Chapter 2
Billie spent Sunday getting organized at the hotel, and making lists of the employment
agencies that serviced the Boston area. She was going to call them on Monday. She
focused on the ones that had experience in the medical field, since that was where her
skills and degree applied. She wanted to find a job at a laboratory, preferably in
research. She went for a walk on Sunday afternoon, thinking about Ben Hewitt and his
family and how nice they had been to her, and how normal they seemed. She wished she
had a family like that. She might have, if her mother had lived. Virginia would have
forced her father to be at least slightly more attentive, whatever his preferences for
Mickie were. And she would have made Mickie behave better than she did. Now all
three of them had separate lives and went their own ways. They made no effort to stay
connected. She and Mickie never spoke on the phone. Once in a while they texted. Her
mother would have come to her graduation even if no one else did. Her father wouldn’t
have, he never left the farm.
Billie wondered what it felt like to have a real family of people who cared about
each other and showed up when it mattered. The last five years since her mother’s death
had dissolved all remnants of the glue that had held them together. She felt like an
orphan sometimes. She was closer to her friend Tom than to her father and sister. And
now she couldn’t even communicate with him, since he was on secret missions for the
U.S. Army, working underground on counterterrorism. She didn’t know where he was,
but surely it was someplace dangerous. Every few months he’d surface and call her. She
missed the days when they were in school together and saw each other every day. He
had left for West Point when her mother died, so she had lost both of the people she
loved at once, and was left with a sister who cared about no one but herself, and a
father who had ignored her for her entire life. It wasn’t much to hold on to. But she
couldn’t think about that now. She had to focus on finding a job.
She called all three employment agencies on Monday morning and made
appointments to see two of them that afternoon and one the next day. When she got there,
they told her that the new graduates had snatched up all the jobs months before,
anticipating their entry into the workforce, and it was slim pickings now as a result. She
was coming late to the party, and they had nothing for her. She filled out all the forms
and was willing to take a temporary job in the meantime. There was occasional relief
work in the labs at Mass General, but not at the moment. Billie was discouraged when
she went back to the hotel that afternoon. She started looking for jobs online, and found
nothing there either. She scoured the newspaper and called the agencies back for the
next two weeks, and didn’t get a single interview. The agencies were flooded with the
latecomers like her, who had done nothing about finding a job until after graduation. The
market was glutted with young people looking for work, and all the good jobs were
gone.
Trying not to panic, she decided to go to New York for a few days, to see what she
could turn up there. She was beginning to worry she’d run out of money. The campus
bookstore gave her a few days’ work, but it was slow season for them, and they
couldn’t give her a full-time job, just some shifts to fill in. But New York was a big city
and there would be more opportunities. She took the train to New York, and stayed at a
youth hostel on the Lower East Side. She made the rounds of the major hospitals, to see
if she could get some relief work at their labs, but they were fully staffed with regular
personnel and summer interns who had lined up jobs months before. It was hard to
believe that in a city the size of New York, she couldn’t find a single job.
She had ten days of money left when she got back to Boston, and touched base with
the agencies again, to no avail. She was sitting on a park bench, considering what to do
next. If all else failed and she couldn’t find employment, she’d have no choice but to go
back to Iowa and help her father at the farm, until she could find a job somewhere,
maybe in Des Moines, or even Chicago. She didn’t want to go back to the Midwest. She
hated the bitter winters, and she loved Boston. But she couldn’t stay there without a job,
and she couldn’t afford the hotel for much longer. She was angry at herself for not
having looked for a job months before, but she had been finishing her papers and
focusing on her exams, and hadn’t had the time to job hunt. She kept putting it off, and
now it was too late.
She was on the verge of tears when her phone rang, and she was surprised to see
from the caller ID that it was Mickie. She never called unless she wanted something,
and there was nothing Billie could do for her. She answered the call, and Mickie
sounded bright and cheerful, but Billie knew that something was up if she was calling.
She wondered if something had happened to their father. He was only forty-one, but he
was aging prematurely. The life of a farmer wasn’t easy, and his drinking didn’t help.
He looked sixty when Billie had seen him at Christmas.
“Hi, Mick. What’s up? Is Dad okay?” Billie said when she answered.
“I don’t know. Why? Has he been sick? I haven’t talked to him in a couple of
months.” Neither had Billie. It reminded her again of how disconnected they were. They
were hardly even a family anymore, as her graduation had demonstrated.
“I just wondered if that was why you were calling,” Billie said, trying not to sound as
down as she was.
“No. When are you graduating?” Mickie asked, and Billie knew there had to be a
reason for the question.
“Three weeks ago. Why?”
“Oh. Sorry I missed it. I thought it was in June.” It had always been May, but it
wasn’t on Michaela’s radar since it wasn’t about her. “Where are you?”
