A/N: This weekend was a rough one. Did you ever have a really fun and enjoyable time that was sandwiched by the shittiest morning and an equally devastating evening? Nothing like starting the day off on the wrong foot, thinking the day is turning around, only to confirm that your happiness is short-lived. I have no patience for people who don't seek professional help and would rather verbally and psychologically torture those around them.
Dealing with that certain person on a regular basis; my day is only made better those moments I sit down and write before going to work. And your reviews are just the whipped cream, the sprinkles, the chopped nuts, the hot fudge...you get the idea ;-)
Nice to see some new faces weighing in on how they're liking the story. Love seeing old friends, but newcomers are just as welcome!
Thanks again for everything guys! This IS my therapy; you don't even know!
11:30 p.m.
Mia snuck through the apartment and peered in the living room.
Her mom was fast asleep, her usual position with the TV still running.
She got her key ready and very quietly worked the lock and opened the door to let herself out. Then after gingerly closing the door behind her, Mia locked up and went down the stairs overlooking the alley.
Less people around this time of night, but it was a Friday so activity was still going on.
Mia went across the street to catch the bus that would take her east.
The tan girl yawned big, resigned that she will certainly be sleeping in tomorrow.
Finally, the bus arrived and she boarded quickly and was in her seat in seconds. Mia was already running behind and she didn't want any more delays. She hoped that not to many people want to get on or off. Without an exorbitant amount of stops, she normally can get to the park in about 10 minutes.
Her phone dinged and she checked her texts.
Sure enough, a new message from Renee:
"WTF R U, GURL? COME ON!"
She typed in reply:
"SORY, SORRY. ALMOST THERE"
Mia cursed to herself and watched everything pass by the window as she got closer to her destination.
Fendt Skate Park
One of the larger skate parks in this side of town, east of Hollywood. A lot of kids (and some grown-ups) come to this place daily to hone their skills. But after dark, it gets a little dangerous. Some of the skaters joked that this was to them what Central Park in NYC is to joggers.
Some of the more seedy clientele don't necessarily bring their business to this park. Rather, its a hunting ground for potential clients or customers, and often a good meeting spot. You name it: drug dealers, pimps, chop shop proprietors; it was one of L.A.'s lesser-known meccas for crime.
Mia ran off the bus and flew past the different pockets of people shooting the shit about whatever. She needed to find her friends.
"There you are!"
She saw Ethan the moment he said that.
"You're late, bitch!"
Renee, always quick with quips concerning the obvious.
"Sorry again," huffed Mia, who was a little winded. "My mom's been on my case for weeks; didn't help I got detention on Monday."
"I don't know why you bother with that crap," grunted the ogre-sized Mike. "I quit school."
(And just look at you now!)
Ethan grabbed Mia by the wrist and dragged her along. The other two followed.
"What's done is done. The important thing is you're here."
The foursome got to one of the deeper bowls in the park, looking like a swimming pool that hadn't been filled with water. Ethan took off his backpack and opened it to reveal a little red metal box.
"I lost my damn key yesterday," he huffed. "Tell me you have the spare."
Mia reached into her pocket and produced the little silver key on a dark green keychain.
"Thank fuck!" exclaimed Renee.
"Good thing, too" added Mike. "I thought I'd have to break out my tools to break it."
"The less opportunities for Michael to handle anything sharp, the better."
He nodded, completely oblivious to Ethan's off-hand remark.
Renee and Mia shared a mutual "is he really that dumb?" look.
"Hold this," Ethan instructed Mike.
He obliged as Ethan unlocked the box and checked on its contents. It was little over half full but densely packed with cash.
"Good," he smiled.
Ethan then closed it and gestured for some kids standing a few yards from them to come over.
"YO, BRECKENRIDGE! GET OVER HERE!"
The group looked at one another and sauntered over to the four.
"You finally ready, homie?" asked the whitest boy possible, complete with designer saggy clothes and backwards cap.
(Yeesh, poser much?)
Ethan flips up his board effortlessly without breaking eye contact with the rich kid.
"You first, Skittles."
"Why did he call him that?" Mia whispered to Renee.
"Because he wants to be Eminem so bad but he'll never be Eminem. So he Skittles."
Mia chortled.
The challenger was less amused. But he motioned for his "crew" to get his skateboard ready and he settled it on the edge of the bowl.
"Same as last time?" the kid's friend asked.
Ethan shook his head, "Nah. I think it would be interesting if we went double on this bet."
The poser's posse looked a bit worried.
"What's the matter?" asked Mike, who was easily the largest one there. "Too hot for you?"
"Yeah," pointed Renee. "You can go over on the other side of the park for some itty bitty stakes if you're scared."
