Blind Date

April

It was time to get up, I had a hot date tonight and a lot of work to do, to get ready for it. Every day, I had to listen to one line from Nelson Mandela’s motivational speech and set it as my alarm.

The alarm clicked on followed by Mandela’s voice. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Pretty accurate for my day because I had a hot date with the CEO of Tech Winters. A blind date, but I knew everything about him. Thank goodness for Google. Just one click and it popped up with every sordid detail about the man. I didn’t have a social profile—if I did, then he wouldn’t have agreed to the date, and I had everything riding on it.

My social profile would say, “Currently working three jobs, underqualified as I only had a high school diploma, and lived in a shared apartment with a teenager.”

But Luke Winters was as hot as sin, and he had a bank account to match it, but this wasn’t why I was going on the date.

“Keep the noise down!” Karen, my roommate and landlady, shouted through the door.

No doubt she was passed out on the sofa again. She seemed unable to make it to her bedroom these days. She screamed at me every single time my alarm went off.

“Not that new age crap again.”

“We’ve been over this.” I sat up and stretched. “It’s a quote from Nelson Mandela.”

“Who?”

It was sad that she didn’t know who he was and didn’t understand why I had to listen to it every morning. “He was a philanthropist and the President of South Africa.”

“Do you originally come from Africa?” she cocked her head to the side, her hand on her hip as she appeared at my door uninvited.

I had no response to her question. It wasn’t worth replying to, so I smiled at her, thinking about how ignorant she was. The process of trying to educate her would be the same as trying to explain the origin of the mathematical symbol for pi. I’d done it once, and her response disturbed me back then. “What do you need symbols for when there’s calculators? You’re so old.”

Yeah, nothing out of her mouth made any sense to me, but she seemed to think the same about me.

I responded like I did every time I spoke to her—by agreeing and trying not to annoy her even more. “I’ll turn it down, so you don’t have to hear it every morning.”

“Better still, go listen to some motivational speech from someone your own age, like Meryl Streep or something.”

Karen was only nineteen, and her parents had given her a trust fund. She’d used it to come to L.A. to pursue her dream of being an actress like nearly everyone else in L.A. who wasn’t famous. She spent her time at the airport hanging out with her friends and at night going to parties to meet the one director who would change her life. She’d heard the story from so many supermodels being seen at the airport and decided it would be one of the places to go and get her big break. She hardly slept at night. She spent most of it posting pictures on every social media outlet there was, from Snap Chat to Instagram, but not on Facebook—she said that was for people my age. Anyone above twenty-five was old in her book and should only post on Facebook. She’d used most of her trust fund to get her boobs, nose, and other things done. She showed me the first time we met, when she’d interviewed me for the room. The surgeries were why she needed someone to rent the spare room. Her funds were low, and she needed the extra income.

I was tempted to tell her to get a job, but I’d heard her explain to her groupies she couldn’t work, otherwise, she would miss out on her golden opportunity at the airport or at one of the parties. Work took time, something she didn’t have because she was so busy working on getting famous.

I rented the room because it was cheap. Luckily, Karen didn’t do her research, otherwise she would have noticed she was renting the room at half the price compared to the other apartments on the block.

My daily ritual consisted of getting ready for one of my three jobs. I didn’t want to see my star on Hollywood Boulevard—that wasn’t the reason I was in L.A. No, I came here to get ahead in education, to help people like Karen further their knowledge, and not use technology to do everything for them, but to think outside the box. Then again, if she did think outside the box, then she would know the real rent to charge me.

There were pros and cons to everything.

Speaking of which, I needed to pick out my outfit for my blind date. Tech Winters was one of the largest tech companies in education, and it has been my lifelong dream to work for a company. Luke was the CEO and could be my ticket to fulfilling my dream, and I knew I had to dye my hair to appear to be a natural blonde.. I’d seen photos of him with ladies, and I knew he had a thing for blondes. I bought a dress which would appeal to Luke, so he would listen to my proposal. It was a little revealing, but not too much. I wanted him to know I meant business, not pimping myself out for a night of pleasure.

I’d been working on my proposal ever since I left high school. I didn’t go to college—I couldn’t afford it, and neither could my parents. It didn’t bother me at the time, and it still doesn’t. I would get on with it, like I did when I packed up all my things from Minnesota and moving out here.

I learned the hard way having no degree was a big issue. Nearly every company I’d applied laughed at me. They’d ask me for my qualifications, thinking I’d left them out on my resumé. I believed in experience and knowledge, but most places wanted a degree or even some kind of certificate. I knew I had something to offer, I just needed the chance. I was about ready to give up when my weekend job of babysitting Hayley’s kids led me to the golden opportunity I’d been waiting for.

