“Man, had to run for my connection! Just knew I was gonna miss it and be stuck in this hick town forever.” I suppose it never occurred to him that I was very fond of this “hick town,” but my frown was wasted as he busied himself stowing his bag.
He was preppy, in a fresh-out-of-college kind of way. Looked a lot like Cameron, with short dark hair in stylishly gelled spikes. His khaki pants were already wrinkled from whatever flight he’d just dashed off of, and his polo shirt was salmon pink. Seriously? Pink? He flopped down, jostling me once again. “Can’t wait to hit L.A. Babes in bikinis beats waist-deep snow any day.”
I snorted to myself. The snow was barely ankle deep. A dusting, really. Wuss.
“So, what’re you headed out to La La Land for?” Before I could answer him (even if I’d had any intention of doing so) he held up his hand. “Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess. I’m pretty good at reading people.”
While he looked me over good, I contemplated what his face would look like if I had him in a choke hold. He took in my blond ponytail, still at shoulder-length, the fading scar high on my cheek. His eyes narrowed as he observed my steel-toed combat boots, my worn jeans and my T-shirt that said I HATE YOUR FAVORITE BAND.
Finally, he nodded as if he’d discovered the answer to life, the universe and everything. “I’m thinking…stunt man.”
“Really? Damn, I’m usually so good at this stuff.” Chatty-Spencer made himself comfortable as the plane started to taxi, and I fished in my backpack for my headphones. I was going to need them. “Sold your soul dot com? What’s that?”
Inwardly, I sighed. Damn Viljo and his freakin’ stickers! I could tell already that this was one of those airplane buddies who was just
“Yeah, what’s it about? One of those Christian things?”
“No.” I have never wished for teleportation technology so hard as I did just then. “It’s just a thing.” I put my headphones on, even though I had no music playing, and pretended to be fascinated with the takeoff process.
The ruse seemed to work, at first, Chatty-Spencer settling in for the flight and directing his incessant babbling to the flight attendant and the lucky passenger across the aisle. But the moment we got up in the air, he whipped out a laptop and pulled up Viljo’s Web site. “Oh wow…is this guy serious?”
“Mmf.” Maybe if I didn’t look at him, he’d go away?
“He really believes that people sell their souls to the devil, hunh?” He snorted. “Geez, if somebody can point me at one of those demons, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. There’s stuff I need to do!”
I had to turn and look then, checking out every inch of bare skin I could see on the man. No demon brands. No twisting, writhing tattoo to scramble my senses and add to the ache I was already getting behind my eyes. Hey, it was worth a look. You never know. “And just what do you deem important enough to sell your soul for?” I swear, if he said something stupid, I was going to punch him.
“Well, see…like, I’m heading out to L.A. ’cause I have this movie idea. I’m a writer! A screenwriter, anyway, and a buddy of mine knows a guy who knows a guy…you know how Hollywood is.” He rolled his eyes and chuckled, deciding that, with no evidence to support his assumption, I must know all about Hollywood.
“And you think a movie deal is more important than your soul?”
Chatty-Spencer laughed. “Hell, what are you gonna do with a soul? I figure in Hollywood, you’re a nobody if you still
“But I won’t have to sell my soul or anything. This thing I’ve got, it’s gonna be huge. Nobody’s got anything like it.” He patted his laptop like a cherished puppy, and I had to wonder what would happen if I “accidentally” spilled my complimentary paper cup of water all over it later.
“Well, good luck to you.”
To me, that sounded like a conversation ender, but the man just kept talking! Four hours of unrelenting drivel, and I couldn’t even say for sure that the guy stopped to take a breath.
I found out all about his super-secret movie idea, because he could tell I was a trustworthy sort. (And I’ve seen the same plot done at least four other times; trust me when I say it was not as groundbreaking as the guy wanted to think.) I learned where he went to college, about the crazy ex-girlfriend he’d left behind in Chicago, all about the online video game he played fanatically. He told me about his friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend inside studio connections, which basically boiled down to a janitor for Someone Important’s intern. He confessed that he only had a hundred bucks in his pocket and no idea where he was going to stay once the plane touched down, but he had a cousin who promised to get him a job somewhere with lots of celebrity interaction.
Part of me had to wonder just how many people every year headed out to California with just the change in their pockets and dreams the size of Canada. How many of them had those same dreams crushed and went crawling home, broken? How many of them stayed past the point when they
See, that’s the problem with having a philosophy degree. I have a crappy job, and my brain works way too much.
I almost cried from happiness the moment the wheels touched down. At that point, I was dangerously close to selling
“Aw, man, here already? And we were just getting to know each other.” Spencer gathered up his stuff, carefully putting his laptop back in its bag. “We should totally keep in touch, man. You on Twitter?”
I wasn’t even sure what the hell a Twitter was. But something told me this guy was gonna need help in the near future, and even if I planned on retiring, I could still direct him to the right people. “Here.” I handed over one of my self-printed business cards. It was plain white card stock and said simply JESSE DAWSON, CHAMPION. My cell phone number was printed beneath it.
