CHAPTER 6
It had been a little over a week since Justin had unexpectedly showed up at Lola’s house. They didn’t do anything that first night except watch the ball game and fall asleep on the couch together. The morning after she cooked them both breakfast and they snuggled on the couch, two days later they went to Geisha House for dinner and then to the Laugh Factory to see the Dane Cook show, and last night they went for sushi at Koi and dancing at Hyde.
This morning Lola awoke to her cell phone ringing. She blindly groped her bedside table to pick it up.
Without even looking at the screen, “’Ello Ruby” Lola murmured, her voice husky with sleep.
“DAH-LING IT HAS BEEN SO LONG” Ruby dragged her words out whenever she talked. It was one of the many annoying habits Ruby had. “I HAVE GOLD IN MY HANDS BABY… GOLD!” She screamed. “I’M ON MY WAY TO THE BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL MEET ME THERE.” Ruby hung up the phone before Lola could even confirm that she would be there.
Stretching her entire body and sighing she got out of bed and making her way to her closet Lola chose a black and white houndstooth L.A.M.B. cardigan, a thin silver tank top, a black La Perla bra and gray straight leg Tsubi jeans. Driving to the Beverly Hills Hotel in her too-big-for-her-tiny-ass-SUV took a little longer than it should have because of the Los Angeles bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“Lola!” Ruby shouted across The Polo Lounge and frantically waved the hand that wasn’t currently holding her drink above her head.
Waiting for Lola when she got to the table was the brunch that she always ordered when she came to The Polo Lounge, Dutch Apple Pancakes and a Belini. Ruby also had her usual brunch, a vodka martini with an olive. Ruby was dressed in one of her many bright Versace pantsuits and she had more than a small amount of her red lipstick on her slightly crooked teeth. In front of her on the table was a stack of what Lola assumed was scripts.
As Ruby talked and drank Lola ate her breakfast, “Baby you are doing so good, I don’t know where this is coming from but I keep getting requests for you!” Lola vaguely wondered where Ruby was from because she had a horrible accent, which sounded like a Long Island accent but she wasn’t sure. “This,” Ruby handed her a script “is about a high school cheerleader that witnesses a murder, Rob Schneider has already signed on to play the cheerleading coach/undercover FBI agent.”
“Not interested” Lola said, handing the script right back to Ruby. This meeting was going downhill.
“Okay well this is about a girl who switched bodies with her baby sister-”
“No” Lola spat out. The offers were getting more and more ridiculous and she was getting more and more annoyed with Ruby for even considering her for these roles.
“This last one is about an alien-“
“Nooo” Lola drug out the word out until Ruby put the script back on the table.
Ruby seemed to ignore what Lola was saying because she slide the stack of scripts across the table towards Lola. Lola’s knotted her eyebrows and pursed her lips in anger and passed the scripts back towards Ruby.
“Look Lola” Ruby’s voice suddenly became cold and steely, a tone Lola hadn’t ever heard from Ruby, “The agency has been putting a lot of pressure on everyone to cut the dead weight. And I’ll level with you these are the only scripts in months that have come in. If you don’t take one of these roles we have nothing for you and we will have to let you go.”
“Let me go?” Lola’s face paled as thoughts of her future ran through her head. How she would fade farther into obscurity without an agent to guide her, how no other agents would pick her up as a client with the direction her career was going and the perception that everyone had of her in the business. But dammit she was Lola Dean, and she was a fighter. There was a scene in a movie she had once saw where they told a story about two mice who fell into a vat of milk, the first mouse gave up and drown but the second mouse treading and turned the milk into cream and crawled out. Lola Dean was that second damn mouse.
“Fine Ruby,” Lola shoved the scripts back across the table at a shocked looking Ruby, “you have been my agent for years but lately you have done nothing but continue to allow my career to flounder. So you’re fired.” Lola noisily shoved her chair back and stormed out of The Polo Lounge.
She waited impatiently for the valet to get her car Lola threw herself in the car and drove towards home, tears clouding her vision the whole way. As soon as she pulled into her own driveway the tears started flowing faster and heavier. Resting her head on the steering wheel she cried and hiccupped for a good 10 minutes before frantically fishing her cell phone from her bag and dialing Justin.
“Hey” Justin said softly into the phone.
“Are you busy?” Lola asked, briefly regretting calling on such an emotionally charged whim. It was too soon in their relationship to be relying on him this much, to show him this side of her and let herself be this vulnerable in front of him. As hard as she tried to hold her tears in she couldn’t and they all came out in the form of a large hiccup and then rushed out before she could attempt to stop them.
“Hey…” Justin said soothingly and waited to see if she would calm down. She didn’t, “Hey…” Justin said louder, getting more and more confused as to what was going on, “I’m not busy, what’s wrong?”
“Can you come over?” Lola whimpered into the phone, momentarily gaining her composure and getting out of the car and into the house. She threw herself onto the stool that sat around the island in the middle of her kitchen and rested her head on the cool granite.
“I’ll be right there” Justin assured into the phone before hanging up.
:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
Justin looked over from the kitchen at Lola who was asleep on the couch, having cried, screamed and worried herself to sleep.
