Beautiful People | wlw

Fourteen: Carried Away

It was a long drive to Sharise's apartment in North Hollywood. Endless traffic hummed around them while the last orange fringe of the sun fluttered and vanished behind dry brown hills. Vera's notifications started pinging before they were halfway there. Carmen--or maybe Cora, she must have access to Carmen's accounts now--had posted a high-quality copy of one of the red-carpet shots and tagged Vera. Early reactions bracketed the extreme ends of the spectrum - screaming and love, or disproportionate disgust. Vera deleted a few seethingly vitriolic messages. Any talk was good talk, but she didn't need that misogynist garbage in her DMs.

Every time Vera's phone vibrated, Sharise's hand twitched towards her own phone as though she expected the sound to be a call from Carmen, another crisis that only she could solve. Her face remained calm, and each time she carefully settled her hands back on the wheel like nothing had happened, but Vera could see the faint pinch in her brow.

When she got the text from Jay saying, Do us all a favor and have some mind-blowing sex. Stressed Sharise is a pain in everyone's ass, she turned off her notifications.

Sharise lived on the top floor of a long building, low like all structures in the area and faced in smooth white stone. Palm trees waved along the sidewalk and yellow lights showed welcoming faces behind ornate balcony railings.

"This city keeps giving me this feeling like I'm in Hawaii," Vera said.

"Intentional. Pretending to be a tropical resort makes us forget about the smog giving us lung cancer."

Vera snorted a laugh.

Sharise unlocked the door and pulled it wide, letting Vera slip inside first. The door clanked shut behind them. A gleaming, off-white hallway stretched out, but the elevator was broken.

"It's been down for two months," Sharise said. "It's not all bad. I get my workout from the stairs."

They started up the steps. The stairwell was just wide enough for them to walk side-by-side. Their elbows kept brushing together.

Vera said, "Don't get mad at me for stalking you--"

"That's a great conversation starter."

"Sorry." Grinning, she tugged at her earlobe. "I'm telling on myself. I wanted to see what movies you were in. You were the best sassy black friend I've ever seen, by the way."

"Oh my God." Sharise pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers, but she was smiling, just the tiniest bit. "You didn't watch Lights on After Class. It was awful."

"I did. I'm sorry. And it was so awful. Worse than Never Enough Smiles. But you were great, even if whoever designed your costumes should've been fired. And you were so cute when you were seventeen."

"You're trying to flatter me."

"I'm not. It's true. You were good." Vera nudged her, trying to ignore the ache already twinging in her thighs. It wasn't fair. Sharise didn't look like the climb was bothering her at all. "But I wanted to ask-- Your dad is a big-time producer, right? Did you grow up in LA? Is that why you wanted to be an actor?"

Sharise's smile faded. Their footsteps echoed up the stairwell. "My parents divorced when I was young. I travelled a lot with my mom."

"Oh, wow. To her shows and stuff?"

Silver beads clinked together as Sharise shook her head, face impassive. "Kids need structure, not behind-the-scenes access to Paris Fashion Week."

"No way. A dream." Vera pressed her palms to her heart. "I'm seriously so jealous. I would've loved to grow up in that world."

"Maybe you would have. I didn't thrive with constant reminders that I could be successful if I just lost weight."