Jennie
Fridays were my least favorite day of the week.
Kyungsoo didn't work on Fridays unless he'd gotten behind. He'd put in long days early in the week so he could spend Fridays with Nayeon and their boys. Kai and Chanyeol loved to duck out early and get their weekend party started. When he'd lived here before, Sehun used to stick around in case a last-minute walk-in showed, but now that we had the other mechanics, he was gone early too.
And without Drake, that left me alone in the office, watching the clock tick toward five.
The slowest hours of the week came on Friday afternoons.
But not today. I couldn't wait for this Friday. I'd driven to work with jitters this morning that had yet to fade.
I had no idea what time Lisa would come to the office, but when she showed, I'd be ready. I'd worked ahead the last few days, preparing so that once she arrived, I'd be off the clock and all ears.
My afternoon cup of tea was steaming. My foot bounced on the floor. I'd be a mess if Lisa made me wait until five.
He didn't.
At ten after three, her gleaming SUV pulled into the lot.
"Hey." She walked into the office and whipped the sunglasses off her face.
"Hey," I breathed, the air from my lungs stolen by the square cut of her jaw and her glittering eyes. The woman was beautiful to distraction.
I hadn't seen much of Lisa since the evening she'd helped me unload groceries at my house. Her vehicle had been missing more often than not whenever I came home from work. I'd done my best not to watch.
I'd followed my normal routine and lived like that house was empty. I didn't check the windows when I heard a car drive by. I didn't turn down the television at night so I could hear the slam of her door. A movie star might live next door, but I refused to treat her differently than I would any other neighbor.
I respected her privacy that much.
Except . . .
Then the nights came. I'd retire to my bedroom and slip into my pajamas. I'd settle underneath my covers and fluff my pillow. But instead of closing the blinds like I had for years, I'd leave them open. I'd crack the window.
Only when the light from her bedroom window shone across the expanse between our homes, twinkling in my own room, would I be able to relax and sleep. I'd had a hard time falling asleep whenever she was gone at night because there were too many questions rattling through my mind.
Was she working? What had she done for dinner? Was she with a woman?
The nighttime hours were the only ones when I couldn't seem to control my obsession with Lisa Manoban.
"Would you like some coffee or water?" I asked.
She gave me a sideways glance, like she didn't trust my offer's sincerity. To be fair, it was the first time I'd greeted her without a glare. "Water, but I'll get it."
"It's in there." I pointed to the waiting room and filled my lungs as she disappeared to fill a cup.
The foot I'd been holding flat on the floor began bouncing. My limbs felt loose and uncontrollable. The electricity between us, the anticipation of this discussion, was unnerving.
Lisa unsettled me with her bright gaze and I lost track of my wits. The more time we spent around one another, the harder it was to keep up the icy façade.
It was a miracle I'd managed to kick her out of my house on Tuesday. She'd been funny. She'd been entertaining and kind. How was I supposed to deal with a charming movie star standing in my kitchen? When I'd bent to put my carrots in the fridge, I'd lingered inside the door, hoping the chill would cool me down.
The woman walked into a room and the temperature spiked. It was no wonder she was melting me into a puddle.
Lisa emerged, a paper cup of water in hand. The way she walked was so . . . graceful. Perfect. Her hips swayed with confidence, like every step had been preordained. She knew exactly where to place her foot to make her leg look as long as possible. She knew how to highlight the perfect curve of her ass and draw attention to her zipper.
When she sat, the muscles on her shoulders and arms tightened, showing off the definition between the sleeves of her shirt.
I was so used to seeing someone in T-shirts, bulging arms covered in tattoos on display. Lisa's button-ups and rolled sleeves hid the bulk of her biceps, hinting at what I knew to be sexy muscle beneath.
She set her water on the desk and the smooth cotton stretched, revealing the definition of her bicep. It disappeared when she leaned back, placing her hands on the armrests, making her shoulders look impossibly broad.
"So where do we start?" she asked.
Right. We were talking about the movie. I tore my eyes away from her shirt and shrugged. "It's your movie."
