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Kathleen fell back with a thud against the car seat. “No one special.”
Sari knocked the mirror back in place. “I know that tone. There's definitely more to this story. Was he cute?”
“People would probably say he was handsome.”
“Our age?” Lucy asked.
“Twice that.”
“Too old then,” Sari said. “Why was he at the party?”
“Oh, for goodness sake,” Kathleen said. “It was my father.”
“Your father!” they both exclaimed. Sari turned to look at her. “You're kidding!” she said. The light changed, and the car behind them honked. Kathleen automatically raised her hand and gave them the finger without even looking. Sari lifted her own hand in an apologetic wave as she drove on.
“I thought your dad was completely out of the picture,” Lucy said.
“Oh, he resurfaces now and then when he needs money. He's such a jerk, it's unbelievable.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I had to be the one who looks like him.”
“You just said he was handsome.”
“Yeah, but who cares? What kind of a freak says to his wife right after she's given birth to triplets, ‘Sorry, babe, just realized I don't like kids,’ and takes off?”
“He came back,” Lucy said.
“Yeah, right-once the twins were rich.”
“Why was he invited to the birthday party?” Sari asked.
“He wasn't. He just found out about it somehow. He knows that if other people are around, the twins have to act like they're glad to see him or it'll be all over the tabloids that they hate their father.” She gri
“He was talking to me. He was going on about having met this real estate guy at a party some bimbo girlfriend of his took him to. I wasn't even paying attention. Oh-by the way-that's why my mother and sisters were so pissed at me. They said I told the Hollywood Reporter guy all about Lloyd-how he shows up asking for money and we're always bailing him out of trouble. And I guess at some point I also mentioned the twins’ real age.”
“Why'd you do that?” Sari asked.
“How should I know? I don't even remember doing it.”
“The first step is admitting you have a problem,” Lucy said.
“The second step is for you to fuck off.”
“Girls, girls,” Sari said. “Let's play nice.”
They dropped Lucy off at her place, and Kathleen hopped out and got into the front seat, folding up her long legs so she could cram them into the small space. “Let's go do something fun,” she said. “See a movie or something.”
“Can't,” Sari said. “I have like five thousand progress reports I’m behind on. I’ve got to work.”
“Okay,” Kathleen said. “I’ll just go for a run, then. Best way to get rid of a hangover.”
“You do that. And then-”
“What?”
“You'll make that call? To your father? To get the name of his friend?”
“Don't you love me anymore?” Kathleen asked, tilting sideways so she could rest her head on Sari's shoulder. “Don't you want me to live with you?”
“If you make me crash-”
“Fine. Be that way.” Kathleen righted herself. “Hey, I’m going to need a new job. You guys hiring at the clinic?”
“You wouldn't last an hour there,” Sari said.
“Why not? I like kids.”
“No, you don't.”
“No, I don't,” Kathleen agreed. “But kids with autism don't talk, right? I don't mind kids if they don't talk.”
“Some of them talk. And a lot of them hit people and bang their heads and scratch at your eyes and scream all the time.”
“Sounds like fun,” Kathleen said. “Think I’ll skip it.” She reached down for the lever that adjusted the seat and reclined the seat as far as it would go, so she was more lying down than sitting, then slipped her feet out of her flip-flops and shoved them against the dashboard, so her knees were way up in the air. She had a Chinese pictograph tattooed above her left ankle but always claimed to have forgotten what it meant. “So what kind of job can I get where you don't have to work all that hard but you make enough money to live in a nice house and hire people to do things like clean and pick up after you? I mean, I don't really want to give any of that up, just because the twins are acting like jerks.”
“There aren't jobs like that,” Sari said. “Not for someone at your level of expertise, which is none. The only thing you could do is marry someone who's already rich.”
“I love that idea,” Kathleen said. “I’ll marry someone rich. Rich and wonderful-I don't want a rich asshole. Know any wonderful rich guys?”
“Do you think I’d be driving this shitty car and living in that shitty apartment if I did?”
“Possibly,” Kathleen said, rolling her head to the side and studying Sari's profile. “The problem with you, my love, is that you raise self-sacrifice to an art. Look at you-you have the toughest job in the world, and you know you'll never make even decent money doing it. You're either an idiot or a saint.”
“I vote for idiot,” Sari said with a sigh. “I mean, I told you you could move in with me and I just remembered-”
“What?”
“You're a total slob.”
“See?” Kathleen said. “That's why I need to be rich enough to hire a maid. I’m a slob.”
“No,” Sari said, “that's why you need to find another apartment now.”
“I’m on it,” Kathleen said and took her cell phone out of her purse.
III
Kathleen's phone calls were so productive that she was able to land an appointment with the real estate guy early that very evening. At her request, Sari helped her pick out some “responsible” clothes-a pair of dark brown pants and a cream-colored silk shirt. Kathleen even put her hair up in a twist. “Wow,” Sari said. “You look almost like an adult.”
Sari insisted on driving her back to the twins’ house to pick up her car. Kathleen had intended to leave the car behind as a grand gesture to her newfound independence-the twins’ production company was leasing it for her. But Sari pointed out that Kathleen would have no way of getting around town without it.
“I could drop you off at work every day and use your car the rest of the time,” Kathleen said. “Play chauffeur.”
“No, you couldn't,” Sari said. “We're getting your car.”
They drove up to the house, and Kathleen jumped out of Sari's car and into her own without anyone even coming out of the house. And she was relieved, really-she loved her car. It was a turquoise-colored convertible Mini Cooper that had originally been leased for Kelly-Christa had the same car in red-but the twins had moved on to electric cars at the suggestion of Junie Peterson, who said that people liked their celebrities to be environmentally conscientious. So this one was now Kathleen's baby.
Kathleen was very good at changing her mind when it was expedient to do so, and by the time she had arrived at her destination, she had already decided that there was nothing morally compromising about her using the car, that she had earned it by working for her sisters as long as she had.
She parked the Mini Cooper in front of the address she'd been given, which turned out to belong to one of the high-rise buildings that line Wilshire Boulevard near Westwood Avenue. She entered off the street, through the building's big glass front doors.
Kathleen gave her contact's name-Sam Kaplan-to both the doorman and the security guard at the front desk. The elevator man, who wore a red suit and an air of frosty boredom, took her up to the penthouse floor, gestured toward the only door in the foyer, and closed the elevator doors behind her as soon as she stepped out.
Kathleen wondered if this meant that the penthouse apartment was available, and that Sam Kaplan might offer it to her. It would have to be at a hugely reduced rate, of course. She hadn't saved much while working for the twins-she liked to buy clothes and go out to clubs and bars. So there was no way she could afford a penthouse, except by special arrangement.