Chapter Eleven: Chapter of Ill-Omen

Cooking supplies sat in a wide sink. The product of the early-morning toil sat on an immaculate granite countertop. There were three cakes—vanilla, chocolate, and some kind of cake with snapdragon frosting. I wondered what flavor that was.

“She, uh, really made all this herself?” I asked.

It seemed like something a starlet of her stature would enlist a full kitchen staff for. No such staff appeared present.

“Well, I helped,” Janae said from near a pantry.

“I… did not know that you two were adept at cooking,” I admitted.

Janae’s face morphed into something approaching a frown. “Don’t go spreading it around.”

I had no plans to do so. Instead, I helped myself to a serving of vanilla, an exploratory half-serving of chocolate cake, and the smallest sliver of that snapdragon concoction. As it turns out, that third cake had a kind of strawberry flavor to it that was apparently a common Japanese birthday-type thing.

Morning turned to midday as a modest collection of birthday activities. Yuki’s mansion had a pool, though of course I neglected to bring my swimsuit. My Vespa remained at the edge of the parking lot, its delivery casing locked tight and not in any danger of theft or the like. I relaxed and took the opportunity to unwind.

Evidently, Yuki had invited a few of the other interns, lighting, and maintenance staff from the movie she was starring in. I’d imagined someone of her stature would rather hang out with that one blonde lady or the famous pop star of the half-decade at a swanky club. But no, evidently her main confidants at the shoot had been more ‘average joes’.

Well, ‘average janes’ was more like it, for I was the only man in the house.

“Thanks again for inviting me,” I told Yuki as everyone played some kind of horseshoe game in the backyard.

“No problem,” Yuki☆ said with a smile. “Janae said you were new in town. I assumed you didn’t have any plans…”

I shrugged. I was going to take the day off either way, schedule permitting. Certainly beats sitting around in my RV all day. In a major city like LA, there was no shortage of activities to get into. But in the other cities I’ve stayed in over the past few years, that had not always been the case!

An intercom buzzed.

“Got another hit coming over the north perimeter,” said a static-distorted voice that was still clearly Janae. “If the principal could stay indoors while I go sort it out, that would be ideal.”

This was Janae’s way of telling Yuki to stay inside to avoid paparazzi drones.

“Well, I’ll be back in the living room for a few minutes,” Yuki said. “Feel free to mingle with the others.”

Yuki slunk back into her rented-out mansion. I wondered how often ‘rogue camera drone incursion’ occurred in Yuki’s life. I certainly didn’t see any other security measures or members of a security team. I didn’t even see Janae, though presumably she was out fo the house and heading north to go kick a drone out of the sky.

Amidst this introspection, I was approached by some of the other guests.

“So, are you the guy?” asked a rather giggly young woman of maybe twenty-three.

I looked to the left, then to the right, and then back at the lady, pointing at myself. As the only ‘guy’ here, who else could she be talking about?

“The guy Yuki’s been hanging out with.” This young woman thrust a phone into my face.

A grainy photo of Yuki☆ and I on the makeup trailer roof the night before.

“Heh. Yeah, that’s us?” I rubbed at my neck.

A few of the other ladies I recognized from the movie set gathered around.

“Soooo, how’d you meet Miss Yuki?” asked one.

“When did you meet?” asked another. “You seem to have just popped up out of nowhere one day.”

I inched backwards. That wasn’t quite untrue.

“Uh, I’m her delivery driver?”

Inching backwards only made the crowd pursue further.

“What are you to Miss Yuki?” asked a third lady.

Well, I danced with her bodyguard once? I waffled rather than say that out loud.

“This TikTok insists your dating,” said one of the guests.

“Is it true that you’re getting in the way of Miss Yuki and Janae!?”

I continued my slow retreat until my back hit the stucco wall of the mansion.

“Yeah, is anything in this article true?”

I was presented with a tabloid article I’d never read. Before a response could be muttered out, the wall at my back opened up and I was sent tumbling backwards. As it turns out that wall was a door. And Yuki was waiting on the other end of it.

“Everyone come in for desert!” Yuki said with a cheer.

With the situation defused, I thanked Yuki profusely. The prospect of dessert got the other guests off my neck and the situation might as well never even happened.

“Oh! About your present,” I reached into my fashionable light jacket.