“I’m in Boston.”
“Are you working?”
“Not yet. I’m looking for a job.”
“Why don’t you come to L.A., and look for one here?” Los Angeles seemed like it
was part of another universe to Billie. She had never been to California, but Mickie
seemed to love it, the weather, the people, the modeling opportunities. She loved being
in a big, spread-out city, with so much going on. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere
else now, and going back to Iowa would be like a prison sentence.
“It’s a long way to go, and I don’t know anyone, except you.”
“You could stay with me. You could even wait tables where I work. They’re always
hiring extra girls to fill in on the weekends. It’s good money and the tips are great.” It
wasn’t like Mickie to make helpful suggestions unless they helped her too. Billie could
smell an agenda in there somewhere, she just didn’t know what it was yet.
“What’s happening with you?” Billie asked her. L.A. seemed so far away, and she
wasn’t eager to live with Mickie. Somehow Billie always ended up getting the short
side of any deal that involved her sister.
Mickie was more direct than usual. “I just lost both my roommates. One moved in
with her boyfriend and left me high and dry on a day’s notice, and the other one is
moving back to Dallas. Her dad is sick and her mom is paying for her to go home. I
have a great apartment. I love it, and I don’t know anyone who’s looking for a place
right now. I can’t afford it on my own. But maybe if you get a decent job, we could split
it between the two of us. I just wondered if you’d be interested. Hell, Billie, why don’t
you come out here and give it a shot? The weather is better than Boston, and it’s a lot
more fun.” There were over two hundred thousand students in Boston, which had made
it young and lively for Billie for four years, but now she couldn’t find a job. Los
Angeles was on the other side of the country, and she was leery of moving in with her
sister. She knew what that was like. She wondered if Mickie had grown up enough to
make it possible. She was nineteen and had been in L.A. for more than a year, and she’d
had roommates, which must have taught her something about not running roughshod over
other humans. Billie didn’t want to relive what it had been like living with her growing
up, but they were both adults now, so maybe it could work.
“I’m not sure I have enough money to spare for a ticket to L.A.,” Billie said
cautiously, “and if I don’t find a job there, I will be flat broke and won’t have enough to
even get back to Iowa.”
“I’ll lend it to you if that happens,” Mickie said confidently. She made good money
on tips at the restaurant where she worked, and there were plenty of trade shows in L.A.
where she got modeling jobs. They didn’t pay a lot but they covered her rent, if she had
a roommate to pay the other half.
“How much would my share of the rent be?” Billie asked her. Mickie told her, and it
would be impossible for her without a job. Pretty soon dinner would be impossible
without a job. Her situation was going to be desperate soon. Flying to L.A. would really
drain what she had left. But there didn’t seem to be any jobs for her in Boston. It was a
tough call. She could get a waitress job in Boston, but the labs and employment
agencies hadn’t held out any hope of a real job anytime soon.
“I’ll ask the manager at the restaurant if he can give you work until you find a job,”
Mickie said soothingly. “And see if you can get a cheap seat to L.A. online. You can
always find a deal. I’ll call you later.”
Billie didn’t know what to do, so she took Mickie’s advice and checked on the
internet. She found a ticket on a red-eye that made two stops crossing the country and
was surprisingly cheap. She had enough money to pay for it, but it would leave her very
little once she got to California. She would have to take the waitressing job or whatever
else she could get while she combed the employment agencies for a real job. She hated
to give up on Boston, but she couldn’t afford to hold out much longer, and with Mickie,
she’d have a roof over her head. In Boston very shortly she wouldn’t even have that.
Feeling very anxious, she bought the ticket online, and notified the hotel that she was
leaving that night. Her three-week job hunt had been futile. She never would have
thought that she’d be going to Los Angeles to live with her sister. But there was no one
for her to lie to now, or to blame Billie for things she hadn’t done. They were two
grown women who would be living with each other. She just hoped that her sister was
mature enough now to handle it like an adult, and not the little monster she’d been when
they were growing up. She assumed that life on her own for the past year and a half, and
with roommates, would have taught her something. It never dawned on Billie that
Mickie might have lost her roommates for other reasons. She believed her. Mickie was
always so convincing. In a single phone call, in a matter of minutes, she had convinced
Billie to leave Boston, and move to L.A. to live with her.
Mickie called her back from work at the restaurant, right before Billie left the hotel,
and told her that her manager had promised to give Billie night shifts at the restaurant
for a couple of weeks, since some of the waitresses were taking vacation, and he could
use the help. And if he liked her style, he might offer her a regular job, which Mickie
said she could use to supplement her income, even if she found a day job. Billie hoped
she wouldn’t need to do that, if she found a job she was qualified for with her degree
from MIT. Mickie was a high school dropout, and she was in better financial shape than
Billie. It would have proved their father right if he’d known. Fortunately, he didn’t.
