The Manolo Matrix (5 page)

There.

My heart pounds with a thrill I haven’t experienced in over five years. And with a nonchalance learned from years of practice and training, I ease toward my prey.

JENNIFER

“Are you sure you can’t stay overnight?” I asked Mel, as we crammed onto the already full elevator.

“You could catch the first flight out in the morning.”

The doors started to shut, but then a bag shot forward into the gap. My gaze followed the line from bag to arm to woman, and I gasped a little when I realized the bag was being held by Bird Girl. She mouthed an apology to everyone on the lift, then squeezed inside, easing around a pencil-thin woman with a severe expression until she was in the far back of the elevator. The other passengers jostled to make room for her, and I held out a hand, steadying myself against Brian’s shoulder. He glanced at me, his narrow expression telegraphing exactly what I felt: she couldn’t have waited for the next car?

Mel watched the whole thing impassively, and when the car was moving again, she returned seamlessly to our conversation. “I wish I could, but I have a 7A.M. meeting. If I don’t make my flight, I’m screwed.”

I debated trying to talk her into staying anyway, but Mel is devoted to her job in a way that borders on obsessive. More, I knew she wanted to get back to Matthew. “Fair enough. At least we got to hang out for a few hours.”

We kept on, chatting about nothing much, when the elevator stopped and we all moved forward. I felt a surge of people from behind me, and I stifled the urge to shout out a curse and tell them to wait their turn.

And then suddenly I was pushed roughly forward. I fell against Brian, then felt someone grab my arm and pull me back upright. I looked down at the hand clutching my arm, wincing as I saw the gaudy ring smashing into my flesh. The hand belonged to Bird Girl, who now stood me up and steadied me.

“I’m so sorry!” she said. “I completely lost my balance.”

“It’s okay,” I said, as I followed Brian and Mel out of the elevator. “I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?” She was out now, too, her eyes looking me up and down as if she’d caused me some grievous injury.

I smiled brightly, just wanting to get away. The woman might be a beauty with great fashion sense, but she gave me the creeps.

“It’s these damn shoes,” she said. “The heel caught on something.”

My eyes moved automatically to her feet. Not only was she nowwearing my shoes, but she was bad-mouthing them.Hello? If she can’t figure out how to walk in thong sandals, she has no business

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buying them.

And then she did something that completely blew me away. She bent down, slipped the shoes off her feet, and shoved them in a nearby trash can. As I gaped, I heard the solid thump of the shoes hitting the bottom of the can.

I swallowed, my fingers itching to rescue the shoes. I managed to hold myself back. I might have a thing for Manolos, but I couldn’t bring myself to stick my arm through a trash can slot and feel around for a pair of shoes. Especially when I don’t wear a size nine.

Instead, I just stared as the girl pranced barefoot across the sales floor, the bird on her shoulder swaying with the rhythm of her walk.

“That’s one fucked-up female,” Brian whispered.

And that, I thought, pretty much said it all.

JENNIFER

Sometimes, the stars align in your favor. Not always. But sometimes. And after I parted ways with Mel and Brian, I was the happy recipient of some serious celestial line-dancing.

No, I didn’t get a callback forCarousel.

No, I didn’t win the lottery. I didn’t even win a shopping spree at Bloomie’s.

But Idid find that very pair of Manolos on eBay. And the truly stellar part? They were listed at well under a hundred dollars!

(Takethat, Bird Bitch!)

What happened was this: I’d come home still suffering from Manolo-lust, and feeling a tinge of regret that I hadn’t dug Bird Girl’s pumps out of the trash. So I logged onto the auction site, punched in

“Manolo,” filtered out everything but the shoes, and honed in on those auctions that were ending soonest.

And there they were.Right in the center of the list. Complete with a slightly out-of-focus picture.

Those very same shoes. True, they were in lime green—and gently used—but Manolos are Manolos, and after squealing and staring at the computer screen for a good two minutes, I finally realized that the only way these reasonably priced Manolos would be mine is if I bid on them.

