Scotlander, page 2
Oh, she was on alright. ‘Eat it.’
‘What? No!’
‘Eat it.’ Her voice was level. Completely calm. ‘Otherwise it will go to waste. You took it. Now eat it.’
Charlie looked over both of his shoulders in abject horror. ‘Are you shaming me?’
She supposed she was. Him. Everyone around him who’d done something similar. Herself for not appreciating how fucking lucky she was to be alive and eating rare breed, applewood-smoked bacon as she waited for Sharon Stone to arrive for a five-minute interview about a two-minute cameo. (She was excellent, so . . . worth it.)
‘Jeeee-ZUS! Take it if you want it so much.’ Charlie shoved the plate in her direction, lurching a couple of pieces on to the white tablecloth.
A hush filled the room.
Willa took it and, to the surprise of everyone around her, she looked Charlie straight in the eye and began to eat one piece, then another, and another. Then she poured some maple syrup over the rest of the pieces and ate them too. Before the hospitality service manager could stage an intervention, she began grabbing other half-eaten or abandoned plates and eating them as well. Hash browns. Grilled asparagus with lemon zest shavings and curls of parmesan. A half-eaten triangle of brioche French toast with super fruit compote.
‘She’s on,’ she could hear Charlie saying to the woman next to him. ‘She just said. And I think Ben wasn’t very nice to her. Did you know he thinks she’s from Arkansas?’
‘Willa Jenkins?’ A publicist who looked like Zac Efron appeared in the doorway. ‘Rachel’s ready for you.’
Without so much as a backward glance she rose, followed the Zac lookalike down the hall, was introduced to Rachel, exchanged hellos with the crew, the agents, got mic’ed up, and waited patiently as Rachel received a touch-up of her powder and then, when everyone had stepped into place and the room co-ordinator swept her index finger into the we’re-rolling spin, Willa opened her mouth and threw up.
‘Is there anyone you want us to call?’ Priya asked, handing Willa a washcloth soaked in cold water.
Yes. But she couldn’t pick up the phone any more.
She spat out the mouthwash one of the make-up artists had pressed into her hand with a whispered, ‘I’ve always wanted to see someone projectile vomit on a celebrity. Thank you for that.’
‘I’m alright, thanks,’ Willa assured her. ‘I’ll just head home.’
‘We’ll courier your tapes over, and Charlie’s volunteered to do your Rachel interview.’
Even in this state, Willa had to laugh. Of course he had. She got fifteen minutes to his five.
Priya dipped down to try to catch her eye. ‘Is that okay? I can get someone else to do it if you want.’
‘No, that’s fine.’ Maybe then her bosses would begin to see that she really did deserve that raise and promotion they hadn’t given her for the past three years.
Down at the valet desk, she tugged a couple of dollars out of her coin purse. It wasn’t much compared to the bills the actual clientele of the hotel stuffed into the palms of the valet staff, but she knew they appreciated the gesture.
When Jason, a forty-something surfer dude, pulled up and dropped the keys of her beloved Prius into her hand, he unexpectedly pulled her into a hug with a ‘Heard about the Barf Monster incident. Make a grilled cheese sandwich and drink a root beer. Works for me every time.’
She patted him on the shoulder in thanks, then flopped into the driver’s seat, turned left on Doheny, left on Third and headed home for another round of reading the lawyer’s letter.
Garrish, Gottlieb and Greenweed
Family, Divorce and Probate Law
10879 Hooker Avenue
West Covina, CA 91791
Willaford Genevieve Jenkins
328 1/2 Loma Linda Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90023
Dear Miss Jenkins,
Allow me to offer my condolences for your recent loss. My name is Elijah Gottlieb, a probate lawyer based in West Covina. I had the pleasure of meeting your friend Valentina Ortiz before her unfortunate and, may I say, tragically early, passing.
She made it very clear that you would be immensely annoyed if I chose the more conventional method of informing you of her Wishes Letter (sending you a copy) and has asked, instead, that you come to our offices for a formal reading of said missive.
Her immediate family, as you know, have already relocated to Austin, Texas so will not be at the reading.