Justin got to Lola’s about 20 minutes after she called. He buzzed the intercom and knocked a few times but she didn’t come to the door. He ended up going in through the garage door that had been left open. Looking around the first level of the house he saw that she was in the kitchen surrounded by papers and frantically flipping through a thick tattered address book. Her face was tear stained and blotchy and her eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot but at this precise moment she wasn’t crying. Which he was thankful for because crying was difficult for him to cope with.
Sitting down in front of her he grabbed her hands away from the pages of the address book, forcing her to look up at him. “Hey, what happened? Tell me what’s going on?”
“I have to find Ari Emmanuel’s number.” Lola said as she pulled her hands out of Justin’s and grabbed a stack of papers that were sitting on the floor near her.
Justin took the papers out of her hands and put them right back where Lola had picked them up from, “Isn’t Ari Emmanuel an agent, why do you need Ari Emmanuel’s number?”
Lola looked at him quickly with strong eyes and picked up the papers that he had taken from her, “I need Ari Emmanuel’s number because I got dropped from my agency today and Ari is the best agent in the business.” Lola crumbled up a paper and threw it into a steadily growing pile of papers that had accumulated in the corner of the kitchen.
“You got dropped” Justin stared at her incredulously, “Lo…” Justin watched her for a moment as she frantically searched through the papers “Lo look at me” Justin tilted her chin up to look him in the eyes and watched as her eyes welled up with tears and she threw herself into his arms, knocking him back onto his hands. Her tiny body shock with tears, hiccups and deep shaky breaths. Wedging one hand under her leg and the other around her back he picked her up off the floor of the kitchen and carried her into the living room and onto the couch. Lola tucked her head in the crook of his neck as she continued to cry and whimper. Not knowing exactly what to do Justin simply rubbed her back hoping it would sooth her.
Her tears quieted and finally stopped and her breathing leveled out. Lola picked her head up and looked at Justin. “I’m okay,” she whispered.
Looking into her eyes Justin didn’t see that she was ok but he did see the determination to act like she was okay, “You’re okay” He smiled weakly and put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his chest. They sat in pensive silence until Justin heard her breathing slow. Checking to see if she had indeed fallen asleep he unwrapped himself from her, he laid her down on the couch and made his way into the kitchen.
Searching until he found a trash bag he went about cleaning up the discarded papers and the other miscellaneous things like business cards that did not have what Lola was looking for on them. Grabbing the stacks of paper that were on the floor and on the granite covered island he proceeded to sort through them looking for Ari Emmanuel’s direct number.
After about a half an hour of looking Justin gave up and dialed Johnny’s number on his cell phone.
“Hey Johnny, do me a favor”
“Sure, what?” Johnny asked
“I need Ari Emmanuel’s number for Lola.” Justin stacked all the papers, business cards, post its and scraps of paper on the counter as he waited for Johnny to get the number.
“Ah here it is” Johnny said more to himself than to Justin. Justin wrote it down on a piece of paper that was sitting by the phone before saying goodbye to Johnny and hanging up. This would be a pleasant surprise for Lola. It was to be expected that being dropped by her agency would be difficult on anyone actress but Justin had a feeling that it was especially hard on Lola because she wanted so badly to succeed and had yet to do that.
Making two cups of hot chocolate Justin went into the living room to wake Lola up. “Lo… Lo… wake up” Justin crotched down and gently shook her awake.
Sitting up sleepily Justin handed Lola the hot chocolate and sat down next to her. He gave her a minute to wake up and to enjoy her cocoa before announcing, “I got Ari’s number” Lola looked at him, shock in her eyes and on her face but he decided to go on, “I looked through the papers some but didn’t find it so I called my manager, Johnny and he gave it to me.”
Shock still registered on her face before she tensed up and took a sip of her drink, “You didn’t have to do that.” Lola looked at him sideways, “I could have gotten it myself”
Confused as to why she wasn’t smiling, why she wasn’t happily kissing him all over and jumping for joy, “I know I didn’t have to do it, I wanted to help you out.”
“I didn’t ask for your help” Lola said with indignation and turned her entire body so she was facing him. “I could have found it myself.”
“You called me over,” Justin said, defensively. This was not going how he had pictured at all. “I thought you wanted my help.”
“I…” Lola started, “I want you to be here for me, but I don’t want your charity. I don’t need it.” Lola hung her head and looked at her hands, wringing them together.
“I know you don’t need it,” Justin said grabbing her hands and placing a kiss on her forehead. “Think of this as a business transaction.”
Lola half smiled and looked up at him and he handed her the piece of paper with Ari’s number. Looking at it for a second she pressed a quick peck on Justin’s lips and whispered, “Sorry” against them.
“Don’t even think about it Lo.” Justin captured her lips again and she sighed in this cute little way that he was noticing she did whenever she gave into his kisses. Lola grabbed onto the front of his shirt and pulled him with her as she lay down on the couch. Their legs tangled together and Justin rested the full weight of his body against her. His hands found their way into her hair while her hands slid over his shoulders, down his back and into his back pockets. Lazily kissing and touching each other Justin and Lola cemented the beginnings of their fledgling relationship.
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