Backwards hat glowered and rolled downward hard and fast. Once he reach sufficient speed, he did some simple flips and spins. They were pulled off without fail but to Ethan, this guy was small fucking potatoes. He pulled these kind of tricks when he was nine.
When the challenger finished, he stood there smugly while the crowd that gathered to watch gave him a respectful applause.
"Not bad for baby's first steps," Ethan snidely commented. "But you might want to watch this."
Ethan literally kicked things off with an ollie north, a classic. But he wowed everyone when he worked his way up to a flawless variant of the gazelle flip. In this advanced maneuver, the skater and the board separate and spin independently 360 degrees and reunite perfectly.
The roars of the wheels against the concrete couldn't mask the oohs and aahs from the onlookers.
With that finisher, Ethan stopped just feet from his competitor.
There was no question from the cheers which skater the crowd preferred.
The boy pouted and reluctantly told his friend to pay Mike.
He counted the bills and handed over $2,000 to the big guy.
"It's been a pleasure taking your money," Ethan said, waving goodbye.
The loser just skated away, his friends following along on their own boards.
"Sometimes it's too easy, I tell ya" Renee grinned.
Ethan was that good and he knew it. Grifting some kids at school was the genesis of this hustle. But once Ethan joined up with Mike and Renee and they took it to the streets, it became very profitable. Mia joined the group about a year prior in the wake of some of these skater crews getting to be at least four members. Despite Mike's intimidating stature, Ethan believed there was strength in numbers.
Word of this urban Tony Hawk spread through the L.A. area and competition would come from all over to try and best him. He almost always was the victor. If he caught wind of a ringer or some other setup, he would bet low so he could risk the loss. But he was savvy like that. Ethan knew the occasional loss would embolden future challengers into thinking they could out skate the champ.
While his other friends hyped him up to draw in the challengers, Mia was more relegated to keeping track of the cash. She was the best with math out of the four and showed them every time they added to the pot where they stood. Since he was the one doing the sick tricks out there, he took 40% while his friends had 20% each which is generous for management/security.
Truthfully though, Ethan liked keeping Mia around because he was kind of into her. But she never reciprocated his advances. She begrudgingly stuck around because she wanted the money. And this paid more than flipping burgers of which she would lose a third of her earnings to taxes.
With the big score of the night under their belts, Ethan and his crew had some fun being the skateboard equivalent of a pool shark to some greenhorns that never heard of him.
Mia made up a story that she had something going on Saturday morning, so she had to bounce.
They said their goodbyes and Mia caught the "nite owl" back to her building.
(This was a bus I could NEVER fall asleep on.)
Chase got up to use the bathroom and caught glimpse of a familiar sight.
Uncle Neil came through the door, trying to be as quietly as possible. But when he saw his nephew, the long-haired man slumped his shoulders and just closed the door like normal.
"Oh, hey" he smiled.
"Hey yourself," smirked Chase. "Just got up to pee; heading back to bed."
His uncle flashed the peace sign.
"No worries, man."
Chase gave him a curious look.
"Uncle Neil, can I ask you something?"
"What's that?" he yawned.
"I know your shows start at night, but you don't get back until..." he glanced at the clock. "Two in the morning."
He went over to the couch, guitar still in hand, and patted next to him for Chase to join him.
Chase sat down.
"I don't want you saying a word to your mom, okay? Just in case she didn't want you to know."
"Okay?"
Neil rubbed his face and sighed.
"Well, being a musician..." he then pointed at his nephew. "And an adult! People will offer you drinks all the time and they're just trying to be sociable."
"Any girls?" asked Chase.
His uncle grinned.
"Those are the ones who really want to be sociable. The point is, I don't get drunk-drunk, but I occasionally got a bit tipsy. My fault, I always forget to eat at these things."
Chase nodded.
"So, I often have a nice talk with those that stayed behind. Truth be told, I use that as an opportunity to kind of sober up. After midnight, its soda only. And chicken wings because then I'm usually starving!"
"But why?" he asked.
"Two reasons. One, I don't think it would be safe for me staggering around trying to find my way home. The other reason..." his face got very serious, and he looked sympathetically at his nephew. "When we were little, your grandpa-who you never met-used to come home from the bar drunk and take his day out on me and your mom."
Chase's eyebrows raised. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Mom never, ever mentioned this. But she never introduced him to her own father, so that said it all.
"What happened?" he cautiously asked.
"Fortunately, not much that your mom remembers. Lucky her; but I was about nine when it started. I normally got between him and her and took the most of it as a result."
Neil pulled back on the collar of his dark green shirt to reveal a dark spot on his neck.
"He was a smoker, too."
The teen was speechless.
"The moral of the story: I would do anything for my little sister. That's why you're here."
He then put his hand on Chase's shoulder in that fatherly way.
