Page 9 of Marked By Mayhem

“Could have been worse," I shrug.

"Worse? I'm supposed to be shooting a commercial next week, a national commercial for Clorox, my right arm pouring bleach into a damn measuring cup-ouch,’ he makes a funny sound holding his arm.

"You got that commercial?" My quiet question stops his tirade.

He flicks his eyes toward me. "What the hell did they do to you at work? I told you about that in a call just yesterday!’ he says.

Oh.

I recall him calling me, and how I couldn’t make out what was being said over the noise at the club, so I just nodded and hummed to everything he said.

He leans against the marble island in the center of the kitchen, his arms crossed. "Miss Ella Hart did you hit her head? Do you remember your name? I bet you remember that you work for Frank though?" He says in one breath.

“Very funny. Stop quoting that moron everywhere,” I scowl. “And… sorry. I forgot, had a busy night. Congratulations!”

He rolls his eyes.

"And as a gift," I add, chuckling, "if you're real nice to me, I'll autograph that cast."

He rolls his eyes for the second time.

I step back from him, scrutinizing his face, this time for recognition under his clown-like attire. "You look absolutely dazzling," I say, laughing harder this time.

“I have a date later,” he frowns.

“I pity them already,” I make a witty face at him.

“Do I really look that ugly?” he asks me.

“The clothes, maybe. But you. You are drop-dead handsome,” I assure him, controlling my smile.

He waves his hand in the air, dismissing my compliment. "My eyes are too close together, and my nose twists a half-centimeter to the right," he says. "Each time, they use a little bit more of me. The last ad got up to my shoulder, so I figure it's only a matter of time before they show my face on the television!" he says in excitement.

I try to control my laughter this time.

Even Clark Gable wasn’t as wrapped up in himself as my friend.

But he looks so serious, holding his hand out and flexing it just so, that I can only smile. "Can I get you something else?" I say, pointing to the empty juice glass, wondering if his arm hurts.

I can't be sure if Reed doesn't want to answer the question or if he hasn't heard it. "Where did the butter go?" he says. He closes his eyes as if divining its location, and then opens a compartment of the refrigerator. "Ah," he says.

He tries to hold the banana muffin with his bad arm while he spreads the butter with the other hand, but the muffin keeps slipping out of his grasp.

He doesn’t like asking for help. Too stubborn for that. So, I intervene. "Here," I say. "Let me do it for you." I hand half to him, while he stares at his forearm as if it's a foreign object.

"I can't put any pressure on it yet. It's driving me up the wall. And it itches like hell!"

"How did you get hurt?"

He shrugs. "It was the end of a perfectly horrible day. I was at this photo-shoot for Parents magazine, and I'd spent the afternoon holding a series of naked three-month-olds in the air—" He reaches his arms in front of him as a demonstration. "Anyway, at one point they zeroed in on the baby's ass and my hands under its armpits. So this kid—a boy—started peeing on me. And I was wearing that washed silk shirt I got at Zara last month—remember? I just know the stain isn't going to come out."

He pauses, taking a bite of his muffin. "And then they told me before I left that they'd let me know if—if—they decided to use the picture for the next issue. So I stepped outside, and it was raining, and I had no umbrella, and next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground in the middle of a mudslide, and my arm was caught underneath me, and I was dying from the pain. I mean, seriously, when does it ever rain in Los Angeles?!"

He turns to me. "Did you know that they don't just make white casts anymore? You have a choice of anything—pink, green, even magenta. I thought I'd go with black, you know, because it matches most of my outfits."

I lean against the counter, exhausted from his explanation.

“Remember that disastrous road trip we took back in college to Aspen? Where I broke my arm and wanted a yellow cast."

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