She also requested that I inform you that this is not a joke and that our business address is (quote) ‘definitely not a clue to go to Hooters and order the bacon-wrapped wings and fish tacos (it totally is) and that when you go, please dress up, double down on the order and invite that cute bartender who is always flirting with you to join even though you think he isn’t into you. He is. Make sure you raise a glass of that crappy lite beer you drink to me and cheer for the right team (Texas Stars Forever!!!!). Still bossy in heaven! Love ya, chica. Remember: carbs are your friend’ (end quote).
I have scheduled you in at 9.30 a. m. on Monday morning so you are going against traffic, but please do ring if you need a different time as Valentina also expressed concern that you would have to work for those ‘estúpidos idiotas que no reconocerían a un genio si ella caminara y se sentara en su cara’ (sic).
Warm regards,
Elijah Gottlieb
Elijah Gottlieb
Probate and Family Law
Twitter: @Lawfulfalafels
Podcast: Yenta Knows Best
Instagram: @Lawfulfalafels
Chapter Three
The first time Willa drove past the lawyer’s office she missed it. She’d been expecting something akin to the towering glass and chrome structures in Century City. Hushed corridors where LA’s most expensive lawyers battled out the likes of Kim and Kanye’s squillions or which studio stole whose reworked idea first. She definitely hadn’t banked on this.
Like most 1970s Southern Californian strip malls, there was a doughnut shop, a mani-pedi salon, a laundromat, a vitamin store, a pop-up bubble tea store and a restaurant. In this case, one called Lawful Falafels.
The number on the door matched the one on the law firm, so, half laughing that her bestie had still retained her sense of humour even while she was dying, and half terrified that this was some sort of cruel joke, Willa sat, staring at the storefront, knowing that the one thing she most wanted to find behind the door was Valentina.
Her phone rang. She briefly considered not answering it, but dutiful employee that she was, picked it up when she saw the TiTs exec producer’s name flashing on her screen.
Putting on a scratchy voice, she answered, ‘Hey, Martina. Everything okay?’
‘Wonderful. Tip top. Listen, sugar. I heard about your little upchuck incident over the weekend and wanted to say thank you for not bringing whatever contagion it is you’re carrying into the fold.’
I hope you’re feeling better, Willa. Please accept my deepest sympathies that you’re not feeling well. A florist is on the way.
‘Always happy to take one for the team.’
‘Good girl. Now, just as an FYI, the Four Seasons are doing a deep clean on the kitchen and are hoping that’ll do as regards any food poisoning lawsuits? They’ve got five junkets on this week, so staying schtum sounds a good course of action, yeah?’ No pause for a response. ‘Anyway, while I’ve got you, I thought I’d run through a little bit of business to keep the wheels turning before you jump back in the saddle.’
Willa pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. Seriously? Martina wanted her to work on her sick day? Then again, not a huge surprise. Everyone was replaceable in this town and most employers relied on that exact fear factor to keep staff in line. To be fair, she wasn’t actually unwell. She’d overeaten, barfed on a major celebrity and was pulling a sickie to go to the will reading of a (non-celebrity) friend who, to Willa’s knowledge, had nothing to bequeath. As Martina was already working her way through her bullet points, she quickly pressed the phone back to her ear and began taking her usual fastidious notes.
By the time she’d hung up, she had a full day’s work ahead of her. Just the spur she needed to get out of the car and find out what her bossy bestie had been up to when she hadn’t been looking.
From the second the restaurant door whooshed open, Willa was cocooned in aromatic wafts of lemon, parsley, onions, mint, cumin and . . . maybe coriander?
Inside was a bright, welcoming, trendy fast food falafel bar. It was not a lawyer’s office. Behind the counter stood a portly red-headed man wearing a ‘Body by Babka’ apron and a jaunty green beret. He looked like a cross between a leprechaun and Santa.
‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, eyes twinkling with delight, as if he’d been waiting for her with great anticipation for many, many years. ‘I’m guessing you’re Willaford Jenkins. Fool?’
Ermm . . . She didn’t really know where to go with this. ‘Are we role-playing A-Team characters?’
He laughed as if she’d just said the most hilarious thing in the world, introduced himself as Elijah Gottlieb, then grabbed a spoon, took a huge dollop of a hummus-like dip from one of several beautiful ceramic bowls and lavished it on to a piece of flatbread. He sprinkled on some herbs, some crumbly feta and a smattering of chopped tomatoes, then deftly folded everything into an envelope shape, wrapped it in some brown paper and handed it to her. ‘Sustenance,’ he said gently. ‘Just like my Bubbie used to make. I always find fava beans make these things easier. We’ll have falafel after,’ he added, as if they were heading off to play a couple rounds of miniature golf rather than hear her best friend’s last wishes.
