“Right, well, you need to find me better movies to star in then, right?”
“Yes, she does. Mikka, Jay has more talent than that. He told me when we were putting in the lights. Also, I do like his movies. They are funny.”
“See, she likes me and my abs.”
“I do. You will need to pose for a poster here one day.” My mom always brought the conversation back to her store.
“Mom, you can’t just ask for free advertising!” I took a deep breath and looked at Jay who was holding said abs as he laughed. “This is so embarrassing,” I mumbled.
“This store is a part of the family, Mikka. You should be excited to get advertising for it, not embarrassed.”
“Excited isn’t the word I would use. None of this, not even the vibrators, excite me anymore.”
“Well, they paid for your college education; that’s pretty exciting to me.” My mother stood there proudly with her arms crossed. Her coarse grey hair wove between her black locks, but other than that, she looked just a tad older than me. Her slanted eyes, her thin, small frame, and her still-smooth skin had me hoping I would age as well as her. Even having lived the hard life she had, she’d amounted to a person that didn’t look worn, didn’t act worn, and approached life without fear of defeat.
Jay appeared shocked that this porn store was that lucrative. My mother and I smiled like we had a secret. We did. We laughed all the way to the bank as people frowned upon what we called a healthy lifestyle with a balance of adventurous sex.
“I’ll text soon, Mom.”
On our way to the airport, Jay pried further. “So, all your life, this is the store she owned?”
“Yup.” I shrugged and checked my phone to make sure our driver was making all the right turns. We needed to make our flight, but we’d left little time to get to the gates before they closed. “I learned early on to take the snarky or dirty comments in stride. I have a thick skin and a big bank account because of that store. It taught me a lot over the years.”
“Then you should have told me about it.” Jay yanked on the neckline of his shirt.
“Are you scolding me?” I teased him.
He lowered his head seriously. “Yeah, actually, I am. We’re supposed to be friends, Meek. I need to know about the things in your life that make you the way you are.”
Jay knew more about me than any other friend I’d ever had. He knew my family, my job, what made me tick.
And what my kiss tasted like.
That night my phone rang as I got out of the Uber at my apartment.
“Mikka, he’s got to shape up,” my boss complained. He was frustrated to hear Jay hadn’t stayed for the meeting. That damn meeting that would have definitely happened had Jay shared it with me and I’d be able to put it on my calendar.
“I know. The meeting wasn’t scheduled. If I had known, I would have made sure he was there.”
There was a long pause. “He’s one of our best, but we can’t afford not working with this director again because of Jay’s lack of commitment to this role. He needs to show it’s important to him, stop putting other things first, and prove that this is the role for him, and only him.”
I nodded. I agreed. It was his role; he nailed each line. But acting was only half the job. He needed to showcase a different persona off-screen too.
“I’ll talk to him. I swear I will.”
I added it to my calendar. I was going to do it first thing in the morning.
I didn’t get the chance.