Which I promptly did.

And—yes!—I came up as the high bidder!

Was life good, or what?

I checked the computer twice before I went to bed (no one bid against me), and again after I woke up

(someone else had bid, but the price was only up to one-hundred-twenty-eight, and I was still in the lead).

I managed to put the shoes out of my mind long enough to go forth into the world to be both productive

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and social. In other words, I sang my way through my shift then hit Starbucks with Brian, where he worried and preened and raved about his upcoming debut.

“You’re making that face,” Brian said, during a pause in his spiel.

I carefully erased any and all emotion. “What face?”

“The one that says you’re never going to make it, never going to amount to anything, and you might as well move back to California and pass out baskets at Wal-Mart. Personally, I think you should work the

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Clinique counter at Bloomingdale’s, but when you get that face, there’s no reasoning with you.”

“You’re an ass,” I said. “I don’t have a face, and I’m not wallowing in self-pity.” Not much, anyway.

“Here,” Brian said, pressing a business card into my hand. “Nicolae is taking new students.”

“Brian…” I’m sure he heard the exasperation in my voice because I sure as heck didn’t try to hide it. “I

told you. I’ve taken voice lessons my whole life. I’m thoroughly schooled.”

“Then why aren’t you thoroughly employed?” He held up a hand. “No, don’t look at me like that. This is my moment to say serious shit. You’re good, Jenn. But you can be better.”

“I practice. I train.” Okay, even as I said it, I knew I sounded lame. “When am I supposed to squeeze in classes? When I’m not working, I’m auditioning.”

“Or shopping…”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

“Seriously, sugar, you’ve got a voice that can make me cry like a baby, but you’re raw, you know?

You’ve been here, what? Two, three years now?”

“Getting on that,” I admitted.

“Well, news flash for you. No one is going to swoop down and discover you. You need to make your own luck. Bust your own ass.”

“I audition!”

He leaned back, then sucked down the rest of his caramel machiatto. “I’m not interested in excuses. I’m interested in seeing your name inPlaybill.”

“So am I,” I said, because that was the truth. And then, because the whole conversation was skirting a little too close to my reality, I steered us off on a tangent that I knew would interest Brian: him.

The ploy worked, and we spent the next hour analyzing the variousPuck’s Dream cast members and fantasizing about where he’d be five years from now. He was gunning for a Tony, and I think he just might make it. Of course, that didn’t change the fact that I wanted to make it first.

Andthat thought brought me full circle to his implied suggestion that I wasn’t working hard enough at my craft. Since that wasn’t a road I wanted to go down again, I gave him a quick kiss good-bye, then made my exit.

I was tired and I really wanted to just call a taxi, but it’s only a ten-block walk, and I couldn’t justify the

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cost. Fortunately, I was still in my practical (and practically hideous) waitress shoes. Ugly but comfortable. That’sso not my motto. But you know what they say: pride goeth before painful feet.

Which got me thinking about eBay and the Manolos all over again.

I hurried through the series of locks designed to keep me in and bad guys out, tossed my bag on the floor, then headed for the desk and my laptop. I’d left the screen up, so all I had to do was hit the refresh key and…Yes!I was still the man! (Or the woman, as the case might be.) I did a little jig as I clicked over to check my email (all spam) then expanded my happy dance to cover my entire apartment. The dance turned into a striptease as I tugged off my clothes on the way to the shower. In the steam, I lathered up and soaped down, breathing deep of Aveda and Dove as the clingy scent of french fries and hamburgers coiled down the drain.

Half an hour and half a bottle of shampoo later, I sat in front of my computer, ready for a laid-back evening in my favorite pair of jeans and a faded black t-shirt. I curled my legs under me, then got ready to count down the minutes until the shoes were mine.

Five seconds…three…and then…YES! THE MANOLOS WERE MINE, MINE, ALL

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MINE!!!!!

