“Fine,” I groan. “But what am I supposed to do after that?”
“Miss me,” he says, then gives me one last, sumptuous kiss to remember him by.
Six
When I get out of the shower, my phone chimes from the charger on the bedside table.
MadcapMarketAudition. Three Days Away.
I sigh, disappointed that that part of my trip has completely fallen apart. I can’t go audition for a paired TV game show alone.
At the very least, the forgetting part of my trip is off to a spectacular start thanks to Leo and our late-night/early-morning shenanigans.
Even without an orgasm, Leo’s kisses and caresses were more satisfying than most of my sexual encounters combined. Sex with Buckley became rote and after a while, I stopped wanting it. My sex drive dimmed until it was a barely there gas lamp on a cobblestoned street at midnight. Now I stop in front of the mirror in the bedroom and I’m glowing. The full brightness I exude is more than enough to keep me from wallowing in any unwanted emotions.
Smelling fresh and feeling clean, I throw on a pair of ass-hugging pants and a gray T-shirt and call myself a Lyft. If I can’t be onMadcap Market, I at least want to see Pat Crumsky’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Pat Crumsky is the aging host ofMadcap Marketand has been since the show’s premiere. A photo with that star will be a good way to commemorate this trip, my time here, and what could’ve been.
But I won’t mope about that too long because the excitement of Leo’s and my lunchtime playdate is still surging through my body. Post-orgasm, those intrusive thoughts might return, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
When I pass through the lobby, a brunette girl is standing at Leo’s counter chatting with a middle-aged couple who have a line behind them. The whole lobby is more bustling than I’d expect it to be. It’s a Friday, so there must be two concierges on to manage the crowd since Leo is MIA. While I had hoped to flash Leo a flirty parting shot of my ass, I beeline for the rideshare and head out instead so I have enough time to myself.
I’d read enough travel blogs to know that the Walk of Fame is no longer an illustrious symbol of Hollywood glamor. Instead, it’s more of an overpriced, dirty set of streets you’d do well not to traverse alone at night, but when the Lyft drops me off outside a burrito shop and I see Pat Crumsky’s name emblazoned onto the sidewalk inside a red star with a tiny TV medallion below it, I tear up anyway.
Mr. Crumsky may well be into his seventies now, but his white-haired grace and congenial sense of humor always comforts me. Whenever he steps foot onto my TV screen, I know I can tune in and turn my mind off.
After Mom died, I thought this show might be too painful to continue watching, but instead, every hour spent binging old episodes felt like an hour dedicated to remembering her. Like if I closed my eyes she’d somehow materialize on the other side of the couch with a glass of wine and a too-loud-for-her-small-body laugh.
I snap a picture of the star on my phone before lifting my head up to the blazing Los Angeles sun and let the rays warm my face. For a moment, each of those beams is Mom sending me a message from beyond. A fresh set of tears flows in but I swipe them away.
Coming to, I ask a hostess from the burrito restaurant behind me to take my picture. Happily, she gets me from all angles as I squat next to the star, pointing and smiling, laughing and fighting off a third round of tears.
“I took a few,” she says, handing the phone back. I swipe through them, grinning. “You know this dude?” she asks.
“Yeah, he’s a famous game show host,” I say, trying to sound casual but hearing my voice excitedly pitch without my control.
“Like, on Netflix or something?” she asks, clearly in no hurry to get back to her post.
“No, on cable,” I explain. “The show’s been on since the eighties.”
“Oh, tight,” the woman says, throwing her curly brown hair over one shoulder and unwrapping a piece of spearmint gum. “I don’t have cable, so wouldn’t know a thing. When I started working here, I always wondered but never bothered looking it up.” She shrugs. “You coming in for something to eat?”
I look up at the sign and think: Why not? Something light and small to tide me over until Leo’s and my afternoon delight couldn’t hurt.
At a table near the window, I order chips, salsa, and a nonalcoholic frozen drink because I’m on vacation—I want to have fun—but I told Leo I’d hydrate in a healthy way. Even if a virgin strawberry margarita in a shapely glass with a tiny umbrella in it probably wasn’t what he had in mind, the first sip cools me down and makes me smile. “Thanks,” I say to the server who disappears into the back while I type out a text to Dad along with one of the photos the hostess took of me.
Minutes later, my phone lights up with a call.
“Holden,” Dad says as soon as I hold the phone up to my ear. “You look so happy in that picture! Made my day. How’s LA?”
Dad’s always been a chipper optimist. When Mom went into remission while I was in middle school, he was adamant that the dark cloud over our family was gone. And then when she died, he made sure I understood how much of a gift it was that we had her in our lives, even if only for a short while.
“Great, yeah, solid,” I say because as soon as Leo showed up at my room last night this whole trip took a complete one-eighty. “The weather is beautiful.”
“Looked like it,” Dad says. In the background, I can hear the crew at the furniture store he manages unloading a new shipment of sectionals from the grunts and shouts and Dad offering helpful instructions to “pivot!” before returning to our conversation. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. Pat Crumsky. So great you could visit his star!”
“Yeah, even if I can’t audition,” I say sounding less upset than I would’ve been yesterday when I was still clinging to the false hope that Alexia would save my plan. Back when I never expected a faux concierge with late-night pizza hookups could save my trip.
“Maybe you can still go to the live taping,” Dad offers kindly.