I pulled out the quad-set of Yuki☆ memorabilia. Yuki’s expression proved hard to read. Did she like it? Was it a total whiff?

“Is this too much?” I asked, holding the boxed figurines like they were on a pair of weighted scales.

“I didn’t know they made these,” Yuki admitted.

I held them out, to which Yuki graciously accepted.

“Uh, two of them are to sign for, technically. It was necessary to buy it from the vendor.”

Yuki giggled. “Of course. I’ve never actually seen these before. I don’t think it’s strictly speaking authorized.”

“Oh?” My lips pursed.

“That’s okay. It actually makes it rare. I’ve got a shelf for it.”

Yuki ran upstairs to go stash the figurines (and presumably sign the second set.)

“Don’t run off now. I have a gift for you!” Yuki called from up above.

Well, that was one delivery complete, of a sort. Delivery… delivery…

Was there something I forgot to do? Delivery… delivery…

Delivery!

The realization hit me like a truck. I’d forgotten to drop off the Texiera family job. My palms turned sweaty. Ghosting a mafia delivery—that couldn’t be good!

So distracted was I by the hustle and bustle of the party that I hadn’t even bothered to check my phone. I pulled it out. It was… 1:30PM!? That was even later than I expected. I’d hoped that it was closer to noon, and it was still possible to salvage this on-time delivery with a wacky traffic-dodging montage sequence.

“Uh, I have to stop out for at least a bit,” I said, loud enough for my voice to carry up.

“Oh? Well, it would take time to get your present ready,” Yuki said with a slight pout.

“It shouldn’t be for more than an hour. Will… the party still be on when I return?”

Neither of us could actually see each other.

“We were actually going to head downtown,” Yuki said from some back room. “Oooh! Let me give you my number. I’ll text you, and we can all rendezvous.”

Yuki shouted out her number, which I recorded in my phone. The other guests no doubt did as well, but this wasn’t about them.

I raced out of the house, still with no sign of Janae to speak of, as she was still on paparazzi-drone duty. I gave the vespa’s FECC a slap. It jostled, proving the heavy package was still inside.

Without another word and resisting the urge to check the time on my phone constantly, I urged the Vespa into the street and beelined for the exit to this gated community.

+++

Traffic proved uncooperative. Every little delay felt like it was delaying me by an epoch. Despite feeling like I was delayed for another few hours, when I next checked my phone only a few minutes had passed. Still, the feeling that the freeway was proceeding at a glacial pace persisted.

I knew just where to go. The address was a nondescript dropbox downtown. It wasn’t that far. It just took a while to maneuver down into the small smattering of high-rises that marked ‘downtown’ LA. It was nowhere near as core to the city’s identity as certain other cities. It was no Manhattan, is what I was saying.

I shoved the clandestine package of hard RAM into a nondescript faux-trashcan looking container thing at the designated address an hour and a half after the deadline. With this mission belatedly complete, I found the nearest fast food place to get a drink and unwind.

No angry texts from the Texiera family had graced my phone. Maybe they hadn’t noticed?

I sent Yuki an exploratory text, wondering if they’d headed out to their next party station yet.

[Yuki97]: Hiiiiiii. So Miss Janae is putting the kibosh on my plans. Apparently she’s spooked by something with this snooping drone. Says we have to stay in the house for now. Might have to cancel the rest of the party ^^’.

My heart dropped. Maybe I should’ve done the Texiera delivery before heading to the party. The vibe was off now.

[Yuki97:] I know! I’ll put in a simple delivery tomorrow. Be sure to get it, then I can ahnd you your present when you stop by!

I breathed deep. Perhaps I hadn’t blown it after all. We’d just meet up later.

Still fatigued, I returned to my Vespa and went back home.

+++

The RV awaited. It was mid-afternoon, and the heat on the concrete made things a little steamier than usual this time of year.

I could’ve gone back to the mansion, I suppose. But I needed a brief period to unwind after that near-disaster with the Texiera job. Maybe I’d head back in the late-afternoon. With Yuki’s number in my phone now, I suddenly felt closer to the starlet. Like a great victory had been achieved, though I’d just saved a few digits into my phone’s address book.

I opened the RV. I turned on the AC and prepared to flop down on a couch. It was going to take several minutes for the space to cool down.

“Hello,” came a curt, sinister, and ambiguously-accented voice.

Mister Texiera himself sat at my squat kitchen table.