Neither of them ever talked to him, and he didn’t call them. Billie hoped her dire
situation was only temporary. It was terrifying, no longer having the scholarship to
depend on, no other source of income, and watching her meager savings dwindle day by
day. She felt incredibly stupid not having dealt with it by lining up a job long before
graduation.
Mickie gave her the address of the apartment when she called, and Billie thanked her
for getting her the job at the restaurant. She told her when she was arriving. Her flight
was leaving Boston at midnight, and zigzagging across the country, with a stop in
Chicago, and another in Phoenix. She was due to land in L.A. at eleven A.M. local time
after two long layovers. She’d be traveling for fourteen hours to get there, but the ticket
was dirt cheap.
When she got to the airport, she checked her two boxes of books. She didn’t have
time to ship them to Iowa that day, and they were her favorites, textbooks she wanted to
be able to refer to if she got a job in a research lab, to refresh her memory if she needed
to. She checked her suitcase with them, and hoped it would all arrive in L.A. without
getting lost on the way. She was wearing jeans and an MIT sweatshirt, and running
shoes with holes in them. She had her hair in braids and wasn’t wearing any makeup,
and looked like a kid going to camp. The woman at the airline counter took a good look
at her to make sure she was old enough to be traveling alone.
The economy seats were so close together on the flight, she couldn’t put her seat back
at all. No food was served and she was too nervous to eat anyway. She hoped that
everything would work out, and that moving in with Mickie wouldn’t be a mistake. She
never would have guessed that she’d do something like this, but she had no other
options at the moment. She was going to do everything she could to get a lab job in L.A.,
even as the lowest assistant. She hadn’t spent four years at MIT in order to be a
waitress and forget everything she’d learned and been trained for. She was off to a
bumpy start after her moment of glory on graduation day. Magna cum laude hadn’t done
her any good so far, and she hoped she’d get lucky in L.A.
She had a five-hour layover at O’Hare in Chicago, took her backpack with her and
had a cup of coffee in the airport and walked around, and then dozed in a seat in the
airport for a few hours. She got back on the plane when her six A.M. flight for Phoenix
was called. She fell asleep again as soon as the flight took off, and bought a breakfast
wrap on the plane before they landed in Phoenix. She wandered around the airport
again, and couldn’t wait to get to L.A. She felt wrinkled and grungy. She splashed cold
water on her face in the bathroom and re-braided her hair. A boy who looked about
fifteen tried to pick her up while she waited for her flight for the last leg of the trip, his
mother gave her disapproving looks, and she realized what a mess she must look like.
He asked her what MIT was, and she said it was a university in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
“Cool shirt. Is it vintage?” She had washed it a million times in the last four years.
“No, it’s just old.” She wanted to tell him that she had just graduated from there three
weeks ago, magna cum laude, so they’d know she was respectable, but she didn’t. She
finally got back on the plane for the final flight of the journey. She could have flown to
Tahiti or halfway around the globe in the time it had taken her to fly from Boston to Los
Angeles.
They landed on time and Billie collected her boxes and bag, grateful they had arrived
with her, and took a bus into the city. From there she took an Uber to Mickie’s address
in West Hollywood. It had been the longest trip of her life. She felt filthy by then, and
she couldn’t wait to peel off her clothes and take a shower. It was hot in L.A. When the
Uber dropped her off, she stood looking at a slightly shabby building with a small pool
next to it. Mickie had left the keys with the building manager, who handed them to
Billie. Mickie had said she had a go-see for a modeling job that day, and said she’d be
home around four.
Billie carried the boxes and suitcase up the stairs to the third-floor apartment, let
herself in, and almost cried with relief. There was a small, sparsely furnished living
room. The furniture was threadbare and the couch was stained. There were no curtains
on the windows or pictures on the wall, and an ugly light fixture hung from the ceiling,
but it looked like a palace to Billie, and for now it was home. There were three small
bedrooms, one with shoes all over the floor and a bed piled high with discarded outfits
Mickie had tried on for the go-see, and the other two bedrooms, which each had a bed,
a chair, and a dresser. Billie dumped her belongings in one of them. She had never been
so happy to be anywhere in her life. She pulled off the MIT sweatshirt and her jeans,
kicked off her shoes, and lay on the bed in her underwear. There was no airconditioning but she didn’t care. The heat felt good, and after she lay there for a while,
she went and took a shower and washed her hair, wrapped herself in a clean towel from
a stack in the only bathroom, and walked around the small apartment. There was a tiny
basic kitchen, and a small balcony. She stood on it and looked down at the pool. She felt
like she was in a whole different world from the one she had left. The most illustrious
universities in the country were in Cambridge, on beautiful campuses where the elite
had been educated for centuries. In L.A., everything looked either new or shabby, in a
funny patchwork of Spanish-style houses and modern facades with swimming pools of
different shapes and sizes in every backyard. It looked like a movie set, and Billie felt
like she was in one as she took her laptop out of her backpack and turned it on, and
looked up the employment agencies she needed to contact as soon as possible. A
number of them specialized in medical jobs. She jotted down the names and phone
numbers, and had time to call two before Mickie got home. By the time she did, Billie
had two appointments for the next day. She didn’t waste any time. Her situation was
dire.