"And I never want you to see me come home anyway other than sober. I know how scary it is for someone who is supposed to care for you to turn into something else. I know in my heart that I'm not that guy, but I don't want you to see me...fucked up."
Chase gave his uncle a hug, which caught the middle-aged musician a bit off guard.
"I know you could never hurt anybody. But I understand why this is important to you."
"Yeah, how people see you does matter but never forget that how you think of yourself is most important."
Chase nodded and Neil gave him a kindly slap on the arm.
"Get to bed. And be ready to go food shopping later. I'm not saying we're out of things to eat but the other day a rat gave me the finger."
The chuckled and went their separate ways to sleep.
The alarm buzzed and Mia's poor attempts to reach it made her knock it off the nightstand.
Must have landed on the snooze button because the noise did stop.
The girl turned in her sheets when a soft knock came at the door.
"Mia, baby?"
"What, mom?" she groaned.
"Are you okay," Tori asked through the door. "Are you sick?"
It was a long pause before she got a response.
"Splitting headache. I need to sleep it off."
"Oh," Tori replied, her voice fading. "I was going to go out but I can until later so we can go together..."
"No, no, no, no, it's fine. You can go," Mia yawned.
"Alright, I'll go myself so you can get some peace and quiet. I'll be back for lunch, okay?"
Mia didn't respond as she drifted back to sleep if her soft snores were any indicator.
Tori tried the bedroom door, but it was locked (very common occurrence on the weekends). With a sigh, she made sure that a bottle of aspirin was on the kitchen table so Mia could spot it easily when she would finally roll out of bed.
Jenna paced around the bathroom, toothbrush still in her mouth despite having brushed her teeth several minutes ago.
She had the script firmly in hand, speaking the lines softly to herself. It was early in the morning still and she didn't want to disturb the rest of the house.
Well, that was the half-truth.
Ever since getting the part, it was rare to find Jenna outside of class when she wasn't holding that script and reading it over.
In fact, this was her third read-through of the entire thing. She had her part almost committed to memory and was unconsciously picking up the other character's dialogue. Jenna knew she needed someone to practice with because eventually she's gonna be seen talking to herself and that's just embarrassing.
Jenna looked at the mirror, realizing the toothbrush never left her mouth and finished up before the inevitable knock on the door that she was tying up the second-floor bathroom. She placed the script, still turned to the current page, and washed up before drying and taking off into the den to rehearse more.
The tomboy-turned actress was never taken seriously by those that knew her when she wanted to switch gears. Actually, the beginning to this was from a dare.
Her old high school basketball friends goaded her into auditioning for the school production of Macbeth. Jenna surprised everybody by being a rather convincing Lady Macbeth. Yes, she towered over her tragic king husband, but that didn't matter. Jenna was pretty popular, and her peers saw past her stature and was just amazed that she had chops. Once Jenna heard the applause from the curtain call, a new career suddenly beckoned.
Her parents were both from professional sports. Her mother, Miranda, was a champion swimmer that went on to teach lessons. Her father, Gary, was a track and field runner who earned the silver in the 2028 Summer Olympics.
With their pride and joy exhibiting their tall, athletic genes; they naturally assumed she was going to be in sports in her own way. Her mother was tall compared to the other female swimmers, but Jenna was getting as tall as her father. So, not surprisingly they saw her develop an interest in basketball. She tried out for the squad in middle school and was accepted. But when she entered high school, Jenna took off. She was junior varsity in girls' basketball and was second to the team captain if anything happened to her where she couldn't play.
College recruiters would begin to sit up and take notice her junior year.
But by then, Jenna had the acting bug bite her and she made up her mind.
Gary and Miranda were reluctant, to say the least, when she applied to Hollywood Arts. Jenna begged them to give her a chance to try this out. If this semester didn't pan out, she would seriously consider switching back to her old school. They talked about it and since her senior year was still ahead, maybe there wasn't any harm in trying this little experiment. Worst case scenario, colleges will see her for a year and a half, tops before she graduated.
Jenna was so excited, and her friend group were a little surprised but mostly supportive. The coach even told Jenna that if she came back, he would absolutely have a spot for her. She was appreciative of the kind words but was a little miffed by where this was all coming from.
The language everyone was using was on the conceit that this was all temporary. Fragile, really. It was an experiment, or a phase, or a pipedream, whatever. It sounded to Jenna like people were expecting her to either fail or realize the error of her decision.
But she wasn't going to take that. She was gonna prove herself.
Indeed, she tried out for every show at Hollywood Arts and barely got a small, non-speaking part.
Kelly Wittenberg, the protagonist of The Other Side of Time, was the most high-profile thing she landed since the start of the school year.
And Jenna was determined to crush it and show everyone.
FUN FACT: 2028 Olympics are actually slated to be in Los Angeles. Fancy that!