing in (granted, not for a few hours, but it's a concern since I'm alone here, with only my address on a scrap of paper), I'm suddenly seeing my life story on Lifetime. I can see the trailer now:
“She came to
give Hollywood body. Instead, it took hers.”

I shiver. A web of my own imagination traps me until I'm holding my breath and praying there's a church to run into. But then I remember how in
The Sixth Sense
the kid went into a church and the dead guy came in there anyway! I shake the thought. It serves me right for getting theology from a ghost movie.

I speed up, walking as fast as I can without being obvious or breaking into a full run. No one's chasing me, but I feel those prickles on the back of my neck as though I'm being followed.

Then, almost before I'm aware of it, a familiar pink-and-brass glow on the sidewalk. I'm here.

Donna Reed. She's the first star I see. I stoop and run my hands over the brass letters. “You were one of my very favorite screen kisses, Miss Reed. You and Jimmy Stewart in
It's a Wonderful Life
—now that was romance.”

I run to the next star. Preston Sturges. Okay, sorry, Preston, but I have absolutely no idea who you are. I'm sure you were a great addition to Hollywood.

Next. Rita Hayworth. Ooh, redhead for the ages. Alan Ladd. Eh. Not so moved. Henry Fonda. Oh, I loved him in
The Grapes of Wrath.

Then I see it: John Wayne! Oh, my gosh, would my town go crazy. The ladies would be squealing with delight.

Shirley Temple. She was my favorite on a Saturday morning. Michael Landon. Loved
Little House on the Prairie
! Alistair Cooke. Loved
Masterpiece Theatre
.

When I spy the next one, I know I'm close to the Holy Grail of my Hollywood fetish: Clark Gable. “Frankly, my dear, I loved you!”

I know what's coming next. I've planned my exodus for too many years not to. The tears well up in my eyes as I look at his name.

Cary Grant.

I kneel next to the star and run my fingers over the letters. Does he have any idea what he's done in my life? Does he know how he kept this woman, younger than his own daughter, company? How he brought hope for a dream? My tears fall onto the star as I look up to the heavens. “Thank you, God. Thank you for seeing me this far I never thought I'd see the day.”

I don't know how long I sit here on this filthy sidewalk filled with hope, but I feel someone come up beside me, and that presence makes me look up.

“Are you all right, miss? Did you need something?”

“Who, me?” I ask.
Yeah, you—the one crying on Cary
Grant's star.
See, this kind of behavior isn't even normal for LA.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

I stare up, blinking wearily. I have never seen this many muscles on one human being in my lifetime. I'm not the gawking sort, but this is like car-accident gawking. He's a living anatomy book, showing the muscles under the skin—except his actually bulge out from the skin. They're that defined and that obvious, and I'm trying desperately not to look. Really, I am.

“Where's your shirt?”

“Where are your shoes?” he asks me.

I hold up my boots in my hands.

“Back in the gym. I was jogging with a client and I saw you—”

“You jog here? My cousin says people don't jog here.”

“People jog here. They pay me to jog with them.” He holds out a hand. “Do you want to get up?”

“I was just looking at Cary Grant's star. He was here.”

Gym Boy nods. “New to Hollywood?”

I smile up at him. “Was it the fawning over the star that gave me away?”

“It was the lack of shoes on a Hollywood sidewalk, actually.”

“I could just be another homeless person.”

“You're too cute to be homeless, so you must be a struggling actress. I suppose you could be both.”

“The people here make Cindy Simmons look like dog meat.”

“And Cindy Simmons is?”

“The most popular girl in Sable, Wyoming.”

“They must make them pretty in Wyoming, too, if you're the second-most popular.”

“Oh, I wasn't popular. I was a hairstylist.”

He laughs heartily. “So, you look like you could use a beverage. Can I make you a power drink back at the gym? A whey shake, perhaps? Lots of protein to keep you going, give you the energy you need.” He winks, and it's the first wave of warmth I've felt in hours. Granted, I'm sure there's a gym subscription behind his tenderness, but I can't afford to be picky now, can I?

The ripples of Gym Boy's six-pack make me lose my train of thought. I am not the salivating type, but I have absolutely not seen this before, and quite frankly, I always thought it was the airbrush that did that. Nothing like having all the men prettier than you to destroy your selfesteem.

“You want me to follow you back to the gym?” I ask him.

“People generally pay me for the privilege of running behind them.”

“What self-respecting girl would want you running behind them?” I mean, is it just me, or would that make any woman feel like she was carrying the caboose of a freight train?

“I encourage them.”

“Well, I can tell you right now, that wouldn't encourage me.” I dust off my bum with my free hand.