She held out her hands for the proffered gift and, so as not to be rude, took a bite. ‘Ohmygod.’ She beamed across at him. It was like an entire Middle Eastern spice market was having a party in her mouth. ‘This is amazing!’
Elijah beamed. ‘It took years of practice to get the recipe just right. I did all of this research’ – he patted his belly – ‘for you.’ He pointed at her like a cheesy car salesman about to offer her the deal of a lifetime.
‘Didn’t you just say your grand—’ she began as he stepped to a fluttery flyscreen door panel and asked, ‘Shall we head back?’
He swept aside the multi-coloured tassels and beckoned for her to follow him.
After walking down a short corridor lined with personalised food hygiene signs (‘Keep Your Matzo Offa My Meatballs’), they walked through another flyscreen panel, beaded this time, and entered what felt like an alternate universe. One Brad Pitt might have designed in between filming blockbusters and building houses for the poor.
Here there was an abundance of glass and beams, but there was also warmly polished reclaimed redwood, a sprawl of beautiful handwoven carpets, and an opulence of cushy leather chairs and lovingly worn-in sofas that looked so inviting they had to have cost a fortune. An actual, enormous eucalyptus tree grew right in the centre of the office and was surrounded by a circular bench upon which two fifty-something hipsters sporting yarmulkes sat drinking espresso. They leapt up upon Willa’s approach.
‘Shalom aleichem! Welcome,’ said the beardy one. ‘I’m Marty Garrish.’ He pressed a hand to his chest. ‘My condolences for your loss, Willaford.’ He stretched out the same hand for her to shake.
She winced at the use of her full name, then, realising there was tahini sauce dripping down her wrist, morphed her expression into an I’m-too-gross-to-shake-hands apology face.
He laughed and introduced the other man, Leo Greenwood, after which, in unison, the three men chimed, ‘And we’re Lawful Falafels!’ They chortled, gave happy sighs, and patted one another on the back as Willa tried to figure out how on earth Valentina had found these guys. They were strangely and wonderfully comforting. And making a really, really emotional situation much easier to handle. Then finally, it clicked. ‘Is your phone number 1-800-LAWYER?’
They all brightened, and Elijah said, ‘Yes! How did you know?’
Her voice cracked as she squeaked, ‘Lucky guess.’
When she’d moved to LA, she’d known nothing and no one apart from the phone number of a casting agent her high school drama teacher had given to her. She’d scraped together her entire new adult existence with the help of Craigslist and hopeful guesses in the 1-800 number department. She’d needed a bed so had dialled 1-800-MATTRESS and voila! A blue mattress with fluffy clouds printed on it appeared the next day. She’d needed a job (the casting agent thing hadn’t panned out) so called 1-800-GET-A-JOB and reached a temp agency that got her a two-week post as an assistant to a vice-president of marketing’s assistant which had, after a very long eighteen months of waking at dawn and driving the length and breadth of LA to photocopy or type or anything else that would get her closer to her goal of being an entertainment reporter, finally led her to her first job at TiTs, which came with health and dental insurance. She hadn’t had her teeth cleaned in two years and needed a dentist. So she’d dialled 1-800-DENTIST and had met the woman who would become the sister she’d never had. Valentina Ortiz.
Tears threatened as more memories poured in. The ‘guac and talk’ nights they’d started having every other Tuesday. The shared passion for kitsch and Disney and dressing up her husband Diego’s scrappy rescue dog in their little girls’ hand-me-downs. The competitive cartwheel contests that always landed them both dizzy and weeping with laughter on the tiny patch of lawn where they’d had countless barbecues. Knowing she was loved no matter what. Her body strained against the scratchy feeling at the back of her throat. She’d not cried once since Valentina had died. Sworn to herself she wouldn’t. Vowed to be strong for Diego and the children who had, equally desperately, tried to cling to their old routine until the memories had proved too powerful. In what felt like the blink of an eye, Diego packed up the house and took the kids back to the families he and Val had left behind ‘to see what adventures they’d find outside of the Ortiz Orbit’.