A blind date with Luke.

It was crazy to think she wanted her babysitter to go on a date with him, but I was grabbing the chance and there was no turning back. My desire to settle here had nothing to do with wanting to be famous, but to work in the education industry. I’d told her a couple of times, and she suggested maybe I could kill two birds with one stone by going out with Luke. I didn’t make a habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth, so I took it. Ever since I found out two weeks ago they knew each other, I’d been planning this date.

I had everything planned for our special night. I was going to the hairdresser to spend a fortune this morning, and I’d taken the day off. Something I wouldn’t do in a million years, but tonight wasn’t any ordinary date. It was the chance of a lifetime. Afterward, I would have my nails done in a pretty but chic style. I was still undecided about what type, but I knew the artist would help me out. To end the makeover, I would have my feet done as well because they were in need of some major attention.

Every part of me had to be perfect from head-to-toe because not only had I seen him and all his achievements online, but the type of women he went out with too. They were either on the front of magazines or about to be, and I needed to look like one of those girls tonight if I wanted to get his attention. If all went to plan, I wouldn’t regret it and it would be the start of a new beginning. One I would welcome with open arms.

I opened my door to find there was a line to get into the bathroom. Karen was sprawled out again on the sofa, as I’d suspected. Two of her groupie friends were at the other end, while others were in front of the bathroom door. They all looked as if they were extremely tired or—more likely—still high from whatever they’d taken last night.

Within the last six months, I had seen Karen go from being enthusiastic and thinking she may have a chance in Hollywood, on a natural high, to definitely on a chemical high, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. It was clear her funds were running low, not only from her plastic surgery visits, but her new drug habit. I’d tried talking to her about it, but she’d shut me down and tell me that I was old and I knew nothing about Hollywood.

“You can’t go in the bathroom after them. There’s a line, we’re all waiting for them to come out,” Karen said as she waved her hand up in the air.

Them? I wondered as I held on to my robe and tightened it a bit. One of her friends looked as if she was undressing me with her eyes, or she could have been trying to see. The way she squinted her eyes at me gave me the creeps.

“I have a hair appointment in around forty-five minutes on the other side of town. I need to get to the bus and be out of here. Why are there so many people here, anyway?”

Karen laughed. “Who’s renting a room, you or me? I can invite as many friends as I want, and you can’t tell what to do. You’re not my mom!”

Her friend, the dark-haired one with squinty eyes, was now by my side, sniffing me like a dog. “She smells like your mom.”

I moved away from her. This “mom” reference was getting old. I’d told Karen more than once if I was her mom then I would have had to have given birth to her when I was around ten. She didn’t get it at the time, using her fingers to try and correct my calculation. How old are you again?

“Look, I don’t ask much, but I have a lot going on tonight. If you can talk to your friends about getting out of the bathroom, I would really appreciate it. I’ll get ready super quick and leave you all to do whatever it is you do…”

“Blah, blah, blah. You talk too much. My friends will get out when they’re ready, and your rent is due, so you can’t be talking to me like this. Not in my house, old lady,” Karen said.

Her friends on the sofa, who I thought were passed out, magically woke up and laughed. The dark-haired hoodie girl who kept trying to invade my private space was tugging on my robe. I’d been humiliated by a teenager, and I hated her for doing it. It was the fifth of June. I’d paid her four days ago, and now she was talking about the rent being due again.

She was high, and no doubt her friends were the same. They cheered and made obscene noises. I needed to get out of this apartment and I’d pay double somewhere else if I had to. I was too old to be living with a teenager, especially a stoned one who didn’t know the difference between her left and her right.

Literally!

I hurried as I pushed the dark-haired woman out of my way.

“Hey, I’ll have you arrested for assault!” she yelled at me.

I didn’t care. I had a hot date tonight, and nothing was going to stop me from getting what I needed. More than anything, it included getting out of this apartment and starting to live my life like an adult. An old one, as Karen would put it.

Luke

I couldn’t believe the number of deadlines I had at the moment. I was nearly thirty, and I was ready to slow down and live a calmer life, not increase my blood pressure. The business had taken off after my dad had given me a thousand dollars and told me to build it. A family tradition, something his dad had done, and his father before him. But back then it wasn’t as much as a thousand, it was a lot less. I followed in the same footsteps as all of the men in my family, which was great at the time, but now I was regretting it. My life was all about all work and no play. As much as I tried to distance myself from my job, I always managed to end up staying late and promising myself I wouldn’t do it the next day.

The buzzer for the intercom buzzed on my phone.

“What?” I barked.

“It’s Mr. Hales, he’s here to see you,” Bianca sounded as stressed out as I was right now.

She was too good to me and put up with all my shit, but she was only here temporarily.