Page 83 of Uncharted Desires
“But,” Cher added, “that makes the whole production team feel like they can treat us all like they own us. They work us like horses. I can’t believe they gave us this weekend off.”
“I’m so glad they did!” Kat said, smiling as she pulled her wind whipped hair out of her face.
“It’s going to be six long months,” Cher said as she let out a stream of breath.
“Then what?” Kat asked. “Any plans?”
“I’m going to go back to teaching. The Vegas residency ends just in time for summer. I can start dusting off my resumé. I miss it, and I think I need some stability in my life, and move back to L.A.,” Cher said.
Kat saw the peace that washed over her friend’s face and thought that might be just what she needed. “Good for you, Cher, they need good teachers. What about you, Lyd?” Kat yelled over the wind.
“Audiobooks!” Lydia yelled proudly.
“What about them?”
“She’s been recording them,” Cher supplied.
Kat wrinkled her nose in surprise. “You don’t even read.”
“I do when they’re naughty,” Lydia said in her deep sultry voice before bursting into laughter. Kat couldn’t help it and laughed too.
“Seriously, you’re recording smutty audiobooks?”
“I did one for a friend as a favor, and they loved it. Now I’ve done a few and, apparently, I have the perfect voice for it. After the residency, I’m going to really devote myself to it.”
“Wow,” Kat said, truly happy for her friends. They seemed to be happy and to have found their footing. Even someone as listless as Lydia had found something she enjoyed and that she was good at.
Cher pulled onto Herondo Street and they crawled their way to their hotel on the beach. It wasn’t every day they enjoyed a girls’ weekend, so they had gone all-out with a beachside hotel on Redondo Beach.
“What about you, Kat?”
Kat worried her bottom lip. “Can we talk about me later, like after a few margaritas?”
Lydia leaned forward from her seat in the back, her head popping up between Kat and Cher. “No, girl, we’re doing this conversation now so we can have fun the rest of the weekend.”
Fair point.
“Ugh, fine. There isn’t much to say. What do you want to know?”
“You disappeared for three months and said nothing more than not to worry about you and not to give West your new number. So maybe start, I don’t know . . . with any of that!” Cher said.
“I had to figure some things out,” Kat began.
“And did you?” Lydia asked.
Kat looked down at her hands clasped tightly in her lap, searching her brain for answers that never came.
“Yes and no,” she breathed.
“What does that mean?” Cher asked. “You know we're just trying to help you, Kat. We want you to be happy,” she added when she saw Kat slump farther down the seat.
Kat tilted her head back, looking out at the ocean ahead of them as it came more into view. “I had this vision when I was with my grandma. I was making music on the beach. I thought that was my calling, so I went to Bali. I thought that was what I was supposed to do.”
“That’s great, Kat!” Lydia said. “So you wrote a bunch of music?”
Kat gave a humorless laugh. “No, I wrote like a song.”
“So, what did you do there for two months?” Cher asked.