She heard Mickie’s key turn in the lock shortly before four. By then, Billie was
wearing clean jeans and a T-shirt. Her hair was wet and hanging down her back, and her
feet were bare. She looked up and saw a vision enter the apartment that made it feel
more than ever that she was in a movie and not real life. The tall, beautiful blonde
woman standing in front of her was wearing a lavender linen Chanel suit, an expensive
handbag, and six-inch high heels. Everything Mickie was wearing was easily
recognizable as a luxury brand, and she had little diamond studs glimmering on her ears.
She looked straight out of Vogue, or like the wife of a successful Beverly Hills
executive who had wandered into the wrong address. Billie laughed and looked up at
her sister. She looked incredible, and her makeup was flawless as she tossed her
modeling portfolio onto the small dining table and grinned at Billie.
“When did you win the lottery?” Billie asked her, and went to give her a hug. Mickie
towered over her older sister in the Louboutin heels, and allowed herself to be hugged.
“I have the best secondhand shop in the world in Beverly Hills. There’s some woman
exactly my size who sends them fabulous stuff, never worn, with the labels still on, and
they sell it for a fraction of what she paid for it. I have a closet full of Chanel. I buy it
with my tips, and pay the rent from the trade shows,” Mickie said proudly. On closer
inspection, Mickie looked like the daughter of a wealthy Beverly Hills executive, in
sharp contrast to Billie’s student wardrobe of faded T-shirts and jeans. “How was the
flight?”
“Long. All three of them,” Billie said with a groan. For a minute, and for the first
time, she felt as though she had a sister. Mickie looked happy to see her, and seemed
relaxed. She had never looked better. She got more beautiful every day. And not seeing
her very often, Billie noticed her looking even more glamorous and sophisticated than
she had at Christmas. She had developed a whole new look in L.A.
“I’m glad you took that bedroom,” Mickie said, noticing. “I put my clothes in the
closet of the other one. I’ve run out of room. With just the two of us here, I was thinking
of turning that whole bedroom into a closet,” which meant that she’d be using two of the
bedrooms, but only paying half the rent, Billie realized quickly. Mickie still thought of
her own needs first, and no one else’s, but she was young, and she was much nicer to
Billie than the last time she’d seen her.
“I just called the employment agencies. I have two appointments tomorrow and one
the day after.”
“And you’re coming to work with me tonight,” Mickie reminded her, and shortly after
changed into thigh-high black leather boots, a black leather miniskirt, and a cropped red
sweater that bared her midriff. She was wearing bright red lipstick and her long blonde
hair was piled on her head and held with a clip. Billie didn’t say it, but she thought
Mickie looked like a hooker. Billie was wearing a denim skirt with a pink halter top
Mickie had lent her, and pink high-top sneakers. She wondered what the restaurant was
like, and she was quiet in the Uber on the way there. Mickie had always been a lot
wilder than she was. She hoped it wouldn’t be a rough crowd.
As it turned out, it was a restaurant and bar called Harry’s. They had Billie busing
tables for her first night, clearing away the dishes. The waitresses got tips, the bus girls
didn’t. All of them were scantily clad, and the customers were mostly male, and loud,
and heavy drinkers. But nothing inappropriate happened. There were no bar fights.
There were some couples in the back. It wasn’t a family restaurant, but it wasn’t terrible
either. Just a lot of drunk guys in downtown L.A. It wasn’t the kind of place Billie
enjoyed, but Mickie was at home there. Despite her delicate looks, she wasn’t
intimidated by a room full of men checking her out. A few asked for dates or her phone
number and she ignored them. She cleaned up in tips at the end of the evening. The other
girls were pleasant, but they weren’t overly friendly with Billie. They were busy all
night, and at two A.M., they left and had earned their money. The trays were heavy, and
the bar was loud. The manager divided up the tips at the end of the evening, and the
other women left quickly. Even Mickie admitted that she was tired, and she had a go-see
booked the next day. Billie had the two employment agencies to go to. The two sisters
said good night and went to their rooms when they got home, and all Billie could do
was pray that she would find a job soon. She hadn’t gone to MIT to be a waitress in a
scuzzy bar in L.A. She turned off the light and fell asleep instantly, and she couldn’t
believe how fast morning came.
