“Yeah, but your sister had it and she was going to give it to me only—”
“I’m not giving you Eamon’s phone number.”
“Oh, so now it’s Eamon,” she said. “Fine. Be that way. Break my heart, since you won’t share Hot Boy David either.”
“Bye, Cherise.”
“See you at three?” We had some promo commercial thing. I checked the clock.
Still four hours to go. “I’ll pick you up.”
“Yeah. See you then.”
I hung up and kept walking. The air-conditioning kicked on and felt like ice on my back, which was good. Maybe I could find something light to wear—gauze would be just barely acceptable. Anything heavier would be torture.
The phone rang again before I could put it down. It was Cherise again. “I forgot to tell you: Marvin said you were supposed to wear the Sunny costume for the promo. Don’t worry, I stuck it in the car. I’ll bring it.” She hung up fast.
Before I could scream.
“Wow,” Cherise said, when she saw me in the halter top and shorts and flip-flops. “You’ve really mastered this business casual thing.”
I threw her a dirty look and tried to ease myself gently into the passenger side of her convertible. Gasped when my burned back touched the leather. Cherise exclaimed and grabbed me by the shoulder to inspect the damage.
“Oh, man, that’s bad,” she said, and clucked her tongue, just like my grandmother. “You can’t wear the Sunny suit like that. I mean, jeez, you’ll die. Foam rubber on a burn?”
Like I had a choice. I sent her a miserable look.
“You’re so gonna owe me, girlfriend.” She slammed the convertible into reverse, peeled out, and shifted like a Grand Prix champion on her way out of the parking lot. The white van flashed by in a blur. I saw tail lights flare as it started up. “I may have to blow Marvin to get you out of this, you know. Hell, we may both have to blow Marvin. Oh, don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. He can’t ask you to put on the damn suit like this; it’s got to be against some government OSHA rule or cruel-and-unusual punishment or something.”
I groaned. “Yeah, that Marvin, he’s all about the work rules.”
She knew I had a point, and frowned at the traffic as she merged onto the street. A Lincoln Continental seemed to have personally offended her, from the scowl she threw the driver. “So maybe you had an accident. I could drop you off somewhere. Like the hospital. You could even have a bill to back it up.”
“Much though I’d like to pay a thousand dollars to have some teenage barely-out-of-medical-school intern diagnose a sunburn…”
She was already moving on from the idea. She looked at me with the utmost gravity, the kind of look you’d get from a close personal friend if they’d decided to donate a life-saving organ to you. “I’ll wear the Sunny costume. You be Beach Girl today.”
Which was quite a sacrifice. Cherise was always Beach Girl; that was her thing. Tiny bikinis and a perfect smile. Except for being too short, she was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. And she never did costumes. I think it might have been against her religion. She’d have to say ten Donna Karans and one Tommy Hilfiger to make up for it later.
Tempting as it was, I honestly couldn’t see Marvin going for it, not when he had such a golden opportunity to make my life miserable. “He’ll never agree,” I said morosely. “And besides, Burned Beach Girl? What kind of message does that send? This is supposed to be a spot talking about the dangers of the sun, remember?”
“Oh, come on, they’ll only shoot your front, anyway. And hey, baby, if your back isn’t a cautionary tale, I don’t know what is…”
I gave her a wan smile and held back my hair as I turned to look over my shoulder. I wasn’t all that shocked to see the white van turning out of the parking lot in pursuit—well, not really pursuit. He wasn’t in any big hurry to catch me.
“Something wrong?” Cherise asked, and checked the rearview. “Oh, shit, you’ve got to be kidding me. Is that the same guy from the mall?”
“Yeah.” I turned back to face front, slid on sunglasses, and leaned my head against the seat. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just—”
“Obsessed?” Cherise put in, when I didn’t. “Yeah. I totally get that. You know, I’ve got at least three fanboys who send me letters every week wanting me to—well, you don’t really need to know that. Anyway, it comes with the territory. We come into people’s lives, and they want to keep us.”
Cherise merged onto the freeway, blew her horn at a trucker who made a kissy face, and whipped around traffic with a speed and ease that would have impressed a NASCAR crew chief. Her Mustang—which I coveted, badly—was a new model, gorgeously maintained, and Cherise had never been one to keep her light under a bushel, so to speak. She was dolled up in a denim miniskirt that rode three-quarters up her tanned, toned thighs, a tight, midriff-baring little top, and a Victoria’s Secret bra that gave the top a little lifting and smooshing action. Her hair streamed out like a silk flag in the wind. She was one of those women who would arrive at her destination, after thirty minutes of sixty-mile-per-hour hair abuse, and look salon-fresh with a pass of her brush and a quick, careless flick of her head.
I used to have that. I missed that. My hair was curling again. Not that it would matter under the Sunny Suit.
“So,” she said. “Tell me all about him.”
“Stalker guy?”
“No, idiot. David.” Cherise weaved in and out of steady traffic, keeping us in the shade of big trucks. She waved at a cop car as she passed it. The cop winked and waved back. “How’d you meet him?”
“Taking a cross-country trip,” I said. Which was true. “He was on his way west. I gave him a ride.”
She let out a high-pitched squeal. “Oh my God, was he hitching? ’Cause all the guys I see hitching are three weeks out of safe-hygiene zone, not to mention all skanky-haired and not cute.”
“I gave him a ride,” I continued, with wounded dignity, “and he helped me out with some trouble. We just sort of—clicked.”
“I’ll bet it wasn’t so much a click as a bump… never mind. So where’s he from? What does he do? I mean, I’m assuming he’s not a homeless guy wandering the streets…”
“No, he’s—” Man, how had I gotten into this conversation? “He’s a musician.”
That was nearly always safe. No visible means of support, odd hours, weird habits. Ergo, musician. “He plays gigs here and there. So he’s in and out. He’s not always around.”
“Bummer. Then again, it’s tough to get tired of them when they’re not hanging around farting on the couch and complaining about the Lifetime channel. Is he hot in bed? I’ll bet he’s hot.”
“Cher—”
“Yeah, I know, I know. But still. Hot. Right? C’mon, Jo, throw me a fantasy bone, here. You know half the fun of having a hottie boyfriend is bragging.”
I smiled. “I’m not complaining.”
“And look, I die. Thank you very much.” Cherise suddenly eased off the gas. I opened my eyes and looked at the road; traffic was slowing up ahead. “Oh, dammit. Wouldn’t you know? Two miles to go, and what the hell is this… ?”
Traffic was stopped heading up onto the overpass. As in, stopped, all lanes screeching rubber. Cherise came to a halt, put the car in park, and eased herself up in the seat to try to catch a look. People were bailing from their cars to point.
I popped the door and got out to stand and gawk like everybody else.
There was a guy standing on the railing of the bridge, clearly about to go over to his death and splash on the concrete below. Okay, that was clearly bad.
But it really was way, way worse than anyone else could possibly know. I realized almost instantly that nobody else there was seeing what I was seeing.
There were Djinn fighting over him.
There were two of them, facing off against each other. One of them was instantly recognizable to me—little pinafore-wearing, blond-haired, straight-out-of-the-storybooks Alice, who’d done me a few favors back in Oklahoma. She looked sweet and innocent, except for the nuclear fire in her blue eyes. Regardless of appearances—which in Djinn were notoriously unreliable—she was right up there in the don’t-mess-with-me rankings. I liked her, and so far as I know she didn’t dislike me, but that didn’t make her a friend, exactly. You don’t make friends with the top predator when you’re below her on the food chain. You just enjoy not being on the menu.