One Less Problem Without You (6 page)

Chelsea turned like a soldier when they were out of sight, facing the direction that led to the back offices and locker rooms. Yes, locker rooms. Not dressing rooms.

She lowered herself down onto one leg and extended her other forward off her pedestal. (
Ha
, the number of times ex-boyfriends had encouraged her to do just this, jump off her pedestal and be real.)

Then she let the other down, unfocused her eyes, relaxed her face so she looked as bland as the girls who kept getting the roles she wanted, and made the march back to her locker, as still and unanimated as one could imagine a walking statue would be.

Once she was beyond the threshold of the door, and into the hot room that smelled like chalk, makeup remover, and hot bodies, her muscles melted, and she skulked to the bench to sit down.

She peeled the costume off and shoved it into one of the five-gallon Ziplocs provided for the statues' wardrobe, then jumped into a steaming hot shower. Well, actually, it was a
shoilet,
a small closet space that held a toilet and had a showerhead in the ceiling, just like you'd find in the “luxury cabins” on a cross-country train. The space was so small she was sure that if she put on three more pounds she'd have trouble fitting in it. But she didn't have time to worry about that now, or ever. She had to work with what she had and pray that someday these would be funny stories of climbing up the ladder to fame and success, rather than the actor's equivalent of a former frat boy's Tales of Glory.

Slapping on her exfoliation gloves, she poured on the thick orange goo used to remove latex paint and sticky things from skin. It had solvents and little beads that helped get the stuff off, no way was it good for your skin. It wasn't exactly Bliss Spa peppermint scrub. Still, it did the trick faster than if she were to painstakingly take the stuff off with makeup remover wipes or endless latherings of soap.

It was a full ten minutes until she was finally back to her peachy, if rubbed red and blotchy, skin tone. She had just dropped her towel when the door slammed open and a shirtless, slick-skinned guy burst in.

“Hey,” he said, perking up with a smile when he saw her. As she scrambled to cover herself, he didn't cover his eyes or make an awkward apology. Instead he laughed and entered the locker room with even more confidence.

A sound that might have been an attempt at “um” came from her mouth, and she tightened the terrycloth around her chest.

“I pride myself on being on time,” he said, walking past her and whipping his backpack off. “And then on my first day, I'm running this late. You know I actually got off the Metro and ran the last two miles?”

That explained the slick skin. She would have guessed baby oil and unnecessarily bare pecs, but a shirtless run made sense, too, with a guy that looked like this.

He bent over, his hands on his thighs, breathing deeply. Chelsea could tell from the tight torso that he was definitely no stranger to working out.

“Whoo!” He stood up. “I'm Jeff.”

Jeff held out one hand and swept off his backward-turned hat with the other one.

Pulling the towel closer with her forearm, she shook his hand. “Chelsea. I'm not usually so naked. Or silent. I just wasn't expecting anyone to come in. Especially not—”

She stopped—what on earth had she been about to say?

Unimaginable as it might seem, there was a whole
world
of living statues. Just as every restaurant and coffee shop has its own little society and its own dramas, relationships, and feuds, so, too, did Statue Land, and it was firmly divided into two camps.

In one were the teenagers to twenty-somethings who consistently put in their two weeks, then stopped bothering to come in or even call, instead climbing aboard a BoltBus to Manhattan or elsewhere to pursue real dreams.

The other camp was made up of the older people who never went anywhere. These were called, terrifyingly, the Dying Statues.

As the weeks and months passed, Chelsea was coming dangerously close to changing camps. In sad fact, she probably already had in the eyes of the others. Suddenly she was the college graduate wearing Hollister and realizing that not only had everyone else stopped wearing Hollister, but she
especially
looked ridiculous for still wearing it at her age. Like it might as well have been Gymboree.

All of the young statues, girls and gay men for the most part, got dressed in front of each other, no problem, dropping clothes to the ground and chatting naked as they got ready, like a squad of
America's Next Top Model
prospects
.