My computer dinged and a little envelope appeared at the bottom of my screen, signaling that I had new mail. I clicked over right away, expecting to find an invoice generated by eBay for the seller. Instead, I

found an email from a sender I didn’t recognize. Curious, I opened the message…then immediately wished I hadn’t. My stomach roiled, and I realized my hand had gone to my mouth and I’d quit breathing. I hadn’t ever seen a message like this before, but I’d heard about it. Mel had told me all about the emails, and I never, ever wanted to get one.

Apparently, though, what I wanted really wasn’t the issue.

FROM: MessageCenter@playsurvivewin.

com

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Message Waiting

MESSAGE:

You have ONE message in your inbox at the PSW Message Center. Click >>>here<<< to Login to the

Message Center and immediately retrieve your message.

I didn’t want to…dear God, I really didn’t want to. But I did. I had to know. And so I clicked.

Then just about threw up when I saw the message that filled my screen:

>>http://www.playsurvivewin.com<<

PLAY.SURVIVE.WIN

PLEASE LOGIN

PLAYER USERNAME:BroadwayBaby

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PLAYER PASSWORD:********

…please wait

…please wait

…please wait

Password approved

>>>Read New Messages<<<>>>Create New Message<<<

…please wait

WELCOME TO MESSAGE CENTER

You have one new message.

New Message:

To: BroadwayBaby

From: Identity Blocked

Subject: Funding

Advance payment deposited your account.

Amount: $20,000.

Client name: Devlin Brady.

Additional funds to be delivered upon successful completion of protection mission.

Rule Refresher: Involvement by police or other authorities isexpressly forbidden.

Good luck.

>>>Player Profile Attached: DB_Profile.doc<<< I read the thing twice, somehow managing not to be sick. I’m not entirely sure how. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to crawl under the covers and go to sleep. I wanted to scream. This game was a death warrant. Hadn’t Mel just told me about the protector who’d ended up with a bullet in his gut? And the other guy dead on the floor?

Hell, Mel and Matthew had both almost died trying to win this game. A game they hadn’t even
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wanted to play in the first place. They’d lived, but there was no guarantee I’d be so lucky.

I thought about that—thought about how much I didn’t want to play. How much I’d rather curl up under my covers and hide.

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But I didn’t. Instead, I reached for the phone, grateful for speed-dial since my hand was shaking so badly. Miles away, in Washington, D.C., Mel’s cell phone rang. I prayed that she’d answer. I needed to talk to her. Dear God, there wasn’t anyone else in the whole world I needed to talk to more.

And this time, we sure as hell weren’t going to be talking about shoes.

JENNIFER

No answer.

I stared at the phone, not quite comprehending that Mel couldn’t be there, and when it kicked over to voice mail, I left a frantic message for her to call me. Then I rummaged through my desk for my address book. I’d only programmed her cell number into my phone. Maybe the battery had run down. Surely if I

called her house…

I found the book and pounced on it, then immediately started flipping pages. The second I found the number, I dialed, then did the finger-tapping routine until the machine clicked on. A regular answering machine, I assumed, and I went through the whole “Mel? Are you there? Mel, goddamn it, pick up!”

routine. Nothing. I sighed, then added, “Call me the second you get in. It’s urgent. It’s about this fucking game! Mel! It’s about PSW, and you have got to call and help me!”

Then I hung up the phone and stood in front of my computer. My chin was thrust forward and my hands were fisted, as if I was afraid it would attack. Actually, I realized, that was exactly what I was afraid of.

I took three deep breaths and forced myself to relax. Just as if I were backstage and had to calm down and get into character before stepping out on that stage.

Right. Okay. Right.

Calm.

That was me, the leading lady who’s the total spine of the show. Calm and collected and not the least bit hysterical.

Three more breaths and I’d pulled myself together. I glanced toward the door, saw that I had locked it, just like I always did. Good. My heart was still pounding, but I played my role with aplomb, searching every nook and cranny, just to make absolutely certain I was alone. I was.

And the window was locked.