"Then the beginning."
I shifted in my chair, rolling it over an inch or two until she was directly in front of me and her words would hit me straight on. "Okay."
"It starts with the murder. The scene is all about Sandy, and it's not a pretty one."
Then no matter what she said, I would not let Jisoo see this movie. I knew Sehun would be on board with me too. "Does it show Avery?"
Lisa shook her head. "You don't know she killed her until near the end. It's just Sandy, her eyes aimed at the ceiling and a trickle of blood coming from her mouth."
Maybe I wouldn't be seeing this movie either. I'd been debating back and forth, but I was leaning toward no. "Who is playing Sandy?"
"Tzuyu Chou."
"Oh." They weren't holding out on the cast, were they? If Lisa was one of Hollywood's most notable and in-demand actors, Tzuyu Chou was her counterpart. She was equally as beautiful and as captivating on screen as Lisa.
I'd recognized Tzuyu in one of the pictures with Lisa on the internet. They'd been a couple once, hadn't they? Were they still? Was she in town? I hadn't heard, but true to my vow, I'd been steering clear of all things gossip.
It didn't matter. She'd be gone, like Lisa, before winter. "What happens next?"
"The next morning, Avery arrives on the scene at the motel," Lisa said without hesitation. She was trusting me with this. I knew it was confidential and she was violating a rule, but she kept talking anyway. "She examines the body and starts the investigation. She finds out that Drake was there the night before. She walks around the property and finds the knife in a field. She crouches down and pulls an evidence bag from her pocket. She picks up the knife and sees Drake's name engraved on the side."
"I bought him that knife. For Christmas." I turned my gaze to the window. "I wish I had bought him socks instead."
"Listen, if this is too hard—"
"No." I shook my head. "Keep going."
"Avery rejoins the cops in the room. They tell her the victim's name is Sandy Devin. She tells them she knew her once, long ago. Then it flashes back to the time they met, as kids. That's how the whole movie goes. It follows her investigation at the time but jumps back in time."
"How did they meet? In the movie?" I knew how they'd met in real life. Avery had been Sandy's neighbor. When she'd moved to town, she'd lived next door, though a few years younger.
"As neighbors." She raised an eyebrow. "How am I doing so far?"
"So far you're authentic."
She chuckled. "That was such a good word before I met you."
"Keep going."
"The next scene is her arresting Drake."
"Where?" I'd been here the day Avery and two officers had come and arrested Drake. We'd all been here.
"At a garage."
"Which garage?"
"A fake one in LA. None of us wanted to try and shoot scenes here."
So they weren't completely heartless or insensitive about this film. "Thank you for that."
I would have had to be the one to tell them no, because I answered the phones and would have taken that call.
"The next scene is in an interrogation room. We're doing that in LA too. Then it's another flashback of Avery and Sandy walking home from school one day. They're friends. And when it cuts back to her in her office, Avery's sad that she's gone."
Avery probably had been sad. Maybe she'd been angry. Maybe she'd been heartbroken. But as far as I was concerned, she didn't get to feel anything for Sandy but shame. "See? Now you're making me mad. The viewer is going to sympathize with her."
"Probably," Lisa admitted. "If I'm doing my job right. The next scene is her on the phone with Jisoo. She calls to find out about the investigation. Avery promises to get justice for her mom. She cries. It's hard for Avery to hear."
My molars ground together. "No one should feel bad for Avery Wales. I hate this."
I understood what they were doing. The audience would be shocked. They'd drive home from the theater with popcorn kernels stuck in their teeth and wonder if they'd missed a hint or a sign at the beginning of the film.
Fucking Hollywood.
"I know, just . . . stick with me." Lisa's pleading eyes made me clamp my mouth shut. "The next scene is one from the past. Avery comes to the garage to ask Drake questions about a guy who was beaten at a bar. Avery thinks it was Drake or someone from his club. Of course, Drake knows who did it but he's smug. He doesn't say anything incriminating and Avery has no choice but to let it go."