He raises his brows. “And what would encourage you, Miss—”

“Sarah Winston.” I hold out my hand, but it's filthy from Cary's star, my tears, and my own shoes, so I drop it back to my side. “What do you eat?” I ask him. “Besides fruit smoothies.”

“What?”

“You have no body fat to speak of. I wondered what you ate. It's a fair question.”

He preens a little and curls a bicep. “It's all about protein and portions, little lady.” He has a receding blond hairline and the prettiest blue-green eyes, like a tropical sea He's way out of my league. Though I guess Dane and Cary are too, and that hasn't halted the dream.

“So you're a Cary Grant fan.”

“Isn't everyone?”

“Are you going to take me up on my offer of a smoothie? it's not everyone I offer a free power drink to. Just walk toward the light.”

“The last time I went towards the light, I got this haircut, so I should know better.”

He smiles broadly, showing good teeth. “You have you cheekbones to pull it off. Though you might want to rethink your stylist next time. Don't you have a friend or something? Isn't that what you do?” He shakes his head. “Yeah, that's not going to help business.”

“Brutal honesty. I can't stand that in a person.”

He laughs again. “Where are you from?”

“New York.” Swallowing after my lie.

“So how are you familiar with the most popular girl from Wyoming?”

“Upstate New York.” At his unconvinced look, I wince. I look down at my bare feet and then at the cheap boots in my hands.
Sigh.
“I'm from Wyoming, actually.”

This makes him laugh out loud. “So you're here to be an actress? Because you're not very convincing.” He smirks. “I've heard the hairstylist routine before, you understand.”

I shake my head. “No, I really am here to be their hairstylist. I got a job training in a Beverly Hills salon.”

“I think that's harder, actually. To be the stars' hairstylists. They're particular, and if it doesn't come out like they want . . .” He whistles. “I should know; I see it every day with actors who want six-packs but don't want to work out. I steer them down to the plastic surgeon's office because that's the only way they'll get them.”

“I'm looking for the vintage shop.” I look down at my feet again. “Well, but Cary Grant's star was my priority. Sue me.”

“It's not open past six.” A shrug flexes his muscles. “Besides, the best vintage shop is where the stars drop off their clothes. It's that way. They might not be open late either, though.” He points back down the creepy street with the lumps of homeless folks I'm sure I should feel pity for—Christian compassion and all that—but on this day I only feel a little terror at passing them again. There's something unbearably weird about perfect weather and lumps in big coats along the sidewalks.

“I'd rather just go to the other one tomorrow. Thank
you again.” I start to walk up the street, and Mr. Beautiful follows behind me. Granted, he's giving my ego a fantastic boost, but the Wyoming girl in me just wants him to call it a day
. I just want to fix my hair and fixate on Cary's star
again and getting there. Is that too much to ask?

“You have no idea where you are, do you?”

“I'm heading that way. On the Walk of Fame.”

“Would you come back here? I'm totally safe. Come ask someone in the gym how I can protect you if you don't believe me.”

“But I have to go with you to do that, and I could be dead by then. Right here I have Cary to protect me.”

He poses with his biceps flexed in all their glory. “I'm totally safe. If I was going to hurt you, would I be offering a fruit smoothie? Juice drinks and violence are opposing extremes.”

“I'll give you that much.”

“If anyone should be scared, I think it's me, because I'm allowing a woman to follow me who isn't wearing shoes on Vine and who is sobbing over Cary Grant's star.”

“It was a few tears. I wasn't sobbing. That's a bit too much drama, but if you knew what it took to get me here . . .”

“The name is Nick Harper, trainer to the stars.” He pats his bare chest. “I don't have a card on me, sorry.”

“So,
this
is the best he could do?” A woman's voice tinged with a hint of crazy slices though our conversation.

I turn to see a lovely (as in gorgeous, but from her expression not exactly heart-filled) woman. She has that natural-colored auburn hair that every woman tries to recreate in a salon, only to look like they have wood polish glazed on their hair. She has icicle-blue eyes, the color of a glacier, and they feel just as cold as she gazes down on me. Now, I'm 5'6”, average height, but this woman is monstrously tall. And at the moment much scarier than the homeless lumps up the street—her eyes are frosty and her venom seems meant for me. I step closer to Nick. Sort of a
He's with me
move.

“You don't know who I am,” Amazon says to me. “I can't believe you have the audacity to not know who I am.”

I don't, and trust me here: I wish I did, if only to protect myself.

“Xena, Warrior Princess?” Judging by her reaction, this was the wrong answer. “I'm new in town. I doubt very much that we know each other.” Stepping ever closer to Muscle Man, I try to restart our conversation. “So they say William Holden's star—”