Page 33 of Dark Ugly Places

“No, I didn’t know,” Bambi answers. “But what about LaMonte? Why is she doing this?”

“Who fucking knows.” Jason sighs. He slides down next to her into the booth and pulls her in tight. “I’m so glad I married a model. All actresses are batshit crazy.”

Bambi smiles, her stomach rumbling again. Jason kisses her cheek and squeezes her thigh. After a moment, Lucita returns from upstairs carrying the laundry bag, a few clothing items in hand.

“Miss Bambi, you want I take these to the cleaner?”

Bambi sets down her coffee. “Yes. Thanks, Lucita.”

“Okay, pero a few of these items have stains. The sheets. I do the stain removal first, no?”

Bambi shakes her head. “No, Lucita. Just take them in.”

“No, do the stain removal first, Lucita,” Jason interjects. “Otherwise, they never come out. You women and your cycles,” he says, nudging her playfully.

“I’m not on my cycle.”

Jason scoffs. “Whatever. Just get it out.”

A roll of nausea courses through Bambi’s center. Right, she thinks, Just get my blood out. It’s routine now, like morning coffee, like the shine of the sprinklers in the driveway, the slight wisp of dew that forms in the hills before dawn.

Lucita looks back and forth between them until Jason nods. “Ah, okay. Sí, Mr. Redfern.”

He smiles and winks at her. “Thanks, Lucita. You look beautiful today, by the way.”

Lucita blushes a little and fumbles with the clothes. “Oh, Mr. Redfern!”

While Jason showers and gets ready to leave, Bambi emails her agent and accepts the shoot in Mexico. She declines a few other jobs and posts on social media. Then Jason kisses her goodbye and heads outside, where the driver waits in a black Mercedes with dark-tinted windows. She waves from the front door, even though she cannot see him beyond the glass.

With the house to herself, Bambi takes a mug of green tea to the guest room upstairs. She picks up one of her magazines from the nightstand. Marie Claire. Spring 2010 edition. She knows the shoot without looking inside, but she does anyway. Crocheted tops, colored headdresses, painted faces. They shot in New Mexico for four days, and when she came home, she ate three eggs, bacon, and a baguette with butter that she prepared herself. It was the first real food she’d had in weeks.

Very early on, Bambi figured out that with a name like hers, she could do only one of two things: she could hide away and become frail and broken, or she could stand out so that everyone would see her. She learned to stand out most of her life and do it very well, successfully even. She was good at it, bold and confident in moments that would make everyone else shy.

But lately, Bambi has started to lose touch with this bold version of herself. As though that girl—the one on the magazine cover—were her shadow only. Perhaps it was never really her at all. The thought terrifies her.

Bambi finds her laptop and searches online for the local temp agencies, unsure of what she might be looking for. Jobs sites. Freelancers. Au pairs and nannies. Tutors. Nothing quite makes sense for what she wants, what she craves. She could post on social media, but of course, she would be inundated. Fame is a drug and a sickness all in one, she once heard one of Jason’s co-stars admit. It could be the greatest high, but it also leaves you empty and quivering for more. She longs for someone in her small world who stands outside all of that, to whom her name and Jason’s don’t matter at all.

At the bedroom window, Bambi stands looking out at the trees. They cover the slope of the hillside where the neighborhood below them, across Sunset Boulevard, lies, with its five- and six-million-dollar homes. She envisions herself back in her New York apartment, the tiny one-bedroom space, cramped and homey. For a brief moment, she feels as though she can still smell the scent of the bakery downstairs that put out fresh bagels every morning, a pleasant kind of olfactory torture since Bambi never ate them. Here, the air is empty, the dry California hillside more desert and arid than she had expected.

Loneliness.

The word shoots up in her, and Bambi feels for a moment like she could start crying. Instead, she goes to her laptop and opens a new browser window. She begins typing, her fingers flying faster and faster.

WANTED: BEVERLY HILLS WOMAN SEEKS PERSONAL ASSISTANT PRONTO TO WORK PART TIME. WILL PAY COMPETITIVE RATES FOR THE RIGHT APPLICANT.

WRITE ME A LETTER AND TELL ME WHY YOU ARE THE PERFECT PERSONAL ASSISTANT. BONUS POINTS IF YOU ARE STRONG, SWEET WHEN THE OCCASION CALLS FOR IT, PRETTY ENOUGH, CAPABLE, GOOD WITH MONEY, A PEOPLE PERSON, ORGANIZED, AND SMART. MUST LIVE LOCALLY. MUST BE A SOLID CHICK. NO FLAKES. NO LOSERS. NO SMOKERS. YES, I MEAN WEED, TOO. EMAIL ME AT [email protected].

What more does she need to say? Submit resume? No way. People lie. No phone calls. No more listening to bullshit. What’s wrong with asking for just a normal, accountable person with a decent, good head on her shoulders? Bambi closes her eyes and tries to picture this person, but she draws a blank. She knows only one thing: this person would be a she, and that she would be company. Someone to spend time with. Someone she could rely on. And she would pay her so that it would be easy and clean. Not a friend, per se, but something else more important.

Another soul in the house.

It’s the first major thing she’s done for herself since moving here for Jason. Everything has been all about him. His house. His career. His life. His desires. Bambi realizes with a deep humming sensation in her gut that she has grown a little sick of it all. What about her? Isn’t anyone ever in her life going to care for her?

No. This will be hers and hers alone. As Bambi clicks the button and her post is out there in the world, she feels a shudder of excitement but also a tiny, inexplicable twinge of fear.

16

Nicola