They'd show Drake as the bad guy and Avery as the cop who couldn't seem to take down a criminal.
The most infuriating part was that Lisa wasn't wrong. Drake hadn't always been an upstanding citizen. Even after the club had disbanded, there'd been some questionable activities. But I'd kept my mouth shut about a lot of things that I'd seen happen or comments I'd overheard in my years working here.
"Is it wrong?" Lisa asked.
"Keep going." It was the only answer she'd get.
"The next scene is in the present again. Avery is talking to the prosecutor about the case. She's . . . excited. Hesitant."
"Because she's had evidence against Drake before but hadn't been able to make it stick."
"Exactly." Lisa nodded. "Then it flashes back again. There's three more times when she goes up against Drake and comes out the loser."
Drake would be the smug, untouchable criminal. And in a way, that's exactly who he had been. People had gravitated toward Drake because of his confidence. His power. He'd been a natural leader with a sharp mind and a no-bullshit attitude.
You loved him fiercely.
Or you hated him with equal passion.
Kyungsoo was like that to a degree, though Nayeon and the boys had mellowed him over the years.
We'd all mellowed after the Pointers had closed their clubhouse doors.
"There's a scene with a young cop Avery is mentoring," Lisa said. "Another where she butts heads with Ten."
"Ten's in this?"
"Yeah. He's the hero."
"No." I shook my head. "Jisoo is the hero."
"True." She sipped her water. "Ten and Avery don't agree on a burglary case. This kid breaks into a store, and Avery wants to let the kid off with a warning because she plays golf with the kid's dad. Ten argues that since the kid is twenty-one and was drunk off his ass at the time, he doesn't deserve a break. It's the first time you question Avery as a cop."
"Good." Maybe that story was true. Maybe it wasn't. But it was time to start infusing some doubt about Avery herself.
"The scenes after that jumps into the present timeline. Drake was arrested but is out on bond. Jisoo has moved to town. She came because she wants to investigate her mother's murder, but then Avery learns that she's Drake's daughter. Though her story is shown from Avery's perspective. Avery's out to dinner with her wife and overhears a rumor. She's upset. She liked Jisoo and she feels like she's on the other team."
"Because she was." Jisoo's determination to find her mother's killer was the reason Avery was in prison.
Though Lisa had it wrong as to why she'd moved to Black Point, but since that truth was known by only a handful of people, that was no surprise.
Jisoo hadn't moved here to watch the investigation. She'd come here to see her mother's grave and had been kidnapped along with Nayeon. It had taken them a year to learn that Avery had been their kidnapper. Still, it had never been made public knowledge. That was one of the few BP secrets I'd been privy to.
The day of the kidnapping, I'd come to work and the entire place had been abandoned. I'd tried to call Kyungsoo and Drake with no luck, and I'd known instantly that something bad had happened. So I'd done what I'd always done: I'd taken care of the business. I'd claimed a family emergency and rescheduled appointments. Then I'd waited, hoping everyone would be all right.
God, what a year that had been.
The year of death. It had started with Sandy's murder, then the kidnapping and then Drake's suicide.
We'd all been scared and on edge. There had been a murderer at large. The Warriors had been threatening retaliation for the death of one of their members—they'd suspected their man had been killed by a former BP.
Everyone had been stressed. Nayeon had been pregnant with Xander, and Kyungsoo hadn't let her out of his sight. Nayeon used to come in and work here every day because Kyungsoo wouldn't leave her at the newspaper.
It had been such a miserable year, yet we'd all become closer for surviving it together.
"We get more flashbacks," Lisa spoke, her smooth voice pulling me into the present. "Avery runs into Sandy in Bozeman. Avery asks her out and they start dating."
"Do you show that Sandy knows she's married?"
Lisa shook her head. "Avery never tells her. In one scene, Avery's taking off her wedding ring before she meets Sandy."
Thank God.
None of us knew if Sandy had known Avery was married when they started dating. According to Jisoo, her mom hadn't talked much about the man she'd called Lee—a nickname from when Avery and Sandy had been kids. Maybe Sandy had known that Avery was married. Maybe she'd promised her that she was leaving her wife. Or maybe she'd hidden it, along with so many other things.