Jeff didn't give off a gay vibe.

Slightly too self-conscious for this communal bathing style, Chelsea took pleasure in working the early shift, which usually left the locker room open and empty for her alone.

“I wasn't expecting someone I didn't recognize,” she filled in for herself. Perfectly reasonable option.

“Well, now that won't happen, even if I do burst in on you again, right?”

“Right.” Chelsea averted her gaze, realizing she was staring at him as he pulled things out of his bag and put them on the bench.

“How long have you worked here?” Jeff asked, raking his hand through his short brown hair. It stuck up for a moment, amusingly, then dropped back down into place.

“About four months.” Closer to six, but she didn't really want to admit that.

“Cool. You'll have to tell me the tricks of the trade!”

“Stay still. Be a statue. That's about the size of it here.” She smiled. “Much more challenging than people think, of course.”

He laughed. “Good advice.” He turned around, his flat stomach facing Chelsea. He had that abs-framed-by-obliques thing going on. “Hey, I'm just moving into the area. I don't know a soul. Do you want to maybe grab a drink or something after a shift this week? Or coffee, if that's more your thing. Just someplace right here. You can give me the scoop.” One side of his mouth went up in a smile.

She was completely taken aback. Chelsea knew one thing for sure about herself, and that was that she didn't strike most people as entirely approachable. When she wasn't smiling, she had a chronic case of Resting Bitch Face. When she was smiling, she looked like a Dumb Girl.

Was this guy actually
attracted
to one of those looks? Or, more likely, was he a particularly masculine gay guy looking for another bestie? She was also fine with that. Frankly, she was kind of intrigued by the idea either way.

Then she thought about the week ahead of her. All early mornings and late nights. She had the store. She had the statue gig. She had auditions, and any free time she had she really needed to be spending memorizing lines and practicing. She had no time. No time,
literally
.

“This week is really busy for me…” She drifted off, knowing he was going to think it was a bullshit excuse. She was going to come off as unfriendly at best and bitchy at worst.

“I'm not coming on to you or anything.” He gave a laugh. “Really, I just want to meet some people.”

Hm. Was that insulting?

Had he just insulted her?

Was she
disappointed
?

Better to just play it cool, no matter what his deal was. “Really, it's
just
a terrible week for me.” She gave an awkward smile, then emphasized it with an unintentionally insincere-looking shrug.

His expression shifted. “Gotcha. I'm sorry, didn't mean to get off on a weird foot. I'll see you around.” He smiled, exposing straight white teeth. Model's teeth.

“I'm gonna rinse off in the shower,” he said, his voice clearly dismissive now. “If you're not here when I get back, it was nice meeting you.”

“You, too.” Chelsea nodded and watched him go to the showers, taking in the divots at the bottom of his spine, right above the low-slung shorts.

She was gawking at him not because he was the most breathtaking human she'd ever seen, but because it was the first time in ages that she'd felt this—those pre-crush butterflies that make you stammer and replay the scene where you made an ass of yourself later as you fall asleep.

What the
hell
was the matter with her? She might not have even a spare hour in her schedule right now, but she could have been
nicer
about it. She wanted to kick herself.

When she heard the shoilet turn on and the curtain rings scrape across the metal rod, she dropped her towel—without a witness this time—and got dressed in a hurry.

It would be very uncool if she were to still be there when he came back out.

*   *   *

THE BELLS JINGLED
on the shop door when she arrived. She was ten minutes late, but Prinny was a nice boss. She knew Chelsea was running around like a chicken with her head cut off, or, to be exact, an actress with a seemingly endless stream of outrageous bills to pay.

Prinny Tiesman was organizing the impulse buys at the front and turned when she heard the jingle.

Chelsea was fascinated by her boss, because she was one person whose motivations and goals weren't always clear. She'd be hard to play on film. Prinny came from an
extremely
wealthy Loudon County family, whose wealth had been divided between her and her brother upon their father's death, yet she didn't seem to spend money on anything other than necessities.