One tear fell. And then another. She held out her wrap and sobbed, ‘What did you put in this thing?’
Rather than ignore the show of emotion or try to happy talk her tears away, the three men fell into a practised calm, dug in their pockets for fresh handkerchiefs, led her into an office off the foyer and gave her the room she needed to cry.
What felt like twenty hours of gale-force tears later, Willa made herself drop her balled-up fists into her lap and take in the room. It had the aesthetic of a five-star treehouse rather than an office (the mini-mall was positioned on the edge of a ravine). She mopped her face clean and blew her nose (once she’d been gifted the soft cloth handkerchief speckled with floating loaves of bread and the logo ‘Happy Challadays’). As Elijah slid a mug of fresh mint tea in front of her, she gave him a watery smile of gratitude and pronounced herself ready.
‘Best way to start a meeting,’ he said in an enthusiastic way that implied he regularly handed people a snack, brought them into the welcoming cocoon of his workplace, and offered so much kindness and warmth that the only possible reaction was to weep. He sat down at his desk, tapped a couple of papers into order, then gave her a bright smile. ‘Right! We’ll just wait for the other party to appear and then we’ll get this show on the road.’
‘Umm . . . We’re what-ing for who?’
There was no other party. She’d been Valentina’s best friend. Sure, Val had known people. The ones at work, the ones at the school gates. The ones at the gym where she taught Zumba on a Saturday (aka the Cheesy Burrito Bootie Burn). But none of them had been there when Valentina had needed someone to hold the barf buckets or try on unicorn-coloured wigs or—
A knock sounded on the doorframe and a rich, shiver-my-timbers baritone asked, ‘Apologies. Erm . . . Is this the right office to find Mr Gottlieb?’
Elijah bounded out from behind his desk and began shaking hands with – ooohhhhh, heavens – the most beautiful man Willa had ever seen. And that was saying something because she had interviewed practically everyone from the Marvel franchise.
If perfectly beautiful men were her thing, she’d be melting into a puddle of drool and oestrogen, leaving her poor neglected ovaries to dance the tarantella in an attempt to win his heart. But perfectly beautiful men scared her a little. And by ‘a little’, she meant a lot.
‘You must be Gabriel,’ Elijah said, ushering the six-foot-something wall of hunk-a-liciousness to the chair next to Willa’s.
Willa snapped to attention.
Gabriel Martinez?
Oh, now this was unexpected.
And also take-your-breath-away amazing. Whether or not he was who Willa thought he was, this Gabriel chap was the most exquisitely sculpted human being she’d ever seen. If ever there was a call for pirate/businessman chic, this Latino mass of muscles and style mavenry was calling for it. Midnight blue-black hair. Eyes as mesmerising as tiger’s. And as watchful. And a face . . . ohhh, mercy . . . a face that looked as if it had been hewn from an exquisite slab of precious stone chink by exacting chink.
Elijah introduced Gabriel to Willa, then bustled back behind his desk.
It was true. She was sitting next to Valentina’s long-lost brother.
Shell-shocked, Willa stared at Gabriel.
Gabriel, in turn, barely acknowledged her presence.
Valentina had rarely spoken about her estranged brother. Like, pretty much never. He was the ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ of the Martinez family. Once, in a chemotherapy haze, Val had muttered something about hoping with all of her soul that he was living his best life.
Taking gross advantage of the drugs Val was on, Willa learnt Gabriel was her second-to-oldest brother. He’d left home in the middle of Val’s quinceañera before abuela’s flan had been served (an unforgivable sin, apparently). He’d never returned. And, according to family legend, was never mentioned again. But Val missed him. Desperately. For her twenty-third birthday, Diego had hired a private detective and discovered Gabriel lived in Palm Springs, where he’d transformed from an angry teen to the ironically private, super-successful branding and social media strategist behind Transparency – the go-to social media machine for celebs who needed an image makeover. Despite being sent invitations, he’d not come to Valentina’s wedding, funeral or the Life After Death party (she’d refused to have a plain old wake. Too creepy, mamacita!). Willa had tried a bit of cyber-stalking a while back, but it had turned up nothing. No photos. No Insta feed. No heartfelt testimonials on Yelp. But he was here now.
