Starlight (Peaches Monroe #2)(16)
Author: Mimi Strong

He laughed. “Don’t you want to go in and have a look?”

“Just to look? I’m not like you, all restraint and denial of pleasurable release. I don’t go to bakeries to sniff the icing, you know?”

He chuckled and kept driving. I continued to stare out the windows like the hick tourist I was. The palm trees and blue sky made every angle of Beverly Hills look like a postcard. Although I’d never been to the city before, so many buildings and streets looked familiar—I guess from all the TV shows and movies shot there. We drove past a brick building that looked like the nightclub Drake Cheshire—Dalton Deangelo’s vampire character—owned. Thinking about him didn’t feel good. The hurt around my heart extended so far, even my armpits ached when I imagined his lying face.

Keith parked the van, shaking me out of my funk.

“I’m not dressed for fancy shopping,” I said, feeling self-conscious about my casual clothes, which I was now spending the second day in.

“That’s why I brought you here, to my friend’s boutique. He has a fashion line, and he’s on the verge of moving to New York and making it big. I’ll move there and do the runway shows, of course.” The way he was grinning, I was pretty sure he was being sarcastic. From what I’d gathered during my short time in LA, everyone was on the verge of making it big and going somewhere.

“What’s your friend’s name?” I asked. “Something fashion-y, like Sergio? Or Mutt? Or… Jean-Ralphio?”

“Guy,” he said, pronouncing it like the Indian word for clarified butter: ghee.

Keith ran around to my side and opened my door, then helped me step down. The air outside the van didn’t smell as nice as the inside, so I asked, “What’s that smell?”

“LA.”

“No, it’s like… rotten eggs.”

“Maybe the Salton Sea is to blame. It’s a hundred and fifty miles from the city, but there are seasonal fish die-offs, and with shifting weather patterns, sometimes the anaerobic layers get oxygen, which causes the hydrogen sulfide gas to form, and… that’s more than you wanted to know, isn’t it?”

“You really are an earth muffin type, aren’t you?”

We started walking up the sidewalk. Keith looked troubled by what I’d said, so I corrected myself, saying, “Not in a bad way. I think it’s amazing you know about soil and stuff. My neighbor back home, Mr. Galloway, is always talking to me about the pH levels in soil. It’s always egg shells and coffee grounds, or something. I have no clue, despite working in a bookstore with a substantial gardening section.”

“Egg shells for calcium, and coffee grounds for nitrogen,” he said. “Now you know.”

“What about talking to plants. Does that do any good?”

“Plants are like people. Some benefit from conversation, and others continue to act like idiots, no matter how much you yell at them.”

“Excuse me?”

He chuckled. “I meant me, not you.”

He opened the door to a narrow store that looked like it had been built in the leftover space between two larger buildings, and we went into his friend’s clothing boutique.

If this were a movie, there’d be a montage here of me trying on the most amazing assortment of clothes, many of them flattering wrap style dresses. The prices were a little YIKES, but Guy took a shine to me and said if I bought one, he’d give me three more. I bought two dresses, and he kept stuffing more things into the bags until I begged him to stop. Keith tried to pay for everything, but I wouldn’t allow it, saying he was doing more than enough by giving me somewhere to stay and being my personal tour guide.

I walked out of the boutique feeling like I was in a fairy tale. Specifically, I felt like the side character who somehow cons her way into getting the makeover and goodies that were supposed to be for the main character, the skinny, big-lipped girl who weighs under a hundred pounds, in shoes.

With my shopping loot on one arm and my underwear model on the other arm, I wondered if there wasn’t an Anne Hathaway type somewhere wondering where her life-swag went.

When we got back to the van, Keith gave me a knowing look, like he knew I was having the best date ever, and he didn’t need to ask. He looked so smug. Why is smug so sexy? I swear, it’s like catnip for Miss Kitty when a cute guy looks so self-satisfied.

“Off to the second and best part,” he said. “Why don’t you change into one of those dresses?”

“Sure, I’ll just flash all of California with my body and get changed right here in the van.”

“They’re going to see everything on billboards soon enough.”

My voice small and squeaky, I said, “Billboards?” Had there been billboards in the agreement? Classic smart-girl move: I had my father read the modeling contract and didn’t pay that much attention. So much whimsy.

I muttered something about horses and barn doors, then wrestled out of my clothes quickly, while we drove along a quieter street. I slid into one of my new wrap dresses, a purple creation with leopard-print highlight details. The combination of purple and leopard-print sounds tacky, but I assure you, the dress was pure class. The knock-off version sold at K-Mart would have been tacky, but this was the original. A designer original, by Guy Weird-last-name.*

*Not his actual name. I’d happily give him full credit, if the logo on the labels wasn’t indistinguishable swirls.

For the next stop, we drove out of the city.

Keith could go ahead and look smug, because I was having a good time.

“How do you feel about gardening?” he asked.

“I’ve got a few potted plants, but sometimes I can’t tell weeds from plants.”

“I meant today.”

As the van pulled into the parking lot of a garden with an admission gate, I glanced back at the bags of dirt in the van and said, “You’re kidding me. We’re here on a landscaping job?”

He jumped out of the van and opened the back door instead of coming around to my side.

I wandered back with a confused scowl on my face.

“Catch.” He tossed a plastic bag of potting soil at me.

“I’m wearing a dress,” I wailed as I caught the bag. “I’ll help you plant some daisies or whatever, but let me get changed!”

With a bag of dirt on his shoulder, he stepped up to me and leaned down to whisper in my ear, “Follow my lead. We’re about to skip the long admission line.”