Meanwhile, her brother was reportedly horrified that she got half. The business manager in charge of Prinny's inheritance was always insisting the store needed a solid plan and profit margin in order for Prinny to protect her assets, but Prinny seemed a lot more concerned with pleasing the finance guy than with saving herself from this mysterious fairy-tale “wicked stepbrother.”

Chelsea had never met the wicked stepbrother, but she kind of wanted to. What would an evil, youngish, rich, and powerful man like that look like? Not that she'd be
interested
in an evil man, not romantically, but from a theatrical standpoint both options—bulbous-nosed wart-covered monster
and
handsome devil—seemed clichéd. It would be more of a surprise if he were utterly ordinary. Maybe even wore terrible suits from Walmart. If Walmart sold suits.

Anyway, Chelsea had no idea which category he'd fall into because, despite her job, she was
not
psychic.

Though she
could
read cards, and she could definitely read people. Prinny had very fixed ideas about Spiritual Integrity, so the business was running with as much integrity as possible. Even though Chelsea was not psychic, per se, she was extremely good at reading voices, gestures, and choices and had managed to convince Prinny that she was outside the normal range of perception and, if not clairvoyant, then certainly intuitive—helpful in any business really, Chelsea would imagine.

“Hey, Prinny,” she said, shutting the door behind her and starting to unwind her scarf.

Her boss knitted her brow. “What's wrong?”

“Wrong?”

“Something's up.” She pointed her finger and then stirred the air with it.

Most people would ask this question because of a dark mood cloud rising above the person who's upset. Sometimes people want to be asked what's wrong. Chelsea was not this sort of person. She was far more likely to pull out her best mood, so as not to have to answer any uncomfortable questions. And for her, any questions about herself were pretty much uncomfortable.

But in this case, Chelsea wasn't hiding anything. Not on purpose, anyway. Prinny was Prinny, however, and she was the real deal when it came to this sort of thing. Either psychic stuff was genuine or she was an exceptional people reader, even better than Chelsea.

“Something's going on,” Prinny said.

“I feel fine, really. I think?”

Prinny planted her hands on her hips. “No, it's nothing bad. Just something new. Maybe something to do with a guy?”

Again, a generally basic question from anyone but Prinny. Chelsea often was faced with these sorts of inquiries from her, and more often than not she had to dig through her mind to find whatever it was Prinny was picking up on.

In this case, Chelsea wondered how far into her mind she was delving.

“I mean … someone just asked me out. Well, not
out
out.”

“Ooh, what did you say?” Psychic defenses down, girl-talk game face on.

“I told him I was busy.”

“You are,” Prinny said. “But too busy?”

Chelsea shrugged. “That would depend on the circumstances. I was too busy under these circumstances.”

“Hmm. Not cute?”

“No, he was cute. Really cute, actually. I honestly don't have the time.”

“For heaven's sake, Chelsea, you can always take a night or a few hours off. I haven't seen you go on one date this whole time you've worked here.”

“I know.”

“Not your scene?”

“I really just don't have time, that's all.”

Prinny nodded at her, both of them knowing she could have made the time if she wanted to.

“You should go out with this guy. Find the time. It's time to get over the breakup. I have a good feeling about it.”

“Honestly, he didn't even ask me out. He's just new in town and asked me if I'd grab a drink with him. He's looking for friends, that's all.”

“Well, if that's the case, that's even worse! Someone makes an effort with a stranger, just hoping to make a friend, and you rejected that? Shame on you.” She smiled, letting Chelsea know that she meant it but was teasing her.

“I'll let him know next time I have a few hours.”

“Good.”

A tiny flint in Chelsea's chest caught alight as she wondered, cautiously, if Prinny really was picking up on something. This surprised her. She'd feared that hope was gone.

“What's his name?” she asked.

“Jeff.”