Chapter 2
“Mike, buddy, how was Big D?” Michael’s coworker, fellow BMG representative, and best friend Eric Weiss asked later that afternoon, when Michael had returned to the office. In response to this question, Michael moaned loudly and slammed his forehead down on his desk. Eric chuckled, “Figured as much. I’m shocked you were gone that long.”
“Well,” Michael sighed, “there was this girl…”
“Quickie on the way home?” Eric asked, sitting down in the chair across from Michael’s desk. Michael gave him an unappreciative glare. “What? I do it all the time. That’s what it’s all about when you’re a fat cat record label representative,” Eric sighed as he stretched and put his hands behind his head.
Michael shook his head in disgust. “Anyway no, it was one of the dancer girls for the video- would you stop that!” he shouted at Eric’s suggestive eyebrow raising. “I gave her a ride to the bus stop, but before that I saw Big D’s manager and this group of thugs beating on her.”
“For real?” Eric asked, sounding surprised.
Michael nodded. “Yeah, they slapped her across the cheek and lord knows what they did to her before I got there. I felt so bad for her… she seemed really sad – hostile, but sad,” he laughed slightly. “I offered her a job as my PA-”
“ARE YOU NUTS?!” Eric shouted. “She could be a rapist!”
“Yes, you’re right – I do need to be concerned about all the rapists that are out there,” Michael said in a dry, even tone indicating his sarcasm.
“You do! She could tie you to your office chair and rape you… actually,” he began, a sly grin crossing his face as he rubbed his chin.
“Eric!” Michael cut him off. “Focus.”
“Right, sorry, done now.”
“Anyway, she turned me down so you don’t need to worry about her raping me,” he said with a slight eye roll.
“Oh good,” Eric said as he stood from the chair he was sitting in and began to back his way out of Michael’s office. “Always concerned for your safety, Mikey. See ya around,” he grinned before disappearing back out into the hallway.
Michael sighed, shook his head and tried to focus on his work. This of course, was easier said than done. He could not help but think about Sydney and wonder if she was able to catch her bus alright. Sitting there, he could not for the life of him explain what, exactly, had compelled him to offer her a job completely out of the blue. Normally, he required extensive background checks on potential employees. Well, not extensive, but far more than just a first name. True, the sympathy he felt for her being smacked in the face for no reason at all had influenced him, but only to a certain degree. He felt compelled to help her, but he had no idea why.
His phone ringing jolted him from thoughts of Sydney. There was no use dwelling on it; he’d never see her again.
~*~
In the next few days, Michael fell into the steady, albeit sometimes unpredictable, pattern that was his life. Contradictory, perhaps, but his life was steady in its unpredictable nature; things arose instantaneously that had him racing across town and sometimes across the country (for example, there always seemed to be some sort of snafu to patch). His life in LA followed a similar pattern as it had in New York City, which was ironic, since he moved out to LA to achieve a change of pace.
In New York, he worked for his father’s smaller record company. After his father’s death, though, he decided to move across the country for a change; a way to start over, so to speak, without being surrounded by his father’s reputation. He was doing practically the same job as he had been doing in New York, at least, in title. The job was drastically different, though, since BMG was a massively larger company than his father’s had been. For example, Michael’s client base alone spanned over a dozen people, whereas his father’s entire company had barely that many.
Michael enjoyed his job, though, and the perks that came with it, most notably his mansion in the Hollywood Hills. He preferred this over the apartment he’d had in New York City. Though his apartment had been nice, it lacked the grass, shrubbery, flowers and pool he had at his house.
Michael’s high profile job came with a lot of nights out on the town, attending different parties with artists BMG represented. While rubbing elbows with the ultra rich and famous had its high points, there also came a point where Michael just could not stomach attending another one of the same parties where the same group of people danced and drank into the wee hours of the morning. That’s why he cherished his nights off. On those nights, he made no plans except to spend some quality time with his TV, his couch, and Daisy, his golden lab.
Thankfully for him, after a long day of driving up and down the California coast searching for an artist gone AWOL, he was able to have one of those nights. He picked up a pizza on the way home, along with some doggie treats for Daisy. When he pulled his BMW into his garage that evening, he could already hear her barking. Knowing she’d pounce on him the moment he opened the door and thus send his pizza flying, he readied one of the doggie treats and threw it in the door ahead of him, momentarily distracting Daisy. “I see ya, you crazy mutt,” Michael rolled his eyes as she barked at him and then licked the floor where her treat had landed.
He let Daisy out into the fenced backyard while he enjoyed his pizza dinner. Then he let her back in and the two of them settled in front of the TV, Daisy on the couch, Michael on the floor (backwards, yes, but it worked for them), to watch a Pay-Per-View movie. Before the movie came on, a music video was playing and Michael could not help but think back to Sydney and wonder what exactly she was doing, especially since she had been fired from Big D’s video. Was she working on another video where, god forbid, someone was hitting her there, too? Sighing, he shook the thought from his mind; even if that were true, there was nothing he could do to change it, so there was no use dwelling on it.