For Jisoo's sake, to protect the memory of her mother, I pretended Avery had lied.
"Avery hides Sandy and the affair from her wife. She sneaks in phone calls and weekends to visit Sandy. Avery starts drinking more. She isn't as focused at work. My makeup in the movie gets more and more haggard."
"She's becoming the villain."
"That's right." Lisa nodded. "I told you we'd get there."
I gave her a small smile. "As long as the audience hates her as much as I do when they walk out, we're good."
"I'll do my best."
"How does it end?" We needed to skip forward. At some point, I was sure there'd be a scene for Drake's death. It was yet another reason seeing this film probably wasn't good for my mental state. If I couldn't listen to Lisa give me the CliffsNotes version, I doubted I'd be able to watch the fictional retelling.
Lisa humored me. "Jisoo finds a picture in Sandy's things of Avery. Again, it's from her perspective, but she takes it to her house one night. She asks her about it. And it all clicks. It crumbles around her as she puts it together that Avery killed her mom."
How hard had it been for Jisoo to go to Avery's house? There hadn't been a picture, but she had been the one to piece it together—Lisa had that right. Jisoo had been the one person able to give Drake and Sandy justice.
She'd done that for them. For herself. For us all.
"Are you using their real names?"
"Avery's," Lisa said gently. "Most of the others have been changed. I just thought it would be easier to refer to them as the names you know."
"Thank you. For the names. For talking this through."
"You're welcome."
The explanation, though helpful, didn't make this project easier to accept. Lisa was trying to help me find peace with the movie but . . . it wasn't there.
I didn't want this movie to happen. It would, regardless of Lisa's time spent answering my questions.
And that was a fact, a disappointment, I'd learn to live with.
Still, I appreciated her time. Lisa didn't have to answer my questions. she didn't have to spend her Friday afternoon in an uncomfortable chair.
Why me? Was it because I sat in the front? Because I'd been the first to ask? Would she have told Kyungsoo if Kyungsoo had been the one to press for answers?
Or was it because something simmered in the air when Lisa and I were in these seats? There was attraction here, more than I wanted to admit. But there was something else too. I didn't hold back words with Lisa, afraid of how they could be turned against me or used to punish me.
My words flew, ripping, raw and honest.
At the first hint of my attitude, she could have left the garage and never come back. That's what I'd wanted, right? But she'd returned.
She'd listened.
To me.
I was fucked. If she kept listening, if she kept being her charming self, I was fucked.
Lisa straightened in her chair. "You told me you were worried about the truth. How close are we?"
"Close enough," I said, watching as the tension in her shoulders eased. "You have the main parts right. The rest . . ." I looked up at Drake's picture. "The rest died years ago."
"I'm sorry you lost him."
I gave her a sad smile. "So am I."
The room went quiet except for the noise from the shop. Sawyer and Tyler were likely finishing up for the day, anxious to clock out.
"I'd better go." Lisa picked up her empty cup. "Trash can?"
"I'll take care of it." I stood and rounded my desk as she set the cup aside. Then for the first time, I followed Lisa to the door. She opened it and stepped outside, the sun glinting in her eyes, making the gold striations jump. "Did this earn me dinner?"
I laughed. "No."
"Worth a try." She stepped away but stopped and looked back. "You still don't approve of this movie."
"No. I doubt I ever will."
Did she need my approval? Not really, but it seemed important to her. I'd been focused on the description and visualizing it in my head as she'd talked. But there'd been something about her voice. Reverence. Like with every scene, she was begging me to like it as much as she did.
"Why is this movie so important to you?" I asked.
"Reasons."
"Are they the same reasons you're no longer a cop?"
She studied my face, then slid on her sunglasses. "That's a different movie. Goodbye, Jennie."
"Goodbye, Lisa." I stood in the doorway as she strode to her Escalade, waving as she left.
That's a different movie.
That was a Lisa Manoban movie I wanted to see.
