Split Ends by Kristin Billerbeck Page A

sidewalk. “I’ve got to get to work; this girl’s on the verge of stardom. Get yourself home, all right?”
    â€œScott, you have got to be kidding.” I cling to the seat. “I don’t even know where you live yet. Just take me along. I'll help you be the blackness in her universe. Come on, I can suck up. Remember?”
    â€œCan’t do that.” He scribbles on a pad that’s mounted on his dash. “The address.” He rips off the paper and pulls a twenty from his ashtray. “Go get yourself some dinner, and go home and prepare for tomorrow. Read that manual from cover to cover. And lose the furrowed brow; you’re going to need Botox before you’re thirty. You want to look like your mother?”
    â€œPlease, Scott.” I try to keep the desperate pleading from my voice, but to no avail. “Can’t you just take me home first? Or I can go with you. You’ll never know I'm there.”
    â€œI’ll never make it with traffic, and I’m not showing up to work with a woman on my arm. I have enough needy women in my life where that isn’t smart business.”
    â€œFine. Maybe if you had fewer women on your arm, your problems might be fewer. Did you ever think of that?”
    He pushes the door wider. “Go shopping before you get home, Sarah. I’m not going to baby-sit you, and I hardly think you need me to dress you. You’ve had a subscription to Vogue, I’m assuming, and this is your business too. Show me you know what you’re doing.”
    â€œYes, but the magazine is the only part of it I can afford. Unless you count rubbing the perfume-sample pages on my wrists.”
    â€œGo vintage, Sarah. There’s a shop up the street. Do your best and accentuate your tiny waist and your booty. Hollywood loves a good booty.”
    â€œSomehow, that doesn’t provide me with any motivation.”
    â€œBooty sells in Hollywood.”
    Why do I suddenly feel like something ordered at Kentucky Fried Chicken? “What is wrong with you?”
    â€œGo. Before I lose this client.”
    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!
    â€œCary 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!
    â€œHollywood 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!
    â€œExcuse me,” I ask a passerby, a woman of about fifty. “Do you know where Hollywood Boulevard is?”
